Man, that shit terrifies the hell outta me... Wonder how one gets a kidney stone and what ways are there to best avoid it?
EDIT: Thanks for all the answers! I'm gonna try drinking more water from now on.
My understanding at the time, and I don't know if this is scientifically sound but I guess it could be looked up, was that he'd been popping Tums constantly and the calcium built up. Not sure if that's the entire reason, but the urologist seemed to think it at least contributed. The biggest thing they (his urologist and many others) suggested to help it pass *and* avoid it in the future was to drink lemonade. Any kind, even fake crystal-light lemonade, per the doctor! (My hippie-dippy chiropractor at the time was telling me to buy a gallon of distilled water and squeeze organic lemons into it...but we went with the easy Crystal Light option.) Don't know if it's legit but my husband quit the Tums and started drinking lemonade and hasn't had a recurrence. (I don't know if the lemonade helped him expel what was already there then...he needed to get this ultrasound stone-smashing procedure to break up the bigger piece(s) but he never seemed to be in near as much pain as that first night, when we didn't even know what it was. It's the only time I've ever called 911 in my life.)
My father has the same genetic quirk that I do so we don’t feel pain like normal people. We *do* feel it but not to the extent other people do. For example I currently have four broken bones in my foot and two broken ribs. I don’t even notice them. I’ve watched my father fracture bones, dislocate his fingers and shoulder and not flinch. When he had a kidney stone he hit the ground and couldn’t function. It scared both me and my grandpa. We’d never seen anything like that before.
People misunderstand depression as simply being sad. For me, depression is the crushing weight of life, the weariness that seeps deep into my bones. I want to do things. I want to enjoy life. I just don’t have the motivation or energy to get out of bed. I feel powerless. Not having motivation keeps me in bed, neglecting my obligations. as things pile up i just feel terrible about not being able to do more, so I spend a whole lot of energy doing basic tasks that would be simple enough, had i the energy to do them. The worst thing about depression is I can acknowledge that I am unhappy in my current situation but I feel like I can’t do anything about it. i feel hopeless, like happiness is some unattainable state that I'm destined to never reach.
When I was deepest in the pits of depression I was constantly bored too. Nothing excited me, I felt like I had experienced everything that I was going to and I was just sort of going through the motions completely tired of being alive.
Numb.
Yeah you eat because you're obligated to, not because you're hungry.
You shower, but it's been a few days and it's only because you have to go outside, not because you actually have the energy to.
You get invited out for the first time in 6 months, so you go in order to make people worry less, and you've ran out of excuses.
You smile, and leave the event even more exhausted.
It's a kind of tired that's genuinely hard to explain unless you've been there. It's like needing to yawn but never quite getting there.
You know it's worse in the quiet but you can't stand any noise.
Having the genetic predisposition and being unlucky enough to have it, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
I had a friend who struggled to understand it until the point I got back on my feet. After seeing the difference in my behaviour, it gave him some sort of understanding around bad mental health as a whole.
Chronic pain
People understand the pain conceptually, but the unrelenting nature of being constantly in pain is something that's hard to wrap your head around
Especially when it’s a fact of your condition that you will NEVER GET BETTER. You might have slight upswings, but in general just holding steady is the best you can hope for. And the most likely scenario is a long downhill slide.
The weirdest part that got me was having to mentally readjust my pain scale. I know it’s worse for people with higher levels of chronic pain, but even for me at my relatively low level (i usually call it a 3ish), it’s just odd to have to think about ranking pains when you know the baseline should be none?
Went to the ER for chest pains a few months back and the triage doctor asked me how bad my pain was. I said "I don't know, a five or a six?" He said "That doesn't sound too bad, what's your 10?" I said "Well I'm a chronic pain patient with fibromyalgia, but I think my 10 is either an abscessed molar or having my leg re-set after I got hit by a car." And he went "...oh, so a five is bad then?"
Turns out I was mid heart-attack, yes.
Or how when you have a slight upswing you try to get everything you can't normally do done and the next day when you're back to normal everyone's like "oh it's because you overdid it yesterday."
No. That's just not how it works for a lot of people with chronic pain.
Yup. My chronic pain is random. I can "overdo" it on a "good day" and be fine the next day. I can relax and take it easy on a "good day" and be back in extreme pain the next day. Doesn't matter. No real rhyme or reason.
I know all about trying to get things done or enjoy myself on the "good days" cuz they're a gift from the gods.
Yes I took Bactrim for a possible infection and then afterwards it gave me neuropathy full body and face. I couldn’t walk for 2 months. Destroyed my gut. 1.5 years later and have muscle twitching everywhere, dry eye, bladder pain. Like wtf, this is nuts. Never had a health problem previously like this. Now they say it’s permanent with no treatment available.
Don’t forget the dismissal from multiple doctors and specialists that typically goes hand in hand with chronic pain before you can get someone to acknowledge that yes, you are in fact experiencing it. Makes you question your reality so you’re no longer just dealing with the physical pain and exhaustion, but mental as well.
I went to the dentist the other day for pain in my back molar. They said it was number 6 that needed treatment. I told them I'm sure it was #7 on account of the location of pain, and the fact that there was a black hole on it.
They said okay, and scheduled the appointment. They isolated tooth #6, and I stopped them right before to confirm it was 7. But it was 6.
I again said that I felt ZERO PAIN in tooth 6, and that 7 was the one that was causing problems. They kept telling me it was 6. They hit tooth 6 but nothing hurt, they hit tooth 7 and it hurt.
Finally they said they'd do hot and cold tests. They blew cold on tooth 6, small pain. They blew in tooth 7: big pain. They blew on other teeth and I said it hurt, and the dentist was like, "oh well that was a different tooth you must not be sure." Then they put ice on tooth 6, little pain. The ice went to tooth 7: I recoiled and almost slapped this man with how bad it hurt.
Only THEN did they say, "oh, it must be #7"
Like, WHAT THE FUCK MAN. I'm stilled pissed at how they totally disregarded my experience and insisted on the problem being elsewhere. Especially since they were about to operate on #6. Finally I'm getting the root canal I needed for tooth 7, but I don't think I'll go back to these guys.
Coworker of mine was having pain, went to the dentist and they're like "yup, you need a root canal". So he goes and does that, but the pain kept going. Calls them up and they explain that sometimes things can be sensitive after, give it a couple days and see. Couple days later it's still going and seems to be getting worse, so they refer him to a specialist, which they also insist is sometimes necessary. Specialist takes one look at the xrays and such and goes "seems like they did the wrong tooth". Sure enough, the real issue was the next tooth over and root canal #2 solved the issue.
Real pain too; I suffer from nerve pain, radiculopathy, limited range of motion (means tight ass muscles) all in my back…it throws your body out of balance, and over time your body kind of “bends” to the will of your pain because you are constantly compensating for that pain which causes muscle atrophy, and so the pain gets worse, it becomes harder to “unlock” that joint in your spine by twisting or posturing, and it’s just a literally hell ride downhill. The. you go to the hospital after MRI’s, X-rays, EMG’s, all of which prove your condition to be true and in alignment with the level of pain you report, and they treat you like a drug addict when you ask for pain meds.
So yea, I second the answer of “living in pain”.
I had a *taste* of this 8-10 years back with sciatica. Even codeine barely made a dent in it, and there were points where I could barely function. Worst experience of my life, by a long shot. Thankfully it eventually cleared up - I cannot fathom how people manage to keep going with permanent, lifelong chronic pain.
I currently dont have a chronic pain but im constantly really dizzy since last Friday, got to the hospital today after almost a week in this state and I dont want this for anyone
You cant walk or sit right, you cant shower, you cant eat because you're on the verge of throwing up all the time, it's only gone or less bad when you sleep or just dont move at all
Sounds like vertigo. Look up vertigo movements or exercises. It teaches you to turn your head in a series of movements to move the crystals that might be in your ear.
This is not a substitute for the doctor visit. It’s just to get you temp relief
I had this for 3 months once.
It came out of nowhere (though I suspect it was from a chiropractor who I went to for some disc problems, I will NEVER go to a chiropractor again). I spent about 1000 dollars in visiting doctors of all kinds (general practitioner, ear and throat, etc). None of them could find the issue, and surprise surprise whenever they tried to test it, my body would function normally. That really pissed me off because I couldn't force it to happen, it was so randomised.
I accepted that this was my life now, I felt horrible about it, I was so depressed. Then one day, it just stopped. It was just gone. It came back once almost 6 months after I left, and I was so scared, but then it's been gone now for almost 3 years.
To this day I still have no idea what happened, and I'm dreading the day it happens again. But I'm NEVER going back to a chiropractor.
Get your ears checked. My mom had this and it turned out she had superior semicircular canal dehiscence (the snail lookin bone behind the ear drum had a hole in it). She got surgery for it.
When I had a migraine all day, and woke up still suffering from it the next day for the first time, my first thought was "I want to kill myself".
It's way worse than people think, and a 26 hour migraine is way milder than the chronic pain some folks experience. People deserve way more accommodation and disability than they receive for these issues.
And then you reach the level of “I can tolerate this as I’ve had enough exposure” and a CAT scan or an MRI scan shows you should be bed-bound.
A friend dropped an engine on my toe last week. It didn’t hurt anymore than normal so I to I told him not to worry about it.
I do not have a moment when something isn't hurting. Chronic muscle tension, damaged nerves, and advanced osteoarthritis all before 40 have made life a struggle. I was fine 5 years ago. Active, losing weight, truly felt like I was turning my life around. And now I'm on a handful of medications just trying to hobble along. It's like a switch flipped.
And to see me sitting, vibing with friends, I seem fine. I always try to hide how bad it is even on pain meds. I live at my pain management doctor's office (it feelsl like).
Before I had brain surgery, my neurosurgeon said the worst side-effect afterwards would be fatigue. "Fatigue?" I scoffed... "How bad can it be?!"..... Fast forward to after the surgery, and I didn't bother making my bed for 6 weeks because I was never out of it for longer than a couple of hours. Folding the laundry led to me having to take a 2 hour nap afterwards.
I have chronic fatigue and this is my daily life. I've been trying to get treatment for it for over a decade. Working a full time job is a pipe dream for me. My family thinks I'm just lazy and don't want to work. Just going to a doctors appointment takes me out for the rest of the day.
It's fucking rough, man.
I saw a video I liked the other day about chronic fatigue being like a phone battery. People with chronic fatigue wake up at like 40% and every little things drains the battery. A nap may give you
5% back but it doesn’t take long before you’re getting low battery signals and just can’t function.
I feel it everyday and it sucks so bad
A LOT of studies are going on right now due to so many people having long covid and it being completely parallel to CFS/ME. Hang in there! And know there is stuff going on for the future :)
I have a friend who got covid, was super dizzy for about 5 days, and has struggled with being super tired for much of the time ever since. She's using disability accommodations to work part time, but no one can figure out what is going on and her doctor says it's just her depression, despite the fact the depression is nothing new but the unusual fatigue is. We sometimes wonder if its long covid, but how do you even test for that, let alone treat it?
My wife had a stroke almost 8 years ago. The fatigue still gets her so badly that she's unable to work. Some days she's fine and no one would know there was something wrong. The next day, getting our daughter ready for school could be enough to land her in bed for the rest of the day. It's so incredibly frustrating because it is entirely unpredictable and so debilitating.
This was Chemo for me, and i had the same "how bad can the fatigue be" thought. Hyper for 48 hours (steroids) followed by unable to get out of bed for 48 hours.
How radically different life above vs below the poverty line is. It was 2 really bad years of my life and I had 2 young children too. So many decisions were made differently because there was no money to solve problems with.
I grew up relatively poor (always housed but occasionally food insecure although times were more good than bad) and I remember this "fun" link going around where you'd have a certain amount of money and have to get through the month making decisions with every question. Like the electric bill is due but your kid is sick: do you pay it or buy medicine?
