Many people live their lives carrying a burdensome secret. While there are those who would take these skeletons to their graves, a few reveal them on their deathbeds, either to a family member or a medical professional. 

These doctors and nurses become bearers of these confessions, and some are sharing them online through various Quora threads. You’ll find stories about hidden pregnancies, animal cruelty, and affairs with a spouse’s sibling. 

Some of these can take a dark turn, so proceed with caution. These are compelling reads, nonetheless, so you might be here for a while.

#1

I had a patient, 96yo woman. She had one son who always looked after her, came to see her and took care of her. She would tell me stories about her life, WWII, and her family. One day she confessed that her son is not really her son and actually is her nephew. She couldn’t have kids and her sister gave him away to her. She said he doesn’t know and should never know. Felt weird to know this.

Image credits: Ila Na

#2

I was a medic in Vietnam and a badly wounded guy was brought into the ER via medevac. He knew that he was going to die and asked if he was going to hell for k*lling people that were civilians. He started to give me details but the morphine put him out. He died peacefully maybe 5 minutes later.

Image credits: Lee Weidner

#3

As a nurse, I've been with many right as they pass. The confession came from a 102 year old lady. She was so nice, polite, and would never ask for a thing. Even when sick, she wouldn't complain. She out lived her children and husband, the rest of the family lived across the country. I sat with her for a few minutes after giving her pain medication. She stated “I love the Lord but I'm not going to see him". I told her that she has a spot in heaven waiting for her. She still said “No”.

Turns out that she got pregnant at 17, unmarried, and had a boy she didn't even know well. Which would have been a big deal back then. She hid her pregnancy and gave birth in the family barn. Scared and knowing that if her family found out about any of this she would be kicked out and labeled. She wrapped up the baby and placed it in a pond on the family farm.

I though my heart stopped when she told me her story. Soon, she fell asleep and passed about an hour later.

Image credits: Brittany Poplin

#4

I was working in a nursing home some years ago, and we had the nicest gentleman there. I mean he was the best patient we or any nurse could ask for. So, after get pneumonia and declining he had only days to live, he asked me if he could tell me something that he never told anyone. Of course I agreed and was happy to hear whatever he had to say.

Well he proceeded to tell me that his grandfather s*xually abused his little sister and his grandmother knew about it and protected his grandfather, so he put poison in their food when they had to stay there for the night. The next morning they both were dead. No autopsy was performed and everyone assumed they had passed from old age. He smiled at me and said, “It was my job to protect her.” I just simply smiled and told him he was now my favorite person, moments later he passed on. I will never forget him.

Image credits: Lynda Parisi

#5

Yes, I was once in the hospital when I was around 14 years old, there was a man in the ER on a gurney as the ER was 25 beds and FULL! he was very ill and said “I don’t know if I’m gonna make it kid, but I once stole a pair of trainers, I never told the store but it was very expensive” it was not much of a confession but thought I would share.

Image credits: Aaron MED

#6

I have a gun, It is loaded, I know how to use it, I am going home to k*ll my husband. WWWhyy are you telling me this please. ???

I need you to stop me.

Image credits: Mark Johnson

#7

Patient (in late 50s) made a confession to me that I was to tell his wife. Seems she was not the only mother to his children. He told me where he kept the paperwork spelling out his numerous transgressions. Ironically his wife was in the room. Not sure if he knew, forgot, or just did not know she was there. Another patient made a confession to her daughter (but wanted me in the room) that her late husband ‘Bill’ was not her real father. And ‘Bill’ had not known either.

Image credits: Mike Hughes

#8

I was a resident in psychiatry, and I was doing a rotation on a 'detox' unit in a general community hospital. All the patients were sad, but one man struck me as different. He was in his mid-fifties and had a kind face, polite manner, and sweet disposition. I liked him a lot, and we hit it off. I spent a lot of time talking to him about his life and life in general. My month-long rotation was ending, and one question remained: What was this kind man's secret? What was 'the core' of this man's alcohol dependence? So, I asked him.

