Yahoo Lifestyle 37 Skeletons People Dragged Out Of Their Family's Closet
Recently, Reddit user yvng_rxse asked, "What's the 'we don't talk about that' in your family?" and the answers ranged from truly shocking to downright disturbing. Here are the secrets people had to get off their chests.
NOTE: There are mentions of murder, sexual abuse and assault (including child sexual abuse), domestic violence, suicide, and infant death in this post.
1."My biological maternal grandfather smothered my newborn uncle in retaliation for my grandmother sticking up for herself during his abusive tirades. He'd been abusive in every sense of the word towards my grandmother and their children, and for the most part, my grandmother just took it out of fear. One day, she got a bold streak and argued back at him. He stopped arguing, and my grandmother thought maybe he had just decided to leave it alone. Later that day he smothered their newborn son in his cradle, and told her if she ever talked back to him again, she'd be next. He led the authorities to believe it was crib death, and so it was ruled to be such."
"Thankfully, my grandmother escaped him sometime later. I didn't hear this story until I was an adult. I never met my maternal grandfather and I'm quite content with that. If I cared enough to know where he was buried, I'd go piss on it."
2."My mother slept with my brother-in-law while he was still married to my sister. It caused big-time family drama. It was awful. It tore our family apart, and we still have to juggle who we see and where with our entire family because my sister understandably won't be around our mom. It's been seven years, and it's still painful."
3."My parental grandmother died from 'complications from diabetes' when my dad was in his 20s. My grandfather was dating a woman he knew less than three months later. The elephant in the room is that my grandmother (who, to be fair, had a mental illness) killed herself by putting herself into a diabetic coma after finding out my grandfather was cheating."
4."My parents lied for 18 years about who my sister's real dad is. We grew up together, and they always said we shared our parents. No, my mom got pregnant by some random dude across the country, then came back and said the baby was my dad's kid, too. For 18 years."
5."My mom was having an affair on my dad with my uncle. Her brother, not my dad's. Yup. Literally. Incest. She's cheated on him multiple times, but her own brother really took the cake. To this day, any time that dude comes around, he acts snarky — almost like it's amusing to him that I hate his guts."
6."My baby cousin died of SIDS in the mid-2000s. Or at least, that's what I/most people were told. Only two years ago, when I was googling my grandmother's obituary, I came across an article describing what really happened. I had no idea, but my grandparents were babysitting him while his parents (my aunt and uncle, obviously) were on a night out, catching up with old friends since they had been living abroad and were just home for a visit. They got home at 3 a.m. or so and went into the spare room to check on the kid, and... well, he was dead."
"I think it was a travel cot that was defective, so he somehow slid out of it and ended up hanging himself, essentially. An ambulance was called, but nothing could be done. He'd suffocated a couple of hours before that.
I was only six at the time, so I get why I wasn't told, but finding it out in my late twenties through Google felt kinda odd. I never asked my mom about it because it was traumatic for her as well; she got a flight there as soon as she heard and had a pretty hard few weeks with her grieving family.
There were mandatory court hearings to determine accidental death — which it was, thank god, no fault and no penalty. But to think that my now-deceased grandparents lived with that guilt for nearly 20 years, as well as my aunt and uncle and everyone else, made me realize why so many dynamics were strained or weird."
7."My brother was accused of rape by my sister's best friend at the time. It was after a night of heavy drinking, and she says she passed out and woke up to my brother having sex with her. I had no idea about this until many years later when my sister told me why they weren't friends anymore. She told me our dad convinced her not to press charges. She and I are the only two family members who have spoken about it in any capacity. He denied it, of course. Sadly, I wouldn't put it past him."
8."My mother was orphaned in a car accident when she was 12. Her mom, dad, and two brothers died. She was the sole survivor and ended up living with a distant relative. Or so she told us for 60 years."
"We were researching the title of some property and who signed a transfer as a witness but her father...30 years after the accident. Turns out he wasn't even in the car that night. And he remarried. And had more children. And divorced. And hard more children. And they had children. Basically, we have cousins we've never even heard of.
She's forbidden us from contacting any of them or talking about them. Something happened back then; we have yet to figure out, but finding out she lied to us definitely opened a can of worms."
9."My cousin was the antagonist in an episode of Maury for cheating on his fiancé at the time with like 20 women. One of my other cousins kept the video recording secretly and showed it to me. But it's been wiped from the internet and nowhere to be found now."
10."I had a friend in high school whose grandpa had a years-long affair with his son's wife. The couple (daughter-in-law and his son) had three kids, and back then, the DNA results weren't able to tell if the kids were from the son or from the dad. So these kids never knew if their dad was their dad or their half-brother."
