Tag: lies

Why Telling the Truth is Good

Elm12 Comments

When you’re in a difficult situation, where your brain convinces you to lie to someone because you think it’ll hurt less (it doesn’t) and because you’re scared of them thinking worse of you, telling the truth after that can be extremely tricky. It can hurt both yourself and others but there are a lot of positives to doing it and getting over your fear. On Wednesday, I told two of my best friends the entire truth about a situation that I had experienced three months ago or so and though I sobbed like a child in the nearly deserted common room, it was worth it and it needed to be done.

Upon explaining everything, both to them and another friend before, I came to rather, lise that I’ve been lying to the point where it’s damaged relationships. Telling the truth may be hard but it’s necessary for you to feel happy. If you’re struggling over telling someone something, I want to explain some of the positives to you.

It strengthens relationships
Admitting you lied to someone is really nervewracking and they may be annoyed at you for it. I’ve certainly experienced that but what I found, above all on Wednesday, was that people much prefer it when you tell them the truth. If you’re honest and tell them how much you fucked up, it shows them that you trust them. Trust may be broken at first because they may believe that you didn’t trust them enough to tell them the truth in the first place but when you admit that to them, it can add a level of understanding to your friendships. I won’t lie: it could go the other way but the gamble of honesty is worth it.

Things aren’t so complex
Not only does lying upset other people but it can leave your head in a mess as you try and remember who knows what; it’s a horrible state to be in because you can end up manipulating people. It is only natural, therefore, that you should remove those feelings as soon as possible. One of the easiest ways to do that is to tell as many people the truth as you can who you’ve lied to; it clears it up, lets people in on how you’re feeling and makes your head less cluttered. People have asked me why I’ve been feeling so awful but I haven’t been able to explain it properly until I told Wren and Red everything that went on. The simple act of explaining it caused my mind to relax a little from the painful twisting state it had been in; the first person I truly told[q~@]- who I’d lied to – started that relieving; my other friends carried it on.

You feel happier and less awful
Guilt is a central part to lying and it’s one of the worst consequences of doing something horrible. By owning up to it and telling someone, it doesn’t weigh as heavy: it’s still there, especially because of the disappointment that is (rightfully) displayed at how you lied, but at least some of it goes away. You also feel happier because for me, a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I didn’t have to hide or pretend and if I hadn’t told the truth, I would have fallen apart. I was already doing that and it took me explaining shit for me to understand just how bad it was.

You can show people you’re able to move forward
If you’ve got your own thoughts for company, wherein only you know how you’ve been feeling or what you’ve been doing, it means you can’t move on. If you’re good at sorting out your own feelings then it’s okay but if you’re like me, the thoughts spin round and round in your head with no resolution. It hurts and does me no good. On the contrary, sharing things with other people helped me to face up to it and understand what I’d done; it really allows you to move on from the situation by forcing the results of it to become apparent to you.

You can understand who your true friends are
Lying is only an okay thing when it will have no consequences for anyone. When it does and you then tell someone the truth, it’s natural and understandable that they’ll be upset with you. In fact, I’d want people to be angry with me for misjudging their personality enough to lie to them. It absolutely wasn’t fair of me to do that. However, when I told Wren and Red, they explained that they still loved me, always have and always would and that this wouldn’t change that. I figured out that the people who are my real friends, who – whether sensible or not – would stick by me are the ones that can see the reasons why I lied and let me make up for it, as well as move forward. Some things are unforgivable and I don’t blame people for being upset with me because I would be but I know that if such trust is lost by lying, perhaps it would be best that the person distanced themselves from me.

You aren’t superhuman. You’re going to make mistakes, lie and upset people. It’s alright to do that. However, as terrifying as it is, telling the truth can make things a lot easier. Not in all cases but in a lot of them, honesty can be the best solution.

If you’re hurting right now and don’t understand why someone did what they did, think about it from their perspective. That can apply to those who lied and those who are angry because you lied. There are always more than two sides to a story.

From Elm 🙂

The Problem with Showing People your Blog

Elm41 Comments

As of yesterday, Ivy – one of my best friends – is the only person, besides myself, who knows pretty much everything that has happened over the last year. I spent the afternoon with her in the park, talking, laughing and us both getting embarrassed and morbidly fascinated about the situations that have both happened to us. Having not seen her for about 6 months, we caught up on everything and I told all of the things I had told other people but unlike other people, she was told all of it without me dancing around the subjects.

There are many upsides to showing people in real life your blog, especially when – like me – you talk about your personal feelings and life. One of them is that people get to know you better and understand you; another is that you can show them a big part of your life and another is to show that you trust them with how you feel. However, even if the positives far outweigh the negatives, there is something unavoidable that can happen. You can’t always tell the truth.

