SECRET: How the power of secrecy shapes the way we interact with others

Chrissy opens today’s episode with a meditation on secrecy, then shares the definition of the word SECRET, and invites us to consider the question: how can the power of secrecy shape our interactions with others?

Laura Hall also joins the conversation to discuss her book Affliction: Growing Up with a Closeted Gay Dad. Together, Chrissy and Laura discuss the difference between secrets and lies, how other peoples’ secrets can impact us, and the connecting power of telling the truth.

Then Chrissy shares this week’s book recommendation, The Secret Life of Secrets: How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are by Michael Slepian.

And in the end, Chrissy encourages you to ask yourself:

• How does the power of secrecy shape the way you interact with others?
• How do societal expectations influence your decision to keep or reveal secrets?
• How has your perception of someone or a situation changed because of a secret?

☀️ My memoir, Finding Sunlight, is here! Learn more & order your copy today

Transcript

SECRET: How the power of secrecy shapes the way we interact with others

Chrissy Holm
Stirred by Words

Transcript

[0:00] Music.

[0:10] Hi, welcome to Stirred by Words, a podcast that uses the power of words to unlock your writing and wellness practices. I'm your host, Chrissy Holm, writer, editor, and wellness advocate.
This show is about my love for words, writing, and wellness, and I'm passionate about learning from others. Grateful to have you join us.
Today's meditation is inspired by this week's word, secret.
Let's start by sitting or lying down. Get in a comfortable position, wiggle it out before becoming still, and gently close your eyes.

[0:49] Music.

[1:20] It can be a secret you haven't told anyone, or maybe a secret someone told you not to share with others.
Allow yourself to fully acknowledge and accept the secret without judgment.
Now visualize yourself holding the secret in your hands, observing it from all angles.
Notice any emotions or physical sensations that arise as you do this.
Next, imagine releasing the secret, letting it go, and watching it drift away from you.
As it disappears from view, notice if you feel a sense of peace and freedom washing over you.

[2:22] Music.

[2:30] Take a few more deep breaths, feeling a sense of lightness and clarity.

[2:36] Music.

[2:42] And when you're ready, slowly open your eyes and return to your day with a renewed sense.

[2:50] Music.

[2:57] Of calm and openness.
Now it's time for today's word, secret. Secret is both a noun and an adjective.
Merriam-Webster defines it as, hidden or kept from knowledge or view, something that cannot be explained, something kept from the knowledge of others or shared privately with a few, and a method, formula, or process used in art or operation and divulged only to those of one's own company or craft.
Here are a few fun facts about the word secret. The word secret has been used in English since the 14th century.
Popular phrases that contain the word secret include dirty little secret, secret admirer, best kept secret, and secret society.
The popular self-help book called The Secret by Rhonda Byrne has sold more than 35 million copies worldwide.
Other synonyms for secret include classified, hush-hush, mysterious, obscure, private, and undisclosed.

[4:03] Today's question is, how does the power of secrecy shape the way we interact with others?
I believe it really depends on the nature of a secret, who's involved in the context.
For example, I spent over 20 years of my life holding onto a secret that I thought I would never tell a soul, which is my bisexuality.
But I kept that secret because it made me feel safe and I had promised someone in my past that I would keep it a secret.
While it built a sense of trust between the two of us at that moment, it might feel like a sense of distrust with others.
You know, in my life, I've kept secrets and it's led to misunderstandings or poor communication.
As I've gotten older, I've learned it's often better to tell the truth and have integrity.
I'll be honest, I still have fears that perpetuate me to be guarded or hesitant to share information, but it's definitely something I'm working on, hence starting a podcast.
But when I think about if secrets are good or bad, I think some secrets protect safety and privacy, like in my past, but it's also important to think about the potential consequences or harm when trying to decide whether or not to keep a secret And ultimately, that's up to you.

[5:18] Music.

