BPDFamily.com

I spoke to my sibling today and was struck by how she'd spin the truth and tell half truths on matters she knew she couldn't deceive me on but outright lied multiple times on matters she thought I was ignorant of.

Is it this way for many with BPD?

Is there a tendency to engage in outright falsehoods when they can?

My uBPDmom doesn't outright lie, but she's on the less-malicious side from what I see with other BPDs out there. My uBPDmil will make complete fabrications, often based on projected feelings (e.g., telling my husband that she knows he's jealous of the fact that he only has a Master's degree whereas his father attained a doctorate.   ... .my husband didn't do further schooling because he wanted to go ahead and get a good job instead, which he did) or on some kind of spastic attempt to protect herself from an imagined threat (once, she got a purebred puppy from a breeder a couple hundred miles away. As the puppy grew, he proved himself to be much less docile than a dog MIL had previously had. She threw a fit to the breeder and wanted to return him well past the trial period the breeder allowed. Finally, to get MIL off his back, the breeder said he'd make arrangements to pick up the dog and return her money. MIL threw a second fit, telling him that her grown son and his fiance had taken a shine to the dog and the breeder couldn't have him back. "My son's fiance even has the same name as me," she told him, for some unknown reason. Truth was, her son wasn't engaged or even dating at the time.?) Her falsehoods are bizarre enough that sometimes we can't tell how on earth she thought they'd be a help to her.

Mu uBPD mother LOVES embellishing on stories or will tell outright lies to one of my siblings, knowing full well that it is very easy for us to talk to each other and get the true story. We just let her go, listen with half an ear. We used to hate it when she would tell lies to our friends (either in person or over the phone) about us kids or our dad, about the horrible things we said to her or did to her. We would be right there or in the next room and she knew we could hear her, but she did it anyway. She will tell a lie over and over until it replaces the truth in her mind and she will argue until the cows come home against 2 or 3 other people who know the truth. But to her, the lie is the truth.

Drives me batty but it is the least damaging part of her illness because we all know not to believe a word she says (especially when she tries to turn one of us against the others).

My mother never used to be one for outright fabrications or *stories*, however, she is the master at making character assumptions... .strongly leaning towards the negative.  They were not lies as they were based on real situations but the cut and paste she did on issues left out the whole story, which usually revolved around ordinary instances of someone just trying to live their life.  She would assume the worst and take you to task on something based on her own perceptions... .and you would take yet another mental and emotional beating.  It got to the point where you ended up questioning your own version of things and the reality as you knew it... .some folks are very adept at spreading those eggshells!

Lately, however, she has started to outright lie... .and my GOD it frightens me.  With her physical illness and those around her willing to listen and enable her, I worry about the chaos. 

Hi ropend!  Oh yes - lies are a big thing for some BPDs.  I have a uBPDsis - have posted a lot about all the stuff she's put me through since my Mum died 18 months ago so won't go into it all here.  Last year when the nastiness was at its peak - it was the scale and madness of the lies that were being told about me to other people that made me realise something was really wrong - not just normal "hating" someone - though I didn't know why she suddenly seemed to hate me either, the lies didn't make sense, they served no purpose, even if people believed them - it didn't change anything - and the hardest thing for me was that she kept writing to me accusing me of all these dreadful things.  I couldn't understand it - as I thought - as we both knew it was untrue what was the point?  Now I know about BPD, I am still not sure if it was a form of gas lighting, or whether in fact she really believed these things at the time she wrote them. Over the last few months she has told huge and really mad whoppers to solicitors, estate agents, other people and they all see through it straight away, whereas I used to feel compelled to justify myself and prove that I hadn't done these things.  I don't bother any more because it's a waste of my time, and no-one takes it seriously anyway.  There is an interesting thread - ":)ealing With Lies" further down on this board.  The wake up call for me - was when she started this with me last year- I realised that all the victimisation and "poor me" stories of the last 20 years - which I'd thought were exaggerated and a ploy for sympathy and attention, but had assumed had some truth to them - were in all likelihood completely untrue as well, based on the fact that all the accusations against me have not had a single grain of truth in them, no connection to anything at all.  So be careful what you believe - if it doesn't make sense, or it sounds far fetched - it probably isn't true.  I wish you well.

Yes of course, and they also love to triangulate.  For example lying to one family member about interactions with another.

Oh yes.  Mine (mother with uBPD) routinely stretched the truth or outright lied to suit her needs.  Notable ones:  she made a big deal about "surgery" she'd had one time and how tired it made her.  Not knowing anything was wrong with her, I asked a bunch of questions and got nowhere.  When I pressed her about it, she finally said it was electrolysis.

Yeah, a few whiskers on her chin.     "Surgery."

Another big lie was sending over sacks of groceries one Christmas from "someone anonymous" (that's what the grocery delivery guy said) that suspiciously had every favorite thing of my children in them.  When I questioned her, she said she had "no idea" what I was talking about, and swore up and down that they didn't come from her. . . even though the day before, my children were at her house and had a specific food item they particularly enjoyed, and that food item was in quantity in the grocery bags.  A nice gesture?  Perhaps, but why lie and make a big production out of it?  Because that's what BPDs do.

Another huge one was when, after we adult children cut-off/set severe limits on her for stunts she pulled in the last two years, she sent (among other e-mails) an e-mail saying that she's been in therapy for many years, however, our Dad has refused to go "as always".  Several months later, a signed release from our Dad's therapist (per a condition of my brother in order for my Dad to begin a relationship with the brother again) was sent to all of us adult kids.  The date on the release about our Dad's therapy dates proved in a particularly damning way the evidence of her lie. 

In my experience, the answer to your question is a resounding YES.

Yes. Yes. Yes.  Faster than lightning.  My BPD sib would prefer to lie than tell the truth.  The story is never, ever same.  Tuesday becomes Monday, day is night, ad nauseam.  I seek verification for anything she says.

  Yes,  this is what's going on with me right now. My sister does what I call half twisted lies to my father about herself and me.  She's lives with my mother so Ive got a two against one senerio going on all the time.