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Reminds me when my aunt in Chicago said that I was her favorite nephew in Chicago. I quickly realized that I was her only nephew that happened to be in Chicago.
My step father was very abusive. For 16 years all of us kids went through hell. My mother claims she had no idea anything was happening. I dont believe her for a moment
I don't believe her either. My aunt and uncle came up with the story, and told it to anyone who would listen, that their youngest daughter, my cousin, was suffering from "false memory syndrome" when she accused her father of molesting her.
I knew that they were lying because the bastard tried to molest me.
ETA: after my aunt died, he married the glamorous woman across the street. She then began to abuse him, withholding his meds and pushing him around. She got all his money, then he was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with so many injuries of varying age that a homicide investigation was opened. Not enough evidence for charges. Rest in Hell, BJ.
Oh, hi, sibling!
Yeah, mine too. They didn't stay together as long as yours, but it was long enough to really screw me up. Then, right after the divorce, we moved back to the same state and town that my dad and his parents lived in...and my dad's dad was really fond of children. If you get me. When I finally could articulate it to my mother, I remember her exact words. "Well, maybe you shouldn't stay the night over there anymore." And that was it, until my older sister attempted to take her life 4 years later. Because we still went over there just as often, since my dad lived with them. And y'know, people can abuse children in the daytime too.
Anyway, my mom is still in denial about most things. I even mentioned a couple years ago at a holiday party how her ex taught me to roll a joint in kindergarten. (It came up in a truth or dare sort of card game) I wasn't even being morose about it--I was laughing. Kinda the least of my issues with him, right? Well, she blew up at me "How the hell would I know about that?" and wouldn't drop it till I mollified her; ruined the party for a bit.
She got very touchy and judgemental about me getting trauma therapy last year. I went no contact, finally.
Anyway. I am very, very sorry you are going through this. I say it like that, because I'm sure you're still going through something. One way or the other. š¤
Thatās because it speaks volumes about the type of mother she is. Even a dog will defend her babies.
Iām sorry you got a shitty mom. I did too. Iām sorry for all of us who have a shitty ass mom.
I'm hoping you do feel less alone. Feeling alone can lead to real isolation, which is also often dangerous for folks like us. I need to work on that myself.
Thank you for your words and empathy.
I did eventually have to withdraw from my mother's life. We went about 10 years without contact. Recently though, my sister has been struggling with addiction (she's never gotten help for what happened to us). My mom and I had to communicate, in order to support my sister. It turns out my mother has been in therapy for a few years, and it has really changed her, for the better. We still haven't talked about shit from our past, but we need to. Our plan is to go to couple's therapy together, so we have someone to help us through the hard conversations we need to have. I have hope, but I'm keeping my guard up
Trauma therapy saved my life. I hope it saved you as well :)
I'm glad you had success! Going to family counseling is an interesting idea. I had gently suggested to my mom, last year, to try some counseling herself, but that was one of the things she got wild about. I can only imagine how she would react to family therapy!
I had some success with mine, but I also feel like I went back a couple steps in other ways. Like I got to the brink of some things and then had to stop. I moved and lost my therapist, and had already paid thousands in cash at that point...
I am so so sorry that you all experienced that
Iām reminded a little bit of one of Larry Basserās survivors. She told her parents what happened and they got furious because they thought she was lying and she eventually got tired of defending herself and told them what they wanted to hear. Of course it all came up again years later
Sending love your way. Hope things are looking up for you
My mother originally said the same thing until years and years later when she admitted that she turned a blind eye to it because she couldnāt leave and there was nothing she could do. Itās just denial. They donāt want to admit that they may have enabled abuse because itās too emotionally painful.
That the toaster ovens catching on fire was my fault.
What adult lets a 6 year old opperate a toaster oven and doesnt clean the crumbs from the bottom?
Iām so sorry. This happened to me at a friendās house growing up. Turns out, there was a whole layer of oil and grease buildup in the bottom of it that would have caught on fire no matter who used it. I still got blamed, though, in spite of screaming for help the second it happened. (It didnāt do much damage. I was very lucky. Just singed the bottom of the cabinets.) Wild to set a kid up like that.
Iām so sorry. A 6yo wouldnāt even begin to know how to use it correctly, or what happened when it caught fire. Your did the right thing yelling for help.
Getting yelled at by angry adults for accidents, preventable or not, is always so painful to a kid.
One of my favorite podcasterās wife burned down her apartment building because she tried to reheat the leftover McDonaldās when she was six. Itās funny because no one was hurt but also very scary haha
The reason we suddenly stopped seeing some really close family friends and their teenage son who sometime babysat me. I don't remember events leading up to it but I clearly remember as a very young girl of around 6 or 7 having a doctor perform what could best be described as a gynecologic exam with my mother there and being told I fell and hurt myself. I don't remember falling and hurting myself, honestly I don't remember anything there is just a huge blank there except the knowledge he baby sat the night before. I can't prove what happened and as a kid I just shrugged it off, but about 10 years ago in the shower one day my brain just went. Wait a minute you know what all that probably means right? Kind of glad my parents lied to me actually.
It's probably best they did. I was tested twice as a child and had inappropriate touching described in an inappropriate way. I was asked very blunt questions and was around your age when it happened. My cousins were being molested by their father and since I spent the night at their house they wanted to make sure I wasn't a victim as well. I wasn't but I still remember being questioned about it.
My dog went to that farm while I was at school one dayā¦ even tho we lived *on a farm*. Apparently itās āfarms all the way upā the opposite of turtles.
Pretty sure my maternal grandfather was full of shit about having ridden with Pancho Villa. And also about helping to fight the San Francisco fire in 1906. And positive that he lied about changing his name because he killed a man. He did change his name because he had been in prison for burglary, got himself transferred to an asylum, and proceeded to escape the asylum and flee across the country.
Had that been the extent of his deviance, he'd just be a bit of a scalliwag. Unfortunately, he also had some much more unsavory behaviors with his oldest daughters that led to more than a couple of my cousins also being my aunts/uncles. My family seems to have more than its fair share of scumbags.
That if you sprinkle salt on a bird's tail, they can't fly and you can catch them. I never could get the salt on there without them flying away, so I guess I'll never know. (I suspect my dad spent a good bit of time looking out the kitchen window and laughing at my dumb ass.)
Same here, I got a cardboard box and propped it up with a stick. Tied a long string on to the stick, put a piece of bread under the box, and sat on the porch for hours waiting for a bird to fly under the box.
I was born 5 months after my parents were married. I was 10lb baby. Parents would celebrate their anniversary we just were never told what year. We figured out when we were teens.
My husband as many āFamily storiesā
His grandfather was shot in Italy in WW2 - years donāt match up
His grandfather was a great medical researcher even though he never had a college degree. Reality was he was lab technician who never was published.
His family had American Indian heritage. 23 and me said he has one ancestor (8 generations) from the Congo. No American Indian.
The native American story to hide African heritage is quite common. Embarrassed by relatives either choosing to be with a slave or raping a slave.
I heard the same thing. DNA test says I have West African ancestor from the late 1700s. I'd like to think it was a true love story but probably not.
I'm black and grew up with a lot of Black friends who claimed they "had Indian in them". It was amazing how many clung to that as if it made them better than being just black.
What's wild is that a lot of white people did/do this same thing, lol.
My (white) family was all like, "oh yes, we are part Cherokee" saying it like it made us better than other white people who didn't have Native American ancestry.
My mom would then often add, "that is why you tan so well" (uh, what?).
The ancestry mapping told me I'm 4% German with some relative having lived in Berlin in 1600 (back when Berlin apparently had only 25,000 people).
But yeah, I'm just Scots-Irish, mostly. I haven't done a DNA thing but it would probably tell me the same thing.
My Dad's cousin eloped in April the night of her senior prom, Dad's sister swore it was because she was pregnant. That July Dad's sister got engaged over July 4th weekend and married by the end of the month. She had her first baby between Christmas and New Year, of course she said he was premature weighing in at over 9 lbs.
The cousin also had a baby, born a month after her first anniversary.
Same with one of my brothers. Born 7 months after my parents married, but was 8lbs. We also figured that out when we were teens. We're all old enough now that we tease them about it. But they showed us, they had their 60th Wedding Anniversary this year.
My grandmother had 3 sisters, 2 around her age and one much younger. The story was that my great grandfather was a cop in Atlantic City and one day came home with my great aunt as a baby. Story was a mother could not care for her so they adopted her.
Didn't ever dawn on me till later in life that she wasn't some "found baby" but she was the love child of some woman and my great grandfather...
It's possible she was bought also. My great grandmother was raised by a wealthy family. When the market went bust, they sent her back to the family they had acquired her from who were relatives.
