"Dear Reader, I grew up in a household full of love and care-but also of elephants in the living room and eggshells I had to walk around so as not to ruffle a single feather. My parents are extremely sensitive and horrible listeners, so you can imagine how I coped: I lied. A lot. I lied to get away with things, but mostly I lied so that I wouldn't upset anyone or get into trouble."
"I'm writing because I want to stop. I want to tell the truth no matter the consequence-to cease relying on lies to get out of a commitment, or when I feel like I should offer a "better" reason for a choice I have made or might want to make. Any ideas for how to retrain my brain after a lifetime of this habit?"
"The mixing of the metaphors-the elephants and the eggshells-in your first sentence is very good indeed, sort of Seussian or Lewis Carroll-y. Which is how it feels to be in those situations, isn't it, in those rooms that are carpeted with how-are-they-not-broken eggs, while unmentioned elephants browse in the corners or loom behind the couch: You feel like you're in a nonsense poem, at the mercy of a meaningless and arbitrary order."
A person describes growing up in a loving but emotionally fraught household where sensitivity and poor listening enforced walking on eggshells and ignoring elephants in the room. Lying became a coping strategy to avoid upsetting parents or facing consequences, and the habit persisted into adulthood. The person wants to stop lying, to tell the truth regardless of consequence, and seeks methods to retrain their brain after a lifetime of avoidance. The columnist acknowledges the metaphor and relates to the feeling of performing politeness and agreeableness to evade conflict and maintain peace.
Read at The Atlantic
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]