How To Tell If A Narcissist Is Lying: Telltale Signs

In this episode, learn how to tell if a narcissist is lying by watching for these telltale signs! Liars are not always easy to spot due to their chameleon-like behavior; however, if you take the time to step back and gain objectivity, you will notice pervasive patterns that indicate the person you are dealing with has a propensity to lie. Narcissistic personality disorder is not always easy to spot.

Covert narcissists manipulate by mirroring your empathy, for example, and without objectivity, you might be pulled in by their charismatic charm or their sob story. Narcissists manipulate others in various ways, such as gaslighting, projection, triangulation, smear campaigns, coercive control, domination, and power. They can also use stonewalling and the silent treatment to exert control over their targets.

Transcript

Welcome to the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

My name is Lisa A.

Romano.

I am a life coach,

Best-selling author,

YouTube vlogger,

Meditation teacher,

And expert in the field of codependency and narcissistic abuse.

I am a believer in the power of an organized mind.

My aim is to help people learn what it means to live above the veil of consciousness rather than living a reactive life.

May your heart feel blessed,

Your mind feel expanded,

And your spirit find hope as you spend time with me here at the Breakdown to Breakthrough Podcast.

So today we're going to be talking about how you can tell when a narcissist is lying.

When we're talking about trying to figure out whether or not someone that we care about or someone that we know is lying,

Especially if this person is a narcissist,

It can be difficult at first because most people just take people at their word.

Most people meet someone and they assume that what they're saying is actually consistent and what they're saying is real and what they're saying is honest and authentic,

And we have no reason to believe that this person would be manipulating us,

Especially if that isn't part of our character.

We want to understand that if we are people who show up authentically,

It doesn't mean that we're perfect,

But we are people who show up authentically and we have no agenda to manipulate this other person,

Then that lens by which we view the self is the lens by which we are assuming other people operate through as well,

And this is a false premise.

This was a big wake-up call for me and definitely a huge breakthrough moment where I realized that just because I'm showing up this way doesn't mean the person that I love is showing up this way,

And just because my intention is to feel close to this person,

My intention is to be authentic with this person,

My intention is to even be vulnerable with this person and tell them that I'm sorry,

That I recognize that I was short-sighted or that I was overreactive.

Just because I'm able to do that authentically does not mean that everybody else plays by those same rules.

That was a huge,

Huge wake-up call for me on my adult journey because for a very long time,

Well into my,

I would say,

Late 30s,

I really thought that people thought the same way,

And it sounds so silly to say that now at 59,

But back then,

I really did presume that if I'm honest,

You're being honest with me too,

And that's just not the case.

If you are dealing with someone who is highly toxic,

You're dealing with someone who you feel is narcissistic,

You are at the point now where you're questioning reality,

You're oftentimes very confused after a conversation,

The conversations that you have with this person tend to not be able to get from point A to point B,

You feel like they're circular conversations,

You're noticing inconsistency in their thought patterns,

Inconsistency in their words matching what they're doing or their behavior,

You're just noticing a lot of things.

You just feel uneasy around this person,

And like I said,

There's no flow,

There's no continuity,

There's no predictability.

In other words,

There's no stability.

This person says one thing on Monday,

But they're doing something else on Thursday,

Or they led you to believe they believe this on Tuesday,

And they're saying that they believe in something else on Friday,

Or depending upon their audience,

They'll change and they'll shapeshift.

They'll believe this in front of this group of people,

And they'll believe something else in front of another group of people.

The term that I use,

It's like trying to nail Jell-O up against the wall.

When you're dealing with someone who has a toxic personality,

Someone who's highly narcissistic,

You're not going to get closure,

You're not going to feel like things are ever stable,

You end up acclimating to the up and the down,

You lose yourself,

And it's sort of like you are now following this dot on a screen.

If you're not careful,

Especially if you have codependent tendencies,

If you're not careful,

You won't catch yourself in this dynamic.

You'll just keep trying to please this person,

You will anticipate this person's needs,

You will walk around on eggshells,

You will operate in as many ways possible to try to figure out what their next move is,

Which is you can't predict it in most of the cases,

Because it really does depend on what's happening in the moment,

They're not emotionally regulated,

And so you really are never quite sure what they think,

What they feel,

What they believe,

Which is really,

Really toxic.

So when you're trying to figure out or spot the lies in someone's life,

What you're going to be looking for are pervasive patterns.

