When I was younger, I was a liar. I lied impulsively and recklessly and with no concern about being caught. I lied largely out of a deep sense of shame and embarrassment. I began lying as a child as a survival technique. My mother had her struggles. As an adult, I am not without empathy for her situation. She was young, relatively poor, had an alcoholic husband, five children, depression, personality disorders, and no real help. She was in an impossible black hole and she could never claw her way out. I don’t believe anyone ever gave her a real hand. However, she used to rage. As a kid, I was terrified of her. Like many little girls, I wanted to be an actress. I once auditioned for a school play and was the only person who was not cast. Devastated, I climbed into the back seat of our old Ford Expedition teary eyed and sniffling.
“Hannah Dale, why are you crying?” I told her through tears what had happened, expecting empathy. Instead, she berated me. “Listen here, princess.” I can hear, even now, the cutting intonation she used when she said princess. I have not spoken to my mother since 2019 but I hear her voice clearly. “You think you are smarter and better than everybody else but you are not. You are not prettier, you aren’t smarter. My IQ is higher than yours. You think you’re better than those kids and you are not. If you were better, you’d be the lead in the play.” I tell you that story not to make my mother sound horrible but to explain the random and outsized rage I often encountered. My mom started fights. At restaurants, something was always wrong with our meal and my mom would, invariably, ban the whole family from patronizing the establishment. A disagreement over some silly school issue meant we should avoid being around another family. So we lied to her. I went to the local Italian joint with friends but said I was at Chili’s. I lied about who I was with because she didn’t like me hanging out with (perfectly well behaved) children whose parents she quarreled with. Once, I was told not to spend time around a girl because her mother had a belly button piercing.
