Not all secrets are equal. Far from it! Some are as simple as who stole the last cookie from the jar (though that can still make us feel incredibly bad). Others deal with the dark past of your family, immense feelings of guilt, and trying to hide some truly awful things that you’d done. Today, we’ll be taking a look at the latter.
We’ve collected the most impactful and uncomfortable secrets that people shared in a thread on r/AskReddit. They’d promised to themselves that they’d take these secrets to the grave with them, but they found an anonymous outlet for at least some of their guilty feelings.
Scroll down to read the stories, and let us know which of these shocked you the most, Pandas. If you have anything that you’d like to get off your chests, the comment section also works as a confessional. Now, shall we go feel very uncomfortable and tackle some complex feelings we’d probably rather not feel?
Suzanne Degges-White, Ph.D., was kind enough to shed a light on why we feel guilty and why it feels good to confess something that we'd been keeping a secret. Suzanne is a Licensed Counselor, Professor, and Chair at the Department of Counseling and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University. She told Bored Panda that guilt is an emotion that we learn very early on in life.
#1
Well for a while last year i was planning on [taking my own life], with a note typed out on google docs, how to leave the rest of my room to be the least inconvenience to my family, etc.
Doing much better now, went on antidepressants, weaned myself off, just trying to land a job so i can actually get started with my life. Feeling good about the future :)
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361points
"Parents often try to use guilt to get their kids to 'fess up' or do the right thing," Professor Degges-White, from Northern Illinois University, told Bored Panda.
The professor explained that guilt triggers the part of the brain that's associated with our empathy for others, so we're holding back information from someone we care about, we become focused on how this lack of honesty affects our relationship with others. This works similarly for when we let someone down.
#2
We had an old cat growing up named Tuna. He was 16 or 17 and had a long and happy life but was really deteriorating. My mom did not want him put down as it was her cat and she seemed to be in denial about how decrepit and near death this cat was. One day she comes home from the store and my dad calmly tells her that he found Tuna dead under a tree in the sun. She was happy he died peacefully and on his own terms. What she doesn't know is that she actually ran him over as she was leaving for the store. She obviously didn't feel him under the tire but my mom killed her cat and we all lied about him dying in his sleep.
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279points
#3
Throw away because some friends know my username.
My dad had bowel cancer, he fought it for a few years but we eventully realised that the chemo was losing.
They set up to make him comfortable, this included one of those little automatic dosage machines that hopped him up on morphene every so often so he wasn't in pain. By the end he could barely speak, couldn't move, his stomach was distended because he hadn't s**t in... f**k I can't even remember how long.
Close to the end the morphene would become less effective faster than the doctors/ nurses could come around to up the dose, it was so distressing for my mum hearing my dad in pain that the nurse showed her how to increase the dose on the machine herself in case he woke up in pain.
Me and my sister are pretty sure that the night he died, after we had all said good night to him, my mum increased his dosage... quite a bit higher than she should have done. Nothing was ever said, by my mum, the nurses or the doctors, but we're pretty sure... **If** she did do it, I understand why and I don't blame her, I'm actually quite glad because my dad was suffering, and it was just f*****g awful to see him in so much pain and not be able to do anything.
Anyway, that's sufficiently depressed me first thing in the morning and I'm sure this will get buried anyway. Never logging into this account again...
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264points
"Guilt is a feeling that results when we've engaged in activities that are harming or distressing other people. As a rule, people don't take pleasure in harming other people—especially the people they are close to," she said.
According to Professor Degges-White, confessing secrets helps get rid of the cognitive dissonance that we'd been dealing with. "When we 'fess up' about the knowledge that we've been holding onto—whatever secret we were keeping or white lie we were telling—it removes a great deal of cognitive dissonance and we feel better about being honest than we did when we were intentionally withholding information from another," she explained to Bored Panda.
#4
My father bought me a beautiful Fender Stratocaster for my 15th Birthday. It was unique and gorgeous. I sold it to a guitar shop when I was 20 because I needed the cash. I never had the heart to tell him. I even found one exactly like it almost 10 years later, after I had become financially stable. I bought it in an instant. He still thinks I have the guitar he got me for my birthday. I still don't have the heart to tell him.
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245points
#5
About 10 years ago I met my now wife and her 2 year old daughter that was a product of a r*pe. After falling in love with her, I decided to adopt the little girl under the condition that we tell everyone that we had a one night stand and I got her pregnant and she couldn't find me for 2 years. I don't like lying about paternity but I love this little girl so much I couldn't even fathom the idea of her growing up and finding out how she came to be. My family has big mouths so I will never let them find out. Now my parents call me the family whore and make jokes about it and it f**king pisses me off. But I love her and treat her like I treat my own son.
As a bonus, the entire reason I married my wife was to adopt her daughter. We've been married for 8 years now and my daughter is now 12. She never questions it and I will never let anyone find out the truth. It could ruin my life.
219points
#6
The real reason I don't talk to my mum is because she called me at 3 am one day, after she'd had a fight with her boyfriend and I had to run to her house and wrestle the pill bottle out of her hand to stop her from trying to [take her life] by OD'ing again. She refused to get help, we'd had her committed several times, and I couldn't handle the burden, at 19, of being the one physically stopping her.
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196points
"Whether it's nurture or nature, most people do not enjoy lying by omission or commission to others—honesty is a quality that most cultures value. Even when we're confessing to something that we feel shame for having done, the cognitive dissonance that's removed when we tell the truth and reveal the secret can be tremendous."
The truth can set us free. We really do feel better when we’ve confessed to doing something wrong or when we decide to talk about what’s been bothering us. However, at the same time, it’s inevitable that some individuals from our social circle will look at us differently.
Whether because they realize that we’re not the people they came to know or due to how our family history might make them feel very uneasy. Sometimes, withholding certain information and going for white lies is the right way forward. It all really depends on the specific situation. There’s really no one-size-fits-all approach here: you’ve got to decide what’s best for you and your nearest and dearest.
#7
For about seven to ten years I was sexually abused by my dad. No one else in my family knows and I have never told anyone about it. I do not know exactly when it started but it has at least been going on for as long as I can remember. The last time I remember it happening was when I was 10, in a hotel room when we were on our last family vacation before my parents split up. It was never intercourse, but he touched/kissed/licked my body. I remember when I was maybe 7 years old and I kept thinking that maybe when I turned 13 dad would r*pe me and I might get pregnant.
The disgusting part is that I always really liked my dad when I was a kid. I never understood what was happening so I couldn't grasp that it was wrong. I lost contact with him for a few years when he lived with a truly disturbed and mean woman, but nowadays I do talk to him and meet him occasionally. I feel really weird about it... part of me wants to scream and cry because he really ruined me, but another part of me wants to just forget and put it all behind me. I hate that I still like him. I hate that I get so happy when he calls to wish me happy birthday. I hate that I just really want to have a dad.
Today I'm 18 and very afraid of boys/men. I can't trust anyone and I never feel safe. I am very desperate for attention and affection, but I get absolutely terrified whenever a male pays me any attention. I get uncomfortable and wonder what he wants from me. No one ever loves someone genuinely without having some dark motives.
Sorry if this was long, but long story short: I was sexually abused by my own dad for several years. It f****d me up and I don't even hate him.
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174points
#8
Probably not going to the grave with it because I'm sure the rest of my family will find out about this (some family already knows and that's how I found out) but I just found out that my homophobic/racist as [hell] step brother who is a marine has been doing gay [adult movies] for the last few years. Apparently, he is one of this site's top stars or whatever and it all has a military theme. I just found this out 3 days ago..
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172points
#9
In the car ride home the other day from a family vacation, my date offered to drive the 9 hours home since I drove us there. I had fallen asleep but woke up abruptly when I farted. Loudly. And it stunk. I had been sleeping with his jacket over my head so I pretended to be asleep.
As I was drifting back to sleep I farted again. Just as loud. Just as smelly. I continued to pretend to be asleep, though I heard him stifle giggles.
I'll never tell him I was awake the whole time.
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171points
A while back, relationship coach Alex Scot explained to Bored Panda that transparency is vital for the health of romantic and familial relationships. We’ve got to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes and see how they’d feel if we’re ever having any doubts about whether to keep something secret or to spill the beans.
"If it can affect your partner or family, there absolutely should be transparency. Whenever in doubt, put yourself in the other person’s shoes and ask yourself what you would like if you were in their situation," the expert told us.
"If it wouldn’t impact them, then you have the option of keeping it to yourself. The difference between privacy and secrecy is that secrecy has a sense of shame, guilt, or knowing that your partner or family member wouldn’t be ok with whatever took place."
#10
Throwaway because the whole point of this thread is to take this secret to the grave, right? I feel like this isn't actually that uncommon, but since it's still taboo as f**k I'm not taking any chances.
I'm generally not sexually attracted to anyone, but I *am* attracted to my cousin. He's a year younger than me and used to be the kid nobody noticed but me -- he was a little overweight for most of his childhood and was just generally awkward. I'd spend time with him and listen to him when we visited. When we were 11/12 we spent a whole week's vacation hiding under a fold-out bed with the door closed and locked just talking about our lives and how we felt about our families and all that. When we played together he used to let me tie him up and pretend that I was queen and had taken him -- a valiant warrior from a distant tribe -- prisoner. We'd also make paper airplanes and send them flying off the balcony of our grandparents' house. For a while we were really close, and then we didn't see each other for years. We drifted apart, but I found myself thinking about him every now and then, and we'd call and talk sometimes.
Fast forward a few years. I'm 17, he's 16. My family has moved closer to his. Now we're an hour apart. I'd *heard* that he's changed since I'd seen him last, but I didn't really think about it until we pulled up at my aunt's house. I say hi to everyone, they've all grown and changed. Then, fifteen minutes in, he comes downstairs fresh out of the shower apologizing for being late; he'd had to coach a junior soccer game in the southern summer heat and needed to clean up. Meanwhile, I'm dying. What the f**k happened to that awkward kid I used to know? He's 6'4", golden skin, sandy blonde hair, beautiful clear blue/green eyes. He's also lost all the baby fat and gained just enough muscle to make him look really damn good.
Since then, over the last two years, I've had to deal with this horrible attraction to him. We don't look anything alike and I basically thought of him more like a friend than a cousin growing up, and now that we're older (18/19) I keep thinking about him in incredibly inappropriate ways. He's only gotten better looking and more muscular and it's honestly the worst. A year ago he volunteered to be my model to help me practice outdoors photography (I was a fledgling photographer) and it turned into him lying shirtless on the grass and giving me these *looks.* I'm f****d in the head and I'm going to hell, but I figure as long as I keep repressing it I might get out of this alive.
Tldr: My cousin turned from an ugly duckling to, essentially, a greek god. I've been attracted to him for the past two years. Kinda hate myself.
God, it feels good to get this off my chest, even though I'm already kind of regretting it. Thanks, reddit. Hopefully I won't get too much backlash here.
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140points
#11
There was a math competition/test in grade 8, and this was to actually decide who got the math award at graduation, but we didn't know that at the time. They grabbed all the top students, including me and my best friend, and we were probably the two smartest kids in the grade. Well my friend was always faster than me at completing tests, assignments, etc. he just had that gift of always flying through these things, so I knew he would crush this competition/test.
There was about 15 of us in a computer lab, all spaced apart, the test was done on a math program (I can't remember what it was called) and it was some long a*s weird word problem that was actually meant to confuse us. Well while the teacher was explaining the test I was clicking through one of the network drives and I found a folder that said Final.Test.William (my name is William). I was like "That's really weird I don't remember making this?" so I opened it up, and BOOM! it had the answer for our competition.
So I quickly copy and pasted it onto Word so no can see, and then once we started I minimized Word into the corner and re-wrote out the answer in my own words. This only took me about 10 minutes to do, and the teach said this should take everyone at least an hour. So I sit there for another 10-15 minutes just to play it safe, and then I told the teach I was done. He came over and was amazed how fast I completed the test.
Graduation comes and I receive the math award and the teacher explains how amazed he was how fast I had completed the test in record time. I found out that day the teacher's name was also William. Funny end to the story, my best friend and I actually live together now and he is a very successful Architect and I'm an Engineer. Years later he still brings it up and asks "How the f**k did you do that test so fast? That was mine and you know it"
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132points
#12
I always tell my wife how much I love her makeup that day.
I hate it. I wish she would stop wearing it but it makes her happy so I decide to lie.
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131points
According to relationship coach Alex, smaller instances of trust being broken can take a while to get past. However, for larger offenses, “be prepared to be overly transparent for a time and hire a therapist or coach to walk you through the process. Trust takes consistency to rebuild and consistency equals effort over time."
Meanwhile, relationship and dating expert Dan Bacon, from The Modern Man, explained the difference between secrecy and privacy to us.
“In a relationship, secrecy is about keeping secrets from the other person, whereas privacy is when you are free from being observed or disturbed by the other person,” he told Bored Panda. According to him, emotionally independent people who are confident and happy “regardless of what the other person says or does” will be all right giving each other some space.
However, needy people are far less likely to give others privacy because they need “the other person’s attention to make themselves feel okay on a daily basis.”
#13
My dad was having a heart attack in front of me and my mother, she yelled at me to go get help but I froze in fear. He later died which caused my mother to become addicted to prescription pain killer and then killed herself while my brother also killed himself a year later.
TL;dr I ruined my family.
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124points
#14
TL;DR I "stole" my dad's expensive stamp collection because my family was fighting over it. I'm safekeeping it until everyone who fought over it is dead and turning it into a family heirloom.
Before my dad fell off the wagon, he assembled a beautiful stamp collection. I really loved watching him collect them as a kid. Life happened. He became a non functioning alcoholic. My parents got divorced. He moved in with his girlfriend. Then he beat his girlfriend, and she kicked him out and got a restraining order.
At that time I was living on my own attending college one state over. My mom called from the other side of the country. Somehow she'd just found out my father had left his valuable stamp collection in his ex's garage. My mother had been having money problems and asked me to retrieve it for her so she could sell it. I was reluctant because finals were coming up, and I was broke. It would cost me a lot in gas and the trip was long enough I'd need to sleep at a motel, too. My mother said she'd give me 10% of the sale if I got it for her. She anticipated selling the collection for $10,000. I agreed to get the collection for her.
The trip was miserable right away. My car was an ancient beater that burned through gas. By the time I got to the ex's neighborhood, I'd spent so much money on fuel, I had to sleep in my car every night. Though I'd been told she was expecting me, this was clearly a lie. His ex had no idea I was on my way at all. Thankfully, she was happy to let me take whatever I wanted that my father had left behind.
As soon as I had the stamps, I called my mother. She was ecstatic, claiming she'd found someone who would buy the stamps sight unseen for $1,000, and she was very excited about her upcoming windfall. I told her she'd said the collection was worth ten times that. She said she was sure it was but didn't have the energy to shop around and would just go with the offer she'd been made. I asked if she was still going to give me 10%? No, since she'd only be getting a tenth of what she'd anticipated when she'd made the offer, she no longer had money to spare to pay me. Also, could I pay the shipping to mail the box?
I was furious and just said "I'll see what I can do," and hung up to decide what exactly I was going to do. Once I had calmed down, I decided I'd sell the collection myself for as high as I could, take my 10%, and cut her a check for the rest. Before I could call her back, my phone rang. My mother had called my father to rub it in that she was getting his stamp collection, and he'd called me to scream at me and demand I turn around and bring it to him instead.
By the time I had made my way back home, my parents had tag teamed me with so many angry calls, I'd had to shut off my phone. My e-mails (both personal and school), my AIM, my Facebook, hell, even my DeviantArt account was flooded with messages from both of them trying to convince me to send them the collection. The messages swung wildly between being sweet and pleading to angry and accusatory.
I told my mom if she gave me $80 to cover the gas I'd bought and accept the collection POD, I'd wash my hands of this, but she was too angry to negotiate. She wanted the stamps. She wanted them now. She wanted them no strings attached.
Angrily, I shoved the collection into my closet and told her to stop calling. So of course she called every. Single. Day. She called from friend's numbers, blocked numbers, she sent me e-mails, texts, private messages, snail mail. F**K. She sent me FLOWERS with messages begging me to pick up the phone.
Eventually, the storm died down over the course of a year, but we'd pretty effectively stopped talking. Then one day, my sister knocked on my door. I was baffled. I knew she'd be in town for a game, but we were not friends and I wasn't expecting her to visit. She said mom had sent her to pick up the stamps.
