Family Secrets, Shame, and the Cost of Silence
Episode 29 with Jill Griffin & Molly Bierman
In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Molly Bierman and Jill Griffin explore the quiet, complicated dynamics that live inside family systems and why shame, secrecy, and unspoken rules often keep people from asking for help.
Drawing from their work in behavioral health and their own lived experiences, they unpack how families protect appearances, avoid hard conversations, and unintentionally pass coping patterns from one generation to the next. From parentification and people-pleasing to boundary setting, truth-telling, and raising emotionally aware children, this conversation looks at what it really takes to change family dynamics without blowing everything up.
This episode is for anyone who feels the tension at family gatherings, carries unspoken responsibility, or senses that something needs to shift but doesn’t know where to start. It’s a reminder that meaningful change often begins with one person getting curious, telling the truth, and choosing to show up differently.
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Molly Bierman (00:18)
Guys, welcome back. We are charging the way into 2026 and I felt as though it was going to be important to talk about
some of the families that we impact and how when you're working in the behavioral health space, it really is important to understand the nuances and the challenges that families face with being able to tell the truth and being able to stand in a room or on Zoom or in person with an individual and share some of the like really darkest parts of what's going on in their family system.
and being able to ask for help. So I think it's twofold. It's one, opening up the secrecy and two, it's allowing themselves to be vulnerable enough to ask for help. So today in this episode, we're gonna cover some of the challenges with that, some of the, you know, really masks that people wear to look strong on the outside and to hold their status in whatever way that looks.
and be able to shield either even their own family, their work family, their communities and keep them at arm's length so they're not able to see inside of what's happening. And hopefully we'll be able to share some things with you and some nuggets of information that have been able to break down those barriers and really offer more community to the family than they even anticipated they would be able to to gain through this painful journey. So.
Let's get into it.
Jill, you know, when we think about our families and the families that we've worked with and our own personal experience with family, what would you say is some of the more shameful?
reasons or preconceived reasons by the individual of why they're not sharing and why they're not exposing what's happening in their system.
Jill Griffin (02:13)
And I would add to that why they're not getting help, right? Because I think a lot of people avoid getting help because they don't want to have to share, right? Shame is a really powerful emotion. And I think shame holds people back because they think I'm going to be judged. I think in more high net worth or...
you know, community connected people also. Like I think there's a myth around if people find this out, like I'm going to lose business. I'm going to lose status. I'm going to lose, you know, friends, connections, all those things. And I also think there's a misunderstanding around like what help looks like. And so I think that people talk themselves out of getting help because they feel like, oh, it's fine. Like we don't need it.
Molly Bierman (02:47)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (03:01)
because they don't have those examples in their lives. But I think shame is the biggest barrier to exposing those things, which is ironic because, you know, we've talked about this before, Brene Brown really talks about sharing these things and putting it out there and exposing these truths that you hold. That's actually the antidote to shame. Because once you get into a space where you can share with somebody and they can hold space for you and say, like, I understand or I get it.
Molly Bierman (03:02)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
you
Jill Griffin (03:29)
Like the shame kind of comes down and that wall can come down so you can access some help around it. Some of the more challenging cases that I've worked with, with our families with incest, to be honest with you, I think that's like a huge incest and or sexual abuse by a child in the family. where it was like, you know, a child, you know, had something happened and I think there's a lot of shame and guilt with.
parents, right? Like where they couldn't protect their child or they caused this. ⁓ you know, just a reminder that something denial is a is a defense mechanism that, you know, our brains need in some ways to protect ourselves. But it's a defense mechanism that, you know, it doesn't mean that we don't know something happened. But if we kind of pretend it doesn't happen, like it protects us from falling apart. It protects our ego, right?
Molly Bierman (03:58)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
And what are some of the ways that we've seen that the individual does end up seeking relief, right? So if it's protected and it's in secrecy, whatever it is, right? Yes, of course, sexual abuse, incest. Obviously, there's also things that aren't as egregious that take place in a family system, whether it's just not being able to share in a certain way or...
feeling immense expectation. We talked a lot about that in our episode with Justin Karate ⁓ some months back. And so when we think about the maladaptive coping skills that the individuals end up capitalizing on because they don't feel another way out, then that compounds the shame and guilt because there's this incident that took place and doesn't always have to be, but typically there's some sort of catalyst.
