What would you do if you realized your best friend is a complusive liar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Walked away. I knew she could only change if she wanted to and at the time, she wasn't admitting to lying. I didn't want to play a game of catch her in a lie, or pretend to believe her as she lied to my face. I think the big thing was that her lies were manipulative, always to make herself look good, and bonus if you felt like crap. She would also be the person that would always answer the phone, always make the plans etc, and only years later I realized everything was self serving. Say she emailed you while you were studying abroad. You respond back. That gets spun to your group of friends as you choosing to only write to her, and she spins your information so she stays the center of attention. You meet a guy out and he calls while you aren't home. All of a sudden, they are "dating" and he is so in love with her etc. and you are left thinking you must be dog chow because the guy seemed interested in you and in a week can't live without your roomate. Say you can't find a job and you are lamenting to your group of friends and everyone is trying to cheer you up. She will give an insincere, oh that's tough and proceed to tell you how she tripped over a rainbow and landed in this awesome job where her boss thinks she should go to law school. We would be trying to cheer up a friend having guy problems and each person is telling a dating war story ... Hair twirl when it gets to her, "well gee that sucks, I've don't know what it's like to be dumped, at the moment I have two boys chasing me and it is hard to decide who I want...". I look back and can't believe how long it took to catch on. Other people in the group felt that she thought she was so much smarter and was laughing at our gullibility. In the end, I knew there was probably some story, but I didn't know what it was, she wasn't even admitting to lying much less at the stage to get help, and it was frankly hard to have a friendship with someone that lies. How can you pour your heart out to someone knowing they will use that information to make themselves the center of attention. They may tell a truth you give in confidence or even make up something about you, and in return tell you how their life is perfect and they ride a unicorn to work so their commute is only five minutes from Burke to DC.

Wow. You sound really, really mean.

I don't blame you for walking away from a friendship that wasn't working for you anymore, of course, and anyone can understand how being friends with someone so completely unable to handle her baggage or be a real friend would be impossible. So it's not that I think you're an asshole for ending the friendship.

It's that I think you are an asshole for not once, in this tirade against your friend, whose side of the story we haven't heard, is a tiny bit of sympathy for someone who clearly cannot process and present her own life correctly. For not wondering what might have gone wrong for her or with her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Walked away. I knew she could only change if she wanted to and at the time, she wasn't admitting to lying. I didn't want to play a game of catch her in a lie, or pretend to believe her as she lied to my face. I think the big thing was that her lies were manipulative, always to make herself look good, and bonus if you felt like crap. She would also be the person that would always answer the phone, always make the plans etc, and only years later I realized everything was self serving. Say she emailed you while you were studying abroad. You respond back. That gets spun to your group of friends as you choosing to only write to her, and she spins your information so she stays the center of attention. You meet a guy out and he calls while you aren't home. All of a sudden, they are "dating" and he is so in love with her etc. and you are left thinking you must be dog chow because the guy seemed interested in you and in a week can't live without your roomate. Say you can't find a job and you are lamenting to your group of friends and everyone is trying to cheer you up. She will give an insincere, oh that's tough and proceed to tell you how she tripped over a rainbow and landed in this awesome job where her boss thinks she should go to law school. We would be trying to cheer up a friend having guy problems and each person is telling a dating war story ... Hair twirl when it gets to her, "well gee that sucks, I've don't know what it's like to be dumped, at the moment I have two boys chasing me and it is hard to decide who I want...". I look back and can't believe how long it took to catch on. Other people in the group felt that she thought she was so much smarter and was laughing at our gullibility. In the end, I knew there was probably some story, but I didn't know what it was, she wasn't even admitting to lying much less at the stage to get help, and it was frankly hard to have a friendship with someone that lies. How can you pour your heart out to someone knowing they will use that information to make themselves the center of attention. They may tell a truth you give in confidence or even make up something about you, and in return tell you how their life is perfect and they ride a unicorn to work so their commute is only five minutes from Burke to DC.

Wow. You sound really, really mean.

