Honesty

Part of learning to speak is learning to speak the truth.
No embellishments, no omissions, no out and out lies.

I don't know that I've ever been a particularly honest person, really.  I learned pretty early on that telling the truth often gets you into trouble of some variety.  I was a pretty compulsive liar as a child - mostly out of fear.  My mother was unpredictable in her reactions, and it was generally preferable to lie my way out of a situation than to hope for any understanding.  Of course, I was usually found out and the consequences were a lot worse, but that didn't make much sense to me for some reason.

As I got older I got sneakier.  I learned to tell enough of the truth to appear honest, yet kept the darkest things back.  Even those I trust didn't get to hear the whole truth.  My eating disorder was all about lies, a notable example being when I sat in the pub with my best friend, explaining earnestly that I'd had a rough patch but was working hard to get back on track, halfway through which discussion I disappeared to purge.  Oddly, I felt no shame or guilt whatsoever at the time, but looking back now, I am disgusted at the blatent lie, the horrendous abuse of trust.  People have been trying for ages to HELP me, and there I was, lying through my teeth.

Some people, of course, don't want to know the whole truth.  My husband, loving, supportive, kind and patient with me, freely admits that he does not want to know the ins and outs of what I can do to myself - it is too painful for him.   Which is fine by me.  When he asks questions I will answer, when he doesn't, there is no need, and I can be myself, free of the need to confess, because sometimes there are things that are just plain more important than illness.

Some people do want to know.  My therapist, for example, asks a straight question, sets out in straightforward terms that I am to tell him at the beginning of a session if I have hurt myself in any way.  This is fine by me too - I know where I stand, I trust him to use the information to help me.

Some people do not want or need to know anything - there is no reason why I would tell my work colleagues, they only require me to do my job.

The difficulty is the people in the middle - those who are friends, who care about me, who wouldn't be so deeply involved as to be really hurt by what I have to say, but who I have kept for years at arms length for fear of... what?  Judgement?  Ridicule?  Actually having to face the fact that the way I was living wasn't right? I am trying, now, to learn not to just skip over their questions, to really be honest about  how I am.  I struggle with it so much, this feeling of being self-centred, complaining constantly, being dramatic... But I'm not, I'm actually just being honest.  In some ways it's freeing, in others a painful, laborious process.