So, my past couple of blogs were mostly about ICCUP rants. But this time I think that it's time for me to share something more personal other than Starcraft.
I have a problem with lying.
I've had this problem ever since I was young. Back in elementary, there was this one time where I had to bring home my grades. I lied to my parents, and hid my grades for a while, before they finally found out. I would lie about little things, lying to my friends, parents, teachers. As I grew up I kinda outgrew some of the more silly lies (Like lying that my family owning a (Insert random expensive thing), or me accomplishing something that I really haven't done. But recently it's been getting me into more serious trouble. More specifically with this person, whom I care about very much, and have known for over two years.
She's so very gracious, forgiving me for the many mistakes that I've done. Over and over again, her tolerance seems to know no bounds, but recently I've just been such a horrible, horrible person. I won't go into the details, but basically I broke her trust again, and gaining it back the last time was so hard. It just breaks my heart that I keep hurting her this way, even though she's been there for me and helped me get past lots of tough times. I don't want to keep hurting her like this.
I want to change, I want to be somebody that she can be proud of, I want to be a better person, somebody who won't keep hurting her like this. But no matter what I do or how hard I try, I always seem to get lenient and fall back down to rock bottom. I want to stop lying.
What should I do? Where can I start... I've already apologized and i'm trying to do the right thing and make things right again, but I just don't want to make the same mistake over and over again. I don't want to lose her, nor see her hurt like this again. I know I'm not perfect, and that I probably will make mistakes again, but I want to stop making mistakes that stem from my compulsive lying.
So I'm humbly asking, even though i'm just some random "less than a thousandish" user blogging on a Starcraft forum...
Well, I guess the only thing people on this forum can tell you is: stop lying.
Since that's obviously not working, I think you should tell your parents and ask them to help you find a psychologist that knows how to deal with this disorder. It's a known disorder, you're not alone on the world. Finding professional help will probably be the best way to learn to deal with it.
i have this type of friend its fucking annoying and worst is I got drag along with his lies. sucks.
i think the reason he lies is: 1. he can't take responsibility with his actions. especially if he mess up. 2. taking advantage of some people kindness, trust. 3. lazy. (be there in 10min, then you wait for an hour. EVERY eFing time. 4. so people could look up to him.
I had this problem too. It's an unbelievably bad trait. I would take stories from my friends and rebrand them as my own. I think it came from wanting my life to be more interesting. At the beginning of university I started to consciously focus on not doing it, but it took time. It actually took until the end of university before I pretty much completely stopped. These days I don't do it anymore at all but still exaggerate some unimportant details in my stories, which is still a bad trait but I can live with that.
In short, consciously focus on not doing it and be confident enough in yourself that you don't need to paint a fake story of your life. Take responsibility for your actions.
if you are serious about getting rid of your flaw then go to a psychologist. If you aren't serious then by all means keep doing what you are doing, may it be asking total strangers that has no real answer for you or a brick wall.
On March 20 2010 00:16 Chill wrote: I had this problem too. It's an unbelievably bad trait. I would take stories from my friends and rebrand them as my own. I think it came from wanting my life to be more interesting. At the beginning of university I started to consciously focus on not doing it, but it took time. It actually took until the end of university before I pretty much completely stopped. These days I don't do it anymore at all but still exaggerate some unimportant details in my stories, which is still a bad trait but I can live with that.
In short, consciously focus on not doing it and be confident enough in yourself that you don't need to paint a fake story of your life. Take responsibility for your actions.
I think it's something that comes with age and maturity. I was in the same boat where I would often embellish details of certain events in my life to appear more interesting. Especially when talking to girls. Nowadays I just stay pretty truthful about my rather boring life but every now and then I find myself still trying to be as dramatic as possible about mundane shit. It just took some time for me to realize how empty and silly I felt whenever I would lie (especially about shit nobody should lie about).
OP I just think you need to make a conscious effort not to lie about anything. It appears as though you've already acknowledged the situation and want to change which is pretty much the first step. Now you just have to really really THINK about what you're saying especially in situations you know you would normally lie in. It will be tough at first but unless you're truly a compulsive liar you will feel when you get the urge to lie and you should be able to take the appropriate course of action.
be there in 10min, then you wait for an hour. EVERY Fing time.
I have a friend who is just like this. Super freakin annoying. He'll tell me hes totally ready, and then I'll show up and hell have like 8 more times to do.
