The Truth May Break You. But It’s the Only Way to Freedom

A big lie is a time bomb. You might not hear it ticking every day, but one day, it will go off. And when it does, it won’t just hurt you; it will wreck everything in its path.

Former NFL player Jonathan Martin once made headlines as the victim of brutal bullying by his Miami Dolphins teammate, Richie Incognito. The story was huge! Proof that the NFL had a toxic culture, that men were breaking under pressure. But here’s the truth: Martin later admitted that the bullying wasn’t real. He wasn’t a victim of his teammates. He was a victim of himself.

Martin ended up in a psychiatric hospital because of the lies he was telling himself, not because of what anyone else did. He cracked under the weight of trying to be something he wasn’t, hiding what he really felt, burying his own truths so deep that he couldn’t find them anymore.

I know that weight. I carried it for years.

Like Martin, I ended up suicidal and in a hospital too, not because of someone else's abuse, but because of my own lies. I lied to others. I lied to myself. I buried the truth so deep that I forgot where I’d put it. And for a while, I thought I was getting away with it.

But the thing about lies is they don’t stay buried. They grow. They rot. They turn into something unrecognizable, something that eats you alive from the inside. I wasn’t free. I wasn’t happy. I was a prisoner to my own bullshit.

And then, the bomb went off.

The same way it did for Martin. The same way it will for anyone who refuses to face their own reality.

Richie Incognito became the villain of this story. And sure, maybe he was an asshole; maybe he probably still is. But let’s get one thing straight: He didn’t put Martin in that hospital. Martin did that to himself.

For all the Richie Incognitos of the world, the guys who walk around like they’ve got it all together or are untouchable, they’re far from good. You can puff up your chest, crack jokes at other people’s expense, convince yourself you’re the strongest guy in the room. But if you’re lying to yourself, you’re avoiding your own truth. You’re no better off than Martin was before he broke. You can only outrun the truth for so long. You can drink it away. You can bury it under bravado and rage. You can convince yourself that you’re not the problem. But deep down, you know the problem. I did too. So fix it, dummy.

And until you admit it…to yourself…you will never be happy. You will never be at peace. You will always be looking over your shoulder, waiting for the moment when the lies you’ve told, the pain you’ve caused, the truth you refuse to face. It will finally catch up to you.

"What lie are you still sitting on? What truth are you afraid to say out loud? Journal on it. What would happen if you stopped running from this? If you finally, once and for all, did something?

I don’t know what Jonathan Martin is doing now. I don’t know if he’s found peace, if he’s stopped running. But I do know this: he had to break before he could rebuild. And so did I.

And so will you.

But on the other side of it? That’s where real happiness is. That’s where freedom is.

And that’s worth everything.