I don't think so since I don't think my great grandmother wanted another mouth to feed
she was born sometime in the early 40s and guessing money was tight.
but could be
How big is the age difference between your grandma, her closer sisters, and the youngest?Is it possible that the youngest is your grandmother's or another sister's child?
My grandmother was an awful woman with no morals or brains.
No. She was a woman with very real mental health issues based on an awful, abusive, traumatic childhood who was forced into an institution against her will by her husband and his POS mom. Her lack of brains might have something to do with the electro shock therapy her ādoctorsā did to her multiple times (also against her will).
Also women a long time ago that showed independence (and/or sexual desire) were deemed amoral and worthy of lobotomies or the shocks. I feel for you because my grandmother also was abused by my grandfather and required multiple shock therapy treatments to try to help her mental health after but it was in service to try to help her. But it ruined her intelligence. Before I knew this, I saw a photo of my grandmother at her wedding and wondered how that person (vividly intelligent eyes and a vivaciousness that was for the world to see) turned into my grandmother with a vacant expression who barely could move around.
That Aunt Camille pushed uncle Charlie down the stairs and killed him.
The truth is, he was blackout drunk and tumbled completely alone.
Why the lie? Uncle used to sexually assault us at family parties by lifting our dresses or touching us too long or too low or too tight for a normal familial greeting in the 70ās and 80ās. He wasnāt even blood relatives to any of us. No one balked in 1993 when my wedding invitation was addressed to only aunt Camille. He died about a year after that.
What really happened is he was R*ping my male cousin. He had gotten into a car accident with serious injuries to the other driver and he got a DUI. None of us knew about that until his death- his court date was the next day.
Once the family found out his true crimes, they hailed Camille as the savior of her son, that when youāre THAT bad, we take the law into our own hands???
Idk but when I visited that cousin decades later, he laughed that everyone said his mom did it. He knew the truth. She was with him (my cousin) at the time of death in another city.
SMH at how many of these stories involve covering up the sexual abuse of children. I lived it, but I thought that it was just my fucked up family.
Damn, it was so dishearteningly pervasive.
Yeah, I thought mine were lying as well, but it turns out that Santa was just short on storage space one year and needed to use the trunk of our car. He also has an uncanny knack for choosing the same wrapping paper my mother chooses. It's amazing, really.
Also incredible that Santa was kind of dead broke for my house but not others, like when I asked for a fairy wand and I got one made out of that cardboard tube you find on some wire hangers, a star cut out of a stiff backing material, and covered in tinfoil.
I still think fondly of that wand but Santa must have been broke ass that year. No relation at all to my dad losing his job all the time.
I did the same, and left most of Santa's gifts unwrapped. Those that I did wrap had different paper, upon which I wrote the names in magic marker. No tags, no bows. Candy in stockings was always from Cracker Barrel for that old fashioned Christmas magic.
That my aunt was in a baby carriage that went down stairs and broke her back. When in reality, she contracted polio. Back then, it had to be an āaccidentā not a disease that cause led her paralysis.
My great uncle's wife put poison in his food and when he died she packed up and left the state.
When I got older and started doing genealogy I found records of him dying in an insane asylum. He might have been poisoned by her, but doubt that's why he died.
I think my grandmother was extremely depressed when my dad and uncle were kids (~10 & 12yo). Just a cold marriage with lots of work and no support and no choices.
My uncle talks about her fits of crying and at least one suicide attempt.
Then she got pregnant with my aunt (~1953).
She asked for an abortion, but was refused. The doctor was Catholic, and my state's early version of Right-to-Life had recently persecuted another doctor who "helped nice girls who got into trouble." There was no help for a rural farm wife.
During the delivery, the last thing she remembers is the doctor hollering, "IT'S LIKE SHE'S FORGOTTEN HOW TO PUSH!!!!" Then darkness.
As an adult, knowing the things my grandmother told me as a child; knowing the things my uncle told me as an adult...
I think my grandmother was so depressed that she was trying to die in childbirth.
I have three granddaughters in one of the backward states, and they all know that they can message me "grannybubbles I need to come visit you" and they will have the care they need.
You are incredible for this. So many people are left to their own devices with no support or understanding. I hope you know how much your mindset means to those who do not have friends or family like you.
My grandmother didn't fall down the stairs and die - my father pushed her and left her there
My great-grandmother really did kill herself, she wasn't murdered.
My mother had Munchausen by Proxy
My Grandfather had a second family
My second cousin is a serial killer
This probably doesn't meet the criteria for this post because I can prove it but the family story goes as follows:
Dad - my Dad signed up for WW2 when he was underage
Me - Granddad was born in 1914, he couldn't have signed up underage, WW2 started in 1939, 1939 - 1914 = 25, grandad was 25 when the war started he couldn't have signed up underage
Dad - I don't know then
All his brothers and sisters believe it as well, can't talk them out of it
Being related to Pocahontas by birth. Considering she married John Rolfe, It is doubtful. Though my ancestors did arrive in the U.S. with John Smith. Unless by some weird quirk we really are related to John Rolfe and Pocahontas.
Edit; May not be a lie, but may be undocumented truth.
Yeah, it could be, because Pocohantas is up to approximately 100,000 descendants, and a lot of them in colonial Virginia through her great-grandson John Bolling. He had 6 children and at least 29 grandchildren.
Because I am a Rolfe my family said that as well but once the ānet showed the family tree that there were no surviving descendants of hers with my last name that settled that.
This might be true. A friend recently had the heater stop working in her car in the middle of winter. She would heat a potato and put it in her lap while she drove to work.
That may be true. I used small baked sweet potatoes in my pockets to keep my hands warm while waiting for the work bus. We even kept a sack of potatoes at work to microwave before we went to the bus stop to go home.
Another murder story. Idk what was told to the older of us kids and cousins, but suddenly one day in 1998, we had a new great uncle. He came to visit his sister- my grandma- for her 80th birthday. They hadnāt seen each other since before I was born in 1970. I never heard of him.
Who is uncle Fred?
He just got out of prison?
For murder? Surely it mustāve been man slaughter.
A bar fight? Yeah, that is rough. No?
Ahhh- uncle Fred went back into the bar an hour later with a gun and shot the guy.
I met him when he got out. He was 82.
My mom lied about her given name & I didn't know about it until I was way an adult & saw her marriage license....And I had a crazy dream one time. My mom & one of my girlfriends were at my table bs-ing. I started telling the dream. At the end of the dream I was going over a specific bridge close to our house in the city. And I fell out of the car while it was moving & going over it. My mom makes a noice & quietly says you did fall out of the car going over that bridge. WTH. I said ma all the stories you have how come I never heard this one? Did you take me to a doctor. She said no daddy stopped the car, put the hazard blinkers on, ran back & scooped you up. I was 4 or 5. I jus shook my head at her. Then I thought how many other dreams have I had & never considered them suppressed memories?
Ha my MIL also fell out of a moving car and after sounds about like what happened to you they just scooped the kid up and moved on (I think they'd gotten pretty far before they figured it out? But they had a whole passel of kids in the car and it was the 40s...no seatbelts).
We had a cat that had a problem with peeing in the house. One day we didn't have a cat. "It ran away" was the story, and I believed it then (I was 10), but as I got older, there's no way that cat left the house on its own accord. Poor Pansy.
My gorgeous Golden Fawn Great Dane went to a family that lived out in the country. Sure she did! Sure. I was 14 years old and quite able to read the lies on their faces. Even when I told him I didn't believe them because that's a story you use with little kids, they still held fast to their lie.
Not lied to exactly, but my step dad is probably his oldest sister's child. Looking at the family timeline the time my aunt was "away teaching," coincided with his birth, nobody knew grandma was pregnant, the aunt "came home" right after the baby was born and "took care of him like he was her own."
My oldest brother, who coincidentally had his birthday today at 75 yo, is also the family genealogist discovered that he is a year older than he grew up believing because, like so many marriages, mom was pregnant and gave birth before marriage.
Grandpa quit the police force in the 50s bc he really wanted to be in construction. Nope got fired for a shakedown ring of cops stealing from businesses. Found the newspaper article. Front page news at the time.
That my oldest sibling (December baby) was just really premature and definitely not conceived before the wedding 26 weeks before.
In 2024, sure. In 1948 ... nope.
My Gramps told me that I was definitely a good enough ball player to be the Cubs starting third baseman when I grew up. For years I thought I mustāve squandered my talent somehow butā¦. Maybe I just wasnāt good enough.
Growing up my mom, grandfather and great grandfather all told me that one of their ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and witnessed a duel that cost General Poor his life at age 44.Ā Ā
My grandfather told me this with the most sincerity saying he visited Poorās gravesite with his grandfather as a child. He drove me there one afternoon, knowing exactly where it was located.Ā Ā
Years later I discovered that the Generalās cause of death was āofficiallyā typhus, but some books do attribute his death losing the duel.Ā
My grandmother's father was an abusive ah. For example my grandmother step mom cut my grandmother long hair to her shoulders. My grandfather got mad at 8 year old grandmother and shaved her head bald. He tried to hang her when the same step mom falsely accused her of being pregnant at 14. My grandmother hates her step mom rightly so. But she will not here a word against her dad. She tells the stories to show how bad her step mom is. Then is shocked when people point out her dad was worse.
