How do I stop lying?

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Since I was a teenager I’ve told lies, small white inconsequential lies and bigger ones. Lies to make me seem “better” or more “worthy” than I am. I told someone in work I have 3 children when I don’t. I told them their names and everything. I had told them this story before I had even realised and almost before I knew it was a lie. I know it needs to stop but I don’t know how. Lying is almost a comfort I guess (not sure how but that’s how it feels). I seem to have a relaxed attitude towards the truth. I do things that are wrong before I’ve even realised or thought of the consequences. I hate it. I hate myself for it. How do I change it?

Try and make peace with who you are. Easier said than done.

Then you won't need to lie.

Also, come up with some polite get outs for those people who ask extremely personal questions. That way you don't need to make yourself vulnerable by answering personal questions or protect yourself with a lie.

You probably need therapy of some kind.

I mean, I reckon most of us probably would benefit from therapy on some level But what you’re describing sounds extreme, and not like something you’ll just suddenly be able to stop doing without support.

I can’t even imagine it tbh; I’d be so uncomfortable and anxious all the time if I told lies - it would be the opposite of “a comfort”! Do you not worry about what will happen if people catch you out - about feeling ashamed, or exposed as dishonest? I don’t mean that in a judgey way, but it’s interesting.

I vaguely knew someone in student years who lied constantly, seemingly pointlessly, and I sometimes wonder what happened to make him like that and how he coped when he got out into the real world.

Yeah I think there is a bigger reason for this!! You need to see someone (possibly a therapist of some sort) I just don’t understand how you could make up a family for someone at work?? Are you not worried they will find out you lied? God I could never lie to someone in work even if I wanted to!! Where I live everyone practically knows everyone or has a relation that you know etc!!for example the secretary in my school is the niece of the head in my daughters school, another member of staff is good friends with my cousin. My daughter does gymnastics with a daughter of another member. Another member of staff lived in my village and her daughters go to the same school as mine. Another colleague of mine goes to a friend of mines yoga class. Etc etc the list of links is endless!!! How old are you now OP?? You definitely need to fix this!

I had a friend in school who used to do this. Does your name begin with L? Maybe you're my friend!

Why don't you write down your lies, and make short stories out of them? Create characters, families, events. Maybe recognising it as fiction will help you accept your own life.

Well there must be a reason why you have a compulsion to lie. Is it for attention, low self esteem, relate to others/fear of being left out ? Is it a defence mechanism or a prop to enhance your image? Does your lying escalate when you don't get what you "need " from it?

You could probably benefit from some therapy or at least some soul searching. The wrong lie,the wrong person and it could end up in a massive clusterfuck. Not to mention losing the trust of people you might care about.

I don’t know why I do it. I’ve soul searched and there isn’t a real reason. I don’t have low self esteem or anything. I’ve noticed I lie to mould my life into how I want it to be (I.e having 3 children, owning own house etc). And I am scared shitless and anxious I will get caught out or have to continue the lie after I’ve done it. It’s just at the time it feels like a security blanket. Would a therapist be able to help me? How would they even believe anything I said if I tell them I’m there for chronic lying. DH is the only real life person who knows about my problem. Luckily (?) he is the only person who knows when I’m lying and tells me to stop if I ever do it to him.

Tell the truth and shame the devil. It's a point of honour to tell the truth, something to be proud of. (Plus, you'll never get confused about what you said, never get confused).

as my mum always says "You have to have a good memory to be a good liar".
One day you will forget what lies you have told to what person and you will come a cropper, and they will see you in a different light.
I know someone who lost all their friends due to their constant lies.

I do think you should seek some kind of therapy asap.

I will look into therapy. I know that lying is bad and I know that I will eventually get caught. I just can’t seem to stop it on my own, but we also don’t have the finances right now to afford counselling. It’s all a mess. I’m not a bad person. That’s what I don’t understand. I am empathetic, caring, kind etc and yet I have this awful trait that rightly would make people not want to know me if they knew. Maybe I am bad. I don’t know. I don’t know how to afford therapy to unpick it.

I used to do this but it got much better for me once I had some therapy and entered my 40s. I think once I had the things in life that I wanted, a family I may not material things, I felt less of a need to try and impress other people As I was happy with myself and my own life. I know you say you don’t have low self-esteem but I wonder if it’s possible that you do without even realising it. I know I thought I was happy with my life before when I used to lie but actually I never felt good enough which is why I would try and impress other people with things that simply weren’t true.
I do still sometimes get the urge to tell a lie but I think about the motivation behind it more and what it’s telling me about myself which helps. It often helps me identify something that I want that I haven’t even realised about myself.

Good luck with getting help. I am so much happier now I’m not living with the constant Fear of being found out.

I know someone who tells lies of this magnitude. They also had a fictitious family and house.

It all came to a head when their 'family' was due to meet a colleague's family on a day out. For some reason they then came up with a convoluted story where their child died in order to avoid it.

The truth came out via someone who knows their parents, and they are universally disliked by the people they tricked - as you can imagine people were very upset that a child had died and were very angry when they found out it wasn't true.

They still often tell new people about the child, although he doesn't say they died anymore. They are regularly shown to be lying about the most bizarre and often serious things.

You need to stop. No one will ever trust you about anything when they find out.

If you go and see your GP they may refer you for therapy on the NHS.

You need to ask your GP for help under the Improved Access to Pyschological Therapies (IAPT) scheme.