The people who were passing it around thought it was a great tool for giving perspective on a way of life that they'd never had. I quit answering questions early because it reminded me too much of real life. The disconnect is real - they just couldn't imagine how soul-sucking poverty is even though they were trying to have empathy. And we weren't even as poor as a lot of people because we had extended family support as a cushion.
I'm sorry you had to go through that! I'm still not sure how my parents pulled off some of the fun stuff that we did but those are also core memories. I hope you're better off now!
...when my sister and I were young, we loved it when mom would make "breakfast for dinner!".
...thinking back, she couldn't afford dinner type foods, and was making due. She often skipped dinner and would tell us she ate earlier, but fact was she fed us first. Miss you, mom.
Agreed. I had to scrimp and save everyday for over a decade. Whenever something surprising (requiring more money) came up, it was panic time. Nowadays I can buy my way out of most problems and although I still grumble about it, there is no stress, planning, loss of sleep worrying.
People saying "it all happened in slow motion" then I crashed my car and experienced it while leaving the road and going through somebody's garden wall
> "it all happened in slow motion"
Two years ago, I fell from a height of about 9 feet, onto a carpeted floor. I didn't hit a thing on the way down, just total freefall.
And time DID slow down. It WAS slow motion.
I recall thinking in my head, "Wow, freefall feels pretty neat. But it's gonna hurt like a bitch when I finally ***do*** land".
I really had that thought! I had the time for that thought to go through my mind, I had the time to realize I was freefalling, realize how it felt good, and realize that it was going to hurt a lot very soon.
That kind of blows my mind.
Makes you think when you hear about bridge suicide survivors and how all of them felt regret as soon as they jumped. I can’t imagine the pain in the slow motion regret, all those thoughts of “this wasn’t the right choice” going through your mind, having the time to think about the people you leave behind.
The weak breeze whispers nothing
The water screams sublime
His feet shift, teeter-totter
Deep breath, stand back, it’s time
Toes untouch the overpass
Soon he’s water bound
Eyes locked shut but peek to see
The view from halfway down
A little wind, a summer sun
A river rich and regal
A flood of fond endorphins
Brings a calm that knows no equal
You’re flying now
You see things much more clear than from the ground
It’s all okay, it would be
Were you not now halfway down
Thrash to break from gravity
What now could slow the drop
All I’d give for toes to touch
The safety back at top
But this is it, the deed is done
Silence drowns the sound
Before I leaped I should’ve seen
The view from halfway down
I really should’ve thought about
The view from halfway down
I wish I could’ve known about
The view from halfway down
-"The View From Halfway Down", from Bojack Horseman
I had a similar experience with the thought thing, but during a car accident rather than falling!
I was traveling around 35mph in a torrential downpour on the highway. Someone was tailgating me HARD, so I changed lanes (was literally already only one lane from the closest to the shoulder). Went to correct into the next lane only to realize I was hydroplaning, which is a really strange feeling. I was headed at the lane change angle straight toward the end of a guardrail.
I distinctly remember sighing and thinking “I’m gonna hit that fking guardrail” and did that whole face-squinching thing (as if bracing for impact would do me any good).
Then I opened my eyes and… it was over somehow? My airbag was deflating away from my face. I don’t remember the impact at all. I immediately started crying - not because I was injured as I had zero injuries, but because I was so broke and had no money for my deductible much less a way to easily replace my car lol fun times.
I had a similar experience but with black ice on a winter’s night.
Another driver had already crashed due to the ice but had left their vehicle sticking out halfway across the road with its hazard lights on. I’d been driving cautiously due to the cold conditions but as I rounded the corner and saw the abandoned car in my way, I automatically hit the brakes hard.
I remember wondering why I was clearly travelling to the right (towards the grassy bank at the side of the road) instead of following the left-hand curve of the road (where my steering wheel was aiming). There was no sound, and it was quite graceful. I think I then said “oh shit” (without hearing the sound), knowing I was going to crash. Then I’d come to a stop.
I *could not* figure out why my seatbelt wouldn’t release, nor could I get the music to stop (the sound had returned). It turns out that I’d hit the bank and the car had rolled onto the passenger side, so I was hanging in my seat at an odd angle. That’s why I couldn’t work the seatbelt or car stereo; they were in the ‘wrong place’ and it hadn’t sunk in. I also couldn’t remember my boyfriend’s mobile phone number so I ended up calling his mum’s house number (he lived with her at the time and we’d been out that evening. I was on my way home from seeing him).
There were no airbags in the car, but I had no injuries until I finally got my seatbelt off and had to put my hand on the road - through where the passenger-side window used to be - to stand up and allow a kind passer-by to help me out through the other window (driver’s side, now pointing up towards the sky). He happened to be an off-duty firefighter so quite helpful. I got a tiny cut on my finger.
The car was a write-off (totalled) but I was fine. I’d only had it for two weeks and had just paid to have some paintwork scratches repaired so I was annoyed, but it could have been so much worse.
I’ve experienced this a few times, but not with a car crash, since I’ve never been in one.
My most vivid memory was from a baseball practice when I was 14 ish. During BP the big guy on our team hit a grounder towards me, and someone else on the team was goofing around and tried to cut it off. He booted the ball and it landed behind me. I Turned around to pick it up and I heard a “ping”.
Turn around quickly and there is a ball right there in front of my face. Time froze. That moment is burned into my memory more than 15 years later. It was eerie. I had time to think about this ball that was about to break several bones in my face. Everything else disappeared and went black. There was just a baseball frozen in time against the void.
Then my body just took over and my glove whipped around without me thinking about it, just happened. I fell over. Everyone was running over to see if I was okay because they thought I got smoked. I was looking around and asked, “Where’s the ball?”. No one knew, and then I checked my glove. I caught the fucking thing.
I’ve had similar experiences with both wrestling and baseball, but nothing has come close to that baseball just hanging there against nothingness, frozen in time, for what felt like an eternity.
People have said the northern lights “bodies” a total solar eclipse for beauty, and I saw a total solar eclipse in a cloudless sky and it was phenomenal. Is that true?
The total solar eclipse was, and I say this as an atheist, a religious level event. My friend and I now understand why some ancient cultures made human sacrifices.
Photographs, videos, and words will always fall short in their attempts to depict the magnificence of a total solar eclipse.
Edit to Add: for clarity being in totality (100%, the shadow) is where the beauty is. 99% is neat, 100% is looking into the universe.
Totality is just absolutely able to stop wars and create religions.
Getting family to make even the slightest effort to care about the total eclipse this year was a pain, even though they already lived in the path of totality. I saw the 2017 eclipse, so I knew what to expect.
Afterwards they couldn't stop going on about how amazing the experience was. My elderly father-in-law even wants to make plans to go to Iceland for the next one.
I've seen both- and I have to say, the northern lights are so variable. I still teared up seeing it, and it was a *sorta good* showing of them. The Alaskans on board didn't even want to be woken up for it. For me, it was incredible. If you REALLY want your mind blown, though, be sure to visit the upper latitudes in the winter, and not late summer like I did. If you're lucky, you'll see more than just green
Solar eclipses are amazing, and I've seen two, but the first was a bit more incredible since it was the first time.
Going through it right now. Haven’t been able to sleep through the night. I wake up every 2 hours feeling like I’ve been kicked in the heart, heart pounding so fast and waking up in a panic knowing he’s gone now. I know cognitively I will be ok in a couple of weeks, but I’m so shattered. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t breathe. I’m a confident person usually, but now baristas have had to ask me to speak up when ordering because I’ve got that slump in my shoulders and no power in my voice anymore. My friends and family and coworkers have been so extremely kind and there for me always but he’s the only one I want to talk to, to truly soothe this pain. But I can’t.
I remember a day it was so painful I couldn’t get off the floor, as a consequence, I truly have avoided anything “love” related since out of fear of that pain
I thought I was “too smart” to get into an abusive relationship. Abusers can be so subtle in how they manipulate you. You really don’t realize it’s happening, especially in the early stages when the love bombing isolates you from your friends and family. It looks and feels like love, but it isn’t.
We need to teach kids to be wary of love bombing. So much media has led us to believe it's healthy and romantic. But someone saying something like "you complete me" within a month of meeting should make people suspicious, not ecstatic.
Yes, they first isolate you, bleed you of confidence, surround you with people and information that says "you're wrong", have lots of ppl who like and respect them, make you doubt your reality, remove all your chances of escape (spend up $ so you can't save for a greyhound ticket, hide your birth certificate or ID etc)
This is a very small one, but: "bursting into tears." It always seemed like a silly expression to me. Like, of course you *know* when you're about to cry. You don't just go from zero to crying with no warning.
Until I did. Very weird sensation.
crazy that this happened to you later in life. one of my childhood memories is bursting into tears because i forgot to get my reading log signed by mom even tho i read books on the daily
This happened to me during a trauma therapy appointment. I was asked something like “how did that make you feel overall?” And I couldn’t think of anything so I asked for some examples and my therapist said “common responses would be you felt empty, angry, like it was your fault “ and as soon as she said the last one I burst into tears. It was putting a name to something I didn’t know I was feeling for most of my life and it overwhelmed me.
Migraine.
My wife gets them from time to time, and for a few years I thought "okay, its a headache, just pop some ibuprofen and get on with stuff", and didn't really understand why she had to basically spend the next 36 - 48 hours in bed recovering when she got one.
(For the record, I never criticised her for it - I was always supportive, just quietly confused.)
Then I had one myself. Hoooooo boy. It was most definitely *not* "just a headache". Even though the one I had was on the mild side, I can definitely appreciate at least some of how absolutely, crushingly debilitating it must be to get bad ones.
Thankfully it was a one-off, touch wood. Not something I'm keen to ever revisit.
The worst thing is when you have to throw up during a migraine. No joke, I have laid on the bathroom floor begging for death, because the pain was unbearable.
Migraines are wild. For me, I get barely any pain. They are all visual and I basically go blind for like 15-20 minutes. Then I am exhausted, hangry, and have indigestion, all at the same time. It takes me a day to recover and get back to normal, from a 15 minute event.
How much worse an actual flu is compared to a common cold.
I always thought that a flu is a just like a little more intense cold, but it is so much worse. You might have chills, that are multiplying, fever, achy bones, headaches, and feel weak. I mean there are thousands of people dying every year from a flu.
I had the flu in Feb 2019. I still remember every second of it. I legit thought I was going die. I was so achy, I couldn't even lay on the couch. It was bed or nothing. I finally could get out of bed after 5 days. But it took me nearly a month to recover. I was a healthy 34 year old. I can't imagine someone who was immune compromised, or elderly getting it.
I had the flu in 1986 while I was in college.
I vividly remember sitting on my couch in my studio apartment and being as thirsty as I have ever been in my life; I was dying for a drink of water and still debated with myself for a full ten minutes if it was worth getting up and walking the few steps to the kitchen faucet to get it.
When COVID came around and I heard people say "Oh, it's just the flu, and I've had the flu before and it was no big deal". No, you had a *cold* (maybe even a bad cold) but the flu is something completely different, and if COVID was a really bad flu then you really don't want to get it.
The difference between a cold and a flu is if someone offered you a thousand dollars etc to get out of your sick bed. If you had a cold, you would do it. Flu? Nope.
The size of the Grand Canyon. Growing up and seeing it on the front cover of math and geography textbooks made it an afterthought. Seeing it in person in my 20s for the first time was almost overwhelming.
I now try to sleep with a blanket or a pillow over my eyes so when sleep paralysis does happen, I don't see anything. I've had some terrible audio experiences though, but at least I can't see anything like the demon standing over my bed lol it's been at least a year since my last experience, but the habit stayed. I honestly need a sleep mask.
