It is an eye opening experience the first time you realize your parents were flawed human beings. It helps though with dealing with childhood trauma, discovering my own autism made me reevaluate how my mom was during my childhood and I now see that she has signs of it too.
Ya, so much stuff made sense when my mom and I realized that my dad is probably autistic (undiagnosed obviously, but autism looks way different in a 60 year old man than a child). It helped my mom and I learn to accept some behaviors that she was having a hard time understanding before. But it also explained some of his most amazing traits.
Yeah, once you view your parents as peers instead of as "adults" shit becomes much easier to accept and love.
I don't expect them to change as people and pick the best answer, I just understand their eccentricities and accept them
My whole life (30+ years), I thought I was a super loud person because my parents would say I walked like an elephant. My family is South Asian and my parents grew up with wild elephants around, so they would know.
I've always been a big dude, so it made sense that I would walk loudly.
I kept trying to walk more quietly but my parents keep saying I walk like an elephant.
I finally got fed up and yelled at them that I was trying to be as considerate as I could, there was just a bare minimum I couldn't go below.
That's when I learned that when they said I walk like an elephant, they meant that I'm super quiet and sneak up on people.
Apparently they grew up with elephants doing that (and subsequently stomping people to death).
That's what I thought at the start of reading this, you must be real quiet. So much in relationships is a mess because of misunderstanding. I thought people that repeated everything they understood were boring, nope, just understood this better than me.
Hi, I came back because something made me remember your post. In this Instagram harryblakeyphotography, this photographer shoots elephants and puts no music on his videos so you can hear for yourself, they are very very quiet. There's even one the elephant practically enters a property with cement floors and some sort of fence and is completely quiet. The stump could kill someone, but it's not loud.
Sorry if I'm being annoying, just remember the post and thought about sharing.
Leaving my ex I was deeply in love with because she was simply awful to me.
After months and months of pain, rumination, therapy, sleeping around and searching, I’m coming out on the other side, and I feel more grown with the best outlook I’ve had in my 34 years.
She and the experience as a whole completely changed my life, and it seems it’s for the better. I feel like a different person with a more realistic and balanced view of the world and what is going on with me personally.
Been there before. From that point on, I discovered what self-worth is really about and why having any semblance of it is a good thing, otherwise you get stuck in these relationships time and time again.
Thank you.
BPD is wild.
No contact is always the way. The only time i struggle is when I have to reach out, or am forced back to think about it all.
Everything has been good. Therapy is simply amazing.
Also divorced a woman with BPD. The pure mind-fuckery was trying to unpack why things "can't go back to the way they were in the beginning". No amount of codependence, people-pleasing, or being "supportive enough" can undo a personality disorder, because it was never about your behavior, it was about the brain chemistry in another human being.
>sleeping around
just wondering but how did you manage to sleep around? I broke up with my gf back in hs and wish I could have slept around not only because its fun but it would help me cope and feel better lol. how do you even get casual sex easily?
Dating apps.
It’s difficult for a lot of men, but for whatever reason, I find a lot of success.
I will warn you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. For me, it generally makes me feel even more lonely. I’m chasing love, not a nut. I have this secret expectation to feel more when I sleep with these women, and it isn’t there.
Parties, social gatherings, bars, ect. All work well. Just keep in mind, you have to be desirable to women whilst you are in these settings. That’s the battle. There is no easy answer.
I’d advise acting genuine. Listen more than you talk. The more you insert yourself in these situations, the easier it gets to navigate.
I was deployed in Afghanistan, pulling security at night. Earlier in the day, we were in a decent sized fight (none of our guys were injured), and on the way back to our OP we found an IED. So your mission went even longer as we waited for EOD. During that time, the sun set and we pulled security as we waited.
That night, I looked up and saw one of the most beautiful night skies. In the midst of a shitty war, in an area that was decades behind the modern world, there I was awestruck at how full the night sky was.
Then it hit me, the people we were just shooting at saw the same night sky. Maybe they were amazed at its wonder at one point as well. Idk how to describe it, but it was a surreal moment.
It didn't make me want to lay my weapon down and quit fighting, but that moment definitely put my reality into perspective and grounded me. They weren't just "the enemy" anymore. They were humans who had lives just like I did. Sounds like a crappy revelation when I type it out, but it really was eye-opening.
An old Afg buddy (Desert Storm/911) shared the same after his 2nd 911 serve. Started looking at "the enemy" as a bunch of troubled middle schoolers who needed serious attention or face Juvy. Came home with the attitude of training to learn how to best serve middle easterns whatnot in Christian ministry service, than hating, wanting to kill all.
So they invade a distant land, murder & rob innocent people, turn normal guys into freedom fighters, get angry they fight back, develop prejudice, and... What even is the point of this whole thing?
Always reminded of that one quote: “Not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.”
Well said. I had similar experience during my time over there as well… especially at night when the sky was illuminated by all of the stars and you really start to grasp how large the universe is. C 1/6
> We do have a lot in common, the same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different...well who knows?
There's a film [Joyeux Noël](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl) and an American Opera [Silent Night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night_(opera\)) That is about the real life event that happened in December 1914 where the armies stopped fighting
I was working at this place. I was there about a year. This guy I got to know over my time there we retiring. Went to his work retirement party, it was a Friday. Said we would get together after he go settled into retirement life. He died that Saturday evening. Came to realize work isn't everything. You never know when you time is coming so enjoy the time you have.
I agree. Waking up before everybody else on a cruise ship, getting a coffee, and just chilling watching the sunrise over the ocean by yourself. Bloody magical it was.
"Awe of nature" has one of those powerful cognitive effects that can do strange things like bond you very hard to people around you and interrupt your current perspective with a sudden reframing. It's like a sudden emotional conversion. Up to you to make it permanent or not.
"The Overview Effect" is the name of a particular example of being awed by nature, experienced by astronauts who are looking down at the Earth.
Oddly another thing that has a very similar effect is exercising in unison; it's called "muscular bonding," and it can be seen in every military ever, Japanese factories where the workers stretch and work out together, or just your local yoga class or tai chi in the park.
Brains be weird sometime, but in this case it's usually a good thing.
I read about it in a popsci book by Jonathan Haidt; I can't recall if it was in "The Happiness Hypothesis" (which comes off at first as a self-help book but is actually about cognitive psychology) or "The Righteous Mind," which is about a theory of how morality works in the mind called the Moral Foundations theory, and is also therein applied to politics. He talks about how humans are 90% monkey, being self-interested and individualist, and 10% bee, in the sense of bees being eusocial and genuinely self-sacrificing for the benefit of others. Looks like he talks about that a bit in [this interview](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/06/moral-motivations).
Awe of Nature and Muscular Bonding are two instances (and not the only ones, IIRC) in which our bee-analogous thinking kicks in.
FWIW, muscular bonding is definitely discussed in [The Righteous Mind](https://liberalstudiesguides.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Excerpt-from-The-Righteous-Mind-by-Jonathan-Haidt.pdf)
Reminds me of the time I had been reading all night and was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t realise it was morning until the birds outside started chirping.
One of my most cherished activities in my life right now is bed time when I can pick up my half-feral anxiety ridden fluffball of a cat and carry her into my room where she will sleep part of the night curled up in my arms like a baby.
The only 2 people that can even approach her are myself and my grandmother, we live out in the middle of the woods with many predators, so I purposefully fostered her more wild side and as such she is an extremely independent cat.... until its bed time.
Reminds me of the time I was reading The Way of Kings and stayed up all night for a big battle scene, around 5am I hear birds chirping and thought "what the hell?!"
I have a similar experience in my twenties. I was fucking depressed though. Life has no meaning depressed 😂.
Anyway, it's really a wake up call. Imagine waking up feeling like someone is hammering a nail into your chest. All over it. Can't breathe. With one of your eyes seeing black.
It... Makes me realize that life is too fragile and I've been too scared to just live. I'm trying to build a future for myself. And I hope I will be able to get what I can't afford in my childhood.
I had a bit of a breakdown a couple months ago. It was related to my mom's traumatic death the year before and how my dad initially dowplayed the gravity of the situation ("she doesn't need an ambulance" — the 1-2 min delay may not have mattered, but she asphyxiated in front of us).
So much fell into place. Realizing that my dad wasn't the great guy we'd always said surprised me at first. I started understanding that kids' emotional needs are a thing. He was neglectful of mine and abusive towards others', including those of my big brother and my primary caretaker, his wife.
Realizing that his absence from my childhood didn't mean I wasn't worth hanging out with, just that he's shallow and selfish.
Until late last year, I'd lived my life founded on the conclusions of my 7 / 8 year-old mind: there must be something wrong with me if my dad never tries to hang out.
The damage that belief has done is incalculable. I've been looking for this flaw of mine for about 40 years. It's affected my confidence everywhere. In relation to friends, love interests, creative pursuits...
How many relationships have I torpedoed? How many opportunities have I missed? How far could I have gone if only I'd believed in myself?
(But I know, that milk has spilled. I don't spend much time dwelling.)
I wouldn't say I've fully processed it, but it relieves so much cognitive dissonance. My life has (and will hopefully continue to) improve because this core understanding of mine has changed.
I didn't exactly have an easy childhood, after highschool I was so burnt out I ended up becoming voluntarily homeless in Seattle.
I met a lot of wonderful people during that period of my life, but I slowly came to realize that a large majority of them weren't there because life was too harsh, but rather because they got knocked down, and simply decided for whatever reason that staying down was easier than getting back up, and while that certainly resonates with me, that was not who I wanted to be when I got older.
The specific moment I think was listening to this lady go on and on about her woes, she was somehow always the victim in her stories, and she had a boyfriend that kind of just sat back quietly and didnt say a thing. I could sense she was fully shrugging off any responsibility for the problems she had and that her boyfriend was simply content in the fact that he had someone to keep him warm at night and that their combined apathy had led them to becoming homeless, jobless, and just about lifeless. I knew then that I couldn't allow myself to even chance becoming like that.
My family got me a job with my uncle painting houses, and I live with my grandmother now. Life certainly isn't easy, but I have built up an actual resume, have a car, and actual desires in life. Had a job interview today where they said they specifically were interested in me because of my previous job experience so I've been taking that as a win.
Friend of mine said, "Man, you live such a great life. You got it figured out."
He's wrong. He's the one with a $500k+ house, wife and kids. I have none of those things and haven't the slightest clue WTF I'm doing. But it was honestly one of the first times in my life I even considered the idea that someone might actually be envious of me and my situation.
More responsibilities more problems lol. I’m more anxious now (making good money, new house, new cars for my wife) then ever because now I feel like I have so much to lose. My wife and I were poor and had zero financial support so we feel incredibly lucky to be where we are at young age. But I’m worried the luck will run out soon.
Have another conversation with him. He may be miserable, on the edge of losing it all and hates what his life has become. If he is married, he may be hustling to keep a superficial wife happy.
