Family secrets: what you shouldn’t ask your grandmother about?

Finding out how the ancestors lived and what they thought, how their actions affected us — isn’t it interesting? And we compile a family tree or order from specialists the restoration of white spots in our history … not always wondering if we are ready for what we can find out.

Psychodramatherapist Ekaterina Mikhailova points out the difference between the words «secret» and «secret». The secret has a bottom, and once it’s revealed, there’s nothing else to see. The mystery has several layers and dimensions. This is something that will never be fully known: for example, the universe or our psyche. Any family system necessarily has both secrets and secrets …

Psychologies: So no matter how deep we dive, we won’t reach the bottom?

Ekaterina Mikhailova: We will not get it, the disclosure of secrets is always partial. If we are talking about family secrets, this is something that is not disclosed not only to the outside world, but also within the family itself. As a rule, this applies to older people. But it affects subsequent generations: something happens to grandchildren, children.

The concept of transgenerational transmission is based on the fact that serious family secrets have serious consequences. And secrets can be different in each family — for example, from children.

Is it right to keep secrets from children?

Well, of course! The kids don’t know. Of course, they do not know about the sexual relations of their parents. For the time being — about the sources of income in the family, about the conflicts that occurred before their birth. They can be told about it. Or they may not tell. And it is not at all certain that this will affect anything.

So secrets are not always bad?

There is always something that we do not discuss publicly, in the presence of friends, guests and children. Moreover, the complete absence of closed topics, regardless of who is listening to us — old people, children, whether a neighbor has come in — rather marks a family with violated boundaries for me.

For the health of the family system, a balance is needed between the voiced and the unvoiced, the reserved, the silent. In the end, even with the warmest and most intimate relationships, there is, excuse me, tact.

I absolutely do not welcome when a grandmother tells an 11-year-old girl that her mother wanted to have an abortion. If the mother herself decided to tell her daughter about it when she was 18, it would be another matter. Here you can think what moved the grandmother when she told her granddaughter about it — was it not jealousy for her mother? Like, she is a bad mother, and I am a good grandmother.

Can revealing family secrets become a weapon?

And what, don’t we meet elements of blackmail in the family? As they said in the days of our childhood, and with a specific intonation: “Everything will be said!”

It seems to me that this is “Everything will be said!” — the threat of disclosure, this is exactly what everyone is well aware of and what they use. Both adults and children. “Just don’t tell your father, he will get angry”, “just don’t tell your mother, she has pressure.” Etc.

Is it necessary to tell everything about the present and find out about the past?

Playing impenetrable is also dangerous. Of course, families function healthier where relatives discuss something. But life—whether extended family with grandparents, siblings, uncles and aunts, or a small family—consists of a huge amount of details, facts, events, situations, and there are thousands of them.

Many things are not spoken out, not because they are forbidden, terrible, but because they are simply implied by default.

In a normal family, they don’t say: “I’ll pour you tea now from the role of a mother.” Just one pushes the cup, and the other pours. Mutual expectations, claims to each other are largely made automatically.

But if the family can talk about it out loud without accumulating resentment and unspoken, then they are more likely to be closer and more important to each other. Returning to the history of the family — to speak or not. There is no correct answer. It’s always a question.

Is there some kind of internal signal that it’s worth climbing in there, and stop here?

Rather, the opposite is true: if someone inside is restless all the time, he sooner or later decides to take a risk and find out something, despite the fact that it may be very unpleasant information. But he knows he can handle it.

Or maybe it doesn’t reveal anything special. And then the question is — what was he so afraid of? Maybe this is due not to a family secret, but to shame for the parental family. And it seemed that dig further — it would be even worse. That is, this anxiety concerned his own vanity as a member of the family. His need to be proud of his family was not being met.

They say: «take it with you to the grave» and «everything secret becomes clear.» Can something be hidden forever or will the truth come out?

It happens in every way. And again, we must go not on whether this is possible in principle or not, but on who and why should disturb this grave. There are many who respect the history of their kind, but do not order any genealogical research.

