Carrying a secret for years, even decades can be taxing. If you don't tell anyone about it, that means no one can justify what you did and you're stuck wondering if you're a decent human being all by yourself. Which isn't always fun.
So in an attempt to make everyone's life a little easier, Reddit user Dramatic_Bat3265 submitted a question to the platform, asking: "What's your dirty lil secret?" Immediately, people rushed to confess, and as of this publication, there are over 17,000 comments under the post, with sins ranging from small and funny to big and concerning. Here are some of them.
#1
I had a counselor who straight up turned some of my Ds to Bs when I changed schools before my senior year. I had a super rough home life and I told her about it when she asked why my test scores were very high and my grades were low. Thanks to her bumping up my GPA, I was able to get into college. I know it’s probably not 'right' and she risked her job, but that woman legit probably saved my life. I saw her about a year ago out in public and gave her the biggest hug.
Image credits: Thejohnshirey
#2
I'm a therapeutic foster parent. When kids leave us to go back home, I am usually really happy for them (unless I don't think their family is going to be able to handle things safely, then I am worried as could be) but I am also selfishly completely heartbroken. I think about our former kids all the time. When they go home, I try to write our name and phone number in a bunch of their books so they can maybe find us again. And I keep my Facebook page as unlocked as possible hoping they will feel they can reach out if they need anything. I want to foster forever, but I also wonder if I can keep saying goodbye like this. It absolutely guts me and I know I have no right to feel that way.
Image credits: SKatieRo
#3
When i was in high school, i failed second semester of biology. So here comes the next year and i have to retake it. Again, i pass first semester but fail second semester which means retaking the entire class.Well, i transferred schools after that. When i was getting all my transfer information looked over in the office at the new school, the woman noticed i had two passed first semesters but never passed a full class.
I said “passing two semesters is KINDA like the full class”, she winked, and that was that. no more bio.
so i guess it’s OUR dirty little secret.
Image credits: illitior3
#4
The CEO of the company is a micromanager who wants to make even the tiniest decisions.He has a coffee mug with the text: Rule 1: I am always right Rule 2: When not, see rule 1.
It might be a joke, but I feel it's a constant subliminal message he sends himself. So, I hid the mug a couple of months ago.
I just left the company last week, and did not return the mug.
ETA: Thanks for the awards, this is now my top comment.
At the time he looked for it frantically searching all offices and enquiring us if we are using 'his' mug.
I played dumb obviously and laughed my ass off.
I did not steal it, I am 6'6 no one else in the company is, and it sits on top of the kitchen cabinets, just out of sight and reach.
Image credits: Ultra-Pulse
#5
I have a kitten I'm feeding without my wife's knowledge. She hates cats and I found one on the street. Every night before I go home I stop by the store and get cat food. She always asks me why I come home late every other night. I say I'm working. Or out with the guys, but I sit and talk to this stray cat about my problems and how mu day was. I named her senua. From senuas sacrifice.
Image credits: jamaicanManz
#6
I know exactly the rules for helping the children in my public education classroom but I still bring cold kids coats, hungry kids food, kids with terrible shoes better shoes, and hugs/long conversations for any child that asks. If any admin is pissed I’m giving a apple and a sandwich to a kid, I claim ignorance, the school system is so strained they won’t fire me so I am doing what I can during this time.
Image credits: Honey_Society
#7
When our phone was disconnected (1990's) for non-payment, I dialed 911 to see if they would still pickup (they did) but I hung up right away. Ten minutes later the cops showed up at my door, and I blamed it on the kids.
Image credits: cartoonassasin
#8
When I was a kid, my mom took away my favorite computer game CD for a few weeks as punishment for something I did. (Bad grade I think?)I found where she hid it, photocopied the CD label, cut out the print, glued it to a blank disk, and put that in the place of the real CD. (Surprisingly she never noticed!)
I played it when no one else was home. Its been 18 years, and I still haven't told her!
