Dishonesty is a successively worsening process

Lies have a compounding effect. The intensity and enduring power of the consequences of dishonesty increase as long as you remain in that state. Dishonesty causes problems to grow bigger and spread wider. There are internal and external effects of dishonesty, and both grow in intensity and reach the longer and harder you deny reality. The more dishonest you are and the longer you wait to become honest, the more the penalties compound. The consequences of dishonesty increase with each repeated lie in every moment until and unless you reconcile to the truth.

While you remain out of reconciliation with the truth, you expose yourself to an ever-present weakening that is working against you, even in moments when you are not thinking about it, eroding your confidence and degrading your outcomes, all the while making you more numb to the process. It is fitting to think of dishonesty like radiation: as long as you expose yourself to it, you will suffer from it, and the more you expose yourself to it the more and faster it will hurt you. Unchecked dishonesty spreads through your life like a cancer that strangles out a shocking array of good things in your life. Dishonesty is a condition that increases automatically, like a boulder rolling down a hill increases in speed as it descends.

The longer states of dishonesty are maintained, the more difficult they are to escape from. Every impedance you place between you and the truth has outsized effects and increases faster than expected, making the path to correct your lie longer, and the costs of doing so higher. The increasing difficulty of escaping a state of dishonesty is why such states are scripturally described as the “chains of hell”:¹

10 And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.
11 And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries; and then they are taken captive by the devil, and led by his will down to destruction. Now this is what is meant by the chains of hell. (Alma 12)

The chains of hell have bound up individuals as well as groups of people throughout time. In a vision given to Enoch describing his time, he:

...beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced. (Moses 7:26)

Many people are similarly wrapped in the chains of hell today.

But now, behold, they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they. (Mormon 5:18)

The escalating entrapment of the chains of hell is further described in scripture with the analogy of thin entrapping cords that thicken with time and repetition:

...[Satan] leadeth them by the neck with a flaxen cord, until he bindeth them with his strong cords forever. (2 Nephi 26:22)

In the state of dishonesty, you will do increasingly more harm while it becomes increasingly more difficult for you to realize the harm you are doing. With every lie that entraps you, Satan gains greater power over you to use you for his purposes, since your declining awareness makes it easier for him to conduct more overt attacks on what is good beyond the limits of your awareness,² including empowering you to say and do things that inflict harm far beyond what you could do by yourself.