The inability to delude oneself

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Hi I'm new to the forum. I'm 42 years old, male, recently self-diagnosed as autistic. Interested in sharing some thoughts about autism/aspergers and NTs.

It recently struck me that most (NT) people seem to get through their day to day life by basically lying to themselves and others. I'm not criticising them for it - this ability to delude themselves is maybe almost essential to cope with the big bad world.

Autistic people of course are known to be very honest and truthful which of course is a big problem in the day to day mundane social world which basically is oiled by white lies. And it makes it impossible to delude oneself. I think this is one of the (many) difficulties autistic people have in coping with the world. I guess you could say I Feel like I'm trapped in a 'truth' prison!

Be interested to hear others thoughts on this, cheers

Yes, it's occurred to me many times that a certain perhaps fortuitous guile is the principal area in which NTs differ from NDs.

BWAHAHAHAHA!
Spend five minutes perusing this forum, and you'll see that sure as hell isn't true!

Aspies routinely get fired for working too hard and becoming a threat to their coworkers. They think that hard work will compensate for the lack of social interaction on the job. They do it over and over again. They are fully aware of the standard of work required. As is obvious from their rants. How hard can it be to goof off like everyone else?

I never really figured that out until it was too late.

If that's true, I'll take my redundancy as a badge of honour.

Yes that's a fair point. I didn't make it clear enough. Of course autistics are capable of being unintentionally deluded due to being generally naive and clueless about many things in life (guilty!!). I think I meant that NT people seem to almost knowingly delude themselves for the purpose of making life easier to cope with (e.g. people who are deluded about how competent they are at something. They may be incorrect but that doesn't mean it will not be to their advantage)

I've thought the same thing, Bernie. I tend to be more bothered by the fakery side. People ask what you think of their new coat, for instance. If you think it's hideous you're not supposed to say that. But I have a strong honesty drive, to the point that lying is very uncomfortable. Awkward, awkward, awkward, standing there trying to find something I'm willing to say.

Yes it seems that the need to 'get on' and not rock the boat socially is much stronger in NTs than the need to be honest, whereas for aspies it is a lot less so! But I think this sort of thing applies not just to (white) lying to other people to make life easier but also lying to oneself (i.e. deluding oneself).

I could be headed for a pink slip at one point myself. I work like an ox, but I don't have any co-workers left who particularly like me that much. All the folks I had pleasant interactions with have either left for a better job, or saw their temp agency contracts expire and not being renewed.

Hi Bernie.
Welcome to Wrong Planet.
One of the main differences between Aspies and neurotypicals is that Aspies are more vulnerable to stress. It is almost our middle name. Neurotypicals also experience stress but they have many avenues to release and neutralize this stress. But Aspies lack the ability or understanding to use these tools. Thus stress grows and begins to overload our systems and eventually turns stress into distress.
I am truthful. It is because I have moved up the stages of normal childhood development and then for some reason stopped in the "Pleasing Four" stage. I am a four year old child in the body of a 70 year old man. I use a mask to hide my 4 year old identity and my great intellect to navigate this world. It works for me. Neurotypicals have followed the normal stage of childhood progression. And along the way, they have learned the art of lying and deceit in its many forms. It is just the way it is.
jimmy m


Refer to CHILD DEVELOPMENT BY AGE

Traits of 8 year olds: can shift blame quickly to others when he attacks someone (verbally or physically).
Traits of 9 year olds: complains and gives excuses for not doing tasks, such as having some sudden physical ailment (eyes hurt so cannot read, stomach hurts so cannot clean up a mess).
Traits of 11 year olds: rebels against parents; finds fault, argues, calls names, yells, talks back.
Traits of 15 year olds: is capable of harboring feelings of grudge, revenge and violence.
- uses exaggerated language to express scorn.

jimmy m,

I think the prevalence of lying and deceit is a main reason I find myself wanting to almost entirely avoid people. How can you really know anyone if they mislead you about who they are? And if you can't know them, how can you like them? How can you tell if a liar really likes you? Maybe some people are largely honest--but I can't pick them out.

When I was younger, I had very good hearing. I learned a lot by hearing what people said about me when they thought I was out of range.

I am generally a very positive person, but I can't fake it when things around me aren't going well. I worry a lot about people I love and that makes me sad. I couldn't begin to pretend that I'm not concerned.

Sounds about right to me. There's a controversial "condition" called depressive realism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depressive_realism
I suspect what we're dealing with is a mixture. Normal" people do prop themselves up with positive delusions, but only to a degree. it's tempting to overstate the case and end up embracing the equally unhealthy notion that the world is completely horrible, and by doing that we can blind ourselves to viable opportunities to improve our lot.

As a personal example, I can't relate to a group of football players telling each other that they're definitely going to win. Clearly that's irrational. Of course they could lose. My way of dealing with a dicey situation is to simply admit that I'm taking a risk but to feel good about myself because I'm bravely taking a stab at it anyway because I've calculated that the risk is worth it, and gambling can be quite a thrilling thing. I'll have coping strategies ready in case I lose but I've chosen to play to win.

"Defensive pessimism" may also be worth a look. It's not a mental condition, it's a coping strategy some of us use to alleviate anxiety. It has the same downside as depressive realism (failure to see positive opportunities), but it's been suggested that it can be harmful to try too forcefully to stop a person using it if they're that way inclined, because it'll just increase their anxiety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defensive_pessimism

I'm steeped in defensive pessimism. I take Murphy's law very seriously (if it can go wrong, it will go wrong) and I put a lot of thought into pre-empting the harmful wildcards that often get thrown at me when I try to do anything new. I rather pride myself in thwarting Murphy by the use of bucket-loads of intelligent cynicism.

Sadly, for fear of becoming too unpopular, in most mainstream social situations I don't share much of my true appraisal of things. For the most part I try to hold my nose and crank out the expected polite feelgood BS, or I just keep quiet. It's such an unsatisfying experience for me that I try to avoid mainstream social situations as much as possible.

I can delude myself with the best of 'em, but I can also see through the BS.

This on pretty much every level! I'm one of those who can't lie to save my life. I've tried a couple times and it was awful. However I can do social spin as necessary to not stand out too badly, but it has to be honest spin. I'm very good at finding ways to say things truthfully but socially correct enough to not cause too many waves, most of the time at least.

As to the deluding oneself, yes, I see NT's doing it a lot. I'm more of the this is reality, here are all these possibilities that might happen, so lets hope for the best and prepare for the worst. I was in a pretty messed up relationship situation recently and I did logically know it, but my emotional side did it's best to win the war with my logic. It wasn't so much of a deluding myself and being quite aware of the situation and doing my best to aim for a positive end point. I think the difference is a lot of the time NT's might logically know a thing is a possibility, but emotionally they can clamp down on that harder and ignore it better?