"Secret"



I went to a Halloween party and saw a couple of people from high school.  It was funny to talk about now and then, and somewhere along the way I laughed and said “I was a very badly behaved teenager.”  It kind of brought me up short when my old friend said “Yeah, I remember!” with a mixed expression of sternness and amusement.  He was like that back when I was misbehaving too.  I bet he went home with hopes that his kids aren’t me.

It’s odd to know how clearly he remembers my misbehavior, but without knowing that I’ve been a mostly responsible adult.  He just remembers my reckless hedonism.  To make things pinch a little more, he has moved to the little gossipy area where I grew up and has found out that everybody knows everybody else’s business there.  It’s a reminder that there are a whole lot of people who probably remember the follies of my lawless youth.

I laugh and tell people that I went through a wild period.  They just don’t really know what I’m talking about when I say it.  They might think most teenagers miss curfew and break into somebody’s parents’ liquor cabinet.  Maybe they do.  Child’s play.  When I say reckless, lawless, hedonism… well, maybe some of those things should remain secret?

I always seemed to have a duality to my nature, and I kept those parts separate from themselves.  I had goals.  I changed my brothers’ diapers and cooked dinners, did laundry and home repairs, plus whatever else was necessary while my mother worked second shift.  When I wasn’t doing those responsible things all hell broke loose.

There was a time when my friends were comparing their report cards in the hall between classes.  In a grading system from A to E, they congratulated each other for the lonely C’s and empathized with each over between their D’s and E’s.  I shoved my report card deeper into my book, but one of my friends grabbed it and her look of disbelief made all of them grab it in turn, all of them looking at me like they never knew me at all before that time.  I hung my head in shame.  Straight A’s.  Sigh.  Not cool.

My friends were supportive, and I was glad I wasn’t shunned for being different.  I went to advanced classes with their support and enjoyed being with the “good kids” who didn’t imagine me being anything other than one of them.

In a way, I feel like my current life is a remake of high school.  I work at a church, do responsible things, and spend my days with people who probably never cut class when they were in school.  It’s kind of like being with the good kids in Trigonometry again.  It’s all a side of my nature, but at the same time I swear extra when I get home because I’m not actually that good.

At least I don’t keep my dark side hidden from myself the way some people do.  That can eat you up inside.  I figure it’s better to know my demons than to try to outrun them.  I didn’t get a horrible disease or kill myself during my wayward youth so I figure it’s all for the best.  No regrets.  (Mostly?)  But at the same time, maybe I should keep some of this history secret?

"Secret"

I hold a lot of secrets – other people’s secrets.  I must look trustworthy or something, and I don’t spill what someone tells me in confidence.  The only time I screw up is if I don’t realize it’s supposed to be secret.  For instance, friend A got laid off.  I told mutual friend B, who spread the news to other mutual friends.  Friend A told me a month later that she still hadn’t told anyone about her work situation.  Huh?!  How do you expect to find another job if nobody knows you need one?  Don’t you trust your friends enough to support you through difficult times?  Aren’t you lying to friends when you meet for dinner when you can’t afford to eat out?

In my opinion, Friend A put me in an awkward situation by not telling me her work status was a state secret.  I had to retrace the trail of well-meaning friends and say “act surprised when she tells you”, which makes me feel like I was forced into a type of lie.  Friend A didn’t tell anyone for about 6 months.  That level of secret keeping about job status would’ve never occurred to me.  I absolve myself for that faux pas.

A note of caution here, explicit language follows…

Friend A’s secret was important to her, but for secret keeping, it’s mere comic relief.  Sure, being out of a job is important, but keeping it secret isn’t.  The majority of real secrets often fall under sexual violence, and victims are frequently the ones who hold those secrets most closely to their chests.  The statistics for rape are incredible.   http://www.rainn.org/statistics  Of course it’s hard to know whether these figures are accurate because many people never report the crime.  Of all the people who have told me about getting molested, none have reported it to the police.  In addition, it isn’t just a woman problem.  Lots of boys are raped too, and it’s even harder for men to admit that they were victimized.

Part of the problem with this kind of crime is that the victims often feel they deserved it.  They were in the wrong place, or wearing the wrong thing, or didn’t say no good enough, or even enjoyed the attention, or in the case of men, might’ve gotten a hard-on.  It doesn’t matter that fear and/or contact can give a guy an erection, the victim feels even more tainted and wrong.  So victims keep the secret, which leaves criminals free to mess up more people’s lives.  Society reinforces this silence by saying we should only talk about pleasant things, or how can you ruin the life of Uncle, Dad, Brother, Cousin, Neighbor, Friend with your unprovable allegations.

If it has happened to you, get help.  Tell someone.  We tell children to tell someone if it happens to them, and it’s true for grown-ups too.  Holding those kinds of secrets can corrode you from the inside out.  And remember, the only one at fault for this is the criminal.  Nothing you did can justify what they did.  It’s not your fault.

So, I hold other people’s secrets, and I’m not about to share them here, but it is my deepest wish that more victims talk and more people listen.  When enough people are secret keepers, maybe we can take another step towards ending this kind of violence?

This art was a logo I did for Women Against Rape (Columbus, OH), oh maybe a lifetime ago.  It was a project that just landed on my desk, but working with that group I learned so much about the prevalence and violence of this despicable crime I became a life-long advocate for victims.  I dug this out of my archives and decided to mess around with it in PhotoShop for Illustration Friday.