Everything But The Truth

The lie. Everybody has lied at some point in their lives. Those who are empathic in nature however place considerable stock in honesty and decency. Their sense of self-worth and self-esteem is linked to their investment in telling the truth. The strong sense of guilt, the need to do the right thing and an awareness of the consequences of telling lies means that most empathic people only tend to stray into the arena of the ‘white lie’ so told in order to protect and to help. Of course an empathic person has the capacity to tell lies, but they are invariably regulated by their empathic traits so that this does not arise or if it does, it is rare indeed.

Our kind do not have such regulation. Since we are stripped of empathy, remorse and guilt, there are no handbrakes which exist to stop the lie as it forms in our mind or to prevent it appearing on our lips. Not only are these safeguards missing, the way that we have been created means that lying serves us especially well and therefore it actively encourages us to tell lies. This combination of a lack of safeguards and the encouragement, even necessity to lie, creates a fertile breeding ground for lies to be told.

Lie are the foot soldiers of the narcissist. There are thousands of them available. They are easy to apply, adaptable for all manner of situations and completely expendable. We direct our lies against our victims, battalions of them marching over people in order to achieve our aims and conquer.

How does our kind lie? Let us consider them in the context of one of our kind being suspected of engaging in infidelity and indeed has been doing so. The narcissist has arrived home later after spending the evening with a new prospect as a primary source and is asked where he has been by the existing intimate partner how is a primary source.

1. Commission. A bare-faced lie where the truth is not told but something untrue is said instead. In the example detailed above, the response of ‘I have been working late at the office’ is given in response. Since we have no concept of guilt, it is easy enough for us to tell a lie of commission. We may even do so if there is evidence that demonstrates that what we have just said cannot be true. The ability to do so is something which our victims find difficult to reconcile.
2. Omission. The truth appears to be told but the crucial detail is missing which results in a lie being told by omission. ‘I have been to see Leslie.’ Indeed, we have been to see Leslie, we just have not told you that we have been in bed with her all evening. The lie of omission provides us with the opportunity to do two things. First of all, to declare that we have actually told the truth and you are just looking for any reason to find fault with us – a dose of projection thrown in there too – and secondly, to blame-shift by asserting, ‘You asked where I had been, I told you, you didn’t ask me what I had been doing, you should have been more precise if you wanted to know, so don’t make your shortcomings something to blame me for.’
3. Influence. A lie of influence is where we seek to convince you that somebody like us would not be capable of the very thing that you are accusing us of. We might respond in the above scenario by stating ‘looking forward to getting home to the love of my life, after all I am a happily married man.’ By asserting that this is the case we are seeing to influence you into believing that someone like us is incapable of being unfaithful. It is akin to someone being asked if they have been stealing from their employer and answering, ‘I have worked here for 20 years’ thus asserting through influence that someone so loyal would not steal.
4. Silence. What better way to avoid the accusations and at the same time dole out one of our favourite manipulations by falling silent? By saying nothing we can camp on to the moral high ground by maintaining we neither told a lie of commission, not did we tell you a lie of omission as we said nothing at all.
5. Exaggeration. As you would expect this is often used for the purposes of making us look good, thus we will embellish our financial capability, the amount we can bench-press, the number of football matches attended, the deals closed and so on and so forth. We see nothing wrong whatsoever with embellishment because all we are doing is taking something which is more or less true and polishing it up.
6. Projection. This is an advanced lie based on silence. We do not answer the question, thus effectively responding silently to it, but instead we go further by accusing you of the very thing that we have done. Thus, in the example we would respond by saying to you ‘Never mind asking me where I have been, where were you this afternoon? I rang you twice and you never answered. You should have been here at home. What have you been doing eh? Getting cosy with that friend of yours from the school I bet.’
7. Justification. In this instance you actually do get the truth told to you but there is no admission of the truth by us, thus we are maintaining a lie to you. This often includes those familiar manipulations of the Pity Play and/or the Blame Shift. In the example, this would appear as, ‘Yes, yes I have been with Leslie and in bed with her, so what? If you gave me some attention and you weren’t so damn frigid I would not have to go elsewhere would I, so don’t start trying to blame me, it is your fault.’ We have admitted the infidelity as a fact but we do not take ownership of the wrongdoing and thus we maintain a lie in that regard.

Why do we engage in lying in such an extensive fashion?

