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Apergers and lying

K

kylie

Well-Known Member
Can people with aspergers lie? I have a friend with aspergers who claims that she cannot knowingly tell a falsehood, but I have witnessed her lie on numerous occasions. She keeps a diary of daily events and I believe that aspies have excellent memories so I am confused by her ability to continually tell porkies. Can someone please advise so I can understand her condition further and help where I can.
regards Kylie
 
Sure we can...we just prefer not to, tend not to, and are terrible at it when forced to.
Maybe your friend has something else. Or maybe she is delusional and thinks she's telling the truth.
 
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I always tend to refrain from lying because I prefer not to as smith said, but if I am forced to, it leads into a meltdown :(
 
we can lie ... it just causes so much anxiety and so on it usually causes a meltdown like jordan has said. I find it personally very hard to tell anything other than a white lie (you know not very big lies). Though I will lie to get out of social situations.

My memory is very poor personally. though you would have to check with other aspies if that is the norm.
 
Dragon's Tooth said:
we can lie ... it just causes so much anxiety and so on it usually causes a meltdown like jordan has said. I find it personally very hard to tell anything other than a white lie (you know not very big lies). Though I will lie to get out of social situations.

My memory is very poor personally. though you would have to check with other aspies if that is the norm.
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Mine was great until the zoloft
 
I am very good at lying, since I am good at acting in general (I have done a bit of acting in plays, etc, and if you think about it, that is like an exercise in masquerading as an alternate identity). However, I made a moral commitment years ago that I would not lie under any circumstances. I have broken this commitment only a handful of times, and usually in minor ways, over the past c. 15 years.
 
Oh, hell yes, we can lie! Although it is true we don't like to and for many of us it does cause anxiety, lying can be learned. In fact, it's almost mandatory in my opinion if we are to fit in socially.

The question is, what is a lie and what is the truth? I feel like I am living a lie every single day of my life; yet I have found that the "false" me is the one people like and praise whereas the "real" me is considered the "fake" me. I just sat through my annual employee review where my boss was talking about my normally even temperament and my sunny disposition, "but when you get stressed sometimes you show another side but we know that is not the real you". I was not about to tell her that she actually had it the other way around, that what everyone sees is a carefully and deliberately constructed act.

People say they want the truth but they don't really, not always. The trick is--and this is where I think we have the most problem with--is knowing when and how and what to lie about. The key to successful lying is to know what people want to hear and see and to give them that.
 
Sometimes what people identify in the NT world as 'the truth' is merely an opinion in which they're highly invested. Also, a belief in & a support of convention can masquerade as truth. Social truisms such as girls are this way & boys are that way (the substance of this & that vary from culture to culture) are merely expectations & stereotypes in disguise. Is a person, for instance, who has changed their hair colour radically (like from brown to blonde) popped in tinted contacts, gotten a spray tan & a bunch of other alterations a liar? Are they wearing a disguise? Trying to appear as something other than what they are?

Sometimes, the difference between the truth & a lie lies in the intention of the 'liar'. If you ask me if I like your new hair do & I say, "No. I think you look like a bantam rooster." Am I being honest & truthful or am I merely expressing my opinion in a malicious manner? Did the person really want to hear my 'honest' opinion or were they seeking some kind of validation & a confidence boost because they were perhaps not sure about their new look? If I say, "YES! I love it!" when I really don't am I truly a liar or practicing NT world social diplomacy?

Truth is seldom absolute. I recall the case of a woman who was raped in her home in broad daylight. She was face to face with her attacker & strove to memorize his face. She identified him in a police line-up & was certain she was identifying the right man. She WAS telling the truth as she understood it & her only intention was to obtain justice. The guy did 14 years when DNA evidence freed him. By coincidence, the real rapist was sitting in the same prison on an unrelated crime. The 2 men did share an uncanny resemblance. This woman was devastated & felt terrible guilt. In an odd twist, she became friendly with the wrongfully convicted man & he forgave her.

I like to gauge my intentions before having to lie about something. Like the rest of you, I can do it BUT I hate to & always feel cornered into it. Last week, my mother was going to visit my father in the hospital. She asked me how she looked before leaving the house. I replied a neutral, non-committal 'fine'. IMO, which was what she was asking for, she looked awful but what would my truthful opinion have caused?

Unless there is a clear-cut line between the truth & a lie, it is a giant grey area. If you stole the neighbour's car & when the cops asked you, you said, "No: it wasn't me." then you are a liar. If you are delusional or a confused person, you might even believe that you didn't really steal it but that the neighbour owed it to you for some reason.

