Does the role of honesty in everyday situations/living reflect in csa victims?

If by honesty we're talking about revealing too much about yourself when the social circumstances does not call for it or perhaps if it isn't a safe/appropriate place to talk about very personal issues, I would think that being "too" honest (if you will) has a lot to do with being sexually abused as a child.

Great question! I think that my CSA has actually had a positive effect in me in that area. I have always been a fundamentally honest person, and the times I have not been I have usually come to regret. Keeping my molester's secrets and hiding my own feeling of shame and complicity ran counter to my better instincts. Freeing myself of him meant I didn't have to sneak around and hide - and I was very careful to avoid situations that put me back in that position. So striving for honesty for me was equivalent to avoiding the pain of keeping secrets. I manage to be honest in most areas of my life almost to a fault - where if I find myself going down a "dangerous" road in which I might need to cover my tracks, I blurt it all out and kill any newly-germinating secrets right then and there.

But despite that, I admit a pull to be secretive in my sexual life, but I have managed to keep that in check, and regret the few times I have slipped. This may ...

***TRIGGER^trigger^TRIGGER^trigger^TRIGGER***

... my partner is still amazed that I never make a sound beyond just a quiet whimper during healthy love making. And I never, ever have - even during the natural crescendo of intensity and climax - my mouse-like silence bespeaks loudly of the dark lessons I took under the secret tutelage of my abuser - often in our basement while my parents were home, or in a tent in our back yard.

Honesty is not a simple all-encompassing definition, though. My therapist also taught me a lot about how to tell if I am honest with myself - and that is not nearly as easy as it sounds. There was an enormous amount of my past that I kidded myself about - not intentional lying but avoiding painful truths. My sister still has a lot of memory she has blocked out that *I* remember seeing and I had to sometimes tell her what I sometimes caught him doing to her. So if that falls under the category of "honesty", it definitely would be a factor as well. I am just now facing a LOT of truths about my single episode of ASA when I was barely an adult, and I am amazed at the "truths" I constructed around that - truths that were convenient but hardly true.

childhood sexual abuse taught me how to be dishonest.

recovery taught me to embrace the truth and be honest... and speak the truth no matter how horrible it may be at first. one can be kind while being honest also, and i think that i balance that.

in my view, i find most people don't really care to embrace honesty. (i suspect 99.9999% of wall street journal posters fit that mold as they truly despise me for calling them on their dishonesty.) people can't accept the truth about this nation, about themselves, and about life in general.

more than you wanted to hear i'm sure... but i've now spoken, honestly.

For me honesty is a big issue. I have a habit of hiding or not being honest or totally truthful and open (or "lying"?) about anything that is likely to - or even that i imagine will remotely reflect upon - my worth as a person. I hide my journal and don't want anyone to see me writing in case they ask what it is. I hide the books i read in case someone makes a judgement based on the title. I hide the websites i visit - even tho they are not porn ones - because i don't want anyone to know what i'm thinking about. I can't stand to have anyone see a partially done piece of art or poem or story...

I know for me it is a self-defense strategy or instinct or reflex. Almost like i can't help it. i wouldn't say i'm a compulsive liar - it's selective and pretty much limited to anything related to either abuse or self-image. but the habit of hiding, evading and pretending is very deeply ingrained. For all my life i "had to" act like i was normal and everything was OK.

I read somewhere that secrecy (and maybe less than total honesty = lying?) are common traits of survivors of CSA - ***even when there is nothing that needs to be kept secret***!!!

Lee

Hey Jeff.....I can totally relate....always wondered if my compulsive lying came from CSA or living with alchoholic parents.....maybe both.....I have lied, (even when I do not have to) for so long, it does not even register with me as being a bad thing.......ugh

^^^^^^^^ WOW ^^^^^^^^