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People Describe The Saddest Thing They've Ever Seen On Valentine's Day

People Describe The Saddest Thing They've Ever Seen On Valentine's Day

With Valentine's Day just around the corner at the time of writing it's easy to lose our sense of appreciate for our significant others. Ideally, if you have a partner, you're in a strong relationship built on trust, understanding, and support. Also, being able to binge-watch the same shows repeatedly is a big help. Regardless, it's easy to take our sig-oths for granted...

...Untll you read stories like these.


Reddit user, u/Paradox052, wanted to get sad with the best of them when they asked:

What is the saddest thing you guys have seen on Valentine's day?

The Highest Of Lows

The saddest was when my friend proposed marriage to the girl he loved on Valentine's Day and she flat out turned him down.

He was heartbroken - especially since they'd been dating a long time and got along so well.

Back2Bach

Only Solution: Blasting Out The Toto

I saw a guy crying, eating a burrito alone in his car blasting Toto

HOLD THE LINE LOVE ISN'T ALWAYS ON TIME

me ex (who was there) and I text each other about it every February

LegendOfDylan

At Least He Taught The Roses Who Was Boss?

My buddy in college had his girlfriend break up with him in Feb 13 during a fight so he thought he could win her back and make a big gesture showing up on Feb 14 with roses and a teddy bear.

Didn't go as planned and we were walking to dinner and my roommate starts laughing as we round the corner to see our buddy angrily throw the teddy bear into a tree and drop kick a dozen roses.

Ol_Man_Rambles

Not Even Felines Should Be Alone On Valentine's Day

I found a stray kitty on Valentines day as a kid.

I was in elementary school but big enough to be walking home alone. He was this little black and white cat.

My grandma had him for a while- he eventually passed but she had him for maybe 5/6 years.

Doofy thing- always falling off of sh-t. She called him Fernando

WorfLovesDax

Working Hard For That Action

I have a friend who I've known since I was 5. She and i happened to find ourselves both single and close to each other on Valentine's Day. So we jokingly decided to spend it together so we aren't "total losers".

I dress up, shirt, tie, jacket and drive 30 min to pick her up and she's in a slinky red dress with matching high heels. We went to dinner and then to a club and people watched.

We told people we weren't a couple, just friends making sure we weren't alone Valentine's Day. The number of lonely guys coming out of the woodwork to hit on my friend was insane. The pathetic and desperate guy tried to give her $300 to come home with him. To f*** him, she told this guy that if he could get a girl who wanted to "take care of" me, she'd sleep with him. He went around to all the women in the bar. I'd watch him walk up to a lady, talk her up, point over at me. I would have loved to hear what he was saying.

When my friend and I left, he came running up to is literally begging for her to stay. Probably the most desperate act I've ever seen.

Ol_Man_Rambles

One For Every Day

The same guy I saw at the table yesterday, only with a different woman.

Feb 13th is Valentine's day for mistresses.

Mors_ad_mods

Defiant In The Face Of Loneliness

My husband and I were at a really fancy steakhouse, the type that will coordinate dinner napkins to the guests outfits and brush crumbs off the tabletop with a little metal thing between courses. It was all couples, everywhere, Valentines night right?

And then there was one old guy, well dressed, in the corner at a table by himself. It wasn't that he was waiting; he was having this lavish multi-course meal. It sort of looked like he was talking to someone at certain points of the dinner but there was no one across from him. (It also could have been chewing, steakhouse after all and he was old, so who knows? Dentures?)

Anyways... some people think eating alone, especially alone on VDays, is sad but I was impressed by this guy. Dining alone like a bad ass at a fancy steakhouse on Valentines Day. Looked like he wanted to treat himself to a good meal and DGAF what day it was or what other people are doing/thinking. So I sent him a bottle of the wine we were drinking.

The waiter told me he and his wife have come every year for Valentines and anniversaries for like 25 years and 2 years ago his wife died so he's been coming by himself, eating a big meal and talking to her chair.

So sweet, so sad 💔😭

WeddingElly

Have A Box Of Tissues Or A Loved One Nearby? Good.

I travel a lot for work. As a part of it, I spend far too much time in restaurants, most often by myself. No big deal for me, I can eat by myself, see a movie by myself, whatever.

So I am away on a job over Valentine's Day and I'm in a place seated close to another guy by himself. He's obviously waiting for someone to join him. We start talking, he asks who I am waiting for, I tell him no one. He is waiting for his girlfriend...she had just called him, she's running late as usual, he chuckles.

As the time goes longer, we are talking more. And he confides he wants to ask his girlfriend to marry him. I say that's awesome. He wasn't sure how to do it or when. He even had the ring on him, it was nice, nothing too showy or stupid. This wasn't the kind of restaurant to do that with...and personally, I kinda don't do the whole in public thing. I ask if they have a special place or something that means more to the two of them personally, and he smiles...indeed he does and it now clicks how he wants to do it. Sweet.

His cell rings at some point after that. Dude has been at the restaurant for over 45 minutes by now. I can tell it's not good. Not good at all, but it's not his girlfriend. I hear "How did it happen?" and "Is she ok?" and I watch his face just sink. I've never actually seen someone die in front of me, this is as close as I can imagine.

I am looking at the shell of a man who moments prior was nervous and excited and happy...and I see nothing. There is nothing left. He rises, doing what he can to keep from falling apart, and heads out of the restaurant.

So piecing it together; I am thinking he just found out his girlfriend, to whom he was ready to propose, was either gravely injured or killed on her way to the restaurant...just moments after speaking to him on the phone.

TigLyon

Parents play an important and unparalleled role in the lives of their kids. But even this special relationship has its limits. There are certain parts of many kids’ lives that, for one reason or another, they choose to keep completely separate from their relationships with their parents. These secrets can be anything from harmless little guilty pleasures to absolutely scandalous and horrifying behaviors. Don’t believe me? Here are 50 stories of secrets that will make any parent stop and wonder what their kids are really up to when they’re not around.

You’ve Got A Friend In Me

woman holding kid at the streetPhoto by Sai De Silva on Unsplash

My mother has always wondered why I didn't have too many friends back in high school. The real reason is a secret that I would never want her to know about. It is because, growing up, my family was always broke and I knew that she was struggling financially. So, in order to avoid anyone seeing how we lived, I always refused anytime people from school wanted to do things with me or have get-togethers at my house.

To make matters even worse, I decided during my senior year that I did not want to burden my mother by asking for money when I needed to buy things. As a result, I started working as much as I could outside of school. This gave me even less time to make friends. I would never want my mother to find out about this, and I would never want her to feel guilty or blame herself for my lack of social life as a child.

winenotbecauseofrum

Always Remember Where You Came From

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the truth about my location for the past 25 years. They have no idea where I have been living that entire time, and I want to keep it that way. It’s a long story, but I have now spent more than half of my life going out of my way to make sure that they never suspect the true location of my residence.

Metatron_Fallen

No More Pomp And Circumstance

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I knowingly recorded one of my favorite movies over the video tape of my sister's high school graduation. It was the only copy of that ceremony that we had, so we will never be able to look back on that memory again. Luckily, it's been about 18 years since I did this, and no one has noticed yet. Nevertheless, I still feel really bad about it.

sheldonowns

An Unwanted Gamble

If my mom ever found out, she’d never forgive herself. The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that my cousins used to repeatedly take physical advantage of me when I was a kid. Throughout my childhood, my mom would regularly leave me at their house for hours at a time so that she could go to the casino and play her favorite games. If she knew what had taken place while she was away on those casino trips, she’d be horrified.

Sad_Mars22

Handling Things On Your Own

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I was falsely accused of violently attacking someone when I was 17 years old. I am legally considered an adult in Texas, so the authorities didn’t have to tell them. A detective actually confiscated my cell phone for an entire school day to verify the veracity of the text messages proving that the encounter was consensual.

The whole thing was a really scary experience and a really weird time in my life. I had to deal with the fallout at school, as well as the challenges of not telling my parents about it.

Permalink

Moving On

persons hand on white surfacePhoto by Ruthson Zimmerman on Unsplash

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’m not straight. Me and opposite gender fiancé don’t consider it cheating as long as whatever I do is with someone of the same gender, and as long as we inform each other prior. I hate my parents and can’t wait to leave. I don’t trust them to take my feelings seriously if I come clean to them about this secret.

The only reason I’m getting mentally healthier nowadays is that my therapist and fiancé have worked hard to help me learn that some things can’t be fixed and need to be thrown away, in this case, my relationship with my parents. My doctor is very excited about me becoming mentally stable enough to care for myself so that I can pursue university in a place where they are not around.

There’s just one thing that makes me want to stay—and breaks my heart. My 11-year-old sister trusts me more than she trusts them, and one time she cried asking me not to leave because she didn’t want to be left there alone with our parents. She’s been showing very obvious symptoms of anxiety and depression due to being bullied at school for the past few months. I want to help her, but my mom keeps getting in the way.

When I say anything about the situation to her, she quickly shuts me by saying “She probably did something wrong and that’s why she’s scared". I can’t do anything because I’m not her legal guardian, so I’ve been trying to teach her grounding techniques. I tell her the things that work for me other than my meds.

rhemasu

Money Makes The World Go Round

The secret that I choose to keep hidden from my parents is that I make a lot more money than I let on. My parents have always been and always will be the "I took care of you all your life, time for you to pay it back" type of parents. Except as far as they’re concerned, there is no end to this "debt" that I allegedly owe them. So, I just hide money from them so that they can't take advantage of me.

Nagaisbae

Swiper, No Swiping!

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once swiped some money from them in order to buy a bunch of illicit substances that they would never approve of me using. I regret it to this day. It was a horrible thing for me to do. My lazy self should have just listened to their good advice and gotten a job instead of getting myself into that kind of bad behavior.

Permalink

Blame Canada For This One!

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that, for my entire childhood, I used to frequently watch South Park on TV when they thought I was sleeping at night. Not only would they have been angry at me for staying up past my bedtime, but this was also a show that my parents considered inappropriate and would never have knowingly allowed me to watch.

I guess this explains why I was always tired as a kid!