1. Fuel. What else? Our lies are told to impress so that we gain adoration and admiration. Our lies are told to wound so that you become hurt, upset and angry. Our lies are told to frustrate so you become agitated and anxious. The telling of lies through one of the different forms described above allows us to provoke an emotional reaction and thus we can gain the fuel that we need. The more we lie, the more reactions we can provoke, good or bad, sometimes good and bad from the same lie and accordingly we gain more fuel.
2. Control. We must control our environment and we must control you as our victims as part of this environment. A healthy person has no need to exert such extensive control because they have sufficient self-worth not to be concerned about the environment about them or if they have not, they have sufficient awareness to realize that there is little that they can do about it. That does not apply to us. Our concerns about being unmasked, our concerns that appliances will not function as we require them to do so results in an incredible need to control the environment and we use lies as the means to achieve that. Lies enable us to gain fuel and thus ensure that the appliances function, lies allow us to appear better than we are so that we are the person we regard ourselves to be, lies allow us to escape liability for the things we say and do – all of these and more amount to control over our environment.
3. Maintaining a lack of culpability. As mentioned above, by telling lies we can escape the consequences of our words and actions. Our sense of entitlement means we are justified in doing so. Our failure to recognise boundaries means we will tell lies so that we gain admittance somewhere without paying, when we ought to have done so. We will tell lies anywhere to escape repercussions and consequences – to you, to family members, to employers, to service providers, to the authorities and even in court. Some of the largest lies are told in front of the altar during our weddings. Lies are the keys which open all doors allowing us to exit with ease and without consequence.
4. Habit. Already you can see that there are many different lies which can be told, there are infinite situations in which they can be used and there are many reasons why we tell them. This all amounts to an aggregate effect whereby the compulsion to tell lies is so overwhelming that we begin to do it out of habit. It actually feels right to us to lie and to tell the truth becomes uncomfortable, unsettling and alien, thus, since we always prefer the course of least resistance, we will opt to tell the lie and thus we feel at ease again.
5. The belief in the lie. The Lesser and Mid-Range Narcissists are actually delusional. They do believe the lies that they tell. They are convinced that what they are saying is true and accurate and that is why it is done with such conviction and regularity. This is difficult for those who are not of our kind to grasp, since you believe that we must be able to see and know that we are lying. This is not the case with those two schools of narcissist. The Greater is a different proposition. We do not believe our lies. We know that we are lying. We are not delusional. Those of us who are Greaters tell lies because the lie is an investment in our survival. We have to tell the lie because we need fuel, we need to fulfil our sense of entitlement, break through a boundary, escape a consequence. Our survival depends on it and thus the lie is a necessary mechanism. Free from guilt or remorse, we can know it is a lie and say it with ease.
6. Perception. What you see may be regarded as the truth but our need to maintain control, superiority and the upper hand, so we are admired, adored, loved and so forth means that we will not recognise the truth because it does not accord with what we require. We in effect become blind to what the truth is, we literally cannot see it because our world view has been altered to such a degree. This is instinctive to all of the schools of narcissism. Owing to their lower cognitive function and their lack of insight, the Lesser and Mid Range Narcissists do not see beyond this altered reality. The Greater can and does realise that there has been this alteration in what he sees but we only see a disadvantage in admitting the truth, therefore the fabrication and the lies become the preference.
7. Exploitation. Lies are inherently dishonest but with the Greater of our kind in particular we use lies because they exploit our victims into giving us what we want, complying with our demands and providing us those things which we deem to be necessary to our survival. This exploitation is a step above and beyond the usual dishonesty that one associates with the telling of lies.
8. The playing of games. Again this is usually the preserve of the Greater of our kind but the telling of lies becomes a game to us. The more lies the better. If we tell a lie and you unravel it, we will just tell another one, even though we may contradict ourselves. We do not care for contradiction, after all, we are not liable for the consequences and there are so many different manipulations that can be used to deflect, deny and so forth from what we said only moments ago. The playing of the game entertains us, appeals to our sense of omnipotence and accords with our higher cognitive function. The more elaborate the lie, the greater the sense of achievement that is obtained from its construction and its effects.
9. Confusion. Telling lies confuses those who hear them especially empathic individuals who are committed to telling the truth, being honest and getting to the truth. A confused victim is one which remains in our grasp for longer.

Lies are an essential part of the toolkit of our kind. You will experience them repeatedly during your entanglement with our kind and to such an extent that it becomes exhausting to try to discern the truth from the morass of lies that is spewed from our mouths.