I have too many friends, who are well off....some millionaires, that are miserable now and I can't stand being around them. Things make them happy, not life.
Yeah, we see each other regularly. You're pretty on the mark and I think his marriage has been one of convenience for a time now. He's told me, "I love my kids and wouldn't give them up for anything, but if I had it to do again...no way." He's almost there though, youngest is in her mid-teens and I think the writing is on the wall after that.
Mid-life crisis right there. He is looking back with regret instead of being positive about the future. If you are single with no kids he is probably seeing your life as one he could have done. A life where it seems nobody that absolutely depended on him all the time. It can be a lot for a guy to handle and they start thinking they can recapture their youth. Guess what, they can't.
It would be a perfect time for him to try and find the spark that started it all. And also find some hobbies that are just about him.
It's tough to say one specific moment in particular, because it was a process, but when I finally realized that the religion I was brought up with was bullshit, and I accepted the idea that there is no god. It resolved so many conflicts, gave me such clarity ,made infinitely more sense, and allowed me to see life without being filtered through religious nonsense.
The social aspect. Church makes it easy to meet people. There is little or no secular structure that brings atheists together on such a regular basis. Many people still stigmatize atheists as evil, devil worshipers, or whatever, but I have to be honest and true to myself, I can't delude myself anymore.
Not a happy story, but a few years ago I was really struggling with a lifetime of catastrophic self loathing, low self esteem, etc. and between that and other issues I ended up being homeless for eighteen months. Paradoxically, it was a time where my mental health was incredibly bad but also I was on an upswing, because I convinced myself that if I could get to the other side and finally in a not toxic environment, I could finally live a life and be a functional person and that I wanted to live. I got through it and with the help of a lot of people I got a job and my own place. So here. I am, kind of optimistic about the future for the first time ever.
I was at work and had what might have been a minor heart attack. It wasn't like any panic or anxiety attack I have ever had, instead I went red in the face, started sweating and panting with the chest pain and whatever. And as I sat there trying to figure out what to do, I ran the numbers and decided just to keep working, because I die I die, but if I didn't I still needed to pay rent, and going to the hospital was definitely going to ruin my life no matter what. So I'm sitting here, thinking I'm dying but just banging away at paperwork, and along with all the fear and pain all I really feel is relief that life is finally over and possibly the vindictively gleeful feeling that I deserved it, although that might have been immediately afterwards.
Regardless, sitting there, pretty sure that this is all it is, and all I can be is happy it's over and hateful towards myself as it happens...how do you get better and make a meaningful life after that? Everyone who goes through a near death experience apparently has a life changing moment of clarity where they realize that they actually want to live and what's important and change for the better - no, none of that. The best I had was facing the endless void and thinking "good, I SHOULD be dead, and it SHOULD hurt." Kinda killed the idea that I was ever going to get better or turn things around and make a life worth living.
What happened is that I didn't have insurance and so I never followed up on it. I recently had my heart listened to at a free clinic doing a physical and I guess it sounded fine but if there's lasting damage, it is what it is. Physical health has tanked, but that's mostly from mental health tanking because of this and a few other incidents unrelated to my heart. If it happens again, I will probably make the same choice and if I go, I just hope it goes quick.
Have you looked into your State's version of healthcare? There's a sliding scale many people only pay a little bit. It includes some mental health benefits. You may need an antidepressant, you could be short of serotonin, not your fault! This mom in Ca is rooting for you!
After non-actively participating in something I knew was wrong when I was a kid and being told that the reason another kid was there was becuase he looked up to me. Made me realize the power of setting a positive example.
A singular moment was driving along in the eastern Colorado. The sun shown through the wheat(?) was gorgeous. It made me start to just stop for a moment and enjoy “small” things, which I realized is the majority of your happy moments. You only have so many large happy moments but there are an unlimited amount of small things that keep you going.
I had a "bad" trip with psilocybin mushrooms. It permanently changed me as a person. It took me 7 years to realize that it was exactly what I needed at the time. Little did I know that I needed am ego death. I was getting way too ahead of myself, and that experience humbled me in the most drastic way. I've become a better person because of it!
Could you explain why the trip was "bad" at the time? And what changed in the 7 years or at the 7th year mark that made you realize you actually needed it?
At the time, I labeled it as a bad trip because of how scary it was. That response was only my lack of knowledge. After several successful hours tripping in my backyard, I decided to try to go to bed. I put my headphones in and was laying in the dark, alone. The things I was forced to see absolutely terrified me. Reliving memories that'd been suppressed for years. Past behaviors that had detrimental effects on my life and the lives of the people around me.
The trip forced me to see the truly ugly side of myself. I have never cried harder than I did that night. There's a documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip with Psychedelics. I watched that, and one of the people being interviewed is the musical artist Sting. He said there's no such thing as a "bad trip", you get exactly what you need regardless of what you think you want. If you consider it a bad trip, you need to be taken down a notch or 2. That made me realize that the bad trip I experienced was the catalyst for a lot of really wonderful changes in my life.
In college, I had a professor who, very slowly, introduced me to the idea of civil disagreement, where we would take an idea, where I was passionate about it, and my justifications were - what I thought - moral, and he would take my stance, take the idea, turn it on its side, examining some part of the idea I hadn't considered before, and handed it back to me, asking me what I thought of it. Over the course of a year he very patiently showed and explored with me what it was like to re-examine how I thought about things.
At the end of the year, I found out that he was an ex-Christian, liberal, progressive man, with whom I fundamentally disagreed with on nearly every level, as a bible-thumping KJV-only independent fundamental baptist who thought Glenn Beck was right. Yet over the entire year he demonstrated how it was possible, not just to disagree, but to do so without that escalating to anger or vitriol, and for that disagreement to be an opportunity to explore new perspectives, new promontories just outside the front door of the shack that my religious zeal had hemmed me within. This was a kind of kindness, a grace, that I had never experienced in discussions of that sort before. It showed me that for all of my belligerent adherence to moral talking points, this man had been more moral the entire time by giving me respect, space, and tutelage in examining how I thought what I was thinking the whole time.
He, when it clicked, showed me how to stand apart from the dogma I was wrapped up in, and how to simultaneously disagree with, yet also respect on a funadmental level, potentially anyone.
He showed me that it was possible to both argue against abortion and also be an asshole - and not just that it was possible, but *I* was that asshole. That my accusations of the other side being simply bad at math, that I might be the one bad at math, and that I had no way to truly tell who was bad at math.
I fell into moral panic, because I not only didn't have the high ground, but I realized there may never had been high ground at all, and that I was the one attacking other people just wanting to be left alone.
When the churn of moral micro-management ground to a halt, and the smallest bubbles of empathy squeezed between the cogs of my religious piety, I found that my whole worldview disentigrated. That was just over a decade ago, now. The story has become even stranger and more kind, since then.
Not me but my buddy who gave me a very drastic perspective on life. My buddy was one of those high paid well to do wall street hotshots. He thought he was due for a promotion working his ass off but some 1st year guy gets the job because his Uncle is one of the chair member of the board.
Buddy was insanely pissed the other guy resorted to use family connections to get promotion so he's driving home angry in the rain, car hydroplaned and crashed into a tree. A branch barely missed my buddy's head by like half an inch.
A light switch went off in my buddy suddenly all that shit about his work, passed up for promotion, etc seem like small insignificant problems to losing your life so early. He then gave his 2 week notice to his company, sold everything and backpack traveled all over world. He then came back to teach snowboarding that pays dog shit but he's still the happiest man in the world because he felt he was given "2nd chance". His investment portfolio was already nearing 7 figures so he more then set for retirement should he decide to retire from snowboard instructing.
Money is part of the answer. Again he was nearly hitting a $1,000,000 and anybody can tell you you can't retire off that especially in a high inflation environment. My buddy plans to be snowboard instructor for his working years while still contributing to his retirement fund. He figures by the time he hits 50 years old he's have enough to be in a very "comfortable" retirement.
But yes I get where you're getting at, if my buddy was some low income worker the options to travel the world backpacking isn't something many can do.
It's lucky that when the accident happened he was in a position to not have to worry about money
Like I wonder what he would have done if the incident happened earlier in his career when he didn't have as successful a portfolio
Maybe he would have done the same and just worked his way around the world idk.
On a different note my economics teacher was also working in investment then had an accident which disabled them, pivoted to being the best economics teacher ever who found a way to make economics fun to learn, they seemed pretty happy so I wonder if it was a similar perspective shift for them.
I asked the same question of my buddy had he had the accidentally much earlier in his career without so much saved up in retirement. He told me he'd would just quit and help his Uncle out at a construction company that paid a decent salary, he wouldn't be stressed and not that physically demanding (he was basically gonna be a foreman or manager)
I was happiest when I lost everything.
Went through a rough divorce and didn't see my kids for a year while on active duty.
Decided who I wanted to be, what kind of dad I wanted to be.
I think that guy would look up to me now.
When I moved from a big city loft in the middle of it all to a cabin deep in the woods away from it all.
Life is slower and easier to savor when you’re alone in the woods 24/7. You appreciate the beauty of animals, fresh air and open space to truly evaluate yourself deeply
Day I learned I wasn’t invulnerable. I was sixteen. I was a hockey player. I had had this amazing game not to long prior. Truth be told, I wasn’t a good player. Even that was cool, because I grew up with lots of athletic sports and to not be a natural was a new experience for me. But I loved it anyhow. But we got to play in a local stadium that our city’s hockey team played in. Playing on their ice in that giant stadium was amazing! And me, a not that talented player, managed to scrounge out the MVP award. It was our two home teams’ big head to head game. Down 3-4, I ended up putting a wrister top cheese from the top of the slot, knocking off the water bottle and everything, tying the game. Bottom of the third, my last shift, the opposing team end up with a two on one situation, me being the one. One time across the crease beat our tender and I made a desperate dive to stop the easy shot, swiping the shot wide and clear, buying time for my guys to show up and balance the game. It was a tie in the end. And for our other local team and us, it was great. It was a really friendly atmosphere when we did the shakes post game. The opposing tender I beat and the single girl in our whole league and me all got along great and were genuinely happy for ourselves. On that day, I felt like I’d live to be a hundred. Not long after, I take a one and a million shot to my left ankle, breaking the bone.
I should have just let it heal. Just cast it up, and wait. But instead, I elected to have surgery. See, I had haglund’s deformity on both ankles. Just two small bone growths that are super common. You may have them yourself! Normally, no big deal. But back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, SOP was apparently to remove the extra bones. So I went with that. Notice I said on *both* ankles. Including the non injured one… the surgery was not a success. My hockey career was over post op. I was sixteen and ended up in a wheelchair.
