liesI hate liars! Sometimes I wish all of them would drop dead. Not the people who tell and occasional lie here and there, but the people who practice lying. They lie about any and everything. It's almost as if telling the truth was this far out concept that they can't comprehend... even if their lives depended on it.
This is all probably very hypocritical coming from and ex-compulsive liar. When I was a kid I would lie about everything. It was as if the there had to be some kind of lunar aligning of the son, moon, and stars in order for me to tell the truth. I just didn't think the truth was ever enough...it just didn't seem to fit. Either it wasn't exciting enough, or it wasn't funny enough, or it just was too embarassing and painful to share. When i was lying it was like I was being taken away in another life... which was good for me cause there were many times I needed a break from reality. One day when I was in 10th grade, all the lies began to catch up with me and it wasn't a pretty sight. I couldn't hold it together anymore and there was a line of people waiting to kick my butt over something I said about them. All I could do was tell the truth and apologize and hope that was enough. It wasn't. They hated me and made sure the rest of the school knew it.
When I was caught up in the game of lies, being lied to didn't affect me at all. I honestly didn't even think about it at all, most times. I was so caught up in my own game of deceit, that what other people said didn't matter much to me. The way I saw it was.... in the end they were going to be the one who's played cause I was a genius at my craft.
After that incident I knew I had to stop it but I didn't know quite how to go about it. I know the simple answer was to just tell the truth, but when you've been lying soooo long, sometimes you can't distinguish the truth from a lie. There are memories and stories from my childhood that I can't honestly remember if they really happened or if I made them all up. Towards the end of my 10th grade year I was chosen to participate in dual enrollment for the remaining two years of high school and I jumped at the chance. I could get away from the school, meet new people and try to start over.
I practiced telling the truth or just saying nothing at all, the summer before 11th grade. It wasn't easy. The temptation was so great. I had to find some other way to get my high.... my escape from reality. By the time school started in the fall I was ready to be better. It took me a while, but I eventually got it together. I met new people and made new friendships and I was just me. If something was too painful or embarassing to tell, I'd just keep my mouth shut. If the truth wasn't exciting enough...oh well. Trust me, this wasn't an easy task for me. There were times I felt like my insides were going to burst if I didn't exaggerate just a little bit.
All those years of lying left it's residue on my life and it caused me to be very cynical, observant, and attentive to the things people say.... not to take anything at face value. It turned me into a walking lie detector. When I saw the new show, Lie to Me, coming out on tv I thought, "I'd be perfect for that show cause I can see a lie coming 5 miles away". I watch people's body language when they speak.... the way they shift around. The suttle things like eye contact and blinking. Even the way they pause, or not, between words.... cause the truth ain't hard to tell at all. It's the lies that take work. There are those people who are much like I was and can lie with a straight face in all confidence about the color of the sky...and do it so well that they believed it and you'd question if the sky was really blue at all. But even those kind of people can be caught, if you know what to look for.
This human lie detector thing has really taken it's toll on me though. I want to believe that people are inherently good and worthy of trust. Most people are....until they lie to me. The worst liars are the people who lie to you, not only for no reason at all.....but the ones who tell unsolicited lies. The ones who burst into your conversation with someone else, to tell you that they too have been through what you are talking about or know someone's sister's, cousin's, uncle's, baby momma's, brother who has. Or that they used to have one of the things you're talking about or been to the place your were discussing.....twice. Ugh!!!!!!! I just want to slap them and then rip off their heads and spit down their necks. Instead, I just roll my eyes as hard as I can, sigh, and continue with my conversation like they didn't just interrupt me. Liars make my flesh crawl. You stankin, dirty liars are not worthy of the air you breathe.
I guess this is my punishment for being an ex- stankin, dirty liar. Karma sucks!
