You're Only As Sick as Your Secrets

We all have secrets. Secret wishes, secret desires, secret dreams.

Then there are the polite secrets; your butt does look fat in those pants, I do want to sleep with your 19 year old son, I do get paid more than you do.

In my recovery; the secrets I need to watch out for are my secret shame and my secret behavior.

The secret behavior that comes to mind is my client Bria. She was a single successful woman with two kids, eight and eleven. She looks good, her kids were bright and bubbly and most people thought of her as a success. Her secret was that she would binge in the middle of the night. Sometimes she wouldn't even realize what she was doing until the refrigerator light illuminated the empty left over dishes or she would get up the next day to find cookie wrappers on the kitchen counter.

As another example, I can still vividly remember a shaming incident of my childhood. We were driving somewhere in the family car and I had my mother's home-made quilt over me. The smooth fabric felt good on my skin so I took my clothes off under the blanket. When my mother realized what I was doing she ripped the blanket off of me, exposing my underwear clad body. I was mortified and ashamed and humiliated. It taught me that my body and pleasures of the body were somehow wrong.

The fourth step tells us to "make a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all". For me, the person I had harmed the most was me. Exposing my imperfection is just what I'd spent all my time and energy to suppress. I lived behind the facade and no one could really see who the real Rebekah was. It was super difficult for me to put down this armor. I had the illusion that it was protecting me when it was actually my own self imposed prison. I finally admitted that I am not perfect. This "housecleaning" helped me to identify what my secrets were and ultimately be able to laugh at all the crazy things I do.

I am only as sick as my secrets. Today I have a loving sponsor and a loving god that still thinks I am the cutest thing even though I haven't lived up to the impossible expectation of perfection.