Everyone has secrets—some are just significantly worse than others. You could be someone with a really great group of friends and really trustworthy and reliable people surrounding you. However, there are still some things that you vow to yourself to never repeat. This is particularly true when that secret could be damaging, either to you or someone else. Just take it from these people who recently shared the one secret that, if it came out, would ruin their life.
66. Gun For Hire
I almost killed someone at the gun range when I was eight.
For clarification, I was born into a military family, learning how to use a gun was put on the same level as learning how to ride a bike, so both happened at the same age, I was young and stupid and wasn't paying attention when a guy said he was going down range when I fired and it grazed his jacket and he freaked out.
I was so scared I legit peed myself, took my rifle and ran all the way to the other side of the range where the porta-potty was, and yet somehow, someway, my dad never found out and the guy I shot never found me, I was too scared to say anything knowing a little closer and he would have been dead.
I have never told anyone else about it, and I'm taking it to my grave.
Image by Виктория Бородинова from Pixabay
65. Keep It To Yourself
What I truly think about a lot of people who are close to me. How I truly feel about my own life and everything that happens around/to me.
Also, any of my... "ambitions". No, nothing illegal, just... extremely pathetic. Any of these daydreams I have... Most of them, to be honest, are just wishes/dreams/hopes that someday someone will actually care about me. And even sometimes... I pretend like someone is with me, talking to me or comforting me. No hallucinations, just imagination. Nobody would look at me the same if they knew about the things I thought, and I doubt I'd be able to get any new friends.
64. Feeling Fancy
The only secret I even have is that I wear lady's underwear to work. I'm a guy. That probably wouldn't ruin my life if it got out, though I'm glad no one knows.
63. Sad Accident
I killed the family cat by accident and didn't tell anyone. I lived on a farm and regularly used the forklift to move hay. Cat was sleeping in the drive belt. I just said it ran away.
62. Soap Opera Level
Not my life technically, but I’ve found photos on my dad's phone of him kissing a guy and his marriage to my mum is kinda rocky at the moment so if it came out it could get quite rocky. Won’t come from me though, that's for sure.
Pixabay
61. No Handouts
I've been keeping it under my hat that I retired a multimillionaire two years ago at 38. No one knows yet, thank God.
60. Just Have To Get Along
How I feel about my brother’s wife. I can’t stand her. My life would become more hellish than it already is if anyone found out how much I actually despise her. If she finds out I won’t get to see my brother again. I don’t want to lose him. He’s my brother and I just, I can’t, I love my brother. He’s amazing and I can’t just not have him in my life.
59. Mother Dearest
I love my mom but sometimes I don’t like her. She’s really mean. I don’t know how else to explain it other than just “mean.” The tone she talks in is just plain mean and then she gets mad when I get defensive because I think she’s yelling at me. She accuses me of “talking back” even though I’m an adult and I don’t live with her.
She’s really negative all the time and complains about everything, especially my dad. I’m not even going to go into that. One time she made a rude comment about someone’s appearance in public and I told her to not talk so loud and she didn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. It was the first time I had seen her since I moved away and it hurt that she wouldn’t talk to me since we only had those two days, Saturday and Sunday.
She retells stories that I was there for or that I told her and lies about them to make them different and when I correct her she gets mad and tells me to shut up.
I know she loves me but she doesn’t treat me like a person sometimes. She acts like I’m still “her baby” and doesn’t recognize that I’m my own person with my own independent thoughts and feelings. I love her too but I don’t like being around her.
58. Hard To Live With
I may possibly have killed my dad.
He was dying, on hospice, and asked me to give him his next dose of morphine. I measured out the dose and gave it to him, but he said it wasn't enough (he was a doctor) so I thought I had misread the instructions, so I gave him some more. Later I looked at the instructions and I think that between the two doses I may have given him an overdose.
He went into a coma and died the next day.
However, his death was imminent. If it hadn't been that day it would have been within a few days. I'm not 100% sure whether I gave him too much, but I think it's likely. But I also think he probably knew it and wanted me to.
It's not something I would tell anyone, but I don't really feel bad about it. If it happened, it was merciful.
Photo by Inzmam Khan from Pexels
57. Big Responsibility
I genuinely think I would be a happier person with a better childhood if my younger sister wasn’t born; because of her I gave up a lot of my childhood and doing things younger kids should do because my parents wanted me to take of her rather than my older brother.
