Everyone has secrets, and some of those are secrets we absolutely would rather not tell our families.

They’re big, small, funny, sad, serious…but any way you slice it, strangers love to hear about them!

A very close call.

Growing up our house was never…clean and tidy. It wasn’t disgusting or hoarder like. We cleaned and vacuumed, but we also had a lot of shit just stacked in corners and on shelves that after a while, that was where those things belonged. Because of this we really didn’t use the dining room as a dining room. The table was pushed up against the wall and was used as quasi-work desk/storage area.

One day when I was like 10 or so, I was sitting at one of the chairs while on the phone with my mom. She had a habit of droning on and on and on. When I am bored, I fidget. I grabbed one of her lighters that was just laying around and I was lighting little bits of paper towel on fire. Nothing big, just enough to see the flame go, immediately consume the whole thing and then go out and fall into her ashtray.

Then I grabbed a full paper towel and lit it. The thing burned around so fast that it startled me and I dropped it on the carpet. Where it very quickly burned/melted the cheap carpet on the floor in a VERY noticeable spot.

I start freaking out and look over and there was a box of cleaning solution. I grabbed some bleach hoping that it would bleach out the black burned mess and I could pass it off as I accidentally spilled it. Yeah, it just turned to beige carpet a shade or orange with little burned carpet fibers.

I opened every window I could and moved the box of cleaning supplies over the spot. Keep in mind I am doing all of this while still on the phone with my mom. I braced for the next week or so for someone to find it and eventually come to the conclusion that it was me.

No one came across it for months, and when they did it was all just assumed that one of the chemicals leaked out and did it.

His mum would be horrified.

I secretly went backpacking in Europe for 4 weeks.

Due to the 8-hr time difference, when Mum called, it would be the middle of the night for me, I would pretend to be as awake as I could while taking the call. Fun times.

They might not care.

My dad’s brother adopted me.

They didn’t know I found my biological mom. I didn’t talk to her though

Hashtag not all kids.

So…. My brother and I saw Aliens as a kid and we were super intrigued by the flame throwers.

In a feat of idiotic 13 year old brilliance, we determined that a super soaker filled with aquanet with a butane lighter strapped to the front might actually work the same.

To our utter shock, it did. Shot twenty foot streams of sticky flame. We were just overjoyed. Until said sticky flame hit the side of the house and caught it on fire. Oh shit! So we race over and between my shirt and the hose get it out, but there’s a large dark spot on the side of the house.

So we disassemble and clean out the flamethrower and mums the word.

Thirty years later, we’re eating dinner over at the folks, and dad remarks they’ve painted the house and ‘finally got rid of that weird dark spot’. Much stealthy chortling ensued.

Honestly. How do kids survive childhood? We’re all idiots.

This is a big one.

This was a long time ago, but I pretended to graduate from college after four years of my family paying for it. The last semester of my senior year I was told that because of an incomplete my sophomore year I wouldn’t be graduating. When I promised to re-take that class over the summer, they allowed me to march with my classmates in a cap and gown. Instead of telling my family the truth I just went ahead with it, the whole family came, big party etc. Of course I did not take the class that summer.

That hung over my head for 20+ years when after getting sober I completed my degree by working with the college and taking a local class.

Unexpectedly wholesome.

I gave $10k to a woman overseas I met online so she could leave Egypt and study in Germany, despite being pretty broke at the time. She did actually go study in Germany and I met her there. A few years later she paid me back.

And yes there was a bit of romance at one point (long after the loan) but it didn’t last long. I should also mention we are the same age. We’re still close.

A lucky day.

My dad has always had a lot of guns, both for hunting and as a hobby. Because of that, he was adamant about teaching gun safety to my brother and I. We grew up with them around the house, although they were almost always locked up when my dad wasn’t around to supervise.

One day when I was pretty young, probably around 10 or 12, my parents went somewhere together so my brother and I were at home alone. I was playing in my room and I heard a gun shot. I ran downstairs to find my brother holding a pistol and looking absolutely terrified. I can still remember his face. Mine probably looked the same.

