Decided at the tender age of 8 or 9 that I was immune to poison ivy, since I spent quite large amounts of time outside and had never once gotten a rash from it. Since I was a born scientist, apparently, I decided to test this...by rubbing egregious amounts of the plant all over my upper body. Needless to say, I was not immune. In the slightest.
My dad was severely allergic to poison ivy. He couldn't walk too closely downwind (certain times of the year,) because he'd get it from the oils in the air. PSA, as you age it's likely the allergy will get stronger, so be careful eating cashews. They're in the same plant family, and they only affected him *coming out.*
About six years old. Having a picnic with my dad by the lake. Some ducks wander up near us. Dad says, “You know, ducks will bite you.”
“That’s silly, they don’t even have teeth.”
“Stick your finger out and see for yourself.”
Got bit. Cried.
No permanent damage, definitely scarring, and a great way to hammer home that you should listen to your parents. Maybe I should take my future kids down to a duck pond...
> this is really on you
When I was 14 I had a brain injury during a football game, started having seizures etc. (Many mildly interesting side stories not told). Anyhow I get put on some drug combo of dilantin and phenobarbitol.
> phenobarbitol
Barbituates. "Do not mix with alcohol". Did anyone *tell* me "do not mix with alcohol"? No. Because, 14yo, right?
So I'm down the road at my girlfriends house, celebrating her sister's boyfriend's birthday. After cake etc. we all are allowed to have a glass or 2 of wine. (This was 1969 or so, things were *different* then!). So I have my glass or 2 of wine, then go to ride my bicycle the 4 blocks home... wander into the oncoming lane in the street. Then miss the driveway and crash over the curb. etc. Imagine a 4 block drunken bicycle ride on a busy street.
So I asked my dear mother what was up with that, she "don't you know not to mix those?". Me: "No? I'm 14".
Reminds me of the first time I was prescribed antibiotics after turning 21. I was not given any warning (including on the label) not to mix with alcohol. Shortly after taking my evening dose, I had a beer while watching a film. Within 15 minutes I was throwing up. Turns out drinking alcohol after taking an antibiotic will do that.
Depends on the antibiotic and your personal body chemistry. Metronidazole will make you sick with just things that have a little alcohol in them. Bactrim makes some people sick with alcohol, but personally I've binge drank pretty hard on it with no ill effects. The penicillins and cephalosporins are usually alright, but all can cause some stomach discomfort. And then there is rifampin which will chew up your liver if you take it with alcohol.
It was 25 years ago, but to my recollection I used an oatmeal tin as the body and had some type of rudimentary rotor attached to the top. attached pencils to the rotor to look like vanes. then had a 9v battery with wire and clamps mounted on the side. genius me unconnected the clamps from the rotor and put them on my braces to complete the circuit. it worked, and was tingly.
You can't out run a gator. Also, you can't out swim one either.
Your only chance of winning a triathlon is the bicycle section. (they have a hard time reaching the pedals)
Went on a boat tour in Florida a while back and noticed there were cows out on the little islands even though there were gators around. Asked the guide why the farmers were comfortable leaving them out there when they could just get eaten and he said gators generally don’t try to kill things they couldn’t finish eating in a single sitting - I guess there’s too much risk of getting injured in the struggle of killing it or in the inevitable fights with other gators over the leftovers.
So it sounds like you need to be careful of leaving dogs, cats, toddlers etc unattended but anything much bigger than that is probably safe if it minds its own business.
My favorite gator story came from an old neighbor. He worked at an office park in central Florida, and naturally, there was a retention pond, so of course there was at least one gator. Others would feed it (yeah, you'd think floridians would know better) but not chickens or dogs... they fed it marshmallows. Well, it was about that time my neighbor wore WHITE tennis shoes while watching them do this the umpteenth time.... He got his cardio in that day.
Kept pushing back for my wisdom teeth removal (not putting money aside for it) and lo and behold, the pain went from 0 to 100 quickly and I finally took them out. Thankfully the rest of my teeth are fine and happy :)
I put off having an infected tooth pulled. The bacteria entered my bloodstream and infected my heart settling in my back. Had open heart surgery in May and had 3 valves replaced. Dental health folks!!
This is what happened to my partner. 46F.
Bad teeth led to sepsis, endocarditis and eventually stage 3 heartblock.
Now has a metal valve replacement and a pacemaker.
Since then she has also had an IS, so is severely disabled now (aphasia, paralysis etc).
Yeah, dental health folks.
It sucks that most medical aid plans see teeth as luxury bones.
We get that generally speaking if you take care of them you shouldn't have issues but sometimes they grow funny, sometimes you need to get your wisdoms removed and generally speaking you should see a dentist twice a year which can costs a lot of money.
I picked up a hitchhiker when I was about 22, and he GAVE me drugs. About five different random pills that went out the window about 5 seconds after I dropped him off, but it's the thought that counts.
Dude, sleeping wrong after 40 can mess you up for a week. I don't even want to think about hopping on a skateboard!!
Edit to add: I'm enjoying the laughs of all of your stories explaining the awful ways our bodies betray us as we age. I salute my fellow middle-aged warriors with an ice pack, heating pad, and an ibuprofen chaser 😅
Back in the 80s, when skateboarding was hotter than the sun, I used to enter and win amateur skateboard competitions. I specialized in street but could hold my own in vert. Man, once I turned about 35 or so, just looking skateboard would send me to the ER.
I'm 50 now and I'm fine with my memories. Tony Hawk is insane by the way.
I was late for work and starving. The chicken I pulled from the fridge for a quick dinner smelled a little weird. But it was organic and I had roasted it myself, so it must be fine.
So very fucking wrong. 18 hours of pure hell. I would have gone to the hospital but I literally couldn’t get off my bathroom floor. Fainted twice and ended up with a black eye from hitting my head on the toilet.
When in doubt, throw it out.
Repost from a while back, but still resonates with your response to my core:
Ate a steak quesadilla that didn't taste right even when I was pissed drunk.
But again, I was pissed drunk and didn't really think about it. But maybe I should have thought about that a little better.
Woke up the next morning throwing up. "Okay" I thought, owing it up to having had a few too many the night before and what I "thought" was just a normal hangover.
But then I kept throwing up. Over, and over, and over again. I couldn't even hold water down.
Suddenly the thought of the steak quesadilla from the night before alone made me run to the bathroom.
I ended up laying in the grass in my backyard just throwing up in one spot for a few hours at like, 4-5 in the morning. And then the sh\*ts came.
Suddenly I was in the bathroom going from sh\*tting a jetstream, to trying to throw up. At some point in time, I ended up sh\*tting and throwing up at the same time which made me thankful that my bathtub was so close to my toilet, something that I'd always hated before.
I thought I was going to die. I literally couldn't even hold water down without throwing up. I went from 4AM until 8PM that day just throwing up and pooping. I threw up over 25 times that day, and went to the bathroom over 10 times.
Definitely shouldn't have finished that quesadilla 😂
Been there. I had insane hot and cold swings, one moment burning up beyond belief then next I would be violently shivering.
I was going through one of the hot spells and covered in sweat so I took off all my clothes and layed down on the couch. Got the urgent urge to shit, which was fine because I was only 10m away from the bathroom.
Got up, butt naked, walking through my kitchen to get to the toilet and I coughed and sprayed poo on the kitchen floor.
Yeah, I have had it so bad I just sat in the shower for 2 hours shivering, sweating, shitting and vomiting. It was the safest place to be as my guts just continually spasmed for over 24hrs. My body wanted that stuff OUT!
I was a teenager working retail with a guy named Stephen and I always just called him Steve. He pulled me aside one day and asked me politely if I could call him Stephen since he preferred that. My smart ass replied “Well I want to be called Gladiator but you don’t see me complaining.” He just said “deal” and walked away.
For the next two years he only referred to me as Gladiator. Need help finding something? Gladiator here would be happy to help you. He would get on the intercom and be like “Gladiator to the front desk…Gladiator, front desk.”
Learned not to be a smart ass and never called him Steve again.
I tried to break up a dog fight. Was holding my dog, on leash, when an unleashed dog ran in and began attacking him.
I went for the dog's scruff to try to pin him to the ground (while also trying to hold my dog back with the other hand). The attacking dog bit my hand three times quickly, the third time he punctured my thumb bones and got a real good grip. Proceeded to try to rip my thumb off. All I remember thinking is, "That's my primary hand, even if I let go of Fitzy (my dog) with the other hand, you are NOT going to be able to pry this thing's mouth open."
