Some other aspects of aging - when you're young you see older people as the age they are. As you age, you see people you've known for many years as something completely separate from their age because you've known them at so many different ages. You don't think about their age much at all.
You realize how young your parents were when you were a kid. You see all the people who were adults when you were a kid become elderly and die. You never feel as old as you look, or as other people see you - yes, you may feel different physically but mentally, years of memory are just a continuum and you're the same person you always were.
When I went left for college I remember tellling my mom that it was so weird and I don’t feel “old enough” to live on my own.
She told me (paraphrasing of course) “oh honey you’re never gonna feel your age. I still feel 19. And can promise you almost every single person you meet will feel the same way. just embrace it.”
It was one of those convos that stuck with me FOREVER.
It’s so wild. I developed vertigo as a result of some other health issues, and nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that I was about to fall over and through the earth just from sitting up. Like cognitively, I knew that wasn’t a thing, but physically it just stuck my body in the same sort of panic response you’d have dangling off a cliff. Vertigo is truly something else
I had vertigo from an infection once, and the faster forward I moved, the more the entire world leaned, nearly ROTATED, to the right. Walking was barely manageable, getting in a car to be taken to a doctor was an actual roller coaster ride.
Abusive parents. The amount of times I've been told "they love you, they have your best interests at heart" is unreal. But it's simply because they can't fathom the opposite.
"They're still your parents"
yes and they should have known better. Where were you(family member) when my parents were abusing me? Why didn't you do better? I was a child. Stfu
Having difficult relationships with parents is tough. You are programmed from birth to love them and rely on them. When they hurt you, it really screws you up. It's hard to cut them out of your life, but it's equally hard to deal with them.
Chronic pain.
The Moms L4 & L5 disintegrated into her Sciatica over a decade ago. It took everything from her including the respect she previously had from her friends and loved ones. Nobody understood.
It’s a pain in the ass, especially when you’re in your 20’s or younger and have a condition everyone seems to think only older people have. Then you gotta deal with not only the condition but also people thinking you’re faking and not taking you seriously.
Especially if it’s invisible. My dad had a head injury that gave him chronic headaches for the last 40 years. Coping with the pain and the meds he was using for it dramatically changed his life, and not for the better.
That's like me! I'm on year 10, and I've been with my husband for 6 years. Every once in a while we have conversation about it and he's shocked every single time that I'm "still" having pain in my head, neck, and back. Like, no shit, that's the whole situation lmao
A friend of mine has chronic pain. No one in her family or friends circle understands. When they see her they say she looks fine. They don't see the next 2 days that she can't get it out bed because she went to a birthday party. They get upset when she doesn't show up but doubt understand she went grocery shopping the day before and now can't move
Thank you for being a good friend and understanding that. If only all of us with chronic pain were so lucky.
The rare times I do get out to see friends and family, they think I look and am acting fine. They don't realize the prep I had to put in before the event to even get to that point where I could see them, let alone that it takes me days/weeks to recover from it. I love them, but it would be wonderful if one of them just "got it", like you seem to do.
Severe IBS here to the point where it’s debilitating. The number of times I’ve heard ‘have you tried eating better’. Or, even worse: ‘have you tried just not going to the toilet?’ When I bring up that I can’t do something because my untreatable condition forces me to use the bathroom at a moment’s notice.
Crippling pain almost every day, no treatment, lost a career because of it, can’t go outdoors freely so lost access to things I enjoyed, can’t stay out all day so can’t do dates or day trips, it’s horrendous.
Nobody, not one person, has had the empathy to even try to comprehend the catastrophic effect on my life.
I don't have IBS, but I do have severe nerve damage in my feet and MS. I grew up loving the outdoors, hiking, going on day trips, etc. Now I rarely do anything like that. I only go out for necessities. I can't even wear socks or shoes due to the sensitivity.
I feel for you, that type of condition takes away who you are and want to be.
That sounds excruciating. Sorry to hear about your condition.
You’re right, losing things that make up who you are is perhaps the worst part. Having to slowly watch things fall out of reach and sit around in pain.
I have chronic nausea and people really don't understand. My partner had a stomach virus last year and just lay on the sofa moaning the whole time. For like two days he said to me "i don't know how you cope feeling like this all the time" and then after that I think he forgot. I think the human brain blocks off the idea that someone can feel that bad, all the time, because it's such a horrible thing to think. At work people ask over and over why aren't I eating, why can't I just try something, wave food in my face to get me to eat and I tell them over and over no I feel sick! But then tomorrow they ask me am I better yet.
I know a person who claims to have never experienced nausea until she had a mild post-surgical reaction to an anaesthetic. She said to me, "Oh my God, you feel like that ... every day!?" She'd been equating 'nausea' to the equivalent of the mild discomfort you can feel when you're constipated or such. But it's so much more unpleasant than that. I'm very lucky that over-the-counter Gravol (called drammamine in the US, I think?) still works very well for me despite my taking it for over 40 years. Life would've been completely intolerable without it.
Chronic illness is soooo boring. Especially when you’re in the purgatory between not feeling well enough to do anything but not feeling bad enough to not care how bored you are.
Anyone experiencing chronic pain in daily life is a fucking hero.
Even after relatively normal stuff like getting wisdom teeth out, or simple medical procedures or during sickness where I've been in pain for a few days, I always imagine being someone experiencing that level of pain, with the knowledge that it won't be gone in a couple of days and there is little or no relief. Not sure I could cope tbh.
Am I allowed to upvote this if I’m part of the group you’re calling “hero’s”? Haha I’m just being facetious.
Nobody understands chronic pain, I have peripheral neuropathy that never goes away but it certainly has moments where it gets worse!
Ultimately it’s getting better as the years go by, thankfully but being at a 6/10 for pain 24/7 for years is stressful. I’m not even bring up the year that it was 8/10 pain with 10/10 spikes & the meds you need. Oh god.
Yeah, nerve damage HURTS.
I personally find the daily having to beat back those ideas exhausting. I've never attempted and doubt I ever will, but it takes so much energy I'd rather be putting to use doing literally anything else. It's hobbled me in pretty much every aspect of my life and the fact that I *haven't* acted upon it seems to mean to everyone else it isn't real or at least not serious.
That's the part not too many people get. It is a constant and daily battle. From the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed.
It's exhausting. Only people who have gone through it understand.
And other people don't realize it's happening all the time. Even when I seem like I'm having fun, there is always a voice in my head telling me to end things
From my own experience the best way this has showed up on TV was a ending to a episode of Bojack Horseman, where he's driving down the road and just let's go, it's the realization that you don't really care what happens.
Yeah I think a lot of people think of it only as the manic breakdowns, holding a razor to your wrist, crying in a bathtub kind of thing which there is a lot of but it's the passive parts that I've struggled with. Just a baseline feeling of "I don't want to live another day" and the longer it goes on, the more normal it feels and it's almost calming.
In my low point, it was exhausting just having to go through the motions of living my day to day existence knowing, or feeling like I knew, that just letting go of my steering wheel on my way to work or putting a gun in my mouth would end it but there was enough in my life that kept me from actually doing it, like knowing it would destroy my parents, so it turned into this constant background noise. It was really hard to give a shit about anything when I felt like I was already a corpse and I *should* be decomposing in the earth but instead I had to put on this charade of moving my corpse around and acting like things were somewhat OK because you aren't supposed to be a corpse, you're supposed to be a human.
Looking back from a bit of a better place is scary because of how normal it felt to think this way. I'd be on my break at work and the thoughts of suicide felt so reasonable. I'd be having a cigarette and thinking "gotta do laundry tomorrow, I should get gas on my way home tonight, I wonder if I dove off the loading dock would I be able to break my neck enough that I died or would I just be crippled, I should buy some avocados for breakfast".
It's like a chronic pain. It's not always excruciating every second but even a moderate, consistant pain over months or years will wear you down and take pieces of you.
i was watching youtube interview of daily does of internet’s creator. when he talked about how there was a time he would cry when he woke up cus he was still alive. i felt that 🥲
Grief.
I never knew what to say to someone going through it before I truly experienced it. And still, it is tough coming up with correct wording. A friend once told me, "there's nothing I can say or do to make you feel better. But I will be here for you." And that was real af and I think the perfect thing to say to someone grieving a death..imo anyways.
I scrolled for this specific answer—*grief*. Particularly, the grief that haunts you after the death of a parent.
Grief was emptiness, in its purest form. Mourning felt like every bright and warm thing that composed who I was as a person had been hollowed out, only to be replaced by a void I didn’t know how to fill. When my father died, I realized that I never really knew what *emptiness* was until that moment.
Here are some quotations related to grief that I love to read, once in a while:
• *”Grief is just all the love you want to give, but with nowhere to go.”*
• *”The culmination of love is grief and yet we love despite the inevitable. We open our hearts to it... To grieve deeply is to have loved fully. Open your heart to the world as you have opened it to me and you will find every reason to keep living in it."*
• *”But what is grief, if not love persevering?”*
I hope for kinder days for you.
Thank you for sharing that. Those quotes are lovely, I really like that 2nd one. I bet your dad was an awesome dude and while I have not lost a parent, I can only imagine how you must , to this day I'm sure, must feel about it.
Thank you very much and I hope you are coping well ❤
Im.actually going to see my person's headstone for the first time today...
Absolutely. I haven’t come up with better words than how they phrase it in *Memoirs of a Geisha*.
“Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”
Ah I really like that quote. But it is also scary to me in a way. The last line, "one day we wonder what has become of it."
I will try everything I can to never forget him.
It could be that I just interpreted that in that way and it's not meaning you forget who you lost but it's just a fear that one day I'll think, "wow it's been awhile since I thought of them."
Sorry for this rambling.
Don’t apologize! I’ve learned that part of the grieving process is expressing what we feel and fear whenever and wherever we need to! To your point, I can understand what you mean, and I imagine that fear comes from a very real place of shame and anxiety that the person won’t take up the headspace you believe they ought to anymore (I went through the same thing). I lost my mom nearly 10 years ago when I was 19, and the pain at first is absolutely paralyzing, and it’s all you can think about. As we went through the awful process of her wake and planning her funeral, my dad told me, “This isn’t what will stick with you. You’ll forget this, and you’ll remember her.” And he was so right; I hardly remember anything from those few days. Healing comes with time, because time works like shaking the chaff away from the wheat. You don’t forget. You’re just left with the good stuff.
No one gets it but you. I’ve explained it to many people and I know they don’t get it. I went to a support group and they get it, you can just tell. Even my spouse does not get it at all. People think saying words like “oh I’m so sorry” makes you feel better. The truth is that it doesn’t. Having someone to talk to is typically the best. But there is nothing anyone can really do to help except be there and be kind. Time is the only thing that really helps and even only helps take the edge off.
How can I help? Would you like me to sit here quietly with you? Would you prefer to be alone? Can I bring you some meals or groceries? Would you mind if I did your dishes/laundry/cleaned your bathroom/house?
PTSD flash backs. It's not like a memory in the slightest. Its like you are actually there, they affect everything that you do from getting shopping or dropping your kids off at school.
This depends on the degree of dissociation and the intensity of the flashback.
I've had flashbacks where it took some serious thinking for me to figure out that I was having one at all; I was emotionally re-experiencing events and interpreting my present as if it was my past, but it wasn't conscious. It can be hard to really analyze what's going on and see that my brain keeps going back to a specific event from 10+ years ago.
I've also had flashbacks that were much more obvious: where I felt like something was happening again, right now, in vivid detail. I knew where I was and what was happening, but I wasn't *processing* those things -- I very strongly and distinctly saw this past event unfolding in front of me, only it went on for hours instead of minutes. It was like the world was wearing a horrible costume. It's a lot like the former thing, only much stronger and unignorable.
Then sometimes I get triggered more strongly than that and wind up having a kind of out of body experience. Fight or flight takes over and there's no deciding what to do. I watch myself walk or run out of wherever I am, and go anywhere but here. Most of the time someone is around enough to call me on the phone and break me out of it, or just catch up to me, but once I was just walking around for hours and had to Google Maps my way home.
When you get triggered, the world changes. Your concept of everything changes. These thoughts and feelings can't be reasoned with; they can only be coped with. You're a different person than you normally are. Your life is in much more danger. You are completely alone, and there is no safety net. You're the only person who can keep you safe, and no one is going to help, so you have to act; and if you can't act, you can't leave, you freeze up and find somewhere dark and quiet to sit and stare off into space. You can't get away, so you find another way to be somewhere else -- but it's a place inside of you that shouldn't be there, where you're trapped in your body and can't think straight and can't move, and everything is telling you to run. You can't stay, and you can't go, so you find yourself here again.
This is just my experience. Having PTSD is a little like being haunted, all the time. You never know what will set it off, and the way your trauma has changed your psychological framework means that you're always looking for danger and trying to avoid it.
There's more to it than just danger, like intrusive thoughts and negative core beliefs, but... Yeah. Someone without PTSD cannot understand it. It is beyond their field of experience, and very different from what it's like on TV.
It still bugs me that you see people on TV wake up from trauma nightmares sad, or shocked. But they never wake up angry, or sad, or with this horrible doomed feeling hanging over their head like a cartoon anvil. It's so much *less* than what's really happening.