What had happened was that he’d been goofing around downstairs and found a gun that my dad, for whatever reason, had forgotten to lock away. Being a kid, he’d decided to play with it. He knew how to turn the safety off, how to fire, how to aim – we both did – and while playing, he’d accidentally pulled the trigger. The bullet had ricocheted off the floor and blown a hole in the living room wall, clear to the outside of the house.

Both of us knew exactly what could have happened, and in an instant we both realized exactly what was going to happen if my dad ever found out. We worked together to cover up the dent in the floor with furniture and a rug, under the guise of having cleaned the living room, and then we patched up the wall both inside and out, rearranging more furniture to cover the patch. We both swore we’d never tell anyone. As much as we loved to get each other in trouble, we knew this one was bad.

My mom found out years later when she finally found the hole in the vinyl siding and my brother confessed. My dad still doesn’t know. My brother has been much, much more serious about gun safety since then and now has a collection of his own that is locked up to a near paranoid degree.

Be careful with your guns, guys. Everybody involved in this knew better and the worst still almost happened.

Talk about heavy.

Okay I’ve been wanting a thread to share this in for ages. So this is my secret with my mum and dad from everyone else in the family. My dad is married to another woman. Mum is single. Mum and “dad” (hard to actually call him that) have been having an affair for 30+ years, even their best friends don’t know about it. I was an accident.

Dad stepped out of picture because my parents didn’t want me to know about the affair and who he was. At 15 when I was told who he was, and tried to act cool to not upset my mum, he came back into my mum’s life (but absolutely not mine).

I have three siblings who don’t know I exist. 2 brothers and a sister. They have the most amazing life, two parent income, holidays, all the things I wanted as a kid in a family of 3 with a single mum. I went to high school with my brother.

I’m mid 20s now, I still want to meet them, I just can’t be the one to break the secret and crush two families.

The good people out there.

Honestly, just how much my cousin has improved my life.

My parents were total s*%tbags. Both dead now, my aunt and uncle raised me. They were amazing people, sadly both of them died in a car accident a few years ago and left behind my cousin.

It was a hell of a battle gaining guardianship over her, even though she wanted that as well. (I’m male, and was single at the time) so that was a pain to deal with.

But yeah, she’s really just put a sparkle in my life that was never there before. I had a really sh*%ty childhood, and my teenage years were rough till I moved in with my aunt and uncle.

Being responsible for her really pushed me to succeed, and now I’m living very comfortably, and semi retired. And I attribute that drive to better myself to her. Because after loosing her parents, I never want her to have a bad day again.

Never trust your kids, y’all.

When I was a kid I dropped the rake while working in the yard and the handle landed in dog poop. Instead of cleaning it off I used duct tape to seal off the poop from the outside world.

It ended up being used for almost 10 years after that and I always thought about that rakes dirty secret. The secret was poop!

That’s one way to heal.

My grandfather used to force me to French kiss him when no one was in the room.

When he got super old, I was tasked with watching him one night. He peed his pants and was pathetically asking me to help him….. but the 8 year old inside me just let him sit there for hours until my parents got home.

Spitting on his face before they closed the casket was the best thing I’ve ever done for myself. See how you like my saliva all over your face, you piece of shit.

Boys are…something else.

When I was about 7-8, we went camping. I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee. I was too scared to go outside because of raccoons making noise a site or two over. I decided to pee on my younger brother’s sleeping bag and frame him.

Not far into peeing, I realized how gross I was being and pinched it. I arched my upper body backwards and peed through the window instead. This turned my pee into a fine mist that sprayed the rain cover and intensified the smell. I quickly climbed back into my sleeping bag.

Nobody noticed anything in the morning. Thankfully, it must not have been enough to wet right through to my brother… I made sure to remind my parents to wash everyone’s sleeping bag when we got home.

You can beat it.

My alcoholism.

I’m 600+ days sober

Edit: I should clarify. My wife knows, and she’s been my rock and my biggest supporter through the whole thing. But my wife and my therapist are the only people who know. My Mom and brother have no idea.

Secrets can absolutely hurt.

