OK, I don't know where I came up with this. I am somewhat afraid that I got it from you but at the risk of appearing looney I am sharing a segment of a post from an interesting blog on narcissism -
www.operationdoubles.com/narc/narcissistaspathologicalliar.htmNarcissists will say ANYTHING. They tell the wildest lies conceivable. Unless you know a narcissist well, you will never be able to divine a conceivable motive for most of his lies. Narcissists lie gratuitously, about matters great and small. Their lies are an affront to your right to see what you see, hear what you hear, and know what you know. They won't hesitate to say that black is white or that square is round. In other words, their lies don't stop short of gaslighting.
They lie to you about facts they know you know. They lie to you about what you have said and done. Even if you said or did it only one second ago. They lie to you about what they have said and done in your presence. Even if they said or did it only one second ago. They lie about what you have done together. Even if it was only one second ago. In short, they lie like somebody out of his mind or hallucinating.
They resonate between alternate and contradictory versions of an event with blinding speed. They lie so fast and furiously that they metamorphose a lie five or six times in the space of a minute — like somebody on a psychedelic trip. They lie so fast and furiously that they lie absurdly and contradict themselves in the same breath. And if you ask them which of their contradictory statements is the true one, or if you contradict them, they project their craziness off onto you by saying that you need your head examined, that you are making stuff up, that you are crazy.
That's because, unlike normal people, a narcissist does not craft lies he thinks you will believe. His lies are willful delusions that he wants to impose on you (projective identification.) So, he will declare the sky purple, believe it, and expect you to believe it!
Well, not exactly. It only seems that he expects you to believe it. All he really wants is for you to NOT contradict his fantasy in any way. In other words, he wants you to let his lies pass.
Why?
When a normal person lies, he is trying to get you to believe his lie. He knows you are a person, like him, with an inner life, and a mind of your own. But a narcissist does not relate to others humanly. His disordered personality never developed properly. He relates to you as a newborn infant (at the Narcissistic Stage of child development) relates to its mother — as but an object in a world that revolves around him. He learns to operate Mother like we operate robots. We push buttons and levers to control robots. He bawls to push Mother's buttons, making her perform a series of services till she gets to the one he wants and he stops crying. Which is her "Off" button. In other words, Mother is just a tool for him to control. Whether by choice or disability, the narcissist's brain does not work right: it remains forever that infantile. You are not a person to him. He is unaware of your inner life. He doesn't think about what you might think.
In fact, you can crash his brain by asking him what he thinks you think. The question does not even compute, because he does not recognize your autonomy. So, you might as well ask him what a hammer or a robot of his thinks. He just wants the objects around him (which are here for his sake, not their own) to behave as though his fantasies are true. So, when he tells you the sky is purple, he doesn't want you to believe that the sky is purple, he just wants you to behave as though the sky is purple.
This is a perfect description of life with my dieing aunt. Last night I read this to my mother and her youngest sister who has traveled yet again to be by her sister's side as she dies. Even on her death bed she is still lieing, still demanding all the attention and still being nasty. When my mother left her this afternoon, she touched her dieing sister's hand and said, "Goodbye, we love you." (certainly an insincere statement) My aunt, replied, speaking for the first time today. "Don't touch me. that hurts. Go on and go." I digress - When I read this description to the youngest of the three, she cried. It is so moving to read on paper a description of an inhuman being that people have spent their lives trying to reach, trying to placate even trying to love: a person who defies description to anyone and who my grandparents acted as if were normal. To see in black and white that someone else could possible get it - is overwhelmingly moving.
