Liars Anonymous Community Group
A support group to provide those with a compulsive addiction to lie a place to share hope, strength and courage with others like them; solve our common problem and help others with a compulsion to lie. We aren't alone!
Hello everyone, my name is David and I am a compulsive liar.
Lying has become so engrained in me that I am able to quickly and easily make up lies like it's a natural reflex. Every since I was young, I have lied in one form or another, whether it was to be able to go out and play with my friends after school or saying I enjoyed things when I really didn't just to please the people around me. Fast forward 30 years and I'm still lying.
About six months ago, I met a woman, who in my eyes is, THE WOMAN. I am going to take a moment and quote Sherlock Homes and say, "In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex." To me, the woman that I met and started dating is the soul mate I have been searching for. I fell very deeply in love with her and I still feel the same this very moment. Slowly, but surely I came to lie to her in one way or another, like telling her I'd be at her house in 10 minutes when I just left my house, which is 20 minutes away or that I promised to do something for her, but I never did.
After she caught me lying, I promised I would fix it and stop lying to her. I would truly put forth my best effort and it would last days or weeks until the next time I lied. Each time our relationship became more strained and the wall between us became higher and higher. This last weekend, everything exploded when she found out the secret I had desperately kept from her.
Early in our relationship, my ex-girlfriend had contacted me and I told her I was seeing someone and that she should not contact me anymore. I was at lunch with my girlfriend when my ex called again. Instead of telling my girlfriend at first, I just said it's nobody, but finally told her later. I should have ignored my ex but instead I just contacted her to see what she wanted. She demanded to meet my girlfriend or she would raise all sorts of He** in an effort to find her. I got scared and panicked. At this point in our relationship I thought that it would be best to deal with the situation in secret then hide it. I contacted one of my close female friends and told her about the situation and she told me that I was being a complete jerk and that I need to tell my girlfriend. Realizing I would not get help from her or any of my other close female friends, I hired a someone on the internet to pretend to be my girlfriend. Yes, I really did stoop that low to keep myself from having to tell my girlfriend.
So at the moment, my girlfriend and I are on a break. I have finally been able to admit to her that I am a compulsive liar and that I cannot fight/fix this alone. Yesterday, we met with a psychologist who specializes in behaviors and I am working to understand my problem and find a support group (hence why I am here). Today, we met with a therapist, who is an LMFT (Licensed Marriage Family Therapist) and felt that this would help us work on our relationship. At this point she has absolute no trust in me and questions everything I say, whether it is the truth or not. I have also scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist to look at my problem from a bio-chemical perspective. I don't know what we'll find but I am a bit nervous about it.
My girlfriend has been extremely supportive and understanding and has given me more chances than I deserve. Lying has destroyed our relationship and it's no one's fault but mine. I am a compulsive liar and I need help. Thank you to everyone here.
To be continued...
Lying has become so engrained in me that I am able to quickly and easily make up lies like it's a natural reflex. Every since I was young, I have lied in one form or another, whether it was to be able to go out and play with my friends after school or saying I enjoyed things when I really didn't just to please the people around me. Fast forward 30 years and I'm still lying.
About six months ago, I met a woman, who in my eyes is, THE WOMAN. I am going to take a moment and quote Sherlock Homes and say, "In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex." To me, the woman that I met and started dating is the soul mate I have been searching for. I fell very deeply in love with her and I still feel the same this very moment. Slowly, but surely I came to lie to her in one way or another, like telling her I'd be at her house in 10 minutes when I just left my house, which is 20 minutes away or that I promised to do something for her, but I never did.
After she caught me lying, I promised I would fix it and stop lying to her. I would truly put forth my best effort and it would last days or weeks until the next time I lied. Each time our relationship became more strained and the wall between us became higher and higher. This last weekend, everything exploded when she found out the secret I had desperately kept from her.
Early in our relationship, my ex-girlfriend had contacted me and I told her I was seeing someone and that she should not contact me anymore. I was at lunch with my girlfriend when my ex called again. Instead of telling my girlfriend at first, I just said it's nobody, but finally told her later. I should have ignored my ex but instead I just contacted her to see what she wanted. She demanded to meet my girlfriend or she would raise all sorts of He** in an effort to find her. I got scared and panicked. At this point in our relationship I thought that it would be best to deal with the situation in secret then hide it. I contacted one of my close female friends and told her about the situation and she told me that I was being a complete jerk and that I need to tell my girlfriend. Realizing I would not get help from her or any of my other close female friends, I hired a someone on the internet to pretend to be my girlfriend. Yes, I really did stoop that low to keep myself from having to tell my girlfriend.
