Two friends and I were having coffee last summer when one of them mentioned an aunt who had been mentally ill. “No one spoke of this,” the friend said. “It was a secret.” We wondered why. Was it about shame, guilt, privacy? And did it help the aunt or harm her?
Family secrets, we agreed, are everywhere. I grew up with a mother who was an alcoholic, but my brother and I only knew she seemed fragile and moody. When I asked Dad about her, he insisted there was no problem. It was only when Mom died of liver cirrhosis that Dad acknowledged the drinking and said he blamed himself. Shame, guilt, privacy.
Family secrets are everywhere. Alcoholism, divorce, adoption, abortion, bankruptcy, child abuse, mental illness, homosexuality, you name it. Or you hide it. What is the right response? It’s hard to know. My mother’s secret hurt everyone. But telling a secret can hurt, too.
Sometimes we ask to know the truth; other times it is thrust upon us. Either way, I suspect we can bear more of it than we think—and even be grateful.
“What happened to your aunt?” I asked my friend. “She finally told us she had clinical depression and suddenly we understood our whole family better.”
