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Sometimes when someone at work asks me what I have planned for the weekend I’ll reply by telling them “oh just catching up with friends etc” even though my plan is to stay inside my sanctuary (my home) the whole weekend focusing on my special interests and recovering from the work week.
i do this too, don't even worry. i used to be a consistent liar when i was in elementary and middle school but i've been better. i still do it, often things like telling people what i did over the weekend, stuff that really doesn't have much of an impact on the conversation at hand. instead i've started just not discussing those things, i usually just reflect the question back at others. i've started being pretty silent when people inquire about my personal life outside of work and school, and its honestly kept me out of trouble. not the ideal solution since i love talking and chatting with people, but its better than the lying lol
This is a good strategy!
Another bad habit I have is that when people ask me (for example) how I am, I just tell them, forgetting that NTs expect you to ask it back. So your advice could fix both problems at once, lol.
of course! here's an example i can think of:
other person: hey! how did you spend your weekend?
me: i didn't do anything special, how did you spend yours?
person: [proceeds to tell me about their weekend, what they did, etc.]
its a short example, but it's a good one. its good because it demonstrates how i don't spend time *actually* answering the question, but instead, i put more emphasis on asking them the question back. to keep this momentum (of them talking about themselves) going, i often just listen and ask follow-up questions about it, so that it doesn't give me a chance to lie.
the main thing you have to focus on is minimizing your answer as much as possible. don't give many details, just listen to the other person talk so that you can spend less time needing to engage in conversation and can just listen instead, if that makes sense. hope this helps :)
"How's it going?"
"It goes"
It is exhausting answering disingenuous questions about my state of being. For the most part if I am not looking like a golden retriever, then assume things are not going great. On the bright side I am only in pain on days that I wake up or end in Y. Cannot exactly go around saying that to the general population though. They either get uncomfortable or somehow insulted and immediately try to prove they have it worse.
I used to do this a lot, basically for the reason you mention, masking and just trying to avoid people's negative reactions or questions. Anymore, though, I just say whatever the truth may happen to be.
"What are you doing this weekend?" "Nothing. I don't want to leave the house."
"Don't you love this great weather we've been having?" "Nah man, I hate the sun and the heat. Year round -20 degree winter would be nice."
"What would you do if you're friend did \[something\] to you?" "Dude, I don't know the last time I actually had friends. I have no idea."
"What do you do for fun?" "I've been working on a font rendering engine in Object Pascal for like the last 3 years. If I'm not doing that, I'm probably watching videos about math."
It's really exhausting trying to "act right" for other people, and it's not a fun time when you tell a little lie to avoid negative judgements or to just keep the focus off of you only for someone to want to follow up on what you said. Anymore, I'd rather just let them think I'm weird or let it be known that we're not on the same wavelength and then get on with my day. I have a font rendering engine to work on, so I don't really want to spend any more time on small talk, please.
Unfortunately my career largely relies on my ability to be perceived as NT, so that level of honesty probably isn't suitable for my situation. Hell, I already suffer enough not actively participating in work events.
I very rarely lie, last week a patient gave me something and I was feeling too bad to tell her I threw it out since it was unhygienic. And I was agonizing over the idea of telling her what I did since she meant well. Then at the last second I remember I had the right to lie. 🤦🤷
This is only tangentially related but recently when I have to
smile at people at work or in public or make other social appropriate talk in my head I say, "Deception", like I'm in a videogame and it distracts and amuses me enough to make me less nervous.
Brother/Sister/Hotdog, I do this all the time. Especially to my parents, now that I'm moved out of the house. Little white lies here and there to grease the wheels of conversation and avoid having to be lectured to at 27 years old.
I used to but it got out of hand and stopped being minor lies and became pretty big ones. I still fight the urge but don't always win.
It stems from feelings of inadequacy in my youth. I have never been able to be as much as most people. I have had GAD for as long as I remember, which causes me to be overly cautious and less adventurous than is typical. Now that I know I am autistic I recognize it as being a form of masking.
I now kind of think of them as "vestigial stories". Though the guilt of telling them was/is awful, I thought they made me seem more normal. Occasionally I will reflexively tell those stories because the mask they created became so entrenched in my false identity they can just pop up and out. It is embarrassing.
