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I obviously don't know Palin personally, so I am not pronouncing her a pathological liar, but having dated one, she definitely shares his characteristics.
My ex-boyfriend lied about so many stupid, trivial things, it was unbelievable. I was in college, and was completely naive and unprepared for someone like him. The most ridiculous example I can cite is when I lent him $100, and he told me he repaid me by depositing $100 into my checking account. I accidentally found the deposit slip, and it was made out for $95. I asked him about the discrepancy, and he swore, swore, that he had deposited $100, saying the bank had made the mistake, despite the fact that the deposit ticket was in his handwriting. He got so upset I finally abandoned the conversation.
It's obviously a ridiculous thing to lie about. I wouldn't have cared one bit if he was $5 short. I obviously would have found out about the $5 discrepancy when I balanced my checkbook. You would think he'd have stopped lying when faced with the deposit ticket. But pathological liars aren't wired that way.
This guy lied about so many things, and most of them were truly inconsequential. I was seeing a therapist at the time, and I asked him about the lying. He said that pathological liars often don't know that they're even lying. I couldn't comprehend that; how can you not know you're lying?
(It's interesting: I just looked up pathological liar, and found it's often associated with narcissistic personality disorder or histrionic personality disorder, which is closely related.)
Coping with such a person is very, very frustrating. Imagine having a relationship with someone when you don't believe a word they say. Toward the end, if he told me he had gone to the store, I would automatically think, maybe you did, maybe you didn't. That's how much they lie.
