How To Stop Compulsive Lying : Are You A Compulsive Liar?
Compulsive lying is a real disorder, and it's no laughing matter. The act of compulsively lying can be detrimental to your health, relationships, and career. It can also lead to the development of other compulsive behaviors like shopping or gambling - which makes it all the more important for you to get help before the situation gets out of hand. The best way to stop yourself from compulsively lying is by acknowledging your problem and working on curtailing its worst effects in your life.
What Is Compulsive Lying?
Compulsive lying is defined as a person's ongoing habitual lying. People who lie a lot and often experience an increase in lying are diagnosed with compulsive lying. In order to be diagnosed, at least five of the following behaviors must have been observed within a one-month period: 1. Lying to others 2. Lying to maintain an existing relationship 3. Repeated lies 4. Lies in response to angry feelings 5. Lies in response to unhappy feelings 6. Lying about the amount of money spent on alcohol or drugs 7. Lying about the amount of money spent on gambling or other addictive activities 8. Unconventional behavior caused by stress 9. Lies about the health of spouse or children
What Causes Compulsive Lying?
Researchers have found that the following factors may cause a compulsive liar to lie more often: Stress
Stress, including changes in relationship status and financial problems, can cause a person to feel like lying. Feeling like you can't tell the truth makes people more likely to lie because they feel there is no alternative. It also makes them believe they will not be believed if they tell the truth. The Anxiety and depression cycle
Anxiety and depression are two common mental illnesses that can lead to lying. If a person lies out of fear of being punished, he or she is more likely to find themselves in trouble for lying again. Such a situation is likely to cause anxiety and depression, which are known to make people more likely to lie. Addiction
Drugs and alcohol can lead to lying as well as create other compulsive behaviors such as shoplifting or gambling. These habits can escalate quickly and cause a person to lie more often than they might have been able to otherwise. Financial problems
Lying is a natural defense mechanism most people use when they are in financial trouble. If you are on the verge of ruin, lying can sometimes be an easy way out of your current financial situation. Temptation
Perhaps this is one of the most common reasons for having lied in the past that can be attributed to any area of life - sex, drugs, alcohol... anything. People lie in order to get what they want, even if it is just a temporary fix for their cravings.
How To Stop Compulsive Lying
Although you may feel like there is no way out of the cycle of lies, there are ways to break the habit. The only way to stop compulsively lying once and for all - whether that means quitting a bad habit or stopping an anxiety disorder - is to work on changing your behavior. Changing your behavior is easier said than done because it requires that you overcome your natural inclination towards lying and inhibitions about telling the truth. If you feel like you can't stop compulsive lying on your own, contact a therapist or doctor for advice about how you can overcome this problem. Changing your behavior is the only way to stop compulsively lying once and for all.
Why Do People Lie? While most of us understand some motives behind why other people lie, we rarely ever think of why we do. We lie because we want to maintain relationships, protect ourselves, get something in return, protect others, deflect blame to others, avoid punishment and/or shame or boost our self-esteem. Any of these reasons can come into play when we decide whether or not a lie is worth telling. How To Stop Lying? It's very simple...
Make a commitment. Make the decision that you will no longer lie and stick with it. Think about your lying and how it affects your relationships, career, etc... Notice when the urge to lie comes on and stop yourself from doing it. Realize ways you can truly present the truth in a way that makes others feel good (not diminished). Be honest with yourself. Ask yourself why you lied before - try to understand your thinking behind it. Think about what you'll gain from telling the truth. Ask yourself why you keep lying to others?
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Click here for more on compulsive lying and here for a list of other causes for compulsive lying. ___________________
I don't even know where to start..... I'm 6'2, 200lbs and I have always been skinny. I have never been a big guy....just not very muscular or anything like that, but ive always loved working out..you can say I've been trying to get a lot of people at the gym to take me on as a personal trainer bc im good at it and enjoy it! my friends would tell me how beautiful I was and how amazing are arms were...I would get so many compliments but for some reason I wouldnt listen... I just always wanted a six pack and thought you could get it easily. I started working out, eating whatever i wanted, and even went to the gym everyday, overworking myself in hopes of getting the body look that i wanted. One day, my step dad came up to me and said that he thinks i have an eating disorder because of my lack of appetite and how i would never eat anything during dinners.. at first i denied it bc honestly i felt like he was just trying to be an ass bc he's been on me lately about not having a job or any money. At first i didnt think it was true...but then i started to notice at night that i wasnt eating much. I had been bulking my calories up by eating more protein and doing more calisthenics, so i didnt think it would be a problem if i wasn't eating a lot. A couple weeks later, my step dad told me he saw me throw away a whole bunch of food in the back of our garbage cans and asked me why. I said nothing happened so he didn't question anything...a couple days later i decided to look through our garbage cans again while they were out side in the yard and there was half eaten jars of food...i was devastated and got sick to my stomach...i threw away the whole garbage can when we were outside and havent thrown anything away since. Then my step dad confronted me about it again and i immediately started saying that I didnt do it on purpose and that I hadnt been eating much. He told me he knows im lying, but he's not sure why. A few weeks later i admitted to him that I have anorexia, bulimia, ADD, anxiety....you name it...(as of today im NOT doing any of these). He started flying off the handle because i at first denied it and then admitted to him just so he would stop bugging me about it...anyway...
Conclusion?
I do believe that everyone lies to a certain extent, but there are certainly some that reach the point in their lives where lying becomes a way of life. A person could lie to protect themselves or others, in order to avoid the consequences of telling the truth, to boost one's self-esteem, or simply just out of habit. However in some cases lying can be an addiction - it has been known to be one with other compulsive behaviors like shoplifting and gambling, too.
Why Do We Lie? The main reason that people lie is because they don't want to feel as if they will get into trouble for telling the truth.