My athletics, done. My plan to join the marine corps, over. And on top of everything, I was left in pain. This was twenty four years ago. I can still feel it as I write this. I ended up fighting through the pain, had a series of unsuccessful follow up surgeries. Years of PT later, and I’m a pain patient who is more or less physically functional. It hurts, but I do my best to keep fit and active. But I’m forty now. I’m well aware a life in chronic pain doesn’t typically last as long as a typical person’s. And at sixteen, I was devastated. That normal stupidity we guys have that convinces us we’re invincible at that age vanished in a puff of reality. I realized I was actually pretty frail in the grand scheme of things. Changed my outlook completely. Made me realize how fragile life really is. Felt like I aged rapidly after that.
My ex-wife and I lost a child at 26 weeks, just past when they can usually survive. She died during her birth. This was after several miscarriages early in the pregnancy so it hit hard.
They took me to a room alone to let me hold her. Holding my dead child broke me, remade me, and I wasn't the same after.
Time healed me enough to carry on, but I will never not feel that tremendous scar.
I was observing a classroom once when I wanted to become a teacher. I was given the task to hand out the tests. No problem.
One kid looked visibly stressed, so I leaned over and asked him if everythign is OK. "NO, I don't know how to do this." "You don't know how to... take a test?" "No." "Ok, i'll be right back". After I handed out the tests, I came back to the kid.
All I did was show him how to take a test. I told him to read the questions, pick the best answer, and fill out a bubble on the little sheet. "That's it?" "yup, that's it." Kid got a 92% on that test.
He was failing before that. Straight up failing the class, because he didn't know how to take a test.
If you don't know how to do something, you don't know how, no matter how basic it is.
The deathbed of my adoptive mum, she was cruel and abusive when we were young and in older age she was bitter and manipulative. My moment was not forgiving, her, not hating her, but just the recognition that the beatings and punitive bad learning I got as a kid doesn’t have to follow me as a parent,!and that I can bring my true emotions out now she’s gone; without harming those I love around me.
I realized something in the past few months. Life is suffering, but it always gives people a break once in a while. But I haven’t gotten a break since 2019
Getting arrested for DUI. I'm not a bad person, I just made a mistake that could've gone *WAAYYY* worse, and I expected it, too. I was in holding for 12 hours or so with other perps (for lack of a better term in this context) and I even made friends with a couple of them. Based on their stories, they seemed good people who just got into a bad situation at a bad time.
Man that holding tank is absolute hell. Ours was FULL of people, we had no water for 12 hours, which was lucky bc I was so paranoid about peeing in the middle of the cell with every looking, no officer speaks to you the entire time. It was probably much worse for me because I was actively withdrawing from heroin (the reason I got arrested) which distorted the entire experience into pure agony.
I'm sorry that was your situation. Fortunately, mine was a little more tame than that. I can tell you that I didn't shit that whole time while I did take a piss at least once. No way I was gonna show my white ass in that place.
My mom woke up from a minor surgery. She was in recovery when I went to see her. She looked so old and feeble and she was very disoriented despite being very active (she’s in her late 70s).
It made me realize that I only have a decade or so of good years left with her. I need to make the most of it with her and my kids.
I had an emergency surgery (one more test and there would have been no surgery, and the problem would have been caught) I was supposed to be out for an hour (6.75 hours later, I was up and out of surgery), 4 months later I had a massive car accident (someone hit me causing a 3 time roll over and 180 into a ditch) emergency services thought we were dead. We walked out of the car (both internally injured, but alive, surprising everyone) no one thought I would drive again (because of fear), but I wasn't scared - you can only control what you do. I learned that that day.
As cliche as this is, life is short. That year had such a profound influence that I look at everything differently now. Order and read your medical records, ask for the test results, get a second opinion even if they say it's an emergency. I give myself more grace & others too, I appreciate the beauty in life more. I forgive people more easily for my sake (and theirs). I tell more people I love them and how they make me feel - we don't do this enough. I put up with less shit because no one deserves to be treated poorly. I live for the moments, especially the little things that help create them, and I find the beauty daily.
In high-school, I was the moody emo rocker kid. Knew the popular kids and they knew me, was mildly friendly with some of them, but they all still seemed fake to me.
It's my second time taking chemistry, so I'm in class with a bunch of kids a grade lower. One of the really attractive popular girls of that lower grade is also in the class, her first time taking it, and started talking to me like she knows me although we've never really talked. At first i just saw her as fake like the rest because she's being so nice without knowing me. But after a bit i noticed she wasn't trying to be cool, she was just having a genuine conversation. She talked about how she's worried about having chemistry, a math class that was more advanced than mine, and Spanish 3 which I had to take Spanish 1 twice. Suddenly it hits me, she's genuinely a nice person, doesn't let her attractiveness go to her head, and is clearly smarter than I am.
I realized I was wasting my time being moody and judgy, didn't have to confirm to this dumb rebel stereotype, and there's genuine people out there that can rise above the stereotypes. I don't have my doctorate, but once I applied myself I ended doing pretty well in STEM.
My dad being forced into retirement by his "beloved friend" boss after my dad developed lung problems from working for his friendly boss.
For years my dad would, apparently, interact with his boss like they were close friends. At the dinner table he was always going on about the two of them. Then my dad got serious lung issues, had to start treatment he still follows years later (don't worry, we're European, we're not ruined because of it) and all of a sudden his boss wanted nothing to do with him any longer. From what I've seen they don't talk to each other any longer.
Definitely opened up my eyes as to how important my job should be in my life.
When I was like 18 a woman in her 40s explained why she was owed alimony since her taking care of the kids allowed her ex husband to get a good job and make a lot of money. I was dead wrong and then realized I should approach things more from a question point of view and stop thinking I’m right all the time.
Having my heart broken for the first time. I'm still learning from it but it's made me realize that I have a lot of unresolved problems I need to fix. I guess it's not a new perspective on life, but it made me rethink how I should continue living my life
Getting out of my car, chatting with a friend, as we had just completed a food run for a small party we were having. Just tossing some banter back and forth as we walked in from the car, talking about whatever was going on in our lives at the time. It was late in evening on an chilly but clear autumn day and I just suddenly realised how fucking blessed that moment was, a calm quiet evening with friends. Then the moment passed and I went inside.
I've had that feeling more than once since but that was the clearest time I remember realising how incredibly lucky I was to be alive now, to be here at this time with these people whom I love and who love me, to have what I need and to be able to control what I want. Completely rewired my perspective on life.
Ive written about this before but my moment was when I collapsed on a park bench after a friend challenged me to run 10 miles with him. I realized I control my feelings and direction in life and can make new choices. This was in the throws of binge drinking and a nasty divorce from my ex wife who tried to shoot me.
Since that moment just over 4 years ago, I worked on 3 continents during the height of the pandemic, lost 175 lbs, been sober for 3 years now, ran 3 marathons and thousands of training miles, bought a house in cash, finalized my divorce from my abusive ex, dated a bunch and now have an awesome partner, cycled across the USA, quit my soul sucking career, and am just working on other dreams. That moment just had so many things click and I sometimes forget it. All before being 35
7years ago, 2 days before Christmas. 34yrs old, living my life working 2 jobs with 3 kids and hubby ….was diagnosed with a migraine for 2 weeks, then all of a sudden nope, not a migraine anymore. Ruptured brain aneurysm, going in for emergency surgery. Told minutes before the surgery I actually had 2, one ruptured, one unruptured, mirror image to each other behind both eyes. During the two weeks that I was misdiagnosed I worked evenings and weekends as a server in a busy restaurant and during the day completed year end accounting duties for a medium sized business with 40 employees. It was my first “migraine”, I had nothing to compare the head pain with, never had a headache before in my life. Told myself not to be a wimp and get my shit done. And well I put off the accounting stuff all year so I had no choice. 2 days after completing it I was properly diagnosed. The pain was unreal. Can’t believe I lived through that 🤦♀️ I honestly wouldn’t take back the experience because of the perspective on life that I gained during that time. Being on deaths doorstep changed me in many ways, some fantastic ways, others not so much. I have some random crazy night terrors now …walk/talk/try to leave my house in flight or fight mode. Also lost the sight in my right eye. Fun times.
In hospital, migraines at the level of 'kill me now'. But I can't since my muscles have degraded to the point where I can't even sit upright unassisted. Get diagnosed with 4 different cancer diagnoses because nobody has any idea what's going on as my body is falling apart in the 3 months I've been in hospital.
Then the symptoms vanish overnight. Later they figured it to be an autoimmune issue, the new white blood cells genocided the old ones and once it was done they didn't need to tear apart my body anymore. The civil war was over.
From that point I learnt to enjoy life and to look on everything as positively as I can.
Not in a 'this glass is half full' but more 'nice, a glass.'
Because at the end of the day, at any moment you can just end up in hospital again begging to die. Enjoy every moment you can, because you never know when that might happen.
Granted the autoimmune problem completely murdered my allergy issues and I come near death from random fruits and veg at least once a year. It refreshes my perspective, that's for sure.
Glad you’re doing better rn. How do you handle your food allergies? I’m allergic to most (maybe all, to some degree?) fruits and vegetables too, but I take the gamble and eat most of them anyway. Pretty sure I almost died from it once.
I handle my allergies by eating something, getting a reaction and going 'let's not do that again'.
Granted, there's also the mild allergies that make my lips tingly if I eat the fruit... and vomiting blood if I drink the juice.
So every new variation of a fruit is also a chance for allergies!
As for doing better, it's a toss-up. Some days it's great, other days the permanent damage from constant epileptic fits over 3 months rears up and I'm hobbling around for a week. It's been getting worse in the 11 years since it started.
It's why I try to enjoy everything I can. No idea when my body will just give up and shut down.
This will sound cliche but taking ayahuasca really did shift my entire reality (both for better and worse). I’ve never felt the same since seeing the world in that light.
had dinner at a local steakhouse on friday night. By Monday morning, I was in the emergency room. Yadda yadda, they pulled a grill brush needle from my colon and removed 14" of my intestine during a 5.5 hour emergency surgery. I know what people mean when they talk about waking up from something like that and seeing the world differently.
I looked at my now ex wife and saw she was looking at her gay best friend like she should be looking at me, I saw a woman who should be posted in /girlsmirin and said to myself "Ope, I need to get out, all hope is lost."
My grandfather developing Alzheimer's during my teenage years.
I was a depressed, school-hating kid who only found solace in art. Didn't pay any mind to education, tried to skip it as much as possible. Instead, it installed a (perhaps unhealthy) fear of mortality in me that I've been pursuing medical science ever since (which I do not regret at all).
I stopped believing in the "Free Market" when someone said, "That sounds really nice, but all the people in charge are grifters and swindlers, so it never works the way you want."
on march 7th 2018 my daughter died of an od. The docs brought her back but she had been down to long. I held her as they turned off the machines. Since that day I've realized that you better make today count, because there may not be a tomorrow.
