[For people who don’t know, the term allistic means anyone who is not autistic.]
I’ve learned a lot recently after asking allistic people on twitter what they truly want to hear from other people when allistic people say “be honest.” In short, most of them want a very specific “type” of honesty. At least, neurotypical people may consider this honesty.
Neurotypical Honesty
Depending on the context, a neurotypical person may want the sugar-coated truth. Other times, they may want more honesty or honesty without the sugarcoating if you’re a close friend. Other times, they want to be supported and encouraged, or reassured about a choice they made.
I’ve learned that most of the time, neurotypical people don’t really want honesty. They want curated honesty. They don’t want the first thoughts that come into your head. They want a rephrased “nice” version, which to me, changes the interpretation of those real thoughts. So to me that’s not honesty.
To allistic people: If you don’t want non-sugarcoated honesty – do not say “be honest” because that’s clearly not what you want. Just tell us what you want, with your words. You can utilize phrases such as “Be supportive please” or “be gentle,” and honestly, it’s a lot more honest!
Even while discussing this topic with allistic people, they act as if there is some clearly stated, obvious boundary of what is “offensive” or what is “brutally honest” and what is a better version of honesty. This notion of clear boundaries between those things can be thrown out the window entirely due to allistic people’s negative interpretations of autistic body language and tone of voice.
We, autistic people, don’t get the benefit of the doubt when we say the same exact words an allistic person says, because our body language may be interpreted negatively. To tell autistic people just to “not say anything offensive” is like asking a cat to do advanced calculus. The idea that we know what will be interpreted as offensive by non-autistic people is laughable.
How Lack of Honesty Can Hurt Autistic People
The worst part is that this dynamic, this difference in the definition of honesty, also affects autistic people’s well-being! This idea that non-autistic people must be nice at all times, even if it’s not 100% (or even 50%) truthful, actually is a detriment to autistic people who prefer honesty, even brutal honesty at times.
The number of times I have heard non-autistic people tell me “good job!” or “you did great!” when we both objectively knew that I didn’t made me feel even worse about myself! I’d rather people acknowledge what happened because I will interpret their attempt to disguise their true feelings as infantilizing and actually frustrating, as if I am not emotionally mature enough to handle the real truth, or as if the adults in my life are hoping I go along with the illusion, and refuse to ever acknowledge that it is, in fact, an illusion. It’s similar to walking up to me and telling me the sky is green. I know that’s not true, so why are you saying that to me? What does that accomplish? Because it sure doesn’t make me feel better.
When I wanted real feedback on something and wanted to know if someone thought something was good, I knew I could never trust what allistic people told me. Even before I knew I was autistic, or that certain family members may be autistic, I knew who I could go to to get an honest opinion – and guess what, it wasn’t the non-autistic people!
When Compliments Lower Self-Esteem
Neurotypical comments disguised as compliments actually make me feel worse about myself because I know what they actually mean, and they just refuse to say the brutal honesty part out loud. For example, a neurotypical person saying “I don’t think that outfit suits you,” in my mind, is the same thing as them saying “You look really bad in that outfit” because they are constantly softening their words compared to what they actually think. When neurotypical people say something to me, they’re often making it sound a lot “better” than what they think, or what they say behind other people’s backs.
So when an allistic person compliments me, most of the time I don’t know if it’s genuine. To be on the safe side, I simply don’t believe them especially if I don’t agree. They are more likely to err on the side of being nice to not hurt someone’s feelings than give me the real truth.
I’m not sure if non-autistic people will understand this, but these kind of “nice” critiques or even compliments definitely have hurt my self-esteem, especially growing up. When you know someone is hiding the honest truth from you, it’s hard to believe anything they say especially when it’s positive or spun as a positive. If I am specifically asking for people to be honest, I’d rather know exactly what they thought than have them rephrase it to something that might seem more palatable, but actually doesn’t convey the meaning that’s in their head. It makes me wonder what they really think of me if the words they always speak are not what they think.
Who’s Right? What Does Honesty Mean?
Of course there are drawbacks to trying to be 100% honest all the time. Of course there are drawbacks to trying to be 100% nice (and therefore only 50% honest) all the time. I’m not saying one is better than the other, or should be considered better than the other.
However, expecting autistic people to know when it’s okay to truly “be honest” without hurting an allistic person’s feelings, when allistic people are specifically asking us to be honest, is simply unfair and even ableist.
