The anonymity of the internet can turn regular people into psychopaths—but it’s not all bad. It also allows them to confess the jaw-dropping secrets they would never tell anyone in real life.
1. Daughter Didn’t Know Best
I was a hospice nurse for ten years. I admitted a patient with cancer who had intractable bone pain. Based on my assessment, I expected it to be a week or two before he passed. In his case, the only medication that gave him any relief was morphine. His wife did a great job taking care of him and giving him his meds as we planned.
It was very effective, and he was comfortable. As he came closer to losing his life, he slept more, which was normal and expected. One of his daughters flew in to be with him at the end. She went bananas that "daddy was on morphine" and raised so much trouble that his wife freaked out and caved to her demands. She revoked hospice and called the ambulance.
When he got to the hospital, the daughter told them that he had taken too much morphine, and the ER room doctor gave him Narcan. What happened next was absolutely horrific. He came out of it screaming in pain and didn’t stop. He stayed in the hospital until he passed, and he suffered. It's been years since this happened, and it's still the worst nightmare of my nursing career.
There wasn't anything I could have done, but I still feel bad about it.
2. Swapped At Birth
When I was 11, my mother gave birth to my little brothers, who are identical twin boys. My sister and I, who are also identical twins, decided it would be funny to swap them. They had bands on their wrist identifying them, but we were able to ease them off and swap them. We then placed them in each other's cribs. We did it because we thought our parents would realize straight away and laugh since they were able to tell us apart even when we swapped clothes.
However, they didn't. A while later (possibly a few weeks to a month), we decided to swap them back because we gradually became scared they'd find out and we'd get into trouble. We swapped their clothing, but by that time my mom had gotten used to their faces and individuality and asked what we were playing at swapping their clothes.
We never told her that we were actually trying to reverse an original and successful trick because we knew she wouldn't believe us or be furious. So we are the only family members who know that they're swapped and that the eldest is actually the youngest. Only one of our best friends knows the truth. They are 16 in December. We plan to tell them one day because they have a right to know, but neither of us have the balls at the moment.
3. Fake It Till You Make It, Then Quit
My heart is pounding because I literally haven’t told anyone this. So I work at this one store, and I work on the sales floor; but before all that, I was just one person interviewing for a position at the store. Before I arrived for my interview, a friend of mine dared me to interview in a British accent. I said I’d do it only if they paid me, and to my surprise, they sent me like $10 through Venmo, which was more than enough for me.
I went into the interview with the mindset that I wasn’t going to get hired…and they inevitably hired me on the spot. Accent and all. I was nervous because I had already talked to a whole bunch of higher-ups with the accent and decided to just go through with it, this time thinking it was only going to be a summer job. I was so wrong.
It’s been like seven months that I’ve been working there and I still use the accent to this day. When people ask me where I’m from, I just tell them my hometown because there are several British people from that town whom I grew up with. The accent hasn’t really posed a problem…until now. See my boyfriend is friends with one of my co-workers, so I’m going to have to find the right time to come clean.
When I finally told my boyfriend about the accent he said, and I quote, “Well babe, you just gotta fake it till you make it, and get the heck out of there!” I got a lucky one, y’all!
4. Paper Trail
I worked in palliative care, and I sent a patient home to see if he could spend his final moments there instead of in the hospital. We weren't very hopeful but thought it would be worth a try. To no one's great surprise, he ended up coming back a couple of days later for whatever reason. Since I knew him, I re-admitted him.
I knew he wanted to be a DNR (do not resuscitate), so I wrote it on my notes. But there was one crucial thing that I forgot. However, I didn't re-fill out the hospital paperwork. The next day, I got to work to discover he had coded and was on a ventilator in the ICU. Instead of passing peacefully, his wife had to make the decision to turn off life support.
My entire job at the end of life is to ensure as good a death as possible. In one simple omission, I messed that up royally.
5. No Explanation
A year after my parents divorced, my father took early retirement, sold the house, and moved with his mother from Ohio to Florida. All of this was very sudden and rushed; he accepted the first offer that was made on the house. He passed 18 months later. In his effects, we found his medical records—and that's when we learned the heartbreaking truth.
He had pancreatic cancer, did nothing to treat it, and never told a soul. He found out, retired, moved someplace warm, and waited. I also found his medals from his time in the Marines, including a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. My father was the poster child for PTSD.
A few years later, Grandma and I had a real heart-to-heart. She said I never really met the real him, a piece of him never really left Vietnam. He expired a broken and depressed man and told no one he knew that his time was up.
6. A Bond Between Brothers
So, about 40 years ago, my dad’s baby brother was in a BAD accident. He was driving a big rig through Alberta, and the stretch of highway he was on was raised up above the land around it. His cab ended up on one side of the road, his trailer on the other. He had to be air-lifted to the hospital. He was in a coma for days.
He couldn’t walk for a while after he woke up, but couldn’t remember he couldn’t walk, so kept trying to get out of his wheelchair and falling flat on his face—it was BAD.
My dad and their parents flew in from BC to be there for him. He pulled through, though had some minor brain damage. Went on to become a teacher, moved to Japan, got married, and had a couple of kids. Seven years ago, he went for a walk on New Year’s Day, but he never came home.
They found his body on the hiking trail. He’d had an aneurysm.
After his memorial service, my dad and I were staying up late into the night talking over some drinks. And the topic of his accident came up. Now, the first time I’d heard about the accident, I was a curious 10-year-old that had just noticed one of his pupils was bigger than the other. So I’d asked about it, and he told me the story over ice cream.
So when my dad brought up his hospital stay, I told him what I remembered being told: that when he finally woke up from his coma, he was alone in the room, but the room felt like my dad, and he knew he’d been there for him. My dad doubled over sobbing. He’d never known.
7. Withdrawn Cousin
My cousin hadn’t totally withdrawn and become reserved like I thought. It was just around family. I had no clue what was going on behind closed doors.
His narcissistic mother forced him to hide his tattoos (which I also found out about when he was admitted to the hospital) under long sleeves, and our (also narcissistic) grandfather snapped at him when he was younger that he talked too much and was annoying. So my cousin just shut down and didn’t do much at family gatherings.
He was his normal, joking self that I knew and idolized as a kid when he was with his friends, though. It broke my heart.
8. A Life-Ruining Mistake
I can't believe I am actually typing this out right now; it's making it feel very real. Around a year ago, my older sister, who was the widowed mother of two boys aged eight and five, decided to get extremely loaded and wreck her car into a rock embankment outside of our town. She was life-flighted to the ICU, spent weeks in a coma, and awoke in a vegetative state.
In the past year, she has SLOWLY begun to see some progress. Because of this accident, I was forced to quit my job, leave my friends, and move across the country and back in with my parents to help take care of her and raise my nephews. I love them dearly, but I have never wanted to have kids, especially not forced upon me like this.
She has the mind of a child now, argues about silly things, can't cook for herself, cries over everything, can't read, has memory loss, is partially paralyzed on her right side, has aphasia, and a LIST of other problems with me as her caregiver. She tells me how happy she is to be alive after such a bad car accident. I want to scream that I wish she would have perished.
Her boys are a wreck after losing their dad recently and now having a messed up mom. My parents are spending all of their retirement savings for her treatments. I can see the years getting shaved off my dad and mom from the stress. I don't treat her any differently, I still tell her stories and laugh with her and do my best, but I hate the way I feel when I look at her.
Did you even think about your boys when you got in your car? She is smiling and completely ignorant to the pain she has caused to my entire family. So I guess that's it. That's my confession. I have a deep dark hatred and resentment for someone I love. And I will never let her know.
9. A Weight Lifted
A couple of days ago, I found out that the guy who brutally teased me all throughout high school croaked, and honestly I couldn't be happier. My friends all tell me I'm terrible for being happy, but they have no idea what I went through because of him. He almost drove me to harm myself and knowing he's gone and can never do it again just makes me feel better.
I feel bad for his parents and I'd never wish that upon anyone to outlive their children, but I just can't help myself. As for how it happened, the truth is I don’t know. I assume it was substance use, because the obituaries never stated anything nor was it explained on social media. I also made the assumption off of what his personality was like.
It’s hard to put into words the feeling I have. “Ecstatic” isn’t quite the right word. It's more relieved and indifferent. I don’t know what his home life was like or what made him into the monster that he was, all I know is that all he did was hurt me and make my life miserable. Could he have changed his ways since then? Maybe. I'll never know.
It doesn't change what he did. Life happens, people live and people go. There's nothing we can do about it. Hindsight is 20/20, if I could go back and tell myself to stand up and not take it I would, but I can’t. There are a lot of things I would’ve done differently regarding it, but it's done, it's in the past. Nothing can change it. And I’m glad he’s gone.
10. That Crazy Ex
I was once friends with a girl who told me that in order to get back at her ex-boyfriend, with whom she had been having an affair, she did something truly monstrous. She sent an email to his suicidal wife detailing their affair. Her intention was not just to break them up, but to have the wife end it. She eventually attempted it, and was found unconscious by her husband as he opened the front door. Thankfully she survived it all.
To make things worse, my "friend" wasn't even 100% into the guy.
11. My Strange Obsession
I’m an English teacher. Last year, one of my students wrote a personal essay about his doll obsession. The essay was very revealing and he told me it was the first time he’s ever shared this information with somebody other than his family and doctors. At the end of his essay, he talked about how he’s worked with his therapist to find the root of his obsession and has stopped buying dolls.
Well, I have him again as a senior, and I’ve already overheard him mention these dolls, in passing/to other people, three times. The comments he has made about the dolls have been very subtle, but enough for me to be concerned. "Obsession" barely even begins to describe it. I mean he sells everything and anything he has to get money to buy the dolls. He will even swipe things to get money for the dolls.
I plan on making a call home tomorrow when I get to work. I will admit this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever been told in confidence, but I care about this student a lot and am concerned.
12. We Need To Talk About Kevin
This is very hard for me and I have been carrying it for a lot of years. On the advice of my therapist, I’ve written it all out to try to work out my feelings on it. I still really have no idea how I feel about it, even after all these years, but I will submit for judgment by the masses. I know I did wrong on some things, probably a lot of things.
I tried to do the best that I could. My son was very troubled. VERY troubled. If you have seen the movie We Need To Talk About Kevin, it will really help to understand what I'm talking about, because I swear to God when I watched that film I thought I was watching a documentary of my life. I felt like the writer must have had cameras hidden in my house, that’s how accurate it was.
The only difference is that in the movie, the boy appears normal to his father and only reveals his true nature to his mother. With my son, he didn’t have that mask. His insane behavior was the same with everyone. From the day he was born, my son just came out wrong. He was planned, my wife and I tried to get pregnant and were ecstatic when he was born.
He was wanted and loved. We showered affection on him and really tried to give him a happy childhood. But from the day we brought him home from the hospital, he was miserable. He cried for 13 months straight. I’m not exaggerating, 13 months without a break, he cried until he had no voice left and kept crying, you could see his little face scrunched up and no sound coming out, totally hoarse.
There were times he would literally be crying in his sleep. I’ve never seen or heard of any other kid being able to do that. We brought him to doctors, specialists, tried changing his diet, held him, rocked him, toys, swaddling, music, mobiles, everything we could think of. Nothing worked. 13 months of grating, grinding, no sleep nightmare.
Once he got over the crying stage, we thought we were out of the woods. We were so, so wrong. It quickly became clear that for some unknown reason, he was just angry at being alive. I never saw that kid have a genuine, joyous smile once in the time I knew him. I saw him grin a vicious, horrible grin many times, taking a perverse pleasure from causing pain or suffering or breaking a rule, but a smile from real pleasure at something nice? No, never. Not once.
He had no interest in anything positive; he was fueled by hate, and everything he did was bent toward that. As soon as he could walk, his mission in life was to destroy things. He would break or try to break anything that came in his range, smash it, chew it, throw it in the toilet, whatever he could. After a while, he figured out how to get his diaper off and took great pleasure in pooping and peeing anywhere he could.
After that, he also figured out he could hide it, and started peeing and pooping in places we wouldn’t find right away, grinding it into carpets and making it even more of a problem to clean and making the house stink. When he got older, (ages nine-15) he would pee and poop in our bed, until we got a lock on our door and he wasn’t able to get in anymore. That made it so much more horrific.
He’d just take a dump in the hallway in front of our room. That biological battle started around two and a half years old and he never grew out of it. I’ll try to speed it up as I could literally go on for days about this stuff, but as he grew older, he became more and more unmanageable. He would bite, kick, scream, and scratch at anyone trying to do anything with him.
He was kicked out of school twice before he was nine, then they let him back in and then kicked him out for good, and he had to change schools. The next one put him in a special class that kept him away from the other students. We had to install a door and lock on the kitchen because he would take knives and use them to gouge the walls and furniture or chase people with them.
When he was 10, he got me pretty good in the hip and butt; I still have the scars. As he grew older, he grew darker. He moved into setting things on fire and tormenting local animals. There was a stray dog that hung out around the park near our house, my son blinded it in one eye with a BBQ fork. He would dip cats’ tails in gasoline and light them on fire.
He became a violent, stinking, vicious beast that lived in our house. We couldn’t do anything with him. I will take this opportunity to pre-empt the tsunami of objections: YES, we had the kid in therapy. He saw a psychiatrist twice a week, and had god knows how many different medications prescribed to him over the years. Nothing worked.
Therapy didn’t work. Meds didn’t work. Nothing worked. He was like a poison cloud of hate and fury lashing out at anything in his reach. When my son was 16, my wife got pregnant again. I can’t tell you how different our reaction was. Instead of joy, we felt horror. This pregnancy had not been planned, and we really were at a loss over what to do.
My son had been such an unending nightmare for 16 years, we couldn’t take the idea of starting again from the beginning. We talked a lot about terminating, but a) access to abortion was not as easy in those days as it is now, and b) my wife was very against it. We talked about many options. In the end, we decided that my wife would have the baby, and if it turned out evil we would put it up for adoption.
We knew we just couldn’t do it again with another child like our son. We had a daughter. She was normal. Suddenly, we saw what our lives should have been like the whole time, how things would have been had our son not been himself. She laughed at things. She breastfed without biting—she didn’t have teeth yet anyway, but you could tell she was just trying to eat, not tear her mom’s chest off.
After four months, she was sleeping through the night. She was happy. She was NORMAL. I can’t describe the relief and happiness that we both felt, I don’t have the words for it. This is where I believe I may have started really pulling back from my son. Up until that time, whatever mistakes I made, I had always tried to do the best for my son, I am convinced of that.
I tried to help him and love him and care for him, I really tried. But when my daughter was born, my wife and I both instinctively just turned toward her. She became our focus, not from malice, but just because she was so much EASIER. She was so happy and sweet, every moment we were with her was like magic. I understand this was wrong, but we honestly couldn’t help it.
I don’t have a better explanation than that. My son hadn’t cared at all about my wife being pregnant, I honestly don’t know if he really understood it, but when we brought our daughter home he started acting out even more. I didn’t think it was possible, but he took it up another notch. At this time he was 17, and we were having blowout screaming matches daily.
Usually after we fought, he would storm out of the house and disappear for hours at a time, or come back the next morning. It was a relief. I started to actually look forward to our fights because it would get him away from us for a while. After the birth of our daughter, my relationship with my son was almost entirely gone, and our only real interactions were screaming at each other.
My wife was even worse with him, she just had nothing left. By that time, if our son even came into the same room as her, she would just stop whatever she was doing and start screaming “GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY! GET OUT!” until he left. He started spending more and more time out of the house, which was a blessing for us.
I have no idea what he got up to out in the world, but we were just happy it wasn’t being inflicted on us. As a consequence of our son’s behavior, we had invested heavily in locks around our house. All of the cheap, thin interior doors in our home had been replaced with thick, dense wood doors that couldn’t be kicked through, equipped with keyed locks that my wife and I carried keys to.
I know it sounds extreme, but locks and heavy doors were the best way we had found to create safe spaces from him. And again, before I am inundated with criticisms, I was not locking my son in rooms; he had free rein of the house and could come and go as he pleased. My wife and I would lock OURSELVES in rooms to protect ourselves from him.
On the day in question, I had fought with my son in the morning and he had left the house in a rage. My wife and I were enjoying some peace and quiet in the kitchen while our daughter napped in our bedroom. And then my daughter began crying. Any parent who has young children can tell you, you get used to your child’s cries and you can tell after a while what they need.
They cry differently if they are hungry, or need changing, or are just restless and want to be held. Babies can communicate pretty well before they can speak. This cry was none of those things. This cry was terror. The second we heard it, my wife and I were both up out of our chairs and running to the room. The door was locked of course, and it took a few seconds to get the right key and get it open.
My son was in the room. We lived in a bungalow, and he had climbed in the window to get to her. He was standing over her crib with a steak knife in his hand. I have no idea where he got it. It wasn’t one of ours; we controlled our knives very carefully and always kept them in locked drawers. I think he may have taken it from one of our neighbors’ houses.
He had broken her skin twice already, once in the belly area and once on her arm. I could see blood running down. When I entered the room, he was dragging the back of the knife down her face, not cutting, almost tickling her with it, teasing her while she screamed. He looked up at us and smiled. Before I knew what I was doing, I was already moving, running to put myself between them.
I didn’t think about it, I just moved instinctively. Even with that, my wife got there faster. It was like a movie on fast forward. She got to our son and bashed his hand away, knocking the knife across the room, and then she shoved him with her whole body weight, so hard that he flew away from the crib and bounced off the wall.
I picked up my daughter and held her while my wife screened us. I could see her shaking, almost convulsing. I can remember the smell of the room, the sound of my daughter screaming and wailing. The look on my son’s face as he stood there. Just nothing. Blank. There was nothing in his eyes, no emotion. He looked like an alien to me.
I watched my wife take a step toward him. I could have reached out and stopped her, but I didn’t. She stepped forward again, very close to him. I could have stopped her again. But I didn’t. She waited, looking at him for maybe three to five seconds without moving. And then she punched him in the face. Now until this point, you may have been picturing my wife as a typical woman, small frame, dainty, delicate.
This is not the case. My wife does have a small frame, but dainty and delicate she is not, never has been since I’ve known her. Since her early teens, my wife has been a boxer. MMA didn’t exist back then, but karate and boxing were big in those days, and my wife was a VERY talented amateur. She was about 130 pounds, she carried a lot of muscle and she knew how to punch.
I had 70 pounds on her back then, and I have no doubt that in a real fight between me and her she could have and would have pounded me flat. Neither of us had ever laid a hand on our son in anger before, but something broke in her that day. All the years of anger and pain and sorrow and frustration just came pouring out. When she hit him, his head snapped back and blood started pouring out of his nose.
He hardly reacted; he just looked at her with this shocked expression like he didn’t know how to process what had just happened. She waited another second. And then she hit him again. I could have reached out and stopped her again. I could have dragged her out of the room, taken her away, and calmed her. I didn’t. I just stood there and watched while she systematically started to pound him to a pulp.
Every time he brought his hands to cover one part, she would blast him somewhere else, body, head, body, head, over and over. He started screaming, crying out, yelling for her to stop. It’s the most genuine reaction I’d ever seen him have to anything in his whole life. But she wasn’t stopping. I watched her ramping up, hitting harder, faster, working him like a heavy bag.
He tried to swing at her and she slipped him easily. She was on autopilot, sinking down into her training. I stood there watching for a minute. Then I turned my back on them and took my daughter out of the room. I brought my daughter to the kitchen and gave her a bath in the sink. I found that he had cut her a third time on the sole of her foot.
