What's your most fucked up family story?

[Lokus]

Hi everyone. I haven't posted in a long time, but I lurk every once in a while. I have even busier (but fulfilling) life in recent years (job with long hours, baby, moved to a large rural property that requires a lot of maintenace, etc.).

Anyway, I was going to post this on Facebook, but I was worried some people might think I was a freak, so of course I thought of posting it here instead!

This thread on Reddit is a pretty interesting read...both in a dark and funny way:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comm ... _that_you/

Anyone have any good stories like this they want to share?

The only story in my family that comes close to any of these (that I know of at least) is I had a mysterious uncle who was likely involved in a lot of scams or petty crimes, although he was never actually charged or convicted of anything (that we know of).

Apparently in elementary and high school he was freakishly more advanced in intelligence and ability than any of his peers to the point that he was a misfit outcast and did weird things.

Growing up this uncle lived in another city and would show up unannounced for visits every couple of years. When I was young I thought he was great, because he was a really fun guy when it came to dealing with kids. Whenever we'd ask about him between visits my parents would always say things like "crazy uncle Steve...who knows what that guys is up to". But they never elaborated on what they meant exactly.

When my grandfather was dying of cancer, when I was 18 in 1999, he decided to tell me and my brother a lot of stories about this uncle. My grandfather was a great guy in every way, and he was laughing about these stories while telling them...he had a good sense of humour about everything.

When he was a teenager, once in a while he'd say he was going away for the weekend to New York state (from Trenton, Ontario). Once my grandfather found him coming home in the middle of the night with garbage bags full of quarters. My uncle would make some lame excuse about getting them through a legitimate job.

Somehow my uncle acquired really advanced skills for making fancy pastries---like French ones, etc. He never went to any school for this. He once applied to be the Head Pastry Chef at one of the top hotels in Ottawa...i.e. a job that would normally require an advanced culinary degree and experience. He completely lied about everything on his application and set up fake resumes. Because he had the legit skills to back it all up, he actually got the job. My grandfather didn't know how long it lasted or how it ended though.

My grandfather told us he wouldn't hear from this uncle for years at at time, but every once in a while he would get a visit from the cops asking about his whereabouts.

I don't think I saw this uncle a single time in the 1990's, but he called every couple of years and I'd talk to him on the phone. At one point in the late 1990's, when I was starting to get interested in politics, he was a political organizer/operative for the Liberal Party in Toronto and he'd tell me all these stories I thought were fascinating. They were too vivid and detailed to be lies.

A few years after that one of my other uncles told me a friend of his worked in a court house and told him my uncle Steve was involved in a case after he was severely beaten as a "gay bashing". So, turns out he was gay. He was never "out", but my other uncle had suspicions. Another couple of years later he died of Aids.

To this day, I have never had a truthful adult conversation with my mom about this uncle. All of these stories came from my now deceased grandfather and another uncle.

Coincidentally, I am actually getting together with that side of my family today and will be taking a long drive with the uncle that told me some of these stories, I think I'll ask him about this stuff.

[Hype]

I don't have a story offhand, but after reading yours... is it weird that your uncle's life sounds like a lot of fun to me (I mean, except for the gay bashing thing)? I mean, maybe there are more horrible things about him... but the pastry chef thing just sounds like something from a Leonardo Di Caprio movie.

[sinep]

I read a funny "fucked up family story" a couple weeks ago. I think it was on the chive or maybe reddit.

Paraphrased:

"I'm from out of town visiting my family whom I don't see very often. My family goes to the store and leaves me with my grandpa who I hadn't seen since I was a kid. After awhile I go upstairs to his room to check on him. The door was open so I walk in. I was horrified to see that he was pleasuring himself saying 'oh Karen, oh Karen.'

...My name is Karen."

