Have you ever wondered why abusers seem to lie all the time, about, well, everything? I’m sure you’ve heard the term “pathological” liar. Did you know that personality-disordered abusers lie upwards of 20 plus times a day, compared to non-personality-disordered people? Did you know that they KNOW they are lying and that it is done on purpose to create confusion and cognitive dissonance in the mind of their target of abuse?

Abusers use gaslighting, rewriting history, and denial all to create cognitive dissonance in which in coming information does not match what the victim of abuse had been told by the abuser and because the cognitive dissonance is uncomfortable the target of abuse will ignore the seemingly glaring red flags and stay with the abuser.

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Hello and welcome to We Need To Talk with Kris Godinez podcast. I’m your host Kris Godinez, licensed professional counselor. I help people get out of, and stay out of, toxic relationships. This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only the views and opinions stated herein are mine and mine alone. They do not represent the ACA, the APA or any other therapist for that matter.

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Okay, tons to go over today. So, in current events, I was reading the AP this morning, and there is now a new threat to survivors of abuse, and it is artificial intelligence deep fake porn. So, like we didn’t have enough to worry about. So, this was in the AP today, so hold on a second. artificial intelligence imaging can be used to create art, try on clothes, help design advertising, but there’s a darker side to it. And deep fakes are videos and images that have been digitally created or altered with artificial intelligence or machine learning porn created using the technology first began spreading across the Internet several years ago when a Reddit user shared clips that place the faces of female celebrities on the shoulders of porn actors. Since then, deep fake creators have disseminated similar videos and images targeting online influencers, journalists, and others with a public profile. 1000s of videos exist across a plethora of websites and have been offering users the opportunity to create their own images, essentially allowing anyone to turn whomever they wish into sexual fantasies without their consent or the use of technology to harm former partners.

Now, here’s my take on this. It is illegal in the United States to do revenge porn. I do not know if they cover artificial intelligence revenge porn or not. And if they don’t, they should. So again, guys, it’s time to get a hold of the senators, representative state and federal because if it is not covered if artificial intelligence deep fake porn is not covered in the revenge porn it needs to be because abusers’ dark triads are the ones who do this kind of crap. They’re the ones who look to humiliate shame, harm etc. their exes by doing revenge porn, which is a federal offense. Thank you very much. So, I strongly suggest again, if you are, you know if you’ve been the target of this, it’s illegal, you can go after them, you can absolutely file police charges, and you can go after now I do not know about artificial intelligence, deep fake porn stuff. So, I strongly recommend getting a hold of your Senators, getting a hold of your representatives, and just saying, Hey, this is not okay. And please remember this is not limited to male abusers doing this, female abusers also do revenge porn or deep fakes in order to harm or hurt a former lover.

So, yeah, you absolutely want to start writing your senators, start writing your representatives, get a hold of the state, get a hold of the federal, and let them know hey, this is a huge issue. This is so this article was actually about a woman in Australia that had to deal with it, and she got a bill passed that makes it a crime to do that. And also to fine companies that don’t take it down. So, she had a terrible time getting social media sites to take down the deep fakes have her, and it really some of the attitude of some of the social media places was just heinous. It was your typical, let’s blame the victim thing. Oh, well, you shouldn’t have been wearing that sexy dress, or you shouldn’t have had makeup on, or you shouldn’t have whatever it’s like. What a person wears does not determine whether somebody is going to abuse them or not. They’re going to abuse, period no matter what you’re wearing, or how your makeup and stuff, so anyway, it just it was very disturbing to me that she had to go through such hoops to get it banned in Australia and to have fines that would make the companies think twice about not taking it down. So, if you’re interested in reading this article, it is called Deep Fake Porn Could be a Growing Problem Amid AI Race. This is on the AP news. And this is by Haleluya Hadero. And it was just posted two hours ago. So that is my current event because this is an issue that survivors of abuse put up with. And this is an issue that needs to be addressed it’s not okay. I mean, it’s illegal to do revenge porn here in the United States. I don’t know if they cover AI stuff, and they should. If it doesn’t, it should. And this is the problem I see with our laws because it doesn’t keep up with technology. So, it’s so annoying to me because it’s like things keep evolving and keep growing and changing, and, and our systems don’t keep up with it. And so, they’re always playing this game of catch-up. And it’s really frustrating for survivors of abuse. So, for example, even got the AI porn, right.

We also have all the family systems stuff in the family courts that are decades old. You know, there’s no training on intimate partner violence, there’s no training on abuse by proxy using the court system to punish a former partner, etc. So, it really, I really strongly suggest that you write your senators and your representatives, and you say, Get with the program, guys, we have got to get faster legislation, we’ve got to keep up with technology, we need to protect the targets of abuse. And we need to get punishments going for those that decide to do AI porn, etc., etc., etc. So, there is that current event.