All the cuts were superficial. I cleaned her up and held her until she calmed. I put Polysporin and Band-Aids on her cuts. In our bedroom, I could hear my son screaming, calling my wife horrible names, telling her he would cut her head off and things like that. After a while, I didn’t hear him saying anything anymore, and didn’t even hear him crying out.
I assumed that he must have been knocked out. But I could still hear her beating him. That went on for a long time. Long enough for my daughter to drift off to sleep in my arms. I just sat at the kitchen table waiting for her to finish. Finally, she came out and sat down across from me. Her hands were swollen and red. Her face and arms were splattered with blood.
Her chest was heaving. We just stared at each other without saying anything. After a while I asked her, “Is he gone?” She looked back at me and answered, “I hope so.” I nodded. That was all there was to say about that. I understood how she felt perfectly. I felt the same. I didn’t know what to do, so we just sat there waiting silently.
Eventually, my wife started crying and went to go take a shower. I just stayed where I was holding our daughter. After a long while, I heard moaning and sobbing coming from our room. It turned out that my son wasn’t gone. I went in to see how bad it was, and it was…pretty bad. I’ve never seen a more merciless beating laid onto anyone, before or since.
When my wife came out of the shower, I still didn’t know what to do about our son. I didn’t know whether to call the authorities or an ambulance, take him to the hospital myself, I honestly didn’t have any idea what to do. And then it came to me. After a while, I realized that I simply didn’t care what happened to him anymore, and we decided to just let him live or perish on his own.
There was an in-law suite in the basement that we had never really used, and my wife, my daughter, and I just moved down there. We simply ceded the top floor of the house to my son and locked everything down, separated our lives entirely. There was plenty of food in the upstairs cabinets, enough for a couple weeks or more, he had a washroom and bedrooms to use.
We had a washroom in the basement, a small kitchenette, and a separate entrance so we just stopped going upstairs. We just decided we were done with him. I figured we'd let his food run out and see what happened. Over the next week we could hear him moving around upstairs sometimes. I think he just spent most of time lying in bed recovering.
I went to work, watching on high alert in case he jumped me in the driveway, but he never did. My wife stayed home with our daughter. She was never out of our sight. One night we heard him going ballistic, smashing things and banging. We didn’t respond. He never tried to get downstairs or get near us, though. I think he was afraid that if he got near us again, my wife might finish the job on him.
After three weeks down there, we hadn’t heard anything from up above for a few days, and I ventured upstairs to the main floor of the house. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The place was demolished, and there was no sign of my son. He was gone. It took months to repair the damage he had done and get the main floor back to normal again.
There was food and poop smeared all over the walls and broken glass on the floor, big holes in the drywall; he had ripped the place apart. He tore up the linoleum in a corner of the kitchen and emptied an entire foam fire extinguisher into the living room. I feel thankful that he didn't burn the house down with us in it, I'm honestly not sure why he didn't, since the kid wasn't shy about lighting things on fire.
After that, I lived in fear every day that he would come back, that he would ambush us out of the blue and try to hurt us. We moved houses about three years later and I finally stopped being afraid that he would show up again, as now he had no idea where we were. I finally felt safe from him. All this happened a long time ago. My son was born in the spring of 1971, my daughter was born in 1988.
I'm an old man now. I’ll be 70 this year and my wife passed from cancer in 2016. My daughter is 31 now, and I moved in with her and her husband after my wife passed. I’ve got two granddaughters and they are the joy of my life. I see a therapist a couple times a month to talk about all this. I don’t know where my son is. The last time I saw him was when he was lying on the floor of our bedroom, bleeding and smashed.
I haven’t heard from him since he left, more than 30 years now. I don’t want to. I carry a lot of guilt from that time, and a lot of conflicted emotions. I didn’t beat him myself, but I allowed him to be beaten, and I thought he deserved it. I was happy it happened. I didn’t try to end him, but I would have been happy if he passed. I will say that I do hope he was able to overcome his demons and go live a normal life somewhere.
If he wasn’t able to do that, if he stayed the way he was, then I truly do hope someone out there ended him. When I knew him he was a rabid dog, and whichever way it went I just hope he isn’t still out there hurting anyone else.
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13. What She Doesn’t Know…
I was diagnosed with cancer a little over two weeks ago, after a regular check-up. Turns out I have a tumor on my colon that has spread to other areas (liver and lungs so far) and will require extensive chemo and surgery for any chance to live longer than eight months. There’s just one problem. I'm not having any treatment, and I haven't told my wife.
Obviously, she'll only pressure me to get the treatment, which will result in months of pain and suffering for a relatively small chance of survival. Instead, I'm making sure our last few months together are filled with only happy memories. I'm starting work later and finishing earlier each day to make her breakfast in bed and take her on dates in the evenings.
My landlord who I rent my workshop from has agreed to let me run my business rent-free for the next six months, which means significantly less financial stress and I can save a lot more, so she has something to carry her over afterward. I hope she'll forgive me for taking this path.
14. Putting It Off
My ex and I divorced six years ago. It was an ugly divorce, and our sons are now nine and 13. We live two miles apart and we get the kids one week on, one week off. After the divorce, we had no real meaningful relationship other than talking about the kids, scheduling and stuff. I had no idea or interest in her personal life and she was the same with me.
This last year, she started acting strange. She started being more chatty and friendly with me, but I still wasn't interested in having a social relationship with her. On Monday, I picked the kids up from school for my week with them and she texted me around 8 pm saying how I was the only person who she trusted 100% with the kids and I was a great dad and she thanked me for it.
Then she told me to tell the boys that she loved them. That was weird because she would call my eldest to say goodnight every night that they were with me, but didn't on that night. I drive by her place on my way to work and noticed her car was still parked on the street, but assumed she was working from home or sick. I should have seen the signs.
I had texted her in the morning about picking up my son's school book that he left at her house, and hours had passed with no reply. That was very strange because she would reply within minutes if it had something to do with the kids. I started to grow a bit worried and called her. Again, I know nothing about her social life, so it wasn't like I could call her friends because I don't know any of them and her parents live out of state.
I left a voicemail telling her that if she didn't call or text me back by 2 pm then I was going to her house to make sure she was okay. I left work early and went to her house. There were packages at her door, which was another red flag. She would never leave packages unattended outside. I called, texted, and knocked at the door and there was no response.
I let myself in and called out for her. I wish I could unsee what came next. I went into her bedroom and saw her body with a large bloodstain on her shirt and something that looked like a phone in her hand. That wasn't a phone. She had shot herself in the heart. I called the authorities and they questioned me for three hours and told me they would reach out to her parents as I was no longer next of kin.
I had to pick up my kids and kept a stone face as I was still processing the situation. On Wednesday, my eldest started complaining that his mom was not replying to his text messages and demanded that I take him to her house, which is still all taped up. He thinks she's ignoring his texts or that her phone is broken and wants to tell her to fix it.
I asked to speak with his principal in private and told him that he would be missing school next week. He asked what in the world could be so important that he should miss a week of school. I told him about his mom, and explained that I haven't told him yet. Meanwhile, her mom has been calling me constantly asking to speak to the boys.
I told her I haven't told them yet because things have been moving too quickly. My eldest is picking up that something has happened and now the nine-year-old is picking up vibes too. My 13-year-old is demanding that we go to his mom's and even threatened to ditch school if I didn't do it. The nine-year-old wouldn't let me drop him off at school and had a meltdown.
I decided to tell them what happened next week because I am not prepared to deal with the madness coming my way.
15. Into Thin Air
I’m a 26-year-old girl. When I was young, a stranger from school posing as my dad’s friend picked me up. He was saying that he would drop me off at the airport to catch a flight with my dad. Not only did I actually have to travel with my dad that day, but this man somehow knew my dad was getting off early from work, which he’d told me that morning, and that he had to go fishing with his friend.
This man told me that my dad sent him to pick me up and meet him directly at the airport. I believed him, convinced my teachers I knew him (because I was excited to go the airport) and left with him. I was held in captivity for three years. Eventually, 11-year-old me learned to make him trust me. It started with us going around in his car, although I had to sit in the backseat and stay quiet the whole time.
He let me come into his kitchen and make food for myself, and then he let me clean his house. The day we went to feed the ducks at the park, I ran. I ran as fast as my weak legs could carry me. Because of the crowd, I think he lost me. I begged a family for help, telling them I was kidnapped and I wanted to go home. I told them my name, my school's name, and my parents' names.
Long story short; they caught him, and he offed himself. I was back with my dad, my sisters, my dogs. I'm now happily married to my wife of four years, still undergoing therapy. I now have a good job and a baby on the way.
16. Never Dismiss A Bad Day
I was a medic in the Armed Forces. This one Marine who came in for physical therapy seemed overly depressed, more so than usual. He had bad nerve damage where he could touch his leg, and it felt like someone was touching him in the back. I was more focused on the therapy that day and was excited that he was making progress.
He didn't seem happy about the progress and made a comment about how it won't matter. I wish I’d seen the red flags. I also recalled when he left, I said I would see him next week, and he didn't say anything and just left. Over the weekend, he took his own life. I still wonder if I had paid attention to his comments and not dismissed them as him having a bad day, perhaps he would still be alive.
17. Now There’s A Plot Twist
Psychiatrist here. This happened during my residency years when I was at the brief internment unit, which was mostly for acute psychotic cases. There was this woman who had been there for some time because she had paranoid delusions that the Russian mob was trying to get her, complete with hallucinations and everything.
Her family confirmed that nobody was actually following her and that these scenarios were all made up in her head. She had been getting medication for some time and her symptoms had improved a lot. She no longer believed that she was in danger or being hunted, and everything seemed to be going well—or so we thought…
Following protocol, the staff contacted her family so that she could start going out for the weekends with them before being fully discharged. The first weekend away from the hospital, she was actually kidnapped by the Russian mob and forced to sell her body to repay a huge debt that nobody in her family had known about.
There was a happy ending, though. She was found and brought to safety quite quickly because we had already spoken to law enforcement about her “delusions” just in case, and they were quick to act when she disappeared. And, yes, people were locked up and, thankfully, quite a few other women were saved.
It was, all in all, a satisfying ending, but I still felt terrible.
18. The Scars Still Stay
Flashback to about three years ago. I was in a relationship with this girl who I loved so much. I would've done everything I could for her, and I always did. I did my best to keep her happy, but she was going through her own personal battles. She lost her dad before we started dating, and her mom passed from cancer while we were dating.
She faced a lot, and I tried to comfort her. I think that maybe I started doing too much, because eventually my parents started getting stricter on me, and I used to disobey them to try to make her happy. There was this one time where she got mad because I didn't tell her I was preparing a surprise gift for her. She got mad, tore up the gift, and broke everything in it that could have been broken.
I started to cry at how she treated something I worked hard for. She told me to "stop being a little wimp” and punched me in the face. This caught me off-guard as she had never done this before. But this was just the start. Every day or two, she would proceed to punch me in the face or anywhere else twice or three times a day. And I would just take it.
I never argued about it, and I never mentioned it to anyone. There were several times that I seemed bruised, but I would just say that I got it while training, since I had started getting into working out. She had gone from being extremely emotionally manipulative, to physically, and I didn't know how to handle it. I wanted to leave, but I was scared she would hurt herself.
I stayed for two years, until she went abroad to study. This is when I finally got to see how it felt to live without the constant fear of pain. Now back to the present day. I met this wonderful and perfect girl who has made me beyond happy. One day, she was turning really quickly to ask me a question, with her hand up. I instantly jumped away and she looked at me confused.
My eyes instantly got watery, and she began asking what had happened. I opened up to her for the first time about it, and I feel relieved. I just feel terrible knowing that this is how I might react to sudden movements for a long time.
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19. Displeasure Doing Business With You
I get scam and spam calls all the time. I am very polite and say that I'm sorry, but this is my work phone and I'm interested in talking with them but I can only talk on my personal phone. See, the guy’s phone number who I give seriously screwed me a couple years back after being lifelong best friends. Screw that guy. Welcome to your spam nightmare. As for what he did? Strap in.
So I’ve known this dude my whole life. We were best friends for 16 years. For probably the past five-ish years before we parted ways, we dreamed of running a business together. He moves to another part of the state about five hours away, and one night he calls me up and says he found a business for us to run together. The time had come.
He’s found what seems like a perfect opportunity. So I pack up my bags, get my now wife (then girlfriend) on board and move to an area where we know no one and I have no job opportunities. But it was my dream, so why not! We literally sign a lease and moved my stuff into a house we’re sharing. The day after I move in, he tells me he’s been working on another business and it’s taking off.
He then tells me without warning that he’s not doing business with me. It really hurt me, but he was my best friend. So I moved on and tried to make a life for myself in this strange place. Over the next couple of years, he starts hanging out with a new crowd, doing substances, and starts saying pretty rude things to me about how I’ve done nothing with my life and I’m becoming a real loser.
I’m infuriated. But I didn’t let him know that. Fast forward a few months. I set up a hard-to-plan weekend with all my closest friends to come to our house, and at the end I was to propose to my now wife. Well, the night of the big engagement she said YES! I’m over the moon! What does he do? Invites all these new friends over and they crash the party, do powder in the bathroom, eat the food that I made from scratch for the night and only had enough for my friends.
Then 20 minutes after all the food is gone and I have a new fiancée, he decides that they’re going to go to a bar and ditches me with the mess and lack of food. I didn’t tell him I was furious. Instead I pretended everything was okay, letting him think he’d be my best man in the wedding. Then once our shared lease was up, I moved out into a new place with my fiancée.
Again, I let him think he was still in the wedding. I sent out invites and he doesn’t get his (hmm wonder why?) and I say it should be in the mail. But as the wedding gets closer I talk to him less and less. Finally I just cut him off cold turkey. No explanation. Complete and total radio silence. I did this because I wanted him to go the rest of his life wondering what happened and why I abandoned him.
He didn’t deserve closure. But, I’m still mad. Thus why I do this relatively harmless piece of revenge with spam calls too. Screw him.
20. The Good Neighbor
You, yes you, woman with the charming smile who acts so friendly in the street. You know I can hear you scream at and beat your teenage daughter through the shared wall, right? I can hear her cry and gasp for air as you choke her. I can hear you screaming at her for coughing for dear life afterward. I am aware she cannot leave the house alone, ever, since you home-school her and never let her leave.
You know I called the authorities on you two days ago. But there’s something you don’t know. I called the non-emergency number as well and had them make up a file of all your incidents over the past few months since I moved in. You also don’t know that CPS will be visiting you soon, and that I've started logging everything you do since my call.
You hit a high score with seven different timestamps today! And it's not even after dinner yet. Congratulations, I wrote them all down. You disgust me. I will be recording and logging EVERYTHING and calling the authorities on you whenever I hear that girl scream. Because she can’t do it for herself. Screw you. I hope you get hit by a bus.
21. There But For The Grace Of God Go I
I’m not Jewish, not even a little bit. If you asked me any questions about Judaism, I couldn’t tell you, but still, everyone thinks I’m Jewish. It all started in high school, in 11th grade. I had just moved from California to the South and it was a rough time. I was called every horrible name in the book because I talked different and got the tar beat out of me multiple times.
Well, I slowly befriended some of the guys on the football team and my closest friend was the center, we’ll call him Greg. Now, Greg is a super chill guy compared to everyone around him, but he’s still very, very prejudiced and very open about all his opinions. One day I’m driving Greg and a few other football players home from school, and he makes a comment about synagogues.
Without even thinking, I mention that I’ve been to one...and this is where it all started. This prompted one of the other guys to joke that I was a Jew, and trying to be chill (since these were the only friends I had) I went, “Haha, yep, I’m Jewish.” And then that’s when it all went downhill. Greg told everyone on the football team how his new friend from California was a Jew, and they all believed it since most of them thought there were only Jews in California anyways.
The football players spread that to the rest of the school. At this point, I still thought it was a joke and everyone was just jokingly calling me Jewish, so I just kept going with it. Then I became known as “The Jewish kid” and started to actually become popular, since everyone wanted to be friends with the different kid. Plus there was the fact that my dad had money, a lot compared to the poor area where I went to school, so I could afford to buy nice things and people tend to be attracted towards that.
So being Jewish almost became my identity, it became who I was. Eventually, whenever someone would ask my religion, I just automatically told them I was Jewish. Fast forward to the end of high school, and the councilors are walking people through scholarship stuff. My counselor calls me into his office and hands me a slip for a $5,000 Jewish American scholarship.
Now as soon as I read “Jewish American scholarship,” I was going to walk out and throw it out, but he made me sit down and fill it out with him, and then took it from me to submit it. I felt horrible for even doing it, but somewhat relieved when I heard that they only gave it to people who were also ethnically Jewish, so I knew I wouldn’t get it.
Nope, I got it. I received a letter in the mail saying I was chosen as the winner of this $5,000 scholarship. I got accepted to Dartmouth due to the fact I worked my butt off in high school and was the valedictorian, though my competition wasn’t plentiful to say the least. But I never thought I would have been able to afford it, and this scholarship was huge in helping me towards that.
I considered spilling everything then, declining the scholarship, telling everyone at school, telling almost every single form I’ve filled out, saying I’m not actually Jewish. I decided to tell my dad and ask him for advice as he’s always been a guy you can talk to about anything whatsoever. So I tell him everything. I tell him about the joke, then the lie, and now the scholarship.
As soon as I told my father, he looked me in the eyes with the most serious, disappointed face…and then burst into tears laughing. The way he reacted, it must’ve been the funniest thing he’d ever heard in his life. He told me he had gotten a letter in the mail asking if I was ethnically Jewish for a scholarship I had entered, and being the person he is, he just saw the chance for college money and went “yep, Jewish” and that was apparently all they need.
So my dad convinced me to keep the money and go to my dream college, and I did. The lie snowballed. As soon as I arrived at university, I was met with some people from the group that gave me this scholarship, some Jewish American organization funded by wealthy Israelis, and they told me/enlisted me into all these Jewish clubs and got me set up in a synagogue.
Finally, they told me they’d set me up with the whole “birthright” thing, where they fly American Jews out to Israel. I was so shocked. I was at my dream school, plus I was being hit with all of this, it was too much. I thought about coming clean a lot of times. But I felt like all the people around me would suddenly feel betrayed and leave me.
I became good friends with a lot of people in these Jewish clubs. I bonded with my teachers a lot better since they believed I was Jewish, I met the most beautiful Jewish girl. I actually met her through her mother when she came up to me in a café and asked if I was Jewish since I was with the local Rabbi. I said yes, and she told me that I’d love her daughter. We went on a date and instantly hit it off.
I also got a free trip to Israel. All the while, I was dealing with severe depression since I felt horrible every second of every day, in addition to the already enormous amounts of stress university puts on you. I came so close, so many times, to just throwing myself off a bridge or a tall building, but I could never bring myself to do it. It kept growing.
I managed to get all the way through 11 years of college to get my doctorate, got a job at a history museum back on the west coast, married that Jewish girl, had a Jewish wedding with her entire family, and we’ve had three little Jewish babies. The museum put me in charge of organizing and creating a huge Holocaust/Jewish American history exhibit even though that’s not my specific field in the slightest.
In a few months, when the current curator retires at the age of 96, I will hopefully be taking his place. He’s been training me for the job, I’ve worked there the longest, and I’ve made sure that I’m darn good at my job. My life has turned out great, but deep down it will always haunt me that my entire life is built on a lie. My kids’ lives, my life, my wife’s life, all came from a joke in a car 20 years ago.
I was never going to tell a soul about this, but today my oldest son told me that he doesn’t think he believes in God, and I told him I agreed. It was the first time in 20 years that I told the truth about my religion, and didn’t lie. My son wants to tell his mom that he doesn’t want to continue being Jewish, and I might use this as my way of getting out as well.
