These folks decided that the best place to confess their deep, dark secrets was the internet. Makes sense. These secrets should never get out.
1. Guilty, Your Honor
I've been working as a lawyer for the last three years. But I have a ruinous secret. I never finished my law degree and didn't pass four of the subjects I had to. I faked my Bar certification, oiling the palms of the people who work at the Bar association to get myself enrolled. And now…I think it’s about to come crashing down around my ears.
I've been a litigator and screwed up my current case, lied to my client, and he got screwed by the court yesterday. The judge advised him to approach the Bar association for possible restitution and they have set up a committee to investigate into me and my work. The committee includes a senior lawyer who has always been suspicious of me.
One of my classmates works for him and he must have mentioned my problems in law school. He very categorically told me that he will be looking into my law degree. I can’t make amends. The university I had studied in split off its law school into a separate university and contacted me during that process to inquire whether I would like to continue my classes there.
I never replied. Even if I manage to pass my subjects before the investigation takes off, my degree will be from a different university from the one mentioned in my enrollment documents. I'm looking at some extremely sizable claims from my current as well as past clients, not to mention time behind bars. And the blade twists further.
I'm engaged, and the wedding is planned for November of this year. I don’t know how to come clean to all my family and my significant other.
2. More Than A Difference Of Opinion
I left a cult, and my entire family is still in it. If I tell them I truly don't believe I will lose them forever. No I'm not kidding, they will cease to communicate and associate with me and my wife. My parents, brothers, sisters, and 20 years’ worth of friendships, gone. Some of them, including family, have already expressed that I am no longer welcome in their lives.
3. A Moment Of Weakness
I have a long-distance girlfriend who I love very, very much. However, I recently gave into a deranged request. My single and 10 years older than me roommate asked me to impregnate her because she desperately wanted a baby. A baby bank would have cost her thousands of dollars which she didn't have. She promised that she wouldn't tell anyone who is the father.
I had previously said no to her hitting on me, but she begged for a baby so many times that I finally gave in. It's the right thing to do, right? Nothing can go wrong, right? Well, she is pregnant now and the realization slowly starts to sink in that: I will have to lie to the love of my life for the rest of my life or that I will have to tell her—but I know for sure that she will leave me then.
Someday there will be a young guy or girl asking who his/her dad is. My flatmate will say my name, and then I will get a call, 16 or 18 years from now, no matter where I am or who I am with or whether I have children of my own: "Hey, I'm your child. You're my dad. You knew that. Why were you never there when I needed you?" But that’s not all.
My roommate feels lonely and constantly tries to cuddle/sleep in my bed with me/sleep together/spend time together, all of which makes me feel like a horrible cheater if I do it and like a horrible person if I don't do it. Until I have enough money to move out this will always make me feel bad. I will feel guilty for the rest of my life. For the rest of my goddarn life.
4. A High Price To Pay
My secret it that I don't love my wife anymore. But that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that she's now pregnant with a child I wasn't ready for, and that the child in my mind is nothing but a financial burden that we can't afford. I'm too afraid to divorce her because the state that I live in always screws over the father with very high child support.
5. Forbidden Love
I'm in love with the daughter of my ex-girlfriend, who I've known since she was 19. I wish that was it—it’s not. I remained involved with her mother for eight years purely because I couldn't bear the thought of never seeing her daughter again for that entire time. There have been three occasions when I believe something could have happened if I had pushed it.
I believe she has similar feelings for me to some extent at least, although we have never spoken about it at all. I am around 10 years older than her; I was several years younger than her mother. I don't have a problem meeting women, I've always had a girlfriend etc.
When I don't see the daughter for a while I talk myself out of my emotions, then as soon as I see her again and as soon as she smiles at me once I am completely overwhelmed by an almost unbearable desire for her. I haven't acted on it because I respect her mother and wouldn't want to do that to her. I believe the daughter feels something similar.
Even though I've now broken up with the mother I have attempted to remain some kind of friends with her because I don't want to accept that I will never see the daughter again. I think about her quite a bit and I find it impossible for any other girl to measure up to the feelings I have for her. I know it's kind of messed up that I've felt this way since she was 19, but I've never done anything inappropriate and I never would.
Just being around her made wasting my time and her mother’s with the relationship I maintained worthwhile. Which I know is a terrible thing for me to say and do. I almost certainly won't ever indulge in any real involvement with her. These thoughts are pointless. I just wanted to confess the truth for once. I've never told anyone anything about it.
6. A Face To Meet The Faces That You Meet
Despite my dedication and relatively hard work, I'm still at rung one of the corporate ladder while people with less talent and skills have surpassed me easily, all because of my lack of social skills. As a result, I'm miserable in my job but I have to keep up the charade in order not to screw my family's lives up. They couldn't handle having to commit me to a psych ward or such.
So I keep a straight face, tell everyone everything's perfectly fine, and carry on. The truth is, it's only a matter of time before I truly, really snap. Not in a violent way, just...break. Mentally, but also physically. If worse comes to worst, I could never afford the medical bills for a prolonged hospital stay. So I keep faking it, at least for now...
7. Rise And Grind
Every day, I wake up, get cleaned up, put on a suit. I go to work, I drink my coffee, and sit at my desk, and I basically pretend to be the most obnoxiously boring white collar American IT office drone imaginable. Every day is the same stuff with these vapid, boring, sheltered ignorant people. I have to listen to their opinions on foreign policy, the government, economics.
I have to sit through grandiose tails of fishing or hiking, or how "amazing" their trip to post-revolution Egypt was. Every day. And all I want to do is scream—because they don’t know my dark past. I was literally a spy. I've seen Hong Kong from 25,000 feet while hurtling out of a plane the I was not supposed to be on. I've met Sheiks and princes and sailed the Mediterranean on a boat full of refugees.