So at the moment, my girlfriend and I are on a break. I have finally been able to admit to her that I am a compulsive liar and that I cannot fight/fix this alone. Yesterday, we met with a psychologist who specializes in behaviors and I am working to understand my problem and find a support group (hence why I am here). Today, we met with a therapist, who is an LMFT (Licensed Marriage Family Therapist) and felt that this would help us work on our relationship. At this point she has absolute no trust in me and questions everything I say, whether it is the truth or not. I have also scheduled an appointment with a psychiatrist to look at my problem from a bio-chemical perspective. I don't know what we'll find but I am a bit nervous about it.
My girlfriend has been extremely supportive and understanding and has given me more chances than I deserve. Lying has destroyed our relationship and it's no one's fault but mine. I am a compulsive liar and I need help. Thank you to everyone here.
To be continued...
“Own the story! Don’t bury it and let it fester or define me. I often say this aloud: “If you own this story you get to write the ending. If you own this story you get to write the ending.” When we bury the story we forever stay the subject of the story. If we own the story we get to narrate the ending. As Carl Jung said, “I am not what has happened to me. I am what I choose to become.”
Excerpt From: Brown, Brene. “Daring Greatly.” Penguin Group, 2012-09-10T16:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time.”
“That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
I wanted to share this quote from Daring Greatly.It's a wonderful quote. I learned that becoming "Real" and stopping my dishonest behavior doesn't happen overnight, not matter how much I want it. The behavior has been engrained in me for so long. Though the past two months have have been rough, I feel like I made a great deal of progress, yet I know I have a lot more to do.
Confronting my past and making amends to the people I hurt have been a transforming process. Self-Compassion and Self-Love have been key during days when I feel shamed. Last Friday I was chewed out by a managing director in another state for no particular reason when I tried to help. I was furious and ashamed as I continued to drive to work, but I was able to process it and let go of the resentment. By the time I got to work, I no longer felt any anger or shame and provided that managing director with the assistance he needed. It's much more healthy to deal with my emotions then and there rather than feeling terrible the whole day and dealing it when I get home.
Sure there are days when I need to take a break and recharge because too much self-improvement (reading, etc) does burn me out and I don't retain as much. Slowly, but surely.
When I asked men to define shame or give me an answer, here’s what I heard:
Shame is failure. At work. On the football field. In your marriage. In bed. With money. With your children. It doesn’t matter—shame is failure.
Shame is being wrong. Not doing it wrong, but being wrong.
Shame is a sense of being defective.
Shame happens when people think you’re soft. It’s degrading and shaming to be seen as anything but tough.
Revealing any weakness is shaming. Basically, shame is weakness.
Showing fear is shameful. You can’t show fear. You can’t be afraid—no matter what.
Shame is being seen as “the guy you can shove up against the lockers.”
Our worst fear is being criticized or ridiculed—either one of these is extremely shaming.
Basically, men live under the pressure of one unrelenting message: Do not be perceived as weak.
Whenever my graduate students were going to do interviews with men, I told them to prepare for three things: high school stories, sports metaphors, and the word pussy. If you’re thinking that you can’t believe I just wrote that, I get it. It’s one of my”“least favorite words. But as a researcher, I know it’s important to be honest about what emerged, and that word came up all of the time in the interviews. It didn’t matter if the man was eighteen or eighty, if I asked, “What’s the shame message?” the answer was “Don’t be a pussy.”
When I first started writing about my work with men, I used the image of a box—something that looked like a shipping crate—to explain how shame traps men. Like the demands on women to be naturally beautiful, thin, and perfect at everything, especially motherhood, the box has rules that tell men what they should and shouldn’t do, and who they’re allowed to be. But for men, every rule comes back to the same mandate: “Don’t be weak.”
I’ll never forget when a twenty-year-old man who was part of a small group of college students that I was interviewing said, “Let me show you the box.” I knew he was a tall guy, but when he stood up, it was clear that he was at least six foot four. He said, “Imagine living like this,” as he crouched down and pretended that he was stuffed inside a small box.
