Honesty is such a lonely word;
Everyone is so untrue.Billy Joel, “Honesty”
Over the years since it happened, I have come to think that the event itself was the least of the problem. It was the aftermath that caused the real damage. Previously in this blog I described it as being like an avalanche–the original… whatever… that fell isn’t what’s doing all the damage, but the mass that follows it is hugely destructive.
When I was a kid I decided that I couldn’t stand liars, and I resolved not to be one. In my own meticulous way I set out to remove not just lies from my vocabulary, but all untrue statements of any kind. Well, okay, but how do you avoid untrue statements if you don’t know they’re untrue? The answer is to properly categorize and conditionalize what you say. Did I read something in an article? Fine. Don’t just state it as fact; say “I read that….” “I’ve heard….” “I believe….”
Of course other people didn’t really understand what I was trying to do, or what my motivations were. If the fine distinction came up (e.g. something I said I’d read proved to be false) I was accused of trying to weasel out of things. In the long run I kept to the course, but kept it to myself. In a way however it also caused me to withdraw from people to an extent. Why put myself out there–in the best of intent and purpose–if that intent and purpose are simply going to be ridiculed? My attempts to be the most honest and straightforward person I could possibly be lead to others in my family seeing me as a liar. (On the other hand I have a small handful of acquaintances who tend to see me as extremely honest.) The people who should know me best think they’re seeing beyond a pretense, and apparently can’t believe that there is no pretense. Combine this with the fact that when I was very young (before my “epiphany”) I was a bit melodramatic and overly emotional, and you have a situation where… the more dramatic the statement, the less I am believed.
And then I get raped by the girl I’m dating.
This of course in the midst of the mid-90s political feminist climate that was very up on the victimization of women by all those mean-old males, not to mention a highly public dog of a president who fucks everything that moves and then lies about it at any cost. And anyway… a guy can’t get raped by a girl; everyone knows that.
In the wake of what happened in college, you can understand at this point the utter impossibility of my telling my family (or anyone!) anything. I couldn’t even suggest that I was having a hard time, as it would lead to ridicule that I couldn’t possibly refute or explain. This in turn lead me to sink further into the feeling that I wasn’t trusted. That I wasn’t trustworthy. That I was a liar. I actually had to lie to pretend that the unbelievable thing didn’t happen–that I was okay. That I wasn’t so deep in despair that I could barely lift my head. I was a liar. I am a liar. My entire existence has been a long series of lies for years.
And I despise liars.
Lately a new situation within my family has arisen in which, essentially, I am considered a liar by most of them (notably, my sisters-in-law and wife seem to believe me, but none of my “core” family). And I have reached a point where I am withdrawing from them more and more, because, frankly, in the face of this I will at some point inevitably snap, and do something that can never be taken back. It’s not that I don’t want to be around them, it’s that I don’t dare. Because slapping you mom across the face as hard as you can just isn’t something you can later pretend never happened. They don’t see that what I’m doing by withdrawing is essentially self-defense. That it’s to save what’s left of my relationship with them. But there’s nothing that can be said, because after all I’m just melodramatic (which I’m not) and stubborn (which I am) and of course… lying.
And I have no defense for that last one; I am a liar. And there’s no way out of it.
Oh, I relate to caring about honesty completely! I totally do the same thing by prefixing with “I read this somewhere online” and “I’ve heard”, etc.
I was horrified to find out that most people lie daily… I barely lie at all. I have had at least an entire year where I only lied once, possibly longer.
“Why put myself out there–in the best of intent and purpose–if that intent and purpose are simply going to be ridiculed?”
Awww!
“My attempts to be the most honest and straightforward person I could possibly be lead to others in my family seeing me as a liar.”
:( !!!!
I have to wonder if the reason they see you as a liar is actually because they are surrounded by people who lie or perhaps don’t even think it is possible for a person to always tell the truth. I bet that the interpretation of you they are creating is biased by their ideas about people more than by your attempt to be honest.
