25 Times Living Through An Experience Themselves Convinced People Of Its Real Impact

If the past has taught us anything, it’s that many people go their entire lives without experiencing a different way of living or questioning their own reality. When we haven’t lived through something ourselves, it’s easy to doubt what others describe. But once the experience we dismissed becomes part of our own reality, we finally understand their perspective. Sadly, this pattern shows up in many areas of life, and Redditors online have been openly discussing the things they only began to take seriously after experiencing them firsthand.

#1

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People’s kids being “sick” all the time so they had to miss work. Its real.

#2

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When you’re young and full of energy and optimism that you take for granted and disregard all the older people telling you you’ll lose a lot of that as you get older if you don’t take care of yourself. You think, “It happened to those people, but it won’t happen to me.” Oh, it’ll happen to you too…

Minor injuries you used to be able to spring back from in a day take months to heal. You wake up every day never feeling 100% rested, that tiredness compounding day by day. You fall asleep as soon as you’re resting in a chair, just like your dad or grandpa always did. All the fun things you used to be able to eat and drink suddenly don’t sit right in your stomach, or will make your entire body feel uncomfortable. And the worst of all, you still feel relatively young in your mind, but then you look in the mirror and see an aging person with wrinkles and grey hairs and realize that’s how everyone else sees you and that you’ll never get to be the young person you still feel you are in society.

#3

Image source: DoctorBartleby, pixel-shot.com/Freepik (not the actual photo)

You know those people who always seem to have some crazy thing happening in their life and it seems absolutely unbelievable? They take a Lyft and the driver gets road rage and stops in the middle of the freeway. Their HVAC breaks and as soon as they pay it off they have to replace all their pipes and as soon as they pay that off they have to replace their roof and as soon as they pay that off… During Covid they quarantined and meticulously cleaned and then got COVID the first time they left the house. They got a new job and their dog gave birth live while they were giving a presentation so they delivered puppies while presenting.

It all sounds like utter BS until you are that person and then it feels like a curse. No one believes you until they are in the audience of the presentation, in the Lyft when the driver wigs out, at your place when the house falls apart comically, etc.

It’s constantly one thing after another. You become nervous when things start to go well because it never seems to last long. The moment the knot in your stomach goes away is when everything falls apart. Everyone assumes you are making it up, you are the problem, or you are the unluckiest person alive, but in the end, no one really wants to be around walking chaos.

#4

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Predicting the weather based on aches and pains.

#5

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That cops arrest innocent people, fake evidence, force them to sign confessions, and put them in jail.

#6

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Burn out.

#7

How much your environment affects not only your mood, but physical and mental health.

Thought I was above that. But through years in grey and dark winter days in UK I genuinely couldn’t figure out why I felt so flat. Tried to live in a warmer country, with bigger windows, closer to water and suddenly everything was easier. We’re just plants with anxiety really lol.

Image source: Logical-Nebula-7520

#8

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The saying “the days are slow but the years are fast” – never believed it until I turned 40 and I wonder where has the time gone?!?!

#9

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Being so depressed you can’t get out of bed.

tl,dr I thought it was weakness of character until it happened to me

I struggled with mental health all through my teens, had a really hard time, but basically always fulfilled my commitments even if that was literally all I did and everything else (eating, hobbies, socializing) completely went out the window. It was wrong of me, but despite spending a lot of time basically being a robot held together by obligation and string, I thought people who claimed to be too depressed to function would be powering through like I did if they had any personal integrity.

Then senior year of college rolled around and I just. Stopped. Stopped going to class. Stopped showing up for my campus job. Ghosted my friends. Stopped turning in my coursework. I knew on some level that I was ruining my life and my behavior would have lasting consequences if I didn’t get my stuff together, but I just…couldn’t care. Couldn’t anything. Miss Reliable who got straight A’s while still making time to take care of everybody else couldn’t get out of bed.

It has nothing to do with integrity or lack thereof. Depression is an illness, and it’s debilitating. It took ending up in the emergency room twice for me to turn it around. I did manage to graduate, thankfully, and that was years ago and I’m doing well now, but it was definitely educational.

#10

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Mental health showing up as physical pain like darn my emotions got beef with my back.

#11

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How fast life can flip one phone call, one moment, and ur whole reality changes.

#12

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You always see in movies and TV women screaming in agony during childbirth, and I figured it was exaggerated for dramatics. Obviously I knew it would be painful, but I didn’t think it would be that bad that I’d be screaming in pain. I have a high pain tolerance in general.

