Discussions
An unwelcome truth: how do you handle it?
Posted by SweetViolet • 9/15/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: Belief, lies, truth
Someone I know was taken by a family member when she was a young child and told she was abandoned by her mother.
She is now an adult and her abductor has been dead for numerous years...but never came clean.
This woman is so angry with her mother for abandoning her that they cannot have any kind of relationship. Yes, she has been told the truth and several family members have come out in the mother's support, but...for reasons I and the others don't fathom...she refuses to believe it, even though a considerable amount of evidence has been presented to her. She simply does not want to believe the truth.
What do you do when you are presented with a truth you do not like? What would give you sufficient impetus to shift your belief and accept a truth that cancels out a belief you have held for many years?
Or would your rather reject something you don't like (and all evidence of its truth) and hold to your original belief?
User Comments
-
I think beleif is a strange and powerful thing. Your beleif can consume you to the point that betraying that belief feels like betraying yourself in some way. Similar to die-hard Christians who refuse to beleive conflicting historical facts. Or women in abusive relationships who give their husbands chance after chance. I think forcing someone to beleive something they are not ready to accept or may never accept is something that should be approached carefully and possibly left to time and space.-
To that end, it seems sometimes the fear of losing the false belief-- and the mourning of that ideal idea-- is more powerful than the need for truth itself.
Self-delusion can be comforting, no matter how dysfunctional it might be. -
It's been more than a decade since she was told the truth...she is no closer to accepting it than she was then. This is hurting people in the family...her mother is my age and won't live forever and is in such pain over this. The daughter has cut all communication with her because she won't repudiate the truth.
-
-
Being able to reason well helps. If the shock is too great, I will take a step back without thinking, leaving it for later stage. I will re-visit the comment or truth and try to link up with the facts (past and current). Given that time cures any injury, give yourself chances to reflect and stay sane. Learn to accept truth is a virtue.-
As noted above, the daughter has known the truth for more than ten years...she just refuses to believe it. And is now cutting off communications with relatives who will not join her in her disbelief.
She's very intelligent and does reason well, ordinarily. She just seems to have a HUGE blind spot in this regard.
-
-
SV
My hubby ( D. ) got married to first wife in 1973, in 1974 his daughter was born. The relationship was a mess from day one. They split and were still on talking terms because they were best of friends before becoming a couple.
They were 19 and 18 when married.
When D went to visit one day in 1984, the apartment was empty and he was told that they moved (back) to Israel. He has had no contact with his daughter, he had searched hi and lo, he had done what Brooklyn people do to get information. Nothing
Last year he found his daughter on face book, they have been talking since, but in a round about way. He so much wants to say what the truth is and not what one party told her. But, after all that time it may be hard to understand.
So, I understand how this woman feels, yet I also feel how she shouldn't.-
Shouldn't she have the truth?
I dunno...maybe I am strange. I would rather believe an ugly truth than a pretty lie. Truth is very important to me...I find it difficult to feel balanced and in control of my life when I am not dealing with truth. I would want to know.
In the case of the young woman in the OP, if I were here, I think I would be inclined to believe the evidence (which supports her mother) than the word of a person who took the child to spite and hurt her. The daughter does not want to let go of her belief, despite evidence that so clearly disproves it.
Personally, I don't get it. Why would she want to live a lie? All those years she was told her mother abandoned her and didn't love her...you'd think she would be overjoyed to learn that wasn't the truth instead of continuing to believe it.
I mean it...I really don't get it. -
Why would she want to live a lie? Because she has been, all her life, and she doesn't know who she is without it. The truth rips every positive experience of her life and every concept of who she was and the closest relationships in her life out from under her and forces her to accept that every minute of her life up to the point she was enlightened was a lie, and that she doesn't have anything that she previously believed she had. -
My guess: Accepting that her mother didn't abandon her would also mean accepting that the person she grew up with did something horribly wrong. If she grew up believing that person was a kind and loving caretaker, that kind of redefinition of the "truth" would be pretty devastating. It would mean that she spent loads of time and energy hating a person for no reason, and it was all the loving caretaker's fault. I have no doubt that would be extremely hard to accept.
*Ah, just noticed that MadameX wrote pretty much the same thing.
-
-
People often refuse--consciously or not--to look at truths that are too devastating for them to handle. From what little you describe here, it sounds as if this girl survived by constructing a wall of hatred and anger; if her mother had in fact abandoned her, then she wasn't a mother worth having at all, and she hadn't lost anything of great value. Accepting her mother's story now would mean not only abruptly coming to terms with the fact that she had, in fact, been robbed of what should have been the most important relationship in her life (a fact that much of her life has been about minimizing in order to be able to cope with that absence), but dealing with probably overwhelming guilt over having held a grudge against her mother all those years while her mother was also suffering, and possibly the self-doubt that comes with wondering whether she should have or could have known the truth sooner and done something about it. I definitely sympathize with her mother, but it sounds as if a lot of blame and disapproval is being aimed at this woman who "refuses" to accept the truth when she may very well be desperately struggling to keep her psyche and identity intact. I know that as a mother, however hurt I might be by the way my daughter was handling trauma, I'd be more concerned with her stability.
