Sometimes, you just have to get something off your chest – even if it’s anonymously to strangers on the internet.

In fact, if these 15 confessions were yours, that would definitely be the way to go about it. Because wow.

#15. Confusing family heirloom

“My grandfather is dead and has been since before I was born. He sexually abused my mother as a child. I didn’t know about this for a long time (until recently).

My mother gave me his wedding ring and I’ve worn it for a number of years as my wedding ring. During a shitton of family drama which I might post about separately when I’m not so exhausted, my mother revealed this fact to me and I shared it with my wife (which is not part of the drama). I knew before at some point; I don’t know when. I was in denial of the fact.

I am really feeling conflicted about this. I’ve always viewed it as my ring, and not his, so I want to keep it. Part of me wants to replace it. My wife views the ring as something sinister, and wants to get me a new ring.

We’re both very confused about why my mother gave me this ring. She hasn’t spoken to me much about her abuse, but my sibling says she thinks highly of her father still, which is very confusing towards me. I’m also worried about getting rid of it because I don’t want to hurt my relationship with my mother, which has really taken a heavy beating because of something she said as part of the aforementioned family drama.”

#14. Worth it

“I received a call from my oldest daughter crying. She told me our dog got out and she didn’t know what to do. I had about an hour and a half of work left today. The owner of the company was out so I told the other staff member I needed to go my dog is lost.

I am creeping along my neighborhood, driving down every where looking for my little dog. My phone rings, it is my boss. She said she didn’t appreciate me leaving, that my kids will get over it that it builds character for them, and if I didn’t come back, I didn’t have a job.

I choose to not go back.

Quick edit here:

I just wanted to thank everyone for the support and kind words. I have no regret for my kids and my dog, but the situation left me with a lot of mixed feelings. Thank you all again for boosting my confidence in what I also felt was right.”

#13. Stockholm Syndrome

“I am a married man, currently 28 years old. I would not consider myself being a homosexual due to the fact that I am only largely attracted to women. Just to make it known.

6 years ago, I was kidnapped by a man aged around 40. He grabbed me after a night of wild partying that I had.

He held me captive for 2 nights. Was taken on a Friday night and released on Sunday. It was my first time having sex with a man.

He did not treat me well, but apart from the rape, he never physically abused me either. I was bound and gagged most of the time and was only briefly untied during meals or shower.

Throughout the entire period I was kidnapped, he forced himself on me for at least 8 times. He made me do plenty of sexual acts but none of them degrading or inhuman.

On the Sunday night, he told me he’s going to let me go, but if I ever tell anyone, he’d come for me again.

Just before he dropped me off, he actually kissed me on the lips, and due to the relief, I actually didn’t resist.

When I think back about it, I somehow do not harbor any resentment or ill feelings for what he did to me. In fact I do wish I could meet him again in the future.

Stockholm Syndrome of which I totally do not have any clue as to how and why it developed.

Thank you for reading. It feels good being able to share this in great detail for the first time after it happened. Not many would understand.”

#12. Ex-files

“So I’m 36 and have been married since 30, and dating my wife since 26. Wife is “Anne.” I love Anne completely and have never been such good friends with anyone.

Girl who died, “Kate,” died last March from an overdose of alcohol and drugs. We dated from when I was 21 until 25. On and off, always very tumultuous. But I had real, intense feelings of love for her. This one July afternoon stands out in my mind. It was just her and me, the rest of the world could have exploded and I would have been happy.

Anyway.

They found Kate three days after she died, and had to break down the door to her apartment. The only reason anyone knew anything was wrong was that she didn’t show up for work. She was 37.

I know all these details because her ex-fiance called me. I had been texting Kate up until the day before she died. The last text she sent me was on a Sunday, when she asked whether I’d be visiting her city anytime soon. I didn’t respond till Tuesday or Wednesday, and then started getting calls from a strange number after I kept texting. When I finally picked up it was Kate’s ex.

What Anne doesn’t know is that I was in regular contact with Kate up until the day before she died. Once a month or whatever, just to check in. On a trip to Kate’s city about nine months before her death (don’t worry, no pregnancy, just happened to be nine months) we had gone out to dinner. I changed out of my suit in her apartment before we went out, and she gave me a blue plastic hanger for my dress shirt. That was the last time I saw her.

I never “got over” Kate. We stopped seeing each other because our lifestyles weren’t compatible. She loved partying, drinking, taking risks and experimenting with drugs. I used to love those things but got over it once I got serious about grad school. I don’t think either one of us “ended it,” we just drifted apart. I wanted to succeed in my career and start a family. But I never stopped loving her.

Anne knows about my relationship with Kate and knows she died. She knows how she died. She even knows I’m sad. And she knows that Kate and I kept in touch! Hell, they even met a few times. And she’s okay with it. Both Anne and I had previous relationships where we deeply cared for the other person and we’re very open about it.

