Family Secrets

What happens when the things we’re told not to talk about are the very things hurting us the most?

In this episode of Reaching Minds, we unpack the weight of family secrets—the silence, the protection, and the pain that often gets passed down without question. In many communities, what happens in the family stays in the family. But at what cost?

We explore how unspoken rules, hidden trauma, and emotional suppression shape our mental health, relationships, and sense of self. From learned silence to normalized dysfunction, this conversation challenges the idea that secrecy equals strength—and invites a new perspective rooted in honesty and healing.

This isn’t about blaming our families—it’s about understanding what we’ve inherited and deciding what we want to carry forward.

If you’ve ever felt the pressure to stay quiet, minimize your experiences, or protect family narratives at your own expense, this episode is for you.

It’s time to break the silence. It’s time to break the cycle.

Follow @reachingminds for more conversations that create mirrors, redefine stereotypes, and break stigmas.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:12

Hello, everybody. It's your girl Brianna Williams, LAPC, and I'm glad to have you in the building today, or in your car, or in your house, or in your workplace, wherever you're at, tuning in. I thank you for joining in for another um Reaching Monds mini-series. Therapy. Nah, we don't do that. Um, if you haven't yet, go ahead and look at the last two episodes, uh, talking about stigma and talking about faith and therapy. Go ahead and check it out. In my opinion, they lit, but I might be biased. Um, and if you haven't yet, go to Instagram and go follow at Reach Your Minds. You know what? Go do it right now. All right, good luck. So I wanted to jump in and I want to continue the conversation on why we don't do therapy. And one of the things that as you can see by the title has that I feel has held us back is is family secrets. And this is just a disclaimer right here that you may become triggered with this topic. Um, it may hit some sore spots, it might be a little bit uncomfortable. Um, and so I want to encourage you to go do what you need to do to take care of yourself, whether that is going and talking with somebody, going on the phone, whatever like that, or going outside for a while, getting some sunlight, watching TV, um eating your favorite meal, whatever it is like that. I want you to go ahead and do that. And also, I want you to know that if you do become triggered or if it is uncomfortable, it's a good thing, it's okay. And that just means that's something that we need to work through and we need to work on and address. And so I encourage you not to turn a blind eye to it as we're you know talking about these things. I encourage you to figure out, okay, what's my next step? Let me address this thing so that way it's not as heavy anymore. Okay. Alright, let's tap back in. Real quick, finish this phrase for me. What goes on in this house, what? Yep, stays in this house. What goes on in this house stays in this house. This is this is an infamous, infamous phrase that caused us to grow silent and turn a blind eye to the things that hurt us. All because we're protecting the family name or the family image. But better yet, um, we're upholding the fears that others placed on us. But the question that I have with this when it comes to trying to do all these things is what choices am I left with if I can't release and express what has hurt me or has happened to me. Silence is not random. And it's not by happenstance, but it's learned behavior. Matter of fact, it's it's survival. This is something that generations and generations before us has been doing, and and we just been adopting it over time. Um but staying silent it costs us something. And I believe it's it has costed our our ancestors something. And so that that's what I wanted to address today. What is staying silent about these family secrets really costing you or me if you want to personalize it? Family secrets, they're they're intended to protect, minimize shame, provide a sense of control, um, and create safety, right? These all sound like good intentions, but they're detrimental to individuals and generations. And here's where this might might trigger you here, but as I'm thinking about family secrets, I'm thinking about the times in our families where we won't talk about the abusers. We won't talk about them. We know we know what they did. And if we don't know for sure, we kind of suspect that they was doing something, but we don't talk about them because of the shame it may cause, or the loyalty to the family name, or because of the excuses that we give them, like, oh, you know, they just going through something, or they didn't have much growing up, or their father wasn't there, or you know, so many different excuses that that we give the abusers within our family. And then I think about the one that it happened to. I think about the one who was abused, whether that be sexually, physically, mentally, and emotionally, I know we don't really count those in our culture, but even those, and I imagine them that every family function that they gotta put on a smile and pretend that their abuser didn't violate them, and even in sometimes those gatherings are the places where they'll continue to be violated. Then I think about the individuals where they're not informed about the other half of their family, or they're given false information on who their parents are. Auntie and uncle raised them, but they are called mom and dad. Meanwhile, who they think is their aunt is really their mother. Family secrets, but they just don't stop there. Um, they come in many different forms, whether it's it's down to addiction, um, it's down to financial debt, um, sexuality, legal history, and and and more, I'm sure you guys have stories, and you can feel free to share them with me. You know, DM me on Instagram at Reachent Minds. Um, because I'm pretty sure there are so many, so many family secrets, so many things that have happened to us, and so many things that we have buried, and while our silence is normalized, our bodies still respond. Our bodies feel that thing. Family secrets, they just don't stay in the past, but they show up in the body, the mind, and in relationships. As we hide and deny what has happened, it creates internal conflict, meaning that I second guess myself, meaning that I can't trust my intuition. Mentally, I I self-doubt. I'm hyper-vigilant, always reading between the lines and uh checking every box and every cue, looking into every word. I struggle with trust. Not just myself, not just trusting in myself, but trusting others. Um, I experience internalized shame because now I feel responsible for what happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 8:37

