Nobody likes unwanted news. We don’t want to believe that a diagnosis is dire, or our behaviors are destructive. We don’t like to hear that someone important to us is not who we thought they were — we won’t accept that a person we’re invested in is a thief, a traitor, an adulterer, or an abuser. Some of us will do anything to avoid unwanted truths like these.

To cope personally, or to save face publicly, we spin or outright deny the facts — it’s remarkable how spectacularly we pull off mental contortionism in our quest to disguise truth.

Which is silly if you stop and think about it. No amount of distortion, denial, justification, deflection, or delusionment will ever change truth. Like it or not, truth is what it is.

Isn’t it a marvel that people who initially choose deceit out of shame or inability to cope, quickly progress to actually believing their…