21 Shocking Secrets Parents Discovered About Their Children That Range From Heartbreaking To Bone-Chilling
We asked the BuzzFeed Community* to tell us secrets they discovered their kids were keeping from them, and some of the answers were shocking and heartbreaking. Here's what they had to say.
*We also sourced answers from these Reddit and Quora threads.
NOTE: There are mentions of child sex abuse, suicide, and self-harm.
1."It happened when my daughter was in ninth grade. I was on a call with my husband on my daughter's phone when I sent her to bring something from the neighbor's house. Her phone was unlocked at that time. When I cut the call, I accidentally saw a message from someone, let's say Z. It wasn't a normal message. It did not take me time to find out that they were sexting. And Z wasn't some high school teenager. As I found out from his photo and confirmed later, he was a man in his mid-50s."
"When confronting my daughter about this, after much hesitation, she told me that they met on a dating site one month ago and had been having these conversations since then. I could not believe that my daughter, who was still a baby to me, could ever do this. What scared me the most was that she even exchanged some pictures with him, which he could easily use to blackmail her later. After some scolding, she apologized and stopped talking to him. Luckily, that person never blackmailed our daughter about anything."
—Anonymous, Quora
2."I had left my husband, and my three boys and I were living with my parents when the pandemic and quarantine came along. My parents left to shelter in place at a family property in a different city. About a month after they left, my youngest son (14 at the time) came into my bedroom crying, saying he had to tell me something. He said he was scared that his secret would 'wreck our family.' I comforted him and told him he could tell me anything, and we'd figure it out together. He then proceeded to tell me that my father (his grandfather) had been sexually assaulting him for at least six months. He was correct, however — my father is now in prison, and my family was completely destroyed."
—Anonymous
3."One year, my husband and I were having a really hard time getting up in time for work for, like, two months straight. Years later, we found out our daughter was drugging us so she could sneak out. Either of us could have died, and she thinks it's funny she used to do that. Needless to say, she no longer lives with us and will not be allowed back if ever she falls on hard times."
—Anonymous
4."I took my 13-year-old to the doctor for a sports physical, and she had to have an EKG due to family cardiac history. The tech apologized for having to put stickers over her scratches — on her torso, under where her bra would be. I thought to myself, how the heck would she have gotten scratched there? When we got home, we had a casual conversation as usual, but I mentioned we had to talk about the scratches. She agreed, took a half second to tell me she did them herself, and walked away, hoping that was the end of the convo. ... I followed up with, 'We are going to actually talk about it.' Eventually, we did, and I made her show me."
"It is really hard to have my angel in enough pain towards herself to hurt herself to get it out. We talked a bit, and she was the lightest feeling person after that. She's really interacting with us again and knows that her worth is not reflected in whatever she's not doing perfectly. She is a perfectionist and no she did not get that from us. The doors are open for conversation, and she feels safe talking about stress and anxiety
Life is hard. Especially as a kid because everything is out of your control."
5."When my daughter was 17 years old, she told me she was molested by her older brother's best friend when she was younger. (We both cried) I just couldn't believe it. It hurt me so much. I never knew. She never said anything. She never told anyone. I took this young boy on trips with us. On holidays, he was always invited. I tried to be so protective of my girls. Not letting them be over at strangers' houses, nor spending the night at their friends' houses, etc. For a long time, her brother blamed himself, and I did too."
"After she told me, everything made sense about her younger and teen years and why she was always angry all the time and very moody. Once she told me, our communication just opened up. She expressed herself better. Our relationship grew stronger. Now she is 21 years old and is the most responsible one out of her siblings. I'm very proud of her. She has come a long way.
PS. The young man that did this to her went to jail on another charge, and to my understanding, whatever he went to prison for, he got life."
—Lisa L, Quora
6."My 11-year-old son hadn't been his usual happy self for months. He'd been a lot more irritable and kept sequestering himself in his bedroom for hours on end. At first, I put it down to hormones starting to do their usual thing. He'd also had a hard time with his last school due to excessive workload (about three hours worth of homework every day) and had changed schools. So, for the first couple of months, I put it down to adjustment pains. New school, new classmates, new rules, but Christmas came and went, and he was still trying hard to turn himself into a hermit."
"I had already started smelling something wasn't quite right at school, so I asked him if everything was okay. He just clammed up and refused to say a word other than 'I'm fine, mum!'
Two more months went by with nothing changing, and then, a month shy of the end of the school year, my boy broke down. 'I wish I was dead! The world would be happier if I were dead. I'm useless!!!' Turns out he was being bullied terribly at school.
We spent the whole night talking and crying. In the end, I convinced him to finish off the year and his exams, and he convinced me not to go on a violent rampage. We also made a pact. I would try to get him into another school as soon as was humanly possible, and he would refrain from turning his suicidal thoughts into action and talk to a psychiatrist.
Fast forwarding a bit, he passed his exams, and he's in a different school. He seems to be a lot happier now than this time last year, but I am still keeping an eagle eye on him, and he's still talking it out with a psychiatrist."
