My narcissistic father lied. Often.
When he didn't want me to take classes at a nearby college, he said a rapist was on the loose attacking young women. (Not true)
He told people he and my mother had paid for my college education. They hadn't. Not a single dime.
He complained he'd given me so much money he didn't have enough for his own retirement. I'd been financially independent since 18.
He used to tell people - right in front of me! - that I was his biological child when I knew darned well I was adopted. Then made up all sorts of bizarre stories to explain why I didn't look like them or why I was an only child.
He told me he was diabetic. He wasn't.
He faked having chest pains and demanded emergency help -- repeatedly -- when I'd take a night off from calling him.
I can't remember if he lied like that when I was a kid, although I think he must have and it was just one of the many reasons I didn't feel comfortable around him. I figured it out when I was a teenager, but never told anybody. Not even my best friend. It was just too weird. And if your own father is that strange, what does it say about you?
When I finally got up the nerve in my thirties to confront him, he gave an awful, evil little laugh, but didn't apologize or explain to my satisfaction. Basically, he said he wanted what he'd wanted, and I was being so stubborn, so he had to do what he had to do.
Catching him out on a whopper did NOT deter him.
I'd like to say, folks, that the lying goes away when the narcissist develops dementia.
But in the case of my father - who has Lewy Body Dementia - it has not.
This continues to astound me.
He's lost control of his inhibition, his legs, his bladder and most of what little judgment he had to begin with, but he's maintained the ability to lie. Old habits do die hard.
Do, please, feel free to share your favorite Damn Liar stories and thoughts on this disturbing behavior.
16 comments:
My dad has a small collection of allegedly valuable bronze sculptures. He claimed that these famous artists gave them to him for free, simply because dad is such a great guy. Years later when I learn basic economics and the term "starving artists", it slowly dawn on me that these artists, no matter how allegedly wealthy and/or famous, wouldn't just be giving away artwork to a mathematician of no great standing. Dad must have paid a bundle for the sculptures but pretended that people are fawning over him and gifting him valuable stuff. Another scenario is that the artists really did gift him their work but under the illusion that dad can do something for them. Of what I have no idea, but dad can talk up the talk.
It still astounds me to this day on the many occasions that dad thought I was that stupid, basically believing he can just talk me into fully believing his version of reality.
Enilina,
Maybe our father's never thought at all about whether we'd buy their stories or not...or how dumb we were to believe it...b/c they didn't think of us actual, real people? More often that not, I feel like one of those large, cardboard images of a person when I'm around my Dad...like anybody or anything would be fine as long as it "listened."
Your Dad sounds a lot more grandiose than mine. BTW, have you seen the movie the Squid and Whale with the narcissistic, professor father and his fast evolving n-son who lies at school about writing a Pink Floyd song because he COULD have written it?
Whooo - well, my dad is amongst the royalty of the whopper-tellers. When he married my (much younger) mother, he told her he had been married before and his wife and child died (such a tragic story!!), when, years later, my mother found out in dribs and drabs that this was not true, and finally culminated in my adult sister calling our house looking for him. Suddenly he forgot his story and was overjoyed his daughter "found" him. When my mother confronted him, his response was, "If you don't believe me, then go to hell!" What???! The response made as much sense as his bs in the first place. When I was a teenager he tried to tell me he was a virgin when he married my mother...presumably to convince me that extra-marital sex was NOT okay. I asked him how he explained my older sister and his first two marriages (which both ended in divorce - imagine that), and he just got angry, but refused any explanation. Also, as an ongoing attention-getter after my sister and I moved out of the house, he would have "heart-attacks" which would land him in the hospital and lead us to believe he was dying. Since I've become somewhat involved in his health care, I've been told by specialists he has no such damage to his heart and has never had a heart attack. He also left one of his doomsday messages on my answering machine once. "Daddy has something to tell you. I have a tumor in my brain." Yes, on the answering machine. Yeah, also untrue, as confirmed by his doctors I have met in later years. When I would ask him about this stuff before I had ever sought info from his doctors, he would always be "mysterious" about it and usually would say something like, "Don't worry about your daddy," putting on the Big-Man thing, when obviously he wanted me to worry in the first place with his ridiculous phone message. He must not have been getting enough attention from me. There's so many instances I truly can't remember them all, but these were the winners in his whopper trophy case.
hahah... d'ya think they ALL DO THE HEART ATTACK BIT? hahah.... it's horrible when you're going thru it (i got the 3:00 in the morning call... "i'm in the hospital, i just thought SOMEONE should know just in case"... key
dramatic music... dah dah dah DUM) but looking back on it... you're such an @SS hahah, (him not me, altho technically i'm an @ss too for calling EVERY hospital emergency room to look for the fool)... yeah he left that as a MESSAGE w/out telling me what hospital... oh and what started out as a heart attack turned into appendicitis next message and then it was diagnosed as diverticulitis (siiighhh which i now know WAY too much about).... jeez when i think about all the books i read & all the research i did on that for him... ugghhhh...
oh but this is about lies...
there's so many i wouldnt even know where to begin... i wouldnt even bother to call him on them, it makes it look like it matters to me... and at this point... it really doesnt (which is wonderful to say & even better to feel)!
