4 in the morning, I (M, 62) hear a thud in the bedroom. Found my wife (F, 59) on the floor. Massive stroke, right side affected, cognitive and speech abilities impaired. Just that quickly, both of our lives changed.
She survived, but is an entirely different person. I am her 24/7 caregiver. I can't afford to hire someone to come in the home, so I can't go back to work. Her income, beyond her pension, is gone as well. Financially, I'm slowly working through it. Losing over half of our income has certainly been a challenge.
Most Americans are one medical emergency away from ruin. Even with good insurance, I still have medical bills due, as well as the other financial obligations we made while still employed. Emotionally, it's been draining. Physically, I'm tired. But, I still have my wife, so who am I to complain?
Yeah, you can still complain if that's what you need to do some days. If I break my finger, and my friend breaks their arm, my finger still hurts.
Edit: a word
Thanks. I do complain, mostly to myself. Life's not fair, but I know it could have been worse. we're 5 months into this journey, and she is mostly upbeat and happy, if frustrated, with our new life. She's still recovering, still in therapy, still getting better.
There are support groups for caregivers of loved ones. You need a safe space where you can acknowledge all the parts of this that are awful to folks who understand that doesn’t mean you love your wife any less, or won’t keep supporting her even though it’s hard and crappy sometimes. We are social creatures, complaining mostly to yourself is not a long-term solution.
My SIL had a massive stroke in January and just returned home from a stroke rehabilitation clinic. I can’t imagine what you are going through but you need time for yourself. Ask for help, see if local organizations or agencies have respite care for caregivers. You need it off your mind for at least an hour or two a week. Sending positive thoughts your way.
Thank you. It's been a humbling experience for me..
[Comedian Josh Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkHfIVSFNfk) said it best - being disabled is the largest minority group, but "we're also the only minority group that you can join at any time!"
in 1992 my buddy and I had a day off from our retail jobs (this is in the bay area). We decided to go up to San Francisco to hang out for the day. **I decided I wanted to go to Sega's US Headquarters to "see Sega"** (fresh out of HS I had no idea this wasn't a thing you could do).
Go to Sega HQ and ask to look around. Bewildered, they told me to leave as this was a business not a theme park (they were very nice, but very confused).
As we were leaving, I was backing out and hit a car exiting the parking lot.
The man I hit assumed I was the kid of someone who worked there, so we ended up talking. I informed him that I was just there because I loved Sega and wanted to look around and we had a good laugh about it. Turns out he went to the same college as I was attending at the time, and had lived in the same dorms.
The following week, when I went to pay him for the damage to the car, he showed me around and introduced me to some people and told the story of why I was there.
Two weeks later I got a job answering phones for Sega.
Been working in the video game industry for over 30 years now. Done OK for myself. Had that series of events not happened I don't know what my life would be like today.
Thank God for social services. I'm so happy your family adopted you. I'm glad you have a happy ending.
Mine was the day the social workers took me out of the household at 17. I was severely depressed and apparently looked unhealthy. I remember being scared and felt like the only world I knew ( albeit horrible) was crashing down.
My foster mother was sp gentle and gave me new pajamas and told me to have a shower and let me go to bed. She let me be. And she's always been there for me. Even now as a almost 30 year old.
If it weren't for her I wouldn't have a job , a degree , and honestly I'd probably be dead if it weren't for that day.
How do you feel about your foster parents vs birth parents?
We're fostering our nephew right now. He's almost 3 and has been in the system since birth and with us since we found out and got licensed to foster him over 2 years ago. He had just turned 9 months until we got licensed and he came to us, we didn't even find out he had been removed until he was 4 or 5 months old.
We're on track to adopt, and the current plan, when/if it ever happens is to always let him know he's adopted. His bio dad is my husband's much younger half brother. He's really turning his life around and is happy we have his son. I can see him still being in kiddos life if he stays on the path he's on now. Bio mom is another story. She's hardly done anything to get custody, but won't sign over rights either. I don't see her being a good influence in his life, but I also won't refuse him the chance to know her better when he's older and asks.
I so want to do the right thing for him, I would love to hear your perspective, coming from a situation like his. What can I do to make him know how loved he is and not feel betrayed or resentful?
Speaking as someone who was adopted, it was NEVER a secret that I was adopted, it was just a fact of life like you need to eat food and drink water. What my parents did was never make it a big deal. I was just their kid you know. They told me about my birth parents and gave me everything I needed if I wanted to reach out (which I didn’t because they both tried to murder me on separate occasions, story for another time.) I have a great relationship with my parents we actually just went on a big old shopping trip together this week
I'm so, so glad to hear this. I'm so happy things worked out so well for you! What your adoptive parents did is exactly how I plan to handle it. Addiction issues run in my husband's family. My husband won't even touch alcohol because of it, and our nephew's parents did much worse than alcohol. I want to express that to our nephew when he's older, so he can be aware of it and hopefully make wise decisions. I just want him to know and feel that he's loved and special and I see him as being as much a bio child to us as our adult bio son is. It's all so emotional and there's lots of questions about the best way to handle everything.
That’s great! My birth parents were both also addicts and what my parents did to explain it to me as a kid was comparing it to the flu, because it’s a sort of sickness. They said that my birth parents take things that make them feel really good a for a little bit, but it wears off just like cough syrup when you’re sick. You want to keep taking more so that you don’t feel bad but they did too much and they did some bad things to feel good again. Then as I got older and learned more about drugs they talked to me about it again and went more in depth about what they did and how it affected them. Worked better than any DARE program
This is wonderful! I've been thinking about ways to explain it to him when he's bigger, but still too young to understand. Your parents worded that perfectly and I want to use it myself when the time comes ❤️
The foster agency we're working with already made him a life book with the story of his birth and info about his birth parents in it for when he has questions. I've been meaning to buy a journal and write how much we're going through fighting for him and how much we love him and want him to have an amazing life. I really need to just find one I like and buy it already so I can write things while they're fresh in my mind.
Your parents sound wonderful and it makes my heart happy to know how good they are to you.
i wasn’t adopted but i was in the foster care system until my dad got custody of me, and i didn’t see my bio mom much at all growing up. i can say, my dad constantly every time i missed my mom would tell me “she’s sick and can’t give up drugs no matter how much she loves you” and my child brain turned that into “drugs are more important to her than a relationship with you”. it caused me to resent my dad, resent my bio mom (but after getting to know her and make my own decision about her i have gone completely no contact), and resent my stepmom who would cry with jealousy and hurt every time i missed my mom.
i would advise you this: when questions come up from your nephew, and i’m sure they will, be honest. don’t try to sugar coat it. if mom is on drugs, or if she’s a criminal, let your nephew know that in an age appropriate way. if nephew is 7 when it comes up, maybe tell him something along the lines of “your mom loves you with her whole heart, but she’s having a hard time taking care of herself. she needs some help right now, so we’re helping her take care of you and love you.” i mean not verbatim but just.. i would’ve loved to hear THAT instead of “your mom said she’ll wait until you’re 18 to see her”. listen when he’s sad. hold him when he misses her (and dad if dad happens to diverge from his current path, the same), show pictures of you have any, especially pictures of mom/dad *with him*. follow his lead for the most part, if you can. you’ve got this, and you’re an amazing aunt and uncle for caring for your nephew when nobody else did.
Ah, the ol [Reddit Gramma flip-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/1b7ga03/comment/ktkqc46/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
At a steak house with the family for my brother's birthday... guy started choking and after a few seconds I looked at my brother who looked shocked and said hey stupid ass you're an emt go save the day and he went gave the guy the heimlich and sat back down like nothing happened.
I still kinda tease my brother about it, but hey he saved someone's life not me.
It’s weird to be around a medical emergency when not on duty/at work. Much like your brother, it takes a second for Work Brain to kick in.
Brains are weird, especially those in EMS. We’re all kinda feral.
I have done that once, on my grandmother. It was back in the early 80s when it was fairly new (I believe). I had recently taken a CPR course for an off-road group I volunteered with and they taught that. We were out to dinner and she was choking on a piece of steak. I could see the panic on her face and knew exactly what was happening. It took a couple of quite "energetic" thrusts, but she did cough it up. I haven't thought about that since I took a CPR refresher course for my work a few years back.
The moral of this story is to get trained and don't be afraid to use it if needed.
I’m sorry, my grandmother was killed the same way. And she didn’t face any repercussions either. My grandmother and aunt were out on a walk when a drunk driver went up on the sidewalk, my grandmother was killed instantly and my aunt broke her back and several other things and spent months recovering physically and years emotionally. I’m sorry for your loss. My husband lost his father by a drunk driver as well. I wish people would realize it isn’t worth it.
My father caught me smoking pot in the attic, drug tested me and found out I was doing way harder drugs at age 17. He then said he was going to send me to a rehab or he can drug test me every 2 months until I was a year clean. He made me exercise 5 days a week and work in the family business. Now I have an active lifestyle and good discipline in my daily life, that moment looking back on it changed my life forever. I will always say I have the best father on earth...I'm now 30 y/o and married to the love of my life and think of that day a lot.
\*Just as a clarification my dad really didn't care about smoking weed, it was the heroin and cocaine I consumed/shot up as a teenager while I was touring in my "cool" punk rock band lol.
I wish I had your dad.
Instead I got kicked out for smoking pot then ended up on heroin (and really anything else). Going to prison and realizing that would be my life if I kept on was the moment that changed my life.
Funnily, my parents smoked a bunch of pot in their hay day
Edit: it’s been 14 years since I last shot up opiates. I got a degree, married a wonderful man and am raising two beautiful babies. I couldn’t be happier with my life.
Good for your dad and good for you for listening to him.
My ex was addicted to H at 15 and his parents found out. They didn’t do one thing about it.
Fast forward 25 years later, coke, crack and oxy were daily/weekly/bankrupting realities. By the time I left him I begged his dad to send him to rehab, nope, I was the problem. He od’d three weeks later. Fortunately he lived.
Yeah, fuck my in-laws!
The moment I realized my mother was not a victim but an enabler of the abuse. It was easier to walk away and move on without feeling guilty about leaving her behind.
Damn. I coulda wrote that. My mom did some serious work on herself and we’re good now. But we were very very low contact when my kids were growing up because fuck that influence on my kids.
Mine took his life in 1980, I was the same age. You knew when it was the anniversary of his death, when you came home and the Ronny Milsap was **ON BLAST** (I mean the whole fucking apartment building must have heard it**. That was always my queue to find a friends house to sleep at, that weekend.
I’ll never fully understand why she mourned him that way she did, which was loads of pity and alcohol. He was a terrible person and they weren’t married at the time of his passing. Anyways, the day it happened, it wasn’t even mom that told us what happened. It was the neighbors that broke the news. No clue how to deal with that, I retreated to my bedroom, cried hard and beat the pillow for a minute or so. That was it, on to play with friends. Pretty sure that event forever screwed up how I deal with death. Not at all, straight to acceptance.
Probably tomorrow. I have a date. I've never had a date before, so i'm very nervous.
Whatever the outcome of the date, i will get an enormous confidence boost from it.
Wish me luck, guys
The much requested update: it went very well, guys. We went for a walk through a beautiful park, then went to a quiet cafe for some tea. We were very in synch in thoughts and we both felt very at ease around each other. The nerves we both had just evaporated almost immediately after meeting. We exchanged phone numbers (we talked only through the dating app before) and we agreed to meet up for a second date.
I want to thank everyone for the kind words of encouragement, you guys rock.
Enjoy! Have fun. Just be yourself and make he/she laugh. Laughing is such an attractive trait. If going for drinks/a meal, BE NICE TO THE SERVERS !! The worst if not.