—Carolina A, Quora
7."Drug abuse and selling. I figured it out. Because he pulls the 'I am an adult' thing, I can't do anything about it. I evicted him. He's still not open to any kind of help. So he will have to come to a time when he needs help and asks for it. It's very heartbreaking."
8."Yesterday, my son told me he needed to go to inpatient rehab for alcoholism. He's 22 and admitted he'd been drinking 20+ beers per day for the last year. I suspected it was bad, but not this bad. This has damaged his relationship with his long-term girlfriend (he lied to her about being in college last year) and also cost him his job for now. I'm hoping we can get him admitted today. This is not how we drew it up in the sand. We cried on each other for two hours yesterday. This stinks; there is no immediate fix. I feel terrible for my son and his 11 year-old-sister (my daughter), who had had essentially no summer break due to his struggles."
—Mike G, Quora
9."I'm not really a parent, but I suppose the easiest classification here would be stepmom. When wandering around my boyfriend's ex's mom's property to visit his daughter (she has custody and lives with her mom), we found a noose strung up in a tree back in his daughter's play area of the forest (she was 12 at the time). About a week or two later (or before, I don't remember), her mom (the ex) found a suicide note back there. It was written in Crayola marker and filled with I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was absolutely heartbreaking to read. We've all tried to rally around her — we're definitely not a 'normal' family, and it's been hard on his daughter. She's doing better now and has a ton of great friends, but it was about the worst thing to find."
"Since that time, there has been a lot of talk about being open about feelings. She's talked to school counselors, and her mom is trying to pay more attention to her. When my boyfriend and I are able to have her with us, we play DnD with her...and she's HOOKED on it (seriously, other than homework, she spends all her time doing modules and writing character backstories). It was a chilling discovery that day in the forest, but it could have been far worse...and now, we're all a lot closer."
10."My daughter is 15 and is already very sexually active. We took her to the hospital, and we found out she had genital herpes. She said she probably got it from dirty toilet paper from her camping trip that happened last month. I didn't believe in that, but I told her I did. So, a few days ago, I took her phone (she was in detention for something else). ... I read some of her messages between her and some friend. They were talking about body counts. I didn't know what that meant, so I googled it. So, my daughter slept with seven scrampy boys and got HERPES from one of them."
11."My son is very honest with me, so I've never felt the desire to snoop on him. Over the summer, I was looking for my tape measure, and remembered that I'd asked him to measure the space above his desk for shelving. I went into his room (he was away at camp for a couple of weeks) and looked high and low before spotting the tape measure under his desk. I couldn't comfortably reach it because of how the desk was constructed, so I pulled the desk away from the wall. While doing so, I heard a soft thud. After I'd created enough of a clearance to shimmy between the wall to the back of the desk, I saw the gift box that we'd wrapped his birthday present in, splayed on the floor with what appeared to be an assortment of fabrics. Upon closer inspection, I saw what the 'fabrics' really were — a box of washed and unwashed women's underwear."
"I put the desk back but couldn't recreate how the box was situated before. After thinking about what to do, I decided to broach this with him when he returned. More than anything else, I wanted to be sure he wasn't doing anything dangerous (so many thoughts ran through my mind, the strongest being that he was somehow buying them from or bartering with girls at school...).
When he came home, I told him I needed to talk to him. He seemed nervous, and as soon as I mentioned the tape measure, he started to cry. He knew I'd found the box and was crying not because of that but because he thought I'd discovered he was stealing underwear from his best friend's mother. I'm not sure why he arrived at that conclusion, but such is the mind of my 13-year-old.
It turned out that over about a 20-month period, he'd taken to swiping my wife's coworker's (mother of his best friend) underwear from her laundry basket, hamper, and even her bedroom drawer whenever he had a chance. There was a total of eleven pairs of underwear.
It took me a few days to have a heart-to-heart with him, and it was one of the most difficult conversations I'd ever had to have with him. Maybe I stopped him from engaging in progressively more perverted behavior, or maybe not. I just hope that he doesn't go down a path like that again and that his sexual proclivities manifest themselves in more natural and non-illicit ways."
12."[My son] (15) and his childhood bestie (15M) are doing drugs together. Yesterday, he asked me if his bestie could come over this week and play GTA, a game in which, up to now, he's never shown interest. I said I'd think about [it]. This morning, I picked up his phone and spied on him. Sure enough, there is a message to his bestie asking if he can come over this week because my son has 'kush and pills, and my mom is working 9–6 every day.' I haven't confronted him yet. This isn't our first rodeo with weed, but pills are pretty fucking concerning. Pretty stressed today and trying to figure out how to deal with this."
13."When my oldest son was 14, he was having the first symptoms of his bipolar depression. We all thought he was just a very self-controlled child turning into a teen and having the usual moody behavior that comes with puberty. He had insisted that he sign up for all honors classes his first year in high school, despite me telling him that he shouldn't push himself so hard. The guidance counselor and I only agreed to the all-honors classes if he agreed to downgrade to normal classes if he felt overwhelmed. About one month into the school year, he was always doing homework and isolating himself in his room."
