I saw this quote on the Psychology Today website (in reference to gossip), but I have lived my life by it: "If I maintain my silence about my secret it is my prisoner... if I let it slip from my tongue, I am its prisoner." —Arthur Schopenhauer. If others know my secrets, I am at their mercy. Everyone who ever found out a secret about me, up to this point in my life, has used it to hurt me. Except my first therapist. And in my life right now, I have my current therapist and three friends who know things about me that they could use to really hurt me, but have not done so, so far (and in my own little freudian slip, I initially typed "would" instead of "could" there).

I know I'm not the only person out there with this issue. One of the reasons I love this site is because I feel less alone with my issues. So, for those of you who felt this way and have overcome it, how do you overcome that feeling that exposure = pain?