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John Prin
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When Michael Devlin was apprehended in mid-January for kidnapping two junior high boys, my first impulse was to think he was the Secret Keeper in the story.* But as the facts unfolded, the more intriguing Secret Keeper (to my mind) became Shawn Hornbeck, the first boy abducted 4 years ago, now 15, who never turned himself in. While Devlin definitely fit the profile of secret-keeping criminals (the 4th category on the Continuum of Secrets**), it shocked me that Shawn had had multiple chances to turn himself in but never did. Knowing his parents were anxiously searching for him, why didn’t he end their agony and his own captivity given his many opportunities? Now that’s a secret? Then I read an op-ed piece about the highly secretive MPAA, the Motion Picture Association of America, which assigns ratings like G or PG-13 for the movies we see.*** In it, author Kirby Dick exposes the levels of secrecy unknown to many of us. |
The past 40 years, for example, all eleven raters on the MPAA board have remained anonymous. The same for a separate appeals board, whose decisions eschew due process and are final without explanation. Period. “This is particularly troubling,” states Dick, “because the appeals board is almost exclusively made up of executives from corporations that belong to the MPAA or the theater owners association, the very corporations that stand to gain the most from influencing a rating.” As noted in my previous column on the secrecy scandal at UnitedHealth Group, I call this kind of hidden mischief "institutional" Secret Keeping. It's a quantum leap beyond personal secret keeping, typified byaccused kidnapper Devlin or his “son” Shawn Hornbeck. The latter is sleaze in a dumpy part of town perpetrated by a pizza parlor worker, the former is sleaze in skyscrapers perpetrated by captains of commerce in starched white shirts. |
Sleazy and slimy either way (for more on “slimy” see page 72 of Secret Keeping). Is there a solution? Yes. The entire second half of Secret Keeping, all 8 chapters with titles such as Committing to Coming Clean and Authenticity in a Messy World, point out ways for people to free themselves from the captivity of keeping unhealthy, shameful, harmful secrets. Email your thoughts here. You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions. |
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How many moral scandals can Americans handle? How much more shame and blame do we have left to spread around? Last month, Ted Haggard. The month before, Mark Foley. A year ago, James McGreevey. Have we reached condemnation fatigue yet? Will the parade of deceivers ever end? Well, I have a secret — I share their shame and blame. Like them, I am a Jekyll-and-Hyde hypocrite guilty of having lived an unhealthy and destructive secret life, too. As a person who has authored two books on the shady art of "secret keeping," I've also acted reputably in public while fooling everybody for decades about my hidden activities during stolen hours in secret. Although such times are now behind me personally, I too have intentionally concealed much in the same deceptive and calculated ways that "secret keepers" like Haggard, Foley, and McGreevy have. Because I have lived a double life of hypocrisy, allow me to offer some perspectives. Perspective #1: The parade of deceivers is nothing new. Recent history includes the once secretive-now-everybody-knows sexual escapades of Bill Clinton. Or there's Charles Lindbergh, the iconic aviator who fathered a family of three children in Germany proven in 2003 by DNA evidence of their paternity. Even Kirby Puckett faced an ugly divorce over an alleged 18-year extramarital affair and he, too, fell from grace. |
Perspective #2: The long list of secret keepers share many characteristics in common. They are mainly privileged men, leaders in positions of power, wearing fancy suits and ties in the sunshine of day but operating under cloaks of cover-ups, alibis, and lies when nobody is looking. It's ironic that the very things they tout as virtues in public, or oppose in their professional roles to the media, turn out to be the very vices they pander in privately.
