Secrets are something that is kept from the knowledge of others or shared only with a few. To most people the knowledge is hidden.
Secrets can be good or bad, big or little.
For my grandmother’s ninetieth birthday we threw her a surprise party. The whole family kept it secret from her. She kept it secret from us that she knew about the ‘surprise’ for six months.
That was a good secret… no one was hurt or forced into a situation where they were without protection and support. But there are plenty of families where secrets are kept and embellished to cover over horrible things.
One of the big rules about secrets is that adults should never tell children to keep their secret safe from other adults. Also secrets should not be used to hurt others, especially in adult and child relationships.
I’m really trying to keep the dynamics of this PG, because we’re dealing with healing and emotions and I don’t want to overwhelm anyone, because we are fragile when opening the Danger Box and dealing with what’s inside.
And that’s ok. Being fragile is part of healing - just like being emotionally unable to feel or process emotions is part of trauma.
Again, you have to be safe enough to feel things and know your limits.
I want to do a part two on secrets, because sometimes our brains keep secrets from us and it’s a survival technique.
That mechanism gets darker - so consider this a content warning for next week.