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Family secrets · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey friends, Dr.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: David here.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about family secrets and how to deal with them today.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: Hey all, it's Doc David here, Head Shrink Inc.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I don't know, this is episode number.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know, I should write it down sometime.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Episode number 40, 35, 40, one of those.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's somewhere up in the 30s or 40s.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I should go back and check.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't keep track of that stuff.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: I I just enjoy um podcasting.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so whether or not people listen, um I I don't pay a lot of attention to that.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't pay attention to how many episodes I have because I just enjoy um coming here and and talking and giving some of my thoughts and things like that.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things that I've just recently been um thinking about more, I think about it a lot, and so I go through these stages where there's it seems like with certain couples and families, there's these themes that come up.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: And some of these themes, you know, center around divorce or they center around multi-generational issues that just keep seem to keep getting passed down from generation to generation.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um one of the things that's come up recently with some of the families uh that I work with are family secrets.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: And um family secrets can be devastating and and the purpose of a family secret, there's there's any number of reasons.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, recently in the news there's this um guy named Larry Nasser with the US gymnastics team.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he I mean he's been accused or na he's been found guilty of uh molesting hundreds of gym gymnasts.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh this was a secret, apparently, right?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously it was his secret, but then I think from my understanding of the story is that it was uh known amongst others, but they didn't want to report it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so they don't report it because they don't want to get in trouble, they don't think it's a big deal, they don't respect the person that it's happening to, um, they either don't believe the person that it's happening to, and so what it does it creates like these control systems within a family or within an organization.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: It it hurts victims.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's victims and they don't get heard until, you know, years later, oftentimes.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so within the families that happens as well, right?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: If if you're in a family and there's this secret um of what happened, you know, of something that happened in the past.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh an example I have in um my my wife's family.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we went back to a family reunion this last year, and uh they have this big family tree mapped out back to the like 1800s.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, we're looking at this family tree, and then we there's little, you know, eraser, it's in pencil in in most places, and there's little lines that are drawn to other places, and erasers and stuff.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so we started my wife saw this kind of tree that it didn't make part of the tree that didn't make sense to her, and uh she started asking around and coming to find out that there was a daughter that had a baby, but then the baby was uh given to another she had it at a wedlock like back in the um I think the twenties or thirties, and that baby was given to another family member and then raised as this woman's cousin.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: So basically, her child, I think it was a son, um, she interacted with him as a cousin.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so then that was this family secret that just kind of perpetuated itself to where now in 2018 um people still don't know the whole story behind it.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that's why family secrets happen.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: They they happen to protect people, they happen to keep people in control.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's uh there's lots of different reasons, but usually they're not positive reasons.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and and they're hard to talk about.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's why they're secrets.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so one of the things or I I've thought about, and there's a couple things um that I've thought of and in ways to deal with family secrets.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the first thing to do is get help.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that's an obvious first thing to do for most things that you don't know how to deal with.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's that getting help either from a family member or from a therapist or a third party.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And usually you know a family member that is willing to have conversations about secrets.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: There's there's there are the, you know, most of the people in the family will keep secrets.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's always that one person, one or two people that are the black sheep of the family, but it's because they're like super authentic and they're willing to not hold anything back.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're willing to talk about the difficult stuff.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: And because they're willing to talk about the difficult stuff and expose secrets and hurt people's feelings potentially, they're often not invited to things.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not invited to things for other reasons.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people say, oh, well, they're just a troublemaker, oh, they're just having issues, so we're not inviting them.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: We wanted peacefulness in this family dinner or whatever.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that may be true, but most of the time it's because they're the ones that are willing to talk out and speak out against secrets and against injustice within the family.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if you think there's a secret or if you know there's a secret, that's the person to go to, and they definitely could probably give you some help.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a therapist like myself is another person to go to because I don't have if someone comes to me with a with this secret or this concern about a secret, I don't have this emotional connection to the family, so I can be a bit more unbiased in my judgment on how a person should proceed with this secret that they think they have.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um a second way to deal with secrets is just simply to acknowledge it.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I I I can't count on my fingers how many times someone has come to me and said, I told my parents that I was sexually abused by my brother or my uncle or whoever, and they didn't believe me, and it was kind of hushed under the rug.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Then 20 years later, the parent comes back and apologizes to the victim for I should have believed you, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: But by that time, there's just so much hurt and pain that has happened and disconnect that the damage is done.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I would tell I would encourage you parents who have a child that comes to you to take that seriously.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I know it might be your brother they're talking about, or it may be your favorite uncle that they're talking about, but the the cost of not acknowledging it is far reaching.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you acknowledge it and there's an investigation and nothing is found, then it's over and done with, right?
