Everyone is entitled to their secrets. The cost of keeping them, however, is sometimes too hard to bear. Good thing the Internet exists to be a virtual confession booth, where people can unburden their mental (and sometimes literal) crimes to the world under the protection of anonymity. Reddit gave these special people a chance to share their deepest thoughts and anxieties. Indulge in 42 stories about the most painful (and just painfully embarrassing) things we just needed to get off our chests.
42. Choose Your Own Adventure. Or Don’t.
I can't settle on what I want to do with my life. I've tried different types of jobs and looked into different lines of work. I want to go back to school but can't decide for what. It's super frustrating, and I feel incredibly stuck.
41. I Don’t Have the Power
If I come to disconnect your gas or electricity or fit a money meter because you haven't paid, I'M NOT THE BAD GUY. I try to help you but even before I've knocked on your door, you've had visits, letters, warnings, an invitation to the court regarding your account, the works.
Yet every day, I get abuse and hate because I'm the face on your doorstep. I want to arrange an agreement. I understand financial hardship and I have so much information for you if you'd just listen or let me help you.
You don't get free gas or electric. That's not your right.
40. You Can’t Inherit Charm
I’ve come to the undeniable realization recently that many of the people around me like my family but don’t really like me. My brother is, for whatever reason, extremely likable—I’m a girl but I see a lot of resemblance personality-wise between us—and people just gravitate towards him but are only cordial towards me.
39. Writing Yourself to Life
I'm clinging to my hope of finally publishing my novel one day and actually making some decent money. It'll be the time when my adult life finally begins. I'm turning 30 this year.
And yes, I know it's unlikely that I'll actually have a decent career as a writer, but just imagining it keeps me going and is one of the reasons I’m still alive.
38. Cut the Umbilical Cord
I disconnected contact with my mother at the beginning of last year. Then she and her husband went on a campaign of sending me abusive and harassing messages by using different numbers and creating new social media profiles every time I blocked them.
I feel like I had a malignant tumor removed.
The true confession part of this is that I’m relieved not to be saddled with caring for that toxic old witch or cleaning out her hoarder house when she dies.
37. Don’t Throw the Baby Out with the Bridal Water
I want to leave my wife, but I don't want to lose my kid.
36. More Than One Loss
I’m meant to be the daddy to triplets, but my wife miscarried and lost all three. I’ve been too caught up in making sure she’s ok to have even had a chance to process this myself.
35. Is This the Real Life? Is This Just a Newsfeed?
I feel lonely. It's not that I'm alone per se, just the people in my life suddenly seem so superficial and distant. Scrolling through social media especially, I get a feeling of disconnect because of how artificial and impersonal everything is.
I hate this feeling of disdain for people I should genuinely care about but I'm worried that if I ignore it, I'll be sacrificing my own authenticity. Maybe I'm just a bad person.
34. You and Everyone Else
I listen to lots of free podcasts and never contribute in any way to them financially as a means of repayment for my enjoyment. I am a monster.
I usually also skip over the ads. I'm ashamed.
33. A Bottle A Day
I detest my job so much that it takes an enormous effort to show up every day... and I think I have a drinking problem, but drinking is one of the few joys in my life.
32. A Miseducation
School gives me anxiety now. I just want to stay in bed all day. I've always been the perfect kid, the goody two shoes, the A+ student and I really don't want to disappoint my parents but I want to throw up just thinking of waking up and going.
31. That’s Why They Call It “The One”
It's been two years and I feel incapable of getting over my ex. I've tried to date so many other people but never feel anything close to that connection I had with my ex, even on our first date.
I've tried to hold out, not everyone will spark right away but they seem to fall for me and it pains me to hurt them in the same way I've been hurt.
Not something I've got anyone to speak to about but taking steps to get some professional help.
30. The Bleeding Embarrassment
If you have a weak stomach, or don’t like reading about periods, scroll on.
I started my period when I was about nine, and nine-year-olds are obviously not the most hygienic responsible people. My mom also didn't often put me in clothes that fit, or any clothes I was comfortable in. I was a weird child, I hated having panties touch me. This, accompanied by the fact that tampons were pretty foreign to my family, put me in some uncomfortable situations. Like the time I was being made to wear a GIANT pad, in shorts, in public.
Nothing was pulled up to where it was supposed to be placed... I was uncomfortable, and I fidgeted the whole time we were grocery shopping.... and suddenly, I was just comfortable... I got home, and my pad was gone... it fell out down in one of the grocery store aisles. I’ve never mentioned this to ANYONE.
