Self-deception: When Who You Are Is Not Who You Really Are | Emotional Health

Most of us are more easily fooled than we think we are. If a stranded motorist knocks on our door and asks us to use our phone, we generally let them in. If an attractive person compliments us on our new appearance, we generally believe him or her. If someone offers to help us do an unpleasant chore, we believe they are doing so just to be nice. It’s not until later that we find out our wallet is missing, that someone else’s boyfriend wants to knock our block off or that our boss who helped us move is now expecting us to work weekends. What looks good on the surface has a whole new meaning. Most of us are far more gullible than we care to know, especially when we’re in the hands of a real con artist.

And what if that con artist is really our self? So many of us have distorted notions of who we think we are. We either give ourselves more credit than we deserve, woefully underestimate our true strengths, or simply deny what is so obvious to everybody else. Although it can be fun to live in a la-la land for a while, the devastation of not knowing the truths about ourselves can be a bitter pill to swallow. One only has to look at recent financial crisis in our country, where so many people got fooled and fooled themselves, to know what I mean. In fact, I think deluding ourselves hurts us more than other people’s conning. You can always get away from a con artist but you are stuck with being yourself, with all its limitations. Chronic self-deception devastates us.

I used to think of myself as a confident guy. I came from a poor and backwoods Georgie family, worked hard on autos and put two and two together in dealing with people. Eventually I owned my own garage here in Biloxi, Mississippi. One day this gorgeous southern belle-Joleen-asked me to work on her car. She kept coming by the shop and showing me all this attention. I thought I had died and gone to heaven, particularly since our flirtation appeared to be more than just sex. I asked myself, “Why is such a classy lady showing me all this attention?” Finally, I said to myself, “Look this woman is obviously not interested in you for your money. You’re a good-looking guy. Give her a chance.” So Joleen and I had a whirlwind romance and hardly ever left the bedroom. We developed a good relationship and were the talk of the town. Everybody loved Joleen. She even got hired in the mayor’s office as a Public Relations Director. Finally after a year, she said it’s time for us to get married. She offered to be my wife if I agreed to never see my family again. That troubled me at first. But heh, I never saw them much anyway and who was I to pass up such an amazing woman as Joleen. So we got hitched and were very happy together for six months. Everything changed after her job promotion. Joleen didn’t like me touching her and asked if I could sleep in the den. She said she was tense over work and didn’t feel sexy like she used to. So I relented. But I cried myself to sleep a lot of the time. I wondered how I had gone from being a stud to a dud in the bedroom. Finally I found out. A friend of Joleen’s told me the bad news. She said that Joleen was having an affair with the mayor. I just couldn’t believe what I was told. I rushed up to Joleen and confronted her. She only got furious with me, saying how I was threatening her and ruining her name. A week later I got served with divorce papers and a restraining order, accusing me of domestic battery. I was shocked! I didn’t know what I was up against. Heartbroken and scared, I scurried back to Georgia. Later I realized that Joleen had just used me and was on to bigger and better things. I had been her fool for love out of my need to be with a classy woman. What the heck was I thinking?

Let me count the ways we fool ourselves

Some of us are completely unable to see ourselves as we really are. We’re so easily crushed by any form of criticism that we live in our own private world of make-believe. We are so afraid of feedback from others that we never let others see us as we really are. We also fool ourselves. Who we think we are is vastly discrepant with how others see us. We may live our lives as if we’re the next American Idol when in reality we cannot even sing. Some of us are so self deluded that we cannot even see that we are. Our lives may totally revolve around maintaining a false self so that others do not see our own vulnerabilities and emptiness. We may even have many saving graces in what we offer others but personal integrity is not one of them. People who are incapable of compassion fall into this category. Con artists, drama queens, princes, paranoids and bean counters are among such people.

Our lives may totally revolve around maintaining a false self so that others do not see our own vulnerabilities and emptiness.Other people do see who they really are but would rather not. Often they feel there is more value in hiding from themselves than in being who they really are. Addicts who struggle with sobriety often know there is a part of them that doesn’t work but they would rather maintain denial in order to continue using. When your primary relationship is with a substance, you certainly don’t want caring people to get in the way of your using. Indeed, if you let people actually care about you, you may have to feel the incredible shame over how out of control your life really is. At least some part of an addict has the ability to feel and be vulnerable, but they live in the land of denial. Drug users, alcoholics, anorexics, shopaholics and compulsive gamblers are among such people.

