HealthyGamerGG - Why You Lie to Avoid Conflict

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Today Dr.K talks about the avoidance of conflict, and lying so the fight stops even though you stay angry. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Now, to avoid them responding, right? So, like, the thing about a conversation, though, is that, like, I'm going to, I could upset them and I have to deal with that. So people try to avoid conversations because conversations are scary things. Because the whole point that you're lying in the first place is because you're trying to avoid conflict. And if you have a conversation, you may be locking yourself into conflict and you will have no option to escape if they get upset with you. Lying to avoid conflict. I know I usually lie when someone treats me unfairly and just say things to de-e. escalate the situation instead of being assertive in setting boundaries. I also do the same thing

when they apologize later, but about a minute later, I'm thinking about what was honest and what I should have said to set the tone for how I should be treated. Part of it is that I just don't think about boundaries and standards and being assertive in the moment because I'm concerned with how they feel and don't even think about my own feelings until after. Like realizing after that, even with their apologies, they blame how they treated me on what I said, even if I didn't say anything insulting. So I feel like their apology is insincere. I think this comes from having to constantly de-escalate fights with my parents growing up, but also maybe some ADHD because I just don't even feel upset about it until afterwards,

where my focus isn't just on ending and de-escalating the situation, where they are angry and being insulting over nothing. Note this pattern applies to nearly everybody, no matter their relationship to me. I'd really appreciate Dr. Kay's help on this or any solid professional advice. So speaking of professional advice, not a bad idea, right? Especially if you've got ADHD and you're having interpersonal problems. Good idea to see a therapist because one of the under appreciated problems with ADHD is the social consequences and social problems.

So let's talk a little bit about this. Sometimes we have conflict with people. Sometimes people don't treat us well. And when they don't treat us well, we know that they don't treat us well. We don't want them to treat us this way. But we care about their feelings more than our own. So we'll lie. How is the food today, sir?

Oh, everything was fantastic. I could barely eat it. Right? So we care about other people's feelings more than our own. And then we have trouble setting good boundaries with people. So one of the number one reasons, if you guys saw our boundary setting stream recently, one of the number one reasons that we have trouble setting good boundaries is because of our own emotional state and our inability to upset other people. And so then what happens is in this person's case, like they even come and apologize to them, right?

They say, oh, I'm sorry for treating you this way. And then what we do is like we say like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. Don't worry about it. And it's almost reflexive, right? So this person has done a good job. They've been paying attention to themselves, maybe like watching us for a while. So they recognize, oh, where does this pattern come from?

Maybe it comes from my childhood. Maybe it comes from de-escalating situations. Maybe it comes from my brain being wired to keep the peace. I become the mediator. Right? So it's almost like you're the therapist in your family. And remember, like as therapist, like our feelings don't matter, right?

We're there for the other person. So in this way, we see a lot of social situations where one person becomes the mediator, even the therapist, and they become responsible for other people's feelings. And so what they learn to do, what they evolve to do, what they adapt to do, is set their feelings aside for the sake of harmony. So it's not that, and this is important to understand,

it's not that you can't stand up for yourself. It's that you have learned, your brain has adapted to prioritize harmony over personal satisfaction. Right? So harmony is responsible for so many problems within interpersonal relationships. And interestingly enough, it's also, generally speaking, the reason that we're wired that way is because that's what works well. Right?

So from an evolutionary standpoint, for the most part, human beings had a small cluster of available people. So if we think about the lifespan or the evolution of how. how human beings have been. So we used to be like tribal, right? So my grandmother had a village of like 150 people, which is like most of who she met. Her entire life would be that 150 people.

And then 100 years from that, humans had a network of like 150 people. Even think about your life now, like how's relatively small it is. You've met hundreds or thousands of people, but your network is actually pretty small. We didn't have the option to move across country and find a job, right?

That wasn't like a thing. Like 6,000 years ago, it wasn't a thing. You had your tribe. Monkeys have their tribe. Apes have their tribe. So harmony within the tribe and the family unit was like the top priority, which is how our brains have evolved. There's nothing wrong with you if you can't set boundaries like this. It's not just that your parents may have had this kind of conflict.

