3. Take Note—Something’s Off
When I was about six, I came home from school with my mom, grabbed the mail, and set it on the table. In the stack, I saw a note addressed to me that said, “I’ve noticed you seem down lately. Let me take you shopping and cheer you up. Love, Paul.”
Before I could even think about what it meant, my mom snatched it out of my hand and said something really suspicious: “That’s not for you!” Even though it had my name on it. At six years old, I had no idea what to make of it. I didn’t know if I had some creepy adult paying attention to me, if my mom was involved with someone and using my name, or if it was something else entirely.
It felt very strange at the time, and for the next 17 years, no one ever explained it. Later on, I found other signs that something odd was going on in my mom’s life.
She would quickly hide her phone when I came into the room, and I once found condoms in the bag she used for work trips—my dad had a vasectomy in 1990—so I figured cheating wasn’t impossible. But why that note had my name on it, I still have no clue.
freepik, master1305
4. The Truth Was In Transition
My parents split up when I was around two, so I don’t remember any of it. By the time I was in elementary school, my dad had come back into my life with a new wife, my stepmom, and he was very religious. Because of that, and very much to my mother’s frustration, I became very religious too.
Neither of my parents ever spoke badly about the other, and I never asked why they divorced. At the time, there were plenty of single-parent households, so it didn’t seem unusual. In my teens, though, my dad and I had a major falling out—and the reason was awful.
My two best friends, who meant everything to me, both came out as gay. I was shaken because I had been taught they were doomed unless they changed. I brought my doubts to my father, but he told me without hesitation that yes, they were condemned if they didn’t.
That was the beginning of the end for me and the church. I couldn’t reconcile that belief with the loving God I had been taught about. Eventually, my father and I had such a serious falling out that we didn’t speak for more than ten years.
During that time, my mother dropped a few hints that she knew things about my dad that I didn’t. I learned she was actually his second wife, but she never told me the full story. I assumed I probably had a half-sibling somewhere, but I didn’t care enough to dig deeper.
Years later, just after Christmas, I got a call from a friend who rented from my mom. She’d had a cardiac episode and was in the hospital. While I was frantically packing for the eight-hour drive, he told me something surprising—but not completely shocking.
Earlier that evening, my stepmother had come by to wish my mom a Merry Christmas and tell her that she and my dad had officially divorced. The secret that had damaged my mom’s marriage—and apparently his first marriage too—had now ended his most recent one as well.
My dad was transgender. At nearly 60, she decided she couldn’t keep living a lie and wanted to move forward with hormone therapy and gender-affirming surgery. She had already changed her name—her former wife had even helped choose it—and she was just updating my mom on everything.
After my stepmother left, my mom went back inside and suddenly had chest pains, so she called an ambulance. She was diagnosed with broken heart syndrome, a type of cardiomyopathy. She recovered fully and told me everything while I sat with her in the hospital.
My dad is now happily post-op, living with a close friend in Florida and dating a man a little older than she is, someone who knows about her transition and cares for her deeply.
5. He Sold The Farm
I always believed my maternal grandfather, who worked as a struggling tenant farmer, had simply never been able to buy a farm of his own. Later, I learned the much darker truth.
It turned out that his son, my uncle, had a serious gambling problem and owed dangerous people money. The debt could have cost him—and possibly other family members—their lives if my grandfather hadn’t sold his farm to pay it off. I only learned this after both of them had passed away.
6. No Explanation
A year after my parents divorced, my dad took early retirement, sold the house, and moved with his mother from Ohio to Florida. Everything happened so fast and felt rushed; he took the first offer that came in on the house. He died 18 months later. Going through his belongings, we found his medical records—and that’s when we learned the painful truth.
He had pancreatic cancer, chose not to treat it, and never told anyone. He found out, retired, moved somewhere warm, and simply waited. I also found his medals from serving in the Marines, including a Bronze Star and Purple Heart. My father was a clear example of someone living with PTSD.
A few years later, Grandma and I had a serious heart-to-heart. She told me I never really knew the full person he was, because part of him never truly came home from Vietnam. He died a broken, depressed man and told no one in his life that his time was running out.
7. Secret Bedfellows
I ended up hooking up with my best friend’s little sister. My friend and I shared an apartment, and he was out of town for the weekend. Then there was a knock at the door, and she was standing there. I was confused because she knew her brother wasn’t home. She came in and immediately started crying. She told me her boyfriend had cheated on her and they had broken up. I listened, let her vent, and gave her a hug. Then came the shock of my life.
She tried to kiss me, and I pulled back. I said, “No way.” Even after I said no several times, she took off her shorts and shirt. She told me she had come there to sleep with me and that no one would ever find out. In a moment of weakness and immaturity, I gave in. And honestly, it was still the best I’ve ever had.
We’re still best friends, and he has no idea. It only happened once; she used me. She later married that same guy, and now they have three kids. I’m married too, with two kids in college. I saw her at her grandfather’s funeral, and she gave me a small, knowing smile. No one else will ever know, but neither of us will forget.
8. Sorry, Not For Me
I told my fiancée on our first date that I didn’t want kids and didn’t like being around them. I kept saying that for five years, and then the thing I feared most happened.
She got pregnant and decided to keep the baby. Now she doesn’t clean, cook, or play with our child because she’s always tired, and I’m left handling all of it. She won’t even work on nighttime potty training because she doesn’t want to wake up, so I’m stuck dealing with that too.
I love my son and would give my life for him, but my dark secret is that this life isn’t for me. Every day I wish it would all end so I could finally rest and have some peace.
9. What May Not Have Been
When my brother and I were little, our mother shared a painful secret. It turned out she had been married before she ever met our dad. Her first husband died in Vietnam, or in something related to his military service, when she was only 21. It stunned us to realize that we might never have existed. Now I understand why she didn’t tell us earlier. It also explained the strange birthday cards we used to get from “grandma’s neighbor,” who was actually the deceased husband’s mother.
10. The Flame That Fed The Fire
I set the backyard on fire, and everyone knew it was me. I was seven or eight, home without a babysitter, and messing around with matches and cotton. I started a grass fire in the yard, but there was no hose nearby. I called my mom crying and told her some drifters had thrown lit matches over the fence, and that I had tried to put it out. For 22 years, they let me think I had gotten away with it.
At the time, they acted like they believed me. My mom pretended there had been a babysitter, the neighbors whispered about it, and eventually everything died down. But it turns out they had known all along that I started the fire. The firefighters knew, the neighbors knew, my parents knew—they all let me believe my story worked and kept it as a hilarious inside joke until the night I finally confessed. It was the biggest confession of my life, and they all burst out laughing.
11. Something Was Bugging Me
We had a cockroach problem when I was a kid. We kept setting traps and spraying the house, but we could never figure out where they were coming from. After a while, my parents decided I needed a new mattress for my waterbed, so we drained it. When my dad lifted the mattress, he completely panicked at what he found. I was in another room, so they assumed I didn’t hear, but the roach nest was under my waterbed mattress.
There had been a tiny leak, which created the perfect place for them to live. Since I wasn’t in the room, all they told me was that something went wrong while he was draining it and water sprayed everywhere. But I overheard them quietly talking about how THAT must have been why I had so much trouble sleeping—and why cockroaches had been crawling on me while I slept. I try not to think about it too much.
12. Misjudged Mystery
The real reason my aunt moved back to my hometown was that she had briefly been kidnapped by some dangerous people she had crossed while working as a judge. One man held her against her will and told her she could either leave town within 24 hours or be taken again. I was about eight at the time, so everyone just told me she moved back because she missed us. I only found out the truth when my brother and I were talking about old family stories ten years later.
13. The Cat Got My Tongue
When I was eight, I made the most horrifying discovery. I walked in on my 13-year-old cousin strangling a small kitten with both hands. He just stood there with a blank expression. When he saw me, he threatened to do the same thing to my mother if I didn’t find him more animals to “play with.” Out of fear, I did what he said.
For two months, I brought him frogs, hamsters, and at one point even my grandmother’s pet rabbit.
Basically, any small animal—just to keep him away from me. It finally stopped when he was sent to the hospital for a severe allergic reaction to peanuts and was gone for two weeks. I never told anyone. He’s 22 now and seems normal. He’s engaged to a nice woman who owns three cats, though I still worry about them.
14. No More Chances
A few people know that someone I was very close to took their own life. He was the kindest man—the type who would travel two hours by train just to meet me for a cup of tea and a slice of cake. He was always there for me. I never imagined he would one day be gone, because he seemed so happy. But there’s something I’ve never told anyone.
In the days before he died, I had several missed calls from him. I watched one of them ring and didn’t answer, and he sent me a message asking me to call when I could. I had plenty of chances, but I never picked up the phone. Later that week, I woke up to a message from him that took me two days to read after I pasted it into a Word document.
He wrote about his life, how small and unimportant he felt, how wonderful he thought I was, and ended with an apology. Then I got an email from his mother telling me he had jumped in front of a moving train. I’ve always tried to be a caring person and do the right thing. But for the last eight years, I’ve stopped keeping kind thoughts to myself.
The main reason I check in on people and answer my phone is to keep a part of him alive.
15. Granny’s Final Days
I told my grandmother I’d come back to see her in the morning, but I slept through my alarm and didn’t make it to the hospital. By the time I finished work, I ended up falling asleep in my car in the driveway of her house. I’ll regret that forever.
The next morning, she had no brain activity left. I blame myself every day, thinking about how I didn’t spend those last few days with her, even though I know there was nothing I could have done to change what happened.
Unsplash, National Cancer Institute
16. Karma Is A Coming
I’ve had thoughts about my mother and stepfather dying ever since I was around 13. I would never actually act on those thoughts, but I’d be lying if I said they don’t still run through my mind often. They hurt me in a lot of ways starting when I was very young, and my stepfather mistreated me from ages 14 to 17. I believe they’ll have to answer for what they’ve done, one way or another.
