I Used to Think Secrets Kept Me Safe

I used to think secrets kept me safe.

If nobody knew, then maybe it wasn’t really that bad.

If I never said it out loud, maybe I could keep it tucked away somewhere and move on.

That sounds logical right up until you realize you are spending a ridiculous amount of energy making sure nobody ever sees the part of you that you are trying so hard to hide.

That gets exhausting.

Eventually, it starts to rot you from the inside out.

The longer I stayed sober, the more I had this feeling that I needed to purge.

The last thing I wanted to do was tell another human being some of the things I had done, thought and felt.

Let’s face it.

I was ashamed of myself.

There were things I didn’t want anybody to know.

But eventually it got to the point where I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get all of it out.

Step Five terrified me.

But doing the AA waltz forever scared me even more.

Besides, I was finally ready for some peace.

There is a huge difference between knowing something privately and saying it out loud to another person.

AA didn’t invent that idea. Some of those early practices came through the Oxford Group and its emphasis on confession, honesty and sharing our faults with another person.

Whatever the history, I understand today why it became part of the Steps.

If I wanted some peace in my life, I couldn’t keep everything locked inside my own head.

Because inside my head, I can edit.

I can justify.

I can minimize.

I can explain why I did something.

I can make myself look a little better.

My brain has always been very generous when representing me in court. 😂

But when I sit across from another person and tell the truth without dressing it up, something changes.

The secret is no longer just mine.

And strangely enough, that usually makes it smaller.

Shame loves isolation.

It tells us:

Nobody else has ever done something like this.

If people really knew you, they wouldn’t like you.

You’re different.

You’re worse.

Keep this to yourself.

Then you finally tell somebody.

And instead of recoiling in horror, they might say:

“Me too.”

Or:

“I understand.”

One of my favorites has always been:

“If it has a name, it has been done before.”

I honestly believe that saying helped save my life.

It made me realize that as bad as I thought I was, I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t some uniquely damaged human being who had somehow invented an entirely new category of screwed up.

Other people had been there too.

Sometimes the person sitting across from you doesn’t even have to say anything.

They just listen.

And suddenly something you carried around for years doesn’t seem quite as powerful anymore.

That is one of the strangest gifts of recovery.

The things I thought separated me from everybody else often turned out to be the very things that connected me to them.

I’m not as unique as my shame wanted me to believe.

None of us are.

We’ve all screwed things up.

We’ve all hurt people.

We’ve all made decisions we wish we could take back.

We’ve all had thoughts we wouldn’t exactly put on a Christmas card. 😂

The point of Step Five isn’t humiliation.

It isn’t punishment.

And it isn’t sitting across from somebody while they explain what a terrible person you were.

It’s honesty.

Real honesty.

The kind where I stop trying to manage how I am perceived and simply tell the truth.

That was hard for me.

Because for a long time, looking okay on the outside mattered.

Recovery slowly taught me that actually being okay on the inside mattered a hell of a lot more.

There is freedom in not having to keep track of everything you’re hiding.

There is freedom in not worrying that somebody is going to find something out.

There is freedom in simply being known.

Not by everybody.

I don’t believe recovery means turning your entire life into a public documentary.

Says the guy currently writing parts of his life down and posting them on the internet. 😂

But having at least one trusted person who really knows the truth about you?

That matters.

Because secrets can grow into monsters when we keep them locked away.

Bring them into the light and sometimes you discover they were never quite as big as they looked in the dark.

That doesn’t mean everything we did was okay.

Some things require amends.

Some things require change.

Some things still hurt.

Some things may always hurt.

But I can’t change what I refuse to admit.

And I can’t heal something I spend all my energy pretending isn’t there.

Step Five gave me a chance to stop performing.

To stop hiding.

To stop being the prosecutor, defense attorney, judge and jury inside my own head.

For once, I could just tell the truth.

After all these years, I don’t think honesty means having absolutely no secrets.

It means I no longer need a secret life.

There isn’t one version of me that I show the world and another version hiding somewhere in the dark.

What you see is pretty much what you get.

Scars.

Mistakes.

Good decisions.

Bad decisions.

Progress.

Plenty of imperfections.

And a man who was given the chance to become a little better than he used to be.

That’s enough.

Sometimes the biggest relief isn’t being forgiven by somebody else.

It’s finally realizing you don’t have to hide from yourself anymore.