And no, I don’t hate her, I love her so so much, but sometimes I can’t help fantasizing how happy and carefree I would be now if I didn’t have to basically be a mom to my sister since I was 9 years old.
Does that make me a bad person? Probably.
Pixabay
56. You're Not Alone
That I don't use underwear. I don't feel comfortable wearing any type of underwear. My family has always criticized this. The only time I told a friend he gave me a weird look. I kind of don't feel like a normal person.
55. A Covert Affair
I had an affair with my friend’s married dad at age 17. I had been close as family with them from since my preteen years. One night I was sleeping in the living room and he came home late from work... I woke up and we started talking. I had just told a guy I loved him and the boy had stopped speaking to me after. I told him this and he said he wished it would have been him. We began a short affair of a couple months before I broke this off because I no longer had feelings for him. He was so upset with me and said he had wanted to run away with me. It’s been 8 years and his family still doesn’t know. I recently saw him at a gas station and he said hi to me like nothing had happened. I got chills.
Photo by Tess Emily Seymour from Pexels
54. A Harrowing Confession
I regret having a kid. My son is a really awesome kid, but I feel like a terrible mother. I have constant anxiety. I feel like I’m constantly angry. I’m constantly stressed. I feel like I have to be perfect for my son all of the time. I constantly feel guilty for everything. On top of that I hate making dinner every night and trying to give my kid healthy variety. I’m lucky he isn’t a picky eater. I hate that I have to ask him a question 4 or 5 times before he will answer it (he is 2 almost 3). I miss my free time. I miss being able to go out and do things without having to pack a huge bag of crap to keep my kid entertained. In the past few months I have started to think my kid would be better off without me. That I should pack a bag and disappear. At least then he wouldn’t grow up with a mother who is angry and yells all the time. But I won’t leave. I love my kid and I live for those moments where he is just so sweet or makes me laugh that I can’t imagine leaving him.
53. This Is Everybody
I want to get money without working.
Like I really want to just spend everyday 24/7 on my computer doing whatever I want. I have a scholarship at an university and they always say, "do the things you want", "you should work for what you want to be", "follow your dreams" and things like that, but in fact, there are things that even if you really want, it will be impossible to get/do.
I don't really talk about this because I know the answer. You need to work for the "society" so then you can get the "things" you want from it. There is no option were you just get what you want without working, because to get it, you need someone to work for you and they won't work for nothing.
Everyone around me has a dream of working on something they like and I'm here really just wanting to get home and watch or play what I want.
Since I know the answer, I kinda gave up on being happy. Unless I kill myself (which is not a possibility), I cannot stop working.
52. Time To See A Shrink
I think I’m a sociopath. My grandad is, and my mom has narcissistic tendencies, so it’s plausible. My mom has a really hard time relating to people and understanding pain, so growing up I heard a lot of “stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up” whenever I was hurt or cried. Don’t get me wrong I love my mom, and she did her best, but our relationship is more sisterlike than motherly. Anyway. I honestly just don’t care how people feel. The only thing that genuinely gets to me is when people don’t like me. I have this incessant need to be liked by everyone all the time. I’m very empathetic, but it’s just like a trained reaction. It feels fake. I understand how something makes someone feel, why they’re hurting, and how I can help them, but I feel like Data from Star Trek training my software to be more humane. Do I actually genuinely care about anyone but myself? I don’t know. And that scares me.
51. Making Bank
I make 3 times more than I tell my wife, we live good and I feel good about it. She doesn't contribute to the rent or utilities since she is a work from home graphic designer and good projects are few and far in between. We have a big flat and nice car. I'm banking all the money for our retirement and I keep it a secret so she doesn't try to spend it all in the meantime.
50. Holding On
I still have feelings for my ex...who broke up with me like 4 years ago. Like strong feelings too. Like I still sometimes get emotional thinking about not being with her.
And I'm with another person now who I love very much. And she's great and such a good person and I love being with. But not the same way I love my ex. I feel like my ex was 'the one' (as cringey as that sounds). And it makes me feel really bad that I won't love anyone completely because my ex will always have a piece of me.