17. A Last Wish
My girlfriend was in a long fight with cancer. I had been sleeping wherever I could for about a week, and in that fog, I didn’t realize how close she really was to the end. That’s when I made a terrible mistake.
I thought I could go home, get some rest, and come back. I woke up to her family crying, telling me she had passed during the night. The one thing she wanted when she died was for me to be there. Instead, I chose sleep. It’s still the biggest regret of my life.
18. Hidden Pain
When I was little, I hid inside a sofa bed and watched—terrified and crying, shaking with fear—as my young friend was beaten nearly to death by a parent. She had told me to hide and stay quiet because I wasn’t supposed to be in the house. If they found me, she said they would kill her.
As soon as her dad stopped and left the room, and I was sure he wasn’t coming back, I crawled out. I ran to her and couldn’t believe what I saw.
She was barely breathing and covered in blood. Even now, the memory of her still makes me cry and shake from fear and trauma. I called for help and ran to a nearby neighbor’s house. I’m sure I frightened them—I was covered in her blood and could barely get the words out. They called the police and made me stay there.
They carried her out in a black bag on a stretcher. I didn’t understand what that meant as a child. I found out when the officer told me.
19. Living A Lie
I grew up in a cult. My grandmother would take children from their parents and cut them off, making them fully dependent on her. She has been doing this for 45 years, and even at her age, she still hasn’t stopped. She’ll befriend a young woman who’s struggling and let that woman and her child move into her home.
They give her 90% of what they earn to “help with bills,” and eventually they get tired of it and leave for a women’s shelter or a friend’s place, taking the child with them. Then my grandmother calls, pleading with them to think about how that kind of life will affect their child.
A lot of the time, they end up letting the child stay with her, and they usually go back to the unhealthy life they were living before they met her. Child protective services is almost always involved, and they often open a case against the mother. The outcome is devastating. It often ends with my grandmother getting full custody.
When I was three, my parents had just moved out of her house in Texas and gone to Ohio. We were staying in a motel, and my dad worked there as a maintenance man to cover the cost. One day, he had a friend over and stepped outside to use the pay phone to order pizza. He left me with that friend for a moment while he did it.
That friend wanted my dad’s job and called the authorities, claiming child abandonment so my father would be arrested. My dad was only about a minute away, at a pay phone with a clear view of the motel room door. The police took me from my parents, and because my grandmother was the closest blood relative, they placed me with her.
Until I was 15, I was raised to believe my parents never loved me and that I was so mentally ill I needed medication in doses far beyond what was safe for a child. By age 10, I was expected to cook and clean. By 11, I was responsible for caring for two younger kids.
In the end, I found an old letter that had slipped behind a filing cabinet. It had a woman’s name on it that I didn’t recognize. Something in me told me to read it, so I did. It was from a woman whose child my grandmother had custody of. I kept reading.
The woman was begging my grandmother to let her see her child, just once. It had already been a year. Then I saw my own name in the letter, and it hit me all at once. I had never known my parents’ names, and suddenly I had a clue. Once I realized the story about my mother not loving me was a lie, I started wondering what else had been a lie too.
I messaged my mom on Facebook, and now, five years and six days after that life-changing moment, I’m living with both my mom and dad. Everything I thought I knew about my life before five years ago was false, and I still haven’t fully processed it.
20. Reunited
When I was 16, my parents got into a huge fight, which wasn’t unusual. During the argument, my dad kept shouting, “Why don’t you tell them?” Finally, through tears, my mom told my siblings and me the secret she had been carrying.
It turned out we had an older half-brother. My mom got pregnant at 16 and placed the baby for adoption. Later, I found out that my whole family already knew except for my siblings and me. My mom didn’t want to disrupt his life, so a few years later I looked him up on MySpace.
I was really nervous, but it ended up going well. He and my mom reconnected, and now he’s part of our lives.
21. One Night Oversight
I found out that I was conceived during an affair and that I was the reason both of my parents ended their marriages. Later, I learned the full story. My dad already had two kids with his wife and had been unsure about divorcing her. My mom was married too and living in Detroit with her husband, and that marriage was also having problems.
My parents worked together, met there, and started talking. On Valentine’s Day in 1988, they both got very drunk and apparently didn’t use protection, which is how I was conceived. After that, my mom finalized her divorce and moved out.
My dad, understandably, wasn’t welcomed back into his marriage either, so he moved back to my grandparents’ farm. At some point, when I was around two, he moved in with my mother and me, and he’s lived with us ever since.
The reason my paternity even came up is because my mother’s ex-husband is listed on my birth certificate. I have a great relationship with my half-brother and half-sister, and they don’t hold anything against me. Learning that you were unplanned is a lot to process, but I’m okay with it.
22. Conception Deception
My cousin is adopted, but for years it was kept a secret because she didn’t know. One day I was talking to my dad about it because I couldn’t believe she still had no idea. During that conversation, he accidentally let it slip that my older sister had been conceived using donor sperm. Then, after a pause, he added that I had been conceived the same way.
Our two younger siblings, though, were not, and they were completely unexpected. It turned out my older sister had known all along, but my mom had made both my sister and my dad promise not to tell me. I still don’t really know why I wasn’t supposed to know, but somehow they kept it secret until I was 22.
23. Staking A Claim
My father’s siblings and their families stopped talking to us after my grandmother passed away. I was always told they were just busy with work and their own lives and didn’t have time to get together like we used to. Whenever I happened to see them, I was always the one who said hi first and tried to catch up. Around the time I turned 18, I finally learned the real reason they cut us off.
When my grandmother was very sick and close to losing her house, they turned their backs on her. My father stepped in and tried to get his siblings to help save the house and cover her medical bills. They refused to help either her or my dad, so he ended up buying the house himself and fixing it up.
After my grandmother died, my father’s siblings suddenly wanted to claim their share of “Mom’s money,” even though they had done nothing to help her while she was alive and struggling. To this day, they still refuse to have anything to do with my father, mother, sister, or me.
24. Grandma’s Little Secret
I found out that the grandfather I grew up with was not my biological grandfather. I learned this in my early thirties, after he had already passed away. My grandmother told me the night of his wake that he had never gotten over being angry at the Catholic Church for refusing to marry them because she had been married before. I said, “Wait, what?”
She replied, “Oh, you didn’t know that Papa wasn’t your biological grandfather? I guess you learned something new about yourself today!” But that wasn’t the only surprise. I later found out that my grandmother’s first husband wasn’t my biological grandfather either. It turned out my mother was the result of an affair. I discovered that part through an Ancestry DNA test.
My biological grandfather and uncle had also taken the test, and they showed up as close relatives. My new uncle contacted me because he thought he had solved a mystery in his own family, and I asked my mom whether she knew anything about them. When my mom asked my grandmother, my grandmother finally told the truth. My biological grandfather hadn’t known either.
25. Saved By The Barn
My grandmother was the daughter of a state assemblyman, born outside of marriage. At first, I thought that was almost interesting, until I learned that he had listed her as deceased on her birth certificate. He probably never acknowledged her until her mother and sisters died, likely during a flu epidemic, and then he brought her into his home. There, she worked as a maid for him, his cruel wife, and their children.
Eventually, she met my grandfather at a barn dance and was finally able to leave that house. She became the sweetest, most generous small-town woman you could imagine. You never would have guessed she had such a hard life when she was young. She rarely talked about it, and I don’t think even her own children knew the full story until she was in her nineties, when someone in the extended family got interested in genealogy.
26. Switched At Birth
I found out that the people I believed were my parents were actually my grandparents. My birth mother—the person I grew up thinking was my oldest sister—had me when she was 14. She just wasn’t ready to raise a child, so my grandparents adopted me and brought me up as their own. They’re my mom and dad, and they always will be.
I was about ten when I learned the truth, and it came out in the worst possible way. My parents were in the middle of a huge fight. There had been drinking, and there was a lot of yelling. I was trying to get them to calm down and stop screaming at each other when my dad suddenly said, “Why don’t you go ask your real mother?” The way he said it was full of anger and pain. Then he walked out and left my mom and me to talk.
That was when my mom told me everything. She said there was even a night when my sister wanted so little to do with me that she left me on the doorstep and stepped right over me to go out. Apparently, the rest of my mom’s family didn’t support her decision to take me in, and because of that and a few other things, we moved across the country to start over.
We don’t really talk to that side of the family anymore, though not because of this. My “sister” had another child too—someone I thought was my nephew but is actually my half-brother. We were basically raised as brothers. We used to play with my action figures and make up huge storylines and characters that would last for days. I know my birth father’s name, but I don’t really want to meet him. I’ve been told he got around, and I probably have a few more half-brothers scattered around the country.
27. Endo Wasn’t The End
When my health started getting worse, I asked my mom if there was any family history of uterine health issues. She snapped at me and said, “I don’t know anyone who has severe pain with their periods. Maybe it’s just you.” Not long after that, I was pushed to move out, even though I couldn’t work regularly and was already struggling financially because of it.
A year later, my aunt told me she had endometriosis, and that one of their sisters had fibroids. She also told me about an aunt on my dad’s side who had dealt with a lot of cysts and endometriosis too. The aunt I was talking to is someone my dad really dislikes because of her health issues—he’s always seen her as weak and pathetic. That’s why no one stepped in to help me.
When I confronted my parents about keeping this from me, they said that if I needed help so badly, I could go talk to my aunts. Later, I was told I wasn’t allowed to bring up my health in the family home because it made my dad really angry. I’m still furious about it. I honestly can’t understand why they never told me.
28. An Emotional Wreck
Growing up, my single mother often took her anger out on her children physically. Because of that, I spent time with four different weekend foster families, two full-time foster families, two years at a boarding school, a couple of weeks living with my dad, and a couple of years at something called an efterskole, which is a kind of boarding school for finishing what’s basically high school.
