Every family has its secrets, but some can be more harmful than others. For example, if you’re planning a surprise birthday party or a trip for a family member, these secrets often result in joy or excitement and can bring the family closer. However, other hidden family secrets, such as concealing mental health struggles, can lead to painful emotions detrimental to your own well-being and the family’s dynamic.
Depending on your family’s communication style, discussing mental illness may lead to uncomfortable or frustrating conversations due to a lack of understanding or fear of the attention these discussions may attract to the family. The initial reaction may be to keep it a secret and hope the issue goes away. Unfortunately, this tactic usually causes more harm than good.
Keep reading to explore the impact of keeping family secrets and learn how to foster healthier communication and understanding with your loved ones.
Understanding the Impact of Hidden Family Secrets
It’s not uncommon for families to keep secrets or delay sharing information. If someone is experiencing a financial hardship or a romantic relationship conflict, they may choose to keep it private until they feel comfortable sharing details. Research by The Society for Personality and Social Psychology reveals about 97% of people keep a significant secret at any given time, with the average person harboring around 13 secrets.
Often, a person conceals secrets from their family to protect themselves and their relationships. For example, some individuals may hesitate to share a mental health diagnosis with their family because they’re afraid of being judged or shamed. In some cases, a person may be encouraged by a family member to conceal their mental health struggles due to stigma or fear. However, keeping mental health secrets in the family can be extremely isolating, resulting in further mental or physical health issues.
Being told to hide your mental illness from others, especially by a loved one, can result in stress, anxiety and trust issues. As these feelings accumulate, you may experience physical symptoms such as headaches, muscle tension and digestive issues. Hidden family secrets can also create a toxic environment within the family that discourages opening up due to fear of being rejected or shamed by your loved ones, making it more difficult to share personal or sensitive information in other interpersonal relationships.
Consequences of Keeping Secrets From Family
Even a small secret can sometimes turn into a bigger problem. And if you can’t share with those who support you, it can take a toll. Some of the consequences of keeping secrets from family are:
- Shifting power dynamics. When some of the family knows a secret and others don’t, it can change the power dynamics of the entire family. Those who have all the information and know the secret have an advantage over those who don’t.
- Destroy relationships. Keeping secrets from those closest to you only increases the risk of broken trust if the person finds out. Some secrets are so big they can destroy a relationship.
- Negatively impact children. Sometimes we keep secrets from children in an attempt to shelter them. However, children are very perceptive and can often pick up on things without us realizing it. When we keep secrets from children, we risk them finding out and blaming themselves for the situation. For example, parents hiding an impending divorce might send their child the message that the breakdown in the marriage is the child’s fault.
- Increase the risk of illness. When people keep a secret from their closest loved ones, they often feel overwhelmed with stress and guilt. Dealing with stress over long periods can lead to physical symptoms (headaches, backaches, digestive issues) and mental health problems (anxiety, depression, substance use).
The Role of Shame in Mental Illness Concealment
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than 1 in 5 U.S. adults live with a mental illness. Despite how common mental health struggles are, they still carry a social stigma some families may fear will harm their reputation. However, telling an individual to hide their mental illness can make them feel ashamed about who they are, even though they can’t control their mental health.
Shame is a powerful emotion that can cause feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness and disconnection. It can make a person believe they are flawed and have done something wrong, causing feelings of guilt and remorse for talking about their mental health struggles. These feelings can influence someone to believe they’re unworthy of love or belonging, resulting in additional mental health issues that include:
- Depression
- Low self-esteem
- Eating disorders
- Excessive anger
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
- Feelings of loneliness or emptiness
If you’re already dealing with a mental illness, these additional struggles can lead to self-destructive coping mechanisms, such as substance use or self-harm, especially if you don’t feel comfortable discussing these issues with your loved ones.
Five Most Avoided Topics in Families
Here are the most common topics families avoid talking about with each other.
1. Romantic Relationships
People sometimes hide relationships from their family, especially if they’re with a partner they know their family will disapprove of.
2. Financial Problems
People can feel ashamed when they struggle financially and often hide it from others — sometimes even their partners.
3. Work or School Difficulties
Having difficulties at school or work can cause shame or embarrassment.
4. Mental Health Struggles
People going through a mental health struggle will often hide their symptoms and concerns from those around them due to the stigma around mental health conditions.
5. Substance Use Habits and Addiction
Many people hide the full extent of their substance use from friends and loved ones.