Still hunched over, he said, “You really only have three choices. You spend your life fighting to get out, throwing punches at the side of the box and hoping it will break. You always feel angry and you’re always swinging. Or you just give up. You don’t give a shit about anything.” At that point he slumped over on the ground. You could have heard a pin drop in the room.
Then he stood up, shook his head, and said, “Or you stay high so you don’t really notice how unbearable it is. That’s the easiest way.” The students grabbed on to stay high like a life preserver and broke into nervous laughter. This happens a lot when you’re talking about shame or vulnerability—anything to cut the tension.
But this brave young man wasn’t laughing and neither was I. His demonstration was one of the most honest and courageous things I’ve ever had the privilege of seeing, and I know that the people in that room were deeply affected by it. After the group interview, he told me about his experiences growing up. He had been a passionate artist as a child, and he winced as he described how he was sure from an early age that he’d be happy if he could spend his life painting and drawing. He said that one day he was in the kitchen with his dad and uncle. His uncle pointed to a collection of his art that was plastered on the refrigerator and said jokingly to his father, “What? You’re raising a faggot artist now?”
After that, he said, his father, who had always been neutral about his art, forbade him from taking classes. Even his mother, who had always been so proud of his talent, agreed that it was “a little too girly.”
He told me that he’d drawn a picture of his house the day before all of this happened, and to that day it was the last thing he’d ever drawn. That night I wept for him and for all of us who never got to see his work. I think about him all of the time and hope he has reconnected with his art. I know it’s a tremendous loss for him, and I’m equally positive that the world is missing out.”
Excerpt From: Brown, Brene. “Daring Greatly.” Penguin Group, 2012-09-10T16:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
As I’ve learned more about men and their experiences with shame, I still see that image of a shipping crate with a big stamp across it that reads, “CAUTION: Do Not Be Perceived as Weak.” I see how boys are issued a crate when they’re born. It’s not too crowded when they’re toddlers. They’re still small and can move around a bit. They can cry and hold on to mamma, but as they grow older, there’s less and less wiggle room. By the time they’re grown men, it’s suffocating.
But just as with women, men are caught in their own double bind. Over the past couple of years, especially since the economic downturn, what I have started to see is the box from The Wizard of Oz. I’m talking about the small, curtain-concealed box that the wizard stands in as he’s controlling his mechanical “great and powerful” Oz image. As scarcity has grabbed hold of our culture, it’s not just “Don’t be perceived as weak,” but also “You better be great and all powerful.” This image first came to mind when I interviewed a man who was in “deep shame about getting “downsized.” He told me, “It’s funny. My father knows. My two closest friends know. But my wife doesn’t know. It’s been six months, and every morning I still get dressed and leave the house like I’m going to work. I drive across town, sit in coffee shops, and look for a job.”
I’m a skilled interviewer, but I can imagine that the look on my face conveyed something like “How on earth did you pull that off?” Without waiting for my next question, he answered,”
“She doesn’t want to know. If she already knows, she wants me to keep pretending. Trust me, if I find another job and tell her after I’m back at work, she’ll be grateful. Knowing would change the way she feels about me. She didn’t sign up for this.”
I was not prepared to hear over and over from men how the women—the mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives—in their lives are constantly criticizing them for not being open and vulnerable and intimate, all the while they are standing in front of that cramped wizard closet where their men are huddled inside, adjusting the curtain and making sure no one sees in and no one gets out. There was a moment when I was driving home from an interview with a small group of men and thought, Holy shit. I am the patriarchy.”
“Here’s the painful pattern that emerged from my research with men: We ask them to be vulnerable, we beg them to let us in, and we plead with them to tell us when they’re afraid, but the truth is that most women can’t stomach it. In those moments when real vulnerability happens in men, most of us recoil with fear and that fear manifests as everything from disappointment to disgust. And men are very smart. They know the risks, and they see the look in our eyes when we’re thinking, C’mon! Pull it together. Man up. As Joe Reynolds, one of my mentors and the dean at our church, once told me during a conversation about men, shame, and vulnerability, “Men know what women really want. They want us to pretend to be vulnerable. We get really good at pretending.”
