Some of the most disturbing stories to be heard can be found in real life, not just in books and movies. And it just goes to show that even the most ordinary-looking folks might have some deep and dark secrets hidden among all the skeletons in their closets. You can never tell what someone’s done or what they’ve experienced just by looking at them superficially.
Reddit users revealed the creepiest confessions and the most disturbing things that they’ve ever heard from seemingly-normal people. We’ve collected the most powerful stories to share with you. Scroll down to read them, but be warned—many of these are not for the faint of heart and deal with some very dark aspects of humanity.
Bored Panda wanted to learn more about our fascination with reading horror stories (whether fact or fiction), so we reached out to Bram Stoker Award-winning editor and writer Doug Murano. He is the founder of Bad Hand Books and has launched an Indiegogo campaign to inspire people based on his extremely viral 'give me calloused hands and tender hearts' tweet.
"Real life is absolutely terrifying right now. We're years into a deadly pandemic. Authoritarianism and fascism are literally on the march around the world. People and institutions we once thought we could count on to do the right thing routinely reveal themselves to be opportunists and cowards. It's not looking good right now. These are real monsters and there is no silver bullet. That's the one thing about horror—there are rules you can follow to defeat the evil. Real-life isn't quite as easy as that," he told us how reality stacks up against fiction at the moment. Scroll down for our full interview with Doug.
#21
Had an absolutely charming, incredibly smart-looking close friend for a few years. It took me about 1,5-2 years to find out everything about her life was a lie. Even the smarts, she'd read some detailed article on a subject and present ideas as if they were her own, but never knew anything deeper. Pretended to speak many languages by secretly watching a foreign movie with subs on, then "translating" some cool scenes to us.
She made up a story about her father abusing her mom to make excuses for failing her uni exams, lied to people about being a medical student to look smart, and would give them very dangerous advice, lied to her family about being a brilliant medical student (don't know if they believed her), and about many, many other things.
She was an incredibly fun person, but an awful toxic friend. Still, I was afraid she'd lose her mind completely if I revealed her secrets to everyone. So I only quietly told the people she was abusing or potentially putting in danger, so she couldn't do any damage anymore. Several times I tried to talk her into going into therapy, but I stopped... She was in complete denial about me knowing everything, I was so afraid she'd kill herself if she found out what everyone thought of her. One day she just packed her things, said goodbye with a hug and a huge smile on her face, and left for another country to "pursue her medical studies". I've kept evidence of all the craziness in case it comes back someday.
I'd say that if you genuinely pay attention to people around you, you'll find out many creepy stories like this. Some people see friends come and go, and actually never have any idea of what's going on in their lives.
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74points
#22
My friend who is this Grade A student goes over to all these different girls houses, not to have sex or anything. Just to steal their underwear while they're in the bathroom or they're elsewhere. He has a full box (Which includes a pair of my sisters underwear which he admitted to stealing) in his "Pant-ry." I'm surprised no one has noticed in his house. But to this day, I'm the only one who knows. Well, now the whole of Reddit knows.
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71points
#23
A bartender I used to know admitted to making fun of a depressed guy at the bar until he went out back, laid down on the train tracks, and waited for a train to come. I went to school in the same town when it happened, third-party accounts support that he did this, plus I saw the aftermath at the tracks.
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70points
#24
[My father] is a career soldier, is still in and has many more years before he gets out. (23 years in so far). Well he isn't the most normal person anymore, after he came home from Iraq the second time he had changed majorly. He was put on alot of PTSD medications that keep him pretty normal most of the time.
However, on his 48th Birthday we decided to celebrate with some friends and have a few drinks. We didn't know that he didn't take his medicine that day and we got him a little too much to drink on whiskey. One of his non-military buddies said "hey man, how many of those bastards did you actually get?" we all stop and just stare not really wanting an answer and hoping he was sober enough to not provide one... he wasn't. He answered with "You know what? I don't give a f*ck about the [jerks] I killed, they tried to [end] me and my buddies, they deserved it. The only ones I do regret are the women and children that got in the way they didn't deserve to die."
We stopped giving him drinks after that and haven't spoken about it since, but it was a shock to say the least.
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69points
#25
Not sure if she qualifies as normal, but one of my ex-gfs once confessed to me that she was linked to a cat spirit/demon/creature from another dimension that gave her magical abilities. Apparently several of her group of friends had similar links and abilities and they were all [super] serious about it. No weird costumes or contacts, they would just drop stuff about into conversation very casually.
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65points
#26
When I was in middle school, about 13 at the time, I had an English teacher we will call her Mrs. L. I had a friend who would spend a lot of time with our teacher outside of school. Going over to her house, to the mall, [etc.]. My friend after awhile told me that he had been having sex with Mrs. L, who was in her late thirties and married and that he was going to tell his parents about it. They pressed charges and she was gone from school for awhile and then quit, but didn't serve any jail time.
I don't know much else about the court case. We kinda stopped talking after all this had happened.
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63points
#27
Someone close to me killed her step-dad's dog by feeding it tylenol PM in peanut butter because it annoyed her.
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59points
#28
My friend has long dreads and had a pretty bad case of lice. When he came back from traveling his roommates wouldn't let him in the house until he was lice free. Being poor he couldn't afford treatment so he dunked his head in some sort of gasoline, then he lit a cigarette... He has no nipples, most of his body is skin grafted. He still has dreads. He is lice free.
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56points
#30
Had a good friend of mine tell his crush at a party that he, "just wanted to cut her ears off and take them with him".
He's a great guy, married, and just had his first child (with someone completely different, that girl was gone).
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42points