He hesitated, looked out the window, and began to speak: 'When I was younger, I had a terrible temper. I mostly kept it under control, but it would come out once in a while. I met a woman, and she was beautiful in every way, inside and out. We got married, and I found a great job. We bought a nice house, and life seemed too good to be true.

My wife had a baby, and he was a healthy boy. He was mature for his age, and we lived out in the country. We let him play outside by himself once he turned four years old, and he was fine. He never left the yard, and we never worried.

One day, my wife and I argued about something, and I lost it. To cool off, I jumped in the car, put the transmission in reverse, and stomped on the pedal.

I hit something in the driveway — hard.

I stopped, sick to my stomach, and went to look.

My son was dead in the driveway.

Doctor, I went down to the bar after the funeral — it's got to be thirty years. I got terribly drunk that day and have been drunk since. I'm detoxing because I'm sick, but I know as soon as I get discharged, I'm going directly to the bar and get drunk again.'

I had no words, of course. I left at the end of the day and when I got home, I hugged and kissed my children with more intensity than they could understand.

Image credits: Michael A.

#9

I have a friend who works as a nurse and she told me a lady on her deathbed admitted to her that her husband wasn't the father of their only child. Don't know what happened next, since she didn't tell me if she let the husband know or not. It makes you wonder, though...

Image credits: tnerrot

#10

Not really a deathbed confession, but there was one that was close enough for me to equate it with that.

I was admitting a man to hospice once who was terminal with AIDS.

For some reason he developed a conscience and decided that his ex wife should be informed that she might be infected with the virus.

Image credits: Jamie Dhanak

#11

When I was in school I was shadowing an ICU nurse and we were taking care of an elderly woman dying of brain cancer. One day when her family went home for the night and we were getting her ready for bed she randomly blurts out “should I tell him they’re not his.”

She was referring to her children and husband who had just left. She elaborated and told us that their two children are both another man’s! And not just any man’s, but her husbands childhood best friend!!! What made this even crazier was that her children were probably 50 years old! I have no idea how this had stayed a secret for so long.

Fast forward to the next morning and I see an unfamiliar older gentleman in her room. Before I said anything to anyone the nurse I was shadowing whispers to me that that is the childhood best friend! I don’t know whether or not they were still messing around but I don’t think I have ever seen a secret 50-year-old love triangle.

We told her that she should not tell the husband and children. If it’s been a secret this long, there’s no point to tell them on your deathbed. But were we right for that? What would you have told her?

Image credits: Nilfie Alvarado

#12

Fred was a widower in his late seventies when he became my patient. A slender build, small mustache and a full head of white hair complemented his avuncular smile. He was always charming and thoughtful of my staff. He liked to flirt with my employees, even bringing them flowers or candy on Valentine’s Day. He was not offensive, if anything he was a classic Southern gentleman. He spent most of his day time at the Senior Center, playing cards and enjoying the hot lunches and social contact. He was not much of a complainer, but I noted signs of alcoholic liver disease on routine blood tests. I started suggesting he cut down on his alcohol intake and work toward abstinence. After a few such conversations he confided in me.

“Doc, I hear what you’re saying about my drinking, but I have to tell you it’s something I’ve done my entire adult life and have no desire to stop now. I was a drinker back when I was in my twenties and Prohibition was the law. My first paying job was running moonshine in the back of my truck on back roads in Georgia in the wee hours of the night. Liquor almost killed me then.”

“ I was pulled over by a cop on one of my midnight runs and he demanded I open up the back of the truck to show him what I was carrying. I knew I was in big trouble if he found the booze and also in big trouble if I didn’t deliver it. I made like I was reaching for the key for the padlock and shot him with my handgun. He died instantly. I hid the body and high-tailed it out of there. They never figured out who killed him.”

“It’s been over 50 years since it happened and you’re the first person I ever told. I guess I just wanted to get it off my chest.”

I was speechless. I don’t remember what I said to him, but recall thinking later that he trusted me enough to finally tell someone he was a murderer.

