Emily Duprie
We all have secrets and stories we’re not too proud of. Many of us have seen or done something that we wish we hadn’t, and now we carry the burden of a secret. Some of us go to group sessions and confession to get things off our chests, some of us journal or call up a trusted friend or family member, and then there are some of us who just lay it all out anonymously online.
No matter how you cope with your hidden demons, it’s agreeable that when you’re face-to-face with another, sometimes it feels impossible to come clean about whatever it is you’re hiding. Thanks to the anonymity of the Internet, these inner demons can be posted online without too much shame. According to a surfaced AskReddit post, sharing your secrets on the Internet isn’t as uncommon as you’d think!
Through the thread, we found some of the most interesting and dark secrets users didn’t feel comfortable enough to share with those closest to them. So, brace yourself and check them out below!
People decided to share online what most had yet to tell their own families about when asked: “What dark secret are you hiding from everyone?”
1.
I have a secret fantasy life, populated with imaginary friends. It started in grade school, and I have continued all my life. I am in my 50’s now, and still prefer to be alone in my imaginary world instead of being with family or friends. I can’t even tell my psychiatrist because I am afraid he will lock me up or give me drugs to make it all stop.
2.
I witnessed my fiancé’s suicide last year. I moved states afterwards and started a new life. My coworkers, clients, and new friends call me the sunshine of whatever room I walk into, but I’m completely dead inside. Even though I choose to fake it, I resent them for not seeing how fucked up I am.
3.
I make up lies about what I do on the weekend, usually I don’t do much and I’m very content with that. Others are always asking me what I’m doing and I never had anything to tell them. I make up lies to get out of phone calls, or plans. Saying I’m out of town or with friends. I love just being left alone.
4.
Last Christmas I leaned my Sister and I don’t have the same father and are technically half sisters. My sisters biological father tried to start a relationship with my mom that resulted in a pregnancy and ultimately didn’t work out. That biological father is dead now but I didn’t probe any further about his identity or how he died in case it was something traumatic for my mom to remember.
So she raised my sister as a single mother at my Grandmas house in the 80s, then she met my father and they started dating and it worked out because they got married in the 90s, moved into a new house, and a short time after that I was born.
She told me never call my sister my half sister and just pretend all of this doesn’t matter because she’s my sister and I’m keeping it that way, and if anyone asks about the 10 year age gap I just tell them “it’s a long story”.
5.
When I was 16, I conspired with a heroin addict I met online to help me off myself with heroin and dump my body in a dumpster in exchange for my valuables. I lived in a small town and he was in a bigger city where my school had an upcoming trip. We planned for me to slip away during the trip and meet up with him to do the deed. He chickened out last minute and ghosted me.
6.
I’m the spitting image of my grandpa on my dad’s side. Both my parents are almost a foot shorter than me, but I’m almost the same height as him.
When my mother got sick when I was a kid, my grandpa went to visit her daily for extended periods of time in the hospital. In his final months, she did the same. After he passed, we found out he kept a whole other family on the side in secret too. Looking back at my dad’s military deployment history, it would also be dicey if she could have gotten pregnant by him around the appropriate time.
Based on a collection of various hunches, I’m fairly convinced I’m the product of an affair between my mother and supposed grandfather. More disturbingly, this would probably be one of the most lighthearted revelations about my family.
7.
When I was young (probably around age 9 or 10) I was walking home with my dog from a house around the block when he cut the corner and walked diagonally through the yard of this super mean old lady who live at the end of your street.
She was in her yard at the time tending to these really fancy-looking rose bushes she had growing in beds along the border with her neighbor. My Dog was a very friendly golden retriever who didn’t even really come near her and certainly didn’t do anything threatening, but she sprayed the fuck out of him with some kind of insecticide or other chemical she was using on her roses.
I ran back home with the dog and hosed him off. He coughed a bunch, but seemed otherwise fine. I didn’t tell my parents because somehow I thought I was going to get into trouble for letting the dog walk in her yard. I’m glad I didn’t tell them, though, because I decided that night to sneak downstairs, out the half-bath window, and down the street to her yard where I cut down every goddamn rose bush I could get my hands on.
8.
I know where my missing friend is. She ran away 2 years ago and her family is still looking for her. She texted me after the first year. She’s in Los Angeles.
9.
When I was a teenager, I worked at a novelty tourist shop near me. Being the idiot that I was, I stole a wad of cash from the store. It was $100 in ones. I told nobody, but they knew it was missing. Right about the same time, a coworker who was always trying to get me fired was telling someone she got about $100 in tips from her other job. They ended up firing her because they didn’t trust that it wasn’t her.
10.
