Finding Light in the Lies We're Told

The Lies Love Hides didn't begin with one relationship. It began much earlier. I have lived my entire life surrounded by some form of abuse — beginning in childhood, where violence, manipulation, control, and emotional abuse shaped the way I learned to see myself and relationships.

I learned early what it felt like to be made to feel small. To feel less than. To question myself. To believe that perhaps I wasn't enough.

Where the story began.

Before there were relationships, there was childhood. I grew up experiencing violence, fear, control, and emotional manipulation. I was beaten, dragged around by my hair. I learned what it felt like to be afraid of the person who should have made me feel safe.

There wasn't simply the physical pain. There was the message underneath it: that I was not enough, that my feelings didn't matter, that love was conditional, that love comes with pain and fear, that keeping the peace might be safer than speaking up.

And when those messages are repeated throughout childhood, they don't simply disappear when you grow up. They can become part of the way you see yourself. Part of your conditions of worth. Part of the internal scripts you carry without even realising they're there.

I learned to adapt. To read moods. To anticipate reactions. To make myself smaller. To tolerate things I shouldn't have had to tolerate. To believe that perhaps I was the problem. And somewhere along the way, some very deep beliefs began to take root:

I'm not enough.

I ask for too much.

This is what love looks like.

If I try harder, things will change.

I just need to be better.

I am not worthy.

I don't deserve.

These became limiting beliefs I carried into adulthood — not because I consciously chose them, but because they were learned long before I had the understanding or language to challenge them.

I didn't know then that what I was learning was not the truth about my worth. It was the truth about the environment I was surviving in.

The Scripts We Learn

Looking back now, I can see how those early experiences shaped the way I responded to relationships. I became good at reading people. Good at managing moods. Good at anticipating what someone else needed. Good at adapting. Good at surviving. Those skills helped me then.

But some of the very things that helped me survive childhood later became patterns that made it harder to recognise when I was being harmed.

I could tolerate more. I could explain more away. I could forgive more. I could stay longer. And I could convince myself that if I just tried hard enough, loved enough, understood enough or became enough, perhaps I could make things okay.

That wasn't weakness. It was learned behaviour. It was survival. And understanding that distinction has been a huge part of my healing.

Because the little girl who learned to survive was doing exactly what she needed to do.

She wasn't broken.

She was adapting to what she knew.

And then came three significant relationships, each teaching me something different about what abuse can look like.

I describe them as The Alcoholic Womaniser, The Compulsive Liar and The Charmer.

You can find more about them as my BLOG unfolds...!

It was only much later that I began to understand that surviving something and being free from its influence are not necessarily the same thing. Sometimes we leave the environment behind, but carry its rules with us.

Until one day, we begin to question them.

Am I really not enough?

Do I really have to earn love?

Is keeping everyone else happy really my responsibility?

Why do I tolerate what hurts me?

And eventually:

What if the things I learned about myself were never true in the first place?

That question became the beginning of something different. Not because my past changed. But because I began to understand it.

And perhaps that is why The Lies Love Hides was born — to question the lies, uncover the patterns, and finally call in the truth.

Truth

Validation

Empowerment

Self Trust

Truth can be uncomfortable. It can shake everything we thought we knew, challenge the stories we were taught to believe, and ask us to finally see what we’ve spent years trying not to.

But truth is also freedom.

Because when we stop hiding from what we know deep inside, we stop abandoning ourselves. We find our voice. We find our strength. And sometimes, the most powerful thing we can ever say is simply:

This is my truth..

We can spend so much of our lives looking outside ourselves for someone to tell us that what we felt was real, that our choices were right, that we were enough.

But sometimes the validation we’re waiting for has to come from within.

You don’t need someone else to confirm your pain for it to matter.
You don’t need someone else to understand your truth for it to be true.

You can believe yourself.
You can validate yourself.
You can choose yourself.

And there is something incredibly powerful about no longer needing permission to trust what you already know.

Empowerment isn’t about becoming someone else.
It’s about remembering who you were before you learned to doubt yourself.

It’s finding your voice, trusting your instincts, setting boundaries and knowing that you don’t need permission to choose yourself.

You are not powerless because someone hurt you.

Your power begins when you stop giving your truth away to someone else.

There comes a moment when you stop asking, “Am I imagining this?”
And start asking, “Why did I stop trusting myself?”

Self-trust is learning to listen to the quiet voice within you — the one you silenced to keep the peace, to be loved, or to avoid being called difficult.

You don’t need to have all the answers.

You just need to start believing yourself again.

Ready to Begin Your Journey?

Find solace in our poetry, affirmations, quotes in our growing collection of free resources.

A little note about Molly…

If you've found your way to The Lies Love Hides, you'll notice that the blogs and poetry are written and signed Love, Molly.

Molly George is my author name and the voice through which I share my writing, lived experiences, poetry and reflections.

My real name is Michelle, and alongside writing The Lies Love Hides, I am a trained counsellor with a trauma-informed approach.

I wanted to make that distinction clear because I never want anyone who visits this space to feel misled. Molly isn't a secret or someone I'm pretending to be — she is simply the author name I chose for this part of my work.

I have deliberately chosen not to use my own surname within this space for obvious reasons. This isn't about hiding who I am; it's simply a personal choice that allows Molly to have her own identity as the author of this work, while keeping my professional counselling and therapy identity separate.

The writing comes from my lived experience, while my counselling training brings an additional understanding of trauma, emotional wellbeing and the complex journey of recovery.

So when you see Love, Molly at the end of a blog, poem or post, you're hearing the personal, honest and vulnerable voice behind The Lies Love Hides.

And if you want to explore counselling or other therapies, that's where you'll find Michelle.

Two names.

One purpose.

To turn pain into power, and lived experience into purpose.
To empower others to recognise their worth, to reclaim their voice and to discover the strength that was always within them.
To shine a light through the darkness and offer hope, understanding and a path towards healing, peace and freedom.

Because you don't need someone to walk the whole journey for you.

You just need someone to walk beside you and shine a light on the path ahead and remind you that you can keep going.

Maybe you’d like to explore counselling?
If something here has resonated with you, you can find out a little more about counselling and other services available with Michelle at The Perfect Balance. Click the link below.

Reach Out - The Lies Love Hides

Your Voice • Your Thoughts • Connection

Inquiries: Molly@TheLiesLoveHides.co.uk

United Kingdom