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December 2, 2021 3 mins

Inside every secret is a truth. And you know what they say: the truth will set us free. Season 6 of Family Secrets launches Thursday, December 9th.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Already. When you're sixteen year old calls you at five am,
that's not normal. But she was screaming and saying that
the police were in the house. That's Mattie Corman speaking
about the day her family's secret came to light. And
I couldn't understand what she was saying. And I couldn't
even comprehend that police were in our house, let alone

(00:26):
why they were there. And I could also hear that
my boys, who were eleven at the time, were with her,
and I could hear them crying. And it was even
right now, I feel like my face is going to
fall off even just talking about this and remembering this moment,
because it was the moment that all of our lives
changed forever. I'm Danny Shapiro, and welcome to the new

(00:51):
season of Family Secrets. I'm so excited to share ten
extraordinary stories with you. The thing about Family Secrets is that, well,
we all have them, I mean everybody. The pod now
has over twenty two million downloads. It turns out so
many of us can relate. This is our best season yet,

(01:12):
which drops on Thursday, December nine. Here's Adam Man's back
speaking about the night his life changed forever. The first
thing my father asked me was whether I was sitting down,
which I don't think anybody had ever asked me that
in real life before. I guess that question is only
asked when you think that the news you're about to
deliver might literally knock somebody on their ass, that the

(01:34):
person's legs might stop working. I got off the phone
with my father and I stood there crying hysterically. And
I don't think that I spoke out loud to my brother,
but I think I spoke in my head to my brother,
said something along the lines of like, what have you done?
And this is key? And Julie Wang, who learned as

(01:55):
a young child that keeping a secret was the only
way to protect her family, m I think the message
of having to lie about the fact that I immigrated,
the fact that English was my second language, the fact
that I was undocumented, embedded in me a deep shame
that went to the core of who I was. If

(02:17):
I couldn't tell people I was born in China, which
was at that point very central to my identity and
my life, it must have been to my childhood mind
that pretty much everything about me was worth being ashamed about,
and everything about me should be kept secret. Trench Wrestler

(02:38):
grew up on a cattle ranch in South Dakota, a
place where being a gay man was a dangerous thing,
so he had to keep a secret, especially from his dad,
about the very essence of his identity. Queer people don't
grow up as ourselves, you know. We grew up playing
a version of ourselves, and we did these mental summersaults

(02:59):
to try to justify who we are and present one
thing to the world and another thing that we keep inside.
And all of that erodes are authenticity and our sense
of self. And it totally has one purpose, which is
to minimize our own humiliation and our own shame. You know,

(03:20):
I knew that if I came out, my parents would
not be okay with it, and I knew it would
cause a rupture. I hope you'll join me and my
amazing guests for this new season of family Secrets. Inside
every secret is a truth, and you know what they say,
The truth will set us free. Coming Thursday, December ninth,

(03:42):
from my Heart Media and available wherever you get your podcasts.

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Dani Shapiro

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