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u/ericalm_ 1d ago
It’s very hard for me to lie. When I try, it’s just awful and I usually admit it immediately. That was embarrassing so I just stopped trying.
It wasn’t always this way. I used to lie a lot, usually to cover for the effects of (undiagnosed) ADHD. I did this thing, I’m going to do this, I lost this, I remember this, whatever. Once I got treatment and (much later) got a handle on my symptoms, I couldn’t lie anymore.
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u/Doviathan_ 1d ago
I’m EXACTLY the same way, for the same reasons, with one major difference. I wasn’t diagnosed til 29, so I’d always do the performative lying stuff with no understanding of why other than I’m a bad person… when I was diagnosed, I eventually rationalized my work persona from my personal one, I’m a totally different person to everyone I’ve worked with (just a collection of obscure referential callbacks, slightly altered versions of their own opinion, and whatever they need me to be to keep advancing. I totally get that’s a very personal rationalization to get your mind and morals around, but I’m a very productive member of society as my work self, whereas the ten years before I was quickly let go of the several jobs I somehow got myself to even apply for (largely bc I thought I was a piece of shit back then)
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u/Impossible_Cook_9122 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don't have to as much anymore but I do lie as a form of self preservation. Especially when I was younger and me being honest would get me into trouble and that would get me beat or made fun of.
Most of the time if I do it now it's to kind of end a conversation I'd rather not have. Like politics is a good example.
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u/KittyQueen_Tengu 1d ago
I’m the opposite, it doesn't even occur to me to lie, even when it's harmless and would make the situation easier. i can do it if i want to, i just don’t think to do it
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u/Access_Free 1d ago
Yeah, I do the same. It's not intentional or to manipulate, it just happens when I'm masking and trying to follow a social script, not be awkward, etc. No advice sorry!
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u/rigathrow AuDHD 1d ago
yep. :c i used to lie a lot, even about the dumbest of things, in the hopes it'd make me seem interesting to others. i hated doing it but it seemed to be just one of those things everyone did and sometimes it was actively encouraged (see job applications/resumes/CVs). i'd get punished a lot for my honesty and for offering up "boring" information about myself. i felt like i didn't really have a choice but to join in and play along with as much NT Nonsense(TM) so people'd treat me better/i'd be "normal".
nowadays i don't really lie anymore. i hate not being honest and others not being honest. life's too short for weird, social mind games.
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u/CherryOnTopaz 1d ago
It’s hard for me to lie but I’ve done it more as ive gotten older. I just get tired of people asking me questions and judging me so I lie to appease them.
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u/thislittlemoon 1d ago
I never intentionally lie, but I definitely have times where a part of my brain throws something out my mouth that sounds like a good story, a plausible explanation/"good answer", or otherwise what the part of my brain I've trained to observe and mimic successful social interactions has decided is what somebody wants to hear, and it gets said before my conscious brain catches it and fact checks it, and as soon as I hear it, I'm like "wait, that's not true".
Honesty is very important to me, so when I catch myself saying something that isn't what I meant or how I meant it or just plain not true, I try to stop and correct myself. A lot of the time I can play it off kind of jokingly, "Wow, where did that come from, Brain? That's not a thing!" or just like "That came out wrong, what I meant was..." but sometimes it's hard to do without looking bad, so that ends up being a good deterrent, reminding me to be more careful about what I say in the future.
I think you've already found the key - slow down, give yourself time to think and evaluate what you're considering saying. It's hard to slow down when you're performing "social" and used to masking with a particular style/pace, but you can practice by just trying to say less, especially when you feel yourself slipping into that mode. We often talk about autistic folks rehearsing conversations before social situations - in this case, doing that can be helpful, priming our brains with things we want to say that are true, and during the conversation, we can quickly rehearse our contributions in our head before letting them out of our mouths, giving us a bit of a chance to fact check / make sure it's what we really mean.
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u/AetherealMeadow Suspected ASD, Dx ADHD-PI & OCD 1d ago
Anecdotally, it seems like it can go either direction with autism and lying. Some autistic people are highly averse to lying, even if it would get them out of trouble. However, others may lie habitually, sometimes without even realizing it.
I think it's likely that for some autistic people, they learn that if they are truthful to others, that they will be punished harshly for it. If this conditioning happens early in life, I can totally see how one can develop a habit of lying that is very engrained and not always consciously realized. The way you describe your experience seems to resonate with that- you state that you lie because you feel like the truth isn't something others would want to or expect to hear. Thus, you make up a lie because you were taught early in life that nobody will believe your or take you at face value if you tell the truth, anyway, and at worst, will punish you for not making up something that sounds more acceptable to them.
I am now realizing that I also have a habit of lying in certain situations, even though I usually think of myself as someone who dislikes lying and tries to be honest. This usually occurs in scenarios like when people ask me about my feelings, what I'm doing in life, or how I'm doing in life. There are many times where I do not wish to tell this person all these difficult to hear details of the horrible stuff I'm feeling or going through at that moment, so I grit my teeth and lie- "Oh yeah, everything is great! I'm just chillin' and vibin', you know?"- even if I am at the verge of tears. I HATE doing that, but what I hate more is when I tell them what's really up, and then it gets awkward because it's either not socially appropriate for me to do so, or because now I have to manage not only my own feelings, but their feelings about finding out about my feelings as well. So I do the same thing you do- I think about what to tell others that they think will be the "correct thing" or what they want to hear, regardless of whether it's true or not.
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u/vitoscbd 1d ago
I can relate to that. I think it has a lot to do with my childhood: I had very strict parents who would yell, insult or hit me for basically anything, so I very quickly learned to hid almost everything from them and I became a very good liar at a very young age. I've been working on that for more than 20 years now, because sometimes the lie comes more easily than the truth, and I do not like that at all.
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u/teddybearangelbaby 22h ago
No, I do not lie (unless it's out of self preservation with my employers) and I don't respect liars. You're most likely not evil but you should figure this out asap as it may but you in the ass one day.
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u/Curious_Dog2528 ADHD pi autism level 1 learning disability unspecified 1d ago
Almost never