As bad as all of that was, things got even harder after I became an adult and moved to a neighboring country to live with my girlfriend at the time. When she ended the relationship, I completely fell apart.
It’s been 14 years, and I still haven’t been able to build a relationship—with a woman as a friend or anything more. Whenever I start to get close to someone, something in me shuts it down. I pull away without even meaning to, like a reflex to protect myself.
After seeing a therapist, I found out I have rejection-related PTSD—not just because of my mother, but because of most of the female authority figures I had growing up. I don’t hate women. I’m just emotionally wounded in a way that makes trust feel impossible.
29. He Finally Got Exed Out
I’m glad my mom’s ex is gone. He made our lives miserable. He would regularly have violent outbursts, tear apart our apartment, and threaten my siblings and my mom. His family and friends all insisted he was harmless, but they also clearly didn’t want to deal with him themselves. One day, during another one of his meltdowns, my mom and siblings were hiding in my room.
I was bracing the door shut while he tried to force his way in, so I called the police. For years after that, he blamed me and often took it out on me. At one point, some boys in the neighborhood tried to hurt me, and when I brought it up, he convinced himself that I must have encouraged them and kept inviting them around. But it didn’t stop there.
I also had to help take care of him after he badly broke the bones in his arm and hand, because the visiting nurses refused to come to our house to manage his IV. I can only assume he treated them badly too.
30. The STD And Me
I ended up in the hospital after testing positive for syphilis. I went to a clinic to get treatment, and they told me to go to the ER because I was seeing flashes in my vision, which can be a sign of neurosyphilis. I’ve been telling friends and coworkers that I have a bad staph infection. My whole family works in medicine, and I’ve been too embarrassed to tell them the truth.
I couldn’t use the staph infection story with my family because they would’ve known something didn’t add up. So instead, I told them I had Covid and probably wouldn’t be around for about a week. Everyone in my family had recently had Covid except me, so it sounded believable. This was the first time I had ever been admitted to a hospital, and I had no idea that could happen when I went in.
I thought it would just be a quick outpatient visit and maybe another shot of penicillin, but I was very wrong. The neurology team got involved. I was terrified, and all I could think about was how badly I wanted to talk to my sister, who’s a doctor. But because syphilis is an STD, it’s not the kind of thing my family talks about.
My symptoms were only mildly annoying at most, but because my vision was involved, the doctors were treating it very seriously.
31. Cult Off From Mom And Dad
I grew up in a strict, charismatic evangelical group that was basically a cult. During an “exorcism” meant to cure my depression and suicidal thoughts, the pastor and several church members physically hurt me. It didn’t help. When I was 16 or 17, I was falling apart and made a terrible choice.
I tried to end my life. After the attempt failed, I spent night after night crying on the phone with helplines. I would often beg them not to send authorities, just to let me cry, because I knew it would only make things worse if they did.
One night, my sister, who was 14 or 15 then, found me after I cried so hard that I got sick. She asked if I was okay and comforted me. I still remember how kind she was, and she has always been my biggest support. Six years later, we both got away from our parents and the cult. I cut off contact completely, while my sister still speaks to them but keeps strong boundaries.
I’m 22 now, and I just had my first birthday without them. My sister baked me a cake, gave me a gift, and we had a small celebration, but I didn’t tell her that I felt sad the entire day. Not one person in my family wished me happy birthday. Even though I wanted distance, and there’s really no way for them to contact me, I still miss my parents.
Deep down, I still feel like a frightened kid who wants his mom and dad. I want my dad to tell me he’s proud of me, and I want my mom to say I’m fine just as I am and that she’ll love me no matter what. I used to rely heavily on substances, but I’ve been clean and sober for months. Still, when I think about everything, the cravings come back. I’m grateful I don’t know anyone to buy from.
32. Missing Mom
I miss my mom very much. She’s still alive, but she’s barely part of my life because she was deeply harmful throughout my childhood. After she threw me out, I moved in with my dad and didn’t speak to her for about a year. I talk to her again now because it’s easier with her living in another state, but it still doesn’t feel like enough.
I just want her to hug me, even though I know it would probably come with more pain later. Most of my childhood memories of her are bad, but there are a few good ones, and those are the ones I miss.
33. The Pieces Finally Fell Into Place
When I was a kid, I lived with my biological mom, and my dad would come stay with us for long stretches before going back home. I never questioned it because my mom always called him her boyfriend. I did think it was a little strange that they never got married.
I met my dad’s wife and knew right away that I didn’t like her, but I tried to get along with her so my dad wouldn’t yell at me. When I was nine, my biological mom abandoned my older sister and me at a motel. My dad came to get us and brought us to his house for the weekend. Eventually, he got custody of us.
As I grew up, I would hear my dad mention to his wife how long they’d been married and things like that, but I never really put it together. My dad and stepmom also had two older children who were already in their thirties and had kids of their own when I was 20.
In 11th grade, I sat down and started thinking through my family tree because too many things didn’t add up. That’s when I realized my dad had been having an affair with my mom while he was married to my stepmom, and that’s how I was born. Honestly, I finally understood why my stepmom and her family never liked me.
34. Peeping Papi
Apparently, my great-grandfather harassed his daughters and drilled holes in the walls to watch them while they changed or bathed. After he died, his house was condemned because it was structurally unsafe. He had drilled peepholes through the main support beams, and whenever the girls found one, they would stuff it with cloth or whatever they could.
Then he would just drill new ones during the night. It’s sadly not surprising that my grandmother—his daughter—ended up marrying someone just like him. My aunts never made it through high school without living through a real nightmare. My mom was old enough to fight him off and managed to leave after only a couple of years.
No one in the family ever talks about any of this. My mother told me one night after she’d been drinking.
Freepik, freepik
35. Damaging Denial
My cousin has Asperger’s, and only my immediate family is willing to admit it, even though it’s very obvious and clearly makes life harder for him. He’s in his mid-20s, has dropped out of college, lived in a state-supported apartment that he eventually lost, and at one point moved into a trailer park with a woman at least 15 years older than him and her young daughter.
He shows all the signs of Asperger’s, and my parents, who are psychologists, recognized it too. I really think his life would be easier if he could get proper help, because I know many people with Asperger’s are able to live stable, fulfilling lives. A few years ago, my dad tried to talk to my aunt about it, but she completely denied it and screamed at him.
36. Silence Isn’t Golden
On my mother’s side, there’s a long history of mental health struggles that we simply do not talk about. One of my cousins on that side had a serious case of depression. He ended up losing his job and his car. His family stepped in at least somewhat, but I never really found out what happened after that.
My uncle is the only one from that side of the family who comes to visit, so anything we hear is second-hand, and even then it’s barely brought up. My mother takes some kind of anxiety medication, which I only found out this year. She has never mentioned it, and I don’t think I was meant to know.
Considering my father’s views on depression and mental illness—he thinks depression is just a modern idea caused by people not being busy enough—I was surprised that my mother actually saw someone, got a diagnosis, and was prescribed medication. But that isn’t even the biggest family secret.
Apparently my maternal grandfather once received electroconvulsive therapy. I only know this because my mother mentioned it once, by accident, while wondering whether my cousin and her father might have had the same condition.
I suspect he may have had severe depression and PTSD after World War II, but I’ll probably never know for sure since he has passed away, and it’s not something anyone in the family will discuss. It could have been interesting to hear his firsthand stories from the war, but as far as I know, he took them with him.
There’s probably more I don’t know, but no one talks about any of it, so I’m left guessing. I can tell a doctor that one side of my family has diabetes and the other has high blood pressure, but when it comes to mental illness, I’m mostly piecing things together on my own.
37. He Was Written Off
I found out at my grandmother’s funeral that she had a brother no one ever mentioned. My family is small and close, and I had never even heard that he existed.
Apparently he lives in Florida and writes conspiracy theory books about reptilian aliens in the government. So, it turns out there’s a published author in my family.
38. He Turned It Around
I had an uncle who was very successful. He taught industrial art design at a well-known school in a major city, had a nice little house downtown, and was basically one of the kindest, coolest people you could meet. He never had a harsh word for anyone and always focused on staying positive.
One day, I noticed that when his watch slid up, he had a tiny “J” tattoo on his wrist. I asked him about it, and he immediately shut down, said it was nothing, and walked away. I was stunned, because he had never acted cold toward me before.
Later I asked my mother about it, and she told me that when he was younger, he had been in a gang. Apparently things became serious, and after one of his close friends lost his life, he left that life behind and committed himself to doing better—which he did.
He threw himself into school, focused on woodworking and metalworking, and eventually became very successful.
39. Got To Be Hiding Something
For years, I felt like there was something about my family that I didn’t know. I couldn’t explain why, but the feeling was always there. I would mention it to my mom now and then, but she always told me I was imagining things. Then years later, after my cousin died in a drunk driving accident, my mom told me she needed to tell me something.
It turned out the man I believed was my biological father wasn’t. Someone else was. I was in my early twenties and handled it pretty calmly. My dad had apparently thought I would completely lose it, and he was relieved that I didn’t. What really shocked me, though, was that everyone in my family had known—my aunts, uncles, older cousins, all of them.
The fact that they kept that secret so completely for so many years was honestly unsettling.
40. Dark Cloud Over Sunny Skies
I’ve always hated having my picture taken. I never really understood why until I asked my mom why she left her second husband after my dad. After crying for an hour, she told me he had gone to prison for distributing explicit photos.
Over the next few years, painful memories started coming back, and I was devastated. Eventually, I tracked him down. He was living in Michigan. I went to see him, walked in, and demanded that he tell me everything. I was shocked by how open he was.
By then, he said he was a changed person and wanted my forgiveness. He told me he used to make hundreds of dollars per photo and used the money to support his addiction. I did not forgive him, and I never will. The worst part was hearing that he had even given me a special name: “Sunny.”
41. Too Close For Comfort
I went on a road trip with a family friend. He was a little over a year older than me, and we had really connected about six months earlier on another last-minute road trip. Growing up, we hadn’t spent much time together, except for one time in high school when we fooled around a little.