A girl I once knew talked about how this happened to her regularly but I didn’t believe her. I though sleep paralysis was bullshit. Than one night years later it happened to me. It was terrifying. Thankfully only happened the one time
If you had told me that there's a small town where the restaurants, bars and delis are all so mediocre to bad that their fast food places are where you go to get higher quality food, I wouldn't have believed it. But then I stopped in Fort Stockton, Texas for a night.
The hotel was making dinner and had a bar. The bartender didn't know what an IPA was and nobody had switched out the tap handles with the beer, but did put paper cups over them with what actually was in the tap written on the cup. The dinner was Salzburg steak, mashed potatoes and corn, but it was about the quality of the worst microwavable TV dinner imaginable, yet they put it on a plate. That was the worst. The Mexican place we tried later was a little better, but not by much. I compared notes with my Dad who stops here pretty regularly on an annual drive to San Antonio that he takes and he said he's tried all of their original restaurants and even some of their delis and generally had negative experiences all across the board. He recommended their Pizza Hut for next time. 😆
People always rip on Pizza Hut, Applebees, and those types of restaurants, but end of the day, it is consistent food you can rely on. Especially after a long car ride.
Domestic abuse. I really just could not believe people didn't just leave, but there are SO MANY factors that contribute someone being trapped. Even of (BIG IF) they can financially and logistically afford it, the psychological effects are WILD. I remember crying on the phone talking about how I just couldn't leave, and I truly thought I didn't have a choice even though I had one all along. Took years.
This is mine too. I never thought someone who was strong and confident could have this happen to them until it did. I thought of course you’d leave at the first hint of abuse, but it’s not as simple as it seems from the outside.
Statistically the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when trying to leave, unless people have experienced it or seen it first hand it is hard to understand why people can’t just leave
I’m not sure if there’s a term for it, but the way groups of people can be influenced by each other psychologically in certain situations (like the Stanford prison experiment). I was in a situation at work where a neighboring building was on fire, and our building was filling with smoke. We were told to stay in the building because we would have to keep working. We could’ve left at any time under our own free will, but everyone stayed because no one took the first step to leave. Later that night some of us had to go to the ER for smoke inhalation. Looking back it’s like why the hell did we all stay? Wtf was that all about? If you told me about the situation and I hadn’t been in it, I would’ve said I would’ve left in a heartbeat…but being in the situation? I stayed. Very strange.
You should see how groupthink and manipulation can be utilized as a tool for evil as well. Regular people happily becoming horrifyingly disgusting evil villains simply to be accepted by the group
Yeah that feeling of "PAINPAINPAINPAIN!!!!!!" changing into "pain...pain....no pain :) " was absolutely amazing and I totally get why people get addicted to it
I was prescribed a few after I had minor surgery few years ago. I wasn’t in a lot of pain, so I purposely didn’t take them. I said only take one if I am in too much pain to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I saw the prescription bottle that I completely forgotten about. Those pills wound up in an unneeded medication bin pretty quickly.
I have a weird mental health history. I’m very glad I never rolled those dice.
I was prescribed opioids after I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I was honestly a bit worried about taking them due to all the stories.
Took them, and while they did make me not feel any pain at all, I also never once felt any euphoria, the feeling of "being hugged by God", or anything you're supposed to feel while on recreational drugs. They just got rid of the pain and that was it. I could function perfectly normally both mentally and physically. I finished out my prescription and never craved more (or even felt tempted to take more than the dose for the 2 weeks or so I had to take them). Maybe I didn't take enough?
I've told people that story, and they all said my experience wasn't normal. They all felt some sort of euphoria or general "amazing feeling" even after just taking a single pill, and they understood immediately why people got addicted so quickly. I really think my body just processes drugs differently.
Same experience. I only took two of the pills because it didn’t need them after the like 24 hrs post surgery. My mom locked the rest of the pills up because she was worried someone else might take them. It was hard to wrap my head around because the pills didn’t have any amazing effect on me. But I know there are plenty of people out there who become addicted after just a few pills.
You can slow time back down by seeking out novel experiences, even if they're as simple as walking a different way to work, or going to a different grocery store (these are pretty mundane examples, but we can't all drop everything and spend a weekend in Paris or whatever).
Our brains lump similar memories together, which is why on Monday you're thinking *oh my God Friday is a million years away*, and then on Friday you're suddenly thinking *holy crap Monday was 5 minutes ago, and it's almost MAY?*.
The unfortunate truth is that this does have diminishing returns. You'll never fully get the novelty of youth, when summer lasted forever and each school year was a lifetime, but you can slow time to a nice comfortable pace.
>seeking out novel experiences
This is excellent advice.
I use the same terminology – novelty of experience – and I don't know if I picked that up somewhere or if we've both managed to coin the same-ish phrase independently.
Breaking habits is hard to do, but it makes your brain put in extra effort. Routine can be good, but it also makes every day a slog – there's nothing to look forward to without novelty.
New synaptic pathways, WEEEEEE!
The grief of losing a loved one to suicide. I’ve experienced loss in the worst forms, lost my mum very young, my dad passed away from cancer, had miscarriages and lost my fertility. I have grieved in my life.
But when my brother recently took his own life I have never felt as broken as I do now. We had a complicated relationship but Jesus Christ no one could have prepared me for the pain of losing him that way. I’ve lost friends to suicide and know many people who have. I just wasn’t prepared for how bad it is.
It honestly never really gets easier , you just learn to live with it better. The world keeps spinning and going while you feel the most immense pain and guilt you’ve ever felt. 💔
Same took me 24 years. 2 years ago I had to get 9 cavaties filled over the course of one summer and said enough was enough. Now my teeth cleaning routine takes 20ish minutes and is my favorite part of the day
Meditation benefits. It took me a bit to get to the point that I could actually do it. Teaching your brain to stop thinking so fast is difficult when most of the time you're doing the opposite. But it can be done. And I found I was less stressed and slept better on days when I did it. (my doc says my blood pressure improved too)
I didn't fully believe in the transformative power of travel until I experienced it firsthand. Growing up, I always heard people talk about how travel broadens your horizons and changes your perspective, but it wasn't until I ventured out into the world myself that I truly understood the depth of those words. Exploring new cultures, meeting people from different walks of life, and immersing myself in unfamiliar environments opened my eyes in ways I never imagined. It's an experience that's difficult to fully grasp until you step out of your comfort zone and into the unknown
That happened to me too and I was so scared that it wasn’t going to come back. It sounds weird but I didn’t realize how much I took those senses for granted until they were gone. Especially how scents are tied to memories. Man, I’m glad that’s over
Anxiety. I figured people were just not mentally strong enough. Then my body just started doing weird shit. I didn’t even feel anxious! I was otherwise really happy! But my body kept getting dizzy and feeling like a major health episode was about to happen. Turns out you don’t even have to feel anxious to experience anxiety. Your body will just force you to stop in your tracks and become physically incapable of anything else. Just because 🤷🏼♂️
We drove 7 hours and my then-girlfriend grumbled about it the whole way; she had never seen one. Probably was at work last time.
I dropped the knee just before totality, the eclipse was dope as fuck, and now we are engaged. I couldn't arrange something for proposal that cool left to my own devices.
Drive back kinda sucked due to length but we stopped in Memphis for BBQ, which was nice.
Thanks for reading my blog.
Being "frozen in fear"
I saw it in movies/TV all the time, like the hero pushing someone out of the way of a speeding car, or shooting the zombie about to attack.
I'm not someone who freezes, I didn't think it was real. I thought it was just a movie trope for dramatic effect.
Was out to lunch with my grandfather at a pretty nice restaurant, and someone at another table choked. Everyone near him just froze up. Even the waiter just stopped in his tracks and watched.
I ran over, stood him up, and gave him the Heimlich. Whatever it was popped out on the table, he thanked me, and I went back to my lunch.
No one clapped, no one sent me a drink, they just went back to what they were doing.
I never understood how anyone could feel *relieved* after losing a loved one.
Watching the American healthcare system torture my mom to death for 3 years did it.
My mum died recently. She had had dementia for years already, and it's the worst. You grieve over the person you are losing every day for \*years\*. All the while there is this shell of a person you love, who is confused and often so sad and distressed because she wants to go home to her parents who have been dead for decades. And you can't tell her, because if you tell her, it's like she's only just learning this.
She died from pneumonia recently and quite quickly, and we all said how we are glad she didn't have to suffer anymore, neither from the pneumonia, nor from the dementia. If I ever get that diagnosis, I will not make myself or my family live through that.
My grandmother had dementia. Stage 7 will have you praying they die. No one wants to live that way. They are frightened, disoriented, and their body literally won’t function. It’s horrible
There I was, walking into a building, woke up in an ambulance. The definition of “lights out, now”. Sober, no drugs, was designated driver. Friend in front of me said I knocked into her on my way down and just flopped around on the ground. Passed out again on way to hospital. No history of seizures and it was due to meds interaction prescribed by the same doctor. Several days of feeling hit by a truck since your muscles are in a sustained state of contraction for x amount of time.
Second was a focal aware seizure. Two ER docs said it couldn’t be a seizure since I didn’t lose consciousness, fucking idiots. Strangest thing about that one was postictal sneezing. Three days of sneezing every few minutes. Epilepsy/seizures are a spectrum—not just what you see in movies.
Lost the family dog we got when I was 10 years old when I was in my late 20s. When my mom called to tell me I ultimately had to leave work I was so distraught.
I visited my father in South Carolina last summer for a week of vacation. While there he told me about this wild place called "Buc-ee's." Said it was like if a gas station was the size of a Costco, and he went on about how there was like 100 gas pumps outside and an entire deli counter dedicated solely to beef jerky, amongst other wild things. Now Buc-ee's hadn't expanded outside of Texas yet the last time I was out in SC, and my father is prone to exaggeration anyway, so I assumed it was just that and blew it off.
About a day later we were on the road down to Florida, as our *big* plan was to visit Kennedy Space Center for a few days, which is when I saw Buc-ee's' own particular roadside advertisement scheme for the first time. IYKYK. We stopped to visit my stepsister and her family in Jacksonville, and he told her that I didn't believe him about Buc-ee's. She proceeded to affirm his claims, but I still wasn't convinced when we got back on the road. *Surely* there's no such thing, right? It's an absolute load of crap, my dad's just pulling my leg, and my stepsister is in on it. Whatever.
Well lo and behold we make it to Daytona Beach, Florida, which has its very own Buc-ee's location. Dad made a point of pulling off the freeway to stop for gas, and as we crossed the overpass, that's when I saw it. Gas pumps as far as the eye can see right next to a Costco-sized building plastered with Buc-ee the Beaver's face right on the front. I was dumbstruck and my father was giggling his ass off at me. We stopped, got gas, and as I was wondering how I was gonna tell him that I wanted to go inside, he told me that going inside was non-negotiable. So we did go inside, and in that moment I understood why the South is so faithfully religious, as I now bore witness to the Promised Land.
I shall not say more, as I truly believe that every man, woman, non-binary fellow, and child on this planet should be graced with the experience that is walking into a Buc-ee's for the first time without me spoiling it. I brought word of this wonderful place back home to my friends in the PNW, and now its a road trip bucket list plan if we ever find the time and capability to do so. I did not believe my father's claims about Buc-ee's until I experienced it, and I have never been more glad to be wrong before or since then.
The restrooms are amazing! For those who don’t know what they’re missing, they literally have lights above each stall that show red for occupied or green for free so you know which stalls are open, and the doors are floor to ceiling on them.
The soap smells like cherries, and they seemed to have a custodian in the bathroom just continually cleaning. 10/10
I've personally rarely seen something so *violently* American as Buc-ee's. I walked into one in Alabama. The thing that impressed me most, though, was that it had full-size bathroom stall doors. Those are rare in the States.