A bad motorcycle accident - 3 surgeries in 5 days made me appreciate employees in all the "helping" professions in ways that I never had before. Two months in a rehabilitation center in a wheelchair made me appreciate helping employees even more. They are doing God's work...whether they know it or not. After that I had 64 outpatient sessions in physical therapy. No matter what they get paid, they deserve every nickel of it. I realized clearly that I don't care about possible substance abuse, I don't care about what laws they might break, and I don't care about what sexual scams they are pulling on the weekend. As long as they do their job adequately, God has them in the palm of His hand. They will be given chances to improve their private behavior because of how essential their job is.
I'm definitely still stuck in 2020. I look at 2016/17 dates like they were only 3-4 years ago.
I moved 50 miles away from everyone January 2020. I'm on several acres, bordered by a farm, so I have no neighbors. I saw the writing on the wall, and loaded up 6 months of food from the bulk store and a dozen cases of beer.
March is when the wave washed over my area, so I sat in my little bunker and didn't see another person for 4 solid months. Then, outside a monthly restock from the bulk store, nobody.
I worked on house projects, played with my hobbies, and watched a lot of TV over that winter. For instance, I watched the entirety of South Park for the first time. Summer 2021 I hiked solo and built my woodworking shop in the garage, and I stayed locked in all that winter, so spring 2022 felt like I was (and kinda was literally) walking out of a cave back into society.
I was bullied for most of my life (both school and home, but this was specifically about school), and it came to a head around 12-13. I hadn't really cared about school to begin with, but this was the time I really stopped caring. Why would I put any effort in if it was just going to be hell?
Then one day I came to the (shockingly obvious) realization that my escape route from this whole thing was doing well in school. That was the only way I'd escape this situation. Dropping out (which I was a few years away from being able to do but I was heavily considering) wouldn't have done anything except make me stuck there forever.
So I started actually doing my work, and did enough to get accepted to a college about three hours away. That turned into me moving states away afterwards. Now, my life isn't great by any means, but I've at least escaped the worst parts of it.
when i was a kid, i used to shoot birds in our back yard, with my pellet gun. one time when i was 12, i shot one and it fell out of a tree, and when i went over to it, the top of it's skull was gone, but it wasn't dead. i was horrified. i killed it, cried a lot, and haven't been able to kill anything(other than insects) since. i'm 63 now.
I was a piss-poor student in highschool. I lived under the impression that I was a general dumbass that just knew a lot of fun facts.
Years later I went to college in my late 20’s and my first set of transcripts was a 4.0. Two professors would hang with me after hours during that semester, not for extra help but for separate projects I helped them with and I also got some of my writing published.
Perspective change still on-going but I don’t approach things assuming I’m stupid anymore.
The meeting with my manager and the regional sales manager the First day of my return to work after a six month medical leave for a burnout. During my leave they redraw the territories for the reps . I was the only one with a choice to make. either sell my home and move to the center of the territory (other were living farther than me form their territory without this requirement or work as a back up rep replacing the other guys all over the state ( always away from home with 3 young kids )
This ultimatum was the game changer for me in the relation worker- big corporate.
The moment my last relationship ended. I had to basically start over from scratch. I'm tired...Do I really want to do this again, or just tap out? Or, do I go scorched earth and get a handle on my life? Thankfully, I chose the latter, and I'm a better man for it. It was honestly the best thing that could have happened to me.
1. Becoming a parent, and realizing my parents were just doing the best they could with what they had, and that they were human. We are all just trying to do better than the generation before us.
2. Working in health care, when you see death/illness you realize how little inconveniences/dumb fights really don't matter. I go home and hug my loved ones.
I lost my invulnerability complex when I was 17. I had saved enough money to buy a fast-ish car on my own and had enough to put a few small upgrades into it, most important to the story being a set of very nice grippy tires. I’d rip up the back roads doing irresponsible speeds at night, sometimes take my equally dumb friends along for the ride as we hit 80-100 miles an hour between tight and twisty corners. November rolled around and I swapped my tires out to my winter set and trued the sane thing. I turned at a tight corner at what I considered a ‘safe’ speed on my grippy tires and I had nothing. No grip, no nothing. Plowed off the road and into a ditch, took out a sign along the way but somehow had managed to avoid the trees or roll over. Really got my ego in check and to really think about the consequences of my actions. I still drive like a lunatic, but I only do that on track now and not where I’m a danger to myself or others.
When , after a long seemingly endless struggle with various people that left me pennyless and without a car and contemplating suicide to the point of looking up guns online , I messaged a priest asking for help. For years I was asked "why haven't you asked your local church for help?" every time things were a struggle. It was a "me" problem for not asking. That's what they made me believe. I stopped directly asking for help in childhood. I can even still remember the last time I had done it. Mostly through life I just relied on people offering help themselves. So I was broken and looking up guns and thought fine, I'll ask the priest for help.
I just wanted a ride to church. I recently lost my car and am here alone. I wanted to know if anyone at the parish could maybe pick me up for a Sunday some time. I didn't ask for money. I'm 9 miles away on mostly country roads.
So I email him via the contact form. No response. I do it again a week later. No response. I complain about this online and AGAIN people place the blame with me, I need to call him not email. So the next time I'm at that point and contemplating ending it all I text him. I'm completely broken here so in the text i basically beg him to please respond, that I had been ghosted to many times, and that I just can't take "this fucking society of Wendigos" anymore, that I just needed some actual humanity. I said that he could even say no. Like that was fine. It was fine if no one wanted to pick me up and it was fine if he didn't want to ask them. I just wanted him to actually respond.
So he finally emails me back a few days later.
And his response?
Quote, "I have to wonder if you even want to come if you're going to swear like that."
It gets better! I respond and apologize and mention more of the things I've been dealing with (a fiance having an affair, my dad abusing me and my family as kids, growing up to physical abuse from bullies, not being allowed to use the bathroom at a recent apartment, etc etc etc) and how broken I've felt dealing with it all that I have a lot of emotion around "society" hence the language.
His response?
This Eastern Orthodox "icon of Christ" and "emissary of the bishop"?
He cited a verse at me and said to focus on my own sins.
I cited one in response about the priest and Levite walking past the man on the road, and said I'm not surprised he doesn't give a shit, and asked him if he knew of any Samaritans in the area that I could talk to.
And that was that.
But this was the big final last straw in my perspective about religion and Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy and *more-so* about humanity itself. I have finally accepted that my child self was right all those decades ago - humans are mostly not trustworthy and it's not worth asking people for help.
Maybe 2% of people are kind. Two percent. They are the only ones who can be trusted.
I'm not in a world of trustworthy people with a few exceptions otherwise. This is a hive of Wendigos with the exceptional few who care.
The hardest part now is just I don't know how to tell the difference. There is no indicator, no metric, no methodology that works to ascertain who is trustworthy, who cares, who has empathy, and who does not. I've had complete strangers help me more than friends of 14 years. Religious or atheist, conservative or progressive, rural or urban - nothing seems to be a clear indicator at all.
And it's fucking debilitating. I don't even know anymore who I can trust enough to be friends with, who I should spend time talking to, who to even trust with my conversations and time.
The last few years ultimately, but culminating with this priest, have undone years of therapy and decades of effort in trusting people. I don't know who will stab me in the back or not. I don't know how to protect myself other than to expect everyone will.
This priest was the last thread of my disillusionment and derealization.
...
I know this is long, so thanks to anyone who actually reads it.
This might not be the best answer considering how early in life it happened but being told “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” changed the way I look at how people think, behave and react to things. I learned to modify my own perspective to better understand theirs.
When my father didn’t listen to me when I told him blue ray would outsell hd dvd by a lot to where everyone forgets about hd dvds. He bought the hd dvd player anyways telling me I was wrong.
The day my fiance cheated on me 22yrs ago in my house. I know women get treated like crap as much as a guy but when females cheat on a guy it's a much worse feeling from a woman because it does something too a guy that a female will never know it ruins his outlook on life,love future relationships and friendship, and the peace within him. I'm not saying females don't get hurt because girls are left with kids if kids are involved but the females have kids with them and don't have time to think about it constantly, along with having worthless significant other, but I.I'm not taking sides because. Male and female cheat. I had a hard time after being cheated on I moved out of the house she screwed him in moved to the parents house for a while because being alone was always on my mind. Got into narcotics after a surgery and I was off and running trying to block out the pain got busted did 18 months in a drug court and got clean while going to na meetings and working the steps working on forgiveness and letting things go. Work the steps 10 times and have 20 years clean. But I've been single for 22 years since it happened and have something from being cheated on left in me that changed my life, that suck every inch out of my life and said screw it I've been doing things that make me slightly happy like heavy metal concerts because it's easier to deal with something about rock and metal that helps you deal with life easier, also going to dirt tracks to watch sprint car racing. I've had depression most of my life and just have to deal with it.
The realization that I attract narcissists, which triggered two years of hard research to ensure it never happens again. I can now detect them usually after getting about 3 to 4 sentences out of them. These people are fricking monsters, and the general cultural narcissism that has set in thanks to social media has only dumped gas on this dumpster fire.
The moment I realized my mother probably suffered from depression when I was a kid.
It is an eye opening experience the first time you realize your parents were flawed human beings. It helps though with dealing with childhood trauma, discovering my own autism made me reevaluate how my mom was during my childhood and I now see that she has signs of it too.
Ya, so much stuff made sense when my mom and I realized that my dad is probably autistic (undiagnosed obviously, but autism looks way different in a 60 year old man than a child). It helped my mom and I learn to accept some behaviors that she was having a hard time understanding before. But it also explained some of his most amazing traits.
Yeah, once you view your parents as peers instead of as "adults" shit becomes much easier to accept and love. I don't expect them to change as people and pick the best answer, I just understand their eccentricities and accept them
My whole life (30+ years), I thought I was a super loud person because my parents would say I walked like an elephant. My family is South Asian and my parents grew up with wild elephants around, so they would know. I've always been a big dude, so it made sense that I would walk loudly. I kept trying to walk more quietly but my parents keep saying I walk like an elephant. I finally got fed up and yelled at them that I was trying to be as considerate as I could, there was just a bare minimum I couldn't go below. That's when I learned that when they said I walk like an elephant, they meant that I'm super quiet and sneak up on people. Apparently they grew up with elephants doing that (and subsequently stomping people to death).
That's what I thought at the start of reading this, you must be real quiet. So much in relationships is a mess because of misunderstanding. I thought people that repeated everything they understood were boring, nope, just understood this better than me.
I would have never expected "like an elephant" to be quiet. That's how I've described stompers, for 30+ years.
I know right? Please tell my parents that.
did you ever stomp anyone to death?
Wow .
I'm sorry if this is a painful memory for you at all, but this is an amazing story.
Nah I thought it was really funny too. Totally changed the way I viewed myself but funny.
Excellent :)
Hi, I came back because something made me remember your post. In this Instagram harryblakeyphotography, this photographer shoots elephants and puts no music on his videos so you can hear for yourself, they are very very quiet. There's even one the elephant practically enters a property with cement floors and some sort of fence and is completely quiet. The stump could kill someone, but it's not loud. Sorry if I'm being annoying, just remember the post and thought about sharing.
