How anyone conducts themselves in their personal life is important, but telling others about your life may open you up to criticism and judgment. But as long as you're okay with your choices and your choices have been thought through, it shouldn't matter what others think.
Not everything you know, needs to be common knowledge to others. Not all secrets need to be known by others, sometimes those secrets not everyone will want to know. By the nature of what secrets are, our secrets may keep us fixated and that can damage our mental and emotional health to the point of making us ill. But other times, there are things that we know about that are best kept with us.
Then there are secrets that end up making us behave in ways that causes harm to others and ourselves, those secrets shouldn’t be secret at all. Secrets around addiction to drugs and alcohol, as well as infidelities to spouses and friends, shouldn't be secret.
Keeping secrets mean we're less likely to be inclusive, less likely to be forward thinking and assertive. It's generally not a good idea.
My whole life was about secrets when I was a child, seeing as my mother brainwashed me into keeping so many of them, thinking that was a normal way to live.
Of course, this turned me into a very secretive person who wasn't able to emotionally connect with other people, which becomes a very lonely way to live.
I have been very confused about my life and who I really am, after the way I have treated in the past couple of years, since I know I'm a decent person.
The reality is that people like my daughter have come to believe the lies that people told her about me, so she doesn't know about any of the secrets of my life, or her mothers just yet.
I'm hoping and praying that one day I will have the chance to clear the air with her, but I'm definitely not going to hold my breath.
Thanks Randy. Yes, hopefully you'll have a chance to clear the air between you and your daughter. In time that may come.
As you have pointed out in your response, and it happens in most families, it depends on what children are told, or who gets to our children first.
In all cases what's important is what we have to say, and that children listen to us, rather than to others.
I guess it depends on the nature of the issue, but keeping secrets is usually unhealthy, both to our psyche and to our relationships.
It's just easier all round, not to have any secrets to keep in the first place.
Thanks. Yes, I couldn't agree more. Keeping secrets can never work long terms, and it's not the right thing to do.
Keeping secrets also changes a person and can make us ill.