"Here's where the secret came in. He was messaging a friend of his, whom he'd known for nine years, and told her that he had a plan to kill himself. She broke her promise to keep his secret and told her dad to call me. Her father called me and said, 'Go check on Nathaniel now!' So I did. I asked my son if he was OK, and he broke down and said, 'No, Mom. Something is wrong with my brain.' I held him while he cried for a few minutes, then called my husband to take him to the hospital while I cleared his room of meds and anything sharp.
He was admitted to the psychiatric hospital and was diagnosed with rapid-cycling bipolar depression. He has been medicated and in therapy for almost 7 years now. His secret almost killed him."
—Brooke C., Quora
14."I found drug paraphernalia in my 16-year-old's bedroom yesterday while making her bed. My heart is broken, and I'm not sure how to approach the situation. ... I'm pretty sure it's meth. We've had this issue throughout my family history."
15."In March, my 15-year-old daughter started to act weird. She would overeat and wear big sweatshirts all the time until one day, I took her to the doctor for a daily checkup...and then, the doctors told me she was six months pregnant. My jaw dropped...my daughter continued to look guilty the whole ride home."
—Anonymous
16."My 13-year-old son is depressed. ... We recently replaced his phone, and the old one was still logged into his accounts. Some messages popped up on the lock screen, and they concerned me, so I looked closer. He talks to his ex-girlfriend a lot (he's never admitted to having a girlfriend) about how he's been depressed for over a year. Now, I open the old phone once in a while to keep an eye on his mental state. I don't care about the porn or the weed references or anything else; I just want to make sure he's okay."
17."My son (35) lives at home and hid an opiate addiction for 15 years, fueled by my mom with addiction issues. It was far more extensive than I could've imagined. I got wind of this when he admitted it and wanted treatment; he is now two-plus years clean and is still attending meetings. I am so proud of him, but Jesus, [kids] can be incredibly sneaky."
18."The most heartbreaking thing my child has ever told me was that he thinks he is demon-possessed. He has recently, at the age of 14, been diagnosed with schizophrenia. He has been dealing with this for as long as he can remember. I didn't know until last year when he sought help. My son has been living in fear and thinking he is evil his whole life. I am saddened by my ignorance of mental health. I had no idea the symptoms or struggles someone with schizophrenia endures until now. I am hurt that people with this illness feel they have to hide it, that they are isolated, and think that they cannot seek help because of the fear that they will be viewed as 'insane' or, worse yet, violent. My son is the most loving, kind, and wonderful person I know, and it breaks my heart that he is going to face a life of fighting, not only the illness but society's view of it."
—Bry P., Quora
19."My 16-year-old daughter is struggling with anorexia and self-harm. So I fix meals, make her a small plate like her younger (very young) brother, and tell her there is more if she is hungry. I never say a word about her needing a plate if she chooses to eat out of the pan or if she eats it all before her dad or I eat. Remind her I'm here and can always listen. I'm never too busy for her. Therapy helps, too."
Finally, let's end on some lighter examples...
20."I was cleaning my daughter's room, and I found a note on their desk that said 'Dear Mom.' I am not a snoopy mom, and I don't dig through their stuff, but it was hard to ignore that note. I skimmed it to find out that they are trans! They feel more like a boy than a girl. I am happy that they are figuring themselves out a little more, but I am not sure how to approach this as a parent. I don't want them to think I snoop through their stuff; they know I go in their room to get laundry, and the note was not hidden. But they have not given me the note yet. My plan so far is to just be a safe place for them to come out to when they're ready, and I hope I don't mess up pronouns for them (I am just super forgetful anyway)."
21."My daughter was about 12 when she started exploring her body as most pubescent girls do. She was using various items in her bedroom — e.g., markers, etc. One night, she came to me sheepishly and said we couldn't play chess for our regular Friday night game night. She said the bishop was missing. When I asked where it was, she said she didn't know. So, we played Monopoly. The next day, she said she wanted to go to the doctor. It turns out the bishop was stuck...but not on the chessboard. Poor girl had it wedged in there somehow and had to undergo general anesthesia with the gynecologist retrieving it."
"After it was removed, the nurse came out to say she was okay and asked what we wanted done with the chess piece. Of course, my husband said, 'We need it back; how else are we going to play chess again?!' Needless to say, we never did play chess with that board or pieces again."
—Anonymous
Now, it's your turn — what's a secret you kept from your parents? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
If you are concerned that a child is experiencing or may be in danger of abuse, you can call or text the National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453(4.A.CHILD); service can be provided in over 140 languages.
If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE, which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.
Dial 988 in the United States to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The 988 Lifeline is available 24/7/365. Your conversations are free and confidential. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-800-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
The National Eating Disorders Association helpline is 1-800-931-2237; for 24/7 crisis support, text “NEDA” to 741741.
StopBullying.gov is an organization that provides resources to prevent harassment and bullying against children. Stomp Out Bullying offers a free and confidential chat line here.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, you can call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357) and find more resources here.
