Friday – A Real Character

[ninanevermore]

Today on my drive into work, I was thinking about the fact that I know something about my office nemesis, Dixie, that no one else in the office seems to realize – she is a compulsive liar. I stumbled across this knowledge on accident, and it has given me a window of insight into her personality. The window has drapes over it, in that I can't figure out why she lies about the things that she does. I suspect that she is a person who creates her own reality, and weaves the truth she has with lies that she thinks will get her the sympathy and attention she wants. Once she has created these half truths she believes them wholeheartedly, and anyone who calls them into questions is a threat.

Dixie is not a real person so much as she is a character she has created around herself. A true method actor, she has become this character, and has assigns supporting rolls to those around her. My assigned role is that of a villain, and I think it frustrates her that I don't take her direction and play the role as she would like me to. I don't hate Dixie, though I hate that she hates me. While I avoid her in order to keep her from gathering ammunition against me, I am pleasant and professional in the way I interact with her. I don't do this to prove that I am better than her so much as I do it drive her nuts. If someone tries to make you cry and you laugh instead, it has a way of stealing their thunder.

Dixie is a charming extravert who tells a great story, and she is much loved by those around her. Attacking her outright will not win me any friends, so I am quiet for the time being. Every story Dixie tells makes her audience laugh or cry at just the moment she wants them too. I find her as interesting to listen to as anyone, maybe more than most people, since I know what I know.

I am an introvert, at least until I really get to know a group of people. No one in my office has made an effort to get to know me, so their lack of engagement has kept me a quiet enigma. Quite enigmas are easily viewed as the enemy, and in the play the Dixie is writing around us, she exploits this. I don't think that she has seen too many plays, though, because the quiet enigma has a way of coming out ahead and exposing the real villain in the end. Dixie doesn't realize I am orchestrating a play of my own. Unlike hers, mine is not fiction.

At first glance it looks like Dixie and I should get along very well, since our lives have certain parallels. She tells everyone that her mother died when she was 15, as did mine, and that her father died 10 years later when she was 25 (my father is still alive, however). Since the day I met her, she has always told everyone that her parents are buried in a cemetery owned and operated by The Corporation up in The Woodlands, a master-planned community north of Houston, and talks about what a wonderful job this funeral did for her family in it's time of need. She uses this story to explain her love for The Corporation, and her extreme loyalty to it.

"If you don't mind my asking, what did your mother die of?" I once asked her, when she was rehashing the tragedy.

She waved her hand, annoyed that I had interrupted her story. "Oh, I don't know, some blood disease," she said. "It made her throw up blood every day for two years straight, until it finally killed her." Something about this answer didn't seem right to me, but I shrugged it off. After all, everyone handles grief a little different, so who am I to say that her reaction to her mother's death should match my own experience?

I didn't think too much about it until I worked two days at the funeral home and cemetery where Dixie says her parents are buried. On my first day there, the location manager gave me a tour of the grounds and a history of the location. When The Woodlands area was plotted out and planned beginning in the 1970's, it was only planned as a place for people to live, not die. After the community took root, some 20 years after they first broke ground, it finally occurred to them that they needed a funeral home and cemetery to serve the area. "So the founders of The Woodlands approached [The Corporation] and asked them to build a funeral home and cemetery to serve the people who live her," the location manager said, "And we began operation in 1994."

I had been studying the yellow pollen that was coating my black dress shoes from walking through the cemetery, but this made my head pop up and look at the manager. "1994? So it's only been here for 14 years?"

The manager nodded. "Yes, but it's already very well established, as you can see, and we have a lot of acreage to expand on. In fact, we're already beginning some of our expansion, if you look toward the back of the park..."

But I wasn't interested in the park, I was interested in the dates. My mother died 24 years ago, in 1984. Dixie is 10 years older than me, so her mother would have died around 1974, and her father around 1984. There is no way they are buried in the cemetery she claims they are in. Interesting, I thought.

I then considered what bothered me about Dixie claiming that her mother died of "some blood disease" that she doesn't know the name of. You see, when a parent dies when you are still growing up, you always know the name of what orphaned you. If it is a disease, you are haunted by that disease for the rest of your life. You worry that the same sickness will kill you, too, and ponder whether you should even have children yourself if there is a chance you might abandon them by dying, the way you were abandoned. I wonder where her mother really is?, I found myself thinking, I wonder where she lives?

It might sound perverse, but I'm as entertained by Dixie's campaign against me as I am annoyed by it. Dixie's weapons against me are lies and half truths, which are like sticks and stones. Lies and half truths can hurt a person, but only though blunt force trauma, and they can be ducked and avoided if you are agile enough. I am dodging projectiles, and gathering facts to forge a sword of sorts to attack the one throwing them. Like the old children's rhyme says, sticks and stones can break bones. The truth, however, when sharpened to a fine point, can cut a person to ribbons.

