Confabulation: When Lying isn't Lying 

My 88 year old mom has frontotemporal dementia. About a year ago she started what I would call confabulation. One or two truths would be thrown in with a long complicated story. Usually they were sad or depressing. But within months her stories became so off the wall and wild that I live in fear of loved ones coming to visit!! Recently she entertained her new doctors staff with tells of her learning to drive at the Brick Yard, setting time records that made Richard Petty tip his hat at her! She facinated the nurses with tales of the year the track was built and the company that layed the brick. She even recalled the names of the builders children who accompanied him when they weren't in school! She goes into minute detail, leaves nothing out. The next story can be about dear friends who we've known for 50 years who chained their children in closets at night, locked the kids outside all day, how it broke her heart to watch them eat worms and grass to stay alive. You never know what shes going to say. She has severely hurt several loved ones so far, what she told had zero truth to it but those loved ones have been destroyed. Not to mention how she can gut me and my family. Those loved one she hurt cant imagine what i hear as I am her full time, unpaid caregiver. I am her daughter and Ive had my heart ripped out and handed back to me many times. I love her and I know it isnt her talking but it has almost ruined my life at times. She was a wonderful and fun mother when we were kids. She also suffered a severe brain injury from a bad wreck in the 70s. So I feel its not just the dementia causing this heartbreaking symptom. All you can do is try to redirect the story or interrupt by adding light hearted funny things to make her laugh. No one knows how hard us caregivers work, especially when no one really sees us, the physical and emotional turmoil that is our life.

I don’t know if my mother drank alcohol when she was pregnant. My brother and I both have mental health issues. I’m 66 and he is 70. I’m not sure if the general public knew back in those days about the effects that drinking alcohol has on the unborn child. Both of my parents were alcoholics, mostly my dad when I was young, but my mom did drink also. Later on, she did develop full-blown alcoholism. When I was young I used to fabricate stories. I did this as a pre-teen, teenager, and young adult. There was no reason for me to be telling false stories. I just did it! Finally, when I was a young adult I read the book, 'It Will Never Happen to Me!' Children of Alcoholics: As Youngsters - Adolescents - Adults. When I read the book I started crying, especially about my lying. I would fabricate and lie even when there was not any reason to do so. This video is very informative to me and I’m glad my friend posted it.

Sometimes confabulation is an a defense mechanism. If you've ever whitenessed angry adults interrogate a child about why the kid did what they did... or the adult insists that a child provide details about a situation after telling the adult that they don't know what happened... When a child is dealing with an adult who's unwilling or simply unable to help the child retrace his steps or stay calm enough recollect anything they panic and make stuff up to get the scary adult out of their face. Let's be real, sometimes kids aren't paying attention... Actually, often, unless taught, kids aren't paying attention to a situation that escalates out of control and that's usually why it got out of control. Just saying... The messed up part of this is that is becomes an ingrained behavior because a fair number of these kids realize that it's easier to lie to an adult... It's also more effective. As a kid this used to blow my mind because I was unrelentingly honest until I learned that I was expected to lie sometimes... and I'd watch my friends get away with crazy things and they would look at me like I was crazy when I questioned them about the story they just handed the adult. Now, as someone who works with kids, I see the fear of consequences and "scary" adults as a primer for habitual lying. Habitual lying may or may not always be the same thing as confabulation, but let's remember that most people are unaware of their habits...

I'm glad I am learning this word. I feel like my mother has dementia or just lying against me especially. She rewrites history constantly yet, she never is to blame.

I think this explains the so- called Mandela Effect.

I watched this after seeing similarities between my mother who has had stroke and another person who I know. Both will fill in the blanks with false information when needed. They also both hate being wrong or being accused of lying.

Thank you. My wife has epilepsy and often confabulates. After researching about it, including this video, I have a better understanding that it's probably less likely to be Gaslighting or Lying, and more likely to be epilepsy induced confabulations. It's never anything large, just little silly things like the colour of something or whether I said a certain thing when I didn't. I will keep this in mind, in future, should she start saying things I know to be untrue.

I loved this! I work with so many children and youth that need support with this, and your videos are perfect for parents and caregivers. I will definitely be checking out the podcast and sending it to the families I'm supporting.

Thank please do another video on confabulation

My MIL has dementia. This makes so much sense.

Add in in FASD they often rely on visual memory and they can struggle to see themselves in the picture and that requires insight and cause and effect thinking. They often cannot remember anything they did themselves. Think they are the camera operator and they are not in the DVD taped memory.

I'd love to hear more on this especially in schizophrenia

Had never heard of this before until I researched something about a murder in the UK. I don't understand why a neighbour to a killer was jailed for 5 months for wasting police time when he really believed to have seen the victim leaving the house. He had no reason to lie (Paul Meehan in the Tia Sharp case). I mean: then I would never wish to give evidence for anything at any time risking to get a sentence for "lying".

Children and adults add and remove portions of stories either to shorten or embellish for drama or humor but the core occurrence remains the same. In contrast confabulation leads you to think, that didn't happen like that from what I remember.

Amazing content.

Thank you for this content!

This is a great video, but can you explain what to do when this is happening? How should I react when I feel like my foster kiddos aren't telling me the truth?

This was sooooooo good. Thank you

Not sure how this help me when my kiddo tells me, they've done their homework. I ask to see it, and then I hear, "Oh yeah. That's right. The computer didnt save it..." or... When they're asked to do a chore, they reply "Yes, I did it," and you verify it wasn't done, they reply, "Wait. I thought I did it," Is that lying or confabulation?

Question: How might schools and school staff handle students who confabulate if the false memories are in regard to behavioral incidents that may require disciplinary consequences?

Thank you so much!

I've heard this happens in dementia

The way to solve this is to use video or strory telling as a way to gain evidence of what really happened

Could you cover confabulation & manipulation?

So how does confabulation work in terms of short term vs. long term memory. For example, my FASD may do something 5 minutes earlier, and when we ask for a "why did you do that", his breakdown of events doesn't match with what happened... I can see the struggle for him to recall the event, but, I can also see him trying to "recall" it in a way that makes him less responsible for the event... So my question is where does confabulation fit in in terms of length of time from the memory that actually happened... If that makes sense...

but what about when it isn't about memory? what if it is a direct question about something that is going to happen? and the person knowingly does not say what is true for fear of "a trick question"/feeling under pressure. for example "will you be bringing anyone with you to spend the night?" and the person says "no" when in fact the answer should have been "yes". there was no intent to harm but harm did occur. there was awareness in the moment. can you speak to this type of situation (the piece you discuss about memory is a constant but i don't know what to do with something like this that is not about memory. is it appropriate to outline to the person what is perceived as a lie in the world? because this is doing a great deal of damage to multiple relationships and ruining this person's life. is there room for learning about what constitutes a lie in others' eyes and practicing not doing it?

I have 2 friends have confabulation One is type 1 DM The other looks normal but horrible in confabulation 🥸. Is there any treatment for her case!??

Hello. I'm getting worried about my girlfriend. i saw her doing things in a regular life context and when we talk about what she did she told me story which factual differences. She also don't remember things she does when people around her saw her doing those things. For now it is never important or dangerous things but she is always sure about her story. At the same time, she has a distortion of the smell. I don't know if it can be link. I don't even know if she could have a real memory problem... If someone can help in here. It would be appreciated. Thank you.

Trisha paytas needs to see this video