One more current event, we are now up to 1.5 mass shootings a day. I’m so over it. I’m done. It’s like it’s the canary in the coal mine. You know, they used to take canaries down in the coal mine to be like, Oh, if the canary dies, and we need to get out because it means there’s too much gas in here. So, it’s 1.5 mass shootings a day on average, 1.5. That is unacceptable. So, while you’re writing, why don’t you write your senators and your representatives because, again, the common denominator in all of this is not the weapons, although gun control probably a good idea. But it’s not the weapons; it’s the mental health. Healthy People do not pick up a weapon of any kind and decide to go kill somebody. Let’s be very clear about that. killing somebody is generally what psychopaths, antisocial, narcissists, dark triads, that’s what they do. So, the issue is the mental health in this country. Mental health has got to be addressed. And we’ve got to stop, you know, oh, I don’t see the pink elephant taking a crap in the corner. There’s no. There’s no…. there’s a pink elephant and the crap is getting pretty hot. 1.5 mass shootings a day. Write your Senators as demand; don’t ask demand mental health reform in this country. I’m just going to keep saying it until we actually do it. So there that is.

Okay. So, let’s get to today’s topic. So, today’s topic is all of the lies what the Holy cow, if their lips are moving, they’re lying. So, I pulled a whole bunch of articles out which I think you will like. So, there is I love this one. This is by Christian L. Hart. He’s a PhD. This is on psychology today. It’s called Some Lie a Lot. So, one of the hues and cries of the narcissist or the dark triad is that everybody lies, everybody lies. No, know they don’t. And now we got the studies to prove it. So, the abuser will come in and say, Oh, well, everybody lives as if that’s a justification for their lie. Because remember, they’re all about flipping the script. Okay. So, they ran these studies. This gentleman ran his research, ran his studies. And what they realized was 85% of the people don’t lie. And if they do lie, it’s zero to one lie a day. But the other percentage that were disordered we’re doing 25 + lies a day.

Kris Godinez  09:32

So, remember, narcissists, dark triad psychopaths, Machiavellian, you know, control freaks, they project. So, they love to go you, you right? The you, you you guns? Well, everybody lies, because they’re trying to justify their behavior. And remember, they’re trying to say that everyone is just like them. So, what they’re doing is okay, so no, it’s not because what they proved through this research is that people generally one zero to one a day, and on top of that, the one to maybe two lies. Were altruistic to save somebody’s feelings. Not what these jackasses do. Do you see where I’m going with that? So yes, a narcissist absolutely will make the statement that everybody lies. No, they don’t. And when the 85% do lie, it’s for altruistic reasons. It’s to save someone’s feelings. So, and that’s something that doesn’t even cross the mind of an abuser. So, I just wanted to point that out.

So, what makes a liar prolific liars tend to be people who have low self-esteem. Yeah, that makes sense. They tend to be low in conscientiousness, and they’re not open to new experiences. They investigated whether the lies one tells are associated with the attitude that one holds about dishonesty. We found that people who tend to view lying as an acceptable behavior in our culture also tend to be the more prolific liars, so in other words, they will be it’s okay to lie. It’s okay. It’s okay to do this. It’s okay. It’s okay to lie. Everyone lies. Oh, contraire. So, they have a very loosey-goosey moral compass, is a nice way to put it. A more or less nice way to put it is they wouldn’t know morality. If it walked up and did the Watusi with them, you know what I’m saying? So, they again project, and they justify, and they rationalize their behavior, and they see nothing wrong with it that, again, is antisocial. So, this is where you want to look at the dark triad. So Machiavellian is the control freak. They have to control everything. Psychopathic is the antisocial the rules of the society do not apply to them. narcissist is it’s all about me, me, me I, I,I, more my genitals. That’s what they’re about. So yeah, I really liked that study. And I just want to I just want to validate this study because when I used to do couples counseling, I literally would have cheaters who got caught. Sit on my couch and tell me everybody cheated. Or sit on my couch and tell me everybody lied. Really? Yeah. So, and then when you told them point blank, it’s like no, they would try to argue with will show me the research. Well, here it is. Suck it. You know what I’m saying? So, it’s so yeah, that’s what they do. They say everybody lies because that’s what they do.

Remember, they cannot conceive of somebody behaving differently than them. That’s why they’re paranoid. That’s why they think everybody’s out to get them. That’s why they’re vengeful. That’s why they’re nasty. That’s why they would do AI porn. That’s what because they think that somebody else would do that to them. So, they’re going to beat him to the punch. And they’re going to do this. And they’re going to do that. Because that’s how they think, they can’t imagine that somebody actually has a moral compass; they really truly cannot; it just blows their mind that somebody might actually have a moral compass. And then, when they figure out that somebody does have a moral compass, guess what they do? They make fun of them. And they try to make them wrong for having a moral compass. And they do that to their partners all the time in order to manipulate them into doing the morally questionable the, you know, the sex acts, you know, whatever that they want to do, and that they want their partners to do, so that they can then point at the park and go see You’re no better than me. They’re really sick, they are really truly sick.