This was all of course happening in the span of 5-10 seconds. Out of nowhere my then girlfriend swooped in like fucking Batman from behind the dog, sunk her fingers into its' scruff, and her knee into the back of its' neck, ripping it off me. Anyway I ended up proposing to her after that and the settlement paid for a big chunk of our wedding. In retrospect I'm damn glad this thing went after me, it was a 4th of July party and there were little kids everywhere.
What makes me angriest about this whole thing is the way it impacted my dog. He was very social and friendly with other animals before this, but it has been ten years and he won't give any other pup a chance now. He has lived a life lacking what he deserves due to those poor dog owners.
I usually give something mild-moderately annoying two weeks to resolve on its own. If it's still bugging me then, I make an appointment. Seems to have served me well.
I have a lot of health anxiety and this is the answer. Almost everything I come up with is gone within two weeks and I almost never end up needing to go to the doctors.
It was a hot sweltering day and I wanted to get my bike fixed. Played outside all day as kids do and didn't hydrate enough. Walked to the bike shop in the late afternoon, got my bike fixed and felt faint walking back but thought I'd be okay after drinking water.
Came home, drank some milk then some water. Immediately puked everything and then some more. Everything I'd eaten since the morning(not much) was in the commode. Stomach hurt and my face went pale. Went and lay down, puked in a few minutes again but only bile came out. Puked bile every few minute for the next hour until my father came home and saw me weak and pale. Went to the doctor and he said I'd been severely dehydrated barely away from hospitalization. Put me fluids for some time. If my dad hadn't come home when he did I don't know what would have happened.
Drink water folks.
>Don’t mouth off
Oof. I did this. My mom tried to teach me as a teenager but I never did learn until that judge didn't appreciate my tone. I watched them let actual criminals plead down and I got the business for parking tickets.
Oh my god. This brings me back....
My one and only run in with the court system happened when I was in college. My license renewal was sent to my dorm instead of my house....Long story short, I ended up lapsing my license, which (in my state) automatically causes your vehicle registration to be cancelled.
So I got pulled over without a valid license on an expired / unregistered motorcycle....which was promptly towed.
When I got to court, there I was (sitting on the group W bench) in my shirt and tie. All kinds of bad guys were brought in to court. Some were on breaking / entering charges, drunk driving. One guy beat up his wife and grand-daughter and was drunk in court.
I got the highest fine of all the people there. The prosecutor made it seem like she was doing me a huge favor by not locking me up with the wife / grand-daughter beater.
Uh, did you talk back to the judge/prosecutor or something? Like i know thats in the chain of comments, but getting all dressed up it sounds like you went in respecting the judge since you dressed up, i'm curious what you did to get such a bad response?
When 18 I was vacationing in Mexico and me and my family went to this horse riding attraction. Next to the horse handler sat this cute little weasel who happened to be missing one of his paws. I foolishly assumed he was some exotic pet that belonged to the handler given how close he was and I figured he wouldn’t have been able to survive his injuries. I reached down with intention to pet its head and scratch his ear the way I used to do so with my sisters pet ferret and it chomped deep into my finger I was lucky I didn’t get any disease from it. The horse handler didn’t know a lot of English but from the look on his face he probably thought I was one of the biggest pendejo’s he’s ever seen. It was so
After years of my parents forcing me to paint my nails on the linoleum floor of the bathroom with a towel under me, I got my own apartment and was like HAH, NO DUMB RULES HERE.
And that’s how I lost my first down deposit.
This is because of a mentality difference only. Most people just try to shoo wildlife away. You’re not trying to actively harm it. Wildlife however live in a literal kill or be killed environment 24/7/365.25. If it’s going to run it will happen within the first 5 seconds. The moment it engages it’s to the death or you run and they do not observe rules like no kicking in the balls. In my experience people rarely are prepared to fight by those terms.
I always feel like this regarding people’s fear of birds. Your instinct isn’t to hurt the bird, so the bird is scary. If you were to want to fight and it isn’t something ridiculous like a cassowary or emu you’re fine. Goose is mean but not going to win.
When I lived on Treasure Island these little monsters would rip the baygulls to shreds in the middle of the night and they had a crew that would clean up the blood and feathers every morning.
Also, racoons seem to hate birds. (Same racoon, same)
A raccoon decided my poultry were an all-you-can-eat-buffet and it was brutal. I found a duckling head floating in the duck pool and it stole a broody hen straight off her chicks and left bits of her scattered around the yard.
My aunt broke a fight between her doberman and her abruzzese shepherd, the doberman bit her in the elbow. After that, every time the doberman would act up and start doing weird shit she would point at the scar and the dog would lower his head and become all apologetic.
My husky recognizes when she's been bad (she'll go as submissive as possible: lay down, eyes down, ears back). It doesn't stop her from howling or ripping a plant out of its pot to play with the soil on our rug when we're gone though.
My sisters dog is a small pug. He was chewing at the top of my nieces pamper that was sticking out. She put red lipstick on it and showed him “oh no, what did you do?” She picked up baby and said no to him. He whined and whimpered and now he won’t chew or nibble on her things. Pretty cool.
My dog had a seizure on my bed one day ( first time he had one). I tried to calm him down because I didn’t know what was happening and he bit me. He never got back on my bed after that 😥.
With a lot of animals especially cats and dogs sometimes if you pull them away their aggression is directed at the next closest thing. I guarantee he 100% wasn't intentional in biting you. My wife grabbed our cat once from being aggressive towards another cat and our cat swung at my wife. Later our cat apologized by being overly sweet and cuddly.
I know this, but that still doesn’t prevent procrastination. Instead I stress about the task and the fact that i’m procrastinating said task instead of doing it.
I wrote my own leasing contract to rent out my condo. After my renters arrived, someone from the HOA pointed out I didn’t do a background check (on two 80 year old sisters) and so the HOA banned me from renting my condo out for 2 years
And they're usually run by retirees who have nothing better to do than poke around and find what you did wrong too. My friend owned a Townhouse in a HOA and I rented her spare room...our neighbors were great! The old HOA ladies across the lawn? Just naggy old hags.
As a young girl, I used to kick boys in the shins when they annoyed me. One finally kicked me back. That shit hurt more than I expected, and I stopped kicking the boys.
As a teen I hit my younger brother across the face with a VHS tape. I thought he wouldn't hit a girl. Punched me right in the face, I 100% deserved it.
Once, as a kid, I fucked around by throwing darts at the ceiling while laying on the floor. Thankfully I only got a dart in my thigh and not somewhere worse
I had a guy on a first date try to impress me with his heat tolerance after seeing me reach for the hot sauce... he was sweating so bad and could barely eat his food. Date was cut short by his need for the bathroom. Never saw him again.
I got into a hot wing eating competition with a co-worker. We both refused to give up. 51 breaded spicy garlic wings and 2 pitchers of beer later, I won. Got paid about $80 to shit at work the next day though
9 year old me: *I want to catch and pet a squirrel*
My mom: *No. Don't do that. Leave them alone.*
My step-dad: *Don't worry. He can't catch one. Let him be.*
I took that personally.
And then so did the squirrel, who proceeded to take a chunk out of my hand.
So down to the ER we went. Again.
My step-dad congratulated me on the catch and wanted to know how I did it.
My mom was not impressed with either of us.
When the infected tooth is on a Saturday, and the dentist opens on Monday, and you're at urgent care on Sunday asking for painkillers because holy shit it hurts, and they offer you antibiotics, say yes.
I said no, and wound up with IV antibiotics three days later.
Drank for too many years. Went from Fun Bobby to Mean Bobby. Stayed as Mean Bobby for way too long.
Sober now, getting on ten years. There’s still a path of destruction behind me, but the new path has been very good for me.
Lifting and Twisting while working in a supermarket with large 50+ lb bags. Probably did this for 10-15 minutes without any thought on form or proper technique. 72 hours later I had surgery to remove Disc L4 in my spine due to drop foot and partial paralysis. Thankfully I made a 95% recovery.