And again, non-autistic people seem to forget that in our current society, being autistic is a disability. I do not have the foresight to even know what may be considered offensive to a non-autistic person (and no, I’m not talking about direct attacks or outright bigotry or name-calling). I literally don’t know, when I have thoughts and consider speaking them, if non-autistic people will have their feelings hurt, because for me those words wouldn’t upset me.
What’s Real vs. What’s Nice (and Socially Acceptable)
Most of the time, I would rather know what’s real and what’s the truth than live in a sugarcoated reality of the truth. The truth actually gives me comfort. I’d rather know that I’m bad at something than have people tell me I’m good and only realize how terrible I was on my own years later.
A message to non-autistic people:
If you don’t want honesty, please stop using the phrase “be honest.”
Please say “I need emotional support” or “Please be gentle” instead.
Your honesty is different than ours and no, we’re not trying to hurt your feelings when you specifically ask us to “be honest.” So please just be clearer with your words.
And if you want “sugarcoated honesty” explicitly, you can let us know that too. It would be very helpful to know. It’s not that autistic people refuse to provide sugarcoated honesty, it’s that non-autistic people refuse to ask for it. So make sure to ask for it, if that’s what you want. We will try our best to accommodate you. So please accommodate us, too.
Autistic Science Person 
Reblogged this on Ken's Devotions.
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This are absolutly right words! I live in my Family with neurotypical persons and their honesty is not real honesty. Sometimes it is really difficult.
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I have found it safer to assume that nothing an allistic person says is true, especially one you don’t know very well. And that it is best not to offer opinions on anything personal if solicited for them.
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🤣🤣
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I’ve found that you can ‘politely’ comment on anything it would take a person less than an hour to change (e.g I like your earrings, blow dry, shoes) but if it would take more than an hour to change (hair colour, exercise levels, ability to drive) it’s better to not discuss at all.
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Mit,
FYI
On Mon, May 17, 2021 at 1:59 AM Autistic Science Person wrote:
> Autistic Science Person posted: ” [For people who don’t know, the term > allistic means anyone who is not autistic.] I’ve learned a lot recently > after asking allistic people on twitter what they truly want to hear from > other people when allistic people say “be honest.” In short, most of” >
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Oof. The difference between “that outfit doesn’t suit you” and knowing how behind our backs they wouldn’t phrase it that way. That is the point of distrust that is true to me, because I know how they talk when I’m not present, and they’re much vicious, usually. I feel you on the “realizing on my own I have been terrible when told I was being good” thing.
I have been wondering if by adopting a “honesty can be delivered from an empathetic place” policy I’m being true to myself in focusing on self-improvement in relationships and the desire to see the best in people, or if it’s me unconsciously giving in to neurotypical standards but with extra lofty standards of my own. I don’t know anymore.
It’s frustrating to see how most NTs seem to have shame as foundation in their communicational style (aka “hinting at things so they aren’t seen as people with needs and desires”), and at the same time, the “brutal” part of honesty doesn’t sit right with me. It’s difficult to grapple with an often drastic difference in expectations they don’t voice to begin, nor they realize it’s something that needs to be expressed for understanding. But they don’t seem to realize truth is useful feedback.
I found out too late in life how the thing about honesty is that it answers to the old age “truth as fact” vs. “truth as narrative” question (the movie Big Fish is big on this theme, in case a reference is needed): it’s contextual in application, both of them can be twisted to someone’s convenience: “truth as fact” can have their narratives spinned despite the fact remaining unmovable, while “truth as narrative”, by nature subjective, can be often dismissed by facts that don’t quite reach what an individual or group might be talking aloud.
In that sense, an artist who, by expressing themselves, chooses to obscure certain facts for privacy’s sake (and not for duplicity), is still expressing their truth while exercising the right to have boundaries between them and other people.
So with that example of the artist above in mind, I wonder if honesty according to NTs has to do with emphasis on “truth as narrative” (or more exactly, *mirroring* someone’s narrative)? It would explain a lot why to my face the truth is delivered nicely and to someone else’s it’s way less charitable than to my face, while my “wanting to not be brutal on my delivery of honesty, that is still honesty btw” is 24/7 because there’s no mirroring. Really willing to be wrong on this one.
Once again, specificity in expectations seems to bridge the communicational gap…
(I hope this wasn’t convoluted to read!)
