Keeping secrets is hard. The pressure just builds and builds, and eventually, it all has to come spilling out. The problem is: Confessions are a messy business. Sometimes they make you feel better—sometimes, they can ruin your life. But one thing is for sure: When people confess their deepest, darkest secrets, we DEFINITELY want to hear about it.
1. Unlucky Larry
I had a co-worker named "Larry" who was in a job-site accident. Basically, he was underneath some scaffolding when a vehicle backed into it, and it collapsed on top of him. He was pinned down, couldn't feel his legs, and was bleeding from a head wound. Larry was 100% convinced that this was the end. We were trying to pull the scaffold off and render first aid and all that, and he kept asking to use a phone to call his wife "Suzie."
Our supervisor gave him a phone, and Larry called Suzie and confessed to having multiple affairs, taking money from Suzie's parents, creeping on their neighbor's teenage daughter, and partying with Suzie's sister. Larry was crying, telling her he was so sorry, begging for forgiveness. And then the other shoe dropped. Turns out Larry was just pinned down by a couple of tubes and bracers that fell together just right, and it was tight enough to pinch a nerve and slow his circulation a bit.
He got six stitches on his head and some bruises, and that was the extent of his physical injuries. He survived and made a full recovery. However, he did lose his house, his pickup truck, custody of his kids, and half his paycheck to child support and alimony in the divorce. Plus, he got written up for not wearing a hard hat under scaffolding.
2. Neighbor's Daughter
My uncle had been in a car accident. It was bad. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he dropped a bombshell. He said "Tell my wife that Wendy is my daughter and I love her." He expired a few minutes later because of internal bleeding. Wendy was the neighbors' then 5-year-old child. That caused a huge storm, I can tell you.
3. Burning Issue
I wasn't allowed to go to my grandfather's funeral, and they told me he had a heart attack. I was so confused because everyone around me would clam up when I asked about him. Years later, my dad finally revealed the truth. It turns out that he had a heart attack while trying to put out a field fire, collapsed, and got horrifically burned.
I still have no idea how long it took for people to find him, but I'm assuming it was hours. The body was too grisly for my parents to let any of the kids see.
4. I Think We’re Alone Now
Nearly all the patients I’ve had in ICU didn’t really have to ability to speak by the time they were my patient. I did have one lady who was going out relatively slowly, and I do remember her saying to me that she regretted how boring her life was and how she wasted it doing nothing but being a housewife. But there was a huge twist.
She said this all in front of her adult kids while they sat there, mortified and hurt.
5. Overlooked
The wife of my acquaintance got covid and she was really sick. Almost all the doctors told them that she wouldn't make it, so she finally revealed her darkest secret. She confessed that she had been cheating on him for about ten years with one close friend of his and that maybe their last child isn't his but his friend's. The lady survived and that poor stupid sucker kept his marriage as if nothing had happened.
6. Double Trouble
My mother supposedly has a fraternal twin. My grandmother couldn't handle the thought of two kids, so she gave the male child away to someone she knew who was moving away. My mom found this out in the worst way. In a rage one night way back when, my grandmother screamed at my mom that she kept the wrong child; this event was never mentioned before or after that moment.
My mom was roughly 12 at the time. She asked my great-grandmother about it, and she knew the boy's name but not where they moved to or who he was living with. My mom actually had met him once but didn't know who he actually was. My grandmother now denies it ever happened and my grandfather felt that "surely they'd have had to tell me." I doubt they would have, though.
When she was pregnant with me, my mom asked my great-grandmother what my middle name should be: My middle name is actually her long-lost brother’s middle name.
7. Identity Crisis
This happened during an employment case. We go to the deposition of my client and get everything set up. The first question posed to my client is simple enough: "Please state your name." But instead of answering, my client immediately looks at me and asks, "Can we take a break?" We do, and she pulls me out into the hall. What she says next is jaw-dropping.
She tells me that she's been lying to me about her real identity. Apparently, she's a serial scammer and has changed identities seven times since the 90s. She thought the other attorneys had somehow figured it out, and that's why they’d asked her the name question. Um, excuse me? What???
8. The Brotherhood
My brother Russell was 12 years older than me, and I cannot remember a day of my childhood without thinking of him. My earliest memories are of him and me at a park. We shared a room together and I remember the fun we used to have late at night playing pillow forts and telling stories. I loved Russell and still do. When I was seven, he perished in a car accident.
At his funeral, my parents finally confessed to the truth. Russell was not my brother, but someone my parents took in because he had a bad home life. It messed my head up trying to grasp this, but I am happy that my parents had the compassion to take care of him and treat him as their own and that he was such a big part of my life. To this day, I still consider him my brother and miss him every day. I love you, Russell.
9. Unfinished Business
My confession is that I faked the last two years of my college education. My parents put so much pressure on me to succeed that I just couldn't handle it anymore. I was suffering from severe depression and anxiety to the point where I couldn’t cope with anything, so I faked it all. I lied to everyone. I made up fake transcripts.
I got my foot in the door in my desired field thanks to a friend, as he hired me as a subordinate. This place only hires college grads, but no one double-checked my credentials since I was recommended to them. My hope is that if I ever need to find another job, I'll have been at this place long enough to get it by my experience alone.
I work for a very prestigious company. I'm not bad at my job. On the contrary, I'm actually quite good at it. But my fear is that, eventually, I'll hit a wall and the lie will come to light. No one has known about this for the better part of a decade now. It's a relief to finally say this "out loud." I can't even tell those I love about it. My silence is my prison.
10. Everybody’s Got A Story
A 27-year-old man tried to end his life and passed from his injuries. I still remember it clearly; he told me his entire life story. I didn't sleep for a few days after hearing it and sometimes it still haunts me to this day. He was brutally teased in middle school straight until the end of high school. He had mild Aspergers and was quite intelligent but because of his looks and weird mannerisms, he was picked on. Then it got worse.
The girls would make him drink out of the toilet, the guys would chokehold him until he passed out or tie him up inside the gym so he woke up alone after school ended, only to go home and get beaten by his parents for being late. The girls would often make up fake accusations and he'd be suspended, only to be beaten up by his parents once more.
The guys would take his clothes and toss them in the dumpster, only for him to go crawling in it while naked. The girls would replace his lunch with rotten food, the guys would pelt him with rocks. It was just unbelievable. He finished high school but just barely, dropped out of college, and left home to go into the service industry. But it only got worse for him there as he couldn't do well with the stress.
He had his own issues. He said he was one of those incels and his only reason for living was so that others could hurt him to make themselves feel better. He told me he tried to end it because he was tired of living and also financially broken by then. He said he wished he stood up for himself from the start, and perhaps things would have turned out differently for him.
He passed a few days later while I was off shift. We all knew inside that he wasn't going to make it from the start given his injuries, but I still listened to the story. I hope he's at peace now.
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11. Get A Room!
My mother worked as a nurse in the biggest hospital in Copenhagen. A man is terminally ill with cancer, has his wife, children and entire family next to him. He decides before he dies that he was gonna phone the girl he was cheating with on his wife, to meet up at the hospital when the entire family was there. My mother had to move the entire family into another room when she showed up, because of the massive shouting and hysteria.
12. Resemblance Made Clear
My late mother looked nothing like her parents and exactly like my dad's uncle (my grandfather’s older brother). She even has the same heterochromia that he had (one blue eye, one brown eye). And she was conceived while her mother’s husband was in Korea. When she was born, he hadn’t been home in over a year. So yeah, you do the math.
And that's not all. My grandmother became well known to the local authorities and the other side of my family for absolutely all the wrong reasons. Her roommates and friends were working girls and she was likely one, too. My mum and my dad dated, had three kids, had an okay marriage until my dad started drinking and became aggressive. Finally, they called time on their marriage and divorced. That's when my grandma dropped a bombshell.
After the divorce, my grandmother admitted that they shouldn’t have been allowed to date, marry, or have children because they were first cousins. My great uncle was her father. All the adults knew and hid it because to them the idea that either family was appearing as less than perfect on the outside was unforgivable. After all, what people would think of them? Each side blamed the other for my cerebral palsy.
13. A Promise Is A Promise
This is my greatest regret. I'm a nurse, was working ICU at the time, and was freshly coming off orientation with about 1.5 years total nursing experience at the time, so not quite a rookie. Anyway, I had a patient one hour after my shift have severe difficulty breathing. After consulting the doctor, we decided to intubate and were getting ready to start the procedure.
The woman had widened panic in her eyes, and before we gave her a sedative for when she went out, I told her, "Don’t worry dear you can relax. We can do the breathing for you." This seemed to calm her some, and then we sedated her and did the procedure. It started going south. Her pressure started dropping, even after we put her on a cocktail of medications. I sat in her room the entire time and did any charting I could at her bedside, since alarms would constantly be going off.
