Losing someone close to you can be one of the most difficult experiences you’ll ever have to endure. While grief and mourning can sometimes feel overwhelming, we still tend to remember how the one who has passed away made our lives more meaningful. Until one day we learn something unexpected about them.
Recently user Comfortable_Tomato_3 posted in r/AskReddit: "What disturbing thing did you find out about someone after they died?" Hundreds of people started sharing how they stumbled upon the most unsettling secrets that were never meant to see the light of day.
Bored Panda has collected some of the most unbelievable answers from the thread, so continue scrolling and, if you’re up for it, share your experiences in the comment section below. Psst! You can find even more shocking things people found out about their loved ones right here.
#1
I had a neighbour several years ago. Divorced, old guy. Was really nice to people. He always bought candy for all the kids in the neighbourhood (not a paedo). He died 10 years ago. His son told us that the reason he was nice to us kids was because he lost 3 of his 5 children while they were below 10. Not disturbing, just very sad.
Edit: Mr. Volkov was a really nice guy who suffered a lot in his life time. His son told us so many stories about him. Got married at 21 (right after military service - mandatory at the time), lost his wife when he was 40 to stomach cancer, lost 2 of his kids to an accident, another kid to a drunk driver. He had to be strong for the remaining two kids even though his son told us how many times they heard their dad crying in his bedroom. To him, we were the kids and grandkids he should've had, despite him having 4 grandkids. R.I.P to the nicest guy in the world - Mr. Volkov!
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413points
#2
My uncle died suddenly in a car crash when I was 18. My aunt has schizophrenia and went off her meds after he died, so when she was talking about eyes in the house, we tried to get her back into therapy to help her. Eventually she couldn't stay in the house anymore and we went to help clean it out.
We found cameras everywhere. Behind paintings, in the bookshelves, just everywhere. Eventually we found a safe tucked away in a small opening in his closet, and when we finally cracked it open there was two unregistered guns in it alongside a wad of cash. My uncle was already very wealthy, we don't know why he specifically had this cash set aside, or why he had illegal guns, or why he bugged his entire house. But we suspect my aunts illness and paranoia was worsened by him, and she wasn't always as delusional as he made her out to be.
In better news, my aunt now lives in florida with a caretaker in a condo, she paints for a living and is very happy.
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345points
When a person who meant a lot to you has passed away, it can be hard to find the meaning again. Usually, the healing process starts with the heartbreaking task of sorting out their personal belongings. Although some people have secrets that they hope will never reach the surface, the truth tends to appear in one way or another.
For those who never expected to discover something unsettling about the people they were close to, such a revelation might make the already difficult mourning process even more complicated. According to renowned grief counselor Helen Fitzgerald, in this case, bereavement can become a mix of emotions: "Anger can overtake sadness and may be joined by feelings of shame, rejection and isolation."
Of course, you have to deal with the decision of whether or not to share this new knowledge with others. If you decide to do it, "you may lighten your burden but you will do so by passing along some of your pain, anger, and confusion." Plus, there’s no way of knowing how they would react: will they comfort you or get mad at you for spoiling their memories of that person?
#3
Not sure if disturbing, more kind of heart warming and goes along the lines of this thread. Dude I worked with was KIA. I was collecting his things and found a notebook. He had wrote every fact that came out of anyone’s mouth on the team. Everything from stories that happened to who he was talking to when they were young, to current problems they were experiencing.
I had once told him about a particularly traumatic relationship I had that came to a head on a particular date. He had a note to himself to “spend time with ___ on this date and make him feel valued and worthy.”
I just thought he was a good dude with a good memory. The whole time he was essentially acting as a life couch for all of us involved without us knowing.