“I was a bit melodramatic and overly emotional, and you have a situation where… the more dramatic the statement, the less I am believed.”
Oh!!! I HATE THAT!!! VIVIDLY!!! (I won’t call it melodramatic because it isn’t acting.)
These are some of the reasons why my soul is still lying on the floor.
“My entire existence has been a long series of lies for years. And I despise liars.”
Thats horrible. :(
Its not your fault. :(
“But there’s nothing that can be said, because after all I’m just melodramatic (which I’m not) and stubborn (which I am) and of course… lying.”
:( :( :( :( :(
I don’t know your specific situation well enough to console you that you can explain the “melodrama” (your highly gifted intensity!) to them or convince them that you are an unusually honest person. But I can tell you this – I have had extreme success with learning to explain myself to others. The first thing that I had to do is to understand myself and my differences. I have had the exact same problem before where … well the closest thing I know of is called “Impostor Syndrome” – when you have made some achievement that is very unusual and cannot believe you actually deserve it (in your case, being honest was your achievement, and other people’s remarks gas-lighted you into thinking otherwise). I’ve also been gas-lighted (I am using this term to mean the sort of brainwashing that happens to a person when they’re told something untrue so many times they start to believe it) by well-meaning people who mistook me for being like someone more common (whether that meant interpreting me as less moral, less intelligent or even crazy.) I have had the problem of feeling like there must be something wrong with me, even though there isn’t, even though I am very sensitive about it and try extremely hard NOT to be that way… and I have had the same problem with not being able to convince anyone.
What solved it all for me was to gain an understanding of those traits that other people did not understand and to get an exact idea of what normal is so that I had that compare contrast to enlighten me as to how these misunderstandings “worked”. Now I can explain around them!
I do not know whether you can get your family to accept that paradigm shift because I don’t know your situation. I agree with you that if you feel you need to be alone you should take the time and stay away! Any time someone makes ME so angry I want to hit them – or even mad enough to yell at them – I stop talking to that person. There are some family members I won’t talk to either. Some don’t show signs of being able to learn to understand my needs and treat me accordingly. Sometimes they’re just too ingratiating, even if they could learn, and it is a real threat to one’s mental health. Sometimes you just can’t take the risk!
Some people may act like nobody should be able to be a threat to your mental health by treating you badly. But don’t buy that YOU should be held to that. Our nervous systems are set at a different level of sensitivity… yours is cranked up. Some people have so little sensitivity they’re bored and start doing horrible things for entertainment – IE: sociopaths. Insensitive people may not get mental disorders, but they don’t develop higher levels of morality, either, like you have. (My cite: Dabrowski – recommending something in a minute).
The most important thing, at least for me, was to *really* understand *myself*. To get so strong in my idea of what I am and always was and why people react the way they do to me that I am not affected by gaslighting. Specifically, I needed to know all about the intricacies of the differences that come with giftedness.
Your intense honesty is one of the differences! Not every gifted person gets such extreme honesty, but I have seen it very often in geniuses and there are correlations:
One place to start for you with discovering more about the nature of your differences is Dabrowski’s Theory of Positive Disintegration. Read about the overexcitabilities, developmental potential (judged by the combinations of OE’s). You can also read how they correlate to the levels of moral development and the rarity of each level, which will explain a lot of those differences, too.
And you can talk to me if you want. I love helping gifted people to understand the bizarre and horrible things that happen to them so they can improve their lives. :)
You have to forgive yourself for lying, man – I have met dozens of geniuses but have never met a perfect genius.
You do not have to be perfect.
The big, ongoing, everpresent lie for me is, in essence, saying “I’m fine” when someone says “How ya doin’?” In word and attitude this lie is my constant companion.
Excluding that for the moment…
“I have had at least an entire year where I only lied once, possibly longer.”
… I have frequently had periods of my life where I can literally remember the last lie I told, and it was six months (or more) previously. Usually I don’t keep track — the times when I remember such is when that last lie was something in particular that sticks in my craw somehow.