Pixabay
49. Bunkering Down
Two and a half years ago I was in dire financial straights, so I sold my home to keep my struggling business afloat. I neglected to tell the owners that they have an 800 square foot bunker on the property that I built about seven years ago—the bunker that I've called home since I sold it. The entrance to it is well-hidden, but I still come and go very early/very late in the day.
I'm a single man who keeps to himself. I'm now in a situation where I could move somewhere else, but I love this hidden paradise so much.
48. Setting Sail
I cut off all contact with everyone I know and moved to Kenya, I tell people a fake name and a fake background and have made it appear to my family that I died on a boat trip in the Pacific. I am legally dead in the United States.
47. Tricky Love
I once helped out my female friend's family by taking care of their cat for a week. Every day for a week, I would go over there and snoop around their house. I found my friend's diary and proceeded to read the entire thing. I used this information to get her to like me, and she is currently my wife.
46. Faking It Until Making It
I faked the last two years of college education. My parents put so much pressure on me I couldn't handle it (I was suffering from severe depression and anxiety) so I faked it all. Lied to everyone. Made up fake transcripts. I just got my foot in the door in my desired field thanks to a friend as they hired me as a subordinate. This place only hires college grads but no one double checked my credentials since I was recommended. My hope is that if I need to find another job, I'll have been at this place long enough to get it by experience alone (I work for a very prestigious company). I'm not bad at my job. I'm actually quite good. But my fear is eventually I'll hit a wall and the lie will come to light. No one has known this for the better part of a decade.
It's a relief to finally say it "out loud". I can't even tell those I love. My silence is my prison.
45. Transparency At Work
IT guy here. It's amazing what people will do on their computers and say in their emails despite having to sign a waiver that all computer activity at work is monitored and recorded.
I have half the company's banking, social media, and personal email account info and passwords. I know who is secretly being with who at the office behind their spouse's backs. I know who is lazying at work and spending most of their time in the bathroom almost daily. At least they tell their chat partner they're running off to the bathroom, haven't felt the need to check the validity of that one. I know when people are having marital problems, financial problems, and I even know one person here had their children taken away because a social worker found illegal substances in their house. I know who is embezzling money, I know when people get fired for completely stupid reasons (like they just want to replace them with someone younger and nicer on the eyes), and I know who my boss is buying their own substances from.
Basically, I have a treasure trove of my coworker's secrets. I won't actively do anything with this info, but it's nice knowing I have the ammunition there if something were to ever happen.
44. A Ragged Accident
I accidentally killed seven people.
I put a rag into a new water heater exhaust to keep debris out and installed it in a rental.
I get a call a week later: There's been an accident. I show up and there are a ton of EMS and police. They ask me where the gas shutoff is, and I go down to shut the gas off and see the end of the rag I forgot sticking out of the top of the heater.
I rip the rag out, shut the gas off, and go upstairs, only to be told all the tenants passed away.
I do nothing all day now and sleep. It's killing me from the inside every single day, but if I say anything my family is ruined—we have a bunch of rental properties and we'd be shut down.
43. Bluffing Bloke
After graduating from high school, I went to a small out-of-state college where no one from high school knew me. I was told many times how impressive my false Australian accent was, so I decided it would be great fun to go through college pretending to be from Australia. All of my friends and even my girlfriend of two years think I'm Australian. I have a completely fake Australian identity, family, and past. I will soon be graduating, and I plan on asking the girl to marry me. Everything she knows about me is Australian and I don't know how to tell her she doesn't really know me. Guess I'm forever an Aussie.
42. Losing His Marbles
When I was about 12, I went with some family to the Family Dollar. My mother and cousins went off to go look at generic groceries so I decided I would just spend my time hanging out in the toy aisle, in the toy aisle there would always be these bags of marbles that other kids would open and leave lying there so I decided to fling marbles across the floor and one just happened to reach one of the far off aisles. About two minutes later, I heard a loud crash and someone screamed, "Somebody help this man!" Being the curious child I was, I ran over to see what the commotion was about and I find everyone gathered around this guy who had seemed to have fallen from the ladder as he was getting something off the top shelf. The guy does not look good and as he laid there and his face seemed to be turning blue. My mother whisked me and my cousins away and we left.
