Some things, whether good or bad, can’t be put into words; they have to be experienced firsthand for a person to understand what they really feel like. For some people, it’s holding their newborn in their hands for the very first time, for others it can be something way less magical, like coming face-to-face with an alligator; but in both cases, there is simply no way to convey the experience with words.
Curious about such instances, redditor u/Slow_Inflation8701 addressed members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community asking what's something people don't understand until they go through it themselves. Fellow netizens shared their insight covering everything from abuse to parenthood, and much more, so scroll down to find their answers on the list below.
#1
Experiencing the death of someone you love
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#2
How extremely devastating being on cheated is. It's a truly sickening feeling in your gut, and nothing in your life is the same afterward. Some people are never the same ever again, others take over a decade to go back to normal. But that initial feeling is the worst. The suspicionions, the adrenaline as the truth unfolds, the severe depression, and the imagination all come together to bring you one of life's most devastating experiences.
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#3
Depression, actual clinical diagnosed depression.If I had a dollar every time I had to explain to someone it’s not “just feeling sad, bro!” and can get over it just like that, I could retire.
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#4
Struggling without anyone or anything to fall back on.
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#5
Being with an abuser (mentally, physically, or both) and how hard it is to leave
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#6
Sexual assault
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#7
Not having enough money due to unforeseen circumstances. Not every poor person is poor because of their own decisions. Finances are like traffic, you can do everything right on the road, and have your life completely flipped by some other a*****e driver.
Image credits: WhereTheMoneyAtBoy
#8
Chronic debilitating illness and disability. How quickly life can change permanently without you doing anything wrong.
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#9
Miscarriage. It's truly devastating.
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#10
Babies who don't sleep. Especially if you have more than one child. It's relentless, unending torture from a tiny being who you love with everything you have but find yourself having terrible thoughts about. You plead and beg, soothe and hug, rant and yell, nothing works, they don't care, they won't sleep.Every time you close your eyes, you know it might be 5 minutes or 2 hours or 20 minutes or 3 hours before you'll get woken again, and you have to go back in and be the best version of yourself for this tiny human.
If you have other kids, you then wake at day break (if you've slept at all) and then your other little ones wake, who also need you. It's not their fault you're completely deranged from the nightly torture, they need their Mum as well. Be on your game or struggle with the guilt, exacerbated by your exaggerated emotions as you're Just. So. Tired.
Driving becomes dangerous, you can't sort reality or process things, and again - small people who have no sense of the effect their regular little kid behaviour has, no empathy, just unleashing and you have to cop it and be a good Mum. And this is night, after night, after night, relentless, no hope in sight and no energy to summon any. And there's no real way to tell anyone how tired you are because there's no way to communicate a tiredness that is a physical weight you feel, like your body and mind don't belong to you any more but you've still got to perform.
Sleep deprivation is a war crime and babies are tiny terrorists. It's hell.
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#11
Mental illness.
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#12
Having a disability
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#13
Birth. We all know it's "hard" but sometimes even the baby books and videos don't prepare you for what could happen. When I had my son my placenta adhered to my uterine wall. Resulting in me nearly bleeding out. When my water broke it was ALL dark blood. And when I got to the hospital after my water broke I stood up and immediately heard a splash and a HUGE pile of dark red blood pooled on the floor beneath my feet. I had to have a c section after being in labor for almost two days and failing to progress. And on the table they tried pulling it out just a little and I felt EVERYTHING. I started bleeding out and they let me see my son and I was told that there was something wrong with my placenta and they had to put me under. I was intubated and given iron transfusions and blood transfusions over a two week period on top of healing from a c section.
Image credits: Slow_Inflation8701
#14
Dieing. Getting old. I'm 84 and, while I'm ok, lots of activities, tons of pain, low energy. It is nothing like I imagined and before that final exit, there are a lot more surprises. (One of the interesting things is that I have NO fear, but maybe that will change. lol)#15
Blindness, or bad eyes in general.
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#16
Having to cut off your family because they are very toxic. It's almost impossible to come off as the reasonable person in this situation to others, even if your life was in danger. People just don't understand
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#17
Panic attacks#18
Working in customer service
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#19
Anxiety or The Anxious feeling of something bad always feels like it’s going to happen, and imagining things before they even happen and not being able to cope.
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#20
Living with PTSD.