This went on until 2 pm, when the family came and decided to take her off the ventilator as she had a poor prognosis. She passed a little bit later. I will always regret telling her not to worry, that we would do the breathing for her. Because in the end, we couldn't. I just regret that I couldn't fulfill my promise to her. So my advice to any of the younger ones in health care, don't make a promise you don’t know for certain you can keep.
14. For God And Country
I’m a chaplain in hospitals and hospices. Doing everything we can to reconcile people before they pass is a large portion of my work. I have a lot of stories. Regrets naturally are expressed at end of life because people want to close their narratives and they are reflecting on everything they’ve lived. This doesn’t have to be scary or heartbreaking; it’s often natural and a way to end things with beauty.
However, the worst confessions and regrets I’ve heard came from veterans. Some never regret actions done in conflict and have a chain of command. This was the “I was following orders” mentality that can go all the way up to how they perceive God. One man was recruited to the CIA and asked them, “So I guess you’ll have me taking lives.” He tells me they responded: “We call it ‘target acquisition’ now.”
The man never had a family because the CIA warned him to keep away from relational ties. He didn’t have any regrets as he was going about any of this. The one that sticks out to me the most, though, is a man who was an American soldier who became a German POW, and was eventually liberated by the Russians. He said the Russians freed them, but did little else and they were left to fend for themselves until US could extract them.
His biggest regret? That he took things from the corpses so he could have clothes and money to buy food. He bartered for food with valuables he retrieved from his late brothers in arms. He knows it was for survival, but he couldn’t come to forgive himself, which led to his second regret—he wished he died instead of his brother who was slain in action, also during WWII.
The important lesson isn’t to focus on the regrets, it’s to live a life now of love, acceptance, and mending bridges because you don’t know when it’ll be your time to tie loose ends.
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15. You’re Not Welcome Here
My mother was battling stage four cancer when I was 11 years old. While she was in hospice at home, her mother-in-law was standing by the bed. She woke up, heavily medicated, pointed at her, and said, "What are you doing here, I never liked you."
16. Justice Prevailed
I found it necessary to represent myself on a custody matter because my ex was physically harming our daughter. My daughter came to stay with me, and the day she arrived, she had a bruise on the side of her face. She told me her mother had sucker slapped her and bounced her face off the refrigerator door handle. I reported this to local law enforcement and CAS with no results.
Skip ahead to almost two years of making myself knowledgeable on court procedures and self-representation, and I knew that regardless of the issues, my ex could never resist the need to correct me. My ingenious plan went perfectly. When I finally appeared in front of the Superior Court justice with my ex and her lawyer, the justice asked about my ex slapping my daughter.
I informed him of the bruise on her face and that my daughter told me her mom slapped her. My ex then went into a rage, yelling that she would never hit our daughter and that I was making this up to paint her out to be a bad mother. I looked at my ex and said, “Our daughter told me that you slapped her and bounced her face off of the booze cabinet.”
Without missing a beat, my ex immediately corrected that it wasn't the booze cabinet; it was the refrigerator. Boom: Confession. Her lawyer did a facepalm, and the court justice winked at me as he put it over for a final hearing to award me custody. Sweet justice.
17. Seeing People at Their Worst
I used to be a 9-1-1 dispatcher but had to quit because it nearly made me suicidal. I have kept my struggles completely secret for several years now, and no one knows the true reason why I quit. At one point, I became so depressed as a result of the things I witnessed in that job that I actually began to have serious thoughts of taking my own life.
Thankfully, I managed to force myself to drive 40 miles away to go to a hospital center where no one knew me so that I could seek help without fear of being recognized and revealing my secret. I was having nightmares about a few calls that I had taken where the callers had either took their own lives, took someone else's life, or passed away while on the phone with me.
To this day, a few years after my resignation, I still can't listen to a phone ring or to sirens going off without having a mild panic attack. I am fairly sure that what I have is a form of PTSD, as it includes flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, and an inability to function sometimes. Nevertheless, I'm embarrassed and scared to tell my fiancé or anyone else I know about this part of my life.
I am very good at hiding it, though. I sometimes wait until my fiancé goes to sleep, and then I go sit by myself in the other room and pretty much cry my eyes out for several hours. It's hell.
18. Follow Your Heart
I used to be a nursing student, though I decided to drop out in my second year because it wasn’t where my heart was. During my placement at the city hospital, I got to talking to an older man—he must have been like 88 then. He was talking about how I look exotic and always complimented my long hair etc., etc. For what it’s worth, I was never threatened or put off by it.
One day, he told me I looked like the woman he wished he never let go. He said that he was completely happy about how his life turned out, loved his family and late wife, but he confessed he always thinks about this one woman he shouldn’t have let go by. He described this woman and his relationship with her as the perfect little blip in his life.
She was a petite Indian woman (I am a petite Pakistani woman) with long black hair and the most amazing smile. They met when he was 18 and she was 16. He was a jock at college and realized that her brother was taking the same classes as him, so he befriended the "dorky Indian guy" to get to his sister, who worked at the grocery store in town (that's how they met).
And it worked! They dated for six months before she randomly broke it off. It turned out, she was just uncertain about where their relationship would go and could go as an interfaith and interracial couple. The old man wished he fought harder, because her brother married a Chinese woman and if it weren't for his "jocky dumb attitude" he would have "gotten over" her decision to end things and fought harder for her to understand it would be all right.
Decades later, this petite, longhaired girl with an "amazing smile" (me) comes back into his life and he was flooded with the memories of the love of his life. He said the six months they were together were just the most deep and loving and peaceful months of his life. He should have been with her and she was the one who got away.
He said back then, you would fall in love in weeks and you loved hard, and that was simply that. Years later, I met a guy at work who ended up moving across the country for work. I remembered this old man and followed my heart. I never let my love get away, and I married him this summer. You should always at least try. Even if it doesn’t work out, go for it and find out so you never wonder.
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19. How Awful
When I was little (around six or eight years old, maybe), my mom, brother, and I were on the train traveling home from visiting family. Suddenly, the train stopped in the middle of nowhere, and we just sat there confused for a minute until my mom saw something outside and gasped, “Don’t look out the window.”
Naturally, this piqued our curiosity, and we clambered all over our mother to get a look out the window while she tried and failed to hold us back. There was nothing there—just some sticks and maybe some paint. We were like, “What gives?” My mother laughed and said, “Gotcha! Were you scared?” We both slumped back into our seats, disappointed, and waited for the train to start moving again.
She told us years later what she really saw that day... The truth sent chills up our spines. Someone had ended their life by the train, and we had happened across it. There was just no way we could have recognized what we were seeing as a human being, and my mom managed to just play it off like it was nothing, even though it must have been a truly horrifying sight to somebody who knew what they were looking at.
Wikimedia Commons, Vince pahkala
20. Loose Lips
My parents had a nasty divorce, which was often accompanied by a lot of trash talking about each other. There was a lot of “well your mother blah blah blah” and “your dad is such and such,” most of which I would just ignore because it was incredibly immature and embarrassing, until one day my mom broke out an enormous revelation.
My siblings and I were just watching TV in the living room one day and the conversation moved to my dad coming to town to visit, and my mom overheard. The mere mention of dad prompted this woman to stop whatever she was doing, come into the living room, and say something along the lines of: “Talking about your dad again, huh? Did you know that he was molested?”
My dad had never mentioned anything about this in the 18 years that I lived with him, which is understandable. To this day, I have no idea why my mom felt the need to blurt that out to the three of us, or why it is she thought that being a victim was a stain on someone’s character, but it was a really weird way to find out something so deeply personal about my dad.
Just to ease my conscience, my mom was actually a great mom. She practically raised us on her own, and the divorce wasn’t her fault in the slightest. She got hit with the passing of oth of her parents and a divorce all within a two-year time span, on top of losing the house. This was completely out of character for her, which is part of why it caught all of us off guard.
She’s a good woman who said something awful that she now regrets, but it's out there now.
21. Robbed Of The Truth
My great-grandma is still alive. One day, while visiting, she told me our family's big secret. It turns out that her father (my great-great grandpa) robbed a grocery store in the 1960s and spent a year or so behind bars. This all happened when my great grandma was already a married adult, so after that she pretty much cut him out of her life.
My great-grandma has never discussed him, other than to say he was mean and no one has ever brought him up around her. I understand now that she's probably more than a little embarrassed about it. But also, she probably has some hard feelings about it. You see, while her dad was in the clink, he would have left his wife (my great grandma's mom) alone and struggling.