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I think that NT’s are trying to maintain a sense of respect for the other persons feelings and autonomy and there’s an implicit understanding that criticising another can seem patronising . When one person asks for the opinion of the other, this is possibly felt as a “ one down position “ in that “I’m asking for your opinion because you know something about this that I can’t work out for myself.” NT’s understand this tacit sense of vulnerability around getting others to pass opinion on each other. The upshot here is that they “tread carefully “ ie don’t want to be heavy handed in their criticism because this might be seen as assuming a position of superiority, and this could threaten to undermine the bond of trust which is built on both parties actively engaged in maintaining a sense of parity / equal worth. Obviously some folk choose to go ahead and signal their comfortableness in their “superior judgement “ they enjoy the feeling of being an expert and the sense of confidence and power this gives them, and this is more important to them than acting to maintain parity of power, mutual respect and emotional inclusiveness/ empathy. It might be added when folk really know each other very well and trust is deeply established then a more frank style of communication might feel more appropriate- but the key here is that comments are not just exchange of “factual reality as I see it” , but about I care about our relationship and don’t wish to assert my superiority here, I like to share my perceptions, but not to undermine your own ability to decide what suits you – which has to be paramount.
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Hi, it’s me again, the original commenter!
I understand this tacit sense of vulnerability that is valued (which is what I referred to by saying “honesty can be delivered from a place of an empathetic place”), but my question was going beyond that – wouldn’t it be respectful to maintain the same respect for vulnerability within the conversation and outside of it?
This is at the crux of why sometimes NT honesty feels two-faced. This consideration towards someone’s vulnerability, it doesn’t extend to all contexts, it’s not a principle. For many of us autistic people, this inconsistency can be disconcerting at best. Many forget about this respect behind our backs.
And there is an assumption that all vulnerabilities are the same, too – I, on the other hand, would feel insulted by too much cushioning, it has the opposite effect of showing consideration, it’s as if they have to put “kid gloves” around me, as if I’m a “monster”, or “too naive to understand” (both common assumptions made about us autistics).
This is at the heart of distrusting when being told one’s being “good”, that OP refers to. This tacit social contract operates under a series of unexamined assumptions. And in personal experience, even my displays of this specific type of consideration are read as “heavy-handed” anyway, so I really suspect it’s yet another clash on what constitutes a practice of respect by each party.
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Wow… thank you. I remember getting in so much trouble…or having friends not be my friend anymore because I was too honest and transparent. I eventually learned to say things like “I think the other dress looks better” (which is still honest but not as “honest” as I was internally comfy with and I still felt like I was being disingenuous and it made me uncomfortable). I also used to get in trouble for facial expressions… because I didn’t hide them. So many times for rolling my eyes at adults lol.
With this… allistics don’t uncomfortable how our transparent honesty actually makes us vulnerable in ways they never will be. Since they hide behind all the masks there’s a type of insulation that goes with it….
I have felt this insulation very keenly and struggled with why my entire 41 years. They feel so far away hidden under layers of disguises….I never stopped to think I might be the problem. Not until the last few years….
Emotions with no filters looks like emotional dysregulation to allistics… sometimes it is that… but there seems to be a fine line. We aren’t really taught to authentically feel, express, honor, and own all our emotions. We’re taught we’re supposed to control them. I’m not sure how that translates to allistics, but for me…I also felt like I was being asked to suppress them…. which never worked for long.
Anyhoo….I know all types lie..I didn’t as a child. I lied once and confessed. It was a simple “no” when I did know how something gotten broken coz I broke it on accident. I couldn’t stand the anxiety it gave me so I turned around and confessed a few minutes later.
I didn’t learn to lie or even accept that there were times it might be appropriate until my mid thirties….. even then I had to force myself to do it and only because I realized that the person asking didn’t really care but was required to ask… and that telling the truth hurt me and was really not any business of the party asking. Even the idea that I had a right to withhold information from those in “authority” took me to my 30s to conceptualize.
Anyhoo… this is one of the key things that has gotten me to even question of I was NT. I always thought there was something wrong with everyone else….or got confused about their “lies” choosing to trust them over my own internal system. I saw lying as an… aberration not as a natural course of self preservatiom for most….I saw as an intentional infliction.
I stopped trusting people close to me at a very young age, like toddler age… because they lied to me and I found out. It hurt immensely… cuz I couldn’t comprehend why telling the truth was hard.
Anyhoo… again thank you. I don’t feel so much alone in this.
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You are right. This reflects well. Being autistic is horrible and debilitating when forced in an allistic environment by allistic people. It is literal torture.
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