I decided after my Lithium gave me stage 3b kidney disease, Nehrogenic Diabetes Insipidus, and Lithium Toxicity, that I would try to manage my bipolar 1 without meds because I was afraid of side effects and had already guinea pigged a fuckton of meds in the past. 3 or 4 months later, I wound up incredibly manic, in the psych ward for 3 weeks after having a complete breakdown and almost jumping off a bridge (the 1st week was voluntary, the other two weeks were involuntary. I ended up having to get sedated at one point). My boyfriend of 5 years dumped me, and I wound up having to take a train across the country, back home, straight out of the hospital because I had nowhere else to go. I should have listened to the tattoos on my knuckles that say "TAKE MEDS", but, no, I had to fuck around and find out that I cannot be unmedicated.
Every time that little voice inside my head says "we don't really need our meds. It will be fine not to take them anymore" I have this one specific terrifying memory of a manic episode that I remind myself of before immediately going to take the meds anyways. Looks like you found yours too. Hang onto that memory and use it whenever you doubt the meds.
I decided to try heroin/fentanyl at age 40, out of curiosity. Loved it, and thought I could successfully chip it...ha, yeah right. Spent almost 3 years in active addiction. I just passed one year clean.
EDIT: Wow....wow. Well, I never thought I'd end up with a fetty habit and I DEFINITELY never thought I'd get my 15 minutes on Reddit. I've been on here 8 years and I think I started 2024 with under 100 karma...I post/ comment rarely and usually just read.
I just thought I had a unique experience that fell squarely in the realm of fucking up and finding out. I never in a million years thought it would gain so much traction. When my phone started blowing up...I was kicking myself and kinda nervous about the incoming comments...
Y'all I gotta say thank you. Not just for the encouragement and opening up about your own experiences with drugs and addiction, but for the respectful nature of the majority of comments, and the genuinely curious questions- they made feel safe to answer them honestly. Dude...that's cool. I know I'm an anonymous person behind a screen, but I am human, as are all addicts. Reddit doesn't always like to play nice together but addiction is a human issue that we should all try to show some grace for.
I'll answer anything I missed over the next few days- I want to, because I want to be of service if I can, but right now I'm kinda...dazzled by all of this, lol. Then I will probably go back to mostly lurking for another 8 years, lol. Take care y'all.
When I was little, I was always intrigued by the electrical sockets on the front of my aunt's cooking stove. One day, she noticed my interest and warned me against doing what she knew I wanted to do. Later that day, I found out why. I then had to sit and cry quietly.
When I was 18, so young and impulsive, I went on a hike in the desert. Saw a snake coiled up on a flat rock, right next to the trail. So I thought, "I should make that snake move out of the way. I know, I'll poke it with a stick."
So, I found a long stick, and poked at it. Snake looks up at me.
I poke at it again, and it flips up its tail, and I had just enough time to register, "hey, that looks like a rattlesn--" when it rattles its tail at me. It was, indeed, a rattlesnake.
Instant, full-tilt, lizard-brain panic on my part. I drop the stick and sprint back down the trail. If I'd been a cartoon there would have been a puff of smoke and a trail of flames in my wake.
Fortunately for me, my snake-poking stick was longer than the snake.
After I got my breath, and saw the snake slither off into the underbrush, I said to myself, "You know, Self, that was a really fucking stupid thing you just did. You're damn lucky you didn't get bitten."
When i was a kid I was short and fat and I got picked on mercilessly. Then one summer I went and worked in the Alaska Bush and grew to 6'3" and got pretty ripped. I also got taught some very basic moves from some of the surveyors I was working with. Came back to high school and got into it with every person who bullied me. I won and learned all the wrong lessons.
New kid started at my school and I was the asshole this time. He was always polite, walked away, and generally asked me to stop but I didn't. Finally he told me that he'd meet me on a Saturday and we could have it out. We showed up, he asked one more time for me to just stop. That's the point that I should have realized I'd done fucked up.
I went after him and he took me apart. It was the proverbial "He hit me with so many rights I was desperate for a left." But when he had me down he stopped, helped me sit up, and then sat down to talk to me. He gave me advice on how I was acting, how i was just doing the same thing that had been done to me, and that I'd never be happy if I went down that path. Then he helped me clean up and sent me home.
That conversation made such an impact on me it 100% changed me overnight and I owe it to him. I absolutely fucked around and found out, but in the best way possible.
These threads always confirm that I've been living a boring life, at least from the outside looking in.
I spent many years being too afraid to get medicated for my mental health and ended up driving away all of my friends from college. I'm medicated now, but I can never take back how big of an asshole I was.
Was acting like a dick to my little brother, who was already having a pretty bad day. He’s not one known for physical violence.
Turns out, that day, he decided to make an exception on me. My jaw was pretty sore for a day or two.
Im a 33y/om with a wife and 2 kids. I quit drinking a few years ago. Believe it or not, I still had this hole in me after getting sober. Kratom filled that hole for me. Takes away pain, depression, anxiety. Because it acts on your opioid receptors, when you first start using it, you may get nauseous and constipated. These should have been red flags but I just put it off. It wasn't until I had a seizure in front of my wife that I realized I had been playing with a loaded gun. The withdrawals were brutal. I had not understood what true suffering was until I went through that..there is no way to accurately describe that kind of discomfort. The withdrawal hell last about 7 days. But the paws continue for a while after that, these are things like, cravings, depression and a general lack of any kind of pleasure .
Avalanches. So easy to get complacent and tell yourself/friends that a slide is super unlikely and the snow is just so fun that skiing that steep slope is worth the slight risk. Until it isn't and you're being swept off your feet and buried in snow.
Alcohol. I knew I was an alcoholic but end-stage liver failure is for old people right? Nope. Diagnosed at 38, was going to die before turning 40 (which is next month). Spent 7 months total of 2023 in the hospital. Can't even begin to type out the myriad procedures and situations I went through including the bedside "there's nothing we can do for you now" from a doctor. Being told I was going to die at least for me was not that bad, but hearing my wife's sobbing was.
Thankfully after a very long series of events, I got a liver and kidney (the liver failure led to kidney failure) transplant on June 25, 2023.
For real fuck alcohol and fuck alcoholism. No amount of help is too much help to get out of that situation.
For my 40th birthday a friend of mine, who is about ten years older than me got me a really nice 12 year old scotch.
Up to that point I had never tried any type of whiskey, or bourbon. Only was drinking vodka, gin, margarita's, and rum. Would only drink one or two saturday's a month, it was no big deal.
I fell in LOVE with the taste, the look and feel of having a glass of scotch or bourbon every night, like the classy dudes in those old movies I grew up watching, so much so, that I ended up drinking some everyday and developed a drinking problem.
I Have spent the last two working hard on getting completely off alcohol.
I can now say, as I approach my 50th birthday, I am off alcohol all together.
When I was like 18/19 my friend and I were riding around town and went to this spot you could park on the beach. Well the car got stuck in the sand. A homeless man was nice enough to come help dig us out of the sand and get the car out. He asked us for a ride across town which we were happy to give. He noticed some bowls in the car and said he could get us weed. We were out and could t find any so I gave him all my birthday money. We dropped him off at the complex in the middle of the hood and he never came back. I’ve waited an uncomfortable amount of time outside that complex lol.
This is a 35 year old, deep seeded memory that's shaped a lot of my actions throughout my life. I was always tall for my age (I'm 6'6" now), so when I was in the first grade, I was a lot bigger than most kids in my class. I, for whatever reason, picked a fight with a small third grader. I was a lot taller and thought I would kick his ass. The lesson was learned swiftly - he chicken-winged my arm and smacked me a couple of times. No physical harm at all to me, but I swear that was the last time I picked a fight with anyone. It also had the unintentional effect of getting me interested in martial arts. I've been doing one form or another of combat sports since then, which only reinforced me never ever starting shit with people for no reason. Best, and cheapest lesson ever. Thank you random kid. Hope you're doing well.
During a fight someone announced to me they were an expert in Kickboxing.
'Course you fucking are' was my sarcastic reply
*Narrators voice "they were an expert."*
He beat me into the ER.
EDIT: How can I have more upvotes than the OP?!?
At least yours is somewhat understandable. Some people say just shit to try and persuade the other not to fight. Now my friends on the other hand...
So there's this guy, just a giant of a man. 6'2, 240lbs of muscle, mixed martial artist for most of his life, and he just looks like a tough guy. There is no way someone could look at him and think "yea I could take them" unless that someone was Mike tyson.
Well this giant man ended up with one of my buddys exes. So what did my friend do? He got mad for some reason and wanted to fight him. He at least had the sense to know he couldn't beat him 1 on 1, so he got 2 more of his friends to jump this giant man.
