All families have secrets and lies that are part of that particular family's culture. These secrets and lies range all the way from beneficial through relatively harmless on to harmful all the way to severely malignant. Beneficial secrets and lies would include such things as letting or helping someone feel smarter, more athletic or better looking than the really are. Relatively harmless secrets and lies might include such things as letting someone think that they are more popular, recognized or respected than they really are. Harmful secrets and lies might include such things as pretending that Mom is not an alcoholic or that Dad is not having an affair. Malignant secrets and lies might include denials of such things as the fact that Dad is a batterer or that Mom hates her own children or that the kids are being molested or that they are growing up in a drug house.

These are very bad situations and we don't want to believe that they exist. But they do exist and these situations are not at all helped by pretending that they don't. The only hope for salvation for these situations is for the truth to be told, addressed and remedial action taken. This is also true for those situations that are less severe but nevertheless still harmful. As children, we of course did not have the power nor the tools to address or remedy these situations.

When we were children and things happened to us and around us that were bad, wrong, evil and/or horrific, we were relatively powerless. We most often had no one to tell, didn't know who to tell, didn't know how to tell them or didn't know whether or not we should tell. Sometimes we were told not to tell and even threatened that if we told something bad would happen. Sometimes we tried to tell someone and the results seemed disastrous to us. Or we were too embarrassed or ashamed to tell. Telling our story seemed full of bad consequences one way or another. We became quiet, sullen, withdrawn, shy, rebellious, hyperactive, belligerent or fractious. We became fearful and sneaky and in turn, we perpetuated the secrets and lies. We learned to lie, distort, misrepresent, exaggerate or minimize. We knew things were wrong, but with our immature child's minds we weren't really sure what was right. We weren't sure if we were representing events accurately even in our own heads. We didn't know what to think, feel or believe. And, we carried this fear and confusion forward into our adult lives.

Now we are trying to heal from the brokenness of those secrets and lies. We are being asked by our therapy, i.e. by our need to heal, to get the story right, see it accurately and fairly, and process it so that we can stop reenacting it. We are being asked to tell our story as part of this process of trying to get it right. But our old prohibitions continue to get in our way. We are full of reason, excuses and considerations to help us avoid telling the truth. We tell ourselves things like, "What's the point?" "It will do more harm than good." "I don't want to revisit that. It was too awful." "It's over and done with. Forget about it!" "I went all through that. I don't need to go through it again." But if the secrets and lies have remained unchallenged, then they are not through with us no matter how badly we want to be through with them. They are still haunting us and impacting our lives in negative ways. So the challenge is to revisit these things over and over again until we can separate the truth from the fiction. Then and only then, can we truly move on.

Desired Outcome:
To gain greater understanding of our resistance to exposing our families secrets and lies, greater understanding of the importance of telling the truth about our childhood, and greater comfort with that process and with dealing with the truth about our experience.

Discussion Starters: Examining your own life experience, consider the following:

• What happened to create my resistance to seeing my story accurately?

• What happened to create my resistance to telling my story accurately?

• How do secrets and lies impact my life today?

• What helps me to be more honest with myself?

• What helps me to be more open and honest with others?
  

John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com