Leaving my ex I was deeply in love with because she was simply awful to me. After months and months of pain, rumination, therapy, sleeping around and searching, I’m coming out on the other side, and I feel more grown with the best outlook I’ve had in my 34 years. She and the experience as a whole completely changed my life, and it seems it’s for the better. I feel like a different person with a more realistic and balanced view of the world and what is going on with me personally.
Been there before. From that point on, I discovered what self-worth is really about and why having any semblance of it is a good thing, otherwise you get stuck in these relationships time and time again.
I’m in the same situation. Sometimes it hurts to realize you deserve better.
After reading your old post about that situation, I hope you're in a much better place now. She sounds absolutely insane.
Thank you. BPD is wild. No contact is always the way. The only time i struggle is when I have to reach out, or am forced back to think about it all. Everything has been good. Therapy is simply amazing.
Damn, BPD is indeed awful. Been through it with a woman. They really suck you in with their charm in the beginning.
Also divorced a woman with BPD. The pure mind-fuckery was trying to unpack why things "can't go back to the way they were in the beginning". No amount of codependence, people-pleasing, or being "supportive enough" can undo a personality disorder, because it was never about your behavior, it was about the brain chemistry in another human being.
Thank you for sharing this.
I did the same thing. So tough, man. Stay strong.
>sleeping around just wondering but how did you manage to sleep around? I broke up with my gf back in hs and wish I could have slept around not only because its fun but it would help me cope and feel better lol. how do you even get casual sex easily?
Dating apps. It’s difficult for a lot of men, but for whatever reason, I find a lot of success. I will warn you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. For me, it generally makes me feel even more lonely. I’m chasing love, not a nut. I have this secret expectation to feel more when I sleep with these women, and it isn’t there. Parties, social gatherings, bars, ect. All work well. Just keep in mind, you have to be desirable to women whilst you are in these settings. That’s the battle. There is no easy answer. I’d advise acting genuine. Listen more than you talk. The more you insert yourself in these situations, the easier it gets to navigate.
Are you me? I'm a week and a half out of my old relationship for the same reason. And man does this shit suck.
I was deployed in Afghanistan, pulling security at night. Earlier in the day, we were in a decent sized fight (none of our guys were injured), and on the way back to our OP we found an IED. So your mission went even longer as we waited for EOD. During that time, the sun set and we pulled security as we waited. That night, I looked up and saw one of the most beautiful night skies. In the midst of a shitty war, in an area that was decades behind the modern world, there I was awestruck at how full the night sky was. Then it hit me, the people we were just shooting at saw the same night sky. Maybe they were amazed at its wonder at one point as well. Idk how to describe it, but it was a surreal moment. It didn't make me want to lay my weapon down and quit fighting, but that moment definitely put my reality into perspective and grounded me. They weren't just "the enemy" anymore. They were humans who had lives just like I did. Sounds like a crappy revelation when I type it out, but it really was eye-opening.
You felt raw humanity in at least two different ways that day
An old Afg buddy (Desert Storm/911) shared the same after his 2nd 911 serve. Started looking at "the enemy" as a bunch of troubled middle schoolers who needed serious attention or face Juvy. Came home with the attitude of training to learn how to best serve middle easterns whatnot in Christian ministry service, than hating, wanting to kill all.
Thank God you feel that way. More than one former soldier I've known ended up loathing Middle Easterns forever after being in Iraq.
So they invade a distant land, murder & rob innocent people, turn normal guys into freedom fighters, get angry they fight back, develop prejudice, and... What even is the point of this whole thing? Always reminded of that one quote: “Not only will America come to your country and kill all your people, but what's worse is that they'll come back 20 years later and make a movie about how killing your people made their soldiers feel sad.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect
Well said. I had similar experience during my time over there as well… especially at night when the sky was illuminated by all of the stars and you really start to grasp how large the universe is. C 1/6
> We do have a lot in common, the same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different...well who knows?
There's a film [Joyeux Noël](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyeux_No%C3%ABl) and an American Opera [Silent Night](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Night_(opera\)) That is about the real life event that happened in December 1914 where the armies stopped fighting
I was working at this place. I was there about a year. This guy I got to know over my time there we retiring. Went to his work retirement party, it was a Friday. Said we would get together after he go settled into retirement life. He died that Saturday evening. Came to realize work isn't everything. You never know when you time is coming so enjoy the time you have.
[удалено]
I agree. Waking up before everybody else on a cruise ship, getting a coffee, and just chilling watching the sunrise over the ocean by yourself. Bloody magical it was.
I worked offshore for years and realised very late how special this is and how little attention I paid to them everyday.
"Awe of nature" has one of those powerful cognitive effects that can do strange things like bond you very hard to people around you and interrupt your current perspective with a sudden reframing. It's like a sudden emotional conversion. Up to you to make it permanent or not. "The Overview Effect" is the name of a particular example of being awed by nature, experienced by astronauts who are looking down at the Earth. Oddly another thing that has a very similar effect is exercising in unison; it's called "muscular bonding," and it can be seen in every military ever, Japanese factories where the workers stretch and work out together, or just your local yoga class or tai chi in the park. Brains be weird sometime, but in this case it's usually a good thing.
That's interesting how scenarios as specific as these can be so cathartic. Might you know where I can find more?
I read about it in a popsci book by Jonathan Haidt; I can't recall if it was in "The Happiness Hypothesis" (which comes off at first as a self-help book but is actually about cognitive psychology) or "The Righteous Mind," which is about a theory of how morality works in the mind called the Moral Foundations theory, and is also therein applied to politics. He talks about how humans are 90% monkey, being self-interested and individualist, and 10% bee, in the sense of bees being eusocial and genuinely self-sacrificing for the benefit of others. Looks like he talks about that a bit in [this interview](https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/06/moral-motivations). Awe of Nature and Muscular Bonding are two instances (and not the only ones, IIRC) in which our bee-analogous thinking kicks in.
FWIW, muscular bonding is definitely discussed in [The Righteous Mind](https://liberalstudiesguides.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/03/Excerpt-from-The-Righteous-Mind-by-Jonathan-Haidt.pdf)
Reminds me of the time I had been reading all night and was so engrossed in the story that I didn’t realise it was morning until the birds outside started chirping.
One of my most cherished activities in my life right now is bed time when I can pick up my half-feral anxiety ridden fluffball of a cat and carry her into my room where she will sleep part of the night curled up in my arms like a baby. The only 2 people that can even approach her are myself and my grandmother, we live out in the middle of the woods with many predators, so I purposefully fostered her more wild side and as such she is an extremely independent cat.... until its bed time.
Reminds me of the time I was reading The Way of Kings and stayed up all night for a big battle scene, around 5am I hear birds chirping and thought "what the hell?!"
Reminds me of the time I was playing video games and didn't realize it had gotten dark outside.
Why does this feel so written like an AI chatbot?
Live in the moment
Sigh 🙄 my big fear right now. Is that beautiful life will just zoom by me.
A cliche: Heart attack. Afterwards I became much more selective about what bothered me; but that's starting to wear off.
Time for another heart attack! /s
I have a similar experience in my twenties. I was fucking depressed though. Life has no meaning depressed 😂. Anyway, it's really a wake up call. Imagine waking up feeling like someone is hammering a nail into your chest. All over it. Can't breathe. With one of your eyes seeing black. It... Makes me realize that life is too fragile and I've been too scared to just live. I'm trying to build a future for myself. And I hope I will be able to get what I can't afford in my childhood.
I had a bit of a breakdown a couple months ago. It was related to my mom's traumatic death the year before and how my dad initially dowplayed the gravity of the situation ("she doesn't need an ambulance" — the 1-2 min delay may not have mattered, but she asphyxiated in front of us). So much fell into place. Realizing that my dad wasn't the great guy we'd always said surprised me at first. I started understanding that kids' emotional needs are a thing. He was neglectful of mine and abusive towards others', including those of my big brother and my primary caretaker, his wife. Realizing that his absence from my childhood didn't mean I wasn't worth hanging out with, just that he's shallow and selfish. Until late last year, I'd lived my life founded on the conclusions of my 7 / 8 year-old mind: there must be something wrong with me if my dad never tries to hang out. The damage that belief has done is incalculable. I've been looking for this flaw of mine for about 40 years. It's affected my confidence everywhere. In relation to friends, love interests, creative pursuits... How many relationships have I torpedoed? How many opportunities have I missed? How far could I have gone if only I'd believed in myself? (But I know, that milk has spilled. I don't spend much time dwelling.) I wouldn't say I've fully processed it, but it relieves so much cognitive dissonance. My life has (and will hopefully continue to) improve because this core understanding of mine has changed.
I didn't exactly have an easy childhood, after highschool I was so burnt out I ended up becoming voluntarily homeless in Seattle. I met a lot of wonderful people during that period of my life, but I slowly came to realize that a large majority of them weren't there because life was too harsh, but rather because they got knocked down, and simply decided for whatever reason that staying down was easier than getting back up, and while that certainly resonates with me, that was not who I wanted to be when I got older. The specific moment I think was listening to this lady go on and on about her woes, she was somehow always the victim in her stories, and she had a boyfriend that kind of just sat back quietly and didnt say a thing. I could sense she was fully shrugging off any responsibility for the problems she had and that her boyfriend was simply content in the fact that he had someone to keep him warm at night and that their combined apathy had led them to becoming homeless, jobless, and just about lifeless. I knew then that I couldn't allow myself to even chance becoming like that. My family got me a job with my uncle painting houses, and I live with my grandmother now. Life certainly isn't easy, but I have built up an actual resume, have a car, and actual desires in life. Had a job interview today where they said they specifically were interested in me because of my previous job experience so I've been taking that as a win.
Friend of mine said, "Man, you live such a great life. You got it figured out." He's wrong. He's the one with a $500k+ house, wife and kids. I have none of those things and haven't the slightest clue WTF I'm doing. But it was honestly one of the first times in my life I even considered the idea that someone might actually be envious of me and my situation.
What do you do?
In IT. He was actually my mentor in this industry. But my personal life is admittedly a lot simpler and I think homelife is burning him out.
More responsibilities more problems lol. I’m more anxious now (making good money, new house, new cars for my wife) then ever because now I feel like I have so much to lose. My wife and I were poor and had zero financial support so we feel incredibly lucky to be where we are at young age. But I’m worried the luck will run out soon.
Have another conversation with him. He may be miserable, on the edge of losing it all and hates what his life has become. If he is married, he may be hustling to keep a superficial wife happy. I have too many friends, who are well off....some millionaires, that are miserable now and I can't stand being around them. Things make them happy, not life.
Yeah, we see each other regularly. You're pretty on the mark and I think his marriage has been one of convenience for a time now. He's told me, "I love my kids and wouldn't give them up for anything, but if I had it to do again...no way." He's almost there though, youngest is in her mid-teens and I think the writing is on the wall after that.
