This is a story about a pathological liar I once dated. I live in Canada where French is one of our two official languages. It is the dominant language in Quebec. I live in Newfoundland. In University, I had to study a second language and chose French because it was kind of the default choice for most people. I sucked at it. I am not shy about admitting, I sucked at studying French. I don't think I would have done much better with any other language. I failed multiple times but eventually I passed. My ex had a similarly bad experience. She also sucked at studying French. She also failed multiple times. She didn't eventually pass, she instead got the requirement waived on the basis off disability and did linguistics courses instead. I am undecided if she genuinely couldn't do it because of her autism and ADHD or if she was a lazy ass who fell back on the excuse not to try. I also have autism but of course not everyone with autism has the same abilities. Either possibility is plausible. But anyway, the point is she sucked at French, whether it was because of disability or not. One day we were hanging out at the movie theatre. My ex knows a lot more about politics than I do. She was telling me some kind of story about some laws being discriminatory against French speakers in our country. I cannot verify if it was true or not. Then she said something in French. Despite both sucking at French we did both know SOME French. But she then felt a need to tell a story to explain why she doesn't use her French knowledge more often, and claim that she in fact has lots of knowledge of French but keeps it hidden due to the prejudice against French speakers in this country, as though speaking French in Canada puts you in danger of persecution. I have no idea why I didn't call her out on her lie and point out that she spent YEARS struggling to pass French. Why do people lie like this? Honestly, from the many years I knew her, I honestly don't think she was consciously aware that she was lying. I think she actually believes her own lies. I think her brain is constantly rewriting her own perception of her life story. Constantly making excuses for everything. She can't make sense of her own life and just constantly makes up ways to explain how one event connects to the next. There was this video I saw by CGP Grey on YouTube that talks about the split brain and how one side of your brain has already made a decision before the other side consciously reasons through and articulates the decision. My ex is evidence that this is true. Her brain is constantly writing and rewriting excuses for every decision, retconning her past decisions to fit her new perception of things. I have an aunt who behaves similarly. Some people are just shockingly inconsistent in their own personality and don't seem consciously aware of it.
Well autism, ADHD, or not...her personality seems exhausting. If you lie, what does that make you? _ _ _ _ _.
You come online to complain in this much context about someone who lies? Sounds like you're looking for attention and this is the only place you can justify posting it because you can't confront the person and bring it up in person like an adult. Does it affect your life? Did it change your whole perception of reality? If it did see a psychiatrist. Someone else's actions shouldn't affect you this much unless you have underlying issues yourself.
You don't want to be always wondering if she's telling the truth. She's weak for lying to you, you need to ask yourself now if you can tolerate this behavior ,and for how long.
I didn't read the op that way. I saw it as being less about the person lying and more about the process of why people lie. The ex was an example. The OP has made many threads about various topics for the purposes of discussion, which is why we're here, right?
It's a little bit of both. I was high last night and pondering the phenomena of people like my ex and my aunt who have little internal consistency and don't even seem aware of their own habit of constantly making up reasons for things and lying to themselves. It is something I find intellectually fascinating. On the other hand, the rude person telling me off about it is right to some extent that I sometimes unhealthily obsess about my ex. I have fears of being like them. I am like them in some good ways as well as some bad ways and kind of obsess out of fear of sharing her bad habits.
I suppose we all lie but not all of us lie for the same reasons. My dad was rather windy, he'd occasionally tell lies that made whatever past experience he'd had sound better from his perspective but as far as I know he never told harmful lies. He would never claim a car or boat he was selling was in better condition than it was but he did lie about small things like the size of a watermelon he'd once grown or a fish he'd caught. I can't relate that to the reasons for the lies told by your ex. Some people are pathological liars who tell lies for reasons we can't understand, others have self-esteem issues and lie for attention or a personality disorder and manipulate others by lying. Some people lie simply to get their ass out of a crack. My lies are usually more like my dad's lies and meant to make me sound smarter than I am or more experienced but even though I know I occasionally embellish, I still consider myself an honest person so maybe I have a bit of self-deception going on.
I always wonder about stuff like that too. I should have taken some psych courses to learn more about the human mind and human condition. I wonder if it's a cognitive dissonance defence mechanism of some sort. Instead of accepting your own faults or reality you spin a tale and delude yourself to avoid the dissonance.
Ya, nothing wrong with having a little fun and bullshitting. I was talking about the pathological liars like the OP and Ed described.
Is it really true yalls president/pm is fido Casto illegitimate son? They said his mom had an affair with him at about the time he was conceived. I just read an article somewhere and I have been wondering. Figured I would ask a Canadian and maybe they would know More about them at story??