So you can look for things like a pervasive pattern of being inconsistent,

A pervasive pattern of saying one thing and doing another,

A pervasive pattern of talking down about other people,

A pervasive pattern of saying they're going to show up and they don't show up,

A pervasive pattern of blame shifting,

A pervasive pattern of projecting,

A pervasive pattern of rage,

A pervasive pattern of triangulation,

A pervasive pattern of smear campaigning,

A pervasive pattern of gaslighting.

Now we have to recognize that we all have bad days.

We can all be narcissistic.

We can all be self-absorbed.

When we are highly emotional,

When things don't go our way,

When we have an expectation and the reality doesn't match the expectation,

We can all,

Unless we're really,

Really,

We're sage-like,

Right?

We're enlightened and we've done enough emotional recovery work and we're really,

Really focused on being able to regulate our thoughts and regulate our emotions.

I would say more often than not,

Most of us might have a bad reaction to that.

But if we're healthy,

Somewhat healthy,

And we're not swimming in the narcissistic pool at the end of the spectrum,

Then even if we have a bad moment,

We'll be able to catch ourselves and we'll be able to come back to homeostasis.

And if we've made a mistake and we've hurt people's feelings,

We can actually apologize for it.

We do not lack empathy towards those people that we have wounded.

If you are healthy,

You will develop empathy.

Naturally,

You will have empathy for the person that has been caught in your outburst.

Not so with the narcissist or people who are cluster B.

People who are highly narcissistic will become enraged that you suggest that they have compassion for someone who doesn't think like them.

They will become indignant.

They will become vengeful.

They will become full of scorn and absolutely justify and give you 25 reasons,

If not more,

As to why that person that they have been abusive towards does not deserve compassion,

That does not deserve understanding.

And so this is a telltale sign of someone who is in that cluster B,

Where regardless of them being wrong,

Regardless of it being blatantly obvious that they are narcissistic,

That they are intolerable of anyone unlike themselves,

Regardless of how obvious it is.

Now remember,

In their mind,

Their psyche is working to justify their grandiosity,

Why they are better than the other person,

Why they have more rights than the other person,

Right?

So this idea that we are one and that everybody has a right to their opinion and understanding that that person's feelings and beliefs are the result of the path that they've walked,

And so we haven't walked in their shoes,

So this objectivity is lost.

And with a narcissist,

They cannot and will not allow themselves to have compassion for someone else that they've wounded.

They will justify,

Rationalize,

Use backwards rationalization to justify why they have treated this person so poorly.

So we're looking for a pervasive pattern of that type of thinking.

Now when we're trying to spot someone who's lying,

That type of pervasive pattern is an indicator that this person is a liar,

That this person is shapeshifting,

That this person is twisting reality,

That this person is using backwards rationalization to justify their action.

When you're dealing with a narcissist,

They absolutely do not have integrity.

When you're dealing with a narcissist,

Everything is situational.

So if they're being tormenting towards one group of people or a person,

Then they will justify that and they will lie to justify why they are treating that person that way.

When you're dealing with a narcissist who is a pathological liar,

What's happening is that throughout the day or in their mind,

What's happening is they're making mental adjustments to justify their actions.

They're almost in a perpetual state of lying.

It's just what's showing up right now that they have to,

What mindset or what defense mechanism or what train of thought do they have to come up with to justify their actions?

And so that in and of itself is a lie.

In other words,

If you have to escape the reality of your own narcissism,

You have to lie to do that.

So the constant lie of I'm grandiose,

The constant lie that I'm better,

When you're dealing with someone who is highly narcissistic,

If you listen to them long enough,

What you'll notice is what they're jockeying for is the right to feel better and more valuable and more correct and more righteous than someone else,

Which justifies how they treat other people.

So when we're trying to figure out or spot lying in a narcissist,

Or you're trying to figure out is this person narcissistic and are they lying consistently,

Then one of the things that you want to make part of what you're looking for,

Almost like a detective,

Is this pervasive pattern.

Narcissist are people who are in this pattern of being.

They don't just lie once in a while,

Like you ask them,

Like,

What'd you have for breakfast?

And like,

Oh,

Egg whites and spinach,

And you can see the sausage in their teeth.

That's not what I'm talking about.

The average person might lie about what they had for breakfast because they're embarrassed or whatever.

That's their issue.

But when we're talking about narcissism,

We're talking about lies consistently over time,

Lies that they tell themselves.

And so here it is,

It's black and white,

Where they know that being a narcissist means that they're grandiose,

That they're exceptional,

That they only hang out with people who are like them,

Who are exceptional.

And this idea that they are so grandiose and the people that they hang out with are grandiose,

Which means that they're better than the rest of us peons,

Right?

Like even though that's the reality,

That's the truth.

And anything unlike that is a lie.

