'My mom still bathes my 20-year-old brother': People reveal their family's incredibly uncomfortable 'elephant in the room' that they can NEVER discuss at gatherings with relatives

 With Christmas just a few days away, there is no better time to rehash family drama. 

A popular Reddit thread asking people to open up about the 'elephant in the room' at their family gatherings has resurfaced — just in time for the holidays — after first being posted in 2017.   

Users candidly wrote about the secrets that their families choose to ignore when they're together, including instances of abuse, infidelity, lies about paternity, and relatives who are a little too close for comfort.  

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Drama: A popular Reddit thread asking people to open up about the 'elephant in the room' at their family gatherings has resurfaced  just in time for the holidays (stock image) 

Hard to handle: Users candidly wrote about family secrets, including instances of abuse, infidelity, lies about paternity, and relatives who are a little too close for comfort

'My mom and brother have a very Norman Bates-esque relationship and we never speak about it. He's 20... and she still bathes him,' one person admitted. 'God help me for saying this out loud.'

Someone else recalled how their grandmother forced their aunt to have an abortion when she was 16. 

'It went terribly wrong, and she was never able to have kids. My grandma did it because she didn't want her daughter to have a child with a sleazeball,' the Reddit user explained. 

'Thirty-five years later my aunt is married to said sleazeball. My grandma [dealt] with her guilt by spoiling the crap out of my aunt's adopted daughter.'

Another admitted that no one on their father's side of the family likes their mother. Neither their mom nor their sister has any idea why.   

'She put in more work for the family than most of the uncles and aunts. She takes care of my father's father since my father died. Recently, they didn't invite her to the baptism of my cousin's kid. My mother is my cousin's godmother,' the person recalled. 

'My mother is amazingly nice, but she's going to explode of them one day. I hope I'm around to see it and back her up.' 

Family secret: A number of people admitted to their relatives being left in the dark about their true paternity

Others opened up about dark secrets of sexual abuse and incest that their families choose to ignore. 

'My half-sister was raped often by her father, he took her virginity, and passed her around his friends. He's now out of the picture, but having my mother and sister in the same room is very tense,' one person wrote. 

'Apparently my mother had no idea what was happening (all happened way before I was born), and mom feels incredibly guilty.'

'I was molested by my grandfather as a child. It was taken care of in the old family sort of way, everyone distancing themselves and leaving him isolated for the most part, but it's never been talked about at large,' another shared. 

'They just backed off and let him die alone. I don't know if that's supposed to be enough or if I wanted some sort of justice, but it feels wrongly handled.'

A number of people also admitted to their relatives being left in the dark about their true paternity. 

Horrible: Others opened up about dark secrets of abuse and tragedy 

'One of my aunts is adopted. She is almost 70 years old and has no idea,' one person wrote. 'Everyone else in the family knows but it was my grandma's dying wish that we never tell her. It's pretty f**ed up, to be honest.'

'My nephew's father is not his real father. We all know it, everyone. We just never talk about it,' someone else commented. 

There were even a few cases of murder shared in the thread, with one person recalling how their eight-year-old cousin pushed their great-aunt's dog into the pool and he drowned on the Fourth of July.  

'Everyone knows she did it, she even said she did it because she was angry about having to get out of the pool for dinner. But her mom and grandma are still in complete denial and tell her she didn't actually do it,' the Reddit user explained. 

'Immediate and extended family have all tried to convince the mother and grandmother to take her to talk to someone because this tiny human is full of anger, but they refuse to see any issue. This most recent Fourth of July was awkward as f**k.'

'One of my cousins is in jail for nearly murdering a little girl at a gas station,' someone else shared. 'No one but my grandma (who he lived with growing up) even knew about it. 

'My brother only found out because he ran a Google search after she had told us our cousin was at 'church camp' for the fifth year in a row.'