[perkana]

I've got plenty. Two come to mind...My granddad's sister was given away to his childless aunt. When my greatgrandma died, her niece/daughter cried near her casket and called her 'Mommy". Maybe that was not too fucked up, it seems it was a common practice back then giving your child to a relative who was better economically than you. Though my greatgrandma wanted to do the same with my mom. She would visit her niece/daughter with my mom and she would leave her behind. My mom's aunt would tell her that she had a special bedroom for her so she could stay forever. My mom would cry until she would be taken home. She told my grandma that she never wanted to go back. The other story is more like my grandma's anecdote. She had a friend who killed her husband's lover when she found them in bed at a hotel. She was in jail for some years. Her husband said it was an accident. When I was a kid, my grandma called her friend 'the murderer' when she talked about her. I thought it was a joke until she told me the story when I was grown up.

[Artemis]

At the moment all I can think of is when I was really young, like 4 or 5, my parents told me that I would grow a tail if I drank coffee. I used to always steal sips of their coffee when they weren't looking. The fear of that did deter me for a while.

[Lokus]

I don't have a story offhand, but after reading yours... is it weird that your uncle's life sounds like a lot of fun to me (I mean, except for the gay bashing thing)? I mean, maybe there are more horrible things about him... but the pastry chef thing just sounds like something from a Leonardo Di Caprio movie.

I have defintely thought his life sounded pretty enviable in that he just kind of said "Fuck it, I'm going to do what I want without really hurting anyone". From what I understand, he was a really brilliant guy, just never completely fit in to society.

I spoke to my uncle about this other deceased uncle yesterday who clarified a few things.

I was confusing two different stories: The court case was actually for charges of fraud brought against him by the federal government. Apparently one of his other random jobs was as a Meat Inspector. After he quit or got fired, he kept charging flights to his government account and flew all over the place for pleasure (the system must have been much looser then, no one could do this today). He was, however, gay bashed in a separate incident.

Apparently he did get a certificate from a community college in pastry baking, but it still would have been nowhere near enough to get the job as the head chef that he got.

[esqfool]

Not super duper fucked up, but my aunt (my mom's sister) actually hired a private investigator to check into my parents because she was convinced they were stealing my grandmother's money after my grandfather died. Private investigator came back and said actually they're not stealing her money, but they've switched her investments from long term growth to short term paying dividends so she has money to spend/live off of rather than eating away at her principal. They're actually helping her out tremendously. The worst part of this is my grandma was damn near blind from macular degeneration and if they drove her to the store, they'd make her pay for gas. Yet she paid for shit like building a retaining wall (~$20k) at their lake house which they promptly sold. So the ones who were worried about us stealing money were actually bleeding her dry. Needless to say my dad only told me this after my Grandma had been dead a while because back then I'd have probably fought someone at a Christmas or Thanksgiving. True colors come out when money is involved. That is why I hold friends closer than family a lot of times.

Another fucked up story, is my other aunt on my dad's side was cut out of the will of my Great Aunt on that side. All the money went to my dad b/c in her words "she'll just blow it all". So my dad being fair gave her $150k in 1990, she blew it all in a year, LOL. At the funeral, she had brochures for new cars, I can still remember it plain as day.

[Lokus]

Esqfool, yeah that's some deplorable behaviour.

I had a similar experience in that I had an uncle and aunt who were paranoid about my Dad stealing my grandparent's money before and after they died (their concern was motivated by the fact that they were to inherit all their cash, whereas my Dad got their cottage which was worth about the same amount). The reality is that my Dad actually paid a lot out of his own pocket to help my grandparents including after their death to execute their will in a way that would maximize what his siblings would inherit.

Not that I would ever stoop to that kind of behaviour, but I've told my parents I in no way will ever make any financials plans based on inheriting money from them. Anything I get will be pure gravy, and if I never got anything at all, that would be fine. I keep encouraging them to splurge a little more to enjoy their retirement.