This trip was supposed to be from Billings, Montana, to Washington, DC, so we were looking at about 30 hours on the road. I was also planning to stay there a few days before flying back. I called my parents to share the news, and my mom said something that completely stunned me.
She told me, “Don’t sleep with him,” in a way that made it obvious there was more behind it. That’s when I found out he was my half-brother. His dad and my mom had an affair while both were married, and I was the result. They had never told anyone—not me, not my grandparents, not the man who raised me—no one.
They expected me to keep it from my brother, which made things even more awkward because he was kind of my type, and we had flirted before on that earlier trip. This happened about fifteen years after I found out about another half-brother who was born slightly after my parents got married, but before their relationship was really established.
So the brother I grew up with, who I thought was my full sibling, is actually my half-brother. The one I thought was my half-brother is actually my stepbrother. And the guy I once made out with in high school turned out to be my half-brother too.
It all worked out in the end, but it made for some very uncomfortable moments before I finally told my newly discovered brother the truth. I also learned that both of my parents had cheated on each other multiple times. Even so, they’re still married, seem to genuinely love each other now, and somehow managed to raise fairly well-adjusted kids.
42. No Holding Back
As far back as I can remember, my grandmother on my dad’s side had already passed away, and no one ever really explained what happened. Then, when I was a teenager, I started asking my dad about his life and what his childhood had been like. That’s when I learned my grandfather slept with just about any woman he could charm.
Having a wife and five children didn’t stop him. My grandmother fell into a deep depression because of it, though apparently no one understood how bad it had gotten until it was too late.
After one fight between her and my grandfather, her oldest daughter drove her to a cabin they owned in Canada, about a hundred miles from home, and left her there with no money, no phone, and no way to get back. The result was devastating. She took her own life.
Years later, people began to suspect that the two oldest daughters had been taking money from my grandfather while he had Alzheimer’s. When my dad found out, he froze the account. Two weeks later, the younger of the two took her own life, and her body was found by her two teenage children.
At that aunt’s funeral, while her daughter was grieving at the coffin, the oldest aunt didn’t offer comfort. Instead, she offered prescription pills to a 16-year-old girl. No one in the family has spoken to her since.
43. Caught Between A Rock And A Hard Place
I’ve had the same best friend since I was 16; we met in high school. When we were 19, she met the man she would later marry. Before long, I actually became closer to him than to my best friend. We formed a deep bond that felt more like brother and sister. My best friend had cognitive disabilities and a lot of anxiety, so I often vented to him because he was simply easier to talk to. Then he died from leukemia.
I stepped up and helped my best friend through everything that followed. I organized the memorial service, paid for the cremation, and tried to be a steady support for her, even though I was falling apart inside. I don’t trust people easily, and her husband was one of the very few people I felt I could tell anything.
Losing him hit me hard, and I had nowhere to put that grief because the person I would have talked to about it was him, and he was gone. It was an incredibly complicated kind of loss.
44. My Plan Backfired
During a manic episode, I did something I never thought I would do. I was carrying so much anger and sadness that I let a homeless man lead me into a ditch behind a church because I hoped he would kill me. He didn’t. Instead, he used illegal substances, showed me pictures of his girlfriends, and talked to me pleasantly for a while. I think he was just lonely.
45. The Mistakes Of Youth
I was the family secret. My biological parents started having children when they were teenagers. When my biological mother became pregnant with me, she was 21, and I was going to be their fourth child. They realized they needed to change their lives. They were already struggling financially and dealing with serious substance abuse problems, among other issues, so they had to make a painful choice.
They decided to place me for adoption as a baby. I was adopted pretty quickly by a loving family who lived only about an hour from the city where I was born. By coincidence, I ended up going back to that same city for college. During my sophomore year, I decided to try to find my biological family. I learned that my biological parents had separated soon after I was born.
My biological mother still goes in and out of prison, but my biological father was able to turn his life around. He got sober, remarried, started attending church, and built a stable career. He had told his new wife about me when they first met, but none of his children knew I existed. My siblings had no idea about me.
With the help of the internet, I found his work number and called him. He later told me that the moment I said, “Hi, this might be really weird, but…,” he knew it was me. Apparently, ever since I turned 18, he and his wife had been quietly waiting for me to reach out. They knew someday I probably would. That night, they sat my siblings down and told them about me. It was awkward at first, but now I’m 25, and my dad and I have built a pretty strong relationship.
46. They Put Education First
My parents changed my birth certificate and kept my real birth date from me until I was a teenager. When I was almost old enough for kindergarten, they realized I had missed the cutoff by two weeks. I was born on September 15, and the cutoff was September 1. To them, that was unacceptable because they believed I was ready, and another year of preschool—starting kindergarten when I was nearly six—felt too late.
They photocopied my birth certificate, used Wite-Out to cover the five in 15, made another copy of the altered version, and brought it to a family friend who notarized it for a decent amount of money. The elementary school never realized it was fake, so I started school early. After that, they celebrated my birthday on the first so I wouldn’t accidentally give away the secret as a kid.
I didn’t learn the truth until I was 15 and applying for my learner’s permit. Since forging documents is obviously illegal, especially for something involving a license, my mom handed me my paperwork and the real birth certificate on the way to the DMV and just waited for my reaction. It was a pretty big shock, and even 16 years later, I still quietly wish myself a happy birthday on my unofficial birthday.
As for school, no one ever found out. I ended up being homeschooled in high school anyway and later got my GED. I also learned, by overhearing a conversation, that when I was 14 my mom didn’t actually have knee surgery—she had chest augmentation. She went from very small to very large, so it wasn’t exactly subtle. It was probably the worst-kept secret ever. I still laugh thinking about her pretending to limp around with an Ace bandage on her knee when it was really her chest that hurt.
47. Sacrilegious Secret
My very religious mom was already three months pregnant when she got married. She never exactly hid it—I just didn’t put the timeline together until I was around 20. She mentioned that her 22nd anniversary was coming up, and I said, “Don’t you mean your 23rd?” She just replied, “No… my 22nd.” The talk my grandmother gave her was basically, “No one will want to marry you if you aren’t a virgin.”
My mom figured that since she was already engaged, that warning didn’t really matter. Her mother was upset and didn’t speak to her for a while. Her father, who was a deacon, had a much calmer response: “Well, you aren’t the first, and you definitely won’t be the last, so it is what it is.”
48. The Second Time Around
My dad is my mom’s second husband. Her first marriage wasn’t exactly a secret, but it was never talked about around my siblings and me, so it basically faded into the background. When I eventually figured it out and asked her, she told me she had married very young through an arranged marriage, following Asian tradition. Her in-laws were strict and controlling, and she felt deeply unhappy. She wanted more from life than simply becoming a housewife. She eventually divorced, went abroad to study, and that’s where she met my dad. They’ve now been happily married for nearly 21 years.
49. Fallen Idol
My grandfather had an affair with an English woman in 1941 while he was studying there, and he fathered a daughter with her. Sadly, he showed his true character when he left them both and returned home. Eighteen years after he died, my aunt, grandmother, and mother discovered the truth after my aunt noticed the daughter in a photograph. They got in touch with her, and both sides confirmed that they were connected through my grandfather. She said he abandoned her and her mother and never tried to contact them again. It was heartbreaking because I had always admired my grandfather, and learning this really changed how I saw him.
50. This Secret Was Buried
I was lied to about what happened to the cat I had when I was around 14 to 16. My family told me he had probably run away. At that age, I was more than capable of handling the truth. I only found out about a month ago that my grandpa—who lived across the street from us—had accidentally run him over. They buried him in his backyard. My cousin let it slip while we were talking about my mom getting a new pet.
51. Two-Sided Tale
The secret that was kept from me was that my biological father was actually a genuinely good, decent man. My mom always told me awful things about him, like that he had tried to hurt us, and that her brothers wanted to “take him out into the woods.” She also said he left because he couldn’t handle me and that he got frustrated with me when I was learning to pull myself up on furniture.
She painted him as a monster for not paying child support and for suddenly cutting contact after he remarried and had more children. Meanwhile, I cried myself to sleep for years because I wanted a dad, not the terrible man she married later. I kept asking why my letters to my real dad were never answered—most likely because she never mailed them.
I grew up with a huge fear of being unwanted, and my mother only made it worse. She made it very clear that she saw me as the biggest mistake of her life, and she still says that even now. She is the definition of a damaging parent. I always wanted to reach out to my dad, but I was too afraid. When I finally did, I was overjoyed. My mom kept prying, trying to find out what we were saying, because she knew the truth was coming out.
I ended up asking my maternal grandmother some questions to confirm what was true, since what I was hearing was completely different from what I had been told growing up. That was when she finally explained the full, painful truth. It turned out my dad had desperately wanted to stay in my life. He even offered to pay my mom’s rent so he could live next door. He tried many times to contact me and sent gifts that I never received.
My paternal grandmother played a huge role in all of this. For some reason, my mother allowed me to stay in touch with her and even fly out to visit her. There must have been some kind of agreement to keep my father at a distance, because he was never talked about. Still, in her will, she wrote that I was to receive a certain amount of money from my father’s share of the inheritance.
She didn’t leave anything like that for the other grandchildren. The angel she was, she was making one last effort to bring us back together. So I flew out for my paternal grandmother’s funeral and met my dad for the first time. His wife and my aunt told me again and again how incomplete he had felt without me, how deeply he had wanted me in his life, and how he always said there was a huge emptiness in his heart because I wasn’t there.
They were able to say the things we were both too emotional to say ourselves. My mom should have known that the sudden end of child support and contact meant something was very wrong. She should have reached out to find out what was happening. Maybe she did. He had been trapped in a very difficult situation when his then-wife was struggling mentally and wanted him completely out of my life.
