What questions help you gain clarity?

What secrets am I keeping?

I’d like to suggest that if you are keeping a secret that feels infused with shame or hurt, consider whether that might be deeply impacting your well-being.

Having kept secret the sexual abuse I had experienced as a teenage boy and then finding out in the healing process from ulcerative colitis that was, quite literally, eating me up from the inside… when the corrosive secret came out, in a space and with a person I trusted, my healing journey changed dramatically.

Please know, if you do not have a safe person and space for that yet, it’s okay. I certainly pray for you to match up with the right person for you.

I post this vulnerable question for my inner Ricky who felt (rightfully I would say) that at the time of the abuse conditions would have been horribly unsafe psychologically for him to reveal what was happening or happened. I’m so grateful there are so many more safer ways and people to share with, personally or professionally.

It’s part of the picture that perpetrators shame and threaten. It’s also part of the picture that it’s hard to get safe help and support if a person is both victim and perpetrator.

I’m inviting anyone whose healing process is stalled or collapsing to at least consider this question, and even if only acknowledging it for now to yourself, if you have a corrosive secret that being aware of it and accepting that it may be Impactful can open us up to next steps in the restoring freedom process.

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