It starts as a lie…

Sometimes I wonder whether people understand what a lie can become when they first tell it.

Most lies people tell in everyday life aren’t carefully planned. They happen in a moment. Someone feels embarrassed, defensive, afraid of the consequences, or simply caught off guard. So they say something quickly to protect themselves, without really thinking about where it might lead.

In that moment the brain is just trying to escape discomfort.

But once the lie is spoken, it has a strange way of growing. Not because the person necessarily planned a bigger story, but because now they feel trapped protecting the first one.

That’s how small lies can slowly turn into complicated narratives.

There are other lies of course, the more deliberate kind. The ones told to control a narrative, protect an image, avoid accountability, or shape how others see a situation. Those are usually more calculated, but even then people often underestimate the long term consequences.

Human beings are remarkably good at convincing themselves that a lie will somehow work out.

Psychologists often talk about something else that happens too. Once someone commits to a lie publicly, their mind begins protecting that version of reality. Admitting the truth later would mean acknowledging that they were wrong, or that they hurt someone. For many people that feels like a threat to who they believe themselves to be.

So instead of correcting it, they double down. Sometimes the lie becomes so woven into the story that the person can no longer separate it from the truth. What may have started as one moment of self protection slowly turns into something else entirely, a version of events that must constantly be defended, repeated, and protected.

And after enough time passes, the lie isn’t just something a person told. It becomes the story they live inside.

And quite often, it’s no longer just their story.

That’s where betrayal is born.

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That was a little something I shared on my page today.

Betrayal is a topic I seem to return to often in my writing, and sometimes I wonder why it’s still so predominant. But the reality is, betrayal has shaped parts of my life in ways that took a long time to understand.

I’ve been betrayed a few times by people I never expected it from. In each case it wasn’t something I discovered immediately. The betrayal played out over time, and when the truth eventually surfaced it was by chance, not because the person responsible chose to come forward.

When we know someone is capable of hurting us, it’s painful, but it’s not entirely shocking. But when it comes from someone we never believed capable of it, the disappointment and disillusion add another layer.

Much of my healing journey has been about coming to terms with that, and trying to understand the bigger question of why.

I don’t think betrayal is something you ever completely ‘get over.’Instead you move through different phases of understanding, about people, about human behaviour, and about yourself.

Each time I reach a new level of understanding, I find myself revisiting the topic again. Not to dwell on the past, but to add another layer to the journey.