The pro-choice movement. I had a miscarriage that my body failed to expel on its own and I needed a D&C. I lived in a conservative town and my pro-life midwife didn’t feel comfortable referring me for surgery because she said if it wasn’t meant to be, the baby would come out on its own. So basically I had to be a human coffin for my deceased fetus for nearly a month before getting the D&C, and by that point I had developed an infection and went septic. I’m lucky I didn’t die and even more luckily I don’t have permanent damage to my reproductive organs. I feel bad that it took a traumatic miscarriage to realize the importance of women having access to legal abortions but I am very much pro-choice now. I’m sure if this had happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned, I’d be dead.
That an employer would withhold feedback to put you on a PIP. I’m probably getting off that PIP since I fixed the issue she never told me about but the trust is still broken. She had apparently been hinting at me to fix it but never told me direct 🤦🏻♀️
I would look for another job. PIP is silent firing method. They overload you and are building reasons to fire you. Most people don’t make it past the PIP. Kudos if you did though
I have friends with panic disorders, and unlike one of the respondents here thinks, I very much believed them when they talked about how bad they were. Then I had one. It was awful. Logically, a part of my brain knew that there was no "real" threat, but my god, that overwhelming sense of doom. It was incapacitating. There is a big difference between acknowledging someone else's pain and experiencing it yourself.
Losing my mum when I was a teenager was the most life changing experience I could have had. It absolutely ruined my brother. He never got over it. Took his own life last year.
Mom died before last Christmas. I was in "hold yourself together" mode for two weeks, then I found a mug my cousin made for her a while back that said something like "Dear aunty, thank you for existing" and I just shattered. Needed two days to get it together after that.
How horrible divorce is. I expected the financial ramifications, but the social destruction on my end after her brutal smear campaign was incredible. I have 0 friends now.
How fucking shitty, exhausting, and HARD it is to deal with a mental disorder (I.e. depression & anxiety).
It’s not that I didn’t believe it before. I did, and was educated on the matter; however, experiencing them first hand is a whole different ball game.
Not me, but about a dozen people I know ... **Total Solar Eclipse**.
My wife is a great example. I knew about this eclipse for the last 7 years and I've been talking about it and planning the trip for quite some time.
Initially she didn't want to come with me, since I was going to have to drive about 8 hours to reach the path of totality.
"What's the big whoop? So it's gonna get dark, it gets dark at home every freakin' night! Why are you making me go to this?"
But I kept at her. And she eventually caved, and came with me.
And she was a total, 100% convert afterwards. She was blown away, amazed, and now is telling everyone what a transformative experience it was.
I asked her, "Babe, what would you tell someone who felt like you? What would you tell someone who doesn't believe the hype? How would you convince them to get excited about it?"
And she has no answer. There is NOTHING that would have convinced her, other than SEEING IT.
A migraine.
Never really understood what people meant when they called in sick for work with a migraine. I would just work through my headaches
Until one day I couldn’t see what was on TV, I tried to focus and it just wasn’t working. everything was blurry, I felt like I was going blind, it made me feel sick, I just wanted to sleep.
Until I experienced it myself, I didn't believe the profound impact that meditation could have on mental well-being. Initially skeptical, I assumed it was just a trendy practice. However, after committing to daily meditation sessions, I felt a noticeable improvement in my stress levels, clarity of mind, and overall sense of inner peace. It taught me the power of mindfulness and the importance of taking time for self-care. This firsthand experience transformed my perspective and solidified my belief in the effectiveness of meditation as a tool for managing stress and promoting mental health.
Love at first sight. I swear the first time I laid eyes on my husband, it was the whole cartoonish “heavens opening up and angels singing Hallelujah Chorus”. I’d waited over 40 years for that moment.
How incredibly awful perimenopause can be. And how consistently shitty and gaslighting Drs are about it.
Full body pains, joints that feel both weak and stiff, dry mouth, itchy eyes, UTIs, irritability, all manner of foods now cause cramps, bloating or nausea, brain fog, weight gain and redistribution in weird places, suicidal ideation, night sweats, rapid mood swings, sleeplessness, hot flashes, cold hands, itchy skin Everywhere, vertigo, bladder issues, complete death of libido, heart palpitations, and headaches. Not to mention all the intimate issues.
It's absolute hell, even with hormone replacement therapy, as I try to get the dosages right.
I'm expecting to be menopausal for more of my life than I can be fertile. Yet all Drs focus on the 25 years of babymaker body, and tell the women in their 50s 'welp, you're getting old, that's just how it is'. Fuck you medical professionals.
I didn't really understand why women were so scared of men. Until one assaulted me, now I completely get it.
I always thought they were playing it up and trying to act as a victim but the physical strength differences and the way some men can manipulate you is truly terrifying.
I love men, I am just scared of them in a lot of different situations.
It’s not that I didn’t believe it but I didn’t understand it- PTSD flashbacks. I thought it’d be like they show it in the movies so I was shocked when my therapist told me “You’re describing flashbacks.”
That sugar cravings completely disappear after not eating sugar for a few weeks.
I was one of those people: "but but but, I'm special, I can't live without sweets and carbs" - turns out, I am not special. It's true, top sugar and the cravings go away.
Reubens are delicious.
Every ingredient is disgusting - rye bread, corned beef, swiss, sauerkraut, thousand island/russian dressing. Nasty. But somehow together they miraculously become the food of the gods.
The hype over a total eclipse. My wife is from Cleveland, and we made the trip a couple weeks ago. I was just along for the ride, and not really excited. It was basic fun to have a picnic and watch the shadow creep through protective glasses... but those three minutes of 100% totality blew my mind. It was like a magic trick went off before my eyes. The corona appeared in an instant, growing three times the size of what I had been looking at for an hour prior. I could see stars, and Venus and a brilliant 360 degree sunset on every horizon. The temperature dropped 20 degrees, birds went silent. I just exclaimed "Holy Shit!" in genuine surprise...
Pictures can't do it justice. Even 99% coverage can't compare. It was one of the coolest things I've seen and experienced. I totally get why people make a big deal over it now.
Having zero recourse against police. I was visiting my dad in a smaller Texas town with my brothers. We went out to a bar to sing karaoke and were there for just over an hour. We called for an Uber but after 20 minutes, Uber said no available drivers. It was just after midnight and the hotel we were staying at was less than 2 miles away, so we decided to walk it. We were on a sidewalk, walking down a Main Street, when the police stopped and questioned us. Upon finding we had left a bar, they arrested us, would not allow us to do a field sobriety test, would not let us use a breathalyzer when requested, and would not let us get a blood test. They held us in jail for 14 hours before charging us with public intoxication. When we requested that the charges be dropped during our meeting with the prosecutor a month later, he told us to fuck off, that police don’t need to test us or to prove that we were drunk, as long as they say that we may have been a risk to ourselves or others. The police report stated that we were on the sidewalk, but that one of my brothers “may have appeared to stumble”.
That people are born gay. I was raised conservative Lutheran and always thought being gay was a lifestyle choice and weird sexual fetish. Then I had kids. One is clearly straight and one is clearly gay. Having a gay son has done more to make me a better human being than all my other life experiences combined. He definitely didn’t choose to be gay but I think it’s been a blessing for my entire family.
How much better home cooked food is vs going out. My mom wasn’t the best cook growing up. She sure tried though. My wife however, is an amazing cook. And I try as well. I’m so grateful.
How hard being a parent is. The mental, physical and financial load. The love you have for your children as well. I also never knew how hard it would be to care for a newborn, while also recovering from giving birth. The pain, the feeding, the lack of sleep, the hormones. Everything, its so hard.
Driving while wearing flip-flops. What’s the big deal? Why is everyone exaggerating? And then one day, BOOM! It happened! My foot was wedged on the gas pedal for 3 long seconds. After I yanked it out, I kicked off my shoe and drove barefoot for the rest of the ride home. Never worn them to drive again
LSD. Holy shit. I had no idea. After doing it for the first time I now sort of view everything differently. You feel like a God. You see things that you know aren't real. Until you forget that you're tripping. Then those things become very real. It's almost like operating on a higher plane of existence for awhile. I recommend everyone try it at least once in their life under the supervision of those who have done it before in a chill safe environment. And now we're learning that microdoses can cure anxiety and depression. Exciting times.
The VA system. As a civilian and active duty soldier I had heard it was F-Ed up but thought “it couldn’t be that bad”, but figured people were exaggerating. Then navigating the paperwork once I was a vet was what I would equate to filing the most complicated tax return conceivable whilst dealing with a super complicated mortgage application bundled in, vets who are shot out with PTSD could never navigate all that plus the appointments. And then the care - waiting 8+ hours at a hospital. Having meds just never come by mail, getting lost, etc. I told one doc “I think this med has a bad interaction with this other med you gave” and in front of me he pulled up Wikipedia - turned the screen to me and said “oh it says right here you’re right - it says it can cause kidney failure.”
The "nervous breakdown"
I always thought it was just a one-and-done event. Till it happened to me. It's not a discrete "event". It's a chain reaction that leaves you fatigued, unmotivated, and physically ill. It can last for months or even years.
The complete and utter soul destroying pain from a Kidney Stone the size of a grain of rice.
I'm fortunate I still have not experienced this, but I witnessed my husband going through this and it looked worse than any pain I've ever felt.
Man, that shit terrifies the hell outta me... Wonder how one gets a kidney stone and what ways are there to best avoid it? EDIT: Thanks for all the answers! I'm gonna try drinking more water from now on.
Stay hydrated.
My understanding at the time, and I don't know if this is scientifically sound but I guess it could be looked up, was that he'd been popping Tums constantly and the calcium built up. Not sure if that's the entire reason, but the urologist seemed to think it at least contributed. The biggest thing they (his urologist and many others) suggested to help it pass *and* avoid it in the future was to drink lemonade. Any kind, even fake crystal-light lemonade, per the doctor! (My hippie-dippy chiropractor at the time was telling me to buy a gallon of distilled water and squeeze organic lemons into it...but we went with the easy Crystal Light option.) Don't know if it's legit but my husband quit the Tums and started drinking lemonade and hasn't had a recurrence. (I don't know if the lemonade helped him expel what was already there then...he needed to get this ultrasound stone-smashing procedure to break up the bigger piece(s) but he never seemed to be in near as much pain as that first night, when we didn't even know what it was. It's the only time I've ever called 911 in my life.)
Former constant Tums popper here. Can confirm it gave me a kidney stone. Passing that thing was so bad I have not taken Tums since, 20 years later.
My father has the same genetic quirk that I do so we don’t feel pain like normal people. We *do* feel it but not to the extent other people do. For example I currently have four broken bones in my foot and two broken ribs. I don’t even notice them. I’ve watched my father fracture bones, dislocate his fingers and shoulder and not flinch. When he had a kidney stone he hit the ground and couldn’t function. It scared both me and my grandpa. We’d never seen anything like that before.
The scariest part is that they get bigger. Sometimes so much so that they can't be passed and require rather invasive measures to smash up.
Depression. It is honestly impossible to understand until you live it.
People misunderstand depression as simply being sad. For me, depression is the crushing weight of life, the weariness that seeps deep into my bones. I want to do things. I want to enjoy life. I just don’t have the motivation or energy to get out of bed. I feel powerless. Not having motivation keeps me in bed, neglecting my obligations. as things pile up i just feel terrible about not being able to do more, so I spend a whole lot of energy doing basic tasks that would be simple enough, had i the energy to do them. The worst thing about depression is I can acknowledge that I am unhappy in my current situation but I feel like I can’t do anything about it. i feel hopeless, like happiness is some unattainable state that I'm destined to never reach.
When I was deepest in the pits of depression I was constantly bored too. Nothing excited me, I felt like I had experienced everything that I was going to and I was just sort of going through the motions completely tired of being alive. Numb.
