hey guys,
From what I've noticed, lying solves many purposes to the malignant N. And the variety of lie is not always the obvious, glaring, one. Sometimes it is a reconfigured version of the truth, or maybe the mere "silent treatment," which in it's own way can be a lie if one's behavior is denying what must be true. Another of my "personal favorites" is feigning boredom, to me another version of lying because you get the rage and deniability in a nice, annoying little package of nothing. Gee, thanks, I think I'd rather go home and polish some silver, or paint the outhouse, or transcribe the Dead Sea Scrolls, anything to get away from the "bored" N. It's so fricking oppressive and exhausting.
Lies are also extremely handy to N's for the purposes of projection and character assassination, two major tools in the Ns toolkit.
I can find out all the truth I want to from my Nparents, Nsister, Nsister-and-law by listening to who they are projecting about. If mom is saying, "Yeah, that so and so, all she wants is credit for all my ideas!," I know that it is she who is trying to hi-jack the "credit" for something that poor so and so conceptualized.
When it comes to character assassination, no suprise here, my Ns will go to any length to protect their own sick, perverted versions of the truth. Most recently, my sister-in-law, in order to screw with my H's head, is on a campaign to convince my H that their father, (whose known to have shown intense favourtism towards the sister), is homosexual and she's stark raving upset about it. She's doing the double-duty of toying with my H's emotions and putting things out there that would mortify her father. (BTW, H consistently hold's that their father's sex life is his own business, and that she shouldn't be sooo upset about it, especially since they're now all grown and on their own). When you tell her things like this, she throws tantrums and feels entitled to her father's complete honesty and devotion, despite the fact that she has moved 900 miles away from him. My sister-in-law uses rampant accusations and lies to incense others. The only way to diffuse her in an argument, she LOVES to argue, is to just state, "now I know you're lying!" with a smile when she's right in the middle of her extreme exaggerations. Of course, she immediately goes into damage control and cuts a few jokes to lighten the mood, but she's coming for you later, you better believe it.
Now my father, the introverted variety, a preacher for 35 years, would NEVER be caught lying. And he is whom I fear the most. My mother and SIL, I can easily figure out, they give everything away with their outrageous behavior. But my Dad, he's so conniving and quietly evasive, that I can't even believe things I am told about him. I have been trying to trace our family's geneaology but I have no idea of what my paternal grandfather's name was nor in what city my father was born, or anything about my father's past prior to his meeting my mom. I mean really, my father could be an escape murder convict for all I know. He has these two huge scars on his arms I later found out are the 1970s approach to tatoo removal. "What were they Dad?" I would ask. He would act offended and change the subject or simply ignore me and exit stage left. He seems like a passionate minister, he adopts emotionally damaged dogs, he gives homeless people rides to church. But he empolys ignore-ance and avoidance to stay out of serious trouble while wreaking daily emotionally havoc on the hapless victims at church and at work.
All the other characteristics of introverted NPD are there; using larger icons and an inflated superego to opress those around him, physcial vanity, past upheavals, etc. are there but he doesn't really outright lie or do other gregarious, prove-able characteristics generally associated with NPD. Just as dangerous, IMO, if not more.
tiffany