I feel dirty. I feel unworthy. I feel unvalued.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Emotionally, I'm I'm I'm going through anxiety or chronic stress, going through depression, suppressed anger, experiencing grief. I'm also guilty. There's a lot of guilt that's coming up for me. Because if I speak up, I betray the family. If I speak up, they're gonna dishon me. If I speak up, they're gonna deny it. And emotionally, family secrets cause causes emotional numbness. I can't feel because for so long I've been taught not to feel. I've been taught that my feelings don't really matter. And all this, all this emotional weight causes intergenerational trauma, and that's something that we're gonna talk about next week. Um, and this is where unprocessed pain gets passed down. So this little plug, stay tuned for the conversation on intergenerational trauma next week. But physically, when it comes to family secrets, a person may experience chronic tension, they may experience headaches or migraines constantly, um, they may experience fatigue and or burnout, they're constantly tired, um, maybe some sleep disturbances, insomnia, sleep apnea sometimes, and then there's other stress-related health conditions like immune diseases, um, and digestive issues, and um heart issues, all of these different things because we're trying to hold on to these family secrets, but the moral of the story of this is that your body will tell the truth your family told you to hide.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Your body will tell the truth that your family told you to hide.

SPEAKER_01 11:30

I understand it's hard. It's hard to really face the secrets, really face the heaviness of holding these secrets. It's really hard to even think about the consequences if you were to let go of these secrets right. But this is the cost. All of the things that I I listed are the cost, and that's just mentally, emotionally, and physically, but relationally it may be hard being vulnerable and intimate with somebody. You may self-sabotage relationships because of your low self-esteem. You may not have the bandwidth to carry on relationships, and so you're not communicating, you're ghosting, you're isolating, and now you're losing friends. You may take that pattern of lying and deceiving and manipulating into romantic relationships, and the other person may say, Ah, I can't deal with that. Family secrets keep us in a place of isolation, keep us in a place of not really being honest with ourselves, with our families, with our friends, family secrets block the opportunity for true healing. So, how do I overcome these family secrets? How do I allow myself to heal from family secrets? One I want you to do yourself a favor and relieve yourself of the responsibility to carry your family's image. It's not your responsibility to carry and paint this perfect picture. Two, I want you to name your experience privately, right? And that's just you saying it out loud in the mirror or saying it to yourself or writing it down, like really, what happened to you? What do you know? Maybe nothing happened to you, but you've heard so much, and it has shaped your your reality of life, or it has uh really jacked up your nervous system, or it has really jacked up on how you connect with people and trust people and things like that because of what you know about your family.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

Write it down, say it out loud, acknowledge it, admit it. And then I want you to create your own safe space.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Meaning talk to a trusted loved one, talk to a therapist. I mean that's that's why we here, right? But like I get it, therapy might be too overwhelming right now, and I I ain't gonna push you. But keep that in the back of your mind. Don't count it out. But start with talking to a family fri to a to a to a family member. I'm sorry, talk to a family member or talk to a friend. Journal. Put some of that suppressed anger into an activity or a hobby or a sport or something. Create some safe spaces, and then I want you to adopt new language. This means that when you are about to share what you feel, or about to share what happened, or things like that, or things happen in your life in the future, or whatever, like that, because we're bound to go through things, right? I want you to tell yourself that yes, I can talk about this. Yes, it is that deep, right? Don't minimize it. Yes, I will be heard, somebody will listen to me, somebody will take me seriously. And then last, I want you to be the safe space for others to end the cycle. Be the safe space that you didn't have growing up, be the safe space that you couldn't get in your home, or within your family, or with even in some of your friend groups, or within your your your other communities, whether that's church or school or whatever like that, like listen the cycle by doing something different. And so, guys, I thank y'all for listening. I know this was a toughie, right? I know this was was deep, but I challenge you to go ahead and end those cycles. I challenge you to go ahead and address the things that have happened to you. Address the things that have happened within your family. Be real so you can be healed. So, again, my name is Brianna Williams, LAPC. I thank you for tuning in. Follow us on Instagram at Reaching Minds. I'm out. See y'all next week. Ha ha.