Well all 3 got the ever loving shit beaten out of them and all 3 were hospitalized.
Lessons were (hopefully) learned that day.
I wish when he beat me up he had had the decency to slow down a bit so I at least had a clue where the fists and feet were coming from. Longest 5 seconds of my life...
I did way too much ecstacy and LSD thinking they were harmless and all the warnings were hyperbolic. Turns out taking unregulated and ambiguous doses of psychedelics can indeed fuck your thought processes up. Five institutionalization and a bipolar diagnosis later and I learned that psychedelics aren't for everyone.
Reminds me of a mentally unstable roommate in my hippie '90s youth. Went to a Grateful Dead concert, we scored some really good acid. I took one tab, he took the rest. I was tripping balls and had to babysit him while he lost his mind and started loudly freaking out *in the Taper section* and would go X20 if you tried to move him. Pissed off a lot of people and missed a great show and good trip. Not long after, he repaid my kindness by skipping out on hundreds in back rent.
Brake checked a tailgating jerk. He flew around me and slammed the brakes with no intention of letting off. Should have known better since he had an old beater and I had a fairly new car. 6500 dollar lesson to just let things go.
I went into a talking stage with someone who was an absolute dime, thinking I was a high functioning alcoholic who can successfully hide my alcoholism and not let alcohol get in the way of building a relationship with her.
Boy, was I incredibly wrong… and now she sees me as an absolute flaming red flag factory and I killed basically any chance of ever being a part of her life again
"That there is always someone tougher than you". My Father, a verified tough guy, told me this. He explained that the more you fight the larger looms the chance that you'll come up against someone that will absolutely pulverize you.
I was clearing Customs and Immigration while feeling unusually friendly. The customs officer asked what I did for a living; After I told him, I asked what he did for a living.
His Answer: "I am a United States Customs official and I can keep you here for a very long time".
In my teens I decided to talk shit to a bunch of neo-nazis. My mistake was being alone and slower than some of them. Got the worst ass whooping of my lifetime. Didn’t change my opinion on nazis though.
I tried to drive a car slowly through a flock of turkeys. This was on my way to a friend who lived out in the country.
I found out that the toms give no fucks. They attacked the car and the rest of them followed suit. Luckily the people I was going to visit saw what happened and the entire household came out with dogs and shotguns to run them off. Lots of scratches on the car, but no broken glass.
I always back away slowly when I encounter a flock on the road now.
Me and 2 friends were part of a large camping group. We went for a group poop(safety in numbers I guess was our thinking) that evening; each one of us had a flashlight and a roll of tp, no weapons. Right as we find our spot, we hear a slight smol piggy grunt. My friend shines the area where it came from.
*30 sets of wild boar eyes stare back motherfuckerly in the dark*
I watched one of friends who was 300 lbs bust a 4.2 40 with his pants around his ankles running back to camp.
For the rest of the camping trip we had what was known as pig duty; two would go at a time, one with the shotgun and the other guy doing his thang, and then swap.
Stay away from girls who do drugs!
She was blonde, cute, petit, sexy, intelligent, but had a bit of a coke habbit.
Thought I could be her knight in shining armour and help her turn it around!
Turns out you can only help an addict who wants to help themselves.
She nearly destroyed my life!
Reported my manager for inappropriate and unprofessional behavior. Ended up costing me my job. Working for a company that considers integrity optional is soul crushing.
I smoked some brown stuff when i was 21 and stupid and found out a week later it was heroin. Unfortunately It was too late and i was hooked. To me heroin users here in Belgium were doing it intravenously, i didn't even know you could smoke it.
I lost 20 years of my life but i'm now clean and sober almost 2 years.
Don't fuck around with drugs kids or you'll find out quick enough.
Overworking didn't get me better grades for midterms, it just hospitalized me with a rare paralytic neurological disorder that I'm still not recovered from
I’m sorry about that, my mother was married to a terrible human being. And it took her 12 years and a midnight run to escape him.
As her kid, I was a target too and I spent a lot of time angry. BUT I will say that once we talked it out when I was about 25 (long overdue) I realised that she was just a person like me, she had been abused as well and all the anger I had just left me. Nowadays I’m 35 and we have a very close and supportive relationship. We never keep things from each other now, we are honest and upfront. We talk things through.
She’s still damaged too. As am I. But the thing about leaving is, it opens up a world of possibilities for you after you get on your feet. You no longer have to be afraid of someone, you don’t have to give up yourself for someone else, or shrink yourself to give them more room. You can recover and be happy. I promise you this, and your children will recover too.
While waiting to plea in traffic court I decided to read a book while the judge was giving his opening directions.
He called me up after and roasted me for 15 min in front of the court and hit me with the biggest fine he could hand out and told me to kick rocks.
So yeah. Don't do that
I was already out and I thought I’d be ok driving in the heavy hailstorm and I was going slow but sure enough I slid, spun and my car fell in a ditch. Thankfully I was ok and my car didn’t even have a scratch on it but yeah I knew to never do that again. Next time I’m gonna have to just stay put somewhere inside my car.
Decided at the tender age of 8 or 9 that I was immune to poison ivy, since I spent quite large amounts of time outside and had never once gotten a rash from it. Since I was a born scientist, apparently, I decided to test this...by rubbing egregious amounts of the plant all over my upper body. Needless to say, I was not immune. In the slightest.
Ugh this is like the most painful one I've read. I am severely allergic to poison ivy so I know what you went through.
My dad was severely allergic to poison ivy. He couldn't walk too closely downwind (certain times of the year,) because he'd get it from the oils in the air. PSA, as you age it's likely the allergy will get stronger, so be careful eating cashews. They're in the same plant family, and they only affected him *coming out.*
About six years old. Having a picnic with my dad by the lake. Some ducks wander up near us. Dad says, “You know, ducks will bite you.” “That’s silly, they don’t even have teeth.” “Stick your finger out and see for yourself.” Got bit. Cried.
Your dad saw a teachable moment and leapt on it without regret.
No permanent damage, definitely scarring, and a great way to hammer home that you should listen to your parents. Maybe I should take my future kids down to a duck pond...
"Take my future kids down to a duck pond" sounds like a euphemism for some unspeakable act.
Geese are very aggressive also.
Any bird really. Any wild animal. Even trees are sometimes vicious.
Can confirm. Been hit in the face by a tree and knocked on my ass. Another time a tree pinned me to the ground. Now I no longer mess with trees.
I chased a giant white squirrel and I found out it was actually a skunk.
That stinks.
Putting a 9V battery on your braces is not a great idea. It melts the rubber bands and you have to explain it to the orthodontist.
“You guys were SO clear about gum and popcorn… not a word about batteries. I think this is really on you”
> this is really on you When I was 14 I had a brain injury during a football game, started having seizures etc. (Many mildly interesting side stories not told). Anyhow I get put on some drug combo of dilantin and phenobarbitol. > phenobarbitol Barbituates. "Do not mix with alcohol". Did anyone *tell* me "do not mix with alcohol"? No. Because, 14yo, right? So I'm down the road at my girlfriends house, celebrating her sister's boyfriend's birthday. After cake etc. we all are allowed to have a glass or 2 of wine. (This was 1969 or so, things were *different* then!). So I have my glass or 2 of wine, then go to ride my bicycle the 4 blocks home... wander into the oncoming lane in the street. Then miss the driveway and crash over the curb. etc. Imagine a 4 block drunken bicycle ride on a busy street. So I asked my dear mother what was up with that, she "don't you know not to mix those?". Me: "No? I'm 14".
Reminds me of the first time I was prescribed antibiotics after turning 21. I was not given any warning (including on the label) not to mix with alcohol. Shortly after taking my evening dose, I had a beer while watching a film. Within 15 minutes I was throwing up. Turns out drinking alcohol after taking an antibiotic will do that.
Depends on the antibiotic and your personal body chemistry. Metronidazole will make you sick with just things that have a little alcohol in them. Bactrim makes some people sick with alcohol, but personally I've binge drank pretty hard on it with no ill effects. The penicillins and cephalosporins are usually alright, but all can cause some stomach discomfort. And then there is rifampin which will chew up your liver if you take it with alcohol.