Permalink

Thrown In The Slammer

My mother has no idea that I have been locked up twice—but that’s not the worst part. One of those times, I was in there with my father. He has been just as adamant as I have been in refusing to tell her about what happened. I don’t plan on ever letting her find out that we were there. I don’t think she would be too happy about it if she found out...

Permalink

An Untarnished Academic Record?

man in black jacket sitting on chairPhoto by christopher catbagan on Unsplash

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is the fact that I became extremely depressed during my first year of university and nearly failed out of school because I couldn't handle the pressure. In their eyes, I am a model student and the farthest thing possible from someone who would have ever come close to failing academically. Little do they know…

Sarcastic__

A Family Man

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I recently got someone pregnant and I'm pretty sure she kept the baby. She never told me officially, so I honestly don’t even know if I have a child. If my parents found out about this, they would be horrified. It would totally go against all of their deeply-held values, not to mention it would shatter their impression of me as a person.

LonelyPauper

Sister Act

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that my sister is a lesbian. She openly admits it to everyone she knows, except for our family. She eventually opened up to me about it, but both my parents and our older brother still know nothing about it. Since then, she and I have become a lot closer to one another than we were when we were growing up.

vkuma

Does Not Compute

When I was around 14 years old, I once overheard my parents arguing with one another. My mom was yelling at my dad about some inappropriate adult searches that she had found on their computer’s internet history. But I knew the dark truth It was really me that was going on the computer in their room without permission and watching adult videos. But I chose to keep that a secret and say nothing as they argued.

Needless to say, my silence meant that my mom blamed my dad for the searches. He kept adamantly denying it, and she kept calling him a liar. As a result of this whole ordeal, he had to sleep in the guest bedroom for an entire month after that fight. The secret truth was never revealed, and hopefully, it never will be…

postedUpOnTheBlock

Not Very Sweet Emotion

They knew I had a nervous breakdown during my freshman year of high school and they knew that I went through a very dark phase at the age of 15. However, they didn’t know the heartbreaking reason why. I was attacked and taken advantage of as a kid, and I wanted to take my own life for many years afterward as a result of the incident.

SageRiBardan

Nothing Of Substance

woman in blue denim jacketPhoto by Naomi Suzuki on Unsplash

My parents have no idea that I have ever used a single bad substance. In reality, the first time I ever got high, it was right under their noses. I was with one of my best friends. We were at my house and my parents were at home. I made sure we stayed mostly upstairs and we tried our best to be quiet. Things were going fine until I started seeing colors all around us.

I started to hallucinate and I thought the colors were fighting each other. At a certain point, I just started laying there on my bed because I was no longer enjoying the experience. I literally felt like I couldn’t move. Everything felt numb. She kept trying to do intimate stuff with me and I kept saying I wasn’t interested. I ended up not knowing whether it was real life or not anymore.

My parents would kill me if they ever found out that I had done that, especially in their own home. I hated having to act like everything was just okay and normal afterward while I was still feeling physically and emotionally confused. They spent years trying to instill in me that playing around with substances was a bad idea, and I went against their wishes. I feel awful about it and can never let them find out.

carmexkisses

Following Doctor’s Orders, In Private

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I always suspected that I suffered from some kind of mental health struggle, and I now know this to be the case thanks to a doctor I have secretly been seeing. As far as my parents know, there is nothing wrong with my mental or emotional health whatsoever.

bllaaushpibu

For The Love Of All That Is Holy!

My parents are very devout members of a strict religious sect, and they raised me to be the same way. Members of this sect believe that their church is the only true church on Earth, and so it is very important to members that all their loved ones remain believers. My secret from my parents is that I no longer believe that their religion is true. They think I still go to church and believe, but nothing could be farther from the truth.

TheCardgageCurse

Keeping Up Appearances

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I spent several years living as a barely functioning and depressed alcoholic during my college days. My life was really out of control back then, but I always managed to keep it together just enough to still be capable of putting on a facade for my parents. They never suspected a thing.

TimDuncanCanDunk

This Is Pretty Dark...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I don't actually love them. I care about them in the same way that I care for a hurt stranger, but I won't be crying when they pass except for over the stress of handling the funeral arrangements and finding a place for their kid and animals to live in their absence. I know this sounds harsh, but that’s the way I truly feel.

Some explanation is probably needed. Let’s start with the fact that my parents have done some pretty heartless things towards me over the years. They ran up a whole bunch of debts in my name and never helped me out with trying to pay them all off. That is just one example of their reckless and inconsiderate behavior towards me over the years.

Another example is that I was homeless twice in my mid-20s, but they absolutely refused to let me stay with them. At the age of 18, I still didn't have a driver’s license because I was never allowed to borrow their car. Eventually, I saved up and paid for my own lessons. Not that I could afford a car anyway until a few years later.

At the age of 20, I had a job interview at a well-paying company. I asked my parents if they could drive me for an hour to get there or let me drive. They agreed, but then the day of the interview, they never showed up. They also completely wrecked my confidence and self-esteem when I lived with them from the ages of 16 to 22, when they went off on outings almost every weekend while leaving me behind to watch their other kid and their animals.

There is also a lot more to the story that I would prefer not to talk about publicly. Of course, their other kid is technically related to me and would be considered my sibling by most people, but we do not have a good relationship or really much of any relationship to be completely honest. I know that it’s not his fault, but for my own mental health, I can’t bear to associate with anyone who reminds me of my awful parents.

Phenoix512

How Much Is That Secret In The Window?

a bathroom with a window and a yellow towelPhoto by Shaylyn on Unsplash

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents for a very long time is that I used to frequently sneak out of the house from our second story bathroom window to go nightclubbing with my friends after the two of them had both gone to bed at night. This little secret of mine made some of my greatest high school memories possible.

Vyzantinist

The Suspension Of His Disbelief

My dad doesn't know that I was suspended from school for an entire semester back in college due to my low grades. He always thought of me as a terrific student and not at all as someone who would spend a lot of time partying and neglecting my studies. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that this happened to me, but it really did.

_ohhello

No Tech Support Needed

The secret that I have kept hidden from my parents is that I actually did know why my laptop wasn't working when I told them that it had suddenly broken and that I needed a new one. I had spilled a fair bit of Jack Daniel's on it during a night of partying, and it has not been working properly ever since. But as far as my parents know, it just failed to turn on one day and there is no logical explanation as to why.

dramaticeffect_

A Lot To Deal With

The secret that I hide from my parents is that I've been struggling with depression, crippling loneliness, abandonment issues, and social pressure ever since I was six years old. I've come dangerously close to nearly ending my life on many occasions. I've been managing my life better as of late, but I have kept all of this hidden from my parents regardless. I don’t want them to ever know.

Z_Silver

Passing The Bar

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I’m not going to finish my degree and I’ve already paid off all my student loan debts. My degree was pointless and I don’t do well in school anyway due to my ADHD. My dad constantly asks me when I’m going to finish and stop bartending. I just keep saying I’ll be finishing soon.

I hate disappointing my parents because my father always gets very proud of my sister and me with all of our accomplishments. But truth be told, I’m quite content with the $60k a year that I make bartending right now. My degree would only have pulled in about $35k as a starting salary. I really like my current job and don’t feel that I’m missing out on anything, even though it’s so different than the vision that my parents always had for me.

I’m planning on keeping my true intentions a secret from them for as long as I possibly can.

absurdapple

Playing With A Full Deck

arranged blue grocery cartsPhoto by Fabio Bracht on Unsplash

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that when I was at Walmart with my mom one time, I swiped two of those big cartons full of Pokémon Cards. I took the cards and stuffed them all into my back pocket. I planned the whole operation more than a week before. It was completely premeditated. I was the best and craftiest thief in the world at the age of nine.

But my parents had no idea, and they still don’t to this day…

j-benz

Brothers In Arms

I kept the truth of how I got the giant, noticeable scar on my forearm a secret from my parents and others for close to 15 years. In order to understand the real story, you first need to know that I had an old metal bed frame and one of the posts had snapped off, leaving a pretty good sharp point that was dangerous but also pretty avoidable.

When I was about 16, I got very intoxicated with my older brother one time and we got into a huge fight. He tried to hit me, and in the process of the fight, he accidentally slashed my arm with a sharp blade while I was trying to avoid a punch. We both started freaking out when we saw the damage and the huge bloody gash that we had left on my arm. We rushed to the hospital and I was given 21 stitches for it.

When we got home, we realized that we would both get into huge trouble if our parents found out that we had been drinking. But we had to be able to give some kind of explanation for the giant scar on my arm that had never been there before. So, in the end, we told my mom, grandma, and pretty much all other concerned parties that I had merely fallen next to the bed and accidentally sliced my arm across the open part of the metal post.

And none of them ever doubted that story for a minute!

soiledsanchez

This Is The Worst Trip I’ve Ever Been On

The secret that I have always kept hidden from my parents is that I had actually planned on ending my life during a school trip overseas back in the day. I was really having a bad time on the trip and it made me feel incredibly depressed. My head became filled with such bad thoughts, and I wanted nothing but for them to go away.

I didn’t go through with what I was planning, as you can tell. But I seriously considered it, and that fact alone still shakes me to my core to think about. In the end, the only thing that stopped me was that I didn’t want to ruin the trip for everyone else. That’s how close I came. I couldn’t imagine ever telling my parents that this happened.

FrontRow22

I Know What You’ve Been Up To...

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I once found my dad’s stash of illicit substances hidden in his room. I feel like I don't even know him anymore. I never want him or my mother to know that I found this. I’m still a minor and I still live with them. I just don’t want them to think that I violated their privacy or found out about something that I wasn’t meant to see.

rhinoceroblue

Such A Sad Situation

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was taken advantage of in our home for years when I was a child by the person that they know I hate the most. If they knew about this, they might finally understand why I hate this person so much. This is also the person that they would probably least suspect of ever doing a thing like that.

I doubt my parents would even believe me if I ever told them about what happened. In fact, my mom once actually walked into the room during one of the times that this was actively happening to me but she did not pick up on what was going on. She held a full, nonchalant conversation with us while it was going on right under her nose.

I was horrified because I was very obviously in danger and yet she was totally oblivious. I didn’t know what to do about it, and I’ve never brought it up to her ever since.

