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The Peroxide Story

Amy’s mother, who often stressed honesty to her children, would use peroxide to clean out cuts or bruises. She would say, “Now if you cry, it won’t bubble up and do its job.” Believing her mother, Amy repeatedly stifled her tears when she got the peroxide treatment. Then one day, her brother took a nasty tumble off his bike and rushed into the house howling in pain. When their mother poured peroxide over the bruises, Amy felt alarmed when her brother kept crying and wanted to yell, “Stop crying or the peroxide won’t bubble.” To her astonishment, he continued crying and the peroxide did bubble. Amy watched in disbelief, feeling horrified: “She lied! It doesn’t matter if you cry.” This seemingly small event shattered Amy’s sense of trust with her mother. “Why did she do that? What else is she lying about? Do I tell my brother and sister that our mother lies?”

Trying to Fit In by Exaggerating the Truth

Andrea’s story: “As a young child in school I often made up or exaggerated stories to get attention or to impress people in the hope they would like me. In class when the teacher asked us to say how many states in the union we’d visited, I said thirty-eight when it was really thirty-one—I wanted to have visited more states than anybody else. I’d understate what I’d paid for something—it was really a good buy. Later I would monitor my words to help me fit in, please someone, or do the ‘right’ thing. I’d even pray, ‘Please God help me say the right thing at the right time.’ I realized later that my chronic dishonesty came out of deep feelings of being unlovable and not fitting in. A life change came about when I made a complete commitment to be truthful.”

Fear of Conflict

“My greatest fear was having someone angry at me, so I avoided conflict as if it were a fatal disease. I’d say ‘I’m fine’ when I was sad, or ‘It doesn’t matter,’ when someone hurt me, and I never told my husband how desperately lonely I was in our marriage. In close relationships I gave off mixed signals—I’d act friendly and do a lot of things for people but never talk about the turmoil underneath. I’d feel hurt or upset when they didn’t reciprocate. I was bewildered and sad when I felt someone pulling away but never said anything—I’d just have this numbing kind of hurt.

“I was chronically indirect and would make hints or ask questions to get my way. Instead of saying, ‘I’d like to go to the zoo,’ I’d ask my husband, ‘Don’t you think it would be good to take the kids to the zoo?’ My hinting and cajoling made people angry and impatient with me. ‘Just tell me what you want!’ my husband would practically scream at me. With a huge commitment and lot of work, I’ve finally found that place in me that knows what I want and then has the courage to say it. At first I feared being told I was arrogant and demanding, but over time my fear was proven false—at least most of the time—and my relationships are much better.”

Denying a Child’s Reality

Another woman, Leah, recounted, “My mother would agree to let me go to the movies. I’d bring it up to her in front of my father—‘Can I go to the movies now?’ And if he said, ‘Shouldn’t you stay home and help around the house?’ my mother would say, ‘I never told you you could go.’ I would argue and plead—‘But you said I could go!’ and she’d repeat that she never said such a thing. I’d feel utterly hysterical inside—totally abandoned and alone. To this day when someone lies to me I can feel that place in my chest start to fire up and I want to convince them that they’re lying. I vowed I would never lie to my children. It was such a horrible feeling.”

Can you remember similar feelings and situations and how they played themselves out in your life? Were the distortions of truth subtle or blatant? Did you vow to be different, or do you find yourself doing exactly what was done to you, or a mixture of both? Gandhi’s words—there is an indescribable luster of truth, more intense than that of the sun