Thicker than Water: A Memoir

by Kerry Washington

He said, “My therapist told me the cruelest thing you can ever do to another human being is to label their suspicions as false when you know them to be true.” His therapist explained that when you teach a person to believe that their internal truth is a lie, you take from them the very thing that is most important to each of us—our ability to know and trust ourselves.

One of the consequences of growing up in a household with half-truths is that there is no space for trust to thrive. My parents did not trust me with their painful truths and I, in turn, learned not to trust them with mine.