These Dark Family Secrets Changed Everything
Every family has secrets, and they are often hidden for a reason. Sometimes discovering a surprising revelation can change everything. Here, Redditors share some of their deepest family secrets that altered their view of their life and family. For the most part, it seems the best-kept secrets should be just that.
1. A Lascivious Lush?
I never met my dad's dad. I had always heard he was the town lush and just disappeared one day. When I was 23, I was the manager of a bar. Our beverage company said they were sending over my new sales rep. When he walked in, it was like looking into a mirror.
After talking for a while, I found out his grandfather was my grandfather. We both later found out he had at least five families at once. It turned out he was not a lush but was hiding families in different states.
2. He Sold The Farm
I always assumed my hardscrabble tenant farmer maternal grandfather had never been able to own his own farm. Later, I learned the dark truth.
It turned out that his son, my uncle, was a gambling junkie and had some debts. They would have cost him, and possibly other family members, their lives had my grandfather not sold his farm to bail my uncle out.
I learned this after both of them were gone.
3. A Kick In The Teeth
I learned four things about my dad in kind of an odd order. I first found out that he had wound up behind bars for 14 years. He was named "The Hollywood Bandit" by the press at the time since he pilfered from celebrities. Then, I found out he is gay. He’s still in the closet, but it's an open secret, and my mom was aware.
He also wears dentures and has since before I was born because of the prison food, and offed a man once in self-defense. The thing that he was embarrassed about—and didn't want me to know—was the thing about the dentures.
4. Damaging Denial
My cousin has Asperger's, and only my immediate family will admit it, even though it's blindingly obvious and makes his life very difficult.
He's in his mid-20s and has dropped out of college, lived in a state-assisted apartment—which he eventually got tossed out of—and at one point moved into a trailer park with a woman at least 15 years his senior and her young daughter.
He has all the tendencies of Asperger's and my parents, who are psychologists, realized it as well. I think his life would be a lot easier if he was able to receive treatment, as I know many people with Asperger's can live normal lives.
A few years ago, my dad attempted to tell my aunt, but she flipped out and screamed at him in total denial.
