If you really wish to stop lying, as a compulsive liar, you should start telling the truth and being honest at all times to your therapist and put in the hard work to improve. By being able to practice telling the truth with a therapist, it will be easier to apply it to your personal relationships.
An old jest runs to the effect that there are three degrees of comparison among liars. There are liars, there are outrageous liars, and there are scientific experts. This has lately been adapted to throw dirt upon statistics. There are three degrees of comparison, it is said, in lying. There are lies, there are outrageous lies, and there are statistics
Why Lying Becomes Second Nature for Some People
However, both compulsive lying and pathological lying are usually a symptom of a bigger issue, such as:
Compulsive liars can be hurtful to people around them, especially those who are close to them, like friends and partners. Because they can be manipulative and controlling, they often manipulate the emotions of those who care about them. If the lying is a symptom of a bigger disorder, they might lack empathy so they cannot see how their lies are hurtful and destructive. They could be serial cheaters or even mentally and emotionally abusive. Above all, they are untrustworthy.
https://www.lifehack.org/578653/compulsive-liar-when-lying-becomes-their-second-nature
If you’re trying to decide if someone you know is a pathological liar, here are some traits to look for:
Factitious disorder — sometimes called Munchausen’s syndrome — is a condition in which a person acts as though they are physically or mentally ill when they are not.
Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy is when someone lies about another person having an illness. This condition is most common in mothers, who feign illness in their child and lie to a doctor about it.
The causes of factitious disorder are unknown. Theories include:
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By Robert LongleyUpdated October 28, 2019
A pathological liar is an individual who chronically tells grandiose lies that may stretch or exceed the limits of believability. While most people lie or at least bend the truth occasionally, pathological liars do so habitually. Whether or not pathological lying should be considered a distinct psychological disorder is still debated within the medical and academic
Most people occasionally tell “normal” lies as a defense mechanism to avoid the consequences of the truth (e.g. “It was like that when I found it.”) When a lie is told to cheer up a friend or to spare another person’s feelings (e.g. “Your haircut looks great!”), it may be considered a strategy for facilitating positive contact.
In contrast, pathological lies have no social value and are often outlandish. They can have devastatingly negative impacts on those who tell them. As the size and frequency of their lies progress, pathological liars often lose the trust of their friends and family. Eventually, their friendships and relationships fail. In extreme cases, pathological lying can lead to legal problems, such as libel and fraud. https://ea013c2a3720e02f0072b032389f37ca.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-37/html/container.html
Though often used interchangeably, the terms “pathological liar” and “compulsive liar” are different. Pathological and compulsive liars both make a habit of telling lies, but they have different motives for doing so. null
Pathological liars are generally motivated by a desire to gain attention or sympathy. On the other hand, compulsive liars have no recognizable motive for lying and will do so no matter the situation at the time. They are not lying in an attempt to avoid trouble or gain some advantage over others. Actually, compulsive liars may feel powerless to stop themselves from telling lies.
While lying—the act of intentionally making an untrue statement—is as old as the human race, the behavior of pathological lying was first documented in medical literature by German psychiatrist Anton Delbrueck in 1891. In his studies, Delbrueck observed that many of the lies his patients told were so fantastically over-the-top that the disorder belonged in a new category he called “pseudologia phantastica.”
Writing in a 2005 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law, American psychiatrist Dr. Charles Dike further defined pathological lying as “falsification entirely disproportionate to any discernible end in view, may be extensive and very complicated, and may manifest over a period of years or even a lifetime, in the absence of definite insanity, feeble-mindedness or epilepsy.”
Pathological liars are driven by definite, typically identifiable motives such as bolstering their ego or self-esteem, seeking sympathy, justifying feelings of guilt, or living out a fantasy. Others may lie simply to alleviate their boredom by creating drama.null
In 1915, pioneering psychiatrist William Healy, M.D. wrote “All pathological liars have a purpose, i.e., to decorate their own person, to tell something interesting, and an ego motive is always present. They all lie about something they wish to possess or be.”
Keeping in mind that they typically tell their lies for purposes of self-gratification, here are some common identifying traits of pathological liars.
https://www.thoughtco.com/pathological-liar-definition-examples-4171971
Abstract A phenomenon of particular interest to forensic mental health workers, the courts, and police is that of pathological lying or pseudologia fantastica (PF). Unfortunately, PF is an understudied, poorly understood entity. The current diagnostic system captures intentional deception around physical or psychological problems but does not allow for diagnosis around prominent, purposeless deception within other realms (e.g., false accusations). In addition to reviewing the literature around… CONTINUE READING
While the occasional white lie is considered to be a normal part of social interactions, repeated and elaborate fabrications cross into a very different territory. But what do you do when you realise the person you love is a pathological liar?
Persistent dishonesty is a clear sign of something gone wrong in a friend or loved one. As trust is a fundamental component of relationships, repeated violations of it indicate serious problems are afoot. Lying can occur for a variety of reasons, and ascertaining the root cause of the dishonesty is critical in addressing the problem and beginning to rebuild relationships.
Pathological lying is a unique type of mental health disorder that often co-occurs with other mental health conditions. Understanding the nuances of pathological lying can help you know if your loved one is struggling with this condition, and how to support them.
https://thedawnrehab.com/blog/pathological-lying-a-sign-of-several-health-conditions/
There’s no such thing as ‘what a person doesn’t know doesn’t hurt them’. Make no mistake, lying is a grave sin.
When you undermine somebody’s sense of reality, you are undermining the whole basis on which they make life decisions and you’re potentially ruining that person’s ability to relate to people in a trusting and open way.
In the legal field, victims and offenders frequently lie to avoid talking about serious incidents, such as past experiences of sexual abuse or criminal involvement. Although these individuals may initially lie about an experienced event, oftentimes these same people eventually abandon their lies and are forthcoming with what truly happened. To date, it is unclear whether such lying affects later statements about one’s memory for the experienced event. The impetus of the present review is to compile the current state of knowledge on the effects of lying on memory. Based on existing literature, we will describe how deceptive strategies (e.g., false denials) regarding what is remembered may affect memory in consequential ways, such as forgetting of details, falsely remembering features that were not present, or a combination of both. It will be argued that the current literature suggests that mnemonic outcome is contingent on the type of lie and we will propose a theoretical framework outlining which forms of lying likely result in certain memory outcomes. Potential avenues of future research also will be discussed. Continue reading “When lying changes memory for the truth”
