Why do I, pathologically lie?

Hello, thank you for joining me. I am Roberts and it is nice to meet you. Please just call me Rob though.

So, the question I have is why do I lie? Oh, not just a little, and not just every now and then. Nope.

Every. Damn. Day.

Well, I mean it had to have started somewhere right? So perhaps my childhood?

Well one thing I should let you know about liars like me. We always start out with the truth; we always intend to tell the truth. The problem is, sometimes that truth gets interrupted partway through. And sometimes, just sometimes, that can even be within the first few words of a statement.

So, let’s look at my life, oh don’t worry, not going to bore you with the whole thing. Just the parts that might have contributed to why I am such a liar.

But, before we get started and before the lies kick in, I want to state one thing, my childhood was not bad by others standards. I luckily had one parent that loved me and did everything he could for me. And one that I know loved me, but decided to let alcohol come between us.

So, I wanted to make sure that was clear. I mean, shit, there are kids out there whose parents kill them, so yeah, could have been a lot worse.

No, my parents were, well one was busy. He wanted the best for us and had a loving wife, so he worked. This was great because I always had one parent around, though yeah, I missed him sometimes. But he was there as much as he could be, which honestly was a lot for someone who worked as hard as he did.

My mother though, well I know she loved us, but she made decisions that drove a wedge between us.

So, let’s start there then, and start my very brief story of why I personally think I pathologically lie.

I beat my mother.

Well now, hold on before we start getting the pitch forks and torches.

Ok, true that statement doesn’t really deserve any defense. Though is it all true? See the issue is I don’t know anymore myself. You think pathological liars lie and hurt YOU when they do it? Shit, it is the only thing keeping us going day to day most days.

So, lets break it down, first is I, well obviously still true, first letter and we are talking about me, so moving on.

I beat. Well, I mean when this happened, I was only eight or so, so I beat my meat might be the truth I am covering up. I doubt it though, even if 8 might be a little young for it. But no, I am sure ‘I beat’ are at least true. So, moving on once more.

I beat my. Uh oh, perhaps I am covering up an admission of early child hood masturbation. Honestly, I don’t know myself at this point. So, let’s just hurry to the end.

I beat my mother.

Shit! Not the M word you want to replace masturbation with at the end of that small, simple, terrible, sentence.

Nope, nope I have to conclude that I must have beaten my mother at some point. So I am that monster, so this must be why I lie, to hide the monster I am.

I mean, it makes sense. Start lying to yourself first for practice, then start lying to others. Family and friends because, well shit, if you hurt them you can just tell yourself you didn’t and it is all good.

So, there it is, I am a pathological liar because I beat my mother when I was a child. I guess WAY better than some Oedipus complex, though I am sure now that I have said this people will think that I do, and honestly, WTF ever.

But yeah, monster, mother beater, liar to friends and family.

Why did I do it? I am glad I asked myself that.

Because I was spoiled. I was a monster even at the age of eight, but I always told myself I wasn’t the monster, she was. Well, not a monster at that age, but a meanie head. I wasn’t the meanie head she was.

We were supposed to go to the park, to go out. My sister and my dad were out so why weren’t we?

Doesn’t matter, we weren’t able to go so I beat her to teach her a lesson.

Not sure how much of a lesson an eight-year old’s fists could do, but I taught it. And she learnt it, and that was my mother laying on the bed, I think passed out drunk, or at the least unable to even walk out of the bedroom at my grandmother’s house.

Wow, ok so I think I am now confused myself.

When we were younger and one of our parents went to go do something one of us would go and one would stay home. Well, this time we were at my grandmother’s house for the day, and my Dad and sister went off. I do not remember exactly what they were doing.

Knowing my dumbass, I thought they went to six flags or something. (Six flags was over 2 hours away, and my Dad would never have left me behind for that.) Well anyway, there I was wondering where my mom was while I played with those Lincoln logs things, you know the ones that you could build a ‘log’ cabin with?

Well, I realized I wanted to go to the park, and went back to find my mom. She was laying down in the spare room claiming to not be feeling well and my grandmother told me the same thing.

The funny thing about kids is, we aren’t as stupid as everyone realizes. I knew she wasn’t ill; she was just not wanting to go. See there is a difference between ignorance, and willful ignorance (aka stupidity). I didn’t KNOW what drunk or alcoholism was. I just knew that sometimes my mother would be perfectly fine, smiling, laughing, cooking, cleaning, or doing any of that stuff, then suddenly she couldn’t get out of bed and wasn’t “feeling well”.

So, yeah, I knew that my mom wasn’t sick. At least not in the way other people would get sick. She always had a bottle with her, and every time she drank from it she got like this. Vodka water was gross, but she liked it more than the park with me.

So there I am trying to wake her up, or get her out of bed since I don’t really remember if she was awake and drunk, or passed out drunk. I do remember my Grandmother leading me out of the room and telling me to let her sleep. I do remember going back in there a few minutes later. I do remember locking the door behind me. I do remember the first hit, feeling her flesh under my fists. I do remember my grandmother banging on the door telling me to unlock it. I do remember shouting at my mother to get up as I hit her. I do remember calling her names and telling her I hated her. I do remember doing that for a while.

I don’t remember how it ended.

Did my grandmother stop it, did I? Was I that much of a monster that eight-year-old me would have kept beating her until I really did something bad?

I remember being in the living room, in trouble from my Grandmother and her asking me what I had been doing in there.

I do remember that that was the first time I lied to someone of my family. Or I guess, that is the first time I remember lying to my family. I told her all I was doing was shaking her to wake her up.

I don’t know if she believed me or not. That wasn’t important enough to remember at that moment. No at that moment I had to also believe I had just been yelling and shaking my mother.

So, I guess, that is also the first time I remember lying to myself.

The strange thing about pathologically lying, to me at least, is we remember the actions we lie to ourself about. We just say they were dreams, nightmares, something we read or saw. Nothing we would have actually done. We did this instead remember? That’s what we told people, so we have to believe it ourselves.

Because if we didn’t, we would have to face the fact that we are the monster, not everyone else we hurt.

Though, then again, this all started off with the question of “Why do I, pathologically lie?”

Should the question now be, how much bullshit did I make up and slap on here? All of it? None of it?

I can say that I will always start with the truth, just how far the truth goes before the lies start coming in is the real question.

I beat my mother. I am the monster. I lie to everyone.

Amazing how far four words can go to make you wonder about yourself.

Anyway, thank you for taking the time to listen to this, this is Jackson, call me Jack, signing off..

At least, unless we need to figure out more of why I lie..