Friend lied about stillbirth - possibly sensitive

[CarolPeletier]

I have been friends with someone almost ten years. A couple of years into the friendship they told me they had become pregnant aged 12 and the baby was stillborn. She went into a great deal of detail about the whole thing. While I completely sympathised and cried along with her I wished she had told me another time as I was days away from giving birth myself. I felt awful for her dealing with that, especially at such a young age.
Since then we have had an on off friendship, she can blow hot and cold, make rude remarks, be very judgemental... If i am honest I think I would have ended the friendship long ago but I make allowances for how messed up she must be after what happened to her, and she often excuses her own behaviour as she suffers depression and mood swings as a result of the stillbirth.

The other day I was out for lunch and ran into her mother, who my friend does not see often now as they fell out. We don't really know each other, except to say hello in passing, but had a coffee after my friends had left. She started complaining about her daughter and how she makes bad decisions etc, and I mentioned how what happened as a child must effect her every day. The mother was gobsmacked, said it never happened and that it was a complete lie. She told me her daughter is a compulsive liar. This was verified by her friend who lived next door to them when my friend was a child, who would have surely noticed a pregnant 12 year old and known of what happened. I feel certain from their reactions, and from my friends past of lying and doing things for attention that my friend lied.

Part of me feels my friend must be mentally ill, and I should try and help. But mostly I just feel sick to my stomach that she could lie like this, distress a heavily pregnant friend with this lie, excuse every bad behaviour.... I just want to cut her out my life, even though I know she has no other friends.

Should I be more understanding of her apparent mental illness? Aibu to feel completely disgusted and manipulated. I just don't want to speak to her again, not even to tell her I know the truth. She has told others this lie too.

Awful thing to lie about . Especially to someone about to give birth!

Is there any way of finding out whether this is just a complete, entire lie or whether it is an embellishment of the truth, as Sparechange mentioned? If it is (and I know it's a big IF) linked to a miscarriage or abortion that still haunts her then I would say she probably needs help to overcome that memory. Otherwise she probably isn't worth spending any more of your time & energy on.

I know of a similar thing - a young colleague who faked being pregnant with twins & then a dramatic miscarriage at 20 weeks where her own life was said to be at risk. There were clues that the pregnancy wasn't real throughout (including the dates changing, the scan photo having someone else's name on the top - which she said was a mistake, no bump - unusual for twins, insisting she could feel movements at 6 weeks amongst other things). The worst thing by far was that another colleague who had gone into premature labour, lost her baby and herself suffered a huge haemorrhage less than 12 months earlier, put herself out to offer help & support to the faking colleague because she (thought) she had been through a very similar thing. The emotion she showed when she found out it was all a lie was heart-breaking, she just crumpled. She just couldn't comprehend how anyone could make up something so dreadful. In that case, it was exposed as a lie by the supposed grandmother-to-be (colleague's BF's mum) who had so many doubts & suspicions she looked into things more deeply, asked some very pointed questions and ultimately got the truth.

Fucking hell. Another one who has been through a stillbirth and cannot comprehend what would possess someone to lie about it. Get away now. Quite apart from the sheer awfulness of her original deception, you never know who will become involved in the next one.

One thing it's easy to forget is that it's possible both to be mentally ill and to be an unlikeable person. You don't have to like someone just because they have a personality disorder.

Of course, she may need professional help, but I imagine you'd find it very hard to persuade her of this.

She probably is mentally disordered in some way. You can feel sorry for her about it without having to be her friend if it affects you, though. You don't owe her anything.

People like her give the mentally disordered a bad name

Thank you - I wasn't sure if I should try to help her get help, but my instinct was complete disgust and to run a mile. I wondered if I should assume mental illness and therefore my anger and sadness could not be directed at her reasonably, I appreciate the advice, especially that mental illness or not, this lie is inexcusable.

I don't want to confront, I just want to cut all contact. I don't want to back away slowly as I don't think I could speak to her without crying/saying something. I have put up with so much from her and always excused her behaviour, it ruined the last days or my pregnancy and was all I could think of during the difficult labour that followed.

She has judged my parenting openly, lied about other things, lied about me to others, ignored me for weeks at a time for no reason, had many angry outbursts, shown jealousy of me having other friends.... As I said, I would have ended the friendship long ago but I made allowances.

Time to move on I think

Do you know for sure the mother is more trustworthy than the daughter? My "father" has had lots of people believing that he was the victim of vile children who stole from him, made his life hell and abandoned him for years. He sounded very, very credible and would look absolutely gobsmacked if anyone ever suggested he was the vile, abusive bastard that he actually was.

Certainly if you know the mother is trustworthy I'd back away from the friend, but the mother's friend isn't exactly an independent witness so I'd be wary of accusing someone of lying of something like that. I wouldn't assume that anyone outwith the family knew or noticed. The girl across from us had a baby at 14 and none of us knew she was pregnant. She just appeared with a baby one day so I wouldn't assume it would be totally noticable.

What an awful thing to lie about if she has. Horrid.

Just saw your last post. Walk away. Even when you make allowances there should be a line.

I don't know the mother, but her reaction and that of her friend appeared real... Also my friend has form. It is possible that the mother and her friend were lying, but they did not know they would see me, that I would mention it, and yet they both had independent shocked responses that it was completely untrue.
I don't see a way of completely verifying one way or another really... My gut says my "friend" lied, but I don't know.

I just don't want to speak to her again, not even to tell her I know the truth

You are entitled to follow your own wishes.

