Secrets….we all have them. We share some with others, but some we keep between ourselves and God. The sick, dark twisted secrets that if we share with anyone else…..they will know the blackness of our hearts and how shameful and soulless we really are. In the rooms of recovery, we hear we are only as sick as our secrets and we are encouraged to open up and share ourselves with others, but we share surface shit. The stuff people can identify with and with time and trust we trot out some of the secrets that contributed to our addiction and our erratic behavior. I have shared that I was molested as a child…..which is a terrible thing, but that wasn’t the catalyst that spun me into the spiral of addiction; the catalyst was how it made me FEEL…..and how those feelings at the hand of a family member clashed with what had been instilled in me. These feelings contributed to my low self-esteem and low self-worth and my self- image….and these feelings combined with the guilt, torment and shame was the catalyst. This is NOT my dark, hidden away secret…..this is the secret that, once I told it, placed me firmly on the path of recovery and let me know I was not alone in the turmoil that had raged inside of me for so long.
We share our secrets with those we feel we can trust. If I had to pick one person who knew the majority of my secrets, it would be a tie between Morning Person and Him. I have never heard my secrets repeated from either and I am going to give credit where credit is due: in this respect, Him is definitely a better person than me. Hands down. The things I have told him….he has never repeated and has never, ever thrown back in my face. In fact, the man has never called me out of my name (except in bed) and I cannot say the same about me when it concerns him. I call him every name in the book and some no one has ever thought of; I throw every secret back in his face and name ONE Panel member who does not know his secrets? You can’t because I shared secrets that were not even mine with other people. Thank Goodness I hang with folks more trustworthy than me. Not that I cannot keep a secret…I can. Just not when it concerns me. I told secrets that he thought were safe with me to people who see this man every day and work with him and answer to him…. they know exactly what his kinks and secret desires are; they know the hell his wife put him through; they know his inadequacies and insecurities and they know everything I have said to him and pretty much all he has ever said to me….in love and in anger. Yet I want to get angry with him for keeping us a secret…I want to say he is ashamed of me and he does not think I am pretty enough or whatever enough to be seen in public with me. Hmmmm….hello? The man is private, discreet and secretive; he does not parade his private life around, and he trusted me to keep us between us. Hell, I am a worse person than I thought as I totally misrepresented myself to him. I have logged into his email account and read every communication in there, and then, smart bitch that I am…I confront him with shit I am not even supposed to know about. I hid my sources behind rumors and gossip, but see what I mean when I say I cannot keep a secret when it concerns me? I cannot even justify spilling his secrets: yes, I am a female and yes, girls talk and tell each other personal stuff about what happens with them and their man, but not to friends who see your man every day!!
You know….this is the hardest thing I have ever had to write……I hate being truthful with myself and sharing it with others? Painful as hell. I mean, I am an untrustworthy bitch who has misrepresented herself to the one person she claims to love more than anything. Simply because he does not know I have betrayed his trust does not mean I have not. Of course, this in no way excuses his shit….AT ALL….but maybe I am getting back what I put out. I am not going to excuse his behaviors and actions by shouldering all of the blame, but if I am being objective….I am not Little Miss Perfect here. It is one thing to tell my Panel about my sexual exploits or my dark places….I am the author of this book and I can have it as open as I want; I cannot open books that are not mine. The man shared a part of himself with me; he read passages of his book to me….and only me. It was not my place nor is it my right to share his book with others…and I have because by our getting together, we became a part of each other’s story. He chooses not to share his story, so I am not a secret. He just chooses not to share that piece of himself with others. I chose to share my story with my trusted circle….and when it came to the chapters that contained him, I should have done some heavy editing. Not that they will tell….I know them. They keep my secrets as I keep theirs….I just over share mine and right now….I feel so badly. I really do; he did not share his secrets with the Panel…..he shared them with me, knowing I would keep them safe. I betrayed his trust, I called him some really mean things and I threw things that he shared looking for caring and understanding back in his face, belittling him in the process.
I have no excuse….hurt people hurt people and I am the bitch who will give back what she is given. I still have no idea why he treated me the way he did, why he would betray our friendship the way he did….and all I can say is Karma and the Universe see and know all, so maybe this is my retribution. Seriously, I am the pot calling the kettle black…he just got caught doing his dirt. Of course, he can never know what I have done….I am not dumb enough to get caught doing my fucked up shit….so I will tuck this secret away with my other dark, can never be told secret and pray for forgiveness for myself. I still do not know what will happen to he and I; I have no idea whether we will reconcile or remain strangers, but perhaps forgiving myself will go a long way towards me forgiving him and being able to wish him the best in whatever he undertakes, whether I am a part of it or not, and be sincere when I say that. Remember the old song: two people can keep a secret only if one of them is dead? It was written for people like me…whether I am a part of the secret or not, a secret is shared in confidence. Maybe I thought since it was partly my business too, it was okay to tell, but then what happened to the confidence part? I don’t know. In fact, I have NO idea how I ended up here, with these thought and this blog post. I WAS going to blog about misrepresentation, but in the world of online dating…you know, how people post pictures that are 20 years old, lie about their weight, height, etc. but I ended up here instead.
You know, I am REALLY hating this process right now…once again, I am wearing the black hat and being the bad guy…..but in order to change and grow, you have to confront the demons and the unpleasantness they bring with them. Perhaps I am here at this point because it IS time for forgiveness and time to remove the shards of glass from my heart so I can heal….and in order to forgive another, you must first forgive yourself and maybe in sharing this, I can finally start on the journey of forgiveness and healing.