JessaRoo2

To Tell, Or Not To Tell?

grayscale photo of woman doing silent hand signPhoto by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I fully know that my mother is cheating on my father. He doesn’t know that it’s happening, at least not to my knowledge, and she doesn’t have any idea that I know what she’s up to. I honestly have no idea what I should do with this information, but for the time being, I cannot bring myself to let either of them know that I know about it.

throwaway28386472828

The Green, Green Grass Of Home

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I sold weed in high school. This may seem like nothing compared to some of the other stories that people have shared here, but it is still something that would cause a whole lot of shock and disappointment with my family if they ever found out about it. Thankfully, it’s all in the past now, so hopefully, I will never have to say anything.

PlantExact

Stepping On The Wrong Toes

The secret that I keep from my parents is that, as a teen, I used to constantly fantasize about ending the life of my verbally and physically abusive stepfather and then ending my own life right after. He treated my mom like garbage and one day he actually punched me in the face for not washing my dirty dishes. This blow left a permanent gash above my eyebrow.

I was really depressed and wanted to end my life anyway, so I thought that I might as well take that jerk with me if I was going to have to go. I always tried to talk myself into finding some way to do it, but I could never actually bring myself to go through with it. The closest that I ever came to doing something was when he was asleep on the couch and my mom was off at work.

I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and just stood over him for a few minutes, contemplating whether I should do it or not. Of course, I never did. Thankfully, he and my mom separated less than a year after that incident. He is now out of our lives completely. My depression has been minimized tremendously since that. And no one ever needs to know how bad things were in my head before.

Seriously though, screw that guy!

dailydonuts16

Big Plans For The Future

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a secret plan to take my own life many years from now. I've crafted the plan carefully, and it is specifically designed so that I can focus one year on spending time with each of the people that I love. I'm scared to tell them about it because I don't want them to get stressed out about it. But at the same time, I just can't mentally take life anymore and I can't cope with living like this for 20 or so more years.

Permalink

Living On The Edge

The secret that I keep from my parents is that I lived with my girlfriend for more than a year and a half prior to us being married. We lived in a house less than 45 minutes away from where my parents lived, yet they had no idea that we were there. My parents are very conservative both socially and religiously, and they would have likely not attended our wedding had they known about this.

atlienk

Getting The Job Done

computer cablesPhoto by Randall Bruder on Unsplash

My parents have no idea that I left my job with the cable company to sell cars and write up oil changes for almost a year. I was emotionally burnt out from all the nonsense of the corporate world and I just couldn't take it anymore. So, without telling my parents, I tried switching careers. It didn't really pan out as I had hoped, but it did get me away from that trash heap of a company and allowed me to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life and where to go from there.

Lyn1987

A Strong, Independent Woman

It may seem weird to some people, but I prefer to keep it secret. My parents don’t know that I work out regularly. Pretty hard and heavy, too. My mom thinks that muscles on girls are gross, and for the years that she knew I worked out she treated me like I was gross too. It was heartbreaking for me. So now I pretend that I lost all interest in lifting weights and that I'm much happier this way.

The true fact is that I gave it up for about two months and couldn't stand life without it. It's sad that I can't keep my own mother in the loop about my most loved passion, but I've accepted it as just the way things are. In the grand scheme of things, this is far from the worst secret I could have had from my parents!

Retinator99

Food For Thought

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I have a pretty serious eating disorder. I’ve had it since I was just 11 years old, and I even went to the hospital for it. I am keeping it under control more now than I used to thanks to the help of the doctors at the hospital. But my parents still have no idea that anything is wrong with me.

Vale_M10

A Work Of Art

When I was in my early teens, we didn't yet have a computer or the internet at my house, but we did have Cinemax and my friend Doug introduced me to the late-night movies that were shown on the weekends. The secret that I hid from my parents was that, as a teenager who read comics and was not fully aware of the female anatomy, I would try to draw pictures of my favorite characters from those movies without their clothes on. Well, my mom found out…but it didn’t really go how I thought it would.

I used to hide the drawings either inside my comic books or in between my mattress and my box spring. I never considered the possibility that my mom would one day change my sheets. When she did, she discovered my secret. She told me that she was disappointed with me for drawing the pictures, but she was also impressed with the artwork.

So, she put the drawings into her special “hope chest” with all of my other stuff that she was proud of. I was embarrassed then, but now in my 30s, it's just nice to know that my mom cared that much about me and the things that I did. I bet not everyone could say that about their parents. Especially not after they discovered your secrets!

Permalink

Three Square Meals A Day

My secret from my parents is that I sometimes grab lunch or dinner on the way home from class, and I don't tell them about it. If I did tell them, I would probably just get yelled at for "wasting money when we have perfectly good food at home". My mom's cooking is great, but sometimes I just want to grab some pizza! Is that such a horrible thing to want? I enjoy variety from time to time!

Recently, this whole situation has gotten even more intense since my mom has gotten into some kind of obscure health diet plan that she's forcing everyone to take part in. It’s a bit ridiculous, but I don’t mind humoring her.

Kent_Knifen

Little Brother Is Watching You

person looking in the middle of two beige cushionsPhoto by Cristina Gottardi on Unsplash

I know an awful lot of things that my parents don’t realize I know. That is thanks to the fact that I overhear all of their private conversations every single night. I have horrible sleeping patterns, and people always assume that I’m asleep when I’m not. This is because when I lay down for too long, my mouth opens and, when I close my eyes, it looks like I’m sleeping.

Because of this, I know that my dad is cheating on my mom. I’ve been hearing him calling another woman every single night while he thought I was asleep and unable to hear. I also happen to know that my mom steals money from my dad on the regular, as well as from me and my brother. She also badmouths my dad a lot of the time and complains about the fact that I'm not good at dealing with conflict.

She also thinks I'm too sensitive. Many nights, I can hear them arguing behind closed doors, and then, in the morning, they just act like everything is great and like nothing ever happened. But I know that that’s not true. I’ve also secretly heard them badmouth me and my brothers, and talk about wanting a divorce. And it still gets so much worse...

I’ve heard them express the fact that they both don’t want me or my brother. They also both don’t want our pet cats. They openly admit that they hate each other, and they love pointing out sensitive things that will anger each other. They also hit one another from time to time. Night after night, I learn more and more secrets about how awful they really are. And I never let on that I know any of it.

It all started messing with my head a lot for the past couple of years. Slowly, it affected my personality and had even changed my reputation in school a lot. My friends told me that I wasn’t the same anymore. Apparently, I used to be totally carefree, let them borrow all my things whenever they asked, followed them around, wanted to be near them all the time, and would hug them a lot.

After my personality change, they told me they noticed that I was no longer hugging them at all. They said it felt like I was distancing myself from them. My grades got horrible and I always asked them to leave me alone whenever they tried to spend time with me. I’ve lost a lot of friends and teachers who used to talk to me and care about me.

I would open up to them, but in my community, we have a policy of not bringing our problems at home into school. It upsets me a lot and the only thing that I ever have to distract me from all of this is when I get to spend time with my older brother. We usually watch a little bit of football together, which I consider to be my favorite sport.

My older brother loves football and rabbles all the latest news to me whenever we hang out. I love it. I feel like I can trust him with my secrets, more than I could ever trust my best friend, mom, dad, or teachers. We share a lot in common. But even he doesn’t know about the mom and dad situation. I don’t have the heart to tell him about it.

But at the same time, he’s the only one who listens to me. Whether I’m angry, sad, upset, disappointed, happy, or any other emotion, he will always be happy to listen. Any topic goes, from video games, to sports, to movies, to books, to some new fact I heard about some obscure topics of science, to some random fun fact I learned about history. Anything you can imagine.

Needless to say, you can add the true state of my emotions to the long list of secrets that I now have from my parents, thanks to my late night accidental spying habit.

JohnWickMonDaddi

We Hope They Get Well Soon

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I really want to become a dental surgeon. This might not sound like anything controversial, but to my parents, it would be the end of the world. That is because they really want me to go into some crackpot, unscientific, antivax "holistic" naturopathic medicine business that fits with what they believe in.

Don’t ask me why, but they are convinced that modern medicine and science are a hoax and, as a result, they don’t trust regular doctors at all. I'm completely afraid that if I tell them about my true career intentions, they will refuse to pay for my college and dental school expenses. If my worst fears come true, they might even disown me over this.

CrimeLordOfSesameST

A Tragic Experience

From the age of ten until I was 14, I was “best friends” with a man who had said he was also 14. In reality, he had been saying that for three years on the internet. It was very far from true. He emotionally manipulated me to stay at home, talk to him online all day, and to falsely tell my parents that I was writing. I actually do write in my free time, so my parents never doubted the excuse.

My parents completely drank up the lies and I was never free from this person’s manipulation. When holidays came around, I wouldn’t go out with my friends. I would stay at home and talk to him all day. Eventually, he began to pressure me to send him naughty pictures of myself. I finally broke down and gave in when he threatened to find me and beat me up.

He knew where I went to school and where I lived. After that, he stopped talking to me for a few months because I was “too fat and needed to lose some weight". I was a tubby child, but I felt disgusting and started to hate myself after he said that. I fell into an eating disorder and almost lost my life. I was sent into therapy a year or so later to help recover from the disorder.

I’m recovered from anorexia now, but my therapist was trying to figure out the root cause for it back in May. My mum was in the room with me, and I finally broke down and told them everything. I had kept it a secret from her for my entire adult life, but I couldn’t hold back anymore. We immediately went to the authorities, but I’ve never heard from the guy since and we were unable to track him down.

It still scares me to think about him. Even all these years later, it still feels like a fresh wound every time I think about it. Thankfully, though, I can honestly say that I’m doing better than ever now. I can balance my writing with my social life and everything is going great for me! I regret having kept this secret from my parents for so long. They probably could have saved me a lot of pain if they had known what I was dealing with.

teaholic_

Story Time

I would never be able to live it down if they knew. The secret that I keep from my parents is that I’ve been writing explicit fan fiction since I was 16 years old. I have no idea what they think I have been giggling about for the last 10 years whenever I’m on my laptop, but I’m glad they don’t know the truth. Some of it is pretty darn explicit and embarrassing.

something-sensible

She’s A Real Pain In The Teeth

I have a secret that I keep from my parents. My mom has no idea that she is the reason why my dental health is terrible. My teeth are a disaster due to stress-induced teeth grinding. She knows nothing about this, and cannot do anything about it either. She is also a major part of the reason as to why I have notable social anxiety and other psychological problems.