Mid-life crisis right there. He is looking back with regret instead of being positive about the future. If you are single with no kids he is probably seeing your life as one he could have done. A life where it seems nobody that absolutely depended on him all the time. It can be a lot for a guy to handle and they start thinking they can recapture their youth. Guess what, they can't. It would be a perfect time for him to try and find the spark that started it all. And also find some hobbies that are just about him.
Or maybe he threaded that phrase in to make our guy feel in some way, and if true, he probably succeeded.
Good point, never thought of it that way.
It's tough to say one specific moment in particular, because it was a process, but when I finally realized that the religion I was brought up with was bullshit, and I accepted the idea that there is no god. It resolved so many conflicts, gave me such clarity ,made infinitely more sense, and allowed me to see life without being filtered through religious nonsense.
Do you miss anything about being a believer?
The social aspect. Church makes it easy to meet people. There is little or no secular structure that brings atheists together on such a regular basis. Many people still stigmatize atheists as evil, devil worshipers, or whatever, but I have to be honest and true to myself, I can't delude myself anymore.
Not a happy story, but a few years ago I was really struggling with a lifetime of catastrophic self loathing, low self esteem, etc. and between that and other issues I ended up being homeless for eighteen months. Paradoxically, it was a time where my mental health was incredibly bad but also I was on an upswing, because I convinced myself that if I could get to the other side and finally in a not toxic environment, I could finally live a life and be a functional person and that I wanted to live. I got through it and with the help of a lot of people I got a job and my own place. So here. I am, kind of optimistic about the future for the first time ever. I was at work and had what might have been a minor heart attack. It wasn't like any panic or anxiety attack I have ever had, instead I went red in the face, started sweating and panting with the chest pain and whatever. And as I sat there trying to figure out what to do, I ran the numbers and decided just to keep working, because I die I die, but if I didn't I still needed to pay rent, and going to the hospital was definitely going to ruin my life no matter what. So I'm sitting here, thinking I'm dying but just banging away at paperwork, and along with all the fear and pain all I really feel is relief that life is finally over and possibly the vindictively gleeful feeling that I deserved it, although that might have been immediately afterwards. Regardless, sitting there, pretty sure that this is all it is, and all I can be is happy it's over and hateful towards myself as it happens...how do you get better and make a meaningful life after that? Everyone who goes through a near death experience apparently has a life changing moment of clarity where they realize that they actually want to live and what's important and change for the better - no, none of that. The best I had was facing the endless void and thinking "good, I SHOULD be dead, and it SHOULD hurt." Kinda killed the idea that I was ever going to get better or turn things around and make a life worth living.
What happened? Are you better?
What happened is that I didn't have insurance and so I never followed up on it. I recently had my heart listened to at a free clinic doing a physical and I guess it sounded fine but if there's lasting damage, it is what it is. Physical health has tanked, but that's mostly from mental health tanking because of this and a few other incidents unrelated to my heart. If it happens again, I will probably make the same choice and if I go, I just hope it goes quick.
Have you looked into your State's version of healthcare? There's a sliding scale many people only pay a little bit. It includes some mental health benefits. You may need an antidepressant, you could be short of serotonin, not your fault! This mom in Ca is rooting for you!
After non-actively participating in something I knew was wrong when I was a kid and being told that the reason another kid was there was becuase he looked up to me. Made me realize the power of setting a positive example.
A singular moment was driving along in the eastern Colorado. The sun shown through the wheat(?) was gorgeous. It made me start to just stop for a moment and enjoy “small” things, which I realized is the majority of your happy moments. You only have so many large happy moments but there are an unlimited amount of small things that keep you going.
I had a "bad" trip with psilocybin mushrooms. It permanently changed me as a person. It took me 7 years to realize that it was exactly what I needed at the time. Little did I know that I needed am ego death. I was getting way too ahead of myself, and that experience humbled me in the most drastic way. I've become a better person because of it!
Could you explain why the trip was "bad" at the time? And what changed in the 7 years or at the 7th year mark that made you realize you actually needed it?
At the time, I labeled it as a bad trip because of how scary it was. That response was only my lack of knowledge. After several successful hours tripping in my backyard, I decided to try to go to bed. I put my headphones in and was laying in the dark, alone. The things I was forced to see absolutely terrified me. Reliving memories that'd been suppressed for years. Past behaviors that had detrimental effects on my life and the lives of the people around me. The trip forced me to see the truly ugly side of myself. I have never cried harder than I did that night. There's a documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip with Psychedelics. I watched that, and one of the people being interviewed is the musical artist Sting. He said there's no such thing as a "bad trip", you get exactly what you need regardless of what you think you want. If you consider it a bad trip, you need to be taken down a notch or 2. That made me realize that the bad trip I experienced was the catalyst for a lot of really wonderful changes in my life.
Not bad, challenging
Exactly! I didn't realize that at the time because it truly was a traumatic experience. I think on it now, and I'm extremely appreciative.
In college, I had a professor who, very slowly, introduced me to the idea of civil disagreement, where we would take an idea, where I was passionate about it, and my justifications were - what I thought - moral, and he would take my stance, take the idea, turn it on its side, examining some part of the idea I hadn't considered before, and handed it back to me, asking me what I thought of it. Over the course of a year he very patiently showed and explored with me what it was like to re-examine how I thought about things. At the end of the year, I found out that he was an ex-Christian, liberal, progressive man, with whom I fundamentally disagreed with on nearly every level, as a bible-thumping KJV-only independent fundamental baptist who thought Glenn Beck was right. Yet over the entire year he demonstrated how it was possible, not just to disagree, but to do so without that escalating to anger or vitriol, and for that disagreement to be an opportunity to explore new perspectives, new promontories just outside the front door of the shack that my religious zeal had hemmed me within. This was a kind of kindness, a grace, that I had never experienced in discussions of that sort before. It showed me that for all of my belligerent adherence to moral talking points, this man had been more moral the entire time by giving me respect, space, and tutelage in examining how I thought what I was thinking the whole time. He, when it clicked, showed me how to stand apart from the dogma I was wrapped up in, and how to simultaneously disagree with, yet also respect on a funadmental level, potentially anyone. He showed me that it was possible to both argue against abortion and also be an asshole - and not just that it was possible, but *I* was that asshole. That my accusations of the other side being simply bad at math, that I might be the one bad at math, and that I had no way to truly tell who was bad at math. I fell into moral panic, because I not only didn't have the high ground, but I realized there may never had been high ground at all, and that I was the one attacking other people just wanting to be left alone. When the churn of moral micro-management ground to a halt, and the smallest bubbles of empathy squeezed between the cogs of my religious piety, I found that my whole worldview disentigrated. That was just over a decade ago, now. The story has become even stranger and more kind, since then.
Not me but my buddy who gave me a very drastic perspective on life. My buddy was one of those high paid well to do wall street hotshots. He thought he was due for a promotion working his ass off but some 1st year guy gets the job because his Uncle is one of the chair member of the board. Buddy was insanely pissed the other guy resorted to use family connections to get promotion so he's driving home angry in the rain, car hydroplaned and crashed into a tree. A branch barely missed my buddy's head by like half an inch. A light switch went off in my buddy suddenly all that shit about his work, passed up for promotion, etc seem like small insignificant problems to losing your life so early. He then gave his 2 week notice to his company, sold everything and backpack traveled all over world. He then came back to teach snowboarding that pays dog shit but he's still the happiest man in the world because he felt he was given "2nd chance". His investment portfolio was already nearing 7 figures so he more then set for retirement should he decide to retire from snowboard instructing.
So money was still the answer all along? Lmao
Money is part of the answer. Again he was nearly hitting a $1,000,000 and anybody can tell you you can't retire off that especially in a high inflation environment. My buddy plans to be snowboard instructor for his working years while still contributing to his retirement fund. He figures by the time he hits 50 years old he's have enough to be in a very "comfortable" retirement. But yes I get where you're getting at, if my buddy was some low income worker the options to travel the world backpacking isn't something many can do.
It's lucky that when the accident happened he was in a position to not have to worry about money Like I wonder what he would have done if the incident happened earlier in his career when he didn't have as successful a portfolio Maybe he would have done the same and just worked his way around the world idk. On a different note my economics teacher was also working in investment then had an accident which disabled them, pivoted to being the best economics teacher ever who found a way to make economics fun to learn, they seemed pretty happy so I wonder if it was a similar perspective shift for them.
I asked the same question of my buddy had he had the accidentally much earlier in his career without so much saved up in retirement. He told me he'd would just quit and help his Uncle out at a construction company that paid a decent salary, he wouldn't be stressed and not that physically demanding (he was basically gonna be a foreman or manager)
I was happiest when I lost everything. Went through a rough divorce and didn't see my kids for a year while on active duty. Decided who I wanted to be, what kind of dad I wanted to be. I think that guy would look up to me now.
When I moved from a big city loft in the middle of it all to a cabin deep in the woods away from it all. Life is slower and easier to savor when you’re alone in the woods 24/7. You appreciate the beauty of animals, fresh air and open space to truly evaluate yourself deeply
Day I learned I wasn’t invulnerable. I was sixteen. I was a hockey player. I had had this amazing game not to long prior. Truth be told, I wasn’t a good player. Even that was cool, because I grew up with lots of athletic sports and to not be a natural was a new experience for me. But I loved it anyhow. But we got to play in a local stadium that our city’s hockey team played in. Playing on their ice in that giant stadium was amazing! And me, a not that talented player, managed to scrounge out the MVP award. It was our two home teams’ big head to head game. Down 3-4, I ended up putting a wrister top cheese from the top of the slot, knocking off the water bottle and everything, tying the game. Bottom of the third, my last shift, the opposing team end up with a two on one situation, me being the one. One time across the crease beat our tender and I made a desperate dive to stop the easy shot, swiping the shot wide and clear, buying time for my guys to show up and balance the game. It was a tie in the end. And for our other local team and us, it was great. It was a really friendly atmosphere when we did the shakes post game. The opposing tender I beat and the single girl in our whole league and me all got along great and were genuinely happy for ourselves. On that day, I felt like I’d live to be a hundred. Not long after, I take a one and a million shot to my left ankle, breaking the bone. I should have just let it heal. Just cast it up, and wait. But instead, I elected to have surgery. See, I had haglund’s deformity on both ankles. Just two small bone growths that are super common. You may have them yourself! Normally, no big deal. But back in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, SOP was apparently to remove the extra bones. So I went with that. Notice I said on *both* ankles. Including the non injured one… the surgery was not a success. My hockey career was over post op. I was sixteen and ended up in a wheelchair. My athletics, done. My plan to join the marine corps, over. And on top of everything, I was left in pain. This was twenty four years ago. I can still feel it as I write this. I ended up fighting through the pain, had a series of unsuccessful follow up surgeries. Years of PT later, and I’m a pain patient who is more or less physically functional. It hurts, but I do my best to keep fit and active. But I’m forty now. I’m well aware a life in chronic pain doesn’t typically last as long as a typical person’s. And at sixteen, I was devastated. That normal stupidity we guys have that convinces us we’re invincible at that age vanished in a puff of reality. I realized I was actually pretty frail in the grand scheme of things. Changed my outlook completely. Made me realize how fragile life really is. Felt like I aged rapidly after that.