[5:30] Today's guest is Laura Hall, author of Affliction, Growing Up with a Closeted Gay Dad.
Laura Hall was born on the San Francisco peninsula to a closeted gay father and straight mother during the post-World War II baby boom. She came of age during the rebellious 60s, just as the summer of love kicked off in San Francisco. Her father came out to her in 1975 when she was 24. Her parents would remain married to each other for the rest of their lives.
She warmly invites the reader into a world of her closeted family and shares a perspective that is deeply loving and raw in its honesty. Welcome Laura. All right.

[6:10] Welcome, Laura Hall. I'm so happy to have you here on the podcast today.
Well, thank you for having me, Christy.
I'm happy to be here too. Absolutely. So we'll just dive right into our conversation today.
That I wanted to start, you know, your memoir is focused on your father who was gay during the post World War II baby boom. And he kept that secret away for many years, but eventually came out to you when you were 24 years old. Since our word for this episode is secret, we'll start with just a general question. How would you define the word secret? And maybe what's the difference between that and a lie?
Well, I have I have thought about this question I Cannot recall a single time that either my parents lied to me, Not even once Wow. I know and I didn't really think about it until I read this question and.

[7:10] They both kept a secret all sorts of secrets for many most of their lives and so So yeah, a secret isn't a lie.
Absolutely.
Yeah, I mean, they're, they're different. Would you say like, when it comes to a lie, it's like untruthful, right?
Whereas a secret might be more so just something that's not being said kind of thing?
Yeah, it's like a sin of omission.
Yeah. Yeah. But I actually feel good thinking about the fact that my parents never told me a lie.
I don't know how many people can say that about, you know, their, their childhoods, but, that warms my heart to think of that question.
Yeah, that's so relieving to know that while things like obviously secrets are kept to yourself, that's got to be a great feeling of like, okay, well, everything that they have told me, it's never been a lie. So I'm kind of talking a little bit more about secrets.
How do you think secrets impact relationships in general?
And specifically, how did it change your relationship with your father.

[8:24] Um, you mean after I found out or before I found out? Both. Yeah. Maybe just kind of give us a lay of the land. Yeah.
Well, before I found out, I just always had this sense that he didn't completely belong to us.
That one day he might just disappear. And I had that feeling from the time I was 18 months old.
My very first memory is of crawling out from bed.
I was 18 months and my father was in the kitchen every morning before work making his coffee, his lunchbox and then going out the back door to the garage and going off to work.
And I would just sit under the dining room table and look at that line of light under the door and just like, don't go out, don't go out.
And I didn't even have words at that time. I was very verbal, but my body, something knew that perhaps this situation was at risk that he might go and not come back.
Yeah, wow. I mean, that's super powerful, like to see, I mean, not even, well, see, but also like feel that deep connection to your father and him leaving.

[9:44] I know, I don't even know how an 18 month old can even perceive that, but I did.
And I remember it like it was yesterday.
Absolutely. So moving forward, kind of in your life, how did your relationship change when it comes to secrets?
Well, because I was 24 years old when I actually was told the secret.

[10:08] I had already formed, you know, who I am had already formed around feeling uneasy and frightened and I always kept an eye out for my dad no matter what.
I, you know, when it got to be five o'clock at night, I stand by the front window waiting for his car to pull up.
So it really has impacted me my entire life even after he told me the secret.
And like years after, after you were told the secret, was there anything else that you felt, did you feel differently about him or did you just feel like he's my dad, I wanna look after him type of a thing?
I didn't feel differently towards him in any negative way.
I felt, I've always been, I was a curious child, I'm a curious adult, and my go-to is just questions.
I'm just always asking questions, everywhere I am, in every setting.
Yes. Because I've, you know, I think as a child I was confused, like things weren't quite making sense.
So after he told me he was gay.
Of course, I was shocked. I thought he was a ladies man. Loved to dance with my mother's girlfriends at the dinner parties they held at the house.

[11:33] The wives always told my mom, oh, Ralph isn't like the other husbands.