Image credits: IntergalacticPopTart
#9
My ex-husband left, no warning, cheated pretended I didn’t exist. 1 year later he wants the sofa because he bought it! Due to the lock-down happing just after his request, he had to wait a while before he could pick it up. I proceeded to have sex all over that sofa, throughout lockdown, with new boyfriend! Ex now has the sofa back.#10
I act a lot stupider at work so they don’t rely on me too much
Image credits: ChidoriKickz
#11
When I was about 8-9 I was sent to a summer camp for 1 month. My sister, who was 14, also was there. Never been away from my parents before. This camp was located around Lake Delton wisconsin. I remember the cabins in the woods. Now I don't know if I had arachnophobia before this experience, but I recall that the toilet stalls had dozens of daddy longleg spiders all over, and I was so scared I just held It in for about 4-5 days. Well.. One day I just couldn't hold it anymore and had to make a run for the toilets. I semi ran/walked to The toilets, trying to hold it in, made it In to the main area where the sinks are and just couldn't hold it anymore and just quickly, with one hand, pulled down my pants from behind and dropped the biggest dump on the tile floor, all while still in motion towards the toilet. Thank God no one was in there to see this. When I stepped out, a large group had formed out side and inside one of the staff was covering his face with one hand and holding a hoes in the other.No one suspected me.. .. I thanked God that no one found this out as if they had, the rest of my stay there would have been utter torment.Fast forward about 30 years.. Im at my parents house with my wife.. My sister is there as well, brothers. Anyway.. We're talking and camp comes up. Told her that it was Me who did that... She nearly laughed to death, Saying "the entire camp talked about this all summer". Hate spiders up until this day.
Good times.
Image credits: _NeXXeR_
#12
I slept with my mom’s friend. She was younger than my mom. She was 32 and I was 20 at the time. She stopped me one day as I was walking by her apartment and asked if I could take a look at her laptop because the “wifi wasn’t working.” I said of course and started looking for the cause of it. While I was on her couch with the laptop she comes out of the kitchen with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses. At that point I knew the real reason I was there. Needless to say, there was nothing wrong with her wifi.
Image credits: El_Werm
#13
I was 10 ... My parents had been working day and night to get their start up business off the ground. ... After several months of spending my afternoons alone ... I decided to diversify my entertainment selection. I proceeded to ransack their entire office ... I broke a window and two lamps, smashed the legs off a chair, and pulled every file from the cabinets and tossed them around the room like confetti. I then called my mother and told her I’d just gotten home and found the place burglarized.She told me to get out of the house, and called 911 on her way home. The cops arrived with their sirens blaring at about the same time she rolled up. They stormed the house with guns drawn, screaming, 'Come out with your hands up!' When I saw them going all Delta force through my front door, I knew that I had probably gone a little too far this time. Long story short, a detective came to take a report after the patrol cops had cleared the premises. As I was sitting on my living room sofa, surrounded by the tattered remains of my dirty work, the detective looked me dead in the eyes and said, 'There was no break in, was there?' The man looked right into my soul and knew the truth. ... Thankfully, I was young enough to escape any criminal charges.
#14
When I was about 8 i was in a supermarket with my mum and she had to use the bathroom. I was sat on the bench outside waiting and there was one of those “press to break glass” fire alarms on the wall. I wanted to know how hard you had to press it… not very hard as it turns out.The whole store had to leave their shopping and go outside, well over 100 people. Not sure what happened after that because we just went home.
It’s been 20 years and I’ve still never told anyone.
Image credits: General-Ad-9753
#15
I was supposed to map the coordinates of our class’ buried time capsule in 1979 and did not do it.
Image credits: newleafkratom
#16
I’ve never OFFICIALLY graduated college. I was able to attend the graduation ceremony, and got to walk on stage. Whole 9 yards. But I was 10 credits shy of my degree.That was almost 11 years ago, and I’m currently working a pretty nice-paying job, so it worked out. But yeah…I can’t help but cringe a little bit when my parents gush about all three of their children (I’m the middle child) being college graduates
Image credits: Specktakles88
#17
When I was a kid, I farted into a little box over and over for a full year. It was a tin some christmas cookies came in with a picture of Santa on it. Every single time I had to fart, I lifted the lid, “put it in the box”, and quickly closed it. Before long, the box was successfully weaponized and ready for deployment. When my brother was mean to me, I’d steal his Oakleys (expensive horrible 90’s sunglasses) and put them in the box to, um, marinate overnight. Then I’d quietly return them.My brother continually complained to my mom about how they smelled and that they’d sold him “a bad pair,” and wanted new ones. She was like hell no dude. So he just kept wearing them til they broke.
So basically I farted into my brother’s eyes for a year. Never told anyone.
Image credits: Legs_Luther
#18
Cheated on my CV to add some skills and certificates I don’t have to match a Google position… but after 5 years I mastered all of them and became a team manager ..Still a black hole I still can’t get through
Image credits: EnvironmentalMouse98
#19
Third grade, 1953. Somebody passed out a box of lollipops to the class. There was an extra. I took it.I can no longer live with this shame.