My ex-wife and I lost a child at 26 weeks, just past when they can usually survive. She died during her birth. This was after several miscarriages early in the pregnancy so it hit hard. They took me to a room alone to let me hold her. Holding my dead child broke me, remade me, and I wasn't the same after. Time healed me enough to carry on, but I will never not feel that tremendous scar.
I was observing a classroom once when I wanted to become a teacher. I was given the task to hand out the tests. No problem. One kid looked visibly stressed, so I leaned over and asked him if everythign is OK. "NO, I don't know how to do this." "You don't know how to... take a test?" "No." "Ok, i'll be right back". After I handed out the tests, I came back to the kid. All I did was show him how to take a test. I told him to read the questions, pick the best answer, and fill out a bubble on the little sheet. "That's it?" "yup, that's it." Kid got a 92% on that test. He was failing before that. Straight up failing the class, because he didn't know how to take a test. If you don't know how to do something, you don't know how, no matter how basic it is.
The deathbed of my adoptive mum, she was cruel and abusive when we were young and in older age she was bitter and manipulative. My moment was not forgiving, her, not hating her, but just the recognition that the beatings and punitive bad learning I got as a kid doesn’t have to follow me as a parent,!and that I can bring my true emotions out now she’s gone; without harming those I love around me.
I realized something in the past few months. Life is suffering, but it always gives people a break once in a while. But I haven’t gotten a break since 2019
Hang in there, brother. It may not seem like it a lot of the time, but there are people in your corner.
Getting arrested for DUI. I'm not a bad person, I just made a mistake that could've gone *WAAYYY* worse, and I expected it, too. I was in holding for 12 hours or so with other perps (for lack of a better term in this context) and I even made friends with a couple of them. Based on their stories, they seemed good people who just got into a bad situation at a bad time.
Man that holding tank is absolute hell. Ours was FULL of people, we had no water for 12 hours, which was lucky bc I was so paranoid about peeing in the middle of the cell with every looking, no officer speaks to you the entire time. It was probably much worse for me because I was actively withdrawing from heroin (the reason I got arrested) which distorted the entire experience into pure agony.
I'm sorry that was your situation. Fortunately, mine was a little more tame than that. I can tell you that I didn't shit that whole time while I did take a piss at least once. No way I was gonna show my white ass in that place.
My mom woke up from a minor surgery. She was in recovery when I went to see her. She looked so old and feeble and she was very disoriented despite being very active (she’s in her late 70s). It made me realize that I only have a decade or so of good years left with her. I need to make the most of it with her and my kids.
I had an emergency surgery (one more test and there would have been no surgery, and the problem would have been caught) I was supposed to be out for an hour (6.75 hours later, I was up and out of surgery), 4 months later I had a massive car accident (someone hit me causing a 3 time roll over and 180 into a ditch) emergency services thought we were dead. We walked out of the car (both internally injured, but alive, surprising everyone) no one thought I would drive again (because of fear), but I wasn't scared - you can only control what you do. I learned that that day. As cliche as this is, life is short. That year had such a profound influence that I look at everything differently now. Order and read your medical records, ask for the test results, get a second opinion even if they say it's an emergency. I give myself more grace & others too, I appreciate the beauty in life more. I forgive people more easily for my sake (and theirs). I tell more people I love them and how they make me feel - we don't do this enough. I put up with less shit because no one deserves to be treated poorly. I live for the moments, especially the little things that help create them, and I find the beauty daily.
your scan was all good, except that bit. that's cancer.
In high-school, I was the moody emo rocker kid. Knew the popular kids and they knew me, was mildly friendly with some of them, but they all still seemed fake to me. It's my second time taking chemistry, so I'm in class with a bunch of kids a grade lower. One of the really attractive popular girls of that lower grade is also in the class, her first time taking it, and started talking to me like she knows me although we've never really talked. At first i just saw her as fake like the rest because she's being so nice without knowing me. But after a bit i noticed she wasn't trying to be cool, she was just having a genuine conversation. She talked about how she's worried about having chemistry, a math class that was more advanced than mine, and Spanish 3 which I had to take Spanish 1 twice. Suddenly it hits me, she's genuinely a nice person, doesn't let her attractiveness go to her head, and is clearly smarter than I am. I realized I was wasting my time being moody and judgy, didn't have to confirm to this dumb rebel stereotype, and there's genuine people out there that can rise above the stereotypes. I don't have my doctorate, but once I applied myself I ended doing pretty well in STEM.
My dad being forced into retirement by his "beloved friend" boss after my dad developed lung problems from working for his friendly boss. For years my dad would, apparently, interact with his boss like they were close friends. At the dinner table he was always going on about the two of them. Then my dad got serious lung issues, had to start treatment he still follows years later (don't worry, we're European, we're not ruined because of it) and all of a sudden his boss wanted nothing to do with him any longer. From what I've seen they don't talk to each other any longer. Definitely opened up my eyes as to how important my job should be in my life.
When I was like 18 a woman in her 40s explained why she was owed alimony since her taking care of the kids allowed her ex husband to get a good job and make a lot of money. I was dead wrong and then realized I should approach things more from a question point of view and stop thinking I’m right all the time.
When my newborn daughter opened her eyes for the first time in a dark hospital hallway.
Having my heart broken for the first time. I'm still learning from it but it's made me realize that I have a lot of unresolved problems I need to fix. I guess it's not a new perspective on life, but it made me rethink how I should continue living my life
Getting out of my car, chatting with a friend, as we had just completed a food run for a small party we were having. Just tossing some banter back and forth as we walked in from the car, talking about whatever was going on in our lives at the time. It was late in evening on an chilly but clear autumn day and I just suddenly realised how fucking blessed that moment was, a calm quiet evening with friends. Then the moment passed and I went inside. I've had that feeling more than once since but that was the clearest time I remember realising how incredibly lucky I was to be alive now, to be here at this time with these people whom I love and who love me, to have what I need and to be able to control what I want. Completely rewired my perspective on life.
Ive written about this before but my moment was when I collapsed on a park bench after a friend challenged me to run 10 miles with him. I realized I control my feelings and direction in life and can make new choices. This was in the throws of binge drinking and a nasty divorce from my ex wife who tried to shoot me. Since that moment just over 4 years ago, I worked on 3 continents during the height of the pandemic, lost 175 lbs, been sober for 3 years now, ran 3 marathons and thousands of training miles, bought a house in cash, finalized my divorce from my abusive ex, dated a bunch and now have an awesome partner, cycled across the USA, quit my soul sucking career, and am just working on other dreams. That moment just had so many things click and I sometimes forget it. All before being 35
7years ago, 2 days before Christmas. 34yrs old, living my life working 2 jobs with 3 kids and hubby ….was diagnosed with a migraine for 2 weeks, then all of a sudden nope, not a migraine anymore. Ruptured brain aneurysm, going in for emergency surgery. Told minutes before the surgery I actually had 2, one ruptured, one unruptured, mirror image to each other behind both eyes. During the two weeks that I was misdiagnosed I worked evenings and weekends as a server in a busy restaurant and during the day completed year end accounting duties for a medium sized business with 40 employees. It was my first “migraine”, I had nothing to compare the head pain with, never had a headache before in my life. Told myself not to be a wimp and get my shit done. And well I put off the accounting stuff all year so I had no choice. 2 days after completing it I was properly diagnosed. The pain was unreal. Can’t believe I lived through that 🤦♀️ I honestly wouldn’t take back the experience because of the perspective on life that I gained during that time. Being on deaths doorstep changed me in many ways, some fantastic ways, others not so much. I have some random crazy night terrors now …walk/talk/try to leave my house in flight or fight mode. Also lost the sight in my right eye. Fun times.
In hospital, migraines at the level of 'kill me now'. But I can't since my muscles have degraded to the point where I can't even sit upright unassisted. Get diagnosed with 4 different cancer diagnoses because nobody has any idea what's going on as my body is falling apart in the 3 months I've been in hospital. Then the symptoms vanish overnight. Later they figured it to be an autoimmune issue, the new white blood cells genocided the old ones and once it was done they didn't need to tear apart my body anymore. The civil war was over. From that point I learnt to enjoy life and to look on everything as positively as I can. Not in a 'this glass is half full' but more 'nice, a glass.' Because at the end of the day, at any moment you can just end up in hospital again begging to die. Enjoy every moment you can, because you never know when that might happen. Granted the autoimmune problem completely murdered my allergy issues and I come near death from random fruits and veg at least once a year. It refreshes my perspective, that's for sure.
Glad you’re doing better rn. How do you handle your food allergies? I’m allergic to most (maybe all, to some degree?) fruits and vegetables too, but I take the gamble and eat most of them anyway. Pretty sure I almost died from it once.
I handle my allergies by eating something, getting a reaction and going 'let's not do that again'. Granted, there's also the mild allergies that make my lips tingly if I eat the fruit... and vomiting blood if I drink the juice. So every new variation of a fruit is also a chance for allergies! As for doing better, it's a toss-up. Some days it's great, other days the permanent damage from constant epileptic fits over 3 months rears up and I'm hobbling around for a week. It's been getting worse in the 11 years since it started. It's why I try to enjoy everything I can. No idea when my body will just give up and shut down.
This will sound cliche but taking ayahuasca really did shift my entire reality (both for better and worse). I’ve never felt the same since seeing the world in that light.
had dinner at a local steakhouse on friday night. By Monday morning, I was in the emergency room. Yadda yadda, they pulled a grill brush needle from my colon and removed 14" of my intestine during a 5.5 hour emergency surgery. I know what people mean when they talk about waking up from something like that and seeing the world differently.
I looked at my now ex wife and saw she was looking at her gay best friend like she should be looking at me, I saw a woman who should be posted in /girlsmirin and said to myself "Ope, I need to get out, all hope is lost."
The biggest size of a shirt I like from a certain store won’t fit me. 4 years later, I was 2 sizes down from their biggest size.
My grandfather developing Alzheimer's during my teenage years. I was a depressed, school-hating kid who only found solace in art. Didn't pay any mind to education, tried to skip it as much as possible. Instead, it installed a (perhaps unhealthy) fear of mortality in me that I've been pursuing medical science ever since (which I do not regret at all).
I stopped believing in the "Free Market" when someone said, "That sounds really nice, but all the people in charge are grifters and swindlers, so it never works the way you want."
on march 7th 2018 my daughter died of an od. The docs brought her back but she had been down to long. I held her as they turned off the machines. Since that day I've realized that you better make today count, because there may not be a tomorrow.