Jill Griffin (04:53)
yeah.
Molly Bierman (05:14)
Then the individual starts using some sort of harmful behavior. I mean, we could list a variety of them, addiction being one of them, addiction to, you know, cutting, sex and love, gambling, all of the things.
And now it's compounded because now the family is struggling to say, well, I definitely don't want to expose this. And then if I expose this, then that's also going to be exposed. And it puts people in this bind where they kind of turn a blind eye and they allow their... Again, I mean, think it goes back to the original kind of mantra that I always share with families, which is once the family has exhibited or really...
has endured enough consequence, then they might actually take a step in a different direction. But I think both the families and the identified patient need to both have that equal experience where consequences need to outweigh the relief of how they've been operating as a system. So.
Jill Griffin (06:14)
Yeah, and I think those examples, right, that I provided are like the extreme end, right, of like shame and secrecy of like, we're hiding this thing that happened. This is like, we're keeping this tight. There's also more subtle ways that I think I end up seeing this in the therapy room where adults are acting out some of their childhood just traits or the way that they have learned.
Molly Bierman (06:28)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (06:42)
I'll give examples of like, you know, if you're in a family where you know something's off with somebody in the family, let's say, let's say mom, you know, she has her own mental health issues, maybe she goes on and off her medications or she has mood swings or, you know, she's unpredictable. Sometimes she's yelling at you. Sometimes she's in bed four days at a time. Like there's just, there's this strange behavior in the house, but no one talks about it, right?
Molly Bierman (06:48)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (07:09)
And so as a child, when you have a child's understanding of the world, you think that mommy doesn't want to be around you, right? So you may overperform, you may do things that you take on an adult role at a very young age, right? To like maybe take care of a sibling or take care of the house or to get the attention, positive attention from the parent, right? And so, yeah.
Molly Bierman (07:11)
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
And they call that parentified. You are parentified,
right? That you have now taken on the responsibilities that the elder should be taking on, essentially.
Jill Griffin (07:43)
And so you start as a child making up your own reason and rationale of why mom is behaving in this way. You you make it about you because that's developmentally appropriate. When you're a child, you're self-centered, everything's about you. That's why when parents get divorced, when children are at a young age, they think, it's my fault because everything, they think they cause everything. If you have children, you know this, right?
Molly Bierman (08:05)
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (08:08)
So what happens to this adult that's living with this unpredictable parent is that they become an adult who thinks that they're responsible for everyone, right? So it lets you people pleasing behaviors. It lends to, can't disappoint anybody because then they might not be well and you're overperforming and you know, the leads to like burnout. We see this all the time, right? So I think it can also be subtle things where stuff's happening in the house. And now that I'm a parent and I have children that go into other children's houses, right? With their family systems.
Molly Bierman (08:15)
bright.
Yes.
Jill Griffin (08:38)
I'm always picking up on what children are saying about their parents and what goes on in the house because I feel like I know a little bit. I can pick up a little bit more about things because I've just heard so many stories over my career, right? But it's like your stuff, it is double edged.
Molly Bierman (08:54)
Right, naturally, yeah. Which also is double-edged because
you're constantly like... And I think also with social media, like the influx of the content of like how to parent and how to be a good parent and what to be mindful of and what are the signs and symptoms and what are the signals. It's it's overload. I mean it really is overload because...
Jill Griffin (09:17)
Yes.
Molly Bierman (09:17)
I mean
really the takeaway there is I just need to keep my kid in a box and never let them out into the world because it's so, you know, creates this fear that is overwhelming.
Jill Griffin (09:30)
I think, well, I don't get overly fearful about it. It's just me being aware because I do think there's certain homes where I'm like, just don't know that family well enough and I'll have that conversation with my oldest. But I've also had to have conversations with my oldest who was a female and she's been over at people's houses with older brothers. And I've had to have the conversation around like, listen, because that's statistically where some of those first sexual encounters happen and it ends up being a secret.