[perkana]

We must have really dark humor in Mexico. When I was little, my brother and my sister used to make me cry by saying that I was picked up from a supermarket cart. The supermarket was near the hospital where I was born. It sucked being the youngest one. For some reason, I did believe for a while that I was adopted and had a lost twin somewhere

[perkana]

[quote="esqfool"So the ones who were worried about us stealing money were actually bleeding her dry. Needless to say my dad only told me this after my Grandma had been dead a while because back then I'd have probably fought someone at a Christmas or Thanksgiving. True colors come out when money is involved. That is why I hold friends closer than family a lot of times.[/quote]
I've seen this on both sides of my family. It's terrible. I know it's family, but I try to stay away from this kind.

[esqfool]

I used to be very militant to that side of the family. This was before I knew all of that. I wouldn't answer the door if they came by, wouldn't answer the phone, wouldn't go to their house for holidays. I remember when I used to be in my hellish job and my dad was dying. They came by after work one day and I was so mad from work, that they called, knocked on the door, called again, knocked some more all to drop off something for my mom, but I was so pissed that I just sat in the next room over refusing to even acknowledge them. Ah my 20's were such a fucking fun time...

[kv]

my moms mother got cancer...it spread everywhere and she died pretty quick...while in the convalescence home she asked my dad to be the executor of her estate because he was the man of the family and would handle it right...my moms sister ( who was actually a catholic sister since she was 18) freaked out about the amount of money spent for the attorney...because she could have "asked someone to do it for free" i think it was 5k and had to be done very fast because she was gone in like a month...this sister had been given everything she ever wanted or asked for from my grandmother because she was a catholic sister and doing gods work blah blah...anyway there was some family stock for ford where my grandfather had worked...this sister thought there was a lot of it...didn't know it had been cashed for my moms wedding and also cashed over the years to meet all this sisters needs over the years as well as vegas trips and fun vacations with my grandmothers church group after my grandfather died...but she insisted it was missing it was stolen there was stock certs missing...on and on....my dad explained over and over...nope wasn't there...now mind you...this was a perfectly fine family...nobody ever had problem one with anyone everyone got together for holidays stayed in touch...the only fault was this missing stock and the 5k spent to the attorney...so she sues...trys again and again to get my dad...writes huge form letters to the rest of the family explaining her whacked out views ...my dad had HER lawyers tell him...ya she is crazy, there is nothing here...we've told her, she doesn't listen...anyway a stock certificate was found...it was worth maybe 45 bucks and truly was a lost cert...a new one was applied for and awarded..the family broken to this day because of it...my dad died of a heart attack some years later i figure she cost him a day or two on this planet...he stressed so much over it...wanting to just sue the fuck out of her but he didn't because it was my moms sister and he didn't want to do that to my mom even though she knew it was fucked up as well
soooo dead to me i will laugh when i hear of her passing fucking cunt

[kv]

now a different story...ever got a call in the middle of the night? how about one from your dad saying hey i gotta drive outta town wanna come? so i go meet my dad figuring something bad happened up north...(we're from los angeles but his side of the family were in the pacific northwest) often we'd drive up to go hunting or fishing or visit or if someone got sick or hurt or needed help...anyway turns out my grandfather had been arrested...we'd find out more when we got up there