Perspective #3: Humans are divided, two-faced, forked-tongue creatures. The author of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," Robert Louis Stevenson, had this to say: "Man is not truly one, but truly two. All human beings are commingled out of good and evil." In his classic tale, the honorable Dr. Jekyll descended into madness and lamented, "I was slowly losing hold of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated with my second and worse self." Given the scandal du jour, Rev. Haggard's evangelical elite status (and that of his predecessors in secret sin, Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggert), what does the Bible offer? |
At our human core is duality. Jesus said of those who feign virtue or piety, "Woe to you, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." (Matthew 23:27-8). Plainly his condemnation was strong and direct! This is the same strong condemnation I feel at first hearing about the likes of Haggard. But Jesus also said, "Whoever has no sin, cast the first stone" (John 8:7). That counts me out. I'm guilty. I'm as two-faced and hypocritical as Haggard and his cohorts. Instead, I choose to pray for them (and myself), to forgive them (and myself), and to love them (and myself). While these scandals are disheartening in their repetition and shameful similarities, who among us (when nobody is looking) acts with integrity and honesty every time? I certainly don't. It's easy to condemn the hypocrites who get caught, but we all know that we think things and do things in secret that would condemn us if people knew. While we can't ignore these peoples' guilt, we can choose the higher road of praying for them, forgiving them, and recognizing our own human duality. Email your thoughts here. You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions. |
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Chairman William W. McGuire got canned by the board of directors during a closed-doors weekend meeting on Oct. 15 for "alleged" backdating of stock options. That means he may have to return $155.4 million that he pocketed from repricing options from 1994 to 2002. "The whole business (is) as secretive as possible," stated an Oct. 17 editorial in the StarTribune.* "Fabulous pay packages (for executives) are…downright egregious in health care, a consumer necessity that is increasingly priced beyond the reach of average families." I call this kind of greed "institutional" Secret Keeping. It's a quantum leap |
to a sickeningly disturbing level beyond personal secret keeping (described in my new book Secret Keeping), wherein harm is greatly expanded beyond what usually happens to an individual and his or her family members or close friends. We're seeing it in government and politics and big business too often. "Companies seem to go out of their way to make these arrangements as hidden as possible," the StarTribune continues. What's worse to my way of thinking is that McGuire "…could be collecting hefty checks from the Minnetonka-based health insurer well into the future. Under the terms of McGuire's employment agreement, he's entitled to a lump-sum payout of $6.4 million and a retirement benefit of $5.09 million a year." |
That's insult to injury on a massive scale. That's rewarding secretive criminal behavior. That's recognizing the clandestine fraud of guys in fancy suits and ties… and letting the guilty get rich. Email your thoughts here. You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions. Watch for future additions to this page. * All quotes are selected from articles or editorials from The Minneapolis StarTribune, Oct. 17-to-20, 2006.
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The Republican congressman from Florida abruptly quit his post Friday, Sept 29 * -- for which he was considered a shoo-in for a new term in the upcoming election -- after his e-mails expressing undue interest in a 16-year old male page were exposed to the nation. In those emails, Foley asked the boy to send a photo of himself and also sent sexually explicit instant messages to him and other pages. In one message he wrote, "Do I make you a little horny?" and in another, "…strip down and get naked." The boy told a colleague the e-mails "freaked me out" and were "sick," according to transcripts. Foley's follies were known to Republican leadership as early as a year ago, in September 2005, which makes the recent exposure of them evidence of secret-keeping in itself. Foley, 52, may be faulted for doing a poor job of covering up his indiscretions |
(atypical of accomplished Secret Keepers!) but not his superiors -- a phenomenon I've come to call "institutional secret-keeping" (that's where institutions like government agencies or corporations stonewall the public about scandalous misdeeds by their executives…think Enron, Tyco, HP, etc). Your can read more details about Foley for yourself in the news. But please consider the enormous damage and harmful fallout his secret-keeping caused: 1. the impact on the boy and his family, 2. the Congressman's self-destruction of his flourishing career and the shame he foisted on his innocent family, 3. the scramble to find a replacement candidate only five weeks before an upcoming election, 4. the cover-up by party leaders and demands by Democrats (rightly) for yet another investigation into who-knew-and-when, and 5. the souring, once again, of our national psyche. |
Secret-keeping destroys! Foley's photo accompanying the news stories portrays a friendly, trusting, healthy man of open-minded sensibilities -- yet another trait of Secret Keepers (appearances trump reality). Sadly, this current scandal is one in a long list of politicians smitten with power. Don't we humans ever learn from others' mistakes? Email your thoughts here. You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my books, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. and the sequel, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions. Watch for future additions to this page. * St. Paul Pioneer Press, Sept. 30, 2006 p. 6A
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Here's what Attorney General of Minnesota Mike Hatch said about teens and their online behavior…"Kids' imagination create secret lives on the Internet."* The notion that the Internet is a haven for people's double identities is nothing new. In a recent Pew study (July 2005), 62 percent of teens said they "believe most teens do things online they'd rather their parents not see." ** This suggests that millions more Americans are learning secret-keeping® habits because this technology allows them anonymity -- and at a younger and more tender age than ever. Not a happy trend! One misuse of the Web occurs when youth act as "cyber bullies." A case occurred here in |
Minnesota just weeks ago when two 7th-grade boys posed as their art teacher online and sent sexually explicit e-mails to 6th-grade girls.*** Shocked and dismayed, the school authorities placed the accused teacher on several days of administrative leave until the truth surfaced. Plainly, these boys held the upper hand -- for a while. As is so often the case, children raised in front of computer screens ironically are ahead of parents and adults. In most other categories, parents and adults are ahead of teens. Yet the damage of pranksters assuming false identities continues at an explosive rate. Is the Web fostering a new generation of Secret Keepers®? Can anyone deny it? |
If you are confronted by similar issues, contact me for help. Email your thoughts here. You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. Also look for the sequel, my new book, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions (New World Library, Fall 2006). Watch for future additions to this page. * Valley View Middle School Parents' Forum, Edina, MN, |
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PARENTS: Is your high-schooler secretly videotaping sex acts? That's right, according to a front page article in the St. Paul Pioneer Press,* a variation of secret-keeping has surfaced at the teen level (see Category #4 of Continuum of Secrets in Stolen Hours). A 15-year-old girl "told police an older boy secretly videotaped her performing a sex act she was forced to do and then threatened to show the tape around their high school unless she continued performing oral sex on him and other boys," states the article. The girl suffered silently and in secret for nearly a year until she came forward and reported the abuse to a school counselor on March 7. She held back, the article reports, because she feared classmates would |
talk about the tape and, I presume, would label and ridicule her to the point of forcing her to switch schools. Disturbing. Unbelievable. Shocking. That was how parents and experts were described responding to the news of the girl's allegations. While adults expressed their various views about the role of the school (the taping occurred off school grounds), haunting questions remain: Is popular culture to blame? What can be done? Will more of this kind of behavior surface? Concluded one sexual violence expert, "Instead of focusing on the girl, on what she did wrong, let's focus on the predatory behavior of the boys." I would add, and their secret-keeping schemes and strategy! |
Are you dealing with secret-keeping® issues?
