Deep down, we all have secrets that we don’t plan on sharing. But, there comes a day when our secrets come pouring out and we’re forced to deal with the consequences. Not only do we have to deal with the aftermath, but our loved ones can also get caught in the crossfire. Here, people share the darkest secret anyone has ever told them.
#1 Unwanted Confession
I have droopy eyes and a learning disability due to head trauma I sustained as a child. But, I never knew what happened. I was drinking with my older stepbrother and he broke down crying, telling me he was sorry for hitting me and causing all those issues. Apparently, when he was 15, he decided to strike me in the head and I wasn’t the same after. I can’t tell you how much it hurts knowing this.
#2 Just One Person
When I was 15, my cousin and I raided my dad's homebrew. That night she confessed to me that her father, my dad's brother-in-law, was a secret crossdresser. She'd come home early from a party and discovered him. Nothing to be ashamed of on his part, but he was staunchly conservative and a total pompous guy.
He was the last person you'd expect. My dad and grandfather couldn't stand the guy. I broke her confidence and ultimately told my dad. I was a kid and I didn't know what to do with the information. My dad, of course, didn't tell anyone. But he did say, "I'll only tell one person: Just the old man when he's on his death bed so he can pass with a smile on his face.”
#3 Brazil Vacation
My buddy took the lives of two people trying to rob him in Brazil. They tried to rob him with a long pipe and a pistol. I’m assuming it wasn’t loaded but I never asked for the details and I’ve never brought it up since he’s told me. This happened over four years ago and it still bugs him to this day. He came back with bad scratches and cuts but he never told the authorities in fear that they’d arrest him or flip the story because he was a foreigner.
He was a collegiate wrestler at the time and one of the nicest people you’d ever meet. Nowadays he’s still very nice but when we go out, I notice him always looking over his shoulder and scanning the room. Not predatorily, but almost like he’s waiting for another attack. It makes me sad he has to deal with that now.
#4 Blocked on Social Media
When I was 12, my friend started seeing a 40-year-old she met on Yahoo chat. I told my parents and my parents told her parents. He was arrested and a trial happened. Some very graphic details came out about his multiple 10-13-year-old victims. He was sent to prison for 10 years. The thing is, she was in love and has hated me since. I tried to reconnect with her, thinking now that we're in our 30s, she'd want to maybe talk. She immediately blocked me on all social media.
#5 Behind the Scenes
I was born in 1964, so my friends and I grew up mostly in the 1970s. After reconnecting with them years later, the number of kids in my neighborhood who told me they had been touched, either by an older kid or a family member, really shocked me. A lot of it came from this one older boy who was evidently being attacked by his father too.
The dad was also going after the younger sister, who was our age. I started asking around after my childhood best friend told me everything when we were about 25. I felt so bad like I should have been able to see what he was going through. My dad was a cop, so I think that's why that one older kid left me alone, but wow. Our neighborhood was very Brady Bunch and you'd have never guessed all this was going on behind the scenes.
#6 Without Her
My older sister admitted to me that when she was a teenager, she went to the back streets and thought about taking her life. My sister and I are five years apart. We didn't become close until I was about 13. She admitted this to me when I was about 14 or 15. I don't know if she remembers confiding in me about that detail, but I'm grateful she thought about her family members. I can't imagine growing up without her.
#7 Deflecting the Fault
Someone I knew ran someone over with the car a few years ago. He couldn't help it, it was raining and an elderly woman dressed in dark clothing suddenly stepped out between parked cars. He had no chance to react in time. The dark part was that when the police came to inspect the case, they told him not to worry because they would ensure that he didn't get into trouble. The old lady was "just a foreigner.” They reported that his car was in perfect condition, his wipers were brand-new, and anything to deflect any fault at all from him.
#8 Total Stranger
A couple of years back, I was sitting at the bar watching a baseball game and having a pint. Just a handful of other people there. Me and this one guy were engaged in the typical sports conversation. After a couple of hours, this guy felt comfortable enough with me (or just needed to get it out) to tell me about his attack.
I didn't really know what to do except, so I just let him get it out. The "it's not your fault" platitude seems pretty hollow in the situation, but there wasn't much else I could muster. I asked if he was seeking help, and said there are many support groups for men that have been through similar situations. I offered the guy a hug and he nearly tackled me. I'm a pretty introverted person, so that level of trust from a stranger kind of freaks me out, but I hope I was at least able to help him somewhat.