He used a secret account and payphones so he could send what he did. He really tried, and he went far beyond what most people would have done. My maternal grandmother knew the truth. All of this came out when I was around 27 or 28. Now I know everything. It has changed how I see a lot of things. Unfortunately, that deep fear of being unwanted is still rooted in me, and I still struggle socially. As it turns out, my dad’s side of the family feels like where I truly belong. I wish I could erase my mother and keep the rest of her side of the family.
52. A Semi-Truth
My wife and I were talking one day about the pets we had as kids. When I told her how hard it was when my beloved dog had to be put down, it got her thinking. Every one of her childhood dogs, she had been told, was killed by a semi. On the surface, a dog getting loose and being hit by a semi-truck didn’t seem impossible. But then it suddenly hit her that her childhood home was out in the country, down a long gravel road.
The nearest highway was nowhere close. So she decided that the next time she talked to her dad, she would ask what had really happened. She was an adult now, after all, and could handle the truth that a seven-year-old couldn’t. But the truth was darker than she ever expected. Her dad just smiled slightly and said, “Oh honey, I never lied to you. Your childhood dogs really were hit by a semi... a semi-automatic.”
Freepik,wayhomestudio
53. A Friendly Goodbye
I hate my friends, and I think I’ve always hated certain parts of them. I’ve tried so hard to change the way I think and act because they don’t deserve that, but I just can’t stand being around people. Their quirks and their laughter irritate me, and their emotional needs feel too heavy for me to carry. I have no interest in the things they enjoy or even the foods they like.
The jokes they laugh at seem pointless to me, and I’m exhausted from pretending I enjoy spending time with them. I’m about to move out after being very close to all of them for the last two years, and I couldn’t be happier. I’m better off keeping this weight away from people who don’t deserve it.
54. College Dreams
I used to fantasize about getting involved with the wealthy college guy who rented a room in my family’s house. He was a varsity player on my grandpa’s college football team, and because his mom had moved to Australia, he needed somewhere to stay. About a year or two ago, I found out from my uncle that he moved to Australia too, not long after one of my uncles caught him using steroids.
55. Danke Shame
My great-aunt ran away with an American serviceman years ago. She had been engaged and was on a pre-wedding trip to Germany with her fiancé when she met an American and left with him. She made her fiancé travel home alone and tell the family that she had eloped. My family cut her off completely and never spoke to her again.
Then, years later, when she was older, she came back home with no money, while her children stayed in the U.S. She wanted to live with her widowed mother, who was surviving on a very small pension. In a strange turn of events, no one knows what happened to her after her mother died. I learned all of this at a family gathering.
56. Something’s Buggy
My friends, roommates, and family know I’m afraid of bugs, but they don’t realize just how intense it is. Honestly, it’s probably closer to a real phobia. A few weeks ago, a mosquito got stuck in my room for several days. I saw it more than once, and it kept biting me while I slept. Even though I know better, I started losing sleep, convincing myself I had bedbugs even though I didn’t.
Still, my reaction was way too extreme. I’ve been vacuuming my mattress, washing my sheets constantly, and doing nonstop, exhausting inspections. Worst of all, when I’m tired, I feel like bugs are crawling on me even though I know nothing is there. It’s been genuinely miserable, and it’s starting to affect how I function day to day.
I’m rational enough to look at the facts, and I’ve finally accepted that there are no bedbugs. I’m embarrassed to tell anyone because I worry they’ll think I’m losing it, even though I’m not. I do deal with anxiety sometimes, and I think bugs bring out the absolute worst of it in me.
57. Spam Of A Lifetime
I found out my dad had been married before he met my mom, and that my brother and I had a half-sister. I learned this because my sister found me on MySpace. My mom says she knew about the marriage, but not that there had been a daughter. One day, I got a MySpace message asking me some personal questions. I assumed it was spam and ignored it.
Then another message came in that seemed more personal, so I paid attention. I politely told the person to leave me alone. That’s when she said she thought we might be related. I actually laughed because it sounded like a pretty good prank, and for a moment it really had me wondering. The strange part was that she was clearly Asian, and I’m not.
After several messages back and forth, she asked if she could call me. I thought, “Why not? At the very least, this might entertain me a little at work, and I can see where this goes.” I assumed she’d eventually ask me for money, but that’s not what happened. When she called, she knew my name, my brother’s name, my mom’s name, and most importantly, my estranged father’s name. I barely knew my dad, so that immediately caught my attention.
Her voice sounded oddly familiar, though I couldn’t figure out why. It turned out my father had been in the Army overseas, where he met a local woman. They fell in love, moved back to the US, got married, had a child, and later divorced. His ex-wife and daughter moved back overseas, and then he met my mom and followed almost the exact same path, eventually having my brother and me.
The problem was that he never told my mom anything beyond the fact that he’d been married once before. We had no idea our sister existed, and because of the divorces, we barely knew anyone on that side of the family. Years later, my sister returned to the US for school. Her family told her she had two younger brothers living in the same city as her. As time passed and she started a family of her own, she wanted to find us, so she searched on MySpace and Facebook until she finally did.
As if discovering I had a sibling during a work break wasn’t enough, she also connected me with my paternal grandmother, whom I hadn’t heard from since I was a toddler. Later that same day, near the end of my shift, I called the number my sister gave me. An elderly woman with a Southern accent answered. I said hello and introduced myself.
Before I could say anything more, she said, “I love you so much. I never stopped thinking about you and your brother, and I always prayed I’d get this phone call.” That moment was the start of my relationship with my sister, her family, and my father’s side of the family—my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Even though we live thousands of miles apart, we share so many of the same traits, features, and little mannerisms that it’s impossible not to notice.
58. A Family’s Funeral Foible
When my grandpa died, we handled all the usual funeral arrangements, including placing an obituary in the local paper. Not long after the funeral, something really strange happened: a second obituary for him appeared in the same paper, written by completely different people. Naturally, we were confused.
I was about ten when this happened, but from what I remember, my grandpa had been married before and had children with another woman before he married my nana. I assume she knew, but they never told my dad.
That other family was upset with us for not telling them he had died or inviting them to the funeral, but we had no idea they even existed.
59. Suspicious Lineage
My great-grandfather owned a bar in Atlanta before Prohibition. At some point, he decided to get into the liquor wholesale business and asked the other bar owners in town if they’d buy from him. They all said yes, so he put all his money into wholesaling.
When the time came, not one of them bought from him, because he was apparently such a complete jerk that people couldn’t stand doing business with him. He went broke, and after Prohibition passed, he became an agent and helped send those bar owners to jail. Then he killed several men and somehow got away with it.
So yes, I come from a long line of difficult people, shady rule-breakers, and sharp dressers.
60. Finding Happiness Among The Ashes
I was four years old, and my mom was pregnant with my baby sister. Everything was ready for her arrival. Relatives had given us clothes, her room and crib were set up, and everyone in the family—from aunts to uncles—was excited for her birth. But because of complications, my sister died a few days after she was born.
My mom remembers that while she was crying, I went up to her and said, “Everything will be okay, Mom.” They told me that story years later. Growing up, I always saw a photo of my baby sister and a lock of her hair displayed, but I never asked what had happened.
When I was 25, I lost my job and my home, and I was deeply depressed. One day, trying to get moving again, I decided to clean out the garage. I found the usual stuff we always kept there, but this time I noticed a box I had never seen before, so I opened it.
Inside was everything saved from the year before my sister Danielle was supposed to be born—congratulation cards, baby clothes she was meant to wear, even an angry letter my mom had written to the doctors that apparently was never sent. Then I found a plastic bag.
It contained her cremated ashes. I held it and cried for ten minutes. I’ve never told anyone this story, and I still haven’t asked my parents about that box. But I wanted to honor Danielle, so I designed a tattoo and had a close friend place it on my chest over my heart.
After that day, I decided life was too short to keep waiting. I told my parents I was moving across the country to live and work in a city that made me happy.
61. I Wasn’t Playing It Safe
When I was a kid, I got interested in learning how to pick locks. One time, when I was about 10 or 11, I managed to open my father’s safe in the bedroom and found a disassembled 9mm and a box of ammunition. Being foolish, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to put it together. I actually managed to assemble it, and then a friend came by to hang out. We went out into the woods planning to shoot at birds and whatever else we could find. It was an incredibly dangerous situation.
At one point, the gun didn’t fire. We assumed it was empty. My friend was looking at it, and at different moments the barrel was pointed at him and at me. He said we must have gone through all the rounds and handed it back. While we were passing it between us, a loud bang suddenly broke the silence.
The gun fired into the ground. One of us could easily have been killed or seriously injured, far away from help. I’ve been frightened of guns ever since. I got caught because I had scratched the gun while trying to get enough leverage to put it together. I accepted the punishment without complaint and knew my friend and I were incredibly lucky.
My father was a good man, and he handled it the right way. Once he realized I could get to it, he got rid of it, and that probably saved my life a few years later. There was a time when I went looking for it because I wanted to end my life, and it was gone. I’ve been grateful for that ever since.
62. Hard Act To Follow
My friend keeps talking about how many Twitch followers he has and how much he’s growing as a streamer and all that. But there’s something he has no idea about.
Most of those followers and viewers are actually me. He was feeling really down because nobody was watching, so I used a Google Workspace account and a bunch of aliases to make Twitch accounts that would follow and watch him.
Now it’s gotten way out of hand, and he keeps bragging about how many viewers and subscribers he has. I don’t know what to do, because before I created all those accounts, he was pretty depressed, and I’m worried he’ll feel that way again if I slowly stop.
63. More Than Meets The Eye
When I was about six or seven years old, I stole a Transformer toy from a small local store. This was in France in the 1980s. My mom would leave me at the store while she ran errands. Back then, that wasn’t seen as bad parenting—people regularly left kids alone in stores or cars.
I had been looking at this Transformer for a while and really wanted it because they were hugely popular then. We weren’t poor, but my parents didn’t buy me toys just because I wanted them. Toys were for Christmas, birthdays, or a really good report card. So I knew my mom wouldn’t buy it, even if I begged. I had already tried.
