I have a huge problem – I can’t stop lying. When I see friends and they ask me how things are going, I’ll tell them about people I’ve been dating, crazy adventures I’ve had with women, mad and adventurous weekends away and trips abroad to places like Monte Carlo and Milan. I’ll brag about the huge wins I’ve had at casinos and follow it up by paying for bottles of champagne, just to show off. I boast about wild nights out with models, taking drugs and getting arrested or into fights. The problem? It’s all made up.
In reality, I rent a tiny and cramped room in someone else’s house – not the penthouse apartment I pretend to go back to after my “100-hour-week” in the City. I’m scraping a living and finding it hard to get by. I’m in masses of debt and have maxed out eight credit cards. But the moment I see a chance to show off about my A-list life, I take it.
My biggest lie yet feels like it’s about to catch up with me – I told my mates I bought a holiday home in Ibiza and now they’re talking about booking flights out there and pushing me for dates. I’m terrified they’ll actually do it and I’ll get found out. Right now, I can’t even afford a train ticket, let alone a trip to Europe. The pressure feels huge and sometimes I feel like I should confess everything – but I’m scared I’ll be a laughing stock. Please help.
Compulsive Liar
Dear Compulsive,
Lies, as you’ve found out, take on a life of their own. They grow organically – you might start with something small, but then you find you have to add a detail or two, when faced with questions. The next time you repeat the lie, you have to remember the added embellishments and throw those in too. Before you know it, you’re the orchestrator of an immense fantasy world in which you are the – stressed, frantic, frazzled – star.
Lying may be our first defence to get ourselves out of trouble or to prop up our fragile self-esteem, but it’s enormously taxing. Ask a liar if he or she is happy and (unless they’re a complete sociopath) they’re likely wracked with the weight of what they’ve made up – and the pressure of having to remember and repeat it.
So it appears for you. In creating this vision of yourself that is ten times richer, more successful, bolder and more sexually attractive than reality, you’ve created a monster. A cartoonish life that isn’t real. The problem is: it doesn’t sound particularly real on paper, either. I wouldn’t be surprised if your friends have a healthy suspicion that you are, in fact, being liberal with the truth – perhaps they are pushing you to take them to Ibiza to catch you out.
They may even be worried about you and hoping it all comes crumbling down so you see that really, you don’t need to lie the way that you do. They’re your friends because (we hope) they like you for you. Because who you are is enough – with or without your mad stories.
If I were you? I’d take one of them aside – the one you’ve known longest; the one you can trust most – and tell them the truth. Tell them you bragged about a few things and it got away from you. Tell them you feel embarrassed, you don’t know why you did it, but you’ve realised it’s time to nip it in the bud. Tell them there is no house in Ibiza – that you wish there was; that you’re aiming for it one day. You just haven’t quite figured out how to make it happen – yet.
Just as lies travel fast, so does revelation. I’d be willing to bet word will spread amongst your friendship group without you having to do a wider “group reveal”. Then, live a little more quietly. No champagne – no booze at all would be a good move for you, for a while. Embrace a simpler, sober life. Get out in nature, find out what you love, do something creative. Pursue a passion that’s passed you by. Look into ways to manage your debt – perhaps get a basic or part-time job, something you can count on and start putting a bit aside, each paycheque.
Help and support is available for people who are concerned about their finances. The UK government has information about the cost-of-living support available for households online. Charities such as Citizens Advice, StepChange, Christians Against Poverty and the National Debtline, run by the Money Advice Trust, can also help with money issues.
Go to the doctor and ask to be referred for therapeutic counselling. See if you can tackle these difficult questions: a) when your tendency to lie started; and b) how you feel about yourself, behind the façade.
Everyone stretches the truth from time to time, but usually we only take that to extremes when we’re deeply unhappy. Did this start when you were small? What – in your youngest memories of flights of fancy and fabrication – were you trying to escape from? Fantasy gives us a way out, a doorway; reassurance that tomorrow might just be better than today. It gives us the chance to step out of our shoes and into someone else’s: for a minute, for an hour, for a day.
If you search, deep down, who is the real “you”? The essence of you; the one who lies in bed alone in your rented room, worrying into the dark. Who is the person in the silences that you’re not filling with imagination? When you wake up at four in the morning, what does the “you” you find there look like? How does he feel? What is he so afraid of? Write it down. Speak it aloud. Admit the truth – even if there’s nobody there to hear it.
You lie because you want to get away from yourself. But the only way of stopping is by facing yourself head-on.
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