#9 Candy Bars
My friend grew up with a horrifically toxic father. One time, her younger brother stole a candy bar, then got her older sister to take the fall for it. The dad bought a Costco pack of full-sized candy bars and forced the older sister to eat them until she vomited. But that wasn’t all she was forced to eat. I've heard it all working in children's mental health, but this story really bothers me.
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#10 The Mailbox
My friend came to school and told me something one day in the fourth grade. "Dude, I just ran into this old lady’s mailbox in front of her house with my bike on the way to school. She was sitting out front in her wheelchair. So, I got out of there.” But, she wheeled herself down to see the damage and lost control on the steep pavement. She slipped into the road and got hit by a car. He said he had never biked so fast before. We are pretty sure she lost her life.
#11 True Feelings
My friend confessed that he moved back to our hometown to take care of his dying father. He ended up having an affair with his father's wife. She was a foreign bride closer to his age than his father's. At first, my friend joked about banging his stepmother but as he got tipsier, he got sadder and eventually, his true feelings about what happened came out. He ended up sobbing in my arms.
#12 Spilling Secrets
My friend got super tipsy and was complaining about one of her other friends. She told me that she kept her secret, but that girl was ungrateful. Then she told me the secret, her friend was attacked by a homeless man on the way home. I never slipped a word about that conversation until now. And I never trusted that friend again.
#13 VHS Tape
I had a co-worker who used to confide in me. She got tipsy one time and told me the reason behind her divorce. She found a VHS made with an old school video camera in which her daughter (11 at the time) was sleeping in her underwear. The video was recorded secretly by her husband and hidden away with other disgusting material. This all happened 10 years before I even met my co-worker. Charges were never pressed and, to this day, she doesn’t know where he is.
#14 Belmont Hospital
While I was in treatment at Belmont Hospital, I had a guy come over to me and sit next to me. Everything was fine, but then he told me he was attacked when as a child. He then said that he was going to tell his mom for the first time that day. He just kept asking, “How am I going to tell her without making her think it’s her fault?” It was heartbreaking.
#15 A Friend’s Cottage
My best friend in high school had a close friend (who he knew through Army Cadets; I never met her) pass away in a car accident. He revealed to me, I don't know why, that he always felt guilty. There was one time they were at her cottage and these guys basically jumped her right in front of him. They did this after beating him up when he tried to stop it. I don't even remember how I responded at the time.
#16 Hiding the Trauma
A friend told me he got attacked as a boy by his older female cousin. But he’s an idiot and just bragged like, “Haha, I had relations before I knew what it was, losers”. He’s not lying, he’s not that kind of guy. I haven’t seen him since elementary, but I hope he’s more mature by now and realizes he has to tell someone who can help him. He’s affected by it. I saw it in his eyes when he talked about it, but he’s just trying to hide a trauma as much as he can.
#17 New Boyfriend
My sister started dating a really nice guy who had moved into our area. He had a super cute family and was really friendly. About a year prior, a man in our town was arrested for multiple counts of crimes against children. He was absolutely disgusting and smiled in his mugshot photo. It shocked lots of people, as he was a very friendly man and lots of people knew his extended family.
After about two weeks of dating, we found out through the boyfriend’s family that my sister’s boyfriend was one of the victims. It had been going on since he was 10. He was 17 when we found out. My sister decided to break things off because she felt he needed space and recovery time before getting into a serious relationship. What freaks me out, even more, is that two months before the man’s arrest, he had invited my 12-year-old brother to come to his house. Luckily nothing happened, but to think how things could’ve turned out.
#18 Through the Window
A few years back, a friend of mine broke down crying one night after a lot of drinks. He told me his uncle took his life when he was 12, and that they were really close and would play chess together. One day, he went over to play chess with him and saw his uncle’s body through the window. Apparently, instead of calling the police, he freaked out and went home. He just locked himself in his room.
Two hours later, his mom came in crying to tell him his uncle had been found. He just didn't say anything. To this day, none of his family knows he saw the body first and I know that he blames himself. I know he thinks he could have saved him if he'd have said something. I tried to convince him to tell his family, but he thinks no good would come from it, which I kind of understand.
#19 Never Spoke Of It
My friends and I went to visit another friend’s house. He was a 15-year-old boy being raised by a promiscuous, extremely messed up mother who was the talk of the town. As we got to the front door, we could hear them arguing. He said something like, “How do you think I feel having a mother like you?” She snapped back “How do you think I feel knowing my own son’s such a lousy jerk?” We hightailed it out of there and never spoke of it again.
#20 Little Brother
An ex-friend of mine once told me that she didn’t want her little brother around, so she would make his life miserable. She’d often do things like spit in his water bottle and call him stupid. At one point, she even locked him outside at 1:00 a.m. because he had trouble getting to sleep. He was five years old.