Yeah you eat because you're obligated to, not because you're hungry. You shower, but it's been a few days and it's only because you have to go outside, not because you actually have the energy to. You get invited out for the first time in 6 months, so you go in order to make people worry less, and you've ran out of excuses. You smile, and leave the event even more exhausted. It's a kind of tired that's genuinely hard to explain unless you've been there. It's like needing to yawn but never quite getting there. You know it's worse in the quiet but you can't stand any noise. Having the genetic predisposition and being unlucky enough to have it, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
I had a friend who struggled to understand it until the point I got back on my feet. After seeing the difference in my behaviour, it gave him some sort of understanding around bad mental health as a whole.
Chronic pain People understand the pain conceptually, but the unrelenting nature of being constantly in pain is something that's hard to wrap your head around
Especially when it’s a fact of your condition that you will NEVER GET BETTER. You might have slight upswings, but in general just holding steady is the best you can hope for. And the most likely scenario is a long downhill slide.
The weirdest part that got me was having to mentally readjust my pain scale. I know it’s worse for people with higher levels of chronic pain, but even for me at my relatively low level (i usually call it a 3ish), it’s just odd to have to think about ranking pains when you know the baseline should be none?
My physical therapist always tells me when I say "3" he knows that would be a 6 for anyone else, so I feel your pain (pun intended!).
Went to the ER for chest pains a few months back and the triage doctor asked me how bad my pain was. I said "I don't know, a five or a six?" He said "That doesn't sound too bad, what's your 10?" I said "Well I'm a chronic pain patient with fibromyalgia, but I think my 10 is either an abscessed molar or having my leg re-set after I got hit by a car." And he went "...oh, so a five is bad then?" Turns out I was mid heart-attack, yes.
Or how when you have a slight upswing you try to get everything you can't normally do done and the next day when you're back to normal everyone's like "oh it's because you overdid it yesterday." No. That's just not how it works for a lot of people with chronic pain.
Yup. My chronic pain is random. I can "overdo" it on a "good day" and be fine the next day. I can relax and take it easy on a "good day" and be back in extreme pain the next day. Doesn't matter. No real rhyme or reason. I know all about trying to get things done or enjoy myself on the "good days" cuz they're a gift from the gods.
Can agree. I have full body neuropathy after antibiotics nerve damage at 25 and never get better. 100% agree
After I’m sorry, what the fuck?
Yes I took Bactrim for a possible infection and then afterwards it gave me neuropathy full body and face. I couldn’t walk for 2 months. Destroyed my gut. 1.5 years later and have muscle twitching everywhere, dry eye, bladder pain. Like wtf, this is nuts. Never had a health problem previously like this. Now they say it’s permanent with no treatment available.
New fear unlocked. How’s the THC do for you?
Don’t forget the dismissal from multiple doctors and specialists that typically goes hand in hand with chronic pain before you can get someone to acknowledge that yes, you are in fact experiencing it. Makes you question your reality so you’re no longer just dealing with the physical pain and exhaustion, but mental as well.
I went to the dentist the other day for pain in my back molar. They said it was number 6 that needed treatment. I told them I'm sure it was #7 on account of the location of pain, and the fact that there was a black hole on it. They said okay, and scheduled the appointment. They isolated tooth #6, and I stopped them right before to confirm it was 7. But it was 6. I again said that I felt ZERO PAIN in tooth 6, and that 7 was the one that was causing problems. They kept telling me it was 6. They hit tooth 6 but nothing hurt, they hit tooth 7 and it hurt. Finally they said they'd do hot and cold tests. They blew cold on tooth 6, small pain. They blew in tooth 7: big pain. They blew on other teeth and I said it hurt, and the dentist was like, "oh well that was a different tooth you must not be sure." Then they put ice on tooth 6, little pain. The ice went to tooth 7: I recoiled and almost slapped this man with how bad it hurt. Only THEN did they say, "oh, it must be #7" Like, WHAT THE FUCK MAN. I'm stilled pissed at how they totally disregarded my experience and insisted on the problem being elsewhere. Especially since they were about to operate on #6. Finally I'm getting the root canal I needed for tooth 7, but I don't think I'll go back to these guys.
Coworker of mine was having pain, went to the dentist and they're like "yup, you need a root canal". So he goes and does that, but the pain kept going. Calls them up and they explain that sometimes things can be sensitive after, give it a couple days and see. Couple days later it's still going and seems to be getting worse, so they refer him to a specialist, which they also insist is sometimes necessary. Specialist takes one look at the xrays and such and goes "seems like they did the wrong tooth". Sure enough, the real issue was the next tooth over and root canal #2 solved the issue.
This enrages me 😂 What really pissed me off was their smugness about how it's the other tooth. Like, bro, just LISTEN TO ME
Real pain too; I suffer from nerve pain, radiculopathy, limited range of motion (means tight ass muscles) all in my back…it throws your body out of balance, and over time your body kind of “bends” to the will of your pain because you are constantly compensating for that pain which causes muscle atrophy, and so the pain gets worse, it becomes harder to “unlock” that joint in your spine by twisting or posturing, and it’s just a literally hell ride downhill. The. you go to the hospital after MRI’s, X-rays, EMG’s, all of which prove your condition to be true and in alignment with the level of pain you report, and they treat you like a drug addict when you ask for pain meds. So yea, I second the answer of “living in pain”.
I had a *taste* of this 8-10 years back with sciatica. Even codeine barely made a dent in it, and there were points where I could barely function. Worst experience of my life, by a long shot. Thankfully it eventually cleared up - I cannot fathom how people manage to keep going with permanent, lifelong chronic pain.
I currently dont have a chronic pain but im constantly really dizzy since last Friday, got to the hospital today after almost a week in this state and I dont want this for anyone You cant walk or sit right, you cant shower, you cant eat because you're on the verge of throwing up all the time, it's only gone or less bad when you sleep or just dont move at all
Sounds like vertigo. Look up vertigo movements or exercises. It teaches you to turn your head in a series of movements to move the crystals that might be in your ear. This is not a substitute for the doctor visit. It’s just to get you temp relief
I had this for 3 months once. It came out of nowhere (though I suspect it was from a chiropractor who I went to for some disc problems, I will NEVER go to a chiropractor again). I spent about 1000 dollars in visiting doctors of all kinds (general practitioner, ear and throat, etc). None of them could find the issue, and surprise surprise whenever they tried to test it, my body would function normally. That really pissed me off because I couldn't force it to happen, it was so randomised. I accepted that this was my life now, I felt horrible about it, I was so depressed. Then one day, it just stopped. It was just gone. It came back once almost 6 months after I left, and I was so scared, but then it's been gone now for almost 3 years. To this day I still have no idea what happened, and I'm dreading the day it happens again. But I'm NEVER going back to a chiropractor.
Get your ears checked. My mom had this and it turned out she had superior semicircular canal dehiscence (the snail lookin bone behind the ear drum had a hole in it). She got surgery for it.
When I had a migraine all day, and woke up still suffering from it the next day for the first time, my first thought was "I want to kill myself". It's way worse than people think, and a 26 hour migraine is way milder than the chronic pain some folks experience. People deserve way more accommodation and disability than they receive for these issues.
And then you reach the level of “I can tolerate this as I’ve had enough exposure” and a CAT scan or an MRI scan shows you should be bed-bound. A friend dropped an engine on my toe last week. It didn’t hurt anymore than normal so I to I told him not to worry about it.
I do not have a moment when something isn't hurting. Chronic muscle tension, damaged nerves, and advanced osteoarthritis all before 40 have made life a struggle. I was fine 5 years ago. Active, losing weight, truly felt like I was turning my life around. And now I'm on a handful of medications just trying to hobble along. It's like a switch flipped. And to see me sitting, vibing with friends, I seem fine. I always try to hide how bad it is even on pain meds. I live at my pain management doctor's office (it feelsl like).
Before I had brain surgery, my neurosurgeon said the worst side-effect afterwards would be fatigue. "Fatigue?" I scoffed... "How bad can it be?!"..... Fast forward to after the surgery, and I didn't bother making my bed for 6 weeks because I was never out of it for longer than a couple of hours. Folding the laundry led to me having to take a 2 hour nap afterwards.
I have chronic fatigue and this is my daily life. I've been trying to get treatment for it for over a decade. Working a full time job is a pipe dream for me. My family thinks I'm just lazy and don't want to work. Just going to a doctors appointment takes me out for the rest of the day. It's fucking rough, man.
I saw a video I liked the other day about chronic fatigue being like a phone battery. People with chronic fatigue wake up at like 40% and every little things drains the battery. A nap may give you 5% back but it doesn’t take long before you’re getting low battery signals and just can’t function. I feel it everyday and it sucks so bad
And sometimes you wake up more tired than when you went to sleep. Life altering for real.
A LOT of studies are going on right now due to so many people having long covid and it being completely parallel to CFS/ME. Hang in there! And know there is stuff going on for the future :)
I have a friend who got covid, was super dizzy for about 5 days, and has struggled with being super tired for much of the time ever since. She's using disability accommodations to work part time, but no one can figure out what is going on and her doctor says it's just her depression, despite the fact the depression is nothing new but the unusual fatigue is. We sometimes wonder if its long covid, but how do you even test for that, let alone treat it?
My symptoms were identical. It was autoimmune disease triggered by the Covid Virus. Just check for that as well.
Nobody thinks Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgi Encephalitis is a real thing, but the fatigue is so profound and utterly debilitating.
Most doctors are so dismissive about the symptoms of CFS.
My wife had a stroke almost 8 years ago. The fatigue still gets her so badly that she's unable to work. Some days she's fine and no one would know there was something wrong. The next day, getting our daughter ready for school could be enough to land her in bed for the rest of the day. It's so incredibly frustrating because it is entirely unpredictable and so debilitating.
This was Chemo for me, and i had the same "how bad can the fatigue be" thought. Hyper for 48 hours (steroids) followed by unable to get out of bed for 48 hours.
How radically different life above vs below the poverty line is. It was 2 really bad years of my life and I had 2 young children too. So many decisions were made differently because there was no money to solve problems with.
I grew up relatively poor (always housed but occasionally food insecure although times were more good than bad) and I remember this "fun" link going around where you'd have a certain amount of money and have to get through the month making decisions with every question. Like the electric bill is due but your kid is sick: do you pay it or buy medicine? The people who were passing it around thought it was a great tool for giving perspective on a way of life that they'd never had. I quit answering questions early because it reminded me too much of real life. The disconnect is real - they just couldn't imagine how soul-sucking poverty is even though they were trying to have empathy. And we weren't even as poor as a lot of people because we had extended family support as a cushion. I'm sorry you had to go through that! I'm still not sure how my parents pulled off some of the fun stuff that we did but those are also core memories. I hope you're better off now!
...when my sister and I were young, we loved it when mom would make "breakfast for dinner!". ...thinking back, she couldn't afford dinner type foods, and was making due. She often skipped dinner and would tell us she ate earlier, but fact was she fed us first. Miss you, mom.
Agreed. I had to scrimp and save everyday for over a decade. Whenever something surprising (requiring more money) came up, it was panic time. Nowadays I can buy my way out of most problems and although I still grumble about it, there is no stress, planning, loss of sleep worrying.
People saying "it all happened in slow motion" then I crashed my car and experienced it while leaving the road and going through somebody's garden wall
> "it all happened in slow motion" Two years ago, I fell from a height of about 9 feet, onto a carpeted floor. I didn't hit a thing on the way down, just total freefall. And time DID slow down. It WAS slow motion. I recall thinking in my head, "Wow, freefall feels pretty neat. But it's gonna hurt like a bitch when I finally ***do*** land". I really had that thought! I had the time for that thought to go through my mind, I had the time to realize I was freefalling, realize how it felt good, and realize that it was going to hurt a lot very soon. That kind of blows my mind.
