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Whether it’s completely innocent or deeply sinister, almost everyone has a secret or two. Sometimes, it’s harmless little quirks like discreetly practicing with nunchucks for years, or having a hidden side job to support your family.
Other times, it’s an affair no one talked about, accidental DNA test shockers, or stealing cash from parents.
Redditors were recently asked to spill the secrets they plan on taking straight to the grave, and their replies range from heartbreaking to surprisingly wholesome. A few might even make you go digging for some pieces of your own family puzzle.
A lot of these get pretty heavy too, so consider this your official trigger warning before we dive in.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I sat with my dad the morning he passed. I told my family it was peaceful, and it mostly was, but he had a disturbing episode where he cried out about the pain he was in.
I will never tell my family about that.
285q6dgq6d 33 minutes ago
One commenterThis-grapefruit-2134, said this, “ I’m a RN case manager for home hospice. What you described sounds like terminal restlessness It occurs in about half of hospitalized elderly, particularly those with prior cognitive difficulties. It is generally an involuntary neurological response to the body shutting down, but it is rarely painful itself. IThe body changes profoundly at the time of d***h. The release of endorphins ( the body’s natural painkiller) and changes to pain receptors causes either the sensation of pain to be blocked or shut down. This is also a time of dissociation, they have to let go of us, just as we have to let go of them. There have been many reports of out of body experiences and an overwhelming sense of peace and calm as well. sorry that you are carrying this weight around, i hope that explanation helps you understand a little better.”
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#2
That I messed up my back trying to get my dad's wheelchair unstuck from the mud two years ago.
He already felt bad enough getting it stuck and forcing us to be in the rain trying to get him free, no need to add the fact that my back is now permanently messed up because of it.
He passed never knowing this.
For those asking...It was a whole ordeal.
He got his manual wheelchair stuck trying to get from the car to the covered deck approximately 20 feet away where his motorized chair was waiting to take him the rest of the way into the house.
While we were out that day, a summer thunderstorm came up and we ended up with 2 inches of mud in the gravel driveway by the time we got home. (I did not own the house and had no say in the driveway.) He became stuck in the mud and we spent 30 minutes trying to get him unstuck before we had to call the local rescue squad for help as he was unable to walk more than a few steps at the time, I couldn't help any longer and my partner was even less equipped to help than I was.
Despite trying to only lift with my legs while another person was trying to wedge a piece of carpet under one wheel at a time to get him unstuck, it really doesn't matter when everything suddenly shifts and you're unexpectedly holding onto all that weight by yourself to keep him from sliding sideways (or falling over, it was a toss up between the two) down a short incline and your back says "Nope. I'm out."
I'm doing okay, waiting on surgery and have become a master at saying "I'm done. I'm going to go lie down now." when my back says I've been on my feet long enough for one day.
#3
I did an x-ray on a geriatric patient who was pretty unhappy and had a horrific cough. She was in really bad shape.
As I was setting up for it, she told me that it was her birthday yesterday, and no one came to see her. She told me that she just wanted someone to come take care of everything for her. I told her that I was really proud of her for making it this far, that I hoped to make it as far as she did.
Eventually she started dozing off as I do my exam, so I tried to be as quiet as I could while putting everything away and getting her back in order. Her blankets had pooled around her waist, so I tried to cover up so that she wouldn't wake up cold, but I accidentally woke her up. I apologized and asked if I had hurt her painful shoulder. She just looked at me, really looked at me, and said no, she had just never really had someone to cover her up like that. I told her to go back to sleep. She did, I dimmed her lights, moved on.
I found out the next day that she didn't live through the night.
I can't tell anyone because that's super sad.
The average person holds onto 13 secrets, five of which they’ve never told a living soul.
These findings were revealed in a paper published in 2017, which analyzed more than 13,000 secrets across 10 different studies. Researchers presented participants with 38 common categories of secrets and asked which ones they were actively keeping.
The data revealed that the most common secrets people refuse to share with anyone include outright lies, extramarital thoughts, romantic desire, unconventional quirks, ambitions, mental health challenges, and financial struggles.
#4
I did a DNA test with Ancestry and found out my Grandad wasn't my mother's biological father. I'm apparently 1/4 Ashkenazi jew which is news to someone who'd been convinced I was 4/4 Anglo-Saxon. My grandmother went to Denmark to be a nanny in 1946 for a year or so and my mother was born in late 1947. I knew she was a few months old when her parents got married which was unusual for that time but hadn't considered that it was because they possibly didn't even know each other at the time my mother was born.
