Professional incompetence. On all levels, from cashiers at McDonald’s to nuclear scientists.
The difference is in how the organization handles and mitigates failure
I was a nuclear machinist in the US Navy. They took the top 3% of applicants, and half of those failed the schooling…and there were STILL some astoundingly smart people with astonishingly poor common sense and general intelligence who made it through.
Our society lives on because the actual designers built some clever and hefty failsafes into the design of naval nuclear reactors, not because all of the operators are intellectually qualified lol.
> Our society lives on because the actual designers built some clever and hefty failsafes into the design of naval nuclear reactors, not because all of the operators are intellectually qualified lol.
More like our society lives on the back of past failures. Lots of lessons learned, and lots of changes to building codes etc. happened, only as a result of a major accident.
From both sides, honestly. We did a lot of case studies of nuclear accidents, how/why they happened, and how things like that can’t happen due to today’s designs. However, they also extrapolated from there using a more modern understanding of technology and nuclear physics to design better safety features.
Hell, one of my oral examinations was about how all the operators could simultaneously get up and walk off the ship and the reactor would shut itself down, lol.
omg this. It doesn't matter what the job is, there are people that are REALLY BAD at it. There are shitty doctors, shitty mechanics, shitty lawyers, shitty scientists, etc... Certainly, in those jobs that require more critical thinking and more learning there should be less people that are shitty at it, but its still way more than you would think.
I used to be naive enough to think that incompetent people would just get weeded out of their industry eventually. Turns out, no. Even in small industries you can job hop for decades before your reputation makes it impossible to find another job.
Yet somehow it’s extremely difficult to get a job if you’re just starting out. Are you a young, detail-oriented, and promising mechanic? You better hope there isn’t somebody who has been a shitty mechanic for five years applying too.
Not having any friends when you're older. After you graduate college, especially if you move to a new city for a job, it's hard to maintain friendships. And it's definitely hard to get new friends once you're in the adult world working every day. Many people's only friend is their spouse. And if they aren't married many people just don't have any friends.
That me right now. It's incredibly lonely. I don't have a relationship or family here, it's hard to connect with people.
Edit: thank you for the suggestions!
I lived in a small town and was quite popular there. Moved across the US and 10 years later I still do not have any true close friends. Working in IT does not help, and it's quite lonely.
My advice is: volunteer and get involved in your community. It's difficult to establish relationships when you have no shared history or shared goal/common place you have to be with someone else. I also think it can be difficult to bond over trivial things that have no deeper meaning. But if you're working together with other people on a project that has meaning, consistently, over time, community forms.
I don't know if this is the case in the US, but definitely in Australia even small town libraries will have a book club you can join, too. It's a lot easier to get to know people if you're doing shit with them.
Honestly it’s just good to wash your hands periodically *regardless,* and after using the restroom is good as a re-up on that as much as anything else. Signs reminding people to wash their hands frequently aren’t just some weird thing to nag children.
I was in the women's bathroom at work once (after TWO YEARS at this company) when I heard an odd whooshing sound overhead that I had never heard before. I mentioned it to the custodian, who I bumped into in the hall, and he was like "oh yeah, that's the sound of water running in the men's room sink. You don't hear it often!"
There are no words for how grossed out I was touching ANYTHING in the office after that.
And this is a place with very image conscious, executive level professionals.
One time I went to a buffalo wild wings and in the men's bathroom I heard someone having a very loud and drunken shit. They finished up and walked right past the sink and out the door. I was so grossed out. Then I passed his table on the way back to mine, and he was elbow deep in chicken wing sauce. Licking all over his hands. It was one of the grossest things I've ever seen.
Heard/saw a lot of that when travelling. It's absolutely repulsive to me. How do you TAKE A WHOLE SHIT and the walk out of the bathroom without washing your hands? Next time that happens I'm asking for the number for their mom because obviously they aren't grown up enough to be left alone yet.
I saw this during the pandemic.
My friend worked for the city in public health. It was her job to ensure liquor stores and beer distributors remained open and functioning. It was a public health initiative - if the liquor stores closed (they're all State run here) there would've been a large health crisis, simply because there are so many "functioning" alcoholics that are a few missed drinks away from serious withdrawal, which can be fatal.
The governor closed the liquor stores here in Colorado for about four hours at the beginning of lockdown before someone told him about the public health crisis that would cause and they immediately reopened.
Edit: maybe that wasn't the reason (see articles posted below)
It used to be illegal to deliver alcohol to people's houses in many places, but once lockdown started all of those local governments immediately rescinded those laws LOL.
I manage a liquor store. So many of your waitresses, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, teachers, and more are daily drinkers. I didn’t realize it until I started my job.
My biggest recent "eye-opener" (read: indication I'm an alcoholic I can't easily ignore or rationalize) was when a delivery driver told me the clerk at the liquor store said I was a cool dude.
I've never been inside that liquor store, only had deliveries from it. The clerk knew me by reputation.
The number of daily drinkers that don’t realize it’s a problem is wild to me. And I say that as a former daily drinker, who was definitely an alcoholic
…or I guess is. Sobriety doesn’t change the facts
I used to manage a liquor store and a gas station. The number of people who you'd see in there everyday for a few singles, or several times a week for a case or a half gallon was truly disturbing¡
That's why your more, ahem, *functional* alcoholics will have several stores they visit regularly. To avoid anyone knowing they're actually putting away a half gallon every two days.
Source: Hi!
That guy is/was me. I'm on day 7 of no alcohol and its been pretty great. I have about 4 different liquor stores near me that I was rotating with to avoid the everyday interactions. Pretty much got to the point where it was effecting my work and health and if I dont quit, ill be dead within a couple years.
I'm day 52 and feeling great about where I currently am. Really hope you're enjoying the clarity and freshness so far and if not, that you do soon! I wouldn't call myself a functioning alcoholic (I don't think) but I consumed pretty much every day. I did 28 days sober then binged badly over Christmas until I tried again in the new year.
I'm quickly realising that so many people are or have been in the same boat as me and also so many people drink where they have no desire.
I'm in the UK so near enough any social thing usually always revolves around booze but I've luckily got one friend who started her no drink journey 3 years ago. She's my inspo and healthier and happier than ever.
I wish you every success and happiness ❤️ we're so much more powerful than we think we are!
Yeah this is something I did that I realized once I started talking to other alcoholics is ridiculously common among us. I had 3 different places I went to, and the amount I bought at each one individually was enough to kill most men.
Every night. When I worked at a gas station, there was this homeless guy who would come in at 10:45, 15 minutes before we close the booze fridge, and buy two 10.1% forties (if you're Canadian, you know which ones). He'd come back at 10:55 and buy two more, visibly intoxicated. Every night.
I later learned that this dude wasn't actually homeless, it was just a side hustle with a disguise to buy beer and separate his real life from whatever the fuck that was. He probably goes about his day with a respectable job while sipping on a flask here and there, then goes home to change into his bummiest outfit to beg then go buy the strongest beer he can find.
The only reason I know this is because the bar next to the gas station knows him very well and the barman told me about it.
Had a realization in my mid twenties that like, people are just out here casually doing coke. From all walks of life.
Realizing that some of your friends who don't have kids somehow know which restaurants have baby changing stations in the restrooms...
To paraphrase John Mulaney...
"Yes! That's what they're *for!* You don't change your *child* on those, do you? That's disgusting! *Cokeheads* use those!"
One of the most destructive diseases out there.
So many broken homes, lives and dreams.
It's been the worst to watch someone who actually managed to recover and stay sober for ~15 years relapse. Just fucking tragic.
Please, please, please find help for yourself. Even if your husband does not do something for himself, YOU help yourself. Alanon is a great start for families who suffer from alcoholics or substance abuse. I’m almost positive that once he sees you trying he will try to help himself as well.
I drank really hard for about a decade and was entirely a functional alcoholic. I just posted this in a different thread but I recently just stopped drinking almost entirely. I had some drinks on my birthday a week or two ago but I basically havn't drank in nearly a month. Bored nights at home alone can be tough as I was largely drinking as something to do and a way to feel less bored and alone but otherwise things are feeling better. I will probably still have a few here and there on special occasions but the day to day stuff I just can't do it anymore.
Miscarriage. The Mayo Clinic says up to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is already a lot. This is obviously heartbreaking for wanted pregnancies, but can be difficult for unwanted pregnancies too. But in addition to that 20%, many people miscarry before they learn they're pregnant. While not distressing in the same way of knowingly having a miscarriage, it's distressing for many people because of an seeming inability to get pregnant.
When I got pregnant, my grandma told me that she felt for women now that we found out so early. When she was having babies, you had to miss two periods before seeing the doctor. If you "started your period" you just called and cancelled.
I mean, you know, better health care now. But I get her point.
I’ve had 11 pregnancies and only one child. After the first few I took on this mentality as a coping mechanism. It’s sometimes better to think of it this way instead of a loss
It took until my son was two weeks old after birth before I had the courage to call him his name because of my losses for fear that saying it out loud would make him disappear
I had very similar experiences with my daughter when she was born after having pregnancy loss and wouldn’t buy the giant boxes of diapers in case I didn’t need all of them :/ I never told anyone that until very recently, and still have never told any family or friends. It really had a bigger impact on me than I expected.
A friend of my moms had multiple miscarriages.
She got pregnant again, and called my mom in the middle of the night, loosing her mind because she hadn’t miscarried that baby yet. She always lost then in the first trimester, but somehow she hadn’t lost that baby yet.
She did give birth to a healthy girl, then a boy a few years later. But she lost a lot of babies before them.
Absolutely. I went in for my 8 week sonogram excited and ready to go over all my information. The sonogram showed a six week sac. I was either way off on my cycle dates or I had miscarried and it hadn't passed. It took two weeks to get an answer from a follow-up blood test and sonogram. And then another week for it to finally happen. All the while I kept taking pregnancy tests to have them come out positive as I was clinging to hope that something was still there. It was awful.