22. Bad Judgement
I am a lawyer now, but this happened when I was in law school, and we had to watch actual court cases in the local district court. A guy stood accused of destroying some stuff his neighbor owned. After a complicated plea by his lawyer about how some evidence was inadmissible, the prosecution could not prove the defendant was guilty.
The judge agreed with the defense, delivered the verdict, and acquitted the guy. What happened next was just bewildering. Much to the exasperation of his lawyer, the defendant then got up, walked toward the judge as if to shake his hand, and said, “Thank you, your honor, I’ll never do it again.” The prosecutor then quasi-jokingly said, “Appeal.”
23. Reaching the Breaking Point
My secret is that I attempted to end my mother’s life. She was abusive to me, verbally and also physically. She'd hit me in places no one would see, or rip clumps of my hair out when dad was on the road for work. She probably has a personality disorder. She got in my face one night when I was coming home from my second job, and I had it.
My mom went through whole periods where she just wouldn't work, while I was going insane every summer working over 50 hours a week to pay family bills in my parents' names and also getting my younger sister to all of her activities. I HAD IT. I tried to put my mom's head through a wall. She started screaming, "Oh, help! Help!" and I told her that if she could dish it out, she should also be able to take it.
I shoved her onto the ground and kicked her repeatedly in the abdomen and thigh, while still trying to put her head through the wall with one hand (it's a plaster and lath situation, old-style house in New England). I really messed her up, and it felt good to do so. She has destroyed so many people's lives and she never faces any consequences for it.
No one in our family ever helped me or called the authorities when she would torment me. The only one who ever helped was the dog. If the dog was awake when my mom tried to start something, she would get between us and growl at her until she backed down. I had always shown restraint and never hit her until this night. Nevertheless, my dad did call 9-1-1 on me when I crossed that line.
The officers got there and split us up for interviews. I explained my side of the story and then just blurted out, "Where were you jerks when I was 8 years old and she was doing that to me??" The officer was taken aback. I think he could tell that I was being honest and that it was a culmination of years of trouble and pain. He went back and spoke to his partner, before saying "I think this isn't an assault, I think it's a mental illness thing."
Then, they basically intimidated my mom and dad into agreeing with them. They wouldn't let it go until they had both agreed that it was a medical issue. So, they called an ambulance and I went to the hospital as part of a "diversion program." Basically, they sent me to detox for three days and I emerged with no record, no charges, and no anything else either except a script for Prozac and a recommendation for therapy (paid for by the state low-income insurance plan).
Trying to kill my mom probably saved my life, honestly. I got myself some useful tools from a professional therapist, and it helped me become a more balanced person in the long run. That being said, I'm not stupid enough to want people to know about it. Who would ever date me? How would I ever get promoted at work?
Anyway, the moral of the story is to be kind to people. You never know what someone has been through, and you never know what people are capable of when pushed far enough.
24. Dancing to Another's Tune
My grandmother was super religious my whole life. Always going to church and doing right by her community. In her last few hours, she said she really did not believe in god and wished she had not wasted all that time in her life doing what she thought others wanted her to do. It was pretty crazy for her husband, my dad, and aunt to hear her say that.
25. A Soft Spot
I worked security in a hospital. In the ER, we had to sit with any 5150 patients so they wouldn't escape. In California, that's a threat to others, threat to self, and/or gravely disabled. It’s a legal hold that they can't leave. I had I think a 17-year-old girl who came in on a Tylenol overdose. I normally don't listen or really even get invested with patients because it's usually the same faces on a loop, but she kept trying to strike up a conversation.
Eventually, I relented and she let it all out. She told me how stupid she was. Apparently, it was over a boy and where she was going to go to college and what she wanted to do. Basically, her life story. Taking a break to cry for a second. I left and she was stable in the ER. The next day, I came in and asked if she went home or if she was in an inpatient unit. They told me she passed a few hours after my shift.
It's been like five years and thinking about it, I start crying like a baby. I don't cry. I think the last time I cried other than this was my grandpa passed, but even that I can discuss without crying now. Her story is the only thing that completely breaks me down.
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26. Kissing Cousins
A few years before he passed, my dad and I had a long heart-to-heart, at the end of which he told me he wasn’t the one to first sleep with my mom on their honeymoon. And the plot thickens. Apparently, he caught her in bed with her cousin, who she had been in love with for a long time. He spoke with their pastor, who told him to forgive and forget.
That worked...until six years later, when he caught her again with the same cousin. He told me he wanted to leave with me but ultimately decided to stay, because he wanted me to have a family. With all that happened in my childhood, and to him (workaholic, diabetes, heart attack), I wish he’d left that day and been happy instead.
27. In One Ear, Out The Other
I was an intern for a public defender when I was in school. I was able to practice under a limited license, as long as my supervising attorney was present. This meant I was able to do certain simple things like arraignments to gain experience. One morning, we met with this fellow before his arraignment. He told us that he was guilty and didn't want to fight the charge.
Really, he just wanted to get some help with his substance problem. My supervisor explained that this client would be an excellent candidate for the court program, and the first step to get that process going would be to plead "Not Guilty" that day, so an agreement could be worked up with the prosecutor in the weeks afterward.
I sat and watched as my supervisor explained the whole process to this guy, who seemed to understand completely. He seemed entirely sober at the time, and responded adequately to what the attorney was saying. Finally, my supervisor asked the guy, "Would it be OK if my Intern represented you for this? It's rather simple, all he'll say is "Not Guilty." The guy agreed and I was excited. I would come to regret this for the rest of my life.
Cut to an hour or so later. I am seated next to this guy, I enter the plea, everything is fine. Then the judge asks "Sir, do you have any questions for the court?" The guy, after having been explained the process thoroughly by advising attorney, says, "Can I just confess now?" All I could hear was the residual ringing of my ears left by a soul leaving one's body.
The judge gave me the most pitying look I've ever seen, and said "Sir, I think you need to consult with your counsel." My advising attorney then came up, tapped me on the shoulder, and said he'd handle it. Like a shamed puppy, I scurried back behind the bar. The attorney quickly conferred with the client and the plea went ahead as planned.
Later he told me to get used to that, as functional addicts tend to become experts in making people think they understand what they've been told, when they haven’t at all.
28. Spirits Crushed
My best friend, his crush, and I were riding our bikes in the nearby forest. My best friend tripped on a rock and went flying into a tree headfirst. His crush at the time and I saw the accident and ran over to help. Luckily I had my cell phone with me to call help. When I was calling, my friend confessed to his crush that he likes her, but his crush didn’t feel the same way.
A helicopter came and airlifted him to a nearby hospital. His crush and he were neighbors so it was awkward for like a year and a half after that.
29. Blessing in Disguise
My grandma confessed to my mom when she thought she was dying that she tried to coat hanger abort her. Obviously it was unsuccessful. My grandma was a religious woman, and decided that God wanted her to have this baby, and treated my mom like her favorite child. This messed my mom up for a while, and that wasn't even the worst part. It got 10 times more awkward when my grandma surprisingly got better.
After Grandma expired for real, my mom eventually made peace with it. After she was born, Grandma never treated her like she was unwanted, so mom understood she was in a vulnerable place at the time.
30. How Helpful
I wasn’t a lawyer yet, but I clerked for a DAs office throughout law school. I'll never forget this kidnapping case I worked on. It involved two Asian male defendants who were both the same age and looked relatively similar. During the trial, a lawyer asked the witness on the stand if he could identify the defendant who pushed an uzi into his face.
But it was clear the witness was having trouble differentiating the two defendants. That's when the crucial moment happened. In a true moment of brilliance, one of the defendants RAISED HIS HAND and basically pointed to himself like, "Right here, bud.” He essentially confessed right there. I thought his defense attorney was going to have a brain aneurysm. It was hands down the dumbest thing I'd ever seen.
31. You Can’t Handle The Truth
My dad told me that before he and my mom had divorced, he hadn't been happy with her for several years. My mother even had a miscarriage at one point, which destroyed the both of them, but he couldn't leave her because he was afraid that she would hurt herself. So his only thought was to have another kid with her—me—so that motherly instinct would hopefully prevent her from hurting herself. Not a fun thing to find out.
32. The Night Before
My secret is that my cousin slept with an adult dancer during his bachelor party on the night before his wedding. Hours earlier, we randomly ran into his fiance and her friends, and she made a huge deal about not wanting him to go to a gentleman's club specifically because she was afraid of something like this happening.
As it turned out, she was absolutely right to be worried about that. He never told her. Only 3 people know this. Me, him, and the dancer.
