Secrets or Being Open and Honest

In the last post, My Children - A Little History - A Little Insight Anonymous said...
how can every one talk so openly about what is going on with them? Isn't anyone afraid of others finding out about them? It seems so scary. The question reminded me of a place I used to be a long time ago.

I used to believe that no one would ever accept me if they knew what I did. I had lots of really scary secrets and I was convinced that they were proof that I didn't deserve to be alive. I think that every aspect of my life had some form of re-enforcement for that belief.

I have learned over the years, my secrets are what kept me trapped. The bigger the secret, the darker the hole a part of me lived. Exposing those secrets didn't elicit the response I expected in others. On the contrary, most of the time I got support from others instead of rejection. Granted that was difficult to understand and sometimes, I still wonder but not enough to stop me from talking.

I don't keep secrets anymore. My life is an open book. If I ever get my book published that will be quite literally because I won't be holding anything back about my therapy process or the secrets I uncovered. I've learned that anyone who is bothered by my past and my secrets isn't the type of person I want to be friends with anyway.

Back when I was in to protecting my secrets, I wasn't alone. Even now, secrets seem to be a way of life for many people in the world. I believe that is because of that fear of what might happen if others do find out what will they think. People who live their lives worrying what others think have to keep secrets. It's part of that whole dysfunctional lifestyle.

Withholding information so that someone will like or accept you is manipulation. And it just doesn't work. There are so many ways to manipulate and probably just as many reasons to justify doing so. But the ultimate goal of manipulation is to make ourselves happy.
People who manipulate are locked into the belief that if they can just do this or that, so and so will come around, or love them or whatever. But it just doesn't work that way. We cannot control how others feel. So it doesn't matter how good you are at manipulation, it's not possible to "make" someone else happy or make them like you etc. So no matter how hard we try to manage our lives, and those of the others around us, that way, the outcome cannot be successful.

The only one that can make us happy is us. We cannot be happy by controlling and manipulation others because in doing so we are turning over our personal power to someone else and hoping they will do what we want them to with it. It's pretty obvious from the condition of the world that those tactics just don't work.

It is so much more effective to use our personal power to take care of ourselves and to take responsibility for ourselves. To identify what we want and need and finding ways to go about getting those things, that is how we learn to be happy. We learn to do that by listening to that little voice inside and living our life accordingly and giving up on living our lives based on other's expectations.

multiple personality disorder MPD dissociative Identity disorder did keeping secrets