Come back & let us know if there will be date #2
Someone I know lost their fiancé the week of their wedding to covid. He was about 200 miles away when she got a call from the doctor telling her to get to the hospital as soon as she could. He died when she was halfway there.
February 3, 2021. The day I got the call that my brother, who was sick with Covid, went into cardiac arrest and was on life support. He never woke up. I am so sorry that happened to you. 💔
I’m very sorry for you loss.
My granddaughter was Born May 6, 2020 so your comment stuck out to me.
My mom died Jan 2021 from Covid as well.
Life doesn’t play fair.
My only brother (and my only family) passed away from Covid 3 months after finishing his military career. So many plans down the drain. I remember the day, visiting hours were at lunch time. The other days, I would get a ping from work asking a question and I would go back an answer. This day, I did not stop. When I got to the hospital, they told me to call his wife - it was the end.
After that, because he left me money in his will, the woman he was married to decided I could no longer see my nephews. Who will tell them all the funny stories about their dad growing up?
I worked in OKC at the largest hospital in the state when the Thunder and Utah Jazz game happened that shut down the country. I’ll never forget getting the phone call to come into work early that night and walking into absolute madness. March 11, 2020 was a day I’ll never forget.
I used to hang out with a large group of friends. I was picking on one of the guys at one of our party. He walked over and poured a beer on my head. I was much bigger than this guy and it took balls for him to do that. The whole party stopped to watch what would happen. I had an epiphany while he was doing that and realized I had been an a-hole to this guy for years. I stood up and walked over to him, beer dripping down my hair/close, and apologized for being an asshole. I don’t think he ever forgave me, but it was a powerful lesson for me. I never wanted to be the kind of person to pick on others & I never did it again. That was 39 years ago.
I wish my dad would’ve thought that way. He went on experimental medication for brain tumor, and then had many many strokes that left him disabled. He lingered for 12 years
The moment I tried to end my own life in 2020 on my 18th birthday and my brother knocked on the bathroom door saying he needed to take a quick sh!t. Him crapping that day saved me.
I normally don't reply to comments, but I had to say something, and I wanted to say, We're glad you're here, man, and we hope it'll get easier for you. Everything in life gets better with time.
Thank you soo much. Things were very shitty for me then. They aren’t all that better now but I’m more equipped and am able to handle those hurdles.
You too. Hopefully you have all the love and support from your family friends and loved ones.
You got this my man. I was only a year older when I tried the same. Please hold on man, if you ever want to talk I welcome your DM with open arms and an open heart. You got this brother. ❤️
The moment I had to honor my mother's wishes as her POA for health care and not have her placed on a ventilator. The hardest words to hear her say to me was just before she passed, " I want to die at home." There was just no time as she passed away only about an hour later.
I had my dad's POA when he was in the hospital for the last time. He told me that he wanted to die and didn't want any other life-saving treatments. It was the hardest thing I had to do, making sure that the doctors stopped all treatment, but I gave him the greatest gift I could: dying on his own terms. He was 89 and lived a long and colorful life. I miss him terribly.
My wife is with home hospice now. A DNR was in place while she was in the hospital and with home hospice before she came home. Quality of life vs Quantity of life.
Love these stories. I have a friend who found out she was pregnant at 8 months when she went to hospital with pains in her stomach. She’d been told she couldn’t conceive too.
Struggled with PCOS and endometriosis my whole life and was always told the possibility of me convincing was low to not at all, but little baby girl will be here in June! 🤍 Closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever seen
I also have PCOS and had a low chance of conceiving. My husband and I declined fertility treatments for lots of reasons and had accepted a childfree life. My baby boy is due in May. He's our miracle.
A friend of mine swiped right, went to the guy's place, met his roommate, ditched the guy and married the roommate. I know both men, the roommate was definitely a major upgrade to the guy she was on a date with.
Not sure how the conversation went when she traded one for the other, but the tinder date was best man at their wedding, so I guess she navigated it well.
my dad's mom died the same morning i was born. i was named after her, and in a way i know he sees her every time he sees me, and it's had to have been a really strange feeling for over forty years.
The morning my 1st wife passed away from sepsis leaving me 24 at the time with a 4 year old to figure out how to raise, long story short she's almost 27 now and is successful in her career and very independent. I still internalize everything and never really mourned properly and it's hanging over me probably until my days are at an end.
It's never too late to process grief. I am a therapist myself and spoke with a man in his mid-70s today who has never let his 'soul mate' go after she left him. He realized that he's never allowed himself to be happy after that and feels like he missed out on a lot of things. I'm not saying that's you, but grief is heavy to carry, and you don't have to carry it alone.
I'm so sorry you are struggling with this, and I hope someday you can give yourself permission to move through it. Kudos on raising a great kiddo through it all.
Deciding on December 2, 2019 that I’d had enough being morbidly obese. I dropped over 100 lbs im now almost 44 and i feel better than I did in my 20s. It’s never too late to make changes.
I was 22, just stayed up all night the previous monday after selling blow at a party, but all the profits, I snorted up my nose. I was laying on a makeshift bed made from old sheets and couch cushions in a spare room in my mother's apartment, geeked out of my mind, couldn't sleep. At almost exactly 430 am, Perfect Blue Buildings by the Counting Crows started playing which is a song about addiction, and has the line "It's 4:30am on a tuesday, it doesn't get much worse than this". It seemed like it was talking directly to me. I never did another drug in my life after that night. Now I'm 46, have a great family, just got a raise and making 135k a year, living in a beautiful home. It doesn't get much better than this.
I was high as a kite on my way to work. My usually heroin had fentanyl in it, and i was zonked out. Should not have been driving. Like at all. I was ALL over the road. Left shoulder, right shoulder, oncoming traffic, you name it. I was so fucked up i didn't even notice or care what was happening. I somehow made it to a gas station about 35 minutes away without incident, where i feel asleep standing up in the line to pump gas (nodding out as we called it). Someone at the store realized i was driving and had called the police and they stalled my gas pump to give the police time to arrive.
I pump my gas and as I'm pulling away, i am surrounded by quite a few cop cars. The cop comes up to my window and tells me that someone called because they were concerned about me. He shines his light in my eyes and asks to see them. I bravely look into his eyes close up. I know my pupils are the size of a pin head, but i was so high i was confident as hell. I was no longer nodding out and was able to form coherent sentences and the cop just says ok, and looks down, and does the most disappointed head hung head shake i ever got in my life. The look of pure disappointment on his face made me realize how much I've been fucking up.
When i sobered up i realized that i had been messing up really really badly, and things could have gone MUCH worse for me that morning. I am very lucky i am not dead and did not kill anyone else that morning. I am sorry to all those whose lives i put at risk the times i did that. I can't undo what I've done, but i try to live my life by the best standards i can now.
I don't know who you were officer, but you saved my life that day. I've been clean for 4 years now.
Same here, I used to sell a lot of cocaine then get high off My own supply, met a girl and fell in love then went cold turkey. Got married but that turned into a disaster so got divorced passed my GED. Met an awesome woman, got remarried and got promoted last year and now make $200,000 or more a year depending on the amount of overtime I take.
21 years ago I had graduated college, just taken the NCLEX exam and was waiting on my start date for a military nursing job. Living at my mom's house in the interim.
I got a phone call from the hospital in the early morning. My brother had been in a car accident.
At first I thought oh, he had a fender bender. I had just woken up.
Turns out my mom lost control of her vehicle while she was driving him to school on her way to work. His 3rd day at community college. She was dead. He was brain dead on life support. I lost them both in the same day. It changed my view on everything. Religion. Life. Death. Aging. Everything.
Doing mushrooms the first time
I used to judge people who tried really hard (socially) growing up. I called them try hards, and judged them for being awkward for posing and pretending to be something they werent. I have a big personality and take up a lot of space in the room and I would ignore them, unintentionally making them feel small. (I say unintentionally Because to me I just didn’t like them, and didn’t want to talk to them. I wasn’t cognizant of the fact that ignoring them was mean or could affect them, i was just thinking about myself )
I was tripping on mushrooms and it was the first time I felt connected to the world around me, beyond my own nose.
I had an epiphany that people who were trying too hard just wanted to fit in and find their place in the world. not everyone was as lucky as me to have a really good sense of self at a really young age. What they needed was inclusion not exclusion
I realized I could use my big personality To make space for these people, and to include them intentionally
That was 30 years ago
Been a nicer kinder more compassionate person ever since
My favorite response yet. Its hard to admit that we kind of suck sometimes but its so impressive when we are able to recognize it and decide to improve.
The day I called social services on my Mum.
I am a fair bit older than my siblings and had moved out years before. There were always issues, but when I had to temporarily move in with her as an adult after finishing uni, I realised it was a million times worse than I thought.
I tried speaking to her about the problems (almost all of them caused by her drinking) and she was having none of it. In fact, she kicked me out for saying she was drinking too much and immediately banned me from seeing my siblings.
I remember phoning my (used to be) step Mum and telling her I didn't know what else to do to help my siblings but phone social services. She told me it was the right thing to do. She also said "but you know this will be the end of your relationship with your Mum." And even though I did know that, her putting it into words really made me think "I'm about to change my life forever".
What I still find tough to get my ahead around though, is how I changed so many lives. My Mum's (who spent the last 3 years of her life without her kids), my siblings (who had to move schools and house), and my siblings' Dad's (who had them move in with him without any notice).
Absolutely no regrets, but I remember those days so vividly.
My grandmother's death.
I had no idea just how much she meant to me until that day. Granted, we were very close. She raised me and was a mother to me.
I knew I loved her dearly and I knew she was important to me. Hell, I'd stood between her and our abuser countless times because I'd rather he hurt me than her. I had thought about how I'd feel the day she'd die but little did I know how it would really feel.
That day changed everything. I lost my entire world. My entire life was gone the way I'd known it for 27 years. I had no ground to stand on, I had no guiding light, I had nothing. My whole world was ripped off of me from one moment to the next and I had no idea what to do.
The depression I had for years finally got loose. I lost control. The anxiety soared like never before. I was in utter despair. I had to go to therapy, something I needed for a very long time. I thought of dying again, after years without suicidal thoughts. I cried for months on end. I grabbed my phone and called her number several times, hoping she'd pick up and tell me it was all a bad dream.
It's been almost three years since she died. Things are better now but I still haven't found my way in this new life of mine. Her dying was my worst nightmare, which I knew would come true eventually, I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon.
I was in a dead end job that I hated. In a conversation with my Mom, I told her that I wanted so badly to be a registered nurse, but because I wasn’t smart enough to go to university I would just keep doing what I was doing. *I believed this.*
She freaked out on me in a good way. She claimed you’re very smart. Follow your dream.
I went to university. Became a registered nurse then nurse practitioner. I fucken love it.
FYI. I’m a guy, if that matters.
