Image by Roberta Gentry.

Once again, listeners divulge their deepest and darkest secrets. Original sound design by Steven Jackson and Phil Dmochowski with contributions from Chino Amobi.

To leave your own secrets on a future secrets show, call +1 (641) 715-3900, then dial 55403#.

TRANSCRIPT

The Secrets Hotline, Vol. IV

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Caller 1: This is for the Secrets Hotline.

Caller 2: Hey, you’ve reached Love + Radio listener live.

Caller 3: I’ve never shared this with anyone.

Caller 2: And –

Caller 4: I’d like to remain anonymous.

Caller 2: A secret.

Caller 4: Secret

Caller 6: Desire.

Caller 4: Make it real.

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Caller 7: My parents got divorced when I was really young and I used to go to stay with my dad on the weekend. And he had this girlfriend that my sister and I hated. She was always like getting into the fights with people. And she’d yell at us for like weird little things, like if we were eating our cereal too loud in a morning. And she had this really demean way of talking to my sister and I, like we were babies, and we really didn’t like her. My dad used to be gone a lot and I developed this habit of snooping around his room when he’d leave. And in his top dresser drawer, there was this picture he had of the girlfriend and she was leaning over the bathtub and she was naked.

And so whenever he’d leave, I’d go into his room and I’d look at this picture and one day when he was gone, I snuck into his room to look at the picture. And in the drawer there was a video tape. So I put it in the VCR and it was him and the girlfriend having sex, like every day. And of course I knew I shouldn’t be watching it, but I couldn’t stop. And I kept rewinding it. And I think if it would have been him and my mom, I would have thought it was disgusting. But somehow with this woman who wasn’t my mom, I couldn’t look away from it. And so I’m in his room watching the tape and fast forwarding it and rewinding it. And at some point I hit pause, and the tape started to make this weird noise, so I stopped it and hit eject and as I went to pull the tape out, there was this black ribbon fucking fried machine. The VCR had eaten fucking tape.

And so my stomach dropped. Then I started shaking and it was shaking so bad I could barely pull the tape out. And right as this is happening, it was like something out of a movie, in his window in his room, I saw the headlights. Of the car pulling into the driveway with him and my sister and the girlfriend, and I really have no idea how I did this. I think I must’ve had some kind of super human ability from all the adrenaline, but somehow I was able to yank all the broken tape out of the VCR and wind it back up into the cassette and put the video back in the drawer and close the door to the room, run out and sit on the living room couch with the TV on like I’d been sitting there watching the TV as they were coming in. But yeah. Anyway, a few weeks later after I almost got caught with the tape, I went back in and had a look in the drawer again and it was gone and the picture was gone too.

Caller 8: I guess what I’m calling to talk about is, I hate children and the concept of motherhood a lot. It makes me very sad to imagine a future where I’m a mother. I feel like there’s no way that I could be both a mother and someone who loves my job and I would only be able to do half of each. It makes me sick, the concept of being a mother, of being pregnant especially or having a baby at my breasts makes me want to throw up and at same time, I’m also worried that I’m somehow going to regret it when I’m older, but fuck the status quo, of having to have a baby to be happy. I hate that. That is the test of womanhood. I hate it so much. I hope it dies.

Hey, I just left a message about motherhood and I realized how angry and sad I was about it and that is how I feel. But I just also want to say that we obviously need mothers in order for the world to go round and I respect mothers. I can’t understand there being a non-selfish reason for having a child, especially when there’s so many people on earth and there’s so many children that need to be adopted. I hope that gives a bit more context. Thanks.

Caller 9: When I was in pre-school, I had three best friends, and we were two girls and two guys and we did some pretty fucked up shit when we went outside, during our recess time. So we would get a sand bucket and put a little bit of sand in it, collect caterpillars and put the caterpillars on top of the sand and then fill the rest of the bucket up with a little bit more sand and then we would mush them with rocks or sharp sticks. And then other times we would go behind the small house, that might’ve actually been a shed at the very back of our playgrounds.

Caller 4: Make it real.

