Grandosity and lying

[Beach_Babe]

So my ex, if you remember received a civic award a few months ago. It was for "kindness and compassion " in his community, and accompanied by an Internet press release.  Well, the award is fake. He paid for it. I know this because his mother recently received the same thing, and the company that does this was reported to ripoff report as a scam. They will issue this "award" to anyone who pays. My friend even had one issued to her dog to prove this point. Lol. Wth? Who does this? I don't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for him. Geez.

[Beach_Babe]

How common is lying like this? Has anyone seen something similar with their ex? I'm thinking the grandosity is a NPD thing?

[Nextinline]

BB

Seems to me that lying and distortion of reality is common with people with these conditions.

I have just had the ultimate lie told to me over the last couple of months... .that she unconditionally loved me, wanted to marry me and be together forever.

So when I got down on one knee and gave her the rock about a week ago, I discovered that she was carrying on an affair with the ex-boyfriend that she begged me to get her away from some months earlier.

I don't care if these people are sick. They are cruel and inhuman sadists that happily destroy the lives of the people around them without a care in  the world.

[Beach_Babe]

Wow how awful! How did you find out?

[Michelle27]

I don't know if lying and grandiosity is a hallmark of BPD, but it sure was with my ex.  When we met 15 years ago, he worked for an airline cleaning airplanes.  He told me that he had been a pilot but had been "grounded" due to unexplained blood clots (believable because he was on blood thinners).  He had all kinds of stories from his "flying days" so it never occurred to me to question it.  Turns out, he was never a pilot.  His sister, a manager of the airline he worked for got him the job cleaning planes... .   I look back now and realize some things just didn't make sense... .his anger at his father for not "allowing" him to go to school (by financially helping him) to be a mechanic which is what he wanted was expressed often. Hmm... .he couldn't afford mechanic school by himself, but he could be a pilot?  I only found out after the final split.

[Suspicious1]

I never caught my ex out in a lie, but I do think he exaggerated lots of things to make himself look (what he perceived as) better than he was. He was very proud of having been a Police Officer and talked about it endlessly, but then I found that he'd only been one for about two years, ten years previously, before being asked to leave. If he'd done something once (been to a particular place), he'd say "I used to go there, sometimes I'd do this, sometimes I'd do that", then I'd find out he'd only been once. He exaggerated his popularity with women and his dating history, for example.

His biggest vanity (or grandiosity) was his fighting prowess. He'd say there wasn't a man alive he was afraid of, and he was OBSESSED with fighting. He also worked out every day and would get offended if people didn't notice his physique (which was not that special). He really wanted to be the strongest, toughest man out there, and was proud of his history of violence. Always made me shudder.

[Popcorn71]

If he'd done something once (been to a particular place), he'd say "I used to go there, sometimes I'd do this, sometimes I'd do that", then I'd find out he'd only been once. He exaggerated his popularity with women and his dating history, for example.

His biggest vanity (or grandiosity) was his fighting prowess.

He really wanted to be the strongest, toughest man out there, and was proud of his history of violence. Always made me shudder.

Sounds like my exBPDh.  Always exaggerating, but he told stories in such a way that they were believable.  I only picked up on this when I heard him tell tales of things we were supposed to have done.  I was there so I knew the truth.  What he told other people, was a bigger, better version.  He also liked to make out he was well off financially and dropped hints about this.

He had a reputation as a 'hard man' but I actually think that this was just him being a yob in his younger days.  However, he never missed a chance to tell a story about fights he had been in or how people were scared of him.

What a thing to be proud of!

[balletomane]

I think grandiosity is more an NPD thing. (This is not to say that people with BPD can't be grandiose - as with all mental health difficulties, not everyone experiences it the same way.) My ex was the opposite. He had serious problems with self-esteem and would sometimes refer to himself as scum. Unfortunately he could rarely accept comfort and reassurance. He would periodically get convinced that I was disgusted by him and that I was only dating him for some sinister purpose of my own. Then he would lash out at me and say lots of spiteful things. He would accuse me of lying for not admitting that I thought he was ugly. When I tried to reassure him that I didn't, he would just get angrier and more agitated and accuse me of manipulating him. He would tell me it was obvious that I was lying, and then the argument would move on to what a liar I am. By this point I would be frozen. I never knew how to handle it when he did this to me.

There was one day when he got really upset because two people in the launderette had looked at him, and from their faces he "knew that they wished I was dead, because they don't want to look at someone so disgusting". I tried to calm him down and suggested that he try to think it through more rationally: what are the chances of a launderette customer wishing death on another launderette customer whom they've never spoken to in their lives and just happened to glance at? He exploded at me, said I am too pretty and privileged to understand what it's like to be an object of disgust and hatred, made the usual accusation of lying, cried, cut himself. I managed to talk him out of that state but it took a long time. When he began his university study it was worse - he was getting very decent marks but he was convinced they were awful and he was a failure and he would never have a job, and any attempt to comfort him just led to him turning nasty on me.

Another person with BPD whom I know (not a romantic partner, a friend who has good insight into her condition and has actually come a long way towards a healthy life) used to lie about her past achievements, but not in a grandiose way. She used to copy mine. I learned to read very early and went to a special school for academically gifted children. She knew the school because she lives in the area. When she found out I'd been there, she immediately said that she could read before she was three too and she was nearly sent there, but her mother wouldn't agree to let her go. When she met my then-boyfriend (not the BPD ex, a healthy ex!), who had been at school with me and was now doing a computer science PhD, she immediately started talking about how she had taught herself programming languages as a child and had read university textbooks about computing, but she couldn't remember any of it because of the psych meds. I know all this isn't true. What stops it from being grandiosity is that she would also copy other people's problems. I have a physical disability (Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome - it causes chronic pain, joint hypermobility, and frequent dislocations, meaning I use a wheelchair) and she kept telling me she'd nearly been diagnosed with EDS too when she was admitted to the psych ward, because the staff thought that her joints seemed too mobile (?). I think that she used to try and copy people because she lacked a strong sense of identity of her own and she thought she would be more likeable to others if she was similar to them.