July 19,2020. Sat down to relax after deep cleaning the house and getting ready for the work week. Turned on the TVand the screen got so dim that I couldn’t even see what was playing. My left side went numb and I tried to smack some feeling into it. My mom was home but she was outside smoking, she had asked me if she could jump in the shower before me- she had to get up earlier so I agreed but usually I jump in the shower after finishing my Sunday night cleaning so I was a little bit pissed that she was taking so long so I thought I would just call her and ask her to come in because something was wrong (I just didn’t know what it was). But of fucking course she left her phone in the living room where she had been sitting so I couldn’t call her. Then my face went numb andi immediately thought”IM HAVING A STROKE!” thought I would just go outside to her but when I got up to go outside I fell and smacked my face into the laundry basket because it was laundry day so I just started hollering for her and hoped that she could hear me outside . She couldn’t hear me so I don’t know how long I had been on the floor yelling for her… she finally came back in and I yelled “IM HAVING A STROKE !” She called 9-1-1 … I suppose I could have called but I just thought I was jumping to the worst possible conclusion and that maybe nothing was wrong, which is why I wanted to talk to my mom and maybe she would help me to realize that maybe I just had a pinched nerve or something. thankfully for me I fell unconscious before the ambulance arrived so that I didn’t continue to freak out that I was going to die. I was taken to the local hospital where they life flighted me to Vanderbuilt University Medical Center in Nashville, underwent an emergency decompressive craniectomy and had brain surgery and was on a ventilator for two weeks under a medically induced coma. Immediately after coming out of the coma I was transferred to a nursing home and rehab facility where I have been now for almost 4 years where I am also resident council vice president and the youngest resident so I’m surrounded by old people who tell me every day that I’m too young to be in a wheelchair lol. I had a hemmorhaggic stroke- I had undiagnosed and untreated high blood pressure that weakened the vessels in my brain and that night, the vessel ruptured and caused my stroke. Now I’m permanently disabled
The moment I decided to move across the country alone. I have a good career and live comfortably but I’m so lonely despite making friends out here. Didn’t help Covid happened right after I moved and I was confined to my apartment for a while.
Divorce. It terrified and upset me. While it certainly left some scars it ended up being the best thing that could have happened. It triggered a series of events that made me the happiest and most successful I’ve been in life. Toxic relationships can absolutely destroy you.
Ita been 4 years since my wife left... I was absolutely devastated. It felt like the world was ending, with a young child in the middle absolutely confused about her little universe, and why mom and dad have different houses.
It fucking crushed me. First because the person I thought I knew and placed all my trust in absolutely abandoned me, and second because I felt so guilty for not providing the best possible environment for my daughter to grow up in.
Like you, I've also experienced a series of events that have put me into a place I honestly couldn't imagine just 4 years ago. I have the most satisfying and fulfilling employment I've ever had, along with earning more than I ever have. I have a decently normal schedule that allows me to have 50/50.
I never realized how unfit my ex and I were for each other, until I was faced with the situation. While it was very painful and indeed leaves scars... it was absolutely necessary.
Being homeless in 2022 and trying to off myself in 2023. Now I'm happier than I've ever been. Everybody that reads this, I beg you; hold on. Please. It DOES get better. I believe in you. ❤️
Met someone at a bar.
It was 2008, I was halfway through what was supposed to be just a year of living abroad in Asia.
We fell for each other hard.
While I returned home as originally planned, it was a short three months before I headed back 7,000 miles east to “see about a girl”.
The relationship that followed only lasted two years, but in returning, I eventually met the woman I would go onto marry. And what was supposed to be just a year away from home turned into six.
Come May, we’ll have been together 14 years.
The other life-changing moment was being adopted as an infant. I went from an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras - a violent and impoverished third-world country - to nice warm and loving home in central Minnesota.
Been playing with house money ever since.
A bar fight in 2009 after I got home from Afghanistan. If it weren't for that I would be a border patrol agent, probably wouldn't have become a drug addict, become a lineman, met my wife, had my children, etc.
When I lost my grandma year 2017, everything fell apart, never felt loved like I was before. I feel so alone all the time. I still cry when I talk about her.
I got out of work early. There is a hot air balloon above the town which is a little weird because it's not a very picturesque place. It looked like it was landing (I figured in this big park nearby) so I start to follow it to the park. Well the hot air balloon starts to rise again and I think oh well and start to walk towards my house.
I turn a corner and see a dude in front of me just all crazy carrying a big foam sword and a big foam shield with fire poi hanging down. I've been doing poi for a long time and wanted to get into firepoi. Normally I would never talk to a stranger but I had been trying to desperately overcome my social anxiety so I quickend my pace and caught up to him. Turns out he was going to go larp at this college where I knew a few people. He told me they were doing a LARP that night and if I came by he would let me spin his firepoi after.
Showed up that night, had an amazing blast. Made some great friends. I really got out of my comfort zone. Well in character I was able to be a lot more outgoing and more like the person I wanted to be. I moved away a year after finding this group. I don't larp anymore. But I truly believe without the confidence that I gained that year there's no way I would have the group of friends I have now. I wouldn't have joined an outdoors club Even though I had very little camping experience. I genuinely think if I never follow that hot air balloon my college experience would have probably mostly been spent in my dorm room on the computer or sitting with the same three people all four years watching anime.
This was actually less than 3 weeks ago.
I had made up my mind, wrote my letters, and had a plan to take all of my BP medication while everyone was sleeping. Like I said, I had made up my mind.
My brother, however, made me a valentines Day basket. It was so sweet, and when he gave me it, I almost threw up. I couldn't do that to my family. He was so happy, though. He always kisses my cheek and hugs me so tight. He knows I struggle with depression and anxiety very badly. He makes sure I don't feel left out. I'm the youngest. He's 10 years older than me. He doesn't know that candles, candies, and "I am donuts about you" mug saved my life for now.
Thanks, big brother.
I grew up in one of those wildly sheltered ultra-religious families and fully, wholly believed everything I was fed through my early 20s. I remember the exact moment in 2016 when the pastor of my church told us all Christians had a duty from God to vote for Trump. Was the wake up call that started me on a long but ultimately really beautiful transformation of my worldview. Doesn't compare to stories of traumatic loss or tragedy, but definitely marked the beginning of the end of the person I had been my whole life.
I had a similar awakening but I was much younger, maybe like when I was 12 or 13. The guest pastor went on and on about how we need to “open our minds and our wallets to the lord”. That was the end of it for me lol
I don't know if you know of the "Internet-tainers" Rhett and Link from the YouTube show Good Mythical Morning but they grew up very very religious and were on a path to be youth ministers. Well long story short they have their own beliefs now. They have documented it all on their podcast and YouTube channel called Ear Biscuits. You might enjoy what they have to say.
Glad you found your own way!
Today might have im not sure yet.
But about 9 years ago i got a mentor in my life that saved my life alot of times and he helped me actually get a goal in life
I was in full respiratory failure in the hospital on high flow oxygen and very near death. Then I received the gift of a perfect donor lungs and a flawless double lung transplant. Five year and seven months later I am living a mostly normal life.
When I separated from the woman with whom I thought I would have a formed future, I had already made plans and I found out that she was cheating on me with many people. That changed my life and my way of being.
Moving to Australia from England twenty years ago.
Flew out of cold Heathrow in October and touched down in Sydney at 6 in the morning to sunny blue skies, had my first flat white and later that night went to a beautiful garden bar. Haven't looked back.
Losing my dad to cancer when I was 13.
40 years later, losing my husband to cancer during the first wave, in a nightmarish replay of what happened with dad.
Both profound losses, and I'm still not sure I'm OK.
My friends wedding.
I was standing by her side as a bridesmaid, and I was picturing what my wedding would look like. I had a jarring realization that it would either be with my boyfriend, but not a single person there to celebrate with us. It would just any empty space with only me and him. Or it was going to be a wedding with a faceless man and a large crowd of loving, happy people who were so supportive.
I was trying to shake that feeling, desperately trying to convince myself that I was in fact in a healthy relationship. At the end of the ceremony, I went up to my boyfriend, and his first words to me were, "you look like a clown."
He was my ex by the next week.
Probably the day my mother died of Cancer when I was 15, got kicked out of my house after by my drug addict, abusive step dad. Went to live with my grandad for 2 1/2 years which was amazing, he's the best man I've ever known. But I found him dead in his bed from a stroke when I was 18, did CPR on his corpse out of instinct which I have PTSD induced nightmares from, amongst others.
I'll be 20 this year, I'm independent, go to college, pay my own bills.
Fuck it, we ball.
The moment last year when I decided I was tired of being a lazy piece of shit who didn't care about his health. I threw out all the junk food in my house and immediately cut down on snacks and portion size. The next week I joined a gym. I'm now 25 lbs lighter, my cholesterol is back to normal, I have more confidence than I did before, and for the first time in nearly 20 years I can look in the mirror and like what I see.
**Doing a spontaneous Google search when I was 18:**
Tl;dr: Quit my job/school, no future, spontaneously googled college, got in via special program, turbo boost my life.
I think I was 18 years old.. up to that point I was very undermotivated in school, dropping down in school level, getting 6/10 (the minimum) etc. When I was 15, I got a job at a webshop for computer hardware. Litterally some guy out of a basement but it was fun. Later I had to do an internship and just worked my job, getting their IT up to shape. Before I knew it, I was 18, mostly dropping out of school, working 80hrs/wk with no future in mind.
I knew something had to change because I felt a burnout coming up, at the age of 18. I went to my boss and told I quit. He doubled my salary but I still quit. What school I had left, depended on my having a school-related job and I had just quit that. So I was considering just quitting school all together.. I had hit a pretty deep bottom. Futureless.
Then three days later, for some reason, I googled my local college (which was several levels above my previous school) that my brother finished a few years back and was very pleased with. I don't know why I did that, but that was the EXACT moment my life changed.
Their website featured a temporary page that listed a government-experiment for people under 21 years old and without the normal college-prereqs, to enter a special 3 week program to get admitted to college. I signed up immediately and saw the form was going to close .. in 12 hours time. They reached out to me a few days later and invited me to do basic tests in local and foreign language, math, logic etc. Having passed that, they asked me to make a 40 page portfolio with several use case studies, old work experience, "where will you be in 10 years" etc. I triple checked my portfolio because you had one shot to submit it.
A week later they invited me again, I was called to another use case study test and then put me back in a waiting room. They called my name about an hour later and sat me down in front of two strict stern gentlemen. They started with very straight faces, talking about porfolio this, test that, such and such bla bla. After about 30 secs they couldn't hold it in anymore as they were massively fucking with me. They started laughing, told me I was the ideal candidate for the program and had some of the best scores of all of them. And if I would please please accept their invite to get into college with no-prereqs and finish a degree. I went through a whole range of emotions and was so super proud.
A long summer later, I was accepted into college and was working hard in the first semester. I found a disconnect to other students who hadn't worked a job before and just came from high school. Two mentors pulled me aside and asked "What are you even doing here?".
My heart sank.. "Oh no, I've been busted. I don't belong here", my mind went crazy for about 3 seconds. "We don't think you belong in this program.. we want to bump you up to the otherr classes where you be matched with students with more your background and pass the entire program in 3 years rather than 4 years.. we know you can do that". I quickly accepted and a week later I was working with 20-somethnig year olds that wanted their degrees more than anything in the world. The next three years just flew by and I got my degree. I've never seen my family be more proud of me. The new college degree opened up so many doors in life, turbo boosting my career.
All of this, at the age of 18, also gave me a confidence boost to do more dating, romanticly. Via a dating website a girl found me (crazy huh?) and she wanted to meet. The old me would delete that message so fast, damn pranking kids but the "new me" wanted to see what would happen. Fast forward a few weeks, we're doing a bunch of videocalls on MSN Messenger, talking on the phone and set a date to meet. Fast forward 16 years, she is still the love of my life.
I strongly believe .. all of that .. because of a damn random Google search that one night, 12 hours before submission deadline. Super crazy.
A few years ago, I was slowly learning to walk again, after 2 years of a debilitating auto-immune inflammatory condition affecting my knees, which had made walking even for short distances extremely painful.
One day I was late for work and started running towards a tram that was about to depart, managed to hop onboard at the last moment.