About 13 years ago, I was informed that I had a daughter from my first serious relationship who was given up for adoption without my knowledge. Unbeknownst to her adoptive parents or her bio mom, she had the same heart defect I do. (mine wasn’t found until I was about 26). She collapsed on a field at a park near where she lived in Massachusetts while playing soccer with other 7 year Olds. She passed away before they arrived at the hospital. Her bio mom, my ex, had kept in touch with the adoptive parents over the years, and our girl knew her as “Aunt xxxxxxx.” She had even given the adoptive parents some pictures of us together and gave them the story that I was in prison for moving some serious weight in drugs (complete fabrication).

After our girl’s death, my ex reached out, feeling guilty. I was able to get in touch with the adoptive parents. They were nice, middle class people who loved her intensely and gave her everything a kid needed to flourish. I’m glad she had people who loved and cared for her the way every child deserved. I’m glad the particular mystery of why my ex disappeared one day without a word was finally solved. But, I was absolutely distraught that I wasn’t given a chance to be a father. She never got to meet her grandparents, who would have adored her, particularly my mom, who she looked so much like.

I never told my folks because I didn’t want to break their hearts and know how badly mine was broken. 13 years later, I stand by that decision. They deserve to know, but both are in poor health, and I still can’t bring myself to put it on them.

My girl would be turning 21 this July. The only reason I hope that there is an afterlife is so I can meet her.

No more secrets.

My 14 year old godson is actually my biological child. About 16 years ago, I disappeared in the middle of the night to start a new life away from my toxic family and went no contact with them for 3 years. I ended up getting pregnant from a one night stand. I was homeless at the time so keeping my son was not an option. My ex-best friend and her husband had been struggling to start a family of their own so they offered to adopt my child.

Plot twist: My husband and I currently have custody of my child and his 4 siblings. Their parents are in jail for domestic violence and child neglect.

EDIT: Holy bananas! I did not expect this to blow up. I want to clarity a few things:

My son does not know I am his biological mother but we plan to tell him soon. My husband and I plan to petition to adopt him and his siblings. Our lawyer warned us that his parentage would come up during the process. I want my son to hear it from me. He is currently battling PTSD due to the incident that brought the kids into our care. We are working with his therapist to find the best way to tell him the truth without causing him more trauma. He mental health is our top priority.

My ex-friend has endometriosis which affects fertility. Pregnancy can put endometriosis into remission for some women. She was one of the lucky ones. Once in remission, she had no trouble conceiving the other 4 kids.

My husband and I are raising 10 children. We are in the process of adopting my 12 year old cousin and took custody of her two older sisters last week. We also have a set of biological 1 year old twins. Eighteen months ago, we had zero kids.

It will break your heart.

My suicide note was written on the wall of my closet for 4 years while I lived in that house. It said what you could find my body, why I chose to do what I did and explained a rough last will and testament.

When I moved out, my folks (who owned the home I lived in,) never found it.

I’m way happier now than I’ve ever been, and when I took everything out of my closet and I found it again I broke down crying. I grabbed some matching paint painted over it and was able to finally reconcile with the pain that I had felt for the past 8 years.

To this day they don’t know.

Don’t struggle in silence.

Being sexually assaulted when I was 13. It was a difficult home life, and I didn’t feel like I could talk to anyone about anything. Some guy grabbed me on the way home from school, and…

Yeah, I got home late, they didn’t notice, but I didn’t feel like I could say anything, especially as a young boy, because I didn’t even know it was a thing that could happen to boys when I was young. We were never given those safety talks that the young girls were given…

It was just so outside my experience I guess, and the longer time went past, the less I ever felt the need to say something, because no-one would believe it.

There are great families.

A secret from my grandparents who I adored.

They were actually my great aunt and uncle, having raised my mother from the age of 2.

Her mother had passed away and her father was an alcoholic, who ended up enlisting and going to war during WWII. I had a habit of looking through my parent’s wedding album when I was very young. I loved the dresses, etc.

At the back of the book was their marriage license and I saw when I was about 11 that my mother’s last name was not the same as my grandparents last name. I asked her and she told me they were not her biological parents.

I never told them I knew because I didn’t want them to feel less than my grandparents which they absolutely were. By this time my biological grandfather had passed. They were always nana and grandpa to me and they were amazing grandparents.

Yeah, these are for sure juicy.

I’m happy for the funny ones that help mix it up.