29. Never Too Late
I’m 21 and never had a relationship or even been kissed. Also, I didn’t have any friends from the age of ten onward. I am so lonely but at this point, I prefer the loneliness I know to things changing. Change freaks me out
I have gotten better in the last years, found some internet friends, got on anti-depressants, and went back to university. But yeah, the issues around relationships run deeper than that. I’m also FTM transgender, and as you can imagine it doesn't exactly improve my confidence when it comes to dating.
28. A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Air Miles
For my Star of the Week presentation in third grade, I posted a photo of me beneath a pagoda and told everyone I went to Japan, but really, it was just Epcot.
27. See Ya Later, Grim Reaper!
I recently turned 60. Suddenly, it seemed like everything hurt. My knee. My back. I have lifted and run for years. Wrestled and ju-jitsu for years. Thought that’s all over.
Then yesterday I got with some old friends. Wound up wrestling for several hours and had a blast.
I... am... not...dead... yet.
26. The Sickness Inside
I think my medication is causing me to have anxiety attacks and I feel as though I have no control over it.
I started taking medication to treat a potential autoimmune condition (joint pain, diarrhea, ANA markers) about five weeks ago and it is not helping yet.
I have struggled with depression and mild anxiety for the past five years. I am 19 and am studying engineering, and I am too young for this.
I struggle to relax fully, and I am scared that I will not be able to be an engineer if this doesn’t get better. I just need to talk to someone about it (working on that) since I bottle everything up.
Thanks for reading, have a nice day.
25. Less Money, More Problems
I owe the IRS $200 and it has to be paid by the end of the month. I also owe $160 to my old job and I have to pay it by next week or else they send to collections. I also am unemployed, desperately seeking work. I don't know what to do and I'm scared.
24. At Least You Learned
Just a few years ago, I was an openly homophobic moron.
I no longer have those views. At all. I am ashamed that I ever thought that way. Ashamed and embarrassed.
23. No Means Never
My girlfriend broke up with me a week and a half ago. We had broken up for a day or two a few weeks before, but we reconciled, and for the next few weeks, everything was good. I met her grandparents, who she said loved me more than any other boy they’ve met. We had some really great positive moments from then, until a week and a half ago, when I hadn’t seen her for a few days and came over one night to sleep over and noticed she had this blank look on her face.
I gently touched her face and asked what was wrong when she uttered those awful words: “I think we should break up.” She gave me some smaller reasons about why she felt that way but ultimately felt like I wasn’t someone she saw herself spending her life with.
She asked me to leave and since then I have felt so broken inside. I’ve been through this kind of heartache before, and knew I should just leave it, but I love her with every fiber of my being and just had to reach out after a week or so. She answered my call and reiterated what she said. I then broke down again and texted her earlier today, too much of the same conversation except this time she was yelling telling me how much of a turnoff it is for me to be so self-centered to keep trying to reconcile and that she doesn’t want to be with me, ever.
So, yeah. I know I should have just kept no contact this entire time, but my emotions got the better of me. Maybe it’s because it was her birthday yesterday. I wished so badly to spend it with her. Now I’m left to pick up the pieces and try and make myself happy in the moment. Just hurts to be told they don’t love you anymore.
22. Two Times the Toot
Two years ago, I absent-mindedly ripped a silent-but-deadly fart at work that was absolutely venomous. At the same time, another co-worker ripped a little baby toot. Everybody was laughing at him when our boss walked in the room right into my poison cloud. I let him take the fall.
21. Stuck in the Middle
In six days, I'm officiating the wedding of the girl I love. Spoiler alert, she's not marrying me. I thought I was handling it well, but tonight I read her vows, and it crushed me inside.
We're longtime friends, and I'm still glad I decided to say yes when she asked me to do the ceremony, but damn I thought I had gotten over feeling like this.
To forestall the inevitable comments about it, she knows how I feel about her. We sat down and had a serious conversation about it a while ago, and I respect that she doesn't feel the same about me.
Still feels bad, though.
20. That’s Why They Call It “Crushing”
So there’s this girl, and when I get to work with her, it’s the best thing going in my life. But at the same time, I hate myself around her cause I just ache for her validation. I overshare and under-empathise.
When I stop and take a step back, I realize how its not helpful. And I’m putting her on a pedestal. And that from my discussions with her we have so little in common outside work and I’m nothing she is looking for in a friend, let alone a boyfriend.
Still, I ache like a pathetic teenager.
19. Bun in the Oven & None in the Bank
My wife is 36 weeks pregnant, and I am terrified I won't be a good dad. I am trying to keep it cool and look as if I'm really excited about it.
But in reality, this is getting me, and the prospect of being responsible of a little human when I can't get my own stuff together... is just extremely terrifying.
18. A Missing Link in the Family Tree
My great-grandma cheated on my great-grandpa and sired my grandpa. My grandpa died never having known his true parentage. My great-grandma spilled her guts to my mom (her granddaughter) at her son's (my grandpa’s) funeral. My mom spilled her guts to me when I was older. Only a handful people know that one.
17. The Seven-Year Itch That You Won’t Scratch
I've been with my partner for more than seven years and I'm not sure if we are together because it's "too late to break up," or because we are both scared of starting again with another person.
16. Straight to the Source
One time a co-worker came into my office and said, "Hey, I just wanna warn you, don't go into the bathroom for a while. It smells like somebody died in there." It was me.
15. At You Learned Something at School
I've just completed my first day as a teacher and already I'm questioning my life choices.
14. A Lesson in Survival
I'm currently in school, and I think I'm on the verge of failing all my classes simultaneously. I've been having trouble staying up during the night, which is how I used to get things done after a long day of classes and a part-time job. Now I'm stressed, working but making less money, and not getting everything done that I need to get done.
13. Never Enough Time to Heal
My three-year-old daughter died 17 years ago today. It doesn't feel that long ago. I miss her.
Flickr
12. Breaking Free
I'm leaving my emotionally abusive boyfriend after he leaves for work today. I'm scared, but I finally feel enough is enough.
11. Left on Read
I didn't talk to my best friend for a week before she died by suicide. I wasn't angry with her or anything, it was just after exams and we had a few days off of school. I have never been an on-screen communicator, and I was so certain that I would see her on our first day back to school.
But now she's gone, and I can't forgive myself for not sending her a quick "hey" on Facebook when I knew she would still reply.
Shutterstock
10. Behind the Screams
Still not over when my (at the time) famous YouTuber boss chewed me out in the lobby of our office for a mistake I made, even after I asked if we could discuss it privately. At least 20 people, in a company of maybe 40, heard the whole thing. "If I were your direct supervisor, you wouldn't have a freaking job."
It kills my self-esteem every time I think about it, and makes me feel worthless, even though I know it's not true. And then he gets to go on camera and talk about "love" and put on this act of being a nice, even-tempered, trustworthy personality. I hate how it happened months ago, I know his opinion shouldn't matter to me, yet whenever I think about it, I shrink. I feel so small. I hate it.
9. Hold Me, Love Me
I just want to be held for once. I want to be told that I'm going to be fine, and that there are people who would accept me unconditionally. I just want to feel loved by people who aren't my parents.
8. Counting on That Friend Request
I don't know how to keep friends and at this point, I'm worried it's too late.
7. Who Has the Power?
I might have killed someone around ten years ago, without any questions asked.
Short story, I was an intern at a hospital to become a biomedical technician. During this period of three years, I was one of the technicians and doing the same things as they did.
One day, me and one of the technicians were performing an annual preventive maintenance task on some ventilators. You know, as in ventilators that keeps people alive when they can't breathe on their own. This day was like every other, I was told what to do, did the things, and afterward, the other technician would visually inspect my work. He was also performing the same things on another device next to me, so he couldn’t look at every step I did.
The task was to replace the internal lead-acid backup batteries and some filters. I replaced every one. I made my best effort.
The next day, I heard a patient had died because the power supply had gone out during the night. The staff had not been able to hand-ventilate the patient sufficiently.
The weird part is, there was never an audit performed or investigation into what was wrong with the ventilator.
I also wonder why there wasn't any backup ventilator on hand for the staff to fetch in case of breakdowns.
I don't blame myself, but I had my fingers in the power supply the day before, and I remember now that there weren't any electrostatic discharge precautions in place at the biomedical department where we did all those things. I know now that ESD is a real threat and can show its face right away or six months later, you just never know.
I have only ever repeated this here.
6. I’m the Unwanted Surprise
When I was 22, my dad died. I was absolutely destroyed by it. Recently my mother told me he wasn't my real dad; some other guy was. He's still living, married to the same woman he was with when he stepped out with my mother. He and I have connected, hit it off, I care about him, etc. I have two siblings who didn't know I existed, his wife didn't know either. They all just found out and everything hit the fan.
Now his wife has forced him to dial back his relationship with me, and my siblings have not reached out to me at all. I was a dirty secret for a bit, and now I'm a burden to his family simply by my having been born.
I have a wonderful family, and had a great daddy who died too early. I feel guilty for my interest in my biological father and I'm drowning in shame and guilt over what his family is going through.
I know none of this is even remotely my fault, but I feel bad just the same. I miss my daddy, I want this other new dad, I have my amazing siblings, and I want these new siblings too. I've lost so much of my identity in such a jarring way and now I'm grasping at what is left of me and I'm so lost!
I'm hurt. I'm so hurt by it all.
5. No Fun in Funeral
I witnessed my best friend drown in a terrible accident. Alcohol was involved. My best friend’s parents asked me not to go to the funeral services but wanted to hear the story a mere two days following the funeral. I have yet to share my story with them—I don’t see the value at this point. It brings me anger almost every day because they asked me not to go to my best friend’s service, like I was the bad guy...
4. Too Little and Too Late
When I was a kid I heard a gunshot while walking down a street. I ran back home, fast as I could. Went to my room and watched TV to calm myself down. Didn't tell anybody. Two hours passed, and the phone rang. Mom told me my uncle died of a gunshot wound, trying to stop a fight nearby. At the funeral we were told my uncle could've lived if paramedics arrived earlier.
For 20 years, I've always thought I could've saved him.
3. Wingman With an Ulterior Plan
My friend fell for some girl really, really hard. This girl, by some weird coincidence (seriously, a total coincidence), has dated almost every one of my closest friends. I was close friends with all of them, but they didn’t know each other—hence, the coincidence.
My friend has fallen for this girl and believes her to be the one that he is supposed to marry, the problem is, the girl’s a sociopath. She doesn't care about anything she does when she's angry, often making my friend her emotional punching bag. But this dude kept trucking through it, because to him, she was worth it.
Well, after a couple of breakups, as well as trips to the jailhouse for both of them, they both finally call it quits and my friend goes into a deep, deep depression. It seems like the only time he is happy is when we are all out doing something.
So fast forward a couple of months and stuff is still at square one, but the only difference is that she actually moved on. And not only has she moved on, but she actually started seeing another one of my close friends.
Now I've been keeping this to myself because my friend is nowhere near ready to take this news. He thinks I'm going through a phase where I'm OBSESSED with going out and meeting different girls (I actually am) but in reality, I'm trying to push him off on different girls, so he will forget the sociopath.
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2. The Frat Paths Not Taken
In college, I had a friend named "S." We weren't best friends, but we played on a team together starting freshman year. In junior year, another one of our teammates, who was in the same frat as S, called me up to hang out with the two of them because S's girlfriend had just broken up with him and he was torn up about it.
We made plans for the whole weekend, you know, “We’re gonna get you drunk, find you a new girl, blah blah blah." Friday night they threw a party at the frat. Me and S raged, found him a hot girl, and she took care of him for the night.
On Saturday, I got a call from this insanely hot girl I'd been trying to talk to, she's like the spitting image of Tyra Banks. I figured I'd hang out with her then go chill with S after, took her out to dinner then for a walk. Around 11, we walked past S's frat and I go in to see if they've started drinking.
A couple of his brothers are sitting around playing a drinking game and they said he decided to go to sleep early, I normally would’ve gone to his room and told him to man up and come out and hang, but I had the girl with me and really wanted to see where I could get with her. I got a call the next morning that he hung himself that night.
I play the three minutes of me walking into the frat and talking to his brothers in my head everyday. What if I had just dragged him out of his room like I normally would have. What if I had walked into his room, and he was still breathing?
1. Moving Away But Not Moving on
My sister died last night. She was my last relative. She was my whole world. She had a difficult life. I guess I'm glad she's not suffering anymore. But I feel like all the light has gone out of my life.
She suffered a serious mental breakdown almost ten years ago. I took care of her for years. She eventually ended up in an assisted living situation. She was my life. She went through hell… But I tried to be there for her.
She had these bright eyes that would light up a room. I’ll miss her forever. I regret putting her in an assisted living home and moving away. I was slipping to a bad place and I wasn't able to help anymore. It kills me. She wouldn't have wanted to die where she was. I wish she’d moved with me. And I myself haven't been well. I spent the yesterday in the hospital because of a seizure. I came home and slept to find a voicemail that said she never woke up. Life’s a cruel mistress. Rest well, sister. 12/30/85- 2/20/17.
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