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#21
Losing a parent at a young age. You’re not sad because you miss them. You’re sad because you were robbed of ever knowing them.
Image credits: Schmaron
#22
Losing a child.
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#23
Super high stress events. People, even me at times, will say that they will do something or how they will react to a super high stress event. I work in a career where you can be sitting at a table and chatting with co workers and the next second, you have the largest adrenaline dumps of your life. Lots of people will say they will react a certain way, but most people will freeze if they haven't been though events like that often. I still to this day make that same mistake more often that I'd like to admit.
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#24
Addictions.
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#25
Having real OCD.
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#26
Nerve pain
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#27
Having an abortion. When Roe was overturned I had to hear everyone's opinion on abortion at work (both sides). It's such a talked about 'hot button' issue that people don't really think about the fact that if you are in a room with 10 women, you are probably in a room with one who has had an abortion, and they might not want to hear what you think about it. Whatever side of the line you fall on.#28
Having a child with special needs#29
Car crashes
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#30
Grief.When it’s been a a while since, it’s common for people to say something like, “it’s been a few years, move on.”
It truthfully doesn’t work that way. You remember them forever. And even when times after are extremely good and happy, a little part of you is looking in that empty corner.
Don’t say the “move on” thing to grieving people. It truthfully is great that you don’t relate, grieving people don’t want you to try and relate. They’re in the middle of a process that, at least in some ways, lasts forever.
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#31
Cancer.What it really means to go through cancer treatment.
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#32
Chronic insomnia#33
Growing up with parents that abuse alcohol and substances.And constant bullying.
It follows you forever, you grow up in fear, you don't know how a healthy relationship looks like etc. It will mess you up.
In the time others learn how to socialise, how to form meaningful relationships and who you are as a person. You learn how to stay quiet, how to handle random acts of emotional terror, how to take care of your parents and siblings. You learn to survive, not to thrive.
You learn what it means to be really lonely in a room full of people, because nobody understands you. They can't. They don't realise and you grow up thinking it's normal, until you realise it's not.
You can learn all of that later, but you will always lag behind the others.
#34
Parenthood.#35
Being poor#36
How bad toxic people and gaslighting are. The thing about that kind of abuse is that you never feel it like you would pbysical abuse. I know when I'm being punched, I don't know when I'm being gaslighted.
Image credits: visionsofcry
#37
Homelessness.NOTHING prepares you for it, no amount of knowledge about “ resources “ street smarts etc prepares you for the devastation that is homelessness when you’re not mentally Ill or high to the hills.
You quickly learn all the “ resources “ we like to lie to each other about and pretend those “ lazy bums “ have are a crock of s**t.
Shelters are dangerous, filthy, abhorrent places , understaffed and simply don’t have the funding to do much good.
Yiu can get food assistance, but that’s about it.
Everything is a waiting game, rapid rehousing in most of the country isn’t rapid, youl be on a waiting list for ever, AND when politicians want to save a few bucks or show how fiscally conservative they are, guess who’s funding gets cut first?!
Never mind the trauma of never having privacy, a bathroom, a place to sleep safely, a place to keep any belongings without them being stolen, the constant threat of being robbed in your sleep or assaulted if you’re female, or maybe some teens feel like pelting you with eggs. Etc
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#38
Narcistic abuse#39
I mean in my case having a very good relationship of ten years end abruptly because your partner started talking to someone from a cult, got brainwashed, and left to be with them.Never in a million years thought this would happen to us. And I'm so tired of people telling me how she is wrong because she was "looking" for someone else. Like she was on tinder or something. That's not what happened and no matter how much I try to explain to my friends and family they just don't get it.
#40
Being stalked. The constant of being on guard, the fear, the adrenaline, the need to be educated and prepared and armed, the complete absence of trust in all you once believed about the goodness inside people... It exacts a hefty toll. And still the thought creeps in, years upon years later, when will that individual return and repeat.#41
How unprepared you are for a physical fight. Most people way overestimate their abilities.
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#42
Being in a terrible relationship. I always saw s****y couples and thought to myself “I’ll never be in a relationship like that. If I were in a relationship like tha one I would leave in a second.” The wife and I are now in something of a “rough patch/rough everything all the time” in our marriage and I get really get it now.from Bored Panda https://ift.tt/rTmpsvA
