The Danger of “One-Offs”
I am not making excuses for myself—I truly didn’t know any better. For as long as I can remember, when I didn’t have the answers, I made things up. It wasn’t because I wanted to deceive anyone; it’s just how my mind has operated since childhood, I was told to keep his secret. Lying became a way of coping, a habit that started small but grew into something far to hard to control. I learned to lie, to protect a secret. From a young age, I learned to bend the truth, to hide behind lies—first out of keeping secrets, then fear, then out of survival. As a child, I didn’t understand that this was wrong; it was simply how I navigated the world, especially when things didn’t make sense (memory lapses) or felt too overwhelming. But looking back after years of therapy and prison, I see how that pattern of behavior has shaped my life in ways I never anticipated, trapping me in cycles of deception that I didn’t even realize I created. I will add another thing, knowing now about...