Pants on Fire

4. I undertake the precept to refrain from false speech (lying).

{OK, I admit it. This is the big one. The one I was nervous about facing, the one I’m a bit reluctant to delve into. Not only because I have friends who read this thing and I’d hate for this to affect their trust of me, but because sometimes there are things about yourself that you don’t like to dwell on. But, I decided to write this blog in the spirit of honesty, and on a subject like this it would be irony of ironies that it was now that I shied away from the truth.}

I’ll start by saying this:

I was instantly attracted to my husband for three main reasons.

1) He had long hair, a big brain and a nice, kind face.
2) I could talk to him about anything and felt immediately that I could trust him.
3) He didn’t tolerate my bullshit, and my lies.

Of course, as time went on, the list of ‘things that are great about O’ got larger and larger, but these initial three were the reasons that I went on when I decided to ask him out. In some ways, Owens’ love and devotion to facts, truth and honesty can mean he is a difficult man to talk to and get on with. He is rubbish at sycophantic smalltalk or polite niceties for their own sake. But in those first few days of the relationship, it was the thing I fell head over heals in love with and the thing I knew I needed to be a central guiding influence in my life were I ever to be a happy, well adjusted person again.

Back then, my head was more concerned with fantasy than facts. For many of my teenage years I had been best friends with a pathologically compulsive liar, and some of her behaviour had, over the years, gradually rubbed off on me. Although, unlike my friend, I don’t think my lying ever got to the stage of illness, I was certainly not grounded in reality. I was deeply in love with melodrama, exaggeration, daydreams, fiction. I was not into the hard hitting truth, I was not into mundane existence, as I saw it. Unlike my friend, I would rarely invent things that were totally not true but I was very fond of embellishing things, polishing them, editing them to my favour. I am a perceptive, imaginative woman and was generally pretty good at doing this realistically without getting caught (although like many liars I could have been delusional that I was fooling everyone).

I had been a very honest child, and I think I am fairly honest by nature, but during my teenage years I somehow lost the spirit of telling the truth. At the end of the day, it was just more interesting, more exciting to say you had drank ten pints than two, told your teacher to fuck off rather than ‘yes sir’, to say you had kissed five boys, rather than none. I’m not saying I had a serious problem, and I know that many teenagers do the same thing. It’s just that for me, I have always prized honesty so highly in my life, my family and other friends are very honest people, in fact most of the people I have been close to over the years have had painfully honest, self aware streaks. Yet I developed an unhealthy habit of deviating from the truth and each time I did so, I got a bit further away from myself. After a few years of this, it got to the stage where realised I would need serious help in breaking the habit and finding my way back.

Then Owen came along. We met on the first day of university and from the word go he would just call me on my bullshit. He stamped it out as soon as he saw it, whenever he recognised it. He both encouraged and praised the times when I was honest and chastised my deceitfulness with great force. He was acutely perceptive at telling the difference. He shaped me; he was both firm and plain speaking in his demands; ‘if you want to be with me, if you want this relationship to go the distance then you are going to have to put love of truth, rather than excitement and drama, at the centre of your world. I just can’t be with someone who has it any other way.’ I am not used to ultimatums and God, it sent shivers down my spine (the good kind). It made me sit up and listen.

He claimed, and stands by this claim to this day, that despite what I might think, I am actually ten times more interesting when I’m sweating it out and wrestling with the truth of a matter than when I’m off in fantasy land. He said that he loved me more when I was just being myself and hanging out with him; even when life was humdrum, rest assured he didn’t find me boring in any way. That to seek truth and love honesty might not always be the easiest path, but was always the right, more fulfilling way. That my own personal truths when I discovered them would be more thought provoking and impressive than any half cooked exaggeration or tall tale I could come up with.