BILLIE:
Maybe we need to give out Whopper Awards! It's too bad they didn't channel all that energy into becoming actors.
The heart attack ploy is a dangerous game for these guys to play. My dad played it for decades. No sign of any heart problems. The doctors knew he was faking. Then, at some point, he actually DID develop real problems and last year it was discovered that he has Triple Vessel Congestive Heart Whatever...which means three of the main vessels are more than 80 percent blocked. So he's a ticking heart attack. But the thing is, he STILL fakes pain...so we never know when he's attention seeking or it's real! The main thing is, Billie, that we CAN'T blame ourselves if and when something does happen. We can only do our best and forgive ourselves because they did it to themselves!
Those are some pretty bizarre lies your dad told about his on-off-again virginity!
ROXTARCHIC!
Gotta love the I Have a Brain Tumor phone message. That may be an Instant Classic. Sorry, but it is almost funny when it isn't happening to you. But I know how upsetting it is because I think many of us adult children of narcissists are just so TRAINED to be fixers...that we immediately go into Problem Solving Mode...like you did researching diverticulitis. So we get super agitated, only to learn the problem never really existed at all...and that we were being manipulated...and then we get upset about THAT. I mean, we're constantly being Messed With...it's a wonder we're not all just plain batshit crazy!
Nina,
Nope, only seen the trailer for the movie. Though this might be asking for punishment, I am now tempted to Netflik it. Lying about writing a Pink Floyd song because he could have written it... oh boy, oh brother, ....
Billie,
"Don't worry about your daddy,"
Ha, my dad did this all the time. It's "Don't worry, daddy will take care of it" when I asked if my autistic sister has any medical insurance. Or "Don't worry about your daddy" when I asked what should I get for his wife's birthday. Just bunch of non-answers. Guess his N won't allow him to say "I don't know".
My dad never faked a heart attack, but he sure did play up his adult-onset diabetes. He used his diabetes to:
*beat up mom ("she knows I can't eat this food because of my diabetes!")
*to complain endlessly ("everybody is against me and I have diabetes")
*to be excused from meetings involving my sister's care ("I have to go now, I have diabetes")
*to avoid taking care of my sister ("I am so weak due to my diabetes")
*to scream and throw items around the house("Don't you know I have diabetes!")
I really really wanted that Star Trek hologram device so I can plant an image of myself in front of either mom or dad and let them inflict their neediness on the image. Although going by science fiction formula, computers and holograms develop self awareness and rise up to destroy humanity. Narcissists will quicken the process.
My adad was a real liar too. He said his first wife and child died in a car accident. She died of gestational diabetes. He also told everyone he was a Lt Colonel and he was actually a major. My asis never realized that lie until he died (she never was nosy like me). When he and amother finally divorced, he moved away and told everyone he was widowed. My amother was the liar about her health.
Enilina,
Yeah, Netflix it! I thought it was fascinating to see an n in the making!
Wow. Oooo. If your Dad didn't have diabetes, he might have pretended to have it because how could he have survived without such a useful weapon?
Excuse me if I've mentioned this before, but I have a good friend who has two teenagers and was diagnosed with a rarish cancer. I don't think she ever ONCE used her illness as an excuse, although she simply wasn't able to do stuff for a while. She also made it a priority to schedule her therapies so that they wouldn't interfere with her kid's lives. The second she was able, she was driving them to school and doing normal stuff. And instead of complaining, she said they was so GRATEFUL b/c the routine stuff made HER feel better and more normal!
MARY: When I read what you wrote, it struck me that it's nearly impossible to feel close to someone who lies so easily. I think when we realize that we're dealing with A Liar, that we emotionally disconnect to protect ourselves.
Thanks to my mom's odd idea of homeschooling I am now behind in school. She lies to me and others saying that I am ahead.
(Finally convinced her to let me go to public school whew.)
Garfield
My n-mom would routinely lie about the time. She'd set all the clocks forward 10-15 minutes, then yell at us every morning, "Look at the time!" or "it's already 8!" when it was 7:30. I grew up in the age of computers and cell phones so I had my own clocks she couldn't change. Yet she still expected me to just play along with her morning farce.
Of course it was somehow my fault that she "had to" lie about the time, because otherwise we'd be late..and didn't I know how much *she* hated to be late? (Of course she wasn't actually late to anything, since she worked at home!) I couldn't trust my mother to tell me the time of day!
LOL ohhh yes.. my parents lie ALL the time!
