The secret keeper's guide to telling your story.

When you love someone with an addiction, you can a become great secret keeper.

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

You can feel so many feelings about sharing your story, because it is so inextricably linked with your loved one.

You can feel:

Guilt - like you are betraying our loved one if you share what it is REALLY like.

Fear - that they will feel that you have betrayed them.

Inadequacy - as you are on the receiving end of people’s reactions to your story. Their ill thought out, but well meaning questions can fill you with self doubt.

This can then lead on to feelings of loneliness, overwhelm and vulnerability. You know, that emotional hangover the next day when you wish the words would zip back up into your mouth.

Secrets are stressful and holding secrets affects our health. 

It impacts our immune system, the heart, and our nervous system.

And of course, we can talk about how holding such secrets is unnecessary, that the stigma and shame that surrounds addiction is down to ignorance and misunderstanding.

But not everyone wants to be ‘the one’ to help break down stigma. It’s certainly a journey, and not one that often begins with shouting your story from the roof tops.

Yet as the great Maya Angelou said:

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.

In fact, telling your story is really therapeutic. It can help you:

1. Process emotions: Articulating your experiences helps you process and make sense of complex emotions associated with past events.

2. Gain perspective: Sharing your story allows you to step back and view your experiences from a different angle, potentially leading to new insights.

3. Feel empowered: Sharing your narrative can be an empowering act, giving you a sense of control over your experiences and how they're perceived.

4. Feel validated: Having others listen and acknowledge your story can validate your feelings and experiences.

5. Reduce stress: Expressing difficult experiences verbally or in writing can reduce stress and improve mental well-being.

6. Come back to yourself: Telling your story helps shape and reinforce your sense of self and personal identity.

7. Heal trauma: Telling your story in a safe environment can be a crucial part of the healing process.

8. Self-reflect: The act of organising and sharing your story promotes self awareness and self-understanding which can help you have self compassion for the choices you have made and a determination for taking the steps you need to take care of yourself. 

If you struggle with a desperate desire to share your story, but hold yourself back and freeze at the idea, I’ve got your back.

I know exactly how it feels!

It’s like having your foot on the accelerator and brake at the same time.

Therapy can be a great place for sharing your story, if you have a therapist who is trained in addiction; but therapy doesn’t suit everyone, and what can you do for yourself in the moments in between, when you have a longing to be witnessed?

Here are 5 strategies that I have used myself and use in my work with clients.

1. Tell your story by writing it as a fairy tale - putting it in the 3^rd person can have a profound effect. Sophie Olson, a survivor of CSA, did a phenomenal job of this in her book The Flying Child. Her book tracks the conversation between her and her therapist and is a beautiful testament to the healing power of humanity.

2. Write your story as a poem. Poetry encourages you to use metaphor. For example:

An iron bar sits on her chest.

It’s oh so cold to touch.

Oh so sure,

So secure.

It’s oh so cold to touch.

A gentle hand upon her.

A quiet loving hold.

Oh so sure,

So secure.

A sanctuary to clutch .

A rumble from deep within her soul.

An ancient message of old,

Oh so sure

So secure.

It once had felt too much.

It’s rapid eagerness takes flight;

Whips out from her soul so bold.

Oh so sure

So secure:

‘I didn’t make it up’.

Any idea what I’m talking about? I mean, sure, you may have a sense.

But you don’t know, and I know that you don’t know, and that means I can use this space as a way to tell my story, to feel witnessed, without feeling exposed.

And so could you.

The rhythm and repetition of the poem really helps a felt sense of something being held, of that shared human experience. In fact, research has shown that rhythm calms our nervous system, eases our breath and engages our vagus nerve.