On blogging and honesty

Listening to a local call-in talk show on NPR a month or so ago, I heard this incredibly fascinating program about lying. The lying expert, Robert Feldman, talked about a study he performed in which they had two perfect strangers sit in a room together and just "get to know each other" for ten minutes. They videotaped the entire encounter without the participants' knowledge. After the conversation, each person was asked to watch the video and count the number of times they lied, exaggerated, fibbed, or simply were not entirely accurate. People were indignant before watching themselves. "Of course, I did not lie," they claimed. As they watched the video, people were horrified at themselves. The average person lied three times in the first ten minutes of getting to know someone. What a way to start a relationship, eh? As you get to know the person, the amount of lying decreases and changes. That is, in the beginning of meeting someone, the lies are more benign, like agreeing with the person about something you don't really believe, claiming to visit a city never visited, or complimenting a shirt about which the speaker is mostly indifferent. As time passed in the "friendship," the lies decreased. But if lying existed, it was much bigger lies. Think infidelity.

But mostly, the researcher noted that the first ten minute experiments were mostly social lies. Though there was one man who told his companion that his band just got a recording contract, when, in fact, his band didn't just get a recording contract. In fact, he didn't really have a band. Actually, he didn't even know how to play the guitar. The researcher pointed out that yes, the man was talking to an attractive woman.

What was interesting about this study is that most of the people were incredibly surprised to see themselves lying. Though it came out of their mouth, it wasn't intended. Immediately, the researcher noted the person usually justified it, "It isn't a big deal. Everyone does it." And the researcher said something to the effect of maybe this kind of exaggeration sort of "greases the wheel of social discourse." He said that the people who lied the most were also the most social, most well-liked, friendliest people. The conclusion, of course, was that people want to hear good things about themselves. But of course, most people say lying is a betrayal, and well they should. Broken down along gender lines, women tended to lie to make connections, like agreeing with someone when in a conversation, or complimenting someone. Men tended to lie to make themselves look better, por ejemplo, that they played were football players in high school, or workout more often than they do.

In one call on the program, the caller referred to herself as brutally honest. Man, I just hate that phrase. It makes it sound like honesty needs to be brutal, and I just don't believe that. Kindness and compassion should exist in truth-telling, no? The researcher was pretty adamant that lies aren't necessary. That a discourse without lies is possible. Of course, all this lying talk got me thinking about blogging.


Blogging is someone's truth. Not perhaps the reality, but a kind of truth. And yet, there is a modicum of expectation that what we relate on here is "true;" that is, we expect that the person writing is the person they say they are, that the main points of incidents related are true. I am generally a fairly horrid liar. In fact, I usually admit I am lying before the lie is even out of my mouth. I blame my Irish-Panamanian Catholic family. I confess before I have even sinned.

I think of this blogging space much in the same way as I think about therapy. I could go in there and lie. Tell all kinds of wonderful stories about my own capability. But what would be the point of that? I am paying this man to help me process this crap. It behooves me to tell the truth. And same with this blogging space. What would be the point of lying? In fact, I often think I am more honest on here than in my real life. Not that I lie in my real life, but I just sort of own the basest emotions and the ugliest thoughts here. In real life, I do not exactly wear my emotions on my sleeve. I tend to smile a lot, or crack wise when I am uncomfortable. It is the way of my people.

Facing complete strangers in real life in an experiment is a very different experience to talking to someone who knows you in real life, or for that matter, writing on a blog. I have decided to use my real name on this blog, though sometimes I regret that decision. It means I also think about certain readers who also exist in my real life. People in my real life confront me about things I have written in this space, and that is unnerving. But I didn't want to live under a veil. I had so much shame I wanted to banish--shame about my child's death, about my lost motherhood and about my failure to keep her alive. Using my real name and real circumstances meant that I would stand up and own these emotions. "Hello, my name is Angie and my baby died inside of me." And so, writing this blog means that I have people who know me in real life, who know intimate details of my life, who can call me on any discrepancies. It keeps me thinking about all my details, which is a good thing.

