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"My attorney, familiar with borderline mental health divorce cases, told me to go to the police to explain to them that I was about to say yes to her request for a divorce She had made many false accusations in the past or been violent. I then said to her with the kids home as witnesses, 'You know the email you sent me threatening divorce? I think we should talk about it.'

"From that she called my family, her family, my attorney, the neighbors, and the priest who performed our wedding ceremony and told them that I came home from a bar stinking of alcohol yelling and throwing things in front of the kids, screaming that I wanted a divorce, probably because of infidelity. I don't know if she lied on purpose or had convinced herself so thoroughly that she was a victim when bad things happened to her."

Many things can destroy trust and intimacy between partners when one is a high conflict person. But one of the top ones is lying--especially when it is about extramarital contact (something I will talk about separately because it's a huge topic). A disclaimer: not all people with BPD or knowingly NPD lie. It's just that those who do lie so thoroughly and often that they spoil it for those who do not.

First, let's define what a lie is, because what constitutes a lie and the truth is a gray area. The book Lying, Cheating, and Carrying On (edited by Salman Akhtar and Henri Parens, Jason Aronson Publishers, Lanham, Maryland, 2009) contains several essays about lying. In the essay Lies, Liars, and Lying: An Introductory Overview, Salman Akhtar, M.D. lists several types of conscious lies, i.e., those that Pinocchio knows are false.  

Here are examples that a 17-year-old girl might tell to parents who went on an overnight trip and left her at home "alone."

1. Lies of omission: telling the truth but not the whole truth in a way designed to mislead ("While you were gone I watched a DVD"--not mentioning the five people who were also over and who drank beer).

2. Not speaking up when asked a direct question. (Silence when asked, "What did you do when we were gone?")

3. Making up facts that are not true ("I did my homework while you were gone").

4. Embellishing the truth is a way that misleads ("I took care of the cat"-meaning she petted it a few times but forgot to feed him on time or change the litter box).

5. Insisting that a truth known to someone is a falsehood ("I did not have friends over!").

6. "Gaslighting," a purposeful attempt to erode another's reality by denying their experience ("No, the house looks exactly like it did when you left. Is there something wrong with your vision?"). One woman in therapy once said that nearly all the quarrels in her family was about whose reality would be dubbed the "right" one.

7. Acknowledging the truth but assigning motives that were never there to make yourself look better ("Yes, I had people here but only because I was so lonely without you that I was getting very depressed and started crying").

8. Keeping secrets for the wrong reasons (One of the friends stole the mother's expensive earrings).

Now let's look at unconscious lies, or untruths that the teller believes on a conscious level. Being truthful takes the ability to be honest with one's own self, because if you're not honest with yourself, you won't be honest with others. For example:

1) When a narcissist says that everyone loves and respects her when it's obvious to others it's not true, that's an unconscious lie. In fact, an NP's "false self" means that their core identity is one whale of a lie. (That's not to say that narcissists don't tell purposeful, conscious lies: they do for reasons we will go into shortly.) Les Carter explains this well in his book, Why Is It Always About You?: The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism. He writes (p 17):

In a sense, narcissists are out of touch with reality. They are not mentally ill, like a psychotic; they are just unwilling to acknowledge truth that doesn't match their preferences. While normal people can weigh events rationally and draw fair conclusions about themselves, narcissists do not. They lack the objectivity to live with reasonable insight because their need for self exaltation does not allow them to accept that their perceptions might not be the ultimate truth. Their idealized view of themselves blinds them as they try to make sense of life, particularly the elements in themselves that might be imperfect or that might require adjustments (and they never want to make adjustments).

2) When a borderline's intense emotions lead him to use projection or emotional reasoning (feelings equal facts), that's an unconscious lie. In the book Communication and Emotional Life by Paul Ekman, PhD (Holt Paperbacks; 2nd edition: 2007), the author says that when we are gripped by a strong emotion that doesn't fit the circumstances, we interpret what is happening in a way that fits with the emotions we are feeling instead of the facts presented to us. In other words, we seek to confirm what we already feel and ignore new evidence that does not fit, maintain or justify the emotion.

We all have this "confirmation bias" to some degree. But it is a way of life for people with borderline personality disorder--whom, you will remember, also have abrupt mood swings, feel more intensely for longer time periods, and take additional time to go back to their emotional baseline. The more chaotic the emotions, as they are for our borderline friends, the more deep-rooted the process.

And as if that weren't enough, lingering negative feelings about other issues make one more likely to see negative intent. BPs tend to remember every hurt "done to them" as though it happened yesterday. Their false conclusions lead to problematic decisions and behaviors since they're always assuming the worst. They also project their own feelings onto others, so their "You hate me," means "I hate myself." These are untruths, but not really overt lies (as damaging as they may be).

As the opening quote said, it's hard to tell the difference between a conscious lie and a conscious one. A man says, "It is like we both walk into the same movie theater. I thought that we entered into see the same movie. We sit together. We enter and leave at the same time. But afterwards, I learned that what she saw was entirely different from me, even though we sat and watched the same movie. Her version is no where even close to mine."

Now that we know the difference between conscious and unconscious lies (and a bit about how they work with those with BPD and NPD) let's take an even closer look. 

 Borderline Personality Disorder