A lot of the time on news shows & political debates, a politician will say something like, "the truth is....." or "the reality is...." which implies that any other opinion & perspective is inherently false. This is a strategy to elevate of the status their own personal opinion to the level of an empirical truth.
 
Spinning Compass said:
Oh, hell yes, we can lie! Although it is true we don't like to and for many of us it does cause anxiety, lying can be learned. In fact, it's almost mandatory in my opinion if we are to fit in socially.

The question is, what is a lie and what is the truth? I feel like I am living a lie every single day of my life; yet I have found that the "false" me is the one people like and praise whereas the "real" me is considered the "fake" me. I just sat through my annual employee review where my boss was talking about my normally even temperament and my sunny disposition, "but when you get stressed sometimes you show another side but we know that is not the real you". I was not about to tell her that she actually had it the other way around, that what everyone sees is a carefully and deliberately constructed act.

People say they want the truth but they don't really, not always. The trick is--and this is where I think we have the most problem with--is knowing when and how and what to lie about. The key to successful lying is to know what people want to hear and see and to give them that.
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That's fine when you just want to survive in a neotyplical world; the problem comes when you get into a relationship, which probably won't survive the revelation that the 'real' you is quite different from the person he/she was attracted to.
 
supernova said:
That's fine when you just want to survive in a neotyplical world; the problem comes when you get into a relationship, which probably won't survive the revelation that the 'real' you is quite different from the person he/she was attracted to.
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Let's not forget that you're living in 2 different truths if you're having both a relationship and a job, where you're lying on the job.

Admitedly I hid information pretty well years ago when I had a job and it even surprised my then girlfriend how well I've been pulling it off. At some point though we got in an argument, which might be a bit of paranoia on her behalf where she asked "if you're this good in hiding the truth how can I be sure I'm loving the real you?"

I think it depends a bit on how well people know you in your personal life as well as what information you're hiding. Though obviously her knowing me for 20 years and for a short period working at the same company (department even) didn't do it a lot of good since she saw what I can also be like.
 
I'm not sure what everybody has written but I think it's important to have a purpose for lying. There have to be a very good reason for it. Plus you have to know how to do it. I learned how to lie in childhood and had became pretty good at it, but I never liked doing it....

I've been thinking about it lately, it seems I just want things to be real... Not sure how to explain it... Or just don't want to think about explanations right now :) watching very frustrating hockey game :stomp: :)
 
'm not sure it's really lying - more a case of adapting to an alien environment, as one would if living in a foreign country.
 
I strive to tell the truth at all times, but that has gotten me in trouble at times. I've learned to adapt the truth for diplomacy, or lie through omission. But it makes me terribly uncomfortable. And people still tell me all the time that I am too blunt and lack diplomacy. But I am a horrible out right liar. I tried once, and my husband broke out in laughter. He said he had never seen someone lie so unconvincingly. And this was a small lie too. I couldn't do it!

And then there is the issue of memory. I have a terrible memory. I think I have blocked many years out as a survival mechanism. My brother and I have completely different memories of the same events. Perception of self and others always plays a vital role in memory. It is never all this way or that. It is interpretation.
 
I used to pride myself oh how well I could lie. I would even come up with lies for other people! I didn't have a very good sense of right and wrong. Well, I knew the "rules," but I guess I didn't care. Means to an end, and that sort of thing. I am ashamed of my total lack of honesty for honesty's sake now. A lot of things changed for me when I was about 18, and I stopped lying. Now I am nearly incapable of it even when I feel the old need to in order to cover something embarrassing up. I have learned a little, tiny bit more just to shut my mouth. That helps!

Biblio- I have had the same weird memory thing, where I am sure I am remembering it correctly but someone else's account of the event is totally different, and they are people I trust who have no reason to lie about it. Not always, but it happens sometimes.
 
I lie all the time--mostly to get out of awkward social situations. I live in a small town and one always needs a handy excuse. I like to think I don't lie when I think it would be hurting somebody...but sometimes that's difficult to gauge.

"And then there is the issue of memory. I have a terrible memory. I think I have blocked many years out as a survival mechanism. My brother and I have completely different memories of the same events. Perception of self and others always plays a vital role in memory. It is never all this way or that. It is interpretation." -biblio

The unreliability of memory has been demonstrated time and again in psychological studies, and often renders eyewitness testimony completely useless.
 
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