“I thought about how there are two types of secrets: the kind you want to keep in, and the kind you don’t dare to let out.”  – Ally Carter

Exploring the idea of vulnerability, I decided to conduct an experiment which would explore our mental vulnerability.

The experiment I wished to carry out consisted of me writing four of my secrets and stories that nobody knows onto paper, they would be face down so people could not see them, unless they wished to trade. I introduced my experiment as follows:

“Here I have four pieces of paper they have on them either a secret or a story, you can read one of your choice if you write on this paper a secret of your own. If you never tell mine I will never tell yours I will read it fold it and then shred it so it will remain a secret only we share. We draw straws if I pull the short straw you read my secret first, if you pull the  short straw then you will write me a secret first”

I would then hold out the straws until one of us had pulled the short straw, this instantly gauged a reaction, as there was the uncertainty of whoever’s secret was shared first there was the possibility they would not receive a secret in return. However everybody was fair and secrets were always exchanged. The following was said about my experiment:

‘I’ve never told anybody what I have just told you, I feel a lot better, it’s so weird we hardly no each other and you now no more about me than most’
‘I can’t believe i’m crying that really hit a nerve’
‘ I feel really wary that I have shared this, I won’t tell anyone what I’ve read please don’t tell anyone what I’ve wrote, I can’t believe I’ve just done that’

This made me realise how vulnerable and fragile people can be, I had the ability to provoke reactions from instances from my past, likewise they certainly got reactions from me. Not only did I feel vulnerable as people knew things about me I would never normally share, but suddenly I had thirty secrets I had been trusted to keep. I was trusted not to judge, not to comment, not to criticise and not to share.