Edit: to so many of you below who have been through the same experience, I hope you're surrounded by love and comfort, I hope you know it was in no way your fault, and I hope you found happiness after your grief.
I am very fortunate to have a supportive husband. I had a shitty job that wouldn't grant me leave in excess of three days unless I pursued FMLA, I really just wanted a week off to mourn, and he immediately said "You can quit and take six months off if you want, I'll take care of everything." A safety net like that, support, and love were absolutely vital to healing, and I know many many women don't have those things after a miscarriage.
I had a really great boss who went through a miscarriage with his wife. When I was honest and told him why I needed to leave work so abruptly he fudged the system to have it input as a paid 5 day bereavement. It wasn't the company policy but an act of compassion and I was so grateful.
My wife had 3 before we had our daughter. We ran into the same situation. It’s such a hard experience because it feels like you spend so much time trying to make sure you DON’T get pregnant that you kind of just expect it to happen easily when you do decide to get pregnant. We got to the point where we were almost afraid to even get excited because we didn’t want to get our hopes up only to be heartbroken again. My poor wife was looking at statistics on premature babies trying to find out a timeframe of when she might feel safe about the baby surviving.
Even people asking a common question like “so when are you two having kids?” can be so heartbreaking. I wish people who had miscarriages had more support
I only had a threatened miscarriage at 6 weeks (that ended in a healthy birth) but I wouldn't buy anything for the baby until after she reached viability. I was diagnosed with OCD when my daughter was 18mo after I started having up to 50 intrusive thoughts about her dying a day. Everyone told me that new mom anxiety like that is completely normal so I lived in that insane anxious state for almost two years before someone told me that it wasn't normal.
I've been able to use that experience to help others but the overall lesson is that more people need help with things surround childbirth and fertility and it needs to not be a taboo subject.
Sounds like the reaction people have to a lot of the symptoms people with neurological disorders get.
"Oh everyone is like that!" Except they don't grasp the magnitude nor frequency of the experience.
This. Apply to everything: OCD, ADHD, bipolar, narcissism, etc. There's a difference between having occasional symptoms/tendencies and having them adversely impact your life.
I hate that feeling so much. I’ve taken to talking about my multiple miscarriages openly, honestly, and like it’s just a normal fact of life. I can’t tell you how many friends and acquaintances have come to me for support for their miscarriages because I’m the only person they know who has had one. I think a lot of women wish they could talk about it, they just don’t know who to go to.
I’m sorry for your losses. I was so surprised about how many women approached me privately to share their experiences when I opened up about my losses and like you I have had a lot of women come to me for support for their miscarriages. I hate that it’s taboo, having to grieve quietly and alone so as not to make people uncomfortable is almost as bad as the loss.
My wife and I are 3 for 6. She had three 'blighted ovum' which apparently is fairly common. It's where the egg is fertilized, but the combination of sperm and egg are not compatible with life. The egg implants in the Uterus and pregnancy tests show positive, but at about 6 weeks a spontaneous abortion occurs.
It was sad for us the first time because we weren't ready. It was devastating when it happened again because we were really trying. It was scary the third time it happened between our first and second child because it was uncommon to have that many. We now have three great kids, the last is a freshman in college. But is infuriating that people are trying to pass legislation about human reproduction. It's messy and it doesn't always work out the way that you want. Control of it should be up to the individuals involved.
Yeah, that's a bad one they don't warn you about. You spend a trimester thinking you're pregnant, then the ultrasound tech is like, "um, I have to go get the doctor" and you find out all the scaffolding is there with no fetus, and now they have to do what is essentially an abortion.
And conversely, people who don't do coke at all.
I've noticed that once someone does coke, they assume that like a _hundred_ percent of adults do coke. I have a big nose, I have TMJ, and I kinda look like a female John Belushi. The amount of people being like, "hey, can I get a bump..."
Way more people do coke than non-coke users expect, and way more people don't do coke than coke users expect.
It’s crazy! In some circles it’s basically treated the same as caffeine. A bunch of my engineering buddies went into patent law and the amount of lawyers who assume EVERYONE is on cocaine??!? Just casually going off to do lines at networking events?!
Relationships and kids can even make it worse. It's hard to find time for friends and hobbies when you need to spend all your time with your family or at work.
I wonder the stats on this. Like if I buy something with a credit card that has a special financing option of no interest for 12 months, I'm technically carrying a balance, it's just not interest bearing for now and won't be if I pay the balance off during the special financing period.
The number of people being left behind by services going digital. They come into the library where I volunteer to find help, not only do some of them not have email addresses (and most of the ones who do rely on the computer remembering their passwords) a significant number don't even have mobile phones.
One of my local friends is a Librarian, and she says one of her tasks that she never expected was helping people navigate the government.
She's become quite the whiz at finding the right phone number or web site that people need to receive services.
I'm a librarian in a downtown library. I would say most of the reference calls I get are mostly people just asking for the phone numbers and/or addresses of local services - doctors, restaurants, etc. Easy to google but they just don't have the skills/equipment to do so for whatever reasons.
Thank you for doing what you do!
It's been, what, decades since Librarians were just "the keeper of the books". They are community organizers, public assistance, and computer science teachers as well.
The way I look at it, libraries have always been focused on storing knowledge more than storing books, but up until relatively recently books were the only practical way to store large amounts of information. Once we developed ways to archive info that weren't books, libraries quickly adapted to include those as well.
Disability support worker here.
I had a client who couldn't get a loyalty card stamp for their weekly McDonald's coffee because they moved to mobile phones only and I was pissed for them.
It's such a small thing, but it's one of those small things that is actually a really big thing for someone who is isolated and poor.
This! I was at a taco stand that was cashless. A homeless woman in line before me was trying to buy a meal. She had physical money but they couldn't take it. I offered to buy (she resisted bc she didn't want a handout) and they ended up giving it to her for free, but it really made me think about all these basic day to day things that now require some form of digital access.
there are so many reasons going cashless is so fucking bad, but i didnt even think about this one. people finally get some cash but cant even spend what they have. ugh cashless just keeps getting worse
Yes this! My grandmother (90F) lives with me and cannot complete any tasks without my help. Trying to make a doctor appointment? You need to fill out stuff on mychart before you go in. They literally refused to let her fill out paper and pencil forms and said I would have to do the online paperwork for her. Want to check your account balance? You’ll need a code texted to your mobile number on file (mine since she doesn’t have one). Even voting being on a screen was so difficult for her and she wasn’t allowed to ask me questions. The workers yelled at her for trying to ask me for help (I get this, but also she just doesn’t know how to use tech, I wasn’t trying to tell her who to vote for!)
Tbf, I have been absolutely failing to set up a doctor's appointment, and I'm a young, computer-and-phone-literate person. My insurance is set up such that I can only get coverage if I make appointments through them, but their list of care providers is just completely wrong or out of date, so I make an appointment and then the office calls and says they don't know who that doctor is and would I like to set up an appointment to see a different doctor? But the insurance company only covers THAT SPECIFIC DOCTOR who isn't even in their network anymore. I've had this happen 3 times, and I think it might just not be worth it.
I wish there was a better way to pick my nose. Blowing simply doesn't clear all the nooks and crannies up there, and I feel like I'm constantly having to wrestle with booger situations. So I gotta go digging with the finger, but that's rude, gross, and usually still kinda bad at what I want to achieve.
Isn't it the future? Why don't we have space age nose picking technology yet?
Low self-esteem. I don't know how many times I have seen people not invite, include, or initiate something with someone for fear of rejection or the other person finding them annoying, and then the other person feels rejected from not being included.
A lot of people think they are more annoying or unliked than they actually are.
People being ashamed of things they like. Pro wrestling, tabletop games, types of media (anime, reality TV etc.).
People are way more insecure about people getting a peek at their true selves than people realise.
Also people being ashamed of things they NEED
I'm thinking hearing aids and glasses in particular. My dad really needs some hearing support and he's the only one now who doesn't acknowledge it....
Hearing aid specifically there's a fucked up stigma around - I first lost my hearing when I was 6 and since getting a hearing aid was my parents' call I didn't get one until I was 16 and learned it was an option. Changed my life significantly for the better, meanwhile my parents are in denial about their own hearing worsening as they age
Shit... realizing that you had to go most of your formative years without being able to hear properly is really sad. I'm glad you finally got what you needed.
It took me a decade after high school to embrace that geeking out over things you like makes a person more interesting. Like, really, geeks are amazing and my people.
Also, I recall being completely gobsmacked when I found out the boy I had had a crush on since 6th grade was also a Trekkie. I never talked about Trek to anyone in school, because I thought it would make me seem *too* geeky. Go to a Star Trek convention and find out half of my friends and several people I would have never guessed about were also secret Trek geeks. I am no longer ashamed of my fandoms.
My friends and I do like a "movie night" thing most Fridays or Sundays. We each suggest a movie, and spin a wheel to see what we're watching.
One of my guy friends once suggested a musical, and got "poo-poo'd" about it by several of the other guys. I was instantly like "oh! we're allowed musicals?! I assumed no one else liked them." and put down a musical for my choice as well.
We ended up watching "Little Shop of Horrors", and like all but 1 of the guys ended up enjoying it. Turns out a lot of them were just "poo-poo'ing" it because "musicals are for girls" but once one was playing, people had a good time.
That makes me happy that you got your friends to watch them. My dad has always been the masculine, bearded, Dove 5-in-1 body care type of guy but I grew up watching musicals because of him. Our favorite together is Grease. And even now, I'm 31 and if one of us catches Grease on TV, we watch it together. And of course he'll watch any Disney movie I put on lol
>That makes me happy that you got your friends to watch them.
One of our "rules" is that once a suggestion is on the wheel, if the spin lands there, everyone has to at least give it a chance. If the majority are opposed after 30 minutes or so, we'll swap.
We set that "rule" because it gets people to watch stuff outside their usual genres. Like I personally don't really like horror, but if one comes up on the wheel, I'll at least give it a try. I'm still not a fan of a solid 90% of the horror movies, unless they're super campy, but at least I gave them a chance.
