The world is full of secrets. We live our lives surrounded by information that we aren't supposed to know; things that other people don't want us to be aware of. Perhaps we overhear a private conversation or read something on accident that wasn't meant for us. Or maybe we actively seek out a secret and are successful in uncovering it. Often times, it's the former that leaves us unsure of how to proceed, especially when it involves someone we know personally.
How well can you really know another person? Everyone has their secrets. Some run really deep, while others are smaller, little white lies. Often times, we learn strange things about other people that they themselves don't find strange at all. Once we learn them, we can't help but see them in a different light than we did before. Just take it from these people who recently found out a secret about someone they believed to be perfectly normal.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Milking It
My husband had no idea he was lactose intolerant. He just thought everyone had diarrhea every day. For years, he indulged in all sorts of milk-based products, from chocolates to cheesy goods. He’s 26 and just found out last year. How’d he find out? His mom told him. She knew his whole life. It devastated him when she told him because he absolutely loves milk.
#2 Selective Sleeping
My sister said to me once, “Hey, what dream did you choose last night?” I was so confused. She explained to me that every night, she enters a "dream room" and picks what she wants to dream about. What's even crazier is that the themes always change, so she never dreams the same thing twice. I'm not sure how she developed this, but when she told me, I got super jealous.
#3 The No-Face Friend
My friend can't recognize faces. I only figured it out for sure when he almost got into a strangers truck because he thought it was me. The only similarity between me and the stranger was that we both had red hair. I've known him for like six years and I never once suspected he went through that. He seemed really surprised when I told him that wasn't normal.
#4 Breathing Easy
In my early 20s, I started having a lot of pain in my upper left jaw. My dentist said there was nothing wrong with my teeth and that I should go see a sinus specialist. When I went to my appointment, they commented on how stuffed up I was. I was slightly baffled and told them that I could actually breathe much easier than usual. That was the day I found out that most people can breathe through their noses. It turned out, I was allergic to dust mites and had been experiencing an allergy attack for 23 years straight. That doctor's visit legitimately changed my life. I no longer had to choose between breathing and eating.
#5 Sick Remedy
In college, a bunch of my friends and I were sitting around talking about things we did as a kid. One of the guys in the group said, "Didn't you hate when you got a cold and your mom would give you an enema?" He soon found out that he was the only one. I'm not sure how he went on for years without realizing there was something off about that home remedy, but I guess when you grow up with something, you don't question it.
#6 Towel Trauma
I had a sleepover with a friend in middle school one weekend. I went to the shower and she gave me a towel. It had a weird smell to it, but I couldn’t find any other towels inside the bathroom, so I just patted myself with it lightly and air dried. It turned out, her whole family shared a single towel to prevent having to use new ones. I told her how weird that was and she was shocked to find out.
#7 Got Milk?
In senior year study hall, I was sitting with a dude I knew. I don’t remember the context, but at some point, he said, “It was around that time when milk started coming out of my chest.” I was like, “What?” and he explained, “You know... When the milk starts to come out.” I told him that wasn't normal. The face he made when he realized the reality of the situation was memorable. He asked me, “That didn't happen to you?” I was like, “No.” He then asked the rest of the guys in study hall.
#8 Itching For A Snack
I thought that kiwis made everyone's mouths itchy. I also thought mangos were spicy for everyone. Well, my wife informed me that I was probably allergic to those fruits since mangos aren't supposed to burn your mouth and kiwis shouldn't make your mouth itch. I truly didn't believe her. Months later, I was choking on mango. I couldn't breathe and my face was getting red. An EpiPen and an ER visit later, I discovered I was allergic to mangos, kiwis and a host of other tropical fruit.
#9 Two Brushes
My grandma has two toothbrushes — one for the morning, and one for the evening. I'm not sure why; I think that was just how she grew up. I told her once that she didn't really need two toothbrushes, but she told me it felt weird to use a single toothbrush for both her morning routine and her night routine. The only concern I have is that she spends more money than she needs buying toothbrushes in bulk.
#10 Donut Know That
Growing up, my mom would always tell me to grab donuts from the Walmart bakery area and eat them while we walked around the store (we lived in the country, so we only went to the store every two weeks). For a long time, I kept up this practice. In middle school, a girl who had a crush on me saw me eating donuts in Walmart and asked me if I just took them.
I responded, "Of course." She proceeded to take one herself and eat it with me to prove she was as cool as me, but I didn't understand. I relayed to my mom how the silly girl had no idea Walmart had free donuts. And that's when she told me she had been paying for them all that time. I couldn't believe it... For years, I unknowingly stole from Walmart.
#11 Clean Cutting
My ex didn’t think you needed to wash cutting boards. I started to wash his cutting board when I was doing his dishes and he got upset. I thought that was a common sense thing that people, especially someone in med school, would know. He assumed that cutting boards were manufactured with a special type of wood that contained self-cleaning, antibacterial agents.