22. Be Careful What You Wish For
So when I was 20, I started dating this girl. We dated for three years, and although she loved me like crazy, I never really loved her at all. The reasons for that are a different story. About two and a half years into the relationship, we found out she was pregnant. I didn’t use protection once, and that’s it. After about 6-7 months, we found out that she has a damaged reproductive system, and she had to stay in the hospital.
I would bring her food and stuff every day after work and basically live in that hospital for two weeks. She wasn’t allowed to get up or anything. I was by her side through the whole thing. One day out of nowhere, her water broke. She was about to deliver the baby when we talked to some of the hospital staff. They explained that since the baby was being delivered at that point, she hasn’t developed lungs yet, and if we decided to let the hospital staff resuscitate her, she could have permanent brain damage.
We decided that if she is born and she is not breathing, we would not resuscitate her. Here’s the really messed up part. This entire time from the point I found out she was pregnant, I was hoping that something bad would happen so that I wouldn’t be stuck in this relationship and life forever. I started praying that if there was a God, he would get me out of this situation.
When the baby was born, I watched in horror as she struggled to breathe. I’ve lived with this secret my entire life. I’ve never told a single person. It has given me depression to the point where I’ve experienced incredible anxiety and nightmares. I’ve been through mental hospitals and therapists as well. I wouldn’t wish anything like this on anyone.
23. One Woman’s Pain Is Another Man’s Pleasure
Since my wife's back problems started, I've been sleeping like a baby. 15 years of marriage, and traditionally my wife is someone who doesn't like to be touched while they sleep. Usually when she wakes up, it’s like it's a five-alarm fire if even my feet touch her sometimes. Her lower back problems have started up again, though, and she's been sleeping with my arm as a pillow.
For a couple weeks now, it's progressed into her sleeping with her head on my chest and leg and arms across me, essentially using me as a body pillow and teddy bear. We don't know why this relieves the pain, but it helps her to fall asleep. She used to wake me up and ask for my arm, but two times this week I've woken up to the full on body pillow style snugs.
When I was a lonely teenager I used to put my free weights inside my pillow and lay them on top of me so I would know what it would feel like to have someone lay on you that way. This is literally my dream come true.
24. Wanting What He Can’t Have
I'm a guy in love with my lesbian best friend. My best friend is the closest person I have. We dated for a little in high school, but she got super depressed and we broke up. We stayed friends and only got closer. I like to think that I helped some, but she started getting some professional help and some meds and started doing a lot better.
She came out to me as a lesbian after we graduated, and I was the first to know. Good for her, right? I've always been supportive. But I'll always want more. She was one of the main things that got me through college. We talked every day, we shared stories, frustrations, jokes, everything. Her parents and siblings all love me. We are as close as can possibly be.
There is literally no other human on this planet who I've clicked with so well. We are extremely similar in every way: sense of humor, field of study, outlook on the world. I would marry her in a heartbeat. But I can never tell her. I'm not some salty guy who expects something from her. I've accepted that she's a lesbian, and I've supported her through everything as she explores this side of her.
She'll never be attracted to me, and that's okay. I would never try to change her, she's perfect as she is. But I'll always feel the way that I do. I’ve tried all that I can. I tried space, but it just hurt her. She missed her best friend. I tried dating other people, but she'll always hold a special priority for me. It's not fair to them anyways, they deserve somebody who isn't hung up on something that isn't even possible.
I'm just sitting here at my desk. Grad school is hard. I think putting this all on paper will help me. Somehow. Even now her name is sitting on my phone with the latest update from her. I'll just do as I always do. Come up with some stupid joke and hope I made her day a little brighter.
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25. Everybody’s Got A Story
I used to pay my middle school bully not to hurt me…then I found out he actually needed the money. He made my life a living nightmare. He would turn all the boys in class against me and tease me about my eyebrows. Then one time, he begged me to buy him pizza and said he promised not to tease me all week if I did it. So I bought him a box of pizza and he fulfilled his promise.
I loved the idea, and I began to do it on a regular basis. I started asking him every Friday what he wants next week so that the teasing doesn't happen again. He asked for two bags of hot fries, and another time he wanted some milk from the cafeteria. Once he asked for colored pencils for art class. In addition, my school had a uniform dress code.
It was $25 per shirt and the pants were $15, if I remember correctly. He showed up the first day of 8th grade in regular clothes, a tee and jeans. So he got sent to the main office to wait for his parents. My aunt was there because she used to drop off my lunch and hand me money to buy food after school. She saw him upset and asked what's wrong and he started crying lightly.
Apparently, his parents wouldn't come because they couldn't afford the uniform and decided it would be best to avoid the situation entirely. After my aunt hands me my lunch, she buys him a uniform hoodie, a couple of tees, and a long sleeve shirt. He said he had pants at home and he was hesitant to accept but eventually took them and thanked her.
Now, 13 years later, he runs a non-profit that has something to do with kids receiving books. I think it's sweet and I forgive him for everything he did because he didn't grow up to be a jerk, and obviously his home life was awful.
26. All Dogs Go To 7th Heaven
I rarely show emotion. I’m very reserved and levelheaded, so my emotions, whether positive or negative, rarely spike too much. But, I love my dog. More than anything or anyone. She gets more life and emotion out of me than anyone. This has started to cause a huge problem. My girlfriend recently sat me down and told me she needs more affection.
She knows I don’t wear my emotions, and that generally includes her even though she knows I love her. I’m not handsy, I kiss her when appropriate, and let her know I love her when appropriate. Since that talk, I’ve been thinking of my affection for her like I do my dog. I get super excited to see her like my dog does when I get home.
My dog constantly wants scratches, so I always rub her shoulders or play with her hair or have my hand on her thigh. I love when my dog gets kissy and playful so I get kissy and playful with my girlfriend in the same way. My dog loves when I give her a new toy or treat, so I have little gifts and snacks to give to her when the mood strikes.
WHAT A DIFFERENCE. My girlfriend loves it. And it’s easy for me because I literally just treat her like my dog, but without the baby voice. It’s renewed our passion and she is so, so happy and can’t understand how I turned my emotions around so easily.
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27. Nip And Tuck
My mom has really had a hard time the past few years. When she entered menopause, she gained weight and no matter how much she works out or what diet she tries she cannot drop it. She is a wonderful person, beautiful inside and out, but I could tell it was really taking a toll on her. So I started (lightly) photoshopping pictures I take of her before I send them to anyone or print them.
I just nip a little here and there, slight reshaping. and smoothing out a few wrinkles, nothing drastic, but enough. Since I have started this, she has started acting more confidently and has stopped making negative remarks about pictures she is in. She loves being in pictures with everyone again. It has really helped. I have not told anyone in my life and never will.
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28. It’s Classified
As a medical professional, I had a patient who was passing from cancer. During his career, he had the highest level of security clearance at Area 51. His family called it Cosmic Clearance. I asked him what anyone else in my situation would ask, which was, “Are there aliens there?” He replied, “I can’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you that I’ve seen things there that I wish I knew didn’t exist."
What does that mean?? This was 25 years ago, and I still think about it. I’ll never know.
29. Guardian Angel
A family member assaulted me until I was 13 and I moved in with my aunt. She's a good person who took me in and helped me get away from the bad people in my family. When we found out I was pregnant, she guessed how it happened. I hadn't told her about what had happened but she said she always expected it but never had proof. She came up with a way to get me away.
She pretended to get pregnant and asked my parents if she could get custody so I could move in with her, get homeschooled, and help her out. They said no at first because they knew they'd lose out on food stamps, so she offered to pay them whatever they would've gotten in food stamps in cash in exchange for me living there. They said yeah once they found out cash was involved, and my aunt gave them some extra cash every month to keep them out of our lives.
My parents are your regular redneck junkies who are no good to anyone. I had the kid in 1988 and have seen my parents a handful of times since then. My aunt went to court to get custody of me and said my parents dropped me off at her house one day and never picked me up. I went along with that story in court and it worked out. I said we went back to my house day after day, but they were never home.
They were ordered to come to court but never showed up. She got full custody of me and I lived with her until I was able to get myself a good job. I don't work the best job in the world, but it's better than where I came from and I'm proud of that. Anywho, she took me to get an abortion, but it was too late by our state's laws. She pretended to be pregnant, even tried to gain weight, and bought clothes that made her look bigger.
I stayed home every day until I had the baby. So now, everyone thinks it's her kid. I don't feel bad about it and won't ever tell the kid unless my aunt wants to or some big emergency happens where he needs a body part. She always said it's my choice to tell, but I think it's her choice too. She raised him, he calls her mama, and I wouldn't want to take that away from them.
He doesn't look like me at all. He doesn't really look like my aunt, either. He thinks his daddy is some guy she met at a bar who she had a one-night stand with and she doesn't know who he was. He's an adult now and is settling down with his wife and they're thinking about having kids. It's sometimes weird because I know if they do, they'll be my grandkids but they'll never know.
I don't feel like a parent to him at all. I know he's my biological kid, but I'm not his mama. Every now and then it makes me sad, but I know it was the right decision to make. He's had a good life. My aunt and I saved up to make sure he could get a good education, and he did that. He knows me as his older cousin and we get along well. He's a good guy.
Hardworking, a good person, does what he can to help others. I'm proud of him. I know DNA tests exist. I don't know if he'll get one done, but we'll talk about what to do if he ever does.
30. Ring My Bell
My ex used to use a specific shampoo, and over time I noticed that every time I smelled this shampoo on other people, I automatically thought of her and this got me planning. For my current girlfriend, every time we got down to business, I put on a cologne that I saved specifically for those times. No matter how spontaneous the action was, I found the time to put on a puff or two of this perfume secretly and then continue.
After we’d been going out for couple months, I began to do tests. I put this perfume on when casually walking in the kitchen past her, and just sit down in the living room. Soon enough, after couple minutes she’d go there and initiate sexy times. Now I use it occasionally—I’m very careful not to overuse it so it doesn’t spoil the effect—when I want to get her going, and it works well enough.
My favorite is putting it on before going out to a public place, and watching her get super worked up and unload at home. Yes, I’ve Pavlov’ed my girlfriend.
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31. Stepping Up
I'm 19 and a guy. My mom married my stepdad when I was 14 and we've always gotten along. My dad passed when I was 11, and to be honest, I'm still working through the relationship we had. I've always had this fantasy that he was an amazing dad but he wasn’t. He made me fight a 13-year-old when I was 10. When I said I was scared, he told me I was being a wimp.
When I didn't win he was disappointed in me. When my mom married my stepdad, we kept to ourselves at first but he's honestly twice the man my dad was. It's hard to say that but it's true. The one thing he said to me before he married my mom was that he'd never hurt us and always protect us. It's been five years and he's kept his promise.
He's always been amazing to my mom and me, and I admit that he spoils me sometimes. He'll take care of my chores for me and gets me whatever I want even if I don't ask him for it. If he hears me talking about something, he'll just get it for me. He always asks if I have enough money and if I don't, he'll transfer money into my checking account.
We don't really talk about personal stuff but he's always said I can talk to him about anything whenever I feel like it. But everything changed today. We were at the store and some older guy accused me of giving him a dirty look while we were in the parking lot. I didn't know what he was talking about and told him I didn't even look at him, but the guy shoved me to the ground.
My stepdad jumped in so fast that I didn't even see what happened. I heard him hit the guy, and when I got up the jerk was on the ground looking scared and holding his nose. My stepdad was shouting at him in a scary voice: "You don't ever put your hands on him." He helped me up and the guy got back in his car and sped away.
After that, he didn't want me to leave his sight in the store. The whole way home he kept apologizing that he didn't step in earlier and telling me he never wanted me to see him fight. I've never even seen him get mad or raise his voice. It was scary but it also made me feel so weird. I can't explain it, but it feels like I finally know how much he loves me.
We never say it to each other but I always knew how he feels. When we got home I told him I love him for the first time and he gave me the hardest hug I've ever had and I almost started crying.
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32. Mommie Dearest
I grew up loving my mother dearly, as most sons do. She was protective, kind, beautiful, successful, and smart, and was someone I strove to be like when I was young. However, I wasn’t seeing the real side of her. The one that is at her core. Within the past three years, I have come to despise her. She is selfish, manipulative, two-faced, and an overall bad human, which is a tough pill to swallow when I adored her for 25 years.
It’s weird how you don’t really know your parents until you become an adult. I just need to get this off my chest. So, my parents are in their late 50s. My dad is very successful and is an all-around good guy, great father to my sisters and I, and is a way better husband than my mom deserves. They’ve been together since they were in high school.
In their sophomore year, my mom literally pulled a girl out of his Jeep and got in because she wanted to be with him (red flag). He is more passive, and my mom is aggressive (obviously). Any honey-do list he got, he did it. Anything my mother wanted, she got. His brother and even I always gave him a hard time for being so whipped with her.
They went into over $90,000 in debt when I was 13 because my mom wanted a big house, Mercedes, and other stuff they couldn’t afford at the time. We went on expensive vacations that she planned, we ate at nice restaurants we couldn’t afford, and the only thing my dad ever stood his ground on was that he gets to deer hunt with the guys three weekends a year, which my mom still complained about being left out of.
She has always had to be the center of whatever he does in his life, no exceptions. But that isn’t what made me see her for who she was. It got even darker than that. Four years ago, my now wife and I were soon to be married. My mom suggested we all take a motorcycle trip one weekend with her old co-worker, we’ll call him James.
She explained he was going through a tough time with his ex-wife and needed to get away. We go and have a good time for a weekend, but it just felt weird. It was my mom, dad, my now wife, and James. The dynamic and overall vibe of being around my mom’s old friend was strange. He was a nice enough guy, he was tall, handsome, rich and brawny.
He had an ex-wife and two kids around my age, and he loved taking pictures of my mom and dad, which creeped me out. Anyways, nothing of importance happened on this trip, but my mom starts acting strange afterward and my dad and older sister are the ones who noticed it. At this time, I lived with my fiancée on the other side of the city, but my older sister was living with my parents.
One night, a few weeks after our motorcycle trip, my fiancée, sister, mom, and I went to a concert. My mom was acting weird, downing beers (this isn’t like her at all) and just being weird in general. It was like she was a whole different person all of a sudden. After being there for 10 minutes, she said, “I’m going to grab a drink,” and gets up and disappears for an hour.
I went looking for her after she had been gone for 45 minutes as I was concerned for her safety. When I came back with no luck, I ask my sister if she’s been able to get a hold of her. She rolls her eyes and goes, “I didn’t bother calling, she’s probably calling James.” What the heck? My sister then reveals the truth. She tells me that she and dad suspect she is having an affair with him.
She goes on to explain how sketchy she has been acting, doing things like changing her phone and iPad password, stepping out for phone calls and whispering, even putting a jar of rocks on her phone while she slept so she would be woken up if anyone touched it. Weird. My dad managed to look in her phone before she changed her password and quickly skimmed through her texts with James.
He saw some suspicious and cryptic dialogue. Anyway, my mom finally gets back to us at the concert and at this point, I am angry and devastated all at once. I ask her what took so long and she says, “Oh I ran into some old friends from my old job ” Immediately sensing the lie, I ask who. She didn’t expect this follow-up question, but slyly responds with, “You don’t know them.”
I then ask, “Well, what are their names?” She’s feeling the pressure and stutters before managing to make up some fake names. My wife and sister are listening to my interrogation very intently. I get sick of her, though, and drop it. I am livid and crushed and thinking of my dad. My sister had already gotten to the point of disgust I was at, so she didn’t say anything and we all kind of ignored it…until the next day.
After this concert incident, my sister tells my dad what happened, and he finally approaches my mom about everything. He demanded to see her call history and sees a 45-minute call to James at the time of the concert, along with many others. He demands to know what is going on, and she says he is just going through a hard time with his ex, who is apparently debilitated from alcoholism, and she was just helping him get through it as a friend.
Basically, the sketchiness goes on for months, and at the time of my wedding, my dad has a tracker in her goddarn car, has requested call logs from the phone company, and is looking at hiring a private investigator. I still remember dancing with her at my wedding; she looked at me adoringly and I couldn't look back at her. Little did my dad or I know, me and my love for my kayaking would soon give him everything he needed.
A month or so after my wedding, I go to stay with my old college roommate for a weekend of kayaking and fishing. He lived by my grandparents’ lake house (my mom’s parents) and I was going to pick up my kayak from their house that day. My dad randomly calls me just to say hi and probably tell me about whatever sketchy stuff my mom had been up to.
Though this is probably not healthy, he is my best friend, and this had been our conversations lately. I tell him that I’m headed to the lake house and he responds, “I doubt she would be this bold, but your mom said she was at the lake house with her girlfriends this weekend and I want you to be prepared if that isn’t the case. If it isn’t, let me know.”
I knew what he meant. I didn’t give my mom a heads up that I was coming on purpose and as I drive up, I’m relieved to see just her car and another girly-looking car in the driveway. I call my dad before going in and tell him my initial assessment is that nothing sketchy is going on from what I see, just looks like her and her friends are here.
He’s as relieved I am. I walk up, knock on the door, and it’s silent. The back-patio door is unlocked so I walk in. The first thing I see ruins me. It’s a leather motorcycle jacket hanging on one of the barstools and I immediately recognize it as James’s. My heart starts pounding and my adrenaline is pumping as my vision gets all weird and my ears start burning.
A million questions went through my head in a second, like “Are they here?” and “Do they know I’m here?” and “Should I announce myself?” I act fast, assuming they aren’t there but could be pulling up any minute. I take a picture of the jacket, I go to the garage and sure enough, James’s motorcycle is there. I take a picture of that and then run back in and see cell phones stacked where they are charging in the kitchen.
I grab a phone I don’t recognize. It didn’t have a lock on it, so I immediately go to the pictures…the first one is of two people I don’t recognize, as well as my mom and James…and they’re kissing each other on the lips. I scroll a little and more of the same. My heart is pumping out of my chest at this point and I take a few quick pictures of the photos in the phone and run out of the house, not even remembering or caring what I had originally been there for.
Something I should add here: When I was seven, my mom left my dad for a doctor, who just wanted to use her and drop her like a bad habit, and my dad reluctantly took her back after she begged and pleaded. She blamed the doctor at the time. My dad later told me that at the time, he told himself he was doing it for the kids and had planned on leaving her after we graduated high school, but they did so well in between then and our graduations that he eventually forgave her and was happy in their relationship.
I remember them being separated, but I didn’t know the details until recently. Okay so anyways, I peel out of the driveway at the lake house, and drive to a secluded street in the neighborhood as I try and figure out what to do. I let my heart rate slow a bit, so I could think more clearly, and then called my little sister, trying to decide if I tell my dad and if so, how.
Up to this point, everyone just had their suspicions with no solid proof. My little sister, who is the sweetheart of the family, agrees that I needed to call dad and tell him immediately because he deserves to know, despite how bad it will hurt him. I then called my wife and she agreed but we were both worried about what he would do.
I hesitate for a bit but eventually I call my dad to tell him his wife of 25 years is cheating on him. When he answers, I just blurt it out: “James is here, I have proof, and mom is cheating on you.” I didn’t know how to put it delicately, so I just gave him the facts. He was in shock like me. He kept saying the same phrase over and over: “No way…”
After the initial shock wears off, he apologizes that I had to be the one to see it and then says he’s on his way (it’s a three-hour drive) and that he will meet up with me at my roommate’s. I immediately call my uncle (my dad’s identical twin and my other best friend) and tell him what’s going on. I tell him I’m afraid my dad is going to do something stupid.
He said he’ll make sure he doesn't. They end up coming down together and meet me at my roommate’s house. We talk for a couple hours and come up with a plan. They switch trucks with my roommate to go incognito because he must see it for himself. My dad promises he won't do anything stupid despite what he may see. He sneaks up there after dark, parks far away, and walks a mile through the woods with his brother and a pair of binoculars.