Caller 10: It was the summer after college, living with my parents and I kept stealing hundreds of dollars, from my dad, from his wallet. My dad is a dentist. He owns his own practice and the end of the summer he realized he had $5,000 missing from him and thought it was one of his employees and he fired her and I never told anyone that it was actually me. Thank you.

Caller 11: Hi, my name is (beep), I am transgender and I chose my name. I used to be perceived as a woman and life was extremely difficult. I was dominant as a woman. I was direct to the point as a woman and no one seemed to care or listen. And when I started to transition, when I began testosterone, I began to be listened to and I began to be perceived by the world as someone who mattered, which is extremely fucked up in my opinion. I’m a little [inaudible] and that’s why I’m calling, of course. I have the exceptional privilege of having experienced both genders in one lifetime which is just in pain. It’s very daunting to realize that you don’t matter if you’re a woman. I know that might be very different to different people but it’s somewhat true. That’s so sad. So tragic. I guess that’s my secret, that as a 17 year old, sorry, as an 18 year old transgender person, I’ve come to realize that I am not just a human being, I am a gender. Yeah, I guess. I guess that’s my secret. Oh wow. My heart’s racing. Just keep me anonymous.

Caller 12: I have a lot of secrets, but I think the one that…

Caller 13: Hi, I’m calling…

Caller 12: I think the one that I think about most, that I take some credit for the death of my daughter’s biological father. He was abusive and at first it was directed towards me, but even when our daughter was an infant, he turned on her and when he hurt her, I almost killed him in his sleep. And then I was terrified that I wouldn’t be with her if I was caught for that. So I remember cursing him and willing that he would die. And he died of a grand mal seizure within two years of that incident. I think the biggest part of my secret is that, instead of feeling guilty, I feel triumphant. I feel a sense of triumph that he’s not in her life.

Caller 14: So I am in the pickup line right now, to get my kid to elementary school.

Caller 15: I am a 26 year old, dating a 51 year old and I have never felt more discrimination and alienation and judgment from friends, family and up to the point where it’s starting to become bullying and teasing because I am dating an older man and I am thinking about breaking up with him because I just can’t handle all the societal judgements against us, even though I’m in love with him. Yeah. Thanks. Bye.

Caller 16: I have sex dreams of my dad and I’m disgusted with myself. I don’t know why this happens. It makes me sick and I have never really even admitted it to myself, until saying it out loud. Horrifying. I hate it. I hate that that’s a thing that happens to me. I don’t ever even think about it outside of my dreams, it just happens, and I don’t know how to stop it. If you can change my voice, that would be great because I don’t want anybody to ever know what I said.

Caller 17: My secret is that I have dreams and then they happen. It sounds like I’m joking but I’m not. I sleep a lot. I love the world of sleep. And I don’t know which dreams will come to happen. But when they do it’s very obvious. I probably sleep too much. Maybe it’s because I’m depressed but I don’t feel depressed. I just think the world of dreams has a lot of truth to share. I might be depressed. Okay. I love this show. Bye.

Caller 18: So a couple of years ago, my friend was killed by a person who was struggling with a mental health disorder. It gained a lot of international attention. It was one of those things, a little hard to talk about now, but every couple of years they go to a [inaudible] where they assess his mental health to see if he can rejoin society. And I always send in another victim impact statement to try and get it so he can’t rejoin society. And all of my friends who have just been able to forgive him and like worth of lives, but it was just a mental illness thing and he wasn’t in his right mind, but I just can’t forgive him and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. And I really hope that he stays in a psychiatric institute forever, so yeah, that is my confession. Okay. Bye.

Caller 19: Hey, my best friend committed suicide, when we were 18. He called me while I was at lunch with my parents. I ignored it. That was at 12:25 and they found him at 12:35. I don’t know if he was just saying goodbye or wanted help. But I think about that every day. That was about 15 years ago.

Caller 20: When I was a child, my stepfather used to molest me. Some people, family, know, but mostly they don’t. But I have a younger brother and that’s his father. And I love my younger brother, but I’m going to resent him for the rest of my life for a little bit. Because I can’t ever tell him or tell anyone else, because I don’t want him to know. I don’t want to ruin his life, but I want to ruin his father’s for what he did to me.