[11:40] Yeah, when my mom told me that, I really did laugh. Like hindsight, yeah. No, he's not.
He was a good, he dressed well, he'd make the desserts, he'd do the table settings, and he was a good dancer mainly.
And he took care of the kids. None of the other dads in the 50s were really as attentive as my dad was, if at all.
So yeah, I was shocked that he wasn't having affairs with women.
But then I just wanted to know everything. I've always wanted to know everything.
I think the pain I felt inside, or the angst, the fear.

[12:18] I think that has made me the kind of person that is just always digging for the truth.
And I didn't even care how painful it was. I just wanted to know it.
And my mother didn't wanna talk about it. And she was happy to have me talk to my dad when I would come down to visit, very happy, because she said he would always light up.
And yeah, I just, I wanted to know everything.
I never stopped asking him questions until the day he died at age 90.

[12:47] Wow, I love that. Yeah, and I think sometimes, you know, people just wanna be heard and seen.
And I think that's part of what asking questions is about. And do you wanna define the answers and other people just, like I said, wanna be heard?
Yeah, I did feel like once he came out to me, It's like the dam broke and he wanted to share everything.
Mostly, you know, he retained the parent role and protective of me and not giving me.
Too much explicit information. Right, absolutely. So when you think kind of back, I mean, and this can be specific to your dad's situation or just in general, but what do you think motivates people to keep secrets? Fear, I'm sure. For my dad, it was the fact that he initially, he wasn't secretive.
He did come out in Hollywood and Pasadena, went to school at Pasadena City College, and he was in an open relationship with a gay man who he spoke about in his last, in his final days.
It's hard to believe, but yeah, I mean, it was sad. But once he was arrested in a sting operation.

[14:03] Where the Pasadena Police Department did this, you know, basically, dragged it around all the gay men in this certain location and then extorted them for money.
And then he had that on his record, even though it was eventually revealed by the LA Times to be something that was wrong, this whole arrest, and they were all let off.
He still had it on his record. And so he had wanted to be a school teacher.
And that's what he was studying when he went to Pasadena City College and he knew in California, he'd never be able to be a school teacher with that on his record.
And he just, he felt he had no choice. He thought he feared for his life and he feared for his future.
And so he thought then that he would apply for the enlist, try to enlist in the Navy.
It was just right before Pearl Harbor and all his brother and his uncles, the men in his family were in the Navy. So he tried. They found out he was gay and turned him away. But the Army accepted him, probably because they would take anybody at that point. They could see what was coming. And so that began his new life in the closet.

[15:21] Yeah. Oh, it's incredible to just know, like, the time in history definitely impacts things, but also just, like you said, the fear and then the next thing that you want to do that it just kind of...

[15:37] Keeps going, like that secret keeps getting held in, if that makes sense.
Yes, it almost gets more fortified. But he did, you know, at some point he reached like, oh my gosh, there are no doors open to me. And I don't know what would have happened if the army hadn't accepted him. But he actually enjoyed being in the army.
Yeah, I love that.

[16:02] And I imagine his time he connected with a lot of different people.
A lot of different men.
They were up in the Aleutian Islands and not a woman in sight.
But he wrote to my mother every day.
So let's talk a little bit more about your book Affliction. So what was your process like for writing it?
Did you notice any secrets resurface while you're writing, editing, revising? Absolutely.
The way I started though is that I actually was in private practice and very busy in my urban design career.
And I was in San Francisco, our office was right on Market Street and I was walking one, day at lunchtime and I walked by the great books store across the street, forget the And I just, I felt this urge to write and I didn't know why I felt it.
And I picked up a book on writing and I found out I was reading it on the train the next day and someone told me, oh, do you know she teaches class workshop, writing workshops in San Francisco.
And I got to my computer, I signed right up and the first day she assigned a writing prompt, You know, you have three minutes.
Answer this question.

[17:29] What is in your father's closet?
Wow. And within three minutes, my book was born. And I didn't know that I did not expect it.
And just all started pouring out of me. Those writing prompts, my goodness.
They'll get you. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I just got goosebumps when you said that, like.

