Pathological Liars
I tuned into Oprah this morning. The topic was pathological liars. Of course, I was fascinated and glued to the show. A woman, a mother of two, who was married confessed to her life as a pathological liar. She told the world the truth: Her every move was calculated. It was a lie. From what she ate to where she went on vacation to faking her own children’s illnesses.
It was all just to get attention.
She craved love, acceptance and attention — and she lied to get it. Constantly. She even took her three week old baby to the hospital and said she stopped breathing. She was willing put her own child through a very painful, needless, and dangerous spinal tap to diagnose something that wasn’t there– all for ATTENTION.
The worst part of the story? Lisa confessed that no matter what she did, she DID NOT feel any guilt.
This is typical of a pathological liar. She confessed that when she looks at people, she doesn’t “see them”.
I have known the fury of a pathological liar. They are the masters of “ice cold” callousness.
Oprah had on a psychologist to address this woman and while I agreed with much of what she had to say — that pathological liars hate themselves, are insecure deep down to the core, and that nothing is ever good enough for them so hence they lie to disguise it — I disagreed with one of her core beliefs — that pathological liars can be “cured” with the right treatment.
How can you cure and teach a human being to have two of the most fundamental emotions: empathy and compassion?
You simply can’t do that — no matter what treatment you offer. You simply can’t teach an emotion. It must be there from birth or you have a serious physical flaw — perhaps deep in the brain — that we haven’t yet discovered. That’s my personal opinion, anyway.
I totally agree with you. a PL can change when they want to not because of a therapist. The only empathy they will show after treatment is what they have always done. That is showing you what you want to see and what they want you to see and feel. The only thing a PL learns is to lie even better and giving them treatment is adding fuel to their fire, which makes their “sickness” even worse. They crave attention and therapy is attention, even from a therapist, a pet, you name it, we are all and only their narc supply. They will then learn skills on how to make others go nuts. The only treatment is to stay away. People make the mistake of wanting to save a PL when they are the ones that need saving. Please be careful around these people, they are monsters.