Day Eighty Four

I thought dishonesty was protecting me. Protecting people from getting too close to me, protecting the image I wanted to portray, and protecting the only way of life I thought would work.

I spent so long in therapy desperate to do literally anything to not feel awful about my life, but only as far as it involved still doing the thing that made me feel awful about my life. That fear of living outside of my world was so powerful.

Honesty’s linguistic roots come from the word “whole.” Honesty means to not fracture ourselves into pieces. It makes us our entire self. Living sober for me means I need to live honestly, because they both are things that make me whole.

I thought I had things to lose by living honestly, but it transpired that I gained more stability and peace. I didn’t have to keep tabs on my lies, keeping a graph of all the versions I was portraying to all the different people, and the little lies I was telling along the way. I didn’t have to exaggerate to keep people interested, I could offer exactly what I had and discover that that was actually enough. It took way less energy, and it loosened that fear that I was going to get found out and exposed as a fraud. That feeling took longer to leave, but it is lasting and the longer I am honest the more comfortable it becomes.