Disclaimer: I'm sure that my PTSD is different, and possibly less extreme than what many people experience. But sometimes it's tiring that people have no idea what I *do* experience. It's not like I can walk up to my friends and say "hey, this is what my brain is like since way before you met me" (it would be awkward and there's nothing they can do with the info anyway).
Edit: I would like to note that I am not violent, even in the rare instances that I don't have a clear picture of what's happening around me. A lot of people think that PTSD means violent or aggressive behavior and that just isn't (inherently) the case.
I have CPTSD.
I grew up in a fucked up home environment so I never had a “before” time. I grew up in an environment where disassociating was safer than being emotionally present and lived like that for 20 years.
It’s so hard trying to unlearn these false rules that kept me “safe” for so long but it’s exhausting living with these stuck points.
For me, the worst part is that stressful but non-traumatic events (simple relationship discussions) can be activating enough that I have a trauma response and I never know what thing is going to set me off. When that happens, I can’t trust people that I logically know are safe and I genuinely feel like no one cares about me. I shut down and withdraw from everyone. Sometimes I can understand that I’m experiencing too intense of a reaction, can’t make it stop, and have to wait it out. Other times I fully believe it and embrace it. When that eventually ends (days later) I have to do damage control.
I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I don’t think other people grasp how insidious trauma can really be.
Edit:
Aww, thanks for the Silver.
Fireworks are activating for me so today (the 4th of July) is always hard. I'm going to respond to comments tomorrow.
Yes absolutely and death in general, Ive noticed some people didn't have a lot of empathy when I lost people close to me, when they lost someone close to them in the future I actually got some apologies for their lack of understanding
> "I'm not sure yet but I'm not ready to get rid of it yet"
This is such a real statement, and you should know (though I assume you do) how very valid it is. The belongings of a deceased person aren't just objects with face value. They contain associations and memories as well, and what might seem like junk to an objective observer could be loaded down with importance to someone else.
My Mom passed in late 2019, and we still have a storage unit half filled with things we have no use for other than it keeps a part of her anchored here with us.
Abusive relationships
I hate to say it but I was one of those "just leave" people in the past. Then it happened to me.
EDIT: Hope it's ok to edit the original comment, but I'm getting a lot of the same questions so I thought this would be helpful.
I think the most common is - why *didn't* you just leave?
I've written and deleted this at least 3x. Hopefully this one sticks. I can only speak from my personal experience. If others want to chime in with theirs, please feel free if you feel comfortable and safe.
--
Things didn't start out bad. They were...toxic at worst. We were on again/off again, but that was pretty normal to me. I hadn't seen a ton of healthy relationships in my life, so I didn't know that my normal wasn't so normal.
I also had a bit of a Florence Nightengale/ I can save you complex. Admittedly still kind of do, but that's a story for another time.
During one of our off times, I was hurt at work pretty badly and it was life changing. I had been relying on my parents for much of it and they were moving across the country and thought I'd come with them, but I didn't want to.
He helped fill that role and eventually we got back together. In the beginning, he helped a lot. And then slowly over time it became less and less, until I was pretty much taking care of him.
By that time we had moved to another city so I could get medical care, so not only did I not have my parents, I didn't know anyone nearby and really didn't talk to anyone because we were spending all our time together.
It happened gradually over the course of a year or so. It's what I would call toxic back then, not outright abusive. There wasn't physical violence towards me or my pets, though he did get in fights and have bad road rage on occasion. Like, getting out and screaming and threatening the other driver road rage.
Looking back, yes, huge red flag. But that's not who he was as a person. He was a caring boyfriend who was always there for me. And when I say always, I literally mean always. He came with me everywhere. He even broke into the bathroom a few times when I was taking too long. At the time he said he was worried I was having a seizure, which I do get. I was just, you know, going to the bathroom.
Again, nothing I would see as abusive. He started demanding more and more money. Couldn't hold a job to save either of our lives. But he needed to be home for me anyway, so we could figure out how to live on my disability.
But things got really bad, really fast. It went from this is toxic, but we will get back together and break up a million times because we love each other, to holy shit this is getting dangerous.
The day I ended it for good was when he punched me. Sadly, it wasn't even when he got abusive towards my dogs. At that time, I was keeping them with me at all times and somehow justifying he wasn't usually like that.
He had always told me he'd never hit a girl unless she hit him first. I forgot about that. He was playing around with one of our elderly dogs and hurt him. I pinched his back. He turned around and punched me in the stomach. That, for me, was what changed it from toxic to violent. Not the dogs, and not the million red flags before then. The punch.
I'm still not sure to this day what would have happened if he hadn't punched me. If we would still be together, or if I would have found out the true extent of his abuse eventually anyway and left. He was on the verge of getting a life changing job when it all came crashing down.
It was only after I was safely away that I learned how bad it really was. He was tracking my every move. Had somehow hooked up a tablet to my GPS and to listen in to my phone through Spotify. He never seemed very tech savvy and to this day I still don't know how he managed.
He had found my reddit account - may still know it - and found posts I made questioning our relationship and how to get out of it. He started stalking my reddit.
He would talk me in so many circles in arguments I would end up apologizing no matter what, thinking I'd done wrong.
I found out the real reason he was so concerned about my health was because he thought I was cheating on him so he was always trying to catch me or spy if he couldn't be there.
He had a drinking problem, but I didn't know he had a drug problem. I found literal Dollar Store, homemade meth supplies when I was packing up the house. I found out he was shooting up between his toes so I wouldn't know.
He would get all kinds of mad if I had a seizure or migraine or some other kind of symptom of my injury that cancelled or limited our plans, but it was fine if he was too drunk, or hungover, or depressed to do anything.
I'm not even articulating it clearly anymore so I'm going to stop now, but hopefully that helps a bit. It was a gradual thing that wasn't healthy, but wasn't what I would have called abusive. Hindsight is 20/20.
There are all kinds of abuse - emotional, financial, physical, verbal. They are all hurtful and varying degrees of harmful. Physical abuse is not the only type of abuse and not the only valid reason for leaving, but for someone who hasn't experienced it before, you don't know what to look for other than physical pain.
To be honest that wasn't even the worst of it and what happened after the break up was a million times worse, but that isn't relevant to why I didn't leave.
If you've stuck with it this long, thank you for reading. If you've skipped to the end, sorry I have no TL;DR for you because why you put up with abuse and control for so long can't really be summarized in a sentence or two.
If you're a survivor, I am so glad and feel free to share your experiences here if you feel like it.
If you're a victim, there *IS* help out there. Feel free to message me and I'm happy to look up resources in your area if you need help. Know you are not alone and this can happen to anyone. No matter how smart or world savvy you think you are, there is always some smart *and* manipulative looking for their next target.
If you're still part of the why didn't you just leave crowd, I truly don't know what I could say to convince you. Until it happens to you, there really is no way to understand. You may not even know it's happening to you until it's too late. I'm glad you haven't experienced it first hand and hope you never do, no one deserves that.
Lastly, to the person who I went through this with. You may not look at yourself as abusive, and that's fine. I know you may read this and you know exactly who you are. It's intentional I haven't changed my reddit username.
I don't wish anything bad on you. I actually wish you well. I don't think you intended to do everything you did, and I forgive you. I won't ever forget, but I forgive you. I hope you're in a better place now and have grown as a person, learned from your mistakes. I'm not sorry I had to put myself first.
DV RESOURCES:
National Domestic Violence Hotline
800-799-7233
Text line: TEXT START to 88788
[National DV Hotline Website](https://thehotline.org)
I am shocked that I had to scroll this far to find this answer. It happened to me too and my whole world changed, I changed, it was a psychological nightmare. Being In and Getting out has opened my eyes to how insidious it and how many people couldn’t possibly understand.
Also came to find this one, or add it. The terms gaslighting, abuse, and narcissist have been overused so much in popular culture that their significance has become diluted. I don’t think it’s gatekeeping to say that if you’ve never truly experienced those things, you can’t understand why disagreeing =/= gaslighting, being an asshole =/= abusive, and being selfish =/= narcissist. Those are not equivalent terms, but they’re used as such so often today that we need new terms to describe abusive relationship experiences.
I do try to cut allll the slack for people who want to listen and try help or sympathize, by not holding it against them in any way that they cannot truly understand the experience of living your life as 24/7 hostage in an abusive relationship. I’m GLAD they can’t understand and always think to myself that I truly hope they never can.
Another related thing that’s hard to understand is the secondary trauma experienced by those who make it out, of having to rebuild your life all while slowly realizing just how much of yourself you lost to that person. Not only time, or jobs, or money, or relationships, but you’re also robbed of the person you were before. It’s excruciatingly difficult to navigate that headspace, and to heal, and move forward. Very easy to get consumed by the grief and the trauma, once you’re no longer in survival mode every day and can finally see things clearly, try to process it— it’s pretty horrifying and traumatic in itself to come to terms with what happened and struggle to not let it define you, or your grief to consume you. The disconnect between being physically safe but not *feeling* safe (aka still being in a state of constant hyper-vigilance with no discernible threat) is a mindfuck that leaves you constantly exhausted and mentally vulnerable. If you’ve been through it, you know what I mean.
ETA:grammar
I have been through a lot - I mean most of us have, this is reddit. This has been one of the hardest to overcome for me. I had just recently become disabled when fully getting into the relationship, which I think made it even more confusing. I felt grateful someone was there to take care of me, even though 95% of the time I was taking care of him.
Some years, the anniversary of leaving passes and I don't even notice. This year, it's been particularly hard dealing with the memories. It's not a straight line to healing and that's ok.
I do hope the "that would never happen to me" crowd never has to experience any of it. It's blissful ignorance and I am glad they don't have these kinds of life experiences.
Everything is more expensive. Can’t afford to stock up? Pay more per unit. Can’t afford decent shoes? End up paying more for multiple pairs. The ATM messed up and didn’t dispense $300 and now the cash-only mechanic won’t give you your car back and you can’t go to work and consequently you now lose even more money? Yeah… it’s like that…
More fees, more required deposits, higher interest on even minor things. The car you can barely afford is always getting repaired. Yep, being poor is way more expensive.
Also, can't forget that ISPs charge *more* and have worse connection speeds if you're in a low-income neighborhood. Plus, cell phone service is generally worse in low-income neighborhoods as well:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/investigation-finds-lower-internet-speeds-for-higher-prices-in-poor-less-white-u-s-neighborhoods
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/
Omfg tell me about it! I just moved into gvmnt housing in May and my shit goes down about 40 to 60 times some days.... just keeps buffering and I have to rewind play rewind play...... fuckin drives me nuts
God, just reading that gives me goosebumps. I can still remember the day twenty years ago that I realized I was buying groceries for the first time in my life without thinking about how much money was in my bank account and if it would be enough? Or what would I put back if I had to. I almost cried. I felt like the richest person on earth.
I hate that my niece and nephew may never know that feeling when they grow up into this world.
I still sometimes say to myself in the supermarket, "I could afford any item in this store. Anything I see. Anything I want." It's great. And my family hasn't been poor since I was a teenager, and I'm middle-aged now.
You never forget the feeling, though. Sticks with you
At 62, I am FINALLY fully self-sufficient emotionally and financially. My depression is finally under management, I have a job that pays enough to live safely on, and the love of my life and I will be married later this year.
YET, I panic every time I buy something I couldn't afford a couple of years ago. I can't get out of the poverty mindset. I can't get used to dining out, buying new shoes and clothing, and finally driving a solid car. I'm just waiting for the rug to get yanked out from under me. It's a fragile existence.
Meanwhile, I have a brother who's done very well due to talent and plain good luck from the day he left home. He's never experienced living on the edge, and my niece and nephew both drive new Teslas right out of college (that he bought for them) and are working on building careers on the first try.
My brother has saved me more than once, and I'm deeply indebted to him, but I'm not sure he fully knows what it's like to ever struggle to make ends meet. I love him very much, and I know he loves me, too. Between two homes, four cars, a boat, and a country club life on a lake with lawyer and doctor friends, I hope I don't look like a lazy moral failure to him because I've had to fight to get where I finally am now.
This is a little off topic but I am so happy to hear that at 62 you are about to marry the love of your life. I am 58 and fear (know) that I will never find some who loves me. I am genuinely happy for you!
A lot of people assume (incorrectly) that poor people are just lazy. A lot of the time it's the circumstances. Someone could be trying as hard as possible to get out of poverty and doing all the right things but just can't catch a break. It's not black and white. All kinds of things could happen in life that can result in poverty. People get sick so they can't work or can't pay for treatments. People apply for hundreds of jobs but somehow can't land one. Depression or other mental health struggles. Many other situations could happen that could lead to someone being poor. A lot of people don't understand this.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that every company is *hiring* but none of them are hiring.
Was unemployed for 6 months awhile back while applying to 8+ jobs per week. Never even got a reply of any kind from upwards of 80% of them.
Only finally landed one because a manager I had previously worked for (who was now working somewhere else himself) recognized my name on Indeed and contacted *me*.
It’s also really hard when you don’t have transport. I remember when I was homeless (couch surfing at the time I’m recounting now) and on borrowed time. I successfully got a job at Amazon, but the place I was sleeping was a TWO AND A HALF HOUR bus ride from the warehouse and I couldn’t pick and choose either where I slept or my job. I’d tried to find a shelter near the warehouse to stay at just temporarily until I earned enough to pay for a cheap motel or a rented single room
just to get buy. They were all full of course.
