I Never Lied to Anyone I Didn't Like
The Lies Didn’t Save Me. The Truth Did.
The air around our house was always still, but never quiet. There was a heaviness to it, like the breath people held as they passed by us, afraid to exhale too loudly.
The neighbors knew.
The teachers knew.
Even the priest knew.
They exchanged glances, their eyes full of unspoken questions and quiet, calculated fear. It was as if the weight of our family’s secret had seeped into the walls, soaking in the soil. A thick, invisible fog bound us all together in a silence that grew heavier with each passing day.
No one had to say the words. Their faces said enough.
The way they smiled without softness, nodded without warmth, and turned away just a second too soon conveyed the meaning of their silence. It was a code I learned to read before I could spell the word shame.
Shame permeated every interaction like a mist. It distorted the truth until it barely resembled itself. I often wondered if that weight would ever lift—or if we were meant to carry it, hidden beneath layers of forced laughter and practiced indifference.
We don’t approve of your parents.
We think your house is toxic.
But we’re not going to do a damn thing about it.
I didn’t know how to separate myself from the yelling, the hitting, the gaslighting, and the humiliation. I was a child. I shared their last name. I lived in their house. I followed their rules.
I carried their tension as if it were an unavoidable burden.
Every blow transferred their fear, anger, and shame to me until I lost the ability to distinguish between theirs and mine.
Their pain became my identity.
I didn’t learn how to feel—I learned how to absorb.
So when people looked at my parents with disgust, I didn’t think, They see how awful this is.
I thought, They don’t like me.
They didn’t just turn away from my parents.
They turned away from me.
Every day felt like an audition for worthiness. I smiled more. I spoke softly. I tried to be useful. I tried to be invisible.
I tried to be anything but a reflection of them.
I’ll never forget what the priest said:
“Your family isn’t like anyone else.”
That was it. He showed no signs of comfort or kindness. There was no kindness in his eyes. He spoke a quiet sentence, veiled in divinity and heavy with judgment.
What I heard was, You don’t belong here.
No good person comes from a place like that.
My father beat me again.
My mother watched, her eyes full of tears, her mouth shut. That time, I ran—to the emergency room. Bruised. Bleeding. Shaking.
For a moment, I thought I had made it. I believed that I had successfully entered the realm of safety.
But safety is a myth when abusers are charming and institutions are complicit.
The hospital called my parents.
I watched them walk through the automatic doors—my father already adjusting his shirt, preparing his smile. He always had a line he used—something people often mistook for charm.
“I never lied to anyone I didn't like.”
It sounded clever. Noble, even. But what it really meant was:
If he lied to you, it’s because you weren’t worth the truth.
And he lied constantly.
My mother had a phrase, too. Quieter. Sharper. More deadly:
“Shut up, Mary.”
Not be quiet… Not, please.
Just shut up.
Every time she said it, she didn’t just silence my words—she severed my sense of safety. She shut down my instincts. She taught me that having a voice was dangerous.
They told the ER staff I was troubled. That I made up stories. I enjoyed attracting attention.
And the staff believed them.
No one asked about the bruises. No one questioned the broken nose—my third.
It's simpler to label a child as a liar than to acknowledge that adults can be monsters.
They were well-educated. Financially stable. Churchgoing. Charitable.
They hosted holiday parties and supported the “right” causes.
They appeared safe.
They appeared good.
Behind closed doors, their performances collapsed. The polished masks cracked, revealing a brutal, blistering truth.
My mother called my father a “house devil and street angel.” She never acknowledged that she shared the same traits.
Years later, my sister told me something that still makes me sick:
The neighbors called it “the house of horrors.”
Everyone knew.
After that night in the ER, I stopped talking.
Given that no one was interested in hearing the truth, what purpose did it serve?
What haunts me isn’t just what happened inside that house.
What haunts me is how the outside world allowed it to happen.
The teachers maintained their distance.
The neighbors whispered from behind their curtains.
The priest offered judgment but no grace.
The hospital dismissed me as a problem, not as a person in need of salvation.
They all knew.
They all chose silence.
And in that silence, I learned to interpret every raised eyebrow, every side comment, and every stiff smile as confirmation that I was still that girl:
Too much.
Not enough.
Wrong.
So yes, I flinch at conflict.
Yes, I go quiet when someone’s tone shifts.
Yes, I’ve struggled in relationships—with men, women, and anyone I let close enough to see the parts I was taught to hide.
You don't just learn to survive in a house like that.
You learn to exist under observation and abandonment—at the same time.
You’ve heard it before:
“It made me stronger.”
Maybe someone said it to you.
Maybe you’ve said it to yourself.
Sometimes, it's easier to label something as strength rather than recognizing its true nature.
It’s easier to say we were forged by fire than to admit we were burned.
It makes people more comfortable.
It gives the pain a purpose.
But here’s the truth:
Not everything that hurts you makes you stronger.
And sometimes, it just hurts.
And we carry that hurt forward.
We learn to fear love.
We mistake chaos for comfort.
We call it home.
But I don’t stay quiet anymore.
I’ve had enough of pretending.
Just because my father tried to kill me doesn’t mean he deserves my protection, my respect, or my love.
My mother doesn’t either.
They are both dead now.
They never apologized.
I didn’t attend their funerals.
That wasn’t cruelty.
That was clarity.
That was the moment I stopped carrying their shame and started reclaiming my truth.
No, I didn’t lie.
As a child, I was known for speaking the truth—even when it made people uncomfortable.
I still speak it.
Even when it causes people to recoil, I continue to speak it.
People say I’m too direct. Too passionate. Too much.
But I don’t speak for comfort.
I speak because I’ve lived it.
Saying it out loud doesn’t make me cruel.
It makes me free.
Talking about it reclaims my story.
And maybe—just maybe—it gives someone else permission to speak theirs.
Silence didn't save me.
The truth did.
If that makes you uncomfortable, good.
Sit with it.
Let it disturb you.
Let it dismantle what you thought you knew.
Because it’s in that discomfort that growth begins.
Understanding flourishes.
Perhaps, for the first time, we can begin constructing a world where silence does not equate to safety.
True