Authenticity Ruined My Reputation

“The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.” — James A. Garfield

I learned to measure my words
like pills in a childproof bottle.

Too much at once
and someone might choke.

So I rationed myself—
half truths,
quiet tones,
polished edges.

Until silence felt safer
than the sound of my own throat.

And now when I try to speak,
the syllables taste contraband,
like I’ve smuggled
a weapon into daylight.

But it’s only my name,
and it still cuts
when I say it out loud.

“When every expression is filtered for acceptability, authenticity starts to feel like a liability.”

There comes a point when self-expression feels like exposure therapy. You start scanning your sentences before you release them, trimming the edges, softening the sharp notes, weighing the cost of being misunderstood. What was once communication becomes surveillance. You monitor yourself until even silence feels rehearsed.

The danger isn’t only in what others might think. It’s in what you start believing about yourself. Repeated edits create a false script. You start trusting the mask more than the person behind it. And slowly, authenticity becomes framed as recklessness. Vulnerability feels like an unforced error. Safety becomes synonymous with concealment.

But here’s the paradox: nothing corrodes connection faster than the absence of truth. People can sense when you’ve swallowed yourself. They hear it in the pauses, the concessions, the overly careful tones. They might not name it, but the dissonance leaves them unsettled. What’s buried doesn’t disappear. It lingers between the lines, shaping the space without ever being spoken.

To recover that voice, you don’t need to shout. You don’t need to prove anything. You need to risk a sentence that isn’t polished for approval. You need to hear yourself without interruption, even if your voice shakes. That risk is what reintroduces you to yourself. That risk is the doorway back to presence.

I’ve poured everything into this. Healing Thoughts II: 33 Poems and Meditations for Emotional Renewal is up for preorder now. Release date: October 1. These pages carry the deepest, sharpest work I’ve done, and I can’t wait for them to be in your hands.

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