Mental Health Awareness Month Day 26.
We often keep secrets to avoid hurting those we love, but we actually end up hurting those we love MORE by keeping secrets in the first place.
Maybe I have been watching too much Grey’s. It’s my guilty pleasure lately. If you have never heard of it or watched it, Grey’s Anatomy is a drama about a bunch of surgeons. (It’s been on TV since 2005 and it’s STILL going.) It probably doesn’t sound that exciting to most of you. In fact, I still can’t believe I love it so much because I’m not a fan of doctors, hospitals, etc.
Anyway, I swear there is at least one person keeping a secret from someone else in every episode of that show because they think it’s best for the other person. And it drives me NUTS!! Also, it makes me think about my own life. We keep lots of secrets from each other ranging from silly and trivial to life-changing and confidential.
We tell children that Santa comes down the chimney bringing them and every child in the world gifts on the same night every year. We buy a gift for someone and tell the person shopping with us that it’s a surprise. We wait to announce pregnancies and the baby’s gender. We plan proposals without telling our significant other’s.
We lie, we steal, we cheat, we hide, we avoid. We leave out details. We deny realities. We don’t say what is really on our mind. We keep deep dark secrets. We say we’re fine when we’re actually not. We stay in the closet instead of coming out. We are silent instead of admitting guilt. We keep the diagnosis to ourselves. We hide our addictions. We lie to avoid the negative consequences. We cheat instead of dealing with the underlying issue(s). We think we’re doing the person in the dark a favor. We think we are keeping them out of harm’s way. We think we know best.
I am not saying we should never keep secrets or always tell everyone everything. But I feel like we keep more secrets than we really need to. Because we are afraid, ashamed, embarrassed, hurt, tired, angry, confused, overwhelmed, anxious, depressed, worried, jealous, lonely, annoyed, sad, disappointed, frustrated, neglected, abandoned, abused, discouraged, grieving, suicidal.
We think secrets are better for us and the person we’re keeping it from. They weigh on us and burden us, which does more harm to ourselves than we may realize or admit. Secrets tend to come out anyway. And they cause more damage when they come out accidentally long after the fact than if we would have come clean up front.
The solution isn’t merely confessing to the thing you want to hide or admitting the thing you hate about yourself. Though, that is a start. It’s living your life in a way in which you don’t want to or need to keep anything from anyone. I truly believe the more honest we can be with ourselves and the more integrity we can have in private, the more honest we can be with everyone else in our life and the more integrity we can have in public. #heber #secrets #secretsdontmakefriends #secretsweighusdown #behonest #haveintegrity #itwillsetyoufree #selfawareness #behindcloseddoors #someonealwaysfindsout #honesty #integrity #mentalillness #mentalhealth #mentalhealthawareness #mentalhealthawarenessmonth #mentalhealthinthetimeofcorona #coronavirus #covid19 #corona2020 #letsbereal #31in31at31 #agamutofgrey #lifeisbeautiful #may2020 5.26.20
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