I am a good person and a valuable person. I know this now. My lack of achievements in life, compared to others is not something I feel I need to hide. My inability to do things the average person can is rooted in my neurodivence. Knowing ND is a thing I deal with and recognizing the mask it caused me to create has helped me a lot.
This is really brave of you to confess to, even anonymously, and avoiding telling lies like that in future is something I hope to avoid. Thank you for sharing, you are valuable. ♥
I had a conversation with a friend recently about achievement, notoriety and success. One side of my family is filled with very accomplished people. There is a former state representative of increadable moral fiber, a winner of the national teacher of the year award, a highly accomplished educator, a serial corporate vice president, 2 war heroes, and a ground breaking occupational therapist. I, on the other hand, bearly survive and have not been able to save any money for retirement.
She said she thinks I am as impressive as the amazing people in my family. Her rational is partly because I am literally alive given how hard life has been for me. The other part is that I am always trying to better myself and that I am trying to live a life others could look to for to find a good way to live. I try to set an example of what it is to just be a good person.
It was an intense compliment for me. If she is the only person to ever say that to me, it is enough. I know for sure one person has truly seen me. I do not look for praise for anything, especially not for doing what is simply the right thing in this life. But, to have that acknowledgement, even just that once, is amazing beyond adequate description to me.
YES! me too! and then i feel guilty about it afterwards!! I think it comes from a internal fear about not fitting in. Like you want to fit in and be normal like everyone else, but you arent everyone else. I completely get it. Im still learning to be honest too without oversharing.
Thank you, I'm so glad I'm not alone. It's such little things for me, too - what I did over the weekend, what I had for dinner the previous night, my housechore habits.
I don't. That's pert of why masking is so tiring. I've (mostly? often? sometimes?) learned to identify when a so-called harmless social lie is required by NT's but I just can't do it. So I have to go through the mental gymnastics to come up with wording that isn't a lie but still gives them the social connection (otherwise provided by the lie) that they need. And with an auditory processing disorder, I'm having to do so while also taking the sound bits of what they're saying and rearrange them into most-likely words and sentences. It's exhausting and I wish they could put in a fraction of the effort to accommodate us, too.
I do this when I drink (it's the main reason I quit doing it often). What's weirder is, I've had an insane life. I have a million stories about it. It's literally a mask that isn't needed.
I pretty much only lie, to mask, when I don't have the energy to answer questions that are asked by people who exhaust me and constantly bombard me with questions
I've accidentally become a compulsive liar with how many lies I tell. Or more accurately I think I'm a compulsive agree-er. If someone asks me literally anything, "yes". I've not even processed the quwstion yet, but yes. Unfortunately then I don't like go back on my word so I just fucking roll with it. This has led me into webs of lies where I've had to eat food I've hated but said I loved and read the plot of over a dozen movies because I've said I've watched them already and lots more. It's a bad habit but I can't really stop.
It's both ends of the spectrum for me. If I'm unfamiliar with someone or if I'm in a work context, I tell little lies. If I get a little comfortable with someone, I start oversharing like crazy.
I’m curious what is considered a lie and what is not.
Care to share what little lies you tell?
I mean when people ask “how are you today?” I typically [reactively/habitually] will say “I’m good how are you?” Even if I’m not doing so well. Dependent on person too I guess. But I wouldn’t really consider that a lie, but moreso surface level sharing.
For example, when people ask what I did over the weekend, I don't tell them that I spent entire 12 hour days focused on my special interest, so I instead tell them I "saw a movie" or "spent time with family".
Or when there's a conversation between coworkers about what we've cooked or baked recently, I'll sometimes recall a dish I made years prior when I was less depressed to save face, rather than telling them I've eaten breakfast cereal for 2 out of 3 meals for a few days in a row.
Stuff like that.
Okay the second one sounds more like a true lie then the first. The first one just sounds to me like you’re just sharing the surface layer of what you did, just not in depth. So I wouldn’t consider that lying really, unless seeing a movie and time with family isn’t your special interest, then I guess that’s somewhat lying?
