Reject

Understanding Aspects Of Lying In Emotional Abuse

Lying is one of the most common tactics an emotional abuser uses to gain power and control over their victim. In fact, lying (in any shape or form) is a type of abuse. That’s because it confuses the victim’s reality while helping the liar to not have to take responsibility for things and often enabling them to shift the blame onto the victim.  

Emotional abusers alter your experience of reality by telling you lies about yourself and the things they are doing until you accept their explanation of reality over your own. Over enough time, you begin to accept these messages which then affect the way you see yourself. This leads to unhealthy thoughts about yourself and allows you to see yourself exactly the way the abuser wants you to.

Emotional abusers use covert lying to create stress and confusion for their victims. This allows them to manipulate their victims and cloud their thinking so that they can gain control over them. Lying also enables an emotional abuser to get away with the other forms of abuse they unleash on their victim. The two go hand in hand.

There are a number of different forms of lying, and gaining a better understanding of them can help you prevent further manipulation and the stressful confusion that comes with it.

Black Lies

Black lies are all about callous selfishness. Abusers use them to gain something for themselves at the cost of the person they are trying to deceive, to gain an advantage over their victim or to get themselves out of trouble. Black lies are usually used for power, money, status or control.

White Lies

White lies are seemingly small alterations or obstructions from the truth or reality that are harder to disprove. They are lies often told by the abuser to others in order to influence their perception of the victim. Over time, this tactic effectively isolates the victim from others.

Half-Truths

These semi-lies help the abuser to avoid responsibility in a situation. The lie contains just enough of the truth to seem credible. This tactic is often used by the abuser to look like the victim. It always paints a picture that is more favorable for the abuser.

Broken Promises

Broken promises are designed to make the victim look bad in front of others. But a broken promise is the same as a lie. This form of lying is difficult of abusers to accept when confronted and they will try to excuse their actions and give themselves the benefit of the doubt.

Forgetting

Abusers use this form of lying as another form of manipulation. They claim to forget a commitment or obligation that was impossible to forget and use this tactic to convince their victim that they just made a simple mistake. Constant forgetfulness should never be dismissed.

Denial

Next an outright black lie, this is possibly the worst form of lying. Abusers use this tactic to flat out deny the truth, to avoid getting caught doing something wrong or harmful or to avoid taking responsibility of something they did. If someone denies reality, they are probably lying.

It may take a while, but over time, most victims start to realize that many of the things their abuser says just don’t add up. Their statements, comments and explanations will often make you scratch your head and say to yourself “this just doesn’t make sense.” It is important to remember that healthy people do not habitually lie. But people suffering from any of the Cluster B personality disorders are not healthy people. In fact, they will go out of their way to try and proactively frame everything you say as a lie to deflect the attention away from the actions and manipulation they are actually committing against you. And their lying prevents the authentic, loving, trustworthy relationships that most normal, healthy people desire and deserve.