Not because it costs decent money, but because they don’t want to know something that will upset them. It will destroy some myth about the family, deprive some figure of unambiguity. With that turbulent history that was in our dear Fatherland, everyone hid at least something. Whether it is a source of income, origin, criminal abortion, work for the NKVD.

The question is what it meant for the family at that time and what were the feelings associated with this for the hider and for those from whom he hid it. The dog is buried there. Because one and the same act, situation, fact in one place is proud, in another they are ashamed of it, in the third they are afraid, in the fourth they spit.

In many families, stories are retold from generation to generation. Can they be considered reliable?

When it comes to versions, legends, it is worth asking: who told this? What kind of person was he, what need could he have to tell in such a way? This need is always humanly understandable, but it needs to be corrected for. Because what we see depends on whose eyes we look. The narrator or narrator is very important.

As a rule, stories are transmitted by one person. Grandfathers often die earlier, but grandmothers tell. This is even in some way their social role. In any family, even the most friendly and idyllic, everyone still has their own truth and their own vision.

In addition, the family is not such a blessed place where everyone plays the harps in white clothes. There is a power struggle with shared affection and love. There are reasons for confrontation and disagreement on important and unimportant decisions. And we often forget that the narrator is a living person, he has his own grievances, motives. And you’re right, every next generation edits differently.

Once upon a time, all of us were workers and peasants. And then everyone together found noble ancestors. The external context is important: what is shameful at this time, what is prestigious, what is dangerous, and what can be presented with pride. All layers are very mixed up, so we keep in mind the correction for this. History is a very delicate thing.

If diaries, letters are left from the elders, should we read them, or is this the case when we climb into someone else’s life?

There is a ban on reading letters and diaries, as in the current format — on getting into a mobile phone or computer. It’s indecent after all, if it’s not about life and death: say, when a teenager left the phone at home and doesn’t appear for two days.

If the diary remains, then the question is: for whom was it written — for oneself or for posterity to read? It seems to me that if grandfather wrote exclusively for himself, he would probably burn it.

When we write down something, we assume the reader. But suppose you want to find out what really happened between divorced parents. Maybe my need to read these diaries or letters is so great that I am ready to experience hard feelings, change the picture of the world and risk looking where I was not invited. Consider how this will affect me.

That is, if we are going to dig into the history of the family, it is worth checking if I can handle it, if I can stand it.

It is worth checking who it can harm, because there are secrets that are explosive: this concerns incest, illegitimate children from other fathers, crime, violence, condemned actions.

For example, an intimate relationship with an enemy. It’s not just a disgrace, but a murderous shame. It is worth weighing the scale of possible destruction, especially if the participants in the events are still alive.

And it would be nice to clearly understand for whom we are revealing all this. If the reason is not very serious and it does not torment us so much that we are ready for irreversible consequences for the sake of truth, then it may be worth calming ourselves in another way — for example, in personal or group therapy. There, too, you can work with ancestors, family history, but no one will suffer.

But now it has almost become a fashion — to ask relatives while they are alive and can tell us something.

I would emphasize one point. No one can expect, let alone demand, that for all family members the life of all other family members be transparent as in the palm of your hand. You do not need to demand from your grandmother that she will certainly tell you whom she loved before her grandfather. She does not want to talk about these topics, otherwise you would have known about it for a long time.

I have an excellent recipe, I usually tell students this. Yes, talk to grandma while she’s still alive. But do not ask her questions that will be too painful for her. Ask what she liked to eat, what they sang then, how they rejoiced … I assure you, through these touches and details you will learn a lot. No need to interrogate her with passion — show respect for her and her secrets.

Every grandmother has the right to “not remember” something. Living according to European traditions, with open windows without curtains, is not for us. We really had something to be afraid of, what to hide, so that they would not inform us, would not steal from us. We really had something to worry about, gritting our teeth.

It seems to me that if you are already doing research in this place, then do it as carefully as archaeologists. They have a brush in their hand, because each piece may or may not be priceless. But anyway, you have to be careful.