Funny and true story: One time, I asked my mother if she had seen a fictional movie (I made up the title and added a fake actor to the mix) and she raved about how it was so good and she was SO right to pick that movie to see and that so-and-so actor was so talented.. blah blah blah! Talk about a BIG FAT LIAR!
I know it sounds strange, but until I got help for the collateral damage that my parents caused, I used to lie to people a lot. It mostly stemmed from a fear that people wouldn't like me as I was or that I had something to hide about myself. Until I realized in therapy that I did this as a reaction to feeling insecure/worthless, I lied a lot or didn't tell the full truth.
When I was little, I was always trying to prevent myself from messing up my N-parents' mood. Even if I told the truth to my parents (about something I did wrong), it was never rewarded or encouraged so I learned that it didn't matter if I did the bad thing or not, I still got punished.
-Susie
I used to think my dad was king of lies, until I started reading your blog. Still, dad lies over the stupidest things. He'll claim he hadn't had a cookie yet when I observed him grabbing a handful earlier (his lie entitling him to another huge handful.) Or he claims to be completely broke and have no money when the family wants to have an outing he doesn't like. But then he turns around and magically has enough to buy a $200 motorcycle part he doesn't even need. He also changes stories to make himself out to be the hero who accomplished the difficult task at hand. These are the least damaging of his lies. And when you call him on these relatively little lies he literally starts screaming about how "wrong" he always is and nobody ever takes his side, and why don't we just tattoo wrong on his forehead because that's all he ever is.
He continues to baffle me to this day.
When I was a teenager and began secretly using tampons (my mother didn't approve of tampons or anything too modern like hair conditioner) and my mother discovered them, she told me virgins couldn't use tampons. I couldn't believe she would lie about such a thing right to my face. I knew it was a lie, because one, I wasn't an idiot, and two, I was a virgin and had been using them for months.
Most of her other lies were the typical - "oh that never happened" lies. I still can't figure out if she's straight up lying about things that I KNOW happened or if she really is incapable of remembering anything. I've given up trying to figure her out. It's not worth it.
I got really burned by this lie my father said.
He told me that he would be out looking for business opportunities if he didn't have to take care of us.
Alright, I believed him. Started working during vacations after 18 for my own pocket money.
Worked as a waiter during university and paid my own school fees after that.
Kept waiting for him to get off his ass and do something. Anything at all.
He didn't.
I'll never get my university time back. That was four years of alternating between work and study.
Then I asked him for help - he started giving excuses on why he couldn't do it. All the sacrifices - I basically learnt how to cook on my own, I lent him money that I needed at a certain point in my life, I did so much errands for him while under the impression that he was trying to do something important (he was watching tv and sleeping)...they amounted to nothing.
So now I'm learning on my own. Hopefully I'll be able to land a job and move out as soon as possible.
Nobody has commented on this thread for many years now. But, at 30 years old, I have finally realised that my mother is an undiagnosed narcissist. Reading these and many other blog posts have helped me come to terms with it and are helping me to move on.
I started to realise that something may be going on in her head when she told me, aged 12 that I need therapy to get over dad leaving. WHAT??? He had only just left that morning. We were sitting there as a smaller family that evening, awaiting a tv programme to come on and out of the blue she says that.
Over the years, you begin to realise and understand how she treats friends and other family members - nice to their face, but behind their backs speaks only negatively - so negatively that you would think that she didn't like them.
Growing up, not every day was bad. But as you begin to see the world, you realise that things werent and still are not right.
Fast forward to more recent times
- she speaks so badly of me to my sister that now my sister and I no longer speak or see each other. My sister and mother have teamed up. But I think that they are both narcissists, so thats ok.
- she says that she has no friends and that her only friends are her 2 daughters.
- lies to my sister about what I have said to her
- lies to me about what I have said to her
- lied to me about the health of my nan - she said she had a 'couple of days left'. Infact she was told 12 hours before that nan had just 24 hours left. So, by the time she called me, nan had approx 12 hours left.
- when she was told that her mum had just 24 hours left to live she went straight back to work
- after an uncle told me the truth, I confronted her. She gave a string of self centered excuses and statements, including 'if I had my own car I would have been there' and 'I didn't want to see my mum like that'. I live and work 30 miles down the road and have visited my nan many many times this year. I would have happily picked my up, like I have done earlier in the year.
- she lied as to where we needed to meet for the funeral. My partner and I arrived an hour and a half early, had some lunch and made our way to the church. We saw them half way during the journey at a service station. She didn't say much. But they managed to arrive early enough to go to nans flat and put some large items into their car. If she had have expected me there - surely she would have called with concern as to why we hadn't arrived as a similar time???? Her excuse for this one - 'I was grieving my mother'.
My mother displays many of the other signs of narcissism too. There is no way for me to help her. I no longer want anything to do with either of my mother or sister.
I feel sorry that mum now only has my younger sister as a support network. But I would still have been there if she hadn't have lied so much.
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