You know, like again, I've done EMDR with enough clients to know like the things that happened in childhood that seem like, oh, it wasn't a big deal, but you're now in your adulthood thinking about these things, right? But the thing is, is that there's internal family secrets too, because those children often kept that from their parents. They never shared that.
Molly Bierman (10:19)
Right, which is a whole nother kind of segment we could get into and I think that as families start to, you know, be able to kind of change the tides and I think that a lot of times in young people right now we're talking about the younger generation calling up and calling out, right? Calling up and calling out some of the behaviors or challenges that no longer serve the family system. And so, you know, I think if anybody, anyone who's listening, it doesn't have to be as
Jill Griffin (10:22)
That's a whole nother.
Molly Bierman (10:48)
blatant as someone being abused or someone who is in their active addiction. Right? Like it doesn't have to be, but think about you sitting, I mean, we just came off the heels of the holiday season. So think about systems, dynamics, things that took place around the holidays, right? Everybody can probably pull out something that's like, oh, if we could actually address this a little bit more appropriately, our family could probably operate in a little bit of a healthier way.
Jill Griffin (10:52)
I can believe this.
Molly Bierman (11:16)
Right? Anyone could probably name a variety of things that took place over the holidays. Whether it was shielding something from grandma, whether it was appeasing your parents, whether it was balancing, you know, a messy divorce, whether it was trying not to, you know, parent someone else's kid. I mean, a variety of different things can take place. And so what we really thought about when we were thinking about this episode is how
how do families start to expose parts that might need more support? And again, that doesn't need to be anything that is so glaring. can just be, hey, I've noticed that our adult kids don't communicate well, right? That there's some underlying resentment and challenge and we would love if we could have a more, you know.
comfortable space to operate in, right? Again, that typically starts with the parents, that typically starts with the family being aligned in some level of a primary purpose, right? What does that look like? How do we wanna behave? What are our core values? I mean, I've heard families doing mission statements, right? Like, what is the mission of our family? What is the vision of our family? How do we walk together as a system? And so I think it's something that we often just...
Just are like, ⁓ we just toss it up as this is our family and this is the way we operate and I think if we could say it doesn't have to be I'm gonna blow everything up. I'm gonna go no contact I mean, that's a whole nother situation that's going on in our you know in our in our world, but it can be hey I'm gonna maybe pull the pull the covers down a little bit on this and I really want to look at this and I really want to maybe make a little bit of a change in my family where I don't carry this shame or guilt or resentment or fear every time I have to be at a gathering
Jill Griffin (13:01)
I I get what you're saying, which I feel like would be the ideal situation. But I also know there's probably people listening with the same thought I'm about to say, is that like, yeah, that sounds like an ideal situation to be able to just say, hey guys, kumbaya, I think we should maybe look at this dynamic and change it. But the reality is, is that families have these dynamics and systems and the way that they operate for a reason, right? And so I also...
You know, I do think there's been an uptick, especially with the political climate, especially with all the recent just like, I just think a lot of black and white thinking and social media exacerbates a lot of this. But there has been more messaging around like, yeah, just don't go to the family gathering. Like, just don't be around your family. Like, just cut them off because they don't appreciate your belief system. But I think it all, it just starts with like curiosity and communication.
think a lot of this boils down to, we are in a space where we don't wanna tolerate hearing about other people's opinions or belief or values that don't align with ours. We have this really low threshold for having that discourse. I feel like a lot of that comes from, and there's a generational gap, there 1000 % is. There's things that were appropriate for like my grandparents that,
Molly Bierman (14:13)
Yes.
Jill Griffin (14:24)
or even my parents that I would feel like is not appropriate. Some of that happened at Thanksgiving this year. And I was like, yeah, we're actually not gonna talk like that in front of my children. So I think...
