Asperger's and lying ...

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I hate lying, and so therefore I've rarely lied. Honesty is an important virtue to me. I want people to be honest with me, so I'm honest to other people.

Now, I probably could be "good" at lying, but I'd say that's so, because a person wouldn't think I'd ever lie, you know?

I haven't lied much since I was a kid, although my parents think I lie to them all the time. Back then I would lie about "usual" kids stuff. When I do lie/omit, and I do because I want to avoid hurting others or worried about worried about people will react and honestly want to be truthful (it is like anxiety re: approaching people). On the very rare occassion when I lie to improve my own situation I usually admit it very quickly.

I don't like keeping secrets unless I am asked.

I hate keeping secrets. Makes me feel like a kind of thieve.

Lying is socially, emotionally, and morally immature. It's downright ret*d for adults to lie, and it disgusts me more than anything else I've encountered. It's said that the truth will set you free, well not only you and me, but all of humanity as well. Deception is the name of the game which everyone plays into these days. It holds together governments, societies, and even the family unit. Surely, it doesn't have to be this way, but monkey see monkey do..

I lied when I was a teenager. Started with my mother. I smoked marijuana and my mother flipped, so I learned to lie. At first I was horrible at it, and she caught me every time. After a while it became easier, and I rarely got caught. I stopped doing hard drugs at age 18, and mom stopped caring about me self-medicating with pot. I sat for a week or so, and went over a lot of my previous moral standards. I logically deduced that lying is absurd, and only exists because we fear ourselves and our surroundings. It's not beneficial to the progression of humanity, and is the main deterrent from a golden age, and/or utopian society.

A lie by omission is most common. It's definitely detrimental. To be honest, I'd be much more inclined to like people and accept our society, if lies weren't everywhere. Truth & knowledge are number one for me. Everything else takes a back seat.

Most people need to lie to get on in life (their lying eventually becomes second-nature and unconscious) so lying is a good thing if you can do it right. Manipulation and exaggeration are also good if you know how to use them right. Personally I can't lie, or even fake laughter which is why I have no friends and no job prospects.

White people lie, cheat and steal ... that's how they became so successful in the first place!

I very, very rarely lie and am usually brutally honest. Very brutally honest.

In order for me to lie, I have to plan beforehand something complex and elaborate that I know I can get away with in one way or another, and what I'm lying about has to be perfectly rehearsed in my mind. The only time I do lie is when the benefits far exceed the cost of lying, and the person that I'm lying to is a total ass.

Even then, I don't like lying, because I feel very dirty inside. I would feel better knowing that others know I will always give a truthful opinion about then and that I would never try to lie to them. Besides, I can get by in life without lying.

I have to disagree with you DavidM. You don't need to lie to get by in life, and besides, white people got their wealth in a very ill gotten way. I don't consider that successful. I don't have friends either, but that's because I'm extremely awkward in conversation, not because I always tell the truth. As a matter of fact, I consider that one of the very few good virtues that I have, if not the only one.

Eh, I really hope this wasn't too tl;dr. I don't like reading through long posts, and so I try to keep them as short as I can.

I've learned to lie when my stepdad backs me into a corner and he's screaming at me. I'm so afraid of what he would do if I told the truth when I do something wrong that I lie. I think it's happened 3 times in my life. Other than that, I absolutely hate lying and really try not to even come close to doing it. I'm not sure that it has anything to do with autism, it's more of a moral thing. I get upset when I miscommunicate information (which I feel like I do all the time) because it seems a lot like lying, when I mislead someone. I try to make sure I only convey the truth. I screw up all the time, though.

I dated a pathological liar for a while, and his lies still bother me. I find I have to question every single thing he ever said because he would lie about pointless things. That was several years ago, and I still hate myself for dating him. I really hate lying- it is what I will punish the most when disciplining my daughter. She usually tells on herself right away, though, out of guilt.

@pumibel

Same here. I dated a liar. She was my friend for years, we took it a step up, and I saw her anew..I saw that she was a pathological liar! I found her one day spouting out some random jargon that made absolutely no sense. I called her out. Immediately she began spouting out more jargon in an attempt to cover the first lie! I called her out while simultaneously realizing I had mentioned inconsistencies throughout our shared past before. She made up yet a third lie.

