ways to know a liar

[gratitude28]

Kellie (hope I spelled it right, I should have checked before I posted  )
I believe that my motehr also believes the lies she tells. In her fantasyland, everything is as she wants it to be. Scary...

[adrift]

So basically Stormy, what you are saying in the quote below, is that you are very discerning.  That is a wonderful gift to have, the gift of discernment.  As you've pointed out, though, it can be a heavy cross to bear.

Adrift

"Researchers such as UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor, Ph.D., have even cited such findings as evidence that a certain amount of self-delusion--basically, lying to yourself--is essential to good mental health..."

nothin' healthy about lying to yourself.

I think I might have recommended this book once before but I can't remember. Written by Julie K. Norem, called The Positive Power of Negative Thinking. What she's really advocating - Dr. Norem, that is - is simple realism. See what is, as it is, and make your decisions accordingly.

I'm more of a depressive type myself, and I can guarantee you that much of that depression comes from feeling, so often, as though I'm the only person in my family, at work, or at church, who's seeing things accurately. Who sees below the surface of things. Who is even willing to believe there's more than surface to most things... and that what's under there is often the most important stuff.

That sounds grandiose, and I wish it were. Problem is, time after time, I prognosticate, am disbelieved, and turn out to be 100% bang-on right. So-and-so's new boyfriend does end up being a drug abuser and winds up in jail. This'un, a too-good-to-be-true new manager who's 'all about ideas' turns out to be all-hat-no-cattle, sets up some totally bogus boondoggle project at work and then vanishes into a job at another company, leaving us to clean up after him... That'un, who's just a little tooooo friendly to the ladies IMO,  ends up running off with the deacon's wife.

Unfortunately, this track record of mine doesn't seem to cause anyone to be any more inclined to listen to me the next time around. And no, I don't go waving it around, I don't push it at people, I don't 'toldyaso'. I answer when asked... But you'd think... eventually... one or two people would notice that I generally get it right.

I doubt that this is unique. And who, in this situation, wouldn't be depressed?

[adrift]

Just to add something else and to get back to the OP,  I am a wonderfully good liar.  Not that I'm proud of it, and not that I believe lying is acceptable and  these days I very seldom tell a lie.  However, growing up under the pressures in my home, I learned to lie to escape punishment/abuse of both the emotional and physical manner.  When you grow up in a mixed up home, especially a home that is bent towards violence, lying convincingly is a survival skill.  When forgetting to feed the dog would get me a 30 minute red faced, screaming-meemee performance from my mother, during which she would recount every wrong thing I'd ever done, I learned  to lie and say "yes ma'am, I fed the dog" and then I would sneak a scoop of dog food to my room and feed him out my bedroom window (lucky for the dog my window overlooked his fenced in area).  Would you believe that 30 years later I still have dreams in which I dream that I've forgotten to feed the dog for a really long time and I walk to the fenced in yard (in trepidation) to check on him, fearing that I will find him dead or nearly dead, however in my dreams he is remarkably healthy and not terribly hungry.  IOW, in my dream he's o.k.   In real life, he didn't go hungry either, just got fed out the window on occassion

 My mom made me take piano lessons for 10 years ---do you know how long 10 years of weekly piano lessons is?????????????  I had no talent or innate skill for the piano whatsoever, in fact my fine motor skills have always stunk, but my mother believed---  BELIEVED----  that if I just wanted to, I could be a first rate pianist.  And she dreamed of me playing in church one day---all for her glory of course.  I hated that piano, I hated practicing, my poor teacher knew my mom was fanatical about my taking lessons so she endured me (and hey, it was money in her pocket).  Did I lie about practicing the piano?? Heck yeah, for about 5 solid years.  My mom expected me to practice 45 minutes a day.  But usually no one was home to know the difference, so I lied and never felt bad one bit for it.

One good thing, though, is that I have learned to not put my kids in the position to where they feel they have to lie to me or else face the firing squad for telling the truth. 


Adrift

[Certain Hope]

Adrift,

 ---do you know how long 10 years of weekly piano lessons is????????????? 

Yup   

    Hope

[Jona22]

Adrift

Oh yes!!!!  Not ten years of piano lessons, only five.  Five very long years!!!!!  Like you, I had no talent, desire, or ability but my mother wanted to be able to show off her daughter, the pianist.  Yes I lied about practicing also. 

I lied to my mother often.  I did it to escape the abuse that would follow telling the truth and that abuse would include recounting everything I had ever done wrong in my entire life.