-
Sweet, I see where your coming from but maybe in this woman's mind ... she had a great upbringing with her captor/parent and does not feel that she has been wronged. It may seen insane to any of us as we did not grow up the same way she did... It's more than obvious that this is a deep psychological issue that needs to be dealt with professionally .. Unfortunately, she will have to be the one to realize that and step forward, for her own sake ..
Such a sad story though ...
-
@ SV
If he should tell the truth he could lose her again.
He went through hell for 25 years.
Many people have paid for his hurt.
He is happy just to able to talk to her. -
I seem to be the odd woman out, having significantly more empathy for the mother than for the daughter.
After ten years...and seeing how much pain the mother has gone through over the years the girl was missing and the last ten years...and now having the daughter twist the knife, I find that I am taking a decidedly negative attitude towards the daughter. I've almost completely lost empathy for her and am beginning to see her as being selfish, insensitive and now, with her attempt to polarize the family, manipulative.
It's not pretty and I find myself not unhappy that I am half a world away from this drama. (Although with the magic of email and instant messaging, I might as well be in the house with them!)
Any advice for the mother? I don't know what to say to her except "I'm sorry this is happening to you, I'm sorry she's behaving this way, and I don't know what else to say."-
I guess it's all up to your point of view.
From the mother's point of view: Evil Mr.X took away her daughter, and now the daughter is causing drama by not accepting the truth and polarizing the family.
From the daughter's point of view: Evil mother abandoned her, nice Mr.X took care of her, and now that he's dead, the evil mother is back, trying to tarnish his name and cause drama for whatever reason.
I think it would be hard for the daughter to accept any "evidence" about this, since from her point of view that's just people taking the "evil" mother's side, trying to mess with her "truth". Until the daughter accepts the *possibility* of it being true, there's not much the mother can do about it. If the mother keeps trying to convince her, I think the daughter would just take it as more vicious pestering.
What do you do when someone you don't like just won't take a hint and either shut up or go away? You might just completely reject her and start ignoring everything she even tries to say. I know I probably would.
-
-
There is a difference between the facts and the truth. Factually, this woman is the mother of that child; but emotionally, within the heart of that child (now a grown woman) she is not. So, the truth to the daughter is that this woman is not her mother for whatever reasons she may feel that. I think that truth has to be recognized and respected.-
I know the people involved and you are incorrect. She very much acknowledges the woman as her mother...she is just punishing her for "abandoning" her when she was little.
-
SV-that's not what you said in the OP. You said she refuses to believe the mother is her mother. I'm saying that perhaps the facts are less "truthful" to her than the emotional history she carries inside.
-
-
If you can't handle the truth, how is living in denail any better?
'The truth shall set you free'!
Easy to say, hard to do I guess. -
I think the time helps to accept challanges and hard trues, it can not be avoid just face it. -
"an unwanted truth: how do you handle it?"
you become a "birther", a "truther", a "grassy green knoller", (i.e., a conspiracy theorist).
anything but the unwanted truth. -
The truth at times can be a hard thing to swallow. I would not pressure her anymore but leave her to work on what was presented to her. There is nothing that you can do to convince her otherwise until she is ready and willing to accept what was presented.
Rather than letting the focus being on what transpired in the past show her what is readily available in the present. Let your actions speak of your desire to be apart of her world. A slow steady process of showing and revealing who you are. Those actions will then translate into the development of your character body, causing questions to be formulated, inquisition. This then opens the door for dialogue. -
I always welcome the truth and believe actions speak louder than words.
There's always two sides of every story - and, I think we are just hearing one side. The truth is supposed to be the truth for everybody. You mention "she won't repudiate the truth" but, that's not what I'm reading out of this .. she KNOWS the truth and just doesn't want to have any part of your friend in her life. Period.-
She does not believe it is the truth. She continues to believe what she was told all those years she was gone...her mother abandoned her. I know for a fact that was not the case, but the daughter simply refuses to believe it.
She says things like "Why would XXX lie to me?" "What was in it for them?"
Answers like "That person never liked your mother and did many spiteful things to her before you were taken,"...which can be documented through court actions...is simply dismissed as "making no sense."
And she does want her mother in her life...but only as a whipping post. She won't talk to her, but she talks about her all the time.
Mostly, what I want here is something to say to the mother, either advice or something to ease her pain. But I'm not seeing much empathy for a mother who let her child go visit a family member for a weekend and did not see her again for years.
-
-
"What do you do when you are presented with a truth you do not like?"
Learn to live with the truth eventhough you don't like it. One must not always insist himself that he entertain only the things he likes. This is the world and it is the platform for all sorts of things. -
SV - my mother was raped at 13. She got pregnant from the rape.
At the time My grandparents had high level positions in the small town they were in and it was a HUSH HUSH situation - my mother was shipped off to a nunnery when they realized she was 6 months pregnant - and couldn't hide it. (she didn't know she was pregnant at the time).
Back then - teenage pregnancies were VERY taboo.
She was forced to give the child up for adoption.
She was reunited recently with her child.
My sibling.