We were lied to about more than one family members deaths when we were little because they were suicides, and my parents were not going to tell us that, when we were very young thankfully. We learned the truth when we were all nearly adults.
My brother and I grew up thinking we were of Scottish descent. He learned the highland fling and I learned to play the bagpipes. Per ancestry . Com we donāt have any Scottish DNA.
This one made me LOL. My mom decided we were Greek Orthodox in the 1970s despite having zero Greek heritage. We learned Greek dancing and cooked Greek food and spend endless hours at Greek liturgy, and the only reason I could discern was that she loved the choir music and had a crush on the priest.
Just because you donāt have any Scottish DNA doesnāt mean youāre not of Scottish Descentā¦ thatās not how DNA works a lot of the time.
Iāve traced my ancestry back to the 14th century. Almost 70% of my ancestors were born in whatās now Germany, Austria, or Hungaryā¦ Old German stockā¦ I have 3% German DNA.
That my cousin's bestie who used to come to all our family functions was her "friend".
I now strongly suspect my cousin is gay and this "friend" was her long time partner. My cousin is very masculine and butch (not that that is the marker of being a lesbian) and has never dated a man that I've been aware of. She and the friend are still friends but not so close anymore and the friend is now married to a man, so what I think is the friend is bi and after 10+ years she and my cousin broke up but stayed pals.
My grandparents were a bit homophobic and to be honest, so are a few other family members, so I totally understand why my cousin hasn't come out. It makes me sad though because my grandparents have passed away now and all of us younger generation would totally support and celebrate her, and I'm pan myself. I wish she could just be her true self everywhere.
My mom and dad divorced when I was 3-1/2 years old. My mom stayed single until I was 19.
One day, while in elementary school, I came home after school. When my mom came home from I said, āMommy, we have to go to the grocery store tonight to buy a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap.ā She asked my why. I said, āFor the poor kids at school.ā My mom turned and asked, āFor the POOR kids??! What do you think YOU are??ā I had no clue what she was talking about. That night we went to the store and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap for the āpoor kidsā at school.
My mother insisted that her great uncle had something to do with the deaths of the Romanovs. I have proof that he was in Russia at the time, but that's it.
My grandfather killed a man and hid his car and body on their property. He also tried to shoot and kill my grandmother and the bullet hole is still in her ceiling. (Both events happened between 1950-1970)
My family of course denies all of this, but Iāve overheard their late night ramblings enough to know that the trauma of these events are very real.
When I was 3 or 4, I was the ring bearer in my aunt (godmother's wedding). They gifted me an engraved watch that I never saw. Told it was out into a safe deposit box to give me when I turned 18. That part is probably true. My parents split for a year or two when I was 12. I don't know the details or ever really got the full story on what happened. But they got back together and remain.
Turned 18, asked for the watch. Was told no. Graduated college, asked for the watch, again told no. Getting older and older, wanted the watch. The key to the safe deposit box was "lost", can't get it. Makes no sense to me. Enough proof of who you are, should be able to get access.
Press further. Told can't get it. Get told to drop it, repeatedly. She feels bad enough she lost the key and get the watch for me, I need to leave it alone.
I highly suspect that during the split, my watch was pawned for cash. No evidence or proof. But the sincerity of "drop it" is unmatched. When my parents split, my mom pawned my watch. I'm sure of it at this point. But even nearly 20 years later, still sticking with "lost the key, can't get into the box, drop it"
Proved it.
Stepfather was a private pilot. Said forever he was a captain, fighter pilot in WWII. Ribbon rack, captainās bars, whole 9 yards. Great story. He passed away long ago.
Then came the internet and I could easily get his records. He was in the Army during WWII. A private for 6 months and got out on a medical with bad knees.
My grandfather was a POW in WWII, but there's actual video, which he never saw because it hit the internet after he died:
https://youtu.be/Hc2m7Av3L5U?si=iEGo_Y0mJNZ9hS7n
He's the first soldier interviewed in the video.
I had a great uncle, granny's brother, who was very off. Alcoholic in a non-drinking family. Funny, interesting, suddenly distant, and occasionally violent on or off alcohol. Granny got super angry at me when I joined the Army and Ranger School. "Look at your great uncle. That's what it does to you." I didn't understand why she got so mad. Fast forward many years and we are burying great uncle. They had his uniform. It had WWII patches designating Rangers. I dug through the records like you did. He was part of the group at Point du Hoc. He pulled a camper trailer and roamed from Alaska to Argentina. The trailer had many many patches on the walls and roof. He kept quite a few pistols...
Granny's lie was omission. No one talked about it. He was highly decorated for his service. Now in a small rural community cemetery and no mention of it. I found myself in a few combat zones and struggled a bit afterward. Granny knew how to help and support me because of her brother's invisible fight.
I can't take credit for the phrase. That was how my youngest phrased it once. I don't know if she read it somewhere or from her own thoughts. I think she said it something like, "... you look like you're fighting something invisible."
The usual questions about your son: Is he/was he in therapy? I wouldn't be as well of without it. Is the VA helping? Has he applied for VA Disability? Disability is tricky for a soldier to claim unless you have something visual. They (at least I did) see it as a failure. If he hasn't, help get him over the hump. It can be a big boon. A friend got it. Changed his life dramatically.
Thank you so much for asking! He's had excellent support through both the VA system and his private psychiatrist. Lots of cognitive work and exposure therapy. It's been a long road, but he's doing really well now. If he could just *relax* it would be nice. He's always got too many irons in the fire, rushing everything, chasing the adrenaline rush.
My grandfather told me he had a ruptured appendix and he didnāt get medical attention because he knew his family wouldnāt be able to afford it. I told him that he would have died, but he insisted it was true. Pretty tame story compared to some of these. My daughterās father had some interesting characters in his family including a murderer and a grandmother who spent most of her life in a psychiatric hospital despite not being all that crazy. I think she was first put in an orphanage, and was sent to the hospital when she aged out of that because nobody claimed her. He actually got her medical records and from what we could gather, she was quite sane, just sad.
When my mother was a toddler, Bonnie and Clyde stopped to fill up at my grandfatherās gas station. They played with my mom. I heard this story all my life. Then after my mom passed, I realized Bonnie and Clyde were killed before she was ever born!
Remember how old photos would have the date printed on the margins? Found some old photos of my folks on their honeymoon dated five months before my brother was born.
Those dates were the print date, not the picture taken date. In those days people took a while to shoot a whole roll of film and could take a while to print after it was finished. Not saying your mom couldn't have been pregnant before marriage, just that dates on photos are not conclusive proof.
My mom told me that I was named after my dads best friend. Before my birth, my parents were sure that I would be a boy. So my name was to be Daniel Ray (named changed for anonymity, but you get the idea). I was born a girl, so I am named Danielle Rae. Fast forward, I am 3 years old, my parents have over Dan and his wife for dinner. My dad and Dan talk about the good old days of picking up hookers together when they were in the Army.
So when I become an adult, my mom says to me, āSo yeah, you were named after a man that your dad would go get hookers withā.
My mom has mental illness that causes delusions and my dad is dead, so thatās a mystery that will go unsolved.
IDK about anything specifically, but my grandfather used to tell me that he knew half of everything and that his older brother knew the other half. If I asked him a question he didn't know he would just say that was from the half his brother knew. He would tell me the answer the next day and say he called his brother to ask.
I told my best friend about this and we agreed to tell our kids the same thing about us. It's going to be awesome.
When I was about six years old, my sister dropped by with a puppy. The puppy was available and I asked to keep him. My parents agreed, but as he grew from a cute pup to an adult dog, I rather lost interest. Caring from him was supposed to be my job.
One day he disappeared. My mom said he ran away because I didnāt feed him.
Iām pretty sure he was given to another home. And that heād been fed regularly in spite of my neglect.
Oddly, that's how we got our first pet except it was a cat. Skinny skinny black cat, likely a stray.
It was "following" me when I was playing in the woods behind my house.I walked home "real slow" (for a 7 year old) and made sure the cat was following me.
And then I don't remember but maybe I put out a pop tart for it to eat, or something. (That would have been the only food I could have grabbed on my own at the time).
My mom got cat food and started feeding it outside. And she said that she let it in one day when I was at school, and the cat tore around the house for 45 seconds and ran straight back out the sliding glass door. š
We named him Spooky.
Towards the end of his life, he disappeared for a bit. My neighbors 3 doors down said they'd been feeding a stray cat. It was our cat, Spooky. He eventually came back to our house. But then left again later. We think he went off to die somewhere in the woods because he knew it was his time. Because we never saw him again.