Okay, so that was some Lie a lot. And that was by Christian L Hart, PhD. And let’s see, was there something else in here I wanted to make sure people high in control freakiness. So, Machiavellianism who manipulate are unemotional and indifferent to morality tend to tell significantly more lies than the typical person. So, this is a ginormous, ginormous, red flag in relationships. So, remember, dark triads are, what’s the word I’m looking for? They’re not going to make their lies obvious, okay? They’re going to, they’re going to be they’re going to have their mask, and they’re going to pretend, and they’re going to, you know, make it sound like they’re great. They may lie about their job; they may lie about their position. Most often, what I see abusers lying about is where they work, what they do, how much they make, and or military service. Isn’t that bizarre because you can look that stuff up. It’s like, Why would you lie about something that can be easily found out? Well?

This is another thing I wanted to talk about is that this one is called Why Liars Tell Pointless Lies. And this is also by Christian L. Hart PhD Why Liars Tell Pointless Lies is on psychology today. He wrote a book with Oh, what was Curtis’s first name? Hang on. Oh, he has a partner. Where did it go? I can’t think of where it is. Anyway, he wrote a book called pathological lying. And pathological liars are often lying for attention. They want to aggrandize themselves. So, if you’re dealing with somebody who is a narcissist, they are always going to be the hero of their story. They are always going to be telling these kinds of plausible but slightly outrageous things. They will lie about their job; they’ll lie about their military service. They’ll lie to make themselves look good. But it’s a house of cards, and eventually, it will fall apart. And in a weird way, it’s almost like they want to get caught. So, if you’ve ever watched and I love this show, because this is what I do for fun, I either watch paranormal, or I watch Signs of a Psychopath. So, in Signs of a Psychopath, the pathological liar will stick to the story, stick to the story. No one telling you them telling the truth, but then it starts changing. And then the lies just start flowing. And it’s funny to watch the investigators. They’re just kind of like, look, kid. I know you’re lying. Here’s the evidence. No, no, I’m telling the truth. And then, finally, they break down and tell the truth, but not before they start doing things that let the investigator know that they’re lying.

So, and we’re going to get into that hold on. So um, why liars tell pointless lies? It is mostly for attention. They engage in provocative behaviors, outlandish presentations, absurd antics, or even put themselves in danger to have people simply pay attention to them. Many pathological liars tell untruths aimed at garnering attention. Because remember, if you’re dealing with a narcissist if you are dealing with a dark triad, they are all about the attention; they need to be the focus of attention. 24/7, And so they lie. They lie about everything. You cannot trust anything a narcissist says, You can’t because they, again, no moral compass, two if dark triad, really no moral compass, and the social rules do not apply to them. They don’t see anything wrong with life. Here’s the other interesting thing in that article is that liars are not delusional. They know they’re lying. They know they’re lying. So, when they did their research and they were asking all sorts of questions, they absolutely knew they were lying. And they were betting that they could fool the other person. And remember, narcissists think they’re smarter than everybody else, and that it showed itself over and over again and signs of a psychopath because every single last one of the perpetrators thought that they were way smarter than the police way smarter than the DA, way smarter than the detective. It was very obvious. So, they are honestly, and they get a rush from it. So, they will lie about everything. They will literally lie about it. You cannot believe a word that comes out of their mouth. This plays into when you get divorced. So, they will say, Oh, well, you know, the kids told me X, Y, and Z did they really, you don’t know. Because this person is probably making it up to try to scare you or make you feel bad or make you fearful or whatever. So, listen, to verify, listen, but verify.

Kris Godinez  18:47

And that’s the big thing, don’t react when they’re, you know, if you’re going through a divorce, and they’re making all of these allegations, and this is something they love to do. They love to make allegations, unfounded to CPS to the police to whatever, don’t freak out because the truth always comes out. It does. It takes some time sometimes, but it does. And these people, they do it for vindictiveness. They’re acting on the level of a two-year-old. So, which was very obvious when I was watching signs of a psychopath is like, emotionally speaking, none of them were above two years old. They were like, self-centered, you know, magical thinking, I thought they were smarter than everybody else, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And it’s like, world doesn’t work that way. So, and they’re not delusional, though. They know they’re lying. They absolutely know they’re lying. So that’s when somebody who says, I hate apologists, I really do. Well, but they’re delusional, and you should cut them some slack. And I’m like, You should go pound sand. Nope, they know what they’re doing. They’re 110 freakin percent. They know what they’re doing. They absolutely do. And these studies back it up.

