Mythomania – Increasingly A Common Scourge

Jephté Yock -

Mythomania is a mental disorder in which the person has the tendency to lie, or relate incredibly imaginary adventures, exaggerating to an abnormal degree than how they had really happened. The mythomaniac individual may be aware that they are lying or may believe that their lie is the truth. This lying behavior is also typical of persons with factitious disorder. In this case, the sick person compulsively and continuously lies about their own health or that of their loved ones, defining themselves by proxy, simulating, falsifying and even procuring wounds or pains necessary for their cause.


Main Features of Mythomania

Mythomania can be identified by certain features:

  • The tendency to lie is chronic. It is not caused by the immediate situation or by social pressure, but by an innate personality trait.
  • The stories told are often fantastic, but they never break the limits of plausibility, which is key to the tactics of the pathological liar.
  • Stories tend to present the liar favorably. The liar favors his own person telling stories that present him as the hero or the victim.

Causes of Mythomania

There are several theories that try to explain mythomania.

  • From the psychobiology, research has been done indicating that it is the result of a neurological imbalance, particularly in the frontal lobe. Pathological liars have an increase in the amount of white matter in the brain.
  • Many experts believe that compulsive lying is a symptom of a larger personality disorder, including borderline personality disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.
  • Many psychologists believe that mythomaniacs are people with low self-esteem who are seeking, consciously or unconsciously, to attract love, attention, popularity or conceal or a failure.

Symptoms of Mythomania

When we talk about mythomaniac people, we refer to people who integrate the ability to lie in their behavior or attitude as a daily routine. The main symptoms that lead to lies in the lives of these people include:

  • Stress:

People who compulsively lie equally live with the daily stress to keep their lies, and not to be discovered. They have an exacerbated fear of being discovered, thus the mental work to build lies is multiplied, until they are discovered.

  • Low self-esteem:

Their inability to accept themselves makes them draw a profile of themselves totally removed from reality; they often verbally show rich and interesting ideas and experiences.

  • High Anxiety Episodes:

Mythomaniacs are people disenchanted with their own reality. For this they suffer various anxiety episodes which motivates them to create their lies, deforming their environment and life towards others.

  • Magnify reality:

It is possible that a liar can tell a reality but totally oversized with invented ornaments to try to endorse themselves before others.

Solving the Situation


Certain actions can help minimize or correct the consequences of mythomania.

  • Communication:

Communication is the basic instrument for solving any psychological problem. Offering the effective social and communicative tools to face life is imperative. The mythomaniac will collect these social weapons to develop assertiveness towards others.

  • Cognitive therapies:

There are some actions, exercises or activities that help the mythomaniac to find the source of his low esteem. Thus, work needs to be done on their personality and self-knowledge, so that from this point one can build the strong foundations for a healthy and transparent personality.

Fighting mythomania is a mid and long-term job because it must reeducate the perception of the reality of the compulsive liar. Patience, affection, and tenacity are basic ingredients for you with the desire to help, or that happen to live with a mythomaniac.

                                                                                            Ramses Wato