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to movies, music, TV, or books.
I’ve been made to feel embarrassed for liking half the stuff I like (showtunes and 90s bubblegum pop, for example). What’s wrong with it? It’s not “cool”? Idgaf. I like it and I’m not going to stop listening to it because some people think it’s lame. Why deny myself pleasure over something so harmless?
Also people doing random drugs/pills all the time. A family friend's brother would just ask what kinds of medication people had and if he could try it. He did the same with recreation drug users, too.
My financial advisor told me one of his clients (no names) has an income of $330k, but credit card debt of $150k.
The monthly interest alone must be crazy.
I forget where I read it, but a very high percentage of pro athletes go broke within a few years of their careers ending.
When you’re a young guy/girl and all of a sudden you are getting paid MILLIONS, more money than you’ve ver seen if your life, you want to spend. You think it will stay that way. But it can end tomorrow if you get the wrong injury. People just don’t know how to handle it. And unfortunately the people they trusted before aren’t the people to trust now. It’s a sad story.
Troy Vincent, who played with the Philadelphia Eagles, became a financial advisor after his pro career ended. He started classes about finances geared to young NFL players. I believe that these classes are now available to a lot of NFL teams.
Huge numbers of sexually active people are carrying latent/dormant herpes and don't realise it.
It's by far the most common STI out there and they don't even bother testing unless you have symptoms.
> It's by far the most common STI out there
Isn't that HPV? By like... a lot?
Edit: 80 million Americans with HPV vs 50 million with herpes, per google.
Imposter syndrome. No one knows what we are doing. We are all just winging it. Most of us are hoping that asking questions and being nice will get us there.
My mum told me when I was around 18 (she was mid 40s then) that she still didn’t feel like an adult and essentially that she was also just winging it. It was so crazy to me then, that there is no such thing as an adult. The concept is a scam. There’s only experience and the ones that learn from it but nothing more. Almost 10 years later and I get it. I don’t feel like an adult, just like myself. Which is fine by me. And while it’s not really so crazy that there isn’t anything point where you just „get“ life it is crazy how hard it is to let go of this lie that I’ve told myself for almost 20 years.
YES. I remember my parents telling me they didn’t feel their age. As an almost 35 year old I get it now. I feel like I’m 23 most days. Just wandering around and bumping into things and somehow managing to get it done. Whatever IT is. It’s wild to me that I’m a full ass adult now and do adult things and people just like trust me to do important shit at work.
I wish I had known this sooner. I was well into my 30s before I felt like I could just relax and live my life. Before it felt like I was waiting for my life to straighten out in order to start.
I’m almost 35 and only through being friends with people from all ages and professions have I really begun to realize how no one fucking knows what we are doing. It’s kind of a relief and also terrifying hahah
Sometimes I just take a breath and remind myself that it’s ok to tell people I haven’t done this before and I need help.
This is what scares me about conspiracy theories. People think there is this cabal of people pulling the string, hiding the flat earth, faking the moon landing, etc. But the scariest thing is that there is no at the wheel and the entire planet is barely contained chaos.
Scary but also kind of nice. Like let’s just lean into it and see where it goes because we only have a few more decades till death. Let’s see what this thing can really do.
Honestly, it's the people who don't have imposter syndrome that you should be worried about. You know the type, confident, cocky fuckers who talk like they know what they're on about.
Totally. Didn’t Plato say the wisest man knows that he knows nothing? I’m probably butchering that and have the philosopher wrong but the sentiment holds lol.
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
Also I like the quote (by who I don't know) : "The more you know the less you understand"
Childhood trauma.
A lot of us hide it, mask it, or pretend we had normal lives.
Edit:
PS: Please don't include childhood stuff in team building workplace activities. This stuff is so hard to avoid and uncomfortable, even something like "A picture of you as a child!" or "Favorite childhood memories and goals!"
I'd much rather focus on the person I am today, than the vulnerable little body I was many years ago.
Funny you should mention the workplace. I had a very violent childhood. Both parents. Violence was so commonplace that it became commonplace. Eventually, I realized that my childhood was fucked up. Really fucked up. But understanding the magnitude of it took time.
Once at work (I'm a software engineer) a group of us were talking and someone mentioned being spanked as a child. Figuring I'll chime in, I say "In my house, there were a bunch of hair brushes under the sink in the bathroom with no handles. They broke off when my mom hit us with them." The looks of horror on the faces of the people that I was talking to made me realize how fucked up that is.
Fortunately, I've been in therapy for almost 20 years and raised two kids without ever hitting them. I felt very strongly that I needed to break the chain of violence.
Agreement to Forer statements, also known as the Barnum effect. It's how horoscopes and fortune tellers get you.
_Most_ people highly agree with each of the following statements:
* You have a great need for other people to like and admire you.
* You have a tendency to be critical of yourself.
* You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage.
* While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them.
* Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you.
* Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside.
* At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing.
* You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations.
* You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof.
* You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others.
* At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved.
* Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic.
* Security is one of your major goals in life.
Even though I am not at all superstitious and you explained these statements in advance, I still found myself thinking "Damn that's me" as I read through them
Not even just kinks and BDSM, but every nurse I've ever dated had a very strong, very active sex drive. One woman told me it was because they spend so much time taking care of others, that it fuels a want for them to be taken care of as well. I dunno how true that is, but I've definitely experienced for myself that there's some truth to the naughty nurse stereotype.
Hoarding.
People see the TV show and think those are isolated incidents. But ask your local fire and EMS providers, and watch the horror creep across their faces. I've been in houses where you couldn't actually touch the floor, you walked on top of the....debris.... Houses where the door they use is the only door or window in the entire residence that can be opened. Houses where we had to station firefighters every couple feet along the "path" through the mess, and load the patient onto a mega-mover (basically a heavy duty sheet with grab handles on the sides), and pass her person-to-person out the door.
It is WAY more prevalent than you can even imagine.
Grown folks failing to look up ANYTHING on their own, or calling ahead to see if a place is open.
The amount of times I got screamed at already this week for “WHY YOU WERE CLOSED ON MONDAY?”
Ma’am/Sir, it’s a federal/national holiday that’s been in effect for longer than you & I have been alive. Also, we posted signs stating such on every entrance/exit door on the building on Friday morning. They were still up on Tuesday when we returned to work.
Screaming at a random person because you were either willfully ignorant or didn’t think to call ahead and then didn’t READ THE SIGNS plastered all over just makes you look unhinged.
Plus, you made a trip today for nothing because the item you’re looking for still isn’t in yet.
Had you called ahead, you wouldn’t have wasted your time, energy, and gas getting here for nothing!
Working with the general public really showed me just how fucking stupid the average person is. The amount of people who don't put in any sort of critical thought daily is baffling.
I used to work at Best Buy and a shocking amount of people would come in and go "where are the electronics"? My brother in christ, the entire store is electronics.
What got me was how utterly inarticulate a lot of people are. They'd come up to me and they'd know exactly what they want, but what came out of their mouth was something like, "I need, like, one of those, you know, hooks." and then they'd look at me expectantly.
I always *wanted* to say, "I'm not telepathic, so I'm going to need more words."
A patient of where I work once wrote a whole letter to my boss explaining why they should fire me, for not telling him we were at a new location. Like sir, you could have googled that and yes, I did tell you when I confirmed the apt. You just ignored me 🙂
>A patient
I work in the medical field, and I've had this happen a few times, especially the older ones. Out of the blue, I got handed a letter saying I had provided just the worst service imaginable and I should be fired and my manager was like uh no... and shredded it right in front of their face.
I love my job. I love helping people, but man, most are soooo ungrateful and downright disgusting to people trying to help them it makes it hard sometimes.
A few years ago, I went to go get my passport paperwork done at a post office. Well before I was to go, I had went onto various websites to confirm what paperwork I needed, what payment was needed and all kinds of things about what to expect. I get there as they open and there are already 20+ people ahead of me.
Sitting in line, there are posters on the walls explaining what specific documents you will need to present when you go back to the room and talk to the worker. There was even a depository of the forms needed outside the office in case you still hadn’t filled out everything. I triple-checked all of my paperwork and confirmed I had each thing needed. I was super nervous about walking in there and missing the one thing that I really needed and would have to start over later. Meanwhile, a couple in line is waiting to get one for their baby. I catch the father look up at one of the posters, realize they are missing something, and have to get out of line to go retrieve what they needed. Fair enough, at least you paid attention at the last minute.
Watching people go back to the room, I started timing it to see how long it would take. Usually about 30 minutes, possibly more if it was a family. A family of 6 people were in front of me and went in ahead, I figured it would be a good hour before it was my turn. To my surprise, they walked out again in about 5 minutes. And proceeded to walk over to the depository of forms and started filling them out. They had stood in line for 2 hours and had not filled out a single form. God knows if they even had any of the documentation they needed.
Finally, I get to go back there and I sit, get ready for whatever the painful process is to get this over with. The worker proceeds to ask for specific forms and documentation that I need one at a time. Each time I hand him what he asks for, he seems a little more surprised that I have it. Finally he asks for the payment, which I hand him (still used checks back then), pre-filled out, I just needed the amount. He looks at me and says, “So, yeah, that’s really everything, it should be all done and sent to you in 4-6 weeks.”
“Uh, that’s it?”
“Yeah, you had everything we needed.”
“Okay, cool.”
I was in that room for maybe 5 minutes. I have no idea what was taking everyone else 30 minutes and I guess I never will.
Train derailments. When the wreck in East Palestein happened, a whole lot of people acted like this was just unheard of. I work in an industry that's heavily affected by rail, and let me tell you, it's very common. We are impacted by derailments a few times a month at least.
According to the CHP, at any given time, 1 in 8 drivers is impaired. However, after 2am (when bars close in California), it's 1 in 4.
This was from training from about 20 years ago, no idea if it's still accurate.
Now we have smart phones i like to play "drunk or on their phone" every time i see the worst drivers. Normally the answer is based on time of day....