I've shot down missiles, jumped out of a moving train, and literally looked at WMDs. I know exactly how much Chevron will pay to make a village move in Nigeria. I can't say a thing. I have to sit there and do my stupid spreadsheet and I can't say a thing to these ungrateful clowns who are so sure of the way the world works. Agh, felt way too good to get off my chest.
8. Carrying A Flame
For the last five years, I have been hopelessly, painfully in love with my best friend. I have dated other people and so has he, we've moved to different cities and led completely different lives, but I am so in love with every single fiber of his being that it consumes me. Nothing I have done can make me forget about him, and I don’t think it ever will.
9. Out Of My League, Out Of My Life?
I love my fiancée, but her complete lack of drive in the bedroom is making me uninterested in our relationship. I have tried all manner of buy-in over the last three years to get her interest up and we have fought about it many times, but I have finally given up. I have an extremely high drive, and so was she when we first started dating.
But she will only sleep with me a few times a month. She says she enjoys it when we do but often rushes me to finish so even when it happens it’s rarely intimate or satisfying for me. It makes me feel unattractive and undesirable and in turn makes it difficult for me to be affectionate with her. And there’s a kicker. She is beautiful and fun and way out of my league so there is intense pressure from all of my friends to stay with her.
It's constant "if you don't marry her you are a moron" comments. We live together but I spend more and more time isolated from her and my friends because the anxiety of feeling like I am doing the wrong thing by marrying her is crippling. I usually end up at home with headphones on playing games while she watches TV or is out drinking with her friends.
10. Mommy’s Little Secret
My daughter isn't mine. My fiancée went away for a Tough Mudder competition (mud run) the weekend "my" daughter was conceived. I took the baby to get a DNA test one day when my fiancée was at work and I was at home with her. Sure enough, just like on Maury, I was NOT the father. In fact, I went to a doctor and it turns out I am sterile.
I can't tell anyone because I love the little girl like she's my own but it hurts when people comment on how much "she looks like her mom" but never how much she looks like me. I could never bring myself to say anything to her though because I don't want to NOT be in the little girl's life...as far as she knows, I am her father and she loves me unconditionally and I can't ruin that.
11. Food For Thought
I'm a renowned chef. I don't have my own TV show or anything but I have been featured on a few FoodTV shows as well as a few shows on The Cooking Channel. Anthony Bourdain stopped by one of my restaurants in the early days of No Reservations. No one would ever guess my deepest secret. Which is that I absolutely HATE most of the food I cook.
I cater to the rich snobby crowd and it's amazing how sheep-like these people can be. I could take a pile of dirt but as long as I say it's been “braised” and finished off with some “truffle oil” served with a tablespoon of “caviar”, they'll "LOVE" it because of those random key words thrown in there. These people are so pretentious as all heck.
They only buy name-brand items and their minds work the same way with food. As long as I've got certain key words on the menu and certain ingredients in the food, they'll claim to love it. Most of these people who claim to have high-class taste and an advanced palette are full of hot air. I'm trying to sell my share of my two restaurants to my business partner or other investors and get out.
I just want to have a small joint making fried chicken wings, not goose liver and fish eggs.
12. Not As Easy As Rebounding
I am still hopelessly in love with my previous girlfriend. I think about her every day, wishing that she could be mine. I have had a current girlfriend for over two years now, and when I see my ex it is so difficult to contain my emotions. I am not in love with my current girlfriend, I wish I was. To be honest, I only started dating her because I thought it would help me get over my previous.
I see my ex (note: SEE her, not talk to) every month or so briefly. Every time I see her it devastates me emotionally for a few days.
13. Phoning It In
I'm a fake. I don't do anything. I sit at my desk all day and do maybe 15 minutes work a day, on a good day. People ask me to do things but eventually they just go away or things sort themselves out. Usually they make excuses for me. Thing like “caught you at a busy time”, etc. Only, there’s another side to this. I am incredibly successful.
I earned about $300k after tax last year, got a big promotion and I know I'm about to get another one. I've tried everything: self-help books, even hypnosis, but I can't get into it. The funny thing is, when I do something I'm interested in, I work really hard at it. I just want nothing to do with my current job, but my income is astronomical.
14. So Close Yet So Far
I thought I was going to graduate college…until I had a massive what seemed to be a week-long panic attack and stopped working on my last paper. I did the walk but never turned in the paper. I have been lying to folks about having a degree for seven years now. I have recently contacted the school to see if I could get the paper completed and turned in, but we’ll see.
15. Taking One For The Team
I am in an insane amount of debt from supporting my boyfriend through medical school. I had to pay for his meals and some day-to-day supplies such as toiletries with my credit card and use inheritance money. He had no family to support him and he had student loans that barely paid his rent, books, and transportation as well as some food. But the consequences were chilling.
Now I owe $30,000 on student loans on top of car, car insurance, gas, and everything else for my bills. I am now employed but still not out of the woods as I need to pay for the $5,000 on my credit card that was spent during the years I helped him. I pay for my own student loans as much as I can at least. I had to apply for a car loan recently for only 500 dollars and was turned down from that darn credit card. That was a harsh reminder of my dirty little secret.
He graduates in May though so he will finally be able to support himself pretty soon once he gets into his residency and gets paid.
16. Holding It Back
I was diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome and OCD as a child. I have tried to start making a list and I estimate that I have somewhere along the lines of 500-1,000 unique tics/compulsions. While in public or communicating with people, I try and prevent any one of them from happening. A tick or compulsion can come about simply by looking at someone, seeing a specific number or color, or seeing something in the background.