She's bound to find out sooner or later I am sure. I do not live with her anymore for these reasons, among others.

Darthd101

Pen Pals

person holding smart phoneperson holding black android smartphonePhoto by Jonas Leupe on Unsplash

When I was 12 years old, I secretly saw some emails on my mom's iPod touch. The emails were very suggestive and were between my mother and another man. I never told my dad that I saw those emails. I wish I did, because it turned out that she was cheating on him. This is the first time I've ever mentioned it to anyone. It feels good to get it off my chest.

stitchessnitches

Wanted On The Telephone

The secret that I kept from my parents is that I was working as an operator for an adult phone line back in university. I told everyone I know that I was working the phones for our local department store. One day, my dad innocently asked me whether they were hiring, as he thought he might want to give my alleged job a try. Nope. We were not...

Bornthisweigh

Mind Over Matter

The secret that I keep hidden from my parents is that I was heavily addicted to painkillers and other mind-altering substances for the entire time that I was away at university. I think that this information would devastate them if they ever found out, and I can’t imagine ever telling them about it. As far as they know, my time away from home was nothing more than a perfect, storybook college experience.

Alvadar65

Video Games

Back when I was in the seventh grade, I started to get into watching adult videos and my favorite kind, for some reason, was guy-on-guy stuff even though I’m a girl. Anyways, I didn’t know how anything but YouTube worked back then, so I ended up downloading and saving something like three explicit gay videos on my phone.

Needless to say, I did not tell my mom about this secret interest of mine. But I had an Android phone so when I deleted the videos, the titles were still in my phone and could be viewed in my download history. For some reason, my mom took my phone from me one day and went through it. She then sat me down and asked me about the video titles she had found on it.

Now, I’m not necessarily proud of what happened next. I’m a very good liar. But in this particular situation, I didn’t have to do much lying. That was because as soon as I started crying and saying that I didn’t do it, she immediately believed me and blamed the whole thing on my stepdad. She said that she’d had a suspicion that he was gay throughout their whole relationship and all that.

After that, she never confronted him and just continued to stay with him even though she thought he was gay. Unintended side effect? That was when I realized that my mom was a golddigger. But regardless, my secret remained intact.

gluntie

I’m Not Who You Think I Am

Sneaking out, bad grades…my secret is a bit different. I routinely pay random escorts to show up to family events as my “girlfriend” so that my parents will stop telling their friends to try and hook me up with their daughters. Every time we have a gathering, a paid date shows up with me to meet everyone, and then they always claim to have to leave early. I pay by the hour. It gets the job done, and my parents have no idea that I’m happily single all the while.

joblagz2

woman on bike reaching for man's hand behind her also on bike
Photo by Everton Vila on Unsplash

Romance isn't easy and, sometimes, leads to regret.

A lot of times, those regrets are about something you said to or told your ex.

Sometimes, it's regret about the relationship altogether. Other times, it's regretting saying something that led to a breakup. And others it's regretting saying something when you should've just said nothing and left.

Whatever the case, we all have those regrets. Redditors certainly do, and they are ready to share what they regret saying to their ex.

It all started when Redditor Quintowne asked:

"What do you regret telling your ex?"

Cheater, Cheater

"Saying anything after finding out he cheated. Shoulda just left silently tbh"

– tornteddie

"I wish I had done this, too. Looking back, it would have been not only more satisfying but also reduced the trauma in general."

"Well over it now, but man, I wish I had just disappeared."

– eeEmmerich

"I found out my ex was cheating 4 hours into a 5 hour drive to a theme park when she gave me her phone to text her mum back."

She threatened to leave me there unless I got back with her so I wish I just hadn’t said anything until we got home."

She still denied it despite overwhelming evidence and blamed me for all of it."

I literally showed her a text of her say to him that “thanks for letting me take you to the Xmas party as my boyfriend..." Her response to me was basically “lalalalalalala” every time I tried to talk or that I was taking it out of context."

This was a party she had said a ton of times that you weren’t allowed to take a partner with you."

It was the most awkward day of my life, and once she had gotten over the part where she wanted to leave me there, she kept me there until 10pm until I said I would take her back after falsely “accusing her.""

"We only left because security in the car park said they would tow her car if she didn’t leave. Then we drove 5 hours back with work the next day so I only had an hour or two sleep."

"I dumped her a** once I got it in a text that she admitted it and somehow her friends and family still took her side saying she wouldn’t ever do that."

"She then stalked me for 2 years."

"Yeah my first relationship was a wild ride for years."

"I really wish I had just ghosted her and left without explanation."

– Interesting_Tone6532

Money For Nothing

"The combination to my wall safe. She took about $40,000 in gold and silver."

"Then I had to take her back and get her to trust me before she gave it back (which was a little over 3 more months). Then I had to dump her again. And then she broke all the windows in my house. But she got arrested since it was on camera. She spent 12 days in jail and had to do 100 hours of community service. As soon as it was done, she tried to set me house on fire. She ended up in jail for 3 years for attempted arson. And last I heard, she met a guy, got dumped, and tried to burn down the bar he owned. She’s in prison now. Not sure how long. Don’t care. I moved out of state. Hope she doesn’t find me."

– Myzyri

Did You Know...?

"Opening up about anything. Turns out whenever I said anything to her, she would spread it to her friends and other lover."

– Goose_Gamer_26

"Mine as well, terrible people."

– AcanthocephalaAny78

Oof!

"“Sure we can get a joint bank account.”"

– Reddit

"Man I don’t even have a joint bank account with my wife :-D haha. That’s levels of crazy trust."

– Paratwa

Speak Now

""I do.""

– Hemenucha

"I regret asking “will you marry me?” more."

– MohawkElGato

""We both made mistakes", she said when she left me."

""We did. You, lied and cheated on me. I, married you.""

– daniu

Dumb Love

""I forgive you" (after the first time she cheated). - It was dumb, dumb, dumb - just f**king stupid - as in I should not be allowed out of the house without adult supervision stupid. Did I mention it was dumb? And that I was a f**king idiot?"

– Deleted User

"Lmao it’s okay. Love makes us dumb, blind and basically incapable of functioning. We learn tho :)"

– the_ocean_in_a_drop

What's In A Name?

"My name."

"I wish I'd never met him."

– stardust591

Ouch!

"She told me that I was angry."

"I told her that I stopped being angry months before."

"She asked if I wasn’t angry, what was I?"

"I told her that I was bored."

"We’d been separated for 6 months at that point and I was waiting for her to deal with some of her issues so we could actually move towards divorce. A year later nothing has changed and I’m still bored, but recognise that it wasn’t a helpful thing to say."

– inactiveuser247

"The opposite of love isnt hate, its apathy."

– Trapped_Mechanic

A Heavy Loss

"“I’ll store my sh*t here for now and will pick it up later.”"

"...crazy ex sells my pristine childhood collection of consoles/videogames and a bunch of sh*t after we breakup."

– loztriforce

"Old games and consoles!? And they were pristine!? Dude, you gotta sell her organs at that point."

– Goose_Gamer_26

Went On For Too Long

"I have a pretty weird one."

"I dated someone from out of country until COVID. But the thing is - we didn't really break up. She just tried to lure me to move to where she was.. during a pandemic... when I was newly unemployed.. and without health insurance in the US. Even with that, I said I would - and then I just didn't hear from her for months."

"I finally get an email response in mid summer indicating that she loved me and misses me, and her life is miserable and that she left Colorado for NC. I respond back. Crickets afterwards."

"We were "reddit friends", meaning we followed one another back then. A post comes up that November 2020 asking a mail related question, because her and her SO moved in together and were not getting mail for several weeks."

"My mistake was that I reached out to her and I told her exactly what I thought about what she did. That it wasn't wrong to break up with me, but it was wrong to not break up with me, keep me hanging, and then not tell me that she really just met someone else."

"What followed after that was several months of shoddy communication. She completely tried to gaslight me. But in actuality - she was creating a fake life story to cover up the fact that she basically just left me for someone else. In the end, she said some pretty nasty things to me, I said some pretty nasty things to her, and we haven't spoken since. But I could've avoided several months of emotional discomfort if I just let it be."

"She's now married to the guy she swore was just a figment of my imagination."

"If someone is going to lie to you like that, gaslight you, throw your feelings in the trash so callously - they don't deserve your time in any capacity."

– Fausto_Alarcon

I Can Hear You!

"That I am hard of hearing. The AH would use it to gaslight me by claiming I didn't hear him or his tone of voice accurately. His speaking voice was loud and he yelled a lot - I WISH I couldn't hear him."

– lawgirlamy

Talk about gaslighting!

Do you have any regrets to share? Let us know in the comments below.

person counting one dollar banknotes

Alexander Grey on Unsplash

🎵 Money makes the world go around...🎶

Ah, money.

For most of the world it's a necessity, but how we acquire it can lead to some interesting situations.

Sure, we can go to work for 40+ hours a week, but that's not the only way to increase our cash flow. We can contract out our services, work a gig job or just stumble upon an earning opportunity.

Keep reading...Show less

From creepy strangers to inexplicable terrors, these people lived through real-life horror stories and lived to tell their chilling tales.

Going In A Different Direction

orange camping tent near green treesPhoto by Scott Goodwill on Unsplash

Back in the 70s, friends and I planned a camping trip for a long weekend. We picked up a hitchhiker headed to Kernville and dropped him off on the way. We thought it was no big deal, but when we got to our campsite, my girlfriend made a chilling discovery.

She found a note from the hitchhiker on her bag. It said, “I could have made all of you disappear forever". We didn’t sleep that night.

adanipse

Lost Backpack

I was exploring the forests near my house with my cousin. We were on a steep hill and as we looked down, we saw that there were a bunch of craters at the very bottom. As we looked inside one of the craters, we saw something strange. There was a backpack in there.

We tried to climb down, but the hill was too steep and slippery to do it safely, so we planned on returning later with a rope. The next day, there was a news story about how there was a backpack with the remains of a girl in that forest.