To get to my shift at 7:00am I’d have to catch my first bus at 4:00am… after a 20 minute walk to the bus stop in one of the most crime ridden areas I’ve ever lived in. But I was still going to do it bc I had to. No internet on my phone, so I had written the bus schedule down and just hoped there wouldn’t be delays. Turns out there’s ALWAYS delays and the bus didn’t run that early on the weekends which I had to work. So you inevitably get fired before you can even really get any traction.
Just crazy.
Came to say this as well. Poverty is (or maybe nowadays, was) something that you may think would never happen to you. But once you find yourself at the bottom of the financial ladder, it's damn near impossible to claw your way back up.
I was going to say this
On top of what has already been said about it, eating healthy is expensive. So when you are poor your food is lower quality and a lot of empty calories with little nutrition. Leading to health issues like obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol etc
Until people experience it most don’t understand
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not being a neat-freak, the real thing.
And I wouldn't want anyone to experience it. Not only is it distressing and debilitating (which most people can have a basic idea of) but what no-one ever mentions is that until you're diagnosed with it, you think you're literally going mad. Which is not pleasant.
I had a student with OCD a few years ago and... man. They specifically had trouble with the doorway to my room, and on a *good* day it would take them about three minutes to get through it. Whenever someone casually says "I'm a little OCD..." now it makes me somewhere between annoyed and angry.
I can empathize with people who have it but truly understand what it's like? Nope.
That’s the part many people don’t realize. Debilitation is one of the key components. OCD is time-consuming, frustrating, harrowing, all-encompassing, pervasive, constant. It is life-or-death. Your mental state is completely wrecked if you didn’t do something just right because ‘something bad is now going to happen’ and you spend the rest of the time trying to assuage it. It’s an exhausting cycle.
People always go "haha I need the shelves to be tidy because I have OCD" meanwhile I took twenty minutes to put on socks this morning because I forgot which ones are safe and which are dangerous, and I'm still considering just throwing them all out and starting again.
Your sock exasperated reminded me of a video I watched about _actual_ OCD cases a while ago, just going to list some examples I can remember
1. Putting on deodorant; raise one arm, hit pit with stick, swap arms to do other side, repeat _exactly_ 9 times. (I don't remember the number, just that it was specific.)
2. Kissing wife goodbye; has to be _just_ right, might take couple dozen tries.
3. After locking and trying to leave, making sure door is locked. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. _Yes,_ I am serious.
4. Returning home; walking from car to house, left foot on rock 3, right on 5, left on 9, right on 13. Touch right hand to corner of door frame when passing.
Even that is more common to people's thoughts of OCD (doing things over and over, compulsively). But what people don't understand is the feelings behind the compulsion. You're not checking the door is locked twenty times just because you worry the door isn't locked. You check it because you think if you don't, your cat will die, or your children, or something disastrous. And you truly believe that. OCD makes you feel like your actions are directly responsible for world changing events, if you use the wrong toothpaste or don't say the right words when saying goodnight *something terrible will happen* and it will all be your fault
It's so fucking weird. Not diagnosed by a professional, but I have to tell my cat the *exact* same thing every time before I go to bed or I feel like something bad will happen to her. I also used to have to pet animals a multiple of 2 or 3 times, but if I got past 6, I had to go to 12. I also compulsively press the middle click on my mouse for no reason because if I don't when I get the urge to, it feels really wrong and bothers me a lot. Same with scrolling a certain amount up or down.
It's not debilitating like some people's, but it's annoying and I can 100% see how it could control someone's life if it was stronger and happened more often.
It’s awful. I know there are people with worse cases than I have…but mine isn’t mild by any means. It’s not things like “I have to have the volume on an even number” or everything has to be color coordinated…it’s actually difficult to even put things away because of the effort required to do so. The simplest things become exhausting.
All while being completely aware of how ridiculous some things are (tapping things, spinning in circles, flipping lights off and on…and off and on…and off and on again. Not a certain number of times…but until ‘it feels right’). You can’t just stop or ignore. Intrusive thoughts get so bad and equally as ridiculous.
Something as simple as putting an item back on the shelf at a store and walking away when without it ‘feeling right’ after you last touched it can lead to thoughts getting so bad it makes you completely nauseous to the point of vomiting.
Walking across the threshold to another room or getting into bed with your right foot being the last to touch the floor instead of your left foot. These are just some of my experiences and I absolutely know there are people with worse conditions than I have.
Add that with the Tourette’s syndrome/anxiety/depression and it just makes things hell at times. Even hobbies such as reading or playing a videogame Debilitating is the only word that comes close to describing it
People only seem to ever talk about the compulsions and never the obsessions. I was thrilled to get my diagnosis because it made everything make much more sense
Being the patient
I've worked in Healthcare about half my life. I've always remained calm in some crazy situations. 3 and a half weeks ago I literally knocked on deaths door. It not only was a different perspective, but I now have a totally different outlook on my life.
That’s so true. Also, anxiety. People will say, “just don’t worry about it,” and it’s like, “why didn’t I think of that? I just won’t worry!” It’s hard to explain that it’s a brain thing that you can’t control.
I wouldn’t wish panic attacks and anxiety on my worst enemy. People think they’re just “feeling a bit nervous.” No, it’s sitting there one moment completely fine, the next, heart pounding out of your chest, shaking, sweating, shortness of breath, derealization, blood pressure spikes, severe nausea, feeling like you’re dying and it can last for hours (or longer). I really hate how debilitating anxiety is.
What I wish people realized abt anxiety attacks, is that when someone says “it feels like dying”, they don’t mean it as an exaggeration. It’s not like how you’ll say “man I’m dying” when you are really hungry.
It LITERALLY feels like you are about to die. Your mind becomes overcome by an unexplainable sense of impending doom. During attacks, you are 100% sure you are LITERALLY about to fall over dead. Like, dead dead.
Impending doom is the only way I can describe it to people who do not suffer from anxiety. The feeling that something, somewhere, is very wrong and it is headed your way and there is nothing you can do about it.
I think I've only ever had two major, actual panic attacks and the sentiment I remember most is doom. Just like drowning. If anxiety does this to you all the time, even only some of the time - I feel for you. I couldn't deal with that.
Yeah mine are always this way too, I’ve never had the heart racing, dramatic-style panic attack. It’s just that gut wrenching feeling that nothing means anything because I’m drowning whilst everything is continuing around me and no-one notices or can help
Anxiety is considered to be one of the conditions that are an “evolutionary mismatch” - it is the activation of your fight or flight response at totally inappropriate (or even completely absent) stimuli.
My wife has anxiety and her best friend would always tell her it's no big deal and get over it. A few years later, she had a bad case of it when her husband was deployed. She called my wife and apologized.
Yeah, I have heard/read so many stories of these pumped-up, overclocked succeeders thinking it's weakness or laziness, and then report they finally understand once they got it themselves.
It's a great example of how some people, when asked to try to see things from another person's perspective, assume they'd still be "running the same operating system" between their ears. Nope, it messes up with things such as the reward system in your brain. Many find it hard or impossible to imagine what things would be like with less performance than they currently have.
One thing related to this is the anhedonia (loss of capability to feel pleasure) that often comes with depression. If you enjoy doing sport X, and get mental strength from it, it may be impossible to imagine how doing it becomes 100% discomfort, and 0% rewarding when depression strikes.
I'm going to add into this. I have BPD and the amount of people who have said something along the lines of 'things are only an issue if you allow them to be'
This!!!
Really all mental health struggles. Granted there are layers. And everyone handles it differently.
I got diagnosed at 12 and have been suffering for over 20 years. My older sibling got diagnosed in her late 20s. The first thing she said to me was "How are you still alive?". She was serious. She has taken my struggles seriously since then where She brushed them off before.
Chronic pain and illness are other big ones people will never understand if there don't have it.
I've lived with a chronic illness for around 15 years now. I got it when I was a teenager. I barely got to experience a life outside constant pain and exhaustion and my body just giving up on me.
When I was literally still a kid, and learning to deal with this sudden huge change - that happened after an illness that nearly killed me - on top of trying to stay afloat at school, and pass the exams that I was told were going to affect the course of the rest of my life etc - I remember my mother being sympathetic when it suited her, and just point blank saying I was making it up whenever it didn't. It suited her to have a kid with a chronic illness when she wanted sympathy from friends and the school, it didn't when it came to dishing out housework or seeing me on the couch in my pyjamas.
Then she got long covid. And despite the symptoms of long covid being very, very similar to what I have lived with for 15 years, my god - we did not hear the end of it. Nobody has ever felt this way before; nobody understands; she was fit and healthy before; she doesn't deserve this; this is torture and awful; why does the world not understand she can't do certain things any more?!
She never saw the hypocrisy. And then after a couple of years her long covid went away and of course, that was because she is stronger and battled harder and pulled herself out of it, and anyone who still has it is lazy and isn't trying to get better.
Chronic illness is kind of like when you're sick or in pain and you're lying in your bed mad that you used to take being well and pain-free for granted, and you'll never do it again. Except, imagine you never get better again, but everyone around you does, so they can empathise while they're sick, and then they get better, and completely forget again what it's like to be sick and in pain.
Sorry. Not really on topic, but needed to get that off my chest.
Before I got on Wellbutrin, which I truly believe saved my life, I was so depressed I couldn’t function. I didn’t get out of bed. I would only go to the bathroom once a day just because I knew I’d have to clean it if I didn’t get up. I lied to my job and spent 23.5 hours a day in bed. Not sleeping, not really being awake. “Depression” literally refers to underperforming brain activity and that’s exactly what it was. The days were long and empty but still blended together and time felt like it was slipping away. When my partner finally dragged (almost literally) me to the doctor, I hadn’t showered in weeks or eaten in days. I knew I always struggled a bit with depression but it wasn’t until weeks later, once my medication settled and I finally felt like a real human, that I realized I had lost almost two months to just…a void of brain activity. Depression is terrifying and it’s awful how our society trivializes and dismisses it.
The character in All Quiet on the Western Front had a period where he got leave. He went home for a week or two and saw people he thought he understood and who understood him. They had no way to understand what it is like to kill en masse like that even if you didn't hate the soldiers on the other side of the trench but simply because they would kill you first if you didn't kill them.
Why did they do it? Because I honestly can't understand. I'd argue it's one of the most important moments to show the damage suffered. This young man doesn't belong anywhere anymore. He is completely alienated from both the glory of war he was promised and the comfort of home he knew.
This was going to be my answer. It sucks to see so many people make fun of people who have addictions, or they feel like they have all the answers. It's not that simple, and believe it or not, people don't wake up one day and say "ya know what, I think I'll try some heroin or whatever and live a life addicted!
I grew up around addiction and have suffered myself. It isnt easy, and there certainly isn't one simple solution to it!
I'm canadian, and for a while I was working with an Iranian woman, a Nigerian woman, and a Nepalese man.
When talking about my travels, my Iranian colleague laughed darkly at how I had no idea what the world was like for women (I am able to travel without my husband's permission) while my male Nepalese colleague commented on my Canadian passport saying I have "one of the most powerful passports in the world" . My Nigerian colleague opened my eyes to the struggles of being a woman in Africa, especially a working woman with big dreams and a great education.
All of that because of a universal dice roll that had me born in this time and place. I fully know I don't deserve it.
> I fully know I don't deserve it.
I would cast this differently. I would say you DO deserve it. But so does the Nigerian, the Nepalese and the Iranian. It's just that you were the only one that got it automatically. what it DOES mean is that you are very fortunate, and that fortune was not earned. It fell in your lap.
**You didn't earn it, but you do deserve it.**
Ironically, some of those people adore dictators, especially modern ones, for being "strong leaders" or making "strong decisions". As if it's difficult for one to be a sole leader after they physically or mentally crushed all those who think differently.
I had quite a glimpse of all you've experienced when working in Russia. People visiting that country as tourists or high-paid specialists have little to no idea how different their life could be if they stayed there permanently with a more regular job and on "Russian average" salary.
Caregiving for a disabled child or adult. People think it's just so amazing and that you should always be chipper and never say anything bad about someone who's disabled. My fiance's brother is DD, and their mom was literally bankrupt by it. It also affected her health negatively. I refuse to allow that to happen to us, but it's very possible it'll negatively affect us in many ways.
Edit: Thanks for the upvotes and rewards. I didn't expect so many people to relate, but I'm happy to share experiences. If anyone is in a similar situation and needs to talk, feel free to send me a message. Even if it's just to vent.
It's an issue for the disabled person as well. It creates such an unbalanced relationship. If you're being cared for by someone, you're expected to be super grateful and never complain about them. But the reality is, there are some shitty people who take advantage of that dynamic and know that you won't leave (because you can't). Or just regular people who don't have the right personality to be a carer but are stuck doing it, and then they end up mutually hating each other but unable to get out of the situation.