#12 Fish And Powder
I lived with a girl who would eat baby powder that she kept stashed in the drawer of the bathroom. She would walk by the bathroom and do quick shakes of the bottle right in her mouth. She would also buy whole frozen fish from Walmart, take them out of the freezer bag and slap them hard against the kitchen floor before cooking them in a stew.
#13 Thorough Wash
My roommate in college thought you had to wash clothes on every single cycle on the washing machine. Our machine had a delicate cycle, a cotton cycle, a solo rinse cycle, a permanent press cycle, etc. He always complained about the washer taking forever. It was because he was washing his clothes four to five times every time he did laundry.
#14 A Wormy Situation
My friend thought that everyone was regularly taking deworming tablets to stop getting worms. It wasn’t until she got married and told her husband she was going to go pick up their worming tablets that she found out it wasn’t normal. Even after she found out, she still kept taking them because it scared her to go off the pills cold turkey.
#15 Dealing With Demons
A family member of mine thought that hallucinations were something everyone dealt with. She thought that monsters under the bed and other cultural tales of ghosts were real things. This later led to a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It progressed to a point where she couldn't cope well enough to deal with the symptoms and it became evident to family members.
#16 Stranger To Spaghetti
A co-worker of mine sat down with spaghetti one day for lunch. After twiddling the noodles around with the fork for a while, he looked and me and asked, “How do you eat this”? Thinking it was a joke, I laughed at him and kept eating. He looked at me with a straight face and said, “I’ve never had spaghetti.” Life is amazing.
#17 Bland Basil
One of my friends genuinely cannot taste basil. He always thought that basil was some tasteless leaf that people liked to put on pizza. He once ate a bowl of basil leaves like a salad and said he couldn't taste a thing. I told him he should go to the doctor to see if something was different about his tastebuds, but he said he didn't mind not being able to taste a vegetable.
#18 Numb To The Issue
My friend last night was like, "You know when you think you're starting to get sick and you're super tired, your nose is runny, and your throat is coated in phlegm? Do your hands go completely numb?" We were all like, nope, that's definitely just you. Apparently, she had numb hands every time she was sick for the past 24 years, thinking it was just another symptom.
#19 Mixed Milk
I had a friend whose parents would buy a gallon of whole milk and pour half of it in another jug. They'd then mix water into both to dilute them. She always just thought that other people got a different brand of milk because milk other people's houses always tasted different. Her grandparents did it too. It really weirded me out tp see her mom just pour milk into an empty jug, then mix water into it.
#20 Coming Clean
Growing up, I was conditioned by my mother to not only use soap on my body while showering but to use it in my hair too. Doing this made my hair feel insanely rough and dry, but I kept at it thinking it was the right thing to do. On a trip to California, I took a shower and they didn't have a bar of soap. I confronted my friend about it, asking what they used in their hair as a substitute for soap. Everyone in the room gave me a strange look and told me that soap wasn't supposed to be used for hair. I was around 18 years old when I found this out.
#21 Cradling Apples
I can only eat apples with both hands. I never thought anything of it until some of my co-workers pointed it out. I'm a big guy, so apparently, I look like a squirrel eating an acorn. I still find it awkward to eat an apple with only one hand. My entire life, I've always eaten apples with two hands. The crazy thing is, I only do that with apples.
#22 Preposterous Pizza Holding
My friend carried a pizza box sideways under his arm. I was so glad it made other people as uneasy as it made me. Every time someone talks about him, I'm like, "I knew he was strange since the pizza box incident." I'm not sure if he does it out of preference, or if he genuinely has no clue that holding the box sideways will ruin the pizza.
#23 Running Pains
My girlfriend asked me once: "How could you like running? Don't you get that thing where your teeth hurt when you run?"
#24 Swept Away
My family was raised on the saying "sweep the floor" in reference vacuuming. My husband was very confused the first time I asked him to sweep the floor. "Do you mean vacuum?" he clarified. I still say it because I grew up saying it. Now he's sarcastic about it. It's okay though, we have a lot of laughs about it.
#25 The Arnold Nerve
Whenever I clean out my ears with Q-tips, it makes my throat tickle. I thought this was completely normal until one day, my sister was in the room with me while I was doing it. I mentioned how I hated cleaning out my ears because it made my throat tickle and she was like, what the heck are you talking about. Turns out, there is this nerve in the face called the Arnold Nerve that has no effect on the majority of the population, but in rare cases, it can feel sensitive and cause a coughing sensation.
#26 Yeast And Crying In Your Sleep
A friend told me about her roommate who keeps a large bin full of bread under her bed. Every week, she buys a new loaf and adds it to the bin. She doesn’t actually eat that much bread but she always has a full bin. This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend recently about sleep paralysis. I asked, “You know that feeling when you wake up with tears running down your face and you realize you've been crying in your sleep?” He replied, “No... Are you okay?”
