Sick As Our Secrets

In today's podcast, I'm discussing Judith Herman's seminal work "Trauma and Recovery," which I highly recommend for anyone interested in understanding or healing from trauma. Herman outlines three key stages of recovery: establishing safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection with everyday life.

These stages resonate with the fundamental human needs for understanding, care, and help. In a previous episode on secrecy, I mentioned the addiction recovery adage that we're as sick as our secrets. This idea is exemplified by Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme scandal during the 2008 housing crisis. Madoff couldn't bear to disappoint investors; he took their money without investing it and paid returns with funds from new investors until everything collapsed when clients demanded their money back.

Madoff had kept his fraudulent activities secret even from his family. His case illustrates how easy it can be to deceive others when perceived as an expert—a cautionary tale about ego and vulnerability.

The core message here is the importance of finding a safe space to share one’s truth—this could be transformative. Therapists offer such environments where stories are heard without judgment. Unburdening oneself of secrets can lead to reconnecting with society—an essential step towards healing that cannot happen in isolation.

If you struggle in relationships or trust issues due to betrayal, consider therapy or support groups but proceed cautiously while honoring your feelings throughout this journey toward self-trust.
 

In this podcast today, I'd like to talk a little bit about Judith Herman's groundbreaking book called Trauma and Recovery. I would anyone who's interested in understanding trauma, healing from trauma, I would I would highly recommend this book. She talks about the 3 stages of recovery. Let me just read a paragraph from her book. The central task of the first stage is the establishment of safety.

The central task of the second stage is remembrance and mourning. The central task of the third stage is reconnection with ordinary life. And that that reminds me of the 3 three components that I believe that we all as humans strive for or crave for. 1st of all and then I'm gonna try to relate them to what she said. 1st of all, do you understand me?

Do you care about me? And 3rd and most important, can you help me? In a in a recent podcast I did, I talk about secrecy. There's a statement in the recovery field, the addiction recovery field that that goes, we're only as sick as our secrets. And one of the things that those who struggle with addictions deal with or struggle with at their core is if people knew what I was really dealing with, some of the things that I have done, my behaviors, they will reject me.

They they won't like me. I'll be cast out. That's what keeps secrets secrets. And it's so easy to lie. I don't know if you recall remember in 2,008, you know, the the housing crisis?

The stock market crashed, and and then it, the individual, perhaps you remember the name, Bernie Madoff, came out, and he was exposed from running a Ponzi scheme, the world's largest Ponzi scheme that lasted for 20 plus years. And if you don't know what a Ponzi scheme is so let me explain it just briefly. A Ponzi scheme is that you're you tell someone, give me your money. I will invest it wisely, and the the chances are that you're investing with me is that I will earn money on your money, and you will get a payout from doing that. And and because he did have a legitimate business, he was the president of the Nasdaq at one time is my understanding, that he had a great reputation in his original business.

And so people started giving him money, and he couldn't deal with disappointing people. He couldn't deal with not measuring up. And so he would take money, and he had so much money coming in that he just he just kept the money without investing it, and more and more money came in. And so as long as you have a continual stream of new people giving you money, you can send some returns back to the individuals that originally invested so that they will it will look like, oh my gosh. My money is really doing good.

So the key for a Ponzi scheme to work is that you have people who are long term investors. And so that's what he did. He he got well known, and so he that's what he did. He had money coming in. He never invested a dime of it, and he kept sending it out.

He paying the people that were involved in the Ponzi scheme exorbitant amounts of money. So we had a high overhead until the and how it all came to an end is when the housing market crashed, everyone panicked, and everyone had want everyone wanted their money. And at that time, apparently, you had 1,000,000,000. There's different reports. 50,000,000,000, 64,000,000,000 in supposed assets, and he had, like, $300,000,000 in the bank.

That was it. And so all his investors that have trusted him for years said we want our money back. And he said, no. No. No.

Just hang in there. And they said, no. We want our money back, and that's when it all fell apart. And he kept this. And here's the amazing thing.

He had 2 sons, highly educated sons, working for him in the legitimate business on a different floor of the building, and there was a secret floor, kind of a private floor, a couple of floors down, the 17th floor. The legitimate business was on the 19th floor. He was on and the the Ponzi scheme was run on the 17th floor. They really didn't know what was going on, and his wife didn't know what was going on. And when it finally broke, he brought his 2 kids and went home and sat with his wife.

And he says, I need to tell you, I've been lying all these years. I've been running what's called a Ponzi scheme. And his wife said to him, what's a Ponzi scheme? She she was totally ignorant to what he was doing. And then and then interviews after, it was she she was like, why would I question him?

His reputation was impeccable. He was respected. He was he was the SEC, which is the governmental body which regulates things. They audited him a number of times, and he he weaseled his way out. That's how that's how easy it is to lie sometimes.

If you're perceived to be an expert, it's it's a great warning flag for all of us as human beings. This this idea of reaching a certain point, reaching a certain certain stature, supposedly spiritually, if you're hooked into some religions, financially, in business, you you you think that you are have arrived at such a place. It's a it's a caution for all of us to realize how vulnerable we are to these ideas of ego, thinking we're better than other people, that more money will buy buy happiness and so forth. It just doesn't. So we're only as sick as our secrets, but unless there is a safe place for individuals to go.

And and it's super, super hard if an individual has lost trust in humanity. They've been betrayed so many times that they have learned that I don't trust other human beings, and so I will never speak my truth. But I would say this if if anyone listening to this is in that category. There is something freeing to taking your life back if you are willing to trust, to risk, to tell your story in a safe environment. Licensed therapists are bound by a law.

And I know, if you've been abused by a therapist in the past and then betrayed by people in authority, it's like, you know, you're like, whatever. I don't trust anyone. That's they need to be held accountable if anything like that happens. That's not really the point. The point is, it's for you.

It's for you to unburden yourself of carrying deep dark secrets that have been weighing on you for years. There's something that happens in Judith Herman's book. One of the main takeaways that always comes back to me when I reflect on the reading I've done in the book is this idea of having someone bear witness to your story. What is it like to be you? What's your story?

I will listen to you. I will honor your story. My experience as a therapist, the people that I have have grown to respect the most are those who come in and pull the curtain aside and say, this is what I've been struck I've been struggling with a sexual addiction. I've been struggling with a secret drug addiction, alcohol addiction. I've been having I have I have been having affairs.

I've been it's destroying me. I wanna talk about it. I want you to help me see if I can unravel some of these things. I want to learn to have faith in humanity again. How do I get get beyond the betrayal that I feel?

And how can I take my life back and start connecting with other human beings again? So and and what Judith Herman talks about is the third component is reconnecting with society. We don't get better by ourselves. We just don't. And so, just invite you to think about that.

If you're having a difficult time in relationships well, maybe time to get into some therapy to to look at some groups perhaps to join. And if you're cautious on what to share, well, then be cautious. But but learn to to keep moving forward. If you're struggling with something, honor yourself enough to reach out and continue to strive to get help in a healthy way. And and just pay attention to your feelings as you're doing so, And and try to figure out where the resistance is coming from or where the hope what feels good, what doesn't feel good, and just learn to trust yourself in the process.