Image credits: John Weeks

#13

I have heard a good many. I will let you decide.

I was once told by a pr*stitute that she was HIV positive and that she didn’t tell any of her clients. She needed the money to support herself and she could not imagine any other way to live besides exchanging s*x for money. She’s told me that she “almost always” made her clients use condoms. But, sometimes she admitted that if it was someone that treated her badly she might agree to unprotected sex.

I have been told by patients that they intend to leave the emergency department and k*ll someone. One of these patients confessed to me that they had been forced to have s*x with a family member and that they were going to k*ll them the next time it happened. I was also told by another patient who admitted she had been raped that she was going to k*ll her r*pist.

I have been told by a number of patients with terminal diseases that they intended to k*ll themselves. They felt powerless and that the end was certain. What control they had left they wanted to use to dictate the time and manner of death. Some of them asked me for my help. Others wanted my understanding or blessing.

There a lot of, LOT of other “truths” that have been shared with me that you might consider “dangerous”. My truth about each of these I have shared today is that I could empathize with and understand the rationale for each of them.

Image credits: Robert Frantz

#14

Well, I wasn’t a doctor or nurse but I was a nurse's aide at a hospital before I was injured on the job. I remember often having to sit one on one with certain people whether they were on suicide watch, coming down off of drugs, had mental health issues, or had dementia. I remember sitting with this one old woman who had dementia and she was in there for a UTI. She was the creepiest one I ever sat with.

She kept telling me that she burned a couple of her children alive because her husband had been cheating on her. Only one kid made it out alive. At first, I didn’t believe her because I know dementia screws with one’s mind but after talking with one of the nurses I found out that there was a fire that k*lled a few of her children and only child did live and that was her son.

I also found out that her son moved all the way to the other side of the country just to get away from her and had her put away. He never visited her and wanted nothing to do with her. Talk about freaking scary. That was the one part about my job that I hated the most.

Image credits: Destiny Pifer

#15

And old lady I treated at the ER years ago was in between heart attacks when she admitted to me she had k*lled someone. She never said who, and died about 3 hours later.

But she just told me and said she needed to tell someone because she had held it in her whole life.

She looked really sweet it was kind of surprising.

Image credits: MTL_Alex

#16

I can think of two contenders.

One was a young man who told me that while driving he felt the urge to ram other drivers who had annoyed him. I think he had not always resisted the urge.

The other was an older man, a white immigrant to the UK, who had difficult psychiatry. It emerged he had been a torturer, I think likely an executioner, in a civil war many years ago.

Image credits: Giles Elrington

#17

Many, many years ago I worked as a nurse in my hometown before moving to NYC. An older male patient was dying. He had 2 sisters who devoted their lives to him. They sisters were in their 60s & 70s. They hovered over him when they were at the hospital & he was annoyed with them. He had bloody diarrhea and said after a bout of it ““I was in WW2. I had dysentery. It was just like this. I was never in combat, but got sick in the Pacific on one of the islands. Then I came home & my father died & I took over the family business. I thought I was a big man because I was in the war & I ran a business. My sisters depended on me. I *made* them dependent on me. They waited on me hand & foot. They cooked & cleaned for me. I held the purse strings. I made them afraid. They didn’t date because I didn’t want them to. They never married. They took care of me & now I’m dying. I ruined their lives. They should’ve gotten married & had children & grandchildren. Now they’ll have nothing. They won’t have me. I sold the business & there was hardly any money left in it. They’re not going to know what to do.”

I said, ““You’d better tell them right now, mister. You better tell them where all the papers are, the bank account, the deed to the house, the mortgage, any stocks or bonds. Call your lawyer up & tell him to get them in his office so he can let them know where they’re at and what’s going to happen to them. This is your last chance. None of you gets to live your life over again, so you’d better try your best to make *something* better.”

When I walked past his room later, I heard him talking to his lawyer. I went home & was off for 3 days. He died while I was gone. I don’t know whatever happened to his sisters.

