Shankar Vedantam

Talk about the difference between those two things when it comes to holding secrets.

Hmm.

Sometimes the secrets that we keep are so at odds with the person who we want to be, it can be very difficult to bear.

Here's a message we received from a listener named Dean.

So Leslie, I can really hear the pain in Dean's voice.

He used the word shameful to describe his secret.

And this is a recurring theme that we heard and that you've explored.

And a central reason, I think, that we try and keep things from others, we're worried about how they will judge us if we come clean.

One of the things that I think is interesting about secrets is why we're keeping them.

Are we keeping them in our interest or are we keeping them in the interest of someone else?

Yeah.

Talk about that tension, Leslie.

When we come back, what happens when you learn that someone has been keeping a secret from you?

You're listening to Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

This is Hidden Brain.

I'm Shankar Vedanta.

Keeping a secret can gnaw at you.

Leslie John at Harvard University has found that it can harm our physical and mental health and damage our relationships.

Leslie, I'd like to talk a bit about family secrets.