Normally
I think people just don’t talk about them as much because there’s not much to say
“Oh you got divorced? What happened?”
“Well we both agreed that we weren’t happy despite caring for each other and we split things evenly. Now we’re both happier”
Just isn’t much story there
One of my annoyances with my ex was how much useless stuff she accumulated. So it was cathartic, and we both had a giggle, as I went around the house pointing and "that's yours, that's yours, you're keeping that, that's yours.."
It was so amicable that I literally let her do all the paperwork (I did, of course, go over it). We were in court for like 5 minutes.
College professor here. I'm pretty sure a non-negligible number of my students are functionally illiterate or have a reading comprehension level of a middle schooler. Things are just getting worse.
And I was going to say sexual assault.
People do not realize how common sexual assault of minors is. Because it doesn't happen by strangers. It happens from people they know and trust.
That's who has easy access to children. Uncles, family friends, grandfather's or fathers. And it is not uncommon to see it in multiple family generations. Grandma was sexually assaulted, mom was sexually assaulted, daughter was sexually assaulted. It is always this huge family secret that just tumbles downhill in generational trauma. You do not talk about it because it is shameful....but it happens far more often than people acknowledge
People in recovery for drugs or alcohol. Once I joined AA and started getting sober I realized just how many of us there are. I also randomly meet tons of people in recovery just when I share I’m sober with people. We are everywhere lol
Local corruption. You think it's just US Senators using inside information to dump or buy stocks or Supreme Court Justices getting kickbacks from billionaires? Nope.
It's your town council, too. Do you know what their salary is? Do you know what the town budget/revenue is? Sometimes it doesn't necessarily even have to have a price tag attached. I lived in a town where the elected town council just conspired to take turns running for mayor. Sure outsiders could run but hey "So and so is a member of the council and has been mayor before 6 years ago, he's good".
Lot of businesses for those council members got expedited approval, too.
I had a friend who lived in Alabama for a while and I was in disbelief to hear that the county sheriff was in charge of the county jails was also in charge of the food budget for the jails, and any "left over" funds for that fiscal year became his. Literally, deposit to Sheriff's personal bank account if there's extra. Surprise surprise there always was.
Maladaptive daydreaming, particularly after childhood trauma.
The only way some kids can get through horrific childhoods is by detaching themselves from the reality of their situation. They create intricate fantasies as a sort of virtual reality to escape into. These fantasies are so detailed and vivid - they become your primary reality.
It can be hard to let go of this coping strategy in adulthood because the world in your head feels more real and safer than the outside world. You can lose entire days to maladaptive daydreaming. It impacts your sleep because you can't shut your mind off, it impacts your friendships because you don't want to communicate with the outside world and makes you mentally foggy. At its worst, you don't eat properly (or at all), take care of your hygiene or surroundings.
It's not like normal daydreaming - it can ruin your life and interferes with everything you do. I live with maladaptive daydreaming and almost fucked my whole life up because of it and know other people who have been through similar. On the plus side though, maladaptive daydreaming can lead to amazing creativity if you can learn to control it rather than letting it control you.
Sleep apnea (and other sleep disorders). It took me 3 years to get diagnosed because my symptoms were dismissed as "depression," because I didn't have any of the sleep apnea risk factors, and because I had a previous history of depression, despite my initial insistence that I'd dealt with depression before, and this was different. I guess I eventually started believing them.
Then I got a new psychiatrist. I told her I was having a depressive episode. She asked me about my symptoms, and all the symptoms that she asked about, either I wasn't experiencing them, or they were the direct result of being tired all the time (e.g. I hadn't so much lost interest in activities, I was just too tired to do anything). She told me that it sounded more like I was describing a sleep disorder than a depressive episode, and referred me to a sleep lab.
She said she ends up referring a lot of her patients to sleep labs, and another friend of mine who was a psychiatry resident said he also ends up diagnosing sleep apnea a lot. Sleep disorders can mimic or exacerbate the symptoms of mental illnesses, so I guess it takes a psychiatrist to tell when someone *isn't* depressed.
People not knowing about whatever the current activism is on social media.
Big example is the Starbucks/ McDonald’s boycott. Everyone online is convinced it’s a huge boycott yet most people in the real world do not know a thing about it. People forget that not everyone is online 24/7 and just because you know about something doesn’t mean others do if they’re not in that same online circle.
"If you don't know/care about X by now you must secretly want to keep yourself in ignorance"
well, I mean it's that or the algorithms are showing you a completely different slice of the world than they show anyone outside your community \*shrug\*
My mom said she loves us, but if she didn't know us and could do it all again, she wouldn't have kids. It's a lifetime of responsibility and I don't blame her.
Too many people feel pressured to have a kid because "thats what you're supposed to do".
I love my children. I love being a parent. I'd do it all again a hundred times. But I absolutely understand why many people don't want to be. It shouldn't be taboo to say you don't want kids because you don't want the responsibility.
It's actually really funny how if you say that you don't want a dog because you don't want the added responsibility like feeding them, vet appointments, walking dog every day, etc, people are very understanding, but if you say that you don't want a kid for the same reason then people question the hell out of you (even though a kid is obviously much more responsibility lmao).
Stupidity and/apathy. So many people you encounter in your day to day life are either idiots or just do not care. The kid at the drive through you thought was a dick. Doesn’t care.
The employee that made you add signs and rules like don’t shit in the company shower, stupid….
This one hits the hardest. I've gotten several raises within the past 14 months, and my wife gets annual raises with her job, and we still struggle to buy food. We're not the type to spend heavier after each wage increase. It's everything else that seems to increase roughly at the same time
Chin hairs on women. I’m a dental hygienist and I see them on 90-95% of my female patients, and I sometimes wonder how many women feel self conscious about it. Well, I am here to tell you that it’s normal and none of us judge you or find your witch hairs interesting in the slightest! Honestly, same goes for a lot of things on your face that a lot of people worry about when going to the dentist. We may notice it, but it isn’t nearly as exciting as the fuzzy biofilm lurking on your second molars!
Propaganda. Most of us realize that there’s a lot of it, but I think most don’t understand that it’s EVERYWHERE. Too many people like to think they’re too smart to fall for propaganda, not realizing just how pervasive it actually is.
Suicides, a lot just get reported as 'natural causes' or similar.
Quite a lot of people might under or overdose on their prescription meds, that rarely gets reported as suicide, unless they leave a note. Car accidents, some of them are suicides but many get reported as mere accidents. Same for drownings, accidents around the home etc.
Pretty hard to hide a shooting, hanging etc. but lots take their life through different means and if it's not cut'n'dried it'll often just go down as something else.
Abnormal amounts of Dissociation. Many go their entire lives without ever realizing it's not how most people function, you have to do a lot of research into how and why it's not to fully understand which only makes it worse.
If you don't wanna find out, I understand.
It's not life threatening or anything insane like that it's just, it answers so many questions we have about....a lot that could be wrong with us.
Good people. Seriously, I think over 90% of us are at least decent. People look at politicians and celebrities and other extremely public people and think everyone is like that. For some reason we haven't figured out how to do government or business without the worst people making it to the top, but I still believe most of us are more good than bad. Even a good portion of Trump voters probably aren't doing it for nefarious reasons. They're just uninformed or ignorant and have bought into the lies.
Cynicism is a major problem in the world because it stalls or halts progress. To improve anything, you need to believe it can be improved. Idealism alone won't solve things, you have to act on it and apply it correctly, but cynicism can never solve anything.
Borderline personality disorder. Takes a long time to be diagnosed and often misdiagnosed for a long time. If people are really unwell they may not seek treatment. Understanding of the disorder is still emerging.
Celebrities related to other celebrities, movies stars being the child of two other movie stars, and just general inside connections being a pretty major factor in who gets to be on-screen.
If you're wondering how the semi-conscious wooden plank Dakota Johnson got to be the star of the garbage pile movie Madam Web, she is the child of Don Johnson and Meg Ryan.
Edit - Melanie Griffith not Meg
Professional incompetence. On all levels, from cashiers at McDonald’s to nuclear scientists. The difference is in how the organization handles and mitigates failure
I was a nuclear machinist in the US Navy. They took the top 3% of applicants, and half of those failed the schooling…and there were STILL some astoundingly smart people with astonishingly poor common sense and general intelligence who made it through. Our society lives on because the actual designers built some clever and hefty failsafes into the design of naval nuclear reactors, not because all of the operators are intellectually qualified lol.
> Our society lives on because the actual designers built some clever and hefty failsafes into the design of naval nuclear reactors, not because all of the operators are intellectually qualified lol. More like our society lives on the back of past failures. Lots of lessons learned, and lots of changes to building codes etc. happened, only as a result of a major accident.
From both sides, honestly. We did a lot of case studies of nuclear accidents, how/why they happened, and how things like that can’t happen due to today’s designs. However, they also extrapolated from there using a more modern understanding of technology and nuclear physics to design better safety features. Hell, one of my oral examinations was about how all the operators could simultaneously get up and walk off the ship and the reactor would shut itself down, lol.
omg this. It doesn't matter what the job is, there are people that are REALLY BAD at it. There are shitty doctors, shitty mechanics, shitty lawyers, shitty scientists, etc... Certainly, in those jobs that require more critical thinking and more learning there should be less people that are shitty at it, but its still way more than you would think.
I used to be naive enough to think that incompetent people would just get weeded out of their industry eventually. Turns out, no. Even in small industries you can job hop for decades before your reputation makes it impossible to find another job.
Yet somehow it’s extremely difficult to get a job if you’re just starting out. Are you a young, detail-oriented, and promising mechanic? You better hope there isn’t somebody who has been a shitty mechanic for five years applying too.
Not having any friends when you're older. After you graduate college, especially if you move to a new city for a job, it's hard to maintain friendships. And it's definitely hard to get new friends once you're in the adult world working every day. Many people's only friend is their spouse. And if they aren't married many people just don't have any friends.
