Pathological Lying

[BigOof]

Does your blamer pathologically lie?

My blamer went CPS, told them a lie about child abuse, and then turn around and told me to take responsibility for my own actions. I proved by way of video the allegation was untrue. CPS then categorized the allegation as unfounded.

Does your blamer do anything this pathological?

[scraps66]

VERY common.

[ThanksForPlaying]

pwBPD told me once "I can't NOT stop at the liquor store when I'm supposed to be doing something else."

Sure, there's an alcoholic component to this. But I came to realize it's much more about self-sabotage. She WANTS something to lie about. Many times she would announce loudly that she was just going to run an errand (near the liquor store) and then of course come home drunk. But it was the LYING part that was feeding her urges, not necessarily just drinking. She said the urge was simply to be doing something other than what she knew was the responsible thing at the moment. Bizarre.

[BigOof]

My blamers latest move is to gaslight our D3.

Who lies to a 3-year-old?

[Turkish]

In Understanding The Borderline Mother, the author states that for a pwBPD, "lying feels like survival." If it's worked in the past, it works. Emotional survival.

When I confronted my ex about cheating, I had to ask her 3 or 4 times in a row until she admitted it.

Most lies are innocuous, though annoying and hurtful. Being accused of child abuse is severe and potentially life-changing. I glad that you had evidence!

[Notwendy]

I recall the shock at realizing my BPD mother lies- a lot. We grow up as kids trusting our mothers. As an adult, I learned just how much my own mother lies. Yet, she tells me she has never lied to me.

I agree with Turkish. I think she truly feels her lies are survival at the time, and so it feels justified to her.

[BigOof]

Notwendy, after learning how much your mother lies, do you have trust issues now? What are the impacts on past and present relationships? At what age did you figure it out?

[Notwendy]

I didn't find this out until middle age. While it makes sense to wonder what took me so long, it's because our family dynamics insisted "normalizing" BPD mother, and so nobody would explain her behavior to me. We had issues between us when I was a teen, but she blamed them on me. She also told me I was to blame for her issues with my father. I didn't understand what was going on, so I believed her. I left home to go to college and assumed all was fine. Since my parents also acted as if everything was fine, I didn't suspect anything. Of course, if things weren't when I visited, I assumed it was still my fault.

Once I married and had my own children, I saw how differently I parented from BPD mother. However, I knew I would not allow her to treat my kids the way she treated me, so her visits were always supervised and she didn't act up much. She was difficult to deal with but not completely acting up. I didn't have a lot of contact with her so there wasn't much opportunity to see her behavior.

My father had some health issues as he got older, and it was then that I began to spend more time around my parents. As a child, I could be convinced her behavior was "normal" or my fault, but not as an adult. I could also hear her speaking to people when I was around her and know she was lying. She would also say things about me to others that were not true and some of them asked me about that. ( some also didn't speak to me because one of her ways of doing this is to tell them something and then tell them to not tell me about it) and when I asked her about them, she denied saying them. But I knew she did- the people who asked me were reliable sources.

Do I have trust issues? That's interesting. I grew up being too trusting. I didn't have that boundary to question what someone said to me and I think that's a result of being expected to not question my mother or her behavior even if I wondered about it. That sense of "this can't be right' was not supported by my parents growing up. I was expected to obey my mother and not ask about any of her behavior.

I trusted my father implicitly. But he was her enabler and in a sense, didn't always honor that trust. Anything I said to him, even in confidence, was shared with her. I trusted my relationship with him but he also would dismiss it if my mother wanted him too. I perceived him as my only parent and loved him, but saw that he'd sell me out to please her. I think a girl's #1 trust is her Dad, and I grew up that way. Once that trust is broken, it's hard to trust someone like that. So, admittedly, I have trust issues now but maybe it's just not being too trusting. While it was a shock to know my mother lies, I am not as attached to her as I was my father, whose behavior had a larger effect on who I trust.