Do narcissists know when they're lying?

Prince Harry the Confabulist's royal word salad.

For anyone who’s ever been abused, lied to or smeared by a narcissist, borderline, histrionic, psychopath or other Cluster B personality disorder variety pack person . . . For anyone who’s been hurt by relentless gaslighting, projection, DARVO, emotional reasoning, circular logic and general mind fuckery and wondered, "Why? What? Huh? S/he’s lying? Do they know they’re lying?” Please read this quote from Spare [Me] by Prince Harry:

“Whatever the cause, my memory is my memory, it does what it does, it gathers and curates as it sees fit, and there’s just as much truth in what I remember and how I remember it as there is in so-called objective facts. Things like chronology and cause-and-effect are often just fables we tell ourselves about the past.” 

Wonder no more.

Reading between the word salad-y lines, Prince Harry seems to acknowledge the lack of veracity in his recollections and Oedipal-Cain and Abel-esque ruminations.

First, Prince Harry the Confabulist admits that his memory is doing something other than recalling events accurately. He acknowledges he both “remembers” events that either didn’t happen or are remembered quite differently by others who were present for said events. As his grandmother said regarding Prince Harry and his wife’s Megxit flounce out, “Recollections may vary.”

Fabricating stories and biographies that didn’t occur in objective reality is called lying. Insisting that his false memories and/or outright lies are as real as provable facts is something many false abuse accusers and other pathological liars claim.

Second, there is not “as much truth” in lies as objective facts. Simply put, that’s just nuts.

It’s crazy-making word salad. In other words, it’s bullshit. It’s alternative facts. In other words, it’s bullshit. It’s My Truth truthiness. In other words, it’s bullshit.

Facts matter. If facts don’t matter (they do) and bullshit/subjective emotional experience is as true as The Truth and “so-called” objective facts (they aren’t) then words are meaningless. Language is meaningless. And communication is pointless. Ergo, why write a tell-all book? Besides waging a spiteful smear campaign fueled by resentment and jealousy, that is?

Third, feelings aren’t facts. Narcissists, borderlines, histrionics and other personality disordered use feelings and facts synonymously. (Rather like “pledge” and “donate.”) It’s a byproduct of their pathology-level emotional reasoning. Wikipedia defines emotional reasoning as “a cognitive error that occurs when a person believes that what [s]he is feeling is true regardless of the evidence.”

Feelings are subjective internal states, and not necessarily based on external reality. To emotional reasoners like Price Harry, his feelings are facts regardless of what the documented provable facts are.

Not all emotional reasoners are personality disordered. Many people who are prone to emotional reasoning can, after working through their cognitive dissonance, accept objective reality even though it still feels bad. This isn’t the case with personality disordered individuals, however.

These individuals are also often pathological liars. When the truth is inconvenient to people like Prince Harry and his wife, they simply substitute feelings for facts — especially when their feelings differ from the facts.

The feelings of the personality disordered are intense yet shallow, and often shift rapidly. Thus, the “facts” of their stories change with their emotions. Different day, different interview, different story.

This is one reasons they can initially be such convincing, albeit bad liars. By bad I mean the lies don’t hold up under the scrutiny of basic fact-checking and an attention span of a ferret on methamphetamine.

Prince Harry and his wife’s lies are a combination of highly emotionally charged accusations, victim narratives or “I’m such an amazing person” tales, peppered with random minutia details. For example, a frost bitten todger, Elizabeth Arden cream, “We didn’t accuse the royal family of being racists,” no bicycle riding as a child and so on.

Initially, these kinds of individuals get away with their deceptions because people think, “Who would lie about such things?” A borderline, narcissist, histrionic or psychopath would lie about such things. While these individuals can be perpetual fonts of bullshit, it’s impossible for them keep track of all their lies. Especially as their feeling states change.

If you pay attention, you’ll catch the inconsistencies, contradictions, exaggerations and ever evolving new details and embellishments. The new details occur because they have to up the ante in order to keep getting big reactions. Also, they alter their stories based on their audience’s reaction. People are outraged, horrified, impressed, etc., by different things, and so they change their stories accordingly.

Facts don’t evolve over time; lies do.

Fourth, chronology and cause-and-effect are not just fables we tell ourselves about the past. They’re part of the foundational criteria of historical, scientific, medical and psychological research.

Fifth, any therapist, psychologist or other mental health worker who peddles the kind of pseudo-psychological jargon twaddle Prince Harry is peddling is not helping you. Best case, they’re just regurgitating something they were taught in grad school, and it hasn’t occurred to them to question it. Worst case, they have personality disorder traits of their own and, again, can't help you.

Counseling, Consulting and Coaching with Dr. Tara J. Palmatier, PsyD

I help individuals with relationship and codependency issues via telephone, FaceTime, GoogleMeet or Skype. Since 2009, I’ve specialized in helping men and women break free of abusive relationships, cope with the stress of ongoing abuse and heal from trauma. I combine practical advice, emotional support and goal-oriented outcomes. If you’d like to schedule an initial consult, please email me directly at shrink4men@protonmail.