These tics can be physical or mental, people can notice them, or they can also be rituals I perform in my head. Despite this I have been able to obtain a Master's degree and become a very social person. The hardest part, aside from dealing with a tic/compulsion every five seconds, is trying to hide them from people. I'm not really embarrassed about it but I would rather just fit in and avoid having to explain all of the time.
Essentially, the discomfort and never being able to truly “relax”, sucks and I don't wish it upon anyone. Still, I am glad for my overall physical and mental health and personality that I have developed having had to live with these disorders.
17. An About Face
All my life I've claimed that I never want children, I'm not good with them, and I don't think I would be a great mother. Then recently, everything changed. Last week I went to the doctor for a routine exam and found out I have a hormone imbalance that makes me unable to have kids. Suddenly I realized how badly I want children despite me always denying it.
I would love to be able to have little mini-mes running around, me teaching them and watching them grow. Teaching them to play piano, watching their recitals, taking them out for ice cream afterwards. Reading them bedtime stories, and having their cute little green eyes gaze up at me with unconditional love. Ugh. I haven't told anyone what I found out last week, not my mom, not my partner, no one. it's eating me alive. I feel worthless, and I don't feel like a woman.
18. The Feeling Is Mutual
I absolutely detest my mother, and I've been stuck with her my entire life because she won custody of me because the justice system is biased towards mothers. I blame her for my parents’ divorce. She cheated on him twice when I was a child. My father found out about one of them because I crawled into bed with someone who I thought was my father after a nightmare at three years old. But it gets worse.
My mother is incredibly controlling with everything from finances to what I eat. The food control has caused eating problems with me where I hide food that I eat and I have no freedom in what I do eat, right down to the cream in my coffee. She will also hurt me when she doesn't get her way. I haven't told her, or anyone outside the house who is local, my true feelings.
She is in the army, and as much as I truly hate her, I don't want to ruin her career because I know working and money are the only two things she truly loves. She hates me because she feels like I took my father's love from her.
19. In A Lonely Place
My marriage is over, but I can't move on for fear that my wife will hurt herself. About six months ago, my wife started helping one of her friends who was having a bit of a break with reality. This was a bit of an odd situation because the friend was a previous boyfriend of hers. I do not believe she was cheating on me and felt that she thought of him as her child that she needed to protect.
Then, in September, this guy ended up doing something crazy that ended in with him dying. Ever since that moment, my wife has tumbled into a very dark place. She has never spent the night at our home since then and lives in the guy's house, which the guy's family has allowed. She has completely abandoned our relationship on top of that.
We have a two-year-old daughter and she has still been good for her. I mostly feel safe when she spends time with my daughter, but nonetheless she is unstable. A month or two after her ex’s passing, she tried to seriously hurt herself and was close to being successful. She spent a week in the hospital/psych ward, but none of that really helped.
She's cripplingly depressed, but she's in denial about being depressed. She talks about just up and leaving, even leaving our daughter, who I would still like to be in her life. My wife has always had mental issues because of a rough childhood and bad family life and our marriage was never great, but it was serviceable. I never felt all that comfortable in my marriage, always walking on eggshells for fear of setting her off, but we had good times too.
We got pregnant accidentally, and that's why we got married, but I don't think that was the right choice. I absolutely love my daughter more than anything, but I can no longer say I love my wife. It’s started to become more disturbing. Her attempt to hurt herself cost a lot of money and added on to our debt—debt that she's never had any interest in trying to help solve.
As in, she has no interest in budgeting or not using credit cards. Now my financial situation continues to spiral out of control as she has quit working and basically just lives freely off the money I work hard for. Now that we've been separated for months we are on fairly cordial terms when she's not in the depths of depression.
I have expressed that this may be for the best and we should get divorced, but that absolutely set her off into a deep depression. She thinks that everyone abandons her and I would just be another, but I too have been abandoned. I want to move on with my life and take control of my financial situation for my sake, and the sake of my daughter, but I'm afraid if I move down that path then it will get worse and worse with my wife.
I do not want that. I care for her. I feel bad for her. I wish I could help her. I just don't know when, if ever, this situation will get less tenuous, and if by then it would be too late financially speaking. Except my closest friends and my parents, no one knows about any of this. I want to tell more people my situation, but I fear it makes me look like an inconsiderate jerk that I want to leave my wife in her time of depression and mourning.
But how long does that go on? Of course there's no answer to that, but she completely abandoned our relationship and did not seek any comfort in me, which perhaps hurt the most. I feel stuck in time at the moment. Just trying to enjoy any time with my daughter and trying to get along in life as best as possible, but it is hard to not have the faintest clue what to do next.
20. More Than Words
I have a stutter, and almost no one knows. I am able to hide it by 1) Being relatively quiet; 2) Being a human thesaurus of small words. If I can't say the word I'd like to use, I use awkward phrasing and other words to get my point across; 3) Saying things like "Oh I can't think of the word..." or "I forgot what I was saying". I am extremely anxious whenever I'm in a social situation.
I have told one person in my life, a girlfriend of many years. She was supportive at first, then left me two weeks later. Never again.
21. Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover
I have so much emotional pain and stress built up that I cry involuntarily almost every night. I'm fairly successful, outgoing, and I'm the guy a lot of people go to for advice or help. But when I'm by myself I always feel desperately alone. To everyone else it seems like I’ve got it all together. This has led to the most painful phenomenon. I've tried to talk to friends about this and they play it off like I’m joking.
My mom passed from cancer three years ago, and every relationship I have falls apart because of this pain. Just like many other secret keepers, I'm great at giving advice but horrible at following it and no one else knows that I cry myself to sleep.
