Why Do People Lie?

[LiketheMouse]

That may seem like a stupid question... but I'm unbelievably sensitive to lies. The one facing me currently? That anyone cares enough to learn how to support me. I have no support system other than my husband and he's at wits end.

When someone gives into their illness and S/I people tell each other they would have done something if they had known... people know. They just don't want to get involved. It's too messy.

Am I alone on this?

 

[Deleted member 39333]

No. I can read people really well, even if I can't see them. When I am with them in person I can tell if they are lying, and a lot of other things about them to the point where people have accused me of being psychic. Actually, I'm just really good at reading body language. It is one of the reasons that I isolate myself from people. Most of them seem to lie all of the time, and so there doesn't seem to be much point in trying to connect with them, in my opinion. I am lucky enough to have a therapist who knows this and had always told me the truth. I am unlucky enough to have no support system other than the therapist (which is just once a week for 50 minutes). I do not have friends or family. So for what it is worth, it isn't just you, and I do understand.

 

[Friday]

When someone gives into their illness and S/I people tell each other they would have done something if they had known... people know. They just don't want to get involved. It's too messy.

A lot of the time people really don't know. For a lot of different reasons. For someone with long running depression & S/I? What makes today different than the other 8,000 bad days they've been suicidal and haven't acted? Or if they're being really cheerful, because they've decided to act, people take that as their having a good day, like 8,000 other good days that have happened in the past. And enjoy it with them. So even when someone has a long history of struggling with suicide, it can still very easily catch the people who love them best by surprise. And the gut themselves, tearing apart every nuance, every detail, trying to figure out what it was that made today different?

There's also a difference between lying, and being wrong. People like to think they know what they'd do in a situation, but until that situation presents itself? They're just imagining. Very few things turn out to be what we imagine them to be, in my experience.

Other times, sure. It's comforting lies people tell themselves to make themselves feel better.

The one facing me currently? That anyone cares enough to learn how to support me.

It's oftentimes the case that the people who care the MOST? Are the least capable of support. Simply because they do care. Their love precludes the objectivity & distance necessary, and makes them far too vulnerable to being hurt.

So I would really question the premise that if they're not supportive, they don't care, or if they cared they'd learn how to support you.

 

[mamachick]

Friday said it so well. I think that is very accurate...what makes this day different. Then they are much more vulnerable being close to you, they are not the best to support you. I think of my very worst times, and my grown daughter who witnessed and I feel so guilty for this, not that I am all better or anything, but having SI and her knowing that I had no will to live. I didn't fault her for not knowing what to do...I didn't know what to do at times. If she would take it too serious, she would have committed me, then feared my anger. That would really leave her in a bad place. She was out of town a lot and know that she feared that one day it would happen. As I think about it...it is so awful for her. On the other hand, she held me to standards that nobody could live up to and in many ways sabotaged much for me. She expected me to be the mom I was pre head injury and pre ptsd and I am not.

 

[ladee]

Lie is like love?
Definition depends on many things. Life experiances, our own definition of each of those words.
For whatever karmic reason I was meant to walk a lot of this journey alone...I have come to understand that if I need something from someone..and I don't get it..then it's my responsibility to meet those needs.
I know when I am in a lot of pain, I make myself unapproachable. I don't mean to send mixed messages..but I do.
People aren't mind readers.
My 'rules' for engagement become a clusterf*ck.
It isn't 'boundries',It becomes 'rules'. So I have the illusion of power.
I fear that vulnerability...yet need and want it.
Guess I have just learned to provide it for myself.
I don't think I have ever asked for a hug. And yet can easily give hugs. Getting my hug vicariously..probably.
And I have learned that the other person isn't lying..they just don't see it the same way I do.
This may not have anything to do with your situation. I just know as humans..
We give a lot of power to certain words...

 

[mamachick]

I use to be really upset about being lied to. I am not talking about a different perspective...Im talking flat out lies. When someone steals and denies. When someone hits you and denies. I realized I interpreted it as they must think I am stupid, or not strong enough to stand up for the truth...somehow making me defective if I did not persist...or confront. I have come to realize that the real flat out bald face lie is about them, not me. I have my own shortcoming, truthfulness is not one of them. Their lying speaks to their integrity, not mine. So now I try to just let it go. At the end of my life, what difference will it make. Some of the lies seem to be as severe as gas lighting, well, they can only do that if I allow them. An unsuccessful gaslighter is no less than a fool.

 

[caligirl03]

When you think of the human species in terms of everything we do is motivated by either avoiding pain or seeking pleasure, it helps make sense of why people deem it necessary to lie at times.

 

[ladee]

I wasn't trying to minimize being out and out lied to. Have always said my son would lie straight to your face..with his hand in the cookie jar...straight up telling you he was NOT getting a cookie.
I get it.

 

[mamachick]

As far as those who are not supporting you or noticing how bad things are for you right now:
My adult daughter said to me "mom I wish this would have happened to me instead of you" I told her to never think that , I am old and she is young and I would never want this bad to happen to her, and why would you even think such a thing, and she said "Because if it happened to me, you would know what to do for me, and I don't know what to do for you". I froze...this stopped me in my tracks of SI. I realized how powerless she felt due to me and of course I felt guilty, but I realized the effect on her, seeing me fall apart and her feeling helpless, when in fact, she had tried everything with me....she just could not fix it - especially without me wanting to live again...with my feeling "done". This is what forced me to put the guilt aside and push myself harder. Then I started getting stronger, and she started pushing me into things again, manipulating and lying more again.

 

[Friday]

I realized I interpreted it as they must think I am stupid, or not strong enough to stand up for the truth...somehow making me defective if I did not persist...or confront. I have come to realize that the real flat out bald face lie is about them, not me

That's true for all the little lies, half truths, polite fictions, and all the rest, too.

 

[Lionheart]

Bold face, lies made to deceive are what we call "bad", but with white lies, I think it depends on the intention of the lie, if it is done to avoid harm it can be what we think of as "good", but in most instances that is just not the case. just my 2 cents.

 

[Suzetig]

When someone gives into their illness and S/I people tell each other they would have done something if they had known... people know. They just don't want to get involved. It's too messy.

I think people often times just don't know. I know I find it very difficult to ask for help so when I do show the slightest vulnerability I feel like I'm writing "help me now" across the sky in pink paint when what I've actually said is "yeah, it's been a tough week, had a bit of a wobble on Wednesday but I'm mostly doing ok. I'm busy, but ok".

I also think I look way more upset or dysregulated than I actually am because I feel chaotic inside but learned very young to keep it under wraps. So when I do finally crack, most people really didn't know I was struggling and those who did sometimes just don't know how to help me because I don't know what I need so how could they.

I suppose I'm saying that lies other people tell us are one thing, the really damaging ones are the ones we tell ourselves and "no one cares enough to help me" is a whopper.