being honest, expressing yourself with attachment to the truth of what you feel and think, of what you perceive, besides being an ethical value, constitutes the basis of trust, the foundation of any healthy relationship.
without trust, without the reasonable expectation that you can trust someone else, and they can trust you, your relationship breaks down, whether it is in friendship, in a couple relationship, at work, etc.
honesty is not at odds with social and emotional intelligence. i have to know how to tell you things, use the right words, nuance if necessary, take into account the context, the time, the circumstances, the type of bond i have with you, etc. i must also consider whether it is necessary to communicate this or that to you, i.e., its convenience.
by the way, you are not obliged to express everything, absolutely everything, what you think and feel. it is part of your assertive rights to decide what you reserve for yourself, for whatever reason. unless your trust in another person is compromised by your silence, you can choose, in good conscience, to keep certain things to yourself that are part of your private world.
as much as you love someone, and that person loves you, whether it be your child, your brother or sister, your parent, a friend, your lifelong girlfriend or boyfriend, your spouse, you have a right to your private world, they have a right to their private world.
honesty, in this sense, has its limits.
narcissists, and other toxic personalities, hide behind the sublime good of honesty to mistreat people, hurt their self-esteem, disrespect their limits, in a word, abuse. they say the things that they think at close range, they publicly expose the defects or failures of others, they utter at close range what they know in advance that humiliates or hurts them.
and they do all these things justifying themselves in the value of honesty, “i’m sorry, but i’m very honest”, they say, as if that gives them carte blanche to hurt or abuse others.
although their verbal attacks are aimed at the truth, their “honesty” is abusive and an assault on your dignity. no one has the right to publicly expose the mistakes or shortcomings of others, whether they are true or not.
the brutal and perverse honesty of the narcissist constitutes, in many cases, a full-blown emotional and psychological aggression.
it should not be forgotten that the “truths” of the narcissistic abuser are not the truth itself; they are their own distorted and tendentious vision of facts or people, the fruit of their pathological envy and the projection of their psychological conflicts on others.
the narcissist's hurtful and ill-intentioned honesty reveals their lack of empathy, their intolerance of those who are different, their pathological need to feel superior and perfect at the cost of denigrating and devaluing others.
how to face this form of abuse?
taking into account that any emotional reaction from you serves as fuel for them, and that this is precisely what they are looking for, the most expedient way to confront this aggression is to cut off the conversation with the abuser, immediately ceasing the interaction with them: leaving the room, cutting off the call, etc. you don't have to have a dialogue with someone who manipulatively uses the value of honesty to hurt or denigrate you.
you don't have to go in and defend yourself, which is perhaps the most natural tendency for people to do when they feel threatened, and the narcissist's brutal and perverse honesty is a direct threat to our emotional defenses. that is the response the narcissist expects from you: to defend yourself, to explain yourself, to argue. that's how they get the fuel that fans them, your performance shows them that they have hurt you, or that they have provoked those reactions in you.
don’t fall into their trap. don’t try to convince the narcissist. cut off the conversation, and that's it. no offense, no angry gestures. you leave them with the word in your mouth, and you leave as calmly and quietly as possible. the most you can say to them, by way of farewell, is, for example:
— “i’m sorry you have that opinion of me or that you think that, but i’m not going to do anything, absolutely nothing, to convince you otherwise. it’s your right, you own what you think, that’s your problem.”
if you say that to the narcissist, if you don’t get into an argument with them, if you don’t explain or defend yourself, if you cut the conversation off and leave without getting angry, the abuser will be left out in the cold, their strategy to hurt you and make you react will have failed.
how to move on from this traumatic and abusive situation. any time you seriously want to make a change, the first thing you need to do is to change your mindset and then raise your standards. know that the pain will last for awhile. but constantly ask yourself, “wait, is this person even worth my tears and heartache? definitely NO.” — the most important thing to move on and let go is to change what you demand of YOURSELF and to change your mindset because that pain is consuming you and clouding your judgement. THINK. i know that it hurts that you don’t have them, but NEVER forget how much it hurt when you did have them. 9 times out of 10, all they deserve from you is forgiveness and front row seats to your recovery, WITHOUT them.
honesty is certainly a gem of great value, but it is also a double-edged sword. narcissists, and other toxic characters, abuse it when they justify their brutal attacks in the name of “truth”.
let’s confront this abusive verbal behavior, and live the value of sincerity with empathy and intelligence.
