Symptoms of a Pathological Liar

How often have we told ourselves we hate lies? Yet, we do resort to speaking some amount of lies for various reasons. We lie when it is convenient for us and it is considered that 'white lies' are basically harmless if spoken with the right intention. The reasons for why a person lies could be many - it could be to cover up for something or even to get out of a situation. However, the problem starts when one becomes habituated to it. Lies being told for no rhyme or reason can damage your life to a great extent - professionally and personally as well. This fact reminds me of a friend at work who used to lie for no apparent reason. She often told stories about her personal life, and when we discovered the truth, it was nowhere close to the stories she related. It filled us with great curiosity to know what her motive behind lying was. With time we realized that it probably had something to do with her state of mind. These were probably symptoms of a pathological liar.

Pathological Liar Symptoms

Identifying a pathological liar may take time for any individual. Yet if one learns to identify the varied signs of the same, one will be able to identify a particular pattern that is followed by these liars. In this following section, we will look through certain pathological liar symptoms.

Their daily life often includes highly far-fetched sentences about many things, from complex to simple. These liars often lie in situations for convenience and whenever they find it easy to do so. A simple situation is often used to their advantage by such liars. They will lie about simple things which serves no purpose, really.

Pathological liars often exaggerate issues. They tend to take a simple story and exaggerate it to such an extent that it often seems ridiculous. They do not realize that they are doing this. They may also use very generic stories and relate them in a very broad perspective to make it sound believable. This they do because they want their story to be the best among others.

A person may not be lying deliberately. He/she believes in the lies completely. A pathological liar would thus concoct lies in public to make people believe new stories. They begin to live these stories. This stems from their need to have the last word or to beat everyone's stories. They often lie for many reasons, one of these being, to have their own way in various activities. In this case, the person may seem rather self-centered with very little respect for other people's feelings. The person may speak lies to even enhance their image in public.

Most pathological liars have low self-esteem and therefore they use their stories to put themselves in better light and feel important. In doing this, they will concoct such stories which have no grain of logic and reason in them. These stories are so far-fetched that it becomes easy to identify them as lies.

One of the simplest ways to identify pathological liars is to catch their lies. It is comparatively easy to do this because these liars tend to change their stories frequently. One day they may say something and the next they may change the facts of the same. A pathological liar may not be able to keep a record of the stories that he/she has fabricated as per his/her imagination. Which then becomes easy to catch.

If one is to catch these lies and confront them about the same, they often become defensive and uncomfortable. They tend to get defensive even if you ask an innocent question in relation to the given situation. A pathological liar would tend to feel threatened when questioned. This could explain their reaction to any questions asked. Another reaction to being confronted is that they may pile on more lies to get out of the situation at hand.

Pathological liars have no remorse when lying. They do not think that it is bad to lie. They do not worry about the consequences either. They simply lie and go on with life as if nothing is wrong.

These people do not value honesty and are known to relate events and incidents that have been told in confidence to others. While doing so they may also exaggerate the facts as well. Thus they can't really be trusted with secrets.

A pathological liar must be handled carefully if you wish to help the person change this habit. These liars would need to be reminded gently about their behavior by pointing out their little bits of lies. Do not blame them for the lies, as many times, they are not even aware about what is being said by them. You might need to use professional help to tackle extreme cases.