Posting and Sharing Secrets
Class discussion leads to introspection

By KC Crouse · The Mainstream
Published February 8, 2011

It all started from a class discussion.

An innocent class discussion. We had to write down a social secret and then share it aloud. I wrote mine down but declined to share when my turn came. I felt it was too private to share, too personal, too taboo, too outside the realm of the assignment. I didn’t want to disrupt the class, so I merely passed. I didn’t want people to get the wrong impression.

What I wrote down was a real secret. Something I have kept in the back of my mind for 10 years. Something I don’t openly share in conversation, something I have never shared ever, to be honest. But, on this day it came up, and upon being asked, I couldn’t not write it down.

I wrote, “Although I smile a lot, I still think about suicide.”

Perhaps this secret needs clarification.

My secret does not imply that I am suicidal. My statement is not and should not be taken for a cry for help. I am not concerned so much with wanting to end this life; in fact, my life is a beautiful one full of inspiring, funny, loving people, lessons and adventures. The secret comes more from the view of what would the world look like without me in it? Would people cry? Who would come to my funeral? What would they say? If I just up and left, what would be the ripple effect?

When my secret is boiled down, the real true secret of the secret is “How important am I, and who would care if I died?” A very egocentric thought -- but one I have indulged in for many years.

Apparently I’m not the only one.

After class, I revealed my secret to a close friend, and surprisingly she knew exactly what I was talking about. A sigh of relief came over me. I had expected the suicide hotline talk, but instead we laughed at our morbid, ego driven indulgence. And then – even more surprising -- another quiet, very private and respectful woman in the room with us overheard us talking and admitted that she too thinks about this idea of what the world would be like without our selves in it.

The secret isn’t really intended to be morbid; it is more of just an intellectual curiosity. It is perhaps a knowledge that by removing ourselves, by gaining this final outside perspective, we can more clearly see our place in this world -- who our friends are, who we truly care about, what is really important and what we want to do before that inevitable day comes when people actually do attend our funerals, and we are gone.

Pretending as if “it” -- the death – has already come makes the process more real.  Perhaps even the thought of what life could be without my “self” is in itself a form of suicide – I’m killing that moment of my life that is “now” in order to better think about a moment of my life that does not yet exist.

The ability to gain an outside perspective on one’s own life can be powerful. But, sometimes these secrets overpower us. They become something we are ashamed of and bury within. Hiding and denying their existence. They take up valuable head space that they shouldn’t. And then, the inevitable, we remember and get that sickening feeling inside and want to push the thoughts back down into that black void of nothingness where they came form.

I learned something through having to share my secret. It bothered me to share it at first, but the process alleviated some fears and other uncomfortable feelings and brought me closer to my peers. 

“The act of sharing a secret with another person seems to take the power out of it,” says UCC student Amber Moug. “This secret sharing reminds me of the website PostSecret. I look at it sometimes and find it really interesting.”

After talking with Amber, I asked other students if they knew of PostSecret. Surprisingly, not many did.

PostSecret is a popular blog, postsecret.com, created by Frank Warren where people anonymously mail in their secrets on postcards. Every Sunday the blog is updated with new secrets. Warren travels around the country holding PostSecret events and will be at OSU on Feb. 16.

A caution –while sharing a secret can as relieving as getting a nasty, persistent sliver out of your finger, the point here is not to minimize a situation when someone actually is truly talking about committing suicide.

The American College Health Association data reported that 9.5 percentage of the 16,000 students surveyed have, secrets aside, seriously contemplated suicide and 1.5 percent have made a suicide attempt. Over the past 60 years, the overall rate of suicide among adolescents has tripled, making it the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds and the second leading cause of death among college-age students.

If you or someone you know is suicidal you should call the National Suicide prevention LifeLine at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255) or the general access number for the Douglas County Health and Social Services Dept. is (541) 440-3532. Their crisis hot line number is (1-800) 866-9780 (24 hours).

However, if you just have a secret you would like to share, put it on an index card with your words and illustrations and anonymously slip it into the Mainstream drop box outside Snyder 11. Warren’s blog offers many examples, if you need some inspiration.

Your secret will likely be something that will open a conversation into who we really are as students, humans, girlfriends, boyfriends, mothers, fathers, men, addicts, workaholics, lovers.

We will be collecting and publishing secrets for the rest of the school year in our print and web editions.