I don't blame you for walking away from a friendship that wasn't working for you anymore, of course, and anyone can understand how being friends with someone so completely unable to handle her baggage or be a real friend would be impossible. So it's not that I think you're an asshole for ending the friendship.

It's that I think you are an asshole for not once, in this tirade against your friend, whose side of the story we haven't heard, is a tiny bit of sympathy for someone who clearly cannot process and present her own life correctly. For not wondering what might have gone wrong for her or with her.

What a strangely angry response. I don't see every other poster in this thread expressing tiny bits of sympathy for the liars in their lives who "clearly cannot process" etc. Why are you zeroing in on this poster? It sounds like the ex-friend she's describing was pretty cold and sadistic - that tends to kill those tiny bits of sympathy that normal people might otherwise feel.

I wonder why you responded in this way to the poster.

[Anonymous]

Yep, had one of these friends. Lied about everything - things you just don't think people should lie about like rape and child sexual abuse. But she did. She knew she was lying and she knew it was wrong. She had moments of what I call lucidity where she would stop lying and tell the truth and admit that she was just jerking people around and couldn't stop but then she would snap back to lying.

I started calling her out on her lies. If she relayed an experience to a group of friends I would laugh and say "well that makes a much better story than what really happened for sure but ... really the only part that is true is X..." you do this a few times and they stop wanting to hang out with you and the other friends either wise up to her stories if they are newer friends or the old friends know you are on to her and start gossiping about her with you

[Anonymous]

Does it really not occur to you posters that somebody who is incapable of telling the truth, whose lies are so thin and obvious that they're nearly always found out, who constantly has to make new friends because she / he is being "found out" about lying, etc, is probably lying out of some kind of deep-seated compulsion or mental problem?

I posted before. I will spare you the details but I have a history of pathological lying. I quit cold turkey about 10 years ago and haven't told a big whopper since. My history is so sad and tragic, with so much abuse of every kind, and frankly you unsympathetic people are unworthy of my story, even anonymously. But let me assure you, I never let that sad true story get out. Instead, I lied and made up a false person for myself because I couldn't not BEAR to deal with reality.

Several of my lies were of the flimsiest sort. A child could see through them. I am so thankful that I have real friends who looked past this. It took years for me to be able to realize how to change my life and behavior. Nobody would have ever had a clue how deep the waters ran. I was very good at concealing how damaged I was inside, and how terribly important it was to me to have the facade of my lies to protect me like a second skin. I am so glad no mean friend pointed out my obvious lies.

You never know what someone else is dealing with. Even my best friend did not know what happened and was happening to me for years.

So maybe next time, try to leap out of your own skin and have empathy, when the wounds your friends are displaying are SO OBVIOUS. Nobody lies like that for nothing! It's almost always a deep personal trouble.

[Anonymous]

But 15:16, you yourself say that nobody would ever have a clue, it took you years to figure stuff out, etc. This isn't meant to be mean, but not everyone is capable of looking past such behavior, period. Just as you weren't capable of dealing with the trauma in your life, many people aren't capable of dealing with the secondary trauma of having someone like this in their lives. They aren't bad people for having boundaries and expectations of friendships. Finding out that your friendships are based on lies and half-truths, etc. is not something that many people can or want to handle. That doesn't make them mean. It makes them human, just as your past makes you who you are. So I suggest that you show the same compassion that you are asking for - your lies, as you know, affected the people around you. They are allowed to react to that in whatever way they want to.

[Anonymous]

I had a boyfriend who was a pathological liar. He told me and his family that he had been diagnosed with a rare disease and used it as an excuse to explain his sudden disappearances and other oddities, including covering up a bunch of cheating.

Another friend from High School was a pathological liar of the type described by OP, lying about important and unimportant things. He's in jail now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does it really not occur to you posters that somebody who is incapable of telling the truth, whose lies are so thin and obvious that they're nearly always found out, who constantly has to make new friends because she / he is being "found out" about lying, etc, is probably lying out of some kind of deep-seated compulsion or mental problem?