Covert shame hurts just as much as overt shame. Take, for example, the man who told me that he was always feeling shame”
“with his wife around money. He said the latest instance was when his wife came home and said, “I just saw Katie’s new house! It’s amazing. She’s so happy to finally get that dream house. On top of that, she’s going to quit working next year.”
He told me his immediate response was rage. So he picked a fight with his wife about her mother coming to visit, and then quickly disappeared to another part of the house. As we were talking about this conversation, he said, “It was shame. Why did she have to say that? I get it. Katie’s husband makes a lot of money. He takes better care of her. I can’t compete.”
When I asked him if he thought that it was her intention to hurt him or shame him, he responded, “I’m not sure. Who knows? I turned down a job that paid a lot more but required traveling three weeks out of the month. She said she was supportive, and that she and the kids would miss me too much, but now she makes little comments about money all of the time. I have no idea what to think.”
Excerpt From: Brown, Brene. “Daring Greatly.” Penguin Group, 2012-09-10T16:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
I don’t want to oversimplify something as complex as the response to shame, but I have to say that when it comes to men, there seem to be two primary responses: pissed off or shut down. Of course, like women, as men develop shame resilience, this changes, and men learn to respond to shame with awareness, self-compassion, and empathy. But without that awareness, when men feel that rush of inadequacy and smallness, they normally respond with anger and/or by completely turning off.
Once I had collected enough interviews to start seeing strong patterns and themes, I scheduled interviews with several male therapists who specialize in men’s issues. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t filtering what I heard from the men through my own experiences. When I asked one of these therapists about the concept of “pissed off or shut down,” he told me this story to illustrate the point.”
“When he was a freshman in high school, he tried out and made the football team. On the first day of practice, his coach told the boys to line up on the line of scrimmage. The therapist had grown up playing a lot of football in his neighborhood, but this was his first experience on a field, in full pads, across from boys whose goal was to flatten him. He said, “I was suddenly afraid. I was thinking about how much it was going to hurt, and I guess that fear showed up on my face.”
He said his coach yelled his last name and said, “Don’t be a pussy! Get on the line.” He said he immediately felt shame”
“coursing through his body. “In that single moment, I became very clear about how the world works and what it means to be a man:
“I am not allowed to be afraid.
“I am not allowed to show fear.
“I am not allowed to be vulnerable.
“Shame is being afraid, showing fear, or being vulnerable.”
When I asked him what he did next, he looked me in the eye and said, “I turned my fear into rage and steamrolled over the guy in front of me. It worked so well that I spent the next twenty years turning my fear and vulnerability into rage and steamrolling anyone who was across from me. My wife. My children. My employees. There was no other way out from underneath the fear and shame.”
“I heard such grief and clarity in his voice as he was saying this to me. It made total sense. Fear and vulnerability are powerful emotions. You can’t just wish them away. You have to do something with them. Many men, in fact, use very physiological descriptions when they talk to me about “pissed off or shut down.” It’s almost as if shame, criticism, and ridicule are physically intolerable.
The therapist concluded, “I got into therapy when my rage and my drinking were no longer manageable. When it started costing me my marriage and my relationships with my children. That’s why I do the work I do today.”
“Shame resilience—the four elements we discussed in the previous chapter—is about finding a middle path, an option that allows us to stay engaged and to find the emotional courage we need to respond in a way that aligns with our values.”
Excerpt From: Brown, Brene. “Daring Greatly.” Penguin Group, 2012-09-10T16:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.
Shame is about who we are, and guilt is about our behaviors. We feel guilty when we hold up something we’ve done or failed to do against the kind of person we want to be. It’s an uncomfortable feeling, but one that’s helpful. When we apologize for something we’ve done, make amends to others, or change a behavior that we don’t feel good about, guilt is most often the motivator. Guilt is just as powerful as shame, but its effect is often positive while shame often is destructive. When we see people apologize, make amends, or replace negative behaviors with more positive ones, guilt is often the motivator, not shame.
When we experience shame, we feel disconnected and desperate for worthiness. Full of shame or the fear of shame, we are more likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors and to attack or shame others.
Excerpt From: Brown, Brene. “The Gifts Of Imperfection.” Hazelden, 2010-09-20T00:00:00+00:00. iBooks.
because if you have some insight I like to know
I met my ex-gf, and I lied about things here and there, some big, some small. I cheated on her and hid it from her. When she found out about all these things, she was supportive and tried to help. I was a complete and utter mess, that is what started me down this path.