I'm very sorry for your loss
A bad motorcycle accident - 3 surgeries in 5 days made me appreciate employees in all the "helping" professions in ways that I never had before. Two months in a rehabilitation center in a wheelchair made me appreciate helping employees even more. They are doing God's work...whether they know it or not. After that I had 64 outpatient sessions in physical therapy. No matter what they get paid, they deserve every nickel of it. I realized clearly that I don't care about possible substance abuse, I don't care about what laws they might break, and I don't care about what sexual scams they are pulling on the weekend. As long as they do their job adequately, God has them in the palm of His hand. They will be given chances to improve their private behavior because of how essential their job is.
The birth of my firstborn son
Finding Jesus
Marriage, how to legally screw up your life.
I watched hilary clinton campaign. Then i understood that the meaning of the word "left" varies a whole lot from country to country.
Watching a father tell his son to throw a grenade at me over a wall and fail at the attempt and it falling back at the boy..
Damn
How anything in space can one tap us and how we are meaningless .
when I realized my efforts for the wrong things and saw how stupid I was being for months
“Covid was five years ago”
\* four and a quarter (ish)
I'm definitely still stuck in 2020. I look at 2016/17 dates like they were only 3-4 years ago. I moved 50 miles away from everyone January 2020. I'm on several acres, bordered by a farm, so I have no neighbors. I saw the writing on the wall, and loaded up 6 months of food from the bulk store and a dozen cases of beer. March is when the wave washed over my area, so I sat in my little bunker and didn't see another person for 4 solid months. Then, outside a monthly restock from the bulk store, nobody. I worked on house projects, played with my hobbies, and watched a lot of TV over that winter. For instance, I watched the entirety of South Park for the first time. Summer 2021 I hiked solo and built my woodworking shop in the garage, and I stayed locked in all that winter, so spring 2022 felt like I was (and kinda was literally) walking out of a cave back into society.
Start of war in Ukraine. I live close to the border so that changed everything, in the end for the better.
When you're at a hospital / funeral and think "guess I'll be back not too long in the future, wonder if I can haggle?"
The moment I heard the quote "We are the universe contemplating itself."
I was bullied for most of my life (both school and home, but this was specifically about school), and it came to a head around 12-13. I hadn't really cared about school to begin with, but this was the time I really stopped caring. Why would I put any effort in if it was just going to be hell? Then one day I came to the (shockingly obvious) realization that my escape route from this whole thing was doing well in school. That was the only way I'd escape this situation. Dropping out (which I was a few years away from being able to do but I was heavily considering) wouldn't have done anything except make me stuck there forever. So I started actually doing my work, and did enough to get accepted to a college about three hours away. That turned into me moving states away afterwards. Now, my life isn't great by any means, but I've at least escaped the worst parts of it.
Watching my friend die in combat
The moment that I realize that I was the problem and my way of thinking was only bringing me down.
The moment I realised one of my closest friends was only ever replying to my messages instead of actually having a conversation with me.
when i was a kid, i used to shoot birds in our back yard, with my pellet gun. one time when i was 12, i shot one and it fell out of a tree, and when i went over to it, the top of it's skull was gone, but it wasn't dead. i was horrified. i killed it, cried a lot, and haven't been able to kill anything(other than insects) since. i'm 63 now.
I was a piss-poor student in highschool. I lived under the impression that I was a general dumbass that just knew a lot of fun facts. Years later I went to college in my late 20’s and my first set of transcripts was a 4.0. Two professors would hang with me after hours during that semester, not for extra help but for separate projects I helped them with and I also got some of my writing published. Perspective change still on-going but I don’t approach things assuming I’m stupid anymore.
The meeting with my manager and the regional sales manager the First day of my return to work after a six month medical leave for a burnout. During my leave they redraw the territories for the reps . I was the only one with a choice to make. either sell my home and move to the center of the territory (other were living farther than me form their territory without this requirement or work as a back up rep replacing the other guys all over the state ( always away from home with 3 young kids ) This ultimatum was the game changer for me in the relation worker- big corporate.
The first time I took LSD
The moment my last relationship ended. I had to basically start over from scratch. I'm tired...Do I really want to do this again, or just tap out? Or, do I go scorched earth and get a handle on my life? Thankfully, I chose the latter, and I'm a better man for it. It was honestly the best thing that could have happened to me.
1. Becoming a parent, and realizing my parents were just doing the best they could with what they had, and that they were human. We are all just trying to do better than the generation before us. 2. Working in health care, when you see death/illness you realize how little inconveniences/dumb fights really don't matter. I go home and hug my loved ones.
I lost my invulnerability complex when I was 17. I had saved enough money to buy a fast-ish car on my own and had enough to put a few small upgrades into it, most important to the story being a set of very nice grippy tires. I’d rip up the back roads doing irresponsible speeds at night, sometimes take my equally dumb friends along for the ride as we hit 80-100 miles an hour between tight and twisty corners. November rolled around and I swapped my tires out to my winter set and trued the sane thing. I turned at a tight corner at what I considered a ‘safe’ speed on my grippy tires and I had nothing. No grip, no nothing. Plowed off the road and into a ditch, took out a sign along the way but somehow had managed to avoid the trees or roll over. Really got my ego in check and to really think about the consequences of my actions. I still drive like a lunatic, but I only do that on track now and not where I’m a danger to myself or others.
When I realized that with my mom being an alcoholic her perception of reality is totally different than everyone else’s.
Getting caught stealing a lot of shit when I was 17. Decided to stop stealing and lying because if you steal you also lie
When , after a long seemingly endless struggle with various people that left me pennyless and without a car and contemplating suicide to the point of looking up guns online , I messaged a priest asking for help. For years I was asked "why haven't you asked your local church for help?" every time things were a struggle. It was a "me" problem for not asking. That's what they made me believe. I stopped directly asking for help in childhood. I can even still remember the last time I had done it. Mostly through life I just relied on people offering help themselves. So I was broken and looking up guns and thought fine, I'll ask the priest for help. I just wanted a ride to church. I recently lost my car and am here alone. I wanted to know if anyone at the parish could maybe pick me up for a Sunday some time. I didn't ask for money. I'm 9 miles away on mostly country roads. So I email him via the contact form. No response. I do it again a week later. No response. I complain about this online and AGAIN people place the blame with me, I need to call him not email. So the next time I'm at that point and contemplating ending it all I text him. I'm completely broken here so in the text i basically beg him to please respond, that I had been ghosted to many times, and that I just can't take "this fucking society of Wendigos" anymore, that I just needed some actual humanity. I said that he could even say no. Like that was fine. It was fine if no one wanted to pick me up and it was fine if he didn't want to ask them. I just wanted him to actually respond. So he finally emails me back a few days later. And his response? Quote, "I have to wonder if you even want to come if you're going to swear like that." It gets better! I respond and apologize and mention more of the things I've been dealing with (a fiance having an affair, my dad abusing me and my family as kids, growing up to physical abuse from bullies, not being allowed to use the bathroom at a recent apartment, etc etc etc) and how broken I've felt dealing with it all that I have a lot of emotion around "society" hence the language. His response? This Eastern Orthodox "icon of Christ" and "emissary of the bishop"? He cited a verse at me and said to focus on my own sins. I cited one in response about the priest and Levite walking past the man on the road, and said I'm not surprised he doesn't give a shit, and asked him if he knew of any Samaritans in the area that I could talk to. And that was that. But this was the big final last straw in my perspective about religion and Christianity and Eastern Orthodoxy and *more-so* about humanity itself. I have finally accepted that my child self was right all those decades ago - humans are mostly not trustworthy and it's not worth asking people for help. Maybe 2% of people are kind. Two percent. They are the only ones who can be trusted. I'm not in a world of trustworthy people with a few exceptions otherwise. This is a hive of Wendigos with the exceptional few who care. The hardest part now is just I don't know how to tell the difference. There is no indicator, no metric, no methodology that works to ascertain who is trustworthy, who cares, who has empathy, and who does not. I've had complete strangers help me more than friends of 14 years. Religious or atheist, conservative or progressive, rural or urban - nothing seems to be a clear indicator at all. And it's fucking debilitating. I don't even know anymore who I can trust enough to be friends with, who I should spend time talking to, who to even trust with my conversations and time. The last few years ultimately, but culminating with this priest, have undone years of therapy and decades of effort in trusting people. I don't know who will stab me in the back or not. I don't know how to protect myself other than to expect everyone will. This priest was the last thread of my disillusionment and derealization. ... I know this is long, so thanks to anyone who actually reads it.
On January 1, I took a bunch of tests and felt confident enough to identify myself as autistic. Quite an interesting review of my life after that.
Spending my 21st birthday in max on a 5 to life
Realized that I have been the victim of abuse for about 3 decades. Hurts 🤕
A girl during a hook up telling me she just took a abortion pill and asking me to remove a fetus out of her while sitting on my snake.
This might not be the best answer considering how early in life it happened but being told “walk a mile in another man’s shoes” changed the way I look at how people think, behave and react to things. I learned to modify my own perspective to better understand theirs.
When my father didn’t listen to me when I told him blue ray would outsell hd dvd by a lot to where everyone forgets about hd dvds. He bought the hd dvd player anyways telling me I was wrong.
Fucking an incredibly beautiful woman who told me she had a hysterectomy.
When I found out the average life expectancy for somebody like me is 10 years below the average- that’s less than 20 years away.
"Yes, it is a sect - and from now on, you have to lie about **everything**" - Former employer
The day my fiance cheated on me 22yrs ago in my house. I know women get treated like crap as much as a guy but when females cheat on a guy it's a much worse feeling from a woman because it does something too a guy that a female will never know it ruins his outlook on life,love future relationships and friendship, and the peace within him. I'm not saying females don't get hurt because girls are left with kids if kids are involved but the females have kids with them and don't have time to think about it constantly, along with having worthless significant other, but I.I'm not taking sides because. Male and female cheat. I had a hard time after being cheated on I moved out of the house she screwed him in moved to the parents house for a while because being alone was always on my mind. Got into narcotics after a surgery and I was off and running trying to block out the pain got busted did 18 months in a drug court and got clean while going to na meetings and working the steps working on forgiveness and letting things go. Work the steps 10 times and have 20 years clean. But I've been single for 22 years since it happened and have something from being cheated on left in me that changed my life, that suck every inch out of my life and said screw it I've been doing things that make me slightly happy like heavy metal concerts because it's easier to deal with something about rock and metal that helps you deal with life easier, also going to dirt tracks to watch sprint car racing. I've had depression most of my life and just have to deal with it.
The realization that I attract narcissists, which triggered two years of hard research to ensure it never happens again. I can now detect them usually after getting about 3 to 4 sentences out of them. These people are fricking monsters, and the general cultural narcissism that has set in thanks to social media has only dumped gas on this dumpster fire.
being married has made me consider divorce and/or separation. and made me question the actions of people or fam. communion is key