write it in a letter an burn it'

Sometimes you just gotta believe that those who love you are trustworthy. - (and sometimes they *are*!)

The problem is not with the secret itself -- the problem is with what you believe it all MEANS about you. I don't know what your secret is, and you don't have to tell. But there is a "structure" to this kind of thing which is common for all of us. It helps somewhat to understand it: 1- Bad thing happens. Maybe you did something bad, maybe something bad was done to you. Doesn't much matter what it is, the point is you cannot BE with this thing... i.e. it's interpreted as being so painful and significant that the discomfort level just shoots through the roof. You can't just sit and be with what happened and get the fact-ness of it. 2- Self definition happens: the mind "solves" the problem by deciding "Ok, it means X about me". So for example, if someone is raped and ashamed and hurt and humiliated, they may decide "I'm no good, I deserved it". In the weirdo logic of the mind, that solves the problem -- it balances the equation and makes sense of something senseless, random, and horrible. And, it produces the sense that somehow order has been restored to the universe -- I got what I deserved. But the point is, it's now modified my belief about who I am at a fundamental level. 3- The Coverup. The next phase is to put together a presentable pretense for others. Most of us won't go around just telling strangers "I'm no good and I caused my own rape". It has to be more socially acceptable, and so the pretending and posturing starts... patterns of representing ourselves publicly which hide the deep dark secret. 4- Isolation. The trouble with pretending about who you are is that it cuts you off from the support and joy of being with others -- love. So that isolation is itself painful, and it starts to crystallize into a kind of fixed view of the world: "I'm unlovable, nobody cares about me"... which the mind will then "solve" again with some new adaptation, like "I'll just be tough", or "I'll do my best to be a success and then they'll love me", etc. And the cycle just keeps spinning, getting more complex with each turn. So if that sounds at all familiar, you should know that it means you're a human being like the rest of us. We're all subject to that kind of psychological twisting designed to protect our sense of self. What to do about it? Well, we'll get to that if the discussion provokes enough interest from you! :)