22. Hitting The Jackpot
I've won a lottery, $20,000,000. It's been two years now, and I haven't told anyone, including my fiancé. The money's locked up in a savings account, and I still go to work. My loved ones can't understand why I'm so happy and carefree all of the time, even when times are tough. If only they knew…but then I think they would never forgive me.
23. Late Night Mistakes
I cheated on my boyfriend about eight months ago. We'd been together (at that time) for just over a year and to this day I love him more than anything. He doesn't know and I have decided not to tell him. The other guy is a complete screw-up who I spent almost five years in love with. For some reason he always seems to be around whenever I'm feeling really low.
This is usually when I feel like revisiting the past. I had been feeling bad around that time and wondering if I was good enough for my boyfriend, feeling like I was holding him back, like he was too good for me, that he could have anyone else and I couldn't reason why he wanted me, etc. I got to drinking one night and while spilling my guts to that loser about how inadequate I was feeling, I made out with him.
I haven't seen or spoken to him since then aside from letting him know that it wasn't going to happen again, despite his suggestions that we carry on a secret fling on the side. I said that if he ever valued our friendship, he wouldn't tell anyone.
My boyfriend is a salt of the earth kind of guy. The best man I've ever met. I have kept it from him because, the way I see it, I messed up. I made the mistake, not him. I should live with the guilt of it rather than putting that hurt on him. It will never happen again and if I could take it back I would. I've never wondered about whether or not I wanted to be with him, only about why he would ever want to be with me.
Lately I've been feeling particularly awful about all of this and I honestly can't figure out why it's been bothering me so much now after months of successfully hosting this memory way in the back of my mind. I feel like an awful person. How could I do that to such an amazing person?
24. Even Strong Women Get Lonely
I am a 21-year-old virgin girl. I am slightly overweight and have bad skin. I wish that I could just take a guy home from a bar and sleep with them... but honestly, I am terrified that someone will be disgusted by me. I am also terrified because I am about to graduate college, have never been in a relationship or had a constant hook-up, and no one has ever shown sober interest in me.
It makes me feel like an unattractive child. All my friends think I am a really strong woman who is in complete control of her life. I don't tell them anything, but apparently it's in my attitude.
25. All Dogs Go To Heaven
One day when I left for work, I left on an electric blanket with an automatic shut-off to keep my little dogs warm, since it was very cold outside. To this day, I cannot believe the consequences of this. My husband and I returned home to find it in flames—completely destroyed. We lost everything, except what was in our truck. All of our dogs perished in the fire.
The firefighters said it was electrical. The house was in BAD shape—we were going to move out within months. Nonetheless, I carry an insane amount of guilt...did leaving the blanket on cause the fire and cause us to lose everything, including the canines who were our whole family? The guilt is almost unbearable when I let myself think about it.
26. Momma’s Boy
I'm 27 and still live at home with my mom. I get a lot of stick from my friends who say I'm too old to be at home. Truth is, I love living at home. I get on so well with my mom. I'm not some man-child who does nothing for himself. I have a good job, I look after myself and pay rent and bills for where we live. I just don't want to move out on my own because I love my living arrangements as they are now.
27. Mother Doesn’t Know Best
My secret is that my mother has only ever seen me as a financial opportunity by means of child support (until I was 18) and “college money” from my grandfather that I've never ever seen. She has no interest in my life otherwise. You're probably thinking, “Well she obviously spent money on you the entire time you lived with her”.
This isn't the case, unfortunately. My dad had to give me a secret debit card because he knew my mom was using all the money on herself after he gave her a $1,400 check to buy me a laptop that I never got. Since I was a teenager and my grandfather would send me $200-400 checks for my birthday and Christmas, my mom would always get me to give them to her because she “needed it” and “family was first”.
When I tried to put up a fight, she would call me selfish and a spoiled brat and tell me how ashamed my grandparents would be and what a terrible daughter I was and didn't I love her? I was never allowed to have my aunt's, uncle's, or grandparents' phone numbers or emails and I only talked to them on her phone. She constantly tries to drive a wedge between my dad and I.
She says that he is trying to buy my love and make her look inadequate due to the fact that she hasn't had a job in years, is living off of a trust fund (having blown through my 100,000 in college savings), and my father is now paying for my entire college education so that I can avoid student loans. It drives her crazy that nothing I own she has provided me.
She hates this because it prevents her from the ability to “cut me off”, something she did to my cell—when she still paid the bill—every time we got into a disagreement. My phone was shut off at least twice a week during this period. Even though I know, and have known, that she is emotionally unfit for motherhood and that I am a good daughter, I can't fight the feeling that I'm a bad daughter and that I owe her something.
Luckily, I have the most amazing dad in the world and a stepmother who has gone above and beyond in filling the motherly void in my life. To them I am incomprehensibly grateful, but I do wish my real mother would care for me as much as the woman who's known me for nine years. And on top of that, she's developed an addiction that scares the heck out of me night and day.
Wow, that felt good.
28. The Animal Inside
I find every day to be a struggle against the urge not to snap and just start attacking the people I know for various reasons. I almost constantly have to restrain myself when dealing with the majority of them in order to keep myself from doing anything to them, but more often than not I get by with minor appeasement from condescension. But inside, it’s terrifying.
All while, I withhold the urge to just start hurting them as much as possible. While I am currently seeing a psychiatrist for this kind of thing, in a sense I'm so well aware of what my problems are and their signals that I can mask them face-to-face with a professional and generalize my issues as “social anxiety” without even really thinking about it.
I'm hesitant to bring up just how I really feel about everything because I'm more concerned it would inconvenience me than actually be beneficial. While I understand well enough that how I feel about all this and how I think of it isn't “right”, a part of me doesn't want to be without it and I find myself enjoying the idea of seeing them all suffer for their bad habits and stupidity.