Next time we went, we talked to the front cashier and she said that they called the paramedics but by the time they got there he had died. The cause for the fall according to the front cashier was that he had put the ladder on a marble and didn't check it before he got on it. When I heard what the cashier said I just stood in disbelief thinking I was going to jail, I tried telling my mother many times but all she did was say that I imagined it.
41. Malicious Marriage
I hate my significant other. She makes me feel terrible on a regular basis. She's childish and always blames her issues on the people around her, and for years when we've gotten into fights. When I'm trying to unload something, she shifts the blame back on me, or berates me or calls me a wimp. Multiple years of this have zapped all of my self-confidence and cost me multiple friendships. I feel like I can't address this or anything relating to her because it will upset her.
I'm aware that our relationship has and will ruin my life but I don't have anything else in my life that is solid because we have built a life together.
40. Serial Shoplifter
I've stolen at least 90% of the clothes I currently wear. I can afford to buy it, but I choose not to. My family and girlfriend all think I spend too much money on clothes but they have no idea.
39. Surprise Kegger
In high school, I used my babysitting money to buy 40 really stupid party invitations at Hallmark. I addressed them to the most puzzling combination of kids I could think of for a "party" at the home of a girl I perceived as needing something to distract her from her fixation on her own greatness.
38. Picky Eater
I pick my nose and eat it with some regularity. No one knows that I do this, including my girlfriend who I spend every night with. It probably wouldn't be all that catastrophic if people found out, but it certainly feels that way to me.
Pixabay
37. Lingering Lottery Winner
I left work recently and said I was setting up a very specific new business and have told this to most of my friends as well. The truth is, I won the lottery but don't want anyone to know because I am afraid it will change relationships for the worse if people knew. I haven't done anything for the business yet and feel terrible making stuff up all the time. It's making me avoid people so that I don't have to lie and I don't want to set up the business just to keep the story real.
36. Just A Tase
I snuck into my dad's bedroom and tased him with a one-million-volt taser. He started flailing around and knocked it out of my hand. I ran out of the house and drove off. Police were called, the taser was collected, and I assume fingerprints were recovered. His idiot self has no idea it was me and thinks someone broke into his house just to tase him.
35. It's Lit
I lit a tree on fire for kicks, and ended burning half a forest down and several homes went up in flames in the process. I wanted to say, "I did that," when I saw it on the news.
34. Broken Brakes
When I was a kid I had a really hard time learning to ride a bike. My brother learned quickly, and my parents spent quite a bit of time with him as a result. Time they weren't spending with me...
After feeling intense jealousy for a few days, I disconnected the brakes on his bicycle.
The next day he crashed into a fire hydrant and broke his neck. He's been paralyzed from the neck down ever since.
This was fifteen years ago.
I've never told anybody.
33. Poison And Purging
I'd mix up weird combinations on food like tomato flavored tuna and strawberry yogurt and leave it to fester in a warm room for a few days or a week. I would then eat it. Why? So I'd get food poisoning and lose weight. My family thinks I have a really poor immune system but I'm just poisoning myself. This has been happening for the last two years or so after I had the stomach flu and lost a ton of weight. I remember looking into the mirror after the episode and being so happy with the flat stomach it gave me. Kind of ironic that the only time I felt beautiful was when I was throwing up my guts.
32. Tampering With The Truck
Eight years ago we were at our holiday house—the whole family, cousins, grandpas, grandmas, aunties, and uncles. It was the day we all left for home. My cousins and I were playing hide and seek and I decided to hide under my Grandpa's truck. It was an awesome place to hide. After a while, I began to inspect the truck's belly. I saw something that didn't look like it should be there and broke it off.
Five hours later, we arrived home with the news that my Grandpa passed away in a car accident. I killed my mum's father. I killed my own Grandfather. I didn't know what to do. I just walked into my room with the sickest feeling in the bottom of my stomach. I can feel it still, as I type this. I want to say sorry to my mother. I want to go back and change what I have done.
31. Big Macs And Bad Parents
When my parents passed away, I was secretly happy inside that the abusive nutters they were vanished from my life at 11 years old.
I knew then like I know now, saying anything about it would have landed me in the funny farm. If I said anything now, I'd probably be disowned due to the rage of besmirching the memory of my sainted parents.