anyway my grandfather was an old trucker type...had his own car garage and shop...my dad grew up with a wrench in his hand and was also a mechanic for a bunch of years before moving on to other car industry jobs...my grandfather (who for whatever fucking reason i always called pop pop) was into hunting and fishing and ham radio..standard grandfather fair in the northwest...was arrested by the feds...for rico act charges...organized crime...WTF??? turns out he had several large scale marijuana grow houses and was trading the pot for whatever he wanted...want a new washer dryer? trade some weed for it wait wtf???!!he had undercover feds posing as his friends ( for over a year)...huge sting operation because they thought he was the huge big wig crime lord...when he was just a big mouth pot trader...they broke it huge to the media "we got em" when they didn't really have shit more then a billion other stupid pot growers in the country...except they had to make an arrest stick...so they ricod him because with the cops they put on him they could make the numbers looks right to convict even though it was just him and some lacky and some chick he had on the side...mind you this is kinda fucking random outa nowhere....anyway they threaten to take his home everything....he worries about his wife and pleads and they send him off to federal prison for 5 years....he had a clean record first time offender but "we go em" i visited him forget the prison name but gnarly fed pen in washington...think it's closed now...he was in medical ward so to visit i had to basically sign my life away ( we won't come get you if taken hostage) get almost strip searched and taken to the middle of the prison...i'll never forget that shit as long as i live must have been 12 locked doors deep...and see my old man grandpop all locked down for some stupid pot because feds are stupid and wasted so much money someone had to fry...gogo america...and gogo the strangest middle of the night call i ever got "wait what? wtf??!!" funny part is i used to visit and go sneak off to burn a joint...little did it know...

so there ya go! two fucked up stories from each side of my family both outa left field...and i even left out the story of my uncle who is basically an older brother to me (only nine years older) who called my mom one day to inform her he was in the hospital with pneumonia...only to find out yep it's pneumonia...because you are hiv positive and dying...and gay...nooobody had any idea he'd been living in catholic hiding i guess and never wanted to tell anyone (that he was gay, he had no idea he had hiv till the doctor told him in the hospital)...we damn near lost him but he fully recovered and is doing just fine on the cocktail...he had hardly any white blood cells and they didn't think he had a chance and wasn't responding at all...but thats not a fucked up family story, just another random outa nowhere story that comes from life on this spinning rock

[esqfool]

Wow, your mom's sister probably would have gotten knocked out if that was my family. Once again money corrupts family. Thankfully I'm an only child in situations like that.

Wild that "pop pop" was growing all the weed though!

[kv]

all in all money is good...you see true colors because of it

[JOEinPHX]

A couple year's ago I was at my Aunt's house for Christmas, and since everyone is now an adult we started doing a gift exchange. It came in the form of a game. You'd roll dice, and if you rolled a 6, you got to pick a present. All presents were wrapped and had no names on them. We'd do that for a few rounds till all the presents were gone, then unwrap the gifts and do a lightning round where if you rolled a 6 you could steal someone else's present. For 3-4 years it was good fun. Till about 4 years ago. One day, my cousin's husband let it slip that the present which happened to be a card contained scratch off lottery tickets. He got some grief for giving away the surprise, but the game continued, with the lottery tickets becoming the prize of choice. During the lightning round, the tickets were the gift that kept getting stolen. With all of 4 seconds left on the timer, my eldery grandmother in a wheelchair who can barely even function rolls a 6, mumbles "the card", and steals the lottery tickets.

One of my Aunts takes her boyfriend into the kitchen and says she is going to scratch them off for grandma to see if there are any winners. (Backstory, her boyfriend is this creepy perv who always shows up to family events, and always seems to be rubbing the young girls and taking their pictures. It's been requested that he not be invited but she kept bringing him anyway]). All of a sudden, I start hearing some strange whispering going on as my cousin returns from the kitchen. I ask what's going on. She doesn't say anything. She yells into the kitchen: "Any winners?"....The reply: "Not yet, we're still scratching!"

A few minutes later she yells into the kitchen again: "Any winners yet?!"... the reply: "No, we scratched them all and there were no winners."

My cousin jumps from the couch, runs into the kitchen and starts screaming at my Aunt who had been scratching the tickets. "You fucking liar! You're stealing! I know you're stealing! How dare you steal from your elderly mother!"

The Aunt holds her ground. Claims there were no winners.

Grandma starts crying. Wants to know why everyone is fighting.

My cousin drops a bombshell: She and her husband put a fake $10,000 winning ticket in the card amongst the real tickets as a joke so that whoever got the card would think they won.