Also, group therapy is less expensive and very effective.

I think it's not unusual for children to lie but I suppose they "grow out of it" for different reasons.

Even I have lied as an adult (well exaggerated something because I felt threatened by another's position).

But your lies do sound rather extreme and like your habit/reaction to questions has continued to grow stronger.

I think you need to look deeper into your lies to discover why. Are you wanting or trying to conceive? Do you feel you haven't achieved because you don't own your home?

I think some sort of therapy truly would be great for you when you can afford it. Speak to your GP and see what your options are. Don't be embarrassed to admit this to your GP. Facing it head on is a huge step forward.

I know someone who does this sort of thing.

I do think she is a deeply unhappy person who thinks people judge her on everything so does it to make people like her.

I would suggest you do need to talk this through with someone and find out who the real you is.

I have a friend who had always done this (for 20 years). About 10 years ago I started challenging him each time- not aggressively, just as if he'd made a mistake. Over about a year of not putting up with it, he stopped. No useful advice, but I will say this:

Everyone knows you do it

People may be too polite to call you on it and they may not know about specific lies but honestly everyone knows, and they will talk about it.

I wish I'd had the guts to tell my friend the unvarnished truth when we were 20, it would have saved him a lot of embarrassment. Lean on your friends to help fix this- they already know about it.

I used to do this... I had a whole other persona on SM. It was a form of escape.

I will hold my hands up and never owned up, I just let it drift when people started getting suspicious.

I eventually spoke with a counsellor, who with me unpicked a lot and found that (without sounding cliché) a lot of it was down to trauma in childhood, and by lying and creating a different life predominantly online, it was my way to escape - sort of the person who I thought I should be but I had failed at.

Even now, years later, there's still times I wish I was that person. My DH knows most of it, and things have settled down a lot since I have started to accept who I am and work on hanging me rather than just pretending to be someone else.

It's so easy for people to judge you for lying,but it becomes addictive, and to stop will mean owning up...you have realised that there is a problem, and are working towards sorting it.

Xxx

I will hold my hands up and never owned up, I just let it drift when people started getting suspicious.

I think this is the easy way to handle it. People will be very willing to let the nonsense disappear and be quite happy to pretend the lies never happened.

Would a therapist be able to help me? How would they even believe anything I said if I tell them I’m there for chronic lying.

I think that would be fine. I used to occasionally tell mine (almost daring her to disbelieve) that for all she knew everything I told her could be a lie. She only ever kind of shrugged and acknowledged that yes, that's true, but if I was lying in therapy it's really my own time and money that I'm wasting. She's never been one to dig down for the 100% truth of some matter, and seems more interested in what feels true to me and what that means to me etc. (Bloody therapists! Ugh! Everyone should have one...)

I haven't had a lying problem like yours, except as a child. Back then, I think I just loved having something interesting to tell, and I'd imagine my stories to the point that I nearly believed in them myself. I got caught a few times in a truly humiliating way in primary school, which seemed to "cure" me of the habit.

It became more subtle. I'd no longer outright lie, but mastered being evasive in just the right way to give the impression I'd want to give. I became a bit of a chameleon, I think because I was so afraid of being rejected as I really was, that it was safer to assume a persona. Like DIZZYTIGGER87 I have a childhood trauma past. It's been quite a difficult habit to kick, and I still find it very risky and weird to "try to be myself" in a genuine way in new situations. But it's better.

Yes it’s like I create a false persona and that persona changes depending on the people I am with. I don’t think I have a “real” personality.

I’ve told some big lies to DH and he knew I was lying and I told him I was lying once he questioned it. Obviously that has eroded his trust in me. Even when I know that he knows when I’m lying I still can’t stop doing it. Then when he asks if it’s true or not I admit it’s not but by then the damage is done.

I don’t think I have a “real” personality.

That was kind of how I felt. But everybody does. You're probably just so used to moulding yourself to different people, situations and imagined realities, that it would take some soul searching to find it.

When I first realised this was an issue for me, I tried to somehow define who it was that I was for myself, and that never really worked. I'd struggle to answer questions like "what's my favourite colour" or "what music do I most like", because I just didn't (and still don't) have set likes and dislikes like that. It was easier to come up with things I definitely never like or accept. But I'd set myself the goal to be truthful at least to myself, and it would feel like lying to say "pizza is my favourite food", because how do you know what your favourite food is? Pizza's nice, but sometimes something else seems much nicer. And so on.

So for me part of the discovery has been to admit to myself that I can be actually quite a "fluid" and flexible in my personality and identity. That's not always a bad thing, and you can still endevour to stop being actually untruthful, and learn to put boundaries in places for yourself. It doesn't matter if you say you love pizza the most one Monday, and declare avocados your favourite on Tuesday. That doesn't cross any moral boundary. But the big actual lies do matter.

WhatNowRandya lot of what you have said makes sense and has struck a chord with me, thank you. I’ve spent ages pondering this and hadn’t got anywhere on why I do it. I also can be quite easily led by the people I’m with, I suppose I let other people’s boundaries become my own because I don’t have any.

It’s terrifying to feel like I’m a blank canvas of a person in my mid twenties. I don’t know myself at all.

When I was 16 I was in a really abusive, awful relationship. It only lasted a year before I saw sense but I wonder if that did any lasting damage? Or maybe I am trying to justify the unjustifiable?