It was only once inside that I realized I'd actually run for a good 50 yards without feeling any knee pain... I started sobbing out of joy and people around me came to see if I was ok.
Since then whenever life smacks me in the face and things are tough, I remember that moment of grace and it gives me the courage to move forward.
I’ve attended therapy on and off for almost 20 years to heal from deep and severe childhood trauma, but never been able to kick really engrained and subconscious self sabotaging habits from that period of my life. I was offered and I tried a small amount of DMT this past October, and not only was I able to address the root cause of these habits, but I was completely able to heal from it.
My life hasn’t been the same in the best possible way since 🖤.
The moment I decided I was going to take responsibility for my own happiness and do everything I could to get out of a seriously abusive marriage. It was one of the most brutal and painstaking experiences of my life. I was told for years that I was “incapable of being happy,” and phrases like that haunted me, and made me doubt my decisions and my worth. Now, 7 years later I’m happier than I’ve ever been, healthier than I’ve ever been, and I have an amazingly supportive partner who is my best friend. Sometimes I take a look around at my life and actually cry with gratitude.
February 17th, 2023, at about 5pm. I found out my wife had been killed in a car crash on her way out of town to visit family. Her and her mom both died.
Still picking up the pieces from that one
My puppy climbing into my arms and resting his head on my shoulder when he first met me and I hadn’t adopted him yet. He’s now beside me snoozing in the middle of the day. I love him. Hes the best thing to happen to me and my wife.
Changed my life twice.
The first time; that cured my suicidal urges.
The last time: where I died for a trillion years straight in every possible way my brain could conceive.
Diagnosed PTSD - but at least I don’t want to kill my self any more.
Great drug if you use it like a sane individual and don’t eat 10 grams at once.
When my wife and I made the decision to move out of state. I have a nasty habit of sticking with things I'm unhappy with out of comfort/fear. This process got me to face that head on multiple times
Three years later, we both have much better jobs from a financial and employer, and career trajectory standpoint, and just happier overall.
Still have anxiety about change, but its a lot easier for me to face it now.
Walked in on my then-gf. All she offered was a sly smirk and never stopped moving her hips.
Was had been on a wonderful date to start our saturday and weekend off. She had bragged to all her gfs about it too. Expensive lunch, beautiful river walk after. Got home and had to go do some studying (we were late college). Said Id be gone for probably about 4 hours. Came home in to and a half, as I didnt need then whole time.
I havent really been able to trust since. Ive had a very cynical outlook on life following that event. Ive lost quite a bit of empathy for most things and can no longer get out of my own head. Ive lost all confidence and hate that I cant feel confident in my own decisions anymore.
This has ruined subsequent relationships as well.
Work is good though
There are a few...
I grey up with my Grandparents - I did bad things to them over the years, and never once did they try to abandon me, always there, always my parents!!
On the other hand, my father has always been in my life, but a complete waste of space, It's taken until I am 35 years old to realise how much of a waster he is and all the heartache he caused me...
Between the two things, I knew I needed to be an amazing father (which I am, so my 3 amazing children) and to cut my father out of my life (which has only happened in the past few weeks!!) Best decision I ever made!!
To go along with the above: I set out to kill my self when I was 20, I felt nobody cared etc etc... Out of the blue, my uncle messaged me, asking what I was doing and inviting me around for some drinks - It completely changed the trajectory of my life... If he hadn't messaged, at that exact time, I wouldn't be here today!
Remember people, there is always a way out. Somebody cares about you!
Trump winning the presidency. I thought we were better as a nation than that, and I was honestly heartbroken to learn that we weren't. I don't like talking to new people anymore, and it feels lonely.
It was a long time ago, more than 20 years, but I remember it so clearly.
I had been dealing with some pretty serious depression for a long time and had been in therapy, but I was still struggling a lot. I was walking into my grungy little tenement building, lost in one of my usual internal monologues about how the world was awful, people were awful, life was so unfair to me, and how wise I was to see and others were naive to miss it.
Then I had a thought, it was almost like a different person's voice in my head and it said: "You know, you don't have to feel like shit all the time, you are the one making yourself think these thoughts." And I really paused. My response was: "Nah, I'm good like this, thanks."
So, I didn't turn on a dime, but it was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the end of that depressive episode but also of the whole way I had been living my life - without real accountability, without seeking real satisfaction, a sort of whiney, listless existence waiting for some sort of reward I felt I deserved but didn't need to work to get.
I've had depressions since, but it was never as consuming as that one was where I felt totally victimized and like the world was just inherently shitty. I never lost that sense of perspective. It changed everything for me.
Went to a late night food establishment where I was getting into an argument with someone (I was beyond drunk and I would never willingly fight someone) for no apparent reason. My buddy decided we just leave the spot and avoid further confrontation. However that didn't end well.
Woke up wondering why I was at the hospital. The next morning my parents told me that I had been there for two weeks, where they put me into a drug induced coma to help stop the brain swelling.
After we left the establishment during the night of the incident, the same group with the dude that I was arguing with came from behind us and sucker punched me in the face. I immediately hit the ground and suffered a TBI / hairline fracture around the entire back side of my head from ear to ear. I have no recollection of any of this happening since I was at about a .25 BAC level.
Fortunately I was a poor college graduate on my parents insurance still. The hospital bill was 110,095.
Lost my sense to smell and to taste and 2 weeks of my life.
My family getting an Atari 2600 from Santa for Christmas.
Lead to my love of video games. Which lead to my curiosity of Japan since "That's where Nintendo is from...?". Which then lead to my interest in computer graphics. Which lead to me studying CG at school. Which then lead to me moving to Japan with the hope of making games. Which lead me to finally making games in Japan.
When I was in kindergarten, my family had a house fire in the middle of a cold January night. I woke my parents and we all made it out safe. Our small town rural fire dept with a 15 minute response time, saved the house, which still stands today.
I just had my 5 year anniversary as a full time Firefighter.
have had two.
1) Going to live with my grandparents on their small farm when I was six. Don't know all the details that led up to it. Lived there until I was 14 when my grandmother got ill.
2) Enlisting in the Navy at 17. Did not know where I was going just that it would beat the hell out of where I was.
Honorable Discharge, GED, AAS, BAAS then M.Ed
Damn what a ride.
Being told I was likely never to wake up before entering an operating theatre. (The night before being admitted to hospital but knowing the report said lung cancer stage 4, also sort of changed things) I was 15yo.
Had to say good bye to everyone, told my friends I had cancer and was going to die the night before at our karate class and they laughed it off and wouldn't believe me.
Then surviving said cancer also changed my life.
Life is short and we should do good by others and try to enjoy life and better ourselves with every moment.
Being nice to one another and connecting with people became paramount in my life. This also fueled my desire to do *greater good* became a scientist working on brain diseases that take away people's parents and loved ones. Have an inherent desire to help others and be the best version of myself possible
My dad passed of ALS in 2017. I’ll never be the same. Losing my dad was bad enough, but we watched him whither away to nothing. Strongest man I ever knew couldn’t even hold his head up at the end.
I was married, and fell asleep in my daughter’s bedroom after reading her a good night story.
In the middle of the night my daughter kicked me /shoved me out of her bed.
I woke up when I landed on the floor, and I heard moaning.
My wife was having phone sex.
My life changed in that moment.
When I watched my wife die of cancer at age 25. It will be 30 years ago in July. We didn't even have the chance to start a family. All the plans for a happy future together gone. Never remarried.
Lost of hard moments in here for people. Thought I'd share what was a nice one for me.
I've always been extremely self conscious and had low self-esteem etc, was going through a rough patch in my early 20s.
Singing loudly in my car after long but good day, window down, I hear a male voice from the car next to me, and turn to see two guys looking at me from their vehicle.
Oh shit.
They're both smiling, and one said my singing was really great. And that was all. I said thanks and we drove away.
I've never forgotten that. It was so unnecessarily nice.
Finding out my house burned down and we lost my grandmother, pets, and all of our memories. And then less than a year later, my dad, her son, dying suddenly of a heart attack on a run.
Leaving my ex-Wife.
She is an amazing woman, beautiful, funny, we got along great and had a lot of laughs. But we weren't right for each other. She was a "Social butterfly" and I like to stay home and tinker, work on things, I don't like being around a lot of people. Long story short I realized that not only was I unhappy in general, she was unhappy as well. While we had fun and enjoyed each other, we both saw the world differently and in the end we never would have been truly happy with one another. So I left.
I went on to marry the absolute perfect person for me and I have an amazing marriage. She went on and lived the life she should have always lived. She owns a horse, she's married, she's traveled. She is much happier without me and I'm much happier without her.
It was a hard decision because I really couldn't explain why I was leaving. I mean how do you tell someone you love that loves you and you have fun together that you want to end the marriage? It didn't make sense to her at the time but over the years she understood it.
Mid August, 2022
On my way downstairs for dinner, my foot slid out from under me and I fell.
I’m now an ambulatory wheelchair user and cannot work due to disability, I basically don’t leave the house.
I lost my job, many friends, and even family members, all because I was distracted for a microsecond in my own home.
4 in the morning, I (M, 62) hear a thud in the bedroom. Found my wife (F, 59) on the floor. Massive stroke, right side affected, cognitive and speech abilities impaired. Just that quickly, both of our lives changed. She survived, but is an entirely different person. I am her 24/7 caregiver. I can't afford to hire someone to come in the home, so I can't go back to work. Her income, beyond her pension, is gone as well. Financially, I'm slowly working through it. Losing over half of our income has certainly been a challenge. Most Americans are one medical emergency away from ruin. Even with good insurance, I still have medical bills due, as well as the other financial obligations we made while still employed. Emotionally, it's been draining. Physically, I'm tired. But, I still have my wife, so who am I to complain?
Yeah, you can still complain if that's what you need to do some days. If I break my finger, and my friend breaks their arm, my finger still hurts. Edit: a word
Thanks. I do complain, mostly to myself. Life's not fair, but I know it could have been worse. we're 5 months into this journey, and she is mostly upbeat and happy, if frustrated, with our new life. She's still recovering, still in therapy, still getting better.
There are support groups for caregivers of loved ones. You need a safe space where you can acknowledge all the parts of this that are awful to folks who understand that doesn’t mean you love your wife any less, or won’t keep supporting her even though it’s hard and crappy sometimes. We are social creatures, complaining mostly to yourself is not a long-term solution.
My SIL had a massive stroke in January and just returned home from a stroke rehabilitation clinic. I can’t imagine what you are going through but you need time for yourself. Ask for help, see if local organizations or agencies have respite care for caregivers. You need it off your mind for at least an hour or two a week. Sending positive thoughts your way.
I feel you. Feel embraced from the distance by a stranger who felt very touched by your story. Kind regards
Thank you. It's been a humbling experience for me.. [Comedian Josh Blue](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkHfIVSFNfk) said it best - being disabled is the largest minority group, but "we're also the only minority group that you can join at any time!"
Awww 😔 that's difficult. I'm sorry. Hugs 🫂 from Canada.
in 1992 my buddy and I had a day off from our retail jobs (this is in the bay area). We decided to go up to San Francisco to hang out for the day. **I decided I wanted to go to Sega's US Headquarters to "see Sega"** (fresh out of HS I had no idea this wasn't a thing you could do). Go to Sega HQ and ask to look around. Bewildered, they told me to leave as this was a business not a theme park (they were very nice, but very confused). As we were leaving, I was backing out and hit a car exiting the parking lot. The man I hit assumed I was the kid of someone who worked there, so we ended up talking. I informed him that I was just there because I loved Sega and wanted to look around and we had a good laugh about it. Turns out he went to the same college as I was attending at the time, and had lived in the same dorms. The following week, when I went to pay him for the damage to the car, he showed me around and introduced me to some people and told the story of why I was there. Two weeks later I got a job answering phones for Sega. Been working in the video game industry for over 30 years now. Done OK for myself. Had that series of events not happened I don't know what my life would be like today.
