I realize I have a hard time not defaulting to lying when I need something or to explain a mistake I made. This isn't really the case with my very close friends, but I have a deep difficulty with saying "This happened because..." A lot of this has to do with some childhood emotional abuse from my dad. Telling the truth would often result in yelling, or even being slapped/pushed around/having my things shoved or broken. For example: the one and only time I went off to a school camp, my dad sent me with a poncho and told me to use it if it rained. I did use it! And then I set it up to dry it out. When I came home, my dad was jealous he was becoming obsolete as I gained independence or something, and decided to make an issue of the poncho being dry. He smiled and was like, "you didn't wear it, did you?" I told him yes, I did. He instantly grew angry and accused me of lying. That's the last time he threatened to spank me (when I was about 12). Before that, in 4th Grade, I'd drawn an "A+" on my grade sheet to reward myself for doing well. He asked if the teacher had drawn it. I was honest and told him I had done it. He then said it was "too good" for me to have drawn it. I told him I'd done it. Again, he accused me of lying when I was telling the truth (over a seemingly little thing? And again, I TOLD HIM I'D WRITTEN IT, SO IT'S NOT LIKE I WAS TRYING TO FAKE A GRADE OR ANYTHING). He pulled me off of a stool and onto a hard wood floor, yelling and calling me a liar. These are just two examples. Combine the above with him potentially being very explosive for very, very little things that actually happened, I often lied, and learned to lie well. However, now I find it comes very naturally, that I sometimes lie over little things, to very dear people, who I don't even mean to tell untruths to. It's NEVER over anything serious or hurtful with my good friends: I don't have enough friends to do that to, and I would literally hate myself more than I already do. It's over little things like what I wore to a dance party that weekend. Like, NEVER, about things they really need, or maliciously, but the littlest fucking insignificant things. And it comes so naturally and easily to me, I sometimes don't even know I've done it until I actually think about what I said and realize, "Wait, why did I say that? I benefit absolutely nothing from saying that." I will say, this does come very, very in handy when I've had another mental health breakdown and need to take a sick day. At the same time, I feel bad about doing that as often as I do, since I'm pretty much always having some kind of breakdown that results in missed deadlines. However, the break through here is this: it literally has just occurred to me that I can be honest. For instance, I was late sending an important email for one of my jobs. However, I admitted that I sent the manuscript rejection recommendation late because of social anxiety, and that it's very hard for me to interact directly with authors. Instead of saying I'm sick (which I sometimes genuinely am! which confuses this all a lot), I was open and honest with my boss, and she was very understanding in turn. I also found out a day ago, two days before I meet my thesis advisor, that she wants 10 pages of my thesis. I've been in agony for those two days, because I've literally just been reading books/gathering materials in preparation for my thesis. I've been focusing my creative energy on. I really, really wanted to call in sick. Not go to the meeting. Wallow in my own anxiety. And then, something amazing happened; I realized I could tell her the truth. I didn't know I was supposed to have that much ready for this meeting. I've been focusing on other creative projects with very string deadlines (Aug 1st), as well as my job. "I'm not ready." No matter how she responds, I feel better having been open and honest about the situation. I've spent so much time internalizing that I'm fundamentally bad because lying comes so easily to me, and that it's my default whenever I miss a deadline or am not ready for something. Rationally I know that it came from a difficult childhood situation, but I feel like our culture associates lying with being fundamentally corrupt and bad, and I know I've internalized a lot of that, even if lying was frequently an emotional survival tactic for me. I'm curious about the experiences of other ppl who have experienced emotional abuse and find themselves lying a lot, even when they don't really mean to.
