Susan had always been agentic, had known from her visit to Cornell that she wanted to and would go there, had known from her initial interview with Price Waterhouse Coopers that she wanted to and would work there–and had known very shortly after meeting Chris that she wanted to and would marry him. Susan, it […]
December 19, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
So we left off with the concept that if a secret affects children, those children have the right to know. This does not mean that you can use children to unburden yourself, like my patient did with her eldest daughter and her husband’s affair. That will yield only damage; your child is not your father-confessor. But the same reason […]
December 19, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
So you’re convinced, due to some circumstance or another, that the time has come to reveal your secret, and relieve yourself of the burden of shame and hiding that has weighed you down for so long. NOW what? Well, best of all would be to use some common sense, I suppose. Public service announcements: revelations […]
December 18, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
“A nuerosis is a secret that you don’t know you are keeping.” Thus wrote English theater critic and writer Kenneth Tynan, and with these words he opens the conversation about the damage a secret does to the secret-keeper himself. So let’s take a step away for a moment from some of the family-dynamic reasons for […]
December 17, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
So we return to secrets hidden in plain sight, and particularly to Miriam’s mentally unstable father, Max, whom everyone seemed to know about, but no one actually mentioned. Max didn’t come out during the day. Ever. When there were certain things he wanted–usually food requests, he never wanted clothes or books or gifts for the […]
December 17, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
“Brilliant!” Harry whispered. “If everyone knows, no one will suspect it’s a secret!” No, it isn’t really “the Harry” that we’ve come to know and love via Ms. Rowling. It’s rather from a takeoff of the Potter series, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong. [Feel free to see http://m.fanfiction.net/s/5782108/12/ if this idea appeals to […]
December 16, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
If we’re to take an honest look at secret-keeping–and that involves our own–we need to ask ourselves some fundamental questions about why we continue in our path of secrecy. Ask yourself these–and be honest: 1. Who else knows this secret? Like in Alan’s case, with never having graduated high school, do so many people know, that keeping […]
December 16, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
Patty, a successful litigation attorney, came to me in the early stages of her first pregnancy to work through issues she’d been having in relationships. Patty struck me as self-confident, bright, assertive. She was a lesbian and comfortable with her identity, but had somehow just never found the right woman. I must be some sort […]
December 16, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
Back to ideas about how best to reveal a secret. It can’t hurt to start where we left off–using your common sense. Other tips: don’t construct a whole back story behind your secret to cover your guilt. I know it’s tempting–I really do–but the moment when you finally share your secret is not the time for excuses or […]
December 16, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
I find that people tend to justify some inappropriate secret-keeping with the self-righteous claim that, “It’s my business,” or–better yet–”It’s private.” So what is the difference between privacy and secrecy–and how do you know if you’re being private–which is okay, in this scenario–or secretive, which can cause so much collateral damage? I would suggest that while […]
December 15, 2011 by candidaabrahamson
It’s not the place here to go back and examine Manfred’s issues with sexuality, and his self-conviction that if he just tried marriage, all would be well. What does matter, ultimately, is the secret Manfred kept, and how damaging it was to himself and to those he loved–as all too often secrets can be. The short […]
January 1, 2012 by candidaabrahamson
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