Honesty and masking

[Judge]

Brutal honesty does not work for me, I'm tactfully honest. I obfuscate or downplay the truth when I deem it necessary, and sometimes I opt for socially acceptable answers instead of the truth, because the raw truth will just hurt the other person unnecessarily.

For example, I wouldn't hypothetically tell my partner he looks fat in his new pair of jeans, I'd tell him I like his other pair better on him.

I won't tell my best friend I think her husband's a vile excuse for a human being, I will let her know how amazing I think she is and how she doesn't need him to validate that.

I like this post relative to the OP because it reflects a trait some of us on the spectrum have more than others- cognitive flexibility. An executive function reflecting an ability to think about various things in more than only a "black and white" fashion. To be able to qualitatively "interpolate" what lies in between and to know when, where and how to do it.

Yet I think for anyone on the spectrum, it's necessary to understand that such abilities with cognitive flexibility can potentially vary greatly.

That for some honesty isn't something they can necessarily "practice" at will, but rather more a case of simply having no options neurologically speaking of mitigating truth when it might constitute a matter of kindness or pragmatism in the larger scheme of things.

 

[flawedplan]

I appreciate the discussion. I am confused about one response.

All I can say, really, is that your argument is based on a stereotype that aspies have been burdened with .

What is my argument? You can summarize my argument?

I said: "So hearing about the inextricable link between Aspies and honesty appeals no end to me."

There's nothing inextricable about it. It's a generalization that has been turned, by well-meaning people, into a trait that is supposed to be true of all aspies, and isn't.

Actually, that looks like an inextricable link.

[/QUOTE]A further point that occurred to me after I posted this: your argument implies that most aspies are hypocrites. Maybe that's unintentional and you're unaware of how it comes across[/QUOTE]

No, I got it. Lying and hypocrisy go hand in hand, you can't have one without the other. I'm a hypocrite. I hope I'm less of a hypocrite than I was *yesterday* but it never goes away because it's impossible not to lie.

 

[OliveBunny]

Flawedplan,
I don't understand why you started this post? I am having trouble understanding what you are asking or what you are trying to achieve or get at? *confused*

 

[Judge]

I suppose what's important to me is for the NT world to clearly understand that total honesty among people on the spectrum in general is just a myth. That our reality is that some of us may be prone to being absolutely truthful because we neurologically have little or no alternatives when interacting with others.

And that for some, they will continue to make the same unfiltered social errors over and over relative to a type of mind blindness. Not having the capacity to fully understand and evaluate the consequences of their words or actions relative to directly communicating with others.

Conversely some of us will also choose to be less honest about ourselves in an attempt to avoid social controversy or exclusion. More a matter of social survival in real-time than a consideration of nebulous moral implications.

 

[MysticEmber]

I am a very honest person, but I was told to and had to learn how to tactfully put my words. I have been told a few times that sometimes I would say "too much" and would hurt feelings or make them feel uncomfortable. I am mostly careful with my words because I do care how I make others feel but I also do not want to hide a part of myself just because it makes others wiggle in their skin. Honesty is the only way to go about things in my opinion and it doesn't make sense to me to do or say anything that is otherwise honest. I am a deep and creative person so I crave that raw honesty. I just wish more people were like that.

 

[OliveBunny]

I'm still rather confused but, I'm learning to be ok with it. The most important thing to me is to show my intentions and to see the intentions of others clearly. I have a big heart and I am trying to keep it that way. I prefer life when I am able to relax in the assumption that everyone in the space I am in is deserving of the benefit of the doubt. Isn't that really what it all boils down to? I'm new with my dx and I'm new here but, I joined this community because I want to feel what it feels like to NOT try so hard to fit in for ONCE in my life!

 

[Gracey]

Everyone lies.

My husband has just lied about enjoying the dessert I made earlier.

I know for a fact I was a bit heavy-handed with the 'pinch of salt' in the pastry. Could taste it above all else.
It was bloody awful.
And yet he still sat there and said "thanks, this is tasty"

You could perhaps say that he lied to spare my feelings.
You're presuming I had feelings one way or another about his appreciation

I made a dessert because I wanted dessert.
I made enough for everyone because I knew he'd feel left out if I were to sit at the table enjoying pear crumble and custard. A bowlful all to myself.

He lied. Pure and simple.
Perhaps he meant "I appreciate the effort you've put into making this"
But good manners (lying?) Had him say "thanks, this is tasty"

He left approximately a third of the dessert (valiant effort at taste buds coping with the salt)
He usually clears his plate.
In my mind, confirmation he was just being grateful or polite? (Lying?)

