Everybody’s got a secret. I have one. You have one. Your neighbor has one. And your girlfriend does too. We live in a world where there are just some things you can’t do or say, fantasies you can’t confess to, emotions you’d sooner not be mistress or master of.
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In 2005 Frank Warren started a website, called PostSecret, which enabled people to share their secrets, anonymously, by mailing them on a postcard to: Post Secret/ 13345 Copper Ridge Road/ Germantown, Maryland 20874. Each Sunday he posts new secrets for the world to see. Secrets include, “I used to think that my parents had a book to tell them how to be an adult,” “I left you three years ago … I’ve convinced myself I made the right decision … but I still check the weather where you are …,” “I lied about my depression and suicidal thoughts, because I don’t want to lose my pilot’s license,” “I think fat guys wearing white briefs look sexy,” “I told everyone that I voted,” “I purposely don’t get pregnant to piss off my mother-in-law,” “I know you have a crush on my husband and I flush my tampon down your toilet every time you have us over,” “When I discovered my estranged mother’s blog, I began making anonymous comments there … hoping she’d realize it’s me,” and “When I see an airplane I watch it … in case it crashes so I can be a witness on TV.”
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The site is enormously popular, and to date Warren has published five books of secrets: PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives (2005), My Secret: A PostSecret Book (2006), The Secret Lives of Men and Women: A PostSecret Book (2007), A Lifetime of Secrets: A PostSecret Book (2007), and Confessions on Life, Death, & God (2009). The site is also equipped with contact information for the National Hopeline Network (1-800-SUICIDE) as well as the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network and National Domestic Violence Hotline.
This article appears in Nov 12-19, 2009.