Image credits: BobT21
#20
I’d only just begun paying off a vehicle loan in mid 1999. My January payment was returned with the bank saying it was paid off. Not even close. Thanks Y2K.
Image credits: antmakka
#21
When I was 15 or 16, I was in an abusive relationship and he would want to go out and I had to pay, but if I didn't have money he would get mad. So I would take money out of my grandma's savings box every time he would make me go out.It made me so guilty, but she never said anything, so over the years and after a lot of therapy now that I'm an adult and have a job and all, I put money from my salary in her box without her noticing. I think I've already paid back everything I took, but I don't want to stop. It hurts to think if she ever was affected by what I did...no matter the reason I did it.
#22
I lost the school spelling bee on purpose. The girl I was against put a lot of time and effort into it, whereas I basically just showed up. Plus, she was more on the nerdy side, not a lot going outside of school… and I felt she needed a victory. She missed a word, I purposefully missed it to keep her in. This happened a few times. Later, I missed one on purpose to give her the victory. She went on to the state competition. The teacher giving the words threw me a look of disgust, as she knew what I did. Oh well…
Image credits: txbuckeye75034
#23
I got an $8,000 dollar scholarship, due to a clerical error, for having above a 3.7 GPA all semester but my GPA was actually 3.07
Image credits: NoEyeO_O
#24
My freshman year of highschool, I ditched class so much that I flunked the year. I moved to a different town over the summer and somehow they lost my "permanent record" in the mail. (Early 90s, so they had computers, but they weren't integrated between school districts, so it was just a fat folder of paperwork.) Anyway, when the new school realized this, they called me in and asked what classes and grades I had, so I straight up lied my way out of having to retake freshman year.
Image credits: axnu
#25
A co-worker retired and I inherited one of his reports, which is one of my employer's Key Performance Metrics. Every two weeks it would take him an entire 8 hour day to complete.The first week I was able to automate most of it down to 1 hour. Over the next nearly 10 years, I've improved it to the point that it runs in less than a minute, then 14 minutes to quality check it. I then spend the next 8 hours surfing reddit, watching movies, doing whatever I want in my office from home.
All this time, I've told my boss it takes me 8 hour to perform, and sometimes I'll tack on extra hours because of "technical issues". No questions asked as long as its in his inbox by COB Friday.
About 8 years ago I had a conversation with a coworker who works for my boss' boss. It turns out he recieves the report on Monday and never reads it. It gets filed away and the only time they get looked at is during an audit. I've had to discuss the reports just twice, and showed them an "SOP" I wrote that demostrates how it's done (without the automation). Auditor checks the box, next item...
Whenever I'm on vacation, I turn the SOP over to someone else who'll have to compile the report by hand. When I get back, they've alway mentioned "How do you do all that in just 8 hours???" At this point I've charged my boss nearly an entire year for sitting on my [butt]
#26
One time when I was like 5-9 years old my dad was shopping around at a lumber store. I wandered around alone and couldn’t find a bathroom. I had to pee so bad. So I just found a secluded back corner behind some wood and pissed on the floor. 30 years later I still drive by that place every day and remember.
Image credits: Wick3d3nd3r
#27
I never wrote my 7th grade science paper on Dysentery, and when my teacher asked me if I turned it in, I said yes.She looked through all of the papers and stacks of paperwork on her very crowded desk, and she said she "knew she saw it there somewhere."
I got a B for a paper I never wrote.
Sorry Ms. Weber.
Image credits: BBQinFool
#28
It wasn’t raccoons that spilled that paint in the garage in 1993. It was me
Image credits: Sh*tStuckInYourTeeth
#29
I worked at Wendy's during my teenage years. I also had a teenager's metabolism, so I would frequently treat myself to numerous giant Frostys during evening shift.Closing one night and, to avoid a 2am ride home with my sketchy manager, I decided to walk the 3 miles home through suburbia.
Around the halfway point of my early morning walk, the gallons of delicious milky beverage in my gut transformed itself into gallons of fetid milky waste wanting very much to leave my body.
Without a bathroom nearby, I darted down an alley and hopped a fence into a backyard...where I unleashed evil. I noticed that this yard had all the necessary accoutrement to indicate a dog or two lived there. My hope is that the owners didn't take their dogs to the vet with the assumption that Fido's anus exercised Mephistopheles.
