“I stole $8K cash, four bottles of Pappy Van Winkle, and the Nintendo Switch from my ex the night he went to jail...”

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Warning: This post mentions domestic violence, eating disorders, animal death, and loss.

"My grandad was an incredible man. He must have known my mother wasn't his child, but when he was widowed aged 35 (my mother was 10 😢) he raised her alone and never looked at another woman. He fought in WWII but refused to speak about it beyond which countries he went to. He worked hard, and everything he did was for his family. He died in 2013, aged 92."

"That chain of events caused a lot of friction between my mother and me. I've never told her the circumstances of my leaving, as I don't think she could handle it. She knew he wasn't an angel, but I don't think she quite understood how far gone he was. It took me a long time to reconcile the loving brother I grew up with when I was younger and who he eventually turned into. To my mind, my brother died long before he ever shot himself.

I didn't finish my degree and had regretted it for a long time. It had been a real limiting factor in my career, as I would continually see fools promoted ahead of me because they had that piece of paper, and I didn't. I finally graduated last year (in my mid-40s) and am pursuing my master's now (and eventually PhD). I graduated top of my class in both majors I pursued and am now at a top university. 

I don't think about him that much anymore. I don't hate him, and I don't think I love him anymore. He was just that one person who ended up fucking me over, and he's gone now."

"I couldn't help any longer, and my partner was even less equipped to help than I was. Despite trying to only lift with my legs while another person was trying to wedge a piece of carpet under one wheel at a time to get him unstuck, it really doesn't matter when everything suddenly shifts, and you're unexpectedly holding onto all that weight by yourself to keep him from sliding sideways (or falling over, it was a toss up between the two) down a short incline, and your back says 'Nope. I'm out.'

I'm doing okay, waiting on surgery, and have become a master at saying, 'I'm done. I'm going to go lie down now,' when my back says I've been on my feet long enough for one day."

"As years have gone by, it's been easier to stomach and just let it be what it is, even being this huge secret. My brother and I grew up in a broken home with young parents who didn't know who they were or what they wanted long-term when we showed up. We were, in a lot of ways, along for the ride.

For context, they were divorced when I was born, and the secret came along when I was 10 to 11, and my brother was 12 to 13.

I've admittedly been a horrible brother and son for wanting to out this secret in anger at times in our lives during family spats/drama, but I've held it in and will die with it now that it's so far in the past.

The most important part of it has always been that love is there between us all, even if it was complicated, and we each turned out to be different people walking very different paths. I consider myself lucky in this respect."

"The real father told me, laughing (before the deaths)."

"That random moment gave me a ridiculous amount of peace in the moments where it was very tough to deal with the grief of losing him. I can't ever tell my wife that I had that moment as my last with him, because she openly talks about how sad she is that she can't remember the last moment she had with him."

"I dimmed her lights and moved on. I found out the next day that she didn't live through the night. I can't tell anyone because that's super fucking sad."

"He’s actually six years sober now with a wife and kid, and we are rebuilding. Love him at arm's length. ❣️"

"They saved his body on the floor in case my brother and I wanted to say goodbye. My brother didn't come, but I did (they live across the street; I went and changed into appropriate clothes first), and I just lay there crying, holding him for what felt like forever in front of everyone. A few months later, I ended up working at that very same strip club. It's been seven years, and I've since moved clubs, but sometimes, I wonder if all of this has been me repeating that night with a different outcome. I think about it a lot, and about how guilty I feel for missing our last walk and having a good night. Anyways, I've never told anyone that story. I get asked why I strip a lot, and I just say, 'Because I want to,' but really, I think it's got a lot to do with that being the last place I was. IDK."

"I did, and he gave an amazing talk accounting his life, the place he'd help build, and all the people who helped make it possible. It was incredible. Not long after that, he sadly passed away. And not long after that, I was working fast to get another task done, and I carelessly deleted the video of his last talk. His family, who attended the speech, asked me to share the footage with them. I lied and told them the SD card was corrupted."

Note: Some responses have been edited for length/clarity.