NC State’s 2015 Homecoming speaker, Frank Warren, the creator of PostSecret, spoke to a full crowd of students at Stewart Theatre Monday evening about the burden of keeping secrets and the transformative power of sharing them.
PostSecret is a website that allows people to anonymously share their secrets with members of the PostSecret community. PostSecret started with Warren handing out blank postcards to strangers on the street of Washington D.C. Eventually, the idea became popular and people from all over the world began to make their own postcards to send to Warren.
Along with his talk about secrets, Warren spent time speaking about suicide and mental illness. He talked about his own personal background and the struggles he has gone through during his life, how we watched a friend die, was homeless, lost loved ones to suicide and has struggled with mental illness.
Warren gave a bit of advice to those in the audience dealing with their own struggles.
“Whatever struggle you are in today, know this: If you can find your way from the darkness to the light, and I believe you can, whether it is through medication, or religion, or therapy, or a friend, or music, or art, whatever gets you through the night, on the other side, you’ll be transformed,” Warren said. “You’ll be closer to the person you’re supposed to be doing the work only you can do. And you’ll have this beautiful story of healing, a story you can use to help others.”
Warren said that if he could go back and erase the pain and suffering he experienced, he wouldn’t do it because those moments are what brought him to where he is today. He explained that his moments of suffering are the moments he appreciates the most, and his past with mental illness and struggles with suicide are the reasons that he is so motivated to do everything that he can for suicide prevention.
“Sometimes it is the smallest actions we can take that have the most significant, powerful impact in a friend’s life or a stranger’s life,” Warren said.
As of this year, the PostSecret community has raised more than a $1 million for suicide prevention.
Warren explained that battling the stigma surrounding mental illnesses can save lives because people perceive mental illness as shameful which can sometimes keep them from seeking the help they need.
“I’ve learned to have patience,” Warren said. “Patience with the world, and patience with myself because there is always hope. It just doesn’t always come on a time schedule we like it to.”
PostSecret was created as a way for people to connect with others who are feeling the same. Warren reminisced on a particularly memorable postcard he once received. It was a photo of a bedroom door with holes in it, and the message said the door was broken because the mother was trying to break in to continue beating him. The same day the secret was posted on the site, Warren began to receive emails from young people about their own broken doors and stories. More than a dozen bedroom doors riddled with holes were posted online. A viewer wrote to Warren saying the postcard made her feel like she wasn’t the only one with this secret. It helped lighten her burden.
The second most common secret Warren said he receives is, “the idea that so many of us are someplace on that journey trying to find that one person, that one place where we feel safe, where we can be our full and true selves with, that person that you don’t have to keep any secrets from.”
At the end of the talk, he invited members of the audience to stand up and share their secrets. Audience stories ranged from funny memories to deep, emotional thoughts and feelings. Some attendees talked about their own experiences with PostSecret.
Other audience members voiced their fears and spoke about their own experiences with losing family members to alcoholism and suicide.
Warren spoke on the importance of secrets in our everyday lives, and the problems they may pose.
“I believe we all have secrets, and we all keep our secrets in our own box, and every day I think we make the decision about what to do with our box,” Warren said. “Whether to bury it down deep in silence like a coffin, forget about it, or to bring it into the light, open it up and share it like a gift.”
