40.
“I spent a lot of my childhood developing my skill at lying. I am good at it. Really good. I can count on one hand the times that I’ve been caught. I even learned how to pretend to be caught so that my parents would think I was a bad liar, and I could get away with more. I grew up in an extremely strict religious household where everything I said and did was monitored and judged. Physical punishment for minor infractions was the norm. It often went far beyond a spanking. I wasn’t even doing anything that ‘bad.’ but in a home where everything is a sin, you learn to just hide. I hid through lies.”
“I was in college when another student started talking about how spanking (and more) is abuse. I denied it, arguing that it wasn’t. But I knew it was, and I knew that all my lying stemmed from wanting to avoid getting into trouble. It took some work, but that’s not me anymore. It helps that I no longer feel the need to hide who I am or what I love.” —u/FiendishCurry
Source: https://www.buzzfeed.com/victoriavouloumanos/regular-behaviors-that-are-trauma-responses