25 Times A Parent Hid A Dark Secret From Their Child

We trust our parents indiscriminately to ensure that our mental and physical well-being are adequately protected from any harm. So it’s rare for most people to even consider that the parent meant to keep them safe, may be intentionally or even inadvertently doing something that could potentially affect them. 

#1

Image source: OneFish2Fish3, freepik

My parents didn’t tell me about my cerebral palsy diagnosis until I was 13, even though I was diagnosed around 18 months. I’m really mildly affected obviously, but it’s become far more important as an adult as I have health issues, need to exercise in an adapted environment, have a slight learning disability that makes aspects of college hard, and can’t drive due to my condition.

#2

Image source: Ok-Lavishness-7904, freepik

I had a brother that only lived 12 hours. He was 2 years younger than me, so I didn’t remember until they told me when I was 10. Years later, I found out his birthday was the same day as my next door neighbor’s. My parents had chosen to hide their painful remembrance and emotions so that I was able to enjoy 6 or 7 birthday parties in the neighborhood before we moved.

Anon:

My Mom always talked about wishing that she had an older sibling for myself and my two siblings. At her funeral, this guy showed up and completely broke down at her casket. Thankfully, my dad was too distraught to notice anything. I saw my uncles look very uncomfortable.
After the funeral, I asked my Aunt and cousin who that man was. He was my Mom’s teenage boyfriend. He had gotten her pregnant. She was about 8 months pregnant and was getting water from a well and it brought on labour. The baby died during labour.
She was born to be a Mother and no one loved her children more. It oddly brought me comfort to imagine she was getting to be a Mom in heaven too.

#3

Image source: anon, freepik

My dad was m**ested by his mom and she let random dudes bully and beat him up for their entertainment.

I didn’t know about this until she died but it makes perfect sense why my dad is such a piece of s**t.

Edit- I had a few people wonder why I called him a huge PoS. I called them that because that’s what he was to us. He was mean. He was ruthless. He didn’t m****t me or my siblings but he physically and verbally f****d us up. He would create a prison environment at home and he loved it. Once I got into my early 20s he started trying to assert his dominance over me, he tried to fight me, he would blow up my phone 7 times a day (yes, 7 times a day) to see where I was and what I was doing. As a kid he would want to fight and he would constantly trash family and tell me how much of a failure I was. He created major insecurities that I still carry this day, he created a sense of worthlessness that I still carry, I feel like I’m worthless to peoeple so why date? Why marry?

He did all of this instead of identifying the problem and working on it. That’s exactly what I did. You can be a product of your environment but its up to you to carry that environment.

#4

Image source: Technical_Bike_6577, freepik

Found out during covid that the man who raised me is not my father. My mother k**led herself over 20 years ago. Found this out from 23 and me after matching with a half-sibling. She told no one. Some family members don’t even believe me. Big surprise I look just like my dad. He unfortunately passed in 2017 so I never got to meet him.

The thing that makes me the angriest about the whole situation is her not even coming clean after my daughter’s cancer diagnosis. At 22 months she was diagnosed with retinoblastoma. Had her left eye removed. We went to genetic counseling after this because it could be a hereditary cancer. Which would mean it would happen in the other eye. For 2 months I waited to find out if it had spread to her brain.

This woman acted like this was the most difficult time in HER life but still couldn’t be honest with me. I had no idea this was even a possibility until the week before she k**led hirself. That’s when she said “He’s not really your dad”. Refused to explain herself. Refused to tell me who my dad was. Then shot herself in the head leaving me to clean up her life mess. I could have had 13 years with him had she told me then.

#5

Image source: pulpexploder, freepik

When I told my mom that I had horrible depression and I needed treatment or I would fail out of college, she said, “Well, I’m not surprised. We’re all taking antidepressants.” MOM! This would have been useful information to have before college!

#6

Image source: Faiths_got_fangs, freepik

My mother had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and institutionalized before my birth.

She was a single parent with sole custody of me. She was unmedicated. My childhood was hell.

The extended family knew and openly lied to me when I tried to get answers as a teen. Ended up living with random friends when she’d go off the deep end during my teenage years. Turned 18 and my aunt decided it was finally time for me to know the truth.

It explained everything and it made me genuinely hate my aunt. She knew the truth my entire life and still left a child in that situation.

#7

Image source: GratuitousSadism, freepik

One of my parents casually mentioned a mental health condition that the other had been diagnosed with before I was born… That nobody had mentioned to me ever in my life even though I was pushing 30. Finding that out made some things click.

#8

Image source: drewnyp, freepik

My Father is a trans woman. Glad she finally gets to be who she is actually is but she felt she had to hide herself for 23 years of my life. I’m happy for her.

#9

Image source: anon, freepik

I was diagnosed with autism at 5 and wasn’t told until I was TWENTY-five. Would’ve saved me a lot of therapy trips if I’d have known that sooner!!!!!

#10

Image source: ThrowRARAw, freepik

The fact that my grandfather had a heart attack that almost k**led him. This was only admitted by my grandmother when my dad had a heart attack that almost k**led him. Later my uncle had a heart attack that actually k***led him. And my aunt began suffering from heart issues as well.

There’s a good chance heart disease runs in our family so knowing this is definitely very important.

Edit: just because of all the medical advice being given in the comments, yes I’m regularly checked; I’ve had higher cholesterol levels than the requirement for my age since I was 13, a major contributor to heart attacks, so I watch what I eat to keep that at bay.

#11

Image source: Juice_Stanton, freepik

My Grandfather had prostate cancer. Family never talked about it.

Then I got prostate cancer, and they were like, hey, what are the odds?

anon:

Same thing happened to me but with melanoma. And both my parents are in the healthcare field! 😡
IDK if it would’ve made a difference or not but I’ve also wondered if I would’ve gone to tanning beds back in the early 2000s when it was all the rage if I had known my grandmother had melanoma.