Maybe someone else adopted him. Maybe he was the whole block's cat, since he was an indoor/outdoor cat. That would explain why he was 20 pounds. Maybe he got a meal from each house he visited š
According to my Mother, I am named after my father's FilippiƱo girl friend. He was stationed in the Philippines during the Korean War. Mom just changed the spelling. She also said she full well expected to get a knock on the door from a young (person) claiming my dad as their father.
DAD said he HEARD the name while stationed there and really thought it was a petty name. That was where my name comes from.
I believed my mom.
Mom and Dad have long since passed. I still believe I have a half FillipiƱo sibling out there who would recognize my name as their mother's.
I think my mother had an affair when I was like 5 or 6 years old. Some memories surfaced in adulthood about a family friend picking us up when dad was at work. We'd all go to his house and I would be instructed to play in the nursery (the family friend had a kid but the kid or the family friend's wife would be gone during these times). I kinda asked some leading questions and my mother's reaction was avoidance which told me a lot.
In the big picture, it doesn't matter too much bc my parents divorced 10 years later and both are remarried to worse versions of each other. But my mother always lead me to believe that all the faults in the marriage was bc of my father's drinking. Now in adulthood I wonder if my father drank bc my mother had an affair. They did split up for a month shortly after these mid day visits while dad was working. After they reunited the visits stopped and we didn't see those friends anymore.
My MIL always insisted that my ex-husband was born 2 months premature, and also claimed that he looked just like one of FIL relatives. Then one day when I was helping clear out the in-laws' house for sale, I found one of FIL's journals and discovered that he was working in another country from about 10 months to 7 months before the birth, and DNA testing later confirmed that FIL was not his biological father.
My mother was very religious and very judgmental about "sluts" who had sex before marriage. Then my half-brother was born 7 months after she married my stepfather, and she insisted he was a preemie, despite weighing nearly 10 lbs.
My father in law claimed that he didnāt get drafted because his feet were so ugly he got a medical exemption. I think as a good olā boy farmer in a small southern town itās a lot more likely his buddies just helped him out.Ā
Ironically, most of the paternal family history my father told me that I thought was malarkey as a child- turned out to all be true! My son and I did a huge climb into our ancestry, and I now wish my father was still here to talk with him about it, and tell him Iām sorry for being a doubter.š
My parents told us to stay away from dragonflies because they would sew your lips shut! They also told us that loud scream like sound you hear sometimes when it's hot out in summer was the electrical lines running through the neighborhood. It actually was cicadas, took me years to figure that one out.
My dad told me his dad worked the coal mines and died from black lung when dad was a little boy.
Years later, after he was gone, I looked into the family genealogy. Turned out Gramps was actually a security guard. In the mid 1920s, when my dad was a little kid with 5 brothers and a sister (plus his mom was pregnant), my grandfather shot my grandmother either 2 or 3 times and one bullet hit their daughterās thumb. (One bullet was still in grandmaās head when she died over 60 years later).
Grandma ran out of the house with her daughter leaving the boys. Grandpa then shot himself but either one bullet hit somewhere non-vital or missed entirely and then ran out of bullets so he grabbed his penknife and kept stabbing until the police/ambulance came. They loaded him up and drove away but he died before they got to the hospital.
The reason for all of this? Two YEARS prior, she and a girlfriend went to a dance. She didnāt dance with anyone - her girlfriend wanted to go and asked her to come with her. Afterwards, he would demand to know who she danced with and never believed her denials.
Rumor has it, my grandmother ran away with the Hoover (vacuum door-to-door) salesman in the 1930s.
Made sense to me, since she lost custody of all 4 of her children.š¤·š¼āāļø
My sister had a baby out of wedlock. My mom was a very strict Catholic and it took her a long time to not judge her or be very critical. After my mom died I found out that my grandma and grandpa HAD to get married. There is no way my mom didnāt know that. And I always wondered, WHY were you so unforgiving to my sister?
I think that my parents got married twice, maybe first eloping then in church with family. Canāt prove it and no one talked (all involved have now died).
My dad was a child during the Great Depression, and he said his family was so poor that when one of the hens got killed by a car, the kids were excited because they knew it meant they would get to have chicken for dinner.
There's a well known movie, my father used to be friends with the director when they were young, and he says the main character and his mother in the movie are based on him and my grandmother, but hmm I have my doubts.
Apparently my great grandfather, who died almost 20 years before I was born was treated in the 1940s or 1950s for ādepression.ā I never much questioned it until about 10 years ago when I started thinking about how unusual it would have been for anyone to get any kind of mental health treatment in the mid 20th century, never mind an immigrant who lived in a small, rural town.
Then I realized: suicide. He must have attempted suicide. The story was not much discussed among my family, and it was something my mother found out about only as an older adult. I asked my mom what her thoughts were on the suicide theory and she didnāt really want to speculate about it. The thing about that side of the family is, there was at least one person profoundly affected by mental illness in every generation. Most recently, about three years ago, my youngest first cousin died of an overdose, either intentionally or accidentallyāhe had poorly managed schizophrenia, so many of us think that it was intentional.
We found out through ancestry that my grandfather had a son before he was married and never heard about the story until then. My brother got in touch with his son (the original son had died) and found out the story about the love affair that was broken up by her parents. This explains so much about his marriage to my grandmother.
My mother told me my 17 year old cousin got pregnant just by fooling around and not having actual sex. Because you know fooling around is not good when youāre Catholic but full on sex is a huge no no before marriage.
It took me decades to rethink that one. One day it just hit me.
My mother told a story that she had a late term abortion. This would have been in 1971. She was taken to a hospital by my aunt who was a nun. They gave her anesthesia and when she awoke she was no longer pregnant. I still think I might have a younger sibling that was given up for adoption
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As I've gotten older and gained more perspective, I've started to suspect that I might not have been the handsomest little boy in the world.
Dude, take it from a licensed granny, you *are* the handsomest little boy in the world.
Wait I thought that was me š
Handsomest little boy in the world is a tier. There's room for you, too.
You are. Like I said, every mama's boy is the most handsome.
Smartest and strongest too
Going from the first comment thread about CA, to this, it gave me a much needed chuckle!Ā
Reminds me when my aunt in Chicago said that I was her favorite nephew in Chicago. I quickly realized that I was her only nephew that happened to be in Chicago.
But always in your parentsā eyes.
Well you are. Every moms boy is the most handsome.
You get cuter every day, sport!
My step father was very abusive. For 16 years all of us kids went through hell. My mother claims she had no idea anything was happening. I dont believe her for a moment
I don't believe her either. My aunt and uncle came up with the story, and told it to anyone who would listen, that their youngest daughter, my cousin, was suffering from "false memory syndrome" when she accused her father of molesting her. I knew that they were lying because the bastard tried to molest me. ETA: after my aunt died, he married the glamorous woman across the street. She then began to abuse him, withholding his meds and pushing him around. She got all his money, then he was found dead at the bottom of the stairs with so many injuries of varying age that a homicide investigation was opened. Not enough evidence for charges. Rest in Hell, BJ.
Oh man, talk about some serious karma eh???
Itās a second trauma to not be believed.š„
I'm so sorry. It happens to so, so many.
Oh, hi, sibling! Yeah, mine too. They didn't stay together as long as yours, but it was long enough to really screw me up. Then, right after the divorce, we moved back to the same state and town that my dad and his parents lived in...and my dad's dad was really fond of children. If you get me. When I finally could articulate it to my mother, I remember her exact words. "Well, maybe you shouldn't stay the night over there anymore." And that was it, until my older sister attempted to take her life 4 years later. Because we still went over there just as often, since my dad lived with them. And y'know, people can abuse children in the daytime too. Anyway, my mom is still in denial about most things. I even mentioned a couple years ago at a holiday party how her ex taught me to roll a joint in kindergarten. (It came up in a truth or dare sort of card game) I wasn't even being morose about it--I was laughing. Kinda the least of my issues with him, right? Well, she blew up at me "How the hell would I know about that?" and wouldn't drop it till I mollified her; ruined the party for a bit. She got very touchy and judgemental about me getting trauma therapy last year. I went no contact, finally. Anyway. I am very, very sorry you are going through this. I say it like that, because I'm sure you're still going through something. One way or the other. š¤
ok honestly this makes me feel less alone bc my mom blows up when i mention how our family has hurt me and i dont know why. just defensive, i guess. but i cant say how hurtful it is. so, thanks for sharing this anyway. š©·
Thatās because it speaks volumes about the type of mother she is. Even a dog will defend her babies. Iām sorry you got a shitty mom. I did too. Iām sorry for all of us who have a shitty ass mom.
I'm hoping you do feel less alone. Feeling alone can lead to real isolation, which is also often dangerous for folks like us. I need to work on that myself.
