“What is done in the dark will come to light.” Most of us heard some version of it growing up, perhaps from a parent who seemed to know exactly what we’d been up to. It’s half warning, half promise: secrets have a way of coming out, and the truth tends to surface in the end.
Later in life, the saying can take on a different weight. Many of us are carrying things we’ve never told anyone, about our own past, our family or someone we love. Some are small. Some are not. Research cannot tell us that every secret will eventually come out. It does suggest that what happens inside us while we keep one may matter as much as whether anyone discovers it.
Where the saying comes from
The modern wording is a paraphrase, but the idea goes back to the Gospels. In the King James Version of the Bible, Luke 8:17 reads: “For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad.” A few chapters later, Luke 12:2-3 makes the same point even more vividly: “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light.” A similar line appears in Mark 4:22.
Today the everyday version, “what is done in the dark will come to light,” tends to be used in a few ways: as a warning against hiding wrongdoing, as reassurance that the truth about an injustice will eventually come out, and as a reminder that honesty is easier in the long run.
We all keep secrets
If you’re keeping something to yourself, you’re far from alone. Psychologist Michael Slepian of Columbia University has spent years studying secrets, and his team has identified 38 common categories of things people keep hidden, from infidelity and money troubles to planned surprises. According to a report on his research in the American Psychological Association’s Monitor on Psychology, about 97% of participants reported keeping a secret in at least one of those categories, with participants keeping secrets in 13 categories on average. These figures describe the research samples, rather than a universal rate for everyone.
Not all secrets are a burden, of course. A surprise party is a secret. So is a quiet kindness. But the ones that weigh on us tend to share something in common.
The heaviest part happens in our own heads
We usually imagine the hard part of keeping a secret as the moment of hiding it: changing the subject, telling a white lie, keeping a straight face. Slepian’s research suggests the real cost lies elsewhere.
In a set of 10 studies published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2017, Slepian and colleagues analysed more than 13,000 secrets. They found that people’s minds wandered to their secrets far more often than they found themselves in situations where they had to actively hide them. And it was how often people’s minds drifted back to a secret that predicted lower wellbeing, even after taking into account how often they had to conceal it.
In other words, a secret can weigh on us even when no one is asking. It’s the late-night thinking, the replaying and the worrying that wears us down. The “dark” in the old saying may be less about where the secret is kept than about the time we spend alone with it.
Shame weighs more than guilt
Not all secrets affect us the same way. In one of Slepian’s studies, involving 1,000 people and more than 6,000 secrets, people ruminated more on secrets that made them feel ashamed than on those that made them feel guilty, according to the Monitor report.
The difference matters. Guilt is about something we did, and it can push us to make amends. Shame is more about feeling like a bad person, and it can leave us feeling stuck and helpless. A secret wrapped in shame is often the hardest to carry, and the hardest to share.
Secrets are coming to light more often
For many families, the old saying has become more literal in recent years. Home DNA tests and online family trees have turned up relatives and histories that were never spoken about.
In a 2022 study in the American Journal of Human Genetics, Christi Guerrini of Baylor College of Medicine and colleagues surveyed 23,196 people who had used consumer genetic testing or genealogy databases. Of those, 82% had learned the identity of at least one genetic relative, and among them, 10% had identified a biological grandparent, 10% a full or half-sibling, and 7% a biological father. For most people, these discoveries were neutral or positive. But for some, learning something destabilising, such as that a parent was not who they had believed, was hard to absorb.
For anyone holding a long-kept family secret, that is worth considering. A truth that once seemed safely buried can now surface through a cheek swab, and often not in the way or at the time anyone would have chosen.
Honesty may be good for us
There is some evidence that being more honest in everyday life is good for our health as well as our relationships. In a study presented at the American Psychological Association’s annual convention in 2012, Anita Kelly and Lijuan Wang of the University of Notre Dame asked about half of 110 adults to stop telling lies, large and small, for 10 weeks. In weeks when participants told fewer lies, they reported fewer mental health and physical complaints, and better relationships seemed to explain much of the improvement.
The study had not been peer reviewed when it was presented, and it relied on people’s own reports, so it is best treated as an interesting early finding. But it fits with the broader research on secrecy.
Telling someone can lighten the load
If the burden of a secret comes from carrying it alone, sharing it with the right person can help. Slepian’s research has found that confiding a secret predicted better wellbeing, partly because of the support people received and partly because they ruminated on it less afterwards, according to the Monitor report. That study involved more than 800 participants describing over 10,000 secrets.
Confiding doesn’t mean telling everyone. It might mean telling one trusted friend, a sibling, a partner, a minister or a counsellor. The point is to stop being the only person who knows.
Thinking about secrets in later life
As the years go by, many people find themselves thinking about the things they have never said. If you are carrying a secret, a few questions may help:
- Whose secret is it? Some secrets belong to us. Others belong to someone else, and are theirs to tell. Respecting that is part of honesty too.
- Who would be affected if it came out? Thinking this through can help you decide whether, how and when to share it.
- Is it shame or guilt? If it’s guilt, there may be a way to make amends. If it’s shame, talking it through with someone you trust may ease it.
- Who could you confide in first? Telling one person can make it easier to decide what comes next.
- Would it be better heard from you? In an age of DNA tests and online records, family secrets are more likely to come out than they once were. A truth heard from someone who loves you may land more gently than one discovered by chance.
If a secret involves harm, abuse or something that weighs heavily on your mental health, a GP or counsellor can help you think it through safely.
Bringing things into the light
The old saying is usually heard as a warning. The research suggests it can also be read as an invitation. Secrets cost us most when we carry them alone, turning them over in the dark. Bringing them into the light, carefully and with the right person, can make them lighter to carry.