Anne doesn’t know how closely I continued to hold Kate. Or how often we talked. Or that we had dinner in the summer of 2016. I worried about Kate and would talk to her often.

She also doesn’t know how much her death truly affected me. I don’t think I did either. A year later I am having ecstatic dreams where I realize Kate is alive after all. I find myself tenderly stroking her blue plastic hanger, which of course I saved and use on my favorite shirt.

I am not sure why I feel the need to hold this all from my wife. I guess it’s because I never really fell out of love with Kate. Of course I am in love with Anne too and would be just as devastated of she passed away, if not much, much more.

I just needed to write this all down. I have been having these deeply painful moments where I realize that I will never speak to Kate again, or touch her, or smell her hair. This was fine with me while she was alive but for some reason is now very emotional and painful after her death.

Thanks for reading all that… just writing it out makes me feel better.”

#11. Disappointed and tired

“When I met my husband, we were both coming out of abusive relationships. We were there for each other and helped each other so much. Our relationship moved really fast but everything felt right and perfect, we never fought, we liked all the same music, movies, made each other laugh. It was the best relationship I could imagine.

After we got married everything was even better. We talked about starting a family but we both went back and forth, hmm’ed and haww’ed about it. Then we got pregnant due to a broken condom. We’d been together 5 years at that point I figured it was the universe giving us the kick in the ass we needed.

My husband told me he was excited but never did anything to show me he was excited. He never read one baby book. Never came to any prenatal appointments even though I told him when they were and encouraged him to come. Didn’t help me pick out names, only shot down names I came up with. Didn’t help me out more when I got bigger and more sore. I had to dig our mailbox and driveway out of the snow when I was 6 months pregnant because he “got home from work too late” (mailman was threatening to quit delivering for days). Never rubbed my back or feet, never texted to ask how my day was going/how I was feeling with nasuasea or whatever. I fell down the stairs when I was around 32 weeks and it took him 3 hours to even text me back. Didn’t come to the dr office when I started bleeding randomly.

After my baby was born my husband took 2 days off (even though he had over 3 weeks PTO accrued) and then I was on my own. He CHOOSES to work 12-14 hours a day, then works from home when he is here. I didn’t sleep through the night until my baby was 10 months old, I’d been living off of 2-5 broken hours of sleep since she was born. My husband has never ONCE woken up at night to help me, even when I’ve been bawling my eyes out begging him to wake up and help me, please take over for a while. Oh, and I’d been back to work since 12 weeks too so it’s not like I’ve been a stay at home and he’s the only one bringing in money.

He thinks because he cleans the kitchen and cleans the floors on the weekend he is doing his fair share. Yeah, no. The mental load of keeping our family running that I carry, as well as my stress of working, and doing it essentially by myself is way more than a couple chores on the weekend. Even though he makes more than me I pay for ALL of the baby’s expenses.

I want to go back to school to be able to get a better job in order to support myself and my daughter totally and completely. Starting this fall, it’s happening. I’ve talked my husbands ear off for the past 2 fucking years begging him to change and I’m sick of talking. You can only agree with me and then make zero changes so many times before I start to move on. I thought I met my soulmate but I was wrong. Another disappointment and a deadbeat dad. He doesn’t do shit with our daughter. When I ask him to spend time with her he puts on little baby bums and sits on his phone.

I come from a history of abuse and I feel like all the wounds that had healed over have been ripped back open. I am broken hearted and every day I am in pain, feeling like I ruined my life and my daughters life. THe anger and resentment bubble up constantly and I am always fighting to keep it down. I didn’t want my life to turn out like this.”

#10. Picky and homeless

“My friend has been making post after post on Facebook about being homeless for a couple months. I offer my place since I’m gone for a work half the week.

Come to find out he makes $20000 more than I do. He’s homeless because he’s being extremely picky about where he wants live. I understand to a certain extent about having preferences for living situations. He wants a place where his son can come visit easily. I understand that. But he’s choosing to live in car until he finds the perfect place. That I do not understand. He could easily rent a room for a couple months until he finds a better place.

He stopped staying at my place after a couple nights because he said he felt weird about it. But I still can’t stop wondering why someone would choose to live in their car over just getting a room somewhere.”

#9. Too late to learn?

“This is not due to lack of trying either. At this point, I’m too scared to learn. I had a horrible experience while trying to learn when I was 17, and then had an even worse experience trying to learn when I was 23.

My parents both worked long hours, so I never really got a chance to go anywhere to learn as a kid.

When I was 17, I went to my then-girlfriend/now-wife’s backyard pool almost everyday during the early summer of that year. I could swim underwater, but I couldn’t keep myself afloat on the surface. While trying to learn one day, my g/f’s younger brother had some friends come over, unbeknownst to me. They saw me struggling in the pool and laughed. My being an emotionally challenged teenager, I exited the water and stopped trying.