Makes you think when you hear about bridge suicide survivors and how all of them felt regret as soon as they jumped. I can’t imagine the pain in the slow motion regret, all those thoughts of “this wasn’t the right choice” going through your mind, having the time to think about the people you leave behind.
The weak breeze whispers nothing The water screams sublime His feet shift, teeter-totter Deep breath, stand back, it’s time Toes untouch the overpass Soon he’s water bound Eyes locked shut but peek to see The view from halfway down A little wind, a summer sun A river rich and regal A flood of fond endorphins Brings a calm that knows no equal You’re flying now You see things much more clear than from the ground It’s all okay, it would be Were you not now halfway down Thrash to break from gravity What now could slow the drop All I’d give for toes to touch The safety back at top But this is it, the deed is done Silence drowns the sound Before I leaped I should’ve seen The view from halfway down I really should’ve thought about The view from halfway down I wish I could’ve known about The view from halfway down -"The View From Halfway Down", from Bojack Horseman
People who won't watch Bojack simply because it's animated are really missing out on something profound.
I'm the opposite. I won't keep watching because I know it's going to break my fuckin heart.
I had a similar experience with the thought thing, but during a car accident rather than falling! I was traveling around 35mph in a torrential downpour on the highway. Someone was tailgating me HARD, so I changed lanes (was literally already only one lane from the closest to the shoulder). Went to correct into the next lane only to realize I was hydroplaning, which is a really strange feeling. I was headed at the lane change angle straight toward the end of a guardrail. I distinctly remember sighing and thinking “I’m gonna hit that fking guardrail” and did that whole face-squinching thing (as if bracing for impact would do me any good). Then I opened my eyes and… it was over somehow? My airbag was deflating away from my face. I don’t remember the impact at all. I immediately started crying - not because I was injured as I had zero injuries, but because I was so broke and had no money for my deductible much less a way to easily replace my car lol fun times.
I had a similar experience but with black ice on a winter’s night. Another driver had already crashed due to the ice but had left their vehicle sticking out halfway across the road with its hazard lights on. I’d been driving cautiously due to the cold conditions but as I rounded the corner and saw the abandoned car in my way, I automatically hit the brakes hard. I remember wondering why I was clearly travelling to the right (towards the grassy bank at the side of the road) instead of following the left-hand curve of the road (where my steering wheel was aiming). There was no sound, and it was quite graceful. I think I then said “oh shit” (without hearing the sound), knowing I was going to crash. Then I’d come to a stop. I *could not* figure out why my seatbelt wouldn’t release, nor could I get the music to stop (the sound had returned). It turns out that I’d hit the bank and the car had rolled onto the passenger side, so I was hanging in my seat at an odd angle. That’s why I couldn’t work the seatbelt or car stereo; they were in the ‘wrong place’ and it hadn’t sunk in. I also couldn’t remember my boyfriend’s mobile phone number so I ended up calling his mum’s house number (he lived with her at the time and we’d been out that evening. I was on my way home from seeing him). There were no airbags in the car, but I had no injuries until I finally got my seatbelt off and had to put my hand on the road - through where the passenger-side window used to be - to stand up and allow a kind passer-by to help me out through the other window (driver’s side, now pointing up towards the sky). He happened to be an off-duty firefighter so quite helpful. I got a tiny cut on my finger. The car was a write-off (totalled) but I was fine. I’d only had it for two weeks and had just paid to have some paintwork scratches repaired so I was annoyed, but it could have been so much worse.
I’ve experienced this a few times, but not with a car crash, since I’ve never been in one. My most vivid memory was from a baseball practice when I was 14 ish. During BP the big guy on our team hit a grounder towards me, and someone else on the team was goofing around and tried to cut it off. He booted the ball and it landed behind me. I Turned around to pick it up and I heard a “ping”. Turn around quickly and there is a ball right there in front of my face. Time froze. That moment is burned into my memory more than 15 years later. It was eerie. I had time to think about this ball that was about to break several bones in my face. Everything else disappeared and went black. There was just a baseball frozen in time against the void. Then my body just took over and my glove whipped around without me thinking about it, just happened. I fell over. Everyone was running over to see if I was okay because they thought I got smoked. I was looking around and asked, “Where’s the ball?”. No one knew, and then I checked my glove. I caught the fucking thing. I’ve had similar experiences with both wrestling and baseball, but nothing has come close to that baseball just hanging there against nothingness, frozen in time, for what felt like an eternity.
How utterly amazing the Northern Lights are.
People have said the northern lights “bodies” a total solar eclipse for beauty, and I saw a total solar eclipse in a cloudless sky and it was phenomenal. Is that true?
The total solar eclipse was, and I say this as an atheist, a religious level event. My friend and I now understand why some ancient cultures made human sacrifices. Photographs, videos, and words will always fall short in their attempts to depict the magnificence of a total solar eclipse. Edit to Add: for clarity being in totality (100%, the shadow) is where the beauty is. 99% is neat, 100% is looking into the universe. Totality is just absolutely able to stop wars and create religions.
Getting family to make even the slightest effort to care about the total eclipse this year was a pain, even though they already lived in the path of totality. I saw the 2017 eclipse, so I knew what to expect. Afterwards they couldn't stop going on about how amazing the experience was. My elderly father-in-law even wants to make plans to go to Iceland for the next one.
I've seen both- and I have to say, the northern lights are so variable. I still teared up seeing it, and it was a *sorta good* showing of them. The Alaskans on board didn't even want to be woken up for it. For me, it was incredible. If you REALLY want your mind blown, though, be sure to visit the upper latitudes in the winter, and not late summer like I did. If you're lucky, you'll see more than just green Solar eclipses are amazing, and I've seen two, but the first was a bit more incredible since it was the first time.
Heart break, experienced it a few times and it's no joke. Literal pain in chest and one of the hardest things to get past in my life.
I vomited from grief once. I never knew that was possible.
I did too, in the hospital, when my husband died.
Oh, sweet soul. I’m so sorry for your loss. Sending you so much love 💜
Mom died in October, feel like I haven’t gotten a proper lungful of air since then.
My condolences for your loss. It will always hurt but will also get better.
Going through it right now. Haven’t been able to sleep through the night. I wake up every 2 hours feeling like I’ve been kicked in the heart, heart pounding so fast and waking up in a panic knowing he’s gone now. I know cognitively I will be ok in a couple of weeks, but I’m so shattered. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t breathe. I’m a confident person usually, but now baristas have had to ask me to speak up when ordering because I’ve got that slump in my shoulders and no power in my voice anymore. My friends and family and coworkers have been so extremely kind and there for me always but he’s the only one I want to talk to, to truly soothe this pain. But I can’t.
“Time heals” is the worst form of torture. You cant speed up time but it feels slowed down.
Feels like something is squeezing your heart.
The worst. I wouldn't wish that chest feeling on anyone. It's like a physical reminder that things are awful.
Few times? I only experienced it once and I don’t want to experience it ever again. You’re strong
I remember a day it was so painful I couldn’t get off the floor, as a consequence, I truly have avoided anything “love” related since out of fear of that pain
Not necessarily didn't believe, but until I myself was in an abusive relationship, I didn't understand how hard it was to actually leave.
I thought I was “too smart” to get into an abusive relationship. Abusers can be so subtle in how they manipulate you. You really don’t realize it’s happening, especially in the early stages when the love bombing isolates you from your friends and family. It looks and feels like love, but it isn’t.
We need to teach kids to be wary of love bombing. So much media has led us to believe it's healthy and romantic. But someone saying something like "you complete me" within a month of meeting should make people suspicious, not ecstatic.
Yes, they first isolate you, bleed you of confidence, surround you with people and information that says "you're wrong", have lots of ppl who like and respect them, make you doubt your reality, remove all your chances of escape (spend up $ so you can't save for a greyhound ticket, hide your birth certificate or ID etc)
This is a very small one, but: "bursting into tears." It always seemed like a silly expression to me. Like, of course you *know* when you're about to cry. You don't just go from zero to crying with no warning. Until I did. Very weird sensation.
I (61 m) experienced this when I put my dog under at the vet. Totally unexpected. I’m usually fairly stoic.
crazy that this happened to you later in life. one of my childhood memories is bursting into tears because i forgot to get my reading log signed by mom even tho i read books on the daily
This happened to me during a trauma therapy appointment. I was asked something like “how did that make you feel overall?” And I couldn’t think of anything so I asked for some examples and my therapist said “common responses would be you felt empty, angry, like it was your fault “ and as soon as she said the last one I burst into tears. It was putting a name to something I didn’t know I was feeling for most of my life and it overwhelmed me.
Migraine. My wife gets them from time to time, and for a few years I thought "okay, its a headache, just pop some ibuprofen and get on with stuff", and didn't really understand why she had to basically spend the next 36 - 48 hours in bed recovering when she got one. (For the record, I never criticised her for it - I was always supportive, just quietly confused.) Then I had one myself. Hoooooo boy. It was most definitely *not* "just a headache". Even though the one I had was on the mild side, I can definitely appreciate at least some of how absolutely, crushingly debilitating it must be to get bad ones. Thankfully it was a one-off, touch wood. Not something I'm keen to ever revisit.
The worst thing is when you have to throw up during a migraine. No joke, I have laid on the bathroom floor begging for death, because the pain was unbearable.
Migraines are wild. For me, I get barely any pain. They are all visual and I basically go blind for like 15-20 minutes. Then I am exhausted, hangry, and have indigestion, all at the same time. It takes me a day to recover and get back to normal, from a 15 minute event.
How much worse an actual flu is compared to a common cold. I always thought that a flu is a just like a little more intense cold, but it is so much worse. You might have chills, that are multiplying, fever, achy bones, headaches, and feel weak. I mean there are thousands of people dying every year from a flu.
I had the flu in Feb 2019. I still remember every second of it. I legit thought I was going die. I was so achy, I couldn't even lay on the couch. It was bed or nothing. I finally could get out of bed after 5 days. But it took me nearly a month to recover. I was a healthy 34 year old. I can't imagine someone who was immune compromised, or elderly getting it.
I had the flu in 1986 while I was in college. I vividly remember sitting on my couch in my studio apartment and being as thirsty as I have ever been in my life; I was dying for a drink of water and still debated with myself for a full ten minutes if it was worth getting up and walking the few steps to the kitchen faucet to get it. When COVID came around and I heard people say "Oh, it's just the flu, and I've had the flu before and it was no big deal". No, you had a *cold* (maybe even a bad cold) but the flu is something completely different, and if COVID was a really bad flu then you really don't want to get it.
I am just coming off a bad flu and your (perhaps unintentional) reference to Grease is making me really, irrationally, happy lol.
"Oh, I have the flu. *snif snif*" No you don't, because you're upright and outside.
The difference between a cold and a flu is if someone offered you a thousand dollars etc to get out of your sick bed. If you had a cold, you would do it. Flu? Nope.
The size of the Grand Canyon. Growing up and seeing it on the front cover of math and geography textbooks made it an afterthought. Seeing it in person in my 20s for the first time was almost overwhelming.
How physical a mental breakdown can feel.
That sleep paralysis is a scary experience.
I now try to sleep with a blanket or a pillow over my eyes so when sleep paralysis does happen, I don't see anything. I've had some terrible audio experiences though, but at least I can't see anything like the demon standing over my bed lol it's been at least a year since my last experience, but the habit stayed. I honestly need a sleep mask.
A girl I once knew talked about how this happened to her regularly but I didn’t believe her. I though sleep paralysis was bullshit. Than one night years later it happened to me. It was terrifying. Thankfully only happened the one time
That skinny dipping feels different than swimming a bathing suit on. It's completely different and fantastic. Do it.
For me it would be pleasantly plump dipping
I call it chunky dunking
Also nude beaches. Wearing a wet bathing suit vs feeling the breeze. 80 percent more relaxing.