Here's is what I did that did not work.
1. I thought I could change myself complete in a short amount of time and that all I needed was will power.
2. I focused super hard and pushed myself, only to burn out over and over again. I would go a while without lying, then lie.
3. I saw two therapist who I couldn't connect with. One was my first therapist and though she was great, there was no connection this time around. The second therapist was good at first and then it seemed like he ran out of things to say. Though I was a broken record here and there.
4. I tried to read and master everything in a short amount of time. Burned me out and I didn't absorb much.
After my ex-gf and I broke up, I took a different approach.
1. I was luckly and found a book and I really connected with. It opened my eyes and I saw that I was stuck in this situation because of shame, the underlying factor that makes me dishonest, selfish, etc. I believe that everyone has a something at their core that causes them to lie. Shame is at my core. Instead of rushing through the book, I read a chapter a day. Sometimes I listed to the audio book when I drove.
2. Reading - I made a list of two books and slowly worked my way through them. After I am done, I look for another, one at a time - on a topic I am interested in. Taking things at my pace. It helps me absorb the material and I can think about it.
3. I joined AA. I am not an alcoholic but a support group helps. I am working the 12 steps. I made a moral inventory of all the bad things I've done and shared it with another person. I made a list of all the people I harmed and am now making amends. If not AA, then there is ALC (Adult Children of Alcoholics) - that was something that was suggested to me.
4. I found a therapist that I can really connect with. She is a shame-resilient therapist and is helping me by showing me how shame affects me, what I do, the physical symptoms, and how to work through it.
5. Understanding that this is not a race to the finish line.
6. Every night before I go to sleep, I fill out a print out I made. I rate myself on how well I practices Courage, Humility, Honesty, etc throughout the day. I note any new resentments or fears that I created. I list any lies, exaggerations, or omissions. And then I list the good things that happened to me and what I am thankful for in my life.
7. I stopped beating myself up so much and accept that I am imperfect.
8. I am working on letting go of what I think other people think about me.
I take everything one day at a time. I don't have any set dates or milestones that I need to get things done. I feel like I made big strides in my recovery because I am not rushing through them and am taking the time to learn and understanding.
The biggest thing is asking for help. I could not do it myself and I need help, even now. Posting on this board is one of the places I get help from. Even if I don't get a response, I am able to express myself, share, and be vulnerable. Sometimes that's all we need, a place to express ourselves, our real selves.
I know I still have a ways to go. I have been able to let go the more materialistic side of myself and am working on truly wanting to help others in a capacity that I feel like I can contribute. I plan to volunteer where I can make a difference, but it's also something I like to do. I am not going to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity (well, maybe once) because I am terrible at handy work. Give me a computer and I can fix that no problem.
Feel free to message me if you want to talk more. I hope some of this helps. I know it is very tough at the beginning when we admit our character defects, but it gets better over time. We are all here for each other.
Hmm, yeah, yeah
Baby, please try to forgive me
Stay here don't put out the glow
Hold me now don't bother if every minute it makes me weaker
You can save me from the man that I've become, oh yeah
Lookin' back on the things I've done
I was tryin' to be someone
I played my part, kept you in the dark
Now let me show you the shape of my heart
Sadness is beautiful loneliness that's tragical
So help me I can't win this war, oh no
Touch me now don't bother if every second it makes me weaker
You can save me from the man I've become
Lookin' back on the things I've done
I was tryin' to be someone
I played my part, kept you in the dark
Now let me show you the shape of my heart
I'm here with my confession
Got nothing to hide no more
I don't know where to start
But to show you the shape of my heart
I'm lookin' back on things I've done
I never wanna play the same old part
I'll keep you in the dark
Now let me show you the shape of my heart
Lookin' back on the things I've done
I was tryin' to be someone
I played my part, kept you in the dark
Now let me show you the shape of my heart
Lookin' back on the things I've done
I was tryin' to be someone
I played my part, kept you in the dark
Now let me show you the shape of my heart
Show you the shape of my heart
I really really want to tell her that she is wrong and that I have changed during these last two months apart. But that would be pointless. There is nothing to prove. Though I am still not ready to let her go, I am finally ready to let go of this resentment.