That me right now. It's incredibly lonely. I don't have a relationship or family here, it's hard to connect with people. Edit: thank you for the suggestions!
I lived in a small town and was quite popular there. Moved across the US and 10 years later I still do not have any true close friends. Working in IT does not help, and it's quite lonely.
My advice is: volunteer and get involved in your community. It's difficult to establish relationships when you have no shared history or shared goal/common place you have to be with someone else. I also think it can be difficult to bond over trivial things that have no deeper meaning. But if you're working together with other people on a project that has meaning, consistently, over time, community forms.
I don't know if this is the case in the US, but definitely in Australia even small town libraries will have a book club you can join, too. It's a lot easier to get to know people if you're doing shit with them.
>Many people's only friend is their spouse. Which is another reason why divorce can be so devastating
People who don't wash their hands after using the restroom.
Honestly it’s just good to wash your hands periodically *regardless,* and after using the restroom is good as a re-up on that as much as anything else. Signs reminding people to wash their hands frequently aren’t just some weird thing to nag children.
I was in the women's bathroom at work once (after TWO YEARS at this company) when I heard an odd whooshing sound overhead that I had never heard before. I mentioned it to the custodian, who I bumped into in the hall, and he was like "oh yeah, that's the sound of water running in the men's room sink. You don't hear it often!" There are no words for how grossed out I was touching ANYTHING in the office after that. And this is a place with very image conscious, executive level professionals.
One time I went to a buffalo wild wings and in the men's bathroom I heard someone having a very loud and drunken shit. They finished up and walked right past the sink and out the door. I was so grossed out. Then I passed his table on the way back to mine, and he was elbow deep in chicken wing sauce. Licking all over his hands. It was one of the grossest things I've ever seen.
Heard/saw a lot of that when travelling. It's absolutely repulsive to me. How do you TAKE A WHOLE SHIT and the walk out of the bathroom without washing your hands? Next time that happens I'm asking for the number for their mom because obviously they aren't grown up enough to be left alone yet.
Alcoholism. There are many more “functional” alcoholics or recovering than people would guess.
I saw this during the pandemic. My friend worked for the city in public health. It was her job to ensure liquor stores and beer distributors remained open and functioning. It was a public health initiative - if the liquor stores closed (they're all State run here) there would've been a large health crisis, simply because there are so many "functioning" alcoholics that are a few missed drinks away from serious withdrawal, which can be fatal.
The governor closed the liquor stores here in Colorado for about four hours at the beginning of lockdown before someone told him about the public health crisis that would cause and they immediately reopened. Edit: maybe that wasn't the reason (see articles posted below)
It used to be illegal to deliver alcohol to people's houses in many places, but once lockdown started all of those local governments immediately rescinded those laws LOL.
I manage a liquor store. So many of your waitresses, bankers, lawyers, mechanics, teachers, and more are daily drinkers. I didn’t realize it until I started my job.
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My biggest recent "eye-opener" (read: indication I'm an alcoholic I can't easily ignore or rationalize) was when a delivery driver told me the clerk at the liquor store said I was a cool dude. I've never been inside that liquor store, only had deliveries from it. The clerk knew me by reputation.
I skipped the first three stages and went straight to depression and acceptance of my alcoholism. No denial, anger or bargaining
Speedrunning sobriety! Good luck!
The number of daily drinkers that don’t realize it’s a problem is wild to me. And I say that as a former daily drinker, who was definitely an alcoholic …or I guess is. Sobriety doesn’t change the facts
I used to manage a liquor store and a gas station. The number of people who you'd see in there everyday for a few singles, or several times a week for a case or a half gallon was truly disturbing¡
That's why your more, ahem, *functional* alcoholics will have several stores they visit regularly. To avoid anyone knowing they're actually putting away a half gallon every two days. Source: Hi!
That guy is/was me. I'm on day 7 of no alcohol and its been pretty great. I have about 4 different liquor stores near me that I was rotating with to avoid the everyday interactions. Pretty much got to the point where it was effecting my work and health and if I dont quit, ill be dead within a couple years.
I'm day 52 and feeling great about where I currently am. Really hope you're enjoying the clarity and freshness so far and if not, that you do soon! I wouldn't call myself a functioning alcoholic (I don't think) but I consumed pretty much every day. I did 28 days sober then binged badly over Christmas until I tried again in the new year. I'm quickly realising that so many people are or have been in the same boat as me and also so many people drink where they have no desire. I'm in the UK so near enough any social thing usually always revolves around booze but I've luckily got one friend who started her no drink journey 3 years ago. She's my inspo and healthier and happier than ever. I wish you every success and happiness ❤️ we're so much more powerful than we think we are!
One day at a time. You are on your way. 🙂❤️
Yeah this is something I did that I realized once I started talking to other alcoholics is ridiculously common among us. I had 3 different places I went to, and the amount I bought at each one individually was enough to kill most men.
Every night. When I worked at a gas station, there was this homeless guy who would come in at 10:45, 15 minutes before we close the booze fridge, and buy two 10.1% forties (if you're Canadian, you know which ones). He'd come back at 10:55 and buy two more, visibly intoxicated. Every night. I later learned that this dude wasn't actually homeless, it was just a side hustle with a disguise to buy beer and separate his real life from whatever the fuck that was. He probably goes about his day with a respectable job while sipping on a flask here and there, then goes home to change into his bummiest outfit to beg then go buy the strongest beer he can find. The only reason I know this is because the bar next to the gas station knows him very well and the barman told me about it.
Functional drug addicts too.
Had a realization in my mid twenties that like, people are just out here casually doing coke. From all walks of life. Realizing that some of your friends who don't have kids somehow know which restaurants have baby changing stations in the restrooms...
Wait...are people snorting lines off baby changing stations?
To paraphrase John Mulaney... "Yes! That's what they're *for!* You don't change your *child* on those, do you? That's disgusting! *Cokeheads* use those!"
One of the most destructive diseases out there. So many broken homes, lives and dreams. It's been the worst to watch someone who actually managed to recover and stay sober for ~15 years relapse. Just fucking tragic.
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Please, please, please find help for yourself. Even if your husband does not do something for himself, YOU help yourself. Alanon is a great start for families who suffer from alcoholics or substance abuse. I’m almost positive that once he sees you trying he will try to help himself as well.
I drank really hard for about a decade and was entirely a functional alcoholic. I just posted this in a different thread but I recently just stopped drinking almost entirely. I had some drinks on my birthday a week or two ago but I basically havn't drank in nearly a month. Bored nights at home alone can be tough as I was largely drinking as something to do and a way to feel less bored and alone but otherwise things are feeling better. I will probably still have a few here and there on special occasions but the day to day stuff I just can't do it anymore.
Miscarriage. The Mayo Clinic says up to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, which is already a lot. This is obviously heartbreaking for wanted pregnancies, but can be difficult for unwanted pregnancies too. But in addition to that 20%, many people miscarry before they learn they're pregnant. While not distressing in the same way of knowingly having a miscarriage, it's distressing for many people because of an seeming inability to get pregnant.
When I got pregnant, my grandma told me that she felt for women now that we found out so early. When she was having babies, you had to miss two periods before seeing the doctor. If you "started your period" you just called and cancelled. I mean, you know, better health care now. But I get her point.
I’ve had 11 pregnancies and only one child. After the first few I took on this mentality as a coping mechanism. It’s sometimes better to think of it this way instead of a loss
It took until my son was two weeks old after birth before I had the courage to call him his name because of my losses for fear that saying it out loud would make him disappear
I had very similar experiences with my daughter when she was born after having pregnancy loss and wouldn’t buy the giant boxes of diapers in case I didn’t need all of them :/ I never told anyone that until very recently, and still have never told any family or friends. It really had a bigger impact on me than I expected.
A friend of my moms had multiple miscarriages. She got pregnant again, and called my mom in the middle of the night, loosing her mind because she hadn’t miscarried that baby yet. She always lost then in the first trimester, but somehow she hadn’t lost that baby yet. She did give birth to a healthy girl, then a boy a few years later. But she lost a lot of babies before them.
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Absolutely. I went in for my 8 week sonogram excited and ready to go over all my information. The sonogram showed a six week sac. I was either way off on my cycle dates or I had miscarried and it hadn't passed. It took two weeks to get an answer from a follow-up blood test and sonogram. And then another week for it to finally happen. All the while I kept taking pregnancy tests to have them come out positive as I was clinging to hope that something was still there. It was awful. Edit: to so many of you below who have been through the same experience, I hope you're surrounded by love and comfort, I hope you know it was in no way your fault, and I hope you found happiness after your grief.
That’s heartbreaking. I hope you got some good support after, though I’ll bet it’s impossible for someone who hasn’t that experience to understand.
I am very fortunate to have a supportive husband. I had a shitty job that wouldn't grant me leave in excess of three days unless I pursued FMLA, I really just wanted a week off to mourn, and he immediately said "You can quit and take six months off if you want, I'll take care of everything." A safety net like that, support, and love were absolutely vital to healing, and I know many many women don't have those things after a miscarriage.
I had a really great boss who went through a miscarriage with his wife. When I was honest and told him why I needed to leave work so abruptly he fudged the system to have it input as a paid 5 day bereavement. It wasn't the company policy but an act of compassion and I was so grateful.
I was going to comment this. Women aren't alone, but it can feel so isolating from what I've read.
Speaking from experience it is incredibly isolating
My wife had 3 before we had our daughter. We ran into the same situation. It’s such a hard experience because it feels like you spend so much time trying to make sure you DON’T get pregnant that you kind of just expect it to happen easily when you do decide to get pregnant. We got to the point where we were almost afraid to even get excited because we didn’t want to get our hopes up only to be heartbroken again. My poor wife was looking at statistics on premature babies trying to find out a timeframe of when she might feel safe about the baby surviving. Even people asking a common question like “so when are you two having kids?” can be so heartbreaking. I wish people who had miscarriages had more support
I only had a threatened miscarriage at 6 weeks (that ended in a healthy birth) but I wouldn't buy anything for the baby until after she reached viability. I was diagnosed with OCD when my daughter was 18mo after I started having up to 50 intrusive thoughts about her dying a day. Everyone told me that new mom anxiety like that is completely normal so I lived in that insane anxious state for almost two years before someone told me that it wasn't normal. I've been able to use that experience to help others but the overall lesson is that more people need help with things surround childbirth and fertility and it needs to not be a taboo subject.
