MySQL Join When Record in Joined Table Does Not Exist
A WHERE-condition on the inner table will change the the result to an Inner Join instead. You need to move this condition to the ON:

SELECT 
    Confessions.ID, Confessions.WriteTitle, Confessions.WriteArea,
    Confessions.POST_DATE, Votes.Type
FROM Confessions LEFT OUTER JOIN Votes 
  ON Confessions.ID = Votes.PostID 
 AND Votes.IP_Check = :IP_Check
WHERE ForUser = :ForUser AND Status = :Status 


As a rule of thumb: Normally conditions on the Outer table are in WHERE while condition on the Inner table are in ON.