Molly Bierman (14:36)
I mean, when I say though, I don't mean someone's gonna go in and address their family. So let me wind that back a little bit, because I can feel like that that would be overwhelming. I mean that maybe one person in the family is willing to talk to a professional to start to maybe do something different. So maybe one person's willing to lean into the process, because what we see is it usually only takes one person. One person to lean in.
and rip the bandaid off. One person to lean in and be the truth teller. One person to lean in and be the whistleblower. then at, and I mean, Jill knows this, I tend to be the whistleblower. ⁓ But, and I feel like you are, you are too. But I think that when we actually are able to allow that person to say, yeah, your whole family may not be on board with this, but we can start to help you with your part, right? And each person has a part in the system. So,
Jill Griffin (15:03)
Totally.
No one's surprised by that.
Molly Bierman (15:29)
That's really what I mean by that. Somebody being willing to peek under the hood.
Jill Griffin (15:31)
Well, that's the
work that I do with clients around their family stuff, because listen, my family is great, but my family has their shit. Every family has their... You want to know why? Because we're all human. So every human... I haven't met a human on this earth that I believe every... I agree with everything they believe. Not one. And that's great, because if we all believe the same things, I promise you it would be a boring life. If we all like the same things and we all believe the same things, like it would just be boring.
Molly Bierman (15:39)
Mm-hmm. Totally. Right.
Very good.
Jill Griffin (15:59)
But I do have a lot of conversations with clients. So there is a difference between some of that stuff that I talked about in the beginning, where like there's been abuse, right? And I've had to be the bearer of bad news with clients where I've had to really educate them around this is abusive behavior. I think sometimes there is, help them come to that conclusion on their own. But like, I think sometimes that's normalized, cause that's just how it was. And it's like, ⁓ this is not.
Molly Bierman (16:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (16:27)
This is an abnormal situation.
Molly Bierman (16:28)
Right.
Jill Griffin (16:30)
However, I also think there's these other moments where people just realize like, I don't like how I feel when I go over there. I don't like how I feel. I don't like the arguing. I don't like this. And really it boils down to like boundary setting and what you're willing to put up with or change, right? Like how are you willing to, cause that is uncomfortable for people. And you know, so an example would be like, hey, telling, saying to one of your parents, like, I'm not gonna listen to you.
Molly Bierman (16:48)
Right.
Jill Griffin (16:59)
you know, talk about mom or dad anymore like this. Like if you really have a problem with them, you need to deal with that amongst you two and maybe go to therapy. I can help you find some resources, right? But I'm not gonna be the third wheel and listen to all your, you know, you bitch about them every time I come over. ⁓ You know, or it's like setting boundaries around like, hey, this was one that I had early on. I come from a long line of women who have diet culture in my house.
Molly Bierman (17:15)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (17:28)
My grandmother was a lifelong Weight Watchers member. And there was always talk, and I can remember it when I was a young girl, my great-grandmother talking about weight, talking about what you can eat, what you can't eat, being fat, calling themselves fat, all this. And I set a boundary from a very early age, like, we're not gonna do that. And so I was the first person in the family to call out, like, hey, we're not doing this anymore, because now I have a daughter, and my daughter's not gonna grow up not liking her body.
If I hear that, like I will be correcting, like just as a warning, I will be calling you out because I don't want her growing up like that. And so far she hasn't and...
Molly Bierman (18:05)
How did that go?
Did you feel like it was received, not received?
Jill Griffin (18:10)
I definitely had to like stick to the boundary and like call them out when it happened because it's like, it's such a, this is, I don't feel like people really give grace, for and credit. It's like, because there's a generational shift, because we're so much more aware, we have more education. We have more like access to all of these things like, than our parents did or other generations did. So we expect them to just get it and change. And it's like, you're asking a 50, 60.
Molly Bierman (18:13)
Right.
content. ⁓
Jill Griffin (18:37)
70 year old person to do things differently, like, it's just not gonna happen overnight. Like, you have to give people some grace too, and like being able to show up and change and like meet you where you're at.