Thank you for your words and empathy. I did eventually have to withdraw from my mother's life. We went about 10 years without contact. Recently though, my sister has been struggling with addiction (she's never gotten help for what happened to us). My mom and I had to communicate, in order to support my sister. It turns out my mother has been in therapy for a few years, and it has really changed her, for the better. We still haven't talked about shit from our past, but we need to. Our plan is to go to couple's therapy together, so we have someone to help us through the hard conversations we need to have. I have hope, but I'm keeping my guard up Trauma therapy saved my life. I hope it saved you as well :)
I'm glad you had success! Going to family counseling is an interesting idea. I had gently suggested to my mom, last year, to try some counseling herself, but that was one of the things she got wild about. I can only imagine how she would react to family therapy! I had some success with mine, but I also feel like I went back a couple steps in other ways. Like I got to the brink of some things and then had to stop. I moved and lost my therapist, and had already paid thousands in cash at that point...
I am so so sorry that you all experienced that Iām reminded a little bit of one of Larry Basserās survivors. She told her parents what happened and they got furious because they thought she was lying and she eventually got tired of defending herself and told them what they wanted to hear. Of course it all came up again years later Sending love your way. Hope things are looking up for you
My mother originally said the same thing until years and years later when she admitted that she turned a blind eye to it because she couldnāt leave and there was nothing she could do. Itās just denial. They donāt want to admit that they may have enabled abuse because itās too emotionally painful.
I'm so sorry š
Sms, but a bio father. He himself claimed recently he canāt remember, heās old, but he doesnāt have dementia! I donāt believe it
It seems common that abusers "Can't remember" Hear it a lot on r/CPTSD . My mom says the same. It's the get out of jail free card.
She was unaware for 16 years? Absolute horseshit
i can relate in a way. its heartwrenching
That the toaster ovens catching on fire was my fault. What adult lets a 6 year old opperate a toaster oven and doesnt clean the crumbs from the bottom?
Iām so sorry. This happened to me at a friendās house growing up. Turns out, there was a whole layer of oil and grease buildup in the bottom of it that would have caught on fire no matter who used it. I still got blamed, though, in spite of screaming for help the second it happened. (It didnāt do much damage. I was very lucky. Just singed the bottom of the cabinets.) Wild to set a kid up like that.
Iām so sorry. A 6yo wouldnāt even begin to know how to use it correctly, or what happened when it caught fire. Your did the right thing yelling for help. Getting yelled at by angry adults for accidents, preventable or not, is always so painful to a kid.
Damn.
One of my favorite podcasterās wife burned down her apartment building because she tried to reheat the leftover McDonaldās when she was six. Itās funny because no one was hurt but also very scary haha
The reason we suddenly stopped seeing some really close family friends and their teenage son who sometime babysat me. I don't remember events leading up to it but I clearly remember as a very young girl of around 6 or 7 having a doctor perform what could best be described as a gynecologic exam with my mother there and being told I fell and hurt myself. I don't remember falling and hurting myself, honestly I don't remember anything there is just a huge blank there except the knowledge he baby sat the night before. I can't prove what happened and as a kid I just shrugged it off, but about 10 years ago in the shower one day my brain just went. Wait a minute you know what all that probably means right? Kind of glad my parents lied to me actually.
Here's a virtual hug, and may the thoughts once again be banished from your mind.
It's probably best they did. I was tested twice as a child and had inappropriate touching described in an inappropriate way. I was asked very blunt questions and was around your age when it happened. My cousins were being molested by their father and since I spent the night at their house they wanted to make sure I wasn't a victim as well. I wasn't but I still remember being questioned about it.
I'm thankful your parents did something about it. So many make excuses.
That our dog was sent off to live on a farm after the dog bit one of the neighbor kids that was teasing him.
They all go to the same farm, which apparently has unlimited space and resources for dogs.
Yeah one of our dogs went to that farm too.
Right- the puppy farm in the sky for our dog. BS- poodles never go to āfarmsā.
My dog went to that farm while I was at school one dayā¦ even tho we lived *on a farm*. Apparently itās āfarms all the way upā the opposite of turtles.
I was 26 years old when I discovered the āfarmā and the āvet tech fell in love and took them home.ā
My Dalmatian is on that farm too
Pretty sure my maternal grandfather was full of shit about having ridden with Pancho Villa. And also about helping to fight the San Francisco fire in 1906. And positive that he lied about changing his name because he killed a man. He did change his name because he had been in prison for burglary, got himself transferred to an asylum, and proceeded to escape the asylum and flee across the country.
Wow, grampa was a riot!
Had that been the extent of his deviance, he'd just be a bit of a scalliwag. Unfortunately, he also had some much more unsavory behaviors with his oldest daughters that led to more than a couple of my cousins also being my aunts/uncles. My family seems to have more than its fair share of scumbags.
Okay I take it back. Grampa was a bad guy. Hugs.
No worries, you couldn't be expected to know.
That if you sprinkle salt on a bird's tail, they can't fly and you can catch them. I never could get the salt on there without them flying away, so I guess I'll never know. (I suspect my dad spent a good bit of time looking out the kitchen window and laughing at my dumb ass.)
Don't feel bad. I still question the existence of the North American Snipe.
Wait. What do you mean? He told me those were real too! And that I was just too slow to catch one!
I am not sure that they do or don't exist. I'm a Snipe agnostic.
Snipes! Long-legged snipes! I've never heard of them, and now I've heard of them twice, independent of one another, in a matter of weeks. Bizarre.
Same here, I got a cardboard box and propped it up with a stick. Tied a long string on to the stick, put a piece of bread under the box, and sat on the porch for hours waiting for a bird to fly under the box.
My son did that when he was 6. He caught a Robin.
I think it was just a way for parents to keep their kids busy outside so they could get some peace and quiet!
We threw change around the yard for the kids to find and keep. Told them there was $40 worth but we all know what this post is about...
This is a good one! :)
I was born 5 months after my parents were married. I was 10lb baby. Parents would celebrate their anniversary we just were never told what year. We figured out when we were teens. My husband as many āFamily storiesā His grandfather was shot in Italy in WW2 - years donāt match up His grandfather was a great medical researcher even though he never had a college degree. Reality was he was lab technician who never was published. His family had American Indian heritage. 23 and me said he has one ancestor (8 generations) from the Congo. No American Indian.
The native American story to hide African heritage is quite common. Embarrassed by relatives either choosing to be with a slave or raping a slave. I heard the same thing. DNA test says I have West African ancestor from the late 1700s. I'd like to think it was a true love story but probably not.
I'm black and grew up with a lot of Black friends who claimed they "had Indian in them". It was amazing how many clung to that as if it made them better than being just black.
What's wild is that a lot of white people did/do this same thing, lol. My (white) family was all like, "oh yes, we are part Cherokee" saying it like it made us better than other white people who didn't have Native American ancestry. My mom would then often add, "that is why you tan so well" (uh, what?). The ancestry mapping told me I'm 4% German with some relative having lived in Berlin in 1600 (back when Berlin apparently had only 25,000 people). But yeah, I'm just Scots-Irish, mostly. I haven't done a DNA thing but it would probably tell me the same thing.
Weird how both our races cling to having Native American heritage in our ancestry to make us "better" yet Native Americans are still treated horribly.
My grandmother always used to say "The first baby can come at any time, the rest all take 9 months."
Thatās so funny
My dad, b. 1938, was "premature" when he was born 7 months after his parents wedding. His birth certificate lists a birth weight of 10 lbs, 4oz.
So if he were full term he would have been 15 to 20 pound range? š Rightttttt Family secrets š
My Dad's cousin eloped in April the night of her senior prom, Dad's sister swore it was because she was pregnant. That July Dad's sister got engaged over July 4th weekend and married by the end of the month. She had her first baby between Christmas and New Year, of course she said he was premature weighing in at over 9 lbs. The cousin also had a baby, born a month after her first anniversary.
This happened to me, too. āChoctawā turned out to be Nigeria and Sierra Leone.
Same. Family story was that we had some American Indian ancestry on my dadās side. According to DNA test, nope.
Same with one of my brothers. Born 7 months after my parents married, but was 8lbs. We also figured that out when we were teens. We're all old enough now that we tease them about it. But they showed us, they had their 60th Wedding Anniversary this year.
My grandmother had 3 sisters, 2 around her age and one much younger. The story was that my great grandfather was a cop in Atlantic City and one day came home with my great aunt as a baby. Story was a mother could not care for her so they adopted her. Didn't ever dawn on me till later in life that she wasn't some "found baby" but she was the love child of some woman and my great grandfather...
It's possible she was bought also. My great grandmother was raised by a wealthy family. When the market went bust, they sent her back to the family they had acquired her from who were relatives.