#27 Baffling Breakfast
My stepmom puts mustard in scrambled eggs. One morning, my stepmom made a big breakfast for us and the entire family was genuinely excited about it. I took one bite of the eggs and stopped. They were terrible. I started to casually eat around them while talking to the family. After dragging my heels long enough, I took my brother aside and said, "Dude, what the heck was up with the eggs?" He responded with, "Oh, she puts mustard in them. It's not THAT bad." I was mortified.
The next morning, I woke up and started scrounging for food. My stepmom asked if I wanted some eggs. Naturally, I told her, "Uh, no thanks... I'm not hungry, just foraging." About an hour later, I was starving, so I decided to make some eggs and whatnot. I asked my step-brother if he wanted some and he said sure. I whipped up some delicious eggs and when he tried them, he said: "Whoa, what did you put in these? They are amazing!" NOTHING! FREAKING NOTHING!
#28 Dressing Down At Work
I was talking to my husband on the phone and he told me to hang on because he had to put his clothes back on. He was at work. I asked him what the heck he was doing and, apparently, he always takes his clothes off to go #2. Even at work. I knew he did it at home, but he always would then get in the shower after, so I figured it was just a preface to showering. He said he balances them over the stall door so they don’t get particles on them. I told him no one else did that.
#29 Orange You Strange
I know someone at work that eats oranges with the peel on. I'm pretty sure he is a psychopath.
#30 Hairy Habit
My wife collects all her hair that naturally falls our during the day, whether on the hairbrush, couch, or bed. She then wraps it around her fingers into a little ball and collects the wads in bags. I asked her what she did with all of the Ziplock bags of hair and she told me that she eventually burns them. It's just a habit of hers and she still can't explain to me why she does it.
#31 Massive Martinis
My friend didn’t know martinis weren’t normally served in giant water-sized glasses. She thought she was getting ripped off when she ordered one at a bar. Her parents were heavy drinkers, so it's not really her fault. Naturally, what looked like normal drink servings to her growing up were actually well above average.
#32 Anti-Modern Movies
Our best friend’s old girlfriend refused to watch a movie if it was made before the '90s. She never saw a single thing, from any genre, before 1990. I could never take her seriously after that.
#33 Eight-Year-Old Diet
I was roommates with a guy for several months and I began to notice that he was a picky eater. I would always offer him food and he always declined, sometimes looking at the food in disgust. Admittedly, I'm an adventurous eater, often eating a lot of various ethnic foods and unusual stuff. After a while, I got curious enough to ask him about his diet and he opened up.
The dude ate plain cheeseburgers, cheese pizza, mac and cheese, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, ice cream, and pretty much nothing else. He was about 25 at the time and had the diet of an eight-year-old. He openly admitted that he hated all vegetables and only ate bread, meat, and cheese. He hated Mexican food, Chinese food, salads, and anything even slightly spicy. And he thought I was the weird one, trying all these different types of food.
#34 Cold Showers
Me: "Don't you hate getting hit by those first few seconds of icy water when you turn on the shower?"
Roommate: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Like, in the morning, when you're standing in the shower and you have to turn it on for the first time. It's really cold on your skin."
Roommate: "Wait, do you turn the shower on AFTER getting in?"
Me: "...No?"
That was the day my mind was blown by the fact that you could turn the shower on BEFORE getting in. I was like 23 when I learned this.
#35 Justified Joy
I went 30 years without knowing I had clinical depression. I thought you were only supposed to be happy if you had a reason to be. I went to get Lasik and they gave me a Valium. I thought it was weird that I was happy for no reason. I am medicated now and my entire perspective on happiness has changed. Good thing I got Lasik.
#36 Star Struck
I was in high school when I found out that my mom believed the night sky was some sort of veil with light behind it. According to her, stars were just holes that were poked through the veil. It was like she had never opened a science textbook before. Immediately after she told me her incorrect theory, I showed her a YouTube video explaining the basics of outer space.
#37 Two Moons
One time, when I was eight years old, I was laying in bed looking out of my window. Suddenly, I saw two moons. It freaked me out, so I went to my mom, asking her if something was wrong with me and she said, “No, that’s normal.” Fast forward to me at about 17: I went to the eye doctor with my mom to get my prescription updated. I told the doctor I saw two sets of letters.
He took a closer look at my eyes and told me that I had a lazy eye, which was abnormal. My mom, who was right there, exclaimed, “That’s not normal?! I thought everyone saw double!” The doctor was just like... No. It turned out, my mom had the same eye condition, but it was never addressed, so she just figured everyone had it.
#38 The Convenience Of Corn Dogs
My fiancée and I were at the local grocery store shopping for our usual items. We usually keep some form of frozen chicken and veggies for a quick meal in the event that I’m too tired or lazy to cook anything for the week. Well, we were walking down the aisle that had the ice cream and all of the convenience items like hot pockets, pizza rolls, etc. on one side.