I noticed the store was nearly empty and that the owner was behind the register. No one was close to me, and since I was only about four feet tall, nobody had a clear view over the aisles. That was the moment I gave in to temptation.
I decided I was going to take it. I had never really stolen anything before—maybe a crayon from school, but nothing like this. It cost around $8 or $10, which felt like a lot back then, especially to a kid. It was winter, and I had on a big puffy coat. The toy came in a box, though, not the thin cardboard packaging most action figures had.
I couldn’t just stuff the whole box into my jacket because it was too big. And since it was a small store, they probably only had one or two of each toy, so I thought they’d notice right away if one disappeared. So I carefully opened the box with my small fingers and managed to slip the toy out while constantly checking whether anyone was coming.
My heart was pounding like I was pulling off some huge robbery. I slowly slid it into my coat pocket. The toy was fairly large, so I had to make sure nothing was sticking out. I put the empty box back on the shelf and hid it behind other toys. The whole thing probably took 30 seconds, but it felt much longer. Then I still had to stay there and act normal.
I had to wait for my mom to come back, and I had no idea how long that would be. I was stuck at the scene. I wandered around the store, avoided eye contact, stayed away from the boys’ section, and suddenly acted interested in Barbies instead. I was sweating.
I knew the toy was in my pocket, but I didn’t dare touch it because I didn’t want to draw attention. I didn’t even want to look down. Then I saw another kid heading toward the Transformers, and I thought he was going to find the empty box. Luckily, he looked at something else. Finally, my mom came through the door. I wanted to hurry outside, but I had to stay calm.
She started asking questions like, “I wasn’t gone too long, was I? Did you see anything you liked?” Normally I would have dragged her over to show her what I wanted, but this time I just said, “No, we can go.” Once I got outside and no one came after me, I felt relieved. I put my hands in my pockets and could feel the toy there, but I still wasn’t in the clear.
I had to wait until we got home. When we got there, she hung up my coat, so I had to sneak back later and get it when she wasn’t paying attention. I locked myself in my room and played with it all day. After that, I hid it at the bottom of my toy box whenever I was done. I kept that up for a few days, then slowly got less careful.
One day, my dad saw me playing with it and asked where I got it, because he didn’t remember buying it. I made up a story about trading for it with a kid at school, and he just said, “Oh, okay.” He didn’t think much of it. I avoided that store for nearly a year after that. I told my mom I’d rather go with her to the farmers market, which made her happy.
That childhood secret stayed with me for months.
64. Survival Tactics
My dad was the one who uncovered the painful truth about our family history. He found out that my grandfather had survived the Holocaust. My grandfather was from what is now the Czech Republic, and after World War II he moved to the United States and raised my dad and his siblings as Christians. My dad had no idea that my grandfather was Jewish, much less that he had survived the Holocaust. Then one day, when my dad was in his mid-twenties, he was walking across his college campus and one of my grandfather’s friends recognized him and told him about our family’s past. My grandfather had kept it hidden because he wanted to protect his family and build a successful life in America.
65. Mystery Solved
Both of my parents had been married before they married each other. My mom had even lived in Oklahoma City for about two years with the man who would later become her ex-husband. After moving back to our area, she lived next door to one of my friend’s parents before her divorce.
My dad had a daughter from his first marriage, but whenever I saw pictures of her and me, I was told she was the daughter of one of his firefighter friends. When I was about 11, a new family moved into my neighborhood, and they had two sons close to my age who became my best friends.
Their dad had worked at one of the local fire departments with my dad before any of us were born, back when my dad was still married to his first wife. After a while, one of my friends asked me about my other sister and my dad’s first marriage. I thought he was joking, because he was always messing around.
So I didn’t believe him when he brought up this mystery sister and marriage. But eventually I found out my dad really did have this hidden part of his past. About a year later, in middle school, I met the boy whose parents had lived next door to my mom after she moved back from Oklahoma City with the husband she was about to leave.
One day my mom drove me to his house so we could play video games. I gave her the address and told her he said his house was hard to find. But she didn’t need to search at all—it was like she already knew exactly where it was. His mom and my mom greeted each other like old friends.
My mom told me she was a friend from high school and that they had worked together. My friend’s mom knew all about my mom’s earlier life. Once all these pieces started coming together, they sat down and told me and my sister, who was almost too young to understand.
My mom’s husband was always off golfing or bowling, and they never got along. So one day she packed her things, moved back in with my grandparents, and filed for divorce the next day. My dad’s first wife divorced him because he had been unfaithful, and he later allowed her new husband to adopt my half-sister.
We had even gone to the same elementary school for two years.
66. Tracing The Steps To Her Illness
My mom’s youngest sister died from epilepsy when she was 21—or at least that’s what I always believed. But on New Year’s Eve, my mom told my cousin and me how it all started. When my aunt was about two and a half, she fell down an entire flight of stairs and only missed the very last step. She ended up with a deep cut across her forehead, from one temple to the other, and my grandfather closed it with butterfly bandages.
The damage showed up right away. She was never quite the same after that, and by the time she was 15, she started having seizures. My grandfather thought she was using drugs, but she wasn’t. She was seriously ill. I also learned that somewhere along the way, she had a child and placed the baby for adoption.
67. Religious Freedom
A great-uncle of mine, who has since passed away, was involved in a major legal case that went all the way to the Supreme Court and ended up setting a legal precedent. Years later, the story was even used as inspiration for a Sopranos plot. I found this out while researching my family history online, trying to trace our immigration background so I could apply for Polish citizenship and gain the right to live and work in Europe.
My great-uncle was an Orthodox Jew living in the U.S. When he married, he and his wife made a binding agreement that if they ever divorced, they would also complete the religious divorce process in a synagogue. Without that, Jewish law would still consider them married, and neither of them could remarry within the faith.
After 22 years, they divorced through the civil courts. But my great-uncle refused to go through with the religious divorce, which left his wife stuck in a painful kind of legal and spiritual limbo. She met someone else she wanted to marry, but she couldn’t have a Jewish wedding unless the divorce was finalized religiously. So she took him to court to force him to grant the divorce.
68. Hoping For A Happy Ending
My grandmother recently died. At her wake, a woman I had never met before showed up and spent a long time talking with my uncle—the same uncle who, at 62, had never married. Ever since I was old enough to understand what being gay meant, I had assumed he was and just never felt comfortable being open about it because of my grandmother. So I figured this woman must be a close friend or something. I was glad to find out the real story.
It turns out she was my uncle’s first love. They met many years ago, he fell in love with her, and wanted to marry her. But when he told my grandmother, she refused to allow it because the woman was Jewish and we weren’t, so he ended the relationship. More than 40 years later, they were still close—and she never married either.
So not only is my uncle apparently not gay, he also seems incredibly committed to holding onto the past. Now instead of secretly hoping he has a partner somewhere, I’m hoping the two of them—after waiting all this time—might finally get to be happy together.
69. Glad He’s Gone
I hate admitting this, but I felt relieved when my dad took his own life. He had serious mental health struggles, but he was also deeply unkind and caused my family and me a great deal of pain for many years. Because of that, I live with mixed emotions all the time.
I feel sad that he suffered so much and caused so much suffering for other people, but I also feel relieved that it’s over—and if I’m being honest, I don’t miss him at all.
70. Mother Of Pearl! Where Did This Come From?
When I was a kid, I always admired a beautiful nightstand my grandmother kept in her house. It had mother-of-pearl inlay and very detailed carving. Recently, she developed dementia and came to live with us.
During one of her episodes, she began talking about living in Germany during World War I. Then, at the start of World War II, she was working for a Jewish furniture maker. One day, he suddenly disappeared.
Some officers came to the shop and told her and several other young women that they could choose whatever pieces they wanted. That’s when I realized the nightstand I had always loved was furniture taken during the Holocaust.
71. Keeping An Eye On The Lie
I have three stepchildren; their mother and I are engaged, not married, but we have all lived together for two years now. Their father is a real jerk and a complete hypocrite. He has a son who used to be a corrections officer. This son, who at 42 is my stepchildren's half-brother, is in the slammer for holding up not one but two places to fund his addictions.
Their father keeps telling the kids that their half-brother "is one state over and that they have to keep an eye on their brother's dog for a while". He mentions nothing about the why and that they probably won't see him for another 10 to 20 years.
72. Brother From Another Mother
My grandmother's brother got a girl pregnant when he was a teen. Her parents shipped her off to Ontario to avoid any shame for the rest of the family. She had a son, and he had nothing to do with them. My great-uncle then got married and had six children, five girls, and one boy.
Several years ago, his son was visiting my now-late great-grandmother, who was suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's. He made a joke about being the only boy in the family, and she said, "Oh, well there was that [illegitimate] boy, but we don't talk about him".
That’s how my cousin learned about his older half-brother from Ontario who he would never get to meet.
73. Keeping It All On The Down Lo
My wife’s uncle has three complete families with 12 kids between them, now all adults. This just came to light a few years ago, and it was quickly hushed up. His official wife refuses to acknowledge that they even exist. I don't know what his other two "wives" think as I've never met them. However, my family is even more bizarre.
My grandmother had a child from a fling she had with a traveling migrant farm worker. She gave him up for adoption, and the whole thing was hushed up. Then, she married a guy who ended up being the mayor of our hometown and a community business leader. They had three kids, one of which was my mom.
As an adult, my aunt met a man and married him. It turned out he was her brother. They are still married and have four kids. My uncle and I are the only ones who know. It turned out my great-grandparents took my grandmother away so no one would know she was pregnant.
74. Onion Bread Sticks
My parents regularly made onion bread sticks for my great-grandparents. For someone not aware, it’s bread cut into strips and onion soup mix mixed in butter and slathered on before baking until crispy. And that's where this story takes a dark turn.
