Keeping mum

Ramana and Chuck have both posted about secrets today, so I thought I'd join in. People have very different attitudes to secrets. Some think it's healthy to get everything out in the open and not bottle things up, others think it's more sensible to reveal the bare minimum and keep the rest to yourself.

Things have changed a lot since I was young. In those days there was no social media to broadcast your every personal quirk to. You might confide something to a family member or one or two friends and that was that. Now you can tell Facebook you're suffering from PTSD and hundreds of people know your secret instantly.

But is that a good or bad thing? The "let it all out" school of thought says that revealing everything, however perverse or trivial or hateful or idiotic, might upset a few people but there's nothing festering away inside to cause inhibitions and awkwardness.

Which is fine in theory, but in practice there are many very good reasons for keeping things secret.

Someone might have told you something in confidence. If you reveal it, others will stop confiding in you. Something might be so controversial or bizarre that you can't face all the possible negative reactions, so you prefer to keep it quiet. If you're a whistle-blower exposing some sort of malpractice, you might find yourself ostracised or even sacked.

Although personally I'd like to be entirely frank about every aspect of my life, it's for reasons like those that in reality I keep many things secret. It would simply be too damaging to lay everything on the line.

My family have always been intensely secretive, telling me what's strictly necessary and keeping everything else under wraps. I know very little about my mother and father because they told me next to nothing. My sister and brother-in-law and niece are equally reticent.

Well, total transparency sounds good but can easily turn sour.

Spilling the beans

Therapist-cum-life-coach Tori Ufondu only works with men - because they're often reluctant to open up about themselves and it's more challenging to break down their inhibitions. She finds working with women less rewarding because "sessions with women feel more like talking to my girlfriends".

Interesting that she still finds men more tight-lipped and defensive, when there's a general impression that men are getting more open and happy to talk about what's going on inside. Personally I find the men I come across just as unforthcoming as ever and not at all good at spilling the personal stuff.

Tori finds that once she's helped a guy to open up, he reveals all sorts of hang-ups he's never been fully aware of, let alone shared with other guys (or women).

Like difficulties getting on with workmates, or being a slave to other people's expectations, or fear of failure, or sexual frustration, or not recognising his partner's changing identity. Big issues that are seriously affecting his life.

Clearly men's inability to share what's troubling them is doing harm. Seventy eight per cent of all UK suicides are male. A lot of those men must have been bottling up distressing thoughts and feelings that other people could have helped with.

I'm not brilliant at pouring out the personal stuff myself. I'm much more open than when I was young but it still doesn't come naturally. I still have to drive away those masculine inhibitions about "keeping it all to yourself" that were drummed into me as a boy.

But as my regulars know, over the years I've identified all sorts of personal quirks and phobias and anxieties and prejudices I used to be oblivious of, and my self-awareness has expanded dramatically.

I'm sure some of you will promptly tell me that my self-awareness is far from complete and remind me of numerous negative traits that annoy the hell out of you and are shamefully misanthropic. But I'm getting there.

However embarrassing or agonising it may be to spill the beans, letting it all fester and coagulate inside is asking for trouble.