Family secrets or skeletons in the closet?

Listen, do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell? Closer, let me whisper in your ear." The Beatles made the subject of keeping a secret so delightful that you bask in the joy of exposing it. This is the nice, sweet and flattering kind that brings a blush and a smile to the subject of the secret.

What if it involves something dark and inexplicable that families guard them with intense ferocity? We call them skeletons in the closet.

Meet Adelle, beautiful, intelligent and accomplished. She made a name for herself as the company vice president in charge of development. She married into a rich family and easily slipped into the dual role of wife and career woman. Colleagues and business partners envied what they perceived as an ideal union.

Behind closed doors, Adelle slept separately from her husband. Every time they tried to sleep together, Adelle would clam up. She would break into a cold sweat and shake violently that her husband needed to restrain her to keep her from harming herself. Once she almost bit off her tongue.

In therapy, they discovered that Adelle repressed her childhood. Her mother had a dark past. She was a prostitute and Adelle was her daughter born out of wedlock. In order to support them, her mother brought men to their cramped apartment, sometimes one after another, which forced Adelle to sleep in the bathroom while her mother used the only couch as her love bed.

One night, her mother had a drunken stevedore as a customer who saw Adelle sleeping in the bathroom. He tried to seduce her but Adelle’s mother saw it. There was a fierce fight and Adelle rushed to the kitchen to see what she can use to stop the stevedore from hitting her mother. She found a dull knife and with blind rage plunged the knife at the stevedore once, twice, thrice until he fell dead. She was only five years old.

Her mother gave Adelle a bath and whispered, "It’s all right. It’s just a bad dream." The same night, they took the bus to move to a nearby town where her mother began a new life. They never talked about the incident again. The mother thought that by blocking it from Adelle’s memory, she would someday forget it ever happened.

The mind has a way of shielding bad thoughts if it would harm the person so Adelle subconsciously repressed this dark episode in her life. Her mother would have guarded this secret to her grave.

In ancient history, when pharaohs died, the people who knew about their secrets were buried alive with them, sealed in airtight vaults and tombs. To this day public knowledge of suicide, mental illness, illicit affair or something heinous like abortion, incest, torture, sadism or murder, can destroy lives and reputations.

However, we have also put fewer restrictions on what can harm family honor. Secrets revealed are given prime time and celebrities have found a medium to write their memoirs, which readers eagerly buy with the intention to learn something more intimate and shocking than what has already been written and published in papers and magazines.

Talk shows have more viewers if they feature guests who bare all. Some do it because they believe that by sharing their harrowing experience, others would learn from it. Others are only after the publicity and like to embellish the truth, adding lies on top of lies.

Oprah Winfrey once introduced an honor student who made thousands of dollars on the Internet by providing cyber sex. The only equipment he needed was a video camera and several websites that catered to pedophiles. His mother never knew he was leading a double life until he became desperate and sought help. He exposed the pool of pedophiles and tracked down other websites who were into child abuse and trafficking.

This young man built a web of deceit, lies and dangerous secrets until it literally consumed him before divulging the secret became his deliverance.

An article I read claimed that every one carries a secret. Are we willing to reveal our most guarded ones?

I asked a group of my friends and instantly, a line was drawn between those who would remain tight-lipped (zip the mouth) and those who were willing to open up but on one condition: Maintain anonymity ("So long as you don’t identify us"). I still have doubts about the latter.

Dr. Joyce Brothers writes that some secrets are better left unshared.

Hiding a secret requires constant vigilance. In one case study, a woman did not tell her current in-laws that she was once the mistress of a powerful government official. Her secret was making her a nervous wreck but her greater fear was the thought that her husband and worse, her in-laws, would not be able to forgive her much less accept her.

There are two kinds of secrets that require different response:

1) Secrets that can strengthen the bond between those who share them. Usually, these secrets concern vulnerability, a frailty that needs to be protected.

A woman had a mortal fear of swimming. Her entire family drowned in a swimming accident but she survived because she lost consciousness and was washed ashore. Her fear was well founded although she had consulted a therapist to conquer it.

Keeping this kind of secret builds trust. You protect your friend or relative by shielding her from prying eyes and meddlesome characters.

2) However, dangerous secrets like sex abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, suicidal behavior, drug and alcohol abuse that could lead to overdose or death must be told.

Help has to be arranged immediately from the appropriate medical or legal authorities. If you know of a secret like this, you must reveal it to the right party without announcing it to the entire community.

What about family secrets? Some are tortured by these secrets but still they hold on to them. Dr Joyce Brothers calls it "the cruel paradox."

She says that these secrets can wear you down but revealing them carries the risk of rejection which then becomes a double pain. A secret so hurting that it takes all your might to reveal – thus exhausting you emotionally and physically – and when finally revealed, there’s the added grief of not gaining sympathy or support.

Dr. Joyce cautions you to consider the following questions before revealing your deepest secrets to your loved ones:

• "Who really owns the secret?" This question particularly interested me because she gave an example that has long been a familiar situation: If your friend or a relative confided that her husband was having an affair, you may be angry enough to want everyone else in the family or your circle of friends to know about it. In truth, the secret belongs to your friend or relative, not to you. You do not open your mouth. You don’t spread it. You focus on your relative or friend and offer help. It is up to her to take the initiative to open up or share the secret. Don’t be a tattletale or a rumormonger.

• Is there any negative motivation for wanting to tell? Did you want to relieve your own guilt at someone else’s expense or did you want to hit back at your relative or friend or did you just want to get the attention that comes with the telling?

Some use the secret as a weapon to exact revenge, to hurt or to get even.

If after taking the above precautions you still believe that you need to expose the secret, Dr. Joyce offers a step-by-step procedure:

1) Think ahead. Try to visualize how the person affected by your revelation will respond. Rehearse your emotions to remove some of the potential shock. For example, a man decides to tell his parents he’s gay. He knows his father has set attitudes about homosexuals but also his father has always been supportive of him. He visualizes his father walking out in anger and disgust and experiences feelings of rejection or he visualizes his father hugging him and experience feelings of acceptance.

2) Talk with a neutral person. A counselor, a priest, a doctor can be a safe choice for the initial revelation. Though not as objective, a good friend can also provide a different perspective.

You will also find that the world won’t come to an end.

3) Disclose the secret to a trusted family member. Often, this can be someone you’ve developed a close rapport with who also has a deep understanding of the family dynamics. If he’s willing to become part of the telling process, he can take some of the burden off of you.

4) Be prepared for strong emotions. Allow others and yourself to express shock, anger, defensiveness, sadness and whatever feelings the secret evokes.

5) Own the aftermath. Continue to explore the issues raised by the secret and ultimately, reach some resolution.

Secrets can be perfect material for a runaway best seller or a box-office hit. But protect the identity of your family and friends by using pseudonyms and modifying some details and circumstance.

You need to know when to tell and not to tell.

In my circle of friends, secrets do not ruffle our feathers because we would have forgotten them by now. (Someone was quick to ask, "Is it advancing age?") Either that or the details would have been tangled in a neat pile of "Where-was-I-in-the-telling-again?"

Ah, if only all secrets (and keepers of secrets) were that easy to handle and forget.

* * *

(References: Family Secrets: Handle with Care by Dr. Joyce Brothers, page 4; The Parade Magazine Washington Post, Sunday, September 7, 2003).

* * *

Thank you for your messages and comments. Email me at lettyjlopez@hotmail.com.