Understand this is what we're designed for is to preserve harmony within the unit. Because 6,000 years ago, 10,000 years ago, 50,000 years ago, a human being on their own didn't survive. right the tribe's harmony matters a lot so what do you do about it right so if you're fine if you're someone who has difficulty like upsetting other people for the sake of harmony maybe it has something to do with your upbringing maybe it has to do with like basically the way your brain is wired but what do you do about it and the interesting thing here is that we all have this notion that you're supposed to set boundaries with person someone in the moment right so if you're having trouble setting boundaries with someone in the moment because of how you feel. So we can say, dig into that

feeling, understand where that feeling is coming from, breathe through it, set boundaries with them, practice, you know, you'll get better at setting boundaries with them in the moment. But there's also something that's really important that we tend to lose sight of, which is you can set boundaries with them afterward. Right. So a minute later, if you realize that this is actually not okay, you can actually tell them a minute later, right? And I know it sounds kind of weird, but like, why don't we do this is because we feel like idiots. We're like, yeah, no, it's actually totally fine. Then a minute later, you're like, it's not fine. And because we as human beings don't like to be contradictory to ourselves. Once I say something, that's the hill that I have to die on, right? I can't

change. I can't change political views. Right. So like if you look at politics, a politician changing their views is viewed as like a sign of like awfulness. This politician changed their mind. You voted for this bill, and then you voted against it. You were for war, and now you're anti-war. Like, oh, my God, like, that's terrible. It's like maybe the politicians learned something, just like we did. And maybe we should actually, like, support politicians

who are willing to adapt their views based on, like, new information and circumstances. But that's not how we think. Because we want to be consistent. We want to be judged for consistent, which is there for reason, too. Right? Just because it's not ideal doesn't mean that there isn't a good reason that's there. So the first thing is that you can set boundaries with them afterward and recognize that that's going to feel weird for you. But I'll give you all some language. Okay. So we're going to talk a little bit about if you lie to avoid conflict, if you don't set boundaries with people when you should,

because it's emotionally very difficult for you, you can absolutely get stronger emotionally and learn where that comes from and get better at sending boundaries with them, you should practice that. But you can also do it afterward. Because afterward, it's going to be some of the same feeling, right? Because you're still engaging in that conflict. But you may be in a better headspace to do it. So you can level up afterward, even though it feels a little bit weird. So you can circle back, and this is what I'd say.

I'd say, hey, I know you apologized and I said actually wasn't a big deal. I've been thinking about it. I've been reflecting. And I've come to realize that, like, I think your apology actually really was appropriate. and you were actually out of line. And I accept your apology. I also realize that I care about our relationship so much that I didn't want you to feel bad, even though what you did was wrong.

But after really thinking about it, I realized what you did was wrong, and I really appreciate your apology. You can say that. Or if you don't set boundaries with them in the moment, and they don't, you know, they haven't apologize. You can also circle back and say, hey, I didn't mention this, you know, earlier, but I was thinking a little bit about it. And actually what you did was not okay. And then you can lay it out. Say like, I really felt like that was disrespectful.

And then when you do that, like all of that conflict avoidance fear is going to come up. But you can just do it afterward. Right? You can just circle back and say, hey, by the way. Now here's a couple of interesting things to keep in mind. So let's go into a little bit more specifics here, okay? So the medium through which you do this is really, really important. All right?

I'm going to give you all kind of like three options. So there's conversation, there's text message, and there's email, this archaic thing, this relic of a past, a long past age, or writing a letter. So there's like written communication, there's text, and there's conversation. So a lot of people may be very, very avoidant of conversation. I think ideally conversation is the best. But the whole point is that you may not like, you may lose your courage if you try to have a conversation, right?

Or facts or carrier pigeon, both good options. writing a letter, hand-delivered note, engraved plaque, these are all options as well, chiseled stone, alphabet soup arranged lovingly and glued to a piece of construction paper, all excellent options, right? Baking a birthday cake with a message on it that says F you, all good options, all good Q-A-form tablets. Right?

So these are all good options of communication. Yeah, cutting letters out of the newspaper, sure. Fish in the bed sometimes. Works well to send a message and convey your thoughts and feelings. So here are a couple things to remember. So what a lot of people will do is they'll want to send like a DM or text message or message someone on Discord or whatever. Now, why do people want to do that? because it's like less scary than confronting someone directly.

So ideally you want to do this in a conversation. Why do you want to do it in conversation so that if there's any kind of response, you can talk it through, right? So you're not like leaving someone with just one communication. Presumably they'll respond and you'll like open up the issue and close it at the same time, hopefully. That's the advantage of conversation. The other advantage of conversation is that there's a lot of like,

interpretation of body language, tone, facial expressions, which will convey the message that you're trying to convey. Now, to avoid them responding, right? So, like, the thing about a conversation, though, is that, like, I'm going to, I could upset them, and I have to deal with that. So people try to avoid conversations, because conversations are scary things. Because the whole point that you're lying in the first place is because you're trying to avoid conflict. And if you have a conversation, you may be locking yourself into conflict and you will have no option to escape if they get upset with you. So we want to steer away from conversation.

