25 People Describe Their Scariest Family Secrets

"We have [an unsavory character] in the family, one who also [has a bias against females], so he [inappropriately touches] girls with the sole purpose of ruining their lives. He had [harmed] all of my aunts, and [had forced relations] a seven-year-old girl who lived next door, and probably a lot of others that I don't know about. Everyone kept it pretty quiet until his wife filed for divorce because he was cheating on her, and used the molestation cases for her benefit. 

He has three sons who still don't know what their father is.  

He isn't in jail because THAT would be bad for the family name, because you know, 'we're all so proper and law abiding.' I keep trying to get my parents or other relatives to take action, but his wife refuses any suggestions of the sort. She also thinks that the other girls were 'asking for it'. It gets me really [angry] that these people are related to me."

"My great grandfather hit his wife with a fire poker, and slit her throat. He then proceeded to blow his head apart with a shotgun. He sat in a rocking chair and used his cane to push the trigger.

All over an argument whether it was too cold for me to walk to a grocery store to get some milk."

"My older sister is actually my mother, my father was my mother's (actually grandmother) husband.  

They don't think I know."

"My mother abused me my whole life, and one day I finally couldn't take any more and told a teacher. CPS was called, and as soon as my mom realized what was going on, she raced to the police station and told them that an hour previously I had gone crazy and tried to [end the life of] my baby sister so that I looked like the [unstable] one, and nothing I said would be taken seriously. I was removed from the school in handcuffs and immediately taken to the county courthouse, where I had to face my mother in a trial. I chose not to testify because I knew it wouldn't help, but in the end the judge realized that she was [unbalanced] and I wasn't.

I had the choice between being put in a psychiatric hospital for teens or going home, so I chose the loony bin. Five days later my aunt came from another state and adopted me. My family doesn't talk about it, and to this day my mother maintains that I was a horrible child and I was 'sent away' for my 'own good,' and that she is so happy I am better now."

"I am pretty sure my mother was in some sort of cult or something as a child (parents forced her and [assaulted] her, I think). She would tell me these pretty creepy stories of bodies being chopped up and thrown down a well.

It's incredibly disturbing and I really don't want to know what really happened."

"I just found out that my grandparents wanted more kids, but were having trouble getting pregnant for a second time. They adopted a toddler-aged brother and sister when my mother was was seven. Soon after, my grandmother got pregnant, and the girl [passed] from a very mysterious fall down the stairs. The boy was quietly given to another family. They never, ever spoke of either child from that day forward. I thought my mom was pulling my leg, but a quick search turned up the girl's death record.  

I was never close to that grandmother and can't help but think back to every weird aspect of that women, and all the strange relationships she had with her family."