This is an ABC podcast.

Okay, here is the irony of all ironies.

Michael Slepian researches the psychology of secrets.

But what he didn't know until about a decade ago

was that his family had a major secret that they were keeping from him.

One they planned never to reveal.

Until out of the blue, they did. Yeah, so I had just spent the entire day on interview at Columbia, where I presented my research on secrecy, and at the very end of the day, close to midnight,

I receive a call for my dad, a missed call, and then I receive a second miss call for my dad.

I'm thinking, oh, I know something really tragic has happened for him to be calling me twice,

so late at night.

And then I called him back after this very long day, and he proceeds to tell me that

he is unable to have children. He's telling me that he's not biologically my father. You know,

something like that is, of course, really surprising to learn, but, you know, I was also wondering,

well, why was this secret kept from me?

Who else knew? And it turned out that my entire family, everyone apart from me and my younger

brother, had known this secret this whole time. I think that was even more surprising,

just that our entire family had been keeping this secret for our entire lives.

You're listening to All In The Mind. I'm Sana Khadar.

Secrets come in all shapes and sizes, from small and innocuous to big and awful.

Why do we keep them? What does it cost us when we do?

And so this secret was so secret that you didn't even know it existed.

Like there was no whispers or an inkling that there was something hidden in your family.

...