So cognitive dissonance. So, this is where people get all for clipped is that When they get involved with an abuser, the abuser fills their head full of all of this fluff. That’s not true. And the target of abuse, because they love them, wants to believe it. And we don’t know that it’s a lie at that point. So, remember in the beginning of the relationship, they love to do the love bombing, and this is where they do the look at how great I am. Look at look at my future, faking look what I can offer you look at this great future that we’re going to have all of this stuff, you know, look how much money I make. Look at my position, look at my power bla bla bla bla. And when we are in the relationship, it causes cognitive dissonance when we start getting those little nuggets of ooh, this person is not telling me the truth. Wait a minute. No, that can’t be right. No, I, I love them. They must be telling the truth. That’s cognitive dissonance.

So cognitive dissonance, let’s talk about this. Cognitive Dissonance is when incoming information contradicts what we want to believe, basically. So, the abuser has set up this beautiful story. But then family and friends say, Hey, here’s what I know about this person. Here’s what they said to me. You know, and then the target of abuse is like plop, plop, Fizz, fizz in the head. It’s like. Literally, the brain is just like, can’t deal with it? And it goes, no, no, that can’t be right. And we kick out the information that is uncomfortable. So that’s cognitive dissonance. That’s why these guys are so damn dangerous because they lie so convincingly.

So, you know, a common myth is, is that, oh, well, somebody who’s lying is not going to look you in the eye wrong. An incorrect response. No, they can look you in the eye. A practice psychopath can fool a lie detector. It’s happened, you know. And there, there’s, you know, it’s really, it’s micro facial stuff that you’re looking for. But that’s in the forensic books. Oh, my God, those are so interesting. Anyway, the point being is, yeah, they can look you straight in the eye and lie. They absolutely will look you straight in the eye, not flinch and lie. And that is just speaking to the level of psychopathy that you are dealing with.

So cognitive dissonance happens when we have believed them and we want to believe them. And yet, here comes this incoming information and we go no, no, no, no, that can’t be right. No, I’m going to kick out this information. I’m going to cling to this information. And that’s where we get into trouble. That’s what’s dangerous.

So, I’m in here let’s see… Is this the one I was looking for? No, that’s not what I was looking for. Okay, let’s look at this one. Yes, that is what I wanted to look for. All right, let’s consider cognitive dissonance. interrelationship Mary needs Jack, this is on Psychology Today, again, and this is by Ryan Anderson, PhD, How Cognitive Dissonance Relates to Relationships. Okay. So, okay, now let’s consider relationship. Mary meets Jack, let’s say, on a Tinder date or something like that. And they hit it off pretty much straight away. They move in together. Both are totally seemingly smitten with each other. Mary starts thinking to herself that Jack is the one. Everything in their relationship is going really well. And they’re both very happy. At this point. They’ve been together for six months and live together for most of that time. Now realize that they did not take time. They did not take time to really check each other out, etc. It was loving bombing. It was fast moving; it was moving in, and now we’re living together. Like seriously, you start dating the person, and then all of a sudden, your boyfriend and girlfriend within a week, and then within a month, you’re living together, and that’s not healthy because that’s what abusers count on is you rushing and not taking your time to really see how they react to different situations. So all right.

At this point, they’ve been together for six months and live together for most of that time. Mary feels as though she knows Jack reasonably well. She feels as though she can kind of predict what Jack will and won’t do in some situations. Mary loves Jack, and Mary believes that Jack loves Mary. Then it happens one night Jack lashes out. He hits Mary on the cheek. It isn’t hard enough to bruise her, but it’s still very painful and distressing. Mary is unhurt. Physically and emotionally, more than that, she’s confused. Why did Jack do this? She thinks and still thinks she knew him well. Mary has a cognitive dilemma. On the one hand, she really loves Jack and believes that he really loves her. But on the other hand, his behavior was horrible and not what you would expect from someone who loves you. Mary is now experiencing cognitive dissonance. Attitude A. She loves Jack. Attitude B She doesn’t love his behavior because the cognitive dissonance she has experienced makes her uncomfortable one of those attitudes has got to change. To solve the dissonance, the mind needs to make it so that the attitudes are consistent.

Essentially, Mary has a tough choice to make in order to rid herself of the uncomfortable dissonance; she can A. accept the behavior and rationalize staying in the relationship by convincing herself that there is some other reason for her staying. My parents will be upset Jack has plenty of money. Maybe it was something I said or did. Two. Accept the behavior, possibly rationalizing it somehow. Well,  he was drunk. He was stressed. His job was stressful. He got carried away. He has so many redeeming qualities. This could result in the modification of attitude B. End the relationship is another possibility. She doesn’t love Jack’s behavior or Jack. Obviously, people don’t always select one of the first two options, but it happens far too often.

So that is cognitive dissonance. It’s like here is this person that you really don’t know that you think you know. And they do something abusive because remember, they’re pushing the envelope. How far can I go? How far can I go? How far can I go? Mask slips, intermittent positive rewards. So oftentimes, what I hear is, you know, oh, well, um, but we’ve been together for so long.

