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PostSecret

Ivy

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PostSecret is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." (I couldn't think of an original way to describe it in my own words.) The guy who runs the website posts a new batch of secrets each Sunday. I have been checking it faithfully for a couple of years now.

Many of the secrets are funny, silly, or just venting about everyday frustrations. Some of them stab you in the guts. This week, I'm haunted by this one.
 

disregard

mrs
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sweet.

i love postsecret too. i've never even been to the website. just found the book somewhere.
 

Totenkindly

@.~*virinaĉo*~.@
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I read PostSecret every week when it comes out with a new batch, and I have the first two published books as well.

Just some pretty intense stuff there, that cuts straight to the heart. What I appreciate about the site creator is that he just doesn't stop with the secrets, but that he encourages people to move past them and share with others in RL, rather than just sending in a postcard. The postcard is often just a useful first step to get people to open up and stop hiding.

ivy said:
Many of the secrets are funny, silly, or just venting about everyday frustrations. Some of them stab you in the guts. This week, I'm haunted by this one.

Is that in this week's batch? I don't even know how to respond to it. My mind went completely blank.
 

hereandnow

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PostSecret is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." (I couldn't think of an original way to describe it in my own words.) The guy who runs the website posts a new batch of secrets each Sunday. I have been checking it faithfully for a couple of years now.

Many of the secrets are funny, silly, or just venting about everyday frustrations. Some of them stab you in the guts. This week, I'm haunted by this one.

Thanks for the link. Very interesting.
 

Littlelostnf

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My cousin turned me on to Post Secrets a year or so ago...some of them are just.....

I saw that one Ivy about the person being molested....I can't even begin to tell you how I felt after reading that one. I don't think I'll stop feeling about it.
 

MacGuffin

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Been a PostSecret fan for a long time. The creator lives in the area, I remember they did an interview with him on the news about a year or two ago.
 

Rajah

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I read PostSecret every week when it comes out with a new batch, and I have the first two published books as well.
You should pick up the latest book. It's on par with the first - much improved over the second.


This week's secret... I don't know how to respond to it. Sigh.
 

cafe

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I just saw this thread.

My response is "Good for you. I hope you don't get caught."
 

KMCE

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It doesn't seem to be a particularly encouraging site to me, but it does let people tell their dirty secrets, reveal their suppressed desires, and more importantly, forgive and heal their past that hurt them so much.

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. - D. H. Lawrence

Good site.
 

Ivy

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This week there were two secrets that stood out to me: this one, and this one. For very different reasons obviously.
 

Totenkindly

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It doesn't seem to be a particularly encouraging site to me, but it does let people tell their dirty secrets, reveal their suppressed desires, and more importantly, forgive and heal their past that hurt them so much. Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. - D. H. Lawrence. Good site.

Yes, I think the first part of the healing process is admitting where we are. To stay there can be self-indulgent, but until the half-formed fears and embarrassments are spoken aloud, they can't be accepted and then hopefully transformed.

This week's batch did not hit me that much, but some of the ones in the past might as well as have been my secrets.
 

C.J.Woolf

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The secret that hit me the hardest was in the first book. It was a plain white postcard written in crayon:

"I love one of my children."

I chose not to have children. That card expressed a big reason why: The possibility that I might not love my own kid filled me with dread. (I'm enough of a selfish bastard to admit the possibility of it.) I don't like commitments you can't back out of, and a child is about the biggest one.
 

Totenkindly

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"I love one of my children."
(and finished with, "...and only one"? Or something like that?)
I chose not to have children. That card expressed a big reason why: The possibility that I might not love my own kid filled me with dread. (I'm enough of a selfish bastard to admit the possibility of it.) I don't like commitments you can't back out of, and a child is about the biggest one.

I totally understand that, and I have had the same fears.

I can say for me that having three very different children taught me what love really was, and how I can still find value in someone who sometimes frustrates me (most notably the ESFP kid). I wouldn't have signed up to deal with him originally, if I had gotten a choice in the matter, but he has changed me even as I have changed him; he knows how to enjoy life and live in the moment in a way I never have, and to be expressive and fearless.

Still, for whatever reason, I get along with all three of my kids, and they all want to make the parent/kid relationship work. I don't know how I'd feel if one child was consistently abrasive and rejecting and dismissing. In a case like that, there would be a large quotient of disappointment and anger involved.

But it's just funny how "your kid is your kid," regardless of what they do.

I know some parents' love seems to be conditional, but at least for me, I just can't reject any of them that way. You seem to be self-aware enough to have that within you as well.

(Just commenting here, no argument meant at all.)
 

rivercrow

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Derail, sorry.
I totally understand that, and I have had the same fears.
...
You seem to be self-aware enough to have that within you as well.
This is part of the reason why I have no kids. I've also never been fond of kids. But kids love me, for some reason that remains inexplicable to me.

I'm really happy there are people who love kids.
 

Brendan

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PostSecret is "an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard." (I couldn't think of an original way to describe it in my own words.) The guy who runs the website posts a new batch of secrets each Sunday. I have been checking it faithfully for a couple of years now.

Many of the secrets are funny, silly, or just venting about everyday frustrations. Some of them stab you in the guts. This week, I'm haunted by this one.
I saw that in the book store the other day!

The All-American Rejects did a video that involved it.

Dirty Little Secret
 

Rajah

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The All-American Rejects did a video that involved it.
Hate that song, but it was actually a cool video.

Seriously, read the books in the store. They're pretty compelling.
 

Brendan

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he knows how to enjoy life and live in the moment in a way I never have, and to be expressive and fearless.
He knows that you appreciate that about him. We know. We always know.

I can't speak about girls, because the father-daughter relationship is undoubtedly alot different from the father-son relationship but, believe me. As a son, I know exactly how my dad feels about me without him having to say it.
 

Langrenus

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This site is completely and utterly fascinating to me, taking aside the fact that most of the cards involve even more boring, gratuitous self-disclosure than we get here - some of them really revealed a lot about my own morals and method of thinking.

For instance, I shocked myself by instantly thinking "good on you" to the card that Ivy posted (well, posted the link to - not implying it was you Ivy!). A very strong tool for making you realise that sometimes what you tell yourself you believe isn't actually what you believe, however introspective and reflective you may be...

...or perhaps that's just me

Edit: not implying the self-disclosure going on in this thread is gratuitous or boring by the way
 
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Ivy

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So there were no Sunday secrets this week. I wondered why so I did a bit of Googlevestigation. Evidently, Frank enabled comments last week and there have been over 8,000 so far, many of which are judgmental of someone who sent in this secret about giving her cat bleach so she could see her cute vet again. Others are complaining that the comments violate the purpose of the site, to provide a safe space for folks to vent things they feel they can't tell anyone. Some have speculated that Frank is retiring the site or something, and a few people even panicked and called the police to let them know that Frank is missing. (LOL.) They were informed that he's just on vacation.

There really seems to be a mystique about this site. I guess that's not surprising; the secrets are coming from the darkest parts of the submitters' psyches. Maybe, in a way, they're shedding light on the underbelly of American culture. They are exposing things that are generally not talked about.
 

rivercrow

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Here's where intuitive leaps are bad things.

Whenever I see the word "secret" now, I think of "The Secret," which I think is a harmful fascination. So imagine my delight--then my resignation--when I saw "PostSecret" show up in "Recently Updated."

"Hooray! The madness is over!--oh, no it's not, darn."
 
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