Yeah, no. Contractions were the most intense pain I’ve ever felt. I had back labour, which I’ve heard is worse than regular contractions. It felt like my spine was being crushed. Screaming was involuntary.

#13

I remember sitting down with my father and his siblings when they were 80. I thought they all looked so old. Now it is me and my siblings. At least we are all still alive.

Image source: spinjinn

#14

Forgetting my exact age.

Image source: Downtown_Tear3556

#15

Image source: BananaOnTop07, Freepk (not the actual photo)

Running into someone you just thought about.

#16

Racism. I grew up in the suburbs and never encountered unprovoked harassment until I was 18 back in 2008. I was driving in my new car (thanks, mom and dad), listening to pop/edm/dance music on the radio, at a red light, with my windows down and sunroof open on a nice day. Not loud at all but I was definitely jamming and singing along. A police officer pulled up next to me at the red light in his squad car. He put down his window, yelled a couple racial slurs and curse words at me, and then peeled out and drove right through the red light. I was shocked. I sat at that light for about 3 cycles until I finally moved. This extreme has never happened to me since. But my eyes were opened that day to how fortunate I’ve been to have grow up surrounded by kind hearted people of different races my whole life.

Image source: MiamiIslandGyal305

#17

Image source: BitchWidget, katemangostar/Freepik (not the actual photo)

Migraines. I knew they weren’t fake, I guess, but I didnt think they were as debilitating as people claimed.

Yeah then I had my first one. My god.

#18

Burnout.

I thought it was just being tired. Then one day motivation disappeared, focus dropped, and rest did not fix it. That is when I realized it was real.

Image source: gamersecret2

#19

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Super heating.

A few years ago I heated a cup of water in the microwave for a few minutes. I opened the door and instinctively started to reach in (with an oven mitt) when my brain said “hmmmm, that looks really still, and it seems like it should have splattered a little for as long as it was in there. I wonder…”

I grabbed a chopstick and poked the cup and it boiled. Instantaneously and extremely violently. I’d have been badly burned if I hadn’t thought about it.

#20

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Actually winning something in a random draw. It always sounds fake until your name pops up and it’s real.

#21

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Grief long term grief.

#22

I had no idea a cervix could regenerate until I lost mine to cancer at 23. My cervix grew back & was perfect. Got pregnant & delivered babies. Now I know.

Image source: TheTropicalDogg

#23

Money buys peace, not happiness. The peace part is very real.

Image source: LethalEleganceX

#24

Image source: ddsmd2, karlyukav/Freepik (not the actual photo)

“Long covid”. I thought covid was just a cold. It is not…..It disables millions and millions of people permanently. Just look it up. The “long covid” clinics throughout the country are swamped with patients.

#25

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Hitting a deer. I used to think how dumb you had to be to hit something so large then I did. It was like it was dropped from the sky.

#26

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SIDS, losing my healthy baby boy for no explainable reason at 3 months. I miss my child so much. Life feels utterly meaningless without him.

#27

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Panic attacks. I knew they happened, i didnt think they happened Like That.

#28

Getting old quick.

Image source: PastorofMuppets-

#29

The green flash at sunset. I thought it was a made up thing from pirates of the carribbean, but then I was on the beach in Puerto Vallarta and joking about seeing it. I pulled out my phone to take a joke video of the last direct rays of sun dipping below the horizon, and a second before I hit record, I looked up, and it actually happened right then and there. Like a green laser, so fast, as if the sun had just been washed away with that green light. I’ll never forget it. A couple people on the shoreline cheered.

Image source: Ripkhan

#30

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Blacking out while drunk. It’s terrifying.

#31

Americans voting for fascism.

Image source: Gunrock808

#32

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I always thought it was so unbelievable and overdramatic in movies when people got bad news and proceeded to lean against a wall, and slide down to sit on the floor (while crying). My dad called when I was at work to tell me that my nana passed. I was so overwhelmed that I leaned against the wall, started sobbing and just slid to the floor. Looking back, it was so surreal and kind of silly, but my brain just shut off for a minute.

#33

What tv shows used to refer to “flashers”.

Then my high school band went to a different school for a football game. As we filed off the bus a man stepped out from behind part of the bleachers. Full trench coat. Then opened it wide. I burst out laughing, which started a couple of other girls in line laughing.

He quickly closed the coat and disappeared.

Image source: isntlifestrange110