Leslie John

And one of the reasons is that they're in our head.

When we're just thinking and cycling and ruminating in our head, we can make some really crazy logical leaps.

But if we talk to a friend, then that friend can help us to realize, oh, wait, for that to happen, the person would have actually had to watch the video.

And also, if they watched the video, would that have been so bad anyways?

Maybe they would have laughed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that they point to kind of two motives to revealing, right?

Something you did, the kind of feeling maybe shame and concern about what the other person thinks if you reveal it, sort of interpersonal.

But these kinds of secrets about your identity are more intrapersonal challenging, right?

Because you make you kind of questioned

What do I reveal of myself and not?

If I don't reveal this, am I being inauthentic?

One way that I think about these things is if you have an identity that is core to who you are, but it can be stigmatizing.

If it's really core to who you are, it's important that some people know, people close to you, because being known for who you are is incredibly important.

But it also doesn't mean that you have to tell everyone.

So you can be really selective about who you choose to share and not.

And what Emma did here was beautiful in that Emma

worked with her wife, she worked with a therapist.

And it's also not, I also want to highlight that disclosure is often, especially with these very hard, fraught ones, it's a process.