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327points
#4
My grandpa died in the late 90s of a heart attack when he was about 65 years old. My whole family came to Germany from Poland in the 80s and my grandparents were Kids throughout WW2. We didn’t find any pictures of him from when he was a child when we went through his stuff after he died. We thought „oh well they lived through war and communism, I bet there aren’t any“ but my mother had a feeling and something felt off for her. We asked my grandpas aunt who was still alive at that point. She burst into tears and told us that he was a german, jewish kid my great-grandparents rescued from a train heading to Auschwitz during WW2 and that they used the papers of their son who passed away just a few weeks earlier. We all were stunned but in hindsight it did explain a lot of things like how he suffered from PTSD and almost had no polish accent when he spoke german. It still amazes me how they kept this secret for over half a century.
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278points
If you found out a disturbing secret and don’t know how to deal with it, Fitzgerald recommended finding a grief group or someone you trust with whom you can share your story. Also, you can consider "writing the deceased a letter, putting into words everything you would want to say if he or she were still alive," and let your anger go.
"Whatever you do, don’t keep your pain boiling inside of you," she suggested. Remember that you are still the same person you were before finding out the truth, "and the dishonesty of your loved one had nothing to do with you. It is your grief that needs to be experienced and expressed, and your life that needs to move on."
#5
My grandfather was a member of the KKK. My grandmother found all his robes and other s**t hidden in the trunk of his car after he died. She burned it all that night in the backyard utterly mortified that he was an active member.
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266points
#6
Grandfather died when I was around 10. I distinctly remember being at his funeral and seeing a group of men there that weren’t associated with the rest of my family. I think I remembered this because I watched them pull up in beautiful cars and thought they must be rich and “cool.” Probably around his age at the time too. I wasn’t told until I was older but my grandpa had been involved in some organized crime for most his life and most of the time he was “traveling in Europe” he was actually in prison. Those men were his “partners” and my family hated them.
215points
Previously, we reached out to William Berry, a licensed mental health counselor, to discuss grief and how sharing your experience with others can help you cope with the pain. According to him, there are a number of reasons why talking about grief is difficult.
“For one, there is a pressure in society to put on a strong facade, and along with that, there is a fear of being a burden to others,” he explained. “Often, others do not know how to handle someone’s expression of grief, and it feels awkward, often for everyone. As such, there is a tendency to avoid the possible awkwardness.”
#7
After one of my best friends died I found out how he became sick.
I knew he had HIV, he told me really early in our friendship, but he really avoid that topic since he didn’t like to be seen as a sick person, or as a burden. He did not ask for help when he needed it, and he end up having complications and dying because of it. He had the intention to say goodbye to only 4 friends and talk to them before dying, sadly he died a couple days before we met. He already knew he was about to die but he didn’t want to tell me before we saw each other. After he passed away, his brother called me to let me know and to talk about what my friend wanted to tell me. That’s where I found out how he got hiv. He had been r*ped when he was really young, and he did not know he was HIV+ until a couple years later. He never wanted to tell us because of the same reason he never talked about him being sick, he didn’t like the idea of being a victim. This broke my heart. And I understood so much about him after knowing this.
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208points
#8
After my husband died I found the stash of love letters that he had saved which had been written to him throughout the course of our marriage. None of them were from me.
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206points
Some people might want to "fix" your feelings of sorrow, instead of just being with you and letting you experience it. According to the practicing psychotherapist, “This can lead to overly positive statements that are inappropriately timed. The person grieving may fear this, and thereby never share their grief.”
However, Berry explained that there’s a good amount of psychological evidence to prove that discussing experiences and feelings with others can help to ease the pain: “In an evolutionary sense, it bonds us.”
#9
My uncle was awesome — bought me Legos when I was a kid, and we'd play fight; he always just seemed really cool when I was young. Well, he disappeared around the time I was 13. Then when I was 26, my dad told me he died. He was apparently on the run and was wanted for years for several murders. He was a hitman, apparently. He was never arrested, but he died in a shooting in Italy. I always had a hard time picturing him in that life. ... He always was really good to me and my siblings.
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201points
#10
That my ex wife physically and emotionally abused my daughter when I wasn't around (we had a 70/30 custody arrangement essentially, I had weekends and 2 evenings a week.) Didn't find out until months after she died and kiddo had finally had enough therapy to come clean. I had no idea.