He hides behind some trees when he got in place and sees them on the patio with another couple drinking. They’re cuddling and kissing like they’re an old married couple and like what they are doing is not beyond messed up. It took every ounce of self-control for my dad not to run over there and go insane on them. Instead, he did the smart thing thankfully and just took pictures of them and left. Then he reaped his revenge.
The next morning, he cleared out their bank account, sent her the pictures he and I took along with a text that said, “I know everything, I’m leaving you.” I can only imagine what their reaction was like. Rest assured that the rest of their little getaway was quite stressful. The next year was a nightmare for everyone and my mom’s reaction to this solidified my disdain for her.
She dragged everyone into her nightmare and made our lives horrible. My dad and I caught her red-handed. He just wanted her to go to James and let him live in peace, but instead, she dropped James and begged my dad to take her back. My dad agreed to pay her alimony if she granted him a divorce without lawyers that would’ve drained them both financially.
She reluctantly agreed. After the divorce, my mom cried every day for a year. She moved in with my little sister in an apartment she couldn’t afford. She got on anti-depressants and went into a downward spiral that, because we loved her no matter what, took us all with her. All the lies she had told for a year began to surface more and more.
Thinking back on that motorcycle trip where I spent a weekend with this jerk made my stomach turn. I even bought that rich guy drinks. Though I despised who she was and what she had done, I was still very concerned for my mom and would listen to her sob on the phone and in front of me. She cried to my wife a lot too, which I hated.
This was my wife's first year in the family and my mom was calling her, bawling about how cruel my dad was being to her. My mom blamed my dad’s twin brother for almost everything, saying he had taken him away from her on all our “guy hunting trips,” and he was the reason their marriage fell apart. She was truly manic. My mom’s parents and brother were disgusted with her because they loved my dad so much and they refused to talk to her about it.
So my wife, sisters, dad, and I were the ones who got the brunt of it. She tried manipulating everyone to make us think she was the victim here. It made me sick. She tried to make it seem like she was the battered wife and my dad had treated her badly. We all knew the truth and I found myself despising her more and more as a person.
My dad on the other hand went full-blown frat boy with his newly found freedom. He’s a handsome guy with money, and though my mom’s reaction was taking a toll on him in every way, he distracted himself by getting on Bumble and banging a bunch of 30-40-something year-old women, hunted every weekend, and went on Harley rides during the week to escape it all.
My mom still doesn’t know about the women and honestly, after being with the same woman for 30 years, being cheated on twice, and having every aspect of his life controlled, he deserved it and needed to get it out of his system. Anyways, getting us more towards the present, my wife and I became pregnant with our first child and the joy of it was completely overshadowed by my mom’s constant meltdowns.
I couldn't even get them in the same room to tell all my family that they were going to have a new niece/granddaughter. For 10 months, she relentlessly berated my dad for not being able to forgive her and used my unborn child (their first grandchild) as a pawn to get him back. She told him that it would be his fault if their grandchild grew up with divorced grandparents.
It made my blood boil. After a while, and against me and my sister’s encouragement for my dad to stay strong, my dad caved and slowly started to get back with her. They sold their house and now live together in a townhome. My daughter is 17 months old now and my parents have fallen back into their relationship of my mom dominating his life, despite him trying to set strong ground rules this time.
It’s been like when a villain gets their powers back after losing them. She went from weak and broken to manipulating everyone to her will like she has always done. My wife is shy, caring, and always worried to offend my family in any way, and my mom uses this to try and boss her around when it comes to our daughter until I step in.
She'll constantly play the guilt card about how my wife's parents see our daughter more when they live four hours away. Uhhh yeah you psycho, they're good people. When I talk to my mom now, there is never love in my voice. I don’t want to hate her, but her flaws are so apparent. She’s a sociopath who has to be in control of everyone.
We all love her despite this, but I am the only one who calls her out on it. My older sister barely speaks to her. My daughter is obsessed with her and it makes me happy and furious at the same time. My mom doesn’t deserve my dad, and she doesn’t deserve our forgiveness, especially since this is twice now (that we know about) that she cheated on my dad.
Not sure how to end this. Just wish my mom wasn’t such an awful person. I guess I’m thankful these events and my realization didn’t happen sooner, otherwise I wouldn’t know that there are good women out there and instead I’d probably have a very hard time trusting them. Thank god for my wife, too, who is an incredible woman.
33. What Goes Around Comes Around
I put my divorced parents who hate each other in the same nursing home. Yep, karma is a witch mom and dad. Thanks for always putting me in the middle of your drama as a kid. So sad that you two found it amusing to act like children while forcing me into being the adult. Well, now the tables have turned. You're both old and in need of someone to take care of you.
Obviously this wasn’t going to be me. Hope you two enjoy seeing each other for the rest of your miserable lives and you can figure it out. Waiting to get the phone call of "Did you know your mother/father is in the same nursing home?!" Ah, I'm gonna sit back now and enjoy my cold one.
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34. Forever Home
I've been a foster dad to my son since he was five, and he is now nine. He's been through a lot and has made significant progress. I am so proud of him. I've been trying to officially adopt him and have spent over $30,000 over the last two years to make it happen. He has no idea. The social worker came by to visit and I told him it was to see how he was doing, but he was worried that I might be getting rid of him so he's been very anxious and clingy.
I've been a bit emotional too. I am getting the paperwork all signed and sealed by my lawyer this Thursday. I want to surprise him by showing him that he is officially my son, although he always was and will be. I thought about surprising him with the news at his favorite restaurant this Saturday with his aunt and uncle and cousins. Keeping this secret is harder than the actual adoption.
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35. Dad Knows All
We have 16-year-old twin boys who pummeled each other a few weeks ago. It took me and a neighbor to break them up. My wife was upset and stunned because they really don't fight. I told her it was because one didn't clean up after himself and it escalated from there. Teen boys, hormones, etc. I told her to forget about it and not to bring it up because they were ashamed.
She let it go and held onto the belief that her sons are sweet little angels, but I knew the real story. The truth is that they got into a fight because Twin A took Twin's B last protective and Twin's B's girlfriend didn't have a Plan B. So Twin B wasn't going to get laid and jumped Twin A. My wife thinks Twin B is a virgin because he has a baby face and told her so. But that’s not all.
Why did Twin A take the protective? To sleep with another boy. My wife thinks he's the one who is going to be a lothario because he has so many female friends.
36. You Can’t Choose Your Family
I'm staying with my boyfriend’s family for a couple days at the moment. I like to consider myself a reasonable person and not a huge germaphobe, but I am having a mental breakdown in the bathroom right now. So when you’re sitting at the table with them, if you ask for more mashed potatoes or a refill on milk or whatever, they'll look around to see who has potatoes or milk left that they aren't going to finish AND DUMP IT IN YOUR PLATE OR HAND OVER THEIR CUP.
And if you say, "Oh, no thanks, I'd rather get my own," they insist it's "No problem at all." Then his grandma INSISTS you clear your plate and snaps at you to finish your milk. It's so disgusting aaaaaghhh. I have social anxiety. I came out to make myself a cup of coffee and grandma insisted I finish off her 1/3 cup. This is my worst nightmare.
Oh, and my idiot boyfriend insisted on washing my clothes before we head back and washed all of my bras, so now I get the joy of wearing a thin white tank top without a bra around his family or hiding in the bedroom the rest of the trip (or until they dry), but what the heck, dude. There was also a lot of other issues that exacerbated this situation, too.
For example, the shower and bathroom were disgusting, there's a lot of dust everywhere that irritated my asthma and allergies, and his father has disgusting table manners—like rip smelly farts type stuff. I told my boyfriend about it and he was very kind and understanding and said he would take care of it in the future. He's a good guy, and actually very clean and different from his family in that regard.
Anyways. If I see them again, I'm getting a hotel and eating before I go there.
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37. He Who Smelt It…
Someone had fried chicken delivered to my office for all to share. The smell was potent and delicious, filling the entire building. Shortly afterward I farted, one of those long warm ones, and it was also very potent. The smells mingled in a way that nature never intended. Needless to say, everyone was confused and upset. I saw someone gag into their hand and put down their chicken thigh, never picking it back up. Nobody knows it was me.
38. Bless This Mess
I clean up my house every morning and come back to it trashed after work, and I couldn't be happier because of it. Don’t get me wrong, I hate cleaning the house, sometimes I enjoy getting in the groove to some music, but mostly it's just tedious and I don't get any help with it. But when my now wife and I first moved in together, she was going through a bout of depression, and for a few years I would go to bed with her, wake up and go to work, and come back home most days to her still sleeping.
If she was awake she had yet to leave the bed, with her only really being up when I was home. So every day, the living room was the same way it was the moment I left, sometimes going weeks being untouched, and it started to make me feel lonely because it was like I lived by myself all over again. As if nothing happens when I wasn't looking.
Growing up in a family of six, with many pets and a lot of stray acquaintances—my folks allow friends and family to bum off us when going through tough times as a sort of halfway home—there was never a dull moment in the house, for better or worse, which made it feel like it was home. After no small amount of therapy and constant love, care, and commitment, she's been slowly cracking through her depression with only occasional bad days.
Plus, we have recently had our lovely daughter join our life. We just moved to a new area and a new house. My wife plays with the kid in the living room, gets her changed in the child's bedroom, makes herself and the little one some food in the kitchen now that she's eating more solids, and our little one destroys whatever she can get her hands on.
Now I’m coming home to see my daughter crawling over mommy as they watch PBS, my wife laughing and playing, my house in a lovely mess of activity and life, and I couldn't be any happier. Well, if I could get a hand with the dishes, that'd be nice, but with such a big victory, I'm not going to complain too much just yet.
39. You Get What You Give
My girlfriend and I got into an argument over our kids’ Christmas spending budget. We both have a kid from a previous relationship, her daughter and my son. We have an agreed budget of $1,000 for each kid, and we met that budget for both kids last week. Today, she tells me she wants to get her daughter a phone and wants to buy her an iPhone XS Max, easily putting her daughter close to $1,200 over our agreed Christmas budget.
We have a shared bank account, so it’s not quite the “it’s her daughter and her money so what’s the deal?” kind of thing. We argued for three days over the issue. We couldn’t afford to spend another $1,200 on my son to even out the budgets again at a ludicrous $2,200 each. My son would have never known if we spent extra money on her, but that’s not the point.
It’s unfair and in my opinion it’s favoritism. After another very heated argument over the issue, I walked over to the tree and grabbed her present, a MacBook Air that I purchased on my own credit card. I opened it in front of her, and then re-wrapped it and addressed it to my son. Now the budgets are mostly equal again, give or take $100...Merry Christmas, witch.
40. A Hard Lesson To Learn
My son has autism, previously diagnosed as Asperger’s. We've done extensive therapy and intervention and for the most part, he is no different than any other kid his age, except he comes across as shy and a bit nerdy (saying that with love). The only issue we had at school was that he would become overwhelmed, panic, and run out of the classroom.
Of course that is not okay. We and the school decided to allow him to take quick breaks to decompress when he starts feeling overwhelmed. He has not had an "incident" since the third grade. He started the 6th-grade last year and it's hard for any kid, especially for an Aspie kid. We met with all of his teachers and reminded them that he has this accommodation in writing and he will likely need to use it since middle school is tough for an Aspie kid.
All but one of his teachers understood that and were supportive. His math teacher, however, is just a nasty witch. She's one of those teachers that should not be a teacher. By the way, we're not those crazy, in-your-face parents. We just want what's best for our son and work with his teachers to do so. We kept on reminding her, verbally and in writing, of his accommodations, especially as our son's anxiety started to grow around her.
Imagine my surprise when I get a call from his counselor telling me to pick my son up from school. Apparently, he had bolted from her classroom and ran out to the field. The principal and a counselor tried to take him to the office and he refused unless they called me. It horrified me because I've seen videos of officers being called and tasering or hitting special needs kids.
When I got there, my son was very upset. It was like watching years of progress unravel. H started to feel overwhelmed in her class because she's so horrible. She turned on the heat too high and closed all the doors. He felt trapped and claustrophobic. When he asked for a break, she refused and told him to sit down or get detention.
That only fueled his anxiety more and he exploded. The school quickly accepted that the teacher handled the situation poorly. I requested that he switch classes and even threatened to get a lawyer for not following the accommodations that they are required by law to follow. That got their attention quickly. They did not send him back to her class; rather he went to another class until the matter was resolved.
The teacher did get into trouble and wanted to discuss it with us before pulling him out of her class. We met with her and she was just a nasty witch, as we had known all along. She accused our son of using his diagnosis as a crutch and said he needed to grow up. I wanted to smack her. Instead, I had much better idea. She went to take a phone call and I saw her keys on her desk.
I put them in my pocket. We finished our conversation and I politely thanked her for her time. Then I threw her keys in a dumpster and got my son pulled out of her class the next day. That made my day.
41. Fighting With My Family
My wife thinks I take our daughter to dancing classes, but I actually take her to an MMA gym. The dancing and MMA gym aren’t too far apart, which is how we have been able to get away with it for two years. My daughter loves it there and everyone is so kind to her. Before you jump in telling me I’ve forced my daughter into being an elite fighter over a dancer—I didn’t!
At first, I took her to dancing classes and she hated it. She said all the girls were already in groups of friends when she started and they wouldn’t talk to her. So I said, “Screw it, why don’t we both learn MMA, it’s way more useful than dancing anyway.” I can’t tell my wife about it because she hates stuff like that and there is literally no reasoning with her on the subject of fighting.
42. Pour One Out For Dusty
I’m the eldest of four kids in a family of six, and growing up we had a beautiful albino chinchilla named Dusty. Dusty was an awesome little pet to have as a kid. Very sweet, never bit anyone, loved to cuddle and run around “digging” tunnels in the bedsheets. He had this really big cage in our guest bedroom that was connected to my room, and every time someone would walk past his cage, he would run to the gate hoping to be taken out.
If you opened the gate, he would just hop right into your hand. Anyway, great pet. So about three days after I got my driver’s license as a 16-year-old, I noticed that one of Dusty’s eyes was tearing a little bit, which I hadn’t seen happen before. Feeling like a brand new adult with my new driver’s license, I decided to take it upon myself to bring him to the vet and see what was up.
So, I put him into a brown paper grocery bag with his favorite blanket, made some air holes, stapled it shut, and strapped him into the passenger seat of my family’s van. Fast forward maybe a half hour and I’m sitting in the vet’s office holding Dusty and feeling like the most responsible adult ever. The vet is an exotic animals vet and takes a look at him, then asks to do an X-ray.
So she sedates him a little, does the X-ray, hands him back to me, and leaves the room. Adult level 9000 as I sit petting him until he wakes back up. So the vet comes back in and sits next to me on the little bench in the check-up room and starts petting him in my lap. She’s telling me how wonderful he is and how lucky I am to have such a great little pet, asking me my favorite memories of him, all this.
We are talking and finally I ask her something like, “Okay so how much do chinchilla eye drops cost because I’ve got to get going.” Her reply floored me. She smiles gently, saying something like “I wish eye drops could fix this.” She gives me a hug and starts to explain. Dusty was not bred responsibly and had some kind of internal deformity involving the roots of his teeth putting pressure on his eyes and brain.
This would eventually cause an early end. I couldn’t believe it. I remember starting to cry and putting Dusty back in his grocery bag with his blanket and asking if the vet had a stapler I could use to close it again. I paid cash to the receptionist from my babysitting money and got into my car, crying all the way home. When I got home I sat in the car for a while in the garage trying to gather myself as Dusty chewed on his bag.
Looking back I’m not really sure why, but in the car I decided not to tell my family the news. The vet said Dusty wasn’t in pain despite his tearing eye and we wouldn’t have to put him down. She didn’t know how long exactly he had left, but guessed maybe a year. I guess I figured I didn’t want my family to be sad every time they played with him or passed by his cage knowing his time was limited.
I wanted the rest of his little life to be normal. Eventually, I brought him back in the house and put him in his cage. I went later that day to Petco and bought rodent eye drops as a cover-up and “proudly” told my family that night how I brought Dusty to the vet to check his eye and lied, saying the doctor gave me eye drops and told me eye irritation is common in chinchillas. Dusty lived three more years after that, two years longer than the vet had expected.
He passed just shy of his 10th birthday. On the morning he passed, I told my dad what had actually happened at the vet. He told me I was so much more of an adult than I knew.
43. Fudging The Numbers
When I was a student at a major university in the late 80s, I was failing several classes miserably. I had completely screwed up in two of my six classes and I needed to make a plan of how not to flunk out. For one class, I decided to dedicate all my spare time to correcting where I went wrong and fix it by acing the final exam.
The other class, which was much more technical, required that I come up with a plan. Keep in mind that I was a total goody-two-shoes kid who felt like they were in a desperate situation. Failing out of college was not something I could allow to happen. Desperate times called for desperate measures. The class that I needed to pass was a science/engineering class that I had not bothered to go to, so I went to the very last Thursday class to figure out my plan.
One thing the professor did say was that if you had a 93 or higher average in the class, you could opt-out of the final exam that was happening in one week. I had a 64 average, so I had to take the exam. How was I going to ace this exam? My grades were too low to get pulled up enough. The only way to fix this was to get my grades changed.
So I came up with a "Hail Mary" plan. It involved a few rules being broken—and by rules, I mean laws. The science building where the class was given would close for the weekend. This meant that the professors' offices were locked and most of the labs were locked as well. You could still get into the main parts of the building, but you had to talk to a security person if it was after hours.
So here was my plan. On Friday afternoon after most classes were over, I scoped out the whole building. It was a u-shaped building that was three stories tall. I had to find a way in. Luckily, I found one of the first floor labs on the inside of the "u" had large horizontal windows that could be unlocked and would allow for someone to crawl through.
Even better, a small fenced-in area that housed some of the electrical and HVAC units obscured one of the labs’ windows. Large bushes lined the fence as well. So while I was there, I went into the lab and unlocked a window to allow myself a place to enter the building. The door of the lab was propped open and I un-propped it and let it close.
It locked. Good to know! It also reduced the chances of someone relocking the window. I also scoped out the professor's office. It was open, but he was not there. It was very small with no windows. Just enough room for a desk, his chair, and a couple of other chairs. His office door was an all-metal door painted beige except for a small center window in the middle.
The window had a wire screen built into the glass held in place by a simple screwed-on frame. There were lots of manila envelopes and schedules on the door as well. This would be a challenge, but I was ready. At around 3:30 in the morning, I arrived back at the building with my backpack and a plan to break into the building.
I had a hammer, pliers, a roll of tape, and some screwdrivers that I had scrounged, and I was nervous as heck. I made my way through the bushes and climbed over the fence. I checked the window and it was still unlocked. I pulled myself up through the window and into the dark lab. Remembering that the lab doors would lock behind you, I slowly opened the lab door and placed some tape on the lock to stop it from locking.
I was expecting a quiet building but instead was greeted by the loud sound of machinery running. Another lab was conducting an all-night test or something, and at least three upper-level students were there overseeing the project. In a way that was good because my presence wouldn't necessarily be noticeable by others. This would later save me.
I made my way to the professor's office door, which was in a more out-of-the-way part of the building. The office was located right by one of the stairwells, so I could hear anyone coming down the stairs and also, if someone happened to start coming from the other way, I could use the stairs for a quick exit. I pulled out the screwdriver to start unscrewing the frame around the glass window in his door.
I soon realized that the screws were covered in decades of paint. Not good. What I thought was going to be a two-minute job turned into a 45-minute job. I went into what I would call “screw it mode" and just went to town on this window frame. I had a few starts and stops, but no one came by. I got the frame off and tried to pry the glass out of the frame.
