Have you ever told a T your deepest darkest secret?

Sometimes making amends helps to elevate feeling of judging oneself. If you can’t pay amends to particular people or animals involved in your situation (if they were involved) maybe you can pay amends to someone else in some other ways. I’d talk to a t about it

I planned to, this week, but T got sick and had to cancel.

I don't have any one big dark secret, but I certainly don't feel good about many things I was doing during my active alcoholism - the neglect, lying, manipulation etc just to get away with my addict behavior and be able to do what I wanted. I don't have issues talking about it at all though when there is a relevant context, the only reason I am very selective about when and who I share with is to avoid even more negative consequences due to the stigma and people don't understanding addiction well. I don't think anyone can contaminate anyone else with sharing negative, shameful things unless the other person already has the same inclination and the share kinda validates and justifies their behavior... but if they take it that way, they also have a problem to start with.

I am not one who believes in unconditional love, but think it is very possible to love someone in spite of their committing horrible things... love is very irrational and subjective. Just think about how many people still love their abusive companions and won't leave them. I think what can be affected more is liking or a judgment based on one's personal values and moral codes, and that's something you cannot change from the outside. It sounds like the T basically validates what you think yourself about this secret - it is a secret, I guess, because you do feel it's (or it was) bad. But it's in the past, isn't it? I think people change and can gain even more value by the virtue of being able to shed past wrongs. The is basically the idea behind parole of incarcerated criminals... sorry about the metaphor, just following the murderer analogy. No one, not even a serial killer, is defined solely by their bad acts, even if they get punished seriously for it or summer from guilt and shame long-term. IMO, the fact that you feel so ashamed and want to hide this secret just shows you are not a bad person - if you were, you would not mind it this way, perhaps would just hide it in order to avoid punishment.

Not yet.

Told a cp mentor, and that turned out badly.

I told my T a reasonably deep dark secret yesterday. It was about something someone did to me so he couldn’t reasonably have blamed me per se. He was good about it, acted properly shocked and affected by it. There is a dark part of me that worries that now he will find me disgusting.

The hard part now is that I feel the urge to talk more about it but can’t because we don’t have another session until Friday and he has a policy of not responding to emails unless it’s about scheduling or what have you. (He will respond to texts in a crisis but this is not a crisis.)

I'm glad I told L the secret. I'm want to be able to process this and possibly get over the shame. I just feel bad that she's the one who I chose to work this through with. I feel bad I'm putting her through this.

Yes, my secret is in the past, however, I wish it was further in my past than what it is. I cannot make amends to the "victim".

Here's what I posted in the other thread (it probably belongs here instead of there).

I have. And it didn’t turn out well. It wasn’t even that dark. (At least not anything I did..) Probably why I ‘’bored’’ him in the end but really as he couldn’t help as he had no idea (or empathy) was why he became so ‘’indifferent’’... (and said so)

Not deep and dark, but very shameful to me and something I was very very worried about. I have never told anybody else this. Talking about it for me relieved my concerns a great deal and helped put it into perspective. She was gentle in her response, but also even managed to make me laugh about the secret. Not that I would even tell anyone about it now, but still, for me it carries a much smaller emotional charge than before.