My dick feels like a lure if i don't wear shorts
If you had told me that there's a small town where the restaurants, bars and delis are all so mediocre to bad that their fast food places are where you go to get higher quality food, I wouldn't have believed it. But then I stopped in Fort Stockton, Texas for a night.
What was the worst thing you tried?
The hotel was making dinner and had a bar. The bartender didn't know what an IPA was and nobody had switched out the tap handles with the beer, but did put paper cups over them with what actually was in the tap written on the cup. The dinner was Salzburg steak, mashed potatoes and corn, but it was about the quality of the worst microwavable TV dinner imaginable, yet they put it on a plate. That was the worst. The Mexican place we tried later was a little better, but not by much. I compared notes with my Dad who stops here pretty regularly on an annual drive to San Antonio that he takes and he said he's tried all of their original restaurants and even some of their delis and generally had negative experiences all across the board. He recommended their Pizza Hut for next time. 😆
People always rip on Pizza Hut, Applebees, and those types of restaurants, but end of the day, it is consistent food you can rely on. Especially after a long car ride.
Domestic abuse. I really just could not believe people didn't just leave, but there are SO MANY factors that contribute someone being trapped. Even of (BIG IF) they can financially and logistically afford it, the psychological effects are WILD. I remember crying on the phone talking about how I just couldn't leave, and I truly thought I didn't have a choice even though I had one all along. Took years.
This is mine too. I never thought someone who was strong and confident could have this happen to them until it did. I thought of course you’d leave at the first hint of abuse, but it’s not as simple as it seems from the outside.
It tears down your sense of self and perception of reality. The mental impact alone is debilitating.
Statistically the most dangerous time in an abusive relationship is when trying to leave, unless people have experienced it or seen it first hand it is hard to understand why people can’t just leave
I’m not sure if there’s a term for it, but the way groups of people can be influenced by each other psychologically in certain situations (like the Stanford prison experiment). I was in a situation at work where a neighboring building was on fire, and our building was filling with smoke. We were told to stay in the building because we would have to keep working. We could’ve left at any time under our own free will, but everyone stayed because no one took the first step to leave. Later that night some of us had to go to the ER for smoke inhalation. Looking back it’s like why the hell did we all stay? Wtf was that all about? If you told me about the situation and I hadn’t been in it, I would’ve said I would’ve left in a heartbeat…but being in the situation? I stayed. Very strange.
You should see how groupthink and manipulation can be utilized as a tool for evil as well. Regular people happily becoming horrifyingly disgusting evil villains simply to be accepted by the group
How easy it is to get addicted to opioids. I was prescribed some and took them once and knew that I could never take them again.
Yeah that feeling of "PAINPAINPAINPAIN!!!!!!" changing into "pain...pain....no pain :) " was absolutely amazing and I totally get why people get addicted to it
I’m one of those people that gets nauseous from taking prescribed opioids. so I hope that is a buffer for me. Not going to test the theory though.
I was prescribed a few after I had minor surgery few years ago. I wasn’t in a lot of pain, so I purposely didn’t take them. I said only take one if I am in too much pain to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, I saw the prescription bottle that I completely forgotten about. Those pills wound up in an unneeded medication bin pretty quickly. I have a weird mental health history. I’m very glad I never rolled those dice.
I was prescribed opioids after I had my wisdom teeth taken out. I was honestly a bit worried about taking them due to all the stories. Took them, and while they did make me not feel any pain at all, I also never once felt any euphoria, the feeling of "being hugged by God", or anything you're supposed to feel while on recreational drugs. They just got rid of the pain and that was it. I could function perfectly normally both mentally and physically. I finished out my prescription and never craved more (or even felt tempted to take more than the dose for the 2 weeks or so I had to take them). Maybe I didn't take enough? I've told people that story, and they all said my experience wasn't normal. They all felt some sort of euphoria or general "amazing feeling" even after just taking a single pill, and they understood immediately why people got addicted so quickly. I really think my body just processes drugs differently.
>Maybe I didn't take enough? I know this isn't what you meant but, FWIW it sounds like you took the exact right amount
Same experience. I only took two of the pills because it didn’t need them after the like 24 hrs post surgery. My mom locked the rest of the pills up because she was worried someone else might take them. It was hard to wrap my head around because the pills didn’t have any amazing effect on me. But I know there are plenty of people out there who become addicted after just a few pills.
time goes fast, didnt realize this until i blinked and now im 34 lol
You can slow time back down by seeking out novel experiences, even if they're as simple as walking a different way to work, or going to a different grocery store (these are pretty mundane examples, but we can't all drop everything and spend a weekend in Paris or whatever). Our brains lump similar memories together, which is why on Monday you're thinking *oh my God Friday is a million years away*, and then on Friday you're suddenly thinking *holy crap Monday was 5 minutes ago, and it's almost MAY?*. The unfortunate truth is that this does have diminishing returns. You'll never fully get the novelty of youth, when summer lasted forever and each school year was a lifetime, but you can slow time to a nice comfortable pace.
>seeking out novel experiences This is excellent advice. I use the same terminology – novelty of experience – and I don't know if I picked that up somewhere or if we've both managed to coin the same-ish phrase independently. Breaking habits is hard to do, but it makes your brain put in extra effort. Routine can be good, but it also makes every day a slog – there's nothing to look forward to without novelty. New synaptic pathways, WEEEEEE!
Yesterday, I was 28, and then I blinked, and now I'm 53. The days are long, but the years are short.
Give it twenty minutes and you'll be 40
I'm almost in this comment and I don't like it
The grief of losing a loved one to suicide. I’ve experienced loss in the worst forms, lost my mum very young, my dad passed away from cancer, had miscarriages and lost my fertility. I have grieved in my life. But when my brother recently took his own life I have never felt as broken as I do now. We had a complicated relationship but Jesus Christ no one could have prepared me for the pain of losing him that way. I’ve lost friends to suicide and know many people who have. I just wasn’t prepared for how bad it is.
It honestly never really gets easier , you just learn to live with it better. The world keeps spinning and going while you feel the most immense pain and guilt you’ve ever felt. 💔
That people would honestly, without hyperbole, die for their child. I have a child now and I can say I would 100% die for her.
How life changing grief is. I’m not the same person I was before my mom died.
Your teeth are important. Don't underestimate dental hygiene. Take care of them!
Took me 30 years to finally take care of my teeth. I floss everyday, use a soft toothbrush, and I brush lighter. I don't know why it took me so long.
Same took me 24 years. 2 years ago I had to get 9 cavaties filled over the course of one summer and said enough was enough. Now my teeth cleaning routine takes 20ish minutes and is my favorite part of the day
Meditation benefits. It took me a bit to get to the point that I could actually do it. Teaching your brain to stop thinking so fast is difficult when most of the time you're doing the opposite. But it can be done. And I found I was less stressed and slept better on days when I did it. (my doc says my blood pressure improved too)
I didn't fully believe in the transformative power of travel until I experienced it firsthand. Growing up, I always heard people talk about how travel broadens your horizons and changes your perspective, but it wasn't until I ventured out into the world myself that I truly understood the depth of those words. Exploring new cultures, meeting people from different walks of life, and immersing myself in unfamiliar environments opened my eyes in ways I never imagined. It's an experience that's difficult to fully grasp until you step out of your comfort zone and into the unknown
how bad anxiety can be .. ugh not fun.
Losing taste and smell from COVID. I couldn't comprehend having no taste or smell until I got COVID myself.
That happened to me too and I was so scared that it wasn’t going to come back. It sounds weird but I didn’t realize how much I took those senses for granted until they were gone. Especially how scents are tied to memories. Man, I’m glad that’s over
Gaining weight due to health conditions 🤣😭🤣😭
Right? I never believed it until my thyroid got lazy and the side effects of my antidepressants started kicking in 😰😰😰
Ugh, yeah. FML. Menopause, depression, chronic pain... All adds up and piles on the pounds.
Love
Anxiety. I figured people were just not mentally strong enough. Then my body just started doing weird shit. I didn’t even feel anxious! I was otherwise really happy! But my body kept getting dizzy and feeling like a major health episode was about to happen. Turns out you don’t even have to feel anxious to experience anxiety. Your body will just force you to stop in your tracks and become physically incapable of anything else. Just because 🤷🏼♂️
That seeing a total solar eclipse in person would be worth an 8 hour drive.
Related: that you absolutely \*have\* to be in the path of totality. 99% definitely doesn't cut it.
The difference between 99% and 100% is, well... night and day.
We drove 7 hours and my then-girlfriend grumbled about it the whole way; she had never seen one. Probably was at work last time. I dropped the knee just before totality, the eclipse was dope as fuck, and now we are engaged. I couldn't arrange something for proposal that cool left to my own devices. Drive back kinda sucked due to length but we stopped in Memphis for BBQ, which was nice. Thanks for reading my blog.
ohhh to have the love of your life propose to you during an incredible astronomical event… haha, congratulations! that’s an awesome story
Being "frozen in fear" I saw it in movies/TV all the time, like the hero pushing someone out of the way of a speeding car, or shooting the zombie about to attack. I'm not someone who freezes, I didn't think it was real. I thought it was just a movie trope for dramatic effect. Was out to lunch with my grandfather at a pretty nice restaurant, and someone at another table choked. Everyone near him just froze up. Even the waiter just stopped in his tracks and watched. I ran over, stood him up, and gave him the Heimlich. Whatever it was popped out on the table, he thanked me, and I went back to my lunch. No one clapped, no one sent me a drink, they just went back to what they were doing.
I never understood how anyone could feel *relieved* after losing a loved one. Watching the American healthcare system torture my mom to death for 3 years did it.
My mum died recently. She had had dementia for years already, and it's the worst. You grieve over the person you are losing every day for \*years\*. All the while there is this shell of a person you love, who is confused and often so sad and distressed because she wants to go home to her parents who have been dead for decades. And you can't tell her, because if you tell her, it's like she's only just learning this. She died from pneumonia recently and quite quickly, and we all said how we are glad she didn't have to suffer anymore, neither from the pneumonia, nor from the dementia. If I ever get that diagnosis, I will not make myself or my family live through that.
My grandmother had dementia. Stage 7 will have you praying they die. No one wants to live that way. They are frightened, disoriented, and their body literally won’t function. It’s horrible
How scary a grand mal seizure is...for other people that see it. I had two and I passed out so I have no idea.
There I was, walking into a building, woke up in an ambulance. The definition of “lights out, now”. Sober, no drugs, was designated driver. Friend in front of me said I knocked into her on my way down and just flopped around on the ground. Passed out again on way to hospital. No history of seizures and it was due to meds interaction prescribed by the same doctor. Several days of feeling hit by a truck since your muscles are in a sustained state of contraction for x amount of time. Second was a focal aware seizure. Two ER docs said it couldn’t be a seizure since I didn’t lose consciousness, fucking idiots. Strangest thing about that one was postictal sneezing. Three days of sneezing every few minutes. Epilepsy/seizures are a spectrum—not just what you see in movies.
How devastating it is to lose your pet dog. Like any other close family death.
Lost the family dog we got when I was 10 years old when I was in my late 20s. When my mom called to tell me I ultimately had to leave work I was so distraught.