A guy walking his dog found it after the dog would not stop barking at the edge of the crater and staring at the backpack. My cousin and I decided not to go exploring in the forests anymore after we saw that news clip.

somewhatofalegend

All In Your Head

When I worked in healthcare, I had a patient who got a sinus infection. He stopped taking his antibiotics after a few days because he felt better. Then, overnight, everything fell apart. He got to the Emergency Department, where the doctors realized he was experiencing stroke symptoms.

It turned out that the sinus infection had spread to his cranial cavity. There was so much pus in there that it was twisting his brain. No one thought he would survive the surgery. The family was advised to expect the worst, but amazingly, he somehow made it through. It wasn’t an easy recovery though.

He ended up needing three more surgeries to wash all the pus out and then spent almost two months in the hospital. Take your full dose of antibiotics, people!

slappy_mcslapenstein

Break And Enter

When I was 16, I went to a flea market. It was the last day the flea market was open before closing down for the season. I came across a man in a booth selling knives, throwing stars, and all sorts of bladed instruments. Behind him on a rack was a katana. He sold it to me for $20.

Now, what is a 16-year-old guy going to do with a katana? Nothing. I kept it for years. It stayed either in a closet or under my bed for years. When I went to college, it followed. Fast forward to August 18th, 2006. I was living by myself in Charleston on the ground floor of a one-bedroom apartment.

My katana was under my bed. I have a sliding glass door with vertical blinds, a screened in patio, and a hammock hung outside. That night, around 3:00 AM, I woke up and heard my blinds rattling. I thought to myself, "Wow, it's windy outside”. But I soon came to a horrific realization.

I remembered that I never sleep with the sliding glass door open, and that someone was in my apartment. I was laying in bed, thinking of things that I can use as a weapon to defend myself and my home with. Then, I realized that the sword was under my bed. Oh, yes. It was righteous.

With my sword gleaming in the dim light, I crept around the corner and looked into my living room to find two very large men stuffing my belongings into garbage bags. When you're amped up on adrenaline, you say some dumb things. So, I yelled, "YOU! STOP!" They both turned and ran out the sliding glass door.

The only thought that going through my mind was that those jerks have my stuff...and I want it back! I chased them out of the door, through the wooded area behind my apartment and into a marshy area behind that. All of this was in my underwear, no shoes, no contacts, and with a big sword.

Sadly, I lost track of them and sanity seeped back into my brain. I realized that they might have a piece, I'm practically blind, carrying a very large blade, and the only people that know that I'm out here are me and them. I went back inside and called the authorities.

The burglars had cut away my screen on the patio and using the blade as a prying instrument, forced the lock on my sliding glass door open. How they managed to get past the hammock in the dark without getting wrapped up like a spider's prey is beyond me. For weeks, I made rounds to area pawn shops, but to no avail.

None of my stuff was ever recovered and I was uninsured. I lost my laptop, my DVDs, all of my video games, and my keys.

DeepFacedKiteFlyer

Distant Relative

I met a guy who had been traveling through Australia with a couple of friends, hitchhiking around as many people have done. He told me a story that I'll never forget.

One day, one of his friends told him they were near his distant uncle’s house. He'd never met him before, but he got his uncle's phone number from a family member. He called him and, as the hitchhikers had hoped, the uncle offered them a place to stay for the night.

He picked them up and drove them to his rural property way out in the bush. They said he seemed like a pretty friendly, cheery, and normal guy, so they had no worries about staying with him.

When it was time to set up a place to sleep, the uncle opened a closet that was totally full of sleeping bags and bed rolls. They didn’t think too much about it at the time, but looking back, that was a sign that something wasn't right.

They set up on the floor and stayed for a few days. Then the uncle drove them to the bus station, and they went on their way. A year later, the authorities took the uncle into custody. It turned out that he had been picking up young hitch-hiking backpackers, then taking their lives.

The guy telling this story was 100% certain he had slept in the sleeping bag of one of his victims.

pasomider

Warning Signs

empty road during golden hourPhoto by Gilberto Parada on Unsplash

My ex and I were out driving on a big Canadian road trip a year ago. One night, it was getting dark, so we decided to grab a hotel room and settle in for the night. On the way, we came across a car and a girl standing on the road and trying to flag us down.

Keep in mind, this was in a rural area and we hadn't seen any cars in a while, so we were already confused and weirded out.

Just to be safe, we stopped, mostly to see if the girl needed help. As my boyfriend rolled down his window to talk to the girl, I slammed my foot on the gas and took off. I happened to look at the opposite side of the road and saw three guys coming out of the bushes with baseball bats.

I don't know what that girl was doing, but I'm pretty sure she was going to lure us into something horrific.

Loundlooo

Shed Some Light

I lived in a house with four housemates for a year. We had a pretty big backyard with motion detector lights, a garage, and a tool shed that we never really used. Two of my housemates were very superstitious—they believed in ghosts, spirits, and other stuff like that.

So, when the lights in our backyard kept turning on randomly, I assumed it was animals, while my housemates were sure it was a ghost. One even said that she had caught a man-ghost looking through our window one night. She thought it was scary; I thought she was just being ridiculous. A few nights later, though, I became a believer.

I looked outside and swore that I saw a man standing behind the mesh door that led into our back patio. I screamed, got my roomies down, and made us all investigate. But by the time we got out there, whoever was there (if anyone had been there at all) was gone.

Anyway, flash forward a few months. I moved back to my home country and FaceTimed with one of my housemates. Well, it turns out that man hadn’t been a ghost. A homeless man had been living in our toolshed for God knows how long. It gave me the creeps for sure.

ieams85

Let Us In

I lived with three other girls in college. All three took off early for spring break, leaving me alone in the house. During my first night on my own, I heard someone bang on my front door at 2 AM. Then I heard more knocks at my back door. A man yelled, “I’m an officer. Open the door!” I didn’t believe him. I stayed in my room and started to panic.

As I heard bodies slam against both doors, and a man saying, “Little girl, open the door. We know you’re alone,” I frantically dialed 9-1-1. Thank God I did. As the sirens approached, I saw officers chase four boys from our school hockey team and pin them face down on the grass. I had to file restraining orders against all of them.

etrain828

The Lady In The Hall

When my son was not even three years old yet, he came to my room and kept telling me "the lady" was in his and his sister's room. I was half asleep and dismissed it, and told him to snuggle up in my bed with me. So he got in my bed, but every few minutes he kept waking me up to tell me about "the lady". Then he says she is at my bedroom door.

In an effort to show him there is no lady and we should just go back to sleep, I pick him up and walk him in the dark out of my room. We stand in the hall and I say, "See, there is no lady". His reaction terrified me. He points his finger down the hall where there is nothing to see at all and says, "Mama she’s right there. That's the lady! And this is HER house".

Nothing, not even a shadow where he was pointing. I kind of just tried not to show he was freaking me out and said, "Okay, she must be a nice lady," and took him back to my bed where he promptly fell asleep and I stayed awake for hours thinking this "lady" in my 100-plus-year-old apartment must be hanging out and watching me sleep.

kookenhaken

An Intersection Of Eeriness

I had an Android phone that had a Google "cards" feature option that could notify you like "15 minutes to home" if you were out. I thought this feature was annoying and useless, so I kept the feature off. After several months of no cards notifications, the strangest event happens.

One night I'm at home and a card pops up saying "35 minutes to home". It then pins me at a random intersection on the other side of town, let's call it 1st St & Story. I think, that's weird, I'm not even way over there, I don't even know where that is, and I’ve never been to that area.

I go to my card's settings to turn it back off…but it's already turned off. "That's weird". The next night, exact same thing happens.

"35 minutes to home from 1st St & Story". What the? Still definitely not over there. I check the cards feature and the notifications are still turned off, so no idea why I'm getting a notification. A few days later, a friend and I are out running errands, and he misses his intended exit so he takes the next one. Once on the streets, I ask "Where are we? I've never been over here".

Suddenly, a car to our right tries to turn left and crashes right into us. It messed up my friend’s wheel, so he pulled forward to the curb to call a tow truck. We had our kids in the car, so I call my sister to pick us all up. When my sister asks me for the location, I was chilled to the bone. I look up at the street signs: 1st St & Story.

permalink

Calling All Angels

man in black hat walking on sidewalk during night timePhoto by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash

After I totaled my car, a man with burn scars all over his face and hands came up to my window. He asked if I was ok and then came and sat in the passenger seat. He said, “I need you to know that everything happens for a reason". I said, “I know". The next thing I know, I’m talking to the other driver and the authorities, and the guy is just gone. No one else saw him.

cloud9atlass

Geriatric Grandparents

My sister and I were playing outside when an elderly couple walked by our yard. Our yard had this cemetery in the back that was a common local attraction for tourists as the house was built in the 1800s. Most of the graves were of children lost to illnesses. The old couple was pestering my sister. They were asking her to tell them her name.

We got scared and ran inside to tell our mom what had happened. The following week, I heard a chilling story on the news: It was about an elderly couple approaching a teenage girl and then grabbing her. It was the same couple who came over to us that day. It still scares me.

eddieswiss

Pause For Effect

When I was younger, my mother managed the apartment where we lived. Right before Halloween, she told a scary story about a tragic accident involving the two little boys and their mom above us in the vacant apartment. She said if you listened closely, you could still hear their footsteps running up and down the hallway.

At that very moment, we heard the sound of running upstairs. The look on my mother’s face was pure terror. She called the neighborhood patrol man and one of the on-duty maintenance guys to go and check the apartment. They found a homeless mother living there who had slipped through an open window with her two children.

My mom never told ghost stories again.

codeusasoft

What’s Out There

When I was eight, we all had to take swimming lessons at school. My mom worked late, so I went to after-school care and didn’t get home until after it was dark. One day, when we came home, my mom told me to get my swimsuit and towel, and hang them on the clothesline to dry. That way, I would be able to wear them the next day.

I was so confident going outside to do this. I had this real feeling of finally being a big kid, you know? But as I walked into our backyard, everything changed. Suddenly, a man leapt over our gate and started sprinting towards me. I screamed, jumped inside, and instinctively locked the back door.

Thankfully, he ran off and didn't try anything like that again, but it really messed me up. I slept with the light on until I was 16, and I get my husband to go outside for me when it’s dark.