#18

Over 20 years ago, I was with an 83 year old rather sweet grandma who was dying. There were many cats in a certain neighborhood that were being poisened by antifreeze. The local newspaper covered the item for days. “Granny”, on the last day of her life confessed to the cat k*llings. Her reason: the cats were k*lling the birds she was feeding in her back yard! Since I worked as a counselor with the city police department, I let them know that I think the cat problem was solved. Sure enough, it ceased as the person was deceased.

Image credits: Thomas Bye

#19

I've had a few. No major crimes or anything. Just people expressing regret for what was left undone or things they felt they did wrong. I did have one patient who told me that she had been a terrible mother and she knew her kids would never forgive her. She just wanted them to be okay. Now, I had an awful mother. Bad enough that I pray fervently that I'm never charged with management of her care because I will not care for her in any way other than to sign consents for a hospice I don't work for and tell them to call me when she dies so I can have her cremated. She doesn't know where I live, my phone number, or have any known way to contact me. Still though, I wanted to help ease her mind and asked if she knew where they were or had their phone numbers or addresses. She did, but didn't want to call them because she knew they would think that she was being manipulative. I suggested that she call them anyway, just to say that she was sorry and that she wished she had done more for them. I pointed out that they would still grieve on some level when she died, but having the courage to offer her sincere apologies for what she did wrong and her best wishes for their future may help them cope. Every last one of her kids came to visit and talk, and we even arranged for our chaplain to mediate a family discussion. She took full responsibility for her past actions and ended up helping them heal a lot of old wounds. She had a very good death and her adult children were all there for it.

Answering anonymously to prevent anyone who might have been involved from identifying the patient or her family.

#20

Long ago, I worked in home health, had a gentleman in his late 90’s. He was dying from lung cancer. On what turned out to be my last visit, he asked to sit and talk for a few minutes.

He said, “when I was 12 I lived with my family in Mississippi. One night my father told me a young black, (his words), had grabbed my older sister in a bad way. He took me to a very rural area, had me get out of the truck and showed me the dead body. He then handed me a shovel and made me help him dig a big hole for the body. He never told me how he had killed him or anything, and swore me to secrecy. I have asked God for forgiveness, but I guess I’m going to hell.”

I was pretty stunned and didn’t actually know what to say, so I said I would say a prayer him and the young victim. I called a friend who was a policemen and asked him who I should report this to, he said he would check and call me back.

However, I was notified the next morning the patient had died, so when I talked to my friend again, he said just drop it, it happened over 80 years ago and he is dead. Still, I think about this every so often….

#21

One guy was in after a heart attack. He thought for sure he was going to die in the next few days. He wanted one of our security officers to come talk to him. When the officer arrived the patient wanted me to stay in the room as a witness. Seems about 10 years back (about 25 now) he k*lled a guy and buried him. Our officer had the police come to see the patient who then repeated what told us before. Told them how he k*lled him and where he was buried. That patient survived to stand trial.

Second patient was a female in after a bad car accident that was dying. She confessed to her husband while I was in the room that she had been having an affair with two other guys- one was his brother.

Image credits: Mike Hughes

#22

A patient ,just released from jail arrived complaining of a swollen and painful penis. While incarcerated in jail the inmate (now patient) had another inmate surgically implant a heart shaped piece of a domino into the head of his p*nis. This was to be used as a sort of French Tickler while having s*x. His penis was red and swollen . The inmate that placed the implant was supposed to be the most experienced inmate to perform that procedure in the Bexar County Jail. While waiting for the Doctor the patient worked the implant out of his own p*nis. He left before seeing the doctor and refused further treatment.

Image credits: Herbert Forbes

#23

It was during my paediatrics rotation, I was taking history from a parent regarding their sons medical condition. The child had jaundice which could not be explained so I suspected a genetic condition and inquired further.

From the history I learned that the child had a younger brother, alive and well but, he also had two elder sisters who died even before reaching the age of one.

So I started inquiring about the cause of death of the two sisters but the father was reluctant to answer. So I tried to push him to answer by telling him that his son could die if he did not tell me the circumstances of his daughters deaths.