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196points
If you are feeling grief, remember that it is a process and everyone deals with it in their own way. William Berry advised to put your focus on accepting the experience rather than judging yourself for it: “All types of emotional responses to grief are normal: sadness, anger, despair, self-reproach, even relief in some cases. Try to have the experience and go through the process without negative judgment in yourself.”
#11
When my step-grandmother died we found out she was unloading my grandfather's money to her daughter who was born from her previous marriage. My grandfather was in cognitive decline in his later years and his health was failing. She got him to sign all kinds of things. She bought her daughter's $200k house for $1.8m, put it in her name, so her daughter could keep living there. $9,999 gifts every year to her daughter and grandkids. Bought their cars. Investments in her name that would transfer to her daughter when she died.
Over a five year period she was able to transfer close to $8 million.
Every time we would see her she would talk about how great it was to have family, how wonderful it was that everyone got together, etc. She acted like the sweetest old lady while the entire time she was ripping off my family. Every time we saw her daughter (who lived in another state) she was the nicest person to us - while taking all of the money.
She truly expected to outlive the old man. Everybody did. And she had everything set up perfectly.
Except she died before he did. Just died of natural causes in her sleep. Shocked everyone. I mean you had this frail old man who couldn't stay awake for more than an hour at a time that was reliving memories from 75 years ago every time you spoke to him and a vibrant (granted elderly) healthy lady he was married to. And he outlived her.
By the time she died my grandfather was in really bad shape - mentally and physically. We had to clean out her things and we found all of the paperwork - every last detail. He couldn't comprehend what she had done and after trying to tell him about it a couple of times, we stopped trying. Nothing could be done legally. Her daughter was set for life.
When there is money involved, people become vultures.
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185points
#12
I had a neighbor I would always fight with. I'd go out of my way to argue with him. We'd right about ANYTHING and it was great! All we ever did was fight. It made me so happy. I told him once that he was too stupid to be my archnemesis.
Then he died and I learned that he loved fighting with me just as much as I loved fighting with him. It was something we both looked forward to every day.
Then he went and died and I felt like part of me died too.
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175points
#13
My maternal uncle was killed during a robbery gone wrong (he was staying the night at one of his furnished rental properties which was not being leased at the time). At least… that was the story I was told before hopping on a plane with my mom to attend the funeral held in our home country.
The day of the funeral, a cousin angrily shared with a small group of us that he had seen a photo of my uncle on the front page of the local paper. Not being used to seeing graphic images on a newspaper, I was confused by his outrage. So naturally, I looked it up on my phone… and proceeded to read a whole article about how my uncle had been tortured and killed in retaliation for past child abuse. I was, of course, shocked and started asking other cousins if the article was true. The s**t I learned disturbed me far more than the graphic image of my uncle (a photo of him shirtless, with multiple stab wounds; another uncle who happens to be a judge got the paper to stop printing the image by threatening to sue…allegedly).
Apparently, dead uncle’s murderer/victim had recently heard his name on the news and found out through social media that said uncle had continued enjoying life for ~5 decades since committing these crimes. So while no real proof was provided according to the media, my family KNEW it was likely the true reason behind the murder and only publicly denied the allegations. Privately, the reason for the murder wasn’t even discussed.
But that wasn’t the only abuse victim. Nope! Dead uncle had allegedly abused several children at different times, spanning decades, but “somehow” was never prosecuted. (My mother’s family is wealthy so the cousins are pretty sure that authorities/parents of the victims were paid off anytime he was accused as the victims were primarily children of low income families…). To add to the horror, my relatives knew to keep us children away from him outside of “supervised” family events. (Think Uncle Mo in Succession.)
Years later, when I finally felt it was safe to ask my fragile mother about it, I learned that this uncle had been abused by priests in his childhood, well into his teenage years. I had known that dead uncle was sent to seminary boarding school at around 10, then decided to leave religion and go to a regular uni at 18 instead of continuing his training for priesthood, but never suspected anything had happened to him. His decision to leave the church coincided with the end of a centuries-long relationship between the Catholic Church and my maternal ancestors. There are still religious primary and secondary schools with my last name on them (I have both parents’ last name), but we have not produced a priest or nun since before my mother’s generation. What she revealed explained this shift.
