Some would say that it is a respectable quality and others would say that its part of the package of having an E.D. No matter which is more true, it is something that I pride myself in. Many of my friends and lovers (past and present) have come to me in confidence and told me things that even they don't want to think, and not only have I never repeated those secrets, I will take those things to my grave.
But I often wonder; when does secret keeping become a bad thing? Certainly I can say that my eating disorder was fed [no pun intended] by secrecy. The ability to keep things to myself to such an extent that no one could know the difference between a truth and a lie. The ability to hide something so serious that no one close to me could guess that it was an issue. That can't have been a good thing.
Secrets can some times be scary and often hold more value than the bit of information itself. A friend might share their sexcapade with another friend's ex and, while the act of sleeping with the man or woman might be poo-pooed, no one was injured and as long as no one's heart is being ripped to shreds, is there harm there? No. But - being told this tale in secrecy, that is scary to me.
Now like I said, I am a vault, so I never fear that the secret will get out (and if it does I am always certain it wasn't me who said a damn thing to anyone). But my fear is the way in which the secret teller will feel around me after they've told me. There is often such tension around secrets that people get uncomfortable and scared. A new discomfort often arises and then the backing off begins...
A friend of mine once cheated on a significant other and came to me in desperate need to share the information with someone who they knew they could trust not to repeat a word to another living being ever in their life time. Not a week after confiding in me, that friend (seemingly unintentionally) started a fight with me and I have barely spoken a word to them since.
Now perhaps I am mind reading, but as I saw it, that friend was terrified that I might make them tell someone else (or worse, that I might tell myself) and they started a fight with me so that if I did ever betray their trust, they could dismiss my truth telling and cover it up as if it was a lie in order to protect themselves.
I am a rational thinker (when it comes to others) and I would normally completely understand this type of thinking, except for one minor detail - I. DO NOT. TELL. SECRETS.!!! The reason my friends come to me is because I am a secret keeper for life. I believe that loyalty and trust in a friendship are of the utmost importance and I wouldn't betray the trust of a friend like that. Not only because I have been burned many times and wouldn't want to put that pain on a friend of mine, but because in many ways I define myself as a trustworthy friend and breaking that rule would mean being untrue to myself - a notion I could never live with.
Have you ever kept a secret so well that you wondered to yourself if your friend even remembered telling you the secret in the first place? Have you ever been snubbed for keeping one that might change a person's life?
What is the best way to handle a friendship once the secret lays between you?
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