Uncensored

Part 16

Everybody lies. My favorite lies are those of omission- when one justifies lying by not having done or said anything false, yet it's exactly about the unsaid. Some people are really good at lying, sometimes constructing entire lives around their lives. Some people are easily lied to and believe almost anything. And some people call some lies "white" to make themselves feel better about it. I always thought of myself as a decent lie detector. I have been lied to by clients, but instead of thinking myself as naïve, I think I'm being lied to successfully because I take client confidentiality serious and thus assume there should be no reason for a client to lie (as it would only inhibit the therapeutic process). But everybody lies, dysfunctional people especially so.

Often, I think of lying as a means of control. People lie to control the information the other receives, to control an outcome, and to control the way other people look at them. Do we even still feel sorry for lying? Apparently not enough not to do it.

And then there is this thing that happens when you find out you've been lied to. First of all, you gain the moral high ground. Since you're the one who's been wronged, you now have moral superiority. But there is also a shift in power. Often, lying gives more power to the liar, but when found out, the power is shifted to the other person. The part that fascinates me is when a lie is found out, but not called out. I knew the person was lying, maybe I knew for years, but I didn't say anything. Perhaps to not disturb the peace, perhaps to keep the power, or maybe just because I couldn't prove it, although I knew I was right. Have you ever known you were right but you couldn't prove it? And the other person might have repeated the lie so many times that they feel they cannot possibly, ever, admit that it was a lie, because that would destroy everything. So don't you build a house on a weak foundation.

I, for once, would prefer the truth, but especially for someone to have the courage for truth, which will carry us much further than our lies. So we wait and maybe one day you'll have the courage. Every day you don't, I know the truth and you still think you are a fantastic liar. In the end: who is fooling who?