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As you can probably guess this episode deals with a lot of adult themes, including those of sexual abuse and I wanted to give you a heads up on one call in particular, for those of you who are sensitive to graphic descriptions of bodily harm. You might want to skip the call that comes at about the 33 or 34 minute mark. It starts with this.

Caller 1: My secret is that five years ago I was a heroin addict doing some very unsavory things to get high and support my habit.

So, if you get freaked out by violent stuff once you hear that skip forward three minutes. Thanks for listening.

Caller 2: I’m leaving a secret as I’m sure you can hear by the tone of my voice, but I’ve actually never said this out loud before and it’s actually never even left my mind, but when I was a younger kid, I want to say around like seven or eight, maybe even a little bit younger than that, I went on this vacation with my family. And my stepbrother and I were left kind of just alone in the hotel room.

And we, in like a very kiddish kind of way, just kind of started just exploring each other’s bodies. And I eventually ended up giving him kind of like the kid equivalent of a rim job, which I hadn’t really thought about that at all these years.

But I think I am now just really into ass play and things like that because of that experience. I had a partner who asked me why I was into stuff like rim jobs and whatever else recently and I realized it’s a little bit weird to admit, oh yeah, because of my step brother.

So yeah, that’s my secret and I’m never going to say that out loud again. That’s cool and everyone else have a good day. Thanks for having the secret line, I appreciate it. Bye, bye.

Caller 3: Hi? My name’s Scott calling to leave a secret which is to say that I am a man in my mid 20s and I still pick my nose and eat it fairly often, which is not something that I’ve ever told anybody. Don’t know if people have observed that. They have not brought it up. But as far as I know nobody knows that secret.

Caller 4: Hey, I have a secret. Most times when I am reaching orgasms, I’m imagining someone fucking my boyfriend in the ass while I come. And I’ve never told him or anyone. So I enjoy that.

Caller 5: I’d like to remain anonymous, but I just have this weird compulsion to look up infections, like skin infections or like parasites. And I’m just fascinated by it. I’m just fascinated with things that are repulsive. I don’t know. It’s just not something you’d want to tell everybody because it’s just weird.

Caller 6: I have cheated on every person I’ve ever been with and I don’t know why. I wish I knew why I keep cheating on my boyfriends.

Caller 7: Hi Love and Radio? My secret, I was reading a lot of books about incest and I thought I’d like to try that just because I wanted my life to sound interesting, not because I was actually interested. So, a month or so down the line the opportunity came to me.

My cousin, who is 10 years older than me, complete down and out, he’s going nowhere. I tried incest with him. We got drunk and we got home and he started kissing me. And he started to go further and a force within me just said, no. Even though logically I wanted to say yes for some reason, but I just couldn’t do it.

Caller 8: My secret is that when I was 17 or so my neighbor’s dog used to come to your house all the time. I was and sleeping and he would smell my vagina. And I figured out that it tickled and that it felt good.

And for maybe a year and a half, two years, I would let him lick my vagina. And he really kind of taught me how to masturbate. So yeah, that’s my secret, is the dog taught me how to touch myself.

Caller 9: I’m a big, big dog person. I got a big old pit bull and I love him to death. He’s a sweetheart. And a while back, a stray cat ended up coming around for a little while and my girlfriend started taking care of it. And she even named her, her name was Rose. I was not too fond on cats at this point in time. And then one day on Thanksgiving she let the cat inside of our apartment as we left to go do our thing with our family.

The cat ended up using the restroom in the house just like I expected. So sure enough, a couple days passed and Rose the cat comes back around when my girlfriend is not at home. So I got the bright idea to go ahead and box the cat up and take her about 30 miles south of town and just kind of toss her into a random field and be gone with you, it’s kind of what I told her, the cat that is. And the next day, of course my girlfriend is freaking out. And of course, I just kind of play it off.

The idea of Rose the cat just kind of dwindled over time. And I wasn’t any more of a fan of cats even after that until about a year afterward, my girlfriend and I ended up agreeing to get an abortion with the baby that she had become pregnant with. And I know it’s an awful thing, but for our circumstances, that was just the best thing that could happen for us. It’s the smartest thing I should say.

And my gift to her after that happened was to actually get her own cat. Now we have a cat named Lucy, short for Lucifer. And I’m in love with the cat, just as much as I am my dog and my dog and her are best friends. So, that’s all I got.

