Compulsive Lying desorder caused by childhood trauma

@ccpony80

Hi there. 💜 I was able to find a couple resources that have a bunch of tips/info related to compulsive lying.

https://therapy-central.com/2023/12/02/a-practical-guide-on-how-to-start-telling-the-truth-and-stop-lying/

https://www.rula.com/blog/compulsive-lying/

The articles have a lot more, but just sharing a few items I took away from looking through them:

• Understanding the impact - seems like you're already doing that with recognizing that you're not happy with how it's affecting your marriage

• Identifying when you feel the need to lie - maybe there are situations in which it feels unsafe to tell the truth and lying feels necessary to protect yourself (or historically bad things have happened if you tell the truth?)

• Finding alternatives - if the lying is a form of self-protection, then stopping doing that will involve finding other ways of managing or being able to accept/take in the feelings that the lying is trying to mitigate or defend against. For example, things like journaling, mindfulness, self-compassion. Or self-care/coping strategies that help with reducing stress in general.

• Gradual change - it might not be an overnight thing, might have to try little experiments of "I'll try being honest about this one thing" and see what happens

• Therapy - a lot of the typical forms of treatment for trauma (CBT, DBT, ACT, EFT) might be relevant, if you're willing/able to try that

Thanks