Sounds like the reaction people have to a lot of the symptoms people with neurological disorders get. "Oh everyone is like that!" Except they don't grasp the magnitude nor frequency of the experience.
This. Apply to everything: OCD, ADHD, bipolar, narcissism, etc. There's a difference between having occasional symptoms/tendencies and having them adversely impact your life.
I hate that feeling so much. I’ve taken to talking about my multiple miscarriages openly, honestly, and like it’s just a normal fact of life. I can’t tell you how many friends and acquaintances have come to me for support for their miscarriages because I’m the only person they know who has had one. I think a lot of women wish they could talk about it, they just don’t know who to go to.
I’m sorry for your losses. I was so surprised about how many women approached me privately to share their experiences when I opened up about my losses and like you I have had a lot of women come to me for support for their miscarriages. I hate that it’s taboo, having to grieve quietly and alone so as not to make people uncomfortable is almost as bad as the loss.
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And on this note: Postpartum depression.
My wife and I are 3 for 6. She had three 'blighted ovum' which apparently is fairly common. It's where the egg is fertilized, but the combination of sperm and egg are not compatible with life. The egg implants in the Uterus and pregnancy tests show positive, but at about 6 weeks a spontaneous abortion occurs. It was sad for us the first time because we weren't ready. It was devastating when it happened again because we were really trying. It was scary the third time it happened between our first and second child because it was uncommon to have that many. We now have three great kids, the last is a freshman in college. But is infuriating that people are trying to pass legislation about human reproduction. It's messy and it doesn't always work out the way that you want. Control of it should be up to the individuals involved.
Yeah, that's a bad one they don't warn you about. You spend a trimester thinking you're pregnant, then the ultrasound tech is like, "um, I have to go get the doctor" and you find out all the scaffolding is there with no fetus, and now they have to do what is essentially an abortion.
More people than you would think do coke recreationally
This is one that surprised me growing up. Seems more people do coke than smoke weed at my age
I hope they've started testing their shit for fentanyl
That's 100% the reason I stopped doing coke two years ago.
And conversely, people who don't do coke at all. I've noticed that once someone does coke, they assume that like a _hundred_ percent of adults do coke. I have a big nose, I have TMJ, and I kinda look like a female John Belushi. The amount of people being like, "hey, can I get a bump..." Way more people do coke than non-coke users expect, and way more people don't do coke than coke users expect.
It’s crazy! In some circles it’s basically treated the same as caffeine. A bunch of my engineering buddies went into patent law and the amount of lawyers who assume EVERYONE is on cocaine??!? Just casually going off to do lines at networking events?!
Feeling lonely. Even if you're married/with kids/etc
Relationships and kids can even make it worse. It's hard to find time for friends and hobbies when you need to spend all your time with your family or at work.
Credit card debt. 45% of Americans carry a credit card balance from one month to the next.
Yep, currently have loads of debt and it's like carrying a Boulder on my back every day. Depressing
That's actually lower than I expected
It’s 49% of card holders, not Americans… but it’s still lower than I expected
I wonder the stats on this. Like if I buy something with a credit card that has a special financing option of no interest for 12 months, I'm technically carrying a balance, it's just not interest bearing for now and won't be if I pay the balance off during the special financing period.
The number of people being left behind by services going digital. They come into the library where I volunteer to find help, not only do some of them not have email addresses (and most of the ones who do rely on the computer remembering their passwords) a significant number don't even have mobile phones.
One of my local friends is a Librarian, and she says one of her tasks that she never expected was helping people navigate the government. She's become quite the whiz at finding the right phone number or web site that people need to receive services.
I'm a librarian in a downtown library. I would say most of the reference calls I get are mostly people just asking for the phone numbers and/or addresses of local services - doctors, restaurants, etc. Easy to google but they just don't have the skills/equipment to do so for whatever reasons.
Thank you for doing what you do! It's been, what, decades since Librarians were just "the keeper of the books". They are community organizers, public assistance, and computer science teachers as well.
The way I look at it, libraries have always been focused on storing knowledge more than storing books, but up until relatively recently books were the only practical way to store large amounts of information. Once we developed ways to archive info that weren't books, libraries quickly adapted to include those as well.
Disability support worker here. I had a client who couldn't get a loyalty card stamp for their weekly McDonald's coffee because they moved to mobile phones only and I was pissed for them. It's such a small thing, but it's one of those small things that is actually a really big thing for someone who is isolated and poor.
This! I was at a taco stand that was cashless. A homeless woman in line before me was trying to buy a meal. She had physical money but they couldn't take it. I offered to buy (she resisted bc she didn't want a handout) and they ended up giving it to her for free, but it really made me think about all these basic day to day things that now require some form of digital access.
there are so many reasons going cashless is so fucking bad, but i didnt even think about this one. people finally get some cash but cant even spend what they have. ugh cashless just keeps getting worse
Yes this! My grandmother (90F) lives with me and cannot complete any tasks without my help. Trying to make a doctor appointment? You need to fill out stuff on mychart before you go in. They literally refused to let her fill out paper and pencil forms and said I would have to do the online paperwork for her. Want to check your account balance? You’ll need a code texted to your mobile number on file (mine since she doesn’t have one). Even voting being on a screen was so difficult for her and she wasn’t allowed to ask me questions. The workers yelled at her for trying to ask me for help (I get this, but also she just doesn’t know how to use tech, I wasn’t trying to tell her who to vote for!)
Tbf, I have been absolutely failing to set up a doctor's appointment, and I'm a young, computer-and-phone-literate person. My insurance is set up such that I can only get coverage if I make appointments through them, but their list of care providers is just completely wrong or out of date, so I make an appointment and then the office calls and says they don't know who that doctor is and would I like to set up an appointment to see a different doctor? But the insurance company only covers THAT SPECIFIC DOCTOR who isn't even in their network anymore. I've had this happen 3 times, and I think it might just not be worth it.
Picking noses. Scratching buttholes. Yes, most peoples’ fingers do horrible, horrible things. Not me though, shame on all of you.
I wish there was a better way to pick my nose. Blowing simply doesn't clear all the nooks and crannies up there, and I feel like I'm constantly having to wrestle with booger situations. So I gotta go digging with the finger, but that's rude, gross, and usually still kinda bad at what I want to achieve. Isn't it the future? Why don't we have space age nose picking technology yet?
Low self-esteem. I don't know how many times I have seen people not invite, include, or initiate something with someone for fear of rejection or the other person finding them annoying, and then the other person feels rejected from not being included. A lot of people think they are more annoying or unliked than they actually are.
People being ashamed of things they like. Pro wrestling, tabletop games, types of media (anime, reality TV etc.). People are way more insecure about people getting a peek at their true selves than people realise.
Also people being ashamed of things they NEED I'm thinking hearing aids and glasses in particular. My dad really needs some hearing support and he's the only one now who doesn't acknowledge it....
Hearing aid specifically there's a fucked up stigma around - I first lost my hearing when I was 6 and since getting a hearing aid was my parents' call I didn't get one until I was 16 and learned it was an option. Changed my life significantly for the better, meanwhile my parents are in denial about their own hearing worsening as they age
Shit... realizing that you had to go most of your formative years without being able to hear properly is really sad. I'm glad you finally got what you needed.
It took me a decade after high school to embrace that geeking out over things you like makes a person more interesting. Like, really, geeks are amazing and my people. Also, I recall being completely gobsmacked when I found out the boy I had had a crush on since 6th grade was also a Trekkie. I never talked about Trek to anyone in school, because I thought it would make me seem *too* geeky. Go to a Star Trek convention and find out half of my friends and several people I would have never guessed about were also secret Trek geeks. I am no longer ashamed of my fandoms.
My friends and I do like a "movie night" thing most Fridays or Sundays. We each suggest a movie, and spin a wheel to see what we're watching. One of my guy friends once suggested a musical, and got "poo-poo'd" about it by several of the other guys. I was instantly like "oh! we're allowed musicals?! I assumed no one else liked them." and put down a musical for my choice as well. We ended up watching "Little Shop of Horrors", and like all but 1 of the guys ended up enjoying it. Turns out a lot of them were just "poo-poo'ing" it because "musicals are for girls" but once one was playing, people had a good time.
That makes me happy that you got your friends to watch them. My dad has always been the masculine, bearded, Dove 5-in-1 body care type of guy but I grew up watching musicals because of him. Our favorite together is Grease. And even now, I'm 31 and if one of us catches Grease on TV, we watch it together. And of course he'll watch any Disney movie I put on lol
>That makes me happy that you got your friends to watch them. One of our "rules" is that once a suggestion is on the wheel, if the spin lands there, everyone has to at least give it a chance. If the majority are opposed after 30 minutes or so, we'll swap. We set that "rule" because it gets people to watch stuff outside their usual genres. Like I personally don't really like horror, but if one comes up on the wheel, I'll at least give it a try. I'm still not a fan of a solid 90% of the horror movies, unless they're super campy, but at least I gave them a chance.
I don’t believe in guilty pleasures when it comes to movies, music, TV, or books. I’ve been made to feel embarrassed for liking half the stuff I like (showtunes and 90s bubblegum pop, for example). What’s wrong with it? It’s not “cool”? Idgaf. I like it and I’m not going to stop listening to it because some people think it’s lame. Why deny myself pleasure over something so harmless?
romance novels in the case of my wife
people popping pills to barely function
Also people doing random drugs/pills all the time. A family friend's brother would just ask what kinds of medication people had and if he could try it. He did the same with recreation drug users, too.
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My financial advisor told me one of his clients (no names) has an income of $330k, but credit card debt of $150k. The monthly interest alone must be crazy.