I posted before. I will spare you the details but I have a history of pathological lying. I quit cold turkey about 10 years ago and haven't told a big whopper since. My history is so sad and tragic, with so much abuse of every kind, and frankly you unsympathetic people are unworthy of my story, even anonymously. But let me assure you, I never let that sad true story get out. Instead, I lied and made up a false person for myself because I couldn't not BEAR to deal with reality.

Several of my lies were of the flimsiest sort. A child could see through them. I am so thankful that I have real friends who looked past this. It took years for me to be able to realize how to change my life and behavior. Nobody would have ever had a clue how deep the waters ran. I was very good at concealing how damaged I was inside, and how terribly important it was to me to have the facade of my lies to protect me like a second skin. I am so glad no mean friend pointed out my obvious lies.

You never know what someone else is dealing with. Even my best friend did not know what happened and was happening to me for years.

So maybe next time, try to leap out of your own skin and have empathy, when the wounds your friends are displaying are SO OBVIOUS. Nobody lies like that for nothing! It's almost always a deep personal trouble.

Right, I read your sad and tragic post, and feel for you. Spend some time getting to know other people's tragedies, PP, and you'll learn that your story, while sad and moderately tragic, is by no means the most sad and tragic life story around. Believe it or not, even some of the posters whose lack of empathy you're decrying have far more sad and tragic life stories than yours. Good luck to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it really not occur to you posters that somebody who is incapable of telling the truth, whose lies are so thin and obvious that they're nearly always found out, who constantly has to make new friends because she / he is being "found out" about lying, etc, is probably lying out of some kind of deep-seated compulsion or mental problem?

I posted before. I will spare you the details but I have a history of pathological lying. I quit cold turkey about 10 years ago and haven't told a big whopper since. My history is so sad and tragic, with so much abuse of every kind, and frankly you unsympathetic people are unworthy of my story, even anonymously. But let me assure you, I never let that sad true story get out. Instead, I lied and made up a false person for myself because I couldn't not BEAR to deal with reality.

Several of my lies were of the flimsiest sort. A child could see through them. I am so thankful that I have real friends who looked past this. It took years for me to be able to realize how to change my life and behavior. Nobody would have ever had a clue how deep the waters ran. I was very good at concealing how damaged I was inside, and how terribly important it was to me to have the facade of my lies to protect me like a second skin. I am so glad no mean friend pointed out my obvious lies.

You never know what someone else is dealing with. Even my best friend did not know what happened and was happening to me for years.

So maybe next time, try to leap out of your own skin and have empathy, when the wounds your friends are displaying are SO OBVIOUS. Nobody lies like that for nothing! It's almost always a deep personal trouble.

Right, I read your sad and tragic post, and feel for you. Spend some time getting to know other people's tragedies, PP, and you'll learn that your story, while sad and moderately tragic, is by no means the most sad and tragic life story around. Believe it or not, even some of the posters whose lack of empathy you're decrying have far more sad and tragic life stories than yours. Good luck to you.

PP, I am the one who wrote my story, not the PP you responded two. We are two different people. The PP you THOUGHT you dismissed so callously specifically said s/he did not want to share the details of his/her life. So you have no idea who you just belittled.

Since you actually belittled ME, I assure you I know how blessed I am in my life, and how undeserving I am of the joys I have now. As a military wife, I have seen tragedies you cannot begin to understand, and as a member of the human race, I am constantly humbled by how much suffering people experience and endure.

What I'm concerned about, is why you felt the need to come down so hard on someone who was asking for empathy, understanding, and compassion? What is awry in your life, that you should feel the need to build yourself up by kicking someone who had been down, but made it through?

[Anonymous]

New PP here. I haven't read the rest of the thread. I had a friend who I became very close with before realizing that she was a compulsive liar. I was hurt far more than she was. It must be a disease of some sort because after a while she couldn't keep her lies straight, but seemed to believe in them enough NOT to care....it was really strange.

