There’s plenty of negative things we could say about the ways that anonymity affects our interactions online, but what about the ways that it can help?
Sometimes we’ve got burdens, we’ve got secrets, we’ve got secrets that have become burdens, and for some reason, they can’t reveal them to the people they know in real life.
If they can share them with strangers, though, relief can be had – and these 15 people are ready to enter the confession box on Reddit.
15. Lots of people do.
I have really bad intrusive thoughts. Some of them are just sad – remembering pets dying, imaging pets/family dying, just thoughts about how shitty the world is – but sometimes shit gets fucking DARK.
Like I actually feel like killing myself because of some of these thoughts, they’re f**king psychotic and I hate them, and I hate when they’re in my brain and I can never get them out quickly enough.
14. I cannot even imagine.
When I was in the army, we lived in a pretty nice seaside base in California. We’d just finished a run, and he says his stomach hurts. Reached the base and gotten past the gates when he confides to me that he doesn’t think he’s gonna make it to the bathroom.
Military base gates can be very busy at certain times of day, and this was one of those times. Lots of cars in a line at the gate, cars slowly rolling past– simply put there’s nowhere semi-private to drop your trousers and take a s*%t, and my buddy is very nervous and embarrassed, so I finally convince him;
“Ok here’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll just stand here, pretend we’re casually chatting, and you’re just gonna get it all out right now, then we’ll get you to a bathroom. As long as we don’t draw attention to it, no one will notice.”
It was liquid, it smelled awful, and I couldn’t help but laugh at how surreal and unlucky the situation was, but it did work. The laughing probably helped us look quite a bit more natural, like we were just having nice conservation. A lot of cars crawled past a guy that literally had streams of s*%t actively running down his legs in broad daylight, and nobody noticed.
13. Don’t be ashamed. Get support.
My eldest son is a hardcore heroin and meth addict.
12. I feel like this is super common.
That I’ve had suicidal ideation off and on all of my adult life.
I might seem fine, getting on with my day, but inside there’s a voice saying (on repeat) “You’re no good. Kill yourself.”
And most of the day the image of me blowing my brains out.
You wouldn’t know. I seem like a fairly happy guy.
11. Not a great feeling.
That I’m constantly at a loss for words. Literally. I feel like those around me are smarter than I am. I struggle to get my words out, although I have clear and concise thoughts in my brain.
I just can’t articulate them into meaningful sentences that keep people interested in listening. Much like the way I feel about this post. My words feel meaningless.
10. A sad future.
I feel like the most boring person in the world. I can see why I’ve lost all my old friends and can’t keep any new ones. Also, I’m really bad at maintaining relationships.
I’m pretty happy, but I’d be all alone after my parents are gone.
9. That cold case is solved.
In 4th grade, it was pizza day at lunch. I wanted an extra slice of pizza but didn’t have an “extra lunch chip”. If you had one of those, you’d put it in a bowl and you get a second helping.
I pretended to put a chip in with convincing sleight of hand. The lunch lady was fooled and gave me that extra slice.
As I’m eating my pizza, one of the lunch ladies yelled, “who took extra lunch without a chip?!” I said nothing.
I’ve never admitted that to a soul. Until now.
8. More common than you’d think.
I feel absolutely stuck. I took a new position at work to implement a new project 2 years ago. It’s all up and running and is self sustainable with the right people, but I’ve grown so incredibly sick if it.
I’ve completely lost my passion for it and I’m really struggling to find something else.
7. Now we’re all saying it.
I didn’t pronounce the g in “harbinger” with the j sound. I rhymed it with ringer.
6. Now we all know.
I’m a 45 year old virgin.
5. It’s hard to know.
I’m starting to question my career choice in healthcare.
Medical field in general, and especially with all that is going on, is fucking rough. A person can prepare ahead of time to deal with seeing people pass away. They can at least try to be in a place mentally that they are ready for the stress and trials being responsible for their patients can bring.
But the things that hit you from no where are the small details. Seeing people who get admitted that are upbeat despite circumstances, slowly become more and more tired, as they struggle to maintain weight, and seeing the light fade from their eyes as they try to hold onto hope, not knowing if they will or did recover, that f**kin eats at a person.
It hurts to see if you allow yourself to care for your patients. And your instinct is to pull yourself back, distance yourself from it so it doesn’t feel as personal.
It’s natural, it’s human, and it’s understandable. I think that’s where a lot of burn out comes from, having to face that grinding wheel every day. I think I am fortunate that I’m only in patient transport. I can’t do anything to maintain their care, just be a positive experience for them.
But, having done this for nearly a decade now, my feeling is that no matter how much it hurts, you still have to let part of it hit. In order to bring what good I can into their lives, I have to keep myself from closing off as much as I can.
Part of what I can do for patients comes from them being able to tell I can care still. It hurts to do when you hit those small notes that slip through your defenses. But I can’t imagine who I would be if I gave up entirely. It can be a struggle.
I don’t think anything in healthcare can be truly worth the money you get if you don’t close yourself off. But I think it’s important.
Sorry for the wall of text. Thanks for letting me get some of the words out of my head.
4. Whoops!
I was hiding in a closet that didn’t have a door and my unsuspecting husband walked by. I jumped out at him and scared him harder than ever before.
He literally pooped his pants.
We silently agreed that we would never discuss it but man, every time someone says “you scared the s*%t out of me” my butthole puckers a little cause I want to say something soooo bad.
TL;DR I actually scared the s*%t out of someone and as long as I love this man, I can never talk about it. Not even with him.
3. Start writing a book.
I fantasize A LOT. At least half the day I’m in my head in the middle of some glamorous scenario that I’ll never be in.
I do that a lot and it makes it really hard to think normally without drifting off to some universe where my life is a thousand times better than I will ever be
2. First loves are like that.
I think I never got over being in love with my best friend I had as a teenager and ten years after the last time we talked I still have sex dreams or think of him when I get turned on…
It is the most bizzare and unbreakable thing.
He’s that person I still think about from time to time, the one that got permanently stuck under the skin. We’ve both had other relationships, he’s married and we live on opposite sides of the country. We are not the same people now that we were when we were together, so there is no ever getting back together.
We went 10+ years without speaking until he called me up out of the blue a year ago to apologize for treating me badly. I’m sure at this point I wouldn’t even like him as a person. But… I still have a soft spot for who he was then, who we were and what we had. It was very special and nothing will come close to that again. Just gotta lock those feelings up and acknowledge them and put them away again.
The types of men I’m interested in now are nothing like him so I’ve learned and grown, but it doesn’t mean you don’t think about those people from your past.
1. All bottled up.
I can’t tell anyone anything that’s going on and I know I need to but I just physically can’t make myself express my problems
I mean, I feel like a priest. It’s weird.
What weird confession are you ready to give the internet even though your family is still in the dark? Our comments are open!
