What three things do most people In your life now not know about you?

[Embelline]

I’m talking about friends rather than close family, DH etc.
friend and I were just talking about all the little quirks people have and the interesting experiences in their past which they might not share now because they don’t think about them or they just wouldn’t come up (or they might not want to!)

I didn’t think I really had any but actually:

1. I published three erotic fiction books when I was younger (cannot bring myself to read them now I think I’d die of embarrassment)

2. I can’t point my toes or scrunch my toes as I broke them without realising doing ballet and they knitted together incorrectly. I don’t wear certain styles of sandals as they are a bit mishapen because of this.

3. I lost my virginity to someone who is now very well known but obviously wasn’t then

there’s probably an awful lot more but my brain is blank. Curious to see other peoples - not fishing for secrets, just things that don’t really come up in conversation!

That I'm a widow.

I was homeless when I was 18.
I had an abusive upbringing.

Sillysausages I feel for you. One of my adult dc walked away. At a time when our relationship had never been better (imo) . Sadly they were old enough to make their own choices. Doesn't stop me worrying about them.

Thanks @Embelline My house in the countryside is lovely to look at but it is so very cold! It's a constant battle against mould and I spend a lot of time in the car ferrying my kids around. I also miss having neighbours as my old ones were just lovely. I reckon a couple of years and Ill be back in town!

I was in a band that had a reasonable following.

I was having a lovely time with DP underneath the stage whilst a big name was live on TV performing their set above us.

That I barely make it through the day because my head is a complete explosion of thoughts, ideas, random bits of songs and swings from excitement to boredom to abject terror every five minutes.

@Nodney I'm emetephobic too and didn't used to tell anyone because I thought it was embarrassing. Now I do tell people in a brief, matter of fact way and have been pleasantly surprised by the response. I find it reassuring to know they wouldn't be surprised if I freaked out and ran away if someone was sick in my vicinity.

@Pip1402 I have always told medical professionals when I was having my girls and have always found them to be 100% great about it. But no one else

I have some truly revolting personal habits.

I console myself that most other people do, too.

We're all just chimps in underwear.

I lost my school coat and stole a similar one that had been hanging around the IT rooms for weeks because my mum was really cross with me. I thought about writing to the headmaster in shame all the time for about a year.

I've never had proper sex and never orgasmed - I had a couple of aborted fumbles at uni and nothing since, it just hasn't happened (am almost 40).

I got fired from Wetherspoons when I was 20 for not turning up to shifts and consequently barred for life, which is of course entirely unenforceable and pretty funny.

I'm always extremely horny and a compulsive masturbator with some kind of sex addiction.

Another closet emmetophobe here but a few people do know due to circumstances
I have a good friend that I really don't like but won't break ties as she would be devastated .
Until this year I was bullied at work for over 20 years . She left before she was sacked

I was raped at 16 by a man who dragged me into his car as I was walking home alone from my workplace (7pm and dark.) Dumped me 2 miles from home. I never told a soul and still carry it with me.

I was a session singer in the 1980s.

I had sex with a woman once. (I'm female too.)

That I was a well known model and a L’Oréal face throughout the 90s.
That my ex husband is in prison.
That I still struggle with my brother’s past behaviour as an addict (he’s recovered now but that shit stains).

I was a constant truant in
My teens. I now have a Phd so no one would ever think I'd struggled so much in school.

Hospitalised for anorexia several times also in my teens. I'm totally well with regards to food struggles now.

I'm also a millionaire but live in a very modest house and drive an old crap car

I'm a 'missing person' went missing for my safety many years ago and never looked back. I'm still being looked for from time to time.

Currently have cancer and considering marrying my ex just so my kids can have someone stable if something happens to me. I don't love him.

I used to work in an art related industry now I have a sideline in drawing 'erotic' drawings for (generally) men, who clearly just get off on talking about it and having me look at photos of their dicks. But it pays well so I'm happy to oblige.

One thing no one knows, not family or friends. Just you people on an anonymous internet site.

I'm sick of being alone. I've been out of the house three times in the last four months.

because of my ill health and frailty, I have to be "taken out" rather than being able to go out of my own volition.

I feel embarrassed by this and I'm reluctant to put friends and family under any pressure, even by asking them to take me out.

So, day after day, I sit in my chair and potter about on the internet, getting more and more fed up.

I previously had, at the very least, a disordered relationship with food.

I am getting much more feminist the older I get, but professionally I choose not to show a hint of it.

I am bored with maintaining relationships with in-laws

@Mumsnutt never have I read such a brilliant description of the human race. I am delighted with it and am going to steal it and claim it as my own.

I feel like we need a disgusting habits thread now haha

Many, many one-night stands in my late teens up until age 27 when I met my partner (I'm talking more than 150). A lot of these encounters I was too drunk to consent to and only know of a lot of them after waking up in strange houses/beds😐

I used to steal from fellow pupils at college😔

I have debilitating OCD and it takes me over 30 minutes to do my checks each morning before I leave for work😟

Some of these are heartbreaking.

@user1471453601 I'm sorry you feel like this I bet your friends and family wouldn't see you as a burden at all but I can understand the feeling entirely.

@SecretsIWouldNeverTell I have no words. What a hideous, traumatic event to carry with you all this time. I'm so so sorry it happened to you and you felt you could never tell. What an absolute monster, I doubt you ever fully recover from something like that but I hope you've managed to move past it (hopefully that doesn't sound like I'm minimising).

As people are sharing some serious things and mine were more lighthearted, here's my biggie:

I was in love with my (male) best friend for ages, only I didn't realise it until earlier this year when we actually got together after I broke up with my DH last year. I realised it fully when best friend and I broke up..and now our friendship is forever broken. And I'm now trying to make things work with DH for DS...

Nobody knows how I really feel about him, not even him, because I realised after we had broken up.

I even have a thread on it somewhere here, where I merrily popped back on to announce what a mistake it was lol etc, even though I was absolutely heartbroken by the break up with friend.

The other thing about me is I have this unerring need to save face...

That I have autism

That I was a prolific fanfic writer

That I have £10 to my name. That's an odd one to explain but most of my friends are comfortably off, as is my family. They'd be shocked if they knew how little money I actually have to live on.

That I have a criminal record.

That I used to be on TV a lot.

That I'm suffering from psychosis.

1. I was bulimic for about 13 years and no one noticed

2. I do a tough sport and work in an aggressive environment but on weekends I dress up as different sinewy characters and get paid to go to children's parties and sing. No one knows I can sing apart from my husband

3. I was a magicians assistant to pay my way through uni and even my uni friends thought I was working in a call centre

4. I have well hidden tattoos

5. I used to prank phone call people I didn't like/had an argument with when I was much to old to be doing so

Most people (including family)don’t know that I am neurodiverse and that I have spent most of my life masking in front of them. They don’t know that u run up and down the room when I am bored as i can’t sit still, they don’t know that I hate family events or socialising with NT people but they probably do think I am selfish, awkward and slightly odd.

I have a couple close friends that I don’t mask around.

I feel like my family think I am a totally different person to what I really am.

That I lost a child
That I sent someone down for a decade
That I live in a mansion (not my own) and am as poor as fuck,

People see what they want to see. People who don't know me well are jealous. If only they knew. Although I'm glad they don't. Nothing worse than being defined by tragedy.