17 People Who Found Dark Secrets Hidden for a Reason

We often think we truly know someone or something, until one surprising truth flips everything upside down. The people in today’s story found out shocking secrets about their loved ones, homes, or everyday items, and those discoveries changed their lives in ways they never expected.

• When I was in middle school, I moved away to another state and graduated from high school there. After I had graduated, I was at my mom’s house for a cookout, and my nephews and niece were playing far in the backyard where there are a bunch of trees and bushes. My sister called out to me and asked why I had carved my name into the tree. I was confused and walked over to see my nickname “SAM” carved into the back of the tree. I don’t think she believed me, but I never carved that into the tree, and I wonder who did. It thoroughly creeped me out as well.
  © Samanthugalicious / Reddit

• A friend had a DNA test done, and the results said she had a ton of siblings and cousins, which is weird because she had one brother, another adopted brother, and no cousins. Turns out her mom was having trouble getting pregnant, so she went to see a really well-renowned specialist and then became pregnant. But all this doctor did was take some of the husband’s sperm and mix it with his own, and then they would get pregnant. So he fathered a ton of children, many of whom probably still don’t know. © Asthma_Enthusiast / Reddit

• When I was a kid, I used to figure skate competitively. Every time I competed, my mom would give me a fake flower. I kept these flowers in a vase in my room.
  One day, I noticed a ragged white silk rose in the vase. I had never seen it before, and it really stood out as being older and more poorly-made than the ones my mom had gotten me. I asked her about it, and she said she’d never seen it before either.
  For a long time, young me believed that it was put there somehow by the spirits of my maternal grandparents (who died when I was a baby). © therearenodogs / Reddit

• I found a rotten ham in my parents’ closet. It was purchased for Thanksgiving dinner but got misplaced with the Christmas presents and hidden in the back of the closet. I discovered it a week before Christmas while trying to find the source of the smell. © bigred0586/ Reddit

• When we were at my dad’s funeral, one of my mom’s sisters was sitting behind me. She was sobbing like her life had gone up in flames. She was whispering something, so I leaned closer to hear what she was saying. Turns out he was supposed to marry, but he chose my mother instead. She had been in love with him since then.

• My stepfather is a chemist who currently has diabetes. One night, he went to the ER because his blood sugar was dangerously high. He insisted that he was eating well, so there was no apparent reason for his elevated blood sugar.
  Later, we went to his car and discovered a 2-liter bottle of ginger ale mixed in with grape juice. He argued that the two canceled out their sugars, asserting that we didn’t know what we were talking about because he was a chemist and knew how to combine things. © mctacoflurry / Reddit

• My parents were renovating some rooms in our house when they first moved in a couple of decades ago. They knocked down a wall, and inside, they found an unharmed picture from the 1920s. It’s a framed portrait of a young man. No clue who he is or why it was in the wall.
  © lolkdontcare / Reddit

• That I was almost an abortion, apparently no one thought my mother should have a kid. Turns out they were right, she was the worst. I broke off all communication 20 years ago.
  © Paymee_Money / Reddit

• I found a framed photo of a duck wearing sunglasses randomly turned up in our kitchen one day. No idea how it got there. © sculptorsandvandals / Reddit

• When I moved out, I grabbed a suitcase from my parents’ closet. Inside were three of the same lovies (stuffed animal) I had grown up with. I also had another one in my bedroom. My parents had bought four of the same lovies and just cycled through them my entire life. When I walked downstairs and my dad saw them all in my hands, he said, “You were never supposed to know.”
  © vaunge-sousw**** / Reddit

• My mum passed when I was 11, and for the last 2 years of her life, she was involved in a love affair with my father’s best friend. Apparently the affair had become somewhat known about in their circles and included a pregnancy which was aborted.
  I knew nothing of this until my new stepmother told me this one night when she was drunk — about a month or two after she married my dad. I was 16 then. © ***_amirite / Reddit

• Last year, we bought a small place from an old woman (who has since died). We’ve been renovating the place, and we’ve found dozens of super-long, beige, fake fingernails all over the place. Behind baseboards, in all of the carpets and flowerbeds, in vents, buried in the cement cracks in the driveway, and in a lot of the cupboards. Sometimes, I’ll find them in places I’ve looked hundreds of times; it’s creepy. © nersee / Reddit

• I was pregnant with our second child, and my fingers got too swollen for my wedding ring, which, at the time, was a plain gold band that belonged to my mother. I took it off while riding in the car, and my mom put it in her wallet. Later, she looked in her wallet to give it back, and it was gone.
  Fast-forward nearly a year later, I walk into the kitchen, and something shiny catches my eye. I look down, and right in the middle of the floor is my ring. I’m very happy I found it, but it still weirds me out to this day. © luna_777 / Reddit

• When I first joined Facebook years ago, I searched for my own name just for fun. I found a woman with the same name as me, who looked almost identical to me. The weird thing is that she’s Black, and I’m White, but we are total face twins. I friended her, and we were Facebook friends for years until I decided to leave the platform. I miss her. © OfficeChairHero / Reddit

• My sister worked the night shift. When she came home, she found the homeless guy who lived in the neighbor’s yard asleep in her bed, with her dogs sleeping next to him. © cucowgirl / Reddit

• My family moved into a nice 70-year-old house a while back. The house has a laundry chute from the 2nd floor to the basement, with an opening in the kitchen as well. Directly under the basement opening was the biggest, gnarliest stack of used tin cans and bottles. Apparently, the former owners were too lazy for recycling and just used it as a garbage chute for 30 years.
  © fuwafuwafuwa / Reddit

• “Uncle” Jim who was a good family friend on my mom’s side and always around family gatherings was actually my mom’s first husband and that she had been married before my dad.
  © 1meow / Reddit

Sometimes, the biggest surprises come when we least expect them, like during a simple meal out. If you enjoyed these jaw-dropping discoveries, don’t miss 14 Restaurant Visits That Turned Into Once-in-a-Lifetime Stories. You’ll never look at dining out the same way again!