[17:51] It's incredible. And then I started feeling like I could see how my parents secret affected their four children, well three, my younger sister died before probably she would even knew. And then my daughter was very close to her grandparents. And I thought, okay, I want to make sure this pain doesn't go down. Like I can get all this pain out of me and this and understand what happened. And, so that my grandchildren don't carry it. And that's that thing called transgenerational trauma.
It just drops right down if you don't remember it and process it.
And I'm happy to say my granddaughters are doing great.
Good. There's no, because I used to look at their baby pictures and look in their eyes and I look, is there any sign of trauma in those eyes?
And I can say, no, I tell my daughter, I don't see it. I don't see any trauma.
Oh, because cast. Yeah. Wow, that's cool that you're thinking about like...
Having writing be almost like a therapeutic process to get some of those deeply challenging situations.

[19:07] Like out on paper, out of your head, you know.
Out of your body. Out of your energy field, yes. And you know, I didn't have all the puzzle pieces even though my, you know, my dad told me everything I asked, he answered every question I ever had.
But I started out just putting one date down in a Word document.
Okay, on this day, and then I would go check. My mother was a prolific photographer, so I have all of her photos and dated.
So I gradually started putting together the timeline.

[19:45] How will you know these stories my dad told, my mother told some stories.
How does it all fit together?
And of course, the fact that my father, my mother never had a father or he left very soon after she was born, played a big part of it.
But now that timeline is over 50 pages a day.
And it's like. That's a gift to your descendants, you know, here's the story.
You know, it's not that isn't a book, but it's the story and they can follow it.
And then see where they were born in it, you know? And anyway, so it just sort of, I was just compelled and I couldn't stop writing.
And I cried every day for 10 years, every day.

[20:37] I mean, it's some deep stuff and maybe stuff that was suppressed or like buried down that.
It's just hard to write about, you know? Yeah, and I think mostly I didn't know how it all fit together.
And I can say that my love for my parents and my respect for them just grew by the day.
You know, I always did. I mean, I had a great childhood. I had great parents.
There was never a problem, except the secret.
Yeah. But, you know, once you start looking at what people have gone through and how it, Okay, okay, this fits, this makes sense.
My dad tried, you know, tried really hard and he actually succeeded at having a fairly good marriage, albeit with a double wife on the side, which he never told me about, by the way.
I mean, this is actually, that's something I, no, I assume, but no, I know he did see men.
I mean, we were in San Francisco.
I mean, he worked in San Francisco right near the Castro district.
And he did have friends and he talked about his gay friends who were starting to come down with AIDS.
So I knew that he was in that world, but he never gave me any details.
I mean, he never crossed that line between parent and child, you know?
Yeah, yep, yep, very familiar with that, yeah.

[22:07] What kind of looking back on the last 30, 40 years, 30, 40 years. What would you say that, and just in general I guess, do you think some secrets are better left untold or do you believe it's better to be honest?
I don't think the opposite of untold is honest. I think it's something else. I don't know what word I would use, but I don't know if you've watched any of the Finding Your Roots series, on TV. It's just incredible, but it's just typical that a generation that has been traumatized does not talk about it to their children. If they live long enough to have grandchildren, and they will often share it with the grandchildren, but it's really about survival.
Like people from the Holocaust or slavery days, their descendants don't know, by and large don't know the stories because the focus was on their offspring surviving.
You know? So my parents just worked really hard at surviving and having happy children and being good to us.

[23:21] They were so good to us. Yeah. I can't believe it. We've had, I mean, my brother actually has some actor friends who, we grew up on the peninsula.
We ended up knowing different people and they would come over to our house because their parents were so challenging and they would come over to our house to get all this love from my, especially my mom. She was very loving.
And yeah, I know it's hard to reconcile sometimes this beautiful family and then the pain, so much pain, but never unkindness, never.
Yeah.
I mean, you can still be a loving family and have great memories and still also have pain too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. How would you say secrets have shaped your perspective of yourself and others.

