“I’m not going to share my chart,” I told the teacher of my Clinical Pastoral Education class. It was as much a trust exercise as anything else, but showing the chart I had made of my family’s disfunction made me too ashamed. Eveyrone else shared theirs, but I flat-out refused.
What is it that you’ve never told anyone? Or that very few people know about you? Drug use? Emotional infedelity? How many sexual partners you’ve had? Maybe a sexual fantasy? Or were you ever in jail for shoplifting? Declared bankruptcy? Had a pregnancy terminated?
We keep secrets because we worry about what other people will think of us. We assume they’ll judge us harshly. But recent research shows that those fears are overblown. In fact, people are much more kind that we realize. Instead of focusing on what we’ve revealed, they see the courage it took to open up. Others value our honesty, trust, and vulnerability.
In fact, the research showed that it didn’t matter who the secrets were told to. Strangers, acquaintances, close friends, romantic partners, or family members, all judged the secret-keeper less harshly than they anticipated.
We fear darker secrets will garner worse judgments and that simply wasn’t the case in the study. You never learned to ride a bike? You exchanged sexy emails with an old fling after you were married? The people hearing the secrets felt the telling also revealed warmth, trust, and honesty. And those exposing something long hidden felt a burden had been lifted.
So, what is it you’ve been afraid to reveal? It’s scary to think about, isn’t it? I’ll go first. What I was afraid to share with my classmates was that my family has a history of unemployment, alcoholism, and bipolar disorder. What about something more personal? I was once almost sued for plagerism. I tried LSD back in the 70s.
And, this one hurts to admit, for as much as I think babies are magical, I don’t like taking care of them for more than about an hour. I may wait for a bit to tell that to my son and daughter-in-law. Research is one thing, but I’m only human.