Quick question: Are you addicted to drugs or alcohol?

Knowing that will give me an idea of what kind of support you need.

Hi thank so for responding..while I admit excessive alcohol never helped my impulsive decisions in my life I have never had a dependency on alc and do not do any kind of drugs. I think it’s mt overall behavior and mindset maybe ?

Well Dee, you're pretty young. Lying is a behavior that keeps us out of trouble when we're to young and inexperienced to understand that negative impact it has on trust. Trust is much like currently. Once you spend it, you must work hard to earn more. Unfortunately the one big difference is throughout your entire life you can always earn more money but real live people get fed up of being lied to repeatedly. Each time you lie, you have work twice as hard to earn back the person's trust. Eventually nothing you do will enable someone you've burned multiple times to trust you again.

I think something might have gone amiss in your childhood. Perhaps you missed some lessons about the difference between right and wrong. Or perhaps your parents did not focus on giving enough consistent consequences when your lies were exposed to incentivize you to be honest. Or perhaps you were allowed to believe what you want at any given time is more important that being honest, playing by the rules, or demonstrating respect for the people who raised you. Perhaps is it merely a thrill seeking behavior, like shoplifting, and you will eventually get busted out hard enough to make you never want to engage in that behavior again.

I am unclear on what might have caused this problem, but I congratulate you recognizing this personality flaw is going to haunt you, destroying all your close relationships if you don't find a way to stop. I would see if you can talk to a counselor to try to find some good techniques for retraining yourself.

I had a friend once with an honesty problem. She was in recovery when I met her and I could often tell she was lying about things large and small. Part of her recovery plan was to set up a direct cause and effect situation where she automatically texted the other party, stated she lied and then told the truth about whatever she lied about. I suppose it must have some type of self imposed punishment she designed to embarrass herself in throttling back on the all the lies. I don't know how well that worked out for her in the end because we lost touche after college.

I always think of her as the most honest liar I ever met. She owned up to being a flawed individual and always told the truth in the end, so I could trust and respect her.

Thank you so much for your thourough response. You make many good points. You know, I really never thought about it that way before...you can always earn more money but once you lose trust you can't get it back as easily...I agree I think I need some sort of strategy to help combat this tendency I have.


Thank you again.

Be the most honest liar they know...lol.

It's easier than you think. Just send a text saying "I was really embarrassed about .....I don't know why I said that, what I meant was....guess I should come clean about....I didn't mean to exaggerate....wish I hadn't said....let me set the record straight about....let me take a minute to clarify what I said about.....

Gosh there are a thousand ways to back track a little when you need to.

Always end with a positive compliment of the person like: I know you understand how hard it is to....you've probably been there yourself....I know I can trust you to understand....you're my favorite confidant....things like that.

That's a good idea...like the accountability and responsibility for my lies will hopefully help me stop doing it so naturally. Do you think perhaps keeping a journal about my daily observances of this habit would help? For example if I notice that throughout my normal work day I have the urge to lie or twist the truth about something stupid..I should write about it and reflect on it and NOT do it again. Thoughts? Again, thank you so so so much for talking to me.

It might be as you've discussed a 'being young' problem..... It may be a disorder???? perhaps

Here's some info on pathological lying IF that's what's going on here.... It may be a personality disorder..... There is help for you..... Have you ever been in any type of therapy?

I would start by asking for a psych referral from your family doctor if you can do that.... If you don't do something this will have a really big effect on relationships in your future

Big hug.... Here's some info......xo

Diagnosing pathological lying can be difficult. Psychologists are trained to understand the issues this diagnosis presents as a disorder. It is listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, third edition.[5] It is a stand-alone disorder as well as a symptom of other disorders such as psychopathy and antisocial, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders, but people who are pathological liars may not possess characteristics of the other disorders.[6]

It has been shown through lie detector tests that PF (pseudologia fantastica) patients exhibit arousal, stress, and guilt from their deception. This is different from psychopaths, who experience none of those reactions. People affected by antisocial disorder lie for external personal profit in the forms of money, sex, and power. PF is strictly internal. The difference between borderline personality disorder and PF is that BPD patients desperately try to cope with their feeling of abandonment, mistreatment, or rejection by making empty threats of suicide or false accusations of abandonment. Pathological liars do not feel rejected; they have high levels of self-assurance that help them lie successfully. Unlike those with histrionic personality, pathological liars are more verbally dramatic than sexually flamboyant. Narcissists think they have achieved perfection and are unempathetic to others. PF patients do not show these anti-social behaviors; they often lie because they think their life is not interesting enough.[6] The only diagnosis in our current system where purposeless, internally motivated deception is listed is axis I factitious disorder. This diagnosis deals with people who lie about having physical or psychological disorders. People with PF tend to lie about their identities and past history. Since the symptoms do not match up, the individual may go undiagnosed.[7] Though they could well be diagnosed under the catch-all rubric of unspecified personality disorder (ICD-10 code F69) or perhaps even better under ICD-10 code F68.8 "Other specified disorder of adult personality and behaviour" as this defines itself as "This category should be used for coding any specified disorder of adult personality and behaviour that cannot be classified under any one of the preceding headings". Here the specified disorder is the lying for psychological reasons (not material ones e.g. money etc.) and the behavior would also need to meet the necessary conditions to be viewed as a psychiatric illness.

Psychopathy[edit]
Pathological lying is in Factor 1 of the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL).[8]

Pathological liars[edit]
Lying is the act of both knowingly and intentionally or willfully making a false statement.[9] Normal lies are defensive and are told to avoid the consequences of truth telling. They are often white lies that spare another's feelings, reflect a pro-social attitude, and make civilized human contact possible.[6] Pathological lying can be described as a habituation of lying. It is when an individual consistently lies for no personal gain.

There are many consequences of being a pathological liar. Due to lack of trust, most pathological liars' relationships and friendships fail. If this continues to progress, lying could become so severe as to cause legal problems, including, but not limited to, fraud.[10]

Epidemiology[edit]
The average age of onset is 16 years when the level of intelligence is average or above average. Sufferers have also shown above average verbal skills as opposed to performance abilities.[citation needed] Thirty percent of subjects had a chaotic home environment, where a parent or other family member had a mental disturbance. Its occurrence was found by the study to be equal in women and men.[3][6] Forty percent of cases reported central nervous system abnormality such as epilepsy, abnormal EEG findings, ADHD, head trauma, or CNS infection.[6]

See also[edit]

I second, and love, the being the most honest liar they ever met! You can do this for them and most importantly for yourself. God bless. <3