Compulsive Lying -Steps to Recovery?

I'm 16 and, as you can see by my username, I'm a compulsive liar. The guilt from lying always makes my physically ill, but I just can't stop doing it. It's automatic! I can just be saying something and a lie just slips right out. I realize it almost immediately, but what can I do?

I REFUSE to tell my parents of my problem; therefore, I can't get therapy for it. They are the types of parents that believe these types of people only do it for attention. I've only ever confessed my problem to one friend and she only replied, "Yeah, I've noticed." We never spoke of it again and I feel sickened every time I talk to her, because SHE NOTICED! How many other people have noticed and not said anything? How many other people know what a disgusting creature I am?

I've seen topics about people being in relationships with compulsive liars and feeling the need to leave them. I'm sincerely afraid somebody I may love one day will become the person writing it. I writhe in guilt every night and try to mask myself every day. My self-esteem is below freezing and I've come to have trouble conversing with people.

My birth-mother, her mother, and my half-sister are both bipolar. My maternal grandmother claimed my mother to be a rape baby, but she's also a compulsive liar so nobody knows for sure. Now that I think about it, I think my mother is as well. My parents divorced shortly after I was born and I have had little contact from all three since. My father and step-mother is very confident I'm not bipolar; although, I may not agree. My parents are always talking bad about them when they're brought up, which is why I know how they feel about this.

Can anyone help me?

Hi There,
I so felt your agony in your words. Lying addiction (my word for what you have) is a truly horrific addiction which consumes the soul with self hatred which you so profoundly shared with us here.

Just to say first of all though that you are not a "disgusting creature". You are a sick person trying to get well not a bad person trying to get good. Lying addiction is a disease not a moral issue.

To help you understand yourself, I recommend you read these posts I wrote. They explain what lying addiction is and the psychology of why lying addicts lie. I also wrote another post on how to stop lying which I have included here too.

compulsive-lying/topic103034.html

compulsive-lying/topic115788.html

compulsive-lying/topic116107.html

As for therapy... in all the research I did, most if not all those who went for traditional therapy found it did not help them as the therapist did not understand the condition or see it as an addiction so were unable to help them. In addition, lying addicts lied in the sessions too so therapy fell flat on it's face for that reason too.

Hang on in there. There is hope for you. If you are determined to change and have a happier future than your present, then you can. Period. It will just take a decision, a temporary rough ride to detox from your drug and the determination to go to any lengths to live an honest life all of which are possible. Addicts get well every day from their addictions and you are no exception.

Good Luck and Big Hug,
Billi Caine

Billi,

Can you recommend a form of therapy that is useful for helping to recover from compulsive lying? Would a 12 step group like CODA be useful? I have just been able to articulate that i am have a lying addiction and am in need of help.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

Hi There,
High five on having the courage to admit that you are a lying addict. That is such an amazing first step.

In relation to help for lying addiction, if you click on my website under my name to the right of this answer, that takes you to a Recovery Kit I created for lying addicts and their loved ones.

In addition, a woman called Laura O founded "Liars anonymous" which is set up as a 12 step program but at present does not have their own website, any literature, no meetings - either online or physical - nor discusses their addiction within 12 step parameters yet as they are so young in their fellowship. Their current home is as shown below but I see a member by the name Shame Cycle is already registered there so maybe you already know about it...

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/liars-anonymous

Outside of my Kit, 2 books I have on Kindle (one explaining the mindset of Lying Addicts and the other the mindset of the loved ones of lying addicts) and Laura's very young fellowship that is the sum and substance of mainstream help for lying addicts at this point in time. I hope that will change as more and more people start discussing lying as an addiction and lying addicts can start supporting each other more which I hope will eventually force the mental health field to take them seriously by studying their condition as an addiction and not as some warped willful behavior done by monsters.

Big Hug,
Billi

Billi Caine wrote:Hi There,
High five on having the courage to admit that you are a lying addict. That is such an amazing first step.

In relation to help for lying addiction, if you click on my website under my name to the right of this answer, that takes you to a Recovery Kit I created for lying addicts and their loved ones.

In addition, a woman called Laura O founded "Liars anonymous" which is set up as a 12 step program but at present does not have their own website, any literature, no meetings - either online or physical - nor discusses their addiction within 12 step parameters yet as they are so young in their fellowship. Their current home is as shown below but I see a member by the name Shame Cycle is already registered there so maybe you already know about it...

http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/liars-anonymous

Outside of my Kit, 2 books I have on Kindle (one explaining the mindset of Lying Addicts and the other the mindset of the loved ones of lying addicts) and Laura's very young fellowship that is the sum and substance of mainstream help for lying addicts at this point in time. I hope that will change as more and more people start discussing lying as an addiction and lying addicts can start supporting each other more which I hope will eventually force the mental health field to take them seriously by studying their condition as an addiction and not as some warped willful behavior done by monsters.