It was as if an atomic bomb went off in my head! I'm sure my eyes looked nutty. I beserked. The first notion was, "If she is consistently lying to me, even over next to nothing...what if anything has she ever told me that has been true?" This literally drove me insane. I tried for two months straight, being patient and keeping it simple, trying to teach her how her lies impacted other people. She never picked it up!

I finally got ticked and started abusing her. I reasoned, "If you can't be civil with me, I will be uncivil to you". I began cursing at her regularly and venting my frustration at her inability to grow or even care to accept fault. She blamed everything on me, lied to our mutual friends and her family, and made me out to be some nut that went crazy for no good reason.

The friend whom I thought of had turned out to be a sociopath! I went through HELL over this whole ordeal. Still do. Every day I wake up with rage in my heart over dealing with such a morally inept scumbag who used me over and over again.

I don't really trust people anymore. Well I trust people to be, much like I've encountered them over my whole life: Ignorant & arrogant maggots. Basically, I keep to myself..

I am scarily good at lying, probably the result of years at drama school. However, I don't lie to cheat or manipulate people but I do tell white lies usually to explain why I don't want to go to some social event.

This if my first post here...so I hope i do it right. My daughter was recently diagnosed with aspergers after years of my trying to figure out why she wasn't 'the same' as the other children I work/ed with. This thread interested me because of the lying issue. What my daughter told our psychologist when asked is that she "can't tell a lie for long." I've found that to be true about her. She can lie convincingly (I couldn't lie as a kid...I'd go red in the face and start shaking, that was my tell), but she can't hold it. For her that's like holding onto a secret (another impossibility for her). For instance, at Christmas a friend took her shopping for my Christmas present. She got it home and couldn't wrap it because she was too excited and needed to tell me/show me right away. When I tried to call my friend to say thank you, I can't wait to open it; my daughter began yelling in the background that it wasn't under the tree or wrapped and that I'd seen it already. I felt really embarrassed, but when I asked her about it, she said, "It isn't right for you to lie. You're the Mom." Even though I was trying to spare my friend's feelings about the gift, to her my being honest was more important. That said, when she does lie, she has to come tell me the truth within a week. The bigger the lie, it seems like the harder she tries to hold it, but the more likely she'll tell anyway.

Bethanie

glad to see this topic show up. early on before diagnosis, when i was considering the possibility of AS i thought my ability to lie might be a disqualifying factor.

i can lie really, really well and as far as i know have never been caught in a lie. but i had to learn at a very young age to keep my family's deep, dark secret. it also helped that my NT sister lies about everything...rather badly since she doesn't even necessarily tell lies that make sense. pathological? maybe. either way she proved a good learning experience.

i think it's easier to lie to people who know you because they don't expect you to have any expression on your face. NTs who don't know you may distrust you straight from the offset because they can't read your face and so may assume you're lying either way.

mostly i lie when i don't want to deal with something so not necessarily that often. a typical situation: an evangelical christian comes up to me in a bookstore and wants to chat. first question is something about the bible. me: i've never read the bible; i'm a buddhist. this answer generally shuts them up pretty fast. i dunno, i suppose they don't know what to say to the notion of ME being buddhist. (a bit stupid in this day-and-age to assume that anyone cant be any religion.)

I wouldn't post info like that. It really wasn't hard for me to figure out your families secret. I won't say, but just know that IP addy's are easily tracked, and you could possibly have FBI raid your place in a flash.

Peace

P.S. The lying you display disgusts me, though I understand. You're somewhat immoral because of how your family is. Hopefully you will find someone you can look up to one day who can teach you right from wrong...The truth is always easiest in the end...you could easily have told the Mormon that you think God to be the personification of the super-ego, and demons to be disowned unconscious desires (ID). It's not like they could have you locked up or anything. Or you could have simply walked off without saying a word. Or you could have just said, "I'm not interested, leave me be". So many easy things you could have done that didn't require a lie...