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The Pathological Liar…

A coworker is reading the book, “A Deadly Game: The Untold Story of the Scott Peterson Investigation. I haven’t read the book, but from the description that I was given it sounds like a good read, written by Catherine Crier—a Court TV host, legal analyst and attorney who has served as a judge. From what I can tell, the book is simply factual, unlike the obviously biased representations written by Scott’s or Laci’s families.

The book seems to really lock on to the indicators that Scott Peterson was a pathological liar, sociopath and the murderer of his wife, Laci. It also goes in-depth as to the signs Scott gave off, as to a motive. He was obviously not happy about having children, despite his wife’s pregnancy. His wife made it clear that she wanted more than one child, a new car, a bigger house and simply a better overall lifestyle. He also had a great desire to be free his responsibilities as a husband and soon-to-be father. Although divorce would have been an option, having to pay alimony and child support would have been a fate worse than, well… death. He wanted to be a bachelor, free and clear, able to hang with friends and have girlfriends without any strings. Crier also digs into the families finances, showing that Scott and his wife lived a champagne lifestyle on a beer income. Similar to the entry I wrote a few days ago, they were living beyond their means. Scott made about $5000 a month, and the couple spent about $4880 of that per month. Scott had a country club membership ($400/mo.) along with trips, boats and cars and other activities that included his mistress. Laci, also spent a lot, including regular spa treatments, manicure, pedicures and clothes. They both liked fine wines and would often order very expensive wines at dinners.

The book also explains the opportunity and means by which he could have killed his wife. Even more interesting though, are the comments Crier includes about Scott’s parents—namely his mother. Through reading the book you begin to understand where his sociopathic tendencies would evolve from, his mother’s deceptive dishonesty throughout the case, including not passing on tips about her son’s involvement that were called in to her through a tip line she’d created.

Another interesting thing that was explained to me were the examples of his pathological lying in his relationships. He’d had a number of affairs during his marriage, but even beyond that, his “game” was to take on the persona of what the girl was looking for in a boyfriend. He’d basically take in all of the information he could and then basically take on those characteristics becoming the “perfect” boyfriend.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of pathological liars out there. Fortunately they don’t all murder people. But still, it’s a problem that definitely shows some kind of mental illness.

The pathological liar IS aware that they are lying BUT will go to extremes to make you believe that they are truthful. They appear to believe their own lies BUT in truth, they know their lies are just that, lies. But because their efforts are constantly backing up their lies, it appears to us that they actually believe their lies, when we eventually do find out about them and then we tend to feel sorry for these people. It is true that most of them have an extremely low sense of self worth and are continuously trying to make themselves feel better about THEMSELVES and this is one reason they lie. It is about them but the lies are not always set up with the purpose to hurt some one else; it’s that these people feel so low about themselves they need to create ANYTHING different from the ugly reality they feel about themselves so they lie about even the most tiniest little thing. The people closest to them get sucked into these lies which sometimes start as something very trivial and then turn into something that can turn everyone involved worlds upside down and inside out.

Other indicators: 1) Rage attacks after they realize you’re questioning their lies. 2) Distraction techniques, e.g. hanging up the phone when you catch them in lie, playing word games, or even just running out of the room. After using the distraction technique, or rage attack, or sometimes both, they will pretend that nothing ever happened. They re-write history, so it never did happen in their minds.

Some main qualities linked with pathological liars include dysfunctional family origin, family lying patterns, anomalies of sexual life, frequent substance abuse, and a great capacity for language.

Jesus. Sounds like people I’ve known in the past. Scary.

Tags: pathelogical, liar, sociopath, peterson

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