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Are you able to lie, even though you have Aspergers?

09.06.2025 05:00

Are you able to lie, even though you have Aspergers?

Cognitive dissonance is incredibly uncomfortable for me. If I don’t feel like I’m doing the right thing, it shows. The only times I can lie convincingly, verbally or physically, is when it feels morally and ethically correct to lie. While performing in a play, for example. Or while comforting people with dementia.

Yes.

Because these settings don’t produce dissonance, I can lie fairly convincingly in these settings. It’s my conscience and my commitment to my own ideals that holds me back.

You hold the door open for a lady and she stops in her tracks and screams at you, ‘Don’t hold the door for me! I’ll get it myself!’ What are your feelings or immediate reaction?

And like all humans, including the vast majority of autists, I do a lot of lying.

When I lie, I’m not very convincing. No one ever looked at my masking and thought, “Now, that’s a normal person! Why, I’d like to have a drink with that woman. She seems just like me.” Similarly, when I speak untruths, I doubt most believe me.

Less than I used to, sure. When I considered it an inviolable obligation to mask, I lied constantly. I didn’t often lie with my words, but I implied facts that were untrue with every breath and movement. I was too terrified of the abuse that might result if I didn’t. Telling the truth was too dangerous.

Is it true that in 2028 there will be a new AIDS variant that will wipe out all the LBGTQ+ people?

Nuda Veritas by Gustav Klimt. Public domain.