Whether related to sex or teens You can also reach me at 952-941-1870 or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. Also look for the sequel, my new book, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions (New World Library, Fall 2006). Watch for future additions to this page. * St.
Paul Pioneer Press, |
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WARNING: The Internet is a cesspool for Secret
Keepers. That's right. Our kids are prey to the ever-growing legion
of stalkers and sexual predators who utilize the Internet's capability
to provide anonymity. Although millions of Secret Keepers never
break the law or violate
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others (see Category #3 of Continuum of Secrets), some do eventually cross the line into crime (see Category #4). USA Today* writes about the rash of crimes made easier by web sites such as the 55-million member MySpace.com: "Teens who have been warned all their lives to beware of strangers online are now regularly posting their cell-phone numbers, school names and other personal information, as well as sexy pictures of themselves, on these sites." That spells disaster. In my neighborhood, my
local newspaper** reported that convicted sex offender Ronald Abshire
admitted |
having sex several times in a motel with a
15 year-old girl he'd "met" on MySpace. Abshire told police
he knew she was under-age. Email your thoughts here, or you can also reach me by calling 952-941-1870, or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions.
* USA Today, Feb 13, 2006, page 6D |
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| February
2006 |
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Have you heard about the millions of Secret Keepers sharing secrets on the Internet? That's right, for the past year Frank Warren has posted numerous postcards confessing secrets to his web site, postsecret.blogspot.com, according to Newsweek.* Warren says he gets about 400 anonymous submissions each week from around the world. The site has received nearly 19 million hits since it launched. Warren believes he is doing a public service: "There are secrets that we think we're keeping, but those secrets are actually keeping us."
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That's precisely the premise of my two books,
Stolen Hours (check Amazon
for reviews) and Secret Keeping
(debuts in June 2006). I agree with Warren's philosophy when he
says, "I think one way to face those secrets is to write them
on a postcard and then physically let it go into As addicts in successful recovery will tell
you, "Our secrets are what made us sick." So I encourage
you to open Frank Warren's site and see for yourself |
Also read about my books and articles on this web site, or book me as a speaker for your next seminar because more individuals than you can ever imagine struggle with "stealing hours" to indulge in their secret activities. Email your thoughts here, or you can also reach me by calling 952-941-1870, or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions. * Newsweek, Jan. 30, 2006 |
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| January
2006 |
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Did you hear about the bank robber whose three sons turned him in? That's right, according to Monica Davey of the New York Times,* the robber's adult sons -- Garret, Jared, and Clay Ginglen -- recognized their father, William, 64, on surveillance video and notified the sheriff of DeWitt County in southern Illinois. "It turned out that he was leading a secret, life, a double life," Sheriff Roger Massey said. For his secrets and crimes, this "pillar of his community"** was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison and ordered to pay $56,382 in restitution. Like so many law-abiding Secret Keepers who eventually cross the line into criminal behavior (see Continuum of Secrets for details), |
William Ginglen showed the world a respectable side. He worked as an industrial engineer at International Harvester, attended the same church since age 5, served in the volunteer fire department, and was a respected neighbor in his small town of 2,500 in Lewistown, Illinois. But another darker side of Ginglen's awaited investigators. In a meticulously kept computer journal, Ginglen wrote down details of his "adultery with a girlfriend, (his) drugs use and drug parties, and the gruesome financial strain" that led to his committing the string of bank robberies. In other words, he kept his slimy side hidden and showed his shiny side to the world (see Book Highlights). |
My newest book, Secret Keeping: Overcoming Hidden Habits and Addictions is designed to help anyone in Mr. Ginglen's situation before dire consequences such as his harm lives--his own or others (See John's Books). Email your thoughts here, or you can also reach me by calling 952-941-1870, or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions.