OP: This is one of those things that largely comes down to willpower. You have to care enough about not lying that your commited enough to constantly pay attention to everything that comes out of your mouth. If its really habitual you'll probably let little lies slip without even knowing you told them. You have to accept that your going to have to deal with some uncomfortable situations, where your really going to want to gloss over, or outright deny something; you need to be prepared for that, and prepared to accept that even though it uncomfortable/unpleasant your going to honestly admit what happened.
I always seem to get lenient and fall back down to rock bottom. I want to stop lying.
If it's a really bad habit, deeply ingrained, you CANNOT do this. Its a bit cliche, but when you try to stop smoking, if you let up and have one cigarrete, is becomes really easy to rationalize another and even easier for the next and by that time your pretty much focusing. I firmly believe that the best way to quit something is to quit completely, your post reminds me a bit of myself with some of my ad habits; and for me the best solution was to completely and totally cut the bad habit. Trying to lie less, and then less, and then less just isn't that effective because it's so goddamn easy to rationalize and say, I'll do it this time, and then another circumstance comes up and you do it again and next thing you know you're pretty much lying 24/7 again.
Each time your about to lie, you have to think about how how much you dislike being who you are now and how much better things will be with the habit gone. Dwell on this is need be, if its super habitual be alert and do your best to process everything you say and immediately correct yourself if you say something that isn't 100% positively the truth. Be prepared that your going to find yourself in some uncomfortable and unpleaseant situations where you're going to have to admit to faults or mistakes; if you actually care enough though, dealing with this should be okay, if this person matters enough to you you shouldn't have much trouble shouldering some unpleasantness occasionally.
I firmly believe that it boils down largely to a matter of how much it really matters to you. If you care enough, it shouldn't be too difficult to find the self motivation to forces yourself to be honest, and attentive to what you're actually saying. If someone told you they were going to brutally slaughter everyone they loved if you told another lie, I don't think there is any way in hell that you would tell another lie, you be scared shitless and checking everything you said constantly for truth like a man possessed. This is because its extremely important to you, since these are the people you love. If you have to put a poster or something on your wall reminding you that your not going to lie to anyone, under any circumstance, think about it constantly and remember who it is you want to be. If you care enough, if its important enough to you, you can, and will; be able to break your habit
Sometimes therapy helps. Alot of times there is some deeper reason why you do these type of behaviors that you may not realize at this point. Find that out and you can usually nuke whatever bad habit you also have associated with that memory.
Sorry in advance if this comes off as pretentious. I try to take pride in honesty, and like to tout it as one of my stronger virtues. Nevertheless I lie more often than I'd like, as a symptom of escaping or denying harsh realities. Still, whenever I take the time to think about honesty vs dishonesty, the primacy and seriousness of honesty is pretty plain.
Honesty disseminates information you believe to be true. Dishonesty does the same with what you believe to be untrue information. True information is actionable, relevant, persistent (in that it will always have been true at some point in history), and overall worlds more useful to you and those around you. Think about any team coordinating for a purpose: sharing true information vastly expands the team's knowledge base, and thus its power.
Fiction, on the other hand, can only be thought about. It can be harbored in minds, and thus entertain or otherwise sway emotions. You can manipulate others with fiction, but you are doing them a disservice, keeping them ignorant, even creating dire misunderstandings if they believe fiction to be true. Uninformed or misinformed decisions tend to not work as intended.
Well that probably wasn't specifically helpful in encouraging you to keep it real, but I'm trying to illustrate that just taking a moment to ponder honesty can help you convince yourself that honesty is the way to go. Often times we encounter situations where we tell ourselves, it's easier to lie, this lie won't be found out, this lie won't have consequences, or the consequences can be mitigated... any number of excuses to eschew the truth. If we convince ourselves that these excuses are nonsense (because they are), it's a lot easier not to be tempted.
There are innumerable reasons why honesty is the best. Teamwork and usefulness fit well with me, something else like just being considerate might fit well with you. Just think on it.
i'm a bit of a cynic..... I would tell you that you certainly deserve what's coming. I believe that what happens happens. and you lied..... for some apparent reason...so what you get is what you deserve. there is a limit to everything. alli can say is that she gives you one more chance. Don't be a dipshit and lose it a third time if she gives it back to you.
p.s if this is your mom and about you sneaking starcraft late at night but won't admit it.. get over it. :D
I think I know what I have to do now... I'm going to try to continuously remind myself not to lie whenever a free thought comes to mind. I consciously know that this person is important to me, and that if I can stop lying I know that things will end up for the best. I just want to thank everyone who shared their thoughts, I read through them carefully and they really helped me see the situation in a clearer view. And this is not about me hiding my SC from my mom btw LOL >.<. Thanks again to everyone for the advice.
