What's a rumour you heard about yourself? Was it true?

A rumor spread through my family that I was abusing drugs. Dad thought that since I would come home late at night, sleep in past sunrise, and would spend every afternoon and evening with my friends, that I was doing drugs every day. He thought it was why I was so lazy, why I was so despondent of him, and why I stopped going to Church.

The rumor went all around. My brother, my grandparents, all my aunts and uncles and cousins. They all spread it among everyone they immediately knew, but never brought it up with me. Since I was hanging out with friends every day and barely ever home, it just allowed the speculation to mount up even more.

It was my uncle who first brought it up with me. He said that he knew I was struggling in life, and offered to pray for me. He's a very religious kind of person, but not really a fire and brimstone kind of evangelical jerk. He's a very cool, soft-spoken artistic kind of person, an artist who loved nature and believed in being good stewards of our environment as it was God's gift to us. You know, a Bob Ross kind of guy. If he says he wants to pray for you, let him.

I thought he was going to bring up my struggling grades, my poor work habits, or the fact I was spending much more time gaming than focusing on my college work. I thought he was going to wish for a blessing on the strained relationship between myself and my dad, and that we'd one day better see eye to eye. I was ready for that.

I wasn't ready for what I got.

"Dear Lord, please extend your mercy and guidance to help my nephew recognize his vices, and seek the love and help he needs to break his drug habits. May be cleanse his body of addictions to impurities and toxins, and be reminded that he has family to help him be strong when his will can't handle it alone."

I had to stop him there. No, there is no "amen" at the end of that sentence. Amen means "I believe," and if you're going to Amen that, then something has gone horribly horribly wrong.

Turns out, when I stopped going to Church, my dad saw that as a sign that I had turned to drugs. Not out of some petty outside pressure or a crazy spontaneous notion either. I discovered that when he was in his 20's and early 30's, my dad has taken up a cocaine habit. And he stopped going to Church around the same time.

But instead of asking me about it, he just assumed that I had made the same leap he did. He stopped going to Church in his 20's, and I stopped going to Church in my 20's. Ergo, since he also started doing cocaine in his 20's, I must have also started cocaine in my 20's.

MAKES SENSE. LET'S ANNOUNCE IT TO THE FAMILY.

This was a long time ago, though. I wasn't really too angry about it, and was very grateful that my uncle told me this rumor was going around. I had a good laugh about it, and my uncle was quite relieved that it was just one big stupid misunderstanding. I also get along much better with dad (when I'm around him in small doses, week-long family trips bring up bad tension).

And fortunately the rest of my family is much more skeptical now when dad tells them about whatever other crazy debauchery I'm into. Which works out quite well in my favor, because every other horrible thing he's shared about me is pretty much correct.

/r/AskReddit Thread