All the while, I also want to avoid the stigma and judgment of being perceived as a psychotic by people I have to interact with in person due to how it might affect my meager life. I have difficulty sleeping sometimes due to all this. I lie in bed wondering if this is how psychos feel before they go on to commit their sprees. I'm worried that it's more of a matter of when than why for me currently.
29. Leave Me Alone
I live in the Bible Belt, and it’s a very religious, family-oriented culture. My father left when I was four, and I recently found out that he passed from addiction in Colorado. My mother passed a couple years ago of sarquoidosis (a rare disease) when I was 14. I have lived with my grandparents since then. A while after my mother passed, I became an atheist.
Until about six months after, I couldn’t admit it to my grandparents. I finally did, and as much as they said it didn’t bother them, ever since then they’ve treated me like a stranger. They still force me to go to church and scold me when people find out I’m an atheist. Most of my more distant family is the same. The only person in my family who still treats me like family is my uncle in Tennessee.
My secret is that I plan to cut contact with my family completely after I finish college and leave the country. Where I live, that is considered as bad as an act of betrayal to god. I’ve always been a very introverted person with a small group of friends that I genuinely trust. Any friends outside this group drift away in a couple of years, sometimes months.
I hope that if I ever get married, my wife won’t have much family, or at least won’t make me get involved with them. Moreover, I don’t want to live to meet my grandchildren. I would be happy living with only a partner and a few friends. But of course, the world is a cruel place. There will always be others who will want to get involved for their own gain.
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30. Between A Rock And A Hard Place
I got a girl pregnant very early in my life. I love, have loved, and will always love my son, but God do I ever wish he was conceived in later years. It's an interestingly depressing feeling when you give up your hopes and dreams for another. I don't think it helped that the mother of the child dangled the threat of child support and leaving with the baby if I ever dated another girl, all the while going out with her boyfriend.
31. Something Isn’t Right
I have cancer and no one knows about it, partially even myself. I'm fairly sure it has metastasized to other parts of my body. I'm definitely scared to even admit it and often think of the five stages of loss and grief and that I’m stuck in the denial stage. My heart is racing from fear even as I am typing this. I'm relatively young, still in my 20s, but it started as what I suspected to be a tumor in my pelvis when I was maybe 13.
It was definitely confirmed to be a tumor as it is now by my scrotum and about the size of a golf ball. I've been through numerous physicals, but no doctor has ever said anything about it and neither have I. I think about going to an oncologist once in a while but have no idea how to start. "Hey doc, I think I have cancer but I'm not sure and have been concealing it for more than 10 years". I'm extremely scared of the consequences, not necessarily passing but leaving my partner, family, and friends behind.
I have a decent job, I own a home and have insurance coverage but I always think of a myriad of reasons not to visit the doctor. Will treatment wreck me financially and cause me to be a burden? Will I end up having to have numerous organs removed? Will I even survive this? Sometimes I hope it will go away on its own. I know better.
Other times I hope I'll just go from an aneurysm or something. Yet other times I imagine that my hand will be forced at some point. That I'll go to the doctor and go through treatment and be relatively okay for the rest of my life.
32. It Takes Four
I'm in love with the wife of one of my best friends. Everyone knows I have/had a crush on her but it's more than that in my head, and it's been more than that for years. I met her the exact same day he met her when they were set up for a blind date, which was over a decade ago. He's a great person and they're happily married now.
I wouldn't get in the way of their relationship. But there’s something even worse. Another kicker is I'm married too and love my wife to pieces. It's hard to comprehend when growing up in a monogamous culture, which I think adds to my turmoil. I would never get in the way of their relationship or my relationship with my wife.
Instead I aim to be a good friend to the both of them, and not just because I love her, but because I respect him as a friend as well.
33. Nothing Sweet Or Little About These Lies
When I was 17, I started dating a 26-year-old, who my parents met and approved of, of course. We dated for six months when I finally decided something was weird and did research online. I was stunned at what I found. Thanks to my county's auditor website, I discovered he was married and had a six-year-old daughter. I was completely ruined.
I was a mistress at age 17 and I had no idea. Every single thing was a lie with him, and it ruined me. I honestly can't trust any guy anymore. I always imagine that something is going on behind the scenes that I don't know about. The worst part is that I decided to stay friends with him, and still talk to him to this day. He now has a girlfriend on top of everything.
This broke my heart to hear. I did honestly love him. Screw me, it doesn't help that any guy I started to see after him lied about everything as well. I've only told a few close friends, but I'm afraid to tell any guy I start talking to in case they think I'm some sort of homewrecking witch, but I never even knew the entire time that we were together.
34. What He Doesn’t Know Might Hurt Him
My dad is not my biological father. He doesn't know this. I'm in my mid-30s, I love my dad to bits, I don't want him to know I'm not his. Not that it matters, since my mother has threatened me over telling him. In fact, no one in my family or our friends knows about this. My biological father desperately wants a relationship with me and I don't want one with him.
My mother, however, is angry at me for not pursuing a relationship with him because he "has money”.
35. Switched At Birth
My secret is that my grandmother was adopted—sort of. See, my great-grandmother miscarried her child. At the time (1930s/40s, I think), all women were put in the same ward in the hospital after they gave birth, even if the baby didn't survive. Anyway, there was a woman in the bed next to my great-grandmother who had just given birth, but she didn't want a child.
She wanted the hospital staff to "get rid of it". So they just...gave the baby to my great-grandmother. No paperwork or anything. They had one woman who was distraught at having lost her baby, and another distraught having got her baby, and I guess they just thought "I know how to fix this". It seems so weird by today's standards (and definitely not legal) but I guess it was perfectly logical. As far as I know, they all lived happily ever after.