Some things I’ve desperately wanted to talk about and others would have been nice to just post a little about. It’s not that I don’t trust my friends: I do more than anything in the world, but there are some subjects I just can’t talk about with some friends and others I can’t talk about with other groups, mainly because I don’t feel comfortable discussing certain things and also because if I did, I’d get other people involved which could escalate the situation. The issue here is that people from different parts of my life read my blog – the VI community, very close friends at school, people I’ve been in relationships with – and I respect them all but not all of them know enough for me to post about it. If I did post about what I really want to post about, it would maybe upset people who still mean a lot to me and I don’t want that. I’m half protecting my own selfish skin and half stopping others from getting needlessly angry at each other… Bloody hell, this is complicated and I can’t even say it plainly!

For me, my blog is a place to let out my emotions. Not being able to let them out has probably caused me to shut down a little, meaning I don’t tell people what I’d want to say on my blog – now I think about it, that’s stupid, because surely if I couldn’t post it then telling people would be a good way to get advice? My mind is completely illogical sometimes. I think that because I don’t have this outlet as much as I’d want to, I subconsciously just refused to open up to the people who I know would listen, e.g my friends and all of you.

It’s not that I’m scared of what my readers would say. It’s because I’m scared of the judgement I’d get from people who I know shouldn’t judge me but would; I’m absolutely terrified of fucking up again and so I just don’t tell people what, maybe, it would be sensible to say. That makes me sad but it’s what comes with showing something I’m really proud of to my group of friends who couldn’t be more supportive but would they be supportive if I told them everything? I hope so but I don’t know if I can take that risk.

Even now, I feel awful for writing this. My legendary “paranoia” is telling me that when people I know read this, they’ll think I hate them and then will start hating me. I never said it was logical but now I’m worried that I’m going to upset someone.

Often, I tell those who’s blogs I read to post what they want to post because it’s their blog and that still rings true. I wish I could take my own advice because sometimes I feel trapped, not because I’ve done anything necessarily bad but because I know, if I had posted honestly about what happened from the beginning, from last May to now, things might have been easier and I might have made a lot of different decisions based on your amazing advice. Who knows, though? The decisions I made felt (mostly) right at the time.

The only times I post about things that may be considered “sensitive” are when I get permission from someone who might read it because that’s just polite and also when all the people reading it in real life know about it because if it was a big thing, which it often would be, I would have told them straight away. An example of that is what happened in October but even then I felt guilty. All of my friends knew but the post itself was so hard to write because I had to get the balance of revealing information and not accidentally making people irritated right, which I wish I didn’t have to do.

I think, after this, I need to start being a little bit more honest. Perhaps I should start explaining to my friends what’s been happening but that would involve me straight-up telling them I lied to them, something I’m uncomfortable with doing. On the other hand, I caused this and so it’s only right I make it better by actually telling the truth and not worrying about judgement.

Remember that your blog is your own and you should only tell people – if your blog’s a place for you to get your thoughts out – if you feel comfortable with them knowing everything. I don’t want you guys to be in a situation where you end up twisting the truth because you feel like you have no other option. I won’t defend myself because it was a shitty thing for me to do, along with a bunch of other things but now it’s all done, there’s no changing it or going back so I have to deal with those consequences.

I don’t regret telling people about my blog or showing it to them. What does make me sad is how that all turned into me avoiding telling people the truth, which meant I physically couldn’t post about it. However, like I say to people all the time, this is my outlet and I shouldn’t be controlled by what others think.

Have you told a lot of people about your blog and what kind of positives, or problems, has that brought you?

From Elm 🙂

I Can be A Horrible Person

Elm48 Comments

Over the last 2 weeks, I’ve fucked up totally, upset multiple people and most likely ruined two of the best friendships I’ve ever had. I want to put that out there first without any sugar-coating.

Up until too recently than I’m comfortable with, when I used to spectacularly screw up, I denied it: I locked myself into a loop of violently blaming myself but actually refused to admit I’d done wrong or to think about it. It’s a flaw that I was aware of but not enough; I’ve come to the realisation that I need to really think about who I want to be. The former I still have but the latter? I’m thinking about what I’ve done. I’m owning up to it; I almost want people to know what a shit person I’ve been so that they don’t have any illusions about me. Will it make people respect me less? Most likely. Do I care? Absolutely but if I fuck up, I have to face the consequences.’

I won’t justify what I did because I don’t deserve it: I won’t go into detail but I neglected friends and exchanged lasting things for things that may be fleeting.

Things have got complicated inside my head. It’s a twist of confusion, strange feelings and attempting to balance my happiness with making other people happy. It’s selfishness versus selflessness and I don’t know what to do; I feel cold, angry with myself but mostly so, so guilty.