Fast forward to age 23. My wife’s older brother invited us to a lake. I stayed in the shallow parts, doing my best to float around on the surface. By then, everyone knew I couldn’t swim and weren’t mocking me.

My BIL suggested I put on my life vest and hop in his boat. I was the only one who hadn’t ridden in the boat yet, and he said it’d be safe. Dumbest suggestion followed by my dumber acceptance.

I fell off the boat due to being tipsy and sitting where I shouldn’t have been while he was speeding, and even though I had a life vest on, my face kept going underwater and my legs kept coming up. I thought I was going to drown. BIL didn’t even realize I had fallen off until he saw everyone on the shore waving at him to go back.

So yeah, it turns out I’m terrified of water now. Not enough to skip showers or avoid drinking water, but definitely enough to never swim.

TL;DR: Parents worked too often when I was younger, so never got a chance to go anywhere to learn. Got made fun of while learning in my late teen years when trying to learn and stupidly stopped because of it. Almost drowned in a lake in my early 20’s. Never tried again.”

#8. Everyone is different

“We recently had the VP visit my work, and my boss said about protesters “why are they protesting? He’s the VP, deal with it”, and everyone in the room went quiet and looked at me.

This is the thing. I can’t turn off my blackness. I can’t turn off my sexuality. I can’t turn off me.

This is what some white people don’t understand in my opinion. Your race can be anything they want. Anything. You can be republican, Democrat, gay, straight, a gamer, an artist. Anything.

Me. I am judged for having pre understood opinions about situations. About music. About clothing. About food. About everything.

You see, no matter what I said or did in that moment I was fucked. I couldn’t agree, because I would be seen as a person who doesn’t stand up in what they believe in. The person who is black but not really; the person that exists in the grey area of culturally acceptable yet not fully in the game.

Or disagree? Then I’m seen as that one black guy who can’t keep his opinions to himself. Who must make it all about race, and playing the race card to get ahead once again.

Why not just quit? You see, I work in one of the most prestigious places for my profession in the world. I can’t just quit. I can’t go somewhere a little less uncomfortable. And I love what I do, And I’ve done everything “right”. Got a perfect GPA in high school and college. Studied my ass off for years. I’m not quitting shit.

So what did I do? I Sat quietly while I felt the searing stares of “what is he thinking?” And honestly, deep down I f*cking hate pence, his “gay conversion therapy”, and his support of this racist, sexist President we have to deal with on the daily. But I’m professional and I don’t let politics come into work, yet, I feel like if anyone were to bring up their opinion, it would have had to been me.

So what do I dream of? I dream of a place where no one is judged for anything. I dream of a place where the clearly dominant race in our society can open their eyes a fucking little and see the results of oppression on the black community for hundreds of years. I’m the only black person on my entire floor. And I worked hard as fuck to get where I am, dealing with people thinking I’m not capable my entire life. That’s not ok. I’m not saying hire 50 black people who aren’t capable or deserving, but acknowledge the problem instead of saying we are just “complaining” and “I have it hard too, so deal with it”.

I guess real change is slow, but god damn I know I’m not crazy for these feelings, and how I know the world can be so much better. We could value everyone’s differences and use it to our advantage. Every culture. Every gender. Every sexuality. We all bring something to the table. Something that builds not destroys.

Maybe I’m asking for too much, but I don’t think so. I really don’t.

Edit: Thanks everyone so much for the kind words. It’s great to see grounded, smart discourse from all races in the comments here (and the messages from what I can only assume are from /r/the_donald subscribers are wonderful to read as well).

Thanks for the allies out there who understand the nuances of privilege and why it truly is a struggle for minorities on a variety of fronts in modern society. To all those who still disagree, I ask you to read some of these comments, many who are personal stories similar to mine, with an open heart full of empathy, and make a sincere attempt to relate with our frustration.

Thank you all so much.”

#7. Not ready

“I am a 17(F) in highschool. I’m a couple of months away from turning 18. I haven’t had a boyfriend in almost a year and I unfortunately still have feelings for him. I didn’t lose it to him because.. well.. I didn’t trust him. He had a bad history with his exes(cheating, manipulation, etc). When I would ask him about it he would turn the situation on me. I saw that as a red flag so I dropped him. I have a pretty rare personality and I don’t mean that in a condescending way. I have always had trouble finding people whom I geniunly get along with.

I want to lose my virginity to someone I completely connect with. I want to be stupidly in love with this person and if I have to wait a little bit longer then that’s fine by me. People keep pressuring me to do it already because I am almost 18. I get called picky, prude, and boring by my closest friends. Even my mom is starting to question me. Why can’t I do it when I want to do it? Sure, I get scared sometimes that I might never lose it and sometimes I do get very lonely but I refuse to settle.