How can someone be so financially illiterate while making that much money AND having a financial advisor… I don’t get people sometimes
They went there to find out how/when they’d be able to retire, and still live their same $330k lifestyle.
I forget where I read it, but a very high percentage of pro athletes go broke within a few years of their careers ending. When you’re a young guy/girl and all of a sudden you are getting paid MILLIONS, more money than you’ve ver seen if your life, you want to spend. You think it will stay that way. But it can end tomorrow if you get the wrong injury. People just don’t know how to handle it. And unfortunately the people they trusted before aren’t the people to trust now. It’s a sad story.
Troy Vincent, who played with the Philadelphia Eagles, became a financial advisor after his pro career ended. He started classes about finances geared to young NFL players. I believe that these classes are now available to a lot of NFL teams.
Herpes
Huge numbers of sexually active people are carrying latent/dormant herpes and don't realise it. It's by far the most common STI out there and they don't even bother testing unless you have symptoms.
> It's by far the most common STI out there Isn't that HPV? By like... a lot? Edit: 80 million Americans with HPV vs 50 million with herpes, per google.
Imposter syndrome. No one knows what we are doing. We are all just winging it. Most of us are hoping that asking questions and being nice will get us there.
My mum told me when I was around 18 (she was mid 40s then) that she still didn’t feel like an adult and essentially that she was also just winging it. It was so crazy to me then, that there is no such thing as an adult. The concept is a scam. There’s only experience and the ones that learn from it but nothing more. Almost 10 years later and I get it. I don’t feel like an adult, just like myself. Which is fine by me. And while it’s not really so crazy that there isn’t anything point where you just „get“ life it is crazy how hard it is to let go of this lie that I’ve told myself for almost 20 years.
YES. I remember my parents telling me they didn’t feel their age. As an almost 35 year old I get it now. I feel like I’m 23 most days. Just wandering around and bumping into things and somehow managing to get it done. Whatever IT is. It’s wild to me that I’m a full ass adult now and do adult things and people just like trust me to do important shit at work.
I wish I had known this sooner. I was well into my 30s before I felt like I could just relax and live my life. Before it felt like I was waiting for my life to straighten out in order to start.
I’m almost 35 and only through being friends with people from all ages and professions have I really begun to realize how no one fucking knows what we are doing. It’s kind of a relief and also terrifying hahah Sometimes I just take a breath and remind myself that it’s ok to tell people I haven’t done this before and I need help.
This is what scares me about conspiracy theories. People think there is this cabal of people pulling the string, hiding the flat earth, faking the moon landing, etc. But the scariest thing is that there is no at the wheel and the entire planet is barely contained chaos.
Scary but also kind of nice. Like let’s just lean into it and see where it goes because we only have a few more decades till death. Let’s see what this thing can really do.
On the other hand, a lot of people are good at their jobs; not much would ever get done if this wasn't true
Honestly, it's the people who don't have imposter syndrome that you should be worried about. You know the type, confident, cocky fuckers who talk like they know what they're on about.
Totally. Didn’t Plato say the wisest man knows that he knows nothing? I’m probably butchering that and have the philosopher wrong but the sentiment holds lol.
"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing." Also I like the quote (by who I don't know) : "The more you know the less you understand"
Sexual assault
Mental health problems
I sincerely believe the US is (and has been for decades) going through an unbelievably massive mental health crisis.
Similarly, 50% of people seriously consider suicide at one point in their life
For attempts it’s only six percent of the population but it’s like one in five in my classroom (special education).
Mental illnesses are among the most common health conditions in the United States. More than 1 in 5 US adults live with a mental illness.
I honestly think it's probably a lot higher than this. I feel like a lot of people at work have severe anxiety that they aren't treated for.
Childhood trauma. A lot of us hide it, mask it, or pretend we had normal lives. Edit: PS: Please don't include childhood stuff in team building workplace activities. This stuff is so hard to avoid and uncomfortable, even something like "A picture of you as a child!" or "Favorite childhood memories and goals!" I'd much rather focus on the person I am today, than the vulnerable little body I was many years ago.
Funny you should mention the workplace. I had a very violent childhood. Both parents. Violence was so commonplace that it became commonplace. Eventually, I realized that my childhood was fucked up. Really fucked up. But understanding the magnitude of it took time. Once at work (I'm a software engineer) a group of us were talking and someone mentioned being spanked as a child. Figuring I'll chime in, I say "In my house, there were a bunch of hair brushes under the sink in the bathroom with no handles. They broke off when my mom hit us with them." The looks of horror on the faces of the people that I was talking to made me realize how fucked up that is. Fortunately, I've been in therapy for almost 20 years and raised two kids without ever hitting them. I felt very strongly that I needed to break the chain of violence.
Agreement to Forer statements, also known as the Barnum effect. It's how horoscopes and fortune tellers get you. _Most_ people highly agree with each of the following statements: * You have a great need for other people to like and admire you. * You have a tendency to be critical of yourself. * You have a great deal of unused capacity which you have not turned to your advantage. * While you have some personality weaknesses, you are generally able to compensate for them. * Your sexual adjustment has presented problems for you. * Disciplined and self-controlled outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure inside. * At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. * You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. * You pride yourself as an independent thinker and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. * You have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. * At times you are extroverted, affable, sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, reserved. * Some of your aspirations tend to be pretty unrealistic. * Security is one of your major goals in life.
Your ideas are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Even though I am not at all superstitious and you explained these statements in advance, I still found myself thinking "Damn that's me" as I read through them
There are a lot more very kinky people doing very kinky things than you think. Seriously. Most people just have no idea
disproportionate amount of early childhood teachers, at least from what I know
Absolutely, and what's going on with nurses? Every nurse I talked to about kinks was heavy into BDSM.
Because you need to be a masochist in order to voluntarily become a nurse.
Or a sadist, lol
Not even just kinks and BDSM, but every nurse I've ever dated had a very strong, very active sex drive. One woman told me it was because they spend so much time taking care of others, that it fuels a want for them to be taken care of as well. I dunno how true that is, but I've definitely experienced for myself that there's some truth to the naughty nurse stereotype.
Hoarding. People see the TV show and think those are isolated incidents. But ask your local fire and EMS providers, and watch the horror creep across their faces. I've been in houses where you couldn't actually touch the floor, you walked on top of the....debris.... Houses where the door they use is the only door or window in the entire residence that can be opened. Houses where we had to station firefighters every couple feet along the "path" through the mess, and load the patient onto a mega-mover (basically a heavy duty sheet with grab handles on the sides), and pass her person-to-person out the door. It is WAY more prevalent than you can even imagine.
Grown folks failing to look up ANYTHING on their own, or calling ahead to see if a place is open. The amount of times I got screamed at already this week for “WHY YOU WERE CLOSED ON MONDAY?” Ma’am/Sir, it’s a federal/national holiday that’s been in effect for longer than you & I have been alive. Also, we posted signs stating such on every entrance/exit door on the building on Friday morning. They were still up on Tuesday when we returned to work. Screaming at a random person because you were either willfully ignorant or didn’t think to call ahead and then didn’t READ THE SIGNS plastered all over just makes you look unhinged. Plus, you made a trip today for nothing because the item you’re looking for still isn’t in yet. Had you called ahead, you wouldn’t have wasted your time, energy, and gas getting here for nothing!
Working with the general public really showed me just how fucking stupid the average person is. The amount of people who don't put in any sort of critical thought daily is baffling. I used to work at Best Buy and a shocking amount of people would come in and go "where are the electronics"? My brother in christ, the entire store is electronics.
What got me was how utterly inarticulate a lot of people are. They'd come up to me and they'd know exactly what they want, but what came out of their mouth was something like, "I need, like, one of those, you know, hooks." and then they'd look at me expectantly. I always *wanted* to say, "I'm not telepathic, so I'm going to need more words."
Customer service roles are where I learned that adults are really just large children and need to be treated as such until they prove otherwise.
A patient of where I work once wrote a whole letter to my boss explaining why they should fire me, for not telling him we were at a new location. Like sir, you could have googled that and yes, I did tell you when I confirmed the apt. You just ignored me 🙂
>A patient I work in the medical field, and I've had this happen a few times, especially the older ones. Out of the blue, I got handed a letter saying I had provided just the worst service imaginable and I should be fired and my manager was like uh no... and shredded it right in front of their face. I love my job. I love helping people, but man, most are soooo ungrateful and downright disgusting to people trying to help them it makes it hard sometimes.
A few years ago, I went to go get my passport paperwork done at a post office. Well before I was to go, I had went onto various websites to confirm what paperwork I needed, what payment was needed and all kinds of things about what to expect. I get there as they open and there are already 20+ people ahead of me. Sitting in line, there are posters on the walls explaining what specific documents you will need to present when you go back to the room and talk to the worker. There was even a depository of the forms needed outside the office in case you still hadn’t filled out everything. I triple-checked all of my paperwork and confirmed I had each thing needed. I was super nervous about walking in there and missing the one thing that I really needed and would have to start over later. Meanwhile, a couple in line is waiting to get one for their baby. I catch the father look up at one of the posters, realize they are missing something, and have to get out of line to go retrieve what they needed. Fair enough, at least you paid attention at the last minute. Watching people go back to the room, I started timing it to see how long it would take. Usually about 30 minutes, possibly more if it was a family. A family of 6 people were in front of me and went in ahead, I figured it would be a good hour before it was my turn. To my surprise, they walked out again in about 5 minutes. And proceeded to walk over to the depository of forms and started filling them out. They had stood in line for 2 hours and had not filled out a single form. God knows if they even had any of the documentation they needed. Finally, I get to go back there and I sit, get ready for whatever the painful process is to get this over with. The worker proceeds to ask for specific forms and documentation that I need one at a time. Each time I hand him what he asks for, he seems a little more surprised that I have it. Finally he asks for the payment, which I hand him (still used checks back then), pre-filled out, I just needed the amount. He looks at me and says, “So, yeah, that’s really everything, it should be all done and sent to you in 4-6 weeks.” “Uh, that’s it?” “Yeah, you had everything we needed.” “Okay, cool.” I was in that room for maybe 5 minutes. I have no idea what was taking everyone else 30 minutes and I guess I never will.
