Ep 56 - Liar Liar pants on fire
Lies, half truths, porkie pies, fibs, fake news, tall story, fabrications, big heap of bull…
Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 56 of the EMDR Doctor podcast. I am delving in to the murky waters of lies today. What ever you call them, they are nasty… in betrayal trauma, lies are front and centre, they are the warp and the weft of the relationship, and they feel like shifting sand.
What does it feel like to experience being tangled in a web of lies, especially if the spider is the person you are supposed to be able to rely on most in the world. If the liar is your partner, finding out that they have been lying is absolutely devastating.
Now lying is not gendered, but I do work with women almost exclusively so my view is always through a female centric lens. The women I work with who have experienced really significant betrayal trauma, often report things like - my life suddenly seemed upside down, inside out, I couldn’t make sense of anything, everything I thought was true was false, everything I thought was black was white, I felt so stupid, I couldn’t believe how gullible I had been, I trusted him, I thought what we had was real, I trusted him.
The pain of being deceived is a particular pain, so much hurt, mixed with shame, self blame, so much uncertainty and this question of how do I recover, how do I explain it to my family or friends, how can I trust again, but interestingly, amongst the pain is often a bit of healing - at least things are making sense now. I understand why I felt so insecure, I understand why I was so uncomfortable in those situations, I understand why I couldn’t make the pay check last til next week. Those fights were not my fault, I was on the right track all along.
Why do they do it? Is one of the really painful questions that we hash out again and again. Why do people lie? Lies seem to fit in to pro-social and antisocial… prosocial lying are the little white lies - they are lies to help others, to make them feel better - you know the classic - does my bum look big in this dress? Often the ‘correct’ answer will be something along the lines of ‘I love that dress on you, you look fantastic’.
Prosocial lies are designed to make someone else feel better, to soothe the way, to socially help the other person. Probably we all lie in a prosocial way occasionally, trying to avoid hurting another person, or trying to help them. Some people can’t lie in this way - for example people with autism, find it extremely difficult to lie, and whilst this is a superb trait to have, it can sometimes be socially awkward to not have this social lubricant available. Antisocial lies, however, are opposite that - they are designed to help the liar. To give some advantage like getting a better price for a car, or selling a house with rising damp, so these are examples of financial gain. Avoiding detection is another huge one - doing something wrong and covering up for it, like having an affair and lying about where you were last night, spending the pay check on gambling and lying about where the money went, drunk driving and then blaming someone else for damaging the car, lying about not having a wife then lying to the wife about getting home late, lying about who did the brilliant work on that report. All of these lies help the liar, they avoid consequences, they get financial gain, they elevate the liar’s reputation, they are self interested lies, designed to gain something for the liar.
And just like how some people cannot lie, some people seem to be unable to tell the truth. We might talk about psychopaths and narcissists in this group, who are really very practiced liars who lie easily and often, without remorse, and are pretty difficult to detect. But your everyday garden variety liar will just lie for their benefit sometimes, when it counts, when they perceive that there will be a negative consequence for telling the truth about their actions.
Most liars will incorporate some truth in their lies, as it makes them more believable, and easier to defend, the half truths can be really difficult to tease out, and it can be so confusing to the person who is being lied to, to seperate truth from lies. If someone is lying frequently, I am always curious about what the big lie is. What is the big withholding, the big omission, what is the source of the lies, if we dig deeper, we may well find a reason, a big, old, ugly painful reason. There may be a big awful truth in that persons childhood, that is too painful to admit even to themselves, and this creates webs of lies to avoid addressing the horrors of the past.
Sometimes children learn to lie by being punished for telling the truth. This can be really painful to work through in later life, with a sense of injustice, firstly for being misunderstood and then punished to start with, then for feeling that they were made to be dishonest, that they were forced to lie, to in effect betray themselves, so as to please their parents, it can be really painful to unpack that.
Another set of lies can be really hard to come to terms with. Imagine this - a little child discloses sexual abuse by a neighbour, lets say the father of their best buddy from next door. They tell their mum about it, which is the right thing to do, the mum reports it, which is the right thing to do, the police arrest the neighbour and take him away, he goes to jail, all appropriate and right, everyone has done the right thing. But the little friend next door is upset for having lost their dad and screams at the child, ‘its your fault that dad was taken away! I hate you, I’m never going to speak to you again’ which we can absolutely understand their fear and sadness and anger… but what does that do to the child who reported it? There is so much loss and guilt for hurting their friend.
If the abuse happens again, with another adult, is that child likely to report it again? This could lead to lies of a different sort, lies that protect others in the most awful way, at a huge cost. The idea of telling the truth and then protecting oneself, but being perceived as the bad person, is so difficult. I guess ultimately, this kind of lie sits in the antisocial lie category, as it is designed to protect the child’s friendships or reputation or protect them from unwanted consequences ie of being accused of ruining their friends life, but the cost to the child is so big. It could also be called a pro-social lie, as it protects the social fabric, and protects the needs of the other. There is no easy classification for this kind of distressing scenario.
And what about kids who are in a kind of opposite situation - they want to report abuse, but they are testing the waters, they tell a teacher that something has happened that hasn’t… they lie to kind of try things out to see what would happen if they did disclose what is actually going on. It’s a kind of social experiment - this kind of lying doesn’t fit in to the pro or antisocial categories, it is a bid for help, but ultimately really harmful to the person who told the lie. and the person they told the lie about. And if that child is caught out in that lie, and punished, the chances of them actually disclosing and telling the truth you could imagine would be pretty slim, they will likely carry the burden of that situation for many years, unable to tell the truth and protect themselves.
The consequences of lying can be pretty dire. As can the consequences of not telling the truth, which is lying by omission, withholding, maybe for pro-social reasons. And what are the consequences of lying and getting away with it? Bad, apparently. The literature says that people who lie, even if they are successful with their lies, have lower self esteem, and a lower mood with less happiness, than those who don’t lie. Lies always come with a price. Regardless of whether the lies are pro-social or antisocial lies. So there is some truth to that old adage of ‘the truth will set you free’ It may be more painful short term, with some consequences, but you will feel more happiness and a greater self esteem.
So how do you tell if a person is lying? Oh such a good question. There are some classic techniques that the experts on body language will tell you, but if a person is very practiced in lying, you won’t have much of a chance unless you
actually fact check, or catch them out with evidence. Some of the body language hints that a person is lying include things like - being too emphatic with the lies, giving a lot of unnecessary information with the lie, avoiding the
question maybe using distraction techniques, an irregularity with eye contact either avoiding eye contact, or the opposite, holding the eye contact too long, or using that hard gaze, pinning you with their eyes, or acting overly casual with the response, mumbling or half answering, or changing the topic.
If you have been lied to, deceived, misled, within a relationship, it is possible to repair. There is big work to be done (EMDR can help, obviously), betrayal trauma is very very painful and can really shake your sense of stability in the world. not only as an individual but as a couple. Trust is earned, not given, and this can take a long time. It is possible, not always, and every individual will respond differently. I would certainly say, that you can’t make someone change, they have to want to change, so if you are on the receiving end of the lies, be sure to find this out, do they want to change, are they committed to the relationship, or are they committed to their own benefit. Sometimes things need to hit rock bottom before they bounce back, but sometimes, there is no bounce, there is just a slow, step by step, rebuilding of a little bit of stability, finding truth in your own capability.
If you need help with this, please reach out to your local EMDR therapist, or if you are in Australia, feel free to contact me - next year I am holding my first Online Group EMDR course in February , if you go to my website emdrdoctor.com.au and look at the Heal Your Past page, you will find all the details of my upcoming courses.
If you have worked with me before and have some more work to do, you may like to have a look at my membership, which is a monthly opportunity to do some EMDR with me - have a look at the membership page on emdrdoctor.com.au
Alright, I hope that's been helpful. I will talk to you again next week. In the meantime, take good care. Bye for now
