Pseudologia Fantastica (Pathological liar)

I've been doing a little reading on a couple of areas of Psychology.  I'm no psychologist, but I'd love one of my readers to be one, because I'm interested in describing a character to them; a member of my wife's family in fact; and seeing what they think about their character traits.

The reason being that this person has been unable to function in society for the last few months, so I along with my wife's family have been supporting them.  However, they're finally coming to the situation where they'll be returning to society.

It's therefore time to hand their affairs back to them, and systematically the important items this person is ignoring.  They're not in the midst of a break down, they're not mentally deficient, they're simply refusing to see reality and normal standards of living, they want to life and do things their way, and to hell with the consequences.

They're full able to comprehend the situation and the items on the itinerary, but they are wilfully and systematically ignoring everything which needs sorting, and then making up diatribes trying to make things true from their perspective.

True... An interesting word, important for us programmers, and psychologists a like... Because it contains a flip side, its binary opposite, false...

And this boolean logic, this simple state of black or white, on or off, right or wrong is pretty much a dance this person is running themselves through, they sit like the needle of a record player whirling around on the turn table of life, and they play the same old platitudes, they say the same old things, but they're lying.

I've found out this person has been a liar since childhood, since before the age of five in fact.

I've found they were not really pulled up on the act of lying, it was pointed out to them, but never punished, never nipped in the bud, and so as their life has unfolded they've always got on, but always been ready to lie.

Either to save their own skin, or to get out of tricky situations, but mostly to always turn a situation around so as they looked more favourable, so that they could play on your heart strings and pretty much so they looked a victim.

I'm from a very rough part of Nottingham, much rougher than were this person grew up, and much rougher even than we'd like to admit... But it hardened me to liars, spotting them and pointing them out for what they are.  Not that I jumped to adversely judge this person.

But with carolling their spiralling personal affairs, with chasing around dozens (yes dozens) of different points of paper work for them - DVLA, HMRC, Banks, Insurance, Advertising, Business, Rent, Electricity Bills, Gas Bills, Telephone contracts and a myriad of other official documents - it was obvious something was not right.

So with their returning to society soon they need to know the state of play, they need to know all these balls are being juggled and they need to leap in and take over, this is how you run your life... Their reaction...

"You're a drama queen, fill your boots, you're only making things worse"

Never in my life as a more thorough insult, a more thorough brushing over of the dozens of issues I've handled for someone, the tens of hours spent sorting things for them been more thoroughly and abjectly thrown out and ignored.

This wilful self destruction beggared the question of "Why", why put yourself through the stress of everything going wrong?  Why put yourself out there for the fall?  Why not just run your day to day affairs?

And it dawned on me, this person doesn't run anything, they don't try to run their own life, they don't bother, they life in a little pocket of reality where they do their own thing... Except they don't, they have to pay taxes, and pay rent, pay the bills and exist like the rest of us, they choose to have a car, they choose to live in a house, so they have to pay...

But they fantasise that none of this affects them, that it'll all be all right... And they lie to themselves and everyone around them that "it'll be all right", and this is where they find themselves, so I'd love to speak to a psychologist about them.  I mean, I'm not dumb, but I don't profess to know about mental health all that much - though my wife has some mental health nurse experience & training - and I can read between the lines of their behaviour and that of expected, decent, society and I see a person suffering from "Pseudologia Fantastica"; however, since I've been so thoroughly relegated in their minds eye as a fool, they can frankly go fuck themselves.