Saying It Out Loud: The Truth I Carried All My Life

There is a kind of secret that isn't about something you did. It's about who you are. Those are the heaviest ones, because you can never put them down. You carry them into every room, every conversation, every friendship, and you learn to hold them so quietly that after a while even you stop noticing the weight. Almost.

I have carried one of those my whole life. I am a Tasmanian Aboriginal man.

For most of my years, almost nobody knew. Not because I wasn't proud of where I come from, but because I was afraid. Afraid of persecution from both sides. Afraid that some people would judge me and reject me for being Aboriginal at all. And afraid, just as deeply, that others would look at me and decide I wasn't enough. Not connected enough. Not accepted enough. When you fear the judgment of both sides, silence starts to look like the only safe country. So that's where I lived.

What hiding really costs

People think a secret like this is just one thing you don't mention. It isn't. It's a thousand small edits, made every day. It's the story about your family you tell only halfway. It's the conversation about identity you steer somewhere else. It's hearing people talk carelessly about your own mob and saying nothing, because saying something would give you away.

Hiding kept me safe, or so I told myself. But hiding never once brought me peace. You cannot feel fully accepted while you are hiding, because the person being accepted isn't fully you. That is its own kind of loneliness, and I know now that it sat underneath so many of the other struggles I've written about here, the searching for belonging, the feeling of treading water, the sense that something true in me was waiting to be found.

Reflect: the truth doesn't go away

Reflection is where this began to shift. When I finally sat still with myself, honestly, the truth was always there waiting. Not angry. Not demanding. Just waiting, the way truth does. I had to ask myself a hard question: if R.O.D. is about living with presence and purpose, how could I keep teaching that while hiding something at the centre of who I am?

Overcome: fear is a wall like any other

I have spent years learning that the wall in front of you is rarely as solid as it looks. This wall, the fear of what people would think, of being claimed by no one and judged by everyone, was the oldest wall I had. Overcoming it didn't mean the fear disappeared. It meant deciding the fear no longer got the final say. It meant accepting that some people may judge me, from either side, and that their judgment does not get to define me or my belonging.

Drive: saying it, one step at a time

So this is my step. Saying it plainly, in my own words, on my own page. I am a Tasmanian Aboriginal man. I carried that in silence for a lifetime, and I am not carrying it in silence anymore.

I don't share this for sympathy. I share it because I know I'm not the only one holding something like this. Maybe yours isn't heritage. Maybe it's a chapter of your story you've never told, a truth about yourself you've never let anyone see. Whatever it is, I want you to know what I've learned: the secret doesn't protect you. It just keeps you apart, from other people and from yourself.

You don't have to say your truth to the whole world today. But say it to yourself, honestly, out loud. That's where the wall starts to come down. It did for me.

Since I wrote this, I went and found them

When I first published this post I could tell you what I was, but I could not tell you a single name. That has changed. The names, the faces and the records now have their own page: The Line.