Kris Godinez  26:27

I don’t care if you’ve been together for literally centuries. Anyone lays a hand on you; you be done. Anyone disrespects you, you be done. So that’s the time-invested fallacy. That’s a rationalization. That is the cognitive dissonance. Oh, but we’ve been together for so long. Listen to me. Now, believe me later, if John ever laid a hand on me, O-M-G, it’d be done. I’d be done. I’d be done. I simply will not put up with that if there’s any disrespect. And I don’t put up with that. I don’t because I value myself. So, this is where cognitive dissonance works on the mind of somebody who does not have good self-esteem. People with good self-esteem. Don’t put up with that kind of crap. But people that haven’t been taught that. People that have been raised by abusers right groomed. Hello, codependent. Hello. We’re the ones that make excuses for it. So, in my early days, yeah, I would have put up with that. I absolutely would have because I so desperately wanted to be loved because of my dad. Right? But then when I started working on myself, I was like, oh, hell to the no, I don’t put up with that from anybody, you know. So and, and this is why abusers start twisting and continue to lie and try to get you confused, fear, obligation, guilt, and they try to flip it around so that it’s all your fault. Well, you’re the reason I hit you. You’re the reason I abused you. You’re the reason I said X, Y, and Z. And then it continues with the cognitive dissonance, and then the target of abuse is having to constantly kick out information that doesn’t support the relationship, which is dangerous.

These, these mother cluckers want you dead. I cannot be more clear about this. In fact, I just did a blog yesterday that John’s going to put up on Krisgodinez.com, about cult leaders. And there was a new one in Kenya where four members starved to death, and the leader of the congregation did nothing. He knew they were dying; he didn’t care. So, they want you dead. They absolutely want soul death. They either want you to, you know, lose who you are completely, emotionally, spiritually, etc. Or they literally want you physically dead. I just cannot emphasize that enough. So, the cognitive dissonance is deadly. It is deadly. It is what keeps people stuck because we keep going. But I don’t like that information. But I want to believe them. Oh, God, please get out. Please, please, please get out. It’s scary. And it’s frustrating for the family, and the friends that bring the healthy information to the target of abuse, and the target of abuse just goes, nope, not interested. I’m going to go with the abuser. And there’s not much you can do because of the cognitive dissonance. It takes the target of abuse, finally being able to overcome the cognitive dissonance.

So how do you overcome cognitive dissonance? You have to work on self-esteem. You have to be willing to live with the uncomfortableness. Now, our society has taught us that Oh, uncomfortable is bad. Oh, we should know we shouldn’t grieve. No, we shouldn’t be angry. No, we shouldn’t be alone. baloney! Uncomfortable is where the growth happens. It is because it’s kind of like that’s where you get to use logic. And that’s where you get to go, huh? Is this a behavior I really want to contend with? Am I going to make excuses for it? Or am I going to take care of myself? Am I going to put myself on the front burner instead of the back burner? Because that’s the other thing that the cognitive dissonance sets up is the target starts believing the stories that the abuser tells about, oh, well, I had a bad childhood. That’s why I hit you. And then they go, I can fix them. No, you cannot. No, you cannot. You cannot fix them because you did not break them. They have no interest in being fixed. They want to continue the behavior; they want to continue the abuse because it’s power to them. That is their cocaine. Yeah, that is their narcissistic supply is watching you do somersaults to justify their behavior and their abuse, and it makes them feel frickin powerful.

So, the target of abuse really, truly needs to get into trauma therapists now what’s going to happen is, is that the abuser is going to prevent that. So, if you’re in an abusive relationship, if any of this sounds familiar to you, get with a therapist, but keep it silent. Do not let your abuser know that you’re in therapy. You can’t because if you tell them, hey, I’m seeing a therapist, they’re going to make sure you can’t. They’re going to either sabotage your ability to get to the therapy, sabotage your ability to talk to the therapist, sabotage your money situation. They don’t want you getting to a therapist because they know that they’re going to be exposed. They know that the therapist, if the therapist is good is going to be like oh, honey, child Uh, uh, get out. Yeah, this is not healthy. So um, yeah, you need to get with a good trauma therapist work on self-esteem. The Disease to Please is also for codependency, Glenn Schiraldi the Self-Esteem Workbook, or Disease to Please codependency, etc.

So yeah, so this is, this is all cognitive dissonance. So, they make us think that somehow, we’re bad and wrong. And that if we just do enough, they’ll be happy. Or if we just change our attitude, they’ll be happy. They are never going to be… you cannot appease an unappeasable person. You cannot appease them; you can’t please them. You can’t make them healthy. You can’t fix them. You cannot. It is not your job. It is beyond your means. The only person that can fix them is them. And from every study I have ever read, they are never going to get there. They don’t want the help, and they fear therapy. Or if they do go to therapy, they’ll find a therapist that does not know they’re a hole from a hole in the ground. Or they’ll go to a therapist maybe three times. Oh, yeah, I went. I’m well. I’m fixed and lie to the partner about what was talked about. So. Lord, there that is.