My fiancé was talking about something and came to a full halt with the stomp of her foot. She did a hard triple take and said: “Shut. The. Heck. UP! YOU CAN BUY CORN DOGS!?” I was like, “Ha. Is that a joke!?” She thought you could only buy corn dogs at the regional fair that comes to town in October.
#39 Putting The Pieces Together
I just recently learned that when normal people ask, "Do you want to do a puzzle," they don't expect you to finish the whole thing in one sitting. I had never started a puzzle without finishing it. They were like board games for me—you don't just play a little bit each day. My wife thought I just hated puzzles because whenever I was asked to do one, I'd say: "That puzzle? Now? No way," thinking we couldn't possibly have time.
#40 Bittersweet Friendship
Meet my roommate, Cade: he's 6'4", somewhat portly, a kind of a quiet guy most of the time but also a pretty sassy gay dude once you get past the first barrier. Anyway, one day I came into the kitchen and I saw him washing the dishes. Cool, no big deal; we don't have an automatic dishwasher and it was his turn.
I was about to leave when I saw him pick something up off the counter, bite into it, then set it back down. I only stopped to look because I noticed the thing was bright yellow. It turns out, Cade eats lemons. Like apples. With the peel still on. I confronted him about it and he thought it was the funniest thing that I was so freaked out by it. Now, once or twice a week, I get a Snapchat of him aggressively eating a lemon. I think we're going to be friends for a long time.
#41 Problematic PB&Js
When making PB&J, my wife mixes the peanut butter and jam together in a bowl first. It is the only thing we've actually yelled at each other about. Not only does it give the spread a weird texture, but it also adds another dish in the sink for me to wash. It's a problem, whether you agree with my wife or not.
#42 Starving In The Sun
I have a co-worker who literally only eats once a day. He also won’t eat if the sun is out, with the exception of his morning coffee. He doesn't even pack a breakfast or a snack like a granola bar or a bag of chips. He walks home from work and will only eat once he gets home at night. I asked him if he ever gets hungry since he never seems hungry or cranky.
He told me he has built a “tolerance against nutrition.” He used to starve himself all throughout his younger years and told me, “I’m used to going four to five days without food.” He admitted to me that starving himself was just a bad habit. He gets super mad if someone offers him food. His response is always, “Naw, the suns out.”
#43 Evaporating Soap
I was eating at a friend's house and I noticed that her food tasted a bit like soap. I saw that the plate had a residue of soap on it. Later, I was in the kitchen when she started doing the dishes. She took a soapy sponge, cleaned the plate, and then immediately stuck it in the dish drainer. "Aren't you going to rinse that?" I asked.
She said, "No." She insisted that you don't have to rinse the soap off of dishes after you wash them. She said all of the soap just evaporates off. It took quite a bit to convince her that I wasn't the crazy one. Apparently, her parents were also both under this impression. They had been using dirty dishware for years.
#44 The Mystery Of Hash Browns
One morning, after a sleepover with a friend (we were about 17 at the time), I got up to make us breakfast. We went for the classic hash brown number with some eggs and toast. I whipped out the grater and started shredding the potatoes after washing them. She came into the kitchen, saw what I was doing, and looked at me like I was absolutely insane. It took me a second for it to register that she was actually serious. She didn’t know hash browns were made from potatoes.
#45 Peanut Butter And Pretzels
I went out to lunch with a friend and his wife for the first time to discuss some business. When we were choosing the restaurant, he said, "It doesn't matter where we go. I don't eat." The guy was always a little strange, so I just laughed. We ended up choosing a pizza place and no, he literally did not order anything. He got a beer and that was it.
I told him I had thought he was joking, and I asked if he really wasn't eating. His wife said he literally ate once a day and his meals only consisted of peanut butter sandwiches. His doctor said he had no reason to be as healthy as he was. It's not like he doesn't get hungry either, he just hates everything.
I don't think it's a taste thing either because he likes to drink beer and has preferences based on flavor. I have been to several other functions with this guy and have only ever seen him eat once. It was a soft pretzel because he just got in from a flight and went to a work function right after at dinner time. I'm not sure how long he'll survive.
#46 Mona Lisa Madness
I know a guy who experienced these weird hallucinations. Anytime he saw a picture of Mona Lisa, he would say she was talking to him. She would tell him all sorts of terrible things. It persisted, so he went to see a doctor. He got diagnosed with schizophrenia and was put on medication, but he was never able to shake off that hallucination. At that point, he got used to her and her terrifying threats.
#47 Air Dry
My roommate in college took the bus and forgot to grab his bags, which contained an assortment of things including his towels. Now, any normal person would simply go out and get more towels, right? Not this guy. He thought a perfectly good alternative solution was to get out of the shower, while still soaking wet, and get into his bed to let himself air dry. He did this every day. When he moved out, the rest of us walked over to his the mattress and sure enough, there was a large, green, human-sized circle from where he had been laying all year.