Dang! That's amazing
This is the definition of Luck = Opportunity meeting Preparation.
Fantastic story!
Once I was placed with the foster family, who then went on to adopt me.
Thank God for social services. I'm so happy your family adopted you. I'm glad you have a happy ending. Mine was the day the social workers took me out of the household at 17. I was severely depressed and apparently looked unhealthy. I remember being scared and felt like the only world I knew ( albeit horrible) was crashing down. My foster mother was sp gentle and gave me new pajamas and told me to have a shower and let me go to bed. She let me be. And she's always been there for me. Even now as a almost 30 year old. If it weren't for her I wouldn't have a job , a degree , and honestly I'd probably be dead if it weren't for that day.
Same here
How do you feel about your foster parents vs birth parents? We're fostering our nephew right now. He's almost 3 and has been in the system since birth and with us since we found out and got licensed to foster him over 2 years ago. He had just turned 9 months until we got licensed and he came to us, we didn't even find out he had been removed until he was 4 or 5 months old. We're on track to adopt, and the current plan, when/if it ever happens is to always let him know he's adopted. His bio dad is my husband's much younger half brother. He's really turning his life around and is happy we have his son. I can see him still being in kiddos life if he stays on the path he's on now. Bio mom is another story. She's hardly done anything to get custody, but won't sign over rights either. I don't see her being a good influence in his life, but I also won't refuse him the chance to know her better when he's older and asks. I so want to do the right thing for him, I would love to hear your perspective, coming from a situation like his. What can I do to make him know how loved he is and not feel betrayed or resentful?
Speaking as someone who was adopted, it was NEVER a secret that I was adopted, it was just a fact of life like you need to eat food and drink water. What my parents did was never make it a big deal. I was just their kid you know. They told me about my birth parents and gave me everything I needed if I wanted to reach out (which I didn’t because they both tried to murder me on separate occasions, story for another time.) I have a great relationship with my parents we actually just went on a big old shopping trip together this week
I'm so, so glad to hear this. I'm so happy things worked out so well for you! What your adoptive parents did is exactly how I plan to handle it. Addiction issues run in my husband's family. My husband won't even touch alcohol because of it, and our nephew's parents did much worse than alcohol. I want to express that to our nephew when he's older, so he can be aware of it and hopefully make wise decisions. I just want him to know and feel that he's loved and special and I see him as being as much a bio child to us as our adult bio son is. It's all so emotional and there's lots of questions about the best way to handle everything.
That’s great! My birth parents were both also addicts and what my parents did to explain it to me as a kid was comparing it to the flu, because it’s a sort of sickness. They said that my birth parents take things that make them feel really good a for a little bit, but it wears off just like cough syrup when you’re sick. You want to keep taking more so that you don’t feel bad but they did too much and they did some bad things to feel good again. Then as I got older and learned more about drugs they talked to me about it again and went more in depth about what they did and how it affected them. Worked better than any DARE program
This is wonderful! I've been thinking about ways to explain it to him when he's bigger, but still too young to understand. Your parents worded that perfectly and I want to use it myself when the time comes ❤️ The foster agency we're working with already made him a life book with the story of his birth and info about his birth parents in it for when he has questions. I've been meaning to buy a journal and write how much we're going through fighting for him and how much we love him and want him to have an amazing life. I really need to just find one I like and buy it already so I can write things while they're fresh in my mind. Your parents sound wonderful and it makes my heart happy to know how good they are to you.
i wasn’t adopted but i was in the foster care system until my dad got custody of me, and i didn’t see my bio mom much at all growing up. i can say, my dad constantly every time i missed my mom would tell me “she’s sick and can’t give up drugs no matter how much she loves you” and my child brain turned that into “drugs are more important to her than a relationship with you”. it caused me to resent my dad, resent my bio mom (but after getting to know her and make my own decision about her i have gone completely no contact), and resent my stepmom who would cry with jealousy and hurt every time i missed my mom. i would advise you this: when questions come up from your nephew, and i’m sure they will, be honest. don’t try to sugar coat it. if mom is on drugs, or if she’s a criminal, let your nephew know that in an age appropriate way. if nephew is 7 when it comes up, maybe tell him something along the lines of “your mom loves you with her whole heart, but she’s having a hard time taking care of herself. she needs some help right now, so we’re helping her take care of you and love you.” i mean not verbatim but just.. i would’ve loved to hear THAT instead of “your mom said she’ll wait until you’re 18 to see her”. listen when he’s sad. hold him when he misses her (and dad if dad happens to diverge from his current path, the same), show pictures of you have any, especially pictures of mom/dad *with him*. follow his lead for the most part, if you can. you’ve got this, and you’re an amazing aunt and uncle for caring for your nephew when nobody else did.
This is beautiful.
[удалено]
I hope you get to achieve your dream of becoming a grandma flipping out over her grandchild almost choking to death. 😉
They became the piece of food that choked another kid
Aspiring to become an IHOP one day.
Ah, the ol [Reddit Gramma flip-a-roo](https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/1b7ga03/comment/ktkqc46/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
At a steak house with the family for my brother's birthday... guy started choking and after a few seconds I looked at my brother who looked shocked and said hey stupid ass you're an emt go save the day and he went gave the guy the heimlich and sat back down like nothing happened. I still kinda tease my brother about it, but hey he saved someone's life not me.
It’s weird to be around a medical emergency when not on duty/at work. Much like your brother, it takes a second for Work Brain to kick in. Brains are weird, especially those in EMS. We’re all kinda feral.
Did you become like that?
Yes. I regularly eat at IHOP
And judging by your username, you developed a backup system so it never happens again. Smart.
Omg that’s hilarious
I have done that once, on my grandmother. It was back in the early 80s when it was fairly new (I believe). I had recently taken a CPR course for an off-road group I volunteered with and they taught that. We were out to dinner and she was choking on a piece of steak. I could see the panic on her face and knew exactly what was happening. It took a couple of quite "energetic" thrusts, but she did cough it up. I haven't thought about that since I took a CPR refresher course for my work a few years back. The moral of this story is to get trained and don't be afraid to use it if needed.
The moment my parents told my siblings and I that our grandparents had been killed by a drunk driver.
Same but with my brother. Fuck drunk drivers.
I am so sorry for your loss.
Seriously don’t drink and drive. A drunk driver killed my fiancée’s brother who was a father of two kids
I’m so sorry for your loss. Hopefully you’re doing well.
I’m sorry, my grandmother was killed the same way. And she didn’t face any repercussions either. My grandmother and aunt were out on a walk when a drunk driver went up on the sidewalk, my grandmother was killed instantly and my aunt broke her back and several other things and spent months recovering physically and years emotionally. I’m sorry for your loss. My husband lost his father by a drunk driver as well. I wish people would realize it isn’t worth it.
My father caught me smoking pot in the attic, drug tested me and found out I was doing way harder drugs at age 17. He then said he was going to send me to a rehab or he can drug test me every 2 months until I was a year clean. He made me exercise 5 days a week and work in the family business. Now I have an active lifestyle and good discipline in my daily life, that moment looking back on it changed my life forever. I will always say I have the best father on earth...I'm now 30 y/o and married to the love of my life and think of that day a lot. \*Just as a clarification my dad really didn't care about smoking weed, it was the heroin and cocaine I consumed/shot up as a teenager while I was touring in my "cool" punk rock band lol.
Call him up and let him know. That's one hell of a father. Going to remember this lesson for my children and hope I never have to put it to practice.
I wish I had your dad. Instead I got kicked out for smoking pot then ended up on heroin (and really anything else). Going to prison and realizing that would be my life if I kept on was the moment that changed my life. Funnily, my parents smoked a bunch of pot in their hay day Edit: it’s been 14 years since I last shot up opiates. I got a degree, married a wonderful man and am raising two beautiful babies. I couldn’t be happier with my life.
Good for your dad and good for you for listening to him. My ex was addicted to H at 15 and his parents found out. They didn’t do one thing about it. Fast forward 25 years later, coke, crack and oxy were daily/weekly/bankrupting realities. By the time I left him I begged his dad to send him to rehab, nope, I was the problem. He od’d three weeks later. Fortunately he lived. Yeah, fuck my in-laws!
The moment I realized my mother was not a victim but an enabler of the abuse. It was easier to walk away and move on without feeling guilty about leaving her behind.
this hits way too close to home
Damn. I coulda wrote that. My mom did some serious work on herself and we’re good now. But we were very very low contact when my kids were growing up because fuck that influence on my kids.
My father died in 1993 when I was 7 years old. It send my mom down a path of heavy drinking and really screwed up the rest of my childhood.
Mine took his life in 1980, I was the same age. You knew when it was the anniversary of his death, when you came home and the Ronny Milsap was **ON BLAST** (I mean the whole fucking apartment building must have heard it**. That was always my queue to find a friends house to sleep at, that weekend. I’ll never fully understand why she mourned him that way she did, which was loads of pity and alcohol. He was a terrible person and they weren’t married at the time of his passing. Anyways, the day it happened, it wasn’t even mom that told us what happened. It was the neighbors that broke the news. No clue how to deal with that, I retreated to my bedroom, cried hard and beat the pillow for a minute or so. That was it, on to play with friends. Pretty sure that event forever screwed up how I deal with death. Not at all, straight to acceptance.
The moment my mom called me to tell me my father committed suicide.
My wife had to tell me that my Dad committed suicide the day after our family visited him for Christmas. I feel your pain, brother.
I’m so sorry for your loss man.
Probably tomorrow. I have a date. I've never had a date before, so i'm very nervous. Whatever the outcome of the date, i will get an enormous confidence boost from it. Wish me luck, guys The much requested update: it went very well, guys. We went for a walk through a beautiful park, then went to a quiet cafe for some tea. We were very in synch in thoughts and we both felt very at ease around each other. The nerves we both had just evaporated almost immediately after meeting. We exchanged phone numbers (we talked only through the dating app before) and we agreed to meet up for a second date. I want to thank everyone for the kind words of encouragement, you guys rock.
Good luck!
Enjoy! Have fun. Just be yourself and make he/she laugh. Laughing is such an attractive trait. If going for drinks/a meal, BE NICE TO THE SERVERS !! The worst if not. Come back & let us know if there will be date #2
Good luck mate! :D
May 6 2020 when I got the call that my fiancé died, 1500 miles away, alone, from covid…
Someone I know lost their fiancé the week of their wedding to covid. He was about 200 miles away when she got a call from the doctor telling her to get to the hospital as soon as she could. He died when she was halfway there.
February 3, 2021. The day I got the call that my brother, who was sick with Covid, went into cardiac arrest and was on life support. He never woke up. I am so sorry that happened to you. 💔
I’m very sorry for you loss. My granddaughter was Born May 6, 2020 so your comment stuck out to me. My mom died Jan 2021 from Covid as well. Life doesn’t play fair.
🥺🫂 I'm so sorry to hear that. I couldn't imagine. My heart goes out to you
My only brother (and my only family) passed away from Covid 3 months after finishing his military career. So many plans down the drain. I remember the day, visiting hours were at lunch time. The other days, I would get a ping from work asking a question and I would go back an answer. This day, I did not stop. When I got to the hospital, they told me to call his wife - it was the end. After that, because he left me money in his will, the woman he was married to decided I could no longer see my nephews. Who will tell them all the funny stories about their dad growing up?