You are not better than someone else because someone else thinks X,

Y,

And Z,

Right?

It's a big world,

And we are who we are based on what's happened to us.

I'm not saying that every single person in the world is following a divine order and is living in the light.

That's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is that when we're talking about narcissistic individuals,

There is this level of grandiosity.

I am better than.

And in their head,

There's a valid and just reason.

Even though the rest of society or the healthier part of society would say,

No,

That's actually not just.

And that's actually injustice because what you're saying is that you are better than.

And because you have talked yourself into this idea that you're better than,

That gives you the right to persecute and judge and smear and discard other people.

And that's a lie,

Right?

That's not the way it should be in a civilized society.

And that's why I always said it just takes one narcissist to take down a family,

One narcissist to take down a community,

One narcissist to take down a company.

When we're trying to figure out and spot the lie in a narcissist,

And we're trying to figure out is this person that I think has high narcissistic traits,

Are they lying to me?

How can I tell if they're lying to me?

Just take a step back and then write it out if you have to,

Journal about it.

Do I see a consistent pattern of this person saying one thing and then doing another?

Well,

There's a lie.

Do I see a consistent pattern of this person twisting facts?

Well,

Okay,

There is a lie.

Do I see a consistent pattern of smearing other people who challenge them?

So that in and of itself could be a form of a lie because they have to jump through hoops psychologically to justify their reactions towards this other person.

So it could be blatantly obvious the person that they're attacking did nothing wrong.

But when it comes to someone who's highly narcissistic,

This person who has done nothing wrong,

It's irrelevant because in the narcissist's mind,

That person deserves to be attacked and discarded.

Oftentimes,

It's because that person just does not blow smoke up the narcissist's butt.

The person is not adhering to what the narcissist is demanding of them.

And so rather than see that logically,

The narcissist is twisting it and justifying and rationalizing why they are being such a vindictive person.

And so that is a lie,

Right?

That is someone who's living in a delusion and narcissism is a delusion.

So narcissists create this reality within their own mind that has them believing that they are better than someone else,

That they are superior to other people.

That in and of itself is a lie.

And they will surround themselves only with people that reinforce this idea of their grandiosity.

And so they don't want to hang out with people who challenge them.

That again is a lie.

So it's a pervasive pattern of observation where you're observing these tendencies in other people that is going to help you identify whether or not the person in your life that you think is highly narcissistic is lying to you.

So if you have these telltale signs where their stories are inconsistent,

Where they're rewriting history,

Where they're actually projecting their character flaws onto other people,

That's a lie.

Gaslighting,

That's a lie,

Right?

So when you gain the distance and the objectivity and you're able to identify this pervasive pattern,

Then you could rest assured that the person that you're dealing with is most likely someone who is highly narcissistic,

Has a high conflict personality,

And is in effect someone who has a pervasive pattern of lying and twisting the facts.

Why is that really important?

Because it's important because when you identify these types of traits,

Then it is easier for you to stay out of the tornado that is their life.

Remember that when you're in a tornado,

You don't know how big that tornado is.

It's only when you get kicked out of the tornado and you keep walking back and back and back,

And imagine being a mile out from a tornado,

That you actually go,

Wow,

That was a big freaking tornado.

But when you're in the tornado,

You don't know it.

And the further you get,

Think about objectivity and space,

And understand that the further you move away from an object,

The less of a pull it has towards you,

Right?

We're talking about physics now.

The less of attraction that object has of you,

The further you move away from it.

So having sessions like this,

Identifying the character traits and identifying this idea like,

If I want to spot a lie,

Or how do I know if a narcissist is really lying to me,

Then what I really want to do is recognize a pervasive pattern of these types of behaviors.

And then I could pull away in that objectivity and recognize that I really should not be going down the rabbit hole with this person's accusations,

With this person's rationalizations,

With this person's version of the stories that they like to tell people and themselves to justify their superiority.

And so I really hope that this has been beneficial.

I know that thinking this way and gaining this objectivity and gaining this clarity has certainly helped me in my life.

It's helped me to go gray rock.

It's helped me to shutty shutty.

It's helped me to understand that it makes no sense to go down the rabbit hole with this type of a person.

It makes no sense because it is a crazy making way of living.

Because the minute you get to one level or one plateau with a narcissist,

They're going to flip the switch and they're going to turn the narrative and they're going to turn the story.

And if you're not careful,

They wipe the floor with you.

And so I really hope that this has been beneficial.

Reviews

Very good explanation and clear examples. Bring to mind a few people I know.

Your audio are so helpful..! Thank you so much for sharing 🙏🏻🪷🫂

Very informative. Thank you.