All of us have some form of self-deception. We may overrate our job performance or think we can cook better than we can. We all need some make-believe to get by. Otherwise we would be overwhelmed by life. Problems with self-deception arise when our fantasy lives are more extreme, interfere with our real lives and are totally unknown to ourselves. As Sheldon Kopp, a famous psychotherapist, once said, “It’s not the pretending, but the pretending that we’re not pretending that hurts us.”

Recognizing self-dishonesty

If you really want to know if you’re being honest with yourself here are some telltale signs that you aren’t:

• You continually go out of your way to hide certain aspects of yourself to others
• You explain away some unwelcome parts of yourself through convoluted logic
• You are constantly checking that others don’t know the real you
• Your secret life is only known to you and you like it that way
• You are so adept at pretending that others would never guess your secrets
• You are shocked by feedback from others and often reject it, saying “It just isn’t me”
• You sometimes behave in ways that are totally unlike how you normally act
• You feel more relaxed being around sleazy people and deadbeats
• You don’t recognize your face in the mirror or see your image as real

Costs and benefits of deceiving ourselves

All of us lie to ourselves. We do it regularly, sometimes for very good reasons. None of us deserves condemnation or judgment for hiding from ourselves. It’s best to evaluate our decisions regarding self-honesty, both pro and con, to make wiser choices. Say for example we are in a loveless marriage with three young children to care for. After many failed efforts to resolve our difficulties, we may decide to stay with our spouse for the sake of our children and make the best of a bad situation. If we’re not being abused and the children appear happier living in an intact family we may benefit from looking on the brighter side of things. We may need to pretend that things are OK until our children are older and we have the support to make changes. Our looking on the bright side may even lessen the doldrums we feel from our marriage and possibly improve it. Actually faking it until you make it is a strategy shared by many people. Some of us may have demons from our pasts that we’re not ready to face. So for now, it’s often better to pretend and know we’re doing it.

On the other hand, when we’re oblivious to ourselves or when our self-deceit is hurting ourselves or others, then the costs of pretending may be too great to bear. Our avoidance may contribute to a diminished view of ourselves, cause us to have ongoing unexplained battles with loved ones and result in depression. You may question, “How can I even face what is invisible to myself?” First realize that you’re probably not totally oblivious to  yourself. You may even be using your oblivion as an excuse. Secondly, recognize that if enough trustworthy people are telling you have a problem, you probably do. Why would a number of people who love you lie to you? To be happy all of us must at times surrender ourselves to those who love us. Finally, if you have to face some painful fact in yourself, don’t freak out. You don’t have to do it alone and what you face is probably not as big as you’re making it. Besides there’s no hiding from essential truths in ourselves. As Kopp also once said, “We can run but we can’t hide.”

Facing the music

The most important rule in facing painful truths in ourselves is not to do it alone. Be in relationship with someone you trust and then bring your truth into the light of day. Confession to a steadfast helper is good for the soul. An honest 12-stepper or competent professional helper may do the trick. For guidance read, Sheldon Kopp’s Mirror, Mask and Shadow. Take your time to work on the relationship first to see if your mentor is strong enough to hear your truth. You may want to reveal less risky but very personal aspects of yourself and see how your prospective supporter responds. If you feel understood and cared for over safer aspects of your personal life, chance are good that your trusted helper will come through for you in more weighty matters. Realize that what you fear most is yourself and your own self-criticisms. This truth may become painfully evident as you discover that something you’ve always kept under wraps is in fact no big deal to your respected supporter. Often it’s the caring by others, not our big bad secret, that freaks us out.

Most of us shun love; we prefer the familiarity of known misery to the joy of moving on with our lives. Let me reassure you, being happy may separate you from your misery and the problem people from your past but it will also give you a whole new view of yourself with a promising fresh set of real friends. To thine own self be true; let the truth set you free.

John H. Driggs, L.I.C.S.W., is a retired Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in St. Paul, MN and co-author of Intimacy Between Men (Penguin Books, 1990).  We may receive a commission via some of the links on this article – at no cost to you.

Last Updated on December 13, 2025