#21 The Peace She Deserved
A very close friend of mine had lost her fiance in a horrible accident while they were in different cities. She never really got the peace she deserved. They had been together for nearly six years. Two years later, we went out with a bunch of our friends and were drinking at a friend's place. She accidentally blurted out that she tried to take her life once. It came as an absolute shock to me because I was living with her since then and I hadn't noticed anything off. We never spoke about it after that but I still wonder how she went through it alone. I feel guilty that I wasn't really there for her.
#22 The Wrong Crowd
A very good friend of mine decided to share with me that she and her group used to rob houses a night. They’d burst in at night while the owners were sleeping. She was in charge of keeping them at knifepoint while the rest took their belongings. She told me that it was a hole she was sucked into and that her turning point was keeping a child at knifepoint. I’m glad she got out, though. It was the most obvious case of “you are who you hang with” that I’ve ever seen.
#23 Fit of Rage
I had an acquaintance admit to me that, in a fit of jealous rage, he broke several of his boyfriend's ribs because he caught him making out with someone else. That was the last time we talked. I never saw him again. I genuinely had no idea how to react at the time and the contact came out of the blue as we hadn't spoken in months.
#24 Small Town
I was driving a college buddy around the small New England town he grew up in. We were driving down a dirt road and all of a sudden he freaked out. “Turn the car around. We have to go. Now! Turn the car around now! So I turned around and he went through some deep breathing. He then said, "My sister had a baby that passed away and she buried it there. She never told my parents. I had forgotten about that until we drove by.”
#25 Slow and Painful
I'm a psychologist specializing in complex trauma, so I hear messed up things several times a day. The worst is a lady with HSAM (remembers everything that happens to her) who spends one day every week recounting the horrific things she experienced. She went through all that from the time she was one-year-old to 16. At that point, she was able to leave her house. It's slow and painful, but she's finally telling her story. I simultaneously love and hate my job.
#26 Studying Abroad
One of my American mates was attacked while studying abroad here in Australia. She confided in me and I asked if she wanted to report it. She said no, she wanted to enjoy her semester and asked me if I could take her to the chemist to get the morning-after pill. I really hope she’s gotten help while being at home. She fell off of social media about four months after getting back to America.
#27 Mom’s Revelation
My mother told me, when I was around 24, that she had an abortion when she was a teenager. It was a surprising revelation because we were incredibly close and had spoken about the topic many times. But, she'd never before told me this. The father was my now-stepdad, her high school sweetheart. He's like a father to me, been in my life forever, but he never had a biological child of his own. So in that way, my mom's revelation struck me as especially sad.
#28 Huge Red Flag
A guy I had been seeing sat me down at a cafe and admitted to me that he hurt his ex-girlfriend pretty regularly. He told me that once, he almost broke her nose. I was the only person he had ever told, at least according to him. I didn't really know what to do with the information. It felt like he was telling me this as kind of a warning against getting serious with him. Regardless, I didn't pursue anything with him after that.
#29 Dearest Mike
My mother told me several years ago about how she opened a letter addressed to my dad. She usually wouldn't open mail, but it was torn and addressed to "Dearest Mike." This happened after I was born but before my brother. (I'm the fourth of five). She told me this when my husband and I were thinking about splitting. She told me about how she confronted my dad, his tears, her inability to leave as she had four kids and no income. How she chose to stay and work it out.
It just rocked me to the core. Truthfully, as my mom got sick with permanent shingles and declining mental functions, my dad was devoted to her and devoted to caring for her. He passed this March. My mom's Alzheimer's progressed far enough that I doubt she remembers what he did or telling me. She can barely remember that he passed. I will carry this secret to my grave, though I really want to talk to my siblings and see if they knew too.
#30 Horrible Flashbacks
When we were 17, one of my friends confided in me that over the course of therapy, she began having horrible, violent flashbacks of repressed memories. Her older brother had attacked her for years when they were kids. She still, to this day, has not told her parents. They don’t have a close relationship but they still maintain one.
When I would see him around her, I would just totally freeze up and not know what to say or do. It honestly made it extremely hard to navigate our relationship because she just wanted me to pretend like everything was normal. I don't know. To this day, it really does mess with my head when I think about it too much.
#31 Pranking Mom
One of my really close friends once told me she pranked her mother that something had happened to her and her mom immediately drove back home from a different city. I can’t remember what exactly she told her mom in her prank, but I just laughed thinking that was a good joke. The truth was her dad was out of the country and her mom had left her and her siblings with their uncle (mom's brother).