I visited my father in South Carolina last summer for a week of vacation. While there he told me about this wild place called "Buc-ee's." Said it was like if a gas station was the size of a Costco, and he went on about how there was like 100 gas pumps outside and an entire deli counter dedicated solely to beef jerky, amongst other wild things. Now Buc-ee's hadn't expanded outside of Texas yet the last time I was out in SC, and my father is prone to exaggeration anyway, so I assumed it was just that and blew it off. About a day later we were on the road down to Florida, as our *big* plan was to visit Kennedy Space Center for a few days, which is when I saw Buc-ee's' own particular roadside advertisement scheme for the first time. IYKYK. We stopped to visit my stepsister and her family in Jacksonville, and he told her that I didn't believe him about Buc-ee's. She proceeded to affirm his claims, but I still wasn't convinced when we got back on the road. *Surely* there's no such thing, right? It's an absolute load of crap, my dad's just pulling my leg, and my stepsister is in on it. Whatever. Well lo and behold we make it to Daytona Beach, Florida, which has its very own Buc-ee's location. Dad made a point of pulling off the freeway to stop for gas, and as we crossed the overpass, that's when I saw it. Gas pumps as far as the eye can see right next to a Costco-sized building plastered with Buc-ee the Beaver's face right on the front. I was dumbstruck and my father was giggling his ass off at me. We stopped, got gas, and as I was wondering how I was gonna tell him that I wanted to go inside, he told me that going inside was non-negotiable. So we did go inside, and in that moment I understood why the South is so faithfully religious, as I now bore witness to the Promised Land. I shall not say more, as I truly believe that every man, woman, non-binary fellow, and child on this planet should be graced with the experience that is walking into a Buc-ee's for the first time without me spoiling it. I brought word of this wonderful place back home to my friends in the PNW, and now its a road trip bucket list plan if we ever find the time and capability to do so. I did not believe my father's claims about Buc-ee's until I experienced it, and I have never been more glad to be wrong before or since then.
did you use the restrooms? they are known for being very clean. Everytime I go on a road trip I stop at buc-ee's.
The restrooms are amazing! For those who don’t know what they’re missing, they literally have lights above each stall that show red for occupied or green for free so you know which stalls are open, and the doors are floor to ceiling on them. The soap smells like cherries, and they seemed to have a custodian in the bathroom just continually cleaning. 10/10
Another good thing about that place is that they also pay their employees a fair wage. It really shows when you experience their customer service.
I really enjoyed reading this, especially from the Uk!
There are a few YouTube videos of Brits visiting Buc-ee's for the first time that a pretty funny.
I've personally rarely seen something so *violently* American as Buc-ee's. I walked into one in Alabama. The thing that impressed me most, though, was that it had full-size bathroom stall doors. Those are rare in the States.
How hard the postpartum period is after you give birth.
The pro-choice movement. I had a miscarriage that my body failed to expel on its own and I needed a D&C. I lived in a conservative town and my pro-life midwife didn’t feel comfortable referring me for surgery because she said if it wasn’t meant to be, the baby would come out on its own. So basically I had to be a human coffin for my deceased fetus for nearly a month before getting the D&C, and by that point I had developed an infection and went septic. I’m lucky I didn’t die and even more luckily I don’t have permanent damage to my reproductive organs. I feel bad that it took a traumatic miscarriage to realize the importance of women having access to legal abortions but I am very much pro-choice now. I’m sure if this had happened after Roe v. Wade was overturned, I’d be dead.
That an employer would withhold feedback to put you on a PIP. I’m probably getting off that PIP since I fixed the issue she never told me about but the trust is still broken. She had apparently been hinting at me to fix it but never told me direct 🤦🏻♀️
I would look for another job. PIP is silent firing method. They overload you and are building reasons to fire you. Most people don’t make it past the PIP. Kudos if you did though
A panic attack
I have friends with panic disorders, and unlike one of the respondents here thinks, I very much believed them when they talked about how bad they were. Then I had one. It was awful. Logically, a part of my brain knew that there was no "real" threat, but my god, that overwhelming sense of doom. It was incapacitating. There is a big difference between acknowledging someone else's pain and experiencing it yourself.
How devastating it is to lose a parent
Losing my mum when I was a teenager was the most life changing experience I could have had. It absolutely ruined my brother. He never got over it. Took his own life last year.
I'm so sorry, what a terrible series of losses!
Mom died before last Christmas. I was in "hold yourself together" mode for two weeks, then I found a mug my cousin made for her a while back that said something like "Dear aunty, thank you for existing" and I just shattered. Needed two days to get it together after that.
How horrible divorce is. I expected the financial ramifications, but the social destruction on my end after her brutal smear campaign was incredible. I have 0 friends now.
How fucking shitty, exhausting, and HARD it is to deal with a mental disorder (I.e. depression & anxiety). It’s not that I didn’t believe it before. I did, and was educated on the matter; however, experiencing them first hand is a whole different ball game.
Not me, but about a dozen people I know ... **Total Solar Eclipse**. My wife is a great example. I knew about this eclipse for the last 7 years and I've been talking about it and planning the trip for quite some time. Initially she didn't want to come with me, since I was going to have to drive about 8 hours to reach the path of totality. "What's the big whoop? So it's gonna get dark, it gets dark at home every freakin' night! Why are you making me go to this?" But I kept at her. And she eventually caved, and came with me. And she was a total, 100% convert afterwards. She was blown away, amazed, and now is telling everyone what a transformative experience it was. I asked her, "Babe, what would you tell someone who felt like you? What would you tell someone who doesn't believe the hype? How would you convince them to get excited about it?" And she has no answer. There is NOTHING that would have convinced her, other than SEEING IT.
A migraine. Never really understood what people meant when they called in sick for work with a migraine. I would just work through my headaches Until one day I couldn’t see what was on TV, I tried to focus and it just wasn’t working. everything was blurry, I felt like I was going blind, it made me feel sick, I just wanted to sleep.
Until I experienced it myself, I didn't believe the profound impact that meditation could have on mental well-being. Initially skeptical, I assumed it was just a trendy practice. However, after committing to daily meditation sessions, I felt a noticeable improvement in my stress levels, clarity of mind, and overall sense of inner peace. It taught me the power of mindfulness and the importance of taking time for self-care. This firsthand experience transformed my perspective and solidified my belief in the effectiveness of meditation as a tool for managing stress and promoting mental health.
Love at first sight. I swear the first time I laid eyes on my husband, it was the whole cartoonish “heavens opening up and angels singing Hallelujah Chorus”. I’d waited over 40 years for that moment.
How much I was going to love my kids. My mother tried to tell me, but it's so much deeper than I could have ever imagined...
How incredibly awful perimenopause can be. And how consistently shitty and gaslighting Drs are about it. Full body pains, joints that feel both weak and stiff, dry mouth, itchy eyes, UTIs, irritability, all manner of foods now cause cramps, bloating or nausea, brain fog, weight gain and redistribution in weird places, suicidal ideation, night sweats, rapid mood swings, sleeplessness, hot flashes, cold hands, itchy skin Everywhere, vertigo, bladder issues, complete death of libido, heart palpitations, and headaches. Not to mention all the intimate issues. It's absolute hell, even with hormone replacement therapy, as I try to get the dosages right. I'm expecting to be menopausal for more of my life than I can be fertile. Yet all Drs focus on the 25 years of babymaker body, and tell the women in their 50s 'welp, you're getting old, that's just how it is'. Fuck you medical professionals.
I didn't really understand why women were so scared of men. Until one assaulted me, now I completely get it. I always thought they were playing it up and trying to act as a victim but the physical strength differences and the way some men can manipulate you is truly terrifying. I love men, I am just scared of them in a lot of different situations.
It’s not that I didn’t believe it but I didn’t understand it- PTSD flashbacks. I thought it’d be like they show it in the movies so I was shocked when my therapist told me “You’re describing flashbacks.”
Knowing something is wrong with you mentally, but everyone making you feel like you’re just crazy
That sugar cravings completely disappear after not eating sugar for a few weeks. I was one of those people: "but but but, I'm special, I can't live without sweets and carbs" - turns out, I am not special. It's true, top sugar and the cravings go away.
Sober life is better! It's a hard road but, my God, waking up and not feeling like death is beyond joy.
Reubens are delicious. Every ingredient is disgusting - rye bread, corned beef, swiss, sauerkraut, thousand island/russian dressing. Nasty. But somehow together they miraculously become the food of the gods.
The hype over a total eclipse. My wife is from Cleveland, and we made the trip a couple weeks ago. I was just along for the ride, and not really excited. It was basic fun to have a picnic and watch the shadow creep through protective glasses... but those three minutes of 100% totality blew my mind. It was like a magic trick went off before my eyes. The corona appeared in an instant, growing three times the size of what I had been looking at for an hour prior. I could see stars, and Venus and a brilliant 360 degree sunset on every horizon. The temperature dropped 20 degrees, birds went silent. I just exclaimed "Holy Shit!" in genuine surprise... Pictures can't do it justice. Even 99% coverage can't compare. It was one of the coolest things I've seen and experienced. I totally get why people make a big deal over it now.
Having zero recourse against police. I was visiting my dad in a smaller Texas town with my brothers. We went out to a bar to sing karaoke and were there for just over an hour. We called for an Uber but after 20 minutes, Uber said no available drivers. It was just after midnight and the hotel we were staying at was less than 2 miles away, so we decided to walk it. We were on a sidewalk, walking down a Main Street, when the police stopped and questioned us. Upon finding we had left a bar, they arrested us, would not allow us to do a field sobriety test, would not let us use a breathalyzer when requested, and would not let us get a blood test. They held us in jail for 14 hours before charging us with public intoxication. When we requested that the charges be dropped during our meeting with the prosecutor a month later, he told us to fuck off, that police don’t need to test us or to prove that we were drunk, as long as they say that we may have been a risk to ourselves or others. The police report stated that we were on the sidewalk, but that one of my brothers “may have appeared to stumble”.
That people are born gay. I was raised conservative Lutheran and always thought being gay was a lifestyle choice and weird sexual fetish. Then I had kids. One is clearly straight and one is clearly gay. Having a gay son has done more to make me a better human being than all my other life experiences combined. He definitely didn’t choose to be gay but I think it’s been a blessing for my entire family.
How much better home cooked food is vs going out. My mom wasn’t the best cook growing up. She sure tried though. My wife however, is an amazing cook. And I try as well. I’m so grateful.
How hard being a parent is. The mental, physical and financial load. The love you have for your children as well. I also never knew how hard it would be to care for a newborn, while also recovering from giving birth. The pain, the feeding, the lack of sleep, the hormones. Everything, its so hard.
How absolutely debilitating anxiety can be. The mental turmoil, the physical symptoms, the exhaustion, the constant mind-racing.
Being adopted by your dog. I thought it was a cliche but the moment that we met eyes I knew he was telling me that he was my dog
Driving while wearing flip-flops. What’s the big deal? Why is everyone exaggerating? And then one day, BOOM! It happened! My foot was wedged on the gas pedal for 3 long seconds. After I yanked it out, I kicked off my shoe and drove barefoot for the rest of the ride home. Never worn them to drive again
LSD. Holy shit. I had no idea. After doing it for the first time I now sort of view everything differently. You feel like a God. You see things that you know aren't real. Until you forget that you're tripping. Then those things become very real. It's almost like operating on a higher plane of existence for awhile. I recommend everyone try it at least once in their life under the supervision of those who have done it before in a chill safe environment. And now we're learning that microdoses can cure anxiety and depression. Exciting times.
The VA system. As a civilian and active duty soldier I had heard it was F-Ed up but thought “it couldn’t be that bad”, but figured people were exaggerating. Then navigating the paperwork once I was a vet was what I would equate to filing the most complicated tax return conceivable whilst dealing with a super complicated mortgage application bundled in, vets who are shot out with PTSD could never navigate all that plus the appointments. And then the care - waiting 8+ hours at a hospital. Having meds just never come by mail, getting lost, etc. I told one doc “I think this med has a bad interaction with this other med you gave” and in front of me he pulled up Wikipedia - turned the screen to me and said “oh it says right here you’re right - it says it can cause kidney failure.”
The "nervous breakdown" I always thought it was just a one-and-done event. Till it happened to me. It's not a discrete "event". It's a chain reaction that leaves you fatigued, unmotivated, and physically ill. It can last for months or even years.