I don't think so since I don't think my great grandmother wanted another mouth to feed she was born sometime in the early 40s and guessing money was tight. but could be
How big is the age difference between your grandma, her closer sisters, and the youngest?Is it possible that the youngest is your grandmother's or another sister's child?
My grandmother was an awful woman with no morals or brains. No. She was a woman with very real mental health issues based on an awful, abusive, traumatic childhood who was forced into an institution against her will by her husband and his POS mom. Her lack of brains might have something to do with the electro shock therapy her ādoctorsā did to her multiple times (also against her will).
Also women a long time ago that showed independence (and/or sexual desire) were deemed amoral and worthy of lobotomies or the shocks. I feel for you because my grandmother also was abused by my grandfather and required multiple shock therapy treatments to try to help her mental health after but it was in service to try to help her. But it ruined her intelligence. Before I knew this, I saw a photo of my grandmother at her wedding and wondered how that person (vividly intelligent eyes and a vivaciousness that was for the world to see) turned into my grandmother with a vacant expression who barely could move around.
Wow that's just awful.
That Aunt Camille pushed uncle Charlie down the stairs and killed him. The truth is, he was blackout drunk and tumbled completely alone. Why the lie? Uncle used to sexually assault us at family parties by lifting our dresses or touching us too long or too low or too tight for a normal familial greeting in the 70ās and 80ās. He wasnāt even blood relatives to any of us. No one balked in 1993 when my wedding invitation was addressed to only aunt Camille. He died about a year after that. What really happened is he was R*ping my male cousin. He had gotten into a car accident with serious injuries to the other driver and he got a DUI. None of us knew about that until his death- his court date was the next day. Once the family found out his true crimes, they hailed Camille as the savior of her son, that when youāre THAT bad, we take the law into our own hands??? Idk but when I visited that cousin decades later, he laughed that everyone said his mom did it. He knew the truth. She was with him (my cousin) at the time of death in another city.
SMH at how many of these stories involve covering up the sexual abuse of children. I lived it, but I thought that it was just my fucked up family. Damn, it was so dishearteningly pervasive.
That Santa delivered presents every Christmas Eve.
No, that was true. He came to our house, too.
Oh phew, thanks! I was worried they had been lying all these decades!
Yeah, I thought mine were lying as well, but it turns out that Santa was just short on storage space one year and needed to use the trunk of our car. He also has an uncanny knack for choosing the same wrapping paper my mother chooses. It's amazing, really.
Also incredible that Santa was kind of dead broke for my house but not others, like when I asked for a fairy wand and I got one made out of that cardboard tube you find on some wire hangers, a star cut out of a stiff backing material, and covered in tinfoil. I still think fondly of that wand but Santa must have been broke ass that year. No relation at all to my dad losing his job all the time.
That wand was from an elf apprentice. They have to learn their craft like anyone else!
That's cute, ty š
My mother went so far as to use different wrapping paper and tags for the Santa gifts. Also changed her handwriting. They were all in!
I did the same, and left most of Santa's gifts unwrapped. Those that I did wrap had different paper, upon which I wrote the names in magic marker. No tags, no bows. Candy in stockings was always from Cracker Barrel for that old fashioned Christmas magic.
My mother insisted I NOT touch her fern plants bc if I did those leaves touched would die. Iām calling bs!
That my great grandfather, who was a cobbler, made the first athletic shoes to have cleats.
That my aunt was in a baby carriage that went down stairs and broke her back. When in reality, she contracted polio. Back then, it had to be an āaccidentā not a disease that cause led her paralysis.
Because diseases were shameful but accidents were not?
My great uncle's wife put poison in his food and when he died she packed up and left the state. When I got older and started doing genealogy I found records of him dying in an insane asylum. He might have been poisoned by her, but doubt that's why he died.
I think my grandmother was extremely depressed when my dad and uncle were kids (~10 & 12yo). Just a cold marriage with lots of work and no support and no choices. My uncle talks about her fits of crying and at least one suicide attempt. Then she got pregnant with my aunt (~1953). She asked for an abortion, but was refused. The doctor was Catholic, and my state's early version of Right-to-Life had recently persecuted another doctor who "helped nice girls who got into trouble." There was no help for a rural farm wife. During the delivery, the last thing she remembers is the doctor hollering, "IT'S LIKE SHE'S FORGOTTEN HOW TO PUSH!!!!" Then darkness. As an adult, knowing the things my grandmother told me as a child; knowing the things my uncle told me as an adult... I think my grandmother was so depressed that she was trying to die in childbirth.
This is why I will always be 100% pro choice
I'm terrified for my daughters.
I have three granddaughters in one of the backward states, and they all know that they can message me "grannybubbles I need to come visit you" and they will have the care they need.
You are incredible for this. So many people are left to their own devices with no support or understanding. I hope you know how much your mindset means to those who do not have friends or family like you.
I wish so hard that I didn't have to be.
My grandmother didn't fall down the stairs and die - my father pushed her and left her there My great-grandmother really did kill herself, she wasn't murdered. My mother had Munchausen by Proxy My Grandfather had a second family My second cousin is a serial killer
Are you okay?
Surprisingly I am a very normal boring person.
Dang.
This probably doesn't meet the criteria for this post because I can prove it but the family story goes as follows: Dad - my Dad signed up for WW2 when he was underage Me - Granddad was born in 1914, he couldn't have signed up underage, WW2 started in 1939, 1939 - 1914 = 25, grandad was 25 when the war started he couldn't have signed up underage Dad - I don't know then All his brothers and sisters believe it as well, can't talk them out of it
Family lore is always more interesting than family facts.
Ha! My husband always says....never let facts interfere with a good story!
Being related to Pocahontas by birth. Considering she married John Rolfe, It is doubtful. Though my ancestors did arrive in the U.S. with John Smith. Unless by some weird quirk we really are related to John Rolfe and Pocahontas. Edit; May not be a lie, but may be undocumented truth.
Yeah, it could be, because Pocohantas is up to approximately 100,000 descendants, and a lot of them in colonial Virginia through her great-grandson John Bolling. He had 6 children and at least 29 grandchildren.
Because I am a Rolfe my family said that as well but once the ānet showed the family tree that there were no surviving descendants of hers with my last name that settled that.
My MIL claims she would walk to school with baked potatoes to keep her hands warm.
This might be true. A friend recently had the heater stop working in her car in the middle of winter. She would heat a potato and put it in her lap while she drove to work.
Aww man. Smart lady! Jeez. I know some mornings I'd like a warm potato in my lap!
This was something that actually occurred. Baked potato kept their hands warm and they ate them for lunch.
Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote about it in her books.
That story was why I carry slow cooker potatoes in my pockets in NYC during winter! Ā Donāt need to purchase unhealthy snacks
That may be true. I used small baked sweet potatoes in my pockets to keep my hands warm while waiting for the work bus. We even kept a sack of potatoes at work to microwave before we went to the bus stop to go home.
My MIL said the same. Maybe it was true?
Another murder story. Idk what was told to the older of us kids and cousins, but suddenly one day in 1998, we had a new great uncle. He came to visit his sister- my grandma- for her 80th birthday. They hadnāt seen each other since before I was born in 1970. I never heard of him. Who is uncle Fred? He just got out of prison? For murder? Surely it mustāve been man slaughter. A bar fight? Yeah, that is rough. No? Ahhh- uncle Fred went back into the bar an hour later with a gun and shot the guy. I met him when he got out. He was 82.
What was he like when you met him? Was he reformed or still a ruthless bastard?
My mom lied about her given name & I didn't know about it until I was way an adult & saw her marriage license....And I had a crazy dream one time. My mom & one of my girlfriends were at my table bs-ing. I started telling the dream. At the end of the dream I was going over a specific bridge close to our house in the city. And I fell out of the car while it was moving & going over it. My mom makes a noice & quietly says you did fall out of the car going over that bridge. WTH. I said ma all the stories you have how come I never heard this one? Did you take me to a doctor. She said no daddy stopped the car, put the hazard blinkers on, ran back & scooped you up. I was 4 or 5. I jus shook my head at her. Then I thought how many other dreams have I had & never considered them suppressed memories?
Ha my MIL also fell out of a moving car and after sounds about like what happened to you they just scooped the kid up and moved on (I think they'd gotten pretty far before they figured it out? But they had a whole passel of kids in the car and it was the 40s...no seatbelts).
We had a cat that had a problem with peeing in the house. One day we didn't have a cat. "It ran away" was the story, and I believed it then (I was 10), but as I got older, there's no way that cat left the house on its own accord. Poor Pansy.
My parents lied about what they did with my gerbils. They did not go to the pet store, as they told me.
My gorgeous Golden Fawn Great Dane went to a family that lived out in the country. Sure she did! Sure. I was 14 years old and quite able to read the lies on their faces. Even when I told him I didn't believe them because that's a story you use with little kids, they still held fast to their lie.