36. What A Tangled Web We Weave
My grandparents on my mother's side were swingers—all four of them. After my mother was born, her mother and father split up. They then each married a person from another couple—sort of a marriage merge.
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37. The Ties That Bind
My secret is that I am technically still married. We haven't seen each other in four years but neither of us can afford a divorce, so legally we are still married. I guess that would be fine in and of itself, but I’ve been a huge coward about advertising it. My past two relationships never knew and no one but my immediate family knows—no friends, nothing.
38. Keep This Between Us
My great-aunt had a kid that absolutely nobody in the family knew about. She moved to the west coast "for work" when she found out, and stayed long enough to have the baby, recover, and give him up for adoption. Apparently, she never even knew who the father was, and it was the 1950s so that was kind of frowned upon at the time.
39. Too Close To The Bone
I get obsessed really easily. With people, problems, things in general...It's hard for me to move on from practically all of my breakups, no matter how “minor” they were. Plus broken friendships happen to me constantly—they’ve ended because I get too obsessed with hanging out with or talking to that person. It’s ruining my life but I can’t seem to stop.
40. Childhood: Ruined
My aunt and grandma actually kidnapped me when I was a four. I have a very faint memory of staying with them, but I spent about a year with them before my parents got me back. I wasn’t really mistreated, but to hide who I was they shaved my head and told everyone I was a boy when I was really a girl. Also instead of saying I was four they said I was two.
The faint memory I have was of being mad my hair was gone, and being really upset I had to wear pull ups.
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41. Gotta Get Out
Here’s my secret: I don't want to live with my parents anymore. I'm 27, make really good money, and could move out whenever I want. But my parents are both permanently disabled and I pay them rent in addition to most of the bills. They're also currently in the process of fighting the banks to keep their house. If I move out, everything will most likely collapse and they'll lose the house and have to move.
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42. The REAL Black Sheep Of The Family
My older cousin is responsible for his girlfriend taking her life. The details of this haunt me to this day. The elders of the family try to keep it quiet, but the young adults know. They had been together for 15 years and he knew she had mental issues. Instead of being mindful of the issues and handling her with care, he mentally and emotionally mistreated her.
He cheated on her, but more than that he put himself in position to be caught to show her she was replaceable. He got her a job with his ex-fiancée, which caused major tension in the relationship and at work. He judged her clothes and her weight and when he felt like she wasn't up to his standards, after working 60+ hours a week as a nurse, he'd tell her he was leaving for the weekend and not to reach out to him.
He would then post his fun weekends with random girls on social media for her to see. She would try to leave but he always roped her back in with manipulation and "acts of love". Then she reached her breaking point. She wanted a family. A few years ago, he promised her marriage and a family of their own. When she told him she was ready for it, he did an about-face.
He told her he never wanted to do that because he didn't want a child slowing him down and they were technically married by common-law anyway, so a real marriage was pointless at that point. She had a nervous breakdown. She started posting all their secrets on Facebook, would randomly call people in the middle of the night to sing random songs and hang up, and rearrange rooms in her and his apartments in odd ways.
Like TV in bathroom, sofa in the kitchen, kitchen table in the spare room. Eventually, she was convinced to go stay with her uncle for a while so he could take care of her. That’s when disaster struck. One night, she told her uncle she was tired and was going to bed. She went in her room, took half a bottle of sleeping pills, and never woke up.
When my siblings and I found out she had passed, we asked my cousin about how he was and what had happened. He replied with "I don't know. I haven't seen her in a month. I guess her mind got the best of her. I'll miss her, but I'm alright". It was such an odd response from someone who had spent a good chunk of his life with her.
My siblings and I felt like it was weird and decided to ask questions. Now, I'm just like screw that guy. I don't see him, I don't talk to him, and I avoid any family functions I know he'll be at. My sister found out he was seeing someone else and decided to add her on Facebook. She talks to her often to make sure she's okay and that my cousin isn't messing with her emotions.
43. A Black Spot
I don't remember my "ex". I started "remembering" June of 2012. It's in fragments and non-chronological. Only my best friend knows. I browsed through both of our online accounts and close friends to try and map out dates and events. All these years I felt so normal. I've gotten a few hints and proofs but they're hardly solid enough to convince me.
I don't want to talk to the "ex" directly because I fear what I may seem to "remember" is fake and my brain is messing around with me. I know I need therapy but I don't have the money for it.
44. Baring It All
I refuse to sleep with my girlfriend until I'm married. She thinks I'm a devout Christian because of this…I am not. I find something to do every Sunday instead of going to church. The real story is going to devastate her. The truth is that my you-know-what was severed off in an accident when I was five, and I have about 1/2 inch of it left. I have no idea how to tell her.
I'm so in love and I know the moment it comes out I'm screwed. I've been with her for 1.5 years, and she (somehow) respects my choice to wait until marriage (for any interaction other than kissing).
45. Everything All At Once
In mid-December, I was headhunted and offered my dream position at a company I've dreamt about working for. I moved away to the capital and made a plan with my university to finish my degree while working. But there’s something crucial that no one knows. I have early stage cancer. I found out before taking the job, and I haven't told a soul.
I have been putting off getting it treated because a) I'm an idiot and b) my new, super-awesome everything-I-hoped-it-would-be job sent me to do training at the Chamber of Commerce, so I haven't "had time". Which is a bad excuse when dealing with cancer, but now that I'm settled in I’ll do it. It’s cervical cancer that may or may not have spread to other parts of my uterus.
Since we caught it relatively early, the best case scenario is they just go in and take it out surgically and I won't have to suffer through chemo and radiation, but I don't know yet. Losing my fertility isn't something that bothers me greatly when I'm in a position where I could lose my life.