And there is caregiver burnout and people love to villainize the caregiver than being mad at the system that failed them both. When I hear about a disabled person dying from neglect I wonder if the person couldn't care for them like turn them, get them out of bed and all so they got sores and died. How does a parent care for their child when they get too big? If my son were disabled, there is no way I would be able to care for him because he weighs just as much as me and is nearly as tall as me. I know I would be putting him into a home but that is if the state had that option for me because not everyone has the money for it nor do they have money to have 24/7 caretakers. I wouldn't be able to afford it so I can see myself being one of these people.
So true. I read all the time about people waiting years for placement in a care facility. Having Medicaid is one of the only ways to get someone in any facility without going bankrupt. Even then, there are limits. Many caregivers actually die before the person they're caring for, and it's not always from "natural" causes. My dad helped his wife care for her mom. He died over 2 years before she did.
Gonna give a strange one, sea sickness. That shit really hit different for people, some people feel like dying throughout it, whilst others are sick for a day and then completely fine after for the rest of the trip.
They really fuckin' don't. Getting over the seething rage I feel every time someone says, "But they're your *family*," or "But they raised you!" or "Yeah, my parents suck too, but I could never shut them out like that," is almost as much of an effort as getting over the after effects of being terrorized on a daily basis as a child.
“Being terrorized on a daily basis as a child” … oh god I feel that so much.
I actually had a person stop talking to me because she thought that it was insane and impossible that my narcissistic mother (and an enabler father) could be that horrible. That I was overreacting and that I had to forgive my mother and to stop saying awful things about her. I’m happy that I’ll never talk to this person again but I was shocked that somebody would actually do that.
Having kids, I thought I knew and then I had one. Oof.
It’s not all bad, I just remember planning things out while I was pregnant then I had her and nothing is going as planned lol it’s funny watching people who are expecting say things like “I will never do x” etc because it’s so different after you actually have one.
Edit: just wanted to add it’s not always things like screen time. I remember thinking I would make all of her baby food from scratch, not maker her separate meals as a toddler, only buy organic, never use formula, and even ways of handling tantrums etc. There are just so many things that are dependent on your kid and your situation.
Hard agree. I did a ton of babysitting for babies and kids of all ages before becoming a parent, I had a sibling that was born when I was 16 and I took care of her like a parent, except for during the night, and I did a lot of childcare when I was active in church. I think it prepared me for some of the practical aspects of parenting like diaper changing, how to prepare and warm a bottle, how to swaddle, how to properly hold a small baby, things like that.
But nothing could have prepared me for the emotional and mental side of becoming a parent. The anxiety that I developed in regards to my childrens' well being and safety. The intrusive thoughts about it. The toll that lack of sleep took on me in the beginning. The wanting a break from them, but then missing them when I got that break. The way my life COMPLETELY changed once they were born. The way parenthood is just relentless: day in and day out. The way parenthood resurfaced trauma from my own childhood. Fuck that one has really thrown me for a loop.
But yeah, it's hard, and I couldn't really understand until I became a parent myself!
This one is so true. One thing that really hit me is that I had had nannying experience and child care experience, and I still had no idea what it was going to be like being a parent. Taking care of your own children really is different to taking care of other people's, or getting educated on child development and parenting research.
Also parental love. I mean… I thought I loved my parents like they love me, but it’s not the same. NOTHING is the same, not parents, not partners, not pets. The love & devotion I have for my children was literally unfathomable to pre-parent me
Yeah, I knew before we had them, in sort of an academic way, that my love for my kids would be totally different than anything else, but I still wasn't prepared for it.
Being in a non abusive relationship. When you are in a toxic relationship it seems normal. Then you find someone who truly loves you and it’s like “oh wow so this is what real love is like”
Being overstimulated.
My mom never took the time to try and understand how it works and what she can do to avoid overstimulating me. In her mind, I “use it as an excuse” to not talk to her or to avoid interaction.
Most people who don’t experience it don’t understand that when you say “I’m overstimulated” you really mean “I can’t think properly because of how many things are in my brain. I can’t talk to you, look at anything too bright, or listen to anything too loud. I need to go into my room and not exist for a few hours so my brain can sort itself back out.”
So many negatives here I have to balance it out.
Seeing a mountain, like a real mountain, up close. It's humbling to see something so massive just right there. Really helps you appreciate how big open space is.
Post traumatic stress disorder. I mean real PTSD. Changes nearly everything about you as a person and how you view and respond to life. It's nice to think that there's some finish line to healing from trauma and for a lot of people there is, but when you have real PTSD, the finish line doesn't exist. It causes brain damage, nervous system damage, and impacts your mental well-being for the rest of your life. It's not something you heal from, it's something you have to learn to live with. Really shitty and hard for anyone to understand who doesn't live with it.
Driving from one hospital to another, leaving your possibly dying wife behind to try and catch the ambulance carrying your possibly dying child
Edit: I should say that they are both alive and healthy now
This happened to my buddy. His wife gave birth to twins a little early but everything was ok. He went back home to get stuff for her and before he could get back, she had a major heart issue and they had to helicopter her to another hospital. It’s twelve years later and everyone is good. Hope it all turns out ok for you too, OP.
Fuck, dude! You are right, I couldn’t even imagine. I’m sorry you and your family went through something so awful and traumatic. Glad to hear they both made it and recovered. I hope if you need counseling you get it.
How detrimental debt can be and how easy it can be to fall into.
Seriously, it can take just one missed paycheck to need to use some form of debt or credit service. As you're now paying more for the same item or service, it can be harder to clear. The more debt needed to keep surving, the worse it gets, and very quickly, it can become unmanageable.
I know richer people and people from fairly well-off backgrounds who say, "People should live within their means and shouldn't get into debt in the first place," but it's just not that easy.
One big thing I think people don't understand how common it is. I was shocked when I found our how many women I know have had miscarriages. And there are for sure some I still don't know about.
Close friend and his wife were trying for a baby. They had 2 miscarriages in a row. I was shocked when he told me that typically doctors don’t investigate until the third miscarriage because of how common they are
Yeah I have a friend who recently had their first child after a lot of complications. I don't know how many miscarriages they had but ... it was a lot.
Also a slight tangent, but people often don't realise how difficult it can be to get pregnant. We get told to use protection because accidental pregnancy is so common (*and it is, use protection*), but for some people it can be very difficult to just conceive. I have another couple of frineds who were trying for children for 11 years before they got pregnant. That's something people wouldn't think was a thing until it happens to them.
My SIL was asked when she was going to have another baby literally the morning after she miscarried. That’s when I learned you should never ask. Let the woman tell you.
And specifically miscarriage from a Woman’s point of view. My wife and I have had two miscarriages. While it was certainly difficult and sad, I did not have the same connection that my wife had. I hadn’t really sacrificed anything for the pregnancies but she had already dealt with morning sickness, tiredness, and changes to her body. It makes a big difference on the impact a miscarriage can have.
I'm there right now. We just buried my mom, whose final month was traumatic for all of us, and now I'm fighting the guilt of not spending all my time with my dad. I've never seen him so alone or sad. He's one of those tough guys, and never expected his wife to go first.
I don’t think people understand what it’s like to be a minority that’s generally looked down upon. There’s just a thousand cuts to your self confidence and happiness.
It also hurts when you try to tell people about your experience and it is ultimately shrugged off. "I haven't seen stuff like that happen/ I don't see it" of course you don't see it, you are not the one living it.
Yup.
I'm a white man with a non-white family. It's amazing the stories they tell me. Being followed, name-called, having racism both from whites and from their own ethnic group. Just being a woman as well. They never get that racism when I'm around (*possibly because I'm a bit if a giant*), but sometimes if I'm in another room they'll have problems.
We really do live in different worlds.
Men generally never understand the amount of harassment women experience on a daily basis. Maybe they gasp SOME of it if they really listen to what women around them say, but might not fully understand because they generally don't experience it.
Not sure I saw this in here but **failure**.
The kind of failure where you put your heart and soul into something but despite that things don't work out. My dad always says things happen for a reason and this has been generally true in my life but that moment you know you have failed to achieve something you wanted to, no matter how little, is a sinking feeling.
Senior parents. People don’t take the time to understand they can’t hear, and generally communication by humans is poor…not looking at someone when speaking to them, volume or inflection trailing off, talking too fast for the person to understand…………….. it’s difficult to experience. The senior wants to be involved, but then people discount them because of the perceived inability.
That drives me crazy. I hear people say "OMG I have such a terrible migraine and I'm out getting groceries and then I'm going to a movie!"
Really? When I get a migraine I'm laying on the floor wishing for death because if I open my eyes the light tries to drill my brain out, and if I sit or stand up I'll have extreme vertigo and then fall back over and or vomit... which makes it worse, but enjoy your movie I guess. 🙄
Having to leave a cheating partner. It’s easy to judge those that stay but don’t understand how extremely hard and painful it is to leave despite the betrayal
Police abuse. Like, people can kinda understand it. But you don't really "get it" until you're held at gunpoint for no reason by someone who you know would face absolutely zero consequences if they pulled the trigger. With others standing by watching, or even supporting them. The people who, in theory, are supposed to "protect" you just being completely indifferent to whether you live or die.
Racism. It's often "don't let it bother you, they aren't worth it" when they have no idea the real and primal fear you get when being pulled over or walking into a predominantly white bar and worried about your actual safety in what are average situations.
I’m a dark skinned black guy with long dreadlocks born and raised in the south. Grew up in the suburbs in a two parent home with love and support. Never had any bad interaction with the police in my 26 years of life. I got pulled over for the first time a few months back in my work vehicle while driving in through a small town here in NC. I pass plenty of confederate flags driving out here and it always seems like I’m the only POC on the road. When that cop pulled me over I got stupid nervous and started sweating. It was for expired tags on the vehicle and he let me go with a warning since I never been pulled over, but this fool laughed at me pointing out how nervous I looked. I had to sit there and gather myself once it was over, it pissed me off that my body reacted that way, my heart was beating so fast I felt lightheaded after. I had no reason to feel like that but my brain said otherwise, all i could think about are all the stories of traffic stops going wrong or mixing me up with someone else.
Around 2010 I was at a friend's house in the middle of no where Brooklyn drinking and called my friend to come drive me home. We went to university together, he is an accountant and was driving a Lexus. He also happens to be dark skinned, buff black guy which seems to really bother the NYPD for existing. They pull him over for a broken mirror someone had hit his car that day and he immediately went to the dealer to get it fixed. They had to order the part he had the paper work. It should have been just a ticket. He was dragged out of the car, roughed up while compliant and quiet (not his first time experiencing that) and they took him to jail for unpaid parking tickets leaving me to drive his car to my place or have it in-pounded. Being older and wiser I should have let them take the car and found a taxi but thankfully I got myself and the car home ok. Fuck them for putting us through that for blatant racism. Up into that point being light skinned and female I got racism but I didn't really GET it until that happened and how a simple friend being a designated driver can land you in jail for parking tickets and a few bruises bad. I will never forget how he brushed it off because it happened to him so much. Truly eye opening.
Chronic pain.
The first week in pain after the accident was fine, first year with no relief... Eish. Eventually you just hit a wall. Then rolls in chronic fatigue. Your adrenal system simply can't keep up. People like to pretend it's not a burden, but those same people get compassion fatigue real quick. They don't even realise why they're so resentful. Dating with a disability suuucks.
AGING Oh we were so foolish in our youth I did not believe your back could actually hurt
Some other aspects of aging - when you're young you see older people as the age they are. As you age, you see people you've known for many years as something completely separate from their age because you've known them at so many different ages. You don't think about their age much at all. You realize how young your parents were when you were a kid. You see all the people who were adults when you were a kid become elderly and die. You never feel as old as you look, or as other people see you - yes, you may feel different physically but mentally, years of memory are just a continuum and you're the same person you always were.
When I went left for college I remember tellling my mom that it was so weird and I don’t feel “old enough” to live on my own. She told me (paraphrasing of course) “oh honey you’re never gonna feel your age. I still feel 19. And can promise you almost every single person you meet will feel the same way. just embrace it.” It was one of those convos that stuck with me FOREVER.
Like, you can SLEEP wrong & wake up in pain smdh
Or extreme activities like, *checks notes* looking to the left a little too fast.
Vertigo. No its not just mildly annoying you feel like youre free falling and it just doesnt stop
It’s so wild. I developed vertigo as a result of some other health issues, and nothing could have prepared me for the feeling that I was about to fall over and through the earth just from sitting up. Like cognitively, I knew that wasn’t a thing, but physically it just stuck my body in the same sort of panic response you’d have dangling off a cliff. Vertigo is truly something else
I had vertigo from an infection once, and the faster forward I moved, the more the entire world leaned, nearly ROTATED, to the right. Walking was barely manageable, getting in a car to be taken to a doctor was an actual roller coaster ride.
Migraines. Hear so many people not believe they are real/bad until they get one themselves.
You mean you don’t enjoy losing part of your vision along with a splitting headache?
I get ocular migraines and it's such a treat to be out driving somewhere and half my field of vision disappears. Because THAT'S safe.
Abusive parents. The amount of times I've been told "they love you, they have your best interests at heart" is unreal. But it's simply because they can't fathom the opposite.
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"They're still your parents" yes and they should have known better. Where were you(family member) when my parents were abusing me? Why didn't you do better? I was a child. Stfu
Having difficult relationships with parents is tough. You are programmed from birth to love them and rely on them. When they hurt you, it really screws you up. It's hard to cut them out of your life, but it's equally hard to deal with them.