My aunt had discovered it, showed her perv boyfriend, and pocketed it. My cousin's husband got it on video.

My aunt and her perv boyfriend continued to assert that they had done nothing wrong, and "HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE US OF SUCH A THING!"

Aunt and perv boyfriend collect their coats and storm out.

My cousin grabs the card and looks through all the lottery tickets. All of them have been scratched. All of them are there, EXCEPT the fake one.

The family is now split into 3 groups:

1. The people in the living room consoling my sobbing elderly grandmother, who just keeps repeating "I don't like jokes" over and over.
2. The people out in the breezeway yelling at my Aunt for trying to steal from her mother, then lying about doing so, as she tries to put on her shoes to leave.
3. The people in the kitchen pouring themselves a stiff drink and laughing hysterically over the chances of this having happened. (I was in this group)

Had that card never landed in my grandmother's lap, someone else would not have had to scratch off the tickets. The "Winner" simply would have been made fun of and the day would have continued. The odds of things going down like they did were ridiculously small, yet that is exactly what happened.

To this day we no longer do a gift exchange at Christmas. There was infighting anyway, but it opened up a whole other set of issues that I won't even get into. People pretty much all hate each other and the way the groups were formed on that day, are the way everyone groups together to talk to each other on holidays now. Smartasses like myself and my cousin still reference the stolen tickets, and usually get the side-eye from everyone who just wants to forget it ever happened. Especially since Grandma is dead now.

[JOEinPHX]

That's not the most fucked up family story i have. It's just the funniest fucked up one.

[Hype]

That's not the most fucked up family story i have. It's just the funniest fucked up one.

My favourite part of that story was the last sentence. Poor grandma.

Lottery tickets as gifts are a terrible idea anyway -- about as bad as a donation to the "Human Fund" ala George Costanza. It's literally saying: "I spent an arbitrary but relatively small number of dollars entering you into a near-zero chance to win money, rather than expend mental effort thinking of a gift you might actually want or use, or that at least has slightly higher odds of being wanted or useful."

[JOEinPHX]

All the gifts were crappy. Often regifts or bottles of cheap alcohol. It was all meant to be a joke in general.

[Romeo]

I have a lot of F'd up family stories but this one sticks in my mind

You know that TV show "I didn't know I was pregnant"? And you think to yourself "Really? Are you that stupid?"

Well my Father had a a cousin Sheila. She was married to Arnie. Their last name was Moskowitz (remember that) they had two boys but I only remember their son Ricky
So Sheila was REALLY fat. One day she had intense stomach pains, went to the hospital, and left with a baby. It was another son but this one ended up with Downs Syndrome because of her age, weight and no prenatal care.

ANYWAY....late 70's. Son of Sam is terrorizing NY. His last victim before he was caught was Stacy Moskowitz, a pretty little blonde out on a date with Robert Violante. She was killed in a car in Brooklyn (Robert was shot in head, survived but lost an eye) I remember that shooting

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears later I was talking to one of my older cousins on FB and he told me that Arnie was Stacy's uncle. Why didn't my parents tell me at the time (if they knew).
That's fucked up

[Hype]

I imagine Jews and Italians probably have the most fucked up stories on average... I guess it depends on what's meant by fucked up... but like... psychologically traumatizing in really subtle but deep ways? Yeah... probably them.

Without getting too into details (partly because I honestly don't know them that well), my family's backgrounds are two different religions, and my dad's dad was a Holocaust survivor... anyway, the fucked up part I guess is that I guess he wanted all his descendants to be Jewish (makes sense to me...) but my mom isn't Jewish and wouldn't convert, and I guess there was a whole big thing about this when I was born... Long story short, true to so many stereotypes, I didn't see my grandfather for like 20+ years, until just before he died. We used to visit my grandma "secretly" at the mall.

