Linggo, Hulyo 5, 2015

Do Pathological Liars Know They're Pathological Liars?

Or do they truly believe their own BS?

Wellness blogger Belle Gibson, 23, has quickly gone from an admired source of healthy-living wisdom to a scorned fraud, outed for lying about something that's deadly serious: having terminal brain cancer. After touting the story that she triumphed over her illness by consuming whole foods and relying on alternative medicine instead of conventional treatment like chemotherapy or radiation, her tall tale unraveled in a startling fashion. When the Australian publications The Australian and The Age revealed that Gibson never had cancer and didn't donate 25 percent of her company's sales to charities like she said she did, Gibson admitted she'd lied. Then, in a June 28 interview on 60 Minutes Australia Gibson asserted that she's the true victim, as doctors had misdiagnosed her, she claimed.

“Once I received the definite, ‘No, you do not have cancer,’ that was something I had to come to terms with and it was really traumatizing and I was feeling a huge amount of grief…that I had been lied to, that I felt like I had been taken for a ride,” she said.

Gibson didn't only lie about cancer, though; she also said she's 26 instead of 23. When interviewer Tara Brown pressed the matter, Gibson held fast to her confusing answer. “I’ve always been raised as being currently a 26-year-old,” said Gibson, who later added that her true age is "probably a question we'll have to keep digging for."

RELATED: 5 Compulsive Liars Who Got Caught—and Skewered by the Internet

It seems as though Gibson fully believes that her behavior didn't affect anyone but herself. "I didn’t trade in on my story or in other peoples lives," she said. "I’m not trying to get away with anything." But how likely is it that deep down, she truly believes that? Or that any other pathological liar does? For the answer to that, you have to understand where the urge to lie consistently comes from. "In the updated DSM-5, the manual of mental disorders, there's no diagnosis for a pathological liar like there would be for depression or anxiety," says Matthew Goldfine, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in New York and New Jersey. Instead, people who can't stop lying have one of two diagnoses: factitious disorder or malingering disorder. Those who fall into the factitious category lie for the purpose of having all eyes on them—they crave the attention. "One easy example is Munchausen by proxy, when a mother will make a child sick or exaggerate their illness for attention, support, and sympathy," says Goldfine.

Someone with malingering disorder is seeking some sort of external, tangible gain that isn't attention-based, whether it's money, time off work, drugs, or something else that benefits them in some way. Theoretically, both factitious and malingering disorders are treatable with cognitive restructuring, where a psychologist helps the patient shift their mindset into a more accurate view. The line gets fuzzy because various forms of mental illness that have manageable symptoms but aren't technically treatable may cause people to exhibit one of these lying disorders. "For example, someone who's depressed and running into money trouble may lie factitiously, and someone with antisocial personality disorder, or a sociopath, may lie for external gain. Extreme lying and mental illness don't always coexist, but they can cross paths," says Goldfine.

RELATED: How to Tell If Someone's Lying Online

It's easy to think someone like Belle Gibson is entirely malicious, but this is a tricky one to answer. "I'm not her psychologist so I can't say for sure, but in cases like this, it's not likely that people don't realize what they're doing, like someone with schizophrenia," says Goldfine. "They may have convinced themselves they're owed this, or it's not that big of a deal, or they're not hurting anyone. Lying to so many people to get significant gain, and keeping up that lie, is very hard to do for most mentally healthy people. Often times, it takes convincing yourself that you really are sick."

So what about after the truth came out, and the jig should have been up but Gibson kept chugging along? That's where embarrassment can come into play. Imagine the humiliation of your friends and family catching you in a lie, then multiply that by the entire world. "People may start thinking they're in too deep and they have to go along with the lie, then convince themselves it's true to prevent any dissonance between reality and what they're doing," says Goldfine. It's like how if you think of yourself as an honest person, but cheat on a test, you'll find a way to rationalize why you did it: everyone cheats, you need a good grade to graduate but didn't have time to study, or maybe you think you would have gotten a good grade anyway, he says.

RELATED: How to Know If He's Lying to You About Cheating

Pathological liars can take another route instead convincing themselves whatever they're saying is the truth: believing that even though they're lying, they're helping someone anyway. They may bypass the fact that they're lying and try to look at what they think of as the greater good instead. "She could be thinking she's getting the word out about cancer," says Goldfine. Of course, then there are the more selfish potential motivations: getting her name in the spotlight, basking in continuous awe and praise, and making money. The truth is, Gibson's case, and those of people like her, can be the result of a perfect storm of factors. "It's not as easy as saying she definitely knew she was lying or she didn't,” says Goldfine. “The reasons for this sort of behavior are very nuanced, and there's always a balance between what external gain the liar is getting and how much they believe what they're saying."

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