Any compulsive liars fancy confessing.. Why?

[NoGwenItsABoxingDayTrifle]

Just that really, I know people tell little white lies and normally it's from a good place like not wanting to hurt someone's feelings with the truth but I'm on about completely pointless compulsive lying,
I work with a woman who does it consistently, she's made up entire relationships and breakups and conversations and arguments she'd had with other people. It's always really dramatic and she gets found out because she forgets who she's told and the story changes.
I have a friend who does the same, again it's always really dramatic stuff but why?!? What do people get from doing it, it must be really stressful trying to remember who you've told what but also really embarrassing when you're called out.
Is it a mental illness that can't be controlled or is it a choice. Don't mean to offend if you do this just genuinely curious.
I felt sorry for the woman at work when her relationship got called out as not being real. It hasn't stopped her though, she told me a scenario today that happened last week in the staff room, completely changed and dramatised it because I'm guessing she's forgot I was on my lunch break so witnessed it myself.
Again this baffles me because I can't see how she benefits in just making up random things that don't happen.

Idk - let me know if you find out. My mum compulsively lies but mostly to her partner. She did it with my dad and now with her long-term partner. She was always very secretive too when we were kids and that included my brother (“don’t tell your dad or your brother”)…so DSis and I assumed it was some kind of learned behaviour towards men, probably from her own mother.

It’s often completely pointless too. Only recently she made up an outrageous lie to her partner that the reason I had to cancel a trip home was because I tripped over my suitcase at the airport and ended up in hospital, because it suited her plans better for the cancellation to seem unavoidably last minute - as opposed to my very boring actual reason for cancelling with several days’ notice. Idk what the full fiction actually is and she had better hope it never comes up as I won’t be supporting the tall tale.

Perhaps as a result, honesty is very important to me in a relationship 😀

Asking a compulsive liar to tell you the truth and confess, well if they managed to do that they would not be a compulsive liar would they🤔

I think probably from a place of inadequacy. I’ve known a few people like this, and haven’t judged, I think it stems from low self esteem.

Sounds like hard work!!!

My partner's sibling is a compulsive liar, but knowing what their childhood was like, and what their parents are like, I would say it comes from a place of trauma, low self-esteem, insecurity. I always say, if she says it's rains, you go outside and check for yourself.

Agree with above, but also think it can come in part from a vivid imagination and not knowing what really happened and what you imagine happened. I’ve known a couple of people like this. If you call them out (nicely) on something that you categorically know isn’t true they act baffled, and I never know if they are genuinely baffled or just good at covering up!

I've known people who do this who have parents with addiction issues. Combination of habit of not sharing truthful/personal info (because they knew to hide what was going on at home) and role modelling - drunk/high parents lie all the time because they don't remember what they're saying and their moods change a lot. Coupled with self esteem issues it's quite easy to see how habitual lying can become.

I have worked with someone who made up a lot of lies about his luxury lifestyle, invented super luxurious holidays, designer shopping trips, said his apartment was huge, he collected art etc when actually he lived in a small one bedroom place, and most of it was very obvious lies. stayed in biggest suite in Hong Kong, had the same Gucci loafers five times, bought so much at Harrods it had to be shipped to his place, his father is a famous art collector in his home country etc

I guess he thought it would impress us? Not sure but it was bizarre and a bit amusing. Nobody ever really challenged him.

There’s not a single reason. Lying is sometimes a self-preservation mechanism learned in childhood and linked to trauma. Sometimes people don’t really know they’re lying, their version feels so real.

I am (almost) entirely truthful these days, but as a child I lied a lot. I think it was because I was desperately unhappy at home and fantasised about a different life. I suspect it is complex, but the reasons for most will be down to unhappiness. I am sad for little me, but I have remedied it by creating an awesome, happy family of my own.

It’s when you challenge them on it I’m fascinated by.. the lies get bigger or they just move the conversation on.

I wonder if they live in a slightly alternative reality where they actually believe the stories they weave.

I also think the reason they continue is they aren’t often challenged as we are too polite. Or don’t care.. yet everyone knows Susan from accounts is a billy bullshitter and swap stores about the various lies they’ve heard whilst she is oblivious to it all as folks just nod away and zone out when her latest talk tale is spouted.

Doesn't the fact that it's a compulsion imply that they can't help it?

It's not something I do nowadays, but compulsive lying as a child was much, much safer than ever telling the truth. If you can't display truthful emotions to your parents as a child, it becomes second nature.

I had a friend who lied about so many things. Nothing harmful or spiteful - always things about herself rather than others. It became incredibly wearying to be around. In her case I suspect the cause was low self esteem and a desire for attention from others.

My ex is a compulsive liar, I think with him it's because he's now a director in a massive company and he's embarrassed about his background, he came from nothing and he's surrounded by people who have never had money issues in their life. I think he feels inadequate and will make up stories all involving these amazing things he's done, how much money he's spent on things etc which isn't true.

Interesting, I definitely get the vibe from the woman at work that it comes from insecurity, she seems desperate for attention which is sad.
My friend on the other hand to me seems to have had an amazing childhood, I've known her and her family for over 30 years. She once tried to convince everyone that a member of Boyzone had messaged her and they were having an affair.
She was very overweight as a teen, always very beautiful though in my opinion. She lost lots of weight in her 30s (we mid forties now) and it was only recently after meeting her for lunch and talking about diets did I realise just how much other's opinions mattered to her, so the insecurity issues make sense.

I lied a lot as a teenager

In my case, I went through something traumatic. I didn't want to tell anyone about it, but I desperately needed to talk about how I was feeling. So I would sometimes make up scenarios that I felt would hypothetically cause the same sort of emotional distress and told people about them. Usually on nights out when alcohol had been involved. In hindsight, none of the stories were believable, and no doubt everyone who knew me then considers me to be a compulsive liar.

I never lied about anything just for the sake of it, or for attention exactly. I certainly never lied to impress anyone, or to make myself look good. It was just that I felt I was going to explode if I couldn't tell someone how I felt, and that was the only 'safe' way I could figure out to do it.

I don't do it anymore, probably mostly because I no longer have any particular desire to discuss my deepest feelings with anyone.

I'm a compulsive liar. It's because I was kidnapped by aliens as a child and forced to dress as a chicken.

I had a client who used to come out with the most ridiculous stories. Because it wasn't in any way relevant to the work I did for her, I didn't pay much attention to it, although I did pigeon-hole her as a drama queen, if not most unfortunate to have such bad luck, as her stories were always extreme.

It was only when her sibling (also a client) mentioned she was a compulsive liar that I actually bothered to stop and reflect more on what she'd told me. It was the enormity of the story that let her down - had she been much more conservative in her approach then I'm sure she'd have had me hooked, but the stories were so far-fetched at times that it was clear it couldn't be true. I don't know why she had to go so far, or why she thought the wider world would believe her.

There were other "red flags", such as a complete lack of self-awareness (or if she had any, she was ignoring it) and a heightened sense of importance...it's funny, because I had a neighbour for whom I could never believe a word she said, however, with her it wasn't so much a compulsion to lie, rather part of the problem was she frequently didn't possess all the components of the story she was telling so she'd throw in what she thought had gone on, and partly she liked to twist the narrative to show her as a victim. All lies, but almost as if they were a different sort of lie from an out & out untrue story. It's funny, because if someone really believed in their own lies, I could cut them a little more slack...with my neighbour, I'm convinced she knew that not much of what she said was actually how it had all happened, she just liked to word it so that we'd believe she was the victim in it.

Was that on a Thursday?