It would be nice if we all had control over every bit of information that got out about us. We don’t. If you want to keep a secret, though, you can’t tell anyone. If the secret is something you do, then you can’t let anyone see you do it.
Unfortunately, people are not always nice. There are jealousies and competitions and angers, and politics and who knows what else. So, when someone finds out information about another person, they can keep it to themselves, or they can tell others, or they can print it in the papers.
My feeling is that if you don’t want people to know something, don’t tell a soul. Once the knowledge is out of your hands, you have no control over it. People will gossip. That’s what people do.
When I talk about myself here, I assume that, even though I’m anonymous, it is likely that somebody will figure out who I am. Fortunately, I can’t be blackmailed with anyone I really care about. They already know everything I’ve said here.
I’m bipolar and there are a lot of people in my life who don’t know that, and I really don’t want to be outted about that. I don’t want to have to deal with explaining; I don’t want to have to deal with the questions, the fear, the stigma, the accusations of ineptness, laziness, or of being a fake. However, I won’t be surprised if I get these questions some day, and I’ll feel like it was something I brought on myself, by opening my mouth about it in the first place.