People like this thrive on sympathy.

Listen to how much upset she caused you. No matter what her situation with her mother is, she's in too deep for you to be able to help her. She has to find her own way to integrity. YOu're not going to be able to help her.

Also, to say again: you're entitled to follow your own wishes.

These kinds of people are surprisingly common, I've known three in my life.
One had a child with a teacher when she was 14 and gave it up for adoption, one had terminal cancer, one had a trust fund of millions set up by a distant relative for when they turned 25 (he's 34 now and still working some shitty minimum wage job)
All lies.
Cut her off definitely.

icanteven I think me and you know the same person

Lord I wish I didn't know people like this, unfortunately they are both family.

My niece seems to have grown out of it now thankfully though she told some corners in her time. In school they (the children) believed her parents had died in a plane crash and the people dropping her off (db and sil) were her adoptive parents. This was eventually found out after one of the teachers overheard it.

In college she told her friends AND teachers that her mum had lost both her legs in a car accident and she had to help bathe and feed her. Sil found out about this when she got a rare night off to go to pick dn up!

By far the worst is my cousin though. In the last six months alone she has been diagnosed and treated for: cancer, rehabilitation for alcoholism, epilepsy, cpod and a blood clot in her brain.

We are no contact now after the 'Wave of light' event. I have had eight miscarriages, two of them late. She had the nerve to message me (after I posted my candles pic and poem for myself and my friends who had also had loses) and tell me that she knew I was lying, that no one had THAT many miscarriages.

I just messaged back saying that's fucking funny. I must have been a really good fake, certainly had a lot of consultants and professionals fooled.

But that she was welcome to speak to any of our family members who had visited me in hospital. Or to come and peruse my vast collection of pregnancy notes, scan pictures and hospital discharge letters.

Oh but would she mind bringing her own medical notes along?

Shut that bitch right up.

Sorry, sorry for the rant. Obviously still very angry about it.

You don't have to be friends with anyone you don't want to, but I would be wary of assuming she is the liar in this picture. You'll probably never know the truth of the matter and if you want the friendship to wither anyway it doesn't really matter, but I think it is at least as likely that the mother is the liar. I may be projecting because of my own history as the child of a person with a PD, but that was certainly my first thought when I read your OP. Often in such a family, one or more children will be labelled as compulsive liars because they dare to point out the bleeding obvious which the dysfunctional parent is heavily invested in pretending is not true. Over time, that child's identity as a liar, a troublemaker, mentally ill etc, gets fixed in the minds of anyone the parent can get to listen and everyone, including the child themself often, starts to believe it. In a family where nothing is spoken of openly and truthfully, I would be starting to wonder who was the father of this alleged miscarried baby. Either way, she sounds like she could do with professional help. Sad, but not your responsibility to unravel, particularly if you don't even like her.

Normally I'd feel a lot of sympathy for this woman, as there's obviously something very wrong with her that led her to make up such lies.

However, the fact that she told you this right before you're due to give birth makes me think she's delighting in hurting you, rather than trying to gain sympathy for herself.

I'd sever all ties. The trust between you is gone now and I can't imagine the friendship is salvageable.

Even without the monumental lie, she sounds awful, you dont need it, move on.

You are not obligated to speak to this person again. Ever. For whatever reason. Don't feel guilty or pressured. I lost a child when she was 9. I could not speak to a person who did this. I'd feel sorry for such a person, but I couldn't ever engage with him/her again.

Thank you NeedAScarf

Ah well she can't piss on my parade any more at least. Currently 13 weeks pregnant and feeling quite optimistic!

I must admit after reading this thread I'm quite surprised how many people there are like this!

It's such obvious lies though and so poorly thought out. They must know they can't keep it up?!

I did feel sorry for my cousin once upon a time.

i would be fucking angry too. you're perfectly within your rights to cut contact. what a nasty thing to do to a vulnerable person.

Even without the monumental lie, she sounds awful, you dont need it, move on.

^^this. I was thinking maybe it was just an awful lie she told for whatever reason (probably attention), maybe when she was quite young, (no excuse I know, but it is quite a common thing going by personal experience and reading all the pps), and that she could have 'grown out of it'. I still would have understood you not wanting to be friends with her in that scenario anyway OP, but judging from your last post, I probably would have had enough of her long before the truth came out. You're clearly very forgiving (I mean that as a compliment).

HappyBeet what an awful thing for your cousin to do! I am fuming for you! I don't have words.

I guess it depends if you can tolerate her lying/behaviour. If you can and the friendship is meaningful and worthwhile, great. If she is too much, then cut ties.

Hm, I've just stated the obvious. Sorry not very helpful.

My sister pulled rubbish like this, still does except I now don't deal with her. One of the worst was she ruined my pregnancy and my family were not allowed to be excited for their first grandchild because she claimed she could never have children, telling people how horrible I was for getting pregnant when she was grieving (I didn't know she apparently couldn't have kids btw, that only cropped up after I got pregnant). A few years later she sadly had a miscarriage. Claimed we had it all wrong, she'd never done or said anything like that at all. Despite the proof, my DPs believe it was them that got it wrong. They just about accept I wont deal with her (this isn't the reason, just one of a list of thousands), though not that she's done anything wrong or harmful.

As sad as it is, my life is immeasurably better off without her constant lies.

Sounds like the weird trolls on mn who claim to have dcs who died. You wouldn't want to know any of them in rl so why keep making allowances for this person.