On detonation, the lies we co-author, and the shame that kept us both hiding
It didn’t unravel quietly.
It exploded in my face like a cheap firework at a backyard Fourth of July party where someone definitely should have read the instructions. The kind of truth that doesn’t slip out. The kind that detonates and leaves you sitting in the wreckage wondering how you missed the giant red “EXPLOSIVES” sign that was apparently there the whole time.
The worst part wasn’t even what he did.
It was realising that the fantasy I’d been living in, the one I’d built so carefully around his soft words and half-truths, I was the goddamn architect. Lead designer. Project manager. I wasn’t just lied to. I was the co-author, the producer, and apparently the entire cast of a one-woman show called Everything’s Fine.
He said all the things. “She’s just a friend.” “You’re just jealous.” “It’s not what it looks like.” And I wanted to believe him. God, did I want to believe him that the feeling in my gut was just an overactive case of transference. Because believing was easier than packing my emotional bags and checking out of the Neverland Hotel.
That’s the thing about a lie: it’s about comfort. A lie is a weighted blanket. A soft place to land. A Netflix series you can binge instead of dealing with your actual life.
Truth? Thats an eviction notice.
But every lie is an invitation to Neverland. And I said yes. Walked right in, found a cosy corner, and set up camp. Because when you’ve been conditioned from childhood to escape pain through pretending, fantasy feels like survival. I learned early to imagine away the chaos, to smile through the noise, to gaslight myself into gratitude. So when he handed me another story, I wrapped myself in it like it was cashmere instead of cheap polyester that would pill after one wash.
When the truth came, it wasn’t a slow reveal. It was scrolling through the evidence at 2am, realising everything I’d trusted had been theater. And I was the only one who didn’t know I was watching a play. It was ugly crying on the bathroom floor in yesterday’s mascara. Shaking so hard I thought my body might actually reject reality like a bad organ transplant. The kind of heartbreak that burns through denial and takes your innocence, your dignity, and your faith in romantic comedies with it.
The betrayal wasn’t just his dishonesty. It was the violence of waking up inside a fantasy I’d built to survive. I’d been feeding myself stories just to stay standing. And now, stripped of them, all that was left was truth: raw, undressed, mercilessly, aggressively real.
He lied to keep control. I lied to keep love. He said what he needed to say to keep his world spinning. I said what I needed to say to keep mine from imploding.
That’s the twisted choreography of deceit: two people pretending for different reasons, both terrified of losing the illusion. I told myself, “He’s just scared. He loves me in his own way.” But that wasn’t empathy. That was self-abandonment masquerading as grace. That was me doing emotional CPR on a connection that had already flatlined while someone yelled “CLEAR!” and I just kept pumping.
He was lying because facing himself terrified him more than losing me. Because his childhood taught him that truth gets you abandoned, that being honest about your needs makes you unlovable. His lies were survival mechanisms.
And mine were just as calculated. I lied every time I said “I’m fine” when I wasn’t. Every time I pretended not to notice the distance. Every time I made excuses for behavior I would’ve roasted my best friend for tolerating. Because my childhood taught me that making waves gets you nowhere, that being “difficult” makes you disposable, that if you just try hard enough and need little enough, maybe you can earn the love you’re begging for. My lies were survival mechanisms and I thought they were just good devotion.
We were both running from different versions of the same terror: that if we told the truth about who we were and what we needed, we’d end up alone. So we built a relationship on a foundation of mutual pretending. Two people desperately trying not to drown, clinging to lies like life rafts, both going under anyway.
Underneath all those lies was shame. Not guilt. Shame. We’ve heard it a thousand times now. Guilt says “I did something bad.” Shame says “I am bad.” And shame is what makes you hide in the first place.
I spent thirty-something years wearing masks, people-pleasing, being whoever I needed to be to avoid abandonment. And if you’d asked me at any point during that relationship, “Who are you? What do you actually want?” I wouldn’t have known how to answer. Because when you grow up in survival mode, your brain isn’t focused on exploring who you are. It’s focused on being careful, aware, and not getting hurt. On reading the room. On being the right version of yourself for whoever’s in front of you.
I was the cool girl, the low-maintenance girl, the “I don’t need anything” girl. And people loved that version of me. Praised it, even. “You’re so chill. You’re so easy. You never cause problems.” What they didn’t know was that girl wasn’t real. She was a performance. A survival tactic. A way to prevent rejection by never giving anyone a good reason to leave.
And the real me? Locked away somewhere, buried under years of “be nice, be helpful, don’t ask for too much.”
I didn’t even like her. I’d abandoned her a long time ago. Because if my own parents couldn’t love the real me, why would anyone else?
The other thing shame does is isolate you. Not always geographically, though sometimes that too. But emotionally. You build walls so high that even when you’re surrounded by people, you’re alone. I had friends. I went to brunch. I told funny stories. People loved being around me. But nobody really knew me. Not the real me. The part that plays tough, but is really sensitive under it all. The one that says “It’s fine.” But it’s not. Because letting someone see the real you might risk “issues” and issues might risk rejection. And rejection would confirm what shame has been whispering all along: you’re fundamentally unlovable.
So we keep everyone at arm’s length. We let them see the curated version, the one who has it together, the one who’s doing fine. And inside, we’re drowning. Because when we abandon ourself to avoid abandonment, we end up abandoned anyway. By ourself.
That’s the cruelty nobody likes to talk about. You become the walking embodiment of the thing you feared most. And that loneliness, for a lot of us, leads to the same place: filling the void with whatever makes us feel something other than the gnawing emptiness. For me, it was him. It was the fantasy. It was checking my phone first thing hoping for a text that would make me feel seen.
I was trying to medicate loneliness. Spoiler: it didn’t work.
When someone lies to you, they don’t just hide information. They hijack your agency. They make decisions for you, assuming you can’t handle the truth. It’s a quiet form of domination pretending to be protection.
Truth, on the other hand, is an act of dignity. It says, I trust you with reality. I trust you to make your own choices. I trust you with the hard stuff. It honors both people: the teller and the receiver. And when you choose truth, when you choose to face reality instead of hiding in fantasy, you’re giving yourself that same dignity. You’re saying: I can handle this. It’s hard, but I’m not fragile. I’d rather feel everything and be real than feel nothing and be fake.
You’re not broken. You’re detoxing from a lifetime of survival mechanisms that don’t serve you anymore. The people-pleasing kept you safe once. The masks protected you when you needed protection. The fantasy gave you comfort when comfort was all you had. But you don’t need those things anymore. You’re strong enough now to walk through the wilderness. To sit with discomfort. To feel the fear and keep moving anyway.
And the peace you find on the other side? The dignity of living in reality? The slow, steady building of a self you don’t have to hide?
It’s worth every detonation that got you here.
Fantasy may comfort you for a moment. But truth saves your life.
Choose all,
xoxo Viktoria
P.S. If you just read this whole thing and you’re thinking, “But I didn’t lie, he did,” I hear you. But ask yourself this: how many times did you tell yourself it was fine when it wasn’t? How many times did you edit your own reality to keep the peace? The lies he told you were his. The lies you told yourself were yours. And the second set did more damage than the first because they came from someone you trusted completely: you.
Forgiving yourself for that is the real work. Not forgiving him. Forgiving the woman who abandoned herself to keep a fantasy alive. She was doing her best. Now she knows better. And knowing better is the first real thing that’s happened in a long time.