These days, though, I've moved on enough from their abuse to no longer be angry about it. I figure it'll just create another cycle of victimization somewhere for someone so I'm fine with not bothering to bring it up with my family.
30. In Need Of A New Plague
I sincerely hope that half the world population would die, so that the world can become a better place by some sick twisted logic of mine. Basically, I agree with the thoughts of Adrian Veidt from the Watchmen, but the destruction should happen in a subcontinental scale, at the least. If I actually have the means to do it, I probably would. I have chosen my subcontinents already.
This has been on my mind since I was a kid, now it's out.
29. Happier Alone
I make up lies to avoid hanging out with people. I don't know how many people I've told random things to just to get out of hanging out with them. I don't even do anything when I lie to them... I just prefer to stay inside, on my own, with my own thoughts. It's not like I particularly detest or dislike these people—these are people I've known for years, who I would consider pretty good friends. I don't have anyone I would consider my best friend, who I would drop everything for, not even my girlfriend of over three years. It's a long distance relationship, but even so, at this point, it just seems like a relationship swaddled in comfort and neither of us feel like committing more than we have, or in breaking it off. Just... it's comfortable. And that's the way the rest of my life is going. I just recently quit my job and I've started going out less and seeing fewer people around, in the name of "saving money" and "conserving what finances I have left", but deep down, I know it's really because I don't want to see anyone. Sometimes, I really just want to be left alone.
28. Lies Online
The past two years I have been faking who I am on the internet and I feel pretty bad for it... Like what 90% of people do in online games, I was one of them and I just feel really bad. Right now, I am trying to stop this lie, but it's a habit that is so hard to break.
27. Pain Reliever
I fantasized about being in painful situations where I can take away the pain from someone else. It is really weird because it really just started at age 13. I kind of go over what I would say if "this" happened. I don't really know how to fix it or if it will go away.
26. Foot Loose
Here goes: I like feet. That may seem like not such a huge deal. I mean, a lot of people think that's gross or weird, but nothing that would ruin a life or anything. Well, I get that it's not THAT horrible, but it is to me.
That getting out is by far the thing I fear more than anything. The shame would be just too much to deal with, I don't know why. My life as I knew it would be over. I would kill whoever told everyone, without hesitation, premeditation if necessary. I don't like to hurt people and I'm not violent but that would be the one exception. After that, prison just doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
My girlfriend knows—I told her in the stupidity of deep love. She's fine with it, lets me do things, etc. She would never tell, no matter how angry at me she was. Also, my best friend knows, only because I knew he wouldn't care and there's no way he would tell anyone. I even told him I would kill over it, and he believes me. We know each other well. Feels weird typing this out.
25. Unforgivable
I used Comic Sans MS as the font for a website in 2010.
24. A Really Bad Recess
One time, when I was about 15 years old, my brother and I were playing at an elementary school around nine p.m. We were bored because we didn't have a basketball and all there was was a jungle gym big enough for five- to seven-year-olds. We were way too big to play on it. Well, we killed time for at least 20 minutes before I finally had to go to the bathroom. I just went number two in the slide. The slide had a cover over it, in other words, it was a complete tube.
This was a Sunday when I did this. The next day, I stayed home because I could see the park and the slide from my window. So I watch the park around noon because I knew that's when the kids went to recess. But this day was turning out to be weirder because the teachers were playing with the students. I saw a teacher pick up a student, put them in between their legs then go down my gross slide. They both had giant streaks of brown all the way down their backs and on their shirts. It was big enough I could see it from about 100 yards away at my window. There was a huge commotion. I could see kids laughing and teachers yelling. Recess got cut about 20 minutes short for them that day.
So to the kid and the beautiful brunette teacher with the white shirt with roses on it, I truly apologize for ruining your day.
23. The Mask Of A Miscarriage
My now-ex-fiance cheated on me, and because of this, we were on and off for a few months. During this time, we were intimate a few times. He dumped me again a while later, telling me he had multiple affairs with different girls. I felt like I deserved to get revenge so a week or so later I told him I just found out I was pregnant. I wasn't. He told his family, friends, EVERYONE. I played it out because I missed being back with him and I wanted to hurt him as much as he hurt me. Eventually, I had to "miscarry" because there was no baby. We broke up and he immigrated to a different country a month later. Everyone still thinks I was once pregnant, and that can never change.