Caller 10: So this is regarding your Secret Hotline, I used to date this guy who sort of had a submissive/food fetish and had this really cute small dog who he loved. One time he had put melted dark chocolate on my penis while we were dating. I only kept him around because he was rich, he paid for everything, he had a nice pool. But he essentially put all that dark chocolate on my dick, and he went down on me.

And we were a little drunk and so, in the middle of the night his dog basically licked all the chocolate off and a couple days later, died. Yeah. We’re no longer dating, obviously, but I just thought that was funny, tragic and delicious all at the same time. Bye, bye now.

Caller 11: Hey, so I’m going to leave a secret. My name is Danielle, I don’t care if you use that or not. But essentially my secret is since Trump was elected last year, I haven’t really been able to orgasm. And I feel like a lot of women in America are probably having a similar issue.

It actually really fucking sucks. Because every time I start to get kind of excited, I almost start to feel guilty and disgusted by the fact that we have such a terrible human being in office. And it makes me really sad. And I just can’t. So yeah, for everyone else out there who can’t get off because of Trump, I’m here with you and I hope eventually we can orgasm again.

Caller 12: I guess this is true for everyone, politics are driving me up the fucking wall right now. I don’t know, this probably isn’t radio worthy. I just can’t fucking talk to anyone about politics, about it driving me up the goddamn wall. I don’t know maybe I’m just creating this in nothingness, but I fucking got to say it, I’m going insane. Well, have a good day.

Hey, I just left a message about being frustrated about politics but I didn’t think about too much about what I was going to say and I feel like I need to elaborate a little bit. I don’t know, maybe anyone else has had this thing on their Twitter timeline were they’re just like, here’s my political opinion and I’m just going to say it in all caps five times in a row.

You’re not fucking convincing anyone. Like if I see someone post for example like, trans lives are human lives, which of course I agree with, and you just post that over and over again, I feel like anti convinced.

I see shit like that and I get pissed off and I’m like, no, wait, I completely agree with that. They’re just saying it in the shittiest fucking most annoying way possible. Like, what the fuck? If someone else doesn’t agree with the thing you say, you saying it like five times in all caps isn’t going to fucking convince anyone.

I just feel like everyone’s trying to be like, oh, yes, I agree. How good for us. We’re such fucking good people. If you want to make fucking change jerking your fucking self out, off about how cool you are, isn’t going to fucking help anyone.

I recognize your good intentions, but you’re acting like an uptight cunt with your fucking head up your ass right now. I want to fucking say that to so many people, but I can’t. So I need to call the hotline for the fucking podcast. I started listening to you today. It is a bit therapeutic. Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Hey, well, here I am leaving a third message and I don’t know what the hell I’m even trying to get at anymore. I was just thinking I didn’t fucking say any secrets. I’m frustrated by my friends saying their politics, that’s not a fucking secret. My real secret, I think about killing myself every day. I can’t get through a single day without thinking about suicide, not plans or anything but just… I feel like a fucking messed up human being and I don’t even feel like I can talk to my friends about politics. [inaudible 00:15:04].

Caller 13: Three of my good friends killed themselves in the last six months. My secret is, I spent so long with those friends, staying up with them night after night convincing them to get help that when one of them specifically finally did it, I mean I was shocked and horrified. But now a couple months later, it means that I don’t have to have that stress in my life anymore.

And I feel like a horrible person. And now since I run in circles that are rife with mental illness, if I know that someone is ill or not seeking treatment or suicidal, I just won’t even consider being friends with them. But I think that’s kind of shitty. Have a good day.

Caller 14: Hi, I have a confession, please. I would like to remain anonymous. I am a public school teacher, I work in a middle school. I work for a really low income school district so my pay is quite a bit less than other teachers make in the area.

So in order to help pay my student loans and to have some extra income, I have been stripping on the weekends. What I think the funny part of the confession is I actually really enjoy it. I love being a teacher but I also really love getting naked for money. That’s my confession.

Caller 15: Yeah my secret is I can’t stand people I work with, specifically one person. And I don’t know how I should say it because I don’t want to create awkwardness at work. But I just kind of deal with it every day. I guess that’s a secret.

Caller 16: My secret is that for five of the last six years I have been reading my boss’s personal and business emails. I have a way of accessing his computer, he hasn’t changed his password in that time. So several times a week, I will just scroll through his emails.

And I know a lot more about him than he knows that I do. It’s also helped me do my job a little better, but I don’t feel great about it. That’s my secret. Now, I’m going to go read an email. Thank you.

