Keep Your Abuser’s Secrets
Americans prefer keeping secrets to bringing unpleasant truths to light. We prefer it because we’d rather believe there is someone looking out for us than having someone reveal to us that there is a problem that won’t fix itself.
We prefer not to delve too deeply into ugly truths and live instead with pleasant facades, because basically we are children who like to think mommy and daddy will take care of our problems. Mommy in this case is the Democratic Party, Daddy being the Republican Party.
Julian Assange makes us feel uncomfortable because he’s telling us the dirty little secrets about our parents, secrets we don’t want to know. And to be fair, it’s not always a good thing to burden children with all the complicated issues adults have to deal with. Except, of course, we are not children.
Americans like secrets because they permit us to live in a fantasy world. Living in a fantasy world never ends well, but it’s understandable that traumatized people retreat from the tough decisions that non-traumatized people would be making. Except, of course, Americans as a whole are not the victims of trauma but the perpetrators of it. Most anyone would prefer living in the United States than in a country we are at war with, sanctioning, or choosing leaders for.
Americans prefer secrets to the truth because the truth is frightening as hell. There are weapons in silos and in our oceans that-if used-could bring about the end of the planet in every way that’s meaningful to us. Our current trajectory is to heat up our planet to such a degree that it will become an unrecognizable nightmare.
Wouldn’t it be great if there were people with power who were making sure we were protected from such doomsday scenarios? People who were innately smarter, nobler and more capable than ourselves? People whose innate duty it was to watch over us and keep us from harm? Boy, it sure would be. Heck, maybe Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton aren’t that bad, after all. Perhaps we are being ungrateful children for not appreciating all they’ve done and sacrificed for us.
Keep the secrets, children. Mommy and Daddy love you very much. Don’t ask questions about why they appear in pictures with that terrible pedophile and blackmailer, Jeffrey Epstein. Someday when you’re grown up you’ll understand that everything they did they did with your best interests in mind. Someday you’ll realize even grownups make mistakes, but they learn from them and are doing the best they can.
Except they aren’t your parents. And they don’t love you. And nobody — nobody — has the right to insist that you keep their secrets. Anyone who treats you like a child and never wants you to grow up and become an equal does not have your best interests at heart. Anyone who is more concerned with keeping secrets than sharing the truth is a manipulator.
You’re scared, I know. But the first step is realizing you are in an unhealthy power relationship with manipulators. It’s not easy to do, because you’re afraid. But things will never change for the better until you do.
It’s not your fault. The manipulators have been telling you that you’re to blame for everything and you wouldn’t last a day without them for so long that they’ve beaten you down. You feel helpless and hopeless and that’s why you continually retreat from reality into a fantasy world that at least provides you some comfort. But there are others who have been in your situation and have come out the other side, free from the mental manipulations. There is hope, there is something better on the other side. Truth will set you free, while fantasies will only continue to place you further under the control of those who aim never to allow you to stand on your own two feet.
You can do this. We’ll all be there for you.