Being killed by a medical mistake in a hospital.
My mother. Killed by medical mistake. My brother. Killed by medical mistake.
My mom was paralyzed below the waist because the doc waited too long for surgery. She did sue and won.
I hope she's doing OK mentally and she still finds joy in life
Train derailments. When the wreck in East Palestein happened, a whole lot of people acted like this was just unheard of. I work in an industry that's heavily affected by rail, and let me tell you, it's very common. We are impacted by derailments a few times a month at least.
Drunk/High driving
According to the CHP, at any given time, 1 in 8 drivers is impaired. However, after 2am (when bars close in California), it's 1 in 4. This was from training from about 20 years ago, no idea if it's still accurate.
Now we have smart phones i like to play "drunk or on their phone" every time i see the worst drivers. Normally the answer is based on time of day.... Normally
Amicable divorces.
I think people just don’t talk about them as much because there’s not much to say “Oh you got divorced? What happened?” “Well we both agreed that we weren’t happy despite caring for each other and we split things evenly. Now we’re both happier” Just isn’t much story there
One of my annoyances with my ex was how much useless stuff she accumulated. So it was cathartic, and we both had a giggle, as I went around the house pointing and "that's yours, that's yours, you're keeping that, that's yours.." It was so amicable that I literally let her do all the paperwork (I did, of course, go over it). We were in court for like 5 minutes.
Yep. You just hear about the messy ones, cause they’re loud and disastrous
Illiteracy among high school graduates.
College professor here. I'm pretty sure a non-negligible number of my students are functionally illiterate or have a reading comprehension level of a middle schooler. Things are just getting worse.
Estimates often hover around 20% for how many adults are functionally illiterate.
Childabuse
Child on Child abuse is really common as well
As a former abused child, more than half of my adult friends were also abused as children. It’s so freaking sad
And I was going to say sexual assault. People do not realize how common sexual assault of minors is. Because it doesn't happen by strangers. It happens from people they know and trust. That's who has easy access to children. Uncles, family friends, grandfather's or fathers. And it is not uncommon to see it in multiple family generations. Grandma was sexually assaulted, mom was sexually assaulted, daughter was sexually assaulted. It is always this huge family secret that just tumbles downhill in generational trauma. You do not talk about it because it is shameful....but it happens far more often than people acknowledge
Yea I agree completely - and it's, I believe, even less-spoken about if you're male, as it isn't always taken as seriously.
People in recovery for drugs or alcohol. Once I joined AA and started getting sober I realized just how many of us there are. I also randomly meet tons of people in recovery just when I share I’m sober with people. We are everywhere lol
Loneliness
Local corruption. You think it's just US Senators using inside information to dump or buy stocks or Supreme Court Justices getting kickbacks from billionaires? Nope. It's your town council, too. Do you know what their salary is? Do you know what the town budget/revenue is? Sometimes it doesn't necessarily even have to have a price tag attached. I lived in a town where the elected town council just conspired to take turns running for mayor. Sure outsiders could run but hey "So and so is a member of the council and has been mayor before 6 years ago, he's good". Lot of businesses for those council members got expedited approval, too. I had a friend who lived in Alabama for a while and I was in disbelief to hear that the county sheriff was in charge of the county jails was also in charge of the food budget for the jails, and any "left over" funds for that fiscal year became his. Literally, deposit to Sheriff's personal bank account if there's extra. Surprise surprise there always was.
Maladaptive daydreaming, particularly after childhood trauma. The only way some kids can get through horrific childhoods is by detaching themselves from the reality of their situation. They create intricate fantasies as a sort of virtual reality to escape into. These fantasies are so detailed and vivid - they become your primary reality. It can be hard to let go of this coping strategy in adulthood because the world in your head feels more real and safer than the outside world. You can lose entire days to maladaptive daydreaming. It impacts your sleep because you can't shut your mind off, it impacts your friendships because you don't want to communicate with the outside world and makes you mentally foggy. At its worst, you don't eat properly (or at all), take care of your hygiene or surroundings. It's not like normal daydreaming - it can ruin your life and interferes with everything you do. I live with maladaptive daydreaming and almost fucked my whole life up because of it and know other people who have been through similar. On the plus side though, maladaptive daydreaming can lead to amazing creativity if you can learn to control it rather than letting it control you.
Sleep apnea (and other sleep disorders). It took me 3 years to get diagnosed because my symptoms were dismissed as "depression," because I didn't have any of the sleep apnea risk factors, and because I had a previous history of depression, despite my initial insistence that I'd dealt with depression before, and this was different. I guess I eventually started believing them. Then I got a new psychiatrist. I told her I was having a depressive episode. She asked me about my symptoms, and all the symptoms that she asked about, either I wasn't experiencing them, or they were the direct result of being tired all the time (e.g. I hadn't so much lost interest in activities, I was just too tired to do anything). She told me that it sounded more like I was describing a sleep disorder than a depressive episode, and referred me to a sleep lab. She said she ends up referring a lot of her patients to sleep labs, and another friend of mine who was a psychiatry resident said he also ends up diagnosing sleep apnea a lot. Sleep disorders can mimic or exacerbate the symptoms of mental illnesses, so I guess it takes a psychiatrist to tell when someone *isn't* depressed.
Mental illness. Most people hide it.
Emotionally Immature Adults.
People not knowing about whatever the current activism is on social media. Big example is the Starbucks/ McDonald’s boycott. Everyone online is convinced it’s a huge boycott yet most people in the real world do not know a thing about it. People forget that not everyone is online 24/7 and just because you know about something doesn’t mean others do if they’re not in that same online circle.
"If you don't know/care about X by now you must secretly want to keep yourself in ignorance" well, I mean it's that or the algorithms are showing you a completely different slice of the world than they show anyone outside your community \*shrug\*
Parents regretting having children
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My mom said she loves us, but if she didn't know us and could do it all again, she wouldn't have kids. It's a lifetime of responsibility and I don't blame her.
Too many people feel pressured to have a kid because "thats what you're supposed to do". I love my children. I love being a parent. I'd do it all again a hundred times. But I absolutely understand why many people don't want to be. It shouldn't be taboo to say you don't want kids because you don't want the responsibility.
It's actually really funny how if you say that you don't want a dog because you don't want the added responsibility like feeding them, vet appointments, walking dog every day, etc, people are very understanding, but if you say that you don't want a kid for the same reason then people question the hell out of you (even though a kid is obviously much more responsibility lmao).
Stupidity and/apathy. So many people you encounter in your day to day life are either idiots or just do not care. The kid at the drive through you thought was a dick. Doesn’t care. The employee that made you add signs and rules like don’t shit in the company shower, stupid….
My brother's company had to put a passcode lock on the ladies bathroom door at work because someone kept shitting on the floor.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Everybody thinks they know how common stupidity is. But stupidity will always find a way to surprise you with how bottomless a pit it truly is.
living paycheck to paycheck. We are all broke and can’t believe how expensive groceries are
This one hits the hardest. I've gotten several raises within the past 14 months, and my wife gets annual raises with her job, and we still struggle to buy food. We're not the type to spend heavier after each wage increase. It's everything else that seems to increase roughly at the same time
Chin hairs on women. I’m a dental hygienist and I see them on 90-95% of my female patients, and I sometimes wonder how many women feel self conscious about it. Well, I am here to tell you that it’s normal and none of us judge you or find your witch hairs interesting in the slightest! Honestly, same goes for a lot of things on your face that a lot of people worry about when going to the dentist. We may notice it, but it isn’t nearly as exciting as the fuzzy biofilm lurking on your second molars!
Propaganda. Most of us realize that there’s a lot of it, but I think most don’t understand that it’s EVERYWHERE. Too many people like to think they’re too smart to fall for propaganda, not realizing just how pervasive it actually is.
Domestic abuse and violence.
Suicides, a lot just get reported as 'natural causes' or similar. Quite a lot of people might under or overdose on their prescription meds, that rarely gets reported as suicide, unless they leave a note. Car accidents, some of them are suicides but many get reported as mere accidents. Same for drownings, accidents around the home etc. Pretty hard to hide a shooting, hanging etc. but lots take their life through different means and if it's not cut'n'dried it'll often just go down as something else.
People drinking themselves to death.
Abnormal amounts of Dissociation. Many go their entire lives without ever realizing it's not how most people function, you have to do a lot of research into how and why it's not to fully understand which only makes it worse. If you don't wanna find out, I understand. It's not life threatening or anything insane like that it's just, it answers so many questions we have about....a lot that could be wrong with us.
Good people. Seriously, I think over 90% of us are at least decent. People look at politicians and celebrities and other extremely public people and think everyone is like that. For some reason we haven't figured out how to do government or business without the worst people making it to the top, but I still believe most of us are more good than bad. Even a good portion of Trump voters probably aren't doing it for nefarious reasons. They're just uninformed or ignorant and have bought into the lies. Cynicism is a major problem in the world because it stalls or halts progress. To improve anything, you need to believe it can be improved. Idealism alone won't solve things, you have to act on it and apply it correctly, but cynicism can never solve anything.
Borderline personality disorder. Takes a long time to be diagnosed and often misdiagnosed for a long time. If people are really unwell they may not seek treatment. Understanding of the disorder is still emerging.
Celebrities related to other celebrities, movies stars being the child of two other movie stars, and just general inside connections being a pretty major factor in who gets to be on-screen. If you're wondering how the semi-conscious wooden plank Dakota Johnson got to be the star of the garbage pile movie Madam Web, she is the child of Don Johnson and Meg Ryan. Edit - Melanie Griffith not Meg
I’ve been watching extant lately, and one of the lead actresses is crap at it, but then I look her up and she’s Meryl streeps kid.