It’s Not A Figure of Speech: Secrets Really Are Toxic

By B.K. Jackson

If keeping a secret—or being a secret—feels detrimental to your physical or mental health, it’s not your imagination. The expression “toxic secrets” is neither hyperbole nor a figure of speech. Researchers increasingly are learning that secrets place a profound burden on mental and physical health.

It appears it’s neither the secret itself nor the act of concealing it in social situations that contributes to the burden, but rather it’s the psychic energy secrecy requires. It’s a pain that plays out in private. Researchers at Columbia University who have been studying the effect of secrets found that the degree to which secrets affect well-being is related to the frequency with which the mind wanders to them, suggesting that it’s the ruminating about secrets that’s damaging. This was true regardless of the significance or importance of the secret. Any secret that’s preoccupying—frequently turned over and over in the mind—researchers discovered, diminishes wellbeing. In other words, it’s not keeping secrets that hurts, according to Michael Slepian, PHD, lead researcher of the Columbia studies, “it’s having them.”

And what most causes people to obsess about their secrets? In a study called “Shame, Guilt, and Secrets on the Mind,” published in the journal Emotion, Slepian* and his colleagues surveyed 1,000 participants about feelings of shame and guilt associated with their secrets. They also asked survey respondents how often they thought about and concealed their secrets each day in the prior month. Perhaps surprisingly, study participants spent less time concealing than they did dwelling on their secrets, and it was shame rather than guilt that caused the greatest amount of daydreaming about secrets.

When it comes to family secrets brought to light by DNA testing, there may be shame on both sides of the equation—on the secret keeper and the secret discoverer. And the secret discoverer often is pressed to become a secret keeper. NPEs who have uncovered family secrets through DNA tests frequently feel consumed and shamed by those secrets, making them particularly vulnerable to the ill-effects of secrecy. Many of us have been asked, or feel obligated, to keep secrets surrounding our conception. In most cases, those who ask us to keep secrets do so out of shame about actions they took many years ago and fear that exposure of those actions will deepen their shame and bring it into the light. And those who feel obligated not to expose another’s shame often have been made to feel shame themselves. Further, feelings of worthlessness, smallness, and powerlessness and a history of a traumatic experience, say researchers, make people more likely to feel shame. It’s a perfect storm for NPEs, pointing to the need to address the harm that may be associated with secrecy.

“It hurts to keep secrets,” Slepian writes in Scientific American. “Secrecy is associated with lower-well-being, worse heath, and less satisfying relationships. Research has linked secrecy to increased anxiety, depression, symptoms of poor health, and even the more rapid progression of disease,” he continues. In addition, attention to one’s secret can cause diminished attention where it’s needed, such as on one’s work tasks, resulting in reduced efficiency and performance. And a study by Ahmet Uysal and Qian Lu found that self-concealment is associated with chronic and acute pain.

It’s not surprising, Slepian concludes, that it’s exhausting to maintain secrecy. He and his colleagues looked at the way in which secrets are experienced as physical burdens and how that affect perception of physical tasks. They found that people preoccupied with secrets feel as if they’re being weighed down. They perceive hills to be higher and distances to be longer than they are. In another study, his team looked at the link between secrets and fatigue. “Thinking of one’s secrecy serves as a reminder that the secret conflicts with one’s social goals, highlights one’s social isolation with regard to the secret, and results in an unpleasant subjective experience of fatigue,” they concluded. “Thus, secrecy—the commitment to conceal information from others—can be fatiguing even during moments when one is not engaging in active concealment.” Much of that fatigue, they found, was linked with social isolation.

And ruminating about secrets, Slepian adds, providers a constant reminder of one’s complicity in secrecy, causing the secret holder to feel disingenuous, inauthentic, and socially isolated.

It’s probably safe to say there’s a cost both to keeping and revealing secrets. When pondering whether to keep a secret concerning your origins, a strong argument is that it’s your story to tell. Keeping it to yourself not only prevents you from feeling authentically yourself, but also may diminish your self-esteem. Living inauthentically is associated with reduced life satisfaction. A second compelling argument is that not telling may be damaging to your health. Relieving yourself of the burden of the secret is likely to cause you to ruminate on it less, thus relieving the strain.

If you’re weighing whether to reveal a secret or are debating with yourself about whether you’re entitled to reveal it, it’s important to consider the effect it’s having on your physical and emotional health. But while sharing one’s secrets may be a boon to mental and physical well-being, it’s also necessary to be mindful of, and work to mitigate, the potential damage revelation of secrets can cause. It requires planning and sensitivity to avoid rupturing relationships—a consequence that can have still further repercussions to your mental and physical health—and you might benefit from the help of a counselor before broadly revealing your secret.

In a future article, we’ll look at experts’ advice about deciding when and how to reveal secrets and strategies for reducing harm. In the meantime, however, consider that even disclosing to one trusted individual may relieve you of the burden of your secret, according to Slepian’s research. “Confiding a secret,” he explained in Scientific American, “can feel cathartic and relieving. But mere catharsis is not enough. When confiding a secret, what is actually helpful is the conversation that follows. People report that when sharing a secret with another person, they often receive emotional support, useful guidance, and helpful advice.” It just takes that one conversation, he insists, to ease your mind. Consider first the consequences of sharing to even one person, and if you do share, be sure it’s to someone you believe will be discreet, understanding, and supportive.

Writing on MentalHelp.net, Allan Schwartz, PhD, LCSW, says, “I’ve always maintained that there are few secrets that are so dangerous that they cannot stand being brought out into the open, where they suddenly lose the evil and dark air that once surrounded them.”

*Learn more about research by Slepian and his colleagues at www.keepingsecrets.org. Take a brief survey in order to access the research.

Read more about secrets here.