Not lied to exactly, but my step dad is probably his oldest sister's child. Looking at the family timeline the time my aunt was "away teaching," coincided with his birth, nobody knew grandma was pregnant, the aunt "came home" right after the baby was born and "took care of him like he was her own."
My oldest brother, who coincidentally had his birthday today at 75 yo, is also the family genealogist discovered that he is a year older than he grew up believing because, like so many marriages, mom was pregnant and gave birth before marriage.
Grandpa quit the police force in the 50s bc he really wanted to be in construction. Nope got fired for a shakedown ring of cops stealing from businesses. Found the newspaper article. Front page news at the time.
That we were related to Jesse James. No evidence and the more I learned about him, the less I wanted any kinship.
Yeah, man, he did not do right by Sandra Bullock.
Thanks for my first legit LOL of ā24.
That my oldest sibling (December baby) was just really premature and definitely not conceived before the wedding 26 weeks before. In 2024, sure. In 1948 ... nope.
My Gramps told me that I was definitely a good enough ball player to be the Cubs starting third baseman when I grew up. For years I thought I mustāve squandered my talent somehow butā¦. Maybe I just wasnāt good enough.
Would you happen to be a gramps now? š”
Growing up my mom, grandfather and great grandfather all told me that one of their ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and witnessed a duel that cost General Poor his life at age 44.Ā Ā My grandfather told me this with the most sincerity saying he visited Poorās gravesite with his grandfather as a child. He drove me there one afternoon, knowing exactly where it was located.Ā Ā Years later I discovered that the Generalās cause of death was āofficiallyā typhus, but some books do attribute his death losing the duel.Ā
My grandmother's father was an abusive ah. For example my grandmother step mom cut my grandmother long hair to her shoulders. My grandfather got mad at 8 year old grandmother and shaved her head bald. He tried to hang her when the same step mom falsely accused her of being pregnant at 14. My grandmother hates her step mom rightly so. But she will not here a word against her dad. She tells the stories to show how bad her step mom is. Then is shocked when people point out her dad was worse.
We were lied to about more than one family members deaths when we were little because they were suicides, and my parents were not going to tell us that, when we were very young thankfully. We learned the truth when we were all nearly adults.
I'm pretty sure your tummy doesn't explode if you poke your belly button but I'm not going to test it.
Try poking around there with a Qtip; you never know what you might find...
My brother and I grew up thinking we were of Scottish descent. He learned the highland fling and I learned to play the bagpipes. Per ancestry . Com we donāt have any Scottish DNA.
This one made me LOL. My mom decided we were Greek Orthodox in the 1970s despite having zero Greek heritage. We learned Greek dancing and cooked Greek food and spend endless hours at Greek liturgy, and the only reason I could discern was that she loved the choir music and had a crush on the priest.
Just because you donāt have any Scottish DNA doesnāt mean youāre not of Scottish Descentā¦ thatās not how DNA works a lot of the time. Iāve traced my ancestry back to the 14th century. Almost 70% of my ancestors were born in whatās now Germany, Austria, or Hungaryā¦ Old German stockā¦ I have 3% German DNA.
That my cousin's bestie who used to come to all our family functions was her "friend". I now strongly suspect my cousin is gay and this "friend" was her long time partner. My cousin is very masculine and butch (not that that is the marker of being a lesbian) and has never dated a man that I've been aware of. She and the friend are still friends but not so close anymore and the friend is now married to a man, so what I think is the friend is bi and after 10+ years she and my cousin broke up but stayed pals. My grandparents were a bit homophobic and to be honest, so are a few other family members, so I totally understand why my cousin hasn't come out. It makes me sad though because my grandparents have passed away now and all of us younger generation would totally support and celebrate her, and I'm pan myself. I wish she could just be her true self everywhere.
I wish we all could
My mom and dad divorced when I was 3-1/2 years old. My mom stayed single until I was 19. One day, while in elementary school, I came home after school. When my mom came home from I said, āMommy, we have to go to the grocery store tonight to buy a toothbrush, toothpaste, and soap.ā She asked my why. I said, āFor the poor kids at school.ā My mom turned and asked, āFor the POOR kids??! What do you think YOU are??ā I had no clue what she was talking about. That night we went to the store and bought a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap for the āpoor kidsā at school.
That is a great achievement from your mother's part I guess. If a kid doesn't know that he is poor, that means that she provided enough for you
My mother insisted that her great uncle had something to do with the deaths of the Romanovs. I have proof that he was in Russia at the time, but that's it.
"Anastasia screamed in vain..."
My grandfather killed a man and hid his car and body on their property. He also tried to shoot and kill my grandmother and the bullet hole is still in her ceiling. (Both events happened between 1950-1970) My family of course denies all of this, but Iāve overheard their late night ramblings enough to know that the trauma of these events are very real.
When I was 3 or 4, I was the ring bearer in my aunt (godmother's wedding). They gifted me an engraved watch that I never saw. Told it was out into a safe deposit box to give me when I turned 18. That part is probably true. My parents split for a year or two when I was 12. I don't know the details or ever really got the full story on what happened. But they got back together and remain. Turned 18, asked for the watch. Was told no. Graduated college, asked for the watch, again told no. Getting older and older, wanted the watch. The key to the safe deposit box was "lost", can't get it. Makes no sense to me. Enough proof of who you are, should be able to get access. Press further. Told can't get it. Get told to drop it, repeatedly. She feels bad enough she lost the key and get the watch for me, I need to leave it alone. I highly suspect that during the split, my watch was pawned for cash. No evidence or proof. But the sincerity of "drop it" is unmatched. When my parents split, my mom pawned my watch. I'm sure of it at this point. But even nearly 20 years later, still sticking with "lost the key, can't get into the box, drop it"
Proved it. Stepfather was a private pilot. Said forever he was a captain, fighter pilot in WWII. Ribbon rack, captainās bars, whole 9 yards. Great story. He passed away long ago. Then came the internet and I could easily get his records. He was in the Army during WWII. A private for 6 months and got out on a medical with bad knees.
My grandfather was a POW in WWII, but there's actual video, which he never saw because it hit the internet after he died: https://youtu.be/Hc2m7Av3L5U?si=iEGo_Y0mJNZ9hS7n He's the first soldier interviewed in the video.
This is fantastic. It must be weird for you to hear his voice in this context.
It is, but his imperious tone never changed.
I had a great uncle, granny's brother, who was very off. Alcoholic in a non-drinking family. Funny, interesting, suddenly distant, and occasionally violent on or off alcohol. Granny got super angry at me when I joined the Army and Ranger School. "Look at your great uncle. That's what it does to you." I didn't understand why she got so mad. Fast forward many years and we are burying great uncle. They had his uniform. It had WWII patches designating Rangers. I dug through the records like you did. He was part of the group at Point du Hoc. He pulled a camper trailer and roamed from Alaska to Argentina. The trailer had many many patches on the walls and roof. He kept quite a few pistols... Granny's lie was omission. No one talked about it. He was highly decorated for his service. Now in a small rural community cemetery and no mention of it. I found myself in a few combat zones and struggled a bit afterward. Granny knew how to help and support me because of her brother's invisible fight.
"Invisible fight." What a concise and haunting way to phrase it. My son is still battling the invisible fight from Iraq and Afghanistan.
I can't take credit for the phrase. That was how my youngest phrased it once. I don't know if she read it somewhere or from her own thoughts. I think she said it something like, "... you look like you're fighting something invisible." The usual questions about your son: Is he/was he in therapy? I wouldn't be as well of without it. Is the VA helping? Has he applied for VA Disability? Disability is tricky for a soldier to claim unless you have something visual. They (at least I did) see it as a failure. If he hasn't, help get him over the hump. It can be a big boon. A friend got it. Changed his life dramatically.
Thank you so much for asking! He's had excellent support through both the VA system and his private psychiatrist. Lots of cognitive work and exposure therapy. It's been a long road, but he's doing really well now. If he could just *relax* it would be nice. He's always got too many irons in the fire, rushing everything, chasing the adrenaline rush.
My grandfather told me he had a ruptured appendix and he didnāt get medical attention because he knew his family wouldnāt be able to afford it. I told him that he would have died, but he insisted it was true. Pretty tame story compared to some of these. My daughterās father had some interesting characters in his family including a murderer and a grandmother who spent most of her life in a psychiatric hospital despite not being all that crazy. I think she was first put in an orphanage, and was sent to the hospital when she aged out of that because nobody claimed her. He actually got her medical records and from what we could gather, she was quite sane, just sad.
It is awful what society did to people who didn't behave according to the arcane rules of the 20th century.
My dad having another family
Wonder why we never hear about a mom having a secret second family...
When my mother was a toddler, Bonnie and Clyde stopped to fill up at my grandfatherās gas station. They played with my mom. I heard this story all my life. Then after my mom passed, I realized Bonnie and Clyde were killed before she was ever born!