And since all of these things like smoke signals and, you know, newspaper cutouts and whatnot are archaic and we don't actually use them, what most people will do is DM or text. If you look around, there are so many ways to make a difference. At Capella University, our flex path format gives you a different way to earn your degree. Take courses at your speed. Move on whenever you're ready. Education should fit your life. Learn more at cappella.edu. There's some huge problems with DMing and texting this kind of stuff.

So the first is that there's none of that tone, facial expression or anything like that. That's problem number one. So your message can come across is cold, arrogant, whatever. Like, it can come across, like, who knows? So your message is more open to interpretation by their cognitive bias. Huge problem with text messaging. It's why so many fights happen over text. Next problem with text is that text has a habitual level of response.

So if I send you a long message, right, wall of text, which first of all, conveys something, right? It's like, hey, here's my wall of text, here's my treatise, here's my PhD thesis on how you hurt my feelings. Please read it. So walls of text already set people off in the wrong direction on text messaging, because that's not usual. The second thing is that it's so easy to instinctively and like, shallowly respond to a text. So if I send you a wall of text, hey, what you did last weekend

was really not appropriate. I know I said it wasn't a big deal in that you apologized, and I said you didn't need to apologize. After thinking about it, you really, I really do appreciate that you apologize. I think the apology was necessary and appropriate, and I accept it, and what you did was really out of line. Thank you for apologizing. What kind of text message are you going to get back. So let's put ourselves in the shoes of the person who gets that. How are they going to feel? They're going to feel bad. They're going to feel attacked. They're going to feel held accountable. And so what kind of text message do you fire off? Right? Beautiful. N.P. Okay. Yeah, whatevs, bro? Koo. Thumbs up. Eggplant emoji. Right? Now, how is that, how does it feel to receive that

after a wall of text. It's kind of like, I don't know if this person is understanding. So now what you've done, like your conflict avoidance, you've sent a text message and you've gotten some like surface level shallow response. And then what do you do? Like, do you, right? Then you're kind of stuck because you're not feeling great. There's not really great closure.

You're not sure if they understood you. You're not sure if everything really is okay. you don't know how they're feeling. Because remember, the whole reason you're lying is to avoid conflict. The whole reason you're lying is to not make them feel bad. When someone says coup or N.P, how are they feeling? You have no clue. You don't know if they understood you.

You don't know if they've respected you. You don't know if they agree with you. You don't know if they're mad at you. And then what is that going to do to you? It's going to drive your anxiety through the roof. Right? And so, like, by avoiding the conversation, all you're going to do is create more.

anxiety for yourself. So like text messaging, you got to be really careful about setting like, you know, text message communication. So that's where like you can, you know, tunnel down. And if you're lucky, they're going to like think about it and send you a substantive response as well. But they may not do that. And that's not really what text, like most of the time when you text, your brain is not like, let me, let me write a blog post. Right. We even have different language for blog posts versus texts. So like, that's why I think if you can, converse, but if you're not going to converse, recognize that you're opening yourself up to this

through texting. And the last thing is that's why I say, like, honestly, like writing an email is not a bad idea, depending on who you are, how old you are, and what the other person is doing. Because email has a different tone. People don't just respond NP to email, right? Like, the whole point is like, it's like a longer message that has more thought put into it. Or it's people

are like texting back and forth all times, like, NP, and then they forget about it. Dear sir. Right? So it's very common that we let people walk all over us because we're afraid of how they're going to respond if we set boundaries. And then we think that the only time we can set boundaries is in the moment. And then a minute later, we're like, you can actually go back and tell them a minute later. You can say, actually, by the way, I've been thinking about it. I reflected on it. And then lay your boundary with them. Be careful about how you lay it. conversations are ideal, even though they most be the, maybe the scariest. But remember that just because it's scary, that can actually be a point in your favor

because you're learning to tolerate, you're creating that situation, which lying causes you to avoid. Right. So you're jumping into that cold water when you do that sort of thing, which is exactly what you need to do. And that's why we sort of sometimes default to text messaging, but think it through a little bit and then to sort of decide what feels right to you. You can even send a text message and say, hey, I wanted to let you know.

know this, I'd appreciate if we could talk about it. Like, please think about what I had to say, and I'd love to hear your opinion. Right? Make sense? Questions? Yeah. So, so someone else is saying, it's so worrying getting a text saying, are you free to talk? That's why I'm saying you should let them know what the conversation is and then invite

them to have a conversation. Don't be like, hey, we need to talk. And it's like, the other person's like, then they're going to come in paranoid. Right? So you want to let them know what's going on, say, hey, I'd really appreciate it if we could talk about it. So they have time to settle their own feelings. They're going to come to the conversation more calm and prepared. You're going to come to the conversation calm and prepared.

