People In This Online Community Shared 25 Dark Family Secrets They Never Expected To Find Out

Perhaps every family has its skeletons in the closet. While some secrets might be light and harmless, some might be extremely disturbing. Sometimes secrets are so vile and horrifying that people would rather take them to the grave than reveal them to anyone. Yet, hiding secrets is hard work. Research showed that secrecy is harmful to physical and mental well-being. It has also been linked to increased anxiety and depression. Keeping secrets hurts. Everyone needs to take the weight off their shoulders from time to time. Sometimes it's easier to open up to strangers than to loved ones. Community member at Bored Panda New Kid has created a space for people to open up about the secrets they've been keeping. Loads of so-called 'Pandas' submitted their posts to retell their darkest family secrets and perhaps relieve that heavy burden they've been carrying in their hearts. Before reading the secrets below, please remember to be respectful and kind. More info: Bored Panda (original post)

#1

Source: BittyTown My cousin is really my sister. My Aunt and Uncle couldn't have kids so my parents did for them.

#2

My grandpa's brother on my mom's side who I grew up knowing as a nice man that I called Uncle Bill. He had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a distant cousins young daughter and got her pregnant. He told her to tell everyone she didn't know who the father was. She slept over their house frequently for some reason and she gave birth in their basement and he tossed the baby into the furnace. Source: It's me!!!!

#3

Source: Captain Awesome It’s actually f*cking awesome. Grandfather's great aunt by marriage ran the most notorious brothel in Sydney and had a lifelong feud with another brothel owner. She did go to the other madam's funeral when she died, but as reported by the newspaper “just to make sure the old b***h stays in the ground”. The whole feud started over a dog breeding scam! RIP Tilly Devine

#4

Me. I'm the first one in the family to have gone to prison. Source: Shyla Clay

#5

Source: Mel Gilliam That I was s**ually a***ed for many many years by an uncle. When I finally worked up the courage to tell my mother, I was forced to keep it a secret so my grandmother wouldn't know the horrible thing her son had done. I'm still holding onto this to this day.

#6

I am my family's darkest secret. 1. My birth mother was a teenager who became pregnant by her high school History teacher. I was put up for adoption and never spoken of again. 2. My adoptive mother and I lived with her father. I was told my father was dead, having been k***ed in the war. That was untrue. He left us when I was a toddler to start another family in the next town over. I did not find out about any of this until after my adoptive mother died. I was 32. Source: Lee

#7

Source: Spinachpuffs It’s not actually disturbing or anything but somehow the fact my great gran got admitted to a psyche ward because she became s*****al has become something no one talks about. She died 5 or so years ago and I only found out this year that 20 years ago she was admitted for a few months and both my mum and gran are really ashamed of this fact.

#8

Source: Sue Denham At twenty-one, when I asked my mother why I had no siblings, she confided that I had actually been born a twin and my brother had died because I "choked him" with my umbilical cord. She said I must never tell anyone or mention it to my father because he was still upset "that it was the boy who had died". I had wanted a brother or sister all my life so was deeply sad and felt incredibly guilty to the point where I unsuccessfully attempted to end my life. (There was other stuff going on too - death of my boyfriend of five years - so I was already in a dark place.) Years later when I was carrying my own twins I began to realise that parts of her story seemed unusual and looked into my birth records. And here's the darkest bit - it turns out there never was a twin. I never confronted her.

#9

Source: Llewella My father is the youngest of 13 kids. But actually my grandparents only had 9 kids. Grandpa ran a farm and had a truck to deliver the produce from his and the surrounding farms. During WW2 he drove to Amsterdam to deliver food and secretly brought back Jewish boys. He hid them on his farm pretending they were his kids. Partially very nice of him, but he also just needed extra hands to work. After the war most of the boys went home to family members, but 4 of them had no remaining family. He officially adopted those 4 boys and just went on as if they had always been part of the family.

#10

Source: Leo Domitrix Take your pick: The murderer, the murderer who got away, or the one who a***ed children to death (murdered) without suspicion.

#11

Source: Legolas Greenleaf I thought my dad had died but apparently he sent me away because I was born with a hearing problem and I wasn't perfect enough for him. I also didn't know I had a sister until four years ago, because my father decided that because my older brother was born, dear old dad could send my sister and I away, putting us both up for adoption. My mom got in the way though and managed to claim me, but I only recently got in touch with my sister and oldest brother, as we all met at Dad's funeral after he passed from cancer. I'm not sad that he's gone, but I don't hate him. He hated me, but I don't have a reason to hate him. I'm not sad though.