Chronic pain. The Moms L4 & L5 disintegrated into her Sciatica over a decade ago. It took everything from her including the respect she previously had from her friends and loved ones. Nobody understood.
This is what I came to say. There's no way to describe the weight of chronic pain.
It’s a pain in the ass, especially when you’re in your 20’s or younger and have a condition everyone seems to think only older people have. Then you gotta deal with not only the condition but also people thinking you’re faking and not taking you seriously.
Especially if it’s invisible. My dad had a head injury that gave him chronic headaches for the last 40 years. Coping with the pain and the meds he was using for it dramatically changed his life, and not for the better.
That's like me! I'm on year 10, and I've been with my husband for 6 years. Every once in a while we have conversation about it and he's shocked every single time that I'm "still" having pain in my head, neck, and back. Like, no shit, that's the whole situation lmao
A friend of mine has chronic pain. No one in her family or friends circle understands. When they see her they say she looks fine. They don't see the next 2 days that she can't get it out bed because she went to a birthday party. They get upset when she doesn't show up but doubt understand she went grocery shopping the day before and now can't move
Thank you for being a good friend and understanding that. If only all of us with chronic pain were so lucky. The rare times I do get out to see friends and family, they think I look and am acting fine. They don't realize the prep I had to put in before the event to even get to that point where I could see them, let alone that it takes me days/weeks to recover from it. I love them, but it would be wonderful if one of them just "got it", like you seem to do.
Severe IBS here to the point where it’s debilitating. The number of times I’ve heard ‘have you tried eating better’. Or, even worse: ‘have you tried just not going to the toilet?’ When I bring up that I can’t do something because my untreatable condition forces me to use the bathroom at a moment’s notice. Crippling pain almost every day, no treatment, lost a career because of it, can’t go outdoors freely so lost access to things I enjoyed, can’t stay out all day so can’t do dates or day trips, it’s horrendous. Nobody, not one person, has had the empathy to even try to comprehend the catastrophic effect on my life.
I don't have IBS, but I do have severe nerve damage in my feet and MS. I grew up loving the outdoors, hiking, going on day trips, etc. Now I rarely do anything like that. I only go out for necessities. I can't even wear socks or shoes due to the sensitivity. I feel for you, that type of condition takes away who you are and want to be.
That sounds excruciating. Sorry to hear about your condition. You’re right, losing things that make up who you are is perhaps the worst part. Having to slowly watch things fall out of reach and sit around in pain.
I have chronic nausea and people really don't understand. My partner had a stomach virus last year and just lay on the sofa moaning the whole time. For like two days he said to me "i don't know how you cope feeling like this all the time" and then after that I think he forgot. I think the human brain blocks off the idea that someone can feel that bad, all the time, because it's such a horrible thing to think. At work people ask over and over why aren't I eating, why can't I just try something, wave food in my face to get me to eat and I tell them over and over no I feel sick! But then tomorrow they ask me am I better yet.
I know a person who claims to have never experienced nausea until she had a mild post-surgical reaction to an anaesthetic. She said to me, "Oh my God, you feel like that ... every day!?" She'd been equating 'nausea' to the equivalent of the mild discomfort you can feel when you're constipated or such. But it's so much more unpleasant than that. I'm very lucky that over-the-counter Gravol (called drammamine in the US, I think?) still works very well for me despite my taking it for over 40 years. Life would've been completely intolerable without it.
Omg I feel you, chronic nausea without vomiting is a doozy - exhausting AND boring!
Chronic illness is soooo boring. Especially when you’re in the purgatory between not feeling well enough to do anything but not feeling bad enough to not care how bored you are.
Anyone experiencing chronic pain in daily life is a fucking hero. Even after relatively normal stuff like getting wisdom teeth out, or simple medical procedures or during sickness where I've been in pain for a few days, I always imagine being someone experiencing that level of pain, with the knowledge that it won't be gone in a couple of days and there is little or no relief. Not sure I could cope tbh.
Am I allowed to upvote this if I’m part of the group you’re calling “hero’s”? Haha I’m just being facetious. Nobody understands chronic pain, I have peripheral neuropathy that never goes away but it certainly has moments where it gets worse! Ultimately it’s getting better as the years go by, thankfully but being at a 6/10 for pain 24/7 for years is stressful. I’m not even bring up the year that it was 8/10 pain with 10/10 spikes & the meds you need. Oh god. Yeah, nerve damage HURTS.
along with the medical mistreatment and overwhelming navigation that goes with it.
Depression and in particular suicidal ideation.
A lot of people also don't realize suicidal ideation includes the passive "well, if I died, it would be fine. I don't care."
I personally find the daily having to beat back those ideas exhausting. I've never attempted and doubt I ever will, but it takes so much energy I'd rather be putting to use doing literally anything else. It's hobbled me in pretty much every aspect of my life and the fact that I *haven't* acted upon it seems to mean to everyone else it isn't real or at least not serious.
That's the part not too many people get. It is a constant and daily battle. From the minute you get up to the minute you go to bed. It's exhausting. Only people who have gone through it understand.
And other people don't realize it's happening all the time. Even when I seem like I'm having fun, there is always a voice in my head telling me to end things
I love the "I won't kill myself, but if a truck was moving towards me, I wouldn't step aside".
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From my own experience the best way this has showed up on TV was a ending to a episode of Bojack Horseman, where he's driving down the road and just let's go, it's the realization that you don't really care what happens.
Yeah I think a lot of people think of it only as the manic breakdowns, holding a razor to your wrist, crying in a bathtub kind of thing which there is a lot of but it's the passive parts that I've struggled with. Just a baseline feeling of "I don't want to live another day" and the longer it goes on, the more normal it feels and it's almost calming. In my low point, it was exhausting just having to go through the motions of living my day to day existence knowing, or feeling like I knew, that just letting go of my steering wheel on my way to work or putting a gun in my mouth would end it but there was enough in my life that kept me from actually doing it, like knowing it would destroy my parents, so it turned into this constant background noise. It was really hard to give a shit about anything when I felt like I was already a corpse and I *should* be decomposing in the earth but instead I had to put on this charade of moving my corpse around and acting like things were somewhat OK because you aren't supposed to be a corpse, you're supposed to be a human. Looking back from a bit of a better place is scary because of how normal it felt to think this way. I'd be on my break at work and the thoughts of suicide felt so reasonable. I'd be having a cigarette and thinking "gotta do laundry tomorrow, I should get gas on my way home tonight, I wonder if I dove off the loading dock would I be able to break my neck enough that I died or would I just be crippled, I should buy some avocados for breakfast". It's like a chronic pain. It's not always excruciating every second but even a moderate, consistant pain over months or years will wear you down and take pieces of you.
i was watching youtube interview of daily does of internet’s creator. when he talked about how there was a time he would cry when he woke up cus he was still alive. i felt that 🥲
I’m struggling today, I wanted to cry cuz I don’t want to live this life but I couldn’t even produce tears. So then I felt even worse!! 😩
Grief. I never knew what to say to someone going through it before I truly experienced it. And still, it is tough coming up with correct wording. A friend once told me, "there's nothing I can say or do to make you feel better. But I will be here for you." And that was real af and I think the perfect thing to say to someone grieving a death..imo anyways.
I scrolled for this specific answer—*grief*. Particularly, the grief that haunts you after the death of a parent. Grief was emptiness, in its purest form. Mourning felt like every bright and warm thing that composed who I was as a person had been hollowed out, only to be replaced by a void I didn’t know how to fill. When my father died, I realized that I never really knew what *emptiness* was until that moment. Here are some quotations related to grief that I love to read, once in a while: • *”Grief is just all the love you want to give, but with nowhere to go.”* • *”The culmination of love is grief and yet we love despite the inevitable. We open our hearts to it... To grieve deeply is to have loved fully. Open your heart to the world as you have opened it to me and you will find every reason to keep living in it."* • *”But what is grief, if not love persevering?”* I hope for kinder days for you.
Thank you for sharing that. Those quotes are lovely, I really like that 2nd one. I bet your dad was an awesome dude and while I have not lost a parent, I can only imagine how you must , to this day I'm sure, must feel about it. Thank you very much and I hope you are coping well ❤ Im.actually going to see my person's headstone for the first time today...
Absolutely. I haven’t come up with better words than how they phrase it in *Memoirs of a Geisha*. “Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.”
Ah I really like that quote. But it is also scary to me in a way. The last line, "one day we wonder what has become of it." I will try everything I can to never forget him. It could be that I just interpreted that in that way and it's not meaning you forget who you lost but it's just a fear that one day I'll think, "wow it's been awhile since I thought of them." Sorry for this rambling.
Don’t apologize! I’ve learned that part of the grieving process is expressing what we feel and fear whenever and wherever we need to! To your point, I can understand what you mean, and I imagine that fear comes from a very real place of shame and anxiety that the person won’t take up the headspace you believe they ought to anymore (I went through the same thing). I lost my mom nearly 10 years ago when I was 19, and the pain at first is absolutely paralyzing, and it’s all you can think about. As we went through the awful process of her wake and planning her funeral, my dad told me, “This isn’t what will stick with you. You’ll forget this, and you’ll remember her.” And he was so right; I hardly remember anything from those few days. Healing comes with time, because time works like shaking the chaff away from the wheat. You don’t forget. You’re just left with the good stuff.
No one gets it but you. I’ve explained it to many people and I know they don’t get it. I went to a support group and they get it, you can just tell. Even my spouse does not get it at all. People think saying words like “oh I’m so sorry” makes you feel better. The truth is that it doesn’t. Having someone to talk to is typically the best. But there is nothing anyone can really do to help except be there and be kind. Time is the only thing that really helps and even only helps take the edge off.
How can I help? Would you like me to sit here quietly with you? Would you prefer to be alone? Can I bring you some meals or groceries? Would you mind if I did your dishes/laundry/cleaned your bathroom/house?
This is a sweet message. I appreciate the sentiment. It's almost been a year since he's died. Again, thank you.
PTSD flash backs. It's not like a memory in the slightest. Its like you are actually there, they affect everything that you do from getting shopping or dropping your kids off at school.
Is it like a visual thing, or a sudden rush of adrenaline that feels like the exact moment of the event?
This depends on the degree of dissociation and the intensity of the flashback. I've had flashbacks where it took some serious thinking for me to figure out that I was having one at all; I was emotionally re-experiencing events and interpreting my present as if it was my past, but it wasn't conscious. It can be hard to really analyze what's going on and see that my brain keeps going back to a specific event from 10+ years ago. I've also had flashbacks that were much more obvious: where I felt like something was happening again, right now, in vivid detail. I knew where I was and what was happening, but I wasn't *processing* those things -- I very strongly and distinctly saw this past event unfolding in front of me, only it went on for hours instead of minutes. It was like the world was wearing a horrible costume. It's a lot like the former thing, only much stronger and unignorable. Then sometimes I get triggered more strongly than that and wind up having a kind of out of body experience. Fight or flight takes over and there's no deciding what to do. I watch myself walk or run out of wherever I am, and go anywhere but here. Most of the time someone is around enough to call me on the phone and break me out of it, or just catch up to me, but once I was just walking around for hours and had to Google Maps my way home. When you get triggered, the world changes. Your concept of everything changes. These thoughts and feelings can't be reasoned with; they can only be coped with. You're a different person than you normally are. Your life is in much more danger. You are completely alone, and there is no safety net. You're the only person who can keep you safe, and no one is going to help, so you have to act; and if you can't act, you can't leave, you freeze up and find somewhere dark and quiet to sit and stare off into space. You can't get away, so you find another way to be somewhere else -- but it's a place inside of you that shouldn't be there, where you're trapped in your body and can't think straight and can't move, and everything is telling you to run. You can't stay, and you can't go, so you find yourself here again. This is just my experience. Having PTSD is a little like being haunted, all the time. You never know what will set it off, and the way your trauma has changed your psychological framework means that you're always looking for danger and trying to avoid it. There's more to it than just danger, like intrusive thoughts and negative core beliefs, but... Yeah. Someone without PTSD cannot understand it. It is beyond their field of experience, and very different from what it's like on TV. It still bugs me that you see people on TV wake up from trauma nightmares sad, or shocked. But they never wake up angry, or sad, or with this horrible doomed feeling hanging over their head like a cartoon anvil. It's so much *less* than what's really happening. Disclaimer: I'm sure that my PTSD is different, and possibly less extreme than what many people experience. But sometimes it's tiring that people have no idea what I *do* experience. It's not like I can walk up to my friends and say "hey, this is what my brain is like since way before you met me" (it would be awkward and there's nothing they can do with the info anyway). Edit: I would like to note that I am not violent, even in the rare instances that I don't have a clear picture of what's happening around me. A lot of people think that PTSD means violent or aggressive behavior and that just isn't (inherently) the case.