Westin Store
#48 Dental Denial
My dad's parents never told him to brush his teeth and he told me that he used to eat a whole can of condensed milk every day as a kid! He still thinks it's perfectly normal, and I don't know what else to tell him. He still wonders why all of his teeth fell out one day. He also has never been to the dentist, despite knowing what they do.
Pinterest
#49 A Dirty Man With OCD
He was a very strange person. He was homeschooled on a farm by his mom who barely knew English. He also scrubbed the shower and toilet before every use, had no eating manners whatsoever, and would frequently yell at people for no reason. He also thought girls were, and I quote, "icky." Oh, and he loved to warm up KFC in the microwave and then keep the bones in a drawer in his desk. He was somehow both super clean and utterly gross at the same time.
#50 Pepsi Family
My 13-year-old has a friend who didn’t know what he wanted from McDonald’s because his family never went there. He then proceeded to tell me that they only go to Wendy’s since they are a “Pepsi family.” When he tried McDonald's for the first time, he was conflicted—he enjoyed his meal thoroughly but felt guilty for betraying his family.
#51 Potty Blunder
I knew a guy who was super sheltered growing up. When he was getting potty trained, he was taught to get naked and sit on the toilet backward. He always thought it was normal until he was in his late teens. One day, he was using a public washroom for the first time when a guy in the stall next to him noticed his feet were facing backward. He asked him what the heck he was doing.
#52 My Office, My Rules
A lawyer I used to work with would trim his toenails during conference calls in his office. Toenails, not fingernails, meaning he removed his shoes and socks and pawed all over his stinky feet while on the phone. Everyone in the office knew not to ever touch anything on his desk because his dirty habit was no secret to anyone. I never got over that.
#53 Fruitless Life
I was never served fruit as a kid because it was too expensive where I lived. Now as an adult, I can't handle the tastes or textures of fruit. Occasionally, I will force myself to eat some, but it is not something I enjoy. It might seem weird, but when you've been conditioned to avoid something as a child, that habit remains with you when you get older.
#54 Purple Cat
I used to hang out at my friend's house a lot after high school. We would work on computer stuff and his cat would often join us and chill in his dark room. Well, after some time, his cat got old and eventually passed. When I came over again, I asked where his purple cat was. He looked at me and said "What??" It was at that time I realized I had some form of color blindness.
#55 Headaches Or Epilepsy
I would get constant headaches in the morning. I just figured it was fine, nothing serious; just a regular groggy feeling that most people get in the morning that they drink coffee for. And then I had a seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy, so that's a thing.
#56 Framed By Father
This was in the '90s. Remember having a family computer? My little sister got caught looking at sensitive content and my dad installed a tracker. The tracker caught a few websites and my sister got in trouble for them. But my sister was hanging out with me at all of the times listed by the tracker. and my dad was the only one who knew her password. So we concluded that our dad used her computer account to watch sensitive content and then framed her for it.
#57 Criminal Mother Dearest
My dad told me that my mom had embezzled a lot of money from the places she used to work. They both also indulged in illict substances. My dad claimed he did it for recreation and could stop any time. My mom was different, however, and he claimed that she could not live without it. Such explains her "fits of rage" growing up. I asked my dad how my mom never got caught and he wouldn't give any more details.
#58 Money Knowledge
HR once sent me a list of wages for everyone in my department right up to the VP. It included my boss, my boss’s boss, etc. At first glance, it looked harmless, but they had only filtered the list by job title so I wouldn’t see anyone above me. I told my boss and I’m pretty sure the person who sent it just got a “do better next time” talk.
#59 Not Something Mother Wants Public
I found out that my mother enjoys hooking up with random strangers. She's not the most tech-savvy person in the world and accidentally posted a request publicly on Facebook. She doesn't know that I have her as a friend on there, and I haven't been able to build the courage to call her out on what she's doing.
#60 Second String Friend
My "friend" who I hadn't seen in a long time invited me to get drinks after work, then canceled because she was too tired. I found the photos a few minutes later, after her and some mutual friends went out for drinks. So apparently, I wasn't invited and she found a better option. She didn't realize I'd see the pictures.
#61 Reasons Behind Reasons
My dad ended his own life almost 20 years ago. At the time, my mom told me it was because he was having secret gay affairs with people and he couldn't live in that "sinful" lifestyle anymore. It turned out, she cheated on him, and that was what sent him over the edge. I only know this because I was finally able to read a copy of his note last year.
#62 Letting The News Slip
My supervisor is really close to getting fired. Upper management isn't supposed to talk about it, but they do. Probably because we'd all quit if we thought she was staying. She sucks. I don't want to say anything because I don't want to be the source of drama. It could also put my job at risk if I throw her under the bus.
#63 Selfish Mothering
I know that my mom tried to have Child Protective Services take my daughter from me when she was born by claiming I used illicit substances while I was pregnant. I was nine years clean. She tried again when I was diagnosed with cancer. You would be amazed to see what the doctors actually put in your medical records.