11."The fact that my father is likely responsible for the disappearance of his first wife. I don't want to say much because it was a fairly public story, and the details would make it pretty easy to figure out who he is. I will say I was informed when I was 16 because her family was trying to reopen the case (she had been missing for at least 20 years at that point), so my parents wanted me to be aware in case I saw anything online. He is the only suspect. They couldn't arrest him because a body was never found, and all of the evidence was circumstantial. His father had connections and likely helped cover it up. We all 100% believe he was guilty, but he will take the truth to his grave."
12."My mom had a brother who was a couple of years older than her. From what I've put together, he was autistic and was sent away for electric shock therapy sometime in the '50s/'60s, which eventually killed him. We have no idea when he died or where he is buried. My mother apparently found out when her parents casually mentioned it over dinner when she asked how he was doing."
"My grandfather (with whom I grew up) refused to speak about him. He would change the subject or leave the room if he was asked anything about him. The only evidence we have of his existence is a picture of him and my mother when they were children and some forms from the hospital he was in describing an episode where he was hitting and scratching the nurses. It's just really sad all around."
13."We don't talk about how I was forced to marry my second cousin at 16. When I finally couldn't take it anymore, at 23, I called my mother, begging her, 'Please let me come home — he is gonna kill me.' He was actively beating me as we were on the phone, but all she could say was, 'Baby, I can't help you.' Then she hung up on me. Thankfully, I made it out alive, nearly a decade later, living a completely different life as a new wife and mother."
14."My real dad overdosed; later, my stepdad adopted me, and they had my little sister. My sister has no idea we don't share a dad, and I was never able to discuss the grief of finding my dead dad."
15."A good portion of my father's family lives/lived on the same street. My great-aunt never came into my grandparents' house, and I didn't think anything of it until I was older and noticed she'd just stay outside, or we'd go to her house to say hello. Turns out, my great-grandfather shot himself in the house, and she was the one who found him. No one talks about it, but my mother finally told me about it in my early thirties."
16."My dad probably killed my older sister's mom. Her death was ruled to be from natural causes: brain bleed/aneurysm. However, his story is he found my sister in the playpen crying with a soaking wet diaper when he came home from work. He went to change her and found her mom on the floor. He thought she was 'being dramatic' and 'acting out for attention.' So he ignored her dying/dead on the floor for several hours before actually checking on her and calling for help."
17."My family doesn't talk about death/dead family members in general. Specifically, I had an older brother who died when he was a couple of days old. That was three years before I was born and six before my sister. My parents took me and my sister to a cemetery one day — I think we were 13 and 11 by then. We walked up to a small headstone, and they explained that we had a brother. That was it. That was the last time he was talked about (by my parents; my sister and I talked about it a few times). They didn't even tell us how he died."
"When my grandpa died, he was buried two plots down from my brother; neither my mom nor dad said anything. When my mom died, she was buried next to him. I did see my dad standing over his headstone and crying.
About a year after my mom died, I had dinner with my dad and finally asked him. Turns out my brother died of a heart issue, and my dad didn't really even know if it was a fluke or if it was congenital (this would have been nice to know)."
18."During WWII, my great grandpa (my grandma's dad) was MIA and presumed dead. So my great grandma (they had two small kids) remarried great grandpa's best friend and had a kid with him...and then great grandpa came home cause he wasn't really dead. He kicked his friend out, and nobody ever talked about it; they had my grandma a few years later."
"But the middle sister always looked different and had different health issues, and on her deathbed, my great grandma told the truth, and up until then, nobody knew except her, great grandpa, and the best friend."
19."My grandmother's husband was a predator that raped my underage cousin, which my grandmother was aware of, and made my cousin apologize to her husband for 'tempting him.' The predator remained in the family for another 20 years and was allowed to babysit us grandkids unsupervised multiple times. But we don't talk about that. It's over and done with. No point in bringing it up, right?"
20."We don't talk about my mom's father. He was a drunk who started sexually abusing her when she was 11, then left a few years later to pursue his Nashville dreams. By the time I came along, my grandma had a live-in boyfriend who we all called Grandpa John, so there were no questions really about where our grandpa was. I still remember my mom traveling to Tennessee when I was six to attend his funeral and make sure he was really dead. There, she met his third family (my grandma was his second wife), including a half-sister who also didn't seem upset he was dead. She's only shared info about him with me twice as an adult, and I don't even know if my siblings know any of this (I was the one asking questions)."
21."When I was seven or eight, I would sit behind my grandmother and massage her shoulders. During one sleepover, she was wearing a nightgown, and I noticed a large, odd-looking scar near her shoulder blade. Being so young, she would never give me a straight answer when I would ask about it. After she passed away when I was nine, I brought up the scar to my mom, who figured it was okay to share now that she wasn't with us. From what I recall, when my grandma was 19 or 20, she was seeing a boy. The story goes that he took her for a picnic lunch in an open field and proposed. She declined the proposal, and he shot her in the chest on the right side just above her breast; it came out the back."