[24:17] It's completely shaped me. I, from day one, I mean, as I, you know, again, always keeping an eye out for my dad, not believing he was told he totally belonged to us.
But he did belong to us. And I would only learn that, you know, many, many decades later.
But I, when I was a teenager and started being attracted to boys, I never once trusted them ever.
And it was unconscious.
Like, I just know that they're seeing someone else or they're, you know, which is weird because my girlfriends at the time and we were maybe 15, 16 when we started having boyfriends.
They never ever mentioned being concerned about their boyfriends.
And I seriously thought, they're not very smart. Like what are you?
Don't you know what boys do? they have another life.
And that has been my constant companion throughout my life.
Even now in my 30 year marriage to my wonderful husband.

[25:31] There are times when that still pokes its head up and I can feel it building in my chest like, oh, he's 20 minutes late.
What does that mean? And fortunately, he's a really good guy and never gets upset or tells me I'm silly, and just consoles me.
And yeah, he's the perfect one for me. But I don't think it will ever be gone.
It's just that secret is embedded in my body somewhere.
I've gotten most of it out, but sometimes I wonder if it's just a reminder.
It's a reminder of what happened to my family.
Yeah, there's almost like a scar, right? It's, it'll still be there even though it's healed.
It's still there. It is. I don't know how people ever get rid of those kinds of traumas, but, I mean, maybe they, I'm sure they do. People do, but maybe I'm just, it's my companion.

[26:38] Yeah, no, I, I, from people that I've talked to in my life, I don't, I feel like you don't get rid of them. They're there. And it's just about if you want to embrace them and.
And transform them. Yeah. I mean, I, I get messages from people all the time saying how appealing, some of the stories in my book were for them because of their lives and their fathers, and especially anyone near my age or even a lot younger, if they had a gay parent, that parent was most likely closeted. And many people didn't learn until after their parents died. Many never learned. But I, for me, if I can use it, this sounds like.

[27:27] Until an intellectual approach, but it's not really. But it's this feeling that if I can share there's something that can be helpful.
I am gonna do it in this lifetime. I will. I'm courageous. I'm not afraid to say anything.
I will say anything.
I will tell the truth and I will not hold back. And if it helps, that's just the bonus.
And I know my father would be so happy to know that it's helped, especially gay people.
Absolutely. it's scary to come out in those situations. And as generations are, like younger generations are coming out more often, because of people that are sharing these stories, like you're saying, it's helpful to know that you're not alone. Yeah.
And to know the history and see that things have, we go up and down, we're in a down cycle right now, unfortunately, but the arc of history does tend to go forward, upward.

[28:41] Yes, absolutely. Well, I know we're kind of wrapping up the bulk of the conversation, and this is really that part of the episode where I ask each of my guests to share a unique piece or reflection to a word, whether it's fiction, nonfiction, poem, or personal experience.
And I know you wrote this in advance, but I'm really excited to hear what your piece is on the word secret.
So Laura, if you're ready, let us know what you're sharing with us and feel free to read it.

[29:13] Okay, this just titled Secrets, and it's just a sort of a chronology of how the secret affected me at different stages of my life. So I'll read it now. Thank you. As I mentioned before, at 18 months, I feared my father would leave and never return. In the early morning hours, I stared at the light under the kitchen door in fear, hoping it wouldn't go out. But it always did. My father was gone. This was my first conscious memory. At the age of six, night terrors and stabbing stomach pains awakened me in the night. Upon hearing my screams, my father, would swoop me up in his arms, carry me back to the master bedroom where he placed him between him and my mother. My pain stopped and I would fall asleep. Decades later, I would learn that my mother discovered my father's secret at that time, and that there was a plan for him to leave us.

[30:16] But he didn't leave us. At my age of 14, my dad went missing during the work week.
No one talked about it. I failed to get an explanation from my mother.
I thought he didn't love us anymore. Only much later, much later, would I find out that as part of the lavender scare in the 1960s, the Civil Service Commission had my father fired from his bookkeeping job at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco. He took a night job at a motel near the San Francisco airport for a few months until he found a better job, though he would never again work as a civil servant. At age 17, I feared every boy, as I've said I dated held a secret from me that they were unfaithful.
But they were, of course, unfaithful. I was puzzled by my girlfriend's naivete and lack of concern over this topic, but concluded, as I said, they must not have been as savvy as I was.

