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Ongpin-Montes, C. (2016), To Tell You the Truth. Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1o0GCLnYKZLHwmoUlWyEsfRvSPZjuhJcE/view

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Christine Ongpin-Montes, "To Tell You the Truth" (essay, 2016) .pdf

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Squires, S. (1989, November 19). Children Learn Art of Lying at an Early Age : Psychology: Like everything else, youngsters learn to lie from. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-11-19-vw-493-story.html

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All the numerous yet various occurrences that were recounted were centered around the theme of "dishonesty," whether it would be examples of when the persona lied during her childhood or the event that caused her to stop pursuing dishonesty altogether.

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The events in the essay were presented in an episodic manner. The author utilized a series of her childhood incidents, as seen in her flashbacks, tied together by Christine's hopes to live a life through her own fiction. This kind of narration allowed the author to explore the various personalities of Christine in different situations. This influenced the readers' experience as it allowed them to get a much more extensive understanding of Christine’s conflict, which is fear of facing the harshness of her life, thus, resorting to lies as a form of escape.

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The part of the essay that struck me the most was 

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The part of the essay that struck me the most was 

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“These days we’re all about searching for authenticity in our lives. For some time, the truth about my lying as a child was merely a story I would tell to amuse others. But now, I realize that even these lies can be an alchemy of the self: it has taken me a long time to become the person that I am, and this version of myself now is in reality made up of pieces from the very self that I was escaping from when I was a child. This is the root that holds who I truly am.”

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I believe that the essay has great relevance to the world today. Our world is undeniably filled with various macro-scale problems, and people with their fair share of challenges and experiences from the reality they hope will be erased. Hence, it is essential to acknowledge that lies go beyond the surface level and that we must dig deeper to understand people.

Just as Christine said,

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These specific lines struck me the most as they are also the ones I could resonate with the most. Similar to the author, I, too, come from a not-so-happy family – a reality I have long tried to ignore and even deny. While I am certain our stories vary greatly, our backgrounds do share a few similarities.

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As portrayed in the essay, the author could be seen and understood as an individual who is:

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Like Ongpin-Montes, I also tried my best to ignore-bury, even-the ugly truths of my family life and childhood, one that was filled with trauma and wounds. I lied to escape reality, and I’m definitely not proud of it. As much as I can, I try to hide the truth from my friends here in the city that my parents are separated–much more, not civil with each other. Because unlike in the province where the messy separation of my parents had been the talk of the town, here, I can prevent people from looking through me like a glass of water. In this city, I can filter what goes out about me, thus allowing me to avoid the questions and pity I used to get as someone from a broken political family.

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These are only a few of the many times I told lies to mask the fact that I was deprived of the opportunity to experience what it was truly like to be a carefree, worry-less, and loved child. I raised “me,” the Camille I am today, and taught myself how to get things done independently–primarily because I had no choice.

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The main individual involved in the essay is the author herself, whose name is Christine Ongpin-Montes. In addition, other people who were part of these events include her old classmate “Diadema” and her sister, her second-grade teacher “Ms. A,” and her classmates, all of whom she lied to. Finally, there were mentions of her immediate family: her mother, who was later revealed to be abusive; her father, who abandoned them; and her brother who, due to their financial struggles, drank only sugared water rather than milk.

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“It’s even made lonelier when it’s a child telling the lies for there is obviously something behind her words and the worlds she conjures up. There is a truth behind every lie that belongs only to the one who tells it.”

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“I realized that being an expert liar was not something I could feel guilty about.”

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The episodes wherein she lied include her first confession when she deceived her classmate Diadema into stealing money; the time she told her teacher she had to leave school early to compete in a televised swim meet; and the Sunday morning when she pretended it was her birthday and told everyone she was born in Taiwan and therefore, had two birthdays.

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"Why didn't the people I lied to probe deeper to see if I was telling the truth?.. I wonder, had I received the same expectancy for truth-telling from the people around me, would I have gone any further?"

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Additionally, the author included the actual events that occurred in reality. These are the lonely nights when she would go to their family's balcony and watch the street under her while worryingly waiting for her mother to return home. Then, was succeeded by when she was twelve and found her mother’s diary served as an account of her mom’s "growing-up days,” entries containing her mother’s suffering. This event was the turning point that made Christine’s lying and make-believe moments gradually end as it opened her eyes to the ugly truth about her lies.

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“... reading the diary took away the beauty and comfort of my lies and they had ceased giving me a safe space.”