Big Hug,
Billi

Thanks for your reply and kind words of support...I will look for your books on my Nook and see if they are available. I am interested in learning as much as I can so that I can get my life under control.

Thanks again.

The books are only available on Amazon Kindle for now unfortunately. That changes at the end of September.

Good luck with your recovery. Keep posting on here. Any addict reaching out for help at the rock bottom stage needs a lot of help and support - especially in the absence of 12 step meetings.

Dear All,

I was also wondering about a 12 step program or such as I am looking for anyway to help the mother of my son.

I quick background and why i am so concerned. I will attempt to be as neutral as possible. I am here looking for help not to bash.

When I met Claire (not her name but felt i needed a name than typing "her" over and over.)

When i met Claire I had just broken up from my fiancee, and I currently live in South America though I am from the UK, here there is a culture among the women of a group that are called "Gringo Hunters" women who look to trap a foreigner to get married and taken out of the country, my ex fell into this category, and only after 3 years and returning to her native country did this become apparent.

So I was a little nervous about dating someone new, until some friends of mine wanted to introduce me to a friend of theirs form school. I was told I need not worry as their friend had been born in the UK and went to school in the UK.

So I met Claire, initially to make friends and see, without the concern of being worried whas this a gringo hunter.

We hit it off from the get go, and over the follow months while with her friends from school and my friends we dated talked and all the things that you do, turned out her father had been in the British army and she was born in the UK when her mother and father were there and her aunts lived there.

Because she was sickly when born and her parents had to return to colombia for the rest of the family she was left with her aunts and so when she recovered her parents had paid for her to go to a boarding school in the uk. Then after school she had travelled and lived in sweden, poland and spent a year in africa on a wild life reservation while getting a degree in vet science from RVC in London.

At 8 years old she was diagnosed with Cancer and had to be moved to a hospital in the UK and she remained there until she was 13. these were stories told in of everyone and all people, her friends from school had told me most of it before CLaire ever did so it was being confirmed by different people she knew over the last 14 years of her life. And she worked in a zoo as a vet surgeon.

Every morning she took hormone replacement pills and kept them by the side of our bed, as a after effect of the chemo. I was in love with this girl so red flags did not really rise up especially as all her friends for the last 14 years knew this history.

During the next couple of years she had a couple of years little things didnt add up about one or two things but the stories were consistent so i didn't really look into them. Until it turned out she had been cheating on, multiple times, saying she was at work and wasnt and so on.

Due to the fact she had been left in the UK when her parents returned to their native country she was resistant to them so did not really enjoy the idea of me meeting them more than if they came to collect her for a family thing in the car, never long enough to talk to them or her sister or brother.

Then on the day our son was born Claire had a C section so I had to fill in our sons birth certification, her mother and father and sister were there so I asked them to help me fill in the document.

During this I found out she was not born outside Colombia and in fact had never left this country. Upset I went for a walk and her sister followed me to ask what was wrong as i had not felt it my place to out her to her parents. Her sister asked and i told her and then i said "well i have heard of cancer survivors using lies as an armor in the past" to which her sister replied that Claire had never had cancer but she her sister had had.

Following on from this our relationship went down hill, more evidence came in of affairs and in the year before she got pregnant over 800 sessions of cybersex from dating sites and such.

For my son i have tried my hardest to remain on good terms with her. I asked her to see a professional to help with this, and she promised she would and lied to say she was going.

Following a six month break from the relationship while she still lived with me cause our son was so small, we tried again based on her seeing the professional to help. obviously that turned out also to be a lie. I asked and was promised that she would stop telling these stories as i did not want my son affected by them. And children and parents of children can pick up on this kind of thing and whenhe went to school in a few years it would only be a matter of time before someone would find out and he might be bullied. and school is tough enough.

Again promises. then just recently I found out that feb 2015 when our son was 4 months old she brought some men back to our appartment while i was at work and our son was in the house.

and then even though we were dating from october 2015 till june 2016 she was dating another British guy, and he was told not to contact me as she had broken up with me cause i cheated on her and was a drunk and had hit her, (context point I have been tea total since i was 24 i am now 42,never cheated, and i have five sisters and a single mother is the environment i grew up, if i ever laid a hand on a woman my family would never forgive me, and i would never forgive myself)

SHe told him she was from Britain and had had cancer when she was 17 and had returned to Colombia when she was 20. During this time she had a job working as a translator and had me and her mother look after our son as she had to travel for the work for three weeks. Turns out that she met a man on a dating site, arranged for him to visit the country and then met him at the airport, and spent three weeks with him. all the while having unprotected sex. and then at weekends she would return to our home and tell me she wanted a daughter and that she loved me and so on....