[31:19] At 24, convinced that my father was cheating on my mother with her girlfriends, and I was having problems with boyfriends at the time, having affairs myself, I confronted my dad.
I think at some level I wanted to pin it on him. This was when he revealed his secret to me.
He was gay, but by then I was already hardwired not to trust men around other women.

[31:45] My father lived to be 90. He never left us.
And though my 30 year relationship with my husband is loving and strong, the lasting effects of my family secret periodically make themselves known in our marriage.
Fortunately, I'm able to console myself now with it when this happens with his assistance too.
And I'll just add one more thing that light under the door my first memory. So the last memory of my father, he was in the hospital up in Sonoma County, I was in San Francisco.
And I'd been there for two days. And the doctor said, go home and rest, come back in the morning, your father will still be alive. That night, it was like two or three in the morning. And I had had a dream, and it was completely dark except for the like, almost like reminds me of a trip to Africa where the darkness and the light and the anyway, it was like dark trees and some color in the night sky. And then there was a bright line of light exactly like that light under the door. 1952. And.

[32:56] I just remember seeing that dream and I knew what it meant In my dream, I knew what it meant.
I rarely consciously dream, but that was a conscious dream. And the light just slowly went out.
And I knew at that moment my dad had died.
And within a minute, my brother, who had stayed at the hospital, called me and said, dad just passed. So I don't know how this all, I don't know.
It's all connected. And it's, yeah, now it's conscious.

[33:30] Yeah, well, first of all, that was a fantastic piece and I really liked, you know, it really encompassed your dad's life and how it impacted you from looking under that door, that little light of the door to seeing it consciously in your dream.
Like that's impactful.
I know, I know. I could have never imagined that that would happen.
But with my dad, it seems like lots of mystical things happened over the years.
He was very, I'd say he was a mystical person.
Yeah, and probably I am too. Oh, that's so great. Well, thank you so much, Laura.
I really appreciate your time, your energy, your mystical energy.
And it was a pleasure to talk about secrets and your memoir affliction growing up with a closeted gay dad.
Thank you so much, Chrissy. You're lovely and this has been very enjoyable.

[34:34] Music.

[34:47] Today's book recommendation is The Secret Life of Secrets, How Our Inner Worlds Shape Well-Being, Relationships, and Who We Are by Michael Slepian. Behavioral scientist Michael Slepian finds that, on average, we are keeping as many as 13 secrets at any given time. His research shows that the most common secrets include lies we've told, ambitions, addictions, mental health challenges, hidden relationships, and financial struggles. Our secrets can weigh heavily on us. Yet the, The burden of secrecy rarely stems from the work it takes to keep the secret hidden.
Rather, the weight of our secrets come from carrying them alone without the support of others.
Whether we are motivated to protect our reputation, a relationship, a loved one's feelings, or some personal or professional goal, one thing is clear.
Holding back some part of our inner world is often lonely and isolating.
But The Secret Life of Secrets shows you that it doesn't have to be and reveals surprising ways that secrets pervade our lives and offer science-based strategies that make them easier to live with. The result is a rare window into the inner workings of our minds, our relationships and a sense of who we are.

[36:00] Before I wrap up this episode, I encourage you to grab a pen and paper, notebook, or your phone to write down the answer to these questions.
How does the power of secrecy shape the way you interact with others?
How do societal expectations influence your decision to keep or reveal secrets?

[36:19] How has your perception of someone or a situation changed because of a secret?
Feel free to pause the episode or come back to these questions later.
If you have any thoughts on this episode, suggestions for a future episode, or if you, or someone you know wants to be a guest on the show, contact me via my website at www.chrissyholm.com.
That's C-H-R-I-S-S-Y-H-O-L-M.
Thanks for listening to another episode of Stirred by Words, meditations and conversations about writing and wellness. 

This has been your host, Chrissy Holm. Tune in to future podcast episodes, and until next time, keep learning new words, stay healthy, and stay curious, my friend.

[37:05] Music.