The Power of PostSecret

For those of you who have never heard of it, PostSecret.com is a blog that began as a community art project by Frank Warren. It started as him handing out some postcards and asking people to write their secrets on them and mail them to him. What started out small, grew and grew. Nowadays Frank gets around 200 postcards a day. People from all over the world pour out their secrets on these postcards.

Why?

What is it about anonymously divulging one's secrets that is so cathartic? Why have millions of people read the secrets on the blog? Why are there over a million topics on the official PostSecret message boards (that's just the number of topics, not the number of responses)? Why have people begun sticking their postcards into copies of the four PostSecret books in bookstores across the country? And why have people decided to stop being anonymous and start divulging their secrets on the Facebook fan page for PostSecret?

Because we as a society hold too many secrets. Everyone grows up too afraid to be themselves. In reading every PostSecret online, all four books, and the postcard that I found stuck in one of those books, I have found myself moved to tears countless times over the past month or so. Humans are simultaneously immensely frail and immensely strong.

I've also learned quite a bit about myself. I've learned why I have been so focused on "being honest" and "expressing my feelings" in the past on this blog. . . I've been hiding things from myself and everyone I care about. I know why I act the ways that I do. I've learned more about myself while learning about thousands of people I've never met than I have in hours of insomnia induced introspection.

While reading a list of people's secrets on the Facebook profile that started Saturday June 7th at 8:45pm and already has probably two or three thousand secrets on it, I found the strength to post some of my own. Unfortunately, Facebook limits the length that a comment on a picture can be, and I ended up cutting quite a few of the things I wanted to say. Here is the comment I wrote (with some of the things more fully explained) and the things I wanted to say but didn't have the room for.

- I've read this entire thread in one sitting, and feel closer to people here than I do to some of my "friends"

- I feel out of place and alone with all but a handful of people. They keep me sane... but I haven't seen any of them in almost two months.

- I wish I didn't always feel the need to be the strong one, the reliable one, and the understanding one. I've only shown my full emotional weakness to one person, ever, and I don't think she even realizes it. I almost had a nervous breakdown that night, but talking to her, even for that few minutes, allowed me to make the drive home and sleep for the first time in almost a week.

- I didn't cry at my grandmother's funeral because my dad was too close to having a nervous breakdown, and someone had to take care of my disabled brother. I wanted nothing more than to throw my arms around my dad and ask why she was gone... but I couldn't because I knew he wouldn't be able to handle it.

- I want nothing more in this world than to move away from this tiny shithole and closer to my friends, but I don't know how my parents would cope without me around. I'm afraid to think how long I am going to stay here because I am scared of leaving my family without help.

- I am deathly afraid that I am constantly missing out on happiness because my heart won't let me let go of her... the one I never really had.

- I wish I could explain to my parents the reason I hate my adopted sisters so much, but I can't. They already blame themselves for all the shit the two of them put our family through, and if they knew the whole extent it would kill them. The scariest part is that I think my mom suspects the reason, but because she knows what it would do to my dad, avoids any mention of it.

- When you get down to it, I want nothing more in this world than to just own a little book store. I don't really want to be a psychologist, psychiatrist, professor, social worker, case manager, or therapist. I want to be the weirdo who owns a little bookshop and sits around reading behind the counter all day.

- I sit up till two or three every morning, not just because I have insomnia, but because I am sitting around thinking about all the people in my life I could have been closer to, the people I have drifted away from, and the people who, for reasons unknown to me, have distanced themselves from me.

- I'm not even close to being as happy in real life as I act around other people.

- I'm the nice guy who does everything he can for everyone, because I fear that if I don't, if I tell people no (ie. "No, sorry, I can't drop everything and help you for the fifth day in a row", "No, I don't want to hear you bitch and moan about how crappy your boyfriend is", "No, I won't work on my day off for the third straight week", "No, I won't cover your shift so you can go on a date", etc.), then I won't have any friends. I don't know any other way to connect to people. I give and give and give in the hopes that at some point in time someone will give back as much to me.

- For some reason, it seems that the women I love can't love me and the women who love me I can't love. I don't know why or how, but it just seems to be a recurring cycle.

- I write in this blog because I can't say things to people face to face. I'm too scared of the personal rejection that could come of it. I've been rejected so many times in life that I just am sick and tired of it. I'm not sure how I will react if it happens one more time, but I worry about the things I miss out on because I can't express myself in person.

- I hate to see people in pain. There is nothing more heart wrenching and agonizing to me than someone I care about in pain. I would rather be in constant pain than allow one person I love to feel discomfort.

- I read quotes because they let me know that somewhere, at some point in time, someone felt the same way I do. It give me a connection to someone in this lonely universe.

- I have one secret, alluded to in one of the above points, that was too horrible to admit to anyone, even myself, until recently. As it is, I still can't bring myself to share it with anyone. I can only think of seven people in the world that I trust enough to tell, but I can't and won't burden them with anything like this.

- After writing each one of these things down, I felt knots of tension in my shoulders and neck loosen. I am more relaxed than I have been in weeks, and it is all because I am letting myself admit to these things. Sure, I had thought them, but I think that by keeping them inside I had denied them even to myself.

If you read this, whether I know you or not, I hope that it prompts you to relieve yourself of your secrets. Be it to me (via comment, e-mail, or phone call), PostSecret, someone you trust, or something as simple as an anonymous note stuck in a book at a store, let them go. Let whatever secrets you are holding inside of you out to someone somewhere. The experience is uplifting and cathartic.