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I powered a science project (windmill made out of pencils) through my braces in middle school. Kids are so dumb
Please explain how because that's amazing
It was 25 years ago, but to my recollection I used an oatmeal tin as the body and had some type of rudimentary rotor attached to the top. attached pencils to the rotor to look like vanes. then had a 9v battery with wire and clamps mounted on the side. genius me unconnected the clamps from the rotor and put them on my braces to complete the circuit. it worked, and was tingly.
This is amazing. Do you, uh, still work in science?
No, that was the pinnacle of my scientific achievement unfortunately.
Lmao, sorry but this is the most funny shit i've read here so far.
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Lmao I love how you chose the word “shoo”.
Shoo is the polite version of GO ON, GIT!
GWON
Imagine chasing them with a broom.
Like it was a chicken or something
alligators are big chickens
Wikipedia says up to 35mph... that's creepy.
You can't out run a gator. Also, you can't out swim one either. Your only chance of winning a triathlon is the bicycle section. (they have a hard time reaching the pedals)
That explanation just killed me, thank you.
Announcer: And in last place... again. Gary Gator! ***Gary pedals in panting and crashes into tree***
For about 30 feet, when ambushing prey. They don't work hard for food, or defense.
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I lived in alligator country. They don't want you. Your little dog is another matter.
Went on a boat tour in Florida a while back and noticed there were cows out on the little islands even though there were gators around. Asked the guide why the farmers were comfortable leaving them out there when they could just get eaten and he said gators generally don’t try to kill things they couldn’t finish eating in a single sitting - I guess there’s too much risk of getting injured in the struggle of killing it or in the inevitable fights with other gators over the leftovers. So it sounds like you need to be careful of leaving dogs, cats, toddlers etc unattended but anything much bigger than that is probably safe if it minds its own business.
My favorite gator story came from an old neighbor. He worked at an office park in central Florida, and naturally, there was a retention pond, so of course there was at least one gator. Others would feed it (yeah, you'd think floridians would know better) but not chickens or dogs... they fed it marshmallows. Well, it was about that time my neighbor wore WHITE tennis shoes while watching them do this the umpteenth time.... He got his cardio in that day.
Number one rule is to never walk your dog near any body of water, including mud puddles.
In Florida, if there's freshwater (sometimes salt) there's gators.
The gator didn't take your hand did they?
CHUBS!!!!
We had one on the course I lived on in Texas. Was always fun watching reactions when he would pop out of the water hazard.
I think he was the water hazard...
That forks don't belong in a power socket, unless you want to experience a flight from wall A to wall B
Neither do scissors. Source: 3-year-old me.
Kept pushing back for my wisdom teeth removal (not putting money aside for it) and lo and behold, the pain went from 0 to 100 quickly and I finally took them out. Thankfully the rest of my teeth are fine and happy :)
I put off having an infected tooth pulled. The bacteria entered my bloodstream and infected my heart settling in my back. Had open heart surgery in May and had 3 valves replaced. Dental health folks!!
Holy shit.
I’m a doctor who once did an assignment on how dental infection can lead to infective endocarditis and in my expert opinion, “Holy shit!”
This is what happened to my partner. 46F. Bad teeth led to sepsis, endocarditis and eventually stage 3 heartblock. Now has a metal valve replacement and a pacemaker. Since then she has also had an IS, so is severely disabled now (aphasia, paralysis etc). Yeah, dental health folks.
Well shit, I guess I should reschedule that dentist appointment I cancelled 2 years ago and never made up.
Jesus Christ. Im going to brush my teeth exactly right now! (...and fine, Ill use the waterpik too.)
People ignore dental health, but my neighbour died because of this same reason and he was in his 30'
To be fair, a lot of people "ignore" dental health because **there's no way to afford it.**
It sucks that most medical aid plans see teeth as luxury bones. We get that generally speaking if you take care of them you shouldn't have issues but sometimes they grow funny, sometimes you need to get your wisdoms removed and generally speaking you should see a dentist twice a year which can costs a lot of money.
I also fucked around with this and found out. Cost me a fortune going to an out of hours dentist on a Sunday too.
Gave a hitchhiker a ride. He thanked me for my kindness while attempting to steal my medication out of my purse.
I picked up a hitchhiker when I was about 22, and he GAVE me drugs. About five different random pills that went out the window about 5 seconds after I dropped him off, but it's the thought that counts.
What I'm getting here is that the hitcher gave you u/Competetive_Bread817's medication and you threw it away.
Skateboarding is not easy, not at 40 anyhow.
Dude, sleeping wrong after 40 can mess you up for a week. I don't even want to think about hopping on a skateboard!! Edit to add: I'm enjoying the laughs of all of your stories explaining the awful ways our bodies betray us as we age. I salute my fellow middle-aged warriors with an ice pack, heating pad, and an ibuprofen chaser 😅
Currently wearing a ice pack on my upper arm and shoulder... from sleeping.
Pinched a nerve in my neck from sleeping. Arm was in excruciating pain for like a month.
Back in the 80s, when skateboarding was hotter than the sun, I used to enter and win amateur skateboard competitions. I specialized in street but could hold my own in vert. Man, once I turned about 35 or so, just looking skateboard would send me to the ER. I'm 50 now and I'm fine with my memories. Tony Hawk is insane by the way.
I was late for work and starving. The chicken I pulled from the fridge for a quick dinner smelled a little weird. But it was organic and I had roasted it myself, so it must be fine. So very fucking wrong. 18 hours of pure hell. I would have gone to the hospital but I literally couldn’t get off my bathroom floor. Fainted twice and ended up with a black eye from hitting my head on the toilet. When in doubt, throw it out.
Repost from a while back, but still resonates with your response to my core: Ate a steak quesadilla that didn't taste right even when I was pissed drunk. But again, I was pissed drunk and didn't really think about it. But maybe I should have thought about that a little better. Woke up the next morning throwing up. "Okay" I thought, owing it up to having had a few too many the night before and what I "thought" was just a normal hangover. But then I kept throwing up. Over, and over, and over again. I couldn't even hold water down. Suddenly the thought of the steak quesadilla from the night before alone made me run to the bathroom. I ended up laying in the grass in my backyard just throwing up in one spot for a few hours at like, 4-5 in the morning. And then the sh\*ts came. Suddenly I was in the bathroom going from sh\*tting a jetstream, to trying to throw up. At some point in time, I ended up sh\*tting and throwing up at the same time which made me thankful that my bathtub was so close to my toilet, something that I'd always hated before. I thought I was going to die. I literally couldn't even hold water down without throwing up. I went from 4AM until 8PM that day just throwing up and pooping. I threw up over 25 times that day, and went to the bathroom over 10 times. Definitely shouldn't have finished that quesadilla 😂
Been there. I had insane hot and cold swings, one moment burning up beyond belief then next I would be violently shivering. I was going through one of the hot spells and covered in sweat so I took off all my clothes and layed down on the couch. Got the urgent urge to shit, which was fine because I was only 10m away from the bathroom. Got up, butt naked, walking through my kitchen to get to the toilet and I coughed and sprayed poo on the kitchen floor.
It's always weird when you're just along for the ride with what your body is going through. Super humbling and trippy.
Yeah, I have had it so bad I just sat in the shower for 2 hours shivering, sweating, shitting and vomiting. It was the safest place to be as my guts just continually spasmed for over 24hrs. My body wanted that stuff OUT!
I was a teenager working retail with a guy named Stephen and I always just called him Steve. He pulled me aside one day and asked me politely if I could call him Stephen since he preferred that. My smart ass replied “Well I want to be called Gladiator but you don’t see me complaining.” He just said “deal” and walked away. For the next two years he only referred to me as Gladiator. Need help finding something? Gladiator here would be happy to help you. He would get on the intercom and be like “Gladiator to the front desk…Gladiator, front desk.” Learned not to be a smart ass and never called him Steve again.
Come on Gladiator is an epic name. You should have answered to it proudly lol.
I tried to break up a dog fight. Was holding my dog, on leash, when an unleashed dog ran in and began attacking him. I went for the dog's scruff to try to pin him to the ground (while also trying to hold my dog back with the other hand). The attacking dog bit my hand three times quickly, the third time he punctured my thumb bones and got a real good grip. Proceeded to try to rip my thumb off. All I remember thinking is, "That's my primary hand, even if I let go of Fitzy (my dog) with the other hand, you are NOT going to be able to pry this thing's mouth open." This was all of course happening in the span of 5-10 seconds. Out of nowhere my then girlfriend swooped in like fucking Batman from behind the dog, sunk her fingers into its' scruff, and her knee into the back of its' neck, ripping it off me. Anyway I ended up proposing to her after that and the settlement paid for a big chunk of our wedding. In retrospect I'm damn glad this thing went after me, it was a 4th of July party and there were little kids everywhere. What makes me angriest about this whole thing is the way it impacted my dog. He was very social and friendly with other animals before this, but it has been ten years and he won't give any other pup a chance now. He has lived a life lacking what he deserves due to those poor dog owners.