And then you'll have more likely to have a successful conversation. Right. How do you deal with jokes that are actually incredibly rude and hurtful to everyone in the room? Everyone in the room is laughing, but you. So honestly, like this requires some amount of courage, which if you're the butt of jokes, it may be hard to have. So I don't blame me for that. but I would call attention to it. Right?

So I would just say straight up, I know all you all are laughing. Do you see me laughing? I don't think this is funny. They will shut the fuck up if you say that. Say it exactly like that. I understand that y'all think it's funny. I'm not laughing. I don't think it's funny.

It will kill the mood instantly. People will stop fucking with you. Y'all understand that? Right? So you don't have to attack them. You just call attention to it. So this is where like, and if you guys are wondering, this is going to be kind of weird. How the hell do you learn to say things like that?

Authenticity, living in the present and meditation. It is what is. And if they just laugh more, you know, like, you can say like, look, I don't think you guys are hearing me. I'm confused. What about what I said was funny? Like, they're not going to continue laughing. So, you know, just like call attention to it again and again. And you learn to see things authentic.

you know, when you meditate. Like I think a lot of this comes from spiritual training as well as like psychiatric training. But just call it what it is, right? Say, hey, look, I care about you guys. I enjoy being here. But I've noticed that when we like joke, like I'm always the butt of it. I don't enjoy it. And now I'm confused. I'm like, are these people my friends or not? And that's when I realize maybe y'all don't realize that this is actually hurtful to me. So I can't blame you for something if you all don't, if you all think I'm having a good time. So I'm letting you know I'm not having a good time. And I realize it's kind of a buzzkill.

But I'm struggling. I'm like trying to figure out should I come to these things or not. And so I need to understand whether you all like consider me friends and you're, are you here to have a good time at my expense or am I here to like have a good time with you? And sometimes people can't tolerate it. Like they can't handle the heat. And they'll never invite you again, which is actually totally fine. So when it comes to like lying.

to avoid conflict, you're going to select and shape your relationships. So if you don't ever tell anyone that what they're doing is hurtful to you, it's not that you're just going to find assholes who will like walk all over you. What you're going to do is create people who don't respect your boundaries because they don't know it's a real boundary. And as you call attention to it, some people can't engage in that level of conversation. And then like those are not people that you, you know, if you're a real boundary, friends with those people who can't engage in conversation, who can't modify their behavior, who don't take you seriously, then like, that's going to be the relationship that you're signing up

for. Some people can handle it, and some people can't. And sometimes you have to model that because people don't talk like that, right? So if you say something like that, no one isn't going to know what the hell to say. Someone is going to feel awkward. They're like, my bad, I didn't realize. You're like, I really appreciate that. Thank you. Right. Sorry for killing the mood. I don't know how to get it back, but I really had to say that. You can kind of acknowledge that. It's challenging. So when you don't set boundaries with people like you're going to cultivate them in a particular way, you're going to shape their behavior. And then like we get pissed at them because like here we are silently like being so upset about things, but then they have no idea.

And they're like, oh my God, my friends hate me so much. I'm such bullying me all the time. It's like sometimes they do that because they're assholes. Sometimes they do that because you aren't telling them not to. And sometimes they respond if you tell them not to when people feel awkward, They cope by making fun of you, and then you've got to, like, double down. I don't fight, but just call attention to it. People are asking about Will Smith and Chris Rock. And that's where, like, if I was Will Smith, like, I mean, I don't know if I would have done this. I can't put myself in his shoes.

And I don't, you know, who knows what that guy is going through. So, like, what stress he's dealing with. And, you know, so I try not to judge. But this is the kind of thing where it's like, I think that's the kind of thing where, like, when you get your acceptance speech or whatever. you know, that's when you like call attention to it. You can say, look, I know we make a lot of jokes about things. I personally think that like making jokes about medical conditions is not okay. And you say it in a tone like that, and everyone shuts the fuck up and they take you seriously.

Right? And like this is the problem. It's like alopecia is an autoimmune disease. We live in a society where so much of our self-worth, especially if you're a woman, is based on your appearance. And I get that as comedians, like, we poke fun at, like, things that are true, right? That's part of the way that we deal with it. But I don't think it's okay. You say something like that?

Like, that's going to get traction, too. But I think you'll move the needle in the right direction. But that's just, I mean, you know, that's arrogant of me to say because I don't really know this society. I don't know these people. I don't know what they're going through. So I'm not trying to pass judgment. You know, so call attention to it. Right?

Like, point out what's going on. Thank you.