I am bewildered--completely flummoxed.
Maybe you, dear readers, can help me with my mixed-up thoughts. Here's a story from my life that is necessarily sanitized of details. Considering those involved don't know about my blog, this shouldn't cause major problems:
I have a friend. Someone who makes me laugh, someone with whom conversation comes easily, someone with whom I have personal chemistry. I mean, I thought I did ...
This person has been lying to me, and to others, and when confronted with the truth, continues to lie. Within a community of friends, he tells one person one thing, and another person a contradictory story, and posts a third story on facebook. We scratch our heads, wondering why we've all been told different stories. These are not lies about something inconsequential, like what he did on Saturday night, but about big things. It's as if he's lying about his date of birth, or his alma mater, or his current job or his marital status. He's lying about issues that are important, and definite, and relevant to continuing a friendship. And yet, as long as I'm not confronting him on the inconsistencies in his life, we get along fabulously.
I'm hurt, and confused. Why continue to lie, and lie selectively? Why refuse to acknowledge the truth when it is the trumpeting elephant in the room?
The only explanation I can come up with is fear. Somehow the truth has become so frightening, that fear has destroyed all logical decision-making powers. And, once cornered, the lies keep coming, while the liar hopes that the lies will obscure the truth. Of course, they don't. They only make the truth shine brighter in the darkness.
I understand the "little" lies that come out of our mouths (Your church solo sounded fine! No one noticed you were flat!), but I'm amazed at how a web of lies can strip one of logic. I'm shocked how these huge lies start to run our lives. At some point we start believing our own lies, and then lying is so easy, because we believe that the lies we tell are true. When does a liar become a sociopath?
9 years ago
4 comments:
Hi Annie! I have been thinking about your post all weekend and I don't have any wisdom to offer. But I am sorry that this person you care about so greatly is someone who struggles with honesty. What a strange relationship yours must be.
This season of Mad Men deals with a similar theme. The protagonist has reinvented himself with a new name & lifestyle (after discarding his past), and now he's waffling back & forth between the two. He's a skilled, savvy ad-man but also a skilled, savvy secret keeper. I am wondering: is he crazy? His development of a dual identity is very complex. Sociopathic? What is a sociopath, anyway?
Nursing student strikes again!
Well, technically a sociopath is another way to describe someone with an antisocial personality disorder- a mental illness where the way you think, perceive and relate to others is dysfunctional with the common theme being no regard for right or wrong. Typically though, these people go beyond being relationally dysfunctional- they often break the law, are violent, have substance abuse problems, and lack of remorse. That scumbag Scott Peterson was the tangible example given to us in class to drive the point home. They're rather insidious- I met one in clinical and wasn't stoked.
All that being said, that doesn't help much with your friend or make it any less painful. It's a betrayl of trust, plus it makes you feel like an idiot.
Why can't people be relatively normal?
interesting. my mind immediately goes to angelina jolie's character in Girl, Interrupted, who fits the description ARN gave completely. it's pretty hardcore.
Annie I am so saddened...saddened and disappointed at the deception in what seemed to be a genuine friendship. Apparently he has learned to create alternate realities in order hide his true self (fear of rejection)? It's easier to handle rejection of the "fake you" than the real you. There's my psycho-analysis for you. I know it's hard to believe but there really are single, godly, non-sociopath men out there--I'm keeping my eyes open for you.
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