22. Close Roommates
I was roommates with my best friend for a year at college (who I had a major, years-long crush on). I hadn't come out as gay to my friends yet, and I hit a point of really awful depression. My friend now knows how I felt about her, and we're good now. But, she doesn't know that when she was in class, I would take her clothing from her drawer. I just kind of cuddled it, and laid on her bed so that I could smell her. Also, at night I would stroke her hair while she was asleep. I hated myself for it the whole time. I felt (feel) like a horrible person for betraying our friendship like that. So, yeah. That's my secret.
21. Self-Obsessed
I have this compulsion to pick (and subsequently eat) things produced by my body. That's scabs, snot, boogers, earwax, eye crusties, dry skin. I chew fingernails and toenails, the oily stuff next to my nose and behind my ears, popped zits, hair follicles, stuff like that. I haven't eaten anything else and I think I'm okay with that.
20. Swinging With A Scalpel
I dream of becoming a surgeon, and the prospects of me getting into med school next year are honestly looking great. The problem is that I worry I may be developing a mood disorder. The radical weekly/biweekly mood swings I've been experiencing over the last year are unlike anything I've ever experienced and seem to have no correlation with PMS. The mood swings in no way keep me from functioning; they just make life extremely unpleasant. Sometimes (depending on the mood, of course) I ache to talk it out with someone, but to even breathe the word "therapist" would destroy all hope of becoming a trusted and respected surgeon. Everyone would question my fitness. Family, friends, professors, patients, colleagues, everyone.
She's "unstable"? Keep her the away from that scalpel...
19. Satisfied Sociopath
I'm sociopathic. I don't legitimately connect with other people, but I've gotten very good at pretending. I don't actually have any real friends, which I assume is because of my lack of ability to empathize with other people. A part of me doesn't want to have kids, because I don't want to pass on these tendencies. But the most messed up part of it all is that I wouldn't change any of it. As miserable as I am on the inside, I actually do experience things that legitimately make me happy.
I've never told this to anyone before. Partially because I don't want to destroy my reputation and partially because I'm impartial to other people's thoughts on the subject.
18. Cross-Country Cheating
I've been a happily married woman for almost 14 months (I'm 26), and I did the worst thing I could do: I cheated on my husband while I was on traveling on the other side of the country. I was feeling good, I was out having fun, but those aren't excuses. I was spending time with an old "friend" that my husband knew about, and disliked immensely, but I didn't stop myself. I gave into temptation after years of monogamy, and if my secret gets out it will ruin the best thing I have in my life. I don't know why I did it, I really don't. I'm ashamed and guilt-ridden to the core. I still think about it every. Single. Day. It haunts me, and I just keep trying to be the best wife ever to make up for my disgusting actions. Deep down I know I'm a bad person—I cheated on my husband, we took vows. I hate myself for this.
17. Stuck In The Past
I superglued my left eye shut for seven months in my late high school years and have recently moved away and lost contact with everyone from there to hide the embarrassment.
16. Passport To Prison
I went to prison for three years. I lied about it to all family and friends, saying I was going on exchange to another country.
15. McDonald's Money
Several years ago, I worked at McDonald's to earn a little extra money. One day, I showed up for cashier duty. Several minutes later, there were still no customers. I looked around and saw nobody was looking, so I stole $16 out of the cash register. Later that day, feeling guilty, I went to a gas station and bought three $5 lottery tickets. On the first one, I won $500,000. No one knows that I stole the $16 from that cash register, and it probably wouldn't ruin my life, but I would not like it to get out. To this day the $16 dollars I stole at McDonald's still haunts me, but it was worth it.
I now have a degree in engineering, and am much more of a success than I would have been without that money.
14. Panty Hobo
This wouldn't necessarily ruin my life if it got out, but when I was 13, I sold my older sister's clothes to some homeless man that lived outside our apartment complex for $2 and a cheap beverage. What can I say? I was young and stupid and didn't know anyone else who would buy me stuff like that. To this day, she still thinks her clothes got lost at the laundromat. I'm not proud.
13. Sleepy Pa(re)nts
I slept in the bed with my parents until I was 17 (I'm 20 now). I wasn't forced to or anything. Honestly, I was afraid of the dark and had an overactive imagination. I also have generalized anxiety disorder, which threw oil on the wildfire. Now I'm fine sleeping by myself, although I do sometimes go to my parent's bed still because they have the coldest room in the house.