46. Know-It-All
My husband is having an affair. I know about it but I am too scared of what will happen if I confront him. He is so narcissistic that he can't see anything wrong with anything he does. We have a nine-year-old and I think it would destroy him if he knew. My mom was married seven different times while I was growing up, so I have a huge fear of becoming her. I know it’s irrational but that is what stops me from divorcing him.
I have a good job and can afford it. I do have solid proof of his affair. And although I haven't confronted him yet., I know he will lie about it because he lies every time I confront him in an argument.
47. The Butterfly Effect
I went to school with this kid who used to torment me. He was awful. He would shove me down the stairs, hit me with a baseball bat, basically give me bruises and broken bones. He also used to do other awful things to me. I got a brand new NFL coat for Christmas and was wearing it in class. He wrote a horrible word on it with a sharpie, ruining it in the process.
No one did anything about it because 1) I went to a private religious school, 2) His father was the head pastor and school principal, and 3) The school told my parents I used to self-harm. It wasn't true at all, but when you are 10 and every adult in the system tells your parents that there is something wrong with you, it is difficult to get them to see any different.
Sometime later my parents put me in a different school for unrelated reasons. I start to excel, make lots of friends, no more broken bones, etc. But then the nightmare happens. About a year later the guy shows up because my old school had to shut down. He starts taunting me, telling me he is going to make my life miserable again.
But then later that afternoon, we found out they brought a dog to start doing locker searches. My friend was freaking out about the stage he had…but it gave me an idea. I knew immediately that I wanted to set that guy up. I had the whole class period to think about it. After the bell rang, I caught up to him in the hall and stuffed my friend’s stash in his bag.
We could have just flushed it, threw it out, but I wanted to get back at him. It all happened so fast from there. I didn't actually get to see it but after lunch he was detained, expelled, and I had no idea what happened to him…until years later. His parents were forced to send him to a boarding school. Only, this started a shocking chain of events.
While he was there, he contracted a serious infection in a minor cut and had to have his leg amputated. While he was at the hospital, his father perished a car accident on his way there to see his son. A friend of mine dated his sister during their senior year when all of this happened. After high school, she said he struggled with a lot of the lingering effects of the amputation.
His health never made strides and she always suspected his guilt over what happened to their father had something to do with it. He is in constant pain, every day, and refuses to walk with crutches or a prosthetic and has confined himself to a wheel chair. In the wake of his father's passing, he has become even more of a fanatical religious zealot.
He has become vice principal of another private school in the area. She doesn't speak to him much anymore because he is just too depressing and since his detainment has become an unapologetic jerk.
48. The Other Woman
I'm 20 and in a relationship with a 39-year-old married father and it's eating away at me. Basically (he says) there has been a lack of affection for a long time and his wife never wants to travel with him when he works. He would have gotten a divorce a while ago, but because there are no "big problems" in his marriage he stays because he wants to see his son every day.
So I get paid ~$200 a week to do what his wife won't. He doesn't know, but I look at her Facebook and their family pictures every day to remind myself of the real costs of what I'm doing.
49. A Moment In Time
When I was a kid, I heard my dad tell someone on the phone that he hated me for ruining his life. My parents had me when they were 19. Growing up, I realized that my dad was only nice to me when I would do well playing sports. I ended up being very good at lacrosse, even having a scholarship lined up. And then it was all ruined in one instant.
In my grade 12 year, I took a cheap shot during a game that resulted in three breaks in my shoulder and a severed tendon. After surgery it didn't heal right and I lost my scholarship, my dad stopped speaking to me, most of my friends stopped talking to me, and my girlfriend told me that I wasn't worth her time anymore. I tried to deal with it for a few years. Then I hit a breaking point.
On my 20th birthday I went up to the roof of the building I worked at to jump. Right before I got to the edge a friend of mine called me and asked if I wanted to go out for a drink.
She saved my life, and she doesn’t even know it. I've never worked up the nerve to tell anyone I was going to jump, or to tell her what she did for me.
50. A Hairy Situation
I'm a cis het woman who has to shave every day like a man. I won't let anyone touch my face for fear that they'll feel my stubble, and if I stay over at a friend's house I hide a razor and shaving cream in my bag. I then wake up at some insanely early hour and go shave in the bathroom while everyone is still asleep. It’s a whole thing.
I've done laser hair removal, but a lot of my hair is too light to really react, yet too dark to go unnoticed if I let it grow. I've yet to ever find an electrologist that actually makes my hair go away. I also have hair on my stomach all the way up to a few inches under my chest. I've been tested for hormone imbalances, and all the levels come back normal.
They assume I have poly-cystic ovarian syndrome, but can't get the numbers to back the diagnosis up.
51. How Dare You Have Boundaries
I’m a college student. When I get stressed/anxious, I get nasty acne breakouts. A couple of weeks ago my midterms began, and my acne started getting bad. My parents have me FaceTime them every week to check in. When they noticed my acne a couple of weeks ago, they made comments like, verbatim, "You look exponentially worse than you did last week"!
Also, "Your face looks awful"! It's made me feel pretty bad. Normally, I'm a very passive person. But recently, I've gotten more confident, and so tonight I decided to stand up for myself. By the way, I have a mental health condition that my parents are very concerned about. My condition is well-regulated, and I haven't experienced any significant flare-ups in over a year.
Regardless, if I get stressed or worried, or if I otherwise act out of character, my parents immediately assume my condition has worsened, and that my life is therefore in danger. Fast forward to tonight. I called my parents at the scheduled time and they said, “Hang on, let's switch this to a video call”.
I said, "I'd rather we keep it an audio call. In the past couple of weeks, you've made some comments about my complexion that I was uncomfortable with, and though I know you didn't mean anything harmful, it still hurt, and since my face is still broken out I'm not comfortable talking to you over video". The tone of the call changed completely—in a bad way.