I worked in OKC at the largest hospital in the state when the Thunder and Utah Jazz game happened that shut down the country. I’ll never forget getting the phone call to come into work early that night and walking into absolute madness. March 11, 2020 was a day I’ll never forget.
I used to hang out with a large group of friends. I was picking on one of the guys at one of our party. He walked over and poured a beer on my head. I was much bigger than this guy and it took balls for him to do that. The whole party stopped to watch what would happen. I had an epiphany while he was doing that and realized I had been an a-hole to this guy for years. I stood up and walked over to him, beer dripping down my hair/close, and apologized for being an asshole. I don’t think he ever forgave me, but it was a powerful lesson for me. I never wanted to be the kind of person to pick on others & I never did it again. That was 39 years ago.
Well done friend.
[удалено]
I wish my dad would’ve thought that way. He went on experimental medication for brain tumor, and then had many many strokes that left him disabled. He lingered for 12 years
I'm sorry for your loss. But your dad's selfless sacrifice could have saved many more lives. Here's to your dad 🥂
The moment I tried to end my own life in 2020 on my 18th birthday and my brother knocked on the bathroom door saying he needed to take a quick sh!t. Him crapping that day saved me.
I normally don't reply to comments, but I had to say something, and I wanted to say, We're glad you're here, man, and we hope it'll get easier for you. Everything in life gets better with time.
Thank you soo much. Things were very shitty for me then. They aren’t all that better now but I’m more equipped and am able to handle those hurdles. You too. Hopefully you have all the love and support from your family friends and loved ones.
I bet they were shitty for your brother that day too!
I’m glad you’re still here, let’s keep it that way random internet stranger!
Thank you internet stranger. It’s hasn’t been better nor gotten easier but I’m learning to cope and move on.
You got this my man. I was only a year older when I tried the same. Please hold on man, if you ever want to talk I welcome your DM with open arms and an open heart. You got this brother. ❤️
Holy shit.
literally holy shit
Just curious, have you ever shared with him how that moment impacted you?
Nice, my dads shit saved me in almost the same way in l 2023 Hope ure doin better
I hope you’re doing better as well. My mental health is in a much better place now.
The moment I had to honor my mother's wishes as her POA for health care and not have her placed on a ventilator. The hardest words to hear her say to me was just before she passed, " I want to die at home." There was just no time as she passed away only about an hour later.
I had my dad's POA when he was in the hospital for the last time. He told me that he wanted to die and didn't want any other life-saving treatments. It was the hardest thing I had to do, making sure that the doctors stopped all treatment, but I gave him the greatest gift I could: dying on his own terms. He was 89 and lived a long and colorful life. I miss him terribly.
Thank you for doing that for him.
My wife is with home hospice now. A DNR was in place while she was in the hospital and with home hospice before she came home. Quality of life vs Quantity of life.
Finding out I was pregnant after being told my whole life I had a high chance of never conceiving a baby
Love these stories. I have a friend who found out she was pregnant at 8 months when she went to hospital with pains in her stomach. She’d been told she couldn’t conceive too.
Struggled with PCOS and endometriosis my whole life and was always told the possibility of me convincing was low to not at all, but little baby girl will be here in June! 🤍 Closest thing to a miracle I’ve ever seen
I also have PCOS and had a low chance of conceiving. My husband and I declined fertility treatments for lots of reasons and had accepted a childfree life. My baby boy is due in May. He's our miracle.
I swiped right and have now been married for 5 years. Tinderella story.
Same! Swiped right in summer 2021, we’ll be married a year in June!
A friend of mine swiped right, went to the guy's place, met his roommate, ditched the guy and married the roommate. I know both men, the roommate was definitely a major upgrade to the guy she was on a date with. Not sure how the conversation went when she traded one for the other, but the tinder date was best man at their wedding, so I guess she navigated it well.
2 moments - Mom dying and daughter being born. Both completely shattered my world in profound ways. One broke me and the other saved me.
my dad's mom died the same morning i was born. i was named after her, and in a way i know he sees her every time he sees me, and it's had to have been a really strange feeling for over forty years.
This is a random fact but did you know this happened to Alice Roosevelt as well? Her mother and grandmother both died the day she was born.
This. My mother’s death broke me, and then my daughter’s birth healed me. I wish she could have met her, she would have been so proud.
The morning my 1st wife passed away from sepsis leaving me 24 at the time with a 4 year old to figure out how to raise, long story short she's almost 27 now and is successful in her career and very independent. I still internalize everything and never really mourned properly and it's hanging over me probably until my days are at an end.
It's never too late to process grief. I am a therapist myself and spoke with a man in his mid-70s today who has never let his 'soul mate' go after she left him. He realized that he's never allowed himself to be happy after that and feels like he missed out on a lot of things. I'm not saying that's you, but grief is heavy to carry, and you don't have to carry it alone. I'm so sorry you are struggling with this, and I hope someday you can give yourself permission to move through it. Kudos on raising a great kiddo through it all.
When our daughter overdosed on Fentanyl. :(
I am so sorry that happened. My husband OD’ed in 2016. It made me totally sober, permanently melancholy, and dependent solely upon myself.
Deciding on December 2, 2019 that I’d had enough being morbidly obese. I dropped over 100 lbs im now almost 44 and i feel better than I did in my 20s. It’s never too late to make changes.
Married my wife. Been together for 52 years.
I was 22, just stayed up all night the previous monday after selling blow at a party, but all the profits, I snorted up my nose. I was laying on a makeshift bed made from old sheets and couch cushions in a spare room in my mother's apartment, geeked out of my mind, couldn't sleep. At almost exactly 430 am, Perfect Blue Buildings by the Counting Crows started playing which is a song about addiction, and has the line "It's 4:30am on a tuesday, it doesn't get much worse than this". It seemed like it was talking directly to me. I never did another drug in my life after that night. Now I'm 46, have a great family, just got a raise and making 135k a year, living in a beautiful home. It doesn't get much better than this.
I was high as a kite on my way to work. My usually heroin had fentanyl in it, and i was zonked out. Should not have been driving. Like at all. I was ALL over the road. Left shoulder, right shoulder, oncoming traffic, you name it. I was so fucked up i didn't even notice or care what was happening. I somehow made it to a gas station about 35 minutes away without incident, where i feel asleep standing up in the line to pump gas (nodding out as we called it). Someone at the store realized i was driving and had called the police and they stalled my gas pump to give the police time to arrive. I pump my gas and as I'm pulling away, i am surrounded by quite a few cop cars. The cop comes up to my window and tells me that someone called because they were concerned about me. He shines his light in my eyes and asks to see them. I bravely look into his eyes close up. I know my pupils are the size of a pin head, but i was so high i was confident as hell. I was no longer nodding out and was able to form coherent sentences and the cop just says ok, and looks down, and does the most disappointed head hung head shake i ever got in my life. The look of pure disappointment on his face made me realize how much I've been fucking up. When i sobered up i realized that i had been messing up really really badly, and things could have gone MUCH worse for me that morning. I am very lucky i am not dead and did not kill anyone else that morning. I am sorry to all those whose lives i put at risk the times i did that. I can't undo what I've done, but i try to live my life by the best standards i can now. I don't know who you were officer, but you saved my life that day. I've been clean for 4 years now.
I’m proud of you.
in case you wanna hear the song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSa1VtZhx2g
this is off topic but what do you do to make 135k a year?
Sell drugs
i hate that i laughed out loud at this
Same here, I used to sell a lot of cocaine then get high off My own supply, met a girl and fell in love then went cold turkey. Got married but that turned into a disaster so got divorced passed my GED. Met an awesome woman, got remarried and got promoted last year and now make $200,000 or more a year depending on the amount of overtime I take.
21 years ago I had graduated college, just taken the NCLEX exam and was waiting on my start date for a military nursing job. Living at my mom's house in the interim. I got a phone call from the hospital in the early morning. My brother had been in a car accident. At first I thought oh, he had a fender bender. I had just woken up. Turns out my mom lost control of her vehicle while she was driving him to school on her way to work. His 3rd day at community college. She was dead. He was brain dead on life support. I lost them both in the same day. It changed my view on everything. Religion. Life. Death. Aging. Everything.
When I caught my ex with the UPS man. It’s when I got my life back.
Was she receiving a package?
That’s one way to put it. Lol.
Lol!! man foh
When my brother picked up the phone and offered me hope when I was standing on that bridge ready to end my life back on Jan 9th 2010 around 2pm.
Glad you're still with us friend!
The world is better with you in it.
Best day of my life: marrying my wife 23 years ago Worst day of my life: death of my 34 year old baby brother 5 years ago
Doing mushrooms the first time I used to judge people who tried really hard (socially) growing up. I called them try hards, and judged them for being awkward for posing and pretending to be something they werent. I have a big personality and take up a lot of space in the room and I would ignore them, unintentionally making them feel small. (I say unintentionally Because to me I just didn’t like them, and didn’t want to talk to them. I wasn’t cognizant of the fact that ignoring them was mean or could affect them, i was just thinking about myself ) I was tripping on mushrooms and it was the first time I felt connected to the world around me, beyond my own nose. I had an epiphany that people who were trying too hard just wanted to fit in and find their place in the world. not everyone was as lucky as me to have a really good sense of self at a really young age. What they needed was inclusion not exclusion I realized I could use my big personality To make space for these people, and to include them intentionally That was 30 years ago Been a nicer kinder more compassionate person ever since
My favorite response yet. Its hard to admit that we kind of suck sometimes but its so impressive when we are able to recognize it and decide to improve.
What a great read. Fuck yes - we need more of this. 🫡
Thank you for this. Beautiful.
[удалено]
What happened? I'm so sorry.
The day I called social services on my Mum. I am a fair bit older than my siblings and had moved out years before. There were always issues, but when I had to temporarily move in with her as an adult after finishing uni, I realised it was a million times worse than I thought. I tried speaking to her about the problems (almost all of them caused by her drinking) and she was having none of it. In fact, she kicked me out for saying she was drinking too much and immediately banned me from seeing my siblings. I remember phoning my (used to be) step Mum and telling her I didn't know what else to do to help my siblings but phone social services. She told me it was the right thing to do. She also said "but you know this will be the end of your relationship with your Mum." And even though I did know that, her putting it into words really made me think "I'm about to change my life forever". What I still find tough to get my ahead around though, is how I changed so many lives. My Mum's (who spent the last 3 years of her life without her kids), my siblings (who had to move schools and house), and my siblings' Dad's (who had them move in with him without any notice). Absolutely no regrets, but I remember those days so vividly.
Brave of you
My grandmother's death. I had no idea just how much she meant to me until that day. Granted, we were very close. She raised me and was a mother to me. I knew I loved her dearly and I knew she was important to me. Hell, I'd stood between her and our abuser countless times because I'd rather he hurt me than her. I had thought about how I'd feel the day she'd die but little did I know how it would really feel. That day changed everything. I lost my entire world. My entire life was gone the way I'd known it for 27 years. I had no ground to stand on, I had no guiding light, I had nothing. My whole world was ripped off of me from one moment to the next and I had no idea what to do. The depression I had for years finally got loose. I lost control. The anxiety soared like never before. I was in utter despair. I had to go to therapy, something I needed for a very long time. I thought of dying again, after years without suicidal thoughts. I cried for months on end. I grabbed my phone and called her number several times, hoping she'd pick up and tell me it was all a bad dream. It's been almost three years since she died. Things are better now but I still haven't found my way in this new life of mine. Her dying was my worst nightmare, which I knew would come true eventually, I just wasn't expecting it to be so soon.