It was sealed in with paint. Getting the glass out took a monumental amount of slow prying and steady effort. After 30 minutes of scraping and gentle pressure, I had the glass pane out. I slowly reached in and turned the lock to unlock the door. I grabbed a large manila folder on the outside of door and repositioned it over the window, a perfect cover for the now mauled-up window.
I slid into the office and looked for something to cover the window that would block light. The desk calendar worked well and a few pieces of tape held it up well. Then I turned the lights on to survey the scene. I was now presented with a desk, a chair, and a small slim table behind the desk. Of all the ways my plan could go wrong, my biggest fear was that the professor may have taken all of his grades home with him.
A quick look into the large flat file on his desk and I had his full hand-written grade register in my hands and the pen he used for recording grades was tucked right inside. He taught six classes that semester and I only needed to change one grade, my grade. However, now that I had seen how banged up the paint was on the glass window frame, I knew I had to alter the plan.
I searched through the gradebook and found all of my grades and saw I had several in the 70s and some lower 60s grades. I had done SOME work in the class. I thought it over for a few seconds and started executing Plan B. I went through every single class he had and began randomly changing anything in the 60s to read as in the 80s. Then I went through and changed all the 70s I found to read as 90s.
I realized that my changed grades wouldn't stand up under close scrutiny, so I had to create a "herd immunity" of changed grades. I noticed a few bad students in some of his classes and made some extra efforts at changing their grades. A zero? Now an 88. This was taking a while. With six classes and 50 students or so in each class, and about 10 grades per student, there were about 3,000 grades in this register.
I changed at least 1,500 of those grades. Of course, my grades were changed as well. Lots of numbers in the 90s. I closed the grade book and placed it back in the drawer exactly as I had found it, but I hear a little "Plink!" sound. I pulled on the drawer and realized it was now locked, but wasn't before.
OK, so maybe he'll think he locked it. No big deal. My mind began to wonder about what the aftermath of this might be. Would this work? Would I be able to get away with not taking the exam by creating this academic chaos? About this time was when I noticed the IBM PC on his back table. Hmmm. Did he record his grades on a hand-written register and his PC?
IF he had a backup of the grades, all of this would be for nothing. Also, I couldn't reference all the changed grades as the drawer was now locked. I booted up his IBM PC XT and saw that it had two 3.5 disk drives. There are five disks by the computer. What to do? I load each disk in the drive and type "DEL *.* " and nuke them all. I hadn't planned on this, but “screw it mode" was activated.
So let's review the plan: Change so many grades that he would have to take an impossible amount of time to deconstruct the chaos and simply give out good grades or at least better grades as needed. No one particular student would be identifiable as a culprit because there were plenty who had a motivation to change the grades. This was as good of an idea as I could come up with.
After having distributed all the good grades to all the good boys and girls, I gathered my tools and planned my exit strategy. The back of his door had a few items taped to it as well, so I replaced the glass and frame and covered it with another manila folder. I wrote a poorly written note on a post-it that said, "Sorry mop handle cracked the glass. Replaced glass—Maintenance".
I then split, got past the grad student running the machine, slipped out of the window, and never went back. I didn't show up for the final exam either because you know, higher than an (edited) 93 average and all...I waited 45 long days that summer to get my grades. Got a 90 in the class. Yeah...okay no complaints. There had to be some other people who got their grades and were happier as well.
I never suffered any consequences on this either, but it was the most stressful night of my life. I haven't done anything like this ever again. As for why I was in this situation in the first place? Now, it’s not an excuse in any way, but I had a parent pass my first year at college. There wasn't a lot of counseling back then, just a hand on the shoulder and condolences.
I don't remember even hearing the word "depression" uttered except in psychology class. Mental health was not freely discussed unless someone had big problems. I was probably on the cusp of what was then called a "nervous breakdown." I had come from a small town, and had expected to escape my one-horse town and breeze through college, one of the smart kids ya know.
But I had to let my only dream go. I had lost my dad, my academic career, my escape, and my identity at 19. I know plenty had it worse but it felt really bad. I had to eat a lot of humble pie and at first it sucked, but not long after I felt free of the burden of being in the wrong place, pursuing the wrong thing, and I started smiling again. I changed schools that summer and also changed my field of study.
Something about experiencing the absolute "guilt of failure" at the first school really made me driven at my new school. It was also a much smaller school and had fewer distractions. I thrived, made straight As, and loved learning the new subject matter. I'll describe my field as "Design" as that's nice and vague. I've been doing that since graduation successfully and have my own company and employees.
I'm not world-famous or anything but I would bet most of you have had an interaction with something I have designed. That first school had been my favorite college sports team my whole childhood and was my single plan as a college student. That ended because of this. I had not set foot on that large campus since the day I left many years ago, until this past summer when my son went to go tour.
I had to hide the awful feeling I had as we walked by the building where this happened. Just this low sense of ancient dread from a past life staring at me as I walked by, my son unaware and instead excited to be there. The professor in this story works for the same university still. He had done other things and came back. He's got patents and a PhD and is an expert in his field.
Here's a potentially crummy part: He got his PhD within a year of this incident, so I really hope I didn't destroy any of his research when deleting the computer disks. I've thought of *67 calling him to see what the true aftermath was, but this seems like a bad idea and would likely just bum me out. The lesson here might be: If it feels like work, dread, like you don't belong; be honest with yourself.
There is likely a direction that you will thrive in and this may not be it. I got one of my biggest screw-ups out of the way at age 19, some people have theirs much later. I'm a happy person now. Life is good. It's all worth it.
44. Keep It Together, Man
I recently took a short vacation to a lesser-developed country. On my last night, I decided to sample some of the more exotic local fare and had a mixed seafood dish, which was quite good. All was fine until the flight home when I started feeling a lot of pressure in my abdomen. I could tell I wasn’t going to shart, so I leaned over a bit and poofed out a bit of gas, smooth as silk.
I was giving myself a mental high-five when I realized that what was supposed to have been a sly poot turned out to be a horrendous stench that instantly engulfed several rows fore and aft. Little babies started crying immediately, while the adults let out short barks that registered somewhere between shock and despair. In a display of primal instinct, a couple of teens sitting across the aisle reflexively pulled their tee shirt collars up over their mouth and nose.
The gas was so dense and foul that I thought I could maybe see it clouding the air in the cabin. A flight attendant up front noticed the commotion and bustled down the aisle, but upon entering the contaminated zone, instantly spun on her heel and beat a hasty retreat. There was no way I was going to fess up and apologize, so instead I just scowled and pretended to look around for the culprit.
Fortunately things cleared out pretty fast. I didn’t dare try it again, I had taken my fellow passengers by surprise the first time, but now they were wary and fully alert. For the rest of the flight, anyone who made their way back to the lavatory was subjected to the scrutiny of a hundred eyes. We landed and I deplaned without further incident, however, I did totally trash a toilet in customs, but that’s another story.
45. A Crisis Of Faith
I’m a pastor who doesn’t believe in God. Here I sit on another Sunday morning. I love the people I minister to. I believe that there are some really good principles in the Bible (and some really awful ones!) so I feel ok about the message of love and hope that I get to deliver. I push back against the hate and judgmental nature of so much Contemporary American Christianity.
But I don’t believe the underlying myth, and I have to pretend that I do. Overall, I believe I’m doing more good than harm, but there’s a dishonesty at the center of it that I have to try to ignore. For what it’s worth, I’m not economically dependent on ministry work. I work outside the church and do my ministry work on a voluntary basis.
I used to get a (very) small stipend but gave it up a few years ago when I no longer needed it. I wonder all the time whether I am lying, or just withholding, or whether that’s a stupid distinction. I strive only to say what I believe, but it’s a stretch. When I say God is Love, I really mean Love is God—the highest power.
Certainly not Christian orthodoxy. I try hard to teach only what I believe: love, grace, care for others, etc. There are not many other forums where I could deliver that message in the same way. Not an excuse, just a fact. Some might feel I’m defiling the faith. I disagree, but humbly. They may be right. I would hate to hurt those who have trusted me. To everyone: “... but the greatest of these is love.”
46. Memento
My 13-year-old perished in Peru after getting caught in a whirlpool when we were on vacation. His mother, my ex, blamed me for his passing, and our other son also blames me so he doesn't speak to me. He's now 13 too. I don't force him to see me. Nonetheless, when I drive home from work, I pretend that I am talking to my son about how his day was at school, what kind of music he wants to listen to, what he wants for dinner, etc.
That is why I haven't gotten a new car. There are just too many memories.
47. Sweep It Under The Rug
How this all began was when I was around 15 or so, I started to become attracted to girls around me—I went into puberty very late. As I grew older, though, instead of my attractions growing in accordance with my age, they never moved, which lead me to continually being attracted to girls of that age. When I was a minor, it wasn't such a big issue, but when I became an adult it was.
When I turned 19, I made the decision to essentially become a recluse. I did not want to hurt anyone, but there were many emotions fighting inside of me. I had urges that I had little control of, and it was a mission every day to avoid following through on them. It came to a head one day when I was speaking to the daughter of a friend and the urges almost overwhelmed me.
I almost broke. This was the point when I shut myself away. I would only go out when I knew that children were at school, or wouldn't be on the street (after dark). I avoided media involving children. I avoided books involving children. Most days I wouldn't go out at all, only going out after dark, if at all. I took jobs where I could work the night shift, so that I didn't have to have any contact with children.
This made my life an utter nightmare. I became a nervous wreck. I would get anxiety if anyone came to the door, just in case it was a child. I still worked, but my performance was poor. This often led to me being fired or disciplined. No one else knew what I was going through. By necessity it was something I had to endure alone, I just had to.
Around seven years ago, I found a psychologist. It had gotten to be too much and I had to speak with someone about it. Over the course of the next six months, we discovered the awful reason behind my urges. My feelings were brought about by my being intimately mistreated at a young age. When it was happening, it was frequent and often violent.
As it turns out, I had repressed most of it. I didn't know how bad it actually was. However, discovering this lead to that revelation. Over the course of three years of twice-weekly treatments, my feelings towards minors began to fade. Slowly, but surely, I started to get better. I owe my psychologist my life—literally. Now, seven years on, I have no attraction towards minors.
I have a much more normal life. I can actually go out during the day without being anxious. I can talk to children with no urges. I am mostly normal. I am still dealing with the repercussions of my dark times, but the dark times themselves are over. I'm married, and I have a baby boy on the way. The process of getting treatment is so freeing.
I can't even describe it now. My psychologist is the one who suggested writing this out. He thinks it will help with my healing process. I hope it will. Thanks for listening. For what it’s worth, my psychological treatment was a blend of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy and Exposure and Response Therapy. Those two therapies lasted for about 18 months, after which we moved into Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which also helped a great deal.
It was hard for me to find a psychologist who was willing to take me on. I live in the American South, so psychologists weren't cheap, but my psychologist was interested in it from an academic standpoint, so reduced his price for me in order to study my disorder and my mind in general over the long term. I ended up paying around $50 a session, instead of the $200 he normally charged.
I had a fair amount of money saved to pay the psychologist, as I tend to live a frugal life. Not spending a lot of money on things that most people do for fun or in social situations led me to save a lot of money in general. By the way, the person who harmed me was my father. My mother didn't find out about this until it had been going on for a number of years.
I had never understood why my mother and father split, but once my memories began to resurface, I spoke with her about it. Upon finding out about it, my mother immediately left my father and left the house. She eventually moved us across the country. My father was convicted and was sentenced to eight years behind bars. After five years of incarceration, he took his life.
After leaving my father, my mother looked after me alone for the next six years and then found a new partner. She married him a year later, and I am glad to call him my father. I am still seeing the psychologist who treated me, though on a monthly basis now. In regards to the urges I had, they were different from normal attraction. The best way I can describe it is like an addict looking to get more of a substance.
48. You Do You
I'm a straight man who goes to gay bars. If I feel like getting tipsy by myself, I will go to a gay bar rather than a straight one because I like the attention I get, plus it's more relaxed because I don't have to worry about insecure dude brahs with something to prove. Oh, and I can drink fruity drinks without being seen as less of a man. I love fruity drinks.
49. Free And Clear
Not getting married was the best decision I ever made. I’m 29, and my partner (a 28-year-old woman) and I met eight years ago just before I graduated. We clicked almost immediately. A few months after I graduated, she and her three-year-old son moved in with me. Right after graduating, I started making low six-figures working for a large bank and then went on to do my own thing, having a very lucrative career.
My income was more than enough to support the three of us, so I was comfortable letting her stay home to work on her hobbies and volunteering. I thought our relationship was going well, but she's been pressing me to get married for the last four years. However, the time never seemed right because I wanted to get my own business off of the ground first and she seemed comfortable with that.
Last week, she asked me what I thought about open relationships and whether we could open ours. I know why she asked; I spend a lot of time traveling for work and she probably wants some action on the side while I'm away working. Heck, she might already have something on the side. I knew right then we were done, but I needed to find out how screwed I was before pulling the trigger.
I set up a meet with a lawyer my friend knew and I have to admit I was scared. I'd heard stories of how men were raked over the coals in divorces all the time so I walked into the lawyer's office expecting to lose 50% of everything and more. At first things looked bleak, but then he asked how long we had been married. When I told him that we weren't married, he called me "The luckiest man to ever walk into his office."
Common-law marriage doesn't exist here, which means that when we split up, she gets precisely...nothing...zero...zip...nada. I'm trying to figure out the best time to tell her we're done but that's all I have to say. Not getting married was the smartest decision I've ever made.
50. Hindsight Is 20/20
Something scared me and my brother really bad when we were younger and I’m just now remembering the details...We were watching one of the Garfield movies and everything was well until the song “I Feel Good” by James Brown started playing in the movie. Now, you may ask, what could’ve scared you so bad from a song like that?
Well, I’ll tell you. In the beginning of the song, James Brown does this sort of scream I guess you could say. Me and my brother had no idea that it was a part of the song and we thought the scream had come from somewhere in our room. After hearing the scream, we immediately ran to our parents’ room and told them we heard someone scream from inside our room.
So my father jumps up and grabs a knife from the kitchen, then walks into our room to find nothing in there. Now everyone in the house thinks there’s an intruder and we all go lock ourselves in my parents’ bedroom and call the authorities. Officers show up and find nothing. I was watching the movie with my niece the other day again and heard that familiar scream.
I suddenly realized that it was only the movie and we’d had the authorities called for no reason at all.
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51. Out With The Old
I have a surprise for my sons when they come home. Things were going well, and then bad stuff happened. For almost two years, we were not sure if we were going to be on the streets, but it seemed likely. I barely got by for a year, but we had to do without. I am so ashamed about this. A father should be able to provide for his sons, especially when he is a single father.
I just take solace in the fact that we played it off like we were not poor. For example, my nine-year-old has not had a proper bed for three years, just a rollaway bed. It was nothing short of a miracle that I got the job that I got a year ago. It literally saved our lives. All of a sudden, money isn't an issue. I had to still live on a budget because it was too good to be true.
Now I know I am doing a good job, my boss is happy with me, I am raking tons in of overtime, we have good insurance, etc. I ended up finding a spacious house last month (not an apartment like we live in now) well within what I can afford, right across the street from their school and park. I have been secretly filling it up with new furniture this month and had movers move in all of our stuff today.
They were both actually at the park across the street on a play date and seriously had no idea what I was about to do. I met them at the park, and they asked where the car was because they were cold. I pointed to the car in our new driveway and they were confused. I told them that was our new home. They were even more confused and now slightly disturbed.
I took them to the house and told them to look around, and all of their stuff was there including new stuff. They asked about the apartment and I told them we had moved out so we could live in a bigger and better place. They were so overwhelmed and blindsided. At first, they were just worried that if I had forgotten something at the apartment, then they weren't going to be able to get it back.
Today, however, they were a bit more relaxed and explored the house. They're getting used to having a kitchen sink—we did not have one at the apartment—AND a dishwasher, plus having a front and backdoor and a backyard that's all theirs. I'm pretty sure in a few days they will adapt to it and won't miss their old place.
52. A Gifted Son
I had a small victory with my dad today and it's making me happy. My dad has Asperger's and is notoriously difficult to deal with. Growing up, he never really told me that he loved me or hugged me; he just assumed that I knew and wouldn't say it. It was a difficult time, having a dad who didn't understand your emotions or any sort of affection.
But he does love me. How do I know this? For his birthday, I made him a small leather bracelet, just a simple band. The inside had an expression he often used with me growing up, and the outside had the nautical coordinates of the dock he used to take me fishing at every Saturday morning when I was a kid. It was our thing. We wouldn't talk, but I liked being outside and I knew he liked it because every weekend, without fail, he would ask me if I was ready to go fishing, no prompting from mom.
He simply called me to say thanks for the gift, and he hung up. I didn't think much of it. But then I realized just how much it meant to him. My mom called me yesterday and asked if I had told her neighbors about the bracelet I made dad. I was confused; I had not told them. She said that she hadn't either. She told me that they were talking to her about what a great gift it was and were asking if I could show them where to make one like it.
We realized dad must have been talking about it to them, and actually showed them. Dad NEVER talks about things he likes, especially to strangers. She then told me that he's been wearing it almost every day; again, this is a man who is not about adornment. She also saw him sending a picture to his brother. He might not say it, but that's how I know he misses me. Hope to see you soon, Pops.
53. An Education
I only realized that people shower daily when I was 16. I just had no idea. I had a bath once maybe twice a week, and thought that was standard. It wasn't until I went to a boarding school that I realized people would usually shower daily. Thing is, I grew up in quite an isolated location in a foreign country with only my sister and alcoholic mom.
My mom didn't so much as clean the house or cook food, she just drank. My sister and I weren't really clued up on what normal families did. For as long as I remember, I cooked the stuff I could, washed my own clothes, if my mom was too loaded I would ride my bike (about five miles up steep hills) to school, and generally looked after myself. I didn't know how often people changed bed sheets or brushed their teeth.
Simple things you'd usually learn from family went amiss. I didn't even know how to wash dishes manually since we had a dishwasher. It was a weirdly embarrassing moment learning how different I'd been living before boarding school. I learned how to open bottles with a pair of keys for my mom while she drove before I learned that you shouldn't drink and drive.
I knew we grew up a bit different, but entering the normal world was a big eye-opener.
54. Too Young To Love
I left my husband after 30 years and three kids. We were married on February 4th, 1989. I was 15 years old, and he was 16 years old. He looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky. Our parents had approved of us. The wedding preparations had been in process for a few weeks, but we had met at the beginning of the week when we were engaged.
He did all the talking. I didn't see him again until the wedding. It was a beautiful day. It's hard to remember now, and everything blurs together, but I remember thinking about how my world was ending by the time the end of the day came. See, I never wanted to be married. I never wanted to have kids. But I didn't say anything that first night, or any nights after that.
Not after the birth of our first son, nor after the birth of the twins. He did everything to make me happy, and I'll never forget that. I've gotten the divorce papers ready. I've moved out my things. He's devastated, the children hate me, but that's okay. I know I'm a terrible person for ruining this. I have no idea what I'll do after this. I have no high school education, no work experience either.
I'm in my 40s, and I've squandered a lot of my life being unhappy. If there's anything you can learn from this, don't be like me.
55. Chew On This One
While waiting outside my kids’ school to pick them up, a class of middle schoolers walked past. It was close to Halloween, and I looked up when a girl with makeup and colored hair called out, “Hi!” to me. I was kind of caught off guard but noticed she was made up for Halloween and guessed she wanted some attention for her costume.