That was pretty much the nicest, most inspiring vote of confidence that anyone has ever said to me and I took his words on board. I did this, not because of his ultimatum, although by then I wanted to be his lifelong partner more than anything I have ever wanted, but because I recognised that following his guidance would make me a better, happier person. Because more than anything I was terrified of winding up like my friend, who was getting more delusional by the day. I would speak to her on the phone and she didn’t even know who she was anymore, and her lies had escalated to the extent that she was claiming ridiculous and scary things: that she was giving blowjobs to serial killers in prison, had a heroin addict stalker and was working for the government as a spy. It sounds strange to say this now, but Owen’s upfront truthfulness was the antidote to what could have been seriously dangerous territory. It was like the lighthouse beacon warning me off the rocks, a guiding light to save me from the course I was set on. His integrity was to me back then the most important and challenging thing I had ever witnessed, and to this day, it is the thing I treasure and value most about my husband.

His plan to make an ‘honest woman’ out of me has (mostly) been successful, and despite the odd setback I continue to grow in truthfulness and integrity everyday, but the path hasn’t always been easy. I still fall into old ways sometimes. I find myself saying the silliest of things, like the bus fare was four pounds instead of three pounds fifty. Or saying I’ve done things when I haven’t. It’s stupid, petty, and basically a bad habit that I am still working on.

Like I say, I very rarely out and out lie these days but one of the remaining problems I have with false speech revolves around the way I handle my health. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I have suffered mental health problems for years and until very recently I’ve dealt with them, basically, by lying my ass off. “I’m fine” was my mantra, chanted to everyone I met in the street, to my friends, to my family… even to Owen. Unless I was drunk and banging my head against a wall, or so depressed I could hardly breathe, I would basically try and put on a smiley front. I think a lot of people who know me think of me as a ‘happy depressive’ and that, my friends, is because I lie. I’m not saying I always succeed in convincing people. But I always try. This ‘coping’ method that I would halfheartedly defend (who wants to hear all my fucked up twisted thoughts? I’ll have no friends left) was exposed for the sham it really was last year.

When I attempted suicide in October, ten minutes previously I had been on the phone to my own father, saying the same hollow phrase; ‘I’m fine’. My head was in pieces, I was literally tearing my hair out, but I simultaneously laughed at all his jokes and the conversation was light-hearted and normal. We talked about the Sheffield Wednesday scores, what I was having for lunch and the relative merits of crackerbread over ricecakes. Then I put the phone down and emptied the contents of my lithium bottle down my throat. That, right there, is the danger of false speech. That is because when you are not honest about your feelings, when you lie, when you do the whole bottling/ stiffupperlip/ braveface/ bullshit, it always ends up badly. Maybe not always as dramatically as that, but always badly. After that incident my relationships with those closest to me were damaged hugely, as none of them really knew anymore whether what I was saying was anywhere near the truth. It is only now, months later, that the wounds are even starting to heal and I think in the case of my father the trust between us has been damaged almost irreparably. I should have just faced the truth, and confided in those around me; the many friends and family who love me dearly rather than relying on my acting skills and my lies in a vain attempt to cover up the truth. Painful as it is to admit you’re not coping, it is more painful to die of liver failure, surely?

So, taking this precept is of vital importance to me, in fact I would take it tomorrow. I have already made gigantic strides in this area, and I work hard every day to become a more truthful person. I would say, out of all the precepts, this is the one that makes the most sense, speaks to me most powerfully and is ethically not much of a dilemma. I have learnt the hard way that lying is damaging, that your own false speech hurts both yourself and those around you. The ones you love the most are always at the epicentre. I have witnessed that those who tell lies, even white lies, lose the trust of those around them and this eventually brings them great pain; the loss of a friendship, or even a partner. Lies are corrosive and manipulative by nature, and even when they are well intentioned often do more harm than good in the long run. Personally, I am proud to say that I am more truthful than I have ever been, but I seriously have to learn to tell the truth about the shit that’s going on in my head, my mental state. I have to stop trying to protect those around me by telling cushioning lies and be open about my feelings and my thoughts. I guess you could even say my life depends on it.