a recovery motto that i come to verily live by through my decades of recovery is, "we are only as sick as our secrets." these days i try to keep my secrets healthy, such as the surprise party scheduled for next week and the present i bought for you today. i hold that respecting confidentiality is not secret keeping. talking about other people's business is gossip and i believe gossip is at least as unhealthy as keeping secrets. ^it^ ain't mine to tell. what you say here stays here until you decide in your own time and way.

the secrecy codes surrounding child prostitution are intense. as is the punishment for breaking those codes. i moved to another continent before i dared to let those truths out of jail. even there, it felt risky to tell those secrets and it took me a very long time to find the courage to take that risk. half a century later, my childhood conditioning still rears it's ugly head when i tell. "good" kids don't tell but i feel a bit freer each and every time i push past that childhood conditioning. i still don't enjoy talking about my life as a child prostitute, but it is not a secret. i can remember without spiraling off into a ptsd psychosis, but i promise i will change the subject as quickly as i can. i'm still not a big fan of child pornography and also promise to skip as much detail as i can. it's not secret, but i still don't want the aftertaste of those words in my mouth.

am i making sense? reality checks requested.