Anyone know any compulsive liars?

[CompulsiveReader]

I joined one of the Mumsnet "due in X" groups and we have a WhatsApp chat which is lovely but there's one woman who comes out with the most unbelievable tales.

She tells these long stories with a lot of "she said this, then I said that, so she said this and I said that" just super detailed. The stories themselves are on the boundary of something that might possibly have happened on a weird day but the level of detail is just so high and screams liar to me. I noticed that the stories generally have the theme of people noticing something mildly unusual or impressive about her/her kids and making a big deal of it or else it's someone you wouldn't expect to pay you any attention (celebrity etc) having conversations with her.

I don't know why she does it though, nobody in the group ever really comments on or reacts to her stories, I suspect we all think they are lies (or at least heavily embellished).

Ultimately it doesn't affect me, I find it a little annoying but mostly amusing. But why does she do it?! Is this a thing that people do? Please share your stories of compulsive or suspected compulsive liars. I have never come across anyone like this before.

@CompulsiveReader

I have known a several people like this females and males mostly on pathological liars who either tell 🤔 you a story out of context half or some truth to suit whatever narrative they want to come across

I know a guy like this who i come across in and out of my life someone who who used to work with my mum,

I have thinking at times similar kind of question too

My step daughter. I would seriously question myself some days and my own peace of mind.
It was harmful and has caused major issues. She's no friends, can't face family due to lies she's told and probably ties herself in knots to get stories right.
I thought I was going mad sometimes as I knew I was right, or that it was made up but you question it. The damage she's caused is huge

It's not as unsusual as you might think. Our tutor told us that psychiatric nursing attracts a lot of psychopaths, because of the power they can wield over vulnerable people. I sure met some in my career as a psychiatric nurse, but I'd say what our tutor said is true of any profession or occupation where one can wield power over the vulnerable and it's good to be aware of this sad fact!
I've met a few pathological lairs in my time too, my STBX being one of them! You'd think I'd have had more cop-on as a psychiatric nurse , wouldn't you, but some liars are more covert than others, because some people's disordered characters are more covert and subtle than others. Some psychopaths have been able to go undetected by very eminent psychiatrists, such as Dr. George Simon, author of "In Sheep's Clothing". He admits it himself, because he's NOT a liar!

Agree there is usually an underlying reason, or unhappiness, often learned behaviour through trauma bonding and flight or fight to protect themselves, also often learned in childhood through years or heightened stress. Circumstances not shared for obvious reasons to friends, colleagues, strangers and depending on age those in authority such as social workers, teachers.

There is also a difference between to original question of compulsive through to pathological.

An ex manager.
She had a long distance fiance who had a mansion in Cambridge.
She didn't.
An ex colleague found the "fiance" on Google that she had framed on her desk.He was an American TV actor.
Quite sad really.

My mother
She's a narc and some of the lies have to be heard to be (not) believed
She's cost people their jobs,got people into trouble and caused so much trouble
She's always the hero and saviour in her tall tales
It got to the point that I would see what had happened,hear her side and start to doubt what I'd seen/heard
She works with the elderly-everytime one dies I'm sure she had something to do with it
She steals,lies and makes trouble for every single one of them but they all die thinking she's wonderful

Yep a friend lied she had cancer . The lies just got bigger and bigger I think she liked the attention it brought . Stuff started not to add up . Also lies around money houses etc she even crowd funded for made up treatment . Even lied to her daughter. It all came out .. school was involved with the child . They said seen nothing like it . Most details of her life made up . All very sad … made me much more suspicious of people

There are loads of them out there making up stories about me.
All I was trying to do was the best for the poor people of this country and I was not on an 'ego trip'.

Oh rats, I think I might be one myself now!😮

My awful neighbour.
When I first read about darvo here on MN I knew this was her to a tee. I honestly am not sure if she believes her lies as she utters them with complete assurance so much so that if I didn’t know for an absolute fact she is lying I would doubt myself more than her.

@Blubbled I’ve just looked for that book on Amazon as I thought it would be interesting. It could be mine for the grand sum of £630.47 so I’ll just have to take your word for it! 😳😂

I guess I’ll try the library tomorrow.

Yes, two actually.

First one. I worked and lived temporarily with this one once when I was in my twenties.

She'd turn up late for work regularly and say her ex boyfriend was violent and the police kept calling her in for witness statements. Once I lived with her, I quickly learned it was because she was incapable of waking herself up in the morning.

She'd lie about having abortions, or her mother having cancer, or about being a child actor when she was younger. We worked in recruitment, and she'd lie about vacancies she was working on with made-up clients in order to look busy. But then it wound all fall apart when she'd be "at the police" and other people would try and pick up her work whilst she was out. 99% of what came out of her mouth turned out to be a lie.

No idea why, because she was pretty and charismatic and people generally liked her when they met her.

Second one. A really good friend I had in my teens. She had a long term boyfriend who she worked with in a supermarket, she'd always be showing off pictures of him and saying what they'd been up to at the weekend etc. What presents he'd bought her. Even went on holiday with him and came in showing us loads of photos from the hol.