* New York Times, Dec. 29, 2005 via internet ** Mpls StarTribune, Dec. 30, 2005, p. A3 |
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| November
- December 2005 |
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In secret-keeping® parlance, I call this kind of secrecy "institutional secret-keeping" -- as distinguished from "individual" secret-keeping. It's the kind of conspiratorial secrecy that governments, corporations, and organizations perpetrate on a massive scale. Think Enron, the Catholic church, and the Soviet KGB. |
Clearly, this level of secrecy is beyond our personal scope. But it's out there, and it's troubling. If you are troubled on an "individual" level with secret-keeping (your own issues or somebody else's), feel free to contact me for help. I can listen and help you learn to recover from that |
Email your thoughts here, and remain as anonymous as you wish. You can also reach me by calling 952-941-1870 or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions.
** Mpls. Star Tribune, Nov. 2, |
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| October
2005 |
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In at least one state, Georgia, teachers and other public employees risk losing their health insurance for a year if they're caught lying about their smoking habit, states Kahn. What drives some smokers to cloak their habit in secrecy? Most agree that the social stigma is reason enough to disguise it. |
Some authorities consider hiding it is as bad as cheating on your spouse, because not being truthful drives a huge wedge in a relationship. "It's feeling like a criminal that's disturbing," said Donna. If you are dealing with secret-keepingSM issues, whether related to smoking or not, contact me for help. Once a 2-pack a day smoker myself until quitting 31 years ago, I can help you learn to conquer the secret-keeping attitudes and tricks that keep you trapped. |
* Mpls. Star Tribune, Sept 15, |
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| September
2005 |
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The Masons are renowned for their secrecy: secret passwords, secret handshakes, secret rituals, and secret motives. Some claim the Masons' biggest secret is that they have no secret. |
If you are dealing with secret-keepingSM issues, whether related to Masonry or not, contact me for help. Although never a Mason or Shriner myself, I once learned to conquer the secret-keeping attitudes and |
Email your thoughts here, and remain as anonymous as you wish. You can also reach me by calling 952-941-1870 or read my book, Stolen Hours: Breaking Free From Secret Addictions.
* US News & World Report, Sept 5, 2005 |
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| August
2005 |
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Let's face it, secrets sell. Practically every headline on the supermarket check-out
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Compared with real life secret-keeping, there is the similarity of breaking moral, ethical, and relational boundaries, but there the similarities end. For more about the characteristics of secrets, see the Continuum of Secrets in Stolen Hours, page 244. |
* PEOPLE, Aug 8, 2005 |
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| July
2005 |
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Rader, 60, fits the fourth secret-keeping category on the Continuum of Secrets: Criminal Behavior. |
Dennis Rader's twisted, ironic story is another in a long list of privileged and high-functioning people who have lived dark secret lives -- as I myself once did (never category 4!) until I learned to |
* Mpls. Star Tribune, June 28, page A3 and USA Today, page 3A |
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Did you hear about the Minnesota State Trooper who received 34 letters of commendation for meritorious service but was charged with |
These are just two of the thousands of high-functioning folks whose double lives caused them, and loved ones, anguish and harm. They show the effects of secret- keepingSM behavior on the persons closest to the individuals, and the irony of such privileged and decorated people having such dark |
* London Daily Mail, June 7, page 27 ** Mpls. Star Tribune, June 10, page B7 |
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Did you hear about the former director of a nursing home in Minnesota who skimmed more than $1.4 million from his employer? |
For eight years, Mark Wetsch's secret stealing went undetected while he spent the money on home improvements and sports opportunities for his kids.** These are just two of the thousands of high-functioning folks whose double lives caused them, and loved ones, anguish and harm. In the case of the Porros, they have turned their secrets into service, as I myself have done once I learned to conquer the same secret-keepingSM syndrome. If I can help you, or someone you know with similar impulses, please be in touch. |
* USA Today, ** Mpls. Star Tribune, |
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| April,
2005 |
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Did you hear about the Boy Scout executive who pleaded guilty to child porn? That's right, Mr. Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr. of Forth Worth, TX was chairman of the Boy Scouts' Youth Protection task force. That was his "shiny" identity. His "slimy" identity, as reported March 31*, included his use of a computer to receive, store and distribute images of child pornography involving boys under the age of 12. Did you hear about Jane Fonda's new book, My Life So Far? |
These are just two of the thousands of high-functioning folks whose double lives caused them, and loved ones, anguish and harm. Fortunately, they are in recovery, as I myself am from the same secret-keepingSM syndrome. If I can help you, or someone you know with similar issues, please be in touch. |
* Mpls Star Tribune, page A18 ** TIME, April 11, 2005 |
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© 2005 - 2006 John Prin
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