33. Eye Spy
When I was a kid, another kid in my neighborhood once shot me with an airsoft on purpose, even though I wasn't playing with him at the time. So, a little bit later, I wrapped an airsoft pellet in tinfoil and shot the kid in the eye. I hid somewhere where he wouldn’t see me when I did it, so he had no idea who was responsible. He never seemed to figure it out, and nobody else did either.
His eye is permanently damaged, and I believe it’s completely blinded to this day.
Wikimedia Commons, Santeri Viinamäki
34. I Object
Recently, we had a deposition with an employee of my client. We brought him in as a “fact witness,” which meant he was supposed to be impartial. During the deposition, he gave a confession that made our jaws drop. He said that he had signed an agreement that would pay him a substantial bonus if the client won the case.
How can you possibly give believable factual testimony at a trial if you stand to earn a windfall? Ugh.
35. Shooting The Shot
I was positive the house was going to come down during the in-land hurricane last year. Texted my roommate, who was at work at the time, "So hey, I might die. Just wanted to say I love you. Too much to risk not saying it. If I don't croak, see you tonight, if I do, sorry for the levity." Well, the house was 95% unscathed, and she came home with a huge smile and said she wanted to give it a try.
We aren't together anymore but all in all, could've gone a lot worse. 7/10, would try again.
36. Cat Got Her Tongue
My ex’s grandma’s best friend was given around two weeks to live. The friend had kept her mouth shut for years about some friends and family. Once she heard she was dying, she let loose. She told everyone she knew every bad thing she thought about them. She had also given away almost all of her possessions, including her beloved prize-winning cat. 10 days later she made a miraculous u-turn and lived for another two years.
She spent it estranged from the people she went off on, but remained close with those who she loved. She always said she wished she’d been honest sooner. I don’t know if she ever got the cat back though.
37. Until The Bitter End
When I was young, I was told my grandpa was slain by an ex-convict, and that the man hit him in the head or something. When I got older, my dad finally decided to tell me the truth. I was so much worse than I'd imagined. Apparently, some guys broke into his house and tied him up. They told him he must give them the documents for the house as a present or something akin to that.
When he didn't do that, they started tormenting him. But they didn’t know my grandpa. He was a strong man, and he never gave in. Although he passed, they never got those house documents.
38. Putting on a Show
I’ve done a lot of embarrassing things over the years that I now feel guilty about. Nevertheless, even with all of those things considered, there is still one particular incident that will always stand out in my memory as the worst thing that I have ever done, by far. The incident in question is the time that I mixed a pot of fake puke together at home, then went out to a movie theater and hid the fake puke in my jacket pocket.
I climbed up to the front of the balcony section, and then let out a loud heaving noise while dumping the contents of the pot all over the shocked and disgusted audience below. This stunt did not end up going over quite the way that I had imagined it beforehand. Warning: what comes next is truly horrible and not for the squeamish.
As soon as the audience heard the sound that I was making and began to feel my gross concoction landing on them from above, a whole bunch of the people in the area below me started to react by getting sick for real and, ironic as it may have been, throwing up all over each other. I have never felt so guilty in my entire life.
39. Regrets, I’ve Had A Few
I was a new nurse, flying solo. We got a call for an incoming trauma; it was a woman in her 50s involved in a multi-car accident. We were all ready at the ambulance bay, unsure of the woman's complete condition. She rolled in breathing on her own, but very labored and with asymmetrical chest expansion. She was profusely bleeding, had multiple deep lacerations, pupils blown, debris covering most of her, etc.
Her vitals were unstable, she was circling the drain, and we knew she was on the verge of coding. I was standing near her head, ready to assist in supporting her airway but also providing comfort and doing my best to calm her. The woman looked me directly in the eyes and in a hoarse, labored voice stated, "I was angry, I told her I was disappointed in her."
She began to cry, her vitals plummeted. "I'm sorry," was the last thing she said before her heart stopped. We coded her, intubated her, performed round after round of ACLS, only to eventually have to call time. I still see her face at times, her eyes filled with more emotional pain than physical. It took much longer and was so much harder to write this than I thought it would be...
40. Parents’ Princess
In my grandma's last days, she requested that mum stay with her alone, and it was only then that she revealed the secret she'd been keeping for decades: She revealed that my mum wasn't her biological kid. My grandma confessed that she had bought my mum from a child trafficking ring, which was common in China, because she had tried for many years and still could not get pregnant. My mother cried a lot, not only for the unimaginable pain that her biological parents likely went through in losing a baby, but also for the fact that my grandparents have gone beyond to treat my mum as their little princess.
They literally did treat my mum as their own. They were never abusive and only gave her the very best in life. They even willingly sent my mum to the US for a university education even though they aren't rich by any means.
41. Daddy Issues
My father tried to kill my mother while she was pregnant with me. He never got charged, and I found out about this when I was 20, after my mom told me in private. She said back then, my father had a drinking problem and he would get really violent sometimes. She said something to him one time so he grabbed a knife, pushed her next to an open window, and put the knife at her throat.
He then made her choose between jumping from the fourth floor or getting her throat slit. My mom said she cried and begged him to think of the unborn baby (me). Some neighbors heard the noise and intervened. They managed to take the knife away from him, and she was safe. But here's the brutal kicker. My mom is religious and doesn't believe in divorce, and they're still together after 45 years.
His violent tendencies toned down after me and my brothers were old enough to knock him out if he tried that again. However, I'm the only one in my family, besides my mom, who knows this happened. I've always had problems with him, but I hated him bitterly after my mom told me what happened then and other times as well.
42. If Not Now, When?
This was a weird one for me and actually apropos for my current life. I still think about her. This happened maybe six or seven years ago. She was an older female in her 70s with a history of breast cancer. At that point, she was in the ICU for sepsis, I believe. I talked to her and she mentioned she was widowed. I gave my condolences and stated “That’s hard, I’m sorry about your loss. I imagine you miss him.” Her response shocked me.
To my surprise, she told me, “No, actually I don’t. I was relieved when he went. I was never happy with him. I didn’t leave him because that’s not what we did back in the day. So here I wasted many years with a man who didn’t treat me well, and now I have cancer.” Oof. Life lesson folks.
43. Busy Man
I was in court to testify on a case. The accused is pleading guilty and the judge tells him to describe the incident. After the defendant gives a detailed confession, the judge glances at the paperwork and says: "Mr. So and So, that's not what you are accused of." The guy groans and says "Oh, that's the other county." Just incredible.
44. Not a Fan
Let me start off by stating that I have a boyfriend, which will be relevant later on in this story. I got back from a concert a couple of hours ago. Before I left for home, after the concert was over, I stayed in the venue for a couple of moments to text a friend. The lead singer of the opening band saw me and walked over to me.
We chatted for a bit and I was pretty excited that a band member who was touring with the group that I had just gone to go see was talking to me, so I stupidly pushed any warning signs away to the back of my head and just went with it. He suggested that I go back with him to his tour bus so we could drink and I could meet the rest of the band members.
I told him that I wasn’t old enough to drink, but he told me that he didn’t mind as long as I didn’t tell anyone. I was still a bit starstruck, so I agreed to come along. We headed over to the bus and, as promised, I got to meet the rest of the band members. However, instead of a brew, he asked me whether I preferred the harder stuff.
I said I guess, assuming it was just a question, but then he ended up giving me Jack Daniels. He then brought me over to the back of the bus to show me around, until we ended up in his room. By then I had started to recognize the red flags, but I still ignored them in case nothing would actually end up happening.
I don’t really know what I was thinking. I guess I’m stupid. I am also an extreme lightweight when it comes to drinking and I hadn’t eaten at all today, so I let him know that I didn’t want to drink too much. Nevertheless, he insisted that I finish the drink that he had poured for me, which had to have been around three or four shots.
He literally brought it up to my lips and poured it into my mouth. I stupidly swallowed it because I’m an idiot. So, of course, I was a bit loaded at this point, and soon after that he tried to lean in and kiss me. I told him that I had a boyfriend, so I couldn’t. He jokingly insisted that since he was from Europe, it didn’t count.
He continued to try to kiss me, but I held my ground. Being wasted made it really fuzzy, but I knew that I had to say no. Eventually, I managed to fight my way out of there and drive home. Nevertheless, I feel extremely guilty about putting myself in that situation and I am not sure yet whether I will ever confess it to my boyfriend.
45. It All Makes Sense Now
My mom was in the hospital, so I flew home. My dad and I were hanging out. He started telling me family secrets, almost like he was trying to get a reaction out of me. An uncle was victimized, an estranged aunt might have a different father than we thought, etc. The one that got me was when he revealed that he used to do coke.
I was imagining he meant like in his 20s. I asked, "When did you stop?" and he said, "I think you were about 19." “My entire childhood?” And he said, “Yup.” “Did mom know?” “Yes.” “How much?” “About a gram a week.” I was gobsmacked at first, but looking back, it made a ton of stuff make way more sense.