Everyone lies.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

Everyone lies.

My husband has just lied about enjoying the dessert I made earlier.

I know for a fact I was a bit heavy-handed with the 'pinch of salt' in the pastry. Could taste it above all else.
It was bloody awful.
And yet he still sat there and said "thanks, this is tasty"

You could perhaps say that he lied to spare my feelings.
You're presuming I had feelings one way or another about his appreciation

I made a dessert because I wanted dessert.
I made enough for everyone because I knew he'd feel left out if I were to sit at the table enjoying pear crumble and custard. A bowlful all to myself.

He lied. Pure and simple.
Perhaps he meant "I appreciate the effort you've put into making this"
But good manners (lying?) Had him say "thanks, this is tasty"

He left approximately a third of the dessert (valiant effort at taste buds coping with the salt)
He usually clears his plate.
In my mind, confirmation he was just being grateful or polite? (Lying?)

Everyone lies.

Thus began the salt experiment.

Quantity of salt vs propensity of husband to lie.

How much salt before 'i can't eat this '

Quantity of salt required to ensure truth.

 

[Gracey]

Thus began the salt experiment.

Quantity of salt vs propensity of husband to lie.

How much salt before 'i can't eat this '

Quantity of salt required to ensure truth.

Piqued my curiosity.
Too many variables.
No equipment to test salt content during processing and manufacturing.
Read the packaging?

I'd have to test that the quotient stated on packaging of foodstuffs was accurate before adding own salt to get precise measure of salt before truth.
Great idea x2

 

[pax]

Thus began the salt experiment.

Quantity of salt vs propensity of husband to lie.

How much salt before 'i can't eat this '

Quantity of salt required to ensure truth.

Sodium pentothal would work better.

 

[onlything]

Honesty, even softly worded, got me in trouble, especially at work, more times than I care to remember. Not worth it.

 

[Chance]

I never had a very good poker face so I have always told the truth or fudged the truth depending on the situation. My family knows that they should never ask my opinion on things or hairstyles if they don't want it. I have been known to never sugarcoat things growing up and it hasn't really changed now.

Same here... There are times when I know I should say something different than what I am truly thinking...

Example wife gets new wild funky hair cut, and I think it's maybe a little too funky and she asks, "Isn't it pretty?" I say yes, but if she looks at me, then she's mad because she says I have a certain unmistakable guilty face when I am not telling the truth... But if I told the truth she would still be mad so I'm a jerk regardless.

I can't possibly help that "guilty face" thing. I don't even know what it looks like, or realise I do that. So even with good intentions, I can get myself in quite a lot of trouble.

 

[the_tortoise]

Lying and hypocrisy go hand in hand, you can't have one without the other.

You can have one without the other.

People can be hypocrites without lying, they just need to be unaware of how their own behavior can be interpreted or unaware of how it affects others.

You can also lie without being a hypocrite, as long as your lies are not about yourself and your own actions, you expect others to lie in a similar manner to yourself, and you think/feel about the lies you tell others the same way that you think/feel about the lies others tell you.

Actually, that looks like an inextricable link.

How is that? An inextricable link between ASDers and discomfort with lying would mean that you can't have ASD unless you are uncomfortable with lying......this is not the case.

"Inextricably linked" means that two things literally cannot be separated -- that they literally cannot exist separately. Even if it were true that every single person on earth believed that total honesty and ASD were inextricably linked (which is not the case) the inextricable link would be something imaginary, rather than something real.

 

[Full Steam]

Why not just share the content of your mind? Even if it makes you stand out from the rest. That's what it means to be honest.

Well for me, I only found out in later life I was on the spectrum.

I knew almost everyone else was different, and I assumed I was alone in my weirdness. I learned to cover it up so well no one would ever suspect.

With that in mind, consider our societies expectations and pressures.

Our education organisations are geared to turn out helpful drones for industry, and overseers to watch the drones. Our parents are conditioned to support the status quo and prepare us for droneship or dictatorship.

Now thrust our protagonist into that mix; someone who doesn't fit either mold in the slightest. No interest in robotically following, and even less in petty power over ones peers.

The pressures brought to bare; you MUST learn to do one or the other, unless you want to be a burden on society, and a loser.

Your peers all happily compete, chowing down on the BS that's fed to them.

What would you do?

Speak your truth in this inside-the-asylum world?