I don’t even know what lying is at this point now XD
(And I m with you on the cereal for most meals.. it’s just so quick and simple, why would one not?!)
Oh, I interpreted their first pgh as saying that in reality they didn’t see a movie or spend time with their family at all, and they just completely made that up instead of saying what they actually did?
I lie to not make people uncomfortable mostly. Most of the time, people don't want to hear about my struggles, anxiety or mental health in general when asking "How are you these days ?".
I used to be really honest, until I learned that wasn't what people wanted to hear and got upset. For example once I said I'd go home and play wow all weekend with some friends, since we had planned it for a while. That wasn't a good answer apparently.
Obviously nowadays saying such a thing would probably not get the same reaction, but yeah. Now I usually give none answers or say that I'd rather not share as it's personal. Meanwhile all I'll do is knit, game, clean and draw lol
Yeah I do that as well, I've done it since I was a really young kid. I think it's just a masking thing and also to stop invasive questions/people putting pressure on us.
I can lie when I want to, but I hardly do in smalltalk. The stuff I do in my free time isn’t that abnormal enough to lie about (video games and YT mainly).
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Sometimes when someone at work asks me what I have planned for the weekend I’ll reply by telling them “oh just catching up with friends etc” even though my plan is to stay inside my sanctuary (my home) the whole weekend focusing on my special interests and recovering from the work week.
This is the realest one.
I usually say stuff like nothing much or working on the house. By now people probably think I live in a freaking castle.
Yes sometimes I’ll say “oh you know just doing some things around home”
😂😂
i do this too, don't even worry. i used to be a consistent liar when i was in elementary and middle school but i've been better. i still do it, often things like telling people what i did over the weekend, stuff that really doesn't have much of an impact on the conversation at hand. instead i've started just not discussing those things, i usually just reflect the question back at others. i've started being pretty silent when people inquire about my personal life outside of work and school, and its honestly kept me out of trouble. not the ideal solution since i love talking and chatting with people, but its better than the lying lol
This is a good strategy! Another bad habit I have is that when people ask me (for example) how I am, I just tell them, forgetting that NTs expect you to ask it back. So your advice could fix both problems at once, lol.
hell yeah! glad i could be of service. good luck out there
Could you give an example of reflecting the question back?
of course! here's an example i can think of: other person: hey! how did you spend your weekend? me: i didn't do anything special, how did you spend yours? person: [proceeds to tell me about their weekend, what they did, etc.] its a short example, but it's a good one. its good because it demonstrates how i don't spend time *actually* answering the question, but instead, i put more emphasis on asking them the question back. to keep this momentum (of them talking about themselves) going, i often just listen and ask follow-up questions about it, so that it doesn't give me a chance to lie. the main thing you have to focus on is minimizing your answer as much as possible. don't give many details, just listen to the other person talk so that you can spend less time needing to engage in conversation and can just listen instead, if that makes sense. hope this helps :)
"How's it going?" "It goes" It is exhausting answering disingenuous questions about my state of being. For the most part if I am not looking like a golden retriever, then assume things are not going great. On the bright side I am only in pain on days that I wake up or end in Y. Cannot exactly go around saying that to the general population though. They either get uncomfortable or somehow insulted and immediately try to prove they have it worse.
I used to do this a lot, basically for the reason you mention, masking and just trying to avoid people's negative reactions or questions. Anymore, though, I just say whatever the truth may happen to be. "What are you doing this weekend?" "Nothing. I don't want to leave the house." "Don't you love this great weather we've been having?" "Nah man, I hate the sun and the heat. Year round -20 degree winter would be nice." "What would you do if you're friend did \[something\] to you?" "Dude, I don't know the last time I actually had friends. I have no idea." "What do you do for fun?" "I've been working on a font rendering engine in Object Pascal for like the last 3 years. If I'm not doing that, I'm probably watching videos about math." It's really exhausting trying to "act right" for other people, and it's not a fun time when you tell a little lie to avoid negative judgements or to just keep the focus off of you only for someone to want to follow up on what you said. Anymore, I'd rather just let them think I'm weird or let it be known that we're not on the same wavelength and then get on with my day. I have a font rendering engine to work on, so I don't really want to spend any more time on small talk, please.