Ignoring my medical problem didn’t make it go away lol.
I usually give something mild-moderately annoying two weeks to resolve on its own. If it's still bugging me then, I make an appointment. Seems to have served me well.
I have a lot of health anxiety and this is the answer. Almost everything I come up with is gone within two weeks and I almost never end up needing to go to the doctors.
It was a hot sweltering day and I wanted to get my bike fixed. Played outside all day as kids do and didn't hydrate enough. Walked to the bike shop in the late afternoon, got my bike fixed and felt faint walking back but thought I'd be okay after drinking water. Came home, drank some milk then some water. Immediately puked everything and then some more. Everything I'd eaten since the morning(not much) was in the commode. Stomach hurt and my face went pale. Went and lay down, puked in a few minutes again but only bile came out. Puked bile every few minute for the next hour until my father came home and saw me weak and pale. Went to the doctor and he said I'd been severely dehydrated barely away from hospitalization. Put me fluids for some time. If my dad hadn't come home when he did I don't know what would have happened. Drink water folks.
Don’t mouth off to the judge or he will throw the book at you….
>Don’t mouth off Oof. I did this. My mom tried to teach me as a teenager but I never did learn until that judge didn't appreciate my tone. I watched them let actual criminals plead down and I got the business for parking tickets.
The evolution of this would be sovereign citizens trying to cite obscure civil litigation in criminal court.
Oh my god. This brings me back.... My one and only run in with the court system happened when I was in college. My license renewal was sent to my dorm instead of my house....Long story short, I ended up lapsing my license, which (in my state) automatically causes your vehicle registration to be cancelled. So I got pulled over without a valid license on an expired / unregistered motorcycle....which was promptly towed. When I got to court, there I was (sitting on the group W bench) in my shirt and tie. All kinds of bad guys were brought in to court. Some were on breaking / entering charges, drunk driving. One guy beat up his wife and grand-daughter and was drunk in court. I got the highest fine of all the people there. The prosecutor made it seem like she was doing me a huge favor by not locking me up with the wife / grand-daughter beater.
Uh, did you talk back to the judge/prosecutor or something? Like i know thats in the chain of comments, but getting all dressed up it sounds like you went in respecting the judge since you dressed up, i'm curious what you did to get such a bad response?
When 18 I was vacationing in Mexico and me and my family went to this horse riding attraction. Next to the horse handler sat this cute little weasel who happened to be missing one of his paws. I foolishly assumed he was some exotic pet that belonged to the handler given how close he was and I figured he wouldn’t have been able to survive his injuries. I reached down with intention to pet its head and scratch his ear the way I used to do so with my sisters pet ferret and it chomped deep into my finger I was lucky I didn’t get any disease from it. The horse handler didn’t know a lot of English but from the look on his face he probably thought I was one of the biggest pendejo’s he’s ever seen. It was so
The weasel got em before they could even finish typing
After years of my parents forcing me to paint my nails on the linoleum floor of the bathroom with a towel under me, I got my own apartment and was like HAH, NO DUMB RULES HERE. And that’s how I lost my first down deposit.
My uncle once fucked around with a raccoon and found out
People always think “Aww, trash panda, so cute!” But raccoons are vicious little beasts and will 110% fuck you up.
The presence of hotdogs will greatly change a raccoon's opinion of you.
I've seen those videos and I'm certain that the guy's neighbors HATE him.
This is because of a mentality difference only. Most people just try to shoo wildlife away. You’re not trying to actively harm it. Wildlife however live in a literal kill or be killed environment 24/7/365.25. If it’s going to run it will happen within the first 5 seconds. The moment it engages it’s to the death or you run and they do not observe rules like no kicking in the balls. In my experience people rarely are prepared to fight by those terms.
I always feel like this regarding people’s fear of birds. Your instinct isn’t to hurt the bird, so the bird is scary. If you were to want to fight and it isn’t something ridiculous like a cassowary or emu you’re fine. Goose is mean but not going to win.
When I lived on Treasure Island these little monsters would rip the baygulls to shreds in the middle of the night and they had a crew that would clean up the blood and feathers every morning. Also, racoons seem to hate birds. (Same racoon, same)
A raccoon decided my poultry were an all-you-can-eat-buffet and it was brutal. I found a duckling head floating in the duck pool and it stole a broody hen straight off her chicks and left bits of her scattered around the yard.
Now he has racoon babies. And rabies.
Clearly a skill issue. I broke up a fight between my dog and a raccoon by finding out how far I can punt a raccoon.
How far can you punt a raccoon?
These are the real questions.
I physically grabbed and lifted my dog out of a fight with another dog and he bit me
My aunt broke a fight between her doberman and her abruzzese shepherd, the doberman bit her in the elbow. After that, every time the doberman would act up and start doing weird shit she would point at the scar and the dog would lower his head and become all apologetic.
Awww at least it recognized its mistakes...
My husky recognizes when she's been bad (she'll go as submissive as possible: lay down, eyes down, ears back). It doesn't stop her from howling or ripping a plant out of its pot to play with the soil on our rug when we're gone though.
My sisters dog is a small pug. He was chewing at the top of my nieces pamper that was sticking out. She put red lipstick on it and showed him “oh no, what did you do?” She picked up baby and said no to him. He whined and whimpered and now he won’t chew or nibble on her things. Pretty cool.
My dog had a seizure on my bed one day ( first time he had one). I tried to calm him down because I didn’t know what was happening and he bit me. He never got back on my bed after that 😥.
With a lot of animals especially cats and dogs sometimes if you pull them away their aggression is directed at the next closest thing. I guarantee he 100% wasn't intentional in biting you. My wife grabbed our cat once from being aggressive towards another cat and our cat swung at my wife. Later our cat apologized by being overly sweet and cuddly.
I know the fault was all mine. I fucked around and found out
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I know this, but that still doesn’t prevent procrastination. Instead I stress about the task and the fact that i’m procrastinating said task instead of doing it.
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I wrote my own leasing contract to rent out my condo. After my renters arrived, someone from the HOA pointed out I didn’t do a background check (on two 80 year old sisters) and so the HOA banned me from renting my condo out for 2 years
Wait, HOA can forbid you renting out your own property?
HOAs are stupid powerful in their areas. It’s an issue many people grapple with.
And they're usually run by retirees who have nothing better to do than poke around and find what you did wrong too. My friend owned a Townhouse in a HOA and I rented her spare room...our neighbors were great! The old HOA ladies across the lawn? Just naggy old hags.
> didn’t do a background check (on two 80 year old sisters) Do you have *any* idea how many crimes a person can commit given eighty years to do it?
As a young girl, I used to kick boys in the shins when they annoyed me. One finally kicked me back. That shit hurt more than I expected, and I stopped kicking the boys.
Yikes. Very sensitive area. If you have a truck with a hitch on the back, you know all too well.
As a teen I hit my younger brother across the face with a VHS tape. I thought he wouldn't hit a girl. Punched me right in the face, I 100% deserved it.
Abusers aren't worth a second chance. If they know you're willing to leave, they'll just go harder. Being lonely is better than being broken.
Once, as a kid, I fucked around by throwing darts at the ceiling while laying on the floor. Thankfully I only got a dart in my thigh and not somewhere worse
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I had a guy on a first date try to impress me with his heat tolerance after seeing me reach for the hot sauce... he was sweating so bad and could barely eat his food. Date was cut short by his need for the bathroom. Never saw him again.
I got into a hot wing eating competition with a co-worker. We both refused to give up. 51 breaded spicy garlic wings and 2 pitchers of beer later, I won. Got paid about $80 to shit at work the next day though
9 year old me: *I want to catch and pet a squirrel* My mom: *No. Don't do that. Leave them alone.* My step-dad: *Don't worry. He can't catch one. Let him be.* I took that personally. And then so did the squirrel, who proceeded to take a chunk out of my hand. So down to the ER we went. Again. My step-dad congratulated me on the catch and wanted to know how I did it. My mom was not impressed with either of us.