I never mean to hurt people. It’s always that something happens, it runs away with me; I panic, start to tell people different things, get so paranoid that I can’t think and then everything goes to hell. If I had just talked to people about things, then the situations wouldn’t have happened but if those hadn’t had happened, I wouldn’t learn. I wouldn’t have come to some realisations about my feelings that are scary but that I have to think about. However, there’s no excuse to upset people even if I had no idea what I was doing or if I thought that people knew things they didn’t know: I should have been more aware, but ‘should have’ didn’t happen and all I can do is just own up to it and face up to what I did.

Unlike this morning, I don’t feel violent with myself. Earlier I wanted to smash everything, to hurt my body like I’d hurt other people’s minds and to just teach myself a lesson. At some points, I have to put my hands behind my back to remind myself that I’m still here and that causing myself to hurt more than I already do would solve nothing. I stayed up for a long time last night thinking, the vicious anger crawling up my spine as I remembered how unfair it was of me to treat people terribly.

Now, I have to think carefully about where I go from here. It’s no longer just my feelings: other people are involved and how I act, how I think and who I trust will shape the current friendships I have. It’s terrifying but all I know is that I want people to be happy. All I want is for no one to get hurt and for everyone to communicate properly so that there is no more backstabbing, no more lies, no more secrets and fears and worries. I won’t get that – especially from myself – and I know that, but I’ll try. I’ll do my bloody best to try.

This isn’t me asking for pity, or for you to tell me that I didn’t mess up or make people angry. I know I did and I’ll freely admit that; I feel absolutely atrocious about it. Even if no one believes me, I’ll say it here so it’s here forever; I’ll say it because it’s one of the things I know.

I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry for hurting people; I’m sorry for lying; I’m sorry that I wasn’t honest about how I felt. I’m sorry that I can be a god-awful friend and that I avoid my problems, that I could have prevented the situations that are now making me feel this way because I was too worried that everyone would hate me. I’m sorry I was just never there like I should have been and that I try to fix things but make it worse.

I want to become a better person. I want to be happy. Most of all, though, I want you all to understand that I’m human, I do stupid things and make bad decisions. I’m admitting that, though.

Don’t beat yourself up for doing something bad like I’m doing now. Just remember – like I should – that when you explain a situation to someone, make sure you think about both sides or however many there are. Don’t make people turn against one another because you’ve only talked about one side, shown one text or presented a distorted view of things. Tell them that it’s your side and let them form their own opinions. X’the one thing I’ve done about this that I’m proud of; I’m so done with only explaining one perspective.

I can be better. I just have to make a conscious effort to try. At least I’m writing this here so that there’s a permanent record: I was horrible; I am horrible; I will be horrible but at least I know that. I won’t hide it.

Love from Elm 🙂

Letter to a Liar

Elm4 Comments

Dear you,
I have a nagging, horrible feeling that you lied to me, somewhere along the way. Maybe it’s my constant paranoia, but maybe it’s not.

It would be absolutely terrible if you had lied about that. What it was, when it happened, how it affected our relationship moving forward from me finding about that. The latter, if touched by any lie you told, would just make things… Wrong. I’d have to re-evaluate my feelings towards you, towards our previous (and dare I say, current) friendship, so here’s to hoping I never find out for sure whether you did or not.

I’m being elusive again, like I was in my last letter. It just means that yet again, I won’t reveal who this “you” is. The exact thing you might have lied about won’t be said either, because that’s too invasive, and barely anyone knew when you told me – though maybe a thousand different people know exactly what occurred that day, from your perspective.

It breaks my heart to know that I have so little faith in you now that I’d even consider that you lied – when we were close, or much closer than we are now, the thought of you lying about something so important to you and I was inconceivable. I scoffed at that idea, because I was absolutely certain you would always be honest: you’d tell me when I was awful; you’d let me know if something happened; you’d be the person I could rely on. For a time, you were that, like my own little light in the confusion that was my head, but you aren’t that now.

The reality is that I don’t trust you. I’m not sure when I stopped, and I could easily dive back into the well of trust that you and I once had, but that would hurt. When you’re not sure if the foundation of your friendship or feelings were based off lies, it’s difficult not to fall into a different kind of well entirely – one of endless worry. Luckily, I’ve not despaired so much as to be like that, yet, and I never want to get that low.

Some people say that I never should have trusted you in the first place, but I disagree. You were something special to me, that I’ve moved on from but still hurts in a little corner of my mind, and I can’t forget that. You brought me happiness and laughter, security and friendship before any pain. What you did wasn’t your fault, I know – and not mine, though I convince myself it is. Somehow.