On March 20 2010 00:16 Chill wrote: I had this problem too. It's an unbelievably bad trait. I would take stories from my friends and rebrand them as my own. I think it came from wanting my life to be more interesting. At the beginning of university I started to consciously focus on not doing it, but it took time. It actually took until the end of university before I pretty much completely stopped. These days I don't do it anymore at all but still exaggerate some unimportant details in my stories, which is still a bad trait but I can live with that.
In short, consciously focus on not doing it and be confident enough in yourself that you don't need to paint a fake story of your life. Take responsibility for your actions.
Do you really have to lie anymore when you've commentated on the finals match of TSL big prize money bonanzas?
I think the real solution here is to do things you're proud of so you don't have to lie.
That said, I'm compulsively honest and it gets me into trouble also, so there's probably a balance I remember once the prof said we could get our papers at the break of a 3 hour class if we needed to go (I think someone had made a special request and she wanted to be fair). So I got mine and I was on my way leaving and the prof said "oh.. why are you going?" and I answered "you took away my motivation for being here when you gave me my paper back." She said "oooh myyy goood!" and I felt really bad :X I left anyway, but I apologized later explaining the situation a little better (all my other courses were at night except for this one Saturday morning class, so I always felt like dying during it). Lucky I'd made a good impression on her before that or she'd have marked me really hard for the final ^^
Good luck Do interesting things so you don't have to lie anymore!
Stop being afraid of the consequences of being honest.
You already know what you want. What you need to do is
1.) conquer the fear that makes you lie. stop being a pussy. understand that when you tell these lies it does nothing to help you or anyone else. and the worst part is that it further conditions you to be a liar.
2.) don't let yourself be controlled by habit/desire. stay in control of the words that come out of your mouth. think about whether or not you really want to say what you are about to say.
being honest is very easy once it's how you orient your approach to socializing. I used to be quite the little liar. But now honesty is easy it is conditioned for me. Just try hard and it will be conditioned for you if that is what you really want.
oh and P.S: it sounds like u fucked up and ur gonna need to deal with the consequences of fucking up. the consequences of lying. think about that next time.
(really though if that's your sole motivator of being honest you will never become an honest person)
But really, you could try to set yourself a period in which you will not lie and will speak the truth no matter how detrimental it may turn out to be. It's unlikely that everyone will like that, but at least you will stay true to yourself and slowly break the habit. Of course, be careful to not get into the habit of being too frank.
Chef basically brings a good point and that is that it is unavoidable that you will still lie every now and again even after you recover from this habit. While trying to be honest is an admirable trait, people sometimes perfer (even if only subconsciously) if you lie to them. For example, when you are trying to cheer someone up, you might say something along the lines of "Everything is going to be alright". That is a lie, since one cannot know for certain if everything really will turn out for the positive. But people still perfer if you say it, since they need words of consolation and encouragement when they are unhappy, even if it's just an illusion.
I am not saying lying is a good thing. Heck, even considering the above, I would still say lying is bad in most situations. But the solution is not in never lying, but in carefully judging if a lie you want to say is really worth telling.
EDIT: Also, rather then lie, you can also sometimes tell a person that you can't tell them what they want to know. A bad response is practically guaruanteed, but at least you will stay honest with them.
I think honesty is an asset in friendship actually. Even if someone tells you kind words, if you don't trust them it doesn't make you feel better. Especially if it's something cliche like 'everything is gonna be okay' lol. Really, the problems honesty creates for me are very minimal, but then I'm a pretty considerate guy to begin with. Maybe the reason I'm considerate is because I don't want to lie later.
EPT
I remember once the prof said we could get our papers at the break of a 3 hour class if we needed to go (I think someone had made a special request and she wanted to be fair). So I got mine and I was on my way leaving and the prof said "oh.. why are you going?" and I answered "you took away my motivation for being here when you gave me my paper back." She said "oooh myyy goood!" and I felt really bad :X I left anyway, but I apologized later explaining the situation a little better (all my other courses were at night except for this one Saturday morning class, so I always felt like dying during it). Lucky I'd made a good impression on her before that or she'd have marked me really hard for the final ^^