I have a similar problem. I don’t know whether my post will make you feel understood or depressed. I need to talk about this subject, too (demoralization). I realize this is your therapy blog, and it makes me wonder whether its alright with you if I post about stuff I need to talk about. On the one hand, it is relevant to the conversation and exploring the same subject together might bring you insight about it. On the other hand, maybe you have enough of your own problems right now and don’t have any energy left to think about mine.
So you may want to take a moment and consider whether or not to read the following.
I have been having problems lately with a person who is absolutely soul-destroying… (It’s not a lover, and I *do* have plans to change the situation – I am *not* a complacent victim) but its already done damage. I got to thinking about your post on honesty and I realize that a lot of what was good about me has been destroyed just the same way you have ended up telling lies. Before I describe this, I’d like to preface it by mentioning that I am a person who is constantly in flux. Because I am so sensitive and so creative, whole parts of me are constantly being destroyed and re-written. The damage from this is massive, but I have done this so many times before, I’m not assuming it is permanent.
He caused a cascading failure. I used to think that most people were good. Now I don’t. Now, all I can think about is how many absolutely hideous people there are and how it is unacceptable that we aren’t doing anything whatsoever to permanently prevent them from doing harm. Because I thought most people were good, I felt that doing good deeds would help make the world a better place. Now I am constantly aware of the fact that doing good deeds ALSO enables people to do more bad things. I am especially irritated at religious exhortations to “turn the other cheek” and “forgive and forget” and bleeding hearts who believe you can turn bad people around by loving them. I’m irritated at the whole landscape of “good” people who let themselves be abused, thinking these assholes are going to wake up and realize what they’re doing one day. They’re not. I’m irritated at people who feel sorry for everyone in a bad situation, and give and give and give – until they’re being taken advantage of from every angle. I’m irritated because the very reason that these people exist is because GOOD PEOPLE SUPPORT THEM (IE: The sociopath who takes to drinking and ends up homeless… The girlfriend/boyfriend who doesn’t feel like working [as opposed to someone who is suffering from depression or some other problem] and manipulates themselves into a parasitic relationship where they can coast through life work-free.). Or how some of the people on welfare pop out as many kids as they can in order to take advantage of the system.
Being good is not a good thing anymore. Now its a thing that can be stupid and dangerous just as easily as it can be something just and worthwhile.
“Wise as a serpent, innocent as a dove.” the bible would say.
I suppose that’ll be the end result of all this – that I’ll probably end up wiser and better at being good. But right now there’s just cataclysmic damage. I question whether it is worthwhile to do anything “good” when so many people are out there doing bad things – which my actions will help perpetuate. Where is the fulfillment or meaning in doing anything when it isn’t contributing to the perpetuation of goodness? I am not sure whether there is an answer to the question of “how do we perpetuate goodness?” – so long as good people keep supporting bad ones, helping anyone perpetuates the bad, too.
So, I’ve been really depressed. I keep thinking “The world has so many bad people in it. There is no fulfillment in helping this place. Why bother to survive?”
There’s something about knowing there are so many bad people that makes me hate life itself.
Life used to be a sacred thing. Being saintly was what life deserved.
There’s something about running into enough bad people that makes life feel like its worthless.
Now I don’t care if I’m a liar. Hah. I am still in the habit of being honest and phrasing things accurately and I still want to be this way. But I’m very dishonest with this one particular individual – and I don’t care.
I keeping wishing to have back the time when life felt sacred enough to be saintly for.
Ronald Reagan used to have a phrase: “Trust but Verify”. I think he learned to say it in Russian and he would say it to Gorbachev, who laughed because… it was also a saying within the KGB.
Reading your comment it sounds to me as though you’re looking for absolutes where there are none. Charity is a good thing; but not when you let leeches take advantage of it. Same for “forgive and forget”. I read articles in the paper about people “forgiving” the guy who murdered their family, and I think, “What, are you kidding me?”