Caller 17: I am an EMT. I work on an ambulance and I respond to emergencies. I tell everybody that I love it and I tell everybody that this is my career and this work is amazing. But in all honesty I feel like I’m not good at this work.

Every day that I put on my uniform I punch in and I get on the ambulance, I wonder is today the day that I’m going to kill somebody? Is today the day that I’m going to make the career ending mistake? It weighs on me, it keeps me up at night. And I pick up a ton of overtime for my job, like to the point that I don’t really have a life beyond work.

And I tell people it’s because we’re understaffed and I want the experience, but that’s not true. I do it because I don’t want to be at home thinking about, yeah I’m a bad EMT or thinking about all the other emotional stuff that I have going on. It lets me run away. I don’t know how sustainable this really is.

I make a lot of jokes about killing myself and I’m starting to wonder if this is actually a joke. And there’s really nobody that I can tell this to so I’m here telling you. So thanks.

Caller 18: Hey, hi? My secret is that I am a 26 year old virgin who is in love with her boss. We live in the same apartment complex and some evenings after work I’ll catch a peak of him and his wife walking their two dogs. They married young and have been together for over a decade. I take notice that they never touch each other. There’s no hand holding, no quick kisses, absolutely nothing and there’s always a big space of separation between them.

So a relationship is not a priority in my life right now but I am open to have my first sexual experience, especially with someone that I trust and value and have chemistry with. That’s very important to me. He actually introduced me to this podcast so I know he’ll hear this and I hope he’s listening alone and recognizes that my secret is him. That’s all. Thank you.

Caller 19: My secret is that not long ago when I became employed at a very high pressure type responsibility job that involved a lot of self discipline and a lot of self control and enormous amounts of self concealment and great responsibility for the well being of various situations.

During this time, I started urinating and defecating in public restrooms and really making a god awful mess. It is really some really grotesque scenes. I would also get a permanent marker and write the most profane possible graffiti that I could think of including depictions of defilements and sacrosanct religious symbols and so on.

I’m certainly not proud of this exactly and I’ve since stopped doing it. However, I talked to a very close friend about this and he then began doing the same thing. I feel like I’ve unleashed in him something that was unleashed in me. Let’s say, Sigmund Freud would be less than proud of me.

Caller 20: So I was making out with a guy and he raped me. And it was traumatizing. And that’s the part that people do know. But what people don’t know is that for whatever reason, I chose to have sex with him the next day, even though I was disgusted with what had happened. And I don’t know why I did that.

So we had sex the next day, and then I woke up in the morning to the sound of policemen banging on the door. And it turns out that he was a drug lord and was getting arrested for that. So that’s my secret. Yep.

Caller 21: There was one time I came back from a bar or a couple bars with friends and I was walking towards the subway in Manhattan and I passed by stack of books that I thought were free books. So I snagged one of them off the top. What I didn’t notice is that they were sitting on top of a blanket on the side of the street.

And the book I snagged, the title I think said something about how to make yourself a better candidate for interviews for jobs. I flipped through it and the entire thing was dog eared and highlighted and clearly some homeless guy had really studied this book to make his plans to better his life.

So by the time I got into the subway I realized this, it made me sick in the stomach that I would have taken this from somebody. And then as soon as I got off the train, I threw it in the trash. And I feel awful about doing that. I hate that I did that. I hate that I couldn’t have just taken the train back and put it back in the stack. I just want to say to him, I’m sorry.

Caller 22: I have a secret and I just called this number because all of the eating disorder hotlines are closed right now. I have an eating disorder and I’ve never told anyone. Wow! I’ve never told anyone. And I’ve been doing better lately and I think I’m on the tail end of it. I just messed up tonight, but I’ve been doing better.

It just makes me feel so gross and it’s so disgusting. I think if anybody knew they’d hate me. I love food so much and I hate my body. And those sound so cliche and I hate being a cliche, but I actually chew up food and spit it back out. It’s so disgusting just looking at chewed up food in the trash can and having to hide things from people. It just feels so dishonest. But that’s my secret.

Caller 23: I have a secret. So my sister does HIV research and she invited me to be part of a study for gay males, which I am, who don’t have HIV to be studied in her lab, and I turned her down.

I came up with a bunch of weird excuses. But the truth is that I do have HIV. And that is why I turned her down. She doesn’t know, none of my family know. And I’m not planning on actually telling anyone. Yeah, I guess I just had to get that off my chest.

Caller 24: I’ve dreamt about killing my father since I was about five years old. And they used to be nightmares, but it’s just like a normalized thing now. Yeah. I hope you guys have a good one. Bye.

