是時候說出心底的秘密了嗎？

是時候說出心底的秘密了嗎？
 

Can you keep a secret?

Of course you can -- if it's about yourself. Communication researchers say nearly everyone -- more than 95% of people -- reports having a fact or bit of information about themselves that they don't reveal to anyone. (The other 5% probably aren't being honest when they say they don't have one, experts say.) And many struggle with whether, when and how to tell.

Most of these secrets aren't worthy of tabloid headlines. Yet they aren't small trifles, either. Typically, people say their secrets relate to topics that either they themselves view as shameful or believe others will, researchers say. Financial problems, extramarital affairs, poor health habits, addictions -- these are common secrets.

When I started working on this column, I was worried. Who would want to talk about a secret? A lot of people, it turns out. I asked about personal secrets and heard from readers about teenage pregnancies, 20-year-long extramarital affairs, sexual abuse, mental health issues and pornography addictions. Some people, like a self-described 'CIA operative' I heard from, kept secrets about their work life from their families for years. One man told me he had to keep his whole life a secret when he was 'a fugitive sought by the FBI for seven years (wanted for freeing mink from fur farms.)'

Laura Hedgecock's grandmother took her secret to her grave. Ms. Hedgecock, a writer in Farmington Hills, Mich., says her grandmother had always maintained she was an orphan, after her mother died when she was a young child and her father chose not to raise her. But after her death at age 95, her family discovered, through a genealogy search, that their grandmother actually had lived with her father and had 11 siblings.

Ms. Hedgecock says when she first learned her grandmother's secret, she felt angry on behalf of her own father, who died without knowing that his mother had a large family. 'It gnaws at you. You wonder what happened, and what she went through,' Ms. Hedgecock says. 'And it really makes you yearn for what you missed.' She may never know why her grandmother kept her secret but guesses there were painful memories of growing up in a big family with a stepmother just three years older than herself.

We tend to think of secrets as skeletons in the closet, yet they aren't all negative, experts say. Sometimes we keep a secret to protect a loved one or a relationship. And we keep secrets from different people. There are the ones we keep from family members or other individuals, and then there are the ones the whole family knows and conspires to keep from everyone else.

Secrets are tantalizing plot drivers in many a movie and TV show ('Downton Abbey' fans, you know this). But keeping secrets from a loved one can put an emotional wedge in the relationship and change the way we communicate. Research shows that when we keep secrets from a mate, our relationship satisfaction goes down. And the more we ruminate about a secret, the more we want to reveal it.

'When we have a secret and mull it over, we develop stress and it makes our body sick,' says Tamara Afifi, professor of communication studies at the University of Iowa, who studies secrets. 'To get our body back to a sense of health, we need to reveal or cure our self of the secret.' Researchers call this the Fever Model, she says.

Mike Speakman, a substance-abuse counselor in Phoenix, kept a secret about revenge until he couldn't stand it anymore. Several years after his divorce, he sneaked into his ex-wife's house, took a valuable Native American kachina doll he'd given her in happier times -- and threw it into a nearby canal. 'I suppose it made me feel better for a while,' he says.

As time passed, though, he felt guilty, especially when he thought of his ex- or saw their children. He worried about what it was doing to her, not knowing what had become of the doll. So one day, at a family event with his ex-wife about five years later, he blurted out what he had done. 'She was shocked and mad and then said something to the effect of 'that was awhile ago,'' Mr. Speakman, now 71 recalls. 'I think she appreciated the honesty.'

How do you decide whether to reveal a secret? Tread carefully here, experts say. If telling the secret will hurt someone and produce no benefit, then it shouldn't be told. Had an affair decades ago? If it's long over and your marriage is good, mum's the word.

Unless you have a good therapist, you're on your own on this decision. Dr. Afifi says examine your motivation. Is it selfish? The desire to get something off your chest or a feeling of moral obligation to tell aren't good enough reasons to cause someone else pain. Consider how telling the secret will affect the listener, the relationship and other people, as well. Weigh long-term benefits against short-term drawbacks.

People tend to disclose secrets in one of five ways, Dr. Afifi says. When we think the other person will react negatively, we are more likely to disclose indirectly, say by telling a third party. We might be rehearsing for the big tell. Or we might secretly hope the secret will get out. Sometimes we tell with incremental revelations, at first telling just a part of the secret to judge the reaction.

We might use a hypothetical scenario ('What would you think if this happened . . .') or pretend the secret belongs to someone else ('My co-worker, John, has this secret . . .'). Sometimes we are angry and wait for the heat of the moment to blurt the secret out, a strategy Dr. Afifi calls 'entrapment.'

And then there is the most direct method: We just tell it, calmly. It's important to explain to the other person why we are telling them the secret, says Anita Vangelisti, professor of communication studies at the University of Texas at Austin, who researches secrets. Say, 'I am telling you this because I care about our relationship' or 'I trust you with this information.'

Explaining our motivation 'helps reduce some of the tension, uncertainty and anxiety that might be evoked by the telling,' Dr. Vangelisti says.

'And if we do decide to share a secret,' she adds, 'we need to be willing to listen afterward.'