Caller 21: I haven’t felt any positive emotion in a while and that’s a big secret for me, as a father and a boyfriend. I haven’t felt any love or compassion. And that’s weird for me.

Caller 22: I’ve been married for 13 years and we just stopped having sex. And we don’t talk about it. It just sort of happened. All of our friends look at us, and think we’ve got the best marriage and we really do. I’m proud of that. But he just…

Caller 23: I do not make very much money but I spent close to $500 on cocaine in the last week and that’s not something that I’m proud of. But I also don’t know how to stop. [inaudible]

Caller 24: Hi. My name is (beep). Hi, my name is (beep).

Caller 25: Hi, I’m probably the only Moment who’s ever called you, and I don’t care if you know my name and also I’d like to work for you someday. But here’s a secret. Sometimes I like to take extra… Nope. I can’t record this.

Caller 25: Hey, I just left an earlier message and I’m just going to be okay with it. My name is Moment, like wait a moment. Sometimes when I’m drunk and/or drunk and high, whatever, I take extra antidepressants I’m prescribed. I know that’s stupid. But I do it and also sometimes I don’t tell my therapist everything because I’m too scared I will be judged. So anyways, night-night, keep your butt hole tight.

Caller 26: Okay. So when I was in my sophomore year of high school, I had to go to summer school and in one class, it was so boring all the time. The teacher was asleep, and we would just sneak the answers to the test, we would all do it, sit there for 45 minutes quiet [inaudible] whatever? It was just so fucking boring, torturous for my young mind. I don’t know what happened to me but one day, I was just so fucking bored in that class. [inaudible] For some reason, I pulled my balls out of zipper, just my balls just hanging out of my zipper. There was this dude three seats in front of me and I sort of whistled. He turned around and he fucking looked at me and he just saw my balls hanging out and he looked at me with the most petrified fucking look on his face and just turned around real quick. It was just so fucking funny. It’s still funny to this day.

Caller 27: My secret is, I’ve been lying to my friends that I’ve slept with women before. When I first met them, I was [inaudible] bisexual or pansexual, I don’t even remember what I said. And I wanted them to just respect me, stupid because obviously our friendship has evolved and I should probably just be like, yeah, you know that one time, that I used to say I slept with women, that was all false. But I don’t know, I don’t want them to think I’m just like this big fat liar. But I’m mostly super gay now. I have always been super gay, but I feel like especially now, I’m just gay. Yeah, that is my big gay secret. Thanks for listening. Bye.

Caller 28: I pretty much never wash my hands. I’ve gotten a lot better about it recently. I go wash my hands after I go number two, but I think it’s safe to say, I have gone upward of 22 years of my life not washing my hands after I poop. Of course, if I’ve got anything on my hands I would wash them. But I just didn’t find it necessary and thought it was a waste of resources and time and yeah. Have a wonderful day.

Caller 29: Maybe five years ago, my best friend’s sister was having a party, [inaudible] and mid-way through the party, she started flirting with me and I wasn’t interested, but we kept talking and then, for whatever reason, she started talking about her revulsion to men with small penises and she continued saying that they have no reason to exist and they should all be killed. And I was so shocked and I smiled, got up, went to her bathroom, locked the door, rifled through her medicine cabinet and found this little can of fancy facial cream, that was a pearlescent white. So, I did the obvious thing and masturbated until I came into her facial cream and mixed it up, screwed the cap back on, put it back in her medicine cabinet, went out to the party, smiled at her, and the next time I saw her, maybe a week later I made sure to compliment how nice her complexion looked and she smiled and said, “thank you”.

Caller 30: Hi, this is Brian Brobst. I would like to give a secret for the entire world to hear. I am a single white, 33 year old male calling from Fort Wayne, Indiana. I have a tiny little inverted micro dick and it needs humiliating. And I’m also a cock-sucker. So if you’re interested, call me back at 419 785 5233, email me tinycock@live.com. Look me up on the internet, Tinycockbrianbrobst, all one word. Yeah, hopefully I can get on your radio show. Let me know.

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