While all these are concerning areas to lie about, it should be noted that hiding mental health struggles and substance use issues from loved ones is a slippery slope. If you’re dealing with either of these issues, you’ll need your family’s love and support to get through it and return to feeling healthy.
Breaking the Silence: How to Foster Open Communication Within Your Family
Is Breaking the Silence Worth It?
We keep secrets because we’re often too scared, ashamed, embarrassed or guilty to reveal the truth. So, is breaking the silence with your family genuinely worth it? The answer is yes. Shedding secrets and letting your family in will help you feel less stressed, reduce your anxiety and feel more connected to your loved ones.
And don’t forget — that secret you’re keeping could be making you sick! Keeping secrets can increase stress and blood pressure, cause sleep problems, increase chronic pain and impact your overall mental health.
Opening up about secrets is never easy, but it’s worth it. You’ll feel liberated once you’ve gotten these things off your chest. And letting your loved ones in is never a bad thing.
Starting the Conversation
In many cases, discomfort when talking about certain topics stems from a lack of knowledge or understanding. There are many misconceptions about mental health, such as that those with mental illness are dangerous or weak or if you simply try harder, your symptoms will go away. Facilitating open, honest communication clearing up these misconceptions and providing accurate mental health information can help your family better understand the situation. Because this can be a difficult conversation to initiate, here are a few tips on getting started.
Share What Makes You Comfortable
Before starting the conversation, check in with yourself to see how much information you’re comfortable sharing. It’s okay to tell your family you’ve been struggling with your mental health but aren’t ready to share specific details. As you process your emotions and become more comfortable speaking about your mental health, you can gradually reveal more information at your own pace.
Choose a Comfortable Location
Ensuring you and your family members are comfortable can establish a lighter, more relaxed atmosphere, making discussing heavier topics less intimidating. Decide whether you’re more comfortable speaking to everyone at once or individually before choosing a private location to converse without distractions or interruptions. This can make it easier to speak honestly and ensure you don’t miss any important information.
Provide Educational Information
When explaining your mental illness to family members, providing educational information can make it easier to get your point across and debunk any misconceptions they might hold. You can ask your therapist for informational pamphlets about your condition or find authoritative internet sources your family can review during the conversation or on their own after.
Set Boundaries
Don’t be afraid to set boundaries with your family by letting them know whether you’re seeking advice or just looking for someone to listen. Some people have uneducated or preconceived views of mental illness that may be unhelpful or even harmful to your personal situation. Kindly explain to your family you’re simply looking for support and understanding and inform them of the best way they can help you through it.
When Family Secrets Involve Substance Use
Substance use may also traumatize children in the home. A 2014 report on child abuse and neglect found that children who live in a home where at least one parent uses drugs experience more child abuse and child welfare check-ins than their peers. Moreover, children living with a parent with substance use disorder are also more likely to start using drugs.
Addiction is a highly stigmatized mental health condition in American society. There are several types of negative stereotypes and attitudes toward people with substance use disorder, including:
- Public stigma: These are the negative attitudes of whole societies toward addiction and people living with it. Public stigma may be expressed through language and widely perpetuated through various forms of media.
- Self-stigma: This is an internalization of the public stigma that causes the person with addiction to be ashamed of their condition. They may start keeping secrets from family to avoid experiencing humiliation from their relatives and the community.
- Structural stigma: This form of stigma is built into institutions, directly limiting access to addiction treatment. If you have a family member with addiction issues, you may face structural stigma from your employers, government and health providers.
Substance use stigma is a pervasive phenomenon that can affect your family’s standing in the community. Social rejection and discrimination tend to be higher within intimate settings such as the family unit and close-knit societies. Thus, if a loved one struggles with the condition, you may consider keeping family secrets from the public by refusing to acknowledge or discuss the problem.
However, this doesn’t benefit anyone, especially not the person with a substance use disorder. It denies the person dealing with addiction the support of loved ones as they undergo treatment. The silence around addiction also makes resolving its impact on marriages and children difficult.
Seek Professional Support Today
Encouraging healthier conversations about mental illness to reduce feelings of shame and discomfort within your family can be challenging, but it’s not impossible. Professional resources are available, including family therapy, that can help you and your loved ones have open conversations and understand each other’s conflicts, concerns or fears.
If you’ve been struggling with your mental health, you don’t have to endure this journey alone. At Restore Mental Health in Deerfield Beach, we treat a wide range of mental illnesses, equipping you with the knowledge and skills needed to cope with your condition in a healthy manner. Call (877) 810-2074 or contact us today to see how our services can help you foster a more positive relationship with yourself and your family.
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