Finding My Truth

“We both have truths; are mine the same as yours?” Pontius Pilate asks Jesus in the movie Jesus Christ Superstar.

That line has stayed with me since the movie’s 1973 debut. That was the first year I was living on my own, disowned by my family, divorced from my husband, disconnected from myself, and feeling lost.

That was the first year I began to consciously wonder about the truths my mother had told me about myself and about my life.

In her view, I was stupid, ugly, fat, and totally useless. Nothing I did was right. Throughout my life I had heard her question why she bothered to ask me to do anything since she would have to do it again.

Nothing I did was good enough for her.

She had three names for me which she hurled at me in Polish: witch, cow, fat ass.

In junior high I was placed in classes with the “smart” kids, which I knew was a mistake. For three years I kept waiting for someone in administration to realize his or her mistake and correct it, but no one ever did. When my report cards came home with high grades, my mother would say I had the teachers fooled.

In high school I took secretarial classes along with the college prep courses to which I had been assigned based on my test scores. Again, I kept waiting for someone to see this glaring error, but no one did.

When my high school guidance counselor suggested I go to college, I almost laughed. I knew I was too dumb for college; I also knew my mother would never allow it because she already believed no one would ever want to marry me. She had told me that if I went to college, I would be further limiting my options to find a husband in our working-class circle. 

My 10th grade biology teacher told me I would make a good scientist because I was curious and not afraid to ask questions. A scientist? It was such a foreign idea that I had no place to catalog it inside me. We were working-class people and jobs were concrete—like a secretary. We had no scientists in my family nor in my neighborhood. The men were firefighters, police, or postal carriers; the women who worked outside the home were secretaries. That was my life and my truth.

After I divorced the man she insisted I marry (since she was so thrilled that anyone would want to marry me, I had to marry him), my father disowned me. I was devastated and spiraled down to a dark place of deep pain. Death began to look preferable to the hell I was living. Now I was not only useless, stupid, ugly, and fat, but I was also alone.

In that dark place, though, other voices began to find a way in—those of people who encouraged and appreciated me, the people who told me I was smart and capable, the work supervisor who praised my secretarial skills, and the pastor who invited me to join a committee. All those people thought I had something to offer.

It turned out that my mother had lied to me, and it took me 22 years to begin to admit that to myself. By then, of course, I really was damaged. My own view of myself mirrored my mother’s. I saw myself as ugly and stupid and fat and useless.

But slowly, person-by-person, I let those other truths in. I began to play with the idea that I might be capable, that I might not be useless, and that I might even be smart enough to go to college.

It took another six years before I began therapy, and then the floodgates of truth opened as I began to look at my life through the eyes of an objective onlooker. My therapist helped me to see the damage my mother’s lies had done to me and helped me to re-parent myself with a more honest reflection of who I was.

Seeing the truth about myself has been a life-long work, and I still struggle with body dysmorphia and occasional bouts of self-doubt.

What I do know, though, is that I am capable and smart, that I am competent in several areas, and that I still have that curious mind my 10th grade biology teacher recognized. Only now, I recognize it too and give it permission to explore, question and learn. And now, not only do I recognize my own truth, but I speak it freely and openly. I own it.

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Madeline Bialecki grew up in Detroit and recently returned after living in Philadelphia for twenty-eight years. She began writing about her spiritual journey and faith life after the death of her best friend in 2012. She likes to read, knit, bake, and garden. She shares her spiritual journey here.