I'm pretty certain my mother has no idea and I can't ask her. If she does know she obviously doesn't want me to know and if she doesn't I don't want to be the one to break it to her. I can't tell or ask any of my family members for the same reason. There is one person still living who I think would most likely know but I can't do it.
My grandad was an incredible man. He must have known my mother wasn't his child but when he was widowed aged 35 (my mother was 10 😢) he raised her alone and never looked at another woman. He fought in WWII but refused to speak about it beyond which countries he went to. He worked hard and everything he did was for his family. He passed in 2013 aged 92.
#5
I copied a girl's Scantron for a national test when I was about 13, and someone contacted me about a scholarship. I said no because I felt guilty, but I never told my parents. I wish I had taken the scholarship because my education took me 25 years to pay off.
#6
My brother joined the armed forces at 18 after finding out his girlfriend was pregnant. They had 2 more kids. The first born got cancer and passed at 6 years old. His wife passed before her 50th birthday. He still mourns both, deeply.
The baby wasn't his.
Our secrets can seriously weigh us down, but according to experts, the real damage doesn’t come from the effort it takes to lie or hide the truth in conversation.
The true mental burden comes from mind-wandering — when you are completely alone, your brain constantly drifts back to that secret on a loop. Keeping a part of your inner world locked away can get quite lonely and isolating.
“The problem with having a secret is not concealment. It’s that you have to think about it, you have to live with it. Even when you don’t have to hide it, it can hurt you,” says Michael Slepian, assistant professor at Columbia Business School, whose research is focused on secrecy and trust.
#7
I still have the password to my terrible ex-boss's Netflix account. I don't change the password or lock him out. I just log in once a month and fast-forward his shows right to the end credits so he loses his place. It’s been three years and he hasn't figured it out.
#8
Last year, I found my dad comatose in his home. He was still breathing, but unresponsive. I didn’t know at the time he was already gone, even though he was technically alive.
I called 911 and immediately went to administer CPR - I’ve been certified for over 2 decades. I forgot how to do it, and then The Office clip about it started playing in my head and I remembered. I haven’t even told my husband that.
#9
My mom passed when I was 17. Everyone else in the family thought it would be too hard to be there when she was taken off life support but she was an amazing mother and I felt I owed it to her to be there.
My dad (now passed away) and my two brothers know I was there and turned off the machines keeping her alive but I never told them that despite being her brain being gone her body fought desperately to stay alive and she thrashed and gasped for the last few minutes of her life.
They think she just slipped away peacefully and I think I'll keep it that way.
Scientists have found that bottling things up can actually distort your reality. Some people feel physically heavier when burdened with a secret, which can literally skew how they navigate their physical surroundings.
“We found that when people were thinking about their secrets, they actually acted as if they were burdened by physical weight. It seems to have this powerful effect even when they’re not hiding a secret in the moment,” says Slepian.
#10
Ive been practicing with nun chucks for 30 years. No one knows but me. I started in 94. Ive been doing them regularly ever since.
#11
I still randomly check the social media of someone I pretended I was completely over years ago….
#12
When my dad passed away very unexpectedly I noticed he was always very specific about a laptop and these two external hard drives and I figured I might need to look into that to see if there was anything important on there. Keep in mind I didn't know the password so I took it to a guy and paid him to hack into it for me.
What I found was not only on the computer but the 2 external hard drives had THOUSANDS of files of gay content and categories that were so specific for example "sucking ... outside" also just even pictures of men in their underwear categorized by race. I always suspected him to be gay or at the least bisexual but he was very adamant about that he wasn't gay. Let's just say after I saw all that I had to take a long quiet cigarette break.
Sara Frazer 20 minutes ago
I suspect many more people who were gay married "straight" and had families just because being openly gay was frowned upon (and in places criminalized) and their family, friends, colleagues etc never knew... My mom had a cousin who committed suícide in the 80s, because he was gay but went through the charade of marrying a woman and having kids, then just couldn't take it anymore... 😞 Absolutely heartbreaking. I'm glad so much progress has been made and people are more free to live as themselves. But a lot of hàte still exists, unfortunately. RIP Scott
We keep secrets mostly to protect our relationships and our reputation. Research shows that fear of judgment drives most of our silence. We hide financial stress, past mistakes, or taboo habits because we don’t want to deal with family drama, rejection, or hurting the people we love.
But it’s also about control. Studies show that keeping a secret is a way to set personal boundaries. It lets us process big life changes, money issues, or private anxieties on our own terms. We stay quiet simply because we want to control our own story before the rest of the world weighs in.
