Part of me wants to abandon the lofty heights of theory and conjecture; and get down in the dirt, again. ...to get real, with hard facts, and actual events, and yet... without spilling secrets, or being seen as weak or as a victim.
I began working with a psycho-therapist, this week, and one of the assignments for next week is to list the faulty disclosures from my past. Some times, shouting through the Facebook megaphone was the wrong step, while at other times, holding in the past just let it fester - kind of like the raisin in the sun?
(still in theory, mind you) The level of disclosure - who to tell and who not to tell - can be just as important, if not more so, than the details disclosed. Ask me about my Air Force ROTC drug reporting mishaps, if you want an easy example...
Sensitive information creates a danger with it, for if I perceive that something disclosed can cause me future harm... then I give it a measure of power over my ability to be honest?
There's a part of me that does NOT see how harmful my past can become for me. It assumes that, if no harm was caused to others, then those facts do not harm me. Yet, I think the stigmas around addiction, around mental illness, and more can easily distance people from me, because they carry around their mental images of what those stigma sources are.
I would love to be completely honest with everyone, everywhere, on all parts of my past. Yet, I can see how others treat similar pasts in shameful manners... and I choose not to disclose, there, to "keep my cards hidden", because I do not want to have to mitigate their shaming or their attempts to leverage the information to their advantage.
"When I've been hurt by the way that you treat me or treat others, then my willingness to trust you shrinks or disappears."
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