CtrlAltDelusional22.

Face Off

I saw a dude with no face driving a car. No features at all, it was just blank. I did more than just glance at him, too; I was staring. Just smooth skin and a men's haircut. I've never told anyone because it's so ridiculous sounding and I don't think people would believe me. Maybe there’s a rational explanation, but I know what I saw.

onionofbensis

A Unseen Presence

silhouette of person sitting on windowPhoto by Bethany Zwag on Unsplash

It was like 4:00 in the morning. I’m quite the night owl, so I’m headed downstairs to grab something to drink. The kitchen is separated from the living room by a dividing wall, but I realize someone is in there because I can see a person's shadow from around the corner. I think to myself, "Oh my roommate must be up already. Maybe he has something to do".

So as I turn the corner I say, "Hey, good morning". I immediately get a chill up my spine. No one is in the kitchen besides me. I’m totally, completely alone. In fact, I search the entire first floor of the house frantically, and no one is there at all. So I head back upstairs and give a hard knock on my roommate's door.

No answer, so I slowly open the door. The roommate is passed out asleep, and doesn't seem like he is waking up anytime soon. There is no way he could have made it back up to his room that fast without running, and I would have noticed because the floors are creaky, especially on the staircase.

When he woke up in the morning, I told him about what had happened. His eyes got real wide and he turned pale. He looked me right in the eye and said, "That isn't a funny joke don't mess with me".

It turns out, he had been having bad dreams all night about someone being in the house who shouldn't have been, but whenever he confronted the person, he could never see their face; all that was there was a black silhouette. Haven't had that experience since, and we agree not to talk to each other about it.

DrConradVerner

Rebirth

I have memories that aren't mine. I described them to my mom one day, down to the house I was in, the view out the windows, what I was wearing, what I was doing. My mom looked at me with absolute terror in her eyes. It turns out the memories belonged to my cousin who drowned in a river before I was born.

I hadn't seen any pictures of her, the house, or anything. It still keeps me up at night.

Nightmare_King

The Call Is Coming From Inside The House

I was watching TV at home alone one night. It was Mad TV I think. Or Nick at Nite. Something harmless and not at all frightening. Then I noticed the image on the screen flickered slightly. Curiosity got the best of me, as it often does. I rewound it and then hit pause right at the point where it flickered. What I saw made my blood run cold.

In a little box on the screen sort of embossed into the picture were the words "I WILL BE BACK," and the E in BE was backward. It was so creepy. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I had to just convince myself it was a glitch or something but I had the heebie-jeebies for the rest of the night. Luckily my sister came home a couple of hours later.

I've always wondered what that meant, who it was for, and how it even happened.

permalink

Quick Thinking

A girl I knew had a few drinks and decided to hitchhike home to a town about 40 minutes away from the one in which she’d been drinking. Note: It’s very common for people to hitchhike in this area.

She got picked up by a car full of guys, and all seemed fine until she pointed out they could drop her off just up ahead, but they ignored her and kept driving. She had that "instant sober" feeling that only comes with sheer panic.

She played it off like she was clueless and totally down to keep hanging out with them, and she acted like she was very plastered. In the meantime, they were passing through a more forested area of the highway. She fake dry-heaved and said she was about to puke, and really put on a show, so they stopped to let her out. She booked it into the bushes and just didn’t look back until she was safe.

whitethrowblanket

Hang Up

My mom once stopped to help an overturned car on the side of a highway. As we got out of our vehicle, my mom immediately called emergency as I wandered over to see if anyone needed help. Near the wreck, I saw the driver treating a woman (I think it was his wife) roughly. I was only a teenager and the guy was almost three times my size, so I tried to get my mom to come over.

She was busy on the phone, leaving me with these two people. I quickly realized that the man was plastered and looking for a fight. I figured that the only way we were going to get out of this was by playing it cool and then driving away as fast as we could. Once I could get my mom's attention, I'd find a way to tell her, but in the meantime, it was me and the two passengers.

The man asked me to help him move the car. I just stared at him and told him that was a ten-man job and there was no way he and I could do it. Then his wife started to scream at him. She was shouting that she got him hurting her and crashing the car on camera and that she sent the video to his sister. This caused the man to lose his mind.

He picked me up and literally threw me. Then he shoved my mom, took her phone, and pushed her down the bank. Panicking, I told him I had a blade, and I wasn’t afraid to use it if he touched my mother again. With that, he took his focus off my mom and stared right at me. As I tried to calm him, my mom snuck back into the car. When she was ready, I made a run for our vehicle.

On my way, a car that was speeding on the road almost hit me, but I made it to my mom. I heard her start the engine as I jumped in, and we tore off to the local station. The man was apprehended a couple hours later for two charges: one for hurting his wife and the second for assaulting an officer. We call emergency when we see crashes now.

El_Chapos_Cousin

How Kind

white mercedes benz c class on street during daytimePhoto by Viktor Avdeev on Unsplash

Once, my friend went out and met this girl who seemed really nice. After drinking with her, she passed out and woke up in an Uber. She told the driver that she didn’t know where she was. He told her that a girl brought her to his car because she wanted to make sure her "friend got home safe". My friend insisted that something very wrong had happened and told the Uber driver to pull over. He was a good man; he immediately believed her, stopped the car, and called for officers to come and figure out what was going on.

When the officers heard what happened, they said they recognized the address that the Uber driver had been given by this mystery girl. It turns out that there was some kind of human trafficking operation. A girl would slip something into a pretty girl's drink, then pour her into a cab, and send her to the same house. Until my friend called in, none of the girls had been seen again.

spacelordmthrfkr

Freak Incident

When my friend came home after work, his wife was gone. He thought she had taken the dogs for a walk and so checked the normal walk route. Then he saw all of these flashing blue lights. An officer stopped him and said he wasn't allowed to come any closer. But my friend had this sinking feeling. He looked over the officer's shoulder and realized that there was a woman bleeding on the sidewalk. That's when his stomach dropped: the woman was his wife.

It turned out that she had been on a walk in her neighborhood when a man randomly lunged for her. He had just been released from a mental institution and randomly happened to cross paths with her. Sadly, her injuries were too extensive and she passed in the hospital. It's the scariest story I've ever heard because it's so meaningless. This man ended her life for no reason.

Nick_Pears

Baked Even

There's a big bread factory in my town. One day, years ago, maintenance men had to go into the bread oven to fix some issue. The oven had been off for 24 hours before they arrived, but it was still hot. The maintenance men didn't want to go in, but the company insisted, saying that anymore time lost would lose them even more money.

So the maintenance guys took out baskets that held the raw bread on the conveyor belt, climbed onto the conveyor, and started up the machinery. Almost immediately upon entering the oven on the conveyor, the maintenance guys realize that something is terribly wrong. It's way, way too hot to be safe. They tried to run out, but there were too many baskets on the belt for them to get out. The path was blocked. They were trapped.

The only thing they could do was stay on the conveyor and go through the oven, a slow and horrifically painful process that essentially baked them alive. Those outside assisting with maintenance had to listen to their screams. Then the oven went completely silent. They saw one burnt body emerge on the other side of the oven. The second man somehow lived, but only for a few moments.

tails142

Baked Even

There's a big bread factory in my town. One day, years ago, maintenance men had to go into the bread oven to fix some issue. The oven had been off for 24 hours before they arrived, but it was still hot. The maintenance men didn't want to go in, but the company insisted, saying that anymore time lost would lose them even more money.

So the maintenance guys took out baskets that held the raw bread on the conveyor belt, climbed onto the conveyor, and started up the machinery. Almost immediately upon entering the oven on the conveyor, the maintenance guys realize that something is terribly wrong. It's way, way too hot to be safe. They tried to run out, but there were too many baskets on the belt for them to get out. The path was blocked. They were trapped.

The only thing they could do was stay on the conveyor and go through the oven, a slow and horrifically painful process that essentially baked them alive. Those outside assisting with maintenance had to listen to their screams. Then the oven went completely silent. They saw one burnt body emerge on the other side of the oven. The second man somehow lived, but only for a few moments.

tails142

Period Piece

I worked as an engineer and, unfortunately, being security detail came with the job, considering the hours were from 2 PM-11 PM. I was doing some rounds, and we’d noticed the previous day that there was a lock to an electrical room that had been removed. It was mid-winter, and we figured someone was trying to stay warm.

As much as I wanted people less fortunate to get ahead any way they could, it was my job to make sure that there wasn’t someone occupying some spot on the property. So, I went to check on the room. I walked up and noticed that the door was cracked ever so slightly. I popped my flashlight out and beamed it inside there.

There was slightly less than a foot of space between the wall and the machines that were in the room. Thinking it would be impossible for someone to be crammed inside, I did a lazy scan and went to close the door. As I was heading to the stairs, I could hear a shuffling behind me. It was late. There’s nothing going on.

I was newish to the city, so seeing owls or really big rats was still a thrill. So, I went back up and popped out the flashlight, but this time I crouched down to see the space beneath the machines. Sure enough, I saw legs. I called out to whoever it was and told them they need to vacate. They stayed still for a while.

Then they started to wriggle themselves out from the tight space. I stayed there because procedure would be to escort them off the block entirely. A woman popped out looking rough and started muttering absolute nonsense. She was taking her time, and it was snowing, so I got a little aggravated and told her to hurry up. Her insane response was absolutely horrifying.

This woman turned to look at me, stuck her tongue out at me with her mouth gaping, broadened her stance, and started to dig at her crotch. She pulled out a warm, totally used tampon and threw it at me, hitting me in the jaw and neck area. Then she proceeded to clamber away from me just yelling about something nonsensical.

theycallmeick

Tipped Off

grayscale photography of disco ballPhoto by Greyson Joralemon on Unsplash

I was a hostess at a nightclub. I had a tip jar at the front. It was a Saturday night, so it was looking nice. This dude came up and started talking to me. Apparently, while he was talking, he nudged the tip jar behind my computer screen, so I couldn't see him take $120. I only noticed when he went back into the club.

