I am a liar...and I can't stop

I am a pathological/compulsive liar. It has turned into a huge problem in my life and amazingly I have been able to keep up it, though I'm sure some many people have caught onto my act.

I have told so many lies that I am basically starting to believe them myself. I grew up in an upper middle class Jewish neighborhood, and all my friends were Jewish and proud of it. While my dad is Jewish, my mother is not, making me not Jewish. Nonetheless I tell everyone that I am Jewish for some reason ( I guess it makes me unique in a way). My dad has never been a practicing Jew, but to reinforce the idea that I am Jewish I go along with the holidays, pretending like I am celebrating them. It's awful, I don't know why I do it.

I at one point told everyone that mother was dying of cancer , which is pretty far from the truth, just to basically get attention (this was in high school, I'm 25 now)

What made it kind of worse is there is girl that I met, and I really like her, I've basically telling her these Jewish lies. Exaggerating how much money I have (I guess that would be typical if I was just trying to get laid). I told her (and I've been telling people at work) that my dad's a doctor. Just little tiny lies, that mean nothing and get me nowhere, she doesn't give 2 flying ###$ if my dad's a doctor. I've come to realize that even though I like her, it's never going to happen, because these lies I've told are not possible to contain and she would probably pretty quickly realize that I am an asshole.

I realize that I am a bad person, but I really want to stop what I'm doing. I want to meet a girl, and I want to not worry about what if she discovers the truth. I don't have insurance so therapy really isn't an option. I don't want to talk to someone in my family or friends about it because they would probably just look at me like WTF?

Hi Crosby,
First off you are a sick person trying to get well and not a bad person trying to get good. Lying addiction is a disease and not a moral issue.

I need to differentiate between “PATHOLOGICAL LYING”, “COMPULSIVE LYING” and "LYING ADDICTION" for you. I define “Pathological Lying” as “the actions of someone who deliberately and intentionally lies for financial, material or some other gain with no care or consideration to how their lies will affect or harm others.” I define “Compulsive Lying” as “the compulsive need to lie as a normal and reflexive way of responding to life.” However, as “compulsive liars” often premeditate their lies as well as lie when driven by the compulsion to do so, I do not feel the term “compulsive liars” adequately covers the condition of lying as a reflexive way of life.

“ADDICTION” on the other hand is defined as “The fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity.” So, “LYING ADDICTION” is therefore “The condition of being addicted to lying as a normal and reflexive way of responding to life where the intention is not to cause harm to others.”

The symptoms of your addiction are very normal. It is part of the DNA of lying addiction that lying addicts will say people have cancer. The 2 most common big lies lying addicts say to others is that their loved ones have either died of cancer (usually multiple times to different people) or that their loved ones have been involved or killed in "car wrecks".

In order to get to the place where lying addicts are ready to reach out and accept help, they need to let their addiction run its natural course. All will unfold in time. In the meantime, until you are ready to come clean about your lies you will not come clean. Lying addicts need to feel they are more interesting than they believe they are and will not smash the image others have of them until they are on their knees with the consequences of their addiction. You may have to get to that point too before you will change. I hope you get to it sooner rather than later.

Big Hug,
Billi Caine