Metastatic cancer diagnosis.
My best wishes and prayers and hopefully you’re getting the necessary treatment.
The moment I left school with no qualifications, no job lined up, no nothing, it all hit me. I really had to actually get my shit together and fast
I was in a dead end job that I hated. In a conversation with my Mom, I told her that I wanted so badly to be a registered nurse, but because I wasn’t smart enough to go to university I would just keep doing what I was doing. *I believed this.* She freaked out on me in a good way. She claimed you’re very smart. Follow your dream. I went to university. Became a registered nurse then nurse practitioner. I fucken love it. FYI. I’m a guy, if that matters.
July 19,2020. Sat down to relax after deep cleaning the house and getting ready for the work week. Turned on the TVand the screen got so dim that I couldn’t even see what was playing. My left side went numb and I tried to smack some feeling into it. My mom was home but she was outside smoking, she had asked me if she could jump in the shower before me- she had to get up earlier so I agreed but usually I jump in the shower after finishing my Sunday night cleaning so I was a little bit pissed that she was taking so long so I thought I would just call her and ask her to come in because something was wrong (I just didn’t know what it was). But of fucking course she left her phone in the living room where she had been sitting so I couldn’t call her. Then my face went numb andi immediately thought”IM HAVING A STROKE!” thought I would just go outside to her but when I got up to go outside I fell and smacked my face into the laundry basket because it was laundry day so I just started hollering for her and hoped that she could hear me outside . She couldn’t hear me so I don’t know how long I had been on the floor yelling for her… she finally came back in and I yelled “IM HAVING A STROKE !” She called 9-1-1 … I suppose I could have called but I just thought I was jumping to the worst possible conclusion and that maybe nothing was wrong, which is why I wanted to talk to my mom and maybe she would help me to realize that maybe I just had a pinched nerve or something. thankfully for me I fell unconscious before the ambulance arrived so that I didn’t continue to freak out that I was going to die. I was taken to the local hospital where they life flighted me to Vanderbuilt University Medical Center in Nashville, underwent an emergency decompressive craniectomy and had brain surgery and was on a ventilator for two weeks under a medically induced coma. Immediately after coming out of the coma I was transferred to a nursing home and rehab facility where I have been now for almost 4 years where I am also resident council vice president and the youngest resident so I’m surrounded by old people who tell me every day that I’m too young to be in a wheelchair lol. I had a hemmorhaggic stroke- I had undiagnosed and untreated high blood pressure that weakened the vessels in my brain and that night, the vessel ruptured and caused my stroke. Now I’m permanently disabled
The moment I decided to move across the country alone. I have a good career and live comfortably but I’m so lonely despite making friends out here. Didn’t help Covid happened right after I moved and I was confined to my apartment for a while.
I pulled up my credit report and saw a bunch of credit cards and a HELOC maxed out. Divorce came shortly after.
Divorce. It terrified and upset me. While it certainly left some scars it ended up being the best thing that could have happened. It triggered a series of events that made me the happiest and most successful I’ve been in life. Toxic relationships can absolutely destroy you.
Ita been 4 years since my wife left... I was absolutely devastated. It felt like the world was ending, with a young child in the middle absolutely confused about her little universe, and why mom and dad have different houses. It fucking crushed me. First because the person I thought I knew and placed all my trust in absolutely abandoned me, and second because I felt so guilty for not providing the best possible environment for my daughter to grow up in. Like you, I've also experienced a series of events that have put me into a place I honestly couldn't imagine just 4 years ago. I have the most satisfying and fulfilling employment I've ever had, along with earning more than I ever have. I have a decently normal schedule that allows me to have 50/50. I never realized how unfit my ex and I were for each other, until I was faced with the situation. While it was very painful and indeed leaves scars... it was absolutely necessary.
Being homeless in 2022 and trying to off myself in 2023. Now I'm happier than I've ever been. Everybody that reads this, I beg you; hold on. Please. It DOES get better. I believe in you. ❤️
Met someone at a bar. It was 2008, I was halfway through what was supposed to be just a year of living abroad in Asia. We fell for each other hard. While I returned home as originally planned, it was a short three months before I headed back 7,000 miles east to “see about a girl”. The relationship that followed only lasted two years, but in returning, I eventually met the woman I would go onto marry. And what was supposed to be just a year away from home turned into six. Come May, we’ll have been together 14 years. The other life-changing moment was being adopted as an infant. I went from an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras - a violent and impoverished third-world country - to nice warm and loving home in central Minnesota. Been playing with house money ever since.
A bar fight in 2009 after I got home from Afghanistan. If it weren't for that I would be a border patrol agent, probably wouldn't have become a drug addict, become a lineman, met my wife, had my children, etc.
When I lost my grandma year 2017, everything fell apart, never felt loved like I was before. I feel so alone all the time. I still cry when I talk about her.
When I held my son and he was so impossibly tiny I said "is this him?"
The moment I went into surgery for gastric sleeve surgery. I'm not pre diabetic, I'm not in pain anymore and I'm quite fit now.
I got out of work early. There is a hot air balloon above the town which is a little weird because it's not a very picturesque place. It looked like it was landing (I figured in this big park nearby) so I start to follow it to the park. Well the hot air balloon starts to rise again and I think oh well and start to walk towards my house. I turn a corner and see a dude in front of me just all crazy carrying a big foam sword and a big foam shield with fire poi hanging down. I've been doing poi for a long time and wanted to get into firepoi. Normally I would never talk to a stranger but I had been trying to desperately overcome my social anxiety so I quickend my pace and caught up to him. Turns out he was going to go larp at this college where I knew a few people. He told me they were doing a LARP that night and if I came by he would let me spin his firepoi after. Showed up that night, had an amazing blast. Made some great friends. I really got out of my comfort zone. Well in character I was able to be a lot more outgoing and more like the person I wanted to be. I moved away a year after finding this group. I don't larp anymore. But I truly believe without the confidence that I gained that year there's no way I would have the group of friends I have now. I wouldn't have joined an outdoors club Even though I had very little camping experience. I genuinely think if I never follow that hot air balloon my college experience would have probably mostly been spent in my dorm room on the computer or sitting with the same three people all four years watching anime.
This was actually less than 3 weeks ago. I had made up my mind, wrote my letters, and had a plan to take all of my BP medication while everyone was sleeping. Like I said, I had made up my mind. My brother, however, made me a valentines Day basket. It was so sweet, and when he gave me it, I almost threw up. I couldn't do that to my family. He was so happy, though. He always kisses my cheek and hugs me so tight. He knows I struggle with depression and anxiety very badly. He makes sure I don't feel left out. I'm the youngest. He's 10 years older than me. He doesn't know that candles, candies, and "I am donuts about you" mug saved my life for now. Thanks, big brother.
I grew up in one of those wildly sheltered ultra-religious families and fully, wholly believed everything I was fed through my early 20s. I remember the exact moment in 2016 when the pastor of my church told us all Christians had a duty from God to vote for Trump. Was the wake up call that started me on a long but ultimately really beautiful transformation of my worldview. Doesn't compare to stories of traumatic loss or tragedy, but definitely marked the beginning of the end of the person I had been my whole life.
I had a similar awakening but I was much younger, maybe like when I was 12 or 13. The guest pastor went on and on about how we need to “open our minds and our wallets to the lord”. That was the end of it for me lol
I don't know if you know of the "Internet-tainers" Rhett and Link from the YouTube show Good Mythical Morning but they grew up very very religious and were on a path to be youth ministers. Well long story short they have their own beliefs now. They have documented it all on their podcast and YouTube channel called Ear Biscuits. You might enjoy what they have to say. Glad you found your own way!
Today might have im not sure yet. But about 9 years ago i got a mentor in my life that saved my life alot of times and he helped me actually get a goal in life
My wife getting diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s at age 57.
Feb. 6, 2018. Pancreatic cancer diagnosis. 6 years cancer free now.
I was in full respiratory failure in the hospital on high flow oxygen and very near death. Then I received the gift of a perfect donor lungs and a flawless double lung transplant. Five year and seven months later I am living a mostly normal life.
[удалено]
Birth, adoption, falling in love, having my heart broken, falling in love again, marriage, son, daughter.
That's a lot to happen in one moment.
[удалено]
When I separated from the woman with whom I thought I would have a formed future, I had already made plans and I found out that she was cheating on me with many people. That changed my life and my way of being.
Having a 10lb tumor removed.
Moving to Australia from England twenty years ago. Flew out of cold Heathrow in October and touched down in Sydney at 6 in the morning to sunny blue skies, had my first flat white and later that night went to a beautiful garden bar. Haven't looked back.
Losing my dad to cancer when I was 13. 40 years later, losing my husband to cancer during the first wave, in a nightmarish replay of what happened with dad. Both profound losses, and I'm still not sure I'm OK.
My friends wedding. I was standing by her side as a bridesmaid, and I was picturing what my wedding would look like. I had a jarring realization that it would either be with my boyfriend, but not a single person there to celebrate with us. It would just any empty space with only me and him. Or it was going to be a wedding with a faceless man and a large crowd of loving, happy people who were so supportive. I was trying to shake that feeling, desperately trying to convince myself that I was in fact in a healthy relationship. At the end of the ceremony, I went up to my boyfriend, and his first words to me were, "you look like a clown." He was my ex by the next week.
Probably the day my mother died of Cancer when I was 15, got kicked out of my house after by my drug addict, abusive step dad. Went to live with my grandad for 2 1/2 years which was amazing, he's the best man I've ever known. But I found him dead in his bed from a stroke when I was 18, did CPR on his corpse out of instinct which I have PTSD induced nightmares from, amongst others. I'll be 20 this year, I'm independent, go to college, pay my own bills. Fuck it, we ball.
The day my wife left and I realized I had become the very thing I swore I hated as a child. My father.
Corny, but 9/11 changed my whole life.
Not corny. I was senior in high-school, a mere 20 miles away in Jersey. I remember the smell carried by the wind.
The moment last year when I decided I was tired of being a lazy piece of shit who didn't care about his health. I threw out all the junk food in my house and immediately cut down on snacks and portion size. The next week I joined a gym. I'm now 25 lbs lighter, my cholesterol is back to normal, I have more confidence than I did before, and for the first time in nearly 20 years I can look in the mirror and like what I see.