I told security who checked the cameras, saw him do it, chased him down, and forced him to give me my money back. It felt great—but then things took a dark turn. As they were dragging him out, he looked at me with this crazy look in his eyes and said that he was going to wait outside for me. All of the security guards walked me to my car that night.

crusty_peach

Satan Take The Wheel

I was driving home from work one morning and was waiting to turn right at a stop sign on a somewhat rural road. A number of cars were turning left onto the road I was on. As the last one passed, a blue minivan, I locked eyes with the driver. I nearly jumped out my skin from fear. I am 100% convinced that I either saw a demon or some physical manifestation of pure evil.

The minute I noticed him, the hair on my neck stood up and I felt physically sick. From what I remember, he had no deformities or anything explainable, but something still felt so...off and terrifying about him. It was like looking at something ALMOST human. This was probably two years ago now, and I've never forgotten that otherwise normal ride home.

wiscowarrior71

None Of His Business

When I was maybe seven or eight years old, I went to a local Burger King with my mom. I was impatient to eat, so I went to go play around in one of those plastic playground things that are about 20 feet high. There were no other kids in it, so I just started to climb to the highest point. But things got really weird, really fast…

A businessman in a white shirt and tie looked at me climbing up, then calmly put his burger down and proceeded to climb up after me. He didn't say anything as he did it. I was old enough to think that this was weird, and had flashbacks to our school counselor talking to the class about getting kidnapped and such. I rushed to the slide and ran straight to my mom.

I gave her a giant hug. I didn't tell her about the incident until later.

Permalink

Coming In Handy

My sister's bedroom was on the second floor of our childhood home. Late one night, she suddenly screamed and said she saw a hand on her window. We thought she was just having a nightmare and told her to go back to bed. The next morning, when we all woke up, we made a truly chilling discovery. We found a ladder leaning up against our house by her bedroom window…

Ruddiver

Getting Up Close And Personal

I drove my sister to get sushi in a not so good part of town one time. We were in the car about to get out, and I reached down to get my wallet. I looked back up to find the creepiest, most strung-out looking human being I've ever seen in my life. He had his face against her window, licking the glass. He then pulled his sleeve up to show us some scars on his forearm, face on the glass all the while.

I don't drive out to get food at that restaurant anymore...

Brosendorfer

Gone Girl

gray road between green grass field under gray cloudsPhoto by Dave on Unsplash

My cousin works at a truck stop in Kansas. She told me about some guy who parked his truck and got out, and then a woman got out of the passenger seat. It was kind of cold, so the trucker was wearing a coat and hat. But the woman was wearing summer clothes. My cousin thought nothing of it and did her whole "Hi, welcome in".

The trucker bought a coffee, but the woman just stood there in the doorway. Now my cousin was freaked out. She didn't want to be rude, but she was a teenage girl alone in a gas station in the middle of nowhere. "Excuse me miss, do you need anything?" She asked. "Who are you talking to?" The truck driver asked when he got to the checkout.

"The woman who got out of your truck?" My cousin pointed, but the woman had disappeared. She told me she had never seen a look of such pure terror on a man's face before. He just whispered a quiet "Oh no". Got his coffee and left. The woman did not get back into his truck, and my cousin couldn't find her in the store afterward.

She says it was one of the most terrifying experiences she had ever had while on that job.

Spirit_of_the_dusk

Man’s Best Friend

My family has a Bernese mountain dog called Ava, who is very big. She’s a quiet and lazy dog, but she also seems to be alert at all times. One night, my parents went out for dinner and left me at home with Ava. I was downstairs watching TV and my lounge is right next to the front door. At around 8:00 PM, the doorbell rang.

I opened the door to see a guy in fairly plain clothes standing there. He told me that he had a delivery for me. I was confused because he didn’t look like a delivery driver, and he had no parcel. Suddenly, I turn my head and see another guy around the side of my driveway which goes to our back door. This other man is clearly walking towards my back door.

I freak out and the guy at the door notices this. He barges through, shouting for the other guy. This is when Ava wakes up and begins to let out the loudest bark I’ve ever heard, making the guy stumble back. She rushed towards him and jumped up, grabbing his shoulder and literally throwing him out the door. His buddy came along, but saw Ava and started to run.

The other guy managed to slip out of Ava’s grip and run down the road. I somehow managed to get Ava to stay so I didn’t lose her, and they got away. I was so shaken up. I called my parents and then the authorities, and I gave them a statement. It’s safe to say that Ava got plenty of treats from then on, and I always keep her nearby when I am on my own.

reggie2006

Railroaded

I live in Tokyo and commute via those famously crazy crowded trains daily. There exists on them this kind of unspoken agreement that everyone works together to make this suck as little as possible. But that’s only when the trains are full. About two stops before mine, the train goes from sardine can to everyone on this train could lay on the seats and have room left over.

So, usually, I can sit down at this point. I'm also very obviously not a Japanese woman. But despite my appearance, I'm fluent in Japanese. One day, I sit down when the train empties out, ready to enjoy the 10 minutes of sitting that I get on my hour-long commute. I'm sitting with my legs crossed, as there are maybe ten people in the whole car and I'm not in anyone's way.

All of a sudden, a hand reaches out and grabs my bare knee. I jolt straight out of my skin, rip out my headphones, and look up at the hand's owner. It's some skinny old Japanese dude, at least in his 60s. He points at my legs and, in slightly broken English, says: "You must not cross legs on the train!" I'm totally bewildered by this.

I start to tell him in Japanese that the train isn't crowded right now, and that I'm not in anyone's way. But he doesn't like this answer. He starts to reach for my legs again. I scream as loud as I can, "DON'T TOUCH ME!" Thankfully, this was enough to get him to stop that, as another thing you don't do on trains here is make a fuss.

Djtaffi

A Taste Of His Own Medicine

I was standing in line at the local pharmacy to get my prescriptions. This is a small town and I am a regular there, so they know me on sight. I was behind a couple of other people in line, and there were a couple of people behind me. I kept feeling a tickle in my hair in the back of my head, but every time I looked behind me, the guy there was a few steps back and looking at the floor.

This happened several times by the time I reached the front of the line. The pharmacist told me she wanted to talk to me about my medication in the consultation room. I thought this was weird, because we both knew I had been on this medication for years and would be for life. Nothing new. I get back to the room and close the door, and she comes in from the pharmacy.

She told me that the man behind me had been stepping forward, sticking his nose in my hair, and smelling it before stepping back and looking at the floor. This shook me pretty badly as this is such weird behavior, especially in my little town. The pharmacy staff insisted on having me wait there until the guy was distracted by another pharmacy employee.

They then had a security guard walk me to my car and watch me drive off, to make sure I was gone before Hair Sniffer came out and saw what car I was driving or what direction I was going in. I still use this pharmacy and some of the same people still work there. I will always be grateful that they took the initiative to make sure I was safe that day.

Cygnus875

Wet And Wild

When my mother was young, she went swimming with her friends. While there, she had to watch helplessly as her friend was sucked into a whirlpool at the bottom of a drainage lake. They didn’t find his body for days. That’s why I never learned to swim.

Squaragus_Asparagus

Incognito Infiltration

A group of friends at a coffee shopPhoto by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

I was a director of my college’s student government. There was this dude who was always willing to take on projects, so I assigned him a lot of work. I remember thinking he was pretty charismatic and well dressed, and he'd always done good work for me. So when he told me he owned a start-up clothing company, I bought some things from his website.

The next year I saw an article with his face on it. I found out that he was not what he seemed. He had been taking extracurricular classes as an excuse to stay on campus, even though he'd been kicked out of all his classes for a horrible reason. He'd been forcing himself on women at the university. His father was a wealthy professor and covered it up every time it happened. He seemed so normal.

HomelessSock

No Strings Attached

A co-worker's dad went into the nursery to check on his newborn baby only to find a horrific sight. The baby had reached for the blinds strap, somehow tangled his neck up, and began choking. The baby was already blue, and all of the veins in his face were popping up. Grandpa frantically called for emergency. Thankfully, EMS arrived in minutes and had the baby breathing again, but as a mother, I can't imagine anything scarier.

Offthepoint

The Phantom Of The Highway

I was driving one night in a really foul mood and speeding. Like when I say “speeding,” I mean at least 25 over the limit. Anyway, this car gets behind me and for some reason I can just tell it wasn’t an officer. It was a full-tinted Chevy truck with weird lights on it. Once it got behind me, I got a really eerie feeling I can’t explain. My body just knew something was wrong.

I figured if it was an officer, they would light me up for speeding, but for some reason they just kept pace with me, also speeding themselves. At this point I’m getting a little weirded out, so I turn off the freeway…and they follow me. I turn into a gas station and get out. If I’m going to get jumped, at least the cameras will pick it up and give my family some closure.

Something just didn’t sit right with me. I knew something was up. As I’m getting out of my car, the truck rolls its windows down. And what I saw still haunts me to this day. It was a heavily disfigured guy who just has this soulless stare. He starts to motion me with his finger, like telling me to come closer. I don’t care if he was going to give me the winning Powerball numbers, there was no way in heck I was going to approach his car.

I bolt inside the gas station, and at this point my whole body is shaking. I try to tell the clerk what’s going on as they stare at me, as my story doesn’t make any sense. Then, when I go to look outside, the truck is gone. I still have nightmares to this day.

Apprehensive_Art9012

Fortress Of Solitude

This story is 100% true. I experienced it myself in the summer of 1991. When I was about 10 years old, I lived on Woodway Drive in the Fox Harbor Apartments in Paducah, Kentucky. If you look up the address, you will see some woods just to the north of the apartment complex. My friends and I played in those woods every day after school and all day on the weekends.

During the few years I lived there, we cleared a small area in the woods and created a fort from various things we got out of dumpsters. It was our own place that no one else knew about, and it was awesome. One day, as we were walking to our fort, off in the distance we saw a man walking through the woods. He was walking parallel to us, but in the opposite direction.

We stopped talking and halted in our tracks when we saw him. We never saw anyone in the woods, especially not adults. When we stopped moving, he did too. He turned towards us and looked right at us. As I stared at him and was able to make out the details of what he looked like, I felt my heart stop in my chest. Not only was he was wearing what looked like a Halloween mask, he was also carrying an ax in his hands.

