Secrets

Secrets.

Do you have secrets?

I once asked someone their opinion about whether I should tell my daughters about my rape and the events surrounding it.   Her response was “you are only as sick as the secrets you keep.”

That wounded me deeply because at the time I was working so hard in therapy to work through the trauma.  I was not keeping it a secret.  It was just always something I could not give voice to, and I still struggle saying it.  But not being able to talk about something is different that purposely hiding it, I think.  And being able to speak about it has been the whole point of therapy - holding in traumatic memories is not good for one’s mental or physical health.  

You are only as sick as the secrets you keep.  

Still, I think I agree with this sentiment.  In my life I can only think of two things that I kept secret and each one has eaten away at me.

One, that I now confess, is that when I was very young I once pulled the legs off of a daddy long-legged spider, leaving it with one leg.  Terrible, I know.  The image of it trying to hobble away still haunts.  Nothing I can do about it at this point, but now I never kill spiders, or any bugs for that matter. I believe in the bug relocation program.  But every time I relocate a spider, I think about that daddy long-leg.  Very disturbing. Some secrets you just can’t shake.

Second, when I was in High School I said something incredibly mean and nasty to a friend.   It ended the friendship, of course.   That also haunted me terribly and for years afterward I tried to locate her so I could apologize.   Then, just a few years ago, by brother-in-law mentioned that he had met her - she was working in a hotel in the south.  And so I wrote her a long and heartfelt apology which she graciously accepted.   I felt released from decades of self-imposed misery.  

You are only as sick as the secrets you keep.  

The other side of the equation is the secrets I keep for other people.  I am never comfortable with this.  Both my daughters came to me when they wanted birth control.  “Don’t tell mommy, please.”  And I didn't, although I still don’t know if that was the right decision.   Fortunately we are past it being as issue.

I once saw a friend’s husband (also a friend) with another woman and didn't know what to do with the information.  I agonized for quite some time.  Fortunately the wife learned about his dalliances another way and I was off the hook.  

Martha’s nephew’s wife recently came to me and confessed she was having an affair.  It was not a secret I wanted to hold and I told her so.   She did then confess to her husband.   It’s a mess.

A few years ago, the same person who told me “you are only as sick as the secrets you keep” told me a few of her secrets.  I didn't realize at the time that they were actually things that could be quite damaging to her and to her husband (even though she did actually write that it would be damaging if anyone knew. That part went right over my head.)  I thought it was just a friend sharing personal stuff and I am known to be discreet and nonjudgmental.  But a few days ago a different friend came into knowledge of these facts and totally wigged out.  She was rather accusatory and wondered why/how I could of kept this information to myself, when other people could be getting hurt. I feel caught between the moral obligation of disclosure and keeping a confidence.  But the disclosure is potentially career ending information which may, or may not, be relevant.

Secrets.  Is it ever good to have a secret?  Is confession truly good for the soul?   Is it wrong to keep someone else’s secrets?  Especially if it could be hurtful to someone else?   Either way it seems that keeping secrets, your own or someone else’s,  has a cost.

This is what is keeping me awake lately.