Has anyone else grown a fear of being honest due to bad experiences with it?

[Silent_cries]

I've started to realize that over the past several months I've grown a crippling fear of being honest if someone annoys me or causes me problems or asks me to do something I'm too tired to do etc. I often find myself either finding ways to get around it without telling the truth or just enduring it bc of that. Some of it is bc I'm afraid of dissapointing ppl, but alot of it is bc I've had multiple experiences where ppl got mad or upset with me or just refused to listen when just trying to be honest with them. This has made me petrified of having to deal with confrontation if I say something both bc it makes me feel like I messed up, but also bc I have rly bad anger issues and I'm petrified that if ppl confront me I'll loose it and attack them bc it has happened before and it was horrible! I'm trapped in a cycle of constantly either enduring or evading the problems instead of solving them bc of this. Anyone else struggle with this?

Btw, this isn't a problem online probably bc it's much easier to avoid confrontation online by simply leaving the situation, you can't always do that as easily irl :/

 

[dragonofenvy]

I used to be honest and open with people because I never saw a reason not to be. Honesty is often punished instead it seems. So I either exaggerate the truth, lie by omission, or just be completely dishonest when necessary since sometimes it's what people want to hear despite claims that honesty is a virtue.

 

[Silent_cries]

I used to be honest and open with people because I never saw a reason not to be. Honesty is often punished instead it seems. So I either exaggerate the truth, lie by omission, or just be completely dishonest when necessary since sometimes it's what people want to hear despite claims that honesty is a virtue.

Unfortunately that's true. I never have it in me to exaggerate coz I'll just feel so darn guilty, I'll only do that when I'm super desperate, but that's rare. Usually I just endure it or just finds ways to avoid people or frustrating situations all together. I guess we all have our ways of dealing with things, and that's fine. I rly do wish I could just solve everything by being honest and having ppl actually listen to me. If only it was that easy?
I meant to do :/ not a questionmark lol XD

 

[Camper]

Kind of. I've been finding that I have to cater my speech and what I talk about based off of my audience. This is a normal part of social interaction. However, it still makes me feel like I'm being dishonest or on-guard. That may be due to the fact that I don't have much to mention outside of my interests (too weird) or my past (too unfortunate). Maybe I'm just looking at myself too broadly, instead of seeing the good elements?

 

[foreverfalling]

Yes I'm too honest by nature and I don't want to be dishonest because it takes way too much energy and it's not something I appreciate. It always bites me in the back though, getting continually punished for it teaches me I shouldn't be. The only place I can feel relatively safe being honest is here. I just don't deal with people as much as I can now.

 

[vadim]

Probably the only useful thing I ever got out of therapy was realising that I'm unable to express opposition to anything because I'm terrified of confrontation after growing up with a father who wouldn't let me disagree with him. Obviously children have no choice but to obey their parents, but I think they should at least be able to express disagreement with what their parents are saying.

It's not just that my dad thinks he's always right and wouldn't let me contradict him, he would become furious if I even had an expression on my face that suggested I wasn't happy with things, even sometimes when I thought I had a perfectly neutral expression. It was very infrequent but occasionally he would hit me for that ("throwing bad eyes" was what he called it). He could go from a good mood to fury so quickly and unpredictably and would also pick at me all the time for anything from not having enough friends to the way I walked. Often I didn't even know what I was doing wrong. So over time I learned the best way to deal with him was to just be as blank as possible and hide anything that was wrong. They wonder now why I never tell them things and hate going home to them.

 

[Malaria]

Yes, I relate to so much of what you're saying. Being afraid of conflict is a huge burden in my life because I end up enduring things I shouldn't have to endure.

 

[Silent_cries]

Yes, I relate to so much of what you're saying. Being afraid of conflict is a huge burden in my life because I end up enduring things I shouldn't have to endure.

Honestly, I just have to say it at this point. I've read multiple of your posts, both on my and other ppl's threads, and I relate so much to you it's crazy! I almost feel like we're twins at this point. Honestly, if you want to, I'd love to be friends with you. No pressure though of course! *^^*

 

[Forever Sleep]

A couple of weeks back, I was really struggling with something to do with work and my Dad rang. Normally, I can keep it to a mildly pessimistic tone but, I just didn't have the filter on that day and I think it really troubled him. I regretted it immediately because, it's pointless for him to worry. There's nothing he can do and I don't intend to CTB while he's still alive anyhow. So yeah- I regret it when I'm too honest about how bad I really feel.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

For a long time I feared being honest with others due to me feeling like I wasn't allowed to be honest with my feelings. It eventually got so bad that I started to have trouble with being honest with myself. I got so used to lying in order to please others, especially my family. The mixture of fear that came from getting in trouble and causing my family stress, along with my tendency to try and please others and not wanting to cause more drama in my family led me to lose my ability to be honest. I plan on trying to change that.