你能保守秘密嗎？

當然可以——如果秘密是關于自己的話。傳播學研究人員表示，幾乎每個人——超過95%的人——都有關于自己的一件事或一點信息瞞著別人。（專家說，還有5%的人說自己沒有，那可能是在說謊。）很多人都糾結于是否要把秘密告訴別人，以及何時以何種方式告訴別人。

大多數(shù)這種秘密連小報的頭條都上不了，但也并一定就是細小的瑣事。研究人員說，一般人們的秘密涉及的話題要么是自己認為不體面，要么以為別人會覺得不體面。財務問題、婚外情、不良的衛(wèi)生習慣、上癮——這些都是常見的秘密。

開始寫這篇專欄時，我有點擔心。誰會愿意談論秘密呢？結果發(fā)現(xiàn)，愿意談的人很多。有關私人秘密的問題我收到了讀者的很多回復，涉及未成年少女懷孕、20多年的婚外情、性虐待、心理健康和色情成癮等話題。有些人會把工作中的秘密瞞著家里人好幾十年，回復我的一個自稱是“CIA特工”的讀者就是這樣。一個人告訴我他“被FBI追捕了七年（為了把貂從毛皮農場解救出來）”，于是有關自己的一切都不得不瞞著所有人。

勞拉·赫奇科克(Laura Hedgecock)的祖母把秘密帶進了墳墓。赫奇科克是一位作家，家住密歇根州法明頓希爾斯(Farmington Hills)，她說她的祖母總是堅持說自己是個孤兒，母親在她很小的時候就去世了，父親不愿意撫養(yǎng)她。但在祖母95歲去世后，家里人通過宗譜搜索發(fā)現(xiàn)，她實際上由父親撫養(yǎng)長大，并且有11個兄弟姐妹。

赫奇科克說，當她得知祖母的秘密時，她為自己的父親感到很生氣，他一直到去世都不知道自己的母親有一個大家族。赫奇科克說：“它會折磨你，你會想知道發(fā)生了什么，還有她經歷了些什么，讓你很想知道自己錯過了什么。”她也許永遠不會知道祖母為什么會瞞著他們，但她猜測，在一個繼母只比自己大三歲的大家族里長大肯定有很多痛苦的回憶。

專家說，我們往往會覺得秘密是見不得光的，但秘密也不全是負面的。有時我們保密是為了保護所愛的人或一段關系。我們跟不同的人保守秘密。有的秘密會瞞著家里人或其他人，有的秘密全家都知道并且齊心協(xié)力瞞著其他所有人。

在很多電影和電視劇中，秘密是引人入勝的情節(jié)推動器（《唐頓莊園》(Downton Abbey)的粉絲們，你們懂的）。但瞞著所愛的人會導致關系出現(xiàn)情感裂縫，會改變我們交流的方式。研究表明，有秘密瞞著配偶時，關系的滿意度就會下降。對某個秘密考慮得越多，就越想公開這個秘密。

愛荷華大學(University of Iowa)研究秘密的傳播學教授塔瑪拉·阿菲菲(Tamara Afifi)說：“當我們有秘密并且反復想的時候，就會形成壓力，身體就會不舒服。要讓身體回到健康的狀態(tài)，我們就需要把秘密公開或者不要讓自己再糾結于這個秘密。”她說，研究人員稱之為“發(fā)燒模式”(Fever Model)。

鳳凰城(Phoenix)藥物濫用顧問邁克·斯皮克曼(Mike Speakman)保守著一個有關復仇的秘密，直到他再也無法忍受為止。離婚幾年后，他溜進了前妻的房子，拿走了在二人甜蜜時光時他送給她的一個貴重的卡奇納玩偶(kachina doll)，然后扔進了附近的一條水渠中。他說：“我想在短期內這讓我感覺好受了一些。”

不過隨著時間的推移，他感覺到了內疚，特別是想到前妻或者看到兩人孩子的時候。他擔心這件事會對她產生的影響，也不知道玩偶成了什么樣子。所以大約五年后，在和前妻參加一次家庭活動時，他說出了自己的所作所為?，F(xiàn)年71歲的斯皮克曼回憶道：“她很震驚，也很生氣，然后說了些‘那已經是很久以前的事了’之類的話。我覺得她很欣賞我的坦誠。”

如何判斷是否應該公開秘密？專家說，要格外小心。如果公開秘密會傷害別人，不會有任何益處，那么就不應該公開。幾十年前有過婚外情？如果已經過去很久，而且現(xiàn)在婚姻很幸福，那還是守口如瓶吧。

除非你有很好的治療師，否則做決定得靠自己。阿菲菲博士說，要檢查你的動機。是不是出于私心？有想卸掉包袱的欲望，或者覺得道德上有義務說出秘密，這些并不是給別人造成痛苦的足夠好的理由。想想說出秘密會對對方產生什么影響，還有對雙方關系以及其他人的影響。對長遠的利益和眼前的弊端進行權衡。

阿菲菲博士說，人們透露秘密的方式通常有五種。當我們認為對方會是消極的反應時，我們會更有可能間接地暗示，比如通過第三方轉達。我們可能會提前彩排，或者背地里希望秘密會泄露出去。有時我們會循序漸進地告訴對方，一開始只說出一部分以判斷對方的反應。

我們可能會假設某種情形，比如“如果發(fā)生這種事……你會怎么想”，或者假裝秘密是別人的，比如“我的同事約翰有一個秘密……”。有時我們會生氣，等到氣頭上將秘密脫口而出，阿菲菲博士稱之為“將計就計”戰(zhàn)略。

還有就是最直接的方法：平靜地說出來。得克薩斯大學奧斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)研究秘密的傳播學教授安妮塔·萬杰利斯蒂(Anita Vangelisti)說，很重要的一點是向對方解釋為何要告訴他們這個秘密，比如“我告訴你這個秘密是因為我在乎我們的關系”，或者“我相信你會為我保密”。

萬杰利斯蒂博士說，解釋我們的動機“有助于減少說出秘密可能帶來的壓力、不確定感和焦慮”。

她說：“如果我們決定了要分享一個秘密，就需要在說出來后愿意傾聽。”