Why all the lying?

[poedameron]

I'm still trying to deal with the split with my week old exBPD... .It's been impossible it seems, I'm depressed, crying myself to sleep... .and all I want to do is call her, hold her, etc. and I can't do that.  The only thing that helps is to remind myself of the awful ways she treated me at times, including the lying.

I haven't found much to indicate why BPD's lie... .and maybe not all do.  My exBPD's first big lie was about 2 months after we met, and she faked a phone call from her doctor tell her the results of a test that indicated she had stage IIb stomach cancer.  I was crushed, but I decided to support her and stay in the relationship, despite the fact that I was pursing a relationship with a potentially very sick young woman.

We were LDR at the time, and she went through how she was going through natural treatments, told me how the doctor came to her house and was pissed at her and that she need surgery right now.  This charade went on for 8 months... .with the latest scans showing her treatments were working... .she once even got on a Skype call crying her eyes out, asking what was wrong she told me that a new scan had come back and the tumor had shrunk 50%.  

Obviously this whole thing put me through emotional hell, as I was falling deeper in love with this woman, yet was trying not to get to close in case things went bad with the cancer as I knew I would be a wreck.

I saw old text messages from a couple years earlier to her friends telling them how she had cancer and she was on chemo, etc.  I don't know if she really had it then, or was lying then too.

She also claimed to have an abusive paternal father who beat her into a coma when she was 16... .which caused an internal brain bleed that was operated on around this same time.  She skyped with me with a bandage on her head, but it seemed to be better in a couple days... wanting to believe she couldn't lie to me like this, I believed her.  This too was a lie.  Her paternal father never beat her, and is actually the man she called her step dad.

She lied about having a miscarriage... .twice... .both were abortions.  I think she may have lied about a 3rd miscarriage, when she was simply cramping because she seemed better in a couple days.

She then lied about where she was and who she was with on too many occasions to count.  Whenever I would confront her on this, she would cry or get angry and tell me I don't know the whole story... .but would never tell me what that was.  She would also project and tell me I lie too.

When she moved across the country to live with me, I sat her down and told her that had to stop.  She agreed.  That lasted a month or two before she began to lie about where and who she was with, and she would lie to her friends about being with me.  She explained that's because she knew I wouldn't approve of where she was (she was somewhere we agreed she should not go previously), so lying would protect me.  OK, so I was too controlling I think in that respect, but she didn't stand up for herself and agreed with my boundaries... .and I get them the logic behind that lying even though it caused more problems.

But this cancer and medical crap (she was a nurse)... .I was already falling hard for her, there was no logical reason to lie about these things to suck me in... .heck it even made me hesitant to commit to the relationship at times because this woman seemed to be sick all the time!

So why all this lying?  What is she trying to gain from this?  And why can she not help herself from doing that to me, to her friends, to her family... .etc.  EVERYONE gets lies from her, and it's pretty impossible to trust anything she says.  

[Pretty Woman]

It's all a sick f'd up game. Remember, we are dealing with people with the maturity of a 3yo.

Everything is a lie. "I love you" means "I need you".

You are only as special as their needs in that moment. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so readily replaced.

They lie because people believe their lies. We believed them at the beginning when we thought their ex was an abusive douchebag.

It's a horrible thing not being able to trust your lover and then realize they never truly loved you... .at least not in an adult love sort of way. 

[Michelle27]

I only recently discovered that my stbxh (uBPD) lied to me the entire 15 years of the relationship telling me he had been a pilot but was medically grounded after blood clots.  He said he fell into a "grey area" of the contract and so they gave him a job cleaning planes.  I had no reason not to believe him because I'm not the kind of person to care what a person does (or did) for a living.  Finding out that was a lie he kept up with stories from his flying days puts into question everything he ever said to me.  There were lots of other lies, including a year long affair with a friend of mine, but this one about being a pilot blows my mind more than anything else. 

I think the lies come easy to them because they don't know who they are, hate what they are so inventing things is the only way to escape it.

[poedameron]

I'm so sorry to hear that michelle... .I know how hurtful that can be... .to suddenly realize someone you thought you knew is not that at all... .and then you question anything they say... .that's where I was before leaving her... .I just could never believe anything she said, it was impossible.  Your reasoning makes logical sense... .

One other thing my father told me... .he thinks the BPD actually believes some of these lies, almost like they live in a different reality... .they've created their own reality as a defense against their fears... .is there any truth to this?

[reflection]

Her lying about cancer and the beating was likely a way to control you into caring for her. As pwBPD are insecure and afraid of abandonment, she was trying to play the wounded duckling and draw the white knight out of you and have you be there for her out of duty. Her lying about the miscarriages was possibly due to her guilt; perhaps she can only accept her made up version that they were miscarriages. I do believe that lying is a defense mechanism for them.

[mimi99]

One other thing my father told me... .he thinks the BPD actually believes some of these lies, almost like they live in a different reality... .they've created their own reality as a defense against their fears... .is there any truth to this?

This is the thing that makes the most sense to me, poedameron. My BPD D24 lies to others all the time about being abused, having multiple illnesses, etc. I think she really believes most of the things she says. The high anxiety level BPDs experience seems to amplify everything to the crisis level, therefore a hint of a urinary tract infection turns into "kidney failure", etc. Of course, putting a bandage on ones head and claiming to have a brain hemorrhage is over the top, but BPDs so often are. I read here that BPDs are not really capable of purposely manipulating us, but it's hard to accept that given what we see in our own lives on a daily basis.

[Gonzalo]

One other thing my father told me... .he thinks the BPD actually believes some of these lies, almost like they live in a different reality... .they've created their own reality as a defense against their fears... .is there any truth to this?

Everything I've read on BPD and my personal experiences all agree with that. They have really intense emotions and most of the behaviors are defense mechanisms to shield them from the emotion. The biggest practical effect is that, for the pwBPD, feelings create facts, so they earnestly believe whatever it that their brain has come up with because to believe otherwise would be too painful. That's also why it's so easy to accept what they say, you don't get a sense that they are lying because they're not actually saying something they believe to be untrue - it just doesn't match reality.

[FigureIt]

It's all a sick f'd up game. Remember, we are dealing with people with the maturity of a 3yo.

Everything is a lie. "I love you" means "I need you".

You are only as special as their needs in that moment. Otherwise, you wouldn't be so readily replaced.

They lie because people believe their lies. We believed them at the beginning when we thought their ex was an abusive douchebag.

It's a horrible thing not being able to trust your lover and then realize they never truly loved you... .at least not in an adult love sort of way. 

I completely agree with this! I think they use lies to make them seem important or to make them better. My uBPDbf lied to his work that my D9 was going to be gone with her father for 2 weeks so he was taking her and I to breakfast so that's why he was taking the day off.

When I saw he lied I wanted to confront him, but he'd just lie more. It makes me sick!

[Invictus01]

One other thing my father told me... .he thinks the BPD actually believes some of these lies, almost like they live in a different reality... .they've created their own reality as a defense against their fears... .is there any truth to this?

That's pretty much spot on. In their mind, those aren't lies. The thing is - they had to lie to survive from the very young age. When your whole life becomes a lie, it's not a lie to you, it's just your life... .

[FigureIt]

One other thing my father told me... .he thinks the BPD actually believes some of these lies, almost like they live in a different reality... .they've created their own reality as a defense against their fears... .is there any truth to this?

That's pretty much spot on. In their mind, those aren't lies. The thing is - they had to lie to survive from the very young age. When your whole life becomes a lie, it's not a lie to you, it's just your life... .

But what about those that didn't have a bad home life. They were the "perfect son" and are still seen that way. Why do they lie?