是時(shí)候說(shuō)出心底的秘密了嗎？

是時(shí)候說(shuō)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(dāng)然可以——如果秘密是關(guān)于自己的話(huà)。傳播學(xué)研究人員表示，幾乎每個(gè)人——超過(guò)95%的人——都有關(guān)于自己的一件事或一點(diǎn)信息瞞著別人。（專(zhuān)家說(shuō)，還有5%的人說(shuō)自己沒(méi)有，那可能是在說(shuō)謊。）很多人都糾結(jié)于是否要把秘密告訴別人，以及何時(shí)以何種方式告訴別人。

大多數(shù)這種秘密連小報(bào)的頭條都上不了，但也并一定就是細(xì)小的瑣事。研究人員說(shuō)，一般人們的秘密涉及的話(huà)題要么是自己認(rèn)為不體面，要么以為別人會(huì)覺(jué)得不體面。財(cái)務(wù)問(wèn)題、婚外情、不良的衛(wèi)生習(xí)慣、上癮——這些都是常見(jiàn)的秘密。

開(kāi)始寫(xiě)這篇專(zhuān)欄時(shí)，我有點(diǎn)擔(dān)心。誰(shuí)會(huì)愿意談?wù)撁孛苣?？結(jié)果發(fā)現(xiàn)，愿意談的人很多。有關(guān)私人秘密的問(wèn)題我收到了讀者的很多回復(fù)，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(huà)題。有些人會(huì)把工作中的秘密瞞著家里人好幾十年，回復(fù)我的一個(gè)自稱(chēng)是“CIA特工”的讀者就是這樣。一個(gè)人告訴我他“被FBI追捕了七年（為了把貂從毛皮農(nóng)場(chǎng)解救出來(lái)）”，于是有關(guān)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(jìn)了墳?zāi)?。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(shuō)她的祖母總是堅(jiān)持說(shuō)自己是個(gè)孤兒，母親在她很小的時(shí)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(guò)宗譜搜索發(fā)現(xiàn)，她實(shí)際上由父親撫養(yǎng)長(zhǎng)大，并且有11個(gè)兄弟姐妹。

赫奇科克說(shuō)，當(dāng)她得知祖母的秘密時(shí)，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(gè)大家族。赫奇科克說(shuō)：“它會(huì)折磨你，你會(huì)想知道發(fā)生了什么，還有她經(jīng)歷了些什么，讓你很想知道自己錯(cuò)過(guò)了什么。”她也許永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)知道祖母為什么會(huì)瞞著他們，但她猜測(cè)，在一個(gè)繼母只比自己大三歲的大家族里長(zhǎng)大肯定有很多痛苦的回憶。

專(zhuān)家說(shuō)，我們往往會(huì)覺(jué)得秘密是見(jiàn)不得光的，但秘密也不全是負(fù)面的。有時(shí)我們保密是為了保護(hù)所愛(ài)的人或一段關(guān)系。我們跟不同的人保守秘密。有的秘密會(huì)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(dòng)器（《唐頓莊園》(Downton Abbey)的粉絲們，你們懂的）。但瞞著所愛(ài)的人會(huì)導(dǎo)致關(guān)系出現(xiàn)情感裂縫，會(huì)改變我們交流的方式。研究表明，有秘密瞞著配偶時(shí)，關(guān)系的滿(mǎn)意度就會(huì)下降。對(duì)某個(gè)秘密考慮得越多，就越想公開(kāi)這個(gè)秘密。

愛(ài)荷華大學(xué)(University of Iowa)研究秘密的傳播學(xué)教授塔瑪拉·阿菲菲(Tamara Afifi)說(shuō)：“當(dāng)我們有秘密并且反復(fù)想的時(shí)候，就會(huì)形成壓力，身體就會(huì)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(kāi)或者不要讓自己再糾結(jié)于這個(gè)秘密。”她說(shuō)，研究人員稱(chēng)之為“發(fā)燒模式”(Fever Model)。

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

不過(guò)隨著時(shí)間的推移，他感覺(jué)到了內(nèi)疚，特別是想到前妻或者看到兩人孩子的時(shí)候。他擔(dān)心這件事會(huì)對(duì)她產(chǎn)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(dòng)時(shí)，他說(shuō)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(shuō)了些‘那已經(jīng)是很久以前的事了’之類(lèi)的話(huà)。我覺(jué)得她很欣賞我的坦誠(chéng)。”

如何判斷是否應(yīng)該公開(kāi)秘密？專(zhuān)家說(shuō)，要格外小心。如果公開(kāi)秘密會(huì)傷害別人，不會(huì)有任何益處，那么就不應(yīng)該公開(kāi)。幾十年前有過(guò)婚外情？如果已經(jīng)過(guò)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(shuō)，要檢查你的動(dòng)機(jī)。是不是出于私心？有想卸掉包袱的欲望，或者覺(jué)得道德上有義務(wù)說(shuō)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(shuō)出秘密會(huì)對(duì)對(duì)方產(chǎn)生什么影響，還有對(duì)雙方關(guān)系以及其他人的影響。對(duì)長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)的利益和眼前的弊端進(jìn)行權(quán)衡。

阿菲菲博士說(shuō)，人們透露秘密的方式通常有五種。當(dāng)我們認(rèn)為對(duì)方會(huì)是消極的反應(yīng)時(shí)，我們會(huì)更有可能間接地暗示，比如通過(guò)第三方轉(zhuǎn)達(dá)。我們可能會(huì)提前彩排，或者背地里希望秘密會(huì)泄露出去。有時(shí)我們會(huì)循序漸進(jìn)地告訴對(duì)方，一開(kāi)始只說(shuō)出一部分以判斷對(duì)方的反應(yīng)。

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

還有就是最直接的方法：平靜地說(shuō)出來(lái)。得克薩斯大學(xué)奧斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)研究秘密的傳播學(xué)教授安妮塔·萬(wàn)杰利斯蒂(Anita Vangelisti)說(shuō)，很重要的一點(diǎn)是向?qū)Ψ浇忉尀楹我嬖V他們這個(gè)秘密，比如“我告訴你這個(gè)秘密是因?yàn)槲以诤跷覀兊年P(guān)系”，或者“我相信你會(huì)為我保密”。

萬(wàn)杰利斯蒂博士說(shuō)，解釋我們的動(dòng)機(jī)“有助于減少說(shuō)出秘密可能帶來(lái)的壓力、不確定感和焦慮”。

她說(shuō)：“如果我們決定了要分享一個(gè)秘密，就需要在說(shuō)出來(lái)后愿意傾聽(tīng)。”