AIBU thinking there's something weird about my sister?

[Ginnyfromtheblock]

My sister is 30 and has a habit of either over-embellishing to make out she's very rich or just generally lying. She's been lying about small things from a young age but nowadays it tends to be things like:

1. An anecdote I or someone else may have said in conversation once upon a time, and she's now forgotten about who said it and uses it in conversation as if it was her and her story eg. A tradition of hers is making hot choc in a flask and taking it to winter wonderland when it is in fact something I do. Completely innocuous but also a blatant lie.
2. Buying designer things for herself or her husband and then posting photos on Instagram saying she's being spoilt by her husband
3. She hates her in laws (they are a bit rubbish and create unnecessary drama) but they throw rather lavish parties whether it's something like a baby shower or a kids birthday party, they're always very 'perfect'. But will post photos on Instagram of their fancy looking events (which she spends the run up and after the event moaning to me about how awful everyone is) saying how much she loved the day and how blessed she is to have such fun in laws
4. Every single photo she puts up of herself is completely edited so that she looks almost like an alien. Her waist is tiny in the photos, her skin a lot more fair than it is (we have olive skin). She is in actual fact a size 16 and nobody in my family agrees that she looks like what her photos do.
5. About 10 years ago she lied to a love interest about being sexually harassed at the student bar at uni so he would feel bad about not having spent the evening by her side. I know it was a lie because I wantrd to speak to uni security about it but she wouldn't let me and in the end it came out that she made it up.
6. A friend of hers recently phoned me asking if she was ok as she hasn't heard from my sister since her operation. I asked my sister what operation as I didn't know about it. She just said, 'oh sorry about that, I'll get back to her'. Me and my sister speak on the phone everyday, and she hasn't had an operation for anything to my knowledge
7. She booked a make up artist for about 5 separate occasions over the summer but lied to her about being in hospital. I bumped into the make up artist whilst shopping and she asked if my sister was out of hospital. I was with my sister the entire week and she wasn't in hospital.

So, I feel like something is up or her lies are just getting worse but I don't know how to confront her about it without making her feel bad about herself. But I'm also getting fed up of covering up her lies to random people. Am I being unreasonable about her being weird?

A decade ago, a boyfriend's girlfriend lied compulsively like this. About both minor and weird things.

Once I realised, I just distanced myself a bit and would be polite and view it as entertainment when we met.

She ended up marrying the guy she was seeing, though he had serious mental health issues himself. She was very insecure.

If she is saying now it’s ’our baby’, not yours, I’d be very wary of her lying to people in the future about it actually being her baby.. Sharing photos online and making things up of baby being sick etc.

Same here, one of my siblings creates stories out of thin air. No idea why, we never believe anything they say now.
Some are ludicrous, the steering wheel came off and they had to grip the column with their teeth to steer safely to a stop. 🤦‍♀️

I have a friend like this, not quite as severe but used to be constantly making up stories or embellishing - she has re-used other people’s anecdotes as her own (including mine!). If she’s ever called out she feigns ignorance. She’s got better over the years but it still happens occasionally. She’s quite insecure and it seems to come from a place of wanting acceptance or empathy (a lot of the ‘stories’ are self effacing or embarrassing). It’s a shame because she’s like it with everyone including close friends/family who she doesn’t need to impress or win over.

I'd keep her away from my baby!

This is more than just a few trivial lies - it sounds as if she has real psychiatric issues. I would be careful about discussing it with her. Has she ever had any form of recognised mental health condition?

Agree with those saying keep your distance.

Maybe you should all stage an intervention. Friends and family all sit down and say look we know you are a Billy bullshitter, we are worried and think you need help. She'll probably storm off initially but might actually come round in the long run if she realises you can all see it.

She's obviously very troubled but I can't really see the bit where this behaviour is your business or your problem?

You said you don't want to have to back up her lies, so don't. That doesn't mean you have to call her out on it or expose her to all and sundry but why would you have to lie?

Genuinely don't understand why this affects you, think I missed a bit.

This really stood out:
”I'm currently 20 weeks pregnant and she keeps referring the baby as "our baby". And what she's planning on doing with the baby. And also keeps referring to it as "he”

There was a thread recently where OP’s sister/ SIL kept saying things like this. She sounded absolutely deranged and seemed to think that the OP was going to have the baby and hand it over to her! Everyone here is saying your sister won’t change, which I’m sure is correct. Someone also said that you shouldn’t challenge them because they’ll get aggressive. But for heaven’s sake, please keep her as far a distance as possible from your baby. She’ll be one of those nightmare relatives that people post about on MN, interfering, demanding “alone time” with your baby, dressing it in clothes of her choosing, taking it out, then taking lots of pictures to post on Instagram with “look at my little darling” hashtag-perfectbaby etc. as if it’s her child. Basically using the child as a prop and fuel for her fantasies.

It’s very sad, she’s a disturbed person and probably very unhappy, but she shouldn’t be allowed to affect your family life. Looking after a new baby is exhausting enough without dealing with someone like her.

Exactly what I thought. She’s already lied about being in hospital and having an operation. Imagine the wonderful attention she could get for herself when she posts about “her” baby. Sick, injured, a child prodigy who reads philosophy textbooks at nine months old……

Then again it might make the penny drop for people who know her and are aware she wasn’t pregnant. Though I’m sure she would have an answer for that! I’ve dealt with compulsive liars and they will make up story after ridiculous story rather than admit anything they said wasn’t true.