I know this person is out there somewhere. Call me a hopeless romantic but I’ll find him. Someday.”

#6. Hard to believe

“I just got an internship for a big tech company, and today I started crying while reading the employee benefits handout.

I always considered myself average. Strictly average. I never saw myself achieving anything big. I figured big opportunities were for smart people, for hard-working people, for people who deserved it. And I never saw myself as any of those. I only saw myself scraping by college, taking what I could get. Hoping that I didn’t fall behind and disappoint my parents.

But now, I got this internship. During the whole process, I was waiting for them to drop me. I completed multiple interviews, each time thinking about how badly it went, and would just think, “Oh well. It’s not like I deserve this internship anyway.”

Even when I got the congratulations letter, I told myself it was because I’m a female in a tech field, not because I actually deserve it. I told myself I was accepted as a claim to diversity, and that being happy over the internship would show that I’m too proud of skills that I don’t have.

I continually put myself down, but for some reason, reading the employee benefits made it feel so real. I realized that all the cool benefits that the “super smart” people at these big tech companies get were not some sort of unreachable level of life that I was destined to stay apart from since the day I was born. I’m there. I can be one of those people.

I’ve worked nonstop since I got to college and it really feels like it’s paying off. I feel like I’m breaking a barrier that seemed invincible. I’m so thankful for this opportunity and I can barely believe it’s my life. But I won’t tell myself that I’m achieving this out of diversity. I’m not achieving this out of pity. I worked for this. And it feels so good to have hard work show results.”

#5. Close call

“So this is quick and short but I can’t tell anyone so here it is. Wednesday while I was at work I had a heart attack. I am only 36 years old. Genetics are shit to say the least. So I Call an ambulance. So we’re onour way to the hospital, my chest, arm and jaw are in horrible pain. Called my parents let them know. Honestly I was scared as hell I was going to die. So I get to the hospital and they take me in, hook me up to an EKG.

Then it happens

I am starting to lose consciousness

As I am passing out I remember that I do not have a passcode on my phone set. This is important because I like some porn that is niche at best, I know I watched it this morning, and I know I didn’t clear my history. I don’t need my wife or parents seeing this stuff while I’m unconscious or dead.

So while I’m passing out. I gather all my strength to concentrate and turn on a passcode. Then hand my wife my phone right as the doctors whisk me off for surgery.

5 days later and no one is the wiser. Close call.”

#4. Just too awkward

“We have been friends for a long time and as a girl, I understood why you might not like younger guys, but come on! I don’t care who you date but please don’t put me in a situation where the first time I meet your 40 year old boyfriend is on our 2 week trip in Japan! We’ve been planning to go together and suddenly you tell me you’ve been dating a guy who’s 15 years older than you, who’s from the UK and you want to take him on our trip!? I’m happy you found someone you like, but that’s just too awkward, I don’t know him and can’t meet him, and suddenly we’ll all be stuck in a foreign country together where I’m supposed to show you guys around because I’m Japanese!? Nope nope nope nope.”

#3. Not a walk in the park

“I feel needy for wanting to talk about any of this even though I know that there’s nothing wrong with letting this off my chest.

We had an arranged marriage (me 25, him 27) almost two years back and now live in his parent’s house. His family are lovely.

My husband is a nice person at heart. But he doesn’t behave like a husband. We’ve been together for 18 months and to put bluntly, I want intimacy.

How has it been 18 months and he still hasn’t even laid a finger on me. Not even a peck on the cheeks, let alone sleeping together (obviously we sleep in the same bed but we don’t actually sleep together).

I want intimacy. I want to feel loved. Please, kiss me. Please, have sex with me. Anything. Why are you like this? I’ve even tried to make the first move but you turn me away.

What did I do wrong? What would you like me to do? You won’t say anything. You don’t want to talk about it.

Rather then treating me as your wife, you treat me like I’m a flatmate or something. We never had a honeymoon, we never go out on dates. Why? Why don’t you like me?

You’re kind, you’re funny, you make me laugh, you’re smart. You’re all of those things.

But why can’t you be my husband?”

#2. Proud papa

#1. Amen, sister

“So I sent nude pics to my boyfriend (now ex) a long time ago… I don’t put my face in any of the pictures FYI. Anyways I broke up with him two weeks ago and now I get fake Instagram pages named like “expose.nudes” messaging me saying “get back with him or your nudes will be exposed”… Do what you want with them! Every girl has a vagina and everyone has seen a vagina at least once in their life and everyone has at least sent 1 nude photo before. Rather be exposed than be in a trapped relationship… cant break anyone that’s already been broken right?”

h/t: Reddit

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