I grew up with my dad always having crazy mood swings and starting explosive fights. One minute he would be fine and then suddenly he would be raving about something. I knew he drank so I always blamed the instability in the house on that. But finding out he was regularly doing coke all my life was both astounding and it made complete sense.
46. Priorities
My grandfather was on his deathbed and it was obvious he was nearing the end. He motioned my mother over to tell her something. She went over, leaned in close, expecting some declaration of his love for her or something deeply insightful. He said, "The good family silverware is hidden in the ventilation system about 15 feet out from the furnace."
She looked at him like he was crazy. He said, "What!! We travel a lot and that's where I hid it. That stuff's expensive!"
47. Everybody’s Got A Story
My favorite aunt and uncle, who were together for 15 years but never married, lived in a trailer park. Growing up, they were the funniest to be around. We would bake cookies, do paintings together, etc. Then my uncle passed in his sleep one day. I was told as a child, when I was maybe 10, that he passed from his diabetes; I'd seen him inject his stomach before, so I believed them.
Fast forward about six years. My aunt lived with my grandma at that point and was diagnosed with lung cancer. Now, I knew my aunt always smoked and drank a lot, but my mom decided to tell me then that she was also an addict, and up until my uncle passed they did a lot of hard substances together. That’s when it dawned on me. My uncle most likely overdosed.
This still didn't change the fact that I loved my aunt. She got sicker and sicker with cancer, and it even spread to her throat. She went into remission, but once it came back she gave up. I miss her so much.
48. You Can’t Take It With You
As a medical student at Stanford, I got to see some "VIP" patients. One, in particular, was a middle-aged, high-ranking executive at an iconic company. This person was terminally ill and I was tasked with the initial interview. During my history-taking, they spoke about the ride up the corporate ladder. It all seemed worthwhile at the time—chasing wealth and prestige. Then they revealed the truth.
In the end, their regret was walking away from opportunities to build a family and invest in meaningful relationships. They poured their soul into the company, and yet not a single soul could spare the time to visit them in the hospital. I still remember them in the hospital bed, staring out the window with a blank expression. It haunted me for a while but helped me change my focus, especially in an area and field full of high-achievers.
49. If I Could Turn Back Time
He wished he had been a better father to his daughter. He wished they had reconnected. But there was an even more tragic side to this confession. His dementia prevented him from remembering they had reconnected years before and that she visited often. I wish I could have made him aware that he had accomplished his last wish. But he passed not really understanding that.
50. Long Lost Brother
I met a lady on a train to Edinburgh who was really nervous because she was on the way to meet her brother for the first time in 70 years. Her parents had told her that he perished when he was one, but they'd given him away because they couldn't afford so many kids. She didn't find out he was still alive until her mother confessed it on her deathbed.
51. The Secret Tragedy
I was told my aunt and uncle succumbed to a carbon monoxide leak in their house. When I was 16, my dad admitted that was a lie—and he revealed the dark truth. My uncle was having serious money problems. He shot my aunt and then hung himself.
52. It All Came Crashing Down
My first car accident back in high school was not the result of me swerving to avoid hitting a deer, like I told my dad and the authorities. What actually happened was that I tried to pull the emergency brake and do a 180 while going 50 miles per hour down a steep hill, just to see if I could pull it off. Had I crashed on the other side of the road instead of where I did, I would have fallen down a 50-foot hill and into the river. That was the last time I ever tried anything like that.
Lucky for me, there just so happened to have been visible deer tracks in the mud near the ditch that I ended up in. I avoided getting a ticket and my dad paid to have my car fixed. I have never told him the truth in the more than 15 years that have passed since the incident.
53. Maybe It Was The Hamburglar
When I was like four or five, my mom, brother, and I went along with my dad on a business trip to Seattle. I have a distinct memory of being in like a Taco Bell or a McDonald’s (I can’t remember which), but I remember waiting in line, getting to the front, and then my mom just taking us and leaving. I remember being so disappointed, and my brother and I whining and complaining until we got to the next place.
Well, a couple of years ago (I’m 28 now), it somehow came up in conversation, and my mom finally revealed the whole story. We got to the front of the line, and the cashier said, “Those men over there are robbing us; they have weapons. Take your children and leave now,” so my mom did exactly that and never told us what happened.
54. Paws For Thought
When I was four, I vividly remember getting into my mom’s car. She kept telling me that our cat had passed. She told me how she rushed him to the vet because something was seriously wrong. Despite her best efforts, he apparently passed. I never knew why he passed and why it happened so suddenly, but I accepted that it happened.
Fast forward about 15 years—I was home from college for the holidays, and on Christmas Eve I drove to the store with my dad and uncle. They talked about the cat my parents got for Christmas one year. When I heard the truth, my jaw dropped.
My dad said, “Yeah, that thing was too aggressive. I took it to a farm and gave it away.” Normally, when the family pet dies, the parents lie to the kid and say it “went to a farm upstate somewhere” to ease the burden. My parents told the opposite lie: they told me the cat passed away to cover up the fact that they just sent it away to some farm.
55. Saved by the Smell
My secret is that I know my dad cheated on my mom. I know this because, when I was just 9 years old, he invited the person he was cheating with over to our house while I was home, thinking I wouldn’t know or understand what was going on. She was a severely overweight woman, and my dad is also quite overweight himself. At the time, my parents had been frequently fighting, but they were trying to work things out. It was bad enough by this point, though, that they had already started sleeping in separate rooms.
Earlier that day, I had jumped on my dad’s bed and broken the board supporting it on the frame. I wasn't allowed to jump on the bed, and often got in trouble for doing so. When my mom came into the room to discipline me, she could smell the fact that my dad had just had company, because the woman had clearly smoked while she was in the room.
She asked if I had jumped on the bed. I said no, fearing that I would get in trouble if I confessed the truth. I was surprised to see that there was no follow up trying to prove my guilt. Years later, I suddenly remembered the whole incident—and that's when I realized the painful truth. My seemingly harmless lie basically incriminated my dad in her eyes. Now, I'm sure he was actually guilty of what my mom suspected; but nevertheless, it was my lie that got him kicked out of the house for good.
I will never let anyone know that I was the one who really broke the bed; or that I broke up my parents’ marriage in the process, either.
56. Not to The Taste
Me and all of my cousins were gathered around my grandfather's hospice bed as he lay dying. Each and every one of my cousins gave him a kiss and tried to talk to him/said they loved him, etc. But he wouldn't respond to any of them, just started. Until I came up. I sat on the edge of his bed, holding his hand. Everyone was watching us.
He looked at me and said, "I don't like Mexican food." And that was it.
57. Big Announcement
My grandfather was in the hospital in a pretty nasty state. He barely could speak, but he made it clear to us he had something to say. He had my mother get him a piece of paper and a pen. Thinking he has some important words to leave us with in case he doesn't have the chance later, my mom does just that. There's silence in the room as he scribbles something onto the paper, with my mother and her two siblings waiting in anticipation.
My grandfather finishes, and with a big smile turns the paper for us to see. "I've got a girlfriend," it read, as he pointed to Anna, a neighbor and friend of his. The goofball ended up pulling through and living several more years.
58. Seeking Absolution
When I was in nursing school, there was a patient I had who was a Jewish man from Ukraine. He was sent to a concentration camp by the Germans where he had to take food from a child so that he and his family could survive. He was 15. It has haunted him his whole life, and as he was about to pass, he started to hallucinate that I was the boy and begged me for forgiveness.
I said, “I forgive you,” and he just went. There were a few people in the room, but I was the only Russian speaker and for whatever reason, that made it extra intense.
59. Sibling Support
From my father's family line: my great grandfather took my great grandmother’s life with an axe while she was sleeping. My grandma, who was the oldest one, raised all of her siblings. She was 19 at the time and just married my grandad, who was 19 too. The youngest sister was just two years old, and there were nine of them in total.
I knew my grandma raised all her siblings but I always thought it was because her mother succumbed to some illness. I only found out what really happened when I asked my aunt and she spilled the beans. I still struggle to believe it. It's just so awful.
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60. Take Me Out to the Ball Game
I learned that my grandfather apparently had a hand in designing one of the original World Series trophies back in the day. He never got any credit for it, but we have photos and parts of his prototype version; so we know it’s true. When I was a teen, I added what I had heard about his role to a Wikipedia page, since why not? I believe my contribution has since been taken down but, funny story, I actually ended but being quoted in newspapers all over the country because of it!