We stood there in silence and motionless for what was probably about 10 seconds, him looking at us and us looking at him. Then, he started sprinting straight at us. We did the only thing we thought to do, run straight to our fort. We were probably about 50 yards from the entrance to the fort and, in those 50 yards, he gained a lot of ground on us.

When we finally made it, he was upon us. All of my friends scurried up a tree and were screaming, but I was the last in line. By the time I could try and climb the tree, he was standing right there by us. He was screaming like a lunatic and waving the ax in the air. I was scared, had no idea what was going on, and my mind was blank on what I should do.

I grabbed a large stick and took a nice big baseball-style swing and cracked him on the face with it. He stumbled back a bit, moaned, and took the mask off. The craziest part? I recognized the face. It was the landlord and manager of the apartment complex. A man who was probably about FIFTY years old. He wanted to play a joke on us and thought this was the most appropriate thing to do. He was insane.

Brettuss

Window Shopping

When I used to walk home from the bus stop, I used to walk past a house where a man, maybe in his 40s, lived. If he was out in front when I walked past, we would say hello to each other. Perfectly normal. But sometimes, he would be inside at the window just looking out at me. He didn't wave or show any sign that he saw me.

My friend happened to be with me once when he did this, and she told me that it almost seemed as though he thought we couldn't see him. This behavior didn't happen all the time. Don't get the wrong idea, he wasn't a weird stalker or anything. Just sometimes, maybe about 10 to 12 times in total. Nothing ever came of it.

I eventually stopped bussing and started driving. He moved away from the area a few years ago, and then I moved away too even more recently. But I never forgot the creepy feeling of seeing him behind that window. I just remember that horrible feeling whenever I saw him watching, because I had no way of knowing what he was thinking.

smiles_at_strangers

Mother Goose’s Creepy Uncle

woman in gray crew neck shirtPhoto by Afif Ramdhasuma on Unsplash

Today, I was standing outside of my dentist's office waiting for my wife. I was minding my own business and having a smoke when this old guy walked up to me from out of nowhere. With seemingly no emotion in his eyes, he looked straight at me and asked me “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?”

I was about to start laughing it off when I started to realize that he was being fully serious and didn’t mean this as any kind of a joke. I awkwardly said that a woodchuck could chuck as much as it felt like. He just stared at me silently for a few seconds, then turned around and walked away. I just stood there watching him go and thought the whole thing was downright creepy.

Permalink

A Voice From Beyond

Driving through an abandoned section of Baltimore at 3:00 in the morning, my CB radio turned itself on and crackled for a bit. Out of nowhere, some voice over the radio said in a deep Southern drawl, “I ain’t got no panties on". I could see up and down the interstate for miles, and saw not one set of headlights around me for hours...

THREEkoalas

Grin And Bare It

A few years ago, I was living alone in a little house. It had a heavy back door that would swell up after it rained. This always made it get really tough to open, and it would make a lot of noise. Late one night, I had passed out on my sofa in the living room on the opposite side of the house. But I suddenly woke up to a strange sound. Netflix was still blaring away on my laptop, but I guess I had felt a vibration or movement.

As I slowly squinted my eyes open, I realized the outline of someone was standing still in the hallway looking down at me. They were not very large or tall based on how much space they took up in the door frame. Being completely disoriented in my not-quite-awake-yet state, my mind assumed that it must be my girlfriend.

I was unclothed at the time, so I pulled back my blanket with my legs sprawled apart and called to her in my best deep voice "C'mere baby!" I guess once they realized I was a 200-pound man without clothes on, beckoning to them with my downstairs, the person immediately turned on their heels and booked it for the back door. By the time I stumbled up to the door, all I could hear was them taking off into the darkness at a full sprint.

Arnold_Schrodinger

A Devoted Follower

I was 13 years old and on vacation with my parents in Turkey. We were at an all-inclusive hotel and enjoying the holiday. The hotel was full of tourists from different countries. There was this one guy, around 20 years old, who was staring at me for some time. I felt uncomfortable and asked him how he was doing. Wrong choice.

The next few days, everywhere I went, he also suddenly appeared. Not flirting, just lurking for hours and watching me. He had a really strange vibe around him and I felt I shouldn't be alone with him. Now, I was still young and my parents didn't want to leave me alone in a foreign country. So he couldn’t really bother me at any point.

But one night, there was entertainment in the hotel, which became boring to me after some time. I told my parents I wanted to go up to our hotel room and that I would see them in the morning. I left and walked to the elevator. I didn’t know it, but I was making a dire mistake. The guy who had been watching me for days saw me leaving, and he had followed me.

When I saw him also coming into the elevator, I was shaking with fear. He looked at me silently with a sinister smile. "This is it". I thought. Who knows what horrible plans he had for me. And just before the doors of the elevator were closing, someone stuck his boot between in order to prevent the doors from closing. I am not kidding, all I could see was a boot.

The doors opened and it was my dad. He saw that the creepy guy was leaving at the exact time I had left and didn't trust it. He looked the guy in the eye and said hello. My dad took me to my hotel room. To this day, I am so glad for the rescue because I don't want to know what would've happened if he didn't.

dees94

Home Sweet Home

When I was 13 years old, my family moved from a village to a city. This city had a fairly high homelessness rate, so of course, there were always a lot of people looking for somewhere to stay. An old family friend of mine is a letting agent, so he often lets me use some of the unoccupied houses as a sort of recording studio for music that I create in my spare time.

He is totally fine with me using the houses for this purpose as long as I keep them clean and clear out for a while whenever there are viewings. This arrangement works fine for me. One night, after recording at one of the houses, I realized that I had forgotten my wallet there. So, I cycled back, got my wallet, and decided to check the rooms since the door hadn’t been locked properly.

I go upstairs and open the door to one of the bedrooms. Lo and behold, there was a man in his mid-30s lying on the bed like it was his own home. Both of us just looked at each other, completely startled. Neither of us said anything. I guess we came to some sort of non-verbal agreement, and I showed him out. Definitely a creepy experience…

Metal_Warrior_69

Personal Emergency

a red emergency sign in front of a large buildingPhoto by Robert Linder on Unsplash

There was a fatal car accident. The first officer on the scene had recognized that the victim was the daughter of an emergency dispatcher. The same emergency dispatcher who had been relaying all of the information about the crash to emergency services. This was before cell phones, meaning the officer had no easy way to tell her what had happened. He just had to keep that horrible information to himself.

ChipLady

Going Somewhere?

When I was nine, I was playing at the school down the street from my house. It was the middle of summer, and my friend and I were watching some local boys play street hockey. One of the boys called my name and said a man in the parking lot was looking for me. The parking lot was mostly obscured by a nearby building, but I could see an old 70s style van that hadn't been there earlier.

I was walking over to the van when the mother of one of the other kids showed up looking for her son. When she saw me, she said hi and asked me where I was going. When I told her, she took my hand and started to quickly walk away with me. At that exact moment, the van pulled out and sped off.

My friend's mom walked me all the way home, and I wasn't allowed out of my yard without my parents for the rest of the summer. I was so upset and didn't understand why I was being punished. It was only years later that I had understood that I was likely being targeted by some opportunistic loser for I don’t even want to know what.

Im_vegan_btw__

Anybody There?

I once interviewed a woman who told me a horror story about something that happened to her as a girl. When she was ten, she had trouble sleeping. She thought that the Boogeyman was standing in her closet and staring at her whenever she tried to sleep. Every night, she would go downstairs and tell her parents about how scared she felt. And every night, her father would tell her the Boogeyman didn't exist and then send her back to bed.

This happened over several nights, and the father got tired of it. That night, he walked her back up to her bedroom, turned on the light, and said, "I'll show you there's no Boogeyman". As he went to open the closet door, something on the other side held it shut. The dad immediately sent his daughter out of the room and forced the door open to find that a man was in there.

He'd been sneaking into their house every night to stand in the girl's closet and watch her.

JamesRenner

A Midnight Visitor

When I was young, my parents and I relocated across the country to Maine. We lived in a very small town and our house was old, beat up, and on many acres deep in the forest. It had two stories, with the top storey being the main level and the bottom story being the bedroom level. My bedroom had several large windows that looked out into the forest.

I don’t remember having curtains or blinds but I’m sure I must have, because my mother never forgot details like that when decorating my bedrooms as a child, but I must have left them open one night. I remember waking up in darkness, with a faint glowing orb of light hovering just outside my window. I watched it in utter terror as it went slowly across one window, and then the next.

Then it paused, flashing briefly into my bedroom, before shifting into the third and final window and disappearing altogether. I was so upset by the ordeal that I went and woke my parents up, and my stepfather stormed the backyard. There was nothing and no sign of the strange orb. My eyes are watering as I write this. Deep down, as an adult looking back, I realize that orb was anything but magic. It was something much worse.

It was someone’s flashlight. It never happened again, but I’m still afraid of having window blinds open at night.

KindlyAggravating

God’s Plan

When I was in my 20s, I had a car accident that kept me in the hospital for about a year. It was a Catholic hospital and most of the nursing staff were nuns, and besides the normal checks they regularly just stopped in to chat and see how I was doing. Early one morning, there was a knock and this nun came in who I hadn’t seen before.

She introduced herself as Sister Greta, a member of the nursing staff. She sat on the side of the bed and we spoke for a few minutes, then she asked if she could say a prayer for me. She held my hand and said a prayer then wished me well and left. About five minutes later, there was another knock and one of the regular sisters came in to say hi.

I remarked it was going to be a good day because I’d already had one visit from Sister Greta and now I was getting another one. Her face went oddly blank. She said there wasn’t a “Sister Greta” on the staff and there were only two sisters around right now, it being so early. I pointed to the bed, which clearly showed where she had been sitting.

I described her and the habit she had been wearing, now getting a bit unnerved. The sister basically shrugged and bustled off. She came back about half an hour later with a book about the hospital’s history and showed me a picture of some nuns from the 50s. Their habits were exactly the same as Sister Greta’s that I’d described.

Turns out that patients regularly mentioned talking to nuns in old garb that definitely weren’t part of the current staff. I never saw her again or anything similar while I was there...I’m not religious by any stretch. Could the nuns have been pranking me? Absolutely. Despite perceptions they are a funny bunch, enjoy a good laugh, read comics and watch Star Wars. Only, there was never a “Ha, we got you!”

sadzanenyama