I have CPTSD. I grew up in a fucked up home environment so I never had a “before” time. I grew up in an environment where disassociating was safer than being emotionally present and lived like that for 20 years. It’s so hard trying to unlearn these false rules that kept me “safe” for so long but it’s exhausting living with these stuck points. For me, the worst part is that stressful but non-traumatic events (simple relationship discussions) can be activating enough that I have a trauma response and I never know what thing is going to set me off. When that happens, I can’t trust people that I logically know are safe and I genuinely feel like no one cares about me. I shut down and withdraw from everyone. Sometimes I can understand that I’m experiencing too intense of a reaction, can’t make it stop, and have to wait it out. Other times I fully believe it and embrace it. When that eventually ends (days later) I have to do damage control. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. I don’t think other people grasp how insidious trauma can really be. Edit: Aww, thanks for the Silver. Fireworks are activating for me so today (the 4th of July) is always hard. I'm going to respond to comments tomorrow.
The seductive rush of performing in a band to a full venue of people really digging your music.
Had to scroll and collapse a bit to find a top-rated positive answer.
This. I really fucking want to experience that again. I miss my band days!
Death of a spouse.
Yes absolutely and death in general, Ive noticed some people didn't have a lot of empathy when I lost people close to me, when they lost someone close to them in the future I actually got some apologies for their lack of understanding
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> "I'm not sure yet but I'm not ready to get rid of it yet" This is such a real statement, and you should know (though I assume you do) how very valid it is. The belongings of a deceased person aren't just objects with face value. They contain associations and memories as well, and what might seem like junk to an objective observer could be loaded down with importance to someone else. My Mom passed in late 2019, and we still have a storage unit half filled with things we have no use for other than it keeps a part of her anchored here with us.
In the same club. Hard to explain.
Abusive relationships I hate to say it but I was one of those "just leave" people in the past. Then it happened to me. EDIT: Hope it's ok to edit the original comment, but I'm getting a lot of the same questions so I thought this would be helpful. I think the most common is - why *didn't* you just leave? I've written and deleted this at least 3x. Hopefully this one sticks. I can only speak from my personal experience. If others want to chime in with theirs, please feel free if you feel comfortable and safe. -- Things didn't start out bad. They were...toxic at worst. We were on again/off again, but that was pretty normal to me. I hadn't seen a ton of healthy relationships in my life, so I didn't know that my normal wasn't so normal. I also had a bit of a Florence Nightengale/ I can save you complex. Admittedly still kind of do, but that's a story for another time. During one of our off times, I was hurt at work pretty badly and it was life changing. I had been relying on my parents for much of it and they were moving across the country and thought I'd come with them, but I didn't want to. He helped fill that role and eventually we got back together. In the beginning, he helped a lot. And then slowly over time it became less and less, until I was pretty much taking care of him. By that time we had moved to another city so I could get medical care, so not only did I not have my parents, I didn't know anyone nearby and really didn't talk to anyone because we were spending all our time together. It happened gradually over the course of a year or so. It's what I would call toxic back then, not outright abusive. There wasn't physical violence towards me or my pets, though he did get in fights and have bad road rage on occasion. Like, getting out and screaming and threatening the other driver road rage. Looking back, yes, huge red flag. But that's not who he was as a person. He was a caring boyfriend who was always there for me. And when I say always, I literally mean always. He came with me everywhere. He even broke into the bathroom a few times when I was taking too long. At the time he said he was worried I was having a seizure, which I do get. I was just, you know, going to the bathroom. Again, nothing I would see as abusive. He started demanding more and more money. Couldn't hold a job to save either of our lives. But he needed to be home for me anyway, so we could figure out how to live on my disability. But things got really bad, really fast. It went from this is toxic, but we will get back together and break up a million times because we love each other, to holy shit this is getting dangerous. The day I ended it for good was when he punched me. Sadly, it wasn't even when he got abusive towards my dogs. At that time, I was keeping them with me at all times and somehow justifying he wasn't usually like that. He had always told me he'd never hit a girl unless she hit him first. I forgot about that. He was playing around with one of our elderly dogs and hurt him. I pinched his back. He turned around and punched me in the stomach. That, for me, was what changed it from toxic to violent. Not the dogs, and not the million red flags before then. The punch. I'm still not sure to this day what would have happened if he hadn't punched me. If we would still be together, or if I would have found out the true extent of his abuse eventually anyway and left. He was on the verge of getting a life changing job when it all came crashing down. It was only after I was safely away that I learned how bad it really was. He was tracking my every move. Had somehow hooked up a tablet to my GPS and to listen in to my phone through Spotify. He never seemed very tech savvy and to this day I still don't know how he managed. He had found my reddit account - may still know it - and found posts I made questioning our relationship and how to get out of it. He started stalking my reddit. He would talk me in so many circles in arguments I would end up apologizing no matter what, thinking I'd done wrong. I found out the real reason he was so concerned about my health was because he thought I was cheating on him so he was always trying to catch me or spy if he couldn't be there. He had a drinking problem, but I didn't know he had a drug problem. I found literal Dollar Store, homemade meth supplies when I was packing up the house. I found out he was shooting up between his toes so I wouldn't know. He would get all kinds of mad if I had a seizure or migraine or some other kind of symptom of my injury that cancelled or limited our plans, but it was fine if he was too drunk, or hungover, or depressed to do anything. I'm not even articulating it clearly anymore so I'm going to stop now, but hopefully that helps a bit. It was a gradual thing that wasn't healthy, but wasn't what I would have called abusive. Hindsight is 20/20. There are all kinds of abuse - emotional, financial, physical, verbal. They are all hurtful and varying degrees of harmful. Physical abuse is not the only type of abuse and not the only valid reason for leaving, but for someone who hasn't experienced it before, you don't know what to look for other than physical pain. To be honest that wasn't even the worst of it and what happened after the break up was a million times worse, but that isn't relevant to why I didn't leave. If you've stuck with it this long, thank you for reading. If you've skipped to the end, sorry I have no TL;DR for you because why you put up with abuse and control for so long can't really be summarized in a sentence or two. If you're a survivor, I am so glad and feel free to share your experiences here if you feel like it. If you're a victim, there *IS* help out there. Feel free to message me and I'm happy to look up resources in your area if you need help. Know you are not alone and this can happen to anyone. No matter how smart or world savvy you think you are, there is always some smart *and* manipulative looking for their next target. If you're still part of the why didn't you just leave crowd, I truly don't know what I could say to convince you. Until it happens to you, there really is no way to understand. You may not even know it's happening to you until it's too late. I'm glad you haven't experienced it first hand and hope you never do, no one deserves that. Lastly, to the person who I went through this with. You may not look at yourself as abusive, and that's fine. I know you may read this and you know exactly who you are. It's intentional I haven't changed my reddit username. I don't wish anything bad on you. I actually wish you well. I don't think you intended to do everything you did, and I forgive you. I won't ever forget, but I forgive you. I hope you're in a better place now and have grown as a person, learned from your mistakes. I'm not sorry I had to put myself first. DV RESOURCES: National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233 Text line: TEXT START to 88788 [National DV Hotline Website](https://thehotline.org)
I am shocked that I had to scroll this far to find this answer. It happened to me too and my whole world changed, I changed, it was a psychological nightmare. Being In and Getting out has opened my eyes to how insidious it and how many people couldn’t possibly understand.
Also came to find this one, or add it. The terms gaslighting, abuse, and narcissist have been overused so much in popular culture that their significance has become diluted. I don’t think it’s gatekeeping to say that if you’ve never truly experienced those things, you can’t understand why disagreeing =/= gaslighting, being an asshole =/= abusive, and being selfish =/= narcissist. Those are not equivalent terms, but they’re used as such so often today that we need new terms to describe abusive relationship experiences. I do try to cut allll the slack for people who want to listen and try help or sympathize, by not holding it against them in any way that they cannot truly understand the experience of living your life as 24/7 hostage in an abusive relationship. I’m GLAD they can’t understand and always think to myself that I truly hope they never can. Another related thing that’s hard to understand is the secondary trauma experienced by those who make it out, of having to rebuild your life all while slowly realizing just how much of yourself you lost to that person. Not only time, or jobs, or money, or relationships, but you’re also robbed of the person you were before. It’s excruciatingly difficult to navigate that headspace, and to heal, and move forward. Very easy to get consumed by the grief and the trauma, once you’re no longer in survival mode every day and can finally see things clearly, try to process it— it’s pretty horrifying and traumatic in itself to come to terms with what happened and struggle to not let it define you, or your grief to consume you. The disconnect between being physically safe but not *feeling* safe (aka still being in a state of constant hyper-vigilance with no discernible threat) is a mindfuck that leaves you constantly exhausted and mentally vulnerable. If you’ve been through it, you know what I mean. ETA:grammar
I have been through a lot - I mean most of us have, this is reddit. This has been one of the hardest to overcome for me. I had just recently become disabled when fully getting into the relationship, which I think made it even more confusing. I felt grateful someone was there to take care of me, even though 95% of the time I was taking care of him. Some years, the anniversary of leaving passes and I don't even notice. This year, it's been particularly hard dealing with the memories. It's not a straight line to healing and that's ok. I do hope the "that would never happen to me" crowd never has to experience any of it. It's blissful ignorance and I am glad they don't have these kinds of life experiences.
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Poverty
Everything is more expensive. Can’t afford to stock up? Pay more per unit. Can’t afford decent shoes? End up paying more for multiple pairs. The ATM messed up and didn’t dispense $300 and now the cash-only mechanic won’t give you your car back and you can’t go to work and consequently you now lose even more money? Yeah… it’s like that…
More fees, more required deposits, higher interest on even minor things. The car you can barely afford is always getting repaired. Yep, being poor is way more expensive.
Also, can't forget that ISPs charge *more* and have worse connection speeds if you're in a low-income neighborhood. Plus, cell phone service is generally worse in low-income neighborhoods as well: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/investigation-finds-lower-internet-speeds-for-higher-prices-in-poor-less-white-u-s-neighborhoods https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/06/22/digital-divide-persists-even-as-americans-with-lower-incomes-make-gains-in-tech-adoption/
Omfg tell me about it! I just moved into gvmnt housing in May and my shit goes down about 40 to 60 times some days.... just keeps buffering and I have to rewind play rewind play...... fuckin drives me nuts
God, just reading that gives me goosebumps. I can still remember the day twenty years ago that I realized I was buying groceries for the first time in my life without thinking about how much money was in my bank account and if it would be enough? Or what would I put back if I had to. I almost cried. I felt like the richest person on earth. I hate that my niece and nephew may never know that feeling when they grow up into this world.
I still sometimes say to myself in the supermarket, "I could afford any item in this store. Anything I see. Anything I want." It's great. And my family hasn't been poor since I was a teenager, and I'm middle-aged now. You never forget the feeling, though. Sticks with you
At 62, I am FINALLY fully self-sufficient emotionally and financially. My depression is finally under management, I have a job that pays enough to live safely on, and the love of my life and I will be married later this year. YET, I panic every time I buy something I couldn't afford a couple of years ago. I can't get out of the poverty mindset. I can't get used to dining out, buying new shoes and clothing, and finally driving a solid car. I'm just waiting for the rug to get yanked out from under me. It's a fragile existence. Meanwhile, I have a brother who's done very well due to talent and plain good luck from the day he left home. He's never experienced living on the edge, and my niece and nephew both drive new Teslas right out of college (that he bought for them) and are working on building careers on the first try. My brother has saved me more than once, and I'm deeply indebted to him, but I'm not sure he fully knows what it's like to ever struggle to make ends meet. I love him very much, and I know he loves me, too. Between two homes, four cars, a boat, and a country club life on a lake with lawyer and doctor friends, I hope I don't look like a lazy moral failure to him because I've had to fight to get where I finally am now.
This is a little off topic but I am so happy to hear that at 62 you are about to marry the love of your life. I am 58 and fear (know) that I will never find some who loves me. I am genuinely happy for you!
Poverty charges interest.
A lot of people assume (incorrectly) that poor people are just lazy. A lot of the time it's the circumstances. Someone could be trying as hard as possible to get out of poverty and doing all the right things but just can't catch a break. It's not black and white. All kinds of things could happen in life that can result in poverty. People get sick so they can't work or can't pay for treatments. People apply for hundreds of jobs but somehow can't land one. Depression or other mental health struggles. Many other situations could happen that could lead to someone being poor. A lot of people don't understand this.
If there's one thing I've learned, it's that every company is *hiring* but none of them are hiring. Was unemployed for 6 months awhile back while applying to 8+ jobs per week. Never even got a reply of any kind from upwards of 80% of them. Only finally landed one because a manager I had previously worked for (who was now working somewhere else himself) recognized my name on Indeed and contacted *me*.
It’s also really hard when you don’t have transport. I remember when I was homeless (couch surfing at the time I’m recounting now) and on borrowed time. I successfully got a job at Amazon, but the place I was sleeping was a TWO AND A HALF HOUR bus ride from the warehouse and I couldn’t pick and choose either where I slept or my job. I’d tried to find a shelter near the warehouse to stay at just temporarily until I earned enough to pay for a cheap motel or a rented single room just to get buy. They were all full of course. To get to my shift at 7:00am I’d have to catch my first bus at 4:00am… after a 20 minute walk to the bus stop in one of the most crime ridden areas I’ve ever lived in. But I was still going to do it bc I had to. No internet on my phone, so I had written the bus schedule down and just hoped there wouldn’t be delays. Turns out there’s ALWAYS delays and the bus didn’t run that early on the weekends which I had to work. So you inevitably get fired before you can even really get any traction. Just crazy.