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In the later part of the essay, the more grown Christine is being narrated, someone who has yet to figure things out and let go of the lies. It details her realizations about her childhood, acknowledging the reasons behind her actions as a young girl and the lessons that these taught her. Lastly, the essay's ending reveals the author's version who is beginning to accept her reality and being the most authentic Christine she could be.

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By writing in this voice, Christine immediately connected with the reader by showing how she thinks, feels, and perceives by giving privy to her mind and inner thoughts. This narration was beneficial, especially when Christine was relaying her reflections, as she could interpret her past behavior, which allowed the reader to make judgments and understand the persona more.

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“If you think the lie ended there, you are mistaken.”

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Conversing with the reader builds a bond between Christine and the reader, pulling the reader right into the action and allowing him to impart opinions and decisions on Christine’s story. This dramatically affected the reading experience, making the essay more intrusively intimate and less detached from the reader.

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“There is a truth behind every lie that belongs only to the one who tells it.”

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The occasional use of third person broadens the horizons of the story. In this line, Christine presented her thought creatively yet objectively, leaving the reader with more interpretation of how the essay reflects today's world.

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Each character and every version of Christine has different views, thoughts, and emotions. Moreover, as stated before, many events were recounted in the essay. And through writing in multiple voices, the author delivered all this information, helping the reader interpret the characters, events, and, especially, Christine’s experiences in her essay more effectively.

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People knew about Christine’s dishonesty, yet they turned a blind eye to it. This reflects how our society today tolerates lying. No one stepped up and helped open Christine’s eyes to the consequences of lying, so how could the child realize what wrong she had done?

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In our world, lies take on all shapes and forms, from omitting details to flat-out falsehoods. For Christine, she saw lies as her safe space. Pretending to be Sarah, Louise, or Jane Marie was her way to enjoy childhood. The way her essay flowed from the lies she told to her background, reasons, and realizations sends our eyes to a new way to view things: to search for a deeper sense of the world and accept reality.  And the first step to take is to ask.

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Yet again, “A lot of socialization has to do with learning to lie well” (Lipsitt, n.d., as cited in Squires, 1989).

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“Did I lose my innocence the minute I realized the truth about my lying?”

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“Did she ever find out the truth? And if she did, why didn’t she confront me?”

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“But now, I realize that even these lies can be an alchemy of the self.”

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Regardless of the feeling of abandonment by his dad and shortcomings and abuse from her mom, the essay portrayed Christine as a loving child who cared for her mother:

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“Midnight and she is not yet home…The stillness of the night a blanket of fear that enwrapped me: Mama was out there and something bad might happen to her."

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Children imitate the behaviors of those that surround them. And sadly, telling lies is something we first learned as a kid–from our fear of getting into trouble to the mere pursuit of excitement. Lying has become so normalized, like how flattery is utilized to curry favor and present information selectively to create a desired impression, that it is as if lying has now become a necessity for us.

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Finally, it goes without saying that the author has been through a lot – a broken family, a childhood filled with loneliness, and a deprivation of the attention and care she needed.

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As a result, Christine gained the capability to evolve from someone who used lies to run away from reality into an individual who can draw strength from the ugly truths of her past and, eventually, use childhood trauma as a source of personal growth.

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“There are moments when I still wish I were anyone but me, but little by little, I am learning to shake the truths out of myself and I expect the only truth and nothing but the truth – no matter how absurd, shattering, ugly, and painful. Perhaps my childhood lies can now be the mirror on the wall before which I stand and I must face it; for this time, it cannot, and will not, lie any further.”

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In the end, she matured and realized that her experiences, no matter how difficult, are all essential parts of her identity.

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Today, we belong to a society that lives on the internet. And thanks to technology, deception has never been easier. Like how Christine's lying puts her in an ideal childhood covering reality, the pervasiveness of social media and digital communication has become a platform to show a life that people ought to live but encapsulates only the part perceived as more alluring.

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Despite all of this, the abovementioned reminds me that even though these past experiences of mine were traumatic and I am undergoing the long process of healing from them, they are still a part of who I am. It is also from these events that my character was born, which is why I grew into the strong-willed individual I am today. There is no denying that what I went through are things no child should ever have to experience, but I learned to accept these facets of my personality and use them as motivation to be an even better person.

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Because to tell you the truth, I’m still in the process of accepting what my truth is, my reality.

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And as each day passes, I am learning to embrace every aspect of myself with an open mind and heart.