Secrets, secrets are no fun

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

I had a rich conversation with one of my aunts who, even before beginning her lifelong career as a psychologist, was an astute student of human behavior. We were discussing the burden secrets create on one's psychology and mental health. Lies are a type of secret too, and when one vows to keep a secret, all efforts—be it conscious or unconscious—are directed to protect it.

There are good secrets, of course, that serve a higher purpose. For instance, protecting someone's privacy, when whatever is behind the privacy doesn’t violate others’ rights. Protecting those secrets is also a burden, except they become easier to carry knowing the reward is serving a noble principle. This distinction, unfortunately, is a line that conmen and the like blur to enslave unsuspecting victims into protecting their secrets and lies.

Secrets born of abuse, dishonesty or some sort of pathology have devastating consequences for the secret holder—they wear away at the psyche, at our very spirit. When a secret is held by a family, a close group or community, the effects are further compounded.

There’s a myriad of films, books and other mediums that tell the same story. The first that comes to mind, just because I only watched it this summer, is the 2013 film starring Neve Campbell, “An Amish Murder.’

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In the film, Neve's Amish character is sexually assaulted by a member of her community. She kills him in self-defense, and the family buries the evidence. She later leaves the community and becomes an officer of the law to prevent similar abuses from happening to other women. The secret tears through her family and community, creating fear, doubt and divisions, even as they all try to protect the victim of a violent crime.

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I'm not sure if the children's rhyme stems from an adage, but it's no surprise that it ends in "Secrets, secrets hurt someone."

Secrets that suppress the truth or worse, shield victimizers as a means to spare victims further suffering, have devastating effects for all secret keepers. A family, with the best of intentions, can take on secrets to protect their loved one from the shame and stigma of falling prey to a predator, only to find the burden is one all must carry until the truth sets them free.