Compulsive Lying--Comorbid with other Disorders?

Hi everyone. I found psychforums around this time last year when I realized my best friend/roommate at the time was a pathological liar among other things. I wanted to find out more about compulsive/pathological lying and what kinds of things cause it. As a lot of you probably know, there isn't a lot of information about compulsive lying available. However, I kept coming across Histrionic Personality Disorder (or personality disorders in general) while I was researching, so I decided to learn more about it. Basically my roommate fit the exact description of HPD. I made my way over to the Histrionic Personality Disorder forum on here, and I was amazed at how many people had experienced the exact same thing. Some of the posts described her behavior so exact that I was sure we were talking about the same person!

But here's my question. How many of you self-confessed compulsive liars feel like you have other issues on top of the lying? Or if you know a compulsive liar, have you noticed any other problems besides the lying that may point to another disorder? Is compulsive lying just a symptom of a mental disorder or is it it's own disorder? i'm curious to see what other people think about this!

Hi

I personally think it can exist on it's own. My compulsive lying is not linked with any personality disorder I am a very rounded person apart from my habitual lying which blemishes my character. I am told I should have bipolar disorder or ADD or ADHD but I don't have either of these problems. I am very sensitive to stress and respond very badly when I am stressed at work and in life. I recently totally freaked out when my car broke down at the Eurotunnel terminal where I should have just laughed at my stupidity of running my battery dead in 25mins.

I don't understand why people are pre-occupied with linking a problem with being honest to another personality disorder. I think more research is needed and more cases to be discussed.

These are my thoughts...I am one person of many millions.

I think that my lying is a symptom of a bigger problem. I know that i am bipolar. I also know that everyone is different. What is true for me wont be for everyone. I do know that i feel like the compulsive lying is the most openly malicious of all of the effects of bipolar type II. I do know that it can be helpful in a lot of ways to pursue counseling. I think that even really healthy people can benefit from having someone to talk to. I would suggest that to be what you suggest. I think it would be natural for a friend to react negatively if you were to just be like look i think you have such and such mental disease. But a therapist will go over all those things and in a way that wont sacrifice or damage your relationship. I also know that i have felt soooooo guilty about the lies i have told and i never wanted to hurt anyone, so maybe keep that in mind.

I am fairly certain my ex-BF has NPD (although of course he hasn't been diagnosed), and he lies if it serves his purpose. He's not even very good at it either, and he doesn't even seem to CARE if he gets caught in a lie because it's always somebody else's fault that he had to do it. For instance, he "had" to lie about where he was because if he didn't so-and-so would have gotten upset.

What I find SO STRANGE about this type of disorder and the lying, is that a person pretty much has to be thinking at all times of what they should say in order to manipulate who they're talking to. How tiresome is that! I wouldn't want to work so hard.

Hi,

I feel my compulsive lying stands on its own. But I truly feel why I lie is because I like attention, I have to feel wanted, accepted. I think sometimes you may try and find an excuse to say its something bigger than just lying. I tell you its very hard to stop. I don't feel it something you have to think about. I honestly feel its reversed, you have to think harder to tell the truth than lie. Lying to us come natural, just like telling the truth to you come natural.

I also have bipolar and delusional disorders.

Jimmy,

How does your disorder affect you personally, if you don't mind me asking?

I'm a recovered compulsive liar. I am also working on sorting a few PDs. I'm not formally dxed with any, but its obvious there is a "PD" problem in general, and people in the mental health field have agreed with this. I feel my PDs were responsible for the problems with compulsive lying.

I could understand and see compulsive lying fitting well with HPD in particular.

Katana,

Could you please help me understand Histrionic Personality Disorder?

I'm not sure.

I said it would fit mostly cause pwHPD get validation from love/attention from others... (this is as good an answer as i can give right now!)

I would really like to help you understand HPD, but I haven't done enought chatting on the HPD forum to feel i could really give you a decent answer. I think mostly cause apart from Alice and a few others, most of the discussions there (were) about "typical" HPD relationship behaviour, and I didn't feel like I had much to add.
I was trying to introspect and ask myself if i have any HPD traits myself i could relate to your question, but again, that still involves distinguishing HPD behaviour from other cluster Bs!

If you want to understand, I think your best bet is to go over to the HPD forum and have a chat - there are a few HPDs there who are pretty aware of their own behaviour, feelings etc - and know more about the disorder.
Sorry I can't help more! But if you post a thread there about HPD and compulsive lying I'm happy to come and join in - might help me get some insight into things too.