The Truth Gets Louder
There was a time in my life when I felt like everything around me was about control. My dad, a corrupt police officer with a taste for power, imposed that same sense of dominance on me and my mom. He wasn’t physically violent most of the time, but there was always that threat just beneath the surface, ready to snap at any moment. It’s hard to forget the feeling of being a child, under his thumb, just waiting for the next outburst. I was never fully sure where the line between normal and terrifying lay in that house, but I know it existed—like a shadow hovering just outside the door.
It’s funny how, even now, I can’t escape that sense of being trapped at times. It followed me into adulthood, especially in my first marriage. My ex-wife, like my father, had this way of making me feel like I was never enough. Like everything I did was wrong, and the only way to make it right was to surrender everything to her. She knew how to use words like weapons. She told me over and over again that I carried no worth, that her children hated me, that I could never be a good father unless I did things exactly the way she said. Her mind games were always a step ahead, just like my father’s had been.
I thought for a long time that maybe I was just unlucky. Maybe the people I was supposed to trust and love were themselves too broken to see me for who I was. But then I saw the story of Zach Bryan, offering $12 million to silence his girlfriend after he had abused her. He thought he could throw money at the problem and make it go away. He didn’t realize the power in her voice, the strength it took to walk away from that kind of offer and make the truth public.
It made me think about the moments when I’ve shared my own story of abuse—first from my father, then from my ex-wife. The difference now, though, is that I see my voice as a shield, not just a cry for help. I see the way the world tries to shut down voices like mine, like my ex-wife tried to shut me down with her manipulations. She was influenced by her parents, who helped fuel the fire of control, making her believe I was disposable. But her children? They loved me unconditionally. In a way, that love helped me start to see myself differently.
The parallels between the way Zach Bryan thought he could bury the truth with money and the way my father and ex-wife used emotional abuse to control me are hard to ignore. Both were trying to break me down, to make me small enough to ignore, to make me compliant with their version of reality. But I refused. And I hope that by sharing my story, others will know they’re not alone in this fight.
The truth doesn’t get buried. It gets louder.
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