So basically, abusers know what they’re lying about. They do. They know they’re lying. They know they’re lying. They’re not delusional, you know. There’s no excuse for lying. There is no excuse for lying. And no, not everybody lies. So healthy people. 85% of the of the population in that particular study lied between zero and one, maybe two times. The other ones were personality disordered with strong traits of antisocial slash psychopath. And Control Freak Machiavellians. So yeah, and they would lie upwards of 25 times a day, and it was to aggrandize it was to make themselves look good. It was to impress it was, you know, whereas the healthy population, it was to save somebody’s feelings. So that is the huge difference.

This causes cognitive dissonance in the mind of the target because we love them. We love, they don’t let me just be clear about that. So many times, I will have people go but I love them. Yes, you did. You absolutely 100% But you were the only one in that relationship that was feeling love. Because you were the only one that loved they don’t love. They don’t everything to them as a transaction. Everything to them has got strings attached. They do not feel the way you and I feel. So yeah, you absolutely did love them. 110% and, and you have to allow yourself to feel uncomfortable. You have to allow that uncomfortableness and not kick out the logic, you know, it’s like okay, Jack hit me. Okay, let’s say I’m Mary. Jack hit me. I don’t like Jack’s behavior, but I love Jack.  Uncomfortable. What do I do? I love myself more. I choose me over Jack. You know what I’m saying? So, and you sit with that uncomfortableness, and you choose yourself. We don’t in our society, we don’t allow people to grieve. We tell them they’re wrong for feeling grief, we tell them they’re wrong for crying. I’ve seen abusers tell targets of abuse, don’t you be angry at me, I’ll give you something to be angry about. So, it’s really, it’s sitting with the uncomfortableness and choosing yourself as opposed to choosing somebody outside of you. And that’s, unfortunately, that’s how we were groomed by our family of origin is always choose somebody outside of ourselves. That’s why we get cognitive dissonance because we were groomed, to not listen to our gut. And to not look at the logic of it. It’s like, okay, well, you may love Jack but he hit you. That’s not okay. In any planet, on any planet, in any spot in the universe, that is not okay. That person does not get to be around you. If they’re abusive, if they’re hitting you, if they’re verbally abusive to you, ah, they have lost all privileges. Choose yourself, get with a good trauma therapist, start working C-PTSD From Surviving to Thriving by Pete Walker, do the Self-Esteem Workbook get the Disease to Please by Harriet Braiker, and really start doing the mirror work. That is important. Get back in touch with your gut. You know, it’s like in here’s another way, here’s something that I tell clients when they’re stuck in a situation like this, where there’s cognitive dissonance going on if this was your daughter if this was your son that was being abused? What would you tell them? I tell them to get out.

Kris Godinez  36:29

And treat yourself as if you were your own child? I cannot stress that enough. Would you want to sit by and allow somebody to abuse your own child? Hopefully, the answer to that is going to be no. So really, it’s like, what would you say if a friend was going through this? What would you tell them? I tell them to get out. Well, then, get out. Save yourself. You know what I’m saying? And that cognitive dissonance. So, you want to work through that inner child stuff. This is all connected, guys. I cannot stress this enough. It’s the inner child. It’s the grooming. It’s the lies we were told from our family of origin. It’s all of this stuff is what is dangerous and sets us up to be abused by a pathological liar by an abuser by a narcissist, by a dark triad.

So, start working those books. If you are working those books, hide them from the abuser. Do not allow the abuser to see you working on them. Because the second they see you working on them, they’ll hide, they’ll destroy them. I can’t tell you the number of times that’s happened. I’ve, you know, given people the books or told them to go get the books, and then they’ll come back the next week and go, I can’t find it. Well, yeah, because your abuser saw you working on it. And they didn’t like it. They don’t want you working on it. So, you are, Yeah. So there that is.

So that they lie to aggrandize themselves, they lie to manipulate, they lie to make you think that they’re better than they are. And when they start doing the intermittent positive rewards, they’re counting. They’re counting on the cognitive dissonance to keep you stuck because you love them.

Don’t ever love anyone more than you love yourself. I swear to God, and all that’s holy. So, it’s kind of like in therapy. One of the things that John Nixon told me was never work harder than the client. Right? So never love harder than your partner. It’s like it should be a match. It should be a match. It is a partnership, not a one-up, not a one-down. It’s a partnership. So anyway, there that is. So that is cognitive dissonance. They do know what they’re lying about. They’re absolutely manipulative. They will call the cops they will tell all of these lies. They will lie upwards of 25 plus times a day; they will tell you everyone lies. No, they don’t. So yeah. So, there it is.

All right, let’s hit the questions, shall we? With a narc lies. Would they recognize if their target doesn’t believe them? Yeah, they would. Or are they so caught up in their own lies that they can’t see that? No, what they will do is that they realize that this target of abuse is not buying it. They oh my god, they are double down. They are double down. That’s what I forgot to say when I was talking in the main lecture. So, what I saw watching signs of a psychopath is that as soon as the detective was like, you know, you’re lying. Right? You understand we have evidence catching you dead to rights on this, right? They’ll double down. They absolutely will double down. It’s like, they’ll just lie harder about the same topic. And they’ll, and that’s when the story starts changing, which I thought was really interesting.