#13
My grandma wouldn’t share her recipes with anyone except for one cousin who got a recipe out of her by making her cook something, and then stopping her and measuring everything. I tried to do the technique my cousin did, but every time I went over to cook with her (making plans with her ahead of time), my grandma would then suddenly order take out and cancel our plans of teaching me a recipe.
Anyway, she passed and I took her recipe book.
#14
When I was 17-18 I was driving in my neighborhood late one night when a cat ran out in front of my car and I hit him. I immediately got out of my car and checked, he was gone. I was devastated. This was in a very rural neighborhood and houses were spaced out, plus the cat had no collar so I had no idea who to inform. What I ended up doing was moving him out of the road onto the grass, driving back home, grabbing a rose from a flower vase, driving back to the cats body and held a funeral for him.
In hindsight, I really should have called animal control or something, I guess it just never crossed my mind at the time. But I felt awful and wanted to honor the little guy the best I could, and that’s what I came up with. I still think about it today, and I get really tense when I see an animal anywhere near a road.
#15
Before I met my wife, she had a yorkie. I had two 65-70lb dogs.
I hated little dogs. Hated them. Could not stand them at all.
This little guy grew on me. He wasn’t really yappy, he would snuggle with me all the time for my body heat, and he just refused to let me not like him.
He unfortunately was ended by another dog, not the two that I mentioned above, and it was a genuinely gut wrenching loss. It took me a long time to get over the dog, and I still miss him.
The morning he passed, I woke up and he was snuggled in behind my legs. When I left for work I wrapped him up in the blankets that I was just using and kissed him on his little head and told him he was a good boy.
That random moment gave me a ridiculous amount of peace in the moments where it was very tough to deal with the grief of losing him.
I can’t ever tell my wife that I had that moment as my last with his, because she openly talks about how sad she is that she can’t remember the last moment she had with him.
Telling a close friend or a family member a secret is also a massive gamble. Research shows that people actually spill about 26% of the secrets directly confided in them.
This usually happens if your secret crosses a moral line for them. If a friend feels your secret is wrong or hurtful, their loyalty shifts from protecting you to venting their own shock. This can leave people exposed to major social fallout or judgment.
“People are more likely to reveal other people’s secrets that they think are immoral because it satisfies a (perhaps unconscious) emotional need to see that person punished for the morally outraging secret behavior,” says Jessica Salerno, an associate professor of psychology at Arizona State University.
#16
I stole 8k cash, four bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, and the Nintendo Switch from my ex the night he went to jail for beating the hell outta me. Zero regrets
#17
I like to pick the crust out of my eyes in the morning and hold it up to my ear while rolling it around between my fingers so I can hear it crunch.
#18
When my daughters rabbit was suffering from a stomach issue he was passing away and I could see it coming. I made my daughter leave the room and I held him as he made the worst sounds and then ultimately passed in my arms. I told my daughter he went peacefully and never spoke of it again.
A few days later something in the fridge broke and it made sounds just like he did and I lost it and nobody knows why.
The risk of real-life backlash is exactly why people turn to the internet. Sharing their deepest baggage with millions of random strangers on Reddit gives them the relief of getting it off their chest with zero real-world consequences.
Strangers online can’t ruin your relationships, get you fired, or judge your family dynamics. The void of the internet then feels way safer than your own best friend
#19
I was pregnant and miscarried in my early 20s. It worked out, I did NOT need to be connected to that man for the rest of my life.
#20
When I started managing, I just went with what felt right and it worked extraordinarily well. My employees love me and do good work because they want to make me happy (the latter part being the goal, the first part is just how I got there).
A few years in, I realized that the theoretical basis for my management style was a For Dummies book on dogs that I'd read as a teenager. It wasn't a bad thing; the basic ideas proposed were that praise and rewards are good while punishment tends to provoke anxiety without improving behaviour. These match modern management beliefs precisely.
But I can not tell anyone that.
This drive for digital anonymity makes perfect sense when you look at how destructive keeping quiet can be.
Bottling things up is psychologically costly and associated with a host of negative consequences.
A recent study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that hiding secrets triggers a constant state of low-level emotional stress, which frequently leads to anxiety, burnout, and even physical exhaustion.
Sharing it finally breaks that painful loop, lowering your heart rate and making you feel relieved.
#21
My father chose to stop dialysis, he knew that gave him literal weeks left. We had so many conversations over those two weeks.