Possibly, but you don't know that yet - you have no mentors, no guides in being an outstanding autist. You can't jump on line and find others like you, there's no internet.

Until a year ago I thought there WERE no others like me, and I'm 48.

So you do what you are told to, with rebellion seething under the surface, until you are old enough for it to all start erupting.

That's when the real trouble starts - trying to find your truth, not getting arrested, not ending it all in a half deliberate ball of fire and motorcycle, hating work, but hating being on welfare too.

Earning enough to eat and buy clothes, and living a dual life of barely understood truth and lies.

Hoping the truth will protect you from the poison of 8 hours of lies.

But it doesn't.

It's just so exhausting, and soul crushing.

It leads inevitably to burn out, and with some people a total crash out of functioning NT life.


I like your question, but please understand that for most of us the choice is not one of "extreme truth" vs "living a partial lie", it's "living a lie" vs "not having money to eat, family around us and staying out of jail".

It's very easy for me to choose now to be honest to myself, which I try my hardest to do. Another matter entirely for a 12 year old child, and it's not reasonable to expect that from them, so autistic kids grow up in disguise and then cope with the fall out as adults.

This is why education must change for autistic people - it's unacceptable to maintain the status quo.

 

[Full Steam]

I also think that "radical honesty" may have problems (I've never heard the term before).

Does radical honesty means speaking your mind to the hurt and detriment of those around you or are you then allowed to lie?
- I've certainly told truths I should not have done, simply because it was too uncomfortable for me to lie, and that was selfish.

Radical truth must lead to a few inescapable conclusions I'd think;

1. veganism - how can one live truthfully in the knowledge that your eating choices are causing huge suffering and that your conscience is deliberately shielded from the gory horror by a whole industry.

2. That the only, inescapable and ultimate truth is "I am" *. Beyond this life seems to be a game, where deception and intrigue are part of the rules. Then once you are living the truth daily, "I am", where else is their a need for honesty?


* not "I think therefore I am", as thinking does not prove existence, only that a thought existed. "I am" is obvious and takes no deduction to realise. the only thing I know is "I am".

 

[Nervous Rex]

There is a difference between openness and honesty. Being too open leads to telling the truth tactlessly and to sharing too much information - two things that autistics are notorious for.

Being honest is something different. Being honest about oneself and criticizing others are two completely separate topics. This is especially true when it's about following society's rules. You may say we're lying when we try to learn and follow society's rules - you'll say we aren't being honest by just being ourselves. Then when we criticize others for not following "the rules" as we understand them, you may say that's a contradiction - why be overly honest about others but not honest about ourselves? But to me, those two behaviors are consistent, because they're both about trying to understand society's rules, how to follow them, and when it's okay to break them.

 

[Gracey]

@flawedplan

The contradiction exists because of the consequence of honesty.

What happens consistently on being one's unfiltered self and interacting with most of society.

In your own experiences of living 'Radical Honesty' in your life to date, where do you find the most rejection or hostility happening?

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

In your own experiences of living 'Radical Honesty' in your life to date, where do you find the most rejection or hostility happening?

In the mirror.


(Used to be for me,historically)

 

[Bella Pines]

I'm reading a lot of websites, and one thing I can't get my head around -- Autists are reputed to be paragons of no-holds barred honesty, at the same time they lead lives of absolute deception, which they admit in their own words.

I don't get the contadiction. Does it change depending on the power dynamics?

There's no contradiction, it is just a definition of terms.

the definition of honesty

One definition is truthfulness. But there is no truth. There is only perception.

Say a female friend of mine got a bad haircut that made her look like a lego minifig. (true story

She asked me for my opinion, I spoke my "truth". I told her that she looks like a lego minifig, I even googled a picture of a lego minifig to prove my point.

She got angry, she says that her hairdresser is a genius and therefore her haircut must be amazing. She spoke her "truth".

I see that she is upset and so next time I complement her on her hair, I say that it is a great haircut. I am wearing a mask and speaking against my opinion (it looked just as bad as the first time), but I am speaking HER truth. She accepts it and we are happy.

So there is no real "truth" and I am not deceiving her, I am simply speaking her opinion which to her is the "truth". I am being technically honest and deceitful at the same time.

 

[Fridgemagnetman]

She asked me for my opinion, I spoke my "truth". I told her that she looks like a lego minifig, I even googled a picture of a lego minifig to prove my

My version,with my wife, for the 2nd occurence is :

Look intently at hair. You definitely don't look like a lego minifig.

Repeat joke, too mamy times... hear ENOUGH.
Stop joke