Secret Keeper

Chapter 1 - Ian

I want to be a good person.

     I do.

     This thing inside me, though, is an addiction.

     It started as just a thought.

     Just a desire. Curiosity.

     Let me try it out and see if it’s for me.

     And boy, it was.

     Holy shit, it was a high like I had never imagined feeling.   

     My head spun like it was in another Universe, and my body coursed with neurotransmitters I never knew I had.

     Nothing felt so good.

     Nothing will ever feel that good.

     Then, it gripped me.

     Hijacked me.

     At first, I told myself, just one more time, and I could quit when I wanted to. And I believed those lies.

     But I couldn’t just stop.

     The cravings were too severe.

     I would sit in my apartment and break out into a cold sweat. My mind was unable to think about anything else.

     I know now I can’t do this on my own.

     I need help.

     I’m powerless, as they say.

     That’s why I’m seeking help now.

     Because I want to stop.

     I want to be a good person.

    And now I realize, I can’t do it alone.

Chapter 2 - Audrey​

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Sometimes, I think I drink too much. I try to remind myself that I’m young, single, and have a high-stress job. Then, I feel less worried about how much I drink. If I were married with kids, I wouldn’t drink like I do because I wouldn’t go out as often, right? I may be lying to myself, but I have a great job, a great little house in the city's art district, and no DUIs.

     Besides, my father was a drunk, so I know what it looks like to be an actual alcoholic. He would stumble inside the house, throw up on himself, and then piss in his closet, thinking it was his bathroom. He would get angry and hurl anything within arm's reach at my mom. Or pass out after a night’s bender, only to wake up the next morning and not remember how he got home. I’m nowhere near having those kinds of issues.

     My job is stressful, although I love what I do. The lamp clicks on as I pull the chain, and a soft, warm light floods my office. I turn the wand and open my blinds, allowing some natural light to mesh with the lamp's light, the two merging to make a slightly dim, comfortable space to heal. At least, that is what I am striving for.

     I have large pieces of abstract art, a soft, plush grey couch, and several plants that adorn my office to bring it some life. I want my clients to feel this is a safe space. A relaxing atmosphere, like their living room, where they can say things they may have never shared with anyone. I am the person to whom secrets are told. My clients often share stories, details, and parts of themselves they’ve never shared with anyone else. This space is special. Sacred.

     I am their secret keeper.

     I hold the stories and parts of them within the confines of these four midcentury-modern decorated walls. Not only because that's how healing works, but also because I am ethically bound to do so by a board that issues me a state license. It’s required. There is power in handing someone your secret to keep.

     To hold.

     As a therapist, not only do I listen to their secrets and hold a sacred space for the secrets to linger like floating words between us, but I also don’t judge or shame them. They are human beings. And let’s face it, we all have secrets.  

     I often work with clients who have experienced extensive trauma. These clients have had events in their lives that leave them feeling like prisoners trapped inside their bodies because of flashbacks and nightmares. Various events like sexual assaults, abusive relationships, chronic abuse in childhood, or devastating natural disasters leave them forever dealing with the effects. Some experiences may only happen once, but the wake it leaves behind can last a lifetime.

     One of my clients, who was sexually assaulted in college, now finds it difficult to date because trusting a male is too vulnerable. This man, who raped her, was a classmate, a friend. She thought she could trust him, but now she doesn’t trust herself enough to judge whether others are trustworthy. Sex is uncomfortable and even painful, even though it's consensual, so she refrains from having it with new partners. She has nightmares of the assault years later and is hypervigilant anytime she is by herself at night. When she smells any scent resembling men’s cologne, her body reacts with fear, sending stress chemicals rushing through her brain and body. She is hostage to the aftermath of this one twenty-minute experience.

     Chronic abuse growing up is even more ingrained in individuals, and it shapes nearly every part of them. This type of complex trauma takes years to unravel and heal from, but it is worth the work. It is a gift clients give to themselves, so they are no longer chained to the survival mechanisms they developed to endure their childhood. Therapy can help them have healthier relationships, be better parents, and ultimately love themselves when they once felt unlovable. It's beautiful to see and a beautiful journey to be on with my clients.

     This type of work didn’t find me by accident. I have had to overcome trauma. I had to relearn how to exist in a world that went on living as mine froze and stood still. I was twenty-two years old when my world paused after one phone call.

Have you heard from your sister?

    My sister was nineteen and a freshman at Oklahoma State University. We talked every day. Always. The day my mom called, it was only noon, and I knew my sister Amy had gone dancing with friends at a local country club. I assumed she was probably still sleeping. I called her phone, but it went to her answering machine. Instantly, my breath caught in my throat, and my heart started pounding. The kind of bodily reaction where everything feels like it is happening in slow motion, and your vision narrows. I sensed something had happened, and my life would never be the same. In that moment, somehow, I just knew.

     My mom and I drove to Stillwater, and my sister’s car was parked at her dorms, but she was not there. I remember being in shock as we handed out flyers and talked to people in the town. I would count the red stitches sewn into the decorative pattern of my mom’s Toyota Camry, because the reality of looking for my sister became too emotional. Focusing on those cotton red stitches in the dashboard allowed me to dissociate.  We searched the lake and various wooded locations, and no matter how much time we spent looking, we found nothing.

     She’s been missing ever since.

     For months after her disappearance, everyone else's lives went on: graduations, birthday parties, promotions, and babies being born. But my life was spent looking for my missing sister. Every day, I thought about where she might be and who might have hurt her.

     We spent about six months continuously hanging missing posters, talking to people on campus, and asking around town if anyone knew anything after her disappearance. It felt like looking for a needle in a haystack. Her boyfriend made excuses about having class and never helped us look for her. Police investigated him thoroughly. He was a likely suspect. Always the husband or the boyfriend, right? He didn’t do himself any favors by not helping the search party and acting suspiciously. However, police eventually ruled him out.

     Eventually, my mom lost momentum and started to implode from her grief. The moment when it all became too much, my mom was trying to buy a pack of cigarettes, and she threw her entire purse at the Stop-N-Shop clerk because he asked to see her ID, and she couldn’t find it. She sobbed and apologized. He decided not to press charges and give her the cigarettes.

      I couldn’t look for my missing sister and take care of my mom.

     One was here, and one wasn’t any longer. It was a hard choice, but we had to trust the police. We had to get back to our lives that had continued without us. However, four years later, she is still missing, and we are no closer to finding her than we were the day she disappeared.

     Your mind makes up stories, though. It fills in the blanks of the unknown with the worst-case scenarios.

     Slowly, I dug out of the hole and joined the living again. I finished graduate school after changing my undergraduate major from marketing to psychology. Therapy has changed my life, and I want to help others crawl out of their holes and live the lives they longed to live.

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