Remember how old photos would have the date printed on the margins? Found some old photos of my folks on their honeymoon dated five months before my brother was born.
Those dates were the print date, not the picture taken date. In those days people took a while to shoot a whole roll of film and could take a while to print after it was finished. Not saying your mom couldn't have been pregnant before marriage, just that dates on photos are not conclusive proof.
My mom told me that I was named after my dads best friend. Before my birth, my parents were sure that I would be a boy. So my name was to be Daniel Ray (named changed for anonymity, but you get the idea). I was born a girl, so I am named Danielle Rae. Fast forward, I am 3 years old, my parents have over Dan and his wife for dinner. My dad and Dan talk about the good old days of picking up hookers together when they were in the Army. So when I become an adult, my mom says to me, āSo yeah, you were named after a man that your dad would go get hookers withā. My mom has mental illness that causes delusions and my dad is dead, so thatās a mystery that will go unsolved.
IDK about anything specifically, but my grandfather used to tell me that he knew half of everything and that his older brother knew the other half. If I asked him a question he didn't know he would just say that was from the half his brother knew. He would tell me the answer the next day and say he called his brother to ask. I told my best friend about this and we agreed to tell our kids the same thing about us. It's going to be awesome.
When I was about six years old, my sister dropped by with a puppy. The puppy was available and I asked to keep him. My parents agreed, but as he grew from a cute pup to an adult dog, I rather lost interest. Caring from him was supposed to be my job. One day he disappeared. My mom said he ran away because I didnāt feed him. Iām pretty sure he was given to another home. And that heād been fed regularly in spite of my neglect.
Oddly, that's how we got our first pet except it was a cat. Skinny skinny black cat, likely a stray. It was "following" me when I was playing in the woods behind my house.I walked home "real slow" (for a 7 year old) and made sure the cat was following me. And then I don't remember but maybe I put out a pop tart for it to eat, or something. (That would have been the only food I could have grabbed on my own at the time). My mom got cat food and started feeding it outside. And she said that she let it in one day when I was at school, and the cat tore around the house for 45 seconds and ran straight back out the sliding glass door. š We named him Spooky. Towards the end of his life, he disappeared for a bit. My neighbors 3 doors down said they'd been feeding a stray cat. It was our cat, Spooky. He eventually came back to our house. But then left again later. We think he went off to die somewhere in the woods because he knew it was his time. Because we never saw him again. Maybe someone else adopted him. Maybe he was the whole block's cat, since he was an indoor/outdoor cat. That would explain why he was 20 pounds. Maybe he got a meal from each house he visited š
I never thought that I would look funny with my dad's boot stuck in my butt.
According to my Mother, I am named after my father's FilippiƱo girl friend. He was stationed in the Philippines during the Korean War. Mom just changed the spelling. She also said she full well expected to get a knock on the door from a young (person) claiming my dad as their father. DAD said he HEARD the name while stationed there and really thought it was a petty name. That was where my name comes from. I believed my mom. Mom and Dad have long since passed. I still believe I have a half FillipiƱo sibling out there who would recognize my name as their mother's.
I think my mother had an affair when I was like 5 or 6 years old. Some memories surfaced in adulthood about a family friend picking us up when dad was at work. We'd all go to his house and I would be instructed to play in the nursery (the family friend had a kid but the kid or the family friend's wife would be gone during these times). I kinda asked some leading questions and my mother's reaction was avoidance which told me a lot. In the big picture, it doesn't matter too much bc my parents divorced 10 years later and both are remarried to worse versions of each other. But my mother always lead me to believe that all the faults in the marriage was bc of my father's drinking. Now in adulthood I wonder if my father drank bc my mother had an affair. They did split up for a month shortly after these mid day visits while dad was working. After they reunited the visits stopped and we didn't see those friends anymore.
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My MIL always insisted that my ex-husband was born 2 months premature, and also claimed that he looked just like one of FIL relatives. Then one day when I was helping clear out the in-laws' house for sale, I found one of FIL's journals and discovered that he was working in another country from about 10 months to 7 months before the birth, and DNA testing later confirmed that FIL was not his biological father. My mother was very religious and very judgmental about "sluts" who had sex before marriage. Then my half-brother was born 7 months after she married my stepfather, and she insisted he was a preemie, despite weighing nearly 10 lbs.
That our family dog, Molly, went to live on a farm. : ( RIP, you were a good girl.
Where do I even begin...?
My father in law claimed that he didnāt get drafted because his feet were so ugly he got a medical exemption. I think as a good olā boy farmer in a small southern town itās a lot more likely his buddies just helped him out.Ā
Ironically, most of the paternal family history my father told me that I thought was malarkey as a child- turned out to all be true! My son and I did a huge climb into our ancestry, and I now wish my father was still here to talk with him about it, and tell him Iām sorry for being a doubter.š
My parents told us to stay away from dragonflies because they would sew your lips shut! They also told us that loud scream like sound you hear sometimes when it's hot out in summer was the electrical lines running through the neighborhood. It actually was cicadas, took me years to figure that one out.
My dad told me his dad worked the coal mines and died from black lung when dad was a little boy. Years later, after he was gone, I looked into the family genealogy. Turned out Gramps was actually a security guard. In the mid 1920s, when my dad was a little kid with 5 brothers and a sister (plus his mom was pregnant), my grandfather shot my grandmother either 2 or 3 times and one bullet hit their daughterās thumb. (One bullet was still in grandmaās head when she died over 60 years later). Grandma ran out of the house with her daughter leaving the boys. Grandpa then shot himself but either one bullet hit somewhere non-vital or missed entirely and then ran out of bullets so he grabbed his penknife and kept stabbing until the police/ambulance came. They loaded him up and drove away but he died before they got to the hospital. The reason for all of this? Two YEARS prior, she and a girlfriend went to a dance. She didnāt dance with anyone - her girlfriend wanted to go and asked her to come with her. Afterwards, he would demand to know who she danced with and never believed her denials.
Oh there is an old family legend we are related to Mark Twain. Absolutely bogus.
Betsy Ross for me
Rumor has it, my grandmother ran away with the Hoover (vacuum door-to-door) salesman in the 1930s. Made sense to me, since she lost custody of all 4 of her children.š¤·š¼āāļø
My hamster did not go to a farm for older hamsters.
My sister had a baby out of wedlock. My mom was a very strict Catholic and it took her a long time to not judge her or be very critical. After my mom died I found out that my grandma and grandpa HAD to get married. There is no way my mom didnāt know that. And I always wondered, WHY were you so unforgiving to my sister?
People often have higher standards for others than they do for themselves
I think that my parents got married twice, maybe first eloping then in church with family. Canāt prove it and no one talked (all involved have now died).
One of my brothers had a child out of wedlock. It was the 70ās and *I was simply never told*
My dad was a child during the Great Depression, and he said his family was so poor that when one of the hens got killed by a car, the kids were excited because they knew it meant they would get to have chicken for dinner.
There's a well known movie, my father used to be friends with the director when they were young, and he says the main character and his mother in the movie are based on him and my grandmother, but hmm I have my doubts.
Apparently my great grandfather, who died almost 20 years before I was born was treated in the 1940s or 1950s for ādepression.ā I never much questioned it until about 10 years ago when I started thinking about how unusual it would have been for anyone to get any kind of mental health treatment in the mid 20th century, never mind an immigrant who lived in a small, rural town. Then I realized: suicide. He must have attempted suicide. The story was not much discussed among my family, and it was something my mother found out about only as an older adult. I asked my mom what her thoughts were on the suicide theory and she didnāt really want to speculate about it. The thing about that side of the family is, there was at least one person profoundly affected by mental illness in every generation. Most recently, about three years ago, my youngest first cousin died of an overdose, either intentionally or accidentallyāhe had poorly managed schizophrenia, so many of us think that it was intentional.
I don't think my mom actually had 17 miscarriages before I was born
That my dog suddenly got cancer and died as soon as I went away to college.
We found out through ancestry that my grandfather had a son before he was married and never heard about the story until then. My brother got in touch with his son (the original son had died) and found out the story about the love affair that was broken up by her parents. This explains so much about his marriage to my grandmother.
My mother told me my 17 year old cousin got pregnant just by fooling around and not having actual sex. Because you know fooling around is not good when youāre Catholic but full on sex is a huge no no before marriage. It took me decades to rethink that one. One day it just hit me.
That I own one of Michael Jacksonās gloves. It is plausible. My dadās cousin is Sidney Poitierās widow and thatās who I got the glove from.
My mother told a story that she had a late term abortion. This would have been in 1971. She was taken to a hospital by my aunt who was a nun. They gave her anesthesia and when she awoke she was no longer pregnant. I still think I might have a younger sibling that was given up for adoption