Growing Up in a Family Full of Secrets

Worry, anxiety, stress—these weren’t just passing emotions in my childhood home. They were the bricks and mortar, the invisible hand shaping walls, closing doors, and muffling laughter. They seeped into the wallpaper, hummed beneath the floorboards, and curled into bed with us at night. We learned, almost by osmosis, that to exist was okay just stay out of the way, to prepare for everything and trust nothing. We were children fluent in the subtle language of unease.

Secrets were our currency. We traded them carefully, buried them deep, and learned to walk lightly atop the fault lines they created. “Don’t tell anyone” was as common as “pass the salt.” Joy was tempered with caution—because attention could bring danger. We became masters of silence, fluent in omission, skilled at sidestepping the truth. Love itself was conditional, earned by compliance, secrecy, and never rocking the boat. The family web only grew more tangled as we got older. Secrets multiplied, dividing us even as they bound us together. Closeness felt like confinement—united, but only in the way prisoners might be.

Life got messier. The love I thought held us—a silken thread connecting mother, father, siblings—seemed to vanish overnight. My siblings and I retreated into silence, our parents slipping away without explanation. One sibling might disappear for days, sometimes weeks, resurfacing with a shrug and the familiar refrain: “I don’t HAVE to tell anyone.” Privacy became a form of rebellion, autonomy carved out in a family where transparency had been dangerous. The codependency that once passed for love revealed its darker grip, making distance feel like the only escape.

I still remember the move that changed everything. We left our home of two years without my older sister. I couldn’t understand how parents who preached family could leave a piece of ours behind. The drive—1,500 miles—was an endless stretch of grief, the empty seat beside me a wound that would take years to reframe. Only later, in adulthood, did I recognize my mother’s quiet courage in that decision. She wasn’t abandoning love; she was surrendering to reality after years of battles she couldn’t win.

We weren’t physically abusive as a family—though tempers flared, voices rose, and objects sometimes flew. Our mother could light up a room, but at home her smile dimmed. She buried worry under chores, her love reaching us in waves softened by stress. As we got older, questions were discouraged. My braver sister rebelled in small ways; I retreated into books and notebooks no one read. Our youngest sister, the untouchable one, always got her way.

I left at eighteen. My siblings scattered, our connections held together by surface-level texts and guarded phone calls. Even now, we hide our truest selves from one another. Therapy was my first rebellion, teaching me to speak honestly, though fear still lingers. Some days I call my mother just to say I love her; other days I pull away.

If fear and secrecy were the grammar of my childhood, honesty is the language I’m learning now. I want my children to grow up in a home filled with noise, light, and unapologetic laughter. We’re still islands, but islands can move. There are bridges yet to be built.

Some nights, the old fears return. But I remind myself: I am not defined by what I could not say. I imagine a home where doors are open, voices are warm, and love is spoken aloud. Maybe the truest rebellion is not breaking away completely, but daring to hope for something better—and believing we are worthy of it.