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Bill wanted to tell someone, but only one person. The problem is that you can't tell one person because everyone has someone else that they will tell. Someone a

Bill wanted to tell someone, but only one person. The problem is that you can't tell one person because everyone has someone else that they will tell. Someone always has a higher allegiance to another than you. Maybe it is different for married people, but then we get a chicken and egg problem. How can you find a partner to marry when issues like this, kept secret, keep you from having a long-term relationship? He tried to trust people at Trinity but they spread his secrets. He knows that doctors and counselors have allowances for when they can disclose information. He probably floated personal information his whole life to people to see if they could be trusted. I bet each secret came back to him from another party. He couldn't find a person to trust so he didn't disclose his ultimate secret. He only wanted 1 person. He could deal with 1. Maybe years later 2 people, but for now just 1. Not 1 in an anonymous posting online. Not 1 in a chat room. 1 right in front of you. The problem is that there isn't 1. Some people can deal with that, being open and all. For some, the quest for 1 is the goal, and realization that there isn't 1 is hard to take. It doesn't help. I read a lot of me in that letter. I am 29 now. Will I make it to 30? Yes. 35? Maybe. 40? ...

gphil 16y ago
I'd like to respond to your assertion that "he knows that doctors and counselors have allowances for when they can disclose information." This is true, but I think that it would be possible to find a counselor that would not disclose any information, even if they were technically allowed to do so. Furthermore, it seems possible to me that such secrets could be partially disclosed to a counselor in a way in which there would be no incentive for that counselor to pass along the information to another party. Not having been in this kind of situation before, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to harbor such a secret for a lifetime, and perhaps for Bill the sheer weight of it made it impossible for him to tell anyone. But, I would just like to try to make the point that there are viable options other than keeping secrets bottled up. As for your final comment, I sincerely hope that you can find the help that you need to make it through whatever it is that is distressing you.
- 2oi03i9fhujcnd 16y ago
  Thank you for your kind words. To understand where Bill is coming from you really need to hop into his shoes. He tried to trust people but they violated that trust. Regardless of the reasons for doing that, they didn't keep his secret. What he told them was much less important to him than his ultimate secret. If they can't keep those smaller secrets, why can they keep the big one? For better or worse all of the other things he told people were tests. Who can keep this secret? You, ok, I will let you in on a little more, then a little more, then a little more. But no one kept all of them, so no one could complete the journey to the last one. Bill had no reason to trust a doctor. Everything in his life confirmed the exact opposite - no one is to be trusted, everyone will tell your secrets. Everyone always has that one person that they want to tell, but no worries, it's ok, that person won't tell anyone. Yup, but everyone has that person. And unfortunately for Bill, he wasn't able to find someone to tell, and have their "one person" be Bill, thus keeping his secret between two, and only two, people in this world.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    His error was to assume that people who would give up a small secret would also give up a larger one. That's not at all a given.
    - 2oi03i9fhujcnd 16y ago
      It isn't for the secret-listener to decide what is worthwhile to hold in confidence. A small secret shouldn't be disclosed just because the person that heard it thinks that it isn't worth keeping secret. Besides, I don't think contemporary community standards would consider coming out as gay as being a small secret. Generalizing further, it really isn't fair for me to classify any of these as big or small. One person may consider coming out as gay as no big deal and hide past sexual abuse, while another may consider disclosing past sexual abuse as no big deal and not disclose sexual orientation. It isn't for me to decide which is bigger than the other.
      - pyre 16y ago
scott_s 16y ago
There is a 1 person, but it requires trust. And trust isn't beside the point, it's part of it. That trust is part of the intimacy involved in sharing a secret, and it is part of the bonding between two people. If you confide something that important to someone you care about, that may strengthen the relationship. "How do you know? How do you really know you can trust me?" "I don't. That's what trust is."

gphil 16y ago

I'd like to respond to your assertion that "he knows that doctors and counselors have allowances for when they can disclose information." This is true, but I think that it would be possible to find a counselor that would not disclose any information, even if they were technically allowed to do so. Furthermore, it seems possible to me that such secrets could be partially disclosed to a counselor in a way in which there would be no incentive for that counselor to pass along the information to another party. Not having been in this kind of situation before, I can't imagine how horrible it would be to harbor such a secret for a lifetime, and perhaps for Bill the sheer weight of it made it impossible for him to tell anyone. But, I would just like to try to make the point that there are viable options other than keeping secrets bottled up. As for your final comment, I sincerely hope that you can find the help that you need to make it through whatever it is that is distressing you.

2oi03i9fhujcnd 16y ago
Thank you for your kind words. To understand where Bill is coming from you really need to hop into his shoes. He tried to trust people but they violated that trust. Regardless of the reasons for doing that, they didn't keep his secret. What he told them was much less important to him than his ultimate secret. If they can't keep those smaller secrets, why can they keep the big one? For better or worse all of the other things he told people were tests. Who can keep this secret? You, ok, I will let you in on a little more, then a little more, then a little more. But no one kept all of them, so no one could complete the journey to the last one. Bill had no reason to trust a doctor. Everything in his life confirmed the exact opposite - no one is to be trusted, everyone will tell your secrets. Everyone always has that one person that they want to tell, but no worries, it's ok, that person won't tell anyone. Yup, but everyone has that person. And unfortunately for Bill, he wasn't able to find someone to tell, and have their "one person" be Bill, thus keeping his secret between two, and only two, people in this world.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  His error was to assume that people who would give up a small secret would also give up a larger one. That's not at all a given.
  - 2oi03i9fhujcnd 16y ago
    It isn't for the secret-listener to decide what is worthwhile to hold in confidence. A small secret shouldn't be disclosed just because the person that heard it thinks that it isn't worth keeping secret. Besides, I don't think contemporary community standards would consider coming out as gay as being a small secret. Generalizing further, it really isn't fair for me to classify any of these as big or small. One person may consider coming out as gay as no big deal and hide past sexual abuse, while another may consider disclosing past sexual abuse as no big deal and not disclose sexual orientation. It isn't for me to decide which is bigger than the other.
    - pyre 16y ago

scott_s 16y ago

There is a 1 person, but it requires trust. And trust isn't beside the point, it's part of it. That trust is part of the intimacy involved in sharing a secret, and it is part of the bonding between two people. If you confide something that important to someone you care about, that may strengthen the relationship. "How do you know? How do you really know you can trust me?" "I don't. That's what trust is."