lying and gaslighting: how to stop, where to turn for help

When someone grows up experiencing bad things and developed manipulative survival strategies, their journey through adulthood can involve pain piling on top of pain, for them and anyone around them.

If they recognise their lying and gaslighting have hurt others and never once achieved anything but a worsening of their own life, where do they turn for help and what do they need to do? 

Most people who become chronically manipulative, deceptive, emotionally coercive, or reality-distorting learned those strategies somewhere. That does not excuse the harm done to others, but it does help explain how those patterns become wired in.

A child growing up exposed to neglect, unpredictability, abuse, institutionalisation and emotionally unsafe environments often learns survival before they learn healthy relating. 

Lying can become protection. Gaslighting can become control when life once felt uncontrollable. Emotional manoeuvring can become a way to avoid shame, punishment, abandonment, or vulnerability. None of that means the person is ‘evil’ or incapable of change – but it does mean these behaviours may sit very deep in their nervous system and identity.

We may laugh at early episodes of The Simpsons in which Bart is choked by his father, but what we are laughing at is an animated presentation of a child suffering abuse from his own father. There is real-life accuracy in how the cartoon fiction shows consequences from trauma. Bart is as a gaslighter – disruptive, manipulative, truth-denying – with his “It wasn’t me, I wasn’t there, you can’t prove anything” evasive, fearful response whenever his wrongdoing is discovered by his parents, sister, school friends and teachers. 

When a person says something along the lines of, “I’m going to stop being a gaslighter and liar because they solve nothing and get people nowhere,” the important thing isn’t that these are the ‘right’ words, but what sits underneath them: accountability, pattern recognition, cause-and-effect thinking, and awareness of harm.

Those are huge. Many people remain trapped for decades. They may never reach the point of saying: this behaviour is not working, it hurts people, and I need to stop.

That moment matters.

Anyone else presented with this burst of awareness (which isn’t to say it’s sudden because it likely won’t have been) will know that stopping won’t be simple, especially if they’ve been on the receiving end of those lies and gaslighting. The people who have been hurt are often asked, implicitly or explicitly, to believe in a change they themselves may have spent years being denied, confused by, or psychologically worn down by.

Even if the awakening is genuine, trust does not magically reappear because insight has arrived. Other people’s caution is reasonable.

There’s also a difference between realisation and repatterning. A person can have a completely sincere moment of clarity and still continue falling back into old behaviours for quite some time, especially under stress, shame, fear, or interpersonal conflict. Someone who has learned to survive through distortion may initially feel almost psychologically ‘skinless’ in trying to function without those defences. That doesn’t mean the insight was fake, but it does mean the work ahead is measured in consistency, not declarations.

A genuine turning point usually starts to show itself through things like:

• accepting correction without retaliation,
• admitting dishonesty quickly rather than doubling down,
• tolerating others’ anger or mistrust,
• not demanding immediate forgiveness,
• developing curiosity about impact rather than focusing only on intent,
• and, slowly, becoming more emotionally stable and congruent over time. 

One of the hardest things for people in this position is learning redemption cannot be controlled or accelerated. They can choose honesty. They can choose accountability. They can seek therapy and work hard. What they cannot do is persuade others to trust them again, with part of maturation being that they must accept this without slipping back into manipulation, self-pity, or blame.

The people around them may also need support. Being gaslit over long periods can leave people doubting their own perceptions, memory, instincts, and emotional legitimacy. Recovery often becomes a parallel process: one person learning not to distort reality, another relearning that their reality mattered all along.

Someone who has relied on deception or psychological control for survival often experiences truthfulness as dangerous at first. Shame may flood in. They may relapse into old behaviours under stress. They may not even notice themselves doing it sometimes, because these responses can become automatic and defensive rather than consciously malicious every time. 

The goal is not ‘becoming perfect overnight’. It is learning to tolerate honesty, responsibility, vulnerability, uncertainty, and consequences without collapsing or attacking.

Who helps? Usually some combination of:

• A skilled trauma-informed counsellor or psychotherapist – ideally someone experienced with complex trauma, attachment issues, personality adaptation, institutional care backgrounds, and emotional regulation difficulties.
• Group therapy or peer support, because healthy feedback from others matters enormously.
• In some cases, specialist services around trauma, substance misuse, anger, or offending behaviour if relevant.
• Stable, boundaried relationships with people who neither enable nor demonise them.

And what do they do? Repeatedly, patiently, over time:

• Learn to notice distortions in real time.
• Practice telling the truth even when it’s uncomfortable.
• Accept consequences without instantly defending or reframing.
• Develop emotional regulation skills.
• Build a coherent narrative of their life that is honest but not self-excusing.
• Learn empathy not as performance, but as recognition of impact.
• Separate explanation from justification.

A good therapist would not simply say “stop lying”. They would help the person understand what the lying has been doing for them psychologically. Safety? Control? Avoidance of humiliation? Fear of abandonment? Once those functions are understood, healthier alternatives can slowly be built.

Redemption is real, in my view, not in any sense of wiping away harm or demanding forgiveness from others, but people absolutely can become more honest, safer, kinder, more accountable versions of themselves. This should be read as encouraging but no one can provide you with a guarantee – except, perhaps, your own self in the form of a lived commitment every day, guiding your thoughts, words, deeds, helping with course-correcting whenever that’s required.

Am I being truthful and kind? Am I building up my empathy for others? Do I think I am doing right or wrong here? Am I thinking before speaking and doing? Am I correcting my mistakes quickly?

Human beings are adaptive creatures. We are shaped by experience. This means new experiences, insight, relationships and sustained effort can reshape us as well. The fact that a person is seeking help rather than merely defending themself is genuinely significant. 

Let’s consider The Simpsons again. In its long televisual history, the series has shown us a future version of Bart suffering the consequences of decades spent in extreme inertia without having acquired insights or motivation to change his ways and address the abuse he suffered in childhood.

Future Bart is a mirror to his father. He spends his days slumped on a sofa, watching TV, drinking beer, eating only junk food, surrounded by disorder and empty cartons. His behaviour remains manipulative and in denial of reality, but resentment and frustration have been added to the weight he carries. Such an outcome is not inescapable destiny. We can seek help and take control at any stage in our lives to become who we want to be. 

Get in touch with Xander for a free 30-minute initial assessment and to work out a fee that’s right for your circumstances should you decide to proceed further. Xander has spaces currently available to welcome new clients.

Xander, trading as xph therapy, offers integrative counselling, which means working with multiple therapy types, including CBT, psychotherapeutic and person-centred to develop a therapeutic pathway just for you, whatever outcome you’re hoping to achieve.