"No, turn on the video. You don't have a choice". I stood my ground and just repeated, "I'd love to tell you about my week and hear what's been going on in your life, over the phone. I'm just not comfortable using video". My parents didn't take that for an answer. Since I rarely say "no" to them, their first thought was that I was mentally ill again.
They told me, "We need to see your face for safety reasons, because we need to make sure you're healthy". I replied, "I will tell you honestly that I'm doing fine. Aside from being stressed about midterms, which is a pretty normal response, I am healthy. And since you've told me you trust me, you should trust that I'm telling the truth and I'm doing fine".
They told me they refused to believe that, and accused me of hiding something from them. My mom asked me what on Earth they'd said that could have been hurtful, and that they didn't do anything of the sort. About 20 minutes in, I was not going to budge. I was not going to turn the call on video. Especially since they didn't respect my request, which I felt was simple and reasonable.
My parents were getting furious, and it began to get scary. They told me that if I didn't turn on video and show them my face, they were going to call 9-1-1 and my campus's security system, in addition to getting immediately into the car and driving the three hours to my school. When I told them I was disappointed they didn't trust me, they laughed and asked me what on Earth I was talking about, that I had no right to say that.
I had lost their trust, but I was irrational in thinking that I had the right to stop trusting them. I was called a spoiled brat, irrational. My parents asked me what they ever did so wrong to deserve this treatment. They told me how worried they were for my safety, and if I could just turn on video, they would be happy to know I was safe.
My mother told me that if I didn't turn on video, she would call the authorities, and they would take me into custody and I'd be spending the next six hours, at minimum, in the waiting office of a mental health facility. I was told that I was acting immature, and I wouldn't be allowed to attend the summer program I've been accepted to. They kept going, though.
My father told me I was shutting them out and told me that if I didn't want to lose all their trust and respect that I would have to turn on the video. I just kept saying, "I'm disappointed that you don't trust me enough to respect my decision. All I asked was to keep the call off video this week. And I understand and appreciate that you're concerned for me. This is me acting in my best interest".
Finally, after about an hour of going back and forth, I decided, the heck with it. I have work to get done. I don't have time for this argument. When I switched the call to video for them, my mother showed me that she had 9-1-1 into her cell phone, and she told me that she had been hovering over the "call" button for almost 20 minutes.
She showed me all the pamphlets and folders with emergency services and numbers, which she had been going through, and my father told me he had been just about to get in the car to head to my school. She started crying and talking about how worried she was, and she said, "Promise me you'll never act like this again. This was stupid".
I asked, "What do you mean by 'this?'" She said, "Digging your heels in, and being this irrational". I said I couldn't promise that, and I reiterated that I didn't feel I was being irrational; all I wanted was to call over phone and not use video this week, and I felt I had not been respected. Then my dad snapped. "Don't you EVER say anything about not video calling, ever again".
I'm feeling alright (and kind of good) after finally standing up to my parents for the first time in my life, but I'm still drained and definitely shaken. Part of me wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation, and part of me wants to cry because I hate that this is the reality of my family. Where do I go from here? I do enjoy surface-level banter and chitchat with my parents.
I don't want to go completely no contact with them. However, I also know that this situation is going to repeat itself the next time I stand my ground against them, and I don't want to spend my time on people who don't respect me. They say it's a healthy practice to cut those people out of your life. What do you do when those people are your parents?
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52. The Money Shot
We set up cameras over a year ago, as preparation for going no contact with my horrible parents, basically just my DNA donors. We had one for the front yard, one for the door, and one for the backyard. They haven’t been around our place since we put the cameras up, at least until recently. Still, because both my older sisters come over regularly, we assumed the word would spread.
We have two warning stickers (required by law, one at the gate and one at the front door) and two obvious cameras they'd pass when coming in through the front door. Apparently, though, my sisters never noticed. In about 25 visits combined, they didn't notice. Until last week, when one of my sisters suddenly pointed at the front door camera and asked why we installed cameras!
I asked her if she really never noticed before and said they had been up for a year. Burglary deterrent I told her, because we live in an older house and haven't remodeled yet, so the house isn't exactly difficult to break into. And then gave her a big smile. She said laughingly (but kind of serious) that she doesn't give permission to use images with her on it, and I laughingly said back that's not how it works.
Now all my sisters know, because the word did spread. But something felt weird to me. She pointed to the camera immediately, after not seeing it for a year. Like someone told her it was there. So I went through the footage to see who saw the camera first, and what a reaction I got. It was beautiful. My father noticed it the second time he came around.
He looked up at where the camera was while waiting for me to open the door, visibly tensed up completely and just turned and walked away! He even left my younger sister at my door alone for a few seconds! Then he must've heard me coming (or remembered his youngest daughter, you know), because he came speed walking back and had regained his composure by the time I got to the door.
When I had gotten my sister inside, he immediately speed walked off again, looking away from the camera (to hide his face? That's too late) and almost fell because he didn't look where he was walking. After that, he only came to our home once more, to pick up my sister the next week. He tried to ignore the camera, but looked incredibly shifty.
He couldn't help himself apparently because he threw the most amazing "sucking a lemon" face I've ever seen right at it. I must've looked at both clips 10 times, laughing like crazy. I think it was part relief that the cameras do work as a deterrent, part joy that he can't do anything about it, and part surprise at the comedic weirdness of it.
It almost looks like a silent slapstick movie. They still haven't noticed my warning stickers that we do have cameras, and they still haven't noticed the other cameras. If anyone here with a bad family is hesitating whether or not to install cameras, do it. It makes you feel so much safer. You’ve got evidence if they try to do anything wrong, and these clips alone were definitely worth the money.
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