Many years ago, I had a stupid blog. It was about sports, fashion, pop culture and goofy stuff I found on the internets. It was before kids, before house, before responsibility and way way before daughter death. I maintained this blog for four years. FOUR. Every once in a great while, I would mention my insomnia, or talk about being depressed, but it would usually segue into something like a video of Ian Curtis. I think one of my favorite posts was a rant about people camping out in front of an Ikea store for the grand opening. Deep shit. A few days ago, I went back to read that blog. That space was not about processing anything. It wasn't exactly a journal. It just was this weird corner of my life where I put things. It was a lot like my real life persona, I think. I can talk about Nixon and gnomes for hours, but never really talk about how I feel.

During this entire time, my father's and my grandfather's health and well-being occupied most of my time. I spent every weekend driving two and a half hours one way to do my father's laundry, take him to lunch, pay his bills, then turn around and drive home two and a half hours home. During the ride home, I would stop at my grandfather's place and fix stuff, or shop for him. Often the time with my grandfather was spent with him telling me I am not doing enough for him. I often left at 7am on Saturday, and was home by 6pm or 7pm.  That was after working a 50 hour week. I had one day to do my own laundry, shop, and clean. I did this for years and years. One year, I actually counted the number of weekends I skipped going to my father--four.

I cried a lot when I drove. You would have no idea reading that blog at how stressful my life was at the time. At how miserable I was. When I met Sam, my life changed. I reprioritized things. He asked me to give him a weekend or two a month. It meant I began setting limits in my life with my family. All of my other relationships fell apart because I could only go out on Thursday night. Sure, I had to deal with the guilt and anger, but I became healthier. Was that blog reflective of that? No. As I read through this old writing, besides being struck with how much I scoffed at say capitalization and grammar, I also began asking if I was honest. I can say that I never outright lied on the blog, but it isn't exactly an honest reflection of who I was. It was avoidance therapy, perhaps.

After Lucy died, I could not ignore or hide my emotions. I didn't want to pretend anymore that I was strong or capable. I fell apart and became unhinged. My vulnerability was front and center, and I couldn't ignore my weaknesses anymore. This blog became a place where I could process all of the sensory overload from the grief. The interesting thing, I began taking that insight into the real world. I used the conclusions I came to on my blog to be able to talk about my emotions and my vulnerability. In many ways, I have felt much more capable, even as I admitted to being less capable. Is it possible that blogging has made me more honest in my real life? You know, I think it did.

After my last therapy session, my therapist asked me to write notes about the session. And I really really struggled with it. Mainly, because throughout the session, I found myself thinking, "Why the fuck am I here?" Or "I am never coming back here." Or "This is bullshit." My inner thoughts are riddled with cuss words. I actually thought the therapist said a number of things that made my anxiety worse than when I walked into the hour. He said, "Anxiety is not healthy for your pregnancy." Then later he said, "Looking at your shame might not be the healthiest thing for your pregnancy." Then why are you bringing it up, dude?

I struggled with honesty in a way I haven't struggled in a while. It was so striking it made me recognize that being true to my emotions and experience is not something I have struggled with much in the past year. My parents instilled this very strong sense of authority.  I respect my therapist a great deal.  He has given me a lot of wisdom and guidance. At different points in my life, it worked. But now, not so much. Being told my anxiety is hurting my new baby after such a profound loss feels kind of cruel. I am in therapy to help manage my anxiety, not find new things about which to be anxious.

I decided to write my therapy notes like a blog post. What I found when I was honest about this session is that therapy with this man is not helping me right now. It costs a great deal of money out of pocket. I need to manage childcare, his unpredictable schedule, and my own commuting issues. I would pay any price to feel calmer and get tools to manage my anxiety, but I am walking out feeling misunderstood and worse, I am feeling more alienated and shamed than when I walked into his office.And so the exercise of honesty gave me insight into what would most soothe me right now--not being in therapy.

I don't always know why I started my blog. I struggle between thinking it is goofy, narcissistic and self-indulgent and thinking it saved my life. But when I look at these ways in which it has helped me communicate and own my emotions, I get it.


* Here is the mp3 of the Radio Times episode, if you are interested.