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Keeping secrets without meaning to
Indrid Cold
Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
This is going to be weird...
There are some things about myself that I keep a secret from some people and not from others, not because I trust them less or anything like that but somehow subconsciously.
For example, the fact that I have two baby half-siblings, I've told some of my friends but not the others. And they're a year old now!
I think at first I didn't tell them because it never came up or something, but that wasn't a problem with the ones I've told it to... And now I don't because of the certain "Why didn't you say it before?" replies.
There have been more things that I've done similar things about in the past, this is just an example (and, I think, the only current one).
So I suppose I'm asking for any idea why I might be doing that, and for any ways of telling the rest without it sounding like I didn't trust them or something...
There are some things about myself that I keep a secret from some people and not from others, not because I trust them less or anything like that but somehow subconsciously.
For example, the fact that I have two baby half-siblings, I've told some of my friends but not the others. And they're a year old now!
I think at first I didn't tell them because it never came up or something, but that wasn't a problem with the ones I've told it to... And now I don't because of the certain "Why didn't you say it before?" replies.
There have been more things that I've done similar things about in the past, this is just an example (and, I think, the only current one).
So I suppose I'm asking for any idea why I might be doing that, and for any ways of telling the rest without it sounding like I didn't trust them or something...
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Like when I quit a job once I didn't actually tell my parents and then they only found out becuase my sister told them - i'd mentioned it of hand in a group email to loads of people of which she is one.
Or recently when I didn't tell my parents that my best friend was pregnant - but thats really their fautl - because they asked me every week for months and months when I knew she was but had been asked to keep it a secret and then they didn't ask once when it was OK for me to tell and it dragged on for ages as I then wasn't sure at which point in the conversation to drop it in!
Also there are occasions where I think i've told people something because i've thought it in my head but acutally i havent' i've just imagined telling them.
I think that its not that your purposefully not saying stuff - I think your like me that once you realise you've not said it you start over analysing why not and then worry about how to go about saying it now its just so long after the event.......
When she asked why, I said I needed to pick up my Dad's presciriptions...she said "Oh I didn't know your Dad was on medication..." and I replied "Well obviously, for his heart."
The "What the fuck" rather confused me. Turns out the fact that my Dad spent most of last summer in hospital had been neglected from our weekly phone conversations for the past year..... No idea why I didn't tell her like.
Surely there are some things about your family you wouldn't tell your friends?
Like, only a few people know what's wrong with my dad and they only know because we were on MSN talking and I managed to blurt it out.
My Dad's heart attacks were never really a secret - in fact most people knew because I was in and out of college, and constantly in touch with his work and the DVLA over it (you'd be amazed how much paperwork comes along when you have a heart attack...) And my mum was in no fit state to do it, so I took it all on. So I needed friends more than ever. I'm just amazed that I kept it from this particular friend because I've known her all my life, and I know I spoke to her last summer - I even remember her coming round to see me while I was caring for my Dad at home, and me her and my Dad were sat in the garden!
Usually I spill around a lot of my personal stuff, but of course if the situation elaborates and it keeps going on, I just can't be bothered by starting the story from aaaaaaaaaall the beginning to people unbeknownst to my situation, and there I have a few know about it and a few not, even tho it might be all the other way around next time.
It just happens.
But I admit, that's a little different from actively, knowingly keeping something significant from a friend...
It's not a major psychological worry I wouldn't have thought. Is there anything especially that you've maybe kept from people, maybe something big or that you're scared of what people might think?
If not, then it's nothing worth worrying about IMO.
Once I had a group of "friends" about whose lives I knew a lot if not everything, and they about mine. That was back in my early teens. I suppose I've always been thinking that this is how friends are supposed to be, but now that I think about it I don't know that much about the lives of most of them either... Maybe it doesn't work this way when you're older.
Thanks, I guess I'll try to find an acceptable time to say it.
And the other day it did almost come about in conversation, I just hid it without thinking. I was telling someone else about them in passing, and then one of the friend I've not told came by and said "What are you talking about?" (not having heard anything) and I just said the other part of what we were saying...