As a counselor, people bring their secrets to me, and I provide a safe place for them to release their burdens. Perhaps you could call me a professional secret keeper. Sharing a secret that has been weighing on you can ease a great deal of pain. Having a safe place to unload your secret and unravel the web, originally created to protect you but which eventually imprisoned you, can be extremely freeing. Counseling can be a place to figure out how to manage the secret. Secrets have paradoxical effects when they are opened. They can unite and they can divide. It is also very important to decide when to open up and share the secret; timing is very important to the outcome. If you share the secret for the wrong reason, at the wrong time, or in the wrong way, the results can be disastrous.

    Secrets sabotage relationships by dividing family members. They encourage family members not to share outside of the family and create a sense of imprisonment. They also create a sense of guilt and low self- esteem because there is something about the family that must be hidden. There is shame.

    Paul’s story is an example of a secret that divided a family for 20 years. When Paul was 16, he shared with his mother that he was gay. She accepted Paul immediately and told him that she loved him, but told him that he could not tell his father who was a stern, blue-collar worker. She told Paul that he would totally reject him. Paul became very depressed and struggled through high school. After high school, he moved several states away and publicly revealed his homosexuality. He lived a rather unhappy life and became an alcoholic. He and his mother would talk, and she reminded him that he could not share who he really was with his father. He and his father grew more and more distant, and Paul went years without going home. Paul came to terms with his alcoholism, and then went into therapy to deal with his personal issues. He made the decision that he was going to share with his father who he really was. Paul went home at almost 40 years old to tell his dad. Paul’s dad was in poor health at the time. When Paul told him, his dad hugged him and asked him why he hadn’t told him before. He told Paul he would much rather have had him share his secret. He just wanted his son to come home and visit him more often. Paul and his dad shared a good relationship for three months before his dad died. The secret, not the news, had kept the family apart.

    This is an example of how secrets divide families and create triangles, which create alliances and leave other family members out. In this case, a good closure was achieved, but time almost ran out.

    If there is a secret that weighs heavily on you, counseling might be a safe place to share the secret and free yourself. You could then explore whether sharing the secret will benefit others in your life. It is important, however, to think about with whom you want to share the secret, and when might be the best time. Timing in life is often everything, and counseling is a place to explore what the best timing and circumstances to open a secret should be, or if it should be opened. There are times when leaving secrets closed is the best option.