I would distance myself if I were in that situation again. If you decide to stay friends with her, don't trust a word she says....once a liar, always a liar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it really not occur to you posters that somebody who is incapable of telling the truth, whose lies are so thin and obvious that they're nearly always found out, who constantly has to make new friends because she / he is being "found out" about lying, etc, is probably lying out of some kind of deep-seated compulsion or mental problem?

I posted before. I will spare you the details but I have a history of pathological lying. I quit cold turkey about 10 years ago and haven't told a big whopper since. My history is so sad and tragic, with so much abuse of every kind, and frankly you unsympathetic people are unworthy of my story, even anonymously. But let me assure you, I never let that sad true story get out. Instead, I lied and made up a false person for myself because I couldn't not BEAR to deal with reality.

Several of my lies were of the flimsiest sort. A child could see through them. I am so thankful that I have real friends who looked past this. It took years for me to be able to realize how to change my life and behavior. Nobody would have ever had a clue how deep the waters ran. I was very good at concealing how damaged I was inside, and how terribly important it was to me to have the facade of my lies to protect me like a second skin. I am so glad no mean friend pointed out my obvious lies.

You never know what someone else is dealing with. Even my best friend did not know what happened and was happening to me for years.

So maybe next time, try to leap out of your own skin and have empathy, when the wounds your friends are displaying are SO OBVIOUS. Nobody lies like that for nothing! It's almost always a deep personal trouble.

Right, I read your sad and tragic post, and feel for you. Spend some time getting to know other people's tragedies, PP, and you'll learn that your story, while sad and moderately tragic, is by no means the most sad and tragic life story around. Believe it or not, even some of the posters whose lack of empathy you're decrying have far more sad and tragic life stories than yours. Good luck to you.

PP, I am the one who wrote my story, not the PP you responded two. We are two different people. The PP you THOUGHT you dismissed so callously specifically said s/he did not want to share the details of his/her life. So you have no idea who you just belittled.

Since you actually belittled ME, I assure you I know how blessed I am in my life, and how undeserving I am of the joys I have now. As a military wife, I have seen tragedies you cannot begin to understand, and as a member of the human race, I am constantly humbled by how much suffering people experience and endure.

What I'm concerned about, is why you felt the need to come down so hard on someone who was asking for empathy, understanding, and compassion? What is awry in your life, that you should feel the need to build yourself up by kicking someone who had been down, but made it through?

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Wow. You sound really, really mean.

I don't blame you for walking away from a friendship that wasn't working for you anymore, of course, and anyone can understand how being friends with someone so completely unable to handle her baggage or be a real friend would be impossible. So it's not that I think you're an asshole for ending the friendship.

It's that I think you are an asshole for not once, in this tirade against your friend, whose side of the story we haven't heard, is a tiny bit of sympathy for someone who clearly cannot process and present her own life correctly. For not wondering what might have gone wrong for her or with her.

I'm the pp and I was just telling what it was like from my perspective and of situations I saw with her interactions from other people. I actually held onto the friendship among the longest thinking well she lies but she really cares about me as a friend until one day I realized that wasn't true. I don't know how to explain the situation other to say when I found out someone I thought of a close friend lied about so many things, there was a sense of betrayal and a sense of foolishness that I believed things that would have stretched any outsiders
sense of belief. There was also the fact that whatever her story, she tried to control people with her lies. If the lies were like, I went out for a walk, but really I stayed home, that's one thing. When the lies are the cause of people not talking to each other and trying to tear down other people's self esteem, that is a different category. It's like someone may steal because they are hungry, because they think it's fun, because they have a compulsion, or they want the easy way out. How do you ever learn the why's, who knows if and when that person may change, and if you are the one that had something stolen isn't the end result the same whatever the reason? I think the very fact you had something stolen would make you trust a little less and make you question if there was something about you that made you vulnerable to the situation. There will always be a part of me that would probably take her back into my life if she was trying to change, but there is also a part of me that now questions everything and is less likely to make excuses for people.