Dixie is telling the truth about one thing; you can't trust a quiet enigma. In any drama, whether the enigma proves to be hero or a villain, they always turn out to be a force to be reckoned with. It is, just as people say, always the quiet ones you have to watch.




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Comments

[sm00bs.livejournal.com]

Ooh...

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I probably come across as scarier than she does in this post, don't I. I'm not. I'm not going to hurt her, but I very well might expose her as a fraud. For a person like her, that is the most awful thing anyone could do to her.

I guess I'm a little ticked off. I had no idea how much until I sat down to write this.

[sm00bs.livejournal.com]

No, not at all. I was just so impressed with your writing and deep thoughts that I had nothing more to say. I'm slow like that. ;)

I would definitely be searching for the best way to expose her. I'd probably blow it and miss the best opportunities and somehow screw it all up, though.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I'm biding my time, hoping I don't blow the opportunity when I find it.

compulsive liar

[regatomic.livejournal.com]

yeah, my dad had/has the same problem,.. of course now with his dementia it's just "quaint",..o.o

Re: compulsive liar

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I'm of the mind that a habitual liar is always demented, even when they have all their facilities. The only damage senility can do is make them lose the ability to keep their stories straight.

[jenelycam.livejournal.com]

I say YAY for quiet enigmas!! ^^

*HUGS* I despise liars...even if they believe the BS they're telling people, themselves...

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's playing with a full deck. If she weren't undermining me, I wouldn't take her seriously. Since she is, I have to neutralize the situation. I find the whole mess very unpleasant.

*hugs dawn back*

[ignusfaatus.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Dixie knew her mom...

I truley believe others are thinking what you are thinking about Dixie

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She really is charming until she decides she doesn't like you. I work with men, and men aren't as attuned to womanly wiles as other women are. I didn't think she was a serial liar until I got hit in the face with the facts about the cemetery where her parents are, apparently, not buried. No one else has stumbled across this hole in her story.

I don't know how many true psychos you've had to deal with, but most people are completely oblivious to what they are, and are taken in by their charms. It's how they get away with being psychos. :P

[jessnhalinda.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wish I could be a receptionist at your corporation!

"Dixie, call on line one. Your mother says it's very urgent."

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It would be fun to see the flash of panic on her face. :)

[electragiselle.livejournal.com]

Ug... I hate people that live in a fantasy world. There are several people like this that are business associates of mine.

Eventually EVERYTHING will blow up in their faces. It ALLWAYS does.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I can only hope.

[electragiselle.livejournal.com]

Eventually is the key word.... :(

[lil-ms-drama.livejournal.com]

If it is a disease, you are haunted by that disease for the rest of your life. You wondered if this same sickness will kill you, too, and if you should even have children yourself if there is a chance you might abandon them by dying, the way you were abandoned.

Dad's death certificate said "Malignant astrocytoma of brain" which translates to brain cancer.

Your statement is also true if they're a survivor of a disease that might have killed them. My mother had thyroid cancer, and just a few years ago breast cancer, not to mention how my whole life she was morbidly obese and had high blood pressure, later on getting Type II diabetes. I wonder if I'll end up abandoning Ian from any of these maladies all the time.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It took me a long time to figure it out (I was 35 when I had my son), but you can't let fear of dying keep you from living. Even healthy people die get shot or have car accidents and leave behind children. Death is just one of those risks.

If the worst were to happen and you or I were to leave our sons without mothers, they would survive, just as we survived losing our parents.

I think, though, that if a person were going to fake something like a dead mom and dad, they would do a little research by reading up on the normal psychological effects of such losses. Jeeze. :P

[lil-ms-drama.livejournal.com]

Totally agreed!

I'm just glad I'm with someone that wouldn't fall apart like my mother did if something happened to me. I also feel I have the emotional support my mom didn't if something happened to Dale. It's nice to have that security.

[simplecity2htwn.livejournal.com]

I love it when they just keep telling lie after lie after lie as if nobody is cataloging the BS. Then, for kicks, you start to mention in passing some of the inconsistencies. Panic sets in. Then they have to tell more lies. Before you know it, it's like they stepped into a big wad of chewing gum and now it's all in their hair and all over their clothes and most importantly, they can't hide it anymore.

My father in law insists he's a military man who grew up in Hawaii. The public records that I've found indicate that he's from Palestine Texas and has been married at least 5 times since the 1980s. One of these days when I get tired of hearing his BS, I'll hand him a wad of gum.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

It doesn't always work, though. A talented habitual liar will handle exposure by denying the most obvious truth, and do it in such a way that many people will still believe them despite the evidence. I offer up the Bush administration as a good example of this...