Caller 25: So my biggest secret is that growing up I used to live with my dad and my step mom. And my stepmom was a woman that was very mean and abusive in a way that was always covered up by the veil of religion, but in fact she was a big cunt.And she would do things like slut shame me because I was interested in boys and she called me whore and things like that.

Anyways, one night I just decided to get back at her and I got home from seeing my boyfriend, it was very late and I put my finger in my vagina. And I scooped out some of the come, because I had just had sex with my boyfriend. And I put my finger inside a water bottle that my step mom always kept in the fridge, that she always took with her to the gym. And I just put my finger in there. That was my way to get back at her for being just a mean, abusive stepmom.

And I guess the moral of the story is, if you’re abusive to people, they always find a way to get back at you. So try to be nicer because there always are consequences. And that’s my story. Thank you.

Caller 26: I don’t like being married to my wife. And I’ve tried to end it with her and it doesn’t work. I don’t want to say she begs but it doesn’t go well. I care about her as a person, but I’m just not attracted to her. I’m not that interested in her. I don’t really have a lot of respect for her as a person anymore. And I don’t know how much I ever did.

And my secret is that I’m a coward, I can’t do it. And so I have these dreams that she maybe will just leave me or she’ll die. I don’t want her to die but I can’t seem to end it and I don’t think she’ll leave me. Yeah.

Caller 27: Let me tell you about the time that I committed perjury. My rapist was suing me for defamation of character because I told people that he raped me. And they asked me a lot of questions about my sexual history, because apparently sluts can’t get raped.

And I minimized my history, for sure. But then also, they asked me if I had any malice or ill will towards him. And those are key legal terms for determining defamation. And I had to lie through my teeth and pretend that I didn’t picture him blowing up, like exploding into a bajillion little pieces. Like a bomb blew up inside of his stomach or something every time I closed my eyes while I was sitting there in the courtroom, having to listen to him lie about what he did to me.

I had to pretend, I said that, no, I didn’t have any malice or ill will towards him. And all I wanted was to be left alone and wasn’t angry, I was just hurt. But god dammit if I’m angry. Thanks for listening.

Caller 1: My secret is that five years ago, I was a heroin addict doing some very unsavory things to get by and support my habit. And one instance, I think I may have killed a man, at the very least blinded him. It was in the middle of the night, maybe three or four in the morning, and I was walking to my tent under the I-95 overpass.

And I was ambushed from behind by another, I’m assuming another homeless man, and he started to drag me off towards some bushes presumably to rape or kill me, I don’t know. But thankfully I’d had some basic self defense training. And I was able to get him in the back of the knee so that he fell down.

I tried to get up and run, but he grabbed me again. And I just whirled around and did the first thing I thought of to do, which was to take my thumbs and jam them in his eyes. And I just jammed them in as hard as I possibly could until I saw clear viscous fluid coming out of his eyes and over my hands and blood and…

Oh god, it was just so real and unlike anything I ever could have imagined it would have been like. But after that I was able to make my getaway. And I just left him there with two gaping holes where his eyes were at one point. I just ran until I couldn’t run anymore. And I never saw him again. Never heard anything about it. And I’ve never told anybody.

And for some odd reason, even though it was in self defense, I still feel oddly guilty about it. I feel like people would judge me and think differently if they knew, but you do what you got to do when you’re living on the street. Thankfully I went to rehab and got my shit together and I’ve been clean and sober for five years now. So that’s a good thing. So, yeah thanks for listening. Bye.

Caller 28: A long time ago I told a lie. I told my friend that I had multiple personalities. And it’s the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’m still friends with this person and up until today he was still under the impression that I am more than one person.

I told him today and I told him in a letter. And he acted very nice about it. He told me that he still loves me and that he’s proud of me for being so brave. And all I can see is how terrible and awful of a person I was.

Caller 29: Hi my name is Phil. I love this show, thank you very much for putting it out. I’m mindful of the fact that I don’t pay to listen to any of the episodes. So I appreciate the work that you do.

I just want to give one point of feedback which I thought of now in two instances and it’s when you’re playing a recording of someone that’s speaking on the phone and it’s most obvious in your Secrets Hotlines episode but whenever you’re doing that, when there are effects, sound effects that are layered over those recordings, it makes it difficult to hear.

So if there’s an echo effect or whatever it might be that the producers are doing, maybe you can understand what’s being said. But there are times when I have to rewind it and I still can’t understand what someone is saying. Hopefully that helps. Thanks again.

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