I went into some of my stuff with lying and abuse in the other lying thread (1, 2) but this is probably a Way More Appropriate Forum for those thoughts huh. Sorry if I get hedgy or anything discussing this stuff, talking about my lying is very uncomfortable to me because one of the things I had to do was seem truthful or else I'd be abused so it's hard to talk about but it's a worthy discussion to have. Spoiler: I'm just gonna slap a cw child abuse on this whole thing, uhhh unsanitary stuff too For me, a lot of it ties into abusive or otherwise sketchy things in my childhood. Like... the culture in our house was very much open doors while bathrooming, and my mother would open the door to talk to me or walk in while I was in the bath to use the toilet or otherwise just... not let that room be private. And she made my health there her business, like... at least once when I was uncomfortable peeing into the little container things doctors use to diagnose things, and I tried to sneak into the bathroom to use it, and when she found out I said I was just pooping and she ended up dragging me by the hair and screaming at me that I couldn't do one without the other. So I'm really uncomfortable telling people I'm going to the bathroom, or talking to people in the bathroom, or anything like that. So whenever I have to get up to go to the bathroom I just say I'm getting some water or something, because... I don't want anyone to know that's what I'm doing, I guess. I'm sorry, it's really embarrassing to talk about. And then when people want to know why I did something wrong... whenever I fucked up my parents could be incredibly unforgiving, like, sometimes they'd be okay with it but they'd also often be personally offended, because, they raised a Good Child and How Have They Gone Wrong, and my mother would be so passive-aggressive and barbed about it even if she didn't scream in my face which she did sometimes. And they'd threaten to destroy my things, like... my dad me put them in a bag so he could smash them and throw them out, and even though he didn't ever go through with it it was still really upsetting to small me. I tried really hard not to get in trouble because of that but sometimes I did anyway because I was a little kid?? So I started blaming it on other people who my parents couldn't punish as easily. I shoplifted because of peer pressure, I stole that girl's doll because she was mean to me, I didn't go to class because I was being bullied, I got bad grades because I was being bullied. The last two were true but I still used them as lies so it counts. The point was that it wasn't really my fault, I didn't do anything wrong really, please don't hurt me. And I still have a lot of trouble, admitting I did something wrong just because I was bad or didn't know something? A lot of times I overcorrect and end up flagellating myself and then I have to delete that and start over because it's no good. Or when it comes to more professional things like school, I just avoid the thing where I made the mistake. I ended up failing out of a lot of things because I put my head in the sand. My brain is softblocking memories so I think those are the only two examples I'll use right now. I guess also I have a lot of trouble figuring out if I'm lying or not due to dissociation and other memory trouble with regards to my past, so I don't know exactly if something happened or if I'm making it up, but I don't think that's the question being asked here really. Sorry if this was really oversharey, too, I'm not sure... exactly how visceral an experience you wanted.
I actually do this all the fucking time and it's kinda terrible but whenever things are emotional or tense or whatever I just kinda shut down and say whatever seems safest bc oh my glob please not another argument or more mockery about how stupid I am. it got to the point where I still can't make stupid little decisions like which table to sit at at an open seating restaurant. I also can't tell people when I dislike something, esp not when they made it (like my brother in law's spaghetti. nearly everything else he makes is great, but somehow he fucks up the spaghetti) or if it's a restaurant I know they like. I've gotten slightly better about saying when I *can't* eat something bc dietary restrictions or sensory issues, but even then it's still 50/50 odds that I'll just pretend to eat whatever it is, say it was good and just not draw attention to the whole thing telling when I do like something is a bit easier, but not much. like, I can't take being judged for liking things. I've had enough of that. but my way of dealing w it is to just never volunteer anything more personal than what music or books or other media I like, which probs contributed to my recent breakup basically, I feel like I'm always lying, mostly by omission Spoiler: personal shit I never even told *anyone* that I was kind of sexually abused until FL came forward about being abused by Ray, bc that whole thing looked exactly like the lead up to my "relationship" w a guy 24 yr old when I was 14. until a few weeks ago, the only other people who knew about it were the three friends who helped me get away from the guy. kintsugi is the only place I've ever really talked about it, and that was mainly just a post trying to explain to FL why what Ray did was so disturbing. ever since I showed my post to my bff *waves* I've been considering telling my sister. but every time I think about the possibility of that conversation, everything in me just nopes the fuck out
@Salted Earth would saying "yo, that's some shit" be in bad taste as a joke? but seriously, that's not ok of your parents. nothing you described was even remotely ok. holy fuck, if I were in your shoes I'd never tell anyone anything
Yeah. If I told my parents what was going on consequences were awful one way or another, so I default to lying in a lot of situations. It's a thing. Also the avoiding things when I don't feel like I've done what I'm supposed to do to prepare for them. Example: Why did I miss class a few weeks ago? my boyfriend was jet-lagged and sick, and ended up keeping me up so I was way too sleep-deprived to function. What did I tell people? I had a migraine. Not just my teachers, either. My friends from school. I actually frequently can't tell if I'm not doing a thing because I'm out of brain for it, or because I'm physically ill. When I start feeling emotionally like I can't do something, I immediately get nauseated, because that was the thing my mother would always accept as a reason to stay home.
A very similar thing occurred to me recently when a close friend expressed frustration and some inability to trust me since I keep everything a secret. So I reflected, and they're right, I do default to lying (usually by omission, occasionally overtly), partial truths, this sort of thing often. Honestly not sure what on earth to do with it. I'm figuring the last decade is mostly the cause. Buh. Sorry. Will come back with something clearer in the future, perhaps?
