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We all have secrets. Some secrets we tell some friends, others we tell other friends. But some, we keep only within ourselves, and eventually poison ourselves with them.

Secrets are secrets because we don’t want to tell other people to avoid their reactions: maybe they will laugh at us, sneer, tease, or worse still, dismiss us completely. Perhaps we don’t want to share because we feel embarrassed about what we have done or how we feel.  We are not sure how others would react. Maybe they won’t understand. Maybe they will get angry. Maybe we will send them into shock.

Yet, these deep and dark thoughts is an invisible poison that seeps through all corners of your mind and before you know it, you are possessed and obsessed by it. You lose control, you lose “rationality” (however it is defined), and you lose yourself. You do things and say things that most “normal” people would not be able to empathize and the vicious cycle begins. The more they don’t understand, the more we keep to ourselves. The thoughts snowball. And then we tumble aimlessly with the snowball once it is set in motion.

So many times I’ve spun out of control, just whirling with my own poisonous secrets as if they were the reality and the truth. To exacerbate it, I’m the kind of person who likes to think and think and over analyze things so my dark thoughts only get more engrained in my head and entwined with my mere existence. It has become me, and I believed them to be my reality.

I’ve kept to myself for a long time, and put up the happy front for everyone else so that no one, absolutely no one could suspect that I was thinking what I was thinking.

Then one day I lost it. I was burnt out. I was stressed at work and I ended up with migraines. My migraines interfered with my work and every day life and I got even more stressed at work. I abhorred myself for needing to take so much medication for headaches, migraines, pains here and there. Slowly, my secret hatred for my life and the work I was doing everyday catalyzed my self-destruction. Hidden thoughts in my head burst out with each thump of the migraines. The end of myself unfolded before my own eyes. I had no more energy to keep my secrets in.

I lost it. I broke down. And then I hid from the world.

 

 

I could not bear to face all the people who were fond of me and thought me as such an energetic and positive person with my poisoned soul. I was afraid at what they would think. I didn’t keep in touch or reply to emails for a long time. Even in the depths of my despair I was worried about what others would think of me. My depression became a new poisonous secret and I was humiliated by my suicidal attempts – so much so that I couldn’t even face myself.

Yet in the last 2 years, I slowly, albeit with such a huge delay, realized finally that opening up isn’t all that bad. People actually understand and can sympathize. In fact, some of them might be going through the same thing and can support me. They didn’t laugh at me, nor did they find me “weak”. They didn’t stop being my friends. They didn’t judge me.

And only with opening up was I able to face myself again, and look myself in the eye in the mirror reflection, and tell myself: “it will be ok”. Only with opening up, was I able to find the support that I didn’t realize I needed to get me through my challenging times.

There is no need to hold it all in. Before your soul is completely contaminated, talk to someone.

Whatever is troubling you, whether you are “mildly upset” or “very depressed” or whatever the circumstances, there is definitely someone out there who will listen to you. You might drag them down in mood but they will be there for you. I’m lucky to have not one, but a few people on whom I could offload.

And I know you have your friends too – if you tell them and they spite you, well de-friend them on Facebook, they are not worth your time anymore, at least not now. You need to take care of yourself first.

Trust me, someone WILL listen to you and shoulder your secrets. Last resort, there is me.

Don’t let your secrets poison you to death.