Her uncle wound up attacking her. She was attacked by the person who was supposed to be taking care of her and her siblings. At the time, she was about 12 years old. My friend showed me the letter she'd written to her mother about what had happened to her. I soon realized that that was the real reason her mother rushed home.
#32 Family Secret
My mom got really tipsy one night and told me that my cousin's mom didn't take her life, my grandma did it. Evidently, my grandma caught her with my grandpa. They were fairly prominent in the area and it got swept under the rug. My cousin still thinks his mom took her life and now I can't be around him anymore. He idolizes my grandma because she took care of him after she ended his mom’s life.
Pxfuel
#33 Destroying a Life
A friend of mine confessed, while crying, that he was interested in children. He’s a good person and he never actually did anything. He told me that he would never actually do anything because a few minutes of pleasure can't be compared to destroying life. I’ve known this guy for over 10 years now and he’s the nicest guy I know. So, it was nuts.
#34 Moving Away
I had a conversation with my mom after she downed a bottle of pills. She was out of it and was 100% honest. I was never planned for, wanted, or loved. I was immediate regret. Now, I knew this already but it was nice to hear it out loud. I didn’t call 911 or anything, just let the cards fall where they may. My mom went right back to gaslighting me and doesn’t remember the conversation. She’s confused about why I moved 300 miles away and only talk to her twice a year.
#35 Parked Cars
I knew someone who nearly ended the life of a biker who flew out between parked cars. The guy was really distraught over it. Later, he became a heavy user. A few years later, he got paranoid that his wife was cheating on him and took her life. It was so sad. Maybe one didn’t lead to the other, but It’s suspicious. Another woman in town was also found lifeless around the same time and reportedly used substances with him.
#36 Little Sister
My little sister was attacked by our babysitter's husband when she was four and I was six. She told me when we were in our mid-30s. Something triggered a memory. We were walking around the house looking for her and finally walked into the garage where she was there with him. He shouted at me to get out, which I did.
I didn't see what was going on or I didn't process it. It also triggered another memory. His older daughter (around 12, I think) undressing for the boys in the playhouse in the back yard. At the time, I thought it was really weird... and now I know it was due to trauma. I tried to get my sister to do something about it, but she didn't want to. The statute of limitations was long expired. I also tried telling her that she maybe could save some other kid. But, my sister is gone now. She drank herself into an early grave in her early 40s.
#37 Group Call
I was once told by my best friend that he had attempted to take his life multiple times. He told me that he was going to do it once and for all before another friend started a group call. We joked and laughed for a couple of hours. Then, he put me on a private call and we talked about how he was mentally-speaking, but now he’s better than he was.
#38 Out Cold
A friend of mine was hurt by her boyfriend when she was in the 10th grade. He was physically and emotionally toxic towards her. He ended up getting caught hurting her in school and there was a trial (albeit a useless one because he was a minor in Canada). This came up randomly one day when we were talking about Nintendo games and the friend mentioned she'd once had a Nintendo DS but her boyfriend broke it. I thought it happened accidentally.
It did not. He attacked her with it and tossed it in the garbage. A few years after she confided this information in me, he approached her when we were out for a walk with our group of friends. He then mocked her when she got visibly uncomfortable. When I put two and two together and figured out who he was, I lost my temper and sucker-punched him. I knocked him out cold.
#39 What’s His Name?
One of my friends, who wasn't exactly mentally stable, told me about this entity that had been following him for the past few years. He said that he seemed friendly but was very overprotective to him. Here's the part where it gets weirder, though. He starts describing his visions. He described them like how you'd think the underworld looked, but worse than you could ever imagine.
I asked him the name of the said entity and he wouldn't tell me. I asked why and he said that everyone he's ever told had taken their lives within the day of hearing his name. I checked some local records and it checked out. To be honest, I haven't talked to him in a while, but I really hope that he's doing alright.
#40 Accepting Apologies
I had the guy who attacked me as a teenager tell me that he remembered it happened too. Although, we both denied anything that happened for years because we were both incredibly tipsy and he was seven years older than me. He had been trying to get with me for a while, but the whole subject made me too uncomfortable.
He didn't really consider it non-consensual and neither did I, but it messed up my entire adult life. He recently tried to apologize and bring things between us to a better place. I appreciated the gesture but I just ended up apologizing to him. He was the guy who ruined my life and made me unable to speak about my first experience because. I can't deal with accepting apologies very well.