The day before my dad passed he told me his only regret was what he turned my mother into. She was a timid, sweet girl when they met and married young (right out of high school). He loved her unconditionally and taught her how to stand up for herself, but didn't teach her temperance - she's now an overbearing, opinionated conversation hog who is easily offended and drove all their friends away. The absolute picture of a boomer. His proudest achievement is that my sister and I didn't turn out like her.
I love my mother, she currently lives with me. I can never tell anyone in the family what he said.
#22
I am way WAY more depressed than I let on.
#23
I was in a Disney movie, a Toys R Us commercial and some print ads as a child. Even my wife of 20 years doesn't know.....
Secrecy isn’t always a villain, though. In fields like corporate law, investigative journalism, and national security, tight lips are just part of the job.
Even in everyday life, secrets act as a kind of social currency. We use them to build trust and glue our inner circles together… a lot like gossip does.
This leaves all of us walking a delicate social tightrope. The trick is knowing who you can actually trust.
At the end of the day, we are all constantly balancing the safety of our private lives against the exhausting toll of isolation. So, what are you keeping under wraps right now, and is it worth the weight?
#24
As a kid I would steal money for school snacks from my mom's purse
As an adult I will occasionally slip a 10$ bill into her purse as repayment
Edit: for those saying she knew, my parents owned a small carlot and would always be taking in hundreds of dollars a few times a month in cash. My dad would often take from her cash to buy car parts and they didn't keep close track of small amounts of money.
#27
Pulled a woman out of a burning car wreck in 2017. She had swerved to avoid a motorcyclist. I never told anyone she wasn't wearing her seat belt when I hopped into the inferno that was her car to pull her out. People on Facebook were saying she was texting a deserved what she got (there was never any evidence of that).
She didn't make it.
#28
A couple bullies talked me into showing them where my best friend's mom was growing her devil's lettuce so they could steal it. I was 13 years old at the time. I still feel bad about it.
#29
Woke up one morning to my mom crying in my brother's bed next to me and apologizing to him.
I pretended to stay asleep as she confessed to him he may not be my dad's son and is likely the son of a man that he looks more like.
They cried and promised eachother to keep it between them as my brother didn't want to find out with a DNA test and said my father will always be his dad anyway.
They don't know I heard the entire conversation to this day nor does my dad have any idea.
#30
I had an eating disorder for several years. No matter what I did, I couldn't kick it and I had kinda gotten to the point that I just accepted that I was probably going to have it until I pass away.
This was until I got diagnosed with a brain tumor (frontal lobe) and had a successful brain surgery. The second I woke up from surgery it was like the impulse to purge was just completely gone. The voice in the back of my head constantly telling me to throw up every single thing I ate just never came back. I just know that the brain tumor must have caused the eating disorder but I'm way too unwilling to confess that I had in the first place to ever actually ask about it.
#31
When my dad was in the hospice center, I was helping him clean up in the bathroom. He asked me to quickly grab him a chair because he was declining FAST. I got him in the chair, but he was stuck in between two doors.
It’s hard to explain the door situation, they both went inwards towards each other. And at that moment his health declined instantly. I was by myself, my husband was on his way to visit. I could not, for the life of me get my father unstuck between the doors. He desperately wanted to lie down, and I was struggling.
Some nurses ran to help, and they got him to the bed. At the time, I didn’t know that would be the last time I’d ever speak to him while he was conscious. I tried to explain the situation to my husband while sobbing once he arrived. I’ve never mentioned the incident to anyone besides my husband. I don’t want anyone to ever envision that of my father. He was heavily medicated and asleep from that point forward. He passed a week later.
#32
My mom chose me to execute her estate when she passed. The day she changed her final will, she told me that she chose me (the 2nd youngest out of 6) because she couldn’t trust any of the others to handle it.
I told my sisters she probably chose me because she wanted them to handle her business when she was gone so they didn’t get their feelings hurt. They’re just incredibly irresponsible. I’m 29. I resent them all because they are such horrible people that I was forced to take the burden on. Pro tip: Don’t ever be the most responsible child.
#33
I relapsed after a month clean 4 days ago. My mother caught me awake at 4am. She thinks I just couldn't sleep for one night. It was three. That's one that's gonna stay between me, my husband, and the internet.
#34
I still check in on my ex on social media periodically. Not because I’m not over him, but because I still worry about him sometimes and it feels good to see him enjoying life and being okay.
#35
A family member's husband offered to give me a massage when I was dealing with chronic pain and he ended up sticking his finger in my shorts without consent. I didn't freaking want it. I care deeply about his wife and tried to tell her and I don't think she believes me. I lost my job because of him.
