Ask Me Help Desk - Compulsive liar

I work with a colleague who continues to make up stories. The stories are always distressing ones or ones that make u feel sorry for the individual. The individual tends to listen & take note of what is happening to other work colleagues, then coincidentally will be suffering with the matching ailment/illness. The stories range from having the most terrible illnesses, being raped, previous friend being murdered etc... The individual when telling the stories, appears to be enjoying people listening and is not distressed about the story or worried about offending people. How can one human deceive people and continue doing it, even after being confronted about it? Who would be the best person, to help this person stop the compulsion to lie? What could have made a person start to tell lies repeatedly?

They have not been taught to be themselves early on, and LIKE who they are. It is all about insecurity. And trying to be someone else because you do not like the person you are. I think this starts early in life, like in your childhood. It is kind of like drugs and alcohol used to try to cover something up you don't like about yourself. This person needs counseling, just like it is a drug or alcohol problem.

Compulsive lying is also an attention seeking behavior. Just look at what you wrote - when that peron is weaving his story, you and the other listen with both ears, getting wrapped into the story and the emotions of the story. I imagine once you have realized that this is all fabrication, you feel like you have been "had".

One simple technique to use is the next time this person comes around, say you do not have time and get back to work. Or tell this person to write these tales all down and make a book out of it. Or when this person starts in, start with one of your own. Chances are this person will not be willing to listen, because the focus is off him/her.

If you really want to be totally honest with this person, and you should be - confront this person with your knowledge that the stories are all lies and you do not appreciate being played. If you cannot do this alone, can you other colleagues and you do this together? If you do not want or feel you cannot, then you all need to address this to your supervisor and your supervisor should take this storyteller in hand and explain that time is better spent working, not storytelling.

Ignoring this person's pathological behavior is not beneficial to you, your co-workers, or this person. It could be that this person really does not see what he/she is doing is unhealthy. If it turns out that this person does already know, then it falls back to him/her, where it should be from the beginning.

Sounds like this person is needing dramatic attention. She may not be empathetic to others peoples feelings. It is my opinion, only a psycholpgist could figure out why she lies. I would stop giving her attentionj by letting her know in a polite way you aren't interested in hearing about such negative things. You only like to fill your head with pleasant stories and thoughts.

This person needs sympathy from others to gain attention... they feel that no one will notice them if they don't concoct these wild stories of woe. Sadly, a lot of people like this tend to begin to believe their own lies. This makes them quite convincing at times, if you can over look the quantity of awful things that seem to always happen to them. But in believing these things themselves they can become depressed, and make really poor choices that could end up fulfilling what began as a work of fiction. You need to stop giving this person an audience and confront her directly. At best, she'll seek help. At worst, she'll realize you aren't buying her lines, and will try to sell them elsewhere.

Oh hun I know 3 people like this.. you learn with age some people hun just need to feel that people care about them to say they have the same thing wrong is one way of being reassured.. My neighbor is the same way I just go along with it and I do wait till the next fake ailment then I say oh hun I am so happy that you at least made it through the last one and I am sure you will be fine this time.. it makes her feel better.. and if any comfort to you her husband says it drives him insane also with all the fake things she says... but as I told him maybe she is afraid if something happened to him nobody would care about her.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mas112

I work with a colleague who continues to make up stories. The stories are always distressing ones or ones that make u feel sorry for the individual. The individual tends to listen & take note of what is happening to other work colleagues, then coincidentally will be suffering with the matching ailment/illness. The stories range from having the most terrible illnesses, being raped, previous friend being murdered etc... The individual when telling the stories, appears to be enjoying people listening and is not distressed about the story or worried about offending people. How can one human deceive people and continue doing it, even after being confronted about it? Who would be the best person, to help this person stop the compulsion to lie? What could have made a person start to tell lies repeatedly?

I would think that for some reason this individual has a desire to fit in, maybe they feel that in order to do that they must always go one better.it is as you say very hard for everyone around this person obviously feels that their own life is not exciting enough.she will not stop until people stop listening and then sadly they normally move onto a new environment where there are new listeners.
I would safely bet that for some reason she does not feel worthy and can not help but tell these stories in order to fit in.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mas112

I work with a colleague who continues to make up stories. The stories are always distressing ones or ones that make u feel sorry for the individual. The individual tends to listen & take note of what is happening to other work colleagues, then coincidentally will be suffering with the matching ailment/illness. The stories range from having the most terrible illnesses, being raped, previous friend being murdered etc... The individual when telling the stories, appears to be enjoying people listening and is not distressed about the story or worried about offending people. How can one human deceive people and continue doing it, even after being confronted about it? Who would be the best person, to help this person stop the compulsion to lie? What could have made a person start to tell lies repeatedly?

Hi Mas, this person obviously leads a boring life and therefore has to invent what they see as a exciting life. Is really sad that this person is driven to sink this low, it is why no emotion is shown because this is pure fabrication. This person actually needs help, this will take over their life, eventually they will convince theirself that the lies are true and therefore it would be kind to challenge them, the best way to deal with this would be through your human resources dept. by someone who is sensitive to their situation, there will probably be tears as the person realises how pathetic they have become and how this all started in the first place. Don't be too harsh on this person they are not as malicious as appears. Next time a blatant lie is said, tell them that they should speak to someone, because is too much for a person to bear. In a paragraph, this person needs help and when this happens you will probably love chatting to the person you find behind this charade because you will know that like everything else in this world it was done for a reason.