Whitewashed Tombs: What We’ve Been Living Inside and Seeing Through
Twice in one day, I heard a phrase I had never heard before: whitewashed tomb. It didn’t feel mystical or ominous, it felt weird and strangely precise, and an invitation to look further. I stopped everything I was doing to look it up and see what it meant after the first time I heard it. I pondered it and moved on. Then I heard it again later in the day and thought wow - there might be something to this. It was like language was arriving for something I had already been living inside of but had no words for it.
A whitewashed tomb refers to something that appears clean, respectable, and righteous on the outside while inside it is hollow, decaying, or dead. It names the disconnect between presentation and reality, between what is displayed publicly - the fake facade - and what is actually happening beneath the surface. It is a harsh phrase because it points to a harsh truth, one that many would rather not look at too closely.
For trauma survivors, this is not an abstract idea; it is very familiar terrain. Many of us grew up with families that functioned exactly this way. From the outside, everything looked fine, prefectly curated, and often even admirable. The facade of good parents, good values, a solid reputation - but inside, there was neglect, control, emotional manipulation, systemic abuse, silence, or harm that could never be spoken. The appearance of the family mattered more than the reality of the child. Maintaining the surface became the highest priority. A normalized tribal agenda of whitewashing the exterior so that noone would ever question the toxic decay or annihilating dysfunction within.
Living in an environment like that teaches you early that truth is tenuous and dangerous, and that appearances are the currency used to keep the facade in place, and ultimately what matters most. You learn very early to read energy instead of words, a survival skill born of constant cognitive dissonance, where what is said publicly and what happens privately are two entirely different realities. You learn that naming what feels wrong will not bring relief but punishment, and that keeping quiet is often the cost of belonging.
When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.