#30
All my work can be done on my cellphone and I lay in bed most mornings until noon.
Image credits: Pencilowner
#31
I’m not that good at IT, I can google like no other.
Image credits: lubbz
#32
In my childhood (fifth or sixth grade) while eating my breakfast before leaving for school, I would keep little chewed food inside my mouth and when I walk to the school bus stand I would drink a sip of water and just when I sat in the bus I would vomit it out so that I could be sent back home for feeling unwell. I used to repeat this in couple of month specially the day I didn’t feel like going to school at all sometime to watch cricket match#33
One time when I was 10-12 ish, I told a group of friends that I brushed my teeth with hot water instead of cold water (our cultural norm) just to seem quirky or cool, and man did it get the reaction I was hoping for. However, it was all a lie. I did brush with cold water. And this lie was too heavy for my pre-teen soul, so every day since then I have brushed my teeth with hot water, despite being 15 years older. I feel trapped in my hot teeth scrubbing sentence yet it feels right as a punishment for lying.
Image credits: MightyTOne
#34
I am a horrible reader, yet I'm a writer.#35
5yr old me ruined my parents marriage. I distinctly remember finding what I now know is a condom(unused) in our old station wagon. Me not knowing any better began playing with it. Got done tossed it in the trash. Fast forward a short time later. My father returns home and begins to drag the can to the road. As he closes the lid he notices said condom and you can guess where it goes from there. I didn’t learn that was the reason until I was about 14-15.
Image credits: Wide_Berry7254
#36
I just graduated school and got a job at a big company in engineering. I spend a lot of time each day looking at memes, watching YouTube videos, etc… sometimes I do work.They’ve told me I’m doing a good job so far.
Image credits: Laustintranslation1
#37
In senior year of HS, I put a milk carton in the ceiling of a portable building right before spring break. When we came back from spring break, the classroom smelled like a rotting corpse. Some other kid that was a known prankster somehow got blamed and was suspended.#38
I started lying about my experience with construction site work experience 4 years ago. Today, I am a site superintendent that googles answers to questions raised by other trades To buy time I say “that’s a great question, let me get back to you on that.” I make 90k a year doing this. Been steady for 2 years now#39
When I was a kid (17) I worked at a Greyhound station. I accidently sent a woman to Salmo instead of Salmon Arm because I thought it just ran out of print space on the ticket / screen. I had never heard of Salmo back then. That woman had to spend an entire night in hells half acres, and lost an entire day of travel. My boss chalked it up to a "glitch" in their antiquated machine.Really it was me.
I also would occasionally steal a bag of chips from that store when I got bored/hungry.
God I was such a [jerk]
#40
I've seen both of my sisters in law naked.I accidentally walked in on my brother's wife whilst she was changing. I didnt realise she was in the room and just walked in. She knows it was me but we've both just pretended that didn't happen.
My wifes sister asked me to fix her laptop as it wasnt working. Turns out it hadn't had a windows update for nearly 4 years and was filled with all description of bloatware and malware (she had 4 address bars on her browser) and her pretty explicit nudes in prime position in her Downloads folder.
I returned her laptop in working condition with a new folder named "Private". So yeah she knows I saw them, but no-one else does
#41
Back in the day, my drunk friend wanted to do more shots of vodka, but put water in the shot glasses for her. She said that she couldn’t taste anything. I told her that after a while, her taste buds are messed up because she had too much to drink, but here ya go! Bottoms up!#42
I'm a college dropout who makes a fantastic living basically driving a go kart at an airport.#43
I came clean a few years ago. But in the 4th and 5th grade I had an obsession with sharp things like knives and razors and would bring them to school. One day our teacher was reading a book and I was messing with the razor behind my back and cut the overhead projectors cord and flipped the breakers for the room. They could tell I cut it but never found the razor blade I hid.20 years later I find my teacher on FB who still teaches at the same school. I fessed up and told him where he might find the razor blade in the classroom. Sure enough all these years later he found the blade with a hole burned in it from the shock. He decided to keep it as a souvenir from his very first year teaching.
#44
When I was three or four years old, my mom and I were at a Piggly wiggly market. She wouldn't buy me the five cent piece of gum out of the bins of candy. I was mad. I stole the five cent piece of gum. The store went out of business within a month. As an adult I understand my theft didn't put the store out of business. Nonetheless, I've lived with that guilt for more than 30 years#45
I failed my electrical design class in college but work at an electrical utility company as a designer.
Image credits: Eledesigner