#12

Source: AWKWRDVOICECRACK My uncle had always been a raging alcoholic. A dangerous alcoholic. Well, my aunt married him anyways. They went to Germany for their honeymoon. Only he returned. We asked about the aunt and he pretended like he had no idea what we were talking about and how he has "never gotten married". About five years later he married again despite us all trying to tell the woman not to. They went to Jamaica for their honeymoon. Same thing. He came back without her. Again pretended like he's never married. We began suspecting he was k***ing them. We called the police. They investigated. Nothing turned up. And then the years later, he married again. But COVID happened and they haven't gone on a honeymoon. We're not sure she'd believe us if we told her. So we have distanced ourselves from my uncle and he remains as the secret we don't talk about. We don't talk about Bruno type situation.

#13

Source: Brandy P My stepdad was a known p***phile. He had more than one teen boy he “took in” and slept with in his bed, for years. He kissed me with tongue once when I was about 8. He used to watch my sister and I bathe, staring at us creepily. To this day my mom denies he was a p***phile despite what I’ve told her and the whole community believes. Also, my uncle k***ed a man.

#14

Source: GaeFrog My mom's brother and her dad secretly don’t like her but its sad because she loves them so much

#15

Source: Titas Burinskas The darkest secret our family has is a few streaks of alcoholism here and there and the fact that we're so boring that we don't have dark secrets.

#16

Source: SweMilkiWae My childhood home burnt down in 2009, when I was 8 years old, and my whole family knows the truth about what really happened that day... Let's say the fire was unaccidentaly accidental...

#17

Source: Black Pearl My grandmother on my mom's side might be the s**ttiest person I've ever met. She treats me like c**p because I'm a teenager, a girl, and I remind her of my mom who she also tends to treat like c**p. She caused my uncle's divorce because she MOVED IN with him and his then wife because she's a hoarder and can't even live in her house anymore. She's completely ruined my youngest cousin and now he worships her in such a creepy way. She's also racist, homophobic, sexist, anti-vax, etc. I just hate her. And we can't find a way to cut ties because when we're in her state she finds a way to figure out that we're there and guilts my parents into visiting. I hate her so much.

#18

Source: Tina BlackForrest Trigger warning! VERY dark! My mother and my father started dating when they were just 18. My mother got pregnant soon after. My grandmother made my mom ingest large doses of quinine every day (which is a big health risk by itself!), and inserted a small plastic item in her uterus. This led - as planned- to a late miscarriage on the toilet when my mom was about 20 weeks pregnant. The baby boy was alive and „as big as a doll“ (quoting my mother). She k***ed and dismembered the fetus and flushed the parts down the toilet. Then she went back to sit at the table with the guests they had that day to have coffee and later dinner. My mom grew to be as cruel and cold as her own mom. She did something similar to me, when I was just 15 and unfortunately got pregnant. She and a gynecologist told me the baby was sick, and the pregnancy had to be terminated. I believed them. A few days later I had to go there, to get the abortion. My mom gave me an envelope with about (converted) 8000$. The abortion was performed without any kind of local anaesthesia. I lost consciousness a few times, they fastened me to the gyn chair. Part of my soul will stay there forever. The doctor forced me to take a good look at the destroyed embryo „so that I would never do what I did again!“ When I came home traumatized and in shock, my mom said, that „I should pull myself together and that she had suffered so much more!“ Then she told me her abortion story. I wish she never had told me. Years later, when we had a fight, she dropped that my baby had been absolutely healthy.

#19

Source: Kushlove0420 My uncle suffered from head trauma after falling off a skyscraper during work, it messed him up really bad and led to him turning to hard drugs. He was mixing coke with PCP behind the family's back. Well, one day when his soon to be ex wife stopped by to talk to him about their 4 kids, he jumped into her car before she had a chance to remove her seat belt and stabbed her to death over 36 times. Afterward, he walked back into his apartment where his brother was and told him to call 911 cuz he just k***ed the monster that was gonna take his kids from him

#20

Source: Not always popular My cousin married a serial k***er, she had 2 boys with him and he tried to k*** one of them. Related post: 20 Strange And Dark Secrets That People Online Revealed About Their Families