And my sibling still has issues. My sibling at times asks her why she gave my sibling up.
My sibling was told the TRUTH - met the man who raped her just before he died - and STILL has issues trying to understand that she DID NOT give the baby up - but that the issue was forced on her.
I think... and this is just my observation from trying to understand all of it... Is that children have a hard time coping with the fact that BOTH parents cannot be together - and that they are not with their original parent.
Regardless of the situation - if the "ideal" family cannot be - there is BLAME that must be laid - and that blame MUST fall on someone else... It becomes the reason why EVERYTHING that could have been did not happen and why everything bad that shouldn't have happened did.
I don't know if all children who lose one parent or both - whether or not by choice or adoption, etc. are like that - but it has been my observation that somewhere BLAME is created - and it is hard to let go of - if not impossible.
Just my thoughts on this.
Perhaps if your friend realizes that this blame - whether or not truth or her fault - is probably the issue - she may be able to combat the BLAME in some way...
Mainly speaking to a counselor who specializes in Divorce, Adoption and Family issues will assist her in understanding and finding a way to deal with it.
Good luck - cause it isn't an easy path to be on. Wish her well for me.-
She has been in counselling...the daughter refuses to go.
You are right about blame being an issue, but what I don't understand is why the daughter blames her mother and does not blame the family member who took her away and lied to her and kept her away from her mother for all those years.
And I am also having a lot of trouble understanding why so few people here seem to have any empathy for the mother, whom I see as having been doubly victimized...first by having her child stolen away and hidden from her by a spiteful family member, second by the child blaming her for something she had no control over. When it first happened, she was so distraught I worried for her sanity and her life...and now her daughter, the very child she agonized over for all that time...is twisting the knife.
I'm having difficulty maintaining empathy for the girl's situation, she is hurting her mother so much...and now polarizing the family. -
I believe the overall response here may not be not a lack of empathy for the mother, as much as the fact folks have repeatedly tried to explain the possible perspective of the daughter, to promote understanding of her actions as well, yet we're not really getting anywhere.
Consider what the daughter may be experiencing as a version of Stockholm Syndrome. You're talking about a person who has an alternate reality of the world and the situation due to trauma, yet expecting them to respond in the way that makes sense.
It's asking a lot.
Naturally, this has to be incredibly frustrating for the mother. But if there's anything I've learned over the years is, you can't expect people to behave the way you want them to. It only frustrates YOU and causes YOU more pain in the long run. -
I second what TSR says, it's not that there's no empathy for the mother, I'm sure this is a horrifying situation to be in. But the mother simply *cannot* force the daughter to act in any other way than she is.
You know the mother and you believe her, so to you it's obvious what is going on, and you see the evidence for what has happened. But keep in mind that evidence is not evidence if it doesn't convince you. The daughter does not trust or believe the mother, so to her it is not "evidence", it's "slander" and "lies". The fact that others support the mother just makes them guilty by association, so she has no reason to trust what they say either, as she probably believes they have been "won over" by the mother, and are just conveying the mother's words.
The daughter is being asked to completely reject what she "knows" to be reality, and to accept a new definition for what reality is from a person she has hated for years. Obviously, that's pretty hard to swallow. They are both victims here.
I also think that if the mother's friends start acting like the daughter is the offender here, it's only going to push her further away. It may be tempting to go "Why can't you see that you're wrong, you dimwit?" and start blaming the daughter for being cruel to her mother, but I think that is only going to be counter-productive. If you look at it from the daughter's point of view, she has pretty solid reasons for acting the way she does.
-
-
What seems to be making this situation even more difficult is the fact that the abductor is dead and therefore cannot answer to what she did. It might've helped if the abductor was still alive and the daughter could confront her with the truth. Sadly, she never had a chance to do that. That makes it unfinished business, which could be making it difficult for the daughter to move on.
I have empathy for both the mother and the daughter. It's a very traumatic situation for them both.-
She had the chance and the abductor refused to come clean. I think that is what put the cap on it...when the family (some of whom had remained silent on the subject for years) finally began to speak up and demand the truth be told to the girl, the abductor simply reiterated that the mother abandoned the child, and even in the face of the family elders saying that was a lie, there was no recanting.
My late husband was estranged from his daughter for many years...a case of one divorced parent bad-mouthing the other to the child. He tried to make contact, but she never responded and finally, after nearly two decades of never hearing back from her, he just gave up. He died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of 53. I called to tell her her father had died and her response was "Um, ok." I invited her to the funeral...she came. I had been with her father for 12 years and it was out first meeting...at his funeral.
And there, she began to cry. "I thought I had more time," she kept saying. "I thought I had more time."
Turns out her mother had fed her the "abandoned us" story (other members of the family said mom had taken the kid and split with a new boyfriend) and the daughter was not responding to his overtures to punish him...to make HIM feel abandoned. Her eventual plan was to "forgive" him and reconcile. She had not expected him to drop over dead suddenly at the age of 53...she thought she had more time.
Now I see this unfortunate series of events playing out in MY family. And I wonder if the stress of this may hasten the mother's death...
-
Add Your Comment
Login to leave a message.
