Why Telling the Truth Scared Me—And How It Healed Me

[Barb Nangle]

Photo Credit: Anete Lusina

Telling the truth can be really scary sometimes, especially if you’ve been dishonest for much of your life. Given my history of addiction, compulsion, obsession, mental health problems, and growing up in a dysfunctional family, it makes total sense why telling the truth was so scary for me. Withholding information was a tool I used to control, manipulate, and feel safe for most of my life.

But I didn't really even know that was going on. I thought I was an honest person when I got into recovery at age 52. NOPE! Not true! This is what’s called “denial” in recovery (D-E-N-I-A-L: Don’t Even Notice I’m A Liar). 

It was through the process of 12-step recovery that I came to see how dishonest I was. I outright lied about stuff sometimes, but my main form of dishonesty was withholding information. I call that “managing information.” I did it to construct the image I wanted people to have of me. That might have been that I wanted them to think I was nice or kind or helpful or smart or knowledgeable or generous, whatever.

I can now see the root cause of that was that I cared more what other people thought about me than what I thought of myself. That meant that I was willing to be dishonest to get what I wanted. That’s another way of saying I was willing to compromise my integrity for the “good opinion” of others. I was willing to throw my integrity out the window so you’d approve of me. I'm not willing to do that anymore. 

I’m going to recount a situation that happened a few years ago in the hopes that it will be instructive for you in seeing your own patterns, whether they’re patterns of dishonesty or something different. 

What I learned about telling the truth. 

In a moment I’ll share the actual truth of the matter at hand here. The truth of this situation is not anywhere near as important as me TELLING the truth about it (at least for me, in this instance). 

A few years ago, a situation arose in my business where I had a feeling of holding on to something like I was a pressure cooker. Tension was building and I didn't know what it was until it came out through journaling. Journaling revealed that the pressure resulted from my fear that people would find out the truth about something. As I started thinking about telling the truth, I realized I had much more fear of telling the truth than fear of people finding out what that truth actually was. 

The truth I’d been afraid to share was that the first time I tried to recruit participants for a group coaching program I was offering, no one signed up. The only person who got in did so for free because of a promotion I did. I felt really shitty about it. The idea that I shouldn't let other people know that nobody had signed seemed kind of crazy to me. except that it’s not, given my history of dishonesty. Withholding information was like a well-worn groove that was easy to slip into.

There’s so much about this that’s interesting. At first, I didn't even know I had fear. I could just feel the pressure in my body, and I had to do some journaling to get at it. The pressure was that I was trying to push down or cover up the truth. I wanted to keep other people from finding out that nobody had signed up for my group coaching program. 

All this information about the coaching program pales in comparison to what I learned about myself in terms of telling the truth. The idea of telling the truth made me feel like I was going to die. It was really painful, as was the realization that I really didn’t want to tell the truth.

This situation reminded of when I first got into recovery. I did the 12 steps with three other women and when we started doing the new behaviors, whether it was telling the truth, setting a boundary, or taking time for ourselves, we’d say to each other, “I did the thing and I didn't die!”

We joked about not dying! We felt like we really needed to keep saying, “…and I didn't die” because we honestly felt like we were going die when even thinking about engaging in our new behavior. Personally, I felt that it was psychologically important for me to reinforce for myself that I didn't die from doing the new thing. I needed to get that info into my subconscious mind so it would register: You Did The Thing And Didn’t Die.

If you're new to changing your behavior patterns, it can be scary. But guess what? You're not going to die! Even if it feels like it, you’re not going to die!

The reward of telling the truth is that you respect yourself. You've shown up for yourself in a way you may never have before. I think of it as becoming closer to God because of something my deceased brother Pat once said to me: “If you don’t want to know the truth, then you don’t want to know God, because God is truth.” So if you can't tell the truth, you can't get close to God

And so, dear reader, I challenge you: if there's something you've been withholding from someone, even if it's yourself you've been withholding it from, tell the truth. It will set you free and bring you into integrity with yourself. 

Back when I went through this whole situation, I started by telling the truth about my coaching program to my coach. I told her I’d be posting about it on social media. Then I told my sweetheart. Then I posted it. Then I told a sponsee who said, “I’m having a problem with fear” and asked how I deal with it. I told him that story and he was really grateful because it helped him to realize that he was trying to massage the truth in a situation where he was fearful and that the truth is the truth. If you tell the truth, you don’t have to be afraid of people finding it out. 

I later had an outreach call with someone new to recovery, and I shared the same story with her. She was moved by my story and got some healing from our conversation. Look what happened there: I told the truth and didn’t die. In fact, I reinforced my integrity (another word for wholeness) AND I was able to contribute to the healing of the people I shared the story.

How crazy is that?? I was afraid, and that fear led me to the truth, which led to my healing and the healing of others. So again, if you’re withholding something, tell it. Tell the truth. It will lead to your wholeness. I promise you.

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