Wondering what differentiates something like this between unpleasant personality trait and a personality disorder? Is it just attention seeking or something else?

Because in cases like this it is/can be a very real condition. It would fall under personality disorder but it's very real and not medicalizing anything at all. People can be mentally extremely unwell and it be the cause of behaviours. Some people believe it or not don't actually want to act out in such extensively damaging ways and yes are ill.

My DB is a compulsive liar and it's got to the stage where I doubt everything he says. It's sad because one day he might have a real problem but I won't believe him and won't be there for him. He's lied about having car crashes, accidents at work, various health conditions and other really random stuff like holidays he's booked, people he's fallen out with and how much tax he pays. No one believes anything he says and, if confronted, he gets extremely offended and remains so, even when the lie is completely unearthed.

We have a guy like this who lives locally. He's a lawyer, has a home in the Cap Verde Islands, has oesophagal cancer, the list is endless. None of it is true. This is why I don't respond to his flirtation. But who would he be without it?

A family member is like this. The constant white lies are more damaging than the great big lies (which are obvious and can be swiftly dismissed), IMO. We’ve been NC for years.

My sister is similar in some ways and I have had to severely limit contact with her for my own sanity.

The lies she tells are just ridiculous!

For example, over the last week, either to me or another family member she has lied about all sorts.

Yesterday, she told me her husband had gone to work. Only the place is actually shut on Saturday afternoon-I don't think he even works there!

Told our parents she had had to take her 8 year old to the emergency dentist as he was in agony with his tooth. When my parents went round the following day, they asked him if his tooth was better now - poor kid looked completely perplexed and said he hadn't had a sore tooth!

Asked an aunt if she could borrow £10 to buy her other son a birthday cake as the person making it had let her down - our mum had already bought a birthday cake and delivered it ahead of his birthday.

I could go on and on! A lot of her lies focus on trying to get money out of people which she never pays back (I won't derail your thread explaining - I had a thread of my own on it).

It is very difficult to deal with and you have my sympathy. Calling the person out on their lies generally just makes them defensive. I think in the end, you just have to take everything they say with a large dose of salt!

I had an ex bf like this. Lied that he had a life limiting illness, that he'd studied and worked overseas, regular accidents and hospital trips. All absolutely bullshit.

I honestly think he was a sociopath.

There's a difference between a 16 year old and a woman in her 30s doing it.

She sounds just like my friend who tells some absolute whoppers and seems to be getting worse with time. I had a job that involved being in situations where I got hurt a lot (trying not to be outing) and she started to tell stories about how she had been spat on or had to call the police in her retail job. She told a story about when my baby nearly died and how she had been so frightened to be there when it happened- she wasn't there. She also said she slept with my ex who died. She absolutely didn't

It is draining and makes me not want to spend any time with her.

Think I’d be at hard truth time with your sis @Ginnyfromtheblock

Sis I love you but I’m not covering for you any more with people like the make up artist and friends. It’s embarrassing and I’m concerned about you. I think you are wonderful but this need to control the narrative of your life is getting you into bigger messes and caught up in more lies.

just stop enabling her - you all need to call her out on her lies.

like with the chocolate.. just stop her - but the never happened sis as that’s my story you are telling.

it’s that or live a life ignoring it.

what’s her husband like?

I had a friend like this.

To the point that I wasn't sure to believe her or not when her parent died suddenly.

In fact writing that now I'm still not 100%.

Anyway I have gone very very low contact. Just pleasant chatter if we are in the same room which doesn't happen too often.

Obviously that's harder with a family member but you need to really get some distance in before your baby arrives.

Definitely don't need to be talking every day. And don't be a go between with her and other people.

I do wonder if this is some kind of illness?
My dads brother tells so many lies and has done since he could talk, he's in his 80s now and still lies.
He had the same upbringing as his siblings and was never treated badly, Nan and grandad loved them all equally, no one else in the family is like this. He has a lovely wife, three good sons and 8 grandchildren, all close.
They are very rarely malicious lies, just real stupid ones , like he was emigrating to Australia one time, few years later it was Barbados, then he was buying the local news agents but got threatened off by local gangsters, they are the ones I can remember, but growing up there were hundreds, no exaggeration.
The family just joke about it and have never addressed it, which my aunt said they should have done as a child.
Maybe nowadays it is recognised, as I believe it has the potential to cause a lot of harm.

This is really interesting. I assumed that my family member who compulsively lies is like that due to upbringing (I don’t know the wider family that well at all), but I guess it could be some sort of illness. It’s the stupid lies that are so damaging, because they erode your sense of reality over time. Every time the ‘facts’ of a story are slightly (or largely) changed, you’re left wondering what else you’ve seemingly misunderstood and whether the latest facts are even the truth or will they be changed again in a few months. It’s a mind fuck.

Yup it makes you feel discombobulated even when they’re silly pointless lies. My sister has also made up horrible malicious lies about me, and another relative tells all manner of lies. From planting little seeds to paint others in a bad light, to outright nonsense to make them appear more glamorous and exciting. Or just to evade the consequences of their actions.

Even when it’s over minor stuff, I find it creepy in regard to my relatives, like they’re always trying to control the narrative, my interpretation of reality which makes me feel like they’re trying to control me. With mine, they seem to lie to benefit themselves. They’re v calculating imo. With some of the other examples on this thread, it sounds more disordered and as though it’s ultimately hindered the person, so maybe that’s a type of condition that’s outside of being intentionally manipulative. Which does sound v sad to have to live with.