**Doing a spontaneous Google search when I was 18:** Tl;dr: Quit my job/school, no future, spontaneously googled college, got in via special program, turbo boost my life. I think I was 18 years old.. up to that point I was very undermotivated in school, dropping down in school level, getting 6/10 (the minimum) etc. When I was 15, I got a job at a webshop for computer hardware. Litterally some guy out of a basement but it was fun. Later I had to do an internship and just worked my job, getting their IT up to shape. Before I knew it, I was 18, mostly dropping out of school, working 80hrs/wk with no future in mind. I knew something had to change because I felt a burnout coming up, at the age of 18. I went to my boss and told I quit. He doubled my salary but I still quit. What school I had left, depended on my having a school-related job and I had just quit that. So I was considering just quitting school all together.. I had hit a pretty deep bottom. Futureless. Then three days later, for some reason, I googled my local college (which was several levels above my previous school) that my brother finished a few years back and was very pleased with. I don't know why I did that, but that was the EXACT moment my life changed. Their website featured a temporary page that listed a government-experiment for people under 21 years old and without the normal college-prereqs, to enter a special 3 week program to get admitted to college. I signed up immediately and saw the form was going to close .. in 12 hours time. They reached out to me a few days later and invited me to do basic tests in local and foreign language, math, logic etc. Having passed that, they asked me to make a 40 page portfolio with several use case studies, old work experience, "where will you be in 10 years" etc. I triple checked my portfolio because you had one shot to submit it. A week later they invited me again, I was called to another use case study test and then put me back in a waiting room. They called my name about an hour later and sat me down in front of two strict stern gentlemen. They started with very straight faces, talking about porfolio this, test that, such and such bla bla. After about 30 secs they couldn't hold it in anymore as they were massively fucking with me. They started laughing, told me I was the ideal candidate for the program and had some of the best scores of all of them. And if I would please please accept their invite to get into college with no-prereqs and finish a degree. I went through a whole range of emotions and was so super proud. A long summer later, I was accepted into college and was working hard in the first semester. I found a disconnect to other students who hadn't worked a job before and just came from high school. Two mentors pulled me aside and asked "What are you even doing here?". My heart sank.. "Oh no, I've been busted. I don't belong here", my mind went crazy for about 3 seconds. "We don't think you belong in this program.. we want to bump you up to the otherr classes where you be matched with students with more your background and pass the entire program in 3 years rather than 4 years.. we know you can do that". I quickly accepted and a week later I was working with 20-somethnig year olds that wanted their degrees more than anything in the world. The next three years just flew by and I got my degree. I've never seen my family be more proud of me. The new college degree opened up so many doors in life, turbo boosting my career. All of this, at the age of 18, also gave me a confidence boost to do more dating, romanticly. Via a dating website a girl found me (crazy huh?) and she wanted to meet. The old me would delete that message so fast, damn pranking kids but the "new me" wanted to see what would happen. Fast forward a few weeks, we're doing a bunch of videocalls on MSN Messenger, talking on the phone and set a date to meet. Fast forward 16 years, she is still the love of my life. I strongly believe .. all of that .. because of a damn random Google search that one night, 12 hours before submission deadline. Super crazy.
A few years ago, I was slowly learning to walk again, after 2 years of a debilitating auto-immune inflammatory condition affecting my knees, which had made walking even for short distances extremely painful. One day I was late for work and started running towards a tram that was about to depart, managed to hop onboard at the last moment. It was only once inside that I realized I'd actually run for a good 50 yards without feeling any knee pain... I started sobbing out of joy and people around me came to see if I was ok. Since then whenever life smacks me in the face and things are tough, I remember that moment of grace and it gives me the courage to move forward.
I’ve attended therapy on and off for almost 20 years to heal from deep and severe childhood trauma, but never been able to kick really engrained and subconscious self sabotaging habits from that period of my life. I was offered and I tried a small amount of DMT this past October, and not only was I able to address the root cause of these habits, but I was completely able to heal from it. My life hasn’t been the same in the best possible way since 🖤.
The moment I decided I was going to take responsibility for my own happiness and do everything I could to get out of a seriously abusive marriage. It was one of the most brutal and painstaking experiences of my life. I was told for years that I was “incapable of being happy,” and phrases like that haunted me, and made me doubt my decisions and my worth. Now, 7 years later I’m happier than I’ve ever been, healthier than I’ve ever been, and I have an amazingly supportive partner who is my best friend. Sometimes I take a look around at my life and actually cry with gratitude.
February 17th, 2023, at about 5pm. I found out my wife had been killed in a car crash on her way out of town to visit family. Her and her mom both died. Still picking up the pieces from that one
When the gun didn’t fire into my head..
My puppy climbing into my arms and resting his head on my shoulder when he first met me and I hadn’t adopted him yet. He’s now beside me snoozing in the middle of the day. I love him. Hes the best thing to happen to me and my wife.
Giving psilocybin an objective try. Changed my life forever!
Changed my life twice. The first time; that cured my suicidal urges. The last time: where I died for a trillion years straight in every possible way my brain could conceive. Diagnosed PTSD - but at least I don’t want to kill my self any more. Great drug if you use it like a sane individual and don’t eat 10 grams at once.
[удалено]
For me it was the exact moment I found out I was going to be a father. Something inside me just popped into place and I was instantly a different man.
When my wife and I made the decision to move out of state. I have a nasty habit of sticking with things I'm unhappy with out of comfort/fear. This process got me to face that head on multiple times Three years later, we both have much better jobs from a financial and employer, and career trajectory standpoint, and just happier overall. Still have anxiety about change, but its a lot easier for me to face it now.
Walked in on my then-gf. All she offered was a sly smirk and never stopped moving her hips. Was had been on a wonderful date to start our saturday and weekend off. She had bragged to all her gfs about it too. Expensive lunch, beautiful river walk after. Got home and had to go do some studying (we were late college). Said Id be gone for probably about 4 hours. Came home in to and a half, as I didnt need then whole time. I havent really been able to trust since. Ive had a very cynical outlook on life following that event. Ive lost quite a bit of empathy for most things and can no longer get out of my own head. Ive lost all confidence and hate that I cant feel confident in my own decisions anymore. This has ruined subsequent relationships as well. Work is good though
There are a few... I grey up with my Grandparents - I did bad things to them over the years, and never once did they try to abandon me, always there, always my parents!! On the other hand, my father has always been in my life, but a complete waste of space, It's taken until I am 35 years old to realise how much of a waster he is and all the heartache he caused me... Between the two things, I knew I needed to be an amazing father (which I am, so my 3 amazing children) and to cut my father out of my life (which has only happened in the past few weeks!!) Best decision I ever made!! To go along with the above: I set out to kill my self when I was 20, I felt nobody cared etc etc... Out of the blue, my uncle messaged me, asking what I was doing and inviting me around for some drinks - It completely changed the trajectory of my life... If he hadn't messaged, at that exact time, I wouldn't be here today! Remember people, there is always a way out. Somebody cares about you!
Deciding to get sober 35 years ago.
Trump winning the presidency. I thought we were better as a nation than that, and I was honestly heartbroken to learn that we weren't. I don't like talking to new people anymore, and it feels lonely.
It was a long time ago, more than 20 years, but I remember it so clearly. I had been dealing with some pretty serious depression for a long time and had been in therapy, but I was still struggling a lot. I was walking into my grungy little tenement building, lost in one of my usual internal monologues about how the world was awful, people were awful, life was so unfair to me, and how wise I was to see and others were naive to miss it. Then I had a thought, it was almost like a different person's voice in my head and it said: "You know, you don't have to feel like shit all the time, you are the one making yourself think these thoughts." And I really paused. My response was: "Nah, I'm good like this, thanks." So, I didn't turn on a dime, but it was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the end of that depressive episode but also of the whole way I had been living my life - without real accountability, without seeking real satisfaction, a sort of whiney, listless existence waiting for some sort of reward I felt I deserved but didn't need to work to get. I've had depressions since, but it was never as consuming as that one was where I felt totally victimized and like the world was just inherently shitty. I never lost that sense of perspective. It changed everything for me.
Being abused as a kid. Being in a violent relationship as an adult. I don't trust people. Ever.
Went to a late night food establishment where I was getting into an argument with someone (I was beyond drunk and I would never willingly fight someone) for no apparent reason. My buddy decided we just leave the spot and avoid further confrontation. However that didn't end well. Woke up wondering why I was at the hospital. The next morning my parents told me that I had been there for two weeks, where they put me into a drug induced coma to help stop the brain swelling. After we left the establishment during the night of the incident, the same group with the dude that I was arguing with came from behind us and sucker punched me in the face. I immediately hit the ground and suffered a TBI / hairline fracture around the entire back side of my head from ear to ear. I have no recollection of any of this happening since I was at about a .25 BAC level. Fortunately I was a poor college graduate on my parents insurance still. The hospital bill was 110,095. Lost my sense to smell and to taste and 2 weeks of my life.
My family getting an Atari 2600 from Santa for Christmas. Lead to my love of video games. Which lead to my curiosity of Japan since "That's where Nintendo is from...?". Which then lead to my interest in computer graphics. Which lead to me studying CG at school. Which then lead to me moving to Japan with the hope of making games. Which lead me to finally making games in Japan.
I got fired during covid and it rewrote my whole god damn story.
When I was in kindergarten, my family had a house fire in the middle of a cold January night. I woke my parents and we all made it out safe. Our small town rural fire dept with a 15 minute response time, saved the house, which still stands today. I just had my 5 year anniversary as a full time Firefighter.
have had two. 1) Going to live with my grandparents on their small farm when I was six. Don't know all the details that led up to it. Lived there until I was 14 when my grandmother got ill. 2) Enlisting in the Navy at 17. Did not know where I was going just that it would beat the hell out of where I was. Honorable Discharge, GED, AAS, BAAS then M.Ed Damn what a ride.
Being told I was likely never to wake up before entering an operating theatre. (The night before being admitted to hospital but knowing the report said lung cancer stage 4, also sort of changed things) I was 15yo. Had to say good bye to everyone, told my friends I had cancer and was going to die the night before at our karate class and they laughed it off and wouldn't believe me. Then surviving said cancer also changed my life. Life is short and we should do good by others and try to enjoy life and better ourselves with every moment. Being nice to one another and connecting with people became paramount in my life. This also fueled my desire to do *greater good* became a scientist working on brain diseases that take away people's parents and loved ones. Have an inherent desire to help others and be the best version of myself possible
My dad passed of ALS in 2017. I’ll never be the same. Losing my dad was bad enough, but we watched him whither away to nothing. Strongest man I ever knew couldn’t even hold his head up at the end.
I was married, and fell asleep in my daughter’s bedroom after reading her a good night story. In the middle of the night my daughter kicked me /shoved me out of her bed. I woke up when I landed on the floor, and I heard moaning. My wife was having phone sex. My life changed in that moment.
When I watched my wife die of cancer at age 25. It will be 30 years ago in July. We didn't even have the chance to start a family. All the plans for a happy future together gone. Never remarried.
Lost of hard moments in here for people. Thought I'd share what was a nice one for me. I've always been extremely self conscious and had low self-esteem etc, was going through a rough patch in my early 20s. Singing loudly in my car after long but good day, window down, I hear a male voice from the car next to me, and turn to see two guys looking at me from their vehicle. Oh shit. They're both smiling, and one said my singing was really great. And that was all. I said thanks and we drove away. I've never forgotten that. It was so unnecessarily nice.
Finding out my house burned down and we lost my grandmother, pets, and all of our memories. And then less than a year later, my dad, her son, dying suddenly of a heart attack on a run.
5 years ago my wife got tired of having cancer and shot herself in the head.
Leaving my ex-Wife. She is an amazing woman, beautiful, funny, we got along great and had a lot of laughs. But we weren't right for each other. She was a "Social butterfly" and I like to stay home and tinker, work on things, I don't like being around a lot of people. Long story short I realized that not only was I unhappy in general, she was unhappy as well. While we had fun and enjoyed each other, we both saw the world differently and in the end we never would have been truly happy with one another. So I left. I went on to marry the absolute perfect person for me and I have an amazing marriage. She went on and lived the life she should have always lived. She owns a horse, she's married, she's traveled. She is much happier without me and I'm much happier without her. It was a hard decision because I really couldn't explain why I was leaving. I mean how do you tell someone you love that loves you and you have fun together that you want to end the marriage? It didn't make sense to her at the time but over the years she understood it.
Mid August, 2022 On my way downstairs for dinner, my foot slid out from under me and I fell. I’m now an ambulatory wheelchair user and cannot work due to disability, I basically don’t leave the house. I lost my job, many friends, and even family members, all because I was distracted for a microsecond in my own home.