A few years later, I proceeded to get a call from my mom one day, who was almost in tears (of joy) on the phone. She found that Wikipedia page and was FREAKING OUT over the fact that it mentioned my grandfather. She was so happy that he had finally gotten the credit he deserved in the eyes of the public. She ended up making really fancy shadow boxes of the printed out Wiki page, including copies of the original photos and other baseball stuff. She made one for each of her siblings as well.
I've had to just bite my tongue every time I go over there and see this thing hanging prominently in the living room, knowing that it’s all in reaction to something that I innocently did.
61. Oh, Brother
We didn't know that my dad isn't my brother’s dad until I was 10 and he was 15. The only reason they told him was that my mom was trying to manipulate him into choosing her side in the divorce.
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62. An Old Grudge
When I was growing up, my grandfather hated anything Russian. If there were any news about them, he turned off the TV. If they played against any other team in hockey or something, he didn't watch it, even though he loved ice hockey and even if it was a World Cup Final or something. When I was a kid, I didn't understand why.
To me, he was just a retired carpenter and grandfather. When he passed, my uncle told me everything. How he served as a foreign volunteer for Finland in the winter war against the Soviet Union; my great-grandfather was from Finland. How his friends were taken as POWs and executed. He was even wounded and almost perished in the battle of Ilomansti, the last big battle.
63. Something Wasn’t Right
Many years ago, when I was still just an awkward tween, my brothers and I used to spend a lot of time at our grandparents’ house. We had been raised by our grandparents since we were all little kids; and even after my dad remarried, he and my stepmom both worked graveyard shifts. So, we would very often spend the night at my grandparents’ house while my parents were at work.
One day, my grandmother informed me that it was my grandfather’s birthday, and suggested that I wish him a happy birthday. He was downstairs in the living room sitting on the sofa, and I went up to him and gave him a big hug around the neck and said, “Happy Birthday, Grandpa.” It was kind of difficult to hug a person sitting down, so I ended up kneeling on the sofa between his legs rather than trying to hug him from a standing position.
He was quite happy and gave me a hug back. When I pulled back from the hug, he held me in his arms and gave me a big smile. And then he put his tongue in my mouth. Sometimes, when I was a little kid, we would kiss other family members on the mouth, but those were nothing but chaste pecks on the lips. I could tell immediately that this was different.
His tongue was on my teeth. It lasted only for a moment, and I was grossed out and confused when I pulled away. At that moment, my grandmother walked into the living room. I turned my head around to look at her. My hands were still on my grandpa’s shoulders. She seemed really happy that I had wished my grandfather a happy birthday like a good little kid. I gave him a final quick hug and then scrammed out of the room.
For the rest of my tween and teen years, I was always careful not to be alone in the same room with my grandfather ever again. He passed during my twenties, a good decade ahead of his time due to lifestyle-induced health issues. As I expected, my family chose me to speak at his funeral. I had really complicated feelings about it because I did love him.
My grandma and grandpa raised me, after all. Also, my grandfather was the rock of the family and, after he passed, the three branches of it (my dad and our family, plus his siblings and their families) gradually drifted apart from each other. Nothing would ever be the same between us again. We don’t even spend Christmas all together anymore.
I’ve never told anyone in my family about it because I just couldn’t bear to break my grandmother’s heart. She’s survived her husband for 10 years at this point, and still talks to and about him every day and visits his grave multiple times a week. So, thanks for listening to my very personal story, internet people! It’s nice to finally get that off my chest.
64. He Just Needed to Vent
When I was about 6 years old, I was super scared of the dark like most 6-year-olds are. It was late at night one evening and I needed to pee really badly. I had an air vent on the floor near my bed. So, obviously, my 6-year-old mind thought that it would be a good idea to pee into the vent. My parents never found out about it, but for a good while they were constantly complaining about the pee smell in our house that they could never seem to locate.
I’m taking this secret to my grave.
65. My Brother’s Keeper
Dad and his brother hate each other. That was no secret. The secret was why. It all came to a head when my grandfather (my dad’s father) was on his deathbed. He needed a kidney. Dad was a match and didn’t donate. Once grandpa passed, things kicked off for real. I always thought it was due to my dad not giving the kidney. It was so much more.
My dad drinks a lot. It would affect him greatly to give up a kidney. There were many accusations about his drinking and being selfish. After the funeral, we were asked to come to take a lot of his belongings and his brother showed up and made a big scene. However, last year it all became 100% clear. That's when the true nature of their antagonisms was revealed.
My uncle likes to play the victim. My uncle has been married six times. He lied to his wife about how many marriages he had. He is a serial cheater. During my grandfather’s numerous hospital stays my uncle would travel to “be with his dad” but in reality, he was out sleeping with everything that moved, namely a nurse looking after my grandfather.
At that time, he was married to wife number six (she thinks she is the third) and has his first child who is now about 10. My uncle had always been this guy, but it blew up when my dad was hanging out with my uncle and my uncle’s business partner. Dad drank too much and laid all his brother’s dirty laundry out to the business partner. All of it, every detail.
The business partner jokingly made comments about it in proximity to my uncle’s current wife. This caused tension, a tension that eventually had the business partners separate. Uncle went nuclear on dad about it. Dad told him 1) if he was that upset about it why does he keep doing it and 2) back off unless he wants him to lay all this out to the current wife.
So all this time, all this hate was due to my uncle trying to keep his secret while masking it and blaming my dad for being an alcoholic and not saving his dad's life.
66. Lies For All These Years
For years my grandma complained about how my grandpa cooked eggs. My mom would also tell me the story about how she would hold the eggs my grandpa made in her mouth and spit them out at school. When we were younger my grandpa would make us eggs if we slept over at their house and I thought they were fine. My grandma would never eat them though.
It was funny because my grandpa didn't care. My grandma got sick and was in and out of the hospital. She would tell the staff how much she didn't like my grandpa's cooking, especially the eggs. My aunt was the last person to visit her, I was supposed to see her that Friday. The night before her demise, my grandma admitted to actually liking my grandpa's eggs.
67. The One You Gave Away
My great uncle told his wife that their son passed right after being born. But that was a huge lie. Instead, he gave him up to the state because he had Down's Syndrome. They had twins, a boy and a girl, and he somehow hid it from the whole family for about 40 years that both of them had actually survived, but they’d only brought the girl home.
We only found out when the family lawyer had terminal cancer and, overwrought with guilt, he contacted the twin sister to tell her she has a living brother who lives in a home run by the state. I guess the lawyer had helped my great uncle with the whole thing and still felt terrible about it. Also, for some added context, my great uncle was extremely wealthy. He could have easily paid for multiple caregivers to help his son, and it wouldn't have affected his life at all.
68. Addiction Kept Hidden
My aunt and uncle were drug addicts. I adored them but as I got older I started seeing less and less of them and never understood why. My parents briefly told me when I was 16 that my uncle didn’t pass of a brain tumour, but instead that he shot himself while my aunt was in the other room. Sadly, things got even worse. Overhearing my uncle take his life was part of what led to my aunt's fatal overdose on New Year’s Day.
They finally told me the whole story when I was 21. I was literally the last person to know (even my little brother knew before me) because I was extremely close to them and thought of them so fondly. Even after knowing all this, I still remember them with love. I wish I knew the truth sooner but I understand why my family didn’t tell me.
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69. Inside Out
I once planned to end my own life and had it all planned out. My letter was already written and ready to go. Then, on the morning of the day that I had planned on doing it, the person who had tormented me at school for years and made my life miserable shocked everyone by taking his own life. That was when the reality of what I had been planning really sunk in and I realized that I had almost made a terrible mistake. I swore to myself right then and there that I would get help.
Even though nowadays I can paint a really happy picture on the outside, I can still sometimes feel myself having days where I want to bawl my eyes out, crawl into a corner, and just disappear. My life is exponentially better now than it was before, but that still doesn't change how messed up I sometimes feel on the inside.
My darkest secret is the fact that I still fight these urges, and that I still hate myself.
70. Past Lives
Two years ago, my dad finally admitted that he had a wife before my mom, and she perished in a freak accident on their wedding night. She was sleepwalking and fell to her death over the balcony.
71. The City of Motherly Love
You know those stories about girls in the ‘70s who “went to live with an aunt” for a year during high school? I did that. In 2008. I was a very naive teenager who was still just getting used to the way her body worked, and my friend thought it would be absolutely hilarious to buy a few of those cheap pregnancy tests from Walmart and see what happened.
We laughed the whole time, until one of them came out positive. We couldn’t remember which one was which, so we got 2 more and it turned out it was mine. That was when it dawned on me: I had recently slept with someone. My school did not offer any kind of sex education and my parents were useless in that regard, so it was completely possible that I had not used my protection properly. I panicked and swore my friend to secrecy.