#36
As an adult, I stole money from my mom when my parents were out of town. I had a key to their house and she kept several $100 bills she had gotten as gifts in her closet. I didn't take them all, just one. I really needed the money.
#39
None of my fam and friends will ever know the mental state I was in about 5-7 ago
Happy I made it out of it and don’t want them to ever know I got like that.
#40
My brother drunkenly told me 30 years ago he had a secret child. The girl has a unique name, I check her socials once in a while.
#41
Everyone thinks I went backpacking in Europe for most of 2004 and I don't have pictures because my camera was stolen. In reality I was working as a mercenary for a defense contractor in the Middle East. Even My wife of 18 years has no idea. No one has any idea the violence I have experienced. My wife has no idea that this is essentially what paid for our house. She just thinks I made some smart investments right out of high school which is partially true. I put all the money I made doing this into some smart investments and it was enough to pay for our house and property.
#42
In the grand scheme of things, this probably isn’t a huge deal, but it really eats at me still 15 years later.
I worked at a private resort that had a very rich history which was a hallmark of the facility. For many years there were 3 surviving old guys that had been there at the beginning and help build the place to what it had become. They each dedicated their lives to creating a truly magical place that was adored by many. They were all celebrities to the guests and staff and it was well deserved.
They were each very old when I worked there. All over 85.
Well within the first 2 years of me being there 2 of them passed away.
That year after his buddies passed the last guy gave a historical presentation to a large room of guests and staff. It was my job to get it on video for preservation. I did, and he gave an amazing talk accounting his life, the place he’d help build, and all the people that helped make it possible. It was incredible.
Not long after that he sadly passed away.
And not long after that I was working fast to get another task done and I carelessly deleted the video of his last talk.
His family, who attended the speech, asked me to share the footage with them. I lied and told them the SD card corrupted.
#44
When I was a kid I had a friend who was a horse girl and there were some Shetland ponies in a field where we grew up, anyway she said they were neglected, (they weren’t but I thought she knew better) and said we needed to look after them, we trimmed their fringes, all was going well until the next day there was uproar in the village that the ponies had been hurt and someone had cut all their hair off, I WAS MORTIFIED, safe to say I didn’t go to see them ever again.
#46
A couple of decades ago, my mom had the family computer fixed. She secretly told me they'd found heaps of gay adult content under my younger brother's account.
I didn't tell her it was actually my doing.
Ultimately, turned out it was both of us.
#47
I don’t use sleep focus on my phone because one of the first times I did it caused me to miss a call around 1am that my mom was “transitioning” in the hospice and she passed away alone.
#49
When I was in college I went out to a club with a much of my friends. We were underage and snuck in with fake ids and got our best jeans and a going out top and straightened hair. And we were having an absolute blast, dancing, drinking god knows what and suddenly the most vile, rancid fart absolutely cleared the dance floor. You could see everyone smell the toxic smell in real time as it wafted around the floor and it hit all of us one by one. Everyone reacted so intensely to this fart and blamed it on these two guys who had been hanging on the side of the dance floor staring at us. We spoke of the Avalon fart for YEARS. This fart was so gross it was legendary.
It was me. I’ll never confess.
#50
After losing my dad recently, it’s made me question a lot of things about my own life. I don’t think I’d ever tell my family this but I probably wouldn’t want to exist if they had all passed. If I didn’t have a significant other, or kids, I’d probably want a peaceful way out.
I don’t want to be in this rat race of life if my family isn’t here anymore, even if we bicker.
#51
When I was 18 my Dad suddenly ghosted me. My parents weren't together and he had a wife and kids elsewhere. I've always acted like I didn't care and he wasn't much of a father to me anyway, but the truth is it still hursts and bothers me greatly 30 years later that he could just abandon me like that. I'm a father myself now and I just can't imagine doing the same to my kids, even if my wife and I were no longer together.
#52
I genuinely like my own company more than most people's. Never said it out loud because it sounds sad. It's not. It's just true.
#53
Kinda a silly one.
When I was in middle school I was visiting my BFF out of town and her and her entire family took a trip to see other family and I tagged along. After a 9 hour drive we get to the motel and there is like 4 adults and us three kids in the room and I laid on the bed by the wall and was resting my eyes and thought “how funny would it be to pretend I fell asleep and roll off between the bed and wall” which I did. Adults start freaking out and trying to help my out, my friend and her sister are in hysterics laughing. It became the story told over and over again the rest of the trip and still comes up to this day almost 30 years later. I’ll never admit it was a ruse and take that joy it brings them away.
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