Molly Bierman (18:49)
Right. Yeah, and I think, you know, when we're asking someone to start to look at their part or look at their process, I think it's really sharing some of your own personal experiences and saying, hey, this is how it affected me, right? These are the things you can continue to operate in the lane that you're operating, but this is how it's affected me. And I really need to start to have.
Jill Griffin (18:52)
Thank
Molly Bierman (19:10)
clarity, really need to start being truthful about it, you know, and so...
Jill Griffin (19:15)
It goes back to discourse though. It goes back to having the uncomfortable conversation. It goes back to, know, what are we talking about around the dinner table? Are we just doing like the, you know, face value surface level bullshit? Or are we able to say like, hey, this ends up coming up a lot when you start having kids too. I will tell you. I think once you have children,
Molly Bierman (19:34)
Yes.
Jill Griffin (19:37)
and you are about to have your own children in your family system, you start seeing your family system in a very different way. And I have seen countless people come into my office, you know, usually between birth of a child to about five years old. that, when they are raising children around that age is when they kind of realize, dude, my family's fucked.
Molly Bierman (19:59)
Well, I also think I had a client who was sharing kind of their experience around the dinner table and there was a large dinner table with a lot of adults and there was a behavior that was going on where somebody was acting inappropriately, right? Likely altered by substances. And in that moment, the only person that said something was one of the children at the table.
And so I feel like we learn a lot from our kids because they don't have a filter. The reason why the adults probably didn't say anything likely is that there's fear, there's sweeping things under the rug, there's secrecy, there's shame, there's guilt, there's this, there's that. And the young child didn't have any of that and just called it right out, you know? And so I think when we're starting to
observe these things in multi-generational systems, right? We're not talking about just one layer, right? We're talking about the different layers of the onion from grandparents to great-grandchildren and everybody in between.
You will slowly watch the system flow into what is the majority rather than the minority. The kids aren't going to be the ones to change the system. But if you can observe as the adult and have clearer eyes, then you might say, oh, I actually do want to do things differently here. know, I mean, my son's the first to call things out. I mean, he told me the other day he was like, you need to go upstairs and take a nap.
I'm like, because I was being short or I was, you know, not, you know, vibing with the vibe. Like I was, he was like, I'm done with you. And he's three. You know, again, they pick up on energy, they pick up on, you know, behaviors.
Jill Griffin (21:48)
Well, that's the thing. It
really highlighted to me how much children pick up on things. Even if you don't have the memory of what happened as a child, it lives in your body. So when things start to happen, somebody starts yelling or somebody comes into your space and you start lighting up in your body, it's like, because at some point you must have had like, there was
Molly Bierman (22:00)
Of course.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jill Griffin (22:12)
something that happened in your life. It doesn't mean it was like a big traumatic thing, but like you had an internal reaction. Your nervous system had a reaction, right? And so I've always just been really conscious since I've had children of like just how I'm showing up around them because it does make a difference. It's not, they're not always going to remember. They're not always going to remember what you said. And this isn't such a cliche thing. They don't always remember what you say, but they will remember how you made them feel because
Molly Bierman (22:16)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Mm-hmm.
So true.
They probably won't remember what you say. They're not gonna remember what you say. Right. Right.
Jill Griffin (22:43)
That is safety. Safety is a feeling. Safety is a feeling in our nervous
system of like that gut feeling that like everything's just okay. You know, I also.
Molly Bierman (22:53)
And I think
what this ties into too, when you think about family systems is the way that you show up in your family system, your nuclear family system is very similar to how do you show up in your work family system. So again, what are you hiding, not speaking up about, fearful of saying, how are you growing? Because it all is interconnected.
Jill Griffin (23:19)
We just talked about this the other day though. I couldn't lie. Like I, I'm probably too honest. I'm probably, I can't keep any secrets. Like that's just, it's, it's, it's, you know, for me, not, it's not a healthy thing. You know, we talk about that a lot in the 12 step community, like secrets keep you sick, right? But I'm probably.
Molly Bierman (23:31)
Me neither.