Suddenly his eyes started swelling with tears and told me his daughters did not die from a medical cause but were k*lled .He told me that his mother and father had k*lled his daughters by smothering them in their sleep.

Female infanticide is common where I come from but it was first time someone had admitted it to me. I was taken aback and couldn't comprehend how a father could stand by when his offspring were k*lled but sadly this is the reality of our society.

Image credits: Anonymous

#24

When you work in a developing country, you hear all sorts of things. You also have to come up with custom-made solutions.

When I was doing my housemanship in Nigeria, we were just beginning to see cases of AIDS being admitted.

So when she was being discharged, this lady with HIV/AIDS, was being educated during the ward round. The consultant was trying to educate her on how to prevent the spread of the disease of spread. To our shock, she says, “Was it not someone that gave it to me? I plan to spread it around,” spoken in pidgin English. The woman was not well educated.

We walked away and the consultant called over the ward sister and told her to start a conversation with that patient and let it slip that if she has unprotected sex with another person with HIV, her own HIV will become stronger and she will die sooner.

Taking the stupidity of that patient, we are sure she bought it.

#25

A young girl, her mom and her boyfriend entered the consultation room. The girl had blisters in the genital area, and did not feel well. She had a difficult time peeing, too.

It was a mystery as to what the boyfriend was doing there — especially taken that her mom was also present. And that the medical symptoms were private by all means.

A quick investigation made my girlfriend conclude that the blisters and the general disease pattern were obvious signs of genital herpes — an STD. All this while mom and boyfriend were watching every step of the explicit medical examination. Weird, again.

Then the boyfriend caught my girlfriend’s eye. He had small blisters as well, near and on his lips. My girlfriend asked the mom to leave, but by no means the young couple found this necessary. He also had genital herpes, and my girlfriend asked him if he had any idea as to how he acquired the blisters (since he had been the girl’s first intimate contact).

He immediately responded that this might be a consequence of him “having unprotected intercourse with working girls.” He was sixteen, and the girl was fourteen.

And mom did not so much as blink an eye.

Image credits: Thomas Cayne

#26

A confession as in “ I gunned down 4 people in the 1950’s.” No, “ I cheated on my Husband- no

More confession like stuff were more on the topic of They had wished they had done more with their life- they wish they would have taken a chance with a job or a relationship or whatever. They made a bucket list but stuffed it into a draw.

I guess the closest thing as an actual confession was a guy who married his Wife and The Korean war happened and he went in. So right away they were apart. He was home for one year and I forget what illness happened but the Wife who he barely knew became dependent

on him 24/7. She was confined to a wheelchair, had a catheter, became morbidly obese and pretty much not the same Girl he met 9 months before he got called to the war. He was miserable. I was helping him get her in their car one day and this guy was about 5′5 and weighed 120 pounds. We both had to strain to get her into the car and once he closed the car door- He looked at me and said “Don’t make the same mistake I did.” He drove away. I am assuming he meant live my live- don't be stuck where you don't want to be, take care of yourself first I’m not sure. I do know he was much happier after she died. It sounds terrible to say but that's the truth

#27

“My husband was an arsonist so I divorced him.”

The new patient was very sick and I was rushed to figure out what was wrong with her, so I just wrote down this tidbit of “Social History, ” and moved on to what was essential.

Later I thought about it. As a young doctor I knew that some day I might have as a patient a murderer, a mafioso, a politician or a saint. Everybody goes to the doctor eventually. I had treated ministers, executives, professional athletes, professors, and laundry workers. But this was my first known encounter with a family member of an arsonist.

I had questions I wanted to ask. When your husband is an arsonist, do you ask “How was your day” when he comes home at night after work? How do you get the gasoline stains out of his bluejeans? Do arsonists get paid by the job or are they on salary?

So a few months later when the crisis was over, I asked her, “You once told me your husband was an arsonist. What was that like?”

She said, “Oh, no. He wasn’t a professional arsonist. He just burned down our home for the insurance money. That’s why I divorced him.”