Someone who makes up stories and believes them is often described as a pathological liar, also known as having mythomania, pseudologia fantastica, or being a pseudologue, characterized by fabricating elaborate, often fantastical tales that they themselves start to perceive as true, sometimes stemming from low self-esteem, trauma, or underlying mental health conditions.
Pseudologia fantastica (PF), also known as pathological lying or mythomania, is a mental disorder characterized by persistent, pervasive, and often compulsive lying. PF causes dysfunction in many realms of life.
Pathological lying is frequently linked to underlying personality disorders, such as narcissistic or antisocial personality disorder. Individuals who are pathological liars may be less aware of their deceptions and sometimes believe their own fabrications. Their lies can be grandiose and fantastical.
Symptoms of Pseudologia Fantastica:
Key Differences in Behavioral Patterns
Compulsive liars often lie as a habit or to avoid uncomfortable emotions, while pathological liars engage in more calculated and manipulative lying for personal gain or attention.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) lists pathological lying as a symptom of mental health disorders such as antisocial personality disorder or narcissistic personality disorder.
Pathological liars generally feel no guilt about their lies, lie obsessively and compulsively, and behave as if their lie is true. Critically, they are not delusional about the truth value of their lie, they just do not care.
Personality disorders such as Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) often lead people to make false accusations. HPD is characterized by a pervasive pattern of excessive emotionality and attention seeking, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, and it is especially common in teenage girls.
Characteristic features. Fantasy prone persons are reported to spend up to half (or more) of their time awake fantasizing or daydreaming. People with Type 1 FPP will often confuse or mix their fantasies with their real memories.
Pathological liar signs typically begin between ages 10 and 20, according to a study published in Psychiatric Research & Clinical Practice.
Manipulative tendencies may derive from cluster B personality disorders such as narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Manipulative behavior has also been related with one's level of emotional intelligence.
Factitious disorder symptoms may include:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): This is a common treatment choice for compulsive lying. CBT helps you identify and change negative thought patterns that lead to problematic behaviors, including lying. It provides practical strategies for managing stress and improving communication skills.
Confabulation can occur with nervous system injuries or illnesses, including Korsakoff's syndrome, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, and traumatic brain injury. It is believed that the right frontal lobe of the brain is damaged, causing false memories.
People can have psychosis without realizing that's what they're experiencing. This is because symptoms may start slowly over time, and also because it can be hard to know when thinking and perceptions are so unusual as to be pathological. Symptoms such as hallucinations are usually easier to identify.
The number one trait of a narcissist is often considered a grandiose sense of self-importance (grandiosity) combined with a profound lack of empathy, where they see others as tools for their own gain and have an inflated, often unrealistic, view of their own superiority, needing constant admiration without acknowledging others' feelings or needs, as highlighted by HelpGuide.org and The Hart Centre. This core creates other behaviors like entitlement, manipulation, and arrogance, making them believe they deserve special treatment.
Personality disorders involve pervasive patterns of unusual behaviors, thoughts, and emotions, making it hard to function, with common signs including unstable relationships, identity issues, extreme mood swings, impulsive/risky actions (like self-harm or substance misuse), persistent distrust, intense fear of abandonment, difficulty with emotional regulation, problems controlling anger, lack of empathy, and trouble with boundaries or self-image.
Paracosm is a state of mind that can affect how one thinks, acts, makes decisions, and feels the surrounding environment, things, and other people. Sometimes, it can get out of control, and you may get stuck in the fictional unreal world.
You can only be given medication after an initial 3-month period in either of the following situations: You consent to taking the medication. A SOAD confirms that you lack capacity. You haven't given consent, but a SOAD confirms that this treatment is appropriate to be given.
Don't try to convince them it's not real
This means that the person has absolutely no doubt that what they think, feel, see, or hear is real. There's nothing you can do or say to convince them otherwise… But you also won't make the delusions more fixed if you talk about them.
The "25 rule" (or "rule of quarters") in schizophrenia suggests that outcomes fall into four roughly equal groups: 25% recover fully, 25% improve significantly with some ongoing support, 25% improve somewhat but need considerable help, and 25% have a poor outcome with chronic illness or suicide risk, highlighting the varied nature of schizophrenia's long-term course, though some sources use a "rule of thirds" with similar proportions for different outcomes.
Liars fear being caught, leading to consequences like punishment, rejection, or humiliation, but also fear the exposure of their true, often flawed, selves or the shame and guilt associated with deception, especially when lying stems from trauma or low self-worth. They fear losing control, the damage to trust when lies are revealed, and situations where someone remembers details, as inconsistencies unravel their fabrications.
Keep an eye out for the following signs, and you won't be taken advantage of by a liar.
Changing their story or defensiveness: When people lie and they are confronted with evidence that contradicts those lies, they may change their story or deny the truth altogether. They may also try to manipulate others to maintain their false story.