Wondering if my friend is a compulsive liar.

Hi everyone, I just wanted to know if maybe anyone could shed some light on whats going on with my friend. My best friend and I are freshmen in college, roommates, and both pitchers on our schools softball team. Since day one she seemed like someone who had everything put together, she does great in school and things just seem to come naturally easy to her while I have to work hard for the same things. Things were great for the first semester and looking back I never noticed anything that could have made me suspicious that she could be a compulsive liar.

I just started putting pieces together about two months ago when she told was telling me something that seemed fairly far fetched. She was telling me that she had dated a guy who had went on to play basketball at OSU and then went on to play in the NBA. This was suspicious to me because we had been very good friends for a long time before that and I feel like she would have said something about it before. I looked it up and yes, they're from the same area but went to different schools and they're about 4 years apart. It's not too out of question, but it made me listen out for more of her stories.

Another thing I've noticed is when she tells people things about her day to day life is that she spins the truth a little too much, and I know this because I was their when it happened. For example she was telling some girls on the team who were complaining about a class that she had the previous semester and she told them that she struggled and ended up with a B in the class when I know for a fact that she got an A. That's just a minor example. I've also caught her in a lie when she told me about a professor emailing her her grade and she said she was getting a 67. This worried me because I know she doing better than me in that class, so I asked her what happened. She told me it was for lack of participation. Then someone else asked her and she told them a different grade. I asked her about the different grade and then she just sort of started talking about how she actually just added everything up instead.

It's just a suspicion I have, it doesn't seem too extreme but it just bothers me that she must be incredibly stressed if she has to start spinning the truth so much about pointless things. She's also been really snappy recently. Should I ask her about it or hope it goes during summer break when shes back home?

Hi Adair,
It could be that your friend is a compulsive liar (or what I call "lying addict") as you suspect and if so her bottom line for lying would be because she is not happy with who she is as a person and feels the real her is not enough so she has to embellish. To help you understand the psychology of lying addicts more fully, I suggest you read this post I wrote about why lying addicts lie...

compulsive-lying/topic115788.html

In relation to asking her about it... if you was to she would freeze inside and one of 2 things would happen... either she would say nothing and just feel utterly mortified and unable to respond at all or she would deny lying outright. It sounds like she is not an escalated lying addict yet (if indeed she is one) so it may be some time before she is ready to own and accept it so confronting her would be a waste of time. My suggestion would simply be to call her respectfully on any lies from hereon in that you DEFINITELY know to be lies so she experiences the consequences of her addiction (if she is an addict) which will help her get to her rock bottom faster.

Warmest,
Billi Caine

Thank you so much for your reply. I 'll definitely use your advice because the last thing I want is to hurt her. She's my best friend and I'm just really worried and I don't want it to get any worse for her sake. Thank you so much! If it persists do you think I should contact her dad or something and talk about it with him? I feel like that may raise some problems though, like she may think I went behind her back or something.

No Adair I would stay right out of it in relation to her parents. They would have no more idea about how to help her than you do and it would just dig her deeper into self hate which would only exacerbate her addiction. Just respectfully call her on lies you know to be lies and leave it at that. Good luck.