A man broke into my home about ten years ago. Well, kind of. He knocked, I answered the door, and he pushed his way in. He spoke about the four horsemen of the apocalypse and tried to extort me for protection or he and his brothers of doom would come and kill me. He was huge. Ex-navy, if he was to be believed. Drunk as hell, hand covered in blood holding a broken bottle. I was terrified. I told him to leave. He wouldn’t. He was getting aggressive. I told him I would splatter his brains against the wall if he didn’t. I didn’t have a gun at the time. Anyway, he didn’t leave. I went into my kitchen and grabbed a knife and sliced at him a few times. He staggered away, seemingly okay. I assumed he was all right, just wounded a bit. I never saw him again. A neighbor told me days later a man was found dead, some wounds on his arms. I can only guess he bled out, but I never got questioned, somehow. There was a lot of blood in and around my house. I lived in a pretty seedy area so I guess the cops just didn’t care. The guy was apparently a repeat criminal.
I killed a man- at least indirectly- and have never told anybody.
11.
2 years ago one of my best friends and I went halfsies on a fuck ton of Xanax. on June 8th we both took Xanax from the batch we split, i woke up, he didn’t. no one knows i had anything to do with the drugs that killed him, and i don’t know if i can ever bring myself to tell someone.
12.
When I was younger I lived with my grandmother. Not long after I turned 18 her health started to decline, that sort of decline that you know means she won’t be around for much longer. Over the months I did my best to take care of her. Getting her to the hospital when she needed, and other things. We had someone coming every day to help her with things I couldn’t.
Well what my family doesn’t know is that the night she passed, I was in the living room watching TV. My dog was in bed with my grandma, and I started to hear him whimper, and bark. I knew what was happening, I knew that if I acted I could potentially save her. I didn’t want to watch her suffer anymore though, to watch her live with so much pain, and unable to do anything for herself any more. So I made the choice to let her pass before making any calls.
She lived 92 years, and the only regret I have is that she passed a month after I would have graduated if I hadn’t been kicked out of school. She had been in good enough health at the time to go to my graduation. I still kick myself for how stupid I was back then.
Edit: I didn’t expect this much support. Thanks. I’m not to torn up about letting her pass, I knew it was for the best. She was such a great person, she didn’t deserve to live in such a poor manner any longer than she already had. I don’t regret what I did, I regret what I had done that got me kicked out of school, that I didn’t try and make it to graduation for her. I think I’ve lived my life so far in a way that she’d be proud of. Not graduating before she passed is the only regret I really have in this life so far, and I’m 35 now. So I think I’m doing pretty good.
13.
I had an IBS attack once and had to violently shit in a church grounds behind someone’s car. Used underwear to wipe too and left that there. Not proud.
14.
My grandma was in a car accident and broke her ankle so she stayed at my house and my mom/we took care of her while she recovered. I was entering puberty at the time and discovered that you could order porn on cable and was like a madman ordering porn. the bill that month came out to $500 my mom thought it was my grandma because her novelas were on like channel 50-60 and the porn was 500-600 lmfaoooo. I’ve literally never told anyone to this day.
15.
Not a huge secret in comparison to some of these answers, but I feel the guilt of it often. After my fiancé passed, I napped all the time for over a year. My aunt was calling me one day and I just denied her call, went back to napping. It was my aunt calling because my grandma (who was very sick with cancer) wanted to say happy birthday a day before my birthday. Grandma died the next day. I should have picked up the damn phone.
16.
In high school, I was a super good kid. Straight A student who loved homework, keeping out of trouble, and who was quiet as hell during class.
So anyway, there was this guy who was also in AP classes with me but he was super loud and obnoxious but would pull stunts in such a way that he would have some margin of plausible deniability. Though we never spoke (I’m not sure he even knew I existed), he rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it was from the one cold day when this other girl in our class had her nipples poking through her shirt bc she forgot a sweater and he kept saying to her “daaaamn it’s cold, huh?”; maybe it was from when he would pretend to be friends with kid who was definitely spectrum and desperate to be friends with him to do the bully’s homework for him and then bully him the next day. Idk.
So at random—sometimes once a week or a month or once every couple of months—I would whistle. It’s this high pitched whistle that sounds like a tea kettle that I can do while barely moving my mouth. Back then, no one knew I could do it except for my family. The super obnoxious kid always got in trouble. I was never once suspected.
17.
My grandpa was stationed in Okinawa, Japan during the Korean war, while in the Marines. He hooked up with a woman there, and she got pregnant. So, I have a Japanese aunt and a few cousins, in Japan, whom I’ve never met before.
18.
I’m leaving the country on a long vacation and everyone knows. What they don’t know is I’m not sure I’m planning on coming back. Going to try and live a new life out there and see how it goes.
19.
My wife and I aren’t officially married. No one knows.
We had a ceremony and everything, reception… the whole nine yards. We just never did the official paperwork. We realized that since she’s going back to school, it benefits her financially to go through financial aid as “single” rather than “married.” When she finishes up, we’re going to head over to town hall and finish the last step.
20.
In middle school I made a smoking pipe out of copper pipe just for fun. I know you should not smoke out of copper as the fumes are potentially toxic. My step-dad took it from me and started using it. He smoked with it for years. I hated him for physically abusing me so I never said anything. It’s now 30 years later and he was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s and likely only has a few years to live. I hope he rots in hell. I don’t know if it had any effect, but I like to think the copper pipe played a role in his sickness as karma for being an asshole.