(After even more digging, I found out that yet another of my mother’s family members [a great uncle?] who made so much money for the church that he literally became a friend of the pope was also involved in a huge scandal spanning decades and was only removed from his position because of a journalist’s dedication to exposing him. He received no jail time and died in his Florida home at a very old age. Wtf!!!)
I’m an atheist, if anyone wondered
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169points
#14
I’m European and uncles lived in USA. I did ancestry dna. A few months later a girl from Vietnam contacts me claiming to be a cousin. Typically anyone who contacted me was a 4th or 5 th cousin which basically means nothing. This one is a FIRST cousin. Turns out my uncle who was married in USA and had kids, was in Vietnam War had a whole other family. And the 3 Vietnamese kids are named after his American kids. SURPRISE!
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164points
#15
My grandpa used to tell everyone to call him the high klegal. All his kids and grandkids thought it was this sweet nickname and a running joke. When he passed away my aunt was writing his eulogy and didn’t know how to spell his nickname so she googled it. The high klegal is a member of the KKK in charge of member recruitment. It was at this point that my grandmothers dementia kicked off and she started being very racist towards the staff in her assisted living home. Also made me realize why we were the least favorite grandkids because our mother was raised Jewish. Some people man…
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160points
#16
My Mother had serious buyers remorse over me. I was adopted at 6 months and she had this textbook idealistic concept of what raising a child should be, how they should behave and what they should do. When I didn't live up to this expectation and acted like a normal child she couldn't handle it and took me to various doctors, child psychologists, and other quack practitioners insisting I was hyperactive. All in an attempt to mold me into the perfect child in her eyes. She kept daily diaries on this as well as hundreds of audio tapes where she voiced her displeasure in me being an overactive & undisciplined child. She even kept an expense account from when they adopted me up until her death listing what they spent on me. Birthdays, Christmas, random purchases, school, etc. all detailed down to the penny.
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160points
#17
When we were cleaning out dad's house after his death, in his safe, I found a thick envelope with the words "To be opened only by [me] after my death. My suggestion BURN IT".
Long story short, dear old dad had another identity and family. My sister and I have several new siblings. This happened somewhat recently and we are all still processing it.
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157points
#18
My grandmother was r*ped and my oldest aunt isn't my grandfather's child. My grandfather came back from fighting on the Yorktown during WW2 and my grandmother was pregnant, they married and he never once denied my aunt or treated her any different in fact my dad says she was the favorite. We only found out about it when my grandmother was close to death she told my dad. She held on to that secret until she was 93 yrs old. My aunt & grandfather have both been gone since the early 2000s
Here they are when he came back!
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153points
#19
My partners grandfather died… a week or so after his death the grandmother started getting really sick. She is in her 80s and doctors suspected it was a bad UTI gone into other organs. Turns out it wasn’t a UTI but multiple STIs. The grandfather was sleeping with a ton of women at the church he was a preacher at and some also suspect he frequented prostitutes as well. He left her and many members of the church with quite the parting gift. We all knew he was a c**ppy guy but didn’t know to this new extent.
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151points
#20
My great grandma was a moonshiner in her youth along with her brothers and sisters, they ran shine to afford food in rural Kentucky. Also she apparently told Jim Jones, yes, THAT Jim Jones, to f**k off, according to my grandma (her daughter) it was the only time she'd ever used language like that.
During his cult recruiting days Jones had showed up at my great grandma's church as a guest preacher, that woman had an amazing nose for bulls**t and when he tried to recruit her she told him to f**k off right there in the church parking lot. All my life she was this sweet but curmudgeonly old lady who was set in her ways but would make you the best peach cobbler she possibly could for whatever event you were having even if she didn't like any of the people there. Imagining her just looking this dude square in the eyes and cussing him out makes me cackle.
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150points