Jill Griffin (23:44)
Just because it's how I process things too, like I'm just always... But with my kids, from a young age, like, I've always been open with them about what's going on. I talk them about what's going on. I use age-appropriate language, obviously. I'm not talking to them like they're adults, but like, they know the deal. They know to ask me questions about stuff. They know, like, they have language, I guess, of a therapist's mother. I don't know, but things are not secrets. We don't keep secrets from them either.
And sometimes, you know, it's not appropriate to discuss with them in their age, right? But we can also call it out like, hey, that wasn't nice for them, for this person to do, and this is why, it make people uncomfortable. And that's not, you don't ever have to be in spaces where you're uncomfortable, you know, whether that's family or not, you know, it's just using the language around to, so that they can understand. Because going back to my previous statement, children will make an explanation in their head.
Molly Bierman (24:16)
Sure.
Jill Griffin (24:40)
from a child's perspective, which means that that explanation likely is not going to make any sense.
Molly Bierman (24:43)
lens. Yeah.
And also just being able to apologize. I mean, I think we, you and I can relate in this. Like we grew up in a, in an era where...
Jill Griffin (24:54)
totally.
You weren't apologizing to your children.
Molly Bierman (25:00)
Never!
Jill Griffin (25:02)
Zero shot. Listen, I apologize to my children probably weekly. I'm a yeller. I'm a yeller. If I reach my over-simulation maximum saturation point, I'm liable to yell and there's shit everywhere and nobody's listening to me. I'll send out a warning, but we're gonna be yelling. But I apologize and I don't know. I don't think that's gonna be the thing. They're gonna be like, my mom was a fucking yeller when she was.
Molly Bierman (25:04)
Never one time.
Me too.
Yeah, you're at your max.
Jill Griffin (25:31)
They're, it's just like what it is, right? And my kids kind of do it. That's how it is. I don't know what to say, but I apologize for him. Like that wasn't right. I shouldn't have done that, you know, but, but also listen the first time. I want
Molly Bierman (25:34)
You're Italian. That's what it is.
Yeah, but you know, back in the day that wasn't the case. You heard yelling, you were running.
Jill Griffin (25:47)
that.
Molly Bierman (25:48)
But I do think there is, those are some of the things. And if we are starting to do that now, I think it's also being willing to listen and hear out other people's perceptions, and especially as adults. Like if we can't do it as an adult, if we can't apologize as an adult, it's gonna be really hard to apologize to our children. So I think a lot of this was born out of how do we hold space for people that don't know how to do any of this yet.
or haven't tried or haven't been exposed or I think I hear a lot or I know I hear a lot, like how do you work with so many families? I can't work with families. It's so hard to work with families. And I think that a lot of it is just at times just holding space for the dysfunction to be able to just even be able to get to the place where you can have honest dialogue and be transparent and
Reframe and hear, you know have them hear the truth because a lot of times when they're in Disagreement or discord in their system, they can't hear the truth, right? They feel slighted in some way or they feel like the person's perception is off or they feel some sort of you know negative impression and so it's about building rapport, but then also being able to tell them the truth and so
I don't know. think permission today, know, short episode, but permission today to be the truth teller, you know, to tell families that you're working with or staff that you're working with. Tell them the truth, you know? I mean...
Jill Griffin (27:14)
Yeah.
Change
the, be the generational change maker. That's what I think it is because I see myself as changing a lot of the direction and, you know, reversing some of the trauma of previous generations, right? Like speaking up and saying something and doing something different. You don't have to do what your family's always done.
Molly Bierman (27:37)
Yeah.
That's it, guys.
Jill Griffin (27:40)
That's
it. Don't forget to like and follow our podcast, please. We would really love it if you went to YouTube and followed us there as well. ⁓
Molly Bierman (27:51)
and left us a review
and really give us some feedback. We need it.
Jill Griffin (27:55)
Yeah, we would love,
we want to hear from you. We want to hear what topics you want to hear about, people you want to have on here. And we have some exciting things for us ahead in 2026. So I hope you stay along for the ride.
Molly Bierman (28:07)
Goodbye.
Jill Griffin (28:07)
Peace.