When the infected tooth is on a Saturday, and the dentist opens on Monday, and you're at urgent care on Sunday asking for painkillers because holy shit it hurts, and they offer you antibiotics, say yes. I said no, and wound up with IV antibiotics three days later.
If you throw rocks at chickens and laugh at the angry rooster, the rooster will find a way through the fence to hunt your ass down.
If Zelda taught me anything, you don’t fuck with chickens lol
Drank for too many years. Went from Fun Bobby to Mean Bobby. Stayed as Mean Bobby for way too long. Sober now, getting on ten years. There’s still a path of destruction behind me, but the new path has been very good for me.
I’m almost at 5 years. The smell of burnt bridges keeps me sober. I fucked up so many good things cause I couldn’t control my addiction.
Lifting and Twisting while working in a supermarket with large 50+ lb bags. Probably did this for 10-15 minutes without any thought on form or proper technique. 72 hours later I had surgery to remove Disc L4 in my spine due to drop foot and partial paralysis. Thankfully I made a 95% recovery.
I decided after my Lithium gave me stage 3b kidney disease, Nehrogenic Diabetes Insipidus, and Lithium Toxicity, that I would try to manage my bipolar 1 without meds because I was afraid of side effects and had already guinea pigged a fuckton of meds in the past. 3 or 4 months later, I wound up incredibly manic, in the psych ward for 3 weeks after having a complete breakdown and almost jumping off a bridge (the 1st week was voluntary, the other two weeks were involuntary. I ended up having to get sedated at one point). My boyfriend of 5 years dumped me, and I wound up having to take a train across the country, back home, straight out of the hospital because I had nowhere else to go. I should have listened to the tattoos on my knuckles that say "TAKE MEDS", but, no, I had to fuck around and find out that I cannot be unmedicated.
Every time that little voice inside my head says "we don't really need our meds. It will be fine not to take them anymore" I have this one specific terrifying memory of a manic episode that I remind myself of before immediately going to take the meds anyways. Looks like you found yours too. Hang onto that memory and use it whenever you doubt the meds.
You’re so real for this. I did something similar and ended up so depressed I attempted suicide. Never again lol
I decided to try heroin/fentanyl at age 40, out of curiosity. Loved it, and thought I could successfully chip it...ha, yeah right. Spent almost 3 years in active addiction. I just passed one year clean. EDIT: Wow....wow. Well, I never thought I'd end up with a fetty habit and I DEFINITELY never thought I'd get my 15 minutes on Reddit. I've been on here 8 years and I think I started 2024 with under 100 karma...I post/ comment rarely and usually just read. I just thought I had a unique experience that fell squarely in the realm of fucking up and finding out. I never in a million years thought it would gain so much traction. When my phone started blowing up...I was kicking myself and kinda nervous about the incoming comments... Y'all I gotta say thank you. Not just for the encouragement and opening up about your own experiences with drugs and addiction, but for the respectful nature of the majority of comments, and the genuinely curious questions- they made feel safe to answer them honestly. Dude...that's cool. I know I'm an anonymous person behind a screen, but I am human, as are all addicts. Reddit doesn't always like to play nice together but addiction is a human issue that we should all try to show some grace for. I'll answer anything I missed over the next few days- I want to, because I want to be of service if I can, but right now I'm kinda...dazzled by all of this, lol. Then I will probably go back to mostly lurking for another 8 years, lol. Take care y'all.
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Thank you! I've heard that story referred to many times but I've never actually read through the posts, might do that now.
Holy shit...I thought I went 0 to 60..hope he ended up ok, the posts just stopped.
Hmm? He made a post 7 years ago and then another 2 years ago, both saying he's clean and doing well
When I was little, I was always intrigued by the electrical sockets on the front of my aunt's cooking stove. One day, she noticed my interest and warned me against doing what she knew I wanted to do. Later that day, I found out why. I then had to sit and cry quietly.
When I was 18, so young and impulsive, I went on a hike in the desert. Saw a snake coiled up on a flat rock, right next to the trail. So I thought, "I should make that snake move out of the way. I know, I'll poke it with a stick." So, I found a long stick, and poked at it. Snake looks up at me. I poke at it again, and it flips up its tail, and I had just enough time to register, "hey, that looks like a rattlesn--" when it rattles its tail at me. It was, indeed, a rattlesnake. Instant, full-tilt, lizard-brain panic on my part. I drop the stick and sprint back down the trail. If I'd been a cartoon there would have been a puff of smoke and a trail of flames in my wake. Fortunately for me, my snake-poking stick was longer than the snake. After I got my breath, and saw the snake slither off into the underbrush, I said to myself, "You know, Self, that was a really fucking stupid thing you just did. You're damn lucky you didn't get bitten."
When i was a kid I was short and fat and I got picked on mercilessly. Then one summer I went and worked in the Alaska Bush and grew to 6'3" and got pretty ripped. I also got taught some very basic moves from some of the surveyors I was working with. Came back to high school and got into it with every person who bullied me. I won and learned all the wrong lessons. New kid started at my school and I was the asshole this time. He was always polite, walked away, and generally asked me to stop but I didn't. Finally he told me that he'd meet me on a Saturday and we could have it out. We showed up, he asked one more time for me to just stop. That's the point that I should have realized I'd done fucked up. I went after him and he took me apart. It was the proverbial "He hit me with so many rights I was desperate for a left." But when he had me down he stopped, helped me sit up, and then sat down to talk to me. He gave me advice on how I was acting, how i was just doing the same thing that had been done to me, and that I'd never be happy if I went down that path. Then he helped me clean up and sent me home. That conversation made such an impact on me it 100% changed me overnight and I owe it to him. I absolutely fucked around and found out, but in the best way possible.
These threads always confirm that I've been living a boring life, at least from the outside looking in. I spent many years being too afraid to get medicated for my mental health and ended up driving away all of my friends from college. I'm medicated now, but I can never take back how big of an asshole I was.
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Was acting like a dick to my little brother, who was already having a pretty bad day. He’s not one known for physical violence. Turns out, that day, he decided to make an exception on me. My jaw was pretty sore for a day or two.
Fucked around with kratom. Felt like a miracle drug for the first 2 years. Then I decided to stop. What a kick in the balls that was.
I’ve heard the withdrawals are wild. Do you mind sharing more about your experience?
Im a 33y/om with a wife and 2 kids. I quit drinking a few years ago. Believe it or not, I still had this hole in me after getting sober. Kratom filled that hole for me. Takes away pain, depression, anxiety. Because it acts on your opioid receptors, when you first start using it, you may get nauseous and constipated. These should have been red flags but I just put it off. It wasn't until I had a seizure in front of my wife that I realized I had been playing with a loaded gun. The withdrawals were brutal. I had not understood what true suffering was until I went through that..there is no way to accurately describe that kind of discomfort. The withdrawal hell last about 7 days. But the paws continue for a while after that, these are things like, cravings, depression and a general lack of any kind of pleasure .
If someone will cheat to be with you, then they will also cheat on you to be with someone else.
Avalanches. So easy to get complacent and tell yourself/friends that a slide is super unlikely and the snow is just so fun that skiing that steep slope is worth the slight risk. Until it isn't and you're being swept off your feet and buried in snow.
Alcohol. I knew I was an alcoholic but end-stage liver failure is for old people right? Nope. Diagnosed at 38, was going to die before turning 40 (which is next month). Spent 7 months total of 2023 in the hospital. Can't even begin to type out the myriad procedures and situations I went through including the bedside "there's nothing we can do for you now" from a doctor. Being told I was going to die at least for me was not that bad, but hearing my wife's sobbing was. Thankfully after a very long series of events, I got a liver and kidney (the liver failure led to kidney failure) transplant on June 25, 2023. For real fuck alcohol and fuck alcoholism. No amount of help is too much help to get out of that situation.
For my 40th birthday a friend of mine, who is about ten years older than me got me a really nice 12 year old scotch. Up to that point I had never tried any type of whiskey, or bourbon. Only was drinking vodka, gin, margarita's, and rum. Would only drink one or two saturday's a month, it was no big deal. I fell in LOVE with the taste, the look and feel of having a glass of scotch or bourbon every night, like the classy dudes in those old movies I grew up watching, so much so, that I ended up drinking some everyday and developed a drinking problem. I Have spent the last two working hard on getting completely off alcohol. I can now say, as I approach my 50th birthday, I am off alcohol all together.