I noticed what looked like big teeth and assumed they were fake. Trying to be funny, I said, “Wow, you really need to see a dentist.” Almost immediately, I regretted it. I think I heard her mutter, “How rude...” And my brain finally caught up and realized her teeth were not fake, but just abnormally prominent. There was nothing I could do at that point.
I’ve seen her once more around the school but didn’t say anything. I can’t really say, “Sorry, I thought those were fake costume teeth.” That wouldn’t help. Now, I just feel like a jerk. I physically cringe every time I think about it.
56. The Girl Can’t Help It
My wife needs a liver transplant, and part of me wants her to pass before getting one. Honestly, I struggled using the word "want," but if I am confessing, I'll be blunt. Now that that is out there, how about a little background? My wife and I have been married for 12 years and have one child. We met in Germany (she is German) but moved to the States in 2010.
Things were good for the first couple years. Some culture shock, disappointments when education didn't transfer, and learning the ins-and-outs of living stateside, but nothing drastic. That's when the depression began. The wife became super depressed. She was working part-time, where I was working 12-hour days. I would leave for work before she woke up, and I would get home after her.
Despite that, I would have to get our son ready and take him to daycare in the mornings, and most days I would pick him. This is where things started to go downhill around the house. Dishes would get left in the sink overnight, floors wouldn't get swept as often, stuff like that. And I'm not saying that is all her fault; I'm an adult and know how to wash a dish or operate a broom, but sometimes after 12 hours at work, screw that noise.
I chalked it up to having a toddler, a dog, and two working adults. It is a house, not a museum. I mentioned the depression, let's get back to that. It started simple enough, crashing on the couch. She'd get home after a rough day, have some drinks, and pass out on the couch. Not every night, maybe once a month. This lasted for months, but over the course of over two years, it became more and more normal and she was drinking more and more until it was more often than not.
With her on the couch, intimacy started to wane. Again it was gradual, and again I chalked it up to raising a family. Then the rejections started. As a kind of joke throughout our relationship, we would “trade” things for intimacy. For example, "If you cook dinner and do the dishes tonight, you’ll get lucky," or "If you want to go hang out with the boys, you better sleep with me now."
Just our thing. Well, she kept making those same promises, but would never go through with it. Yes, I know that no one ever owes anyone else intimacy. Yes, I know it is her body. But at that point, we were going without for months. I was still asking, she was still saying yes later, and then she would pass out. No biggie once or twice or ten times, but this had become the unending norm.
Every time that she promised but passed out instead was a rejection. I would stare at her while she slept and just feel hurt. Fast forward a few years; she is drinking more and I've stopped asking. We are roommates at this point. She has stopped working and stays at home full time. The house is a wreck. Clutter and dirt everywhere.
We stop having friends over so no one will see the clutter. Piles of unfolded laundry in baskets. Every morning I would search for matching socks. Every morning I was reminded of how little she did around the house. This is also when we were fighting all the time. Both yelling, her crying, her passing out...it was our nightly routine.
One of my often repeated points in our arguments was the house. I'm working full time, the kid was in school, she was home all day, why is the place a mess? What was happening was she was getting blasted in the morning, passing out, getting up in the afternoon, just to drink and pass out in the evening, but not before squeezing in a fight.
I was done and was ready for a divorce, but the only thing that was keeping me from doing it was my son. Still, something had to change. I laid down my ultimatum: get a job, go back to school, or GET OUT. She picks going back to school. I help her look for a school and find a program she is really excited about. The drinking lessens (never stops), and good times are here again. Until I get the phone call at work.
She called to let me know she was about to kill herself. Didn't see that coming. Rush home, get there just in time. Let's revisit that depression I mentioned earlier. She was in counseling and working to find the right balance of medication, but something that day was too much. She was checked into the kind of hospital that takes your shoelaces and was there a week or two.
After this, she was like a changed person. Fast forward a few years. You need a psychiatrist to prescribe medication. Hers retires. The office where she gets counseling didn't hire a new one. She stops taking the medication. Hello again depression, and I see you brought anxiety with you. Awesome. Oh, and here comes the drinking again, but it has managed to increase.
Double awesome. This time, the wife couldn't be without drinks. She started sleeping downstairs again, a drink always within reach. ALWAYS. She would carry a bottle in her purse. Eventually, she got sick. Wow, that was a lot, but it brings us to the last two years. At the beginning of 2017, she was hospitalized. Early stages of liver failure, but still treatable.
Think she quit drinking? Nope. A few months later, I come home with my son and find my wife collapsed and unresponsive on the floor. Ambulance ride, ICU, coma. The doctors aren't sure she'll live. At this point, I'm devastated but I try to steel myself for the possibility. The last few years haven't been great, and I was ready for a divorce, but I didn't want her gone.
She is the mother of.......OH GOD! It hits me. It hits me hard. I was prepared for her to get sick, possibly pass, but facing the real possibility I realized I would have to tell my son. I would have to look him in the eyes and say, "Mommy is gone." I hit bottom. I know I cried the rest of that night. She made it. Eventually, she woke up, was moved out of the ICU, and sent home.
For a week. That is when the seizure happened. Another ambulance ride. She aspirated during the seizure, which led to pneumonia, which led to the ICU. However, in her weakened state, she couldn't be treated locally. She was transferred to a university hospital. She needed a new liver, but to get one, you must be clean for six months.
She got worse. She was transferred again, this time to a hospital we'll just say is ranked pretty high GLOBALLY. No new liver, but things got better. She was released with a new lease on life. She quit drinking. She was transferred back to the local hospital, and continued outpatient treatment. End 2017. 2018 started good, but, about midway through, her condition worsened again.
No worries. She is being treated by a doctor, and with her new sobriety, they'll put her on the list. She can't do a lot on her own. I have to open bottles of water, help with medication, and some activities of daily living. The house is more cluttered than ever, the wife still sleeps downstairs, and intimacy is nonexistent (obviously), but things are looking good.
I'm not going to lie, these last two years have been rough. I know I haven't been perfect, and things have fallen by the wayside, but the major things are taken care of. The boy gets hot food every night, help with his homework, and clean clothes every day. The wife gets to her appointments and gets her treatments. I'm still working, and even picked up a promotion. Then tonight happened.
I just found two grocery bags full of empty cans and bottles. She has been hiding drinks. I'm done. The last two years have been an absolute nightmare. It has taken every ounce of me to not lose it. To manage everything. I can't anymore. Every day I would drive home from work, I would get stressed. As soon as I open the door, I'm overwhelmed with everything that needs to be done, but I focus on getting all the necessary things taken care of to keep the household rolling.
I've been so lonesome having a wife, who turned into a roommate, who turned into a responsibility. During the many, many appointments I've been to, one doctor explained the liver transplant this way: "Two people will pass so that you can live. The person who gave you the liver and the person who didn't get it in time, because you did." So here it is, here is my confession:
Part of me thinks my wife doesn't deserve the transplant, and my life would be easier if she wasn't here.
57. Let Me Go
I had a 94-year-old woman who had been beaten by her niece so horribly that she had to be intubated in the ICU. The woman was in pure agony and her family claimed they wanted to “do everything” for her. I later came to find out their horrible secret—they were keeping her alive to collect her social security check. One time, while I was cleaning her, she grabbed my arm and held it tight.
Huge tears welled up in her eyes and she mouthed over the ET tube: “I want to die...Please let me die.” That night, I sobbed the entire way home. Unfortunately, I don’t know what happened to this woman. That was one of my last days in the ICU—I was a young nurse and I could not emotionally handle working there. That, for me, was the last straw.
I started having nightmares about being at work and trying to take care of patients. I would wake up in a cold sweat and see my husband laying next to me, realizing the sounds I was hearing were him snoring and not a patient who was on a ventilator. It sounds silly, but it’s horrifying if you actually think you're in that situation. I wish as nurses we were able to talk about what we experience on a daily basis but, because of HIPPA, we aren’t allowed. Years later, I am now an ER nurse and I love it! I see awful things quite often, but I have a better way of coping with those experiences.
58. A Frightful Car Wreck
I was in the hospital after a car wreck many years ago. It was a pretty bad one—the first few days, I wasn't expected to live. They later decided that I might make it, so they attempted to save my leg and put my face back together. They came in to transfer me to surgery and somehow, the absolute worst thing that could have happened, happened—they dropped me between the bed and gurney.
They scraped me up and took me down in the elevator to surgery. As we were leaving the elevator, they started pushing the gurney and left the stand with my catheter bag in the elevator! Luckily, someone had just got in the elevator and yelled HEY!!! I was hyperventilating badly after all this when I got into surgery, so they put me out right away. The doctor mentioned it later when he came in to talk to me. I told him about getting dropped and he said that I must have imagined it as they would have never let that happen. The patient in the next bed called BS and told him all about it. He stormed out and I think a couple of people may have gotten fired.
59. That Didn’t Go According To Plan
One guy had just come from watching a funeral from afar. He wasn't invited. He confessed to me that his job was to "hurt people for money.” A few weeks ago he had gone round to the wrong address and seriously injured the wrong man. Later, when he found out his mistake and the guy had been released from hospital, he decided it was a matter of honor to go back to the same address to apologize. That was a fatal mistake.
The address was a fourth-floor apartment. When the door opened, the victim was so terrified at seeing his former attacker there again that he ran through the flat and jumped out the rear window. He fell badly, smacked his head, and later passed in hospital. The guy at the bar was getting inebriated now realizing that he had, though not directly, ended this person for no reason.
60. You Did What?!
Bartender here. So many stories, but the most terrifying is the woman who came into my work years ago and had three drinks. She was real quiet for the first hour. Then she called me over, and asked if I could call law enforcement. I asked what was the problem. She then told me that she had just sliced the neck of a mugger in the alley.
She wanted to make sure he didn’t make it first before she reported it. The officers were called, the mugger was found deceased, and the woman wasn’t charged. She denied ever telling me that she wanted to wait an hour before calling the officers. She claimed that she had passed out in the alley and woke up then came here in shock.
61. I’m Not Crying, You Are
My dad loves small-town auctions, and over the years he collected all those boxes of stuff that would go for the lowest bid. He amassed quite a collection, filling the garage, and a workshop out back. He always promised Mom he’d sell it all someday in some big garage sale or auction of his own. One day, my mom's cancer returned, and the doctors told us this time it wasn’t a fair battle.
Two weeks before she passed, I was sitting with her in the hospital. We’d run out of things to say. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the pain, and said, “Thank god at least I won’t have to deal with your dad's stuff.” Me and mom burst out laughing. Don’t tell my Dad.
62. Can’t Unsmell It
At a family gathering, my grandma got tipsy and started to tell stories from her childhood. While she does this every time, tipsy or not, this time it took a dark turn. She told us a story that explained the reason she hates going to the dentist and particularly the drilling part. She was six years old. During WWII, my family lived in Hamburg, Germany right next to the harbor.
In 1943, the city was continuously bombarded for a week. Over 35,000 people didn’t make it. More than 100,000 people were injured. The damaged houses mostly burned down. This created a huge fire, with such force and strong winds that it sucked not only oxygen in, but also people. The fire created such heat that people running out of their burning houses got stuck in the molten asphalt on the streets, and burned to their ends.
As it was all happening around her, that particular smell was present for over a week in her part of the city. Drilling in your tooth creates exactly that smell. My grandma had to stop the dentist, as she recognized the smell immediately. This story shook us to the core, as it came out of the blue. It still sends chills down my spine.
63. They’re Out To Get Me… Or Are They?
I was on a night out and ran into a good friend. While we were catching up, he told me that he'd stopped using his phone because he thought someone had bugged it to take his identity. When I asked why someone would do that, he told me, quite cheerfully, that it was probably something to do with the people that had been following him for the last week or so.
He hadn't seen them out tonight, but he was sure they were around somewhere. They were very good at popping in and out of sight. Then he left, saying he had a train to catch, and told me to take care and keep my eyes open. I reported this whole conversation to his brother, who I also knew quite well. I found out a few days later he'd been in the middle of a manic episode where he'd only been sleeping like two hours a night, and he'd eventually had to be sectioned for his own safety.
64. What Are The Odds?
A lady I used to work with married an old boyfriend after she divorced her first husband. One of the triggers for that divorce was that her husband's personality changed after he was involved in a serious accident. He was trying to fix his truck on the side of the road when it was rear ended and crushed him. Not life-threatening injuries, but a lifetime of pain.
Years later in an inebriated conversation, the second husband started talking about an accident he was involved in. He'd lied to law enforcement about the circumstances. He got off lightly, and bragging about how lucky he was. That's when it finally hit her: Yeah, turned out he'd been the driver who rear-ended her first husband's truck. Divorce number two came soon after that revelation.
65. Man Of Mystery
My best friend disappeared for a while, presumably left town. We were both in our mid-20s. He came back after a month or so and he’d take me out every night drinking and partying. I wondered how he was able to waste so much money on drinks and illicit substances, but he wouldn’t tell me. I saw him pay our tab one night and he must have had 12 or 15 grand on him.
After coming back to town, he basically stayed inebriated at all times and wanted to hang out with me whenever he could. He’d come over to my place after closing the bars down and we’d often keep partying until morning. He would usually end up breaking down and crying to me about how he can’t live with himself over what he did. He wouldn’t give details.
Night after night, this would happen until he broke down again one night. He told me he was paid a lot of money to do some bad things to bad people. He confessed that he was paid by someone in his dad’s gang to burn someone’s business down over a money dispute. Then he told me he shot a couple of guys who were thought to be touching children. He said he was paid $10,000 after each man was executed.
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66. Oh, Sugar!
When I was a new paramedic, we were called to a house for an unknown problem. We arrived and found the patient unresponsive but breathing on a bed. A friend of his found him after he hadn't returned his phone calls and had gone to the house to investigate. The patient didn't have any pill bottles lying around, and his friend didn't know anything about the patient's medical history.
So, I loaded him up into the ambulance and transported him to the hospital. I started an IV, did an ECG, drew bloodwork—the whole work up. We got him to the hospital, and the first thing the nurse asked was, "What was his blood sugar level"? I forgot to check it. It turned out it was incredibly low, which is completely treatable.
He probably wouldn't have required going to the hospital if corrected on the scene. Every patient gets a blood sugar check now.
67. Bridging The Gap
Once, as a tired medical resident, I was called to the ER to admit someone at around 3 AM. This person had gall bladder removal a week prior and now had a surgical-site wound infection. I asked if they had taken the post-op antibiotics they were prescribed, and they weren't sure. I was getting more and more frustrated with this person preventing my sleep when I decided to take a pause and just shut up.
This usually results in some type of awkward silence. In this case, the guy hung his head low, looked at his feet through unfocused eyes, and started to sniffle while his halting voice cracked. He said, "I can't read. Never could. Didn't know the instructions they wrote down for me and didn't know I had medicine to buy. I didn't ask them because I was embarrassed". I realized people count on us to bridge such communication gaps.
68. Take A Hike
Some years ago I decided to go alone on a beautiful two-day hike a few hours away from where I lived. I decided to do it because I wanted to challenge myself as I hadn't really done much on my own at that age and was highly dependent on other people. If you're familiar with the route and in good shape you can complete it in one day, but due to me getting lost and stopping to enjoy the scenery, I had to set up camp twice.
A couple of years later, I met a girl who I fell in love with instantly. I hadn't been with anyone before, so to me she was extra special, and within six months of meeting each other we moved in together. After being together for a little over a year and a half, I took her to the same trail that I hiked alone years earlier, and we had an amazing time.
We didn't rush it but because I knew the route, and we finished late on the second day. The year after and on the same date we walked the trail again. Due to some bad weather, we had to set up camp twice. Even though that year wasn't as good as the first, we enjoyed it a lot. In the third year of being together, things weren’t as good as the previous years. I could feel something was wrong in our relationship, but it being my first relationship I didn't know it had simply run its course.
In an attempt to bring back the spark, I suggested we should do the trip a third time and she agreed. We had a good time, but it just wasn't the same. A little bit after this, I ended the relationship because I could tell she wasn't happy. Or I thought she wasn't happy. The next few months absolutely sucked for me. I decided to go no-contact because talking to her would be too hard.
I still loved her very much. I struggled a lot for about eight months. I quit my job, I moved back in with my parents and I isolated myself completely. I quit doing anything that reminded myself of her. We used to watch TV shows together, play games on my Nintendo, we cooked together and had our favorite recipes. I stopped doing all of this.
I couldn't even go back to dating. Even flirting with girls felt wrong. I was absolutely miserable, so in an attempt to get my life back together, I thought it'd be a good idea to reintroduce myself to the things we did and make them my own. I cooked our favorite meal, I watched the last season of Game of Thrones and I invited a friend over to play Mario Kart.
It was depressing at first, but after a bit, I managed to enjoy doing it without her. Thinking I was getting over her, I figured I should go on our hike once again alone, just like I did the first time. It was the ultimate symbolic nail in the coffin of our relationship. My plan was to start dating again after this trip, and I knew exactly who I was going to ask out.
The day came for the trip, and I was getting ready. I was excited, but a little bit depressed as well. I felt butterflies in my stomach and was a little bit nauseous. I was shaking more and more the closer I got to the parking site. I arrived late in the day as my sleep schedule had been rather out of sync for a very long time. Once I got my gear out of the car, I debated not doing the trip at all.
It didn't feel right somehow. After thinking about it for some time I decided to do it. I had to do it. I didn't enjoy it at first, but it was a beautiful day, so I came to enjoy it after the first hour or so. I was getting hungry so I looked for a spot to camp for the night. After eating and thinking for a little bit, I decided to walk a little longer. I remembered the first camping spot my ex and I used, and it was only a 25-minute walk or so.
Once I got there, I spotted another tent in the exact same spot as we were in the first time. I tried to look around for a person, but I couldn't see or hear anyone. I set up my tent not too far away, but not too close either so they wouldn't feel creeped out. I sat outside with a fire enjoying the dusk. It was getting dark when I heard the neighbor talking on the phone.
It was a girl. Her voice was so recognizable I froze up for about a minute. I tried to listen to what she said, but I couldn't make it out. I was 90% sure it was her, but it had been a long time. She didn't talk after that so I guess she fell asleep. I, on the other hand, could not sleep at all. I was still using the same tent my ex and I used when we went together.
I hoped she would recognize it in the morning, but to make sure I left my sweater outside that I'd had for years. When I woke up the next morning, I had hardly slept at all. My entire body screamed for me to look outside and see if the neighbor tent was still there. When I finally did, I saw that it wasn't. I got out, ready to eat my breakfast, and then I saw her.
It was really her. She waved at me and after a few seconds, I waved back. She came over towards me and said hello. I asked her why she was there and she told me she enjoyed the hike so much she wanted to do it again. I asked her if she was with anyone and she said no, it was just her. I remember thinking it was a little odd as she'd always been a little scared at night when we were together.
I couldn't imagine her ever going alone. I was also very shocked to even see her again. I can barely remember what happened just after that, but I remember eating my breakfast and sharing some of my cookies with her. She showed me her new tattoo and told me she was planning to get more. I never took her for a tattoo person. She had changed so much, but she still had the same personality.
For the rest of the way, we walked together. We talked and we laughed. Eventually, we made it to the second camping spot and we set up our tents. We got ready to eat and compared our foods. I brought spaghetti and she had stale crispbread and liver pate. She looked a little disappointed, so I asked her if we could switch because my stomach hurt a little bit and I didn't feel like eating spaghetti.
She didn't accept at first, but after some convincing she happily accepted my offer. It was getting late so we decided to head to bed. I was crazy tired after walking all day so I fell asleep almost immediately. Sometime during the night, I woke up and heard her coming into my tent. She told me she was hearing some scary sounds, though I told her I couldn't hear anything.