The question to keep in mind– always– is “where do you draw the line?” Because there’s always a line to be drawn.
There’s really only one aphorism I listen to much any more: “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” Would I deserve forgiveness if I did that (whatever) to someone else? Thus my quandary of staying away from certain family members to avoid doing something unforgivable. They truly don’t understand what it is they’re doing, or how serious it is. But I do.
Another one that I heard recently: “Lying is as legitimate as hitting someone in the face”. So… not for most circumstances, but once in a while… what else can you do? That’s a great one for me–wish I’d heard it years ago. Suddenly the absolute has a breaking point.
“Reading your comment it sounds to me as though you’re looking for absolutes where there are none.”
Sigh, I wish it were as simple as that. I’ve done that to myself before, and it’s relatively easy to solve…
My problem is that bad people do tons of things that they won’t get busted for. Like parents who are abusive – kids almost never turn their own parents in. An evil business person who does things like refusing to pay a poor employee what they’re worth citing the economy, and then turns around and buys hundreds of dollars of toys. People are going without medical care and these jerks are loading up on camcorders. These are the things that really eat away at me.
I’d videotape them myself – except they’d have to throw it out of court because the person didn’t consent to be videotaped. I’d be happy to get a gun and go around exterminating pedophiles – if it was legal. But, no. Instead, they get away with their crimes because kids are too afraid, embarrassed or too confused to turn them in and once they’re old enough to understand what happened to them, it’s too late – there’s no evidence.
You can tell a sociopath from a normal kid from infancy. We could put them into mental wards at the stage where they’re still 6 years old and torturing animals and bullying other kids. But do we? No. We don’t. We keep feeding them and schooling them and teaching them how to socialize so that they can blend in and then they grow up to take advantage of everyone they can.
I got a lawyer but he said “You don’t have a case.”
That’s what I’m depressed about.
I am depressed that I don’t see a way to get rid of them.
And I am depressed that there are so many.
This is unacceptable.
She — If I didn’t mean to have a conversation, this blog would not be public. If I really don’t like something you say, about the worst I’ll do is not respond; but overall much in the comments (from various people) has been useful. If nothing else it tells me I’m not alone.
:) That’s good.
Thank you for listening to me. :)
I recently experienced, and am still experiencing, a massive “cascading failure”, accompanied by a dramatic deterioration of the Self. Beyond depression.
I am just now starting the attempt to claw my self back out of this abysmal hell pit, but I’m in pieces. The glue that used to hold me together (values, morality, honesty, etc.) has disintegrated, though the mire certainly seems to have some adhesive qualities. I am no longer me and never will be again, though I may continue to appear the same to most.
I used to be obsessively honest, but that trait actually ended up being my downfall. Now I barely see the point.
That Nietzsche quote comes to mind:
“Battle not with monsters, lest you become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”
I wonder if I will become a monster. I wonder if it is in me.
Hurt my back, cant type long.
First, I want to say I understand being completely destroyed. That has happened to me more times than I can count.
When I was a teen, I had such a bad life till that point I did not believe in love. I thought everyone was a bad person. I thought being evil was justified in a world without love and was probably necessary.
But I ultimately decided that living in a loveless world would be pointless. I only wanted a world where I could be sure there were good people.
I didn’t trust anyone else to show me they were good.
The only person I believed was myself.
So I became a good person, in order to prove that good people existed and make it worth living in the world.
Dabrowski wrote a theory that explains why gifted people (or I should say those with “developmental potential” – people with OE’s – which gifted people commonly have) go through a process he calls “Positive Disintegration” where they become psychoneurotics and through that process attain a higher level of moral development.
Although it seems ironic for me to suggest that a total disintegration of your moral values might be part of the process in reaching a higher moral level, I think that might be what’s happening to you right now. It has happened to me before, so I think this is feasible.
You should look into the “Theory of Positive Disintegration”