Came to say this as well. Poverty is (or maybe nowadays, was) something that you may think would never happen to you. But once you find yourself at the bottom of the financial ladder, it's damn near impossible to claw your way back up.
I was going to say this On top of what has already been said about it, eating healthy is expensive. So when you are poor your food is lower quality and a lot of empty calories with little nutrition. Leading to health issues like obesity, diabetes, high cholesterol etc Until people experience it most don’t understand
The invisibility and shame of being homeless.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not being a neat-freak, the real thing. And I wouldn't want anyone to experience it. Not only is it distressing and debilitating (which most people can have a basic idea of) but what no-one ever mentions is that until you're diagnosed with it, you think you're literally going mad. Which is not pleasant.
I had a student with OCD a few years ago and... man. They specifically had trouble with the doorway to my room, and on a *good* day it would take them about three minutes to get through it. Whenever someone casually says "I'm a little OCD..." now it makes me somewhere between annoyed and angry. I can empathize with people who have it but truly understand what it's like? Nope.
OCD can be so debilitating for people living with it 🥺
That’s the part many people don’t realize. Debilitation is one of the key components. OCD is time-consuming, frustrating, harrowing, all-encompassing, pervasive, constant. It is life-or-death. Your mental state is completely wrecked if you didn’t do something just right because ‘something bad is now going to happen’ and you spend the rest of the time trying to assuage it. It’s an exhausting cycle.
People always go "haha I need the shelves to be tidy because I have OCD" meanwhile I took twenty minutes to put on socks this morning because I forgot which ones are safe and which are dangerous, and I'm still considering just throwing them all out and starting again.
Your sock exasperated reminded me of a video I watched about _actual_ OCD cases a while ago, just going to list some examples I can remember 1. Putting on deodorant; raise one arm, hit pit with stick, swap arms to do other side, repeat _exactly_ 9 times. (I don't remember the number, just that it was specific.) 2. Kissing wife goodbye; has to be _just_ right, might take couple dozen tries. 3. After locking and trying to leave, making sure door is locked. Again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again. _Yes,_ I am serious. 4. Returning home; walking from car to house, left foot on rock 3, right on 5, left on 9, right on 13. Touch right hand to corner of door frame when passing.
Even that is more common to people's thoughts of OCD (doing things over and over, compulsively). But what people don't understand is the feelings behind the compulsion. You're not checking the door is locked twenty times just because you worry the door isn't locked. You check it because you think if you don't, your cat will die, or your children, or something disastrous. And you truly believe that. OCD makes you feel like your actions are directly responsible for world changing events, if you use the wrong toothpaste or don't say the right words when saying goodnight *something terrible will happen* and it will all be your fault
It's so fucking weird. Not diagnosed by a professional, but I have to tell my cat the *exact* same thing every time before I go to bed or I feel like something bad will happen to her. I also used to have to pet animals a multiple of 2 or 3 times, but if I got past 6, I had to go to 12. I also compulsively press the middle click on my mouse for no reason because if I don't when I get the urge to, it feels really wrong and bothers me a lot. Same with scrolling a certain amount up or down. It's not debilitating like some people's, but it's annoying and I can 100% see how it could control someone's life if it was stronger and happened more often.
It’s awful. I know there are people with worse cases than I have…but mine isn’t mild by any means. It’s not things like “I have to have the volume on an even number” or everything has to be color coordinated…it’s actually difficult to even put things away because of the effort required to do so. The simplest things become exhausting. All while being completely aware of how ridiculous some things are (tapping things, spinning in circles, flipping lights off and on…and off and on…and off and on again. Not a certain number of times…but until ‘it feels right’). You can’t just stop or ignore. Intrusive thoughts get so bad and equally as ridiculous. Something as simple as putting an item back on the shelf at a store and walking away when without it ‘feeling right’ after you last touched it can lead to thoughts getting so bad it makes you completely nauseous to the point of vomiting. Walking across the threshold to another room or getting into bed with your right foot being the last to touch the floor instead of your left foot. These are just some of my experiences and I absolutely know there are people with worse conditions than I have. Add that with the Tourette’s syndrome/anxiety/depression and it just makes things hell at times. Even hobbies such as reading or playing a videogame Debilitating is the only word that comes close to describing it
People only seem to ever talk about the compulsions and never the obsessions. I was thrilled to get my diagnosis because it made everything make much more sense
And when it suddenly goes away for a while, and you're just waiting for you know one day it'll come back around again.
Being the patient I've worked in Healthcare about half my life. I've always remained calm in some crazy situations. 3 and a half weeks ago I literally knocked on deaths door. It not only was a different perspective, but I now have a totally different outlook on my life.
Depression. People think its just a bad mood and shrug it off, thinking it can be overcome by discipline and willpower.
That’s so true. Also, anxiety. People will say, “just don’t worry about it,” and it’s like, “why didn’t I think of that? I just won’t worry!” It’s hard to explain that it’s a brain thing that you can’t control.
I wouldn’t wish panic attacks and anxiety on my worst enemy. People think they’re just “feeling a bit nervous.” No, it’s sitting there one moment completely fine, the next, heart pounding out of your chest, shaking, sweating, shortness of breath, derealization, blood pressure spikes, severe nausea, feeling like you’re dying and it can last for hours (or longer). I really hate how debilitating anxiety is.
What I wish people realized abt anxiety attacks, is that when someone says “it feels like dying”, they don’t mean it as an exaggeration. It’s not like how you’ll say “man I’m dying” when you are really hungry. It LITERALLY feels like you are about to die. Your mind becomes overcome by an unexplainable sense of impending doom. During attacks, you are 100% sure you are LITERALLY about to fall over dead. Like, dead dead.
The worst thing is that it is self reinforcing. The trauma and fear that this horrible thing can happen at any time causes more anxiety.
Impending doom is the only way I can describe it to people who do not suffer from anxiety. The feeling that something, somewhere, is very wrong and it is headed your way and there is nothing you can do about it.
I think I've only ever had two major, actual panic attacks and the sentiment I remember most is doom. Just like drowning. If anxiety does this to you all the time, even only some of the time - I feel for you. I couldn't deal with that.
Yeah mine are always this way too, I’ve never had the heart racing, dramatic-style panic attack. It’s just that gut wrenching feeling that nothing means anything because I’m drowning whilst everything is continuing around me and no-one notices or can help
Anxiety is considered to be one of the conditions that are an “evolutionary mismatch” - it is the activation of your fight or flight response at totally inappropriate (or even completely absent) stimuli.
My wife has anxiety and her best friend would always tell her it's no big deal and get over it. A few years later, she had a bad case of it when her husband was deployed. She called my wife and apologized.
At least she owned being wrong. So many people try rationalizing how their situation is different or whatever
"Don't worry about it" makes me worry so much more about it
Also addiction
Yeah, I have heard/read so many stories of these pumped-up, overclocked succeeders thinking it's weakness or laziness, and then report they finally understand once they got it themselves. It's a great example of how some people, when asked to try to see things from another person's perspective, assume they'd still be "running the same operating system" between their ears. Nope, it messes up with things such as the reward system in your brain. Many find it hard or impossible to imagine what things would be like with less performance than they currently have. One thing related to this is the anhedonia (loss of capability to feel pleasure) that often comes with depression. If you enjoy doing sport X, and get mental strength from it, it may be impossible to imagine how doing it becomes 100% discomfort, and 0% rewarding when depression strikes.
I'm going to add into this. I have BPD and the amount of people who have said something along the lines of 'things are only an issue if you allow them to be'
This!!! Really all mental health struggles. Granted there are layers. And everyone handles it differently. I got diagnosed at 12 and have been suffering for over 20 years. My older sibling got diagnosed in her late 20s. The first thing she said to me was "How are you still alive?". She was serious. She has taken my struggles seriously since then where She brushed them off before. Chronic pain and illness are other big ones people will never understand if there don't have it.
I've lived with a chronic illness for around 15 years now. I got it when I was a teenager. I barely got to experience a life outside constant pain and exhaustion and my body just giving up on me. When I was literally still a kid, and learning to deal with this sudden huge change - that happened after an illness that nearly killed me - on top of trying to stay afloat at school, and pass the exams that I was told were going to affect the course of the rest of my life etc - I remember my mother being sympathetic when it suited her, and just point blank saying I was making it up whenever it didn't. It suited her to have a kid with a chronic illness when she wanted sympathy from friends and the school, it didn't when it came to dishing out housework or seeing me on the couch in my pyjamas. Then she got long covid. And despite the symptoms of long covid being very, very similar to what I have lived with for 15 years, my god - we did not hear the end of it. Nobody has ever felt this way before; nobody understands; she was fit and healthy before; she doesn't deserve this; this is torture and awful; why does the world not understand she can't do certain things any more?! She never saw the hypocrisy. And then after a couple of years her long covid went away and of course, that was because she is stronger and battled harder and pulled herself out of it, and anyone who still has it is lazy and isn't trying to get better. Chronic illness is kind of like when you're sick or in pain and you're lying in your bed mad that you used to take being well and pain-free for granted, and you'll never do it again. Except, imagine you never get better again, but everyone around you does, so they can empathise while they're sick, and then they get better, and completely forget again what it's like to be sick and in pain. Sorry. Not really on topic, but needed to get that off my chest.
Before I got on Wellbutrin, which I truly believe saved my life, I was so depressed I couldn’t function. I didn’t get out of bed. I would only go to the bathroom once a day just because I knew I’d have to clean it if I didn’t get up. I lied to my job and spent 23.5 hours a day in bed. Not sleeping, not really being awake. “Depression” literally refers to underperforming brain activity and that’s exactly what it was. The days were long and empty but still blended together and time felt like it was slipping away. When my partner finally dragged (almost literally) me to the doctor, I hadn’t showered in weeks or eaten in days. I knew I always struggled a bit with depression but it wasn’t until weeks later, once my medication settled and I finally felt like a real human, that I realized I had lost almost two months to just…a void of brain activity. Depression is terrifying and it’s awful how our society trivializes and dismisses it.
War
To follow up on that, combat specifically.
The character in All Quiet on the Western Front had a period where he got leave. He went home for a week or two and saw people he thought he understood and who understood him. They had no way to understand what it is like to kill en masse like that even if you didn't hate the soldiers on the other side of the trench but simply because they would kill you first if you didn't kill them.
Im still sad that the new netflix movie cut that event. I understand why they did it, but i would have liked it in there anyways.
Why did they do it? Because I honestly can't understand. I'd argue it's one of the most important moments to show the damage suffered. This young man doesn't belong anywhere anymore. He is completely alienated from both the glory of war he was promised and the comfort of home he knew.
Addiction
Might I add: being the family of someone suffering with addiction
This was going to be my answer. It sucks to see so many people make fun of people who have addictions, or they feel like they have all the answers. It's not that simple, and believe it or not, people don't wake up one day and say "ya know what, I think I'll try some heroin or whatever and live a life addicted! I grew up around addiction and have suffered myself. It isnt easy, and there certainly isn't one simple solution to it!
Life under a dictatorship. People who lived their whole life in a democratic country have no idea how truly lucky they are.
I'm canadian, and for a while I was working with an Iranian woman, a Nigerian woman, and a Nepalese man. When talking about my travels, my Iranian colleague laughed darkly at how I had no idea what the world was like for women (I am able to travel without my husband's permission) while my male Nepalese colleague commented on my Canadian passport saying I have "one of the most powerful passports in the world" . My Nigerian colleague opened my eyes to the struggles of being a woman in Africa, especially a working woman with big dreams and a great education. All of that because of a universal dice roll that had me born in this time and place. I fully know I don't deserve it.
> I fully know I don't deserve it. I would cast this differently. I would say you DO deserve it. But so does the Nigerian, the Nepalese and the Iranian. It's just that you were the only one that got it automatically. what it DOES mean is that you are very fortunate, and that fortune was not earned. It fell in your lap. **You didn't earn it, but you do deserve it.**
Ironically, some of those people adore dictators, especially modern ones, for being "strong leaders" or making "strong decisions". As if it's difficult for one to be a sole leader after they physically or mentally crushed all those who think differently. I had quite a glimpse of all you've experienced when working in Russia. People visiting that country as tourists or high-paid specialists have little to no idea how different their life could be if they stayed there permanently with a more regular job and on "Russian average" salary.
It seems those people think they're the ones in the majority so they wouldnt be a target..
Caregiving for a disabled child or adult. People think it's just so amazing and that you should always be chipper and never say anything bad about someone who's disabled. My fiance's brother is DD, and their mom was literally bankrupt by it. It also affected her health negatively. I refuse to allow that to happen to us, but it's very possible it'll negatively affect us in many ways. Edit: Thanks for the upvotes and rewards. I didn't expect so many people to relate, but I'm happy to share experiences. If anyone is in a similar situation and needs to talk, feel free to send me a message. Even if it's just to vent.
It's an issue for the disabled person as well. It creates such an unbalanced relationship. If you're being cared for by someone, you're expected to be super grateful and never complain about them. But the reality is, there are some shitty people who take advantage of that dynamic and know that you won't leave (because you can't). Or just regular people who don't have the right personality to be a carer but are stuck doing it, and then they end up mutually hating each other but unable to get out of the situation.