"She played dead, and he killed himself on the spot. She ended up walking for miles until she found help.
My grandma was a wonderful woman who babysat all her grandchildren and neighborhood kids on her own. There were always at least 4-6 kids at her house during and after school hours.
If that bullet had killed her, I and 20 descendants thus far wouldn't be here today."
22."We don't talk about my older brother who died in prison. He was there because he was a predator who molested children. He had been doing it for a long time before he was finally caught. He deserved to die, and I'm not sorry."
23."How my uncle Freddy killed his girlfriend by pushing her out the back door in the middle of the winter. He left her to freeze to death. He got off because of a lack of evidence. Half the family won't talk to him now, and the other half takes pity on him, pays his bills, and helps him after his bankruptcy."
24."I lost both my paternal grandparents and only paternal aunt to suicide before I was a year old. They were never spoken of. To this day I’ve never seen a picture of my grandfather and have only a grainy newspaper photo of my aunt in high school. My only first cousin, also an infant at the time, was adopted by other family members; I did not find this out until I was ten and was sworn to secrecy."
"When depression hit me hard as a teenager, my entire family denied it and shamed me for being weak-minded. I was first diagnosed and medicated at 22, spent decades in therapy, survived frequent self-injury out of pure spite, and finally figured it all out in my fifties thanks to ketamine therapy."
25."My stepmom slept with and had kids with both my biological father and his brother. That makes my stepsister and me cousins. She wrote letters to my uncle while he was deployed with a girlfriend, begging for him to take her back while my biological father took care of her kids and denied my existence. That is the unspoken. And now that I've left and gone no contact, I heard through the grapevine that even bringing up my name around her pisses her off. So I guess I am also the 'we don't talk about that' hahaha."
26."My brother died in prison, and we don't talk about it either. But my brother was in and out of juvie and jail since he was like 12. He was sentenced to prison when he shot a cop during a robbery. He got sick in prison and died of sepsis. No one talks about it, and he didn't deserve it. He suffered for weeks before his death because he never received medical care while he was still conscious. Horrendous. Fuck prison."
27."My grandfather distributed drugs in the '70s. He had a property in Mayfair that was later seized by the police. He was imprisoned for seven years in the '80s. I found out a few years ago. It's really weird because we're part of a 'respectable' family with conservative values."
28."The way I was raised for the first eight years of my life. I don't understand why they treated me the way they did and why they changed, but the memories are vivid. There was lots of smacking, berating, manipulation, emotional neglect, and really nasty insults. I had no bodily autonomy and was not allowed to feel any emotions at all. Basically, it was death by a thousand cuts. All my memories from then are filled with anxiety, frustration, and confusion. Then, magically, one day, when I was eight, they sat me down and apologized. It didn't totally stop right away — there were still the nasty comments now and then — but they were very obviously trying. High school was a brief return to hell, but to be fair, I was a Helion at that age."
"I've mentioned it exactly once since childhood, and they both seem to conveniently have no memories of the treatment, but I've heard that's a common thing in these situations. I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I'm deeply traumatized and scarred by it, but it did leave a mark. I have trust issues and am triggered by other people's anger very easily, even when it's not directed at me. I can only assume it was because, for whatever reason, they just didn't like me, and that's a thought I've carried with me into adulthood. They've mentioned I was their 'practice kid' before my two younger siblings, who got wildly better treatment, but I've always felt like that was a joke. Maybe this is a common thing with firstborn kids, but I obviously will never know for sure."
29."I come from a long line of criminals and murderers on one side, and the other side had a child rapist whose case made it to the state Supreme Court. That's the stuff we talk about. Most of the family refuses to talk about how great grandpa 'married' two way underage sisters and kept them knocked up. They had 23 kids altogether."
30."The man who I call 'Dad' is not my biological father. My biological father is a pretty shit fella from what I know; he skipped out on me before I was even born, possibly before my mom even knew she was pregnant. My mom always knew whose baby it was, but for whatever reason my dad just refused to acknowledge it, despite both my mom and him being white, while I'm visibly hispanic. My dad's entire side of the family acts like I am biologically related to them to this day, and they warn me about certain health issues that run in our family. I honestly have no idea if he ever had a conversation with them about it when I was born or if he just played it off to them somehow."
"Every time I've tried to bring it up, going as far as showing my ancestry results to him on my computer, he has very little to say, if anything. He has told me he doesn't believe it because apparently my mom told him 'during an argument.' He raised me and that makes him my dad, regardless of DNA, but sometimes i think it would be nice to address the elephant in the room!"