At first i thought these stories were a way of making her the center of attention but she tells them to any one she meets, for example the language here is Spanish and mine is ok, one time in the mechanics getting my motorbike fixed i was talking to the mechanic working on my bike, we were in a town 250km away from our home on a long bike ride, breaks failed so bike fix... we are never likely to go back to this town and never to that mechanic again. in a break in the conversation with the mechanic working on my bike i over here Claire telling the manager when he asked where i was from, that both of us where from the UK and though her parents are COlombian she was born in the UK.

My trust in her has been destroyed and everytime i try and rebuild it so as to not have my son growing up with parents who are apart from each other, the lies continue or promises are made and not kept or i find out about another man she has cheated on me on. a few times i asked her if i am just a back up choice until she finds someone better and i am a second choice as she clearly needs to go else were though we have an active (did have) life. she always answers that she loves me more than she can think and i am not a second choice i am the first. (does not seem to occor that it should be not first or second it should be only). and that because my sex drive is so high she cheats cause she feels she can not keep up so she wants to practice (needless to say that answer led to an argument), or cause she is jealous of a friend i have or some other reason.

The massive concern i have now is we have a son. she is still taking the pills for the cancer that she never had and has just started giving our son immunity boosters, turns out (having taken them to a doctors here) the immunity boosters are for cows she got them from her vet practice.

Also the CV she has given for her jobs says she has degrees from the UK at a masters level when she only has an undergraduate from a university here. this is illegal in this country with up to a 5 year prison sentence if caught.

A professor of psychology friend of mine here has told me that he is worried that she might have Huntingtons but he does not know as they have never met.

I am just wanting to stop her lying and protect my son. I am so worried that if she is prepared to take pills for the cancer, and has had tattoos for when people in her cancer ward died, for example a panda tattoo on her ribs for a friend who went though chemo with her who died in 2013. if she is prepared to make up lies of fictitious people who died there has been more than one. Always lining up with us being in a bad patch. (i realize it was done to get sympathy and manipulate me way from being upset at her) but if she is willing to take sealed medicine from blisterpacks and get tattoos to further this lie. I am so so worried about if she would put our son at risk to continue her being the center of attention the "your such a strong person to survive cancer" or "you are the bravest person i know" are comments i have heard her friends saying.

I do not want to humiliate her by outing her lies to her friends and family but i know just asking her to do something has no effect.

can someone please help

This is the part that alarms me greatly :

LimitReached wrote:The massive concern i have now is we have a son. she is still taking the pills for the cancer that she never had and has just started giving our son immunity boosters, turns out (having taken them to a doctors here) the immunity boosters are for cows she got them from her vet practice.

Does she work at a Vet's office ? Is she stealing this stuff or having it given to her from a source there ? This needs to be stopped immediately . If you are aware that it is happening and you do nothing , you are also complicit . The doctor who discovered what she is giving him may be able to help you .

She is a grown woman with an illness that she cannot control , there is nothing you can do if she refuses to get help or acknowledge her problem . All you can do is protect your son . If you feel he is in danger , it is imperative that you get him out of that environment .

I wish you well .

NewSunRising wrote:This is the part that alarms me greatly :

...Does she work at a Vet's office ? Is she stealing this stuff or having it given to her from a source there ? This needs to be stopped immediately . If you are aware that it is happening and you do nothing , you are also complicit . The doctor who discovered what she is giving him may be able to help you .

She is a grown woman with an illness that she cannot control , there is nothing you can do if she refuses to get help or acknowledge her problem . All you can do is protect your son . If you feel he is in danger , it is imperative that you get him out of that environment .

Thank you for your wishes. She works at a vets practice as one of their Doctors. It greatly concerns me also. The problem is here until clear proof of endangerment courts always find in favour of the mother. I have already spoken to family lawyers here and we are watching the situation as closely as we can.

She has in the last few day, following lots of arguments finally promised never to give him anything from the vets again and only give him stuff a human doctor prescribes a big fight as she believes that as a vet cause she had to study as long as a human doctor and study more species she believes she has better medical training.

so I will see if she keeps this promise. but yes it worries the hell out of me.

That is a good step forward at any rate . Do you think she would agree to go to counseling as a couple ? You might be able to get her to co-operate more easily ( and actually attend the sessions ) if you frame it as " We need to get some help with this relationship . " instead of trying to force her to admit she has a problem .

The cheating ( if it is still going on ) is putting you at risk for STDs . Please take steps to protect yourself .