Long story short, he was in a relationship with someone else and she was taking his girlfriend's photos from Facebook and passing them off as her own.

Neither malicious examples, but still very very weird.

Oh, and the allergies! The friend in my twenties kept saying she had loads of food allergies too. Restricted herself eating these things in front of people, but happily ate them at home...

I had a cousin like this - sadly dead now, as for all his lies he was a kind man.
Once he went on a hiking trip to Devon with some friends and after a couple of days he said he’d got to go to London urgently as “the computers were down at the BBC”……he could barely send an email on a laptop.
He also said he’d climbed the spire of Chartres Cathedral but got stuck half way up and was rescued by some French soldiers. He then said that he’d taught Ayrton Senna to drive and Ayrton agreed to take these soldiers for a spin as a thank you for rescuing my cousin.

RoseBucket · Today 16:34
There is also a difference between to original question of compulsive through to pathological

I don’t understand this sentence.

There was quite a funny one on here years ago who lived in London with a high flying job and two perfectly behaved children. It was all lies. There’s been a few more I’ve clocked: MN sometimes do something but more often than not don’t. I don’t mind when they are just nonsense but when it’s used to make others feel bad in the vein of ‘well MY fictitious children would never do that’ I do think it should be addressed.

I worked with one.

She was a good, kind person desperate for friends, it was like she couldn't stop herself, like it was happening TO her not because of her.

I know one. I would say I find it fascinating. Does he actually believe his lies-he'll certainly deny them while opposing evidence is in front of him? Does he justify them as "but I have to say that because.."? Or does he not care that he's telling lies?
But he uses the lies to bully and manipulate people so it's not really fascinating. One of the nastiest people I've ever met, and his side kick, who I'm confident is in the not care category, is as bad.

I do, a member of my family that I also went to school with. She has lied for as long as I could remember, when we were kids it was that her Dad was a millionaire, her uncle was a famous celebrity etc to other kids (obviously I knew this not to be true). As she got older lies got bigger and more dangerous. She was locked in her room for months and beaten, sexually abused by her mother, raped by a teacher multiple times, a victim of domestic violence when she lived with her partner. She claimed her children had been taken away from her by her ex and that she was fighting for them in court (never attended a single hearing). She lied about attending several universities, that she was head of an international law firm. That she was a former catwalk model, she was a high class escort, that she had lived in multiple counties as a millionaire. The lies were endless. After each of her lies she would launch a lengthy social media campaign (e.g helping women in domestic abuse / how to fight the family courts etc). She is now claiming to be a war photographer and campaigning for human rights. She is now apparently a completely different ethnicity than she actually is so she can stand with her 'brothers and sisters' in the fight against xxx. There are many many more lies. She is most definitely pathological and has hurt a lot of people. She is a very very intelligent woman, and I really do hope one day she gets some help. She is clearly not well.

@RoseBucket

Whats the difference then 🤔 just out of curiosity?
Compulsive liars or pathological liars ect,

Isn't it just more nuanced than that a mix of both to a certain extent ..

I used to work with a woman who lied constantly; mostly to make herself look impressive/ for sympathy. Her nickname was Bullshit Katie.
Some of my favourites were:

Single handedly rescuing her father in law from drowning on a family holiday.

Raising so much money for a guide dog charity that to thank her, the charity named a puppy after her. She sent photo of said puppy round the office. A quick Google search revealed it to be a stock photo off the Internet.

Her mother was the first female bomb disposal expert in the UK

Her mother made a wedding cake for a family friend; mother then supposedly forgot that is was Bullshit Katie's birthday in a couple of days time, didn't have time to make Katie a birthday cake so stole half of the wedding cake back.

Completely bizarre!

exDH1 did and still does. Major lies.

Also had a friend in the 90s who lied about everything and even went on TV lying- think Jeremy Kyle type thing! Devastated her truly lovely husband who subsequently LTB!

I was a member of an online antenatal club on a now closed website. Someone joined our group and we were all due in the same month. They befriended us, we all shared scan pictures and hopes and fears. First one of 'her' twins died in utero, then the remaining twin was born prematurely and was gravely ill. This went on for 2 months with pictures from the hospital and stories about having to call a priest in, being asked to try experimental new treatments, all sorts of awful things. Then one morning we woke up to a message by a site moderator telling us that this person was fake and had stolen other people's pictures.

It left us all violated.

The crazy thing was I didn't believe any of it but was berating myself daily for being heartless and telling myself I must be an terrible mother for being so lacking in compassion.

Oh that reminds me of someone on a baby forum I used to be on. Her whole life was a lie but she had us convinced and then she supposedly got meningitis and was very ill in hospital, her "husband" was posting as her saying how gravely ill she was, trying all different treatments etc. I think we tried to send flowers to the hospital and stuff. Then some people started questioning it but she was our friend so we didn't believe them and argued against them until it became obvious that it was a total sham.
That experience really shook me, made me feel like such a gullible idiot.