So, to try to support their lie. Yeah, they’ll double down on it. They won’t ever go. Yeah, you’re right. I’m lying, or Yeah, that’s not the truth. No, they will. Not on this or any other planet ever admit to lying. They’ll never admit that they’re wrong. They’ll never, you know, and it’s just kind of like when they finally do get caught. You know, they don’t ever go Yeah, I’m lying. That’s more like, Okay, well just, you know, just arrest me, and put me in jail. You know, it’s like they never, they never confess they never, you know, I mean, they kind of, but they don’t you know what I’m saying? So yeah, it’s very much a, they know they’re lying. And they’ll never admit to it even when the target of abuse or whoever is catching them in it, they’ll never, they’ll never cop to it, and they’ll double down. They’ll double down on the lie harder. They’ll lie in different ways. They’ll try different avenues. You know, if the, if the outright lie is not working, then they’re going to go for the Boo hoo hoo, breaking into a million tears trying to get sympathy. And if that doesn’t work, then they’ll get intimidating. And if that doesn’t work, then they’ll try something else. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah, they know their lying And they can see that the target is not buying it. So. So again.

So, when I was in LA, when I was going to Disneyland last week, we had this scam artist come up to us. I think I talked about this last week, and he started with me with the whole Oh, you’re so pretty. And I’m just like, Oh, come on, please stop. Because I knew what he was up to, you know, and my brother was killed in gang violence, and I need money for the funeral, and I just was like, ah, not buying it point blank, not buying it. Then he became nasty. Well, you’re just a mean bitch. I’m like, uh huh, you’re right. I am. And then it was like, I don’t know what to do with that, you know? So um, you know, it’s really interesting to watch them switch tactics trying to get what they want. And yeah, that was an absolute lie. He didn’t have a brother. There was no gang violence. He didn’t need money for a funeral. He needed money for drugs. So yeah, anyway, there’s that.

Do narcissists lie by omission? Oh, Sweet baby Jesus. Yes. app. So literally, and they do not consider that line. So, let’s… moral compass lying by omission is lying, okay. narcissists, abusers, etc., lie by omission all the time. They leave out really important details. So, like, for example, if they’re lying about their military service, they’ll leave out the part that they were dishonorably discharged, and they only served, you know, a very short amount of time. Or they will lie about what they did. You know, they’ll leave out what they really did kind of thing. So, to them, lying by omission is not lying. I just didn’t say anything. I just didn’t tell you the whole truth. Well, that’s lying by omission. That’s still a lie. Yeah. But they will justify it. They will absolutely. You know, oh, well, I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell you everything. Please.

My late narc mother never bothered to tell me when my dad died. Oh, and when my brother died. I had to find out through different people. Yeah, that’s a little different. That’s not so much lying by omission. It’s just, you know, especially now, it would be lying by omission. If you point blank said, Hey, how’s my dad and my brother doing? Oh, they’re fine. Okay, yeah, that’s fine. Now that’s lying now by omission. They’re both dead. And she’s saying they’re fine. So yeah. Um, something I was going to say about that. It’ll come back to me. Okay.

What to do about undisprovable lies. Borrow and work situation? When the boss believes the liar, okay, for example, a coworker says something happened in a meeting which did not, and there’s no recording? Hmm. Well, that’s when you go to HR. I hate to say it, but if you’ve got a coworker that’s going well, this happened in the meeting, and other people are not willing to stand up and go, No, it didn’t, then you want to look at your work situation in probably get out of there would be my suggestion. work situations are only as healthy as the upper management. And as we all know, not a whole lot of corporations are very healthy because a lot of them have got a lot of narcissists in the upper management. And if a boss is willing to take the word of one employee, one employee, over everybody else, there’s a problem. That’s a golden child situation. So, my suggestion would be to find a different job. You could claim a hostile work environment, I would file a complaint with the EEOC if you can prove it. So, I mean, especially if this person is going on record telling the boss all of these lies saying, Well, this happened, and that happened. And you know, it didn’t happen. That’s a hostile work environment. It absolutely is. So, you could talk to an attorney and see what your options are. I honestly, I would just leave, I would just leave. So, get a different job. That would be my suggestion. Okay.