I can’t talk about untruths, because I lied to you too. You may not know it – you may suspect – but I did, after it all. Never did I lie during our friendship, or whatever you want to call it. It was only after: after my morals twisted a little and I became even more suspicious of everything, that I told you things that weren’t the truth. Like a lot of liars, I did it to stop you hurting, to shield you and me from something – your anger, my hurt, my fucked up sense of what was right? I don’t know.

I wonder – did you do what I did? Perhaps I’ve overthought this, but let’s go with the idea that you lied: did you do it to save yourself, or to help me? I wish I’d known, and you’d known, that lying only brings complex tragedy. Wishing for changes in the past gets you nowhere: ultimately, we didn’t know and so the web of lies that I now can’t reveal to certain people for fear of fucking things up even more than I have has entangled me.

In a parody of thought, I’ll be honest with you. I miss you, but I miss the version of happiness we had. One that wasn’t tempered by cynicism and careful dancing over subjects that would reveal that I’d been dishonest, or you, or either of us; I don’t know what’s reality any more when it comes to what we had. That’s the thing: I could have avoided lying, and you could have too, if we weren’t so scared of the other’s reaction. Fuck knows if, and when, you lied but I know that I was so petrified and still am that if you find out the truth of what I did after things went to shit, you’d hate me and never speak to me again.

I’m done with lies, and secrets, and stupid amounts of care to get my words right in case I step over the line. If I don’t trust you, and I’m worried you lied, maybe it’s better if I remove myself from this situation. It hurts, but you don’t deserve to think about someone who got so overwhelmed and miserable by her situation that she spoke to the one person who hurt you, who did the same thing to you that they did to me.

Perhaps people are destined to lie if they have to, but that doesn’t mean it’ll continue. I’ll never find out if you told me the truth that day, but I don’t really want to know. I want to love who I love without being terrified that they’d lie to me without thinking, and then get so caught up in lies that we run away. I think that’s what we both did, and that’s okay, because moving forward, I can remember to always, always be honest: it’s what you taught me, then and now, when your honesty made me happy, when it didn’t and when your lack of it made me think.

I won’t be bitter over something that might not have happened the way I thought. Life’s too short for that.

From me 🙂

When Your Entire Perception of Someone Shatters

Elm25 Comments

Sometimes, you find out that everything you thought about a person is… Wrong. Just wrong.

Yesterday, that situation happened to me. Ever since 10 o’clock last night, I’ve been unable to think properly about much. Questioning everything I know about that person, and about everyone else too. I can’t talk about it because:
1. I promised I wouldn’t
2. I’m not actually ALLOWED to talk about it
3. I don’t really want to talk about it
4. It’s too horrible to talk about or summarise in a sentence

If you get told something and find out that it’s a lie, a COMPLETE LIE, then it’s only natural to feel confused and hurt. Because I can’t go into specifics, I want to offer you some advice from someone who understands how horrible it is to think one thing about a person and then have that smash into pieces, so that you don’t know where you stand. Technically, the siffuation doesn’t apply to me, but I feel personally affected and guilty so I need to get my thoughts out.

Don’t blame yourself for it. That’s the most important thing. Because how were you to know that what you’ve been told is wrong? You’ve built up one person to be a “hero” or a “villain” in your head, and if you have that flipped over, I can understand why you’d feel as if you should have known. I’m telling you that that’s wrong.

When you’re fed one line, and only one, there’s no other option but to accept it as fact. You don’t even know that the choice exists to question it, because you trust the person that’s saying things to you. Once what really happened is brought to light, yes: you’ll kick yourself and ask yourself how you could have been so stupid as to just blindly accept it all. However, you can’t be held responsible for thinking something is the truth when you were never, ever given the other three sides to the story. It isn’t your fault if you had NO other information.

If you’re not actually supposed to know, then don’t tell anyone. The only reason I was told this thing was because the person in question thought I deserved to know, because I had a distorted view of the whole thing. Now everything makes sense, and I’m analysing everything I thought I knew ever since I was first told what supposedly happened. Also, DON’t even hint to the person that you know. I’m sensible enough not to, because if I do, a whole lot of shit will come my way which won’t just affect me by far.

When the way you view a person changes in a day, the only thing you can do is think about who YOU are. It’s not an adventure, a wild story to gossip about. It’s real and hurts people and it’s based on half-truths, outright lies, and so many more complicated layers. That’s what a situation is always comprised of, isn’t it? People never telling each other the truth, through no fault of their own maybe, but still.

Always remember that some things are so much more complex than they first appear. You can dislike a person but still feel so sorry for them. You can feel guilty and end up liking a person when a day ago, you thought they were awful. Things change, your view of people changes, and that’s TOTALLY FINE.

You’re not wrong if you don’t know what to think any more. I don’t, and I’m not wrong. I was just… Misguided.

From Elm 🙂