Amelia: I Kept My Abuse As A Child & As An Adult A Secret For YearsAmelia: I Kept My Abuse As A Child & As An Adult A Secret For Years
Secret Life
Secrets Set You Free: Letting Go of Your Burdens and Finding Joy with Amelia and Brianne
28:39•6 Mar 2023
Letting Go of Secrets: Amelia’s Story of Abuse, Shame and Freedom
Episode Overview
- Secrets can feel like heavy "energetic rocks" that weigh down relationships, joy and everyday life.
- Abusive relationships often build up gradually through emotional and mental conditioning, making it hard to simply walk away.
- A suicide attempt may be a desperate cry for relief rather than a clear wish to die, and seeking immediate help can change the story.
- Sharing a secret with safe, trusted people can feel like lifting a boulder off the chest, even if a vulnerability hangover comes afterwards.
- A gentle first step is to admit the secret to yourself—saying it out loud or writing it down—before choosing one trusted person to witness it without judgement.
“I think of secrets as like these energetic rocks that you carry in your heart, and the more that you hold on to them, the heavier life gets.”
What can we learn from those who have battled addiction and kept painful secrets locked away for years? This episode of Secret Life centres on Amelia, who shares how a lifetime of secrecy around childhood abuse and an abusive college relationship weighed her down like "energetic rocks" she carried in her heart. Amelia explains how cultural messages taught her to minimise her childhood abuse, convincing her it "didn't matter" because it was in the past.
She later found herself in a coercive, emotionally, mentally and physically abusive relationship as a young adult, hiding everything from friends and family out of shame and fear. She describes how subtle conditioning, manipulation and shame kept her trapped, and why "it's not that simple" to just leave an abusive partner. At her lowest point, Amelia shares a harrowing story of a suicide attempt driven by desperation to escape relentless harassment and emotional torment.
She clarifies that she didn't want to die; she wanted the pain and abuse to stop. Asking a friend to take her to hospital became a turning point she later spoke about with a close group, describing the release as feeling like "a big boulder" was lifted from her chest. Across the conversation, Amelia and host Brianne Davis-Gantt talk about the hidden cost of secrets: disconnection, exhaustion and the slow build-up of emotional calluses.
They use simple but powerful images—a pebble in your shoe, layers of armour—to explain how secrecy feels protective yet quietly isolates you from love and connection. For anyone carrying unspoken trauma, Amelia offers practical first steps: admit the secret to yourself, say it out loud if you can, then choose one trusted person to simply witness it without fixing anything. The message is clear: you don't have to dump everything at once, but each secret you release lightens the load.
If you're holding something in your chest, this conversation might nudge you to ask: what would it feel like to finally put that rock down?
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