deception gets called lying a lot. but i think it’s worse than that.
the real violence is this: it gets someone to make real decisions inside a world that isn’t real.
love, commitment, vulnerability: all of these need reality to work. when reality gets manipulated, consent just collapses.
& something quieter shows up after the heartbreak.
indignity.
not the loud kind. the kind that sits with you after you realize you were sincere in something that was never clean.
i once got into a relationship in good faith, didn’t know another one was still happening - being lived, nurtured, even celebrated somewhere else. i remember the moment the math finally broke. the realization that while i was pouring myself into a connection i thought was sacred, i was actually just a character in a crowded room.
nothing about what i felt was fake. what was missing was truth.
so while one story was being honored, another was getting built without my consent.
that discovery doesn’t just hurt. it disorients you. you start questioning not just them, but your own perception. your instincts. like, did i miss signs? was i willfully blind? or was the performance just that good?
& then you wonder: if i couldn’t trust what was right in front of me, what else am i getting wrong?
this is why deception corrodes more than love - it corrodes reality itself.
the real work after isn’t revenge or calling them out. it’s authorship. naming what happened accurately. restoring language to what you lived through. refusing to gaslight yourself just so other people stay comfortable.
integrity isn’t about being perfect. it’s about refusing to build intimacy (or honestly any relationship) on something you know isn’t true.
—
i’m still figuring out what this space becomes, but i think conceptually, it’ll be about naming things cleanly.