I basically put it out of my mind until my clothes didn’t fit anymore. I was always close with my older cousin and we were talking on the phone one night when she asked how school was going. I just broke down and dumped all of it on her. She calmed me down and then came up with the perfect plan. It was already April and, when I’d finally gotten up the courage to go to a Planned Parenthood, they’d told me that I was due in August. So, my cousin called my mom saying that there was this amazing summer music program in her town that I just HAD to attend, and that I could stay with her the whole time.
My mom thought it was great and the day after school ended, I got on a plane to San Francisco. I stayed with my cousin, she went to all of my appointments with me, and she helped me find a social worker and eventually my daughter’s future adoptive parents. When I arrived back home before my junior year of high school started, my mom asked me how my summer was without really caring and then remarked that I must have lost a few pounds.
My cousin lost their life in 2012 in a car accident, and no one else knew about this whole thing apart from that one friend, the doctors I saw in Oakland, and the people involved in the adoption. I get a photo and a letter about the child once a year, and I send money for her college and a card for her birthday every year. When she turns 16, her parents are allowed to give her the cards if she wants them, but they are not permitted to pass any contact information along.
I have no interest in meeting her or getting to know her personally. I know she’s safe and comfortable, and that’s all I want. I will die before I tell anyone about her, and if my friend were to ever spill the beans I would simply deny it.
72. Young at Heart
My great-grandmother asked my mother to go clean her "toys'' out of her nightstand before the rest of the family went through the house after she perished. My mom thought it was hilarious and awesome.
73. Something Seems Fishy Here…
One evening, while camping, my brother caught a fish that we decided to keep alive in the cooler for some reason. Well, the next morning, we ran out to see the fish, and it had grown like five inches! We were so excited, and we didn’t know how the fish grew that much overnight. But last year, we brought it up, and my dad finally told us what really happened... That's when we realized it was all a lie.
He said that he had gotten up that morning and saw the fish get taken by a raccoon, so my dad spent the next hour or so frantically fishing for another one. He said he caught the new fish—the first one he could catch—just a few minutes before we got up. I had never questioned the fish’s growth as I grew up, but I felt like we probably should have wondered about that more after hearing what really happened.
74. Age Is Just a Number
My secret is that I lost my virginity at age 27 with a woman who was 58 years old. She is a sweet lady who knew my mother and felt badly for me. It was purely done out of pity, but I didn't care. I continued my relationship with her for another 2 months until she ended it because she was worried that I had grown "dependent" on her.
I'm 29 now and she's still the only woman I've ever been with. On the bright side, it will be easy to take this secret to the grave since I know I'm gonna die alone.
75. Alien Probe
My father always talked about how his brother lied to a doctor with a crazy story so he could get on disability. I remember thinking how it seemed so easy for anyone to get disability insurance: all you had to do was tell your doctor you were abducted by aliens. Years later, my father had a mental breakdown and everything eventually became more clear.
My father started telling stories about the government implanting a chip in his brain. He went out and got a brain scan as proof, and he would point to things that weren't there. My dad was diagnosed as a schizophrenic and years later, he started collecting a disability cheque because he couldn't hold a job (kind of hard to perform any job when every conversation, including interviews, veers into the government probing you, literally).
As an adult, it dawned on me when my aunt mentioned mental illness runs in the family. My uncle had never lied to his doctor. He told that doctor what he believed to be the absolute truth: he had been abducted by aliens.
https://www.pexels.com
76. Gotta Be KD
My stepmother is the kind of person who makes everything from scratch, and when she and my dad were dating, she made mac and cheese, but the homemade baked casserole kind. It was delicious, but us being dumb kids we would say things such as, "It was good, but it's not like how mom makes it." Of course, we never elaborated on what we meant.
She tried multiple times, switching things up slightly, but always got the same response. Eventually, she just asked my mom what her secret was. "Well, first you boil some water. Then you pour in that blue box that says Kraft on it..."
77. Hiding Your True Feelings
My big secret is the extent to which I hate myself and my life. I think about death a lot, but never tell anyone because there is a very real possibility of me losing my job if I do. It’s a pretty bad situation to be stuck in. I desperately need help, but can’t actually seek it or be open about my issues because I would be risking some very serious repercussions.
78. Oh, You Beautiful Doll
I will never let anyone know that I used to have one of those expensive and fancy life-sized “girlfriend” dolls that you see in movies and cartoons. I got rid of it at the first possible opportunity as soon as I got a real partner. Nevertheless, it remains the one thing in my life that I am not willing to ever tell anyone I know about.
79. With Friends Like Those, Who Needs Enemies
My secret is that I was physically attacked in the youth room of my childhood church by my two best friends at the time. We were basically alone in the building when it happened. One did it, and the other held me down. They thought it was a funny joke, even once I started screaming. One of them eventually had a moment of clarity and I suppose realized that what they were doing was wrong. At that point, they made the other person stop, and then they both sat there with me for a few minutes until I had calmed down.
Once I regained my composure enough to stand up, I racked one of them between the legs with a pool cue. Their parents were waiting for us in the parking lot, and they were going to call the authorities on me when they discovered what I had done. Finally, my friends confessed what they had done to their parents. I was then pressured into silence by the pastor at the parents' behest.
I've told some people about this over the years, so I guess it's not technically a secret. Nevertheless, people have generally not believed me when I’ve spoken about it, because I'm a big guy and always have been. The last person I tried to talk to about it actually smacked me in the face for even suggesting that such a thing could have happened, so I guess one way or another I'll be dying with this one as my lifelong secret.
80. A Bump In The Road
I was working as a paralegal. We were defending a claim that had run into tens of thousands of pounds against our client. It was a trailer park where a woman had tripped over a speed bump while walking back to her caravan, and damaged her knee. The fall was genuine. The question was whose fault this was. She claimed it was the trailer park’s fault because she hadn't seen the speed bump due to low lighting, poor marking etc.
Going through the various questions to her, our barrister asked how she knew the speed bump was poorly marked, or something similar. Her response was, "Well, I remember thinking how it wasn't well marked when I was walking up to it." Needless to say, it was a short day in court after that point. I mean, if she saw it in the first place…
81. Guilt Trip
I have an uncle who is an alcoholic and lived with my grandparents until they passed. We always thought he was just an unmotivated loser. I have another uncle who passed long before I was born (he got hit by a car coming back from the store). But then, after both grandparents passed, my mom told me the true story of what happened.
The alcoholic uncle was asked to go to the store but convinced his little brother to go instead which led to his being hit by the car. My grandmother, with whom I have always held in very very high regard, told my alcoholic uncle afterward that his brother would still be alive if he had gone to the store as she had asked.
I cannot imagine the guilt that he would have felt and completely understand why he ended up that way as a result. In my adult life I’ve found that my uncle is a pretty good man, he was just dealt a bad hand.
82. Early Trauma
My dad's friend shot himself in the head in front of my dad and some other friends when he was 15 years old. They were all hanging out at the friend's house having a good time when the friend went upstairs, grabbed his father's pistol, and came back down, calling everyone's attention as he did so. He then put the pistol to his head, squeezed the trigger, and collapsed behind a couch.
They all thought it was some sort of sick joke at first, until they looked over the couch and saw his body and the blood. I first heard this story from my mom when I was 18, which explained some of my dad's behavior toward toy guns when I was a kid, but I never brought it up with him. I just hoped that one day he would open up to me about it. Eventually he did, but we haven't talked about it since then.
I'm amazed at how my dad turned out to be such a great man after having to experience something awful like that at such a young age. According to him, it's something that never left him, either. He still has nightmares about it and gets really uneasy in movies and television shows when they show someone getting shot in the head.
83. I’m Not Who You Think I Am
My guilty confession is that, while everyone who knows me thinks that I have a good job and nice roommates, I have secretly been homeless and doing streetwalking to support myself for over a year.
84. Weird Uncle
When I learned my family secret, all of a sudden I knew why my uncle was so weird. He would always pick me up and carry me away rather than let me stay alone in a room with my grandfather. I never knew why and for the longest time I thought my uncle was a real prude until I eventually learned the agonizing truth. And I was shocked.
My male cousins could all swim in the buff or run around in just their swim trunks, but my uncle made me always wear a swimsuit and cover-up when I came out of the pool. He later admitted, "God forbid he touched you, I was making sure no one could try to blame you. They blamed all his other victims for being too tempting."
My uncle, bless his heart, wanted to end that man’s life so badly. For that matter so did my dad. Finding out my grandfather was a pedo made all of their mutterings to each other at family gatherings make so much more sense.