#64 Closet Dweller
My boss would go on road trips with a crew of product installers. They'd spend the night sharing a couple of hotel rooms. The boss would take pictures of his employees while they slept. He is unhappily married with three grown children, but there is plenty of evidence that he is deep in the closet. We all wished he would just come out and make everyone's life easier.
#65 Family Isn't All Blood
I just recently found out that my youngest brother is not actually my dad's biological son. My dad has known for 17 years. He's never told another soul because he loves him so much. He loves him more than he hates my mom. My parents were in court every other year or so because my mom wanted more money, or for him to see us less, or not see us at all.
There were times when she kept us from him for years at a time, crushing his soul to the point where my stepmom would have to drag him out of the closet. He cried for hours because he missed his kids. He continued to pay child support for five years after my other brother and I were over 19, and to this day he continues to pay for his college education.
#66 Bad Brother
I spent a day getting intoxicated with my father, who I'm not that close with. He hasn't really been involved in my life much even though he has always lived one street away from me. I found out that the true reason my parents split when I was two years old was due to my mother cheating with my father's brother while my father was in prison.
#67 Regrets Turned Out Alright
When my mother was pregnant with me, she admitted she never wanted me. She also planned on leaving my dad (which she did a year after she had me). She doesn't know that I know and I will never tell her. I didn't find out until well into my adulthood, but I hold no hate for her. Regardless of what she did when she was young, she raised me the best she could and gave me and my older sibling everything she could.
#68 Unknown Family Abroad
My dad has another kid in Thailand, I think. I had someone message me on social media in broken English with his name, saying they were trying to reach their father. I was a freshman in high school and I panicked. I never corresponded with them and eight years later I still feel strange about that. I don't know if I'll ever confront my dad about it.
#69 Taking Advantage Of The Unknowing
The school I'm contracted to work for is being audited by the government because a lot of the administration staff have been using it as a way to make easy money while doing the bare minimum for the students. It's one of two deaf schools in the country, and it's an absolute shame that they would try to take advantage of the unknowing.
#70 Growth Outlaw
My dad runs an illegal operation. He has been for 50 years now, but I only found out recently. It all made sense after—that's how he made car payments when he was unemployed for a few years. He's got a lot of nice things that are above his employment level. Last I checked, years ago, he had the trust of numerous private landowners and the keys to the gates.
They let him build and maintain feed plots for deer and turkey, so he could have his own private hunting land and be out on his own, but I'm pretty sure I know how he actually makes money. It's a real countryside, this place. There are fenced-off gates to roads and you have to go on foot through thick foliage to get around the gate that's blocking the only road in.
#71 Liar Speaking Truth
When my dad died, the Associate Pastor of my mom’s church spoke about how devastating cancer is. That pastor used to attend a different church but had to leave after she faked cancer for two years. Her husband left her and her daughter disowned her after they found out. My mom was the secretary at that church, so she knew and had already told me.
#72 Making Do Or True Love?
My sister was trying to flirt with this guy at a bar but she lost him in the crowd. She went to the bar to have a drink to see if he'd come back. This other guy walked up and she chatted with him to have a reason to stay and look for the other guy. She shrugged and thought, "He'll do I guess." They just got back from their honeymoon.
#73 Undeserving Parental Disappointment
I overheard my dad saying that he thinks I'm a failure. That really hurt, even though I worked my butt off to get into an elite private school, volunteer, and make Honor Roll. I'm doing better than he ever did at my age. For the longest time, it made me angry that nothing I did could ever impress my dad, but at some point, I just stop trying to please him.
#74 Unable To Handle The Fame
I'm 60 years old, my girlfriend is 59. About 40 years ago, she wrote a book that became a bestseller. It was all about a celebrity who freaked her out. She changed her name, moved to a small town, ignored everyone from her past, and she doesn't know I know about it. I guess she felt she needed to keep it a secret because she didn't like the fame.
#75 Don't Ask What You Don't Want To Know
An older relative of mine was possibly a hit man in the mafia. To find out if it was true, I jokingly asked him if he ever ended a man and his face dropped. He just said, "We don't ask those questions." I'm almost sure he was living a double life, and I understood that we would all be in danger if he ever told anyone, so I just kept my mouth shut.
#76 Not My Secret To Tell
In high school, I overheard my mom talking with a friend of hers when I was getting my hair done. They thought I couldn’t hear. Turns out, their other friend’s daughter was a love child born out of an affair, and her daughter never knew the truth. Her husband knew the daughter wasn’t his but pretended everything was fine. Her daughter also went to high school with me and walking around, knowing I knew this total lie about her life but that she had no idea, was hard to deal with. I knew it was never my place to be the one to say something though.
