The world is a wretched place when you don’t know false from real.
Brandilyn Collins, “Deceit”
I’m listening to this book and, when the above quote came up, I kept repeating it over and over until I could stop and type it into my Notes. It struck something deep inside my brain. It was like a small light shining on something I was trying to figure out in my head. I had been lied to so many times that I never knew the false from the real. To me, though, when I was living it, it was just life. I didn’t realize it at the time, it was just what I knew.
Blurred Reality
In abusive relationships, one of the main goals of the abuser is to blur reality. This is the best way to control someone and keep them emotionally where they want them. They are “master manipulators”. I’d never heard that term before I went into counseling, but I hear it much more often now. Maybe it’s because I’m in tune with it now, but it is a fitting description for those who abuse and deceive others as a lifestyle. They choose to live in constant betrayal of the truth so they can control others by twisting and turning, lying and betraying. They do whatever they have to do to make life what they want at any given moment.
Unfortunately, for the abused, this is their reality. Everything is fluid. There is no stability or constants. Truth becomes whatever their abuser wants it to be at any given moment. Life is ever-changing and there is always a possibility of another attack, another disappointment and, in some cases, another beating. Life becomes completely about deception.
A Life of Lies
My husband lived a life of lies and, therefore, so did I. I never knew what was going on. There were so many times that I thought things were going well only to find out later that he had been doing something other than what he said. Any good memories I have with him are marred by the fact that life wasn’t what it had appeared to be. He was leading an entirely different life than what I knew.
And it wasn’t just his “extracurricular activities” (as I call them), but he would constantly change his preferences on daily activities, meals, etc. and what he said we were going to do or not do. I never knew which version of him I was going to get when he came home. It was like living in insanity. There was no place to become rooted and grow. I constantly had to move, change and be prepared for his new reality.
I can’t imagine how awful it was living in his head, in his life, because I know how frustrating and confusing it was living with him. I rarely could do something just the way he liked it or to make him happy. I believed I wasn’t enough…that I was incapable of ever being enough. I didn’t even know what enough looked like. I didn’t know false from real.
It was indeed a wretched place to live, but I now have a chance to find the real. I am not trapped in that ever-changing reality anymore. However, by living in a life of lies, I learned to take life as it comes. I try to enjoy things as they happen and I don’t lean too much on promises and plans that have been made. I’m in no way saying that living the life of lies was good, only that there was some good that came out of it.
~ Joanna Lynn
