I’m obsessed with the truth! Being told.

At 16, I felt betrayed when the truth was shouted in anger by my mother: “He’s not your father!” For some years I could not remember what I did after hearing those traumatic words; I dissociated until I asked years later to be regressed, to retrieve those memories. Sadly, my dad who raised me with love extraordinaire – unusual un the 1950s and 60s – died suddenly of a heart attack at age 60, before I was brave enough to ask why he did not come to comfort me – both of us too scared.

(Like Republicans to stand up to Trump’s daily lies.)

It’s a sad state of humanity, that we don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth but learn to lie to get revenge – get even- as is readily acknowledged.

As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I’ve been in the courtroom a few times to testify for clients falsely accused by the mother that the father sexually abused their child. When the judge asked me for my psychotherapy notes, I refused, and a warrant was put out for my arrest. I had agreed to write a summary, but that was not sufficient for the judge.

A couple months went by before a cop stopped me on route 13 (my lucky number) in Ithaca, NY in broad daylight and cuffed me. Once in the police car, he changed my handcuffs from behind my back to being in front of my lap. This happened two more times as I was driven through two other counties to where I was arraigned, given a $500 fine, then fingerprinted and mug shot taken at the jail. The police were respectfully understanding, while I felt surprisingly relaxed during the ride where there were two transfers of handcuffs, and police officers over county lines. Later that evening, my daughter Erin came to pick up her “ex-con” mom.

Late, when I appeared in court (2012) to support my client on the stand for a custody hearing and again refused to give up my psychotherapy notes as I have client-therapist privilege as do lawyers – I was dismissed as a witness, but I had already said enough to be heard for my client’s benefit. I left with sunshine on my back, and soon thereafter medical release forms were changed to exclude psychotherapy notes.

My devotion to the truth is born out in watching a TV series called BULL, even repeats, because he is a psychologist who unravels the truth with the assistance of his employees: a lawyer, an investigator, a computer hacker, while being a trial scientist as a voir dire expert. He can tell when people lie, by assessing their body language.

So, I’m bullish as I quote Henry David Thoreau – “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” For without truth, our love is thin as ice broken through on a (Walden😊) pond.