Liars Can Make You Believe Truth Doesn’t Matter
Holding on to factual reality when people around you have no regard for it.
Written and narrated by Demian
Truth may set you free, but sometimes, not without putting you through the wringer.
Truth can be overwhelming to face. You may need to step back, catch your breath, and regain your balance a bit, before you can deal with it.
There are times, when stepping back turns into running away or it involves being shoved away, when it’s not a respite for you to regroup but a reason or a coercion to retreat.
When lying turns to gaslighting, or in a larger dose, propaganda, you may give in to the pressure to replace your experience with their version of reality.
If you hold on to your truth, you may eventually drag your feet to the conclusion that truth doesn’t matter.
Because what difference does it make?
Because there’s nothing you can show or share to change the mind that has given itself to its invested beliefs or agendas.
What is engendered in you then is a feeling of helplessness. You have no impact. The truth is impotent.
This happens in unhealthy family dynamics where the family narrative is based on illusion and facades and takes precedence over actual personal experience.
This happens under totalitarian/fascist governments, too, where the party line or the dictator’s narrative not only takes precedence but is the only one allowed, with severe legal repercussions if violated.
The closer a liar is to you or the more areas of your life they can impact, the greater the risk you have of losing faith in reality, itself.
This evening, I was thinking about what’s happening in America, as I do every day now.
I was reminded of how I felt toward the later part of a particularly toxic relationship, that somewhere along the timeline of that relationship, I had all but stopped journaling.
I write all the time, and I did back then, too—in my journals, on loose leaf paper, pieces of scratch paper, on the backs of envelopes and napkins. Whenever I got an idea, wherever I was, I’d jot it down. Some of these turned into essays and some into lyrics.
But somewhere in this relationship, I had stopped writing like that.
The more this relationship took up my thoughts—the emotional roller coaster ride, the back and forth, the mind games and gaslighting—the more exhausted I became and the fewer ideas that arise from a daydreaming mind there were to capture with ink and paper.
My journaling became more like a log of events. Only instead of writing down what I had for breakfast, what books I read, or people I saw, I wrote about my relationship—conversations we had, details of things he told me, or assured me, our fights, our making up, promises made and promises broken, and a constant barrage of questions I asked myself trying to justify or rationalize his behavior, and this relationship, and my part in it.
I can see why, now.
I wrote to notate interactions so I could extract clarity out of something that was actually created to confuse.
But then there came a point when the main reason I was writing about our interactions and our relationship was so that I would not feel crazy when he denied them or rewrote them. I needed to know I wasn’t losing my mind and was still hoping, maybe if I had more facts to nail down specifics, he would understand where I was coming from and care.
But he didn’t. That was his whole point—the lying, the deflections, and distractions. They worked for him. He would continue to avoid accountability no matter what.
So, I stopped writing, stop summarizing the days. What was the point? The truth didn’t matter.
Well, evidently, not to him. But for a while this realization brought me to the place where I felt like the truth didn’t matter, at all.
It and I were helpless to effect any change.
Truth does matter. Just not to the liar who benefits from lying.
Being around a person who sees truth in terms of how useful it is to him or living under a propaganda-spewing government that weaponizes words and rewrites reality to suit them will, among other things, suck the life out of your soul. It exhausts you to keep up with moving shadows and shifting sands.
To not feel powerless, you may tell yourself that you have control, that you’re fine with this, that lies are truth, and you may even attack someone who threatens it.
Or you may try to meet the expected standards that keep rising, the goal posts that keep moving further and further away.
You may take responsibility for the narrative you were given or forced to take.
It’s your fault they cheated. It’s your fault you’re marginalized. It’s your fault he’s pissed at you. It’s your fault you’re poor.
Maybe they throw you a bone, and say it’s someone else’s fault. You know, the other woman or the other race.
It’s the same type of dynamics. People are people. It’s about human interactions, whether one-on-one or institutional.
Fortunately for me, in this relationship, I began to pull back.
I began to educate myself. I connected with people online, I read their stories, felt less crazy, and began to heal. As I healed, I became less tolerant for abuse.
One day, I let the last straw actually be the last straw, and I left.
There’s a Shakespearean saying, “Truth will out”, but I believe only on the voices of those who speak it.
People are standing up for truth.
We’re sick of being lied to. Sick of the propaganda, the gaslighting.
We’re sick of being accused of being too sensitive, too angry, too whatever in our relationships.
We’re sick of bravado and pontificating and making us feel like we’re weak for caring about each other, our planet and humanity.
We’re sick of being told who we are, what we should do and be.
And we’re sick of dynamics that twist our souls and crush our spirit.
Cut through the BS. Find your way to take a stand for truth, to speak up for fact-based reality, for communication where words are used to connect, not manipulate—whether it’s by participating in protests, like the one today, Hands Off 2025, or uttering the minimum words of “gray rocking” the person who speaks to bait you, or engaging in heartfelt tea and conversation.
Politics and the personal are interrelated. Expect high standards from both.
Your voice, your superpower.
From my heart to yours,
Demian Yumei ~ Silent No More
Silent No More is a pro-democracy voice with focus on creative expression, personal healing and activism through the written and spoken word and song.
And join me in making a difference in our lives and the lives of others, one heart at a time.
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Thank you so much 🎶 ❤️
Oof the way a journal can be an anchor to reality when you’re in a dysfunctional relationship/family.