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The Truth is Out There

arfie
arfie
Compulsive truth telling was one of my first developments when I began over-coming my mutism\stuttering in preadolescence. It was even rewarded to high degrees. My parents often bribed me in order to keep me from blurting the family truths to the world. It has been the mainstay of my recovery. Even when delusional states cause me to distort the truth, my compulsive honesty eventually sorts it out.

However...

I am currently reviewing how easily my compulsive truth telling is tantamount to rubbing salt in open wounds. How often my need to super-impose my own priorities get in the way of another's self-discovery. How often I use truths as rocks to bruise, brutalize and maim. How often I appoint myself as the rightful owner and distributor of the truth.

I am reviewing talks I have had and heard in the Alanon rooms about the benefits of letting people discover their own truths in their own time. The information is out there. I can allow others to discover it themselves when they are ready to make use of it. Constant nagging only builds resistance.

Just chewing...
LeoX3
LeoX3
Hmm. It's so tempting to point out truths we (think we) see in others....

When I did AlAnon they said that if you're gonna tell someone else the truth of them, you better know the truth of yourself and be prepared to hear it back.... Which always slowed me down....

Chew and ponder indeed....
Rizen
Rizen
Truth is also in the eye of the beholder. It's hard to let people make their own mistakes but it's how people learn.
I think of a Mighty Mighty Bosstones song that talks about this guy who was in Vietnam and makes up stories:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNpgpslsTnY
"There is this older guy
That comes around from time to time
We're sure that he fought in the war
The war in Vietnam

Most of what he tells us
No one's verified
He swears that he was there
The day that Brendan Behan died"
but then they say:
"The truth is what he's been through
And what he's had to do
What he's seen and what he's done
All things considered
What he's telling us isn't hurting anyone

All things considered, he's not bitter
He's not mean, no, he's not done
All things considered
What he's telling us isn't hurting anyone"

I really like the line about how the truth is what he's done and how he's not bitter. What he's telling isn't hurting anyone.

I don't know if this has anything to do with you but it helped me put things in place.
Community Leadermujicaptsd
mujicaptsd
It's an issue for those of us who come from families deeply engaged in cover ups, isn't it? When I left my family in Uruguay and came to the USA, Uruguay was under dictatorship with no freedom of expression, just like the lack of freedom in my family there, too.

So I thought I was a whistleblower now, like Woodward and Bernstein during Watergate or something, up here in this society with freedom of speech. I thought I was going to bring down the tyranny of my family with my words.

It turned out life was a little more complicated than that. Still working on secrets and, to quote the Kenny Rogers song, "when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em"