Kelly Owens

We now know the what, who, why, and where of secrets, so all that's left is the how. What is the process for spilling our most confidential thoughts?  There are various ways in which to begin opening one's self up to others using this private information once you've determined that this is the correct next step, including openly sharing or anonymous platforms like the one I've created. Let's investigate.

Telling a friend

As discussed in the “who” section, telling a close friend or family is one way to disclose a secret. The benefits here are that they already know you and your life and can therefore offer helpful insight on what the next steps are. This is often one of the more difficult approaches, however, because it involves a lot of self-acceptance and the ability to actually say the secret out loud. It also has the potential of backfiring and affecting the relationship, if all doesn’t go as planned.

Telling a professional

If the secret is serious and requires the help of a professional, don’t hesitate to make this move. Perhaps after doing one of the other disclosure exercises this would be a better fit, as it’s important to feel comfortable sharing the secret yourself before seeking help from a professional. They will most likely offer you the most helpful advice, but it’s definitely the most difficult to get through the door and make that decision.

Writing it down

Dr. James W. Pennebaker, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has completed various studies that suggest that writing our deepest feelings regarding emotional instances can help to improve health, performance, and overall quality of life: “Writing helps us focus and organize the experience” (Griffith, 2005). Pennebaker’s research showed how those who have powerful secrets are more prone to health problems, and further showed that the act of simply writing about those secrets, even if immediately destroyed, had a positive effect. This was true of both dramatic secrets and those who were dealing with everyday blunders (Griffith, 2005). 

So grab a journal, a pen, sit in the comfiest chair you can think of, and write it out. You may be surprised at how much better you feel, even if it’s for your eyes only.

PostSecret

Frank Warren struck genius when he began the PostSecret project. He began by sending out  postcards to strangers, inviting them to send the postcard (or any postcard) back with a secret on the back. The only rule was that the phrase on the postcard had to be something that had never been shared with anyone. Warren received many postcards back and began sharing them on a website he created, PostSecret.com, and a phenomenon was born. 

The website now is the most visited ad-free blog in existence, with more than 700 million visits by the end of 2014. The project has also created several books. Each Sunday, Warren posts a collection of secrets to his blog that does not allow comments. At the start of the next Sunday, those secrets are deleted and new ones are posted. There is no formal archive, although some outside parties have kept photos of each secret.

Warren has had immense success with this platform. This is seen as a safe space to disclose secrets, as they are inherently anonymous and cannot be traced back to the sender (except perhaps by Warren). This is an excellent place to try out telling a secret as it offers an artistic platform, therefore allowing some individuality, which is a quality that doesn’t exist in telling the secret or sharing it in another way.

WhisperApp

The WhisperApp is a smartphone application that prompts its users to post secrets using their location. While it doesn’t show where each individual is, it will give a city and has an option of checking “secrets near me.” Users can use a stock photo underneath the text of their secret or can use their own which they upload. You can also comment and respond to secrets, as well as having the option to “like” the secret.

What’s different about this platform is that it gives contextual clues like location, or photographs that the poster can upload themselves, but still remains anonymous. Because it’s a smartphone application, there is a lot more room for user interaction and for people to connect. This is what sets it apart from paper copy secrets like those posted on PostSecret. 

ThingsUnsaid

Here is a prototype for a secret-sharing community website that I’d like to create and see flourish. It offers the anonymity of submitting secrets, but I then bring the secrets to life by creating podcasts. These podcasts would have multiple secrets on each one with different voices for each secret, as exemplified in the examples on the current site.

Users on the community would then be able to comment on these podcasts and interact with them. What this does is it humanizes the secrets that are submitted. Giving secrets a voice is what makes them relatable. The “voice” offered on other platforms are the artistic quality on PostSecret and then the photo and location on WhisperApp. While ThingsUnsaid wouldn’t offer either of these, it would have a humanistic element of a voice and also, related secrets would be compiled into one podcast, which the site’s moderator (in this case, me) could then use to make some sort of commentary on.

Each of these platforms offers something inherently unique, and they all have one thing in common: anonymity. Sharing secrets is undoubtedly difficult. A key first step would be allowing yourself to share where there are no consequences. Each medium creates a community on which the visitors can offer support and can interact with each secret. It’s important, especially when dealing with a difficult secret, to know that one is not alone, and these sites are key in doing just that.