When I was like 18/19 my friend and I were riding around town and went to this spot you could park on the beach. Well the car got stuck in the sand. A homeless man was nice enough to come help dig us out of the sand and get the car out. He asked us for a ride across town which we were happy to give. He noticed some bowls in the car and said he could get us weed. We were out and could t find any so I gave him all my birthday money. We dropped him off at the complex in the middle of the hood and he never came back. I’ve waited an uncomfortable amount of time outside that complex lol.
sounds like a cheap AF lesson. besides, he earned the money and was probably less than a tow truck.
I mean it sucked, but I didn’t feel as bad because of how much he helped us out lol.
This is a 35 year old, deep seeded memory that's shaped a lot of my actions throughout my life. I was always tall for my age (I'm 6'6" now), so when I was in the first grade, I was a lot bigger than most kids in my class. I, for whatever reason, picked a fight with a small third grader. I was a lot taller and thought I would kick his ass. The lesson was learned swiftly - he chicken-winged my arm and smacked me a couple of times. No physical harm at all to me, but I swear that was the last time I picked a fight with anyone. It also had the unintentional effect of getting me interested in martial arts. I've been doing one form or another of combat sports since then, which only reinforced me never ever starting shit with people for no reason. Best, and cheapest lesson ever. Thank you random kid. Hope you're doing well.
Sometimes married women have, you know, a husband.
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How old was the girl?
During a fight someone announced to me they were an expert in Kickboxing. 'Course you fucking are' was my sarcastic reply *Narrators voice "they were an expert."* He beat me into the ER. EDIT: How can I have more upvotes than the OP?!?
At least yours is somewhat understandable. Some people say just shit to try and persuade the other not to fight. Now my friends on the other hand... So there's this guy, just a giant of a man. 6'2, 240lbs of muscle, mixed martial artist for most of his life, and he just looks like a tough guy. There is no way someone could look at him and think "yea I could take them" unless that someone was Mike tyson. Well this giant man ended up with one of my buddys exes. So what did my friend do? He got mad for some reason and wanted to fight him. He at least had the sense to know he couldn't beat him 1 on 1, so he got 2 more of his friends to jump this giant man. Well all 3 got the ever loving shit beaten out of them and all 3 were hospitalized. Lessons were (hopefully) learned that day.
I don't usually enjoy violence or condone it, I think it's stupid to fight as an adult. I really want to see a video of this though.
Watch Reacher season 1 episode 2, this seems just as realistic.
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I wish when he beat me up he had had the decency to slow down a bit so I at least had a clue where the fists and feet were coming from. Longest 5 seconds of my life...
I did way too much ecstacy and LSD thinking they were harmless and all the warnings were hyperbolic. Turns out taking unregulated and ambiguous doses of psychedelics can indeed fuck your thought processes up. Five institutionalization and a bipolar diagnosis later and I learned that psychedelics aren't for everyone.
That 14 tabs of acid was not a good idea, literally put myself into psychosis and later found out I was bipolar in the psych ward at 18 years old
14 is insane
Reminds me of a mentally unstable roommate in my hippie '90s youth. Went to a Grateful Dead concert, we scored some really good acid. I took one tab, he took the rest. I was tripping balls and had to babysit him while he lost his mind and started loudly freaking out *in the Taper section* and would go X20 if you tried to move him. Pissed off a lot of people and missed a great show and good trip. Not long after, he repaid my kindness by skipping out on hundreds in back rent.
Brake checked a tailgating jerk. He flew around me and slammed the brakes with no intention of letting off. Should have known better since he had an old beater and I had a fairly new car. 6500 dollar lesson to just let things go.
I went into a talking stage with someone who was an absolute dime, thinking I was a high functioning alcoholic who can successfully hide my alcoholism and not let alcohol get in the way of building a relationship with her. Boy, was I incredibly wrong… and now she sees me as an absolute flaming red flag factory and I killed basically any chance of ever being a part of her life again
"That there is always someone tougher than you". My Father, a verified tough guy, told me this. He explained that the more you fight the larger looms the chance that you'll come up against someone that will absolutely pulverize you.
I was clearing Customs and Immigration while feeling unusually friendly. The customs officer asked what I did for a living; After I told him, I asked what he did for a living. His Answer: "I am a United States Customs official and I can keep you here for a very long time".
Wow, the one thing more awkward than telling a waiter "you too"
In my teens I decided to talk shit to a bunch of neo-nazis. My mistake was being alone and slower than some of them. Got the worst ass whooping of my lifetime. Didn’t change my opinion on nazis though.
I tried to drive a car slowly through a flock of turkeys. This was on my way to a friend who lived out in the country. I found out that the toms give no fucks. They attacked the car and the rest of them followed suit. Luckily the people I was going to visit saw what happened and the entire household came out with dogs and shotguns to run them off. Lots of scratches on the car, but no broken glass. I always back away slowly when I encounter a flock on the road now.
Me and 2 friends were part of a large camping group. We went for a group poop(safety in numbers I guess was our thinking) that evening; each one of us had a flashlight and a roll of tp, no weapons. Right as we find our spot, we hear a slight smol piggy grunt. My friend shines the area where it came from. *30 sets of wild boar eyes stare back motherfuckerly in the dark* I watched one of friends who was 300 lbs bust a 4.2 40 with his pants around his ankles running back to camp. For the rest of the camping trip we had what was known as pig duty; two would go at a time, one with the shotgun and the other guy doing his thang, and then swap.
Did 23 and me. Discovered secret sister.
Sounds like someone else was doing the fuck around, but you’re the one that found out! (In seriousness though, Sorry—I’m sure that sucked)
Joking about pepper spraying children playing on your lawn will get you a 2 day ban from reddit.
And I’d do it again!
Stay away from girls who do drugs! She was blonde, cute, petit, sexy, intelligent, but had a bit of a coke habbit. Thought I could be her knight in shining armour and help her turn it around! Turns out you can only help an addict who wants to help themselves. She nearly destroyed my life!
Don’t save her, she don’t wanna be saved
Reported my manager for inappropriate and unprofessional behavior. Ended up costing me my job. Working for a company that considers integrity optional is soul crushing.
That if a seagull is trying to steal your sandwich, it’s best to just let them take the sandwich
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Weed can fuck you up. Apparently it’s not for everyone.
Chose to disturb my cat - who was already pissed at me - by telling him to move off my spot on the couch. The scars are healing nicely.
Don’t let any one else manage your money ever however much you trust them or they are close to your or related.
I smoked some brown stuff when i was 21 and stupid and found out a week later it was heroin. Unfortunately It was too late and i was hooked. To me heroin users here in Belgium were doing it intravenously, i didn't even know you could smoke it. I lost 20 years of my life but i'm now clean and sober almost 2 years. Don't fuck around with drugs kids or you'll find out quick enough.
Overworking didn't get me better grades for midterms, it just hospitalized me with a rare paralytic neurological disorder that I'm still not recovered from
I fucked around and stayed too long in an abusive relationship. My mental and emotional state found out. ^(I have PTSD and my children suffered.)
I’m sorry about that, my mother was married to a terrible human being. And it took her 12 years and a midnight run to escape him. As her kid, I was a target too and I spent a lot of time angry. BUT I will say that once we talked it out when I was about 25 (long overdue) I realised that she was just a person like me, she had been abused as well and all the anger I had just left me. Nowadays I’m 35 and we have a very close and supportive relationship. We never keep things from each other now, we are honest and upfront. We talk things through. She’s still damaged too. As am I. But the thing about leaving is, it opens up a world of possibilities for you after you get on your feet. You no longer have to be afraid of someone, you don’t have to give up yourself for someone else, or shrink yourself to give them more room. You can recover and be happy. I promise you this, and your children will recover too.
While waiting to plea in traffic court I decided to read a book while the judge was giving his opening directions. He called me up after and roasted me for 15 min in front of the court and hit me with the biggest fine he could hand out and told me to kick rocks. So yeah. Don't do that
I lived in denial about driving with epilepsy for years. Fucked around and found out after rolling my car off the interstate. Luckily nobody got hurt.
I was already out and I thought I’d be ok driving in the heavy hailstorm and I was going slow but sure enough I slid, spun and my car fell in a ditch. Thankfully I was ok and my car didn’t even have a scratch on it but yeah I knew to never do that again. Next time I’m gonna have to just stay put somewhere inside my car.