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? All of us do lie whenever it is convenient however, white lies is basically harmless if spoken with the right intention. The reasons why a person lies can 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 with it. Lies being told for no rhyme or reason can damage your life to a great extent, professionally and personally as well. This brings to my mind a friend at work who used to lie for no reason. She often told stories about her personal life and when we discovered the truth was nowhere close to the stories she spoke, it filled us with great curiosity to know what was her motive. With time I realized, probably it has to do something with her state of mind. These were probably symptoms of a pathological liar.

Identifying a pathological liar may take time for any individual. Pathological liars often exaggerate issues. In this case, a person may not be lying deliberately. He/she would think and believe in their lies completely. A pathological liar would thus concoct lies in public to make people believe new stories. They begin to live in these stories. They often lie for many reasons, one of this being to have their own way in various activities. In this case, the person may seem rather self-centered with very little respect towards other people’s feelings. The person may speak lies to even enhance their image in public.

Symptoms of a Pathological Liar:
A pathological liar would always tend to exaggerate about things. He/she would always talk about many things in a much broader perspective. Their daily life often includes such far-fetched sentences about many things. It could be a simple issue that may not even hold too much importance for you.

These kinds of liars would be noticed easily because they tend to change their stories frequently. It may so happen that a pathological liar may not really be able to keep a record of stories that are fabricated as per his/her imagination and this may be noticed very easily in any normal situation.

These liars often lie in situations whenever they find it easy to do so. A simple situation is often used to their advantage by such liars.

They often go on the defensive whenever anyone cross-examines the person. This happens 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.

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.