Dragons Do Exist: A Christian Counselor on Shameful Secrets

One of my favorite books is a children’s book by Jack Kent, entitled There’s No Such Thing as a Dragon. Aside from finding dragons whimsical and creative, I love this book for its simple yet often overlooked message. Young Billy Bixbee awakens one morning to find a tiny dragon sitting at the foot of his bed. He tells his mother about the dragon and she responds, “There is no such thing as a dragon.” Every time she says this phrase the dragon grows bigger. The latter part of the book shows the dragon running down the street wearing the house. He has become so big that the house cannot contain him and he is exposed to the whole neighborhood. Finally, Billy convinces his mother that dragons do exist and the dragon begins to shrink down to the size of a kitten. The dragon then becomes manageable and Billy’s mother acknowledges that she can handle a dragon that size.

Secrets Become Like Dragons

This story is directly related to how secrets play out in our lives. Imagine a child whose parent was supposed to protect him from abuse, but instead was the perpetrator of abuse. Imagine a soldier who has returned from deployment, having seen and even been a part of horrific acts of violence, but believes nobody back home will understand. Unfortunately, most secrets develop out of some type of trauma. We are exposed to a traumatic situation and are left to try to make sense of the brokenness and destruction. Rather than looking for someone to help us through this, we stuff it down, keep silent, and a secret forms. Carrying that initial secret often does not feel like too much of a burden, however, the longer the secret is held, the bigger it seems to become. Soon our lives feel out of control as the secret starts to consume us and to affect our everyday functioning.

Secrets Keep People Sick

The child who was abused by his parent may never reach out for help, fearing that it is unsafe to trust adults. Even after becoming an adult he may still not trust other adults. Think about how this one secret has affected the course of his life. He may never experience the joy and satisfaction he could get from having an open, honest relationship. The soldier who returned from combat may never talk about his trauma. Perhaps he is afraid of being rejected by others for things he has done, or maybe he simply does not want to expose another person to the horror of what he has seen. The secret he keeps causes him to withdraw from his family and friends and instead he may find solace in a bottle of whiskey. Soon enough his life will become a shell of what it used to be and he cannot find his way out.

Naming the Dragon Brings Healing

Holding secrets can be compared to having a deep infection in medical terms. The infection grows and the only way to stop it is to debride the infection by removing the unhealthy tissue. This is often very painful and unpleasant, and involves killing even the healthy tissue surrounding the infection in order to promote full healing. Through this debridement, the infection becomes manageable. No patient wants to feel the pain and discomfort of debridement, but they are willing to go through this pain in order to kill the infection and to heal. Secrets are the same as this infection. Left unexposed and unattended, they will grow and continue to cause unnecessary pain and sickness. Eventually the secret carries you, just as the dragon carried Billy Bixbee’s house. Exposing the secret, naming the dragon, will be painful and cause discomfort in areas both obvious and unknown, but it will create healing in the process.

Bringing Secrets into the Light in Christian Counseling

In my previous article, I briefly addressed the topic of shame and argued that one of the ways of dealing with shame is to expose it. The same is true of secrets. You need to expose your secret to someone trustworthy. The more the secret is exposed, the more light is brought to the situation, and the more manageable it becomes. It takes a lot of work to address secrets, but through it your secret will eventually shrink to kitten size and become a part of your story, helping to shape you into the person you want to become. That dragon doesn’t have to be a beast that haunts you and creates turmoil in your life. Christian counseling can be a place where you can find someone trustworthy who can help you bear the weight of whatever secrets you may be carrying. You don’t have to hide from them anymore. If you are carrying a secret, or multiple secrets, I encourage you to contact a Christian counselor at Tacoma Christian Counseling. As a Christian counselor, I am committed to being trustworthy and nonjudgmental and to offering a safe environment in which you can tell your story. Together we can expose the secrets you have tried so hard to hide as we walk toward freedom and joy.