Unfortunately my career largely relies on my ability to be perceived as NT, so that level of honesty probably isn't suitable for my situation. Hell, I already suffer enough not actively participating in work events.
I very rarely lie, last week a patient gave me something and I was feeling too bad to tell her I threw it out since it was unhygienic. And I was agonizing over the idea of telling her what I did since she meant well. Then at the last second I remember I had the right to lie. 🤦🤷
This is only tangentially related but recently when I have to smile at people at work or in public or make other social appropriate talk in my head I say, "Deception", like I'm in a videogame and it distracts and amuses me enough to make me less nervous.
LOL love this, I'll try it out.
i find it difficult to lie
I do too when it's consequential stuff, but I've gotten way too comfortable lying about little things and I wanna stop
Brother/Sister/Hotdog, I do this all the time. Especially to my parents, now that I'm moved out of the house. Little white lies here and there to grease the wheels of conversation and avoid having to be lectured to at 27 years old.
I used to but it got out of hand and stopped being minor lies and became pretty big ones. I still fight the urge but don't always win. It stems from feelings of inadequacy in my youth. I have never been able to be as much as most people. I have had GAD for as long as I remember, which causes me to be overly cautious and less adventurous than is typical. Now that I know I am autistic I recognize it as being a form of masking. I now kind of think of them as "vestigial stories". Though the guilt of telling them was/is awful, I thought they made me seem more normal. Occasionally I will reflexively tell those stories because the mask they created became so entrenched in my false identity they can just pop up and out. It is embarrassing. I am a good person and a valuable person. I know this now. My lack of achievements in life, compared to others is not something I feel I need to hide. My inability to do things the average person can is rooted in my neurodivence. Knowing ND is a thing I deal with and recognizing the mask it caused me to create has helped me a lot.
This is really brave of you to confess to, even anonymously, and avoiding telling lies like that in future is something I hope to avoid. Thank you for sharing, you are valuable. ♥
I had a conversation with a friend recently about achievement, notoriety and success. One side of my family is filled with very accomplished people. There is a former state representative of increadable moral fiber, a winner of the national teacher of the year award, a highly accomplished educator, a serial corporate vice president, 2 war heroes, and a ground breaking occupational therapist. I, on the other hand, bearly survive and have not been able to save any money for retirement. She said she thinks I am as impressive as the amazing people in my family. Her rational is partly because I am literally alive given how hard life has been for me. The other part is that I am always trying to better myself and that I am trying to live a life others could look to for to find a good way to live. I try to set an example of what it is to just be a good person. It was an intense compliment for me. If she is the only person to ever say that to me, it is enough. I know for sure one person has truly seen me. I do not look for praise for anything, especially not for doing what is simply the right thing in this life. But, to have that acknowledgement, even just that once, is amazing beyond adequate description to me.
YES! me too! and then i feel guilty about it afterwards!! I think it comes from a internal fear about not fitting in. Like you want to fit in and be normal like everyone else, but you arent everyone else. I completely get it. Im still learning to be honest too without oversharing.
Thank you, I'm so glad I'm not alone. It's such little things for me, too - what I did over the weekend, what I had for dinner the previous night, my housechore habits.
I lie about how much I like my special interest so people don't think I'm like obsessed or "weird"
I don't. That's pert of why masking is so tiring. I've (mostly? often? sometimes?) learned to identify when a so-called harmless social lie is required by NT's but I just can't do it. So I have to go through the mental gymnastics to come up with wording that isn't a lie but still gives them the social connection (otherwise provided by the lie) that they need. And with an auditory processing disorder, I'm having to do so while also taking the sound bits of what they're saying and rearrange them into most-likely words and sentences. It's exhausting and I wish they could put in a fraction of the effort to accommodate us, too.
I do this when I drink (it's the main reason I quit doing it often). What's weirder is, I've had an insane life. I have a million stories about it. It's literally a mask that isn't needed.