#41 Dark Thoughts
My boyfriend at the time told me that when he was little, he went to his newborn sister's room and hit her. I didn't really know what to think because I was very concerned, but also he was a kid. Yet, he was also old enough to maybe feel that was wrong. He later ended up telling me he felt he was a sociopath and had ideals of hurting people. He has BPD, but I didn't know much about it then. He also had very dark thoughts, a lot. A few really bothered me, but I just brushed off because of his BPD and lack of understanding.
#42 Inconclusive Results
My best friend's wife tragically passed in her sleep in 2015 due to unknown causes (the autopsy was inconclusive). It was discovered afterward that she was taking money from the company she was a forensic accountant for. My friend still misses her terribly. They were only married for three years. Her father originally wanted to track where the money went, but my friend said that it was just too expensive to pursue.
#43 Trying to Recover
My boyfriend is a recovering addict, he did all sorts of things for decades. He paid for his habit by committing crimes. He broke down to me a few months into our relationship, saying he needed to tell me something he'd never told anyone. During his addiction, he decided to rob his grandparents’ house. He thought no one was there, but while he was in the house, his grandma came around the corner.
He had a mask on, so she didn't know it was him. She had a heart attack (thinking there was a burglar in the house). He immediately called 911, hid the bag of what he was stealing in the backyard, took the mask off, and waited with her. She ended up passing away on the way to the hospital. To this day, his family thinks he was just visiting her when she had a heart attack due to old age.
He has been clean for years now and has come so far, but this obviously eats at him every day. He hates himself so much for it. I'm the only person he's told, but I worry that his guilt will ruin him someday. I was shocked when he told me, but it doesn't make me love him any less. He's a different person than who he was during his addiction, but I wish he didn't have to hold this secret forever.
#44 A Very Dark Day
My dad served in Vietnam but was not a proud veteran. He hated that he'd been drafted, hated what he lived through, and was never the same after. He never spoke about it and was the type that if a car backfired, he hit the ground. We also didn’t wake dad up by touching him. You've heard similar stories, I'm sure. Before he passed away, he confided in a family friend, that he took the lives of 13 people. I know many veterans have had to do bad things. But to learn that my dad had to live with that alone, never getting help for his guilt and grief, was a very dark day for me.
Pxfuel
#45 Everything’s Fine
When my friend was young, she got a bad grade on her project and her mom locked her in her room for a few days. No food, no nothing. Honestly, her family is pretty messed up. All the time, she says things like, "I have to stay happy to keep my dad from taking his life. But it’s fine, though! Everything’s fine!”
#46 Show You Something
In high school, an acquaintance I was in marching band with pulled me aside. She then asked if she could talk to me. For whatever reason, she decided to raise her sleeves and show me where she had been cutting herself. I wasn't sure how to respond. I actually don't remember how I did. She's now married (on her second marriage) and has at least one kid.
#47 Cover Story
I had a friend who used to love this girl. The girl's cousin wanted to marry her (which is common in some parts of India). But he couldn't convince her, so he attacked her. His thinking was that, following that event, her parents would make her marry him. Unfortunately, she couldn't take the mental pressure and took her own life.
My friend was devastated and... he ended up doing something I never thought he would. The cousin got what he deserved. I’m probably one of the very few people who he told this to. He knew someone who was able to cover up the whole story, no missing person reports were filed or anything. After hearing that, I was in shock for a few days.
#48 Search History
Back when I was 19, I had a friend I met at church camp. We hung out a few times, but I always knew he had feelings for me despite having a girlfriend. One day, we were hanging out and he confided that he watched adult films that didn’t feature adults. He didn’t divulge details and said he felt absolutely terrible about it. He was worried one day his search history would be discovered by the FBI or something. I had no idea what to say and left shortly after. We haven’t been friends since.
#49 Never Forgot
In the fifth grade, my friend told me that the reason he was missing school so much was that he was in counseling. Over the summer, he'd shot and ended his father’s life to stop him from attacking his mom. He ended up moving shortly after that and I've lost track of him. But I never forgot. A few years later, I looked it up. I also found news articles about the shooting.
#50 It Haunts Me
Once, my mom got belligerent at 2:00 p.m. on a Saturday and broke down to me. She told me how she wished she could just end everything and stop feeling so crazy all the time. She told me that if it weren’t for me being born, she would be gone. Also, she told me that she hated herself for hating my brother due to his biological father. She then proceeded to tell me that my little sister was her favorite and she wished she didn’t mess me up, so that I could be her favorite. I just cuddled her the whole time and told her it was okay. I don’t think she meant everything she said, but it does haunt me.
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