Hilariously, and, I think mostly unrelatedly, I've ended up being something of an expert in medieval, Renaissance and early modern Jewish philosophy and history (everything from Maimonides and Gersonides to the Zohar and the German Jewish philosophers Mendelssohn and Maimon... and of course, Spinoza)...

[Lokus]

My wife is Catholic (although she teaches at a Catholic elementary school, she is basically non-practising). I was baptized Protestant, but the day I was baptized was 1 of 2 times my parents brought me to church. I was raised without religion and I don't recognize my Protestantism...I consider myself agnostic and a Humanist (but not in any organized way).

Anyway, it's a big fuckin' deal to my mother-in-law that my wife and I have chosen not to baptize our daughther as Catholic. She raises it with my wife every once in a while, but never directly with me. She's old-school Polish Catholic and is mostly afraid of the pressure/grief her family will give her. I hope it doesn't turn in to anything bigger (my dauther is only 4 months old now) and some long-standing point of contention.

[creep]

my moms father took off on the family when she was a kid. he had five daughters. he became a multi millionaire and then remarried. he never helped financially in any way with my grandmother having to raise five kids on her own. he never saw or talked to his children.

after they all became adults most of the girls had established some sort of a relationship with their father. he ended up dying and giving all his money to his two other kids that he had with his new wife. my mom didn't seem to care but i was pissed that he didn't leave any of his kids that he bailed on any money. he had enough to give them something.

[esqfool]

Damn creep, that is fucked up. A friend of a friend had something along the same lines happen. His dad gets real sick, is in hospice care, tells him oh by the way, I have a girlfriend and a whole other family in Kansas City. Dude ends up fucking pulling out somehow, and says cya guys, move to KC with his gf and his new "family".

Romeo, that's pretty fucked up your family would never mention that.

Oh and I forgot a good aside to my original story about my aunt accusing my parents of stealing money. As my grandfather was starting to decline in the mid 90's, my dad looked into their finances. Finds out that Stifel Nicolaus, investment firm based here in STL, has been running them around for commission and burning through all of their money. I didn't know this til later, but I had a college fund set up for me, they managed to burn through $88k and run it down to nothing. I don't know much other money they got though. My dad was going to sue them but at the time my grandfather was dying and my grandma didn't know if she could handle the stress of a lawsuit. So luckily I didn't end up owing very much to begin with ($20k), but it doubly pisses me off when I think back on my aunt pulling that shit with that twist added to the mix. As a funny note, both my uncles still invest their money with the guy my dad had my Grandma's money with.

And one more story while we're at it. My dad and his dad always fought. Well my dad got sick, had cancer, dies after 4 years of Stage 4 Liver Cancer. Before he died, he never told my grandfather b/c he was such a hateful person about stupid bullshit. He was the ultimate person to argue shit like "Would you have aborted baby Hitler?" and my responses were always who cares, that's not reality, and he'd shut up and my dad was very much the same way like why waste the time to argue hypothetical shit. He also disowned my dad for changing jobs a few times because "you're supposed to find a job and stick in it your whole life" and my dad was like well whatever, fuck off and wouldn't play into his bullshit. Anyway, he shows up to my dad's funeral, walks up to me, and says oh are you Kathy's (my mom) nephew? My other cousin is standing there, hears it, and his jaw about hits the floor. I just go no, I'm your grandson, and he looked like huh? This was after 3 hours of people walking through saying to me, oh you look just like your dad. I thought you stupid fuck you're so out of touch you don't even recognize your own son. Just to spite him, I never once called him grandfather or anything b/c he didn't show up to my parent's wedding, never called or gave me a single birthday present or anything, and matter of fact one time I turned at a corner and he was sitting at the light, looked right at me and I was like you don't even recognize your own grandson you fucking idiot.

[esqfool]

That's not the most fucked up family story i have. It's just the funniest fucked up one.

I find that story funny as hell. I've had people pull that on friend's with the fake $10k winner, but to catch them stealing it makes it amazing. I'd still laugh about that everytime I think of it.