#77 Keeping The Dead's Silence
I was doing a major renovation for this nice couple who had two little kids. I talked to the husband and wife every morning before he left for work about job stuff (how many high hats there were, the placement of the outside lights, etc.). She called me one night and told me her husband had an accident at work. He was a roofer and fell off a commercial building.
Poor lady. My job was only halfway done. I still had to go there and finish the house. It was freaking grim. At the end of the job, I was running one of the last circuits in the basement and on top of a duct, totally hidden, I found a pile of like, 12 raunchy. I made that stuff disappear and I’m the only one that knows, except for you guys of course.
#78 Number I Shouldn't Have
Long story short, during my time in radio, I interviewed Chris Jericho over the phone before the launch of a new Fozzy album. Normally, a handler calls the station, pairs you up with the talent, you record, etc., but this time, I was told in advance that I’d be calling Chris himself at a specific time... And oh, by the way, “This is his personal number, so delete it afterward.” I’m semi-ashamed to admit I didn’t.
#79 Early Release For Baby Behavior
My mother was in jail during her pregnancy with me and they let her out a month early because she was going to give birth to me. She has no idea that I know she is a felon. Court records are public record and I was curious as a teenager. I don't hold anything against her, though; she's a great mother and I would do anything for her.
#80 Sunny Dodgers
We conducted many dodgy solar installations across Australia. The customers had no clue and in many cases, they paid for expensive solar panels and we'd just install the cheap ones. When I asked my boss why he was cheating the customers, he said to me, "Once it's on the roof, they won't be checking them to see what's been installed. By the time they ever do, in 10 years time, I'll be long gone." I felt really bad and left that place. Oh, and by the way, they weren't even installed by qualified electricians, just general laborers.
#81 Using Company Property For Private Things
A coworker was taking personal photos with his work phone. He didn’t realize his photos were saving to the company-wide cloud image storage. My supervisor found them and texted me about it. I almost didn’t believe him at first. I saw them for myself when I got home. In addition to several "private" pictures, he had some of him with his kids, selfies, and screenshots of passwords for various cam sites. Our company has its own Gmail account for everyone to download apps, and I don’t think anyone realizes that it syncs and is available to anyone in the company.
#82 Told The Worst Possible Lie
I found out that my mom’s sister told Child Protective Services that my dad was abusing me and my siblings. She did it in an attempt to have him taken away after my mom died. My mom and her sisters act like nothing happened, even though they literally sued for custody and lost. And they still talk terribly about my dad whenever I’m with them.
#83 Burning What They Don't Like
When my grandmother’s cousin passed away, her children found her handwritten will. Upon finding out my side of the family would be receiving a significant portion, they burned it. I haven't told anyone this yet because I want to be smart about how I will approach this. I'm thinking of consulting with a lawyer very soon to discuss my legal options.
#84 Broken Religion
My sister is actually in a romantic relationship with her best friend. I know this because she left her phone on her desk once while she went to the bathroom and their conversation was left open. Keep in mind, my parents are extremely traditional Catholics. If they ever found out, best case scenario they would just disown her. I don’t want to imagine the worst case scenario.
#85 Two Strikes And Your Secrets Are Out
There are key loggers and screen capturing software on certain employees computers who have screwed up one too many times. I found this out when I was told to use admins computer and he left the program open and running, allowing me to see what people were doing. I work a high-security job and this is allowed per employment contracts, but we’ve been told numerous times that we can only look at our internet usage.
#86 Refusal To Break
I saw my mom's phone when she left it open once. There were texts to my dad detailing how she thought I would never make it because I was too much of an anxious mess. She kept saying how I would never move out of the house and how she didn't believe I would ever get better. Fast forward five years later: I have a Master's degree, a two-story condo and a loving family of my own.
#87 Not The One To Blame
My parents divorced because of me. They had me at a really young age and they had no clue how to properly take care of a kid, let alone an autistic one. I would hear them yelling at each other about what to do with me in the years before the divorce. I'm in college now and they still don't realize that I heard everything.
#88 Marital Secret, Family Peace
My sister is secretly married. She got married a couple of years ago to her boyfriend of seven years, however, never told anybody because he is not the same religion as us. I’m completely in support of it but my father definitely wouldn’t be, which is why she probably doesn’t want to tell me because she’s afraid I’ll spill. I found out because I came across a recently opened tab with her marital status and emergency contact information.
#89 No Thanks Where It's Due
I just found out recently that my grandma, who I have taken care of for the last seven years, doesn't want me to have a dime of the $100,000 life insurance policy. Even though she would have been on the streets without me. I don't want to cause her any stress, but at some point, I think I need to confront her about it. It'd just be unfair if I don't.
#90 Secret Ahead Of Surprise
I’m being paid four times less than a part-time coworker who works remote and never turns in projects on time. I know he talks behind my back and blames me for the bad work, and now the heads at the office think I don’t do anything. I also know that I’m being let go on Monday. The bookkeeper and I went out for dinner last night and she filled me in.