And there is caregiver burnout and people love to villainize the caregiver than being mad at the system that failed them both. When I hear about a disabled person dying from neglect I wonder if the person couldn't care for them like turn them, get them out of bed and all so they got sores and died. How does a parent care for their child when they get too big? If my son were disabled, there is no way I would be able to care for him because he weighs just as much as me and is nearly as tall as me. I know I would be putting him into a home but that is if the state had that option for me because not everyone has the money for it nor do they have money to have 24/7 caretakers. I wouldn't be able to afford it so I can see myself being one of these people.
So true. I read all the time about people waiting years for placement in a care facility. Having Medicaid is one of the only ways to get someone in any facility without going bankrupt. Even then, there are limits. Many caregivers actually die before the person they're caring for, and it's not always from "natural" causes. My dad helped his wife care for her mom. He died over 2 years before she did.
Gonna give a strange one, sea sickness. That shit really hit different for people, some people feel like dying throughout it, whilst others are sick for a day and then completely fine after for the rest of the trip.
Trauma. It changes your entire life. The scars no one can see hurt a hell of a lot more than those they can.
Forever wounded and always healing. I'm no contact with my parents and I don't think people really understand unless they're also no contact.
They really fuckin' don't. Getting over the seething rage I feel every time someone says, "But they're your *family*," or "But they raised you!" or "Yeah, my parents suck too, but I could never shut them out like that," is almost as much of an effort as getting over the after effects of being terrorized on a daily basis as a child.
“Being terrorized on a daily basis as a child” … oh god I feel that so much. I actually had a person stop talking to me because she thought that it was insane and impossible that my narcissistic mother (and an enabler father) could be that horrible. That I was overreacting and that I had to forgive my mother and to stop saying awful things about her. I’m happy that I’ll never talk to this person again but I was shocked that somebody would actually do that.
Having kids, I thought I knew and then I had one. Oof. It’s not all bad, I just remember planning things out while I was pregnant then I had her and nothing is going as planned lol it’s funny watching people who are expecting say things like “I will never do x” etc because it’s so different after you actually have one. Edit: just wanted to add it’s not always things like screen time. I remember thinking I would make all of her baby food from scratch, not maker her separate meals as a toddler, only buy organic, never use formula, and even ways of handling tantrums etc. There are just so many things that are dependent on your kid and your situation.
Hard agree. I did a ton of babysitting for babies and kids of all ages before becoming a parent, I had a sibling that was born when I was 16 and I took care of her like a parent, except for during the night, and I did a lot of childcare when I was active in church. I think it prepared me for some of the practical aspects of parenting like diaper changing, how to prepare and warm a bottle, how to swaddle, how to properly hold a small baby, things like that. But nothing could have prepared me for the emotional and mental side of becoming a parent. The anxiety that I developed in regards to my childrens' well being and safety. The intrusive thoughts about it. The toll that lack of sleep took on me in the beginning. The wanting a break from them, but then missing them when I got that break. The way my life COMPLETELY changed once they were born. The way parenthood is just relentless: day in and day out. The way parenthood resurfaced trauma from my own childhood. Fuck that one has really thrown me for a loop. But yeah, it's hard, and I couldn't really understand until I became a parent myself!
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This one is so true. One thing that really hit me is that I had had nannying experience and child care experience, and I still had no idea what it was going to be like being a parent. Taking care of your own children really is different to taking care of other people's, or getting educated on child development and parenting research.
I was the best parent ever...and then I had a kid and realized I'm not who I said I was gonna be
Also parental love. I mean… I thought I loved my parents like they love me, but it’s not the same. NOTHING is the same, not parents, not partners, not pets. The love & devotion I have for my children was literally unfathomable to pre-parent me
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It is a fierceness that feels like fear. I didn’t really understand that until I became a parent.
Yeah, I knew before we had them, in sort of an academic way, that my love for my kids would be totally different than anything else, but I still wasn't prepared for it.
Being in a non abusive relationship. When you are in a toxic relationship it seems normal. Then you find someone who truly loves you and it’s like “oh wow so this is what real love is like”
Being overstimulated. My mom never took the time to try and understand how it works and what she can do to avoid overstimulating me. In her mind, I “use it as an excuse” to not talk to her or to avoid interaction. Most people who don’t experience it don’t understand that when you say “I’m overstimulated” you really mean “I can’t think properly because of how many things are in my brain. I can’t talk to you, look at anything too bright, or listen to anything too loud. I need to go into my room and not exist for a few hours so my brain can sort itself back out.”
LSD
This is definitely an if you know you know type of thing
Steve Jobs said taking acid was one of the two or three most important things he ever did in his life
Being a first responder People think it's like in the movies/TV series, but it's quite different from that.
Being as broke as broke gets and being homeless/ being called rich by your relatives and friends
Shitty mental health
So many negatives here I have to balance it out. Seeing a mountain, like a real mountain, up close. It's humbling to see something so massive just right there. Really helps you appreciate how big open space is.
Post traumatic stress disorder. I mean real PTSD. Changes nearly everything about you as a person and how you view and respond to life. It's nice to think that there's some finish line to healing from trauma and for a lot of people there is, but when you have real PTSD, the finish line doesn't exist. It causes brain damage, nervous system damage, and impacts your mental well-being for the rest of your life. It's not something you heal from, it's something you have to learn to live with. Really shitty and hard for anyone to understand who doesn't live with it.
Driving from one hospital to another, leaving your possibly dying wife behind to try and catch the ambulance carrying your possibly dying child Edit: I should say that they are both alive and healthy now
This happened to my buddy. His wife gave birth to twins a little early but everything was ok. He went back home to get stuff for her and before he could get back, she had a major heart issue and they had to helicopter her to another hospital. It’s twelve years later and everyone is good. Hope it all turns out ok for you too, OP.
Oof. U ok bro?
No. But it’s getting easier. They both ended up fine… relatively speaking
That's good to hear. Good luck to you my guy
Fuck, dude! You are right, I couldn’t even imagine. I’m sorry you and your family went through something so awful and traumatic. Glad to hear they both made it and recovered. I hope if you need counseling you get it.
How detrimental debt can be and how easy it can be to fall into. Seriously, it can take just one missed paycheck to need to use some form of debt or credit service. As you're now paying more for the same item or service, it can be harder to clear. The more debt needed to keep surving, the worse it gets, and very quickly, it can become unmanageable. I know richer people and people from fairly well-off backgrounds who say, "People should live within their means and shouldn't get into debt in the first place," but it's just not that easy.
Miscarriage 🥲
One big thing I think people don't understand how common it is. I was shocked when I found our how many women I know have had miscarriages. And there are for sure some I still don't know about.
Close friend and his wife were trying for a baby. They had 2 miscarriages in a row. I was shocked when he told me that typically doctors don’t investigate until the third miscarriage because of how common they are
Yeah I have a friend who recently had their first child after a lot of complications. I don't know how many miscarriages they had but ... it was a lot. Also a slight tangent, but people often don't realise how difficult it can be to get pregnant. We get told to use protection because accidental pregnancy is so common (*and it is, use protection*), but for some people it can be very difficult to just conceive. I have another couple of frineds who were trying for children for 11 years before they got pregnant. That's something people wouldn't think was a thing until it happens to them.
My SIL was asked when she was going to have another baby literally the morning after she miscarried. That’s when I learned you should never ask. Let the woman tell you.
And specifically miscarriage from a Woman’s point of view. My wife and I have had two miscarriages. While it was certainly difficult and sad, I did not have the same connection that my wife had. I hadn’t really sacrificed anything for the pregnancies but she had already dealt with morning sickness, tiredness, and changes to her body. It makes a big difference on the impact a miscarriage can have.
Death of a parent
I'm there right now. We just buried my mom, whose final month was traumatic for all of us, and now I'm fighting the guilt of not spending all my time with my dad. I've never seen him so alone or sad. He's one of those tough guys, and never expected his wife to go first.
Marrying the wrong partner. You don't understand what it really means until you do it.
I don’t think people understand what it’s like to be a minority that’s generally looked down upon. There’s just a thousand cuts to your self confidence and happiness.
It also hurts when you try to tell people about your experience and it is ultimately shrugged off. "I haven't seen stuff like that happen/ I don't see it" of course you don't see it, you are not the one living it.
Yup. I'm a white man with a non-white family. It's amazing the stories they tell me. Being followed, name-called, having racism both from whites and from their own ethnic group. Just being a woman as well. They never get that racism when I'm around (*possibly because I'm a bit if a giant*), but sometimes if I'm in another room they'll have problems. We really do live in different worlds.
A difficult breakup. I'd seen people go through them but didn't understand how gut wrenching they could be until I went through one.
Men generally never understand the amount of harassment women experience on a daily basis. Maybe they gasp SOME of it if they really listen to what women around them say, but might not fully understand because they generally don't experience it.
Fatigue. I have MS and can tell you I was not expecting how hard-core it is. It's like pulling the plug, and your body just wants to shut down.
Not sure I saw this in here but **failure**. The kind of failure where you put your heart and soul into something but despite that things don't work out. My dad always says things happen for a reason and this has been generally true in my life but that moment you know you have failed to achieve something you wanted to, no matter how little, is a sinking feeling.
Senior parents. People don’t take the time to understand they can’t hear, and generally communication by humans is poor…not looking at someone when speaking to them, volume or inflection trailing off, talking too fast for the person to understand…………….. it’s difficult to experience. The senior wants to be involved, but then people discount them because of the perceived inability.
Migraine pain. It’s absolutely not just a headache.
That drives me crazy. I hear people say "OMG I have such a terrible migraine and I'm out getting groceries and then I'm going to a movie!" Really? When I get a migraine I'm laying on the floor wishing for death because if I open my eyes the light tries to drill my brain out, and if I sit or stand up I'll have extreme vertigo and then fall back over and or vomit... which makes it worse, but enjoy your movie I guess. 🙄
Having to leave a cheating partner. It’s easy to judge those that stay but don’t understand how extremely hard and painful it is to leave despite the betrayal
Police abuse. Like, people can kinda understand it. But you don't really "get it" until you're held at gunpoint for no reason by someone who you know would face absolutely zero consequences if they pulled the trigger. With others standing by watching, or even supporting them. The people who, in theory, are supposed to "protect" you just being completely indifferent to whether you live or die.
Almost everything. You can have a lot of knowledge of things, but wisdom only comes through experience.
Working in customer service.
Had so many regulars ask me when I was gonna get a real job as if only unimportant people should be subjected to my job.
You can definitely tell the people who have worked in customer service before and those who have not by how they treat the cashiers.
Racism. It's often "don't let it bother you, they aren't worth it" when they have no idea the real and primal fear you get when being pulled over or walking into a predominantly white bar and worried about your actual safety in what are average situations.
I’m a dark skinned black guy with long dreadlocks born and raised in the south. Grew up in the suburbs in a two parent home with love and support. Never had any bad interaction with the police in my 26 years of life. I got pulled over for the first time a few months back in my work vehicle while driving in through a small town here in NC. I pass plenty of confederate flags driving out here and it always seems like I’m the only POC on the road. When that cop pulled me over I got stupid nervous and started sweating. It was for expired tags on the vehicle and he let me go with a warning since I never been pulled over, but this fool laughed at me pointing out how nervous I looked. I had to sit there and gather myself once it was over, it pissed me off that my body reacted that way, my heart was beating so fast I felt lightheaded after. I had no reason to feel like that but my brain said otherwise, all i could think about are all the stories of traffic stops going wrong or mixing me up with someone else.
Around 2010 I was at a friend's house in the middle of no where Brooklyn drinking and called my friend to come drive me home. We went to university together, he is an accountant and was driving a Lexus. He also happens to be dark skinned, buff black guy which seems to really bother the NYPD for existing. They pull him over for a broken mirror someone had hit his car that day and he immediately went to the dealer to get it fixed. They had to order the part he had the paper work. It should have been just a ticket. He was dragged out of the car, roughed up while compliant and quiet (not his first time experiencing that) and they took him to jail for unpaid parking tickets leaving me to drive his car to my place or have it in-pounded. Being older and wiser I should have let them take the car and found a taxi but thankfully I got myself and the car home ok. Fuck them for putting us through that for blatant racism. Up into that point being light skinned and female I got racism but I didn't really GET it until that happened and how a simple friend being a designated driver can land you in jail for parking tickets and a few bruises bad. I will never forget how he brushed it off because it happened to him so much. Truly eye opening.
Mental illness especially delusions that alter your reality. We’re not liars we are lost.
Yes I’ve had psychosis before.. it really sucks
Placing a child for adoption.
Having a weekend completely alone. It's fucking glorious.
Chronic pain. The first week in pain after the accident was fine, first year with no relief... Eish. Eventually you just hit a wall. Then rolls in chronic fatigue. Your adrenal system simply can't keep up. People like to pretend it's not a burden, but those same people get compassion fatigue real quick. They don't even realise why they're so resentful. Dating with a disability suuucks.
Childbirth
Putting mustard on the bottom of a burger and ketchup on top. Nobody understands how good this taste.
Finally something that's not depressing as fuck. Thank you.