[coupesetique.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm thinking Dixie is a pathological liar. Sympathy in the form of loyalty? Sounds a little disassociative and narcissistic to me.

Knowing what your parent dies from: I am with you 1000% on this one. Very well articulated point. You KNOW what your parent passes away from. You learn as much as you can about whatever it is, medicines they took, changes to routine, etc.

Throwing up blood for 2 years? And Dixie's blowing it off as "some disease"? What is Dixie's problem??? I sure do hope Mom wasn't being kicked in the stomach on a daily basis. I'm thinking if I threw up blood for 1 DAY I'd be in the emergency room.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

She is a narcissistic drama queen, to be sure. To hear her tell it, her life has been one tragedy after another: dead parents, an abusive spouse who also abused her daughters, health problems, a bankruptcy, and so on. It's impossible for me to figure out what may or may not be true. I know she's had one real health scare since I've met her, when she had to do a barium swallow to look at her thyroid, which brought up the issue of her mother's illness. The barium swallow test is nasty, and I've heard that it does tend to make a person want to puke.

Dixie claimed that she is traumatized by the idea of throwing up, because her mother vomited blood daily for two years before she died. When she said this, I asked what was wrong with her mother, because I wanted to know what on earth could cause a person do this this, and that's when she told me it was this unknown "blood disease."

The only blood disorders I can think of off the top of my head are leukemia (blood cancer) and anemia, neither of which make you vomit blood as far as I know. I think she should change her story to "stomach cancer" to make it more plausible. If you're going to lie about something like this, you should at least make it a believable lie. I'm almost more annoyed by her ineptitude than I am by her dishonesty. >:P

[l-l-u-w-d.livejournal.com]

I do have one question about her, on that note. Is she also the type of person who, if you have a headache, she has a migraine, if you have a cold, she has double pneumonia (with a collapsed lung, to boot!)?

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

Actually, not really. She is subtler than that. She likes the spotlight, so no one else ever really gets to talk about their problems. When someone else's problems do come up (such as when a woman had to miss work for several days because of a migraine), she rolls her eyes and acts as if they are exaggerating. Her lack of sympathy is kind of chilling; she behaves as if everyone else is lying.

[l-l-u-w-d.livejournal.com]

You are so right, about knowing the name of what it was that took a parent from one at a young age. I knew all about aortic aneurysms way too young, as that is what took my father from me when I was two weeks past my 16th birthday. And the rare form of cancer that claimed my mother 8 years later. I don't think it matters /what/ age you are when something takes your parent(s) from you way too early, you don't forget what it is that does it.

And, I know all about those sort of people Dixie falls in line with, as well. I have had one or two (or three) of those sorts in my life. What I hate is when they take you in so thoroughly to begin with that you don't see them for what they are, until you are the only one left believing them, because everyone else has seen through the thin veil of the 'reality' they have spun around themselves into the truth of the matter.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

So far, I seem to be the only one to see through her veil, and only because I have an odd mind with a penchant for holding on to trivia. Even the clue of her not knowing what killed her mother didn't become obvious to me until I realized that what she said about where her parents were buried was not possible. I wasn't trying to put this puzzle together, the pieces just kind of fell into place.

Honest people always assume that everyone else is honest, whereas liars are always the most suspicious. Gullibility is a noble trait; it means that you expect the same kind of honesty from people that you yourself exhibit.

[callmekili.livejournal.com]

So far, I seem to be the only one to see through her veil, and only because I have an odd mind with a penchant for holding on to trivia.

i think youve just discovered the reason she doesnt like you... people who tend to make their life out and about lies, seem to be able to tell from the drop of a hat when they come face to face with someone who is able to see right through their web of lies.... and THAT is why she doesnt like you, cause she knows that its only a matter of time before her lies and everything else wrong will be made visible to the rest of the world.

[callmekili.livejournal.com]

You see, when a parent dies when you are still growing up, you always know the name of what orphaned you. If it is a disease, you are haunted by that disease for the rest of your life. You worry that the same sickness will kill you, too, and ponder whether you should even have children yourself if there is a chance you might abandon them by dying, the way you were abandoned.

even though i was older than you when i lost my parents, i can completely relate to this to some degree.....

and the fact that someone would lie about something like that, regardless of what really happened, just seems so wrong to me.

[neanahe.livejournal.com]

I don't think she's ever experienced any real grief, but she's noticed how much attention and sympathy people who have seem to get. It's like Munchhausen's Syndrome, except instead of deliberately making herself sick for sympathy, she creates make believe tragedies for the same effect.