Keeping secrets in adoption can make you ill

Lorraine

Reasons enough for the sealed birth certificates of adoptees everywhere to be released comes from this month's issue of The Atlantic:

"Research shows an association between keeping an emotionally charged secret and ailments ranging from the common cold to chronic diseases."

Reading this reminded me of when I held in the secret of my life: my daughter whom I relinquished. I lied to a doctor once who asked if I'd ever been pregnant, feeling like a criminal as I did so--but he was the doctor giving a physical which would qualify me for the company medical policy. If I told the truth, would I be fired from a job I so desperately needed and wanted? It was my first job after having to quit my last before I "showed."

Secrets in adoption: Dealing with betrayal of lies by omission

Lorraine, not quite incognito

Sunday's New York Times had an essay called "Great Betrayals," about the victims of long held lies in their families. The psychiatrist who wrote the essay, Anna Fels, tells of a friend whose husband had hid a huge credit card debt, and even after divulging the secret, he continued to lie about the amount and refuse to divulge how the money was spent. The wife was left to puzzle it out for herself. "The disclosure wreaked financial and emotional havoc on their family," writes Fels.

She then discusses how clients of hers dealing with the revelation of "new, pivotal information" were often left to deal with the emotional jolt on their own. Society is likely to forgive the miscreant who kept the secret, but the victim gets little support. Writers have the option of making sense of the secret they were not in on through writing, but others don't. As Fels notes: