*The following article contains discussion of suicide.
You know what the internet is really good at? Keeping secrets.
We super duper promise it's safe with us. No worries about it being screenshotted and shared around for randos to poke and prod at it.
No sir. Not at all...
Just in case, let's give these people the kudos they deserve for being brave enough to offer up their deepest, darkest secrets even their families don't know about.
Reddit user, Throwaway001937, wanted to know what no one else knows when they asked:
"What’s the most disturbing secret you are keeping from your friends and family?"
Before we get too serious, let's have a teeny bit of fun.
The Mystery Will Live On For Forever
"Not so much disturbing, but I absolutely never want them to find out that I am the one in the family who draws little smiley faces in random spots for everyone to find."
"Everyone always accuses each other and of course I play along, but I am the one who does it lol"- Revolutionary-Mess21
She's Got It Going On
"I banged one of my mom's friends after mowing her yard."- SD-Caller
Snitches Get Stitches
"Mom believes my dad hired a private investigator and that that's who caught her cheating on him."
"It wasn't a P.I..."
"in reality, I was the one who caught her ON video and completely by chance"
"She'd come for blood if she was ever told the truth"- litken_chitle
Life is hard. Sometimes, it's harder for others. And sometimes it's so hard and situations so difficult you can't help but emotionally check out.
Don't Look. Don't Look.
"My second tour in Iraq we were in a nasty firefight when I felt something wet hit the side of my face."
"I knew the guy next to me had been killed but I was a little too busy to do anything about it."
"After it was done the corpsman came running over making sure I was ok, and I thought it was because I was covered in the guy's blood."
"Turns out one of the guy's eyes was basically dangling on the side of my helmet."- GlobeAnchor2004
Just So Very Tired
"My friends and family don't use reddit, so no throwaway necessary."
"Sometimes, I am passively suicidal."
"I am so f-cking tired of being alive, but I don't want to kill myself."
"1). I'm afraid of what happens or doesn't happen after you die."
"2). I don't want to hurt them like that, even if I am in a lot of pain."
"3). There's still some things I want to do, even though I do feel f-cking worthless/ugly/exhausted."
"As you can imagine I don't really have anyone to talk about it with, and I don't want to worry the people I love."
"It's a battle sometimes."- Darth_Titty-ous
Nothing Beyond Tomorrow
"I can’t imagine the future."
"People ask me what my plans are and I just don’t know."
"I have no chance of making plans."
"There’s just no vision or hope or amount of wishing hard enough to try and plan or predict my own future."-Firestar-
Whatever your reasons are for not telling your family, we give you all the credit in the world for being honest here today.
Wishing For The End
"I have stage 4 breast cancer and a prognosis of stable."
"I could be here for years and years, doing my treatment and living my life."
"Not secret."
"I don't want to be a cancer patient for years and years."
"My treatment sucks and it makes me feel sick every day."
"My brain sucks due to chemo."
"There are some real cognitive difficulties."
" I had to give up a career I loved."
"I'm entry level call center from home now."
"I've been home, not going out to fun places, since March of 2020, because my immune system sucks."
"It's worth the risk to go to the doctor or my son's parent teacher conference, but not the bar."
"My secret is that every time I make a wish, I wish for the cancer to kill me faster."
"This existence, feeling like garbage and doing my call center thing so I can afford to feel like garbage, is disheartening and it sucks."
"I'm in therapy and an exercise program and I have hobbies, I'm doing what I can to keep slogging along, but damn."
"The 'I don't wanna' is strong sometimes."- insertcaffeine
Acting Out From A Past Experience
"When i was around 9-10 i did really bad things to my younger brother and i can’t remember much of it but it was sexual, nothing below the waist."
"I still feel bad and I’m pretty sure me then thought it was okay because the same thing happened to me with someone older but it wasn’t and I always feel guilty anytime I remember."
"I don’t know if my brother remembers or not, but the trauma I caused makes me want to kms because I can’t comprehend how i could do anything like that now."
"I just needed to let it out."- Avacado_toast23
When he refuses to let me go.
"I hope my ex gets what he f*cking deserves."
"I've moved on from his abused years ago, and engaged to someone who's literally the guy of my dreams."
"But there are days when I hope my ex's present girl would know that he keeps on stalking me."
"Or better yet, I hope someone hurt him as much as he hurted me."
"Because, he doesn't deserve the peace he's experiencing now."- LaLunaChan
An illicit discovery
"When I was 7, my family and my cousins, he was 6, she was 5, went on a vacation to this cool house by the lake."
"It was pretty big and we found out there was a locked basement, so naturally the curiosity led us to finding a bunch of keys in a drawer."
"Tried like 20 or 30 of them and suddenly one worked."
"We were looking through some boxes and found kamasutra books."
"We were intrigued by pictures in there and decided to try and 'pose' in the same way."
"I am 22 now, never spoke to them about that, I hope they don't remember."- yachuuuuuu
I just can't fight the urge
"I have been vaping constantly for about a year and a half and I am currently trying to quit."
"No body else other then the people I used to vape with know."- emjaveee
A dark childhood
"There are a few."
"When I was a kid there were 3 kids that lived in the same neighborhood as me."
"I had a crush on one of them and the other 2 weren't friends."
"I decided to write down what I hated about each of them and said things like 'jimmy thinks he is cool but he isn't he is actually stupid' and just scrawl you'd expect from a 4th grade kid."
"I randomly took the dog for a walk, which I rarely did being the lazy little sh*t I was, and dropped the notes in the letterboxes of these kids houses, I have no idea if they ever read them."
"But I can only hope their parents got to them first."
"At that age i used to do a lot of drawing and it usually involved violence and death, for example alien invasions where people were dead or aliens were dead too."
"It was all 2D and not that detailed."
"I didn't possess the talent required."
My teacher said '<name> should start drawing nicer things, but they are very detailed'."
"I also wrote sarcastic comments underneath her grades she gave me on homework."
"I used to call her names and say 'why isn't this good enough?'"
" When I got caught I was silent."
"My mum told me it was bad."
"I used to talk a religious teacher at my school and talk to him about porn and masturbation."
"He never abused me."
"But he was a manipulative old man because rather than do the honest thing and say 'This is too much' and tell my parents, he went along with it thinking he was doing gods work."
"Even one time, I ratted out on my mum who said I was acting like a d*ckhead and he rang her up and told her not to do that."
"Religion poisons everything."- jo_concerned
Groominng
"That a cousin, that is at least 7 years older than I (27 M[ale]) am, got me to touch her inappropriately when I was probably around the ages of 5-6."
"To be fair, for years I thought I had just had a dream where my cousin had me go upstairs to her room and 'play doctor', where she made me touch her."
"After telling my wife and roommate they told me I probably thought it was a dream cause I couldn’t fully comprehend all that at that age."
"I still like that cousin and that’s part of the reason I haven’t told my family."
"I do think though that may be the reason I have some mental issues including an issue with being overly sexual from a young age until now."
"I’m also afraid that it was all a dream that my f*cked up brain came up with and that I would look like the biggest creepy big I brought it up."- AshamedLoan836
DIdn't cry at their funeral
"When my school bully died a few months ago, I was happy."
"People always say I’m kind, bubbly, smart, honest, hardworking."
"But I’m ashamed to say it."
"I even had intrusive thoughts about after and to be honest, it was the one time I wasn’t bothered by them."- kiwimadi
Saved by a truly great friend.
"That after my dad went to prison for molesting and beating me, and my mom kicked me out of the house because she 'didn't want to be a mom anymore', I lived under a bridge while trying to finish high school."
"My mom's side of the family (affluent) disowned me because the situation was 'trailer trash', and my Dad's side disowned me because they believed my dad was thrown into prison for my 'lies'."
"I decided to commit suicide, and set aside a plan to OD and go into the woods by the bridge, and bury myself before I'd lose consciousness."
"I chose that because I knew my mom would be angry about shelling out money for my funeral, it wouldn't bother her about me not being here anymore."
"So I wanted to just take that financial burden from her."
"I'd already be buried so no point in a casket."
"I really didn't have anything to keep me here anymore."
"My short life had been full of so much pain, and I didn't want to see if there was any more waiting for me."
"What stopped me was I confided in my best friend about my living conditions, after it became obvious that I hadn't eaten in days, she shared her school lunch with me every day without making me feel bad about it."
"Later that day, my best friend came to the bridge I was at, with her Mom, and they took me home with them."
"I lived with them 'til I finished high school and got my own apartment."
"Life got better after that."
"I now am married with 2 children of my own, and am really happy I stayed in this world.
"I will forever be grateful for my best friend's family, and still see them til this day as the only real family I've ever had."- smeaglebeagle39
Hiding literal pain
"I started cutting again."
"They might notice from the scars, but didn't say anything."
"But honestly, the urge is so bad that I keep on feeling like I did not cut deep enough."
"I have no intent to kill myself, but lately I'm questioning whether or not I have the intent."
"Because how I'm functioning, is as if I do have it, but my brain says no."- SpicedDick
Cardinal Sin
"I am having a relationship with a Catholic priest for almost a year now."- grabtheapplepie
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/