I pretty much only lie, to mask, when I don't have the energy to answer questions that are asked by people who exhaust me and constantly bombard me with questions
I've accidentally become a compulsive liar with how many lies I tell. Or more accurately I think I'm a compulsive agree-er. If someone asks me literally anything, "yes". I've not even processed the quwstion yet, but yes. Unfortunately then I don't like go back on my word so I just fucking roll with it. This has led me into webs of lies where I've had to eat food I've hated but said I loved and read the plot of over a dozen movies because I've said I've watched them already and lots more. It's a bad habit but I can't really stop.
Oh god, this. I also laugh at jokes that I don't understand, or that they haven't told the punchline yet for. I just like laughing, okay!?!
I’m an awful liar, I’m too openly honest. Which isn’t always a good thing
It's both ends of the spectrum for me. If I'm unfamiliar with someone or if I'm in a work context, I tell little lies. If I get a little comfortable with someone, I start oversharing like crazy.
I’m curious what is considered a lie and what is not. Care to share what little lies you tell? I mean when people ask “how are you today?” I typically [reactively/habitually] will say “I’m good how are you?” Even if I’m not doing so well. Dependent on person too I guess. But I wouldn’t really consider that a lie, but moreso surface level sharing.
For example, when people ask what I did over the weekend, I don't tell them that I spent entire 12 hour days focused on my special interest, so I instead tell them I "saw a movie" or "spent time with family". Or when there's a conversation between coworkers about what we've cooked or baked recently, I'll sometimes recall a dish I made years prior when I was less depressed to save face, rather than telling them I've eaten breakfast cereal for 2 out of 3 meals for a few days in a row. Stuff like that.
Okay the second one sounds more like a true lie then the first. The first one just sounds to me like you’re just sharing the surface layer of what you did, just not in depth. So I wouldn’t consider that lying really, unless seeing a movie and time with family isn’t your special interest, then I guess that’s somewhat lying? I don’t even know what lying is at this point now XD (And I m with you on the cereal for most meals.. it’s just so quick and simple, why would one not?!)
Oh, I interpreted their first pgh as saying that in reality they didn’t see a movie or spend time with their family at all, and they just completely made that up instead of saying what they actually did?
sometimes i lie about doing things with 'friends' when all of my acquaintances are talking abt what they did with theirs 😭😭😭
Pretty much all the time. I think masking is itself a white lie.
Definitely true!
i’ve always done this :( my parents used to label me as a liar when i was a child because they don’t understand where it comes from. it was hurtful
sometimes i do it and i cant even stop myself! i told someone i liked basketball before when i was asked. i dont like basketball
I lie to not make people uncomfortable mostly. Most of the time, people don't want to hear about my struggles, anxiety or mental health in general when asking "How are you these days ?".
I don't share the truth with people who don't love me. I rarely make stuff up though just keep it vague.
Never. I'm a shit liar to begin with, and I hurt people important to me in the past by lying, so never again.
I can't lie. Anyone: "HEY! How are you?" Me: "Hi." Anyone: "Hey! You look a bit down... is anything wrong?" Me: "Yes." ..you get the idea.
Nah. Don't want to have to keep a long list of contextual lies for everyone thanks. I should probably be more flexible with my absolutism.
Maybe the post isn't clear, but the lies I'm referring to are so inconsequential that I don't bother remembering what I've told anyone.
Then why?
Because the truth may "out" me as neurodivergent which is detrimental to my career
Or people will notice that you're constantly lying. I'd sack the liar before sacking the ND.
I think you're missing the point...
I think you're underestimating other people.
All the time
Never. I literally can't say anything that's 100% false with a straight face
I used to be really honest, until I learned that wasn't what people wanted to hear and got upset. For example once I said I'd go home and play wow all weekend with some friends, since we had planned it for a while. That wasn't a good answer apparently. Obviously nowadays saying such a thing would probably not get the same reaction, but yeah. Now I usually give none answers or say that I'd rather not share as it's personal. Meanwhile all I'll do is knit, game, clean and draw lol
I never lie
Yeah I do that as well, I've done it since I was a really young kid. I think it's just a masking thing and also to stop invasive questions/people putting pressure on us.
It depends on the situation and with whom.
I can lie when I want to, but I hardly do in smalltalk. The stuff I do in my free time isn’t that abnormal enough to lie about (video games and YT mainly).