Compulsive/Pathological Liars

[stepka]

Originally Posted by stepka

That sounds just like my sister. She has absolutely no reason to lie, but does it anyway. I have come to 2 conclusions: 1. She doesn't really give a rip whether you believe her--she just doesn't want you to know the real truth, which I suspect is that she runs a 1-900-talkdirtytome business and/or sells drugs 2. She believes much of what she says--she wants it to be true so badly that she warps reality in her own mind. My aunt says she's a sociopath, which I looked up and she meets the whole description--most sociopaths are not ax murderers. Also, sociopaths rarely get dx'ed, b/c they don't think they have a problem.

She's had 3 kids and has abandoned all of them at some point--the last one ended up in the NYC social system and it took me 2 weeks to track him down--she had given a fictitious name. Of course none of it was her fault. I very much limit my contact with her--I haven't seen her in years--she hasn't spoken to me anyway, b/c I had much to do with rescuing her kids and getting them into good homes or raising them myself, so I'm a monster in her eyes--she knows she was a good mother. I call her "that lazy bird Maisie" from Horton Hatches the Egg.

Well I have come crawling back to correct a wrong that I did by writing this. It's on a public forum so I'm going to have to tell the rest of the story, no matter how bad it makes me sound.

I guess I'd better start by saying that not only are we speaking but we've become quite close, or at least what our family would consider close lol. One night I took her out to dinner and told her that I would never judge her again. From that point on, I'm pretty sure that she hasn't lied to me again. I say that with some certainty because she was always a really bad liar and I now realize that her lying was a reaction to the fact that: A. Our mother never did like her--I know now this is true B. Our father came on to her and then emotionally abandoned her (I know this is true b/c he did same to me too) and C. Our brother bullied her and I never even knew it. He did some things he was ashamed of and then cast her out of the family.

When she was 16 I had moved out as I was 6 years older and so even though I was not against her at that point, I wasn't there either. Yes that's a pretty dysfunctional family I know--we were white middle class and everyone else thought our parents were great.

Right before she was to graduate she took off on one of those magazine sales things that takes kids from their home with a promise of a great trip to the Bahamas but there's usually not a trip. She came home a couple of months later and then ran wild and when she got an offer to go to NY she took it. Who wouldn't? Yeah she got into some crazy stuff there but no hard drugs.

So I'm going to skip ahead quite a lot, to our mother's death 5 years ago. My mother went downhill fast and we had to get her moved and start looking for a nursing home all at the same time. My brother told my sis to get out of the house as his mother didn't want her there. (She had been staying as an informal caretaker for a couple of years.) He asked me to make the call and I was so stupid I did it. Gawd we were so self righteous. We gave her a couple of months but we weren't nice about it and she was working 16 hour shifts every day at that point. She ended up going back to NYC to get out of our way which means she wasn't there when my mother died very quickly a couple of weeks later. My brother never forgave her for that and she felt really bad b/c she could have been a big help and actually did on the few occasions we asked her.

So here's the joke on us part that fills me with delight for how things worked out: she inherited a big old farmhouse (even tho she's a city slicker lol) and that was mainly b/c my brother, the executor, didn't want her to have much cash and we couldn't sell the place. She moved in there and started remodeling it so she could sell it at a higher price and she has done an amazing job and with as little cash as possible. Rather than use cheap bldg materials tho, she would go back time and again to get paint people didn't want, etc and with imagination and creativity. . .all I have to say is that she has a gift.

The main thing I have taken away from this, besides the fact that I was so mistaken about my sister, is that no two kids are ever raised in the same family. I had no idea what she was going thru and our family had such poor communication skills that she never once knew how to ask for help and I never knew how to look for the signs. No that's a lie, I never wanted to see it. There, I'm crying. . .

[little pink]

Sociopaths are also pathological liars. I divorced one. Our sons no longer have anything to do with him because of his behavior, I taught my sons well apparently. What's interesting is that pathological liars are taught not born , so they had to have learned to lie from someone , in his cause its his mother . My ex will never be able to dig out of the grave he dug for himself with his lies.

[silibran]

Originally Posted by PassTheChocolate

I'm doing some research on a woman who has deceived many people and slandered/libelled numerous others. It has been a jaw dropping pursuit. I wonder how she became this way. I wonder even more how someone is able to lie to the point that they start to believe what they say and actually act on it. Even more, how she is going to react when all this info comes out? It is scary.

Have any of you known one? If so, did you confront them? How?

I believe we have one of these in the Oval office. So, how is that working? There is your answer. And it is scary.