I was furious all over again. But I kept my cool, went back into my house, and packed all the inexpensive parts of the collection into one box- unfilled binders, info books, various supplies for setting the stamps in their books, and the junior stamp collected kits I'd done with him as a kid. I told her it was all I'd found and passed it off.
My mom later called and said she'd sent it back to my father without ever opening it because it had caused so much drama between everyone. The air cleared a lot between us after that, even though I still have the stamps, though my father hasn't spoken to me since.
I'm not going to tell my family I still have the stamps. I've brought them with me every move I've made. They've crossed the planet with me. Twice. I've never once tried to sell them or even had them appraised. No one involved in the in incident- my mother, my father, my sister, not even me- is going to profit off the stamps. They're staying away from the light of day until I have a grandchild or grand-niece/nephew I decide will appreciate them. And if I'm not the last of us four alive when the time comes to pass them off, they go into long term storage and willed to that person to be opened only once all four of us are dead.
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123points
#15
The wife of a close friend knows that the friend was closeted and was gay before they got married. She believes that she is the only reason he decided to be straight instead. She admitted this to me on a 12-hour road trip once and then realized she'd said too much and swore me to secrecy. I didn't tell her that, before getting married, the close friend admitted to me that he wanted to be gay but that he never dared to out of fear of judgment of his rural, conservative family. He almost didn't get married because he didn't think he could pull it off, but it seemed like the to save face with his family. They have been married over 20 years now.
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113points
“Each relationship is different in terms of secrecy and privacy, but for a relationship to work, both people need to fully trust each other and allow the other person to take responsibility for that trust on their own,” relationship expert Dan said.
“In other words, there’s no need to continually remind the other person about being trustworthy, demand it, or sulk about it. Just give your trust to the other person and let them take care of it. If they break your trust, then that is their mistake. However, if you regularly demand that they be trustworthy and make them promise not to cheat or betray you, then that is your mistake.”
The expert noted that it’s not always necessary to tell the other person absolutely everything. “Sometimes, past truths can ruin the current relationship,” he said that withholding some information is fine if you’re no longer the person you used to be and you’ve atoned for your mistakes.
#16
One night I woke up with my mind in a twist, my mom was in the hospital at the time, I had a crazy urge to call them and check on her, but I reasoned not to because I couldn't think of an excuse so I fell back to sleep. 5am I get a call that they checked on her and she didn't have a pulse, I just think there was something I could have done that destroys me to even think about it.
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103points
#17
I'm a 6ft4, 320lb MMA fighter, bouncer, and weight lifter. My Dad thinks of me as the manliest guy in the world, and often times I'll even feign a call and chat with ine of my female friends. He thinks I'm a chick magnet since I get a decent amount of looks in public if my shirt is tighter than usual.
His daughter is a 35 year old woman with two kids, both of which are failing school. She married a deadbeat and essentially is ruined, living in a sh**ty leased house which she struggles to keep afloat. I know my Dad wants me to be successful, form a family, and pretty much be the successor of his family. To bear him eventual grandchildren even, and just to be his "pride."
I don't have the heart to tell him I'm gay, and since he was raised rather racist considering he is of German decent and his father was a decently high ranking KKK member, he'd be even more pissed that I'm dating a latino guy. He isn't very open minded at all, and is pretty strict and tunneled in his views. I don't think I coukd ever break his heart and tell him.
To top it all off, he was ahem.. "snipped" rather early on in life, so there's no chance of having another success kid. He expects the world out of me, and I wish I could give him that. I just want him to be happy.
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90points
#18
My friend in 8th grade called me before he killed himself and told me it was my fault. If I called his mom sooner instead of feeling sorry for myself and for him he might still be here
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89points
#19
In 5th grade, I cheated on an exam. My buddy and I were the only two people in the grade who got this particular question correct, but I copied him. The worst part was he was considered 'dumb' while I was at the top of the class, so the teacher was convinced that he copied me and he ended up getting suspended.
Long story short, I was too p**sy to admit that I was the one who cheated as my parents would have murdered me if I failed the test and even worse if I got suspended.
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85points
#20
That I hate all my f*****g friends for not inviting me anywhere and my cycles of sudden realization that nobody cares about me except for my family.
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81points