We found out after both had passed that my great grandma always kept one from each batch and hid it away in a Ziploc. She’d repeat until full and then start a new Ziploc. This went on for ten years. We visited every other month. Imagine finding 60 of those in varying states of decay.
75. A Bond Between Brothers
So, about 40 years ago, my dad’s baby brother was in a BAD accident. He was driving a big rig through Alberta, and the stretch of highway he was on was raised up above the land around it. His cab ended up on one side of the road, his trailer on the other. He had to be air-lifted to the hospital. He was in a coma for days.
He couldn’t walk for a while after he woke up, but couldn’t remember he couldn’t walk, so kept trying to get out of his wheelchair and falling flat on his face—it was BAD.
My dad and their parents flew in from BC to be there for him. He pulled through, though had some minor brain damage. Went on to become a teacher, moved to Japan, got married, and had a couple of kids. Seven years ago, he went for a walk on New Year’s Day, but he never came home.
They found his body on the hiking trail. He’d had an aneurysm.
After his memorial service, my dad and I were staying up late into the night talking over some drinks. And the topic of his accident came up. Now, the first time I’d heard about the accident, I was a curious 10-year-old that had just noticed one of his pupils was bigger than the other. So I’d asked about it, and he told me the story over ice cream.
So when my dad brought up his hospital stay, I told him what I remembered being told: that when he finally woke up from his coma, he was alone in the room, but the room felt like my dad, and he knew he’d been there for him. My dad doubled over sobbing. He’d never known.
76. Withdrawn Cousin
My cousin hadn’t totally withdrawn and become reserved like I thought. It was just around family. I had no clue what was going on behind closed doors.
His narcissistic mother forced him to hide his tattoos (which I also found out about when he was admitted to the hospital) under long sleeves, and our (also narcissistic) grandfather snapped at him when he was younger that he talked too much and was annoying. So my cousin just shut down and didn’t do much at family gatherings.
He was his normal, joking self that I knew and idolized as a kid when he was with his friends, though. It broke my heart.
77. Third-Party Adoption
I found out that my cousin is adopted, and her "mom" isn't even my uncle's first wife. My uncle couldn't have kids of his own, so his original wife left him. As a single man in Korea, he adopted his friend's sixth daughter because his friend didn't want another girl. He married another woman shortly before coming to America. We're all adults now, and this came out fairly recently when her "step-mom" got angry and, while ranting, alluded to the fact she was adopted. It was a pretty crazy revelation.
78. My Family Was Faking It
A few Christmases ago, I overheard my mom and aunts talking about how the family thought I was a problem child and had made the worst mistakes. I was about 23 or 24 at the time. In my eyes, my family had always been extremely supportive and loving toward me. So, it was a horrifying shock to hear that they all thought I was the worst of all seven kids and cousins.
I don't know if it was because I was extremely depressed around the age of 19 or if they just had high hopes for me that I didn't live up to. I am a relatively skilled artist and pretty smart, but I never finished college, and maybe they thought I'd be some bigwig by now or something, I don’t know. I am a happy, functioning adult in a nine-year relationship and have a job I actually love. I guess if that's not good enough for them then it's their problem. It definitely changed how I view my whole family, though.
79. The Truth Was In The Picture
I found out that my grandma was actually my step-grandma. When I was about 14, I was looking at an old picture of my father as a toddler with his mother and said, "Hmm, that doesn't look like grandma". My mother then told me that my dad's mother passed when she was in her forties. One would think maybe Dad would've brought that up at some point in my life, but he didn’t.
I wasn’t lacking for a grandma, so it didn't matter that she wasn't blood-related. But I really wouldn't mind knowing more about my biological grandmother. My dad barely remembers and never talks about her, so it’s a little frustrating.
80. Double Discovery
I have a half-brother from my dad, and I’ve known about him since I was five. He’s 15 years older than me and was from before my parents even met. However, I learned that there is a possibility that I may have two more siblings, also from my dad. I found out from my mom when I was 15. My dad had received a call from a woman he knew a long time ago, way before he met my mom.
She told him that her twins, who were now adults, were probably my father’s children. This turned into me learning that my father also has half-siblings and other “half-relatives”. My mom only told me because she was trying to make my father out to be a bad person to justify her two-year-long affair.
Wikimedia Commons, Stokes Twins
81. Grandma Almost Got Rid Of Me
My mom was almost forced to abort me by my grandmother. Apparently, while my mom was married to my dad, she cheated on him with his best friend after he had slept with a woman a state over. This also led to me having a sister I have never met and didn’t know about until I was 20. My mom got pregnant by the friend, and my grandmother took my mother to get an abortion.
Everything was then all hunky-dory for a couple of months. Then, things took a strange turn. My mom took this weird hiatus, and she was pregnant again. Everyone thought it was the best friend’s, even though she and my dad were together that whole time. But to Grandma, it was personal. She found out, was mad, and worried about what everyone in the community would think of her family.
She demanded my mother abort it. My dad stepped in to claim me after finding out. I was with my dad on a camping trip, and he told me all this. It turned out my brother knew for years beforehand. My mom told him about it and asked him not to mention it. We were both also raised by our grandparents, so it made Thanksgiving very awkward.
82. Like Looking In A Mirror
When I was 59, my parents visited. My mother couldn't get it out, so my dad explained that she had run off with an older school teacher when she was 15, been the subject of a large and well-publicized search, and eventually returned pregnant. Her daughter was adopted and never spoken of. I believe my dad knew since he's known her since she was three.
This all came up because my half-sister found them! It was pretty amazing. We get along well and like many of the same things. Looking at my mother and half-sister next to each other is astounding. Their movements, clothing choices, hobbies, many aspects of speech, and something fundamental but hard to describe, are all essentially identical!
83. Lost In Translation
I found out my cousin's dad isn't really his dad, but he doesn't know. It was news to me when we took a trip to Mexico, and his mom kept his passport away from him the whole time. During that trip, all the cousins were passing together through immigration and customs, and my aunt gave me his passport to hold. She told me not to give it to him or show it to him.
When I saw it, his last name wasn't his dad's last name, which I always thought it was! I told my sister and other cousins about it, and they apparently already knew this. My mom told me not to tell my cousin about it. I was the last of the cousins to find out. The poor guy adamantly believes his current dad is his biological father.
I can only assume that his mom refused to teach him or let him learn English so he wouldn't learn the truth. He is 30-something years old, and whenever he wants to open up a credit card or bank account, his mother has to go with him to "translate" his paperwork.
84. Dad Got Around
My dad cheated on my mom multiple times. He was even living a double life with a girlfriend in a different state. I found out about his philandering ways when I was 16. It was around 1am, and the authorities called my house. They didn't bother to ask for my mom, but they did inform me that my dad had been taken into custody that night for soliciting an escort. Years later, after my mom passed away, my dad admitted to his double life but still maintains his innocence for the night mentioned.
85. Unidentified Family Offspring
I was the oldest of three kids, or so I thought. At my grandma’s funeral, when I was 30, I met a nice woman who had grown up on my grandma’s street. She was fawning all over me and talking about how beautiful I was and such. I mentioned her to my mom later, saying, “Nice lady....a little weird”. My mom then thought it was as good a time as any to tell me that the woman was the mother of my older half-sister.
Apparently, my dad got the girl down the street pregnant when they were 16. They were from Catholic families, so they made a heart-wrenching decision to put the baby up for adoption at birth. It apparently ruined this woman’s life. She’s been trying to track down the child on adoption sites and celebrates her birthday every year without any luck. It is truly crazy to know you have an unidentified family member out there. I hope to somehow meet her someday.
86. It Was A Setup
I found out several years ago that my grandfather was set up to be held up and was murdered. This was in the late 70s on the Lower East Side. It was my aunt’s sister who set him up. He used to run numbers in the bars on the LES, and she knew he’d have a bunch of dough on him. He was stabbed and later passed from the wounds. He blasted one of the assailants during the incident. My aunt went full bipolar, and during a routine family event four years ago, she told me everything.
87. My Cousin Spilled The Beans
I have an enormous family and live in a decent, average-sized city. My cousins and my nieces, who are my age, and I all ended up at the same private school, which was small. When I was 13, I was at dinner with my nieces and family, and one of them told me one of our cousins was talking about me and spreading rumors. Turns out my niece revealed a shocking secret: I was adopted.
I went home and told my mom about it. She denied it, and we never spoke of it again. I eventually started to learn about genetics in my 8th grade class and started asking my parents questions about the way I looked. Some months later, my mom was pretty hammered. It was just her and me at the house, and my dad was gone.
She came into my room and confessed to me that I was adopted. I have five siblings, and all the people old enough to have remembered my adoption were told not to tell me. My parents wanted to tell me together when I was 18. However, this cousin’s family and mine had a lot of drama. I have my theories as to why my cousin, who would not have been old enough to remember my adoption, was eventually told.
88. Russian Revelation
I was recently let in on a shocking family secret. After my paternal grandfather was released from Siberia circa 1953, he couldn't find his family. They had moved to Poland 11 years earlier when he was placed under arrest. So, he met someone else, and they had a daughter. Months later, he found my grandmother. She then went to Russia and convinced my grandfather to leave this woman and baby daughter and come back with her to THEIR three children.
He did and never heard from the other family again. Nobody ever mentioned this to any of us until last year, when my father casually mentioned it as an, “Oh, yeah, by the way, you might have a half-aunt living somewhere in Russia”.
89. Filet Of Fishiness
When I was a kid, we went to California on a vacation. My father's company paid for us to stay at the Ritz Carlton. I was probably about eight or nine years old, and they sent me on a deep sea fishing trip for the day, and I caught a fish. We brought the fish back to the hotel, and because the Ritz Carlton is such a high-class hotel, they offered to filet the fish and bring it up to my room via room service, which they did.