She mumbled something for a bit and then asked me if she could sleep in my tent with me. I was half asleep but somehow managed to move my stuff around enough to make room for her. She brought her sleeping bag and got inside. I was just about to fall asleep when I heard her taking her clothes off, and suddenly I was wide awake.
She never enjoyed sleeping with her clothes on so I knew she was the same now. She also made sure to leave her bra between our sleeping bags so I could get a good look at it. It took some discipline to fall back asleep, but eventually, I managed to do it. When I woke up the following morning, she was still sleeping and I was spooning her.
I had set up my tent with a little bit of an incline so sometime during the night, she must have inched closer and closer to me. After so many months of not being with someone, lying this close her and knowing she was undressed in her sleeping bag made me extremely, uh, agitated. I decided to go out in the woods and get some air, but the action of getting out of my sleeping bag woke her up.
I told her I was going out to pee, but I don’t think she was fooled. I got out and realized I really did have to pee, so I stood by the trees for a few minutes waiting for it to calm down enough to let the water out. It was close to impossible, but eventually, I managed to do it. Having been out there for a good few minutes, I heard her yelling at me and asking what was taking so long.
I just said I really, really had to pee. She told me to come back, but I knew I wouldn't be able to walk all day like this. She yelled again so I went back inside. She was still in her sleeping bag, still mostly undressed but she had put on a thin, but still see-through sweater. She sat up straight and zipped down her sleeping bag and gave me a good long look at her.
I swear I almost passed out from blood loss. I couldn't hold myself back so I kissed her. She kissed me back and within seconds we were both on her sleeping bag going at it. For the rest of the trip we were back to our old selves, exactly how we were before the relationship took a bad turn. It felt amazing and I don't think I've ever been happier.
When the trip ended we hung around for a bit, but eventually got back in our cars and drove off. When I got home, I unblocked her on Facebook and looked through her profile. A shock of sadness went through me as I looked. I noticed a guy she had introduced me to at the end of our relationship in some of her pictures. I asked my friend and he said they got together a few weeks after we ended it.
I'm not sure if she cheated on me or if she just acted weird because she developed feelings for the guy, but I fell back into the same depression I'd developed after our breakup. It didn't last as long this time, but it took much more from me to get out of it. I also learned from our mutual friend that this guy was the reason she got into tattoos and that they only dated a few months and that she was the one who ended it.
I wanted to contact her, but after some time and rational consideration, I decided not to. After some time, I met a new girl. She was amazing and I enjoyed her company a lot. I realized that I didn't love her, but I clung onto her to not be alone I think. We dated for a few months, but I couldn't get serious with her. I believe she was in love with me so I couldn't bring myself to end it.
My yearly hiking trip date was coming up. I debated going, but I knew I wouldn't be able to keep myself from going just in case my ex did. I packed my stuff and left for the hike. I got there early and waited in my car to see if she showed up. I sat in my car for two hours just waiting when I finally saw a car arriving. Sure enough, it was her, but the car was new.
I waved at her and she smiled and waved back. We caught up and I told her I had a girlfriend. She looked a little disappointed but she was happy for me. She did ask if I minded us sharing a tent so she didn't have to carry hers, and stupidly enough I agreed. We started the hike and we had a good time. It was not the same as the previous year, it got a little awkward at times, but it was fun.
The first night was tough. She once again got undressed in her sleeping bag and I was hot and bothered, but nothing happened. The next morning, she woke me up saying she was ready to eat. When I finally managed to open my eyes and look at her, she unzipped her sleeping bag again, showing me her body. We kissed and touched each other for a little bit but I broke it off before anything really happened.
I had no idea where that strength came from, but I didn't want to cheat on my current girlfriend. We ate breakfast and after a quick bathroom break away from each other, we set off for the last part of the trail. Things got weird and we decided to walk the rest of the way over camping another night. We got to the end and said our goodbyes, and I immediately regretted finishing the hike so early.
I stopped her from leaving and invited her to talk for a bit. We sat on a bench and talked. I told her I wasn't happy with my girlfriend and she helped me a good bit. I realized I had to break up with her. By the end, we kissed and touched each other some more. She ended it there and we went our separate ways. First thing I did after coming home was break up with my girlfriend.
She cried for a bit, but took it surprisingly well. I talked a little bit with my ex after that, but nothing really came out of it. I was so into her at this point, almost obsessed. After some time, I blocked her again. She didn't really return my messages so I left it at that. Eventually, I had mostly forgotten about her. I had some random hookups but nothing that really lasted.
Then, the date was getting closer and I started thinking about her again. If I went, would she be there? I was happy and sad. I wasn't in love with her anymore, or not like I used to at least. My feelings for her were confusing. The date was coming up and I made sure to take the Friday off from work in good time, but the day before they called me and said I had to come in.
I decided not to go on the hike, even though I was all packed and ready. When the morning came I got up and ready for work. In the shower, I suddenly felt really depressed. I called work and told them I couldn't come in. They said it was fine and that the guy who called off was coming anyway. I hurried up and packed my camping gear into my car and drove towards the hiking trail faster than I've driven before in my life.
I was super excited to get there, and scared she wouldn't be there at the same time. I had no idea if she'd be there or not. I hadn't asked around about what she was up to or looked at her Facebook at all. That made it even more exciting and scary. The only stop I made along the way was to buy the most optimistic lube I've ever bought.
Eventually after some delays, I made it to the trail parking spot. I drove around looking with my pulse going crazy. It was taking forever even though the parking spot is really small. I spotted a familiar car and sure enough, there she was. She was glowing and smiling wider than I've ever seen her before. She looked so happy! I got out and gave her a hug.
It felt so good to just stand there and hug her. We hugged for probably five minutes, but it felt like it was only 10 seconds. I could not get enough of her. We set off once again, with only one tent. I had brought a comfy inflatable mattress, pillows, and blankets this time so she didn't even bring her sleeping bag. We didn't get far, not even the usual camping spot, before we were all over each other.
The spot was terrible, but we quickly set up the mattress and blankets, not even caring about the tent. The spot was fully visible from the trail, but we didn't care at all. She got undressed, and we went at it for what felt like hours. It was amazing I was more drained after that than I've ever been hiking this trip before. We set up camp and stayed there for the length of our trip.
There was a small lake nearby that we skinny-dipped in twice a day. We stayed there for three days and only ended the trip because we ran out of food and snacks. We decided to end it with a decent meal at a nice restaurant. Coincidentally, she met one of her friends there. The girl seemed nice, but also a little confused as to why I was there. Maybe she knew I was her ex or something, I don't know.
Now, as it turns out, this last trip was almost a year ago. I haven't talked with her since, but I've thought about her every day since that. I'm pretty sure I'm in love with her. More so than any other girl I've been with. I can't get her out of my head, especially now as the date is coming up in a few months. This year I've heard rumors that she's getting married, but I haven't had the guts to ask around.
My friends probably know, but don't really care enough about her to even tell me. I don't know if I should go this year, but I know for sure I won't be able to stop myself. I haven't even checked if she has a boyfriend. What I do know is that she's definitely going. My only friend who knows about it sent me a screenshot of her status saying how much she's looking forward to her yearly hiking trip, and I got a text badly disguised as an advertisement for the hiking trip that exact day.
It included stuff like "...mountain with sexy scenes" "...hot nights” and "...bring protection from wet weather and cat attacks." I also get photos of her in camping gear that gets increasingly more revealing. She's down to a see-through fishnet sweater with no underwear. I'm madly in love with this girl, even though we only meet once a year.
We have amazing chemistry and have so much fun the days we meet. I'm not doing myself any favors meeting her like this. I doubt I'll ever find someone else if I keep doing it. It's not right to do it if she's serious with someone else, either. I don't know what I should do, but I darn well know what I am going to do anyway. I can’t help myself.
69. The Old Switcheroo
I am a bartender, and I once saw a guy drug another girl’s drink. While he wasn’t looking, I switched the drinks. I then watched the guy drug himself. This has been on my chest for the last few months and it finally feels good to confess. Until now I have told no one and I just feel much better. I feel like I truly did the right thing and I acted on instincts.
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70. Forbidden Fruit
My boss is generally a jerk. One day, I noticed his wife, who also works at the company, came up as a recommended friend on Snapchat, so I copied the user name and added her on my burner Snapchat. After a few messages and a few fake selfies, she has told me she is single and sent some darn good revealing pictures. I feel a bit guilty now, but darn she is hot.
71. Bizarre Love Triangle
I have been sleeping with both partners of a married couple. Neither of them is aware the other is cheating, and the wife doesn't know the husband likes men. The wife came onto me first, but I didn't sleep with her out of respect for her husband. Until, that is, he messaged me on Grindr and I realized they're as bad as each other and I may as well have some fun with it.
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72. Ouch!
My married friend has three kids. He's always exhausted. While taking the train to work, a woman he always sees struck up a conversation with him. The woman said she knows him as "the tired guy" because he always passes out on the train. He explained why, so she reveals she is a hotel manager and can get him a room for free.
He took her up on the offer…sounds like an affair, right? Nope. My friend actually has an ongoing deal with this lady where she lets him crash in a hotel room if it's open. He tells his wife that he is visiting family, but all he does is sleep in a room, away from his wife and kids. At my urging, he admitted the truth to his wife because keeping that a secret will just lead her to assume he's unfaithful.
When he told her the truth, she replied "I believe you. You'd never cheat on me. You have no game."
73. Sharing Isn’t Caring
I once sat next to a guy on a plane who was returning home after 10 years in prison. He was still in sweats and was only carrying a mesh bag. He was very excited to start life again, and we started talking about jobs and stuff. After about 20 minutes, he took out three pieces of paper that were folded up in his pocket. He began showing me his art. It was quite good, but each depicted a deceased body. Very gruesome stuff.
He looked at me and said, “now that I am free I can finally get this off my chest. I went in for armed theft, but the truth is I shot three people. I can't get the images of them out of my head, so I carry them around with me everywhere.” It was haunting how relieved he looked telling me. He said he never admitted it to anyone, but now he felt safe as his sentence was up. It was the creepiest conversation I’ve ever had.
74. Life’s Greatest Mystery
"I'm not too much into pleasuring women. I'm like a marine: I get in, do my duty, and get out. That's how it's done!" Then later in the same conversation: "You know, come to think of it, I've never dumped someone, I've always been dumped.” Honestly, as a man, other men tell me things they would never say in front of women, and every time it's like theater for me. Get me some popcorn, tell me everything, let's go.
75. Well That Escalated Quickly
My friend’s husband told me he was hiding bottles from his wife. This was weird, because they both drink and it’s not a big deal. I told my friend what he said. She confronted him, and all of his lies started pouring out. Cheating on her with multiple women, lying about his income, taking credit cards out in her name, racking up tens of thousands of dollars on them, taking from their kids' college funds. They are now divorced. That weird little lie he told me while tipsy is what started it all.
76. And They Were Roommates
I shared an off-campus apartment with a very cool older guy in college. He was a nurse. He got up super early every morning to do his shifts. Every night you could find him at his regular Irish pub. They let me drink there without ID because they knew I was with him. Basically, he was a super high-functioning alcoholic.
One day, I came home after finishing my exams. He brings out a bottle of Jameson to celebrate. It was nearly full. After a few drinks, he starts telling me about his time in Vietnam. I'd known him for two years, he had never brought it up, and I had never asked. I knew he was a vet, but assumed he had been a nurse. Nope.
Special forces. His demeanor totally changed after a few drinks. He started telling me about having to go on covert operations to carry out assassinations of civilians. He said he dreams of the faces of all the people whose lives he snuffed out. We ended up polishing off the entire bottle. He got up the next morning at 5 AM and went off to work. I spent the entire day moaning in bed and praying to the porcelain god. We never spoke about it again.
77. Your Secret Is Safe
The second year after I graduated from high school, all 22 of us in the graduating class went on a camping trip. One of the dudes drank a ton. When we were just catching up, he confessed to the whole class that he shot his mom's boyfriend. He was always come and go anyway, was a truck driver, would regularly cheat, and often spent the week with the other woman. Rinse. Wash. Repeat. That meant him being MIA was no cause for alarm.
But he also hurt this dude's mother. We all just looked at each other, the dude who was sitting closest to him just patted him on the back and we passed him the joint. I don't think anyone has brought it up since.
78. Friends To Strangers
A friend of mine ODed. After the funeral, a mutual friend and I were getting tipsy when he broke down crying. He asked me if I remembered the time when he and our deceased friend told me about an accident they'd witnessed where they saw a truck driver perish. I told him I did. He then told me the most messed up stuff.
He said that our friend ran up to the dying man and took his wedding ring. The man couldn't do anything but look up, terrified, at our friend as he was being looted. I knew they were bad into substances, but I never thought they could do anything like that. I grew up with them, they were like my brothers. I don't really trust anyone completely anymore.
79. Motor Mouth
One day, my Dad went drinking by himself, got inebriated, and tried to ride his motorcycle home. He crashed it into our neighbor's mailbox, messing up both the bike and his knee. That's when the secrets started pouring out. As I was treating his wound, he confessed that he had been cheating on my Mom with a coworker over the last few months. He was drinking out of depression because the coworker quit her job and ghosted him after she got him to spend thousands on buying her expensive gifts.
He then cried his eyes out. This was my first time ever seeing him shed a single tear in my life. I was only 16 or 17 at the time. It was a lot to take in.
80. It’s What He Deserves
When I was 14, my mom took me and my sisters and a couple of our friends to the beach. My fifteen-year-old sister and I got our own room with our two friends. We wound up meeting some boys and getting tipsy. My sisters's old friend was really tipsy. She got super upset and confessed that her stepfather had been attacking her for years. Really, really, really horrible stuff.
Everyone got really quiet. We rallied around her and told her we were there for her. When we got home from the beach trip a few days later, I knew I needed to tell my mom. After I told her, she got state law enforcement involved. There was a trial, and the man wound up sentenced to 8 years in prison. It turned out he was doing it to the younger sister as well.
81. Now That’s Dedication
My aunt and uncle have been divorced for almost a decade. They were having serious marital troubles basically from the time they were married until then. They also had some serious financial trouble right before they divorced. That’s no surprise, money is often the catalyst for a lot of breakups. Well, last month on vacation with the family, they explained that it was actually all very carefully calculated.
They had gotten a divorce so they could hide funds in my aunt's name, as my uncle was being sued and investigated for fraud. They made some extra money throughout the years by flipping houses. They were in trouble for ignoring code when redoing some of the houses, and lying to tenants about the state of the properties they were renting.
They purposefully faked marital problems so that if they ever were in danger of getting caught, they could believably get a divorce, move money into my aunt’s name, and feign her ignorance. This way, my uncle could declare bankruptcy and avoid paying serious fines and damages. They just recently got married again, having decided that enough time had passed that "her money" wouldn't be in danger if they got back together.
They say they've learned their lesson, but still...I couldn't believe how concerted and specific their efforts were, all in an attempt to make a few extra bucks on the shady side.
82. I’m Outta Here
When I moved to a new city I found a roommate, we'll call him M, on Craigslist. He was really cool. We ended up hanging out in each others social circles. M ended up catching feelings for this girl that became pretty close to me. When the feelings weren’t reciprocated, he started getting weird and almost resentful toward me.
Over time I found out that M had a drinking problem. I would get home from work around 1 AM, and it wasn’t uncommon he would be passed out on the couch after finishing off a big bottle. One night, I get home a little early, and I notice him sitting with his back against the couch in the total dark. I ask him if he’s okay. I can immediately tell something's seriously wrong.
With the bottle next to him, M begins telling me that when he first moved to the city he caught his girlfriend in bed with another guy and shot him. His girlfriend fled the state. Since it was in a shifty part of town, officers never paid it much attention, so he got away with it. He thinks about it all the time. I gracefully made my exit upstairs freaking out.
When I saw him the next morning he asked me what time I got home from work because he didn’t hear me come in meaning he has no recollection of telling me he shot someone. I had my dad help move me out the next week, and I never mentioned it to him.
83. You Only Live Once
I had a customer order a $15 drink. He gave me a $50 bill and told me to keep the change. He was a strange guy. He kept sneezing and rubbing his face while sitting at the bar. He downed his drinks. They were instantly gone. He asked me what I'd do if I found out I had two weeks to live. I told him I'd see my family and friends, knock off my bucket list, etc.
"What if your family hates you?" he says. I told him I'd do what makes me happy then. He asked where the nearest place was where he could score some illicit substances. I told him I wasn't really into that sort of stuff, but pointed him toward a place that might be a good start. He left me another $20 as he left and was on his way.
About an hour later, I was out and saw him in cuffs. The officers pulled out the biggest bag of white powder I've ever seen in my life. I'm talking like a full bag just bulging out. Never saw the guy again.
84. He Wasn’t A Guy Everyone Loved
I’d always been told my paternal great-grandad was the kind of guy everyone loved, and a nice person. Turns out he only showed that side to certain people, and last year, my dad exposed him for he truly is.
He was a lying, narcissistic jerk who’d do anything to benefit himself. Apparently, he was a notorious swindler and would swipe things and sell them, and would make up huge lies to get himself some cheap momentary gain.
Like he purposely injured himself at work to get compensation. He would sneak onto public transport without paying, and if a conductor came around asking to see tickets, he’d get all Karen on them and rage about how disgusting it was that they were doubting him and painting him as a freeloader (which he was). He would threaten to get them fired until they left him alone.
He took my dad to a football game when he was a kid, but didn’t buy tickets and basically did loads of research about one of the team’s managers and when they arrived, he lied that they were friends of the manager and that he’d promised them free tickets because my dad was disabled (he wasn’t). But that wasn't the worst thing he did.
He also took his own wife’s wedding ring, sold it at a pawn shop, and told her my dad had done it. Just an uncaring no-good cheapskate.
85. Secondary Button
After my cousin had a motorcycle accident, I cleaned out his apartment along with his brother. Nothing strange in particular, then went over to his computer to erase his history (as a bro should). Turns on. Linux OS. Encrypted. Asked for password. Then a loud bang just goes off.
The computer just dies. Turns out he’d set up the PC to self-destruct. I had failed to press some secondary button unknown to me. And there was a shell filled with pellets aimed at the hard drive, rigged to go off if the button wasn’t pressed. Obliterated the hard drive.
To this day, I wonder what he had on there to go to such lengths to keep hidden.
86. Color Me Annoyed
We have two players in this story: My current sister-in-law is a literal piece of work. Ever since she entered our family it has been nothing but problem after problem. Anyway, my other brother got engaged in November. When his fiancée was picking bridesmaids, she didn't ask my other brother's wife, AKA this current sister-in-law who is a nightmare.
Her reasoning for this is she is not close to her, and my sister-in-law has been mean to her since the get-go. So fair enough, plus it's her wedding, she can do whatever she wants. Well, this witch went off the deep end. She threw a literal tantrum. She went off on my brother's fiancée, saying she won't be at the wedding, doesn't support their marriage, blah blah.
She even went as far as to say that my brother and his fiancée were responsible and the reason for her and my older brother’s marriage problems. All these awful things. And keep in mind that she is 30 years old and was pregnant at the time. To make her happy, my brother's fiancée asked her to be a personal attendant instead at the wedding.
This woman was still angry about it. Come April, though, she apologized to the fiancée which was good. We also were all surprised about it considering she is truly a petty, selfish woman. Anyway, the fiancée asks the personal attendants to wear coral dresses to the wedding while the bridesmaids are wearing blue. COME THE WEDDING DAY, THIS WOMAN DECIDES TO BUY A BRIDESMAID DRESS AND WEAR IT.