#12

Image source: I-am-bea-, freepik

My autism diagnosis, wasn’t told until after I was having my own children assessed. My mum is also autistic (that was obvious but she always denied), breast cancer being something that runs in the family, and that my great uncle was a convicted p**ophile, I was only told when my own son was 2, because his targets were young boys so I didn’t need to know before then. I no longer have any contact with that side of the family.

#13

Image source: phasefournow, freepik

I recently found out I have a half-brother dad somehow forgot to mention. I loved my dad and he was a great father to me but finding out he had a kid on the side (he was a clergyman) was disillusioning, especially when I learned he never contributed to this person’s upkeep or education.

#14

Image source: OnlyTheBLars89, freepik

I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 8 and they completely hid it from me because my mother was in denial and my dad didn’t want me taking pharmaceutical m**h. This was back in the 90s, where if you were anything but conforming nornal…people around you wernt so accepting.

I thought I had bipolar disorder because of how my mood swings are. Turns out I could have avoided nearly 2 decades of hell if my parents just told me the truth. Even if I didn’t seek treatment for it, KNOWING what was wrong would have made such a huge difference when I was a kid. Hell, just a simple dose of caffeine is all it takes for me to be functional.

To know it was that simple enrages me and I still have yet to forgive my parents for it. They knew and they let me suffer for their own vanity and fantasy world where “everything is fine and normal”. Life is fine now but I went though so much unnecessary hell for more than half of it.

#15

Image source: anon, freepik

My atypical genotype. My intersex birth and surgical assignment. Based on what doctors think there’s indication I had a twin for a large portion of the pregnancy. (Also, I feel her in my soul which pushed me to look). My mother injected me with estrogen and gave me birth control pills *to pretend my sister was still ALIVE* so, like, it would have been good to know that.

You know. To make sense of what the f**k.

This feels like a dangerous question to ask, lol.

#16

Image source: IceBankYouuu, DeusXFlorida

Found out my grandpa left 10,000 shares of Coca Cola to me when I was born. (1997)

Found out about these when I was helping my parents move and found the document when I was 19.

Turns out my parents already sold them all to pay off credit card debt.

Obviously not important as others, but that money could have really helped me out being I was struggling trying to pay college by myself.

#17

Image source: NotoriousREV, freepik

That I had an older half sister who was given up for adoption. My mum had to tell me because she turned up on the doorstep one day.

At the age of 12, we’d been the typical mum, dad and 2 kids family. By the time I was 15 my parents had divorced and remarried and I now had a sister, 2 half sisters, 2 half brothers and a step sister.

#18

Image source: grimreefer87, freepik

I inherited a college fund, but didn’t know and my dad spent it on booze, and d***s. Life could have been so different….

#19

Image source: The_Whole_Bag, freepik

My mother spent the majority of her pregnancy, weekend party drinking with me. I’m just now have confirmation of this at 35 based on suspicion from my teens.

I’m currently dealing with major medical problems from birth defects because she did the bare minimum to seek care for my condition when I was a child. I took what they told me as a child as truth and am now realizing they only had her best interest in mind. I spent my 20s as a punk, running from and denying the severity of my condition. Now, as a father, farmer, and running a business, im having to pause my future plans to grab on and deal with this s**t.

I am mostly low or no contact with my parents at this point, except a few calls to ask for any medical records they may still have. My mother doesn’t seem concerned about my condition, is unhelpful, and was only concerned about who ratted her out to me. Most of the extended family has chosen to protect her big lie, but I’m 100% certain it doesn’t sit well with them. She is a malignant narcissistic, and the extended family orbits around here. It’s disgusting.

On the bright side, I have wonderful children, a supportive wife, a few close friends, and an extremely busy organic chicken, turkey, and pig farm to keep going. We are fortunate to live almost debt free in the most beautiful part of Michigan. I am forging my own path and breaking that toxic cycle.

#20

Image source: AdHistorical1311, freepik

Found out I along my sibling were invitro babies. Thought our dad was our dad. Later found out our dad was a s***m doner. Dad that raised us had a lot of health and mental health problems in the family. Met the s***m doner he has great genes on his side. Whole life shifted at 24 but at least I won’t die from cancer.

#21

Image source: shallowgoldfish, freepik

That my doctor diagnosed me with an ibuprofen allergy as a baby. Learned it for myself after a fun ER visit in my early twenties.

#22

Image source: VixenRoss, freepik

I should have had a hip operation when I was a teen. I was in low key pain throughout my child hood and thought it was normal. I’ve now got end stage osteoarthritis in my 40s.

Flooding in periods was normal. Using a nighttime pad for the first 4 days of your period is completely normal. Soaking it within 2 hours was normal. Apparently they didn’t want me on contraceptives.

#23

Image source: 69schrutebucks, freepik

My mom claimed to know I had bipolar but decided not to seek treatment for me when I was a kid because I was just being dramatic and needed to calm down. I was s******l at age 10 because she wouldn’t make her husband stop beating me and she wouldn’t stop telling me I deserved to be hit so much. But yeah, I’m just being dramatic. I wasn’t diagnosed or treated until I was 26.

#24

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My mother hid the identity of my father from me for 35 years.  I don’t look like her. I don’t act like her.  I look like a taller, less olive version of him. My personality is like a carbon copy of him.

He died 3 years before I knew who we was.  I don’t know what I would have done with the information if he were still alive, but I still feel extremely slighted because half of my identity was withheld.

I haven’t really talked to anyone about this.

#25

Image source: anon, freepik

That my mom became (effectively permanently) mentally ill from her pregnancy with me — bipolar disorder + paranoia, possibly paranoid schizophrenia.