A TESTIMONY: The Truth about being Truthful

I never considered myself to be a mighty woman of truth; I really wanted to be, but unfortunately I am prone to occasional exaggeration.
I never considered myself a liar either, on the contrary, I try real hard to opt for truth wherever I can.

Yet, when I started looking into the state of my boundaries I was shocked. Actually appalled would be a more accurate description of my feelings at the time. I realized that I was not truthful at all with myself and others in my life about my needs and my feelings.

Yes, I was truthful about my age, my weight (okay sometimes), my weaknesses, my debt, my parenting struggles, and recipes I passed on, but I was seldom truthful about my own needs and feelings.

The reason for this: I was and still is to some degree a people pleaser. I don’t like conflict and I don’t like it if people are angry with me. I want to make sure I act exactly right, so as to not offend anyone. This is indeed a unattainable goal and a horrible way to live.

Growing up as a Pastor’s kid I knew that we had to portray a certain image of perfection in our manner and behavior. I started reading people even as a little kid: I could sense when they approved of my behavior and when they didn’t, and I made mental notes. I started living my life in a way that I thought others would approve of.

I hated conflict and believed that to get angry or disagree with someone was to be “bad”.
So I vowed to find ways of avoiding conflict and angry feelings. I would read a person and then act in a way that would please them. I would also pick up on someone’s tone in a discussion and then change my answers and opinion to agree with the person’s point of view, thus steering clear of conflict.

It went further than this: Because of my heightened sense of responsibility I would feel responsible to help other people get along in all kind of situations. This was exhausting and nerve wrecking! I would entertain 30 people and franticly try to keep them all happy and out of the murky waters of conflict.

Never once did I stop to think

• What did God want me to do/say at this party?
• Is this really what I wanted from this party?
• Did I really want all this tension inside me?
• What was my real opinion about things being said and discussed?

Never once did I stop to think

• What would have happened if I didn’t control everything?
• Did I steer others from the truth by avoiding conflict?
• Did people really get to know the true me?
• Did I really get to know them in a true way?
• Did I maybe keep people from speaking the truth into the lives of others by steering them away from asking confrontational questions or starting up uncomfortable discussions?
• Was I trying to play God?

No, I didn’t even consider these things. I just felt responsible and horrible at the same time. After every social gathering, not even limited to the ones I hosted, I would feel drained, depressed, angry and phony.

What did I do with these feelings?
You probably already know the answer to this one: I would raid the leftovers, eating huge pieces of cake with my hands, not even tasting it.
I would stand at the counter wolfing down a huge bowl of chips and dip while berating myself for all my “mistakes”

I know it seems like a miserable way to live, and yet, I have met a lot of ladies in my support groups who could testify to this same thing : Having a deep ingrained habit of lying to themselves and others about their needs in order to “keep the peace” and make everyone happy

I can not begin to tell you how many times I’ve:

• Told people that I would help them when I knew that I really couldn’t
• Committed to ministry at church when I knew that I was already stretched beyond my limits
• Let a friend dump all her problems on me when I could hardly stand up under my own
• Told others a lie about my true feeling in order to not offend them
• Changed my story if I saw that I did indeed upset someone
• Pretended to be happy for the sake of keeping up pretenses when I just needed to cry
• Binged on food because I was so angry at someone for taking advantage of me
• Binged because I was so angry at myself for not saying NO
• Binged because I let people manipulate me to change my NO to a YES
• Binged because I felt guilty for saying NO
• Binged because I felt responsible for someone else’s anger
• Binged because I felt responsible for someone else’s depression
• Binged because I felt that I should find solutions for other people’s problems

When I finally started saying NO, it was a mess!

People didn’t like it that I, who could easily have been awarded “Miss Sensitive”, had now grown the skin of a crocodile. At first I couldn’t trust myself, I would bargain myself right out of boundaries.

I would say NO then…

• Try and justify it in my mind
• Talk to everybody I know about it
• Phone my husband at work to check on the validity of my No again
• Have seven sleepless nights about it
• Check my emails and phone messages every hour to hear from the one who received the NO
• Anticipate the death of a relationship (with the person I said NO to)
• Then after days and nights of torture, I would take back my NO with an elaborate explanation and finally feel a sliver of peace return to my life
• Of course I would hate myself the next morning for doing it, curse the innocent receiver of the NO, and eat three pastries and a bag of chips in one sitting

My weak boundaries were literally feeding my Eating Disorder.

I talked to a friend who has a PhD in Psychiatry and he told me to start practicing saying NO, like you would exercise a muscle. My NO muscle was indeed tiny if at all existent, so I got to work. I had to just say NO to almost everything and tell myself NO almost all the time. I had to get that muscle going and also get the message through to others. Of course they weren’t happy. I was met with strange looks, manipulative “well okay, I guess I will just have to…”, some outright anger and animosity (which didn’t kill me by the way), and even tears and sighs loaded with guilt.

I had to learn to say NO and also take a NO from myself:

• No, you don’t want to eat that
• No, you are really thirsty: drink something
• No, you can not watch that, you will be wiped out tomorrow
• No, you can not skip gym, you are pursuing your hearts desires
• No, you don’t have to keep everyone happy
• No, you don’t have to be as skinny as that girl, calm down
• No, you don’t have to start running around just yet, sit down with the Bible
• No, you will not skip time to pray, you need it more than anything

These days I try and find the balance between YES and NO. I am not oblivious to the fact that we can become selfish and forfeit our calling to servant hood if we live to say NO. There are times when I am ready to say NO and the Holy Spirit tells me to make it a YES. But it’s different: I don’t feel angry about that kind of a YES. It doesn’t feel pressed on me, but rather suggested, and it doesn’t leave me with a feeling of resentment and guilt for not being truthful.

Click here to go to the next section: “You can do it!”

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