@Gnoat take all the time you need! words are hard even when not talking about painful stuff @Vierran same hat wrt the "am I sick or mentally/emotionally exhausted" thing, only w headaches and migraines instead of nausea
Nah I don't think it's that bad taste, I say that about myself all the time. 'I went through Some Shit' is, like, basically my go-to for letting people know I have a tragic backstory without getting into the tragic. And yeah. :( It's... pretty hard to tell the truth about things, but I've gotten better at it over the years. The biggest thing was actually admitting that I was a good liar to people - it felt like my only edge was being taken away, even though I wasn't in that toxic home life any more and I didn't need an edge. Hell, it still feels like giving up the only good card I've got, which is kind of why my first response to the other lying thread was so jumbled. I felt like I had to tell people I was a dirty liar but I also didn't want anyone to know I was a dirty liar because then they'd think less of me and they'd know I was lying. It also occurred to me that when I was a teenager living with my mother, I'd wrap every account of my life which I actually wrote down in at least three levels of metaphor and remove, and I'd always be really vague. It's infuriating trying to read my journals to figure out wtf happened to me. (A lot of entries are just 'blah blah angst' or 'blah blah drama'.) That's... not quite lying, but I feel like it has similar roots. Also, I also do that shutting-down thing where I just say what seems safest and most likely to get rid of an argument when an argument happens. Like... a lot of the time it's just agreeing with the person and trying to get out of that conversation somehow, no matter what I think about it. I'm better at it these days but I used to be really bad, and I'm still kind of a doormat, oops.
Oh look it me. Two options for conflict (or what looks to anxietybrain like conflict, which can be anything from "innocent question" to "someone raised their voice"): lying (that is, saying what I think they want to hear), or saying nothing. Spoiler: tangential abuse shit the one time I asked "do you want me to be honest, or do you want me to make you feel good?" I ended up stranded at an outdoor tourist attraction in the middle of the summer afternoon for like six hours. A+ parenting, at least the place had water fountains :T Proooobably not going to get any better as long as I'm trapped in the same house as toxic mother, but [loud shrugging]. She yells a lot about everything, it's just... a lot easier to tell her whatever she wants to hear and get on with life. It's... a little easier to be truthful over text? Not in Her direction, obviously, but. Text is easier for me to communicate with in general, something something safety-of-anonymity, something something don't have to process faces and words and tone. Still occasional lies, usually to get out of uncomfortable situations ("oh hang on phone call [stays out of chat until topic changes]", "no I didn't get that message, sorry," etc,) but on the whole I'm more likely to be truthful with people who can't see my face? [More shrugging.]
@Loq Holy shit, that is super not okay, I'm sorry that happened to you. Also, same hat!! I'm way more comfortable over text too. Instead of going with what I can manage to stutter out, I can consider my response and revise it and generally come at things a lot more calmly. (Unless I'm like, rushing to get a response out when I'm very upset, but I generally only do that to people I can really trust.) There's less to focus on and get panicked by over text - I do read tone into things (sometimes accurately, sometimes not) so that can hurt me, but there's no verbal words, no expressions, no body language. I do the same small-lies-to-brush-over-uncomfortable-things thing, but it's still just way easier than words. I think the times I was most honest with a therapist was when I was nonverbal around them and had to write in my notebook what was going on. Come to think of it, does anyone else have issues where they go nonverbal over things sometimes? That period of my life where I wouldn't talk unless it was to very close friends was pretty long, but these days I'm pretty good at talking, but I still go nonverbal or less-verbal when things are stressing me out a lot or I'm dissociating hard. I've heard that's just... something that can happen sometimes with severe emotional abuse, and I wonder if it has any roots in the same sort of lying-avoidance urge. 'If I just shut up and make some noncommittal noises maybe this will all go away and I won't be hurt too bad', that sort of thing.
Yyyyyyyep. (Same hat x2!) Usually for sensory or emotional overload (help how do I feelings??) or when I can't figure out the "safest" response. Over text I can usually last longer! Mouthwords are hard. ...can only really think of two people in meatspace who would accept texting as replacement for talking, maaaaaybe three cos dad has the same sensory overload thing I do but he lives on the other side of the country so :T Spoiler: rambling Mother would, naturally, throw a fit, older bro is... classic /b channer and takes "stop doing thing" as a challenge unless actual tears are present, stepdad is one of those "mental illness doesn't exist except as an excuse for shootings" people. As are most of his family. Meatspace friend 1) has yet to actually make me go nonverbal in all the... hm, wow 8 years now? I've known her and 2) understands being quiet =/= ignoring her, she'd probably be chill. Sis I know is chill with texting-as-talking, we've done it before.