#91 Friendly Criminal
I know that the Pharmacist Intern at my pharmacy was fired and the company is now pursuing legal action against him for stealing thousands of dollars of prescription opioid painkillers over his three years of employment. The technicians aren't supposed to know because he's a charming, likable guy who made a point of being friendly with all of us and inserting himself into our personal lives. The company is worried that we might disclose information pertinent to the case against him.
#92 Motherly Thieving
I knew I was autistic for the last few years. When I went with my mom to the doctor for a health check-up, the doctor asked if I had any disabilities. I said I have autism. My mom looked at me with shock and said, "You knew?" The doctor then asked me if I had applied for or had been getting a disability allowance. Not long after, mom and I got home and I wanted to apply for the allowance. My mom then told me I couldn't apply. I was very confused by that, so she ended up explaining everything to me. Apparently, my mom had been stealing my disability allowance for years without me knowing.
#93 Office Politics And Company Selfishness
My boss is being pushed out of the company. I'm in line to take her spot. She fought hard for me to be on the team, but the higher-ups sat me down and told me, to my face, that she was going to try to fire me (which is absolutely not true). She has a kid in the hospital and another with OCD. They're firing her because she won't ever work overtime. I want to tell her so she can lodge a case but I also want to keep my head down.
#94 Secret For Security
My fiancé has always hidden her weight from me. We’ve both been dieting and I’m exercising to help encourage her. She never lets me see the scale when she weighs herself. A few weeks ago, I weighed myself for giggles and our digital scale showed her weight before it showed mine. She doesn’t know and I’ll never tell her because she’s so insecure about her weight. I love her, and her weight will never bother me, but if she knows that I know, she’ll probably get insecure.
#95 Secret Family Dynamics
I found out that my uncle's son is not his son. His then-wife was having relations with her cousin and boom, baby! To this day, my cousin doesn't know and treats his dad (who raised him as if he were his own and had never said a word about it to anyone but me) terribly because of the lies his mother spread about him. I kind of want to tell him to do a DNA test so that he'll know and maybe, just maybe, realize his mother isn't the saint she's made herself out to be.
#96 Sharing The Wealth
I know what's in my mom's will. My brother gets almost everything—90%. I once kind of confronted her without letting on that I knew I was going to get that much less than him. She said she would give him a "larger share" because he was weaker and not educated, whereas, since I am educated, I was going to be fine even if I got nothing.
#97 A Disaster In Potentia
A chemical plant I used to work at has been submitting inaccurate Catastrophic Loss estimates for decades. Emergency plans they submit estimate a few thousand casualties if everything went up and exploded. One of the old-timer supervisors (40+ years there at the time) pulled up an overhead view of the plant and circled an area about 1/4 of a mile in diameter.
"That'd be the crater. Everything about 3 miles of that will be dead, outright. Depending on the wind and what all got mixed together, another 10 to 20 miles would need SCBA within an hour. Probably 75,000, worst case." Everyone that retired from there got cancer. I got out of there as soon as I had another job lined up.
#98 Father Not My Father
I accidentally found out that my dad isn't my biological father. This all happened about three years ago when I turned 26. Well, a distant cousin I had just met at an anniversary party for the family really wanted to date me. When I kept telling her no and how freaking strange it would be, she said, "Well, your dad isn't even your real father, so we aren't even related." Sure enough, I asked a very close cousin and it was confirmed by them. I was sworn to not tell anyone they told me. Also, I never realized but my original birth certificate definitely does not have a father signature or name. Apparently, I'm oblivious.
#99 Secret Date Ruined
I am about to graduate college. My parents were teasing me about setting me up on a date with a "guy with black hair whose name starts with an M." I was irritated and kept asking for more details but wasn't given any. Yesterday, I was on social media stalking one of my cousins and saw she posted a video of a cute black puppy named Max. It was the same breed as the dog I had growing up.
I had been planning on getting one later this year. After thinking a while about why my cousin would get a dog exactly like the one I really wanted, I remembered what my parents said about setting me up with a guy with black hair and a name starting with M. I went back to the video and sure enough, it was recorded in my parents' living room. Guys, I'm pretty sure I'm getting a puppy next weekend. I actually feel really guilty for finding out.
#100 What A Difference A Year Makes
I might be a year older than I was made to believe. I was flipping through an old baby book of mine and found an ultrasound dated in August the year before I was born, with my name written above it. My birthday is in September and the baby in the picture was very developed, so there’s no possible way it was just an early ultrasound.
On one hand, my mom is mentally ill and always had attachment issues with me growing up. I know she had issues getting pregnant and treated me like she had to protect me with her life when I was little. It would make sense that she would want me in the house with her for an extra year. I also developed really early, learned to read and write months before everyone else my age, and got my period when I was 10 (not super uncommon but still on the early side). On the other hand, this seems like an extremely difficult and illegal thing to do. There are other possible explanations: maybe the ultrasound date was misprinted?