85. On the Other Side of the Screen
I’m an IT guy, and my confession is that I read and watch everything that my coworkers do on their computers while at work. It's amazing what people will do and say online despite having signed a waiver that all computer activity at work is monitored and recorded. I have half the company's banking, social media, and personal email account info and passwords.
I know who is secretly sleeping with who at the office behind their spouses’ backs. I know when people are having marital problems or financial problems. But the worst thing I ever found out? A person here had their children taken away from them because a social worker found cocaine in their house. I know who is embezzling money.
I know when people get fired for completely ridiculous reasons—like the boss just wants to replace them with someone younger and nicer on the eyes. And, best of all, I know who my boss is buying drugs from. Basically I have a treasure trove full of my coworkers’ personal secrets. I won't actively do anything with this info, but it's nice knowing that I have the ammunition there in case something were ever to happen.
86. Where There’s Smoke, There’s Fire
My secret is that my father burned down our childhood home for the insurance money. He took me along as his alibi, so that I could “verify” that he wasn't anywhere near the location when it happened. I was only 13 years old at the time. I remember crying so hard knowing that all of my clothes, books, photos, and everything I owned would be destroyed. I wasn't allowed to save anything because he told me it would have looked too suspicious.
I found out years later that he blamed the whole thing on me. He told the fire chief (plus all of our friends and family) that the fire had started because I had been secretly smoking in my bedroom. I've never smoked in my life!
87. Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Equally
My secret is that my mother is cheating on my father and my father is cheating on my mother. Neither of them knows about what the other is doing. They both know that I know about their own behaviors, as they each separately made me promise not to tell the other parent. Parents can be messed up sometimes…
88. Panic Explained
I learned why my mom panics the way she does and jumps to conclusions all the time. If she can’t get ahold of my brother or me on the phone, she automatically assumes we're never coming home and she goes into an intense panic. Recently, she couldn’t contact my brother for a few hours and she lost all composure and had a nervous breakdown.
Recently, my father finally revealed the reason why. Many years ago, when my mom was in high school, my granny (my mother’s mom) attempted to take her own life. My mom made a horrible discovery: She was the one that found my grandma on the floor. Luckily, she found her just in the nick of time, because if she'd gotten home even half an hour later, my grandma wouldn't have survived. We just are starting to realize after all these years, that she probably has undiagnosed PTSD.
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89. The Writing Was On The Wall
When my brother, my sister, and I were kids, there was the incident of the “little M’s.” I must have been about five years old, while my brother was seven and my sister was nine. One evening, my mom had been decorating the living room, and about halfway up the wall, there were these little squiggles that suddenly appeared in pencil over the fresh paint.
They went the whole way along the wall and around the entire room. When my mom saw them, she hit the roof. There were hours of screaming and trying to get one of us to confess to writing on the wall. I was the prime suspect being so young, but on closer inspection, the little squiggles looked like little “M’s.” Because my sister’s name began with an “M,” she was also a suspect.
My mom sent us all to our shared room to talk about which one of us would confess. We knew that none of us had done it, but we still had to confess because my mom was... well... crazy. Being the youngest, we decided I’d receive a lesser punishment, so I took one for the team.
Many, many years later, we asked our mom about it. She admitted that she had figured out the next day that it had bled through the painting from underneath. Someone must have marked a border around the room; possibly for a dado rail or something. We laughed it off, but we were pretty angry that she didn’t admit it and apologize to us at the time.
90. Double Life
Both of my grandparents served in WWII and were lucky enough to survive. While growing up we were told that they performed normal basic jobs during the war. As each one came closer to their demise, more truths came out. My grandfather on my mother's side revealed he was more of a black ops seal type and not a cook as he previously stated. Grandfather on my dad's side was in charge of the army's computers for casualty tabulation.
91. God’s Plan
My gramma's brother was in his final moments and he confessed to his wife that he was cheating her a lot, with three other women. He confessed because he was afraid of going through misery after his passing, but it looked like God had other plans for him. Unfortunately for him, and no one knows why, in a blink of an eye he got better and better, until one week later he was released by the doctors. His wife's brother was a lawyer, they issued him and got almost everything.
He lived for seven more years without any money and all the women and their children abandoned him, so he perished alone at home.
92. Best of Both Worlds
My mom and her dad both grew up believing and hearing stories from my great-grandmother about how she was the daughter of a Cherokee woman who ran off and joined the circus. It was a good tale. My great-grandmother taught all of us rain dances and other cultural things. All of her decor and style was Cherokee-inspired. She even physically looked Native American. My older cousin even got some college grant based on being 1/16th Native American.
On my great-grandmother's deathbed, she tells my grandpa that she made all of it up. Turns out her mother was really just a woman of European descent who slept around with other men in her neighborhood and dumped my great-grandmother in an orphanage.
93. A Little Off The Top
My client was a decades-long employee with a bank, and she came in to dispute a termination for cause. She confessed that in an act of desperation and at a time where we had good evidence she was under great mental stress and depression, she had “kited” a check—that is, she deposited a check she knew wouldn’t clear, then used those funds to withdraw money or write your own check.
This was the basis for her termination, but it was an arguable case. The client had immediately thereafter ensured there was enough money in the account so that the bank suffered no actual loss, and her job had no access to or connection to money. It was more for the purposes of getting access to funds early at a moment she needed them. Or so we thought.
Partway through discovery, the bank pulled out records and ATM footage that showed our client doing the same thing over a hundred times. Case didn't go so well after that.
94. Wrong Place, Wrong Time
My confession is that I really don't want to be with my girlfriend anymore, but she might have cancer so I feel like I need to stay in the relationship in order to not be judged as some kind of a monster.
95. Daddy Issues
This was one of those revelations that haunted me the very moment it came out. It was a case where my client, a mother, was trying to get a restraining order against her brother for harming her kid. The entire time, she’d been super dodgy about the kid’s father’s identity. Well, in the middle of open court…she confessed that the brother was her child’s father.
96. Five More Minutes
When I was 15 years old, I was lying in bed one morning when I heard my dad coming up the stairs. Being a typical teenager, a conversation with my dad first thing in the morning was not something that I could be bothered with, so I pretended to be asleep. I heard my dad come into my room and stand at the end of my bed in silence. I waited, expecting him to say something, but he just stayed right where he was and didn’t say or do anything.
This went on for an oddly long amount of time. After about 5 or 6 minutes, he left the room and I just thought to myself, “Good thing he finally left! What was he doing staring at me? That weirdo!” My dad then walked downstairs, continued out the front door of our house, and drove off. They found his body 3 days later. It turned out that those 5 or 6 minutes in my bedroom was him taking a last look at his son before he took his own life.
Ever since then, my darkest (and guiltiest) secret has been the fact that I spent my last ever time in the presence of my dad thinking that he was a weirdo.
97. The Worst Day of All Time
This is something that I should probably have told my best friend about a long time ago, but I just don’t have the heart to break it to him. Only an hour before his girlfriend lost her life in a car accident, I saw her at my job making out with the captain of the track team (my best friend’s cousin). It’s now been eight years since the accident, but I still can’t tell him about it. It would destroy him emotionally, and I can’t do that to him.
He was planning to propose to her that day, too…
98. Double Standards
Both of my mother's parents had affairs behind each other’s backs. However, my grandmother eventually had Parkinson's, and in one of her confused states she confessed to my grandfather that she had an affair. Suffice to say, my grandfather was not happy—and he got a cruel revenge. That man put her right into a home. And that wasn’t all.
He then started talking to my mother, trying to figure out when it could have happened. He speculated that it happened around the same time he was having his affair, which was around 1966. My mother was shocked, since she was born in 1967. So my mother may or may not be related to the man she believed to be her father.
99. Gone Too Soon
When I was very young, my oldest cousin passed at the age of 23. I really liked him because he would take to me this local lake and we'd throw rocks into the water. I remember not understanding what was going on other than watching everyone be sadder than I ever knew was possible at the time, but I wasn't told why. Years later, I found out he took his own life. But that wasn’t the end of the story.
Years after that, my aunt finally admitted what happened. She found him hanging in the shed with a note saying he was gay, and based on how he heard the family talk about homosexuals, he thought they'd never accept him. To this day, they hold opinions I would deem hateful toward others, so honestly, I'm not sure he was completely wrong. Today he would be in his 50s.
100. Something Strange In The Neighborhood…
When I was around six to eight years old, I remember I had to start asking my mom to go play in the backyard with my siblings so that she could supervise us. We never had to do this previously, so my siblings and I were very confused. Any time we didn’t ask, we got in big trouble. Eventually, when we got older, my mom finally told us the truth. We were absolutely floored.
It turned out the neighbors were harboring a known pedophile in their house, and that’s why mom got so upset with us going outside without asking.
