Don’t get me wrong, my memory is not the greatest. I actually like to do brain exercises and puzzles to keep “working out” my brain to stave off memory loss. I am definitely not saying that I remember everything.
Here is the problem: one woman that I am acquainted with completely changed a story about an occurrence that happened eight months ago that I was a witness to. She completely fabricated a whole new story, and of course, she looked much better in her fabricated story than she looked in the incident that I witnessed.
It puts me in mind of a book that I read Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why we Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, the authors are Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, I remembered Carol Tavris as an author from my undergraduate sociology classes, so I knew that the book would be factually based and not just another novel.
Problem Continues: a second person did it later in the week in a meeting. This person completely fabricated a new story to change perceptions of her previous actions. She contrived a story that portrayed her as a victim rather than as a perpetrator. This person is a well known perpetrator. She changed her story, she changed her behavior, she changed it all, and again, it was an occurrence that I witnessed and knew was false.
All of it was quite ugly. Sometimes, when I am completely frustrated, I shut down because I do not wish to yell at people and call them ugly. I did have to confront person number one, because her assertions were causing problems with another person.
For me, it is quite important not to become someone who must continually fabricate reality in order to be okay with who I am. The way that I accomplish this is to be present in every single moment that I can be present – and also – I find that I must acknowledge mistakes and forgive myself for making them. If I do not forgive myself, I find that later, I am bumbling around trying to make sense of a memory – “I didn’t do anything wrong!” Of course, that’s when the fabricating begins.
In the mean time, I think that if you care about someone, you can let them know that they are fabricating reality, however! If you are letting them know that you believe they are not honest and you are doing it because you believe yourself to be right and them to be wrong – then you are really not doing anything productive. You might also be harming your relationship with the person. Being right means that someone must be wrong, and I promise, as this book will demonstrate, people will go to almost any lengths to prove how right they are.
So to my lovely daughter who may speak the truth that no one wishes to hear – sometimes, it is not worth the effort, or the emotion given over to the human being who is fabricating their life. Don’t invest your passion into those people, let them go.
