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The Observable Unknown
Mailbag Installment 24: The Manufactured Self - Compulsive Lying, Identity, Decision Patterns and Relationship Breakdown
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Welcome back to the Observable Unknown. For tonight's Mailbag installment, a listener has written in. With a private problem generated by public pressure. The listener writes. Dear Dr. Ray, I've recently come to the conclusion that I'm a pathological liar and I don't know how to stop. It's ruined so many of my relationships. Nobody in my immediate family will speak to me. My two children by two different men can't stand me, even though one of them is at least polite enough to not say it. The other one panders for gifts and gestures of attention because she's been neglected for so long. The true loves of my life I go back and forth with because I'm not sure what I really want. The man I'm currently with is just about used up. He's older, and I needed a means of survival, so I did what I always do and got him to take care of me. So I'm not sure how to unravel all of these webs I've woven. I've always survived by either just not choosing to act or by acting dishonestly. And I know I'm setting a terrible example for my kids. What's wrong with me and what can I do to get help? I'm too scared to see a therapist because I think if anyone ever actually found out about how I've been living my life, they'd never speak to me again. And for whatever reason, I'm so concerned with other people's opinions that I couldn't stand such a blow to my sense of self. I know there's got to be some way of fixing this on my own. I feel like I can do lots of things on my own, but maybe that's a lie, too. Please help. Sincerely, Ashley M. Dear Ashley, you're not describing a mystery. You're describing a system. And the system has worked. That matters because you're not dealing with something that failed. You're dealing with something that succeeded for a long time and is now collapsing under its own weight. Let's begin by removing the word. You pathological. It sounds clinical. It sounds fixed. It isn't. What you're describing is adaptive dishonesty. A pattern that formed because it produced. Produced results. Attention, protection. Survival. Access. And once a behavior produces results, often enough the system chooses to keep it. Not because it's moral, not because it's ethical, but because it works. You didn't wake up one day and decide to become this. You learned over time that truth didn't secure what you believed you needed. So you built Another method. And you repeated it. And now it repeats you. This is where most people make a terrible mistake. They treat lying as a moral failure. It's not. It's a perceptual and behavioral loop. You feel pressure, so you distort reality. That distortion produces relief. The system records that relief. Next time it runs faster. Until eventually you're not deciding to lie, you're defaulting. That's why you feel trapped, because you're not managing isolated choices. You're inside a trained pattern. Now we address the fear. You said that if people truly saw how you have lived, they'd never speak to you again. Well, some might not. That's not the part you need to focus on. The part you need to see clearly is this. You're already living the consequence. Your family has withdrawn. Your children are responding to absence and inconsistency. Your relationships are volatile and unstable, negotiated through utility rather than alignment. The loss you fear has already begun. So the question is no longer how to avoid it. The question is whether you'll continue to extend it. You also said something. Rather you survive by not choosing or by acting dishonestly. That's not two strategies. It's one. Avoidance. In my book the Cost of the Move, I outline this pattern directly. When you move to escape pressure, you don't resolve the condition. You inherit it in a new form. Inaction delays consequence. Dishonesty disguises it. Both serve the same function. They delay reality. They don't remove it. Now we move on to what can actually change. Not everything. Not quickly, but something. First, you don't attempt to become honest in every area of your life. That will fail. Quite simply, the system will reject it. Instead, you select one domain, small, contained, specific. And within that domain, you don't lie. Not once. Not to protect yourself, not to smooth tension, definitely not to gain advantage. You tell the truth even when it costs you. In fact, especially when it costs you. Because the cost is the point. It retrains the system. You stop negotiating relationships through survival. You said clearly that your current partner is a means of support. Then you name that to yourself without distortion. No justification, no reframing, Just accuracy. You don't have to act on it immediately, but you don't get to lie about it internally. Internal honesty comes before external change. Now, on to your children. This is where the pattern ends or continues. They're not responding to what you say. They're responding to what you are. Inconsistency, absence, transaction. You don't repair that with declarations. You repair it with predictable behavior over time, with consistency. No performance. No Instagram. Stylized smiles. No promises you can't hold. Just presence that doesn't fluctuate. You said you want to fix this on your own. No. You want to avoid being seen. Those are not the same. You're not beyond help. You're avoiding conditions that would expose you. Any competent therapist has heard far, far worse than what you've described. You are not exceptional in your behavior. You're familiar, which means you're treatable. The real question is whether you're willing to tolerate being known. Because without that, nothing changes. There's nothing wrong with you in the way you're imagining. There's a system that was built under pressure. It selected for survival. It didn't select for stability. Now you're living inside its consequences. You don't dismantle it through insight. You dismantle it through repetition of truth where you would normally distort it slowly, deliberately and without spectacle. You're not a liar. At your core, you're a person who trained a system that lies and systems can be retrained if you're willing to stop protecting them. Until next time. Remember, you don't become what you feel you become was your return to. And what you return to returns as you.