Kris Godinez  44:59

Um, so My abusive narc family wants me dead. Yeah, that’s not really a question. It’s more of a statement. But yeah, essentially Narcissist’s ultimate power trip, and I wrote about this in the blog this week on cults. They get off on the ultimate power trip of life and death over their cult numbers. So, when you’re dealing with an abuser, okay, it’s all about power and control. It’s all about power and control. And when you’re dealing with a really dysfunctional family, if they’re narcissistic, psychopathic, very control freak, Machiavellian, etc. They want to control literally everything, just like a cult leader does because remember, a cult leader is essentially a dark triad. It’s a communal narcissist. They’re doing it on a grand scale, okay. And they’re usually hiding behind some sort of religious belief, whether you’re Christian or Buddhist, or new age or whatever, to gather their followers to them. But as soon as they have their followers there, then they start going well, I need to control more. And so, they tell them what they can wear. They tell them what they can eat. They tell them who they can sleep with. They tell them you know if they can see their kids or not. The sicker the family is, the more issues there are, such as incest and things like that. So essentially, narcissists get off on the power and the control. They’re sadistic. You’ve got to understand that they are sadists. The more Machiavellian they are, the more control freak they are, the more psychopath they are, the more sadistic they are, and they enjoy. They really truly enjoy watching the pain and suffering in the eyes of their target. And so that’s uh huh. When they beat a child, when they spank a child when they sexually molest a child, when they harm somebody, hit a spouse, scream at the spouse, they’re getting off on the pain that they’re inflicting. They don’t care what they do. They’re getting off on the power. It makes them feel powerful and to just shows us what pieces of crap they are and what cowards they are. So, but they’re sadistic, and they enjoy it, and they get off on it. So yeah, they essentially want you dead. It’s that kind of behavior, that constant line, that constant put down, that constant nastiness, is a soul death, it really it causes people to lose themselves. I cannot even begin to tell you well, you know this, if you’ve been in an abusive relationship, you lose yourself, you lose who you are, you lose what you love, you lose everything because they take it over, or they don’t let you do it, or they isolate you. So, you have no family and friends, you have no outside interests, and you start losing bits and pieces of yourself until you are a shell of your former self. So that’s a soul death that is absolutely soul death, and they love it. And that’s about the time that they then discard you and find another supply because now it’s no fun because you’re done. You’re used up you’re done. So yeah, they’re heinous. They’re sadistic. They’re cruel. They’re mean. They’re vicious. They’re, Yeah. And they do want you dead, and the ones who do the cults that control literally what you eat how much you can eat, like this one in Kenya where four people died. It’s like yeah. They get off on that it’s the ultimate power trip. Can I make my followers kill themselves for little old me. Jim Jones, David Koresh. All of those cults did the same thing, and they don’t care that they’re getting rid of their own narcissistic supply. They’re short-sighted they can’t believe they can’t understand, and they can’t wrap their heads around that eventually they’re going to get caught, and then eventually they’re going to have to face the consequences, and then they kill themselves rather than face the consequences which is what Koresh and Jones did so yeah, it’s heinous. They do want you to that absolutely soul death or an actual physical death. You betcha.

Do narcissists feel anything do they love no, they do not love. They do not love the way you and I understand love. Love is not contractual love does not have strings attached. To a narcissist. Everything is a contract. It’s like an it’s like a cash transaction. It is well what’s the value for this? If I do this for you? What are you going to do for it is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. So yes, it is it is like a you know, strings attached. They don’t love sweetie. They don’t they don’t feel love the way you and I do. Love does not hurt. You do not hurt intentionally. People that you love. You do not revel in their pain and suffering. That’s not love. If it hurts, it ain’t love. If it hurts, it ain’t love. And if they’re doing it intentionally if doing the lying and the cheating and the flipping the script and making it all about you? That’s not love lying by omission. That’s not love. That’s not love. Love is kind and gentle and altruistic, and you enjoy each other, and you want the best for each other, and you How do I explain this when you’re with the right person, you grow, they grow, you grow. It is mutually benefiting. relationship because there is respect. Love is Respect.

They don’t respect anybody. If that’s easier for you to wrap your head around. They don’t respect anybody. There’s no respect there. And if there’s no respect, there’s no love. Does that make sense? So no, they do not feel the same way that we do. Absolutely. 110%.

All right, guys. Well, that is it for this week. So next week, we are going to be talking about why it’s important to write it down. So why you want to write things down. Why you want to write and burn letters, why you want to document so we’re going to talk about documentation and how important that is in legal cases and stalking and divorces etc. We’re also going to be talking about what exactly writing stuff down does for you cognitively. So, we’re going to be talking about writing burning, we’re going to be talking about journaling, we’re going to be talking about documenting all of that sort of fun stuff. So, you guys go have a great week, drink plenty of water. And I will talk to you next Sunday.

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. You can always listen live on YouTube every week Sunday at noon, Arizona Mountain Standard Time. And if you want to find out more or listen to other episodes, you can go to Krisgodinez.com and if you have a chance, subscribe to this show on whatever podcast app you use and let other people know about. I want to thank my sponsor betterhelp.com. They are an online therapy company. Whether you are in the US or international. They will set you up with a qualified licensed therapist. PhD level or Master’s level. If you are interested in more information, go to betterhelp.com/krisgodinez.

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