31."My blood type doesn't make sense. My mother is a B+, father is an O-. I donated blood in college and found out I'm A+. I brought it up in a casual 'This is interesting; I must be a medical anomaly!' way and was immediately and brusquely shut down. My DNA matched that of my paternal cousin on Ancestry, but no one else in the family would do a DNA test. There are more questions than answers. Considering I no longer talk to my bio parents or a majority of my family due to other things we don't talk about (like addiction, mental health, and abuse), I doubt I'll ever get an answer."
32."That my second cousin's mom isn't her bio mom. My dad's cousin was a surgeon for Smile Train, went to Guatemala to fix palettes, and came back with a baby he 'adopted,' much to his wife's surprise. Turns out he impregnated some woman down there and brought the baby home. We kept his now ex-wife and my cousin in the family and dropped the cheating surgeon like a hot potato and just don't talk about it."
33."My grandparents passed away in 2023 and 2024, and it brought some estranged family back together. I then found out that my aunt Debbie got assaulted by my great uncle Jack when she was in her early twenties. Half the family thinks she 'purposely' slept with him, but I've heard it from some relatives who are close to Debbie and that specific incident. They told me when it happened that everyone knew Jack dragged her down the hall and did horrid things to her that night at the family's camp...😞 It's one of those things that has been swept under the rug for SO many decades. It made me feel even worse for her."
34."My aunt talked my cousin out of an abortion, and it fucked my cousin's life up. She lost the kid, ended up on all the drugs, and spent a while in jail. She's got her shit back on track at this point, but she was headed somewhere until that fucking meddling holy roller got involved. My family doesn't talk about it, but I sure do. Every time I see that aunt. She can fucking rot in hell, and I will never let her forget what she did to my cousin — we were thick as thieves. It's been thirty years, and my rage still burns white hot."
35."I'm getting a DNA test for my niece. My sister-in-law cheated on my brother. She had actually moved out, and my brother tried to kill himself. Fortunately, he was not successful. The timing of my niece being born coincides directly with the time my SIL stepped out. There are serious questions about whether my brother or SIL's side piece is the father. Somehow, they reconciled and went on to have another child a few years later. My son actually brought it up when my parents were in the room one time, and they shot it down immediately — so intensely that no one dares to bring it up again. My brother passed away 01/01/21. Many of the family do suspect that it is entirely possible that he is not father, but it doesn't matter; she will always be my niece."
36."I did some research on my grandparents and learned my Grandfather, his siblings, and his parents were all illegal immigrants to the US. Not only that but they likely were connected to illegal horse gambling rings out of Lexington, Kentucky. They came kind of legally to Canada on work visas from England but then border jumped to the States. This alone wouldn't bother me, but my family are all racist right-wing nut jobs that talk constant trash about immigrants."
37.And finally, we'll end on a story with a wild ending..."We tend to shy away from the story of how my stepbrother ended up in a group home for those who would be a danger to themselves and others. My 40-year-old stepbrother is a massive POS. He has held three jobs his entire time on earth but has easily dropped well over five-digit sums on Natty ice and mini bottles. Mom would coddle him because he had 'nowhere else to go.' Well, shocker, he ends up having a seizure after snorting a 30-day supply of benzos in three days combined with two 36-packs of beer."
"When he got out, he couldn't walk all that well, but he had nothing physically wrong with him, so the nurses and PT folks coming by were all, 'Yeah, he can walk but for some reason refuses to.'
The reason is that once he was back on his feet, we'd start back in with 'Clean your room, take a shower more than once every three months, and get a fucking job."
My mom, bless her, decides, 'I'll just wait on him hand and foot like he's bedridden until he's ready to walk again.' She ends up having a stroke from the stress.
Fuckface BOLTED from his bedroom when we started yelling at her to stay conscious. As soon as the cops and EMS left, I pulled him aside and started beating him to the point my dad had to put me in a headlock and pull me off.
Mom came back home after a stay in the hospital, and now she can't (and thankfully won't) wait on him hand and foot or go pick him up beer because his ID is expired. We settle right back into 'Get a fucking job or get out. Mom will not save you this time.'
A week or so goes by. I'm playing a game in my room on my day off, and I hear these pained moans coming from his room. I hold my nose, open the door, and am greeted by the sight of him butt-ass naked, scissors in hand, and halfway through chopping his own cock off.
When I try to stop him, he takes a stab at me with the same scissors and comes close to catching me in the eye. So I was like, 'L,ol nah, you go ahead and finish up. Just gonna call the cops.' They showed remarkable restraint compared to how the LA Sheriffs usually behave and ended up pepper spraying him after he tossed the scissors and his own cock at the first two through the door.
He still tries to call me once or twice a year when they allow phone calls for holidays. I always answer, 'You dead yet? Damn. Always next year.'"
What's the secret or truth in your family that no one talks about? Let us know in the comments or via this anonymous form, and you could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed Community article.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
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