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: But if you don't acknowledge it and the it continues and that uncle, brother, whoever goes on to abuse other people, it's it that kind of stuff can be prevented if you simply acknowledge it.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I know it's hard and I know it could break families up, but I think the price to your child is much greater if you don't acknowledge it and you keep it a secret, because again, that's how family secrets are formed.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: So getting help and acknowledging it is another thing, and you know, whether it's you need to acknowledge it to your therapist, and then your therapist helps you deal with it, or you acknowledge it to that um one black quote unquote black sheep family member, I mean, then do that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I I just think at the end of the day, you need to to definitely acknowledge it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing that's helpful is usually um when you get help and you acknowledge it, then others will start to gather around you as they see evidence or as they hear stories that are sounding similar to maybe their own story.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um so if you are burdened with the secret pain created in your family, um you need to gather others around you because there's others, I I would guarantee you that there are others who suffer silently in your family around this family secret.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: And most of the time, family secrets are um usually centered around, at least in my experience, they're usually centered around like sexual abuse of some sort.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: And sexual abusers abusers don't just usually limit their abuse to one person.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so my suggestion to you is that you look for other people, or as you you know, acknowledge it and you talk to other family members, um, find other people, whether it's a support group or whether it's people directly in your family.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you might be the first person to acknowledge a secret, and then that that's definitely a brave and courageous thing to do, but it then can spur others on.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think you know, we just look at this hashtag me too movement that took place.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was it I think it started with Harvey Weinstein and then poof all these other people just came out and it continues, right?
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that if you can be that one person that breaks the famil the cycle of the family secret, there's gonna be other people to come alongside you and support you.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um it can make you more courageous, it can give you more self-esteem, it can give you more um assertiveness in your life, and so I think definitely I think gathering others around you is totally something that you should try to do if you can.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um another thing, so once you've begun that process, so this is kind of on the other side of the family secret.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So you've you've gathered your help, you've acknowledged it to people, and you and you've tried to start working on it.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so once you've started to try to work on it, whether it's with a therapist or whether it's just in a big family group setting and getting it out of the way, one thing it's that's gonna be important is to not dwell on it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: So the the process of dealing with a painful moment uh in your life or a family secret and moving forward is difficult, but it's not something that I would encourage you to to dwell on and say, Well, I'm suffering from this because of, you know, fill in the blank family secret.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's gonna be understandable that there's gonna be pain, but I've met people who just are so stuck for you know, three years later after um this secret gets acknowledged and everyone's on board with it and says, Yeah, that was difficult.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And there's apologies that are made and there's reconciliations that happen, but that person is is like stuck on it and they can't move forward because they just kind of every every problem they have somehow relates back to this issue where, well, I was abused or uh the family didn't support me or whatever.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you can stay there if you like, um, that's your prerogative, but at some point, um staying stuck that long is gonna become in itself a challenging and painful, painful thing.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so it takes an effort to move through difficult things, and it just won't happen simply.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have to like work with somebody to work through these things, but but part of that process is that you don't continually dwell on that thing.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a lot of times when I work with couples when there's been an affair, um, you know, three or four years later, the victim of the affair is still bringing things up.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, my question to them is, do you want your marriage to work?
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And usually it's yes, then you have to make a choice to move on from that incident.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because no one wants to be no victim or or um perpetrator wants to be in a relationship where they're consistently reminded of the thing that that either they did or that was done to them.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And if you continue to just stay stuck in that, there's inevitably going to be a divorce.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_01: So a lot of that has to do with forgiveness and reconciliation and and recon and getting rid of resentment.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, that's a whole nother podcast that we can talk about in the future.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: But again, if if you're dealing with a secret, one of the things I encourage you to do is not dwell on this thing years down the road because it's just gonna keep you stuck and I mean it's gonna make it harder and harder the more you dwell on it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so an another thing, as one confronts their, and this is I think this is really important, as one confronts their family secrets, they're gonna be met with resistance.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you will be met with resistance when you want to talk about why your parents let um uncle so-and-so abuse you, continue to abuse you after you clearly stated that you didn't feel safe around this uncle, right?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: So that becomes a family secret.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: And trying to trying to talk about that with your parents, let's say, is going to be difficult.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna encourage you to not stop talking about it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna run into roadblocks.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: The roadblocks can take the form of family members, friends, government entities, legal authorities.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be emotional pain that's involved when one attempts to confront the hidden things in their lives, and it's just something that's gonna be so important for you to do is to not give up.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that's why gathering people around you, whether it's a pastor, a therapist, uh, grandpa, grandma, aunt, uncle, whoever, sibling, it's gonna be so important to get those people to come uh along your side and and support you as much as possible.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um if you have any questions about this, or if you have any comments, I'd love to hear them.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: Headshrinkinc at gmail.com or go to my Facebook page at docdavid and you can comment there.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Have a great day.