HOW DARE SHE. I want to hurt her. I literally want to hurt this woman. And like NO WAY can she defend herself by saying "Oh, I thought we were supposed to wear blue." Because blue and coral and completely different colors. Plus, the dress she was wearing was the exact same color blue as the bridesmaids, and from the same company.
The fiancée and my brother were so angry about it, but no one has said or probably will say anything. I just cannot believe that this 30-year-old woman who is a new mother can be so freaking petty. The reason this is making me so angry for them is because I was the victim of my her wrath for about two years, and my brother and his fiancée are too nice of people to say anything.
And I'm here like NO this is NOT OKAY.
87. Pushed To The Limit
My sister Shelly is now a couple weeks pregnant (again), and apparently has a doctor's appointment to "deal with it" as my mom so helpfully put it. However, we're already raising her first kid after she took off (she is not reliable), and now my mom is constantly "joking" that I'll have another newborn in nine months. I mentally cannot take on a newborn, all day, and then pick up my other niece from school.
Not to mention the toll it will take as Shelly gets bigger and bigger; her being pregnant last time was so scary. I had objects thrown at me, she would scream at mom for hours, then refuse to let my mom leave her own room, then start screaming about how she's putting her hands on a pregnant lady when my mom would try to push past to leave the house.
I told my mom it was a matter of time until this happened again. Since I was told she was pregnant, I was told not to contact anyone from our family or tell any of my friends. I'm supposed to just sit and stew with this information, and that my life is about to be flipped upside down for someone else's actions. Because I’m expected to take care of it.
It's already been flipped upside down from the first kid, I can't handle that again. Not to mention that my only "free time" is during the day when my niece is at kindergarten and my mom is at work. But I also have to clean up the three rooms Shelly trashes every weekend, stay on top of dishes, laundry, and manage to get some time to de-stress by Thursday or Friday.
Giving me maybe 10 or 20 hours "off". Stress level is one of the main things that triggers my mental illness. I've got a pretty good routine right now for managing my stress level and everything I have to get done in a day. Throwing a newborn into the mix will not turn out well, like, I'll spend another few months in a psych ward kind of not well.
I've got a few ideas for how to handle this situation. First, adoption is a thing. Open, closed, whatever. Second, I move out and only pick my niece up from school and wait until my mom gets home. I really don't like this option, but it removes my mom's idea that I will take care of the kid while she is at work. Again, because Shelly sure as heck isn’t going to take care of it.
Third, and this is probably the worst option, call CPS when the kid gets dropped off and cite my mental illness as a reason I can't watch a newborn. Fourth, I lied, this is the worst, there's a worse option: Deal with it till I have a mental breakdown. The fourth option is extra bad, because it will permanently degrade my mental capacity and cause my condition to worsen.
It will also endanger my mom's job gets because she wouldn't be able to stay as late as she needs to. She has clearance, and one person with clearance needs to be there for work to be done. Oh, I almost forgot to mention, Shelly got kicked off the last couch she was staying on and is now staying on a co-worker's couch. Pregnant and couch surfing, how fun!
88. Dinner Is Served
Let me start by telling you that I am allergic to glutamate/E620 as well as gluten, so I cannot eat most ready meals and sauces and whatnot. If I want to eat pasta it has to be special pasta. Anything made from Dinkel wheat is usually ok, since it is very low in gluten. If I eat it, it won´t destroy me, but my stomach and my colon feel like they want it to.
Depending on how much I got that can go on for days. So we were invited to family dinner at my brother’s new home with his new wife at the time. It was a big occasion. My grandma came, my half-brother and my half-sister, and all my nieces and nephews. She had a full house. We specifically told her about my allergies, and I even offered to being food to cook for me, at least pasta, since she has enough work as is.
She acted as if it was no problem whatsoever. She already bought the special pasta, and all her sauces are completely made from scratch, so E620 won´t get anywhere near it. I arrive and right away realize that something is off. So my brother takes me to the side and tells me he caught her using glutamate on everything, even the salad sauce.
This is something she NEVER does. Plus she did not have any gluten-free pasta or bread for breakfast tomorrow. She defended herself by claiming I was faking it, and she was doing all this to finally show everybody I am lying. Now I am seething. I think for a moment. Then I have the perfect idea. I order take out. She is very much into beautiful decorations, so to get back at her I will eat it directly from the container.
Plus looking good in front of others is also really important to her. So we take extra care she does not realize what I am doing, and when everybody is already sitting at the table, I jump up real quick to get my containers. She sees me and right away starts screeching, "How dare you disrespect me like that, I stood in the kitchen for hours"!
Me: You have been told multiple times that I am allergic to certain things, yet you took great care to put it into everything, so I cannot eat anything at this table. I offered to help you with my special diet by cooking my own things, but you claimed it was not a problem. Thank God my brother caught you doing it, or I would have been miserable for days.
Her: YOU ARE FAKING IT ANYWAY. Grandma: ENOUGH, sit down, and serve dinner. This is 100% your fault, and you better pay for his takeout later, or there will be consequences. And she did pay for my dinner. She really learned that day that I am not some hapless victim she can play games with. If you mess with me, I mess back 10 times harder.
It was also the last time she had a huge family dinner at her house, since she was told time and time again she cannot be trusted to cook for the whole family when she tried to organize another one. Her face during dinner was glorious, and especially when I thanked her for the yummy take-out she paid for during the end. She is no longer my brother’s wife, either.
89. Do Not Cross This Sister
Back in 2013, I had to schedule surgery. The time frame was important, due to finding out around Thanksgiving and being urged to get it done before Christmas. My wife was prepared, having got it set up with her work to use her vacation time to care for me. My family knew I would be back by the 22nd and would be exhausted and sore but manage the holiday.
After making sure everyone knew weeks ahead of time, my wife and I thought that we were ready for my surgery to go off without a hitch on the 19th. But that’s not what happened—something much worse did. I wake up from surgery and am in the hospital room when I see my wife missed a text from my sister, who is a lovely person.
She says: SO MAD right now, call me. Groaning, I pawn the cell off on my wife and drift off again. Hours later, after I have woken up again and get fluids, my wife tells me that my awful mother got into a fight with my sister and I am the cause. Apparently, my mom saw that my hospital is a 20-minute drive from the beach and wants to make the five-hour drive to my hospital so she can pick up my wife and myself and we can go HORSEBACK RIDING ON THE BEACH.
She lost her composure and started screaming at my sister when my sister asked why the heck would want to go horseback riding after surgery. My sister didn't take being screamed at very well, and the fight ended up with my mom leaving my sister stranded at the restaurant they were at. Yes, this was in public, of course, where else would this travesty take place?
So my sister called someone to pick her up. The restaurant threatened to call the authorities on my mom after she had left since my sister was underage. But since someone else arrived quickly enough to pick her up, I guess they didn't want to deal with it. The next morning, the plot had thickened. My wife wakes up to multiple missed messages and calls, all from my sister.
She has left multiple voicemails screaming in fury that are undecipherable. My wife, fearing the worst, immediately calls my sister and inadvertently reawakens her fury. My mom’s side of the family, deciding that it was horribly unfair that I wouldn't want to go horseback riding on the beach right after I had surgery...decided to teach me a lesson.
They had moved Christmas up to the 20th so I would not be able to attend, considering I was lying in a hospital bed five hours away. To twist that spite a little deeper, my older cousin who is also horrible as well announced that he and his fiancée were getting married. On my birthday. To say my sister came unglued was an understatement.
She threw all the gifts she had gotten for them into the garbage in front of them and had stormed out, walking down the road and calling for someone to come pick her up because she didn't want to be around them. She did end up going to my cousin's wedding (forced into it by family) but she “accidentally” unbalanced the banquet table.
She also unknowingly started a fire in the process, when one of the catering heaters tipped too near the fancy lace tablecloth. So I count that as a win in my book.
90. A Long Time Coming
I got engaged. Woohoo! The wedding won’t be for a few years, and even then we might elope. My dad sucks. He mistreated me, and cheated on my mom for years before finally getting kicked out when he got caught. Our lives were substantially better without him around. But, it sucked because he basically put the family in huge debt and then got a well-paying job after the divorce was finalized.
He never sent any money beyond what was court-mandated to help put any of us kids through college. Just left us to struggle while he blew through money living his 50-year-old frat guy dream. I grinded my way through school on my own, got a job, and am now putting my life on hold to pay for my siblings to go to college. It’s whatever, but there’s a lot of drama between my parents.
My dad is fully equipped to help but won’t send a penny unless we play by his rules. Which we won’t. We spent too much of our childhoods being hurt to deal with him any longer. All this to say, of course he isn’t invited to the wedding. He’s always been obsessed with public image and will dramatically and tearfully apologize for his sins sometimes when he’s feeling sorry for himself.
I know he’s not truly remorseful for anything. But when the divorce happened, he begged and begged me to let him still walk me down the aisle one day. Even then I was like “Haha, absolutely not”. He only wants to because it’ll look bad to the family if he doesn’t. The other day, he rang to congratulate me on the engagement and asked me when to expect the invites.
I said never, he’s not invited. He began to rage and demand why. I had a slam-dunk response in my back pocket. I said “Well, I paid $20,000 for my siblings to go to school, and I know that weddings are usually about $100 a plate, so that’s 200 people I can’t afford to invite. I guess you just didn’t make the cut. If I could afford it, you’d probably be invited. Ciao”.
His side of the family is angry at me, but I don’t care since none of them are invited either. I hate them all so much, they truly are delusional.
91. 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?
92. Left On Fed
So I host Christmas every year. I love to do it. This year we had a turkey and a ham, plus my husband made lasagna and all the sides. Pretty standard. I always offer up some leftovers as people leave—enough turkey/ham to make a few sandwiches, a piece or two of the lasagna, some dessert. Whatever. I’m generous. But I count on the leftovers for my family, and especially look forward to leftover lasagna as my husband makes it once a year.
Anyway, all the leftovers were out on my screened-in porch, because in the winter I treat my porch like a fridge. My sister’s husband asks if he can take some leftovers, I say sure of course. I don’t see him again as he skedaddled immediately upon getting his leftovers. I figured out why afterward. He knew he had to get out quickly…because he took it all.
All of it. All the lasagna, the ham, the sides. He left me with a turkey carcass and the cranberry sauce. I didn’t discover this until some time later when my mom went out to get a piece of lasagna to bring home. Turns out my leftovers were then brought to his brother’s house so they could have it while they watched football. His brother who I cannot stand, by the way.
This guy hits on me constantly and is creepy with my daughter. The brother who couldn’t be bothered to fix Christmas dinner for himself. Not only that, but he took my serving bowls and utensils. I hadn’t gotten the food into containers yet as I was waiting for everyone to go before really cleaning up. The serving bowls were part of my husband’s grandmother’s wedding China set.
Irreplaceable. So my sister calls her husband and lays into him. The whole family is yelling at him. He says he will return the bowls and utensils, but that I told him he could have the leftovers. I still have not gotten my dishes back. I want to tell my sister that he owes me a certain amount of money in return for my husband having to buy more lasagna fixings and another ham.
93. Double Life
I found out over Christmas while doing a family history search online that my dad had fathered two children by a different woman about 20 years ago. He and my mother have been married for over 35 years. His name brought up results for not only myself and my two brothers’ births, but two other births. He has very unusual first and last names so curiosity got the better of me, and I started to find out more.
The births were registered in the north of England, in the Newcastle area. This rang alarm bells immediately because my dad had worked in this region for five years with the company he worked for in the early 90s. I was only a little kid back then, and I missed him so much at the time. So did my brothers and mom; he worked on a two-week on, two-week off rotation, so he was always back and forth.
Then I dug a little deeper. Just to confirm. I found the children (now grown women) and their Facebook pages. They still used the last name given to them at birth—our father’s. I didn't contact them because I had a suspicion they'd have no idea they had siblings, and my suspicions were confirmed when I contacted their mother on there instead.
At first, I told her I was a "relative" of my dad’s and I wanted to know more about any children he potentially had because I was trying to track him down. She confirmed that he was the father of her children after I sent her some details and a photo from that time. She proved it 100% by scanning and sending me copies of the birth certificates and some photos she had of him and their daughters when they were just babies. Then she told me to call her.
I called her—I can't say I was ever nervous or anxious about this call, but I remember feeling livid. Livid at him mostly, for what he'd done to my mother and us as a family while he had supposedly been working hard and "all alone" up north, and while his wife and children sat on their thumbs in Wales patiently waiting for his return every two weeks for five years.
I told her my name and that I was actually his daughter—his only daughter, I thought up until that moment, and that I had two other brothers who were older. I added that my parents had, in fact, been married for over 35 years. This poor woman screeched down the phone crying. She never knew any of this. When she met my father it was in a pub in Newcastle about three months after he had moved up there.
He said he was single and didn't have any family. He told her he was from Wales, but he lied about the area he grew up in. A couple of months later, they were expecting their firstborn, and about a year after that a second daughter. She said when he went back to Wales every two weeks she thought it was for work-related stuff and that he would call every other evening from a local phone box because he didn't have a landline.
When the daughters were just little kids, he left one day to go to Wales and work and never came back. She tried to contact the company he worked for and they said he no longer worked for them. This was around about the time, to my knowledge, his five years in Newcastle was up, and he had left the company and moved back to Wales. And that’s not the worst part.
Because he had lied about where he lived in Wales, she was unable to track him down, and now being left with two girls and no job, she had to get on with it. After about a month, she realized he wasn't going to contact them ever again and he was gone—wherever. She didn't have a clue he had a massive family with a wife and kids and a mortgage and a dog back home in Wales.
If she had, she definitely would not have gotten into a relationship with him, and least of all had kids. I haven't brought it up with him obviously because of my mother, but Christmas was so difficult for me personally knowing this. For two days leading up to Christmas, I drank so much that I slept for 18 hours straight on Christmas day and missed the whole thing. My father was fuming that I'd "ruined Christmas" and I very nearly then exploded, but I kept my mouth shut. But it wasn’t over.
The day after Christmas, I got a call again from the mother in Newcastle, telling me she had told her daughters very delicately what had happened, and that she will leave it up to them to decide what to do. So far, they have done nothing. I have not been in contact with them at all and vice versa since. However, the mother did call me around February to check in with me and see how I was—she's a very nice woman.
At that point, she was curious if I was visiting the north in the future and if I would like to meet her family. I told her I would think about it. I'm actually visiting Newcastle for a hen party in two months, so I'm thinking about it more. Part of me hopes one day they come knocking on our door because they know where to go now. Part of me doesn't because of my mother.
Over the past seven months, my relationship with my father has disintegrated and is the chief cause of his "stress." It's so bad he's telling me it's exacerbating his heart condition (which he is on pills for). My parents are putting it down to some kind of "mid-20s rebellion" because I didn't have a rebellion when I was a teenager. I just want to kick him in the face every time I see him.
The next step in this saga is to tell my eldest brother. He is serious and mature and will be able to deal with it a bit better, I think. He's never had a great relationship with my dad for some reason so I'd like him to know. His wife (my best friend) already knows there is something wrong with me because I think I'm pretty much having a breakdown over it.
The burden is too tough, I'm even struggling with my job. Part of the reason I want them to knock on our door looking for their dad is so that the weight is lifted, but how do you go back from that? My mother is a proud but fragile woman, and it will destroy her.
94. Kids Text The Darndest Things
When my six-year-old daughter was using her mom’s phone to text me emojis and she accidentally pasted in my wife’s last text to her lover. It read: “It’s a holiday weekend so work will be slow tomorrow. I can get out around 1:00. Do you want to do something other than bang? Something outside?” Marriage over, just like that.
95. 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.
96. My Boss is a Heartbreaker
I worked with a doctor that constantly ignored patients in serious pain. He thought all of them were faking it to get pain killers. After a senior director at Microsoft succumbed to a heart attack in our ER that he refused to do an EKG on, I went to management and told them what I had seen.
97. The Frat Paths Not Taken
In college, I had a friend named "S." We weren't best friends, but we played on a team together starting freshman year. In junior year, another one of our teammates, who was in the same frat as S, called me up to hang out with the two of them because S's girlfriend had just broken up with him and he was torn up about it.
We made plans for the whole weekend, you know, “We’re gonna get you drunk, find you a new girl, blah blah blah." Friday night they threw a party at the frat. Me and S raged, found him a hot girl, and she took care of him for the night.
On Saturday, I got a call from this insanely hot girl I'd been trying to talk to, she's like the spitting image of Tyra Banks. I figured I'd hang out with her then go chill with S after, took her out to dinner then for a walk. Around 11, we walked past S's frat and I go in to see if they've started drinking.
A couple of his brothers are sitting around playing a drinking game and they said he decided to go to sleep early, I normally would’ve gone to his room and told him to man up and come out and hang, but I had the girl with me and really wanted to see where I could get with her. I got a call the next morning that he hung himself that night.
I play the three minutes of me walking into the frat and talking to his brothers in my head everyday. What if I had just dragged him out of his room like I normally would have. What if I had walked into his room, and he was still breathing?
98. No Show
My wife's grandmother, who raised her, believed that when you are about to die your deceased relatives show up to take you to heaven. She was by all accounts a horrible person. On her deathbed her last words were, in a quiet terrified voice, "They're not coming."
99. No Parking Zone
I lived in a duplex that shared one large driveway with another duplex. Parking could be tight, but all of us cooperated and made the best of it, except for one woman. She left a note on my car two days after my husband and I moved in, telling me not to park there because she didn’t like that I was "in front of her door."
I was at least 15 feet away from her house and that was the only spot I could park in without blocking anyone else. I left her a note back explaining this. She banged on my door at 11 PM and screamed at us, calling me the c-word, and demanding that I get rid of my car. We eventually shut the door on her. The nasty notes persisted and were ignored.
I confirmed with my landlord that this is where I should be parking and he said yes, ignore her. Then, she started barricading that part of the driveway, so that every day when I got home, I would have to get out of my car and move her stuff before I could park. This became a real pain in the neck when I broke my elbow.
She used her trash can, a pedestal with a birdcage on it, and a bench to block the driveway and I had to move all of them to park. I started just picking them up and gently moving them towards her porch. Then she came up with something else. She started putting Vaseline on them. I grabbed her trash can and got a gloppy handful of Vaseline. Sure enough, everything else was coated in it as well.
I decided to use my foot to push everything up against her house. Mind you, nothing was damaged or knocked over, just moved. She called law enforcement and reported that she saw me vandalizing her things by picking them up and throwing them into her house, kicking stuff over, and smashing them into the ground. The officer was angry.
He thought that I was the teenage girlfriend of the guy who lived there, not the adult leaseholder. So he pounded on the door yelling, "Sheriff's department! Come outside!" We went outside. He pointed to me and asked, "Are you the girlfriend!?" I resisted the urge to say something snarky in response to what I found to be a misogynistic and demeaning statement.
He went off on me saying, "Your behavior needs to stop right now, I don't know where you're from, but in [town] we do not tolerate this kind of disrespect blah blah blah!" Well, he didn’t know what he was in for. 15 minutes later, once we'd gotten a word in edgewise, he changed his tune pretty quick. He realized he'd been misled by our neighbor. We told him we were sorry he got dragged into a petty parking dispute.
He told us he's been dragged into stupider stuff and told us that if she puts up the barricades again, to call them instead of moving it ourselves, to protect ourselves from false allegations. In fact, he wanted us to call any time she does anything to harass us. She also received a mean letter from the landlord telling her to knock it off.
We got a mean note from her saying, "The reason I don't want you parking by my door is because you are trash! Your druggie psychopath girlfriend runs amok vandalizing! I want nothing to do with you," among other things. We called law enforcement and she got spoken to by them, and the landlord sent her another mean letter. Hopefully, that'll be the end of it.
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.