12. No Secrets Kept
I have a ridiculously beautiful girlfriend of about a year. God knows why she chose me but she did. I find it hard at times dealing with how much attention she gets. She is a very naive girl who doesn't understand when other guys try it on and I know she would never do anything, but I still check her phone all the time when I can. There's always correspondence with guys trying it on with her, getting really gross with her, and all she has to say back to them is how much she loves me. And I just sit there, trying to find some dirty secret. Spying on her.
11. Pining For Professor
I love my professor. A lot. If it weren't for the massive age gap, the fact he's married, and the fact I'm dating someone, I'd probably tell him. We're pretty close as far as professor/student relationships go, and we understand each other well. So that's where my feelings came from.
10. Hole-y Heck
When I was 15, I was angry at my sister over something forgotten. As revenge, I poked a hole in every contraceptive in her sock drawer the same day her boyfriend came over and spent the night. A month later, she comes into my room sobbing, saying she's pregnant but she doesn't understand how because she used a condom and Mom and Dad are gonna kill her. She was 17.
Now I get to watch my nephew with glee knowing I brought him into the world and ruined my sister's life at the same time.
9. Non-Cancerous
My freshman year of college, I lied about having cancer. I eventually got found out after seven months and told everyone the truth. I lost all of my friends and had to start over again, I'm just glad my family never heard of it, the lie was only to my friends and girlfriend at the time. It still makes me depressed and I feel like I'm not able to live with myself when I think about it. But it happened a couple of years ago and I started over with new friends.
8. Lost And Found
When I was about eight I took $100 off of the kitchen counter. I felt so guilty that I started to "find" money in random places and gave it to my parents when it was actually some of the money I had stolen. I eventually gave back all of the money and my parents never found out I had taken it, but I still feel bad for doing it.
7. Two-Way Trash Talk
I hear two voices inside my head. One is like what I would think a normal person's consciousness sounds like and the other is one that basically degrades me and gets me depressed. It's been going on as long as I remember. It's kinda like I'm trash talking myself.
6. Proficient In Poker
At the age of about eight to thirteen, I was really into magic tricks and got pretty good at handling cards. Anyway, I'm now almost 17 and steal money from my friends all the time playing poker by rigging the flop to make me win. I feel terrible after every hand.
5. Torn Between Two
I am currently dating two women that I love and who are both madly in love with me and are talking about marriage. I know that one day not too far off I will have to make a choice between the two of them and crush one horribly. I am hoping that eventually, one will think better of being with me and leave me and make the choice for me. A part of me wants to just admit it and try to get them to both be with me with full knowledge of the other, but that is not going to happen.
4. Enough With The Waterworks
When I was a kid I lived in a two story house with only one bathroom on the ground floor in the back. Needless to say it was a looong walk in the middle of the night if you had to pee for a teenage boy such as myself.
I was maybe 12 when I realized I could pee in plastic bottles and just pour the contents out the window (which was on the back with a bit of tin roof to fall onto and a big tree for cover) This habit of peeing into bottles got worse as after a few months I became so lazy I started leaving filled piss bottles around my room forgetting to even get rid of them.
This went on for 4 or 5 years and I would say at my peak I drank and filled three 24 packs of Deer Park in the span of a week and just forgot about them.
This went on for years, me peeing in bottles, leaving them for a week then pouring it onto the tin roof until one day the roof (now with a 2 by 4 foot rust stain covered by the tree) finally had enough and rusted through to the wood underneath. When I realized this I panicked and cleared out all my bottles. I poured them all into the hole/down the roof and threw away the containers into a big black plastic bag. I then told my parents of the hole I just discovered by accident.
A family friend who was a carpenter came out the next day to patch it up. What he said when the smell hit him was "Oh My GOD! Squirrels must have peed right through the roof!"
To this day I laugh that he thought squirrels ruined the roof but sadly this story and the quote will have to die with me.
