Am I Still Keeping Secrets?

The Heavy Burden of Family Secrets: Why Breaking Silence Heals Generational Trauma

In many families touched by trauma, silence becomes the unspoken rule.

Children are told “don’t tell anyone” or learn quickly that some truths are off-limits.

Secrets can range from small cover-ups—“pretend everything’s fine”—to silencing around abuse, neglect, addiction, or mental illness.

On the surface, secrecy may look like a way to protect the family image or avoid conflict.

But beneath it, secrecy is one of the clearest markers of dysfunction. It is both a symptom of trauma and a way trauma is passed down.

As family therapist Evan Imber-Black, author of Secrets in Families and Family Therapy, observes, secrets don’t just hide painful truths—they shape entire family dynamics, keeping dysfunction locked in place.

Why Secrets Are So Damaging

1. Secrets isolate – When we are told not to tell, we carry the burden alone. This reinforces the childhood experience of feeling invisible, unheard, or unsafe.

   Psychologist Alice Miller, in Breaking Down the Wall of Silence, describes how this isolation is one of the most devastating consequences of trauma, leading children to split off their reality in order to survive.

2. Secrets distort reality – Children in secret-keeping families learn to question their own perceptions.

   “Maybe it didn’t happen that way. Maybe I imagined it.” 

   This undermines trust in ourselves and others.

   Dr. Galit Atlas writes in her book, Emotional Inheritance, how family secrets keep us from living to our full potential, create gaps between what we want for ourselves and what we are able to have, and haunt us like ghosts.  

3. Secrets protect the problem, not the people – Instead of healing the root pain, secrecy covers it, allowing harm to continue unchecked.

   Author Clair Wills, in her memoir Missing Persons, Or My Grandmother’s Secrets, shows how silence around generational shame in Irish families didn’t protect children but instead prolonged suffering across decades.

4. Secrets perpetuate shame – Silence communicates: “This is too shameful to name.” 

   That message lodges deep inside the child’s sense of self.

   Collections like I Never Told Anyone, edited by Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton, reveal the lifelong shame survivors carry when abuse is hidden and unspoken—while also showing the liberation that comes from finally telling the truth.

Why Survivors Often Continue the Pattern

Even after leaving their family of origin, as survivors of trauma, we often feel compelled to keep secrets.

Psychologist Michael Slepian, in The Secret Life of Secrets, notes that secrecy drains mental energy, increases shame, and corrodes authenticity.

This might look like:

• Hiding our struggles in adulthood so they don’t “burden” others.

• Avoiding talking about childhood experiences out of fear of being judged or not believed.

• Keeping family members’ secrets, even when it harms them or us, because loyalty feels like survival.

In many ways, the act of secret-keeping reflects the continuation of the original trauma. Silence was required in childhood, and the nervous system learned: “Speaking is dangerous. Staying quiet keeps me safe.”

The Antidote: Recovery from Secret-Keeping

Healing begins with truth-telling.

This doesn’t mean disclosing every detail to every person. It means creating spaces where secrecy is no longer in control.

Recovery might look like:

• Speaking honestly in therapy – Naming what happened without minimizing or justifying.

• Finding safe relationships – Sharing our truth with people who can hold it with compassion.

  RRP groups provide safe spaces with people who can witness and understand with compassion truths we learned to keep secret from childhood.

• Breaking intergenerational silence – Choosing not to repeat the “don’t talk” rule with our own children.

• Reclaiming your story – Shifting from secrecy to self-expression, giving our experiences language and meaning.

Journal Prompts: Healing from Family Secrets

1. Looking Back:

   • What were the spoken or unspoken rules about secrecy in my family?

   • Were there things I knew that I couldn’t talk about?

     How did that feel as a child?

2. The Impact:

   • How has secret-keeping shaped the way I trust myself or others?

   • Do I notice myself hiding parts of my story, emotions, or struggles in adulthood?

3. Breaking Silence:

   • What would it feel like to tell my truth in a safe space?

   • Who in my life (therapist, friend, support group) feels safe enough to share with?

4. Shifting the Pattern:

   • If I am a parent or caregiver, how can I create an environment where my children don’t feel the need to keep secrets?

   • What’s one small truth I want to give myself permission to name today?

5. Self-Compassion:

   • What words of kindness or understanding can I offer myself for

Important to keep in mind:

I don’t have to tell the world my story all at once.

Healing starts with telling myself the truth—and then choosing safe people who can hold it with care.

Final Thought

Secrets keep trauma alive.

They protect the wound instead of the person.

Every time we tell the truth—even if only to ourselves—we take a step toward freedom.

Healing is not about exposing everything at once.

It’s about choosing honesty over silence, connection over isolation, and self-trust over shame.

Survivors who release the burden of secrecy begin to reclaim their voice, their relationships, and their lives.

✨

Important to remind ourselves:

My story matters.

I don’t have to carry it alone.

The path of recovery is one of moving from silence and shame into truth and authenticity, from secrecy and isolation into connection.