Thirty years later, I found out that the fish I caught was no good, and they just used one from the hotel. What makes the story funny is that every few years, I would bring up how cool the hotel was on the vacation to filet my fish, and my family just kept this story going.
90. Double Dealings
My great-grandfather led a double life—he had two families. He kept them apart, and neither knew about the other. Both families lived on the same street, had the same number of members, and all of the members had the same names. He kept this up until he passed, and then everything came unraveled. My half-family was surprised when my relatively well-off great-grandfather bequeathed everything he owned to another family with the same name.
Even today, the disparity between the two families is clear in terms of social and economic wealth. The other side has been bitter about it for generations, and rightly so. My grandmother had kept relatively quiet about it until someone in our family started digging through Ancestry.com. After many interesting stories, both sides agreed to meet again a few years ago. We are now in touch fairly regularly.
91. The Truth Came Out
I was about 15 when I realized that my grandfather was gay and that he wasn't allowed to discuss or reveal this to my siblings or me. The thing about this situation was that he wasn't really great at hiding it. I was just that oblivious and believed the excuses my parents made. He used to volunteer at a theater, which explained what my parents dubbed his "Halloween" closet.
In reality, Grandad was into drag. He worked at a health clinic helping HIV/AIDS patients, which totally explained the books on his bookshelf, like Men on Men. I figured the books helped him relate to his patients or something. Then there was the giant two and half-meter (eight-foot) painting of a shirtless fireman over his bed. I actually don't remember how I explained away that one.
One day, my boyfriend mentioned something offhand about my grandfather being gay, and it was like a lightbulb the size of the sun went off—the rainbow bumper stickers, the books, the fireman painting. He passed a decade or so ago, and I wish I'd been closer to him. He did a lot of really amazing things for the gay community that he lived in, and I didn't even know about most of it until after he was gone.
92. His Childhood Was Secret For A Reason
I was the only one who didn't know what happened to my grandfather. When I was young, I was always curious about why I only had one grandfather. Anytime I asked my dad about his dad, he would just brush me off or dance around the subject. As I got older, I realized it was a touchy subject for my dad, so I just never asked. I assumed he had passed, but the truth was far more tragic.
Then, one day when my older brother moved back home, we were talking and he told me what happened. When my dad was about seven or eight years old, he came home from school, and his father called him into the living room. He told my dad that he loved him and then blew himself to bits in front of my father.
93. All In The Family
I found out that my grandmother used to be my dad’s wife before she was my grandmother. My father’s mother, my true grandmother, passed when my father was 21. My grandfather never remarried. My father married a woman named Robin and had two children—Jason and Clay. My father and Robin divorced shortly after Jason was born.
Soon after their divorce, my grandfather married my dad’s ex-wife, Robin. Nobody spoke of this until my grandfather passed, and my two half-brothers showed up at the funeral. It was weird to find out I had 49 and 46-year-old brothers. Thank God Robin and my grandfather never had children, otherwise I’d have a tough time finding birthday and holiday cards, specifically for Bruncles and/or Auntsters.
94. Who Knew?
When I was a kid, I remember my dad reading me The Grinch after I begged him to, and he fell asleep in bed next to me. The next day, my mom said he was in the hospital, and he had been there for a little while. I remember visiting him and asking why he wasn’t home. It wasn't till I was in my teens that I realized the horrifying truth of that night. My dad had taken sleeping pills that night and had almost lost his life in the bed beside me when my mom found him unresponsive. He survived, but the knowledge that I could have woken up to my deceased father has always stuck with me.
95. The Cosmos Crushed My Dreams
My partner was sick and developed brain damage after a sudden illness. It was random and out of the blue. Most days, he is his old self, but some days he is a stranger to me. He's angry, confused, and doesn't know me. He gets into a rage, and I have to calm him. I have to remind him of the 13 years we've shared together and break his heart, reminding him that his dad is gone.
He seems totally fine to people on the outside, just a bit quieter than usual. They don't see him when he's confused or wondering who I am. It's hard. I'm burning out between work, studying, caring for him, volunteering, and moving because of his mobility issues. I adore him and won’t leave him, but it's made me realize that the life we had planned is not going to happen. But the devastation doesn't end there.
We were planning to have a baby, but I've had to accept that it likely won't happen. I also can’t bring myself to tell him that I don't think it'll happen. I'm angry, heartbroken, and sad. I've never felt such hatred for whatever cosmic force there may be out there that did this, but I wake up from what little sleep I get, begging whatever is out there to leave us alone.
I want my old life back, my old partner, and our future back. I get so mad because people keep telling me I should be grateful he isn't worse, but I should be allowed my feelings.
96. Bad Suggestions
My twin brother died in a car wreck and my family suggested that I should date his girlfriend because...grief, I guess? THAT'S a secret I'm taking to my grief. Jesus, mom...
97. A Family Photo Album To Remember
My good friend in high school’s parents were discussing putting in an alarm on their house once while I was over, but were balking at the price. I told them I would cable it for them, which made they very excited. The attic access was in the master bedroom closet so I had to go through there. And their closet had some skeletons.
When I went up into the attic, I found a bunch of pictures of my friend’s mom with a guy who was not her husband. I mean a bunch of pictures—and she was doing it all with this dude. My friend’s dad was permanently disabled and didn’t have great use of one side, so I’m guessing that’s why she thought that was a safe place to hide her dirty secret.
I never said anything to their family about it.
98. No Show
It was years before my wife told me the story about her grandmother's final moments. Her grandma, who raised her, believed that when you are about to die your deceased relatives show up to escort you to heaven. She was by all accounts a horrible person. On her deathbed her last words were, in a quiet terrified voice, "They're not coming."
I understand now why she never wanted to talk about it.
99. This One Will Make You Sick...
When a "good" friend of mine who I worked under had cancer and wasn't able to pay some bills, I loaned her $200 just to help. I was only 18 years old at the time and I felt bad because she had kids. It was right around the holidays and I just wanted to help however I could and be a good person in life. She promised to pay me back when she could.
Turns out she lied about having cancer, was embezzling money from the company I worked at, scammed my other coworkers, and would come in after skipping work for her “chemo” to make fraudulent returns while I was overseeing the store by myself because of her absence. I eventually got her fired and got promoted to her position.
100. Step Into My Office
Ever since I was a kid, I loved to fiddle around with staplers. Playing with the automatic ones and doing dumb stuff like any child would, opening the manual ones and swinging it around, stuff like that. One of my favorite things to do was to open up a new strip of staples and break them apart before putting them in. Running my fingers through the staples, counting them, and breaking them apart...I loved it.
There are 210 staples in a standard strip and sometimes I’d break off each individual one until my fingers hurt. I’ve even found strips with 209 and 211 a few times. This progressed from me messing around with staples in Ms. Grady’s second-grade class, to buying a box of staples every other payday to play with, to literally having a collection of different brands and sizes of staples in my college dorm to break apart.
I had a problem, but no one was hurt, so who cares? Well...Fast forward to present day. I am a functioning middle-class adult with a wife and two children. I have a home, a normal car, and an office job. I am by all accounts a normal human being, and I still love staples. Working in an office with a supply room full of staples was a problem.
I’d spend my lunch break in the room opening boxes and breaking apart staples to get my fix before returning to work. It got so bad over the course of a couple years that my boss changed our supplier because the boxes all had broken apart staples and were sometimes ripped. So I had to stop doing that...I turned to Amazon first, buying 10 boxes of staples at a time for about 20 bucks a pop. It wasn’t enough. I went to 20, then 40.
My wife got curious then and asked, “Why are you buying all of these boxes of staples,” but I brushed it off as a work issue that I’d get reimbursed for and knew I had to change my methods. Over the course of a few months I enabled myself. I started using cash only at different office supply stores around my town and neighboring towns.
I would sit in my car and break apart staples before going to the next store. I began to stay out late and tell my wife I would be home soon, so I could go buy more staples from different stores. I opened up a new credit card to put online so she wouldn’t know, but she caught it in the mail. She then got suspicious because things weren't adding up.
This past Thursday after one of my “late nights,” I get home with a trunk full of broken staples and 10 freshly broken boxes in my passenger seat to see my parents’ cars at my house. I walked in and everyone is sitting around like it’s an intervention. Because it is. My wife asked if there was anything I wanted to tell them, and to tell the truth about my problem.
I sat down and kept saying, “What are you talking about?” until my mom said, “Honey, we saw the pictures.” Then my wife tells me that my late nights, excuses, and general weirdness about the credit card, and some other little things made her hire a private investigator. This man followed me around to office supply stores and watched me “do something” with what I had in the bag from multiple stores.
It basically looked like I was a drug runner for Office Depot who was using some of the product for myself. At this point, my wife started to cry and my dad shook his head. I had to come clean and all I could muster was, "I...I like staples." The “what the heck” looks I got afterward turned into disbelief, then concern, then fits of laughter when I showed them my car.
I came clean. I backed this up by showing my secret stash of used staples in my attic and explained the purchases on the card to my wife. Right now, my only concern is my dad. He didn’t laugh—just kind of shook his head continually in disappointment without saying a word. Believe it or not, I think therapy or addiction meetings may help, as my wife gave me these suggestions the day after. I was told that although the addiction is not typical in its damage regarding my mental or physical well-being, I do need help.
I am going to go through addiction counseling like any other addict would. Just tailored to my specific issue. Apparently, part of fixing my brain is to know that it is not okay to continue this level of staplephilia. That included cleaning out my car, attic, and not garnering more attention through memorializing pictures, and stuff like that.
My wife initially thought I was having an affair. She didn’t think I was doing substances until she got the pictures. The PI just told her what he saw, and she deduced that I had an undercover type distribution thing going with someone in the office supply business. She admitted that she didn’t think it all through, but her mind was racing and conclusions came as they did.
I do not have autism or any diagnosed mental disability. I am just an addict, and an idiot. I know how stupid the addiction is and so I tried to hide it. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things I guess, but my embarrassing white lie just spiraled out of control.