I'm finally starting to take steps to be more honest with myself and soon, once I get my school stuff sorted out, I plan on coming clean about my suspension and some of the stuff that was going on with me during both my first and second year of uni. I'm kind of scared, but it needs to be done. All I can hope for is that my family understands where I am coming from. From there, I hope to work to become more honest over time, both with myself and others.

 

[Silent_cries]

For a long time I feared being honest with others due to me feeling like I wasn't allowed to be honest with my feelings. It eventually got so bad that I started to have trouble with being honest with myself. I got so used to lying in order to please others, especially my family. The mixture of fear that came from getting in trouble and causing my family stress, along with my tendency to try and please others and not wanting to cause more drama in my family led me to lose my ability to be honest. I plan on trying to change that.

I'm finally starting to take steps to be more honest with myself and soon, once I get my school stuff sorted out, I plan on coming clean about my suspension and some of the stuff that was going on with me during both my first and second year of uni. I'm kind of scared, but it needs to be done. All I can hope for is that my family understands where I am coming from. From there, I hope to work to become more honest over time, both with myself and others.

That's so brave of you! I wish I had the courage to do so too, but I know that if I try to be honest it's very likely ppl are just going to get mad, so I just try to work on my survival strats instead >_< I wish you good luck though! Now I can't say wheather your family will understand or not as I don't know them and so it would just be wild guessing on my side, but what I can say is that if your family truly loves you and cares for you they will support you no matter what. If anything I think you should at least give it a go. Good luck! I honestly envy you for finding the strengt to work on yourself. I'd work on myself too if I could, but I'm too broken. I have too much anxiety and self doubt to rly get anywhere :/

 

[Suicidebydeath]

Honesty is sometimes punishable, not always appreciated, and I think people who lie can get ahead, but honesty is the right thing to do, so it depends on your stance and the circumstances. I convince myself that I'd rather have a reputation for being honest than not. That could be cope though.

In a lot of situations of course honesty won't be punished. Also it depends on the other person, I think someone that is toxic will punish honesty more than not instead of appreciating it, whatever they say, and of course, there are misunderstandings which can happen too.

If you are honest and surround yourself with non-toxic people I still think honesty is best.

 

[EvisceratedJester]

That's so brave of you! I wish I had the courage to do so too, but I know that if I try to be honest it's very likely ppl are just going to get mad, so I just try to work on my survival strats instead >_< I wish you good luck though! Now I can't say wheather your family will understand or not as I don't know them and so it would just be wild guessing on my side, but what I can say is that if your family truly loves you and cares for you they will support you no matter what. If anything I think you should at least give it a go. Good luck! I honestly envy you for finding the strengt to work on yourself. I'd work on myself too if I could, but I'm too broken. I have too much anxiety and self doubt to rly get anywhere :/

Thank you for wishing me luck. That was very nice of you.

To be honest, I actually felt the same exact way as you not that long ago. I've only just very recently decided to start working on myself and I still feel very anxious and have some doubts, too. It's really easy to feel stuck and feel like there is no way out. That's how I've felt throughout most of my life. It can be incredibly hard to learn how to let go of your old thought patterns and to try and teach yourself to look at things differently. I hope that one day you find a point in life where you are in a position where you feel ready to try and better yourself. Even if you fail at least you tried and I think that's enough.

 

[Silent_cries]

Thank you for wishing me luck. That was very nice of you.

To be honest, I actually felt the same exact way as you not that long ago. I've only just very recently decided to start working on myself and I still feel very anxious and have some doubts, too. It's really easy to feel stuck and feel like there is no way out. That's how I've felt throughout most of my life. It can be incredibly hard to learn how to let go of your old thought patterns and to try and teach yourself to look at things differently. I hope that one day you find a point in life where you are in a position where you feel ready to try and better yourself. Even if you fail at least you tried and I think that's enough.

Thank you! If things go well with my new psychiatrist I might try to start working with myself again, but until then I can't and won't. Tysm though!

 

[Kit1]

I have a problem in that I find it difficult to lie for myself and refuse to do so - it might have something to do with mum beating me up (broken bones and stuff) when I lied as a kid to try and protect myself from her - clearly the self protection did not work! What I never do is volunteer information if I don't want someone to know something, refuse to answer or try to divert the conversation. Also autistic.