3. Good To Go
There’s part of me that’s always felt so guilty about this, but the other part of me thinks that I did the right thing. When my mother-in-law was in hospice and dying, we had gotten the call that her last rights were being read to her and we should come because it was very close. The family gathered in her room, my father in law (her husband of 42 years) had been by her side and hadn’t left for days. We were there for hours, my sister in laws had to take there kids home at some point, so they had left and it was just my husband, me, and my FIL left.
The nurses were saying that they might have spoken to soon because she was still hanging on, it was awful to watch. My FIL looked ragged and tired and he said he was just going to go to the other floor for a cup of coffee, my husband went with him. I said I would call if something changed but he was only going to be gone for 15 minutes maybe. About 5 minutes after they left my MIL really started to have very labored breathing, I called the nurse to see what was happening and by the time she came to the room (maybe 2 minutes) she had past. I asked the nurse to wait for me to get my FIL and husband back to the room to pronounce her dead. They rushed back and my FIL held her and after a minute the nurse and doctor pronounced.
My FIL believes he made it back to the room and was holding her while she left this life, I have never told him or my husband. Only me and that sweet nurse know she was already gone. I have debated telling my husband this but he’s always said he was comforted by watching his dad hold his mom when she died. I know I will never tell my FIL this, when he talks about her he always mentions how he was there for that moment and I don’t want to take that away from him. It would crush him. Part of me thinks she waited for everyone to leave the room so they didn’t have to actually see her go, she was always worried about everybody else. I’ve never told anyone.
2. A Secret That's Bound To Come Out
A friend who is outwardly happily married pulled me aside before the wedding, at which I was a groomsman, to have a word. I thought he was just having cold feet, so I rather jocularly told asked him if staring down the barrel of a life sentence had got him looking for the door.
Well, he got extremely serious and said that I was right, because he's gay and can't ever truly love his soon-to-be wife the way he should. This was a confident, swaggering dude who I thought would punch a lion in the face if it looked at him the wrong way. The kind of dude who conveys with his posture that he means business, and his business is being awesome. I always thought of him as the man with a plan, who never got flustered and always had the right answer to our silly problems. And here he was in front of me, quaking and filled with terror because he knew that he had gotten himself into a real jam by being dishonest with himself and those he cared about. I hated it. It was like watching my dad get beat up.
My advice was to be honest with his fiancee, and to talk to her before the ceremony about it. That no one would blame him, that this happens, and that while it was painful now he would be respected in the long term for being upfront and preventing further hurt. He left me saying that he would do so.
He came back 30 minutes later pale and sweaty, and told us all the ceremony was still on. It was, and they got married and we all toasted their future while he shot me pained looks all night long–looks that gradually faded the more he drank and lost himself in the celebration.
They've been married for 5 years, and have a kid. They look happy. I hope they are. It's not for me to say anything, but I will be there for both of them when he spills the beans.
1. Passing Down The Burden
My dad has told the rest of the family that if he is to be terminally ill, he wishes to die surrounded by loved ones up until the bitter end.
But that's not what he told me. He and my family are devoutly Catholic, and I'm the only one in the family who doesn't believe in God or karma. After seeing his own father pass away, my dad realized just how painful and horrible it is to go like that, and he confided in me that there were multiple times he just wanted to put a pillow over grandpa's face and end his suffering there.
And then in a bizarre off-handed kind of way, he asked if I would do the same for him. Just get a moment alone, and do what I can to end his pain. He probably told me this because I'm the only one in the family who doesn't subscribe to the Catholic doctrine regarding suicide being an express ticket to damnation. He even said "you don't seem to have that same fear of God that held me back."
And ya know, he's right. I don't have that fear of God.
But jail? Yeah, jail's pretty scary. I basically told him that he's a smart guy, he'll figure it out, and as long as it doesn't involve or harm other people, I'll still love him and understand.
It's not come up since. I'm pretty sure he doesn't want me telling the family that in a moment of emotional recollection, while his capacities weren't fully gathered to properly analyze his words, he inadvertently asked his own son to murder him on his death bed.
However, it does make me more hopeful that in the near future, we'll explore and be open to human euthanizing treatments for those in the final stages of cancer. Fortunately, my own state has allowed physician assisted euthanasia, so I no longer have to battle myself over whether or not I should asphyxiate dad. He can give the order to a doctor instead.
But it makes me wonder how many other sons and daughters are out there, secretly carrying a verbal license to patricide.
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay
