You are not naive - they are not all that common and it is normal to be taken in by them, at least at first. They are often initially plausible.
The reason: such people lie about stuff that is essentially irrelevant, and they lie “big”. At first, the victim can’t believe anyone would lie about stuff like that, and normal people would not.
However they do follow some fairly predictable patterns and this person (as long as the story is as it is related) has the characteristics I’ve seen in other pathological liars. I have, in my 41 years, personally met 3 people who clearly fit within this category that I know about.
My grandparents have been married for more than 70 years. He’s, among other things, and before he got old enough to get a pass from people guessing he’s senile (he isn’t):
tried to convince both of his daughters to go into prostitution,
tried to convince both of his granddaughters to go into prostitution and porn,
tried to bring his three grandsons whoring,
used his contacts as a soccer referee to spy on the whole family (we’re talking an informant net of several thousand people),
held jobs for several years which kept him traveling the same circuit for 6-7 weeks (he tells everybody except Grandma that he was unfaithful, having several married women he’d visit along the circuit) and then, during the time he was at home, proceeded to “take advantage of marital rights” twice a day, both as make-up sex,
been expelled from several stores for grabbing or attempting to grab a worker’s ass or tits,
been slapped by a nurse when he groped her (Grandma was there and when the nurse realized what she’d done, told her “next time slap him twice” - now she swears it never happened).
Yet Grandma still believes he was always faithful, wouldn’t hurt a fly and any time he gets in trouble again it’s the fault of whomever provoked him. Oh, and all his stories are true.
The rest of us reckon a story of his is likely to be true if there are corroborating witnesses and he always tells it the same way.
I’d meant to say that I checked out this link, and it sounds rather familiar. This person started off playing the part of a demure southern girl, and almost as soon as she married my brother, she changed and her temper came out.
A few points about her (and some of these have been verified by my brother, so it is not all our subjective opinion):
[ul]
[li]She is always right - you cannot argue with her, even if you have proof she is wrong[/li][li]She has no sympathy or empathy for other people[/li][li]She claims to be a very private person, yet at the same time has told us any number of things that I would count as being very personal[/li][li]She is very controlling[/li][li]Takes offence at the slightest thing, yet dishes out worse to others[/li][li]Has no close friends. When she does have a friend they eventually get dropped because of some perceived wrongdoing on their part[/li][li]Has no real relationship with her family; hates her mother for being selfish[/li][li]Is vain[/li][li]Loves being the centre of attention, and if things aren’t going her way will flounce off to get my brother’s attention[/li][li]Everything has to be done her way[/li][li]Wants to be put on a pedestal by her husband[/li][li]Thinks that all men want to sleep with her[/ul][/li]
Some of the stories we have heard:
[ul]
[li]She grew up in a poor household with a selfish mother[/li][li]Her sister tried to stab her one time[/li][li]Her mother sent her to live with her grandmother at one point because she was scared her sister would harm her[/li][li]She was raped at 14 and managed to get this guy put away without her parents’ knowledge[/li][li]She physically attacked the guy who raped her in a bar once he was out of jail and beat him up (she is 5’4" and 115 lb)[/li][li]She had breast cancer at 21 and reconstructive surgery[/li][li]When she left for college, her mother gave away her cat and had her dog put down[/li][li]She did some modelling when she was younger[/li][li]When she came to get divorced, she found out she wasn’t really married in the first place[/li][li]When she was pursuing my brother, she told him that she was friends with a very famous baseball star and he wanted to have a relationship with her. This included tales about his supposed jealous rages and expensive cars.[/li][li]Oh, and she claims she saw a miracle once - something about someone carrying something out of a burning building that was too heavy to be carried[/ul][/li]
All the stories seem to put her in the victim role, or make her out to be better than the rest of us. I certainly can’t claim to know her well, and over the last 7 years have only spent limited time with her when we have been visiting, but when you put all this down on paper, it is really hard to give her the benefit of the doubt.
I guess all that is left is to try and work out a strategy of dealing with her that doesn’t alienate my brother. Hopefully, he will come to his senses before it is too late. There are two young boys here as well, and I really do wonder what kind of mother she will be once they start asserting their independence (they are 2 and 3 just now). I can’t see her liking that.
I am pretty sure, though, that while my brother will take crap from her, he won’t let her dish it out to the kids. But I’m a little worried about what would happen should it get to the divorce stage.
See, this is the thing I have the biggest problem with. Why do people stay with people like this, defend their behaviour and help them to re-write what really happened?
[QUOTE=Mahna Mahna;10337321 When it comes to chemo/radiation, we’re also talking about several months’ worth of treatment, during which the patient will lose her hair… a hiatus from school wouldn’t be entirely unusual either, for that matter.
[/QUOTE]
Nonsense, no pictures of me exist from 1995, 1996, 1997 at all … and I had a small tumor removed, and chemo. Other than the scar there is no evidence of the whole unpleasant mess … and unless we are screwing, you wouldnt be in any position to actually see any scarring. Well, maybe if I was going in for the total body and hoohaa area wax deal … Hell, you can barely see where I had a tubal ligation, you would have to be examining my navel or my bush pretty up close and personal for that.
Not now. But you remember everything that happened right? At the very least, if you’re like me, you’re keeping track of what happened when so you can refer to it when going to new doctors.
Not knowing if you had a lumpectomy or a mastectomy gets a huge :dubious: from me.
So, your brother confirms that she does indeed have visible scars, but this doc did a breast exam without noticing those scars, or asking about them? I have never had a breast exam (what with being male and all) but that sounds rather implausible…
No way she had a doctor not notice her scars from breast cancer lumpectomies and/or mastectomies (and how the heck can she not differentiate between the two). I had a breast reduction done about 8 years ago, and there are very distinct scars from that. I had a lumpectomy done about a year and a half ago, and there is a very distinct scar on the outside of my breast, not to mention what will come up on my next mammogram.
Scars from augmentation are not the same as the scars from a mastectomy and reconstruction. This woman has definitely NOT had a double mastectomy. Double mastectomy would usually require removal of the nipples, for one thing, and mastectomy means removal of breast tissue- there would be nothing to breast feed with! One wouldn’t usually need implants after lumpectomy, but one would have scars on the breasts after lumpectomy, but not usually in the same places where augmentation scars would be.
To have breast cancer at 21 is a BIG DEAL.
To have had BILATERAL breast cancer at 21 which she survived without requiring chemo and/or radiotherapy…and then to go on to conceive, deliver and breastfeed two kids and spend years on oral contraceptives as well as taking several courses of clomid while remaining healthy…nope, I don’t buy it.
This woman sounds like someone with severe issues, and possibly a full on personality disorder (narcissistic/borderline/histronic- something from that end of the spectrum).
One of my thoughts was that she had had a breast augmentation, and this was a more ‘interesting’ story. To me, though, a breast augmentation would leave distinctive scars as would a breast reduction. A lumpectomy, or mastectomy, would have completely a different scarring pattern, and would be dependant upon where the lump was and how much tissue had to be removed to get it out.
This is the first time that I have ever thought that it would be really interesting to see my SIL’s breasts in all their naked glory
Edited to add: I see **irishgirl **agrees about the scarring issue…now how to bring up the specifics with my brother to find out what the reality is?
Also, the story was that it wasn’t bilateral, but that the other breast had to have surgery to make it match the one that did have the cancer.
Thank you for your input, particlularly coming from a medical perspective. I didn’t think that a lumpectomy would require reconstruction, and couldn’t believe a mastectomy would let you breastfeed at all.
I think the only way I could verify this story is to actually have a look at her scars, or get a full account from my brother. Being such a sensitive subject now, I wouldn’t be sure how to do this without starting WWIII.
I had had the initial thought of NPD a couple of years ago. If this is the case, then there really isn’t much that can be done apart from wait until my brother comes to his senses. I just feel sorry for the kids.
Well, sure. There aren’t too many pictures of me when I was 21 either… but I can still find a couple of people who knew me back then and who would be happy to vouch that I had blue hair at the time.
It’s not the lack of photos, though. It’s the fact that this woman cannot even provide the basic details that most cancer survivors will remember for the rest of their lives.
For comparison… Twelve years ago, I dealt with an orthodontist to correct an overbite. That’s NOTHING compared to cancer treatment (which thankfully I have never lived through), and yet I can still provide details - how my regular dentist first noticed the problem, the dealings with my parents’ insurance company, the consultations with the orthodontist, the basic steps they followed to treat my problem as well as some of the alternatives they originally considered. I also remember a lot of odd little details… how much it hurt to have my braces adjusted, how long I’d be on a mashed potato diet after adjustments, and how weirdly smooth my teeth felt after the braces were removed.
And yet this woman can’t even confirm whether they removed a little bit, a big bit or all of her breast?
I assume it is the same reasons domestic partners put up with other forms of abuse and pretend to the outside world, or even to themselves, that all is well.
I’m dealing with some harsh issues of this sort (abuse of the emotional variety, not pathological lying) with my wife’s sister vs. her husband; without details, suffice it to say that learning that one cannot stop a train wreck no matter how much one would wish is one of life’s most frustrating lessons.
There’s all kinds of suspicious things abut her stories. Especially that they keep changing. But it’s not unusual for doctors to make mistakes or not take their patients seriously. And I could sympathize with not wanting to deal with a failure to get proper medical care. Dealing with the medical industry can get frustrating. Probably her stories are wildly exaggerated versions of some smaller things that actually happened.
