Top Stories

People Break Down The Coping Mechanisms They Developed As A Kid That Are Not Normal At All

Sometimes the only thing one can do in life is find the best way to survive.

Anyway you can make it through, take it.

And it all starts in childhood.

Childhood trauma is where it all begins.

We have to take on a lot as a kid and in order to do that we have to find ways to keep going.

And some of those ways maybe aren't the healthiest.

That's why when we're older we have to face the demons.

RedditorGreggOfChaoticOrderwanted to hear about the lingering effects of childhood. They asked:

"What is a childhood coping method you unknowingly developed only to realize later that it wasn't normal?"

Thumbsucking. I sucked my thumb until 13. Not great for the alignment of my mouth.

Deceit

"I learned to lie rather convincingly. I was petrified of getting in trouble for the smallest things that I learned to hide quite a bit. I had such high anxiety as a kid."

throwingplaydoh

"For the same reason, I’m scary good at lying… to the point I will halfway believe the lie myself. It’s not a trait I’m proud of, but it is useful at times."

Disastrous-Mafk

Hungry Hungry

"Eating too fast. I remember noticing this even as a child still. I was always done first. And I never out grew it. Neglect and abandonment issues."

AlternativeRope5639

"I do this too and I don’t really know why… People comment on it all the time but I don’t really know how to stop doing it. As soon as I start eating it’s like a black out or something and I don’t come back to reality until the food is gone."

Studleyvonshlong

"problem"

"Cleaning or doing things behind the scenes for my family so they're always happy, life goes smoothly and my life is serene. The latter isn't the case unfortunately, I'm exhausted and always on edge."

Crazei

"SAME. My mom was a huge neat freak to the point of abuse and as an adult, i can not handle a messy home. it's not normally a 'problem' until I'm really stressed by outside factors and find myself vacuuming the couch/cleaning the fridge/etc at like 2am."

teruravirino

Too Much

"Saying I am sorry all the time."

strawberrywine5880

"My friend did this. It was irritating to me at the time, but looking back, she had a lot of stress on her shoulders even in high-school. She lived with her grandma because her mother was a hoarder and a two-faced woman."

throwingplaydoh

Trauma

"My husband used to get really annoyed when I would apologize too much. He said that if I apologize as much as I did it would make the word meaningless. As he learned more about my trauma he wouldn't get annoyed anymore. Also helps that I don't do it AS much now, but I still do sometimes."

fried_egg_on_toast

Man, being a kid is rough. We carry way too much with us.

In the Wardrobe

"Hiding in the closet."

evilmonkey9361

"I used to hide in a big wardrobe when my step mom would come looking for me. Also hid/slept in the trunk of my car to avoid her and ditch college classes. I still get that urge to hide myself away places and just feel comforted at being able to be left alone. It's really nice to see other people have the same coping devices even if it's not great we had to have them in the first place."

Danceswithunicornz

an actual thing...

"Dissociation and maladaptive daydreaming (I just learned that's an actual thing with a name)."

Melonqualia

"This is so relatable to me. I’ve always done this for one reason or another. Now a days I work extremely long shifts and find myself placing myself out of my body as much as possible."

"My home life has gotten bad so I’ve been doing it at home recently too. I feel like the problem with this is i’ve slowly normalized not living my own life to the point where I can work like a robot for 14 hours a day and it doesn’t affect me at all, but I’m never really happy."

UnfriendlyToast

Pulling

"I’d pull out my eyelashes."

Lucky-Refrigerator-4

"Eyebrows and eyelashes here. Reading through all of these responses makes me realize how messed up I really am. Your response makes me realize that I do it out of nervousness."

elanrach

The Tone

"Making my voice as monotone as possible to prevent people (my parents) from picking up on any tiny hint of emotion. My parents would lose their sh*t if I had 'a tone' or sounded upset in any way. It's taken years and years of practice to regain some emotion in my voice again."

Jazzlike_Log_709

No Resolutions

"I can’t have an aspiration or a dream because I don’t want to disappoint myself. Like, I can’t even say that I am gonna get a good grade on a specific subject out loud, cause I am scared I will disappoint myself. Same thing with other things in life, when I apply for a specific college I will just do it and ignore it until I get a result, because I don’t wanna get my hopes up and end up not getting accepted."

"I can’t even have a New Years Resolution cause somehow I think I would fail and I would rather already expect that than get my hopes up and fail. I am scared of being disappointed in myself."

rianabdussalam

Dodgy...

"Escaping into my head. I don't do it much anymore, but as a kid and teen I lived there. I can also walk into a room and sense immediately if something is about to go down, and spot dodgy people on the street from a block away. my wife on the other hand is completely oblivious."

randomnameandanumber

"What's a confrontation?

"Shutting down when faced with confrontation."

NoToe9649

"What's a confrontation?"

"For me, this was a part of learned helplessness. I realized early on that there was no point trying to reason with my mother. I'd just say whatever I thought would shut her up. This also made me internalize the idea that getting angry was always irrational & no one who got angry had a valid point. She literally never did & filled her crap over nothing. I had to un-learn a lot in therapy."

2PlasticLobsters

authority figures are jerks...

"Assume anytime someone in a position of authority wants to talk to me, it's bad news and I've done something wrong (even if I can't remember doing anything potentially bad)."

FA-26B

"I feel you. I think the same because most authority figures do want to talk to us when its bad or done something wrong even though not always. But my experience most authority figures are jerks simply because they were mistreated by authority figures and continue the vicious cycle."

Johnnybones08

Footsteps

"Listening for the smallest sounds. Before I was old enough and had enough money to move out, when I was a teen I could hear the faint sound of the garage door opening because it would always squeak when it opens, and then I would bolt upstairs to my room because the garage opening meant that my mom was home. I can distinguish her footsteps easily. I developed a hypersensitivity to sound because of her."

bunniesandmilktea

flipping a switch...

"Blocking out all background noise to avoid emotional damage from whatever’s going on."

masterofyourhouse

"I know that... it's like flipping a switch. It's most noticeable to myself when I'm watching a movie and a scene comes on that triggers some kind of memory and so you mentally switch from being in-tune with the movie to staring at the box on the wall while the pictures on it move. Completely removes all emotion."

Christmas_Panda

Coping

"Trying to think/mentally prepare myself for every possible horrible thing that could happen to me, so that if it did, I wouldn’t be blindsided. It didn’t work I want to add that my mother died in a freak accident when I was a boy and I was blindsided."

"My coping mechanism was to prepare for situations where a friend or family member is killed out of the blue etc, so I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. It caused me severe stress and the inability to relax ever. I am older now and therapy has done wonders for me."

Budson420

speaking poorly...

"Listening closely to what's going on in my apartment or the people I know around me to hear if anyone is upset or talking about me or yelling or fighting."

lovepplusethings

"This is one I still have to actively fight. It caused me so much anxiety growing up hearing people talking in the house and assuming they were speaking poorly of me. I would waste hours in the dark and quiet listening and waiting till it was safe to emerge and not be seen. I still listen for people out and about at work so I can move around without having to have an awaked encounter."

Danceswithunicornz

caught off guard again...

"Trying to think/mentally prepare myself for every possible horrible thing that could happen to me, so that if it did, I wouldn’t be blindsided. It didn’t work I want to add that my mother died in a freak accident when I was a boy and I was blindsided."

"My coping mechanism was to prepare for situations where a friend or family member is killed out of the blue etc so I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. It caused me severe stress and the inability to relax ever. I am older now and therapy has done wonders for me."

Budson420

"not care"

"Shutting down emotional responses and forcing myself to 'not care' about any perceived loss. Apparently it made it pretty annoying to discipline me because I would suddenly stop caring about anything that was threatened to be taken away. Nobody really taught me how to properly cope with loss when it started happening and I guess my response was emotional repression."

PeculiarInsomniac

Signs

"Looking for signs, such as microexpressions, about what kind of a mood the other one is in. My therapist told me not all people do this, and I do it a lot. He also told me I developed it because I was always on the lookout on the mood of my often angry, drunken stepdad."

theWelshTiger

"I developed a reflex where I apologize and ask if they are angry at me. I have a hard time telling how people are feeling unless they tell me. Apparently that just ended up with me being the sorriest sack of crap they'd ever seen."

GreggOfChaoticOrder

Facing the past is hard. We can do it. You're not alone.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

Want to "know" more?

Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.

People Who Actually Died And Were Revived Share Their Experiences

"Reddit user AlaskaStiletto asked: 'Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?'"

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.

In 2017, I returned to my office after my lunch break to hear my supervisors discussing Tom Petty. This seemed like a random topic to me until one of my supervisors told me Tom Petty had passed away. He was a huge fan of Petty and spent the next hour or so combing through the internet to get more information.

He came back into the room my other supervisor and I were working in and announced that Tom Petty wasn't dead after all. News outlets had jumped the gun to announce his death, but he was actually still alive.

The next day, I came in to find out that Tom Petty was dead; the news may have been premature, but true.

This is a classic example of the rumor being started on the internet. Sometimes, like with the news of Tom Petty's death, the rumor can run wild and appear everywhere. Other times, the rumor can be seen by just a few people and dismissed. However, a lot of times, these rumors turn out to be true.

Redditors know a lot of internet rumors that turned out to be true, and are eager to share.

It all started when Redditor strakerak asked:

"What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?"

The King Of Pop

"Michael Jackson writing the music for Sonic 3."

"He actually did, but was never credited on the game because it would breach his contract with his record label."

– -WigglyLine-

"He did the same when he appeared on The Simpsons. He appeared under a pseudonym, and the Producers said it was an impersonator."

"Only years later they confirmed it really was Michael."

"His singing voice was actually done by an impersonator, though."

– given2fly_

The Truth Comes Out

"In 1998, US Men’s National Team captain John Harkes was shockingly cut from the team right before the World Cup. The coach claimed it was because Harkes wouldn’t fit into his new preferred formation, but rumors flew on the early internet that it was actually because he had slept with his teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife. The rumor was so well-known in soccer circles that Harkes expressly denied it in his autobiography the next year."

"Fast forward 12 years to 2010 and Wynalda admits it’s true. The coach then came out and admitted it was why he dropped Harkes, but that he’d planned to keep the secret as long as Wynalda did."

– guyfromsoccer

Video Evidence

"The Tim Burton Hansel and Gretel that aired once on halloween in the 80's."

"I heard for years that it was fake but I knew it was real because my dad recorded everything in the 80s and he recorded that. We let a good friend of ours borrow it and switch it over from VHS to DVD and soon after that it made its way on to the internet , and there it is now. I know it's our copy because the tracking in the beginning is screwed up. Still have the VHS."

– Frozenthickness

"There was a similar story with a Nickelodeon movie called Cry Baby Lane. It was supposed to be so scary that Nickelodeon got complaints and denied its existence for years. Someone uploaded a taped copy to youtube about a decade ago."

– PattiAllen

The Movie Business

"That North Korea hacked Sony Pictures because of The Interview movie."

"I worked in the movie business at the time and the account managers at Sony all basically needed to get new identities as all of their personal information got leaked online."

OldMastodon5363

"My partner worked on that movie and the production bought all the crew 1 year of an identity theft tracking service."

CMV_Viremia

Keep Away From The Ears Of Kids

"Some banned episodes or scenes of cartoons."

"For example, I remember there was a Dexter’s Lab cartoon where he clones evil versions of DeDe and himself and they swear like every other word (censored of course), and people debated whether it even existed cause they only aired it like once. Now it’s pretty accessible online."

– Spledidlife

Yes, It's True

"Echelon, a massive electronic espionage system by the US and allies to intercept all electronic messages, especially emails."

"In the mid-nineties it was a topic on conspiracy BBS boards. A lot of people in my bubble at the time (mainly uni students in Europe) were including fake threats to the US in the their email signatures as a way to "protest" and "fill the system with false alarms" (obviously useless)."

"Then, in 1999-2000 came out to be true and a lot of security service agencies from UK and other US allies started to admit they were part of the espionage network."

– latflickr

How The Mighty Fell

"John Edward’s love child."

– ACam574

"A reminder that he was cheating on his wife while she was hospitalized for cancer treatment."

– Fanclock314

Ugh...

"Carrie Fisher's heart attack. Some a**hole who was on the same flight was livetweeting the whole medical emergency and justified it by insisting she was just making sure the family was informed."

– everylastlight

It Actually Happened

"Every year around her birthday there was a rumor that Betty White died. When I heard she died, I scoffed, saying that dumb rumor is back.... then saw it on the news. I was in shock."

– Known-Committee8679

"The fact that Betty died literally right before she turned 100 is such a Betty White way to go out."

– Paganigsegg

Big Actor, Small Roles

"I distinctly remember some rumors about the reason why Bruce Willis was taking so many roles in sh*tty movies before it was announced he has dementia."

– KampferMann

"RedLetterMedia did a deep dive on his recent movie activity to try and work out why exactly he was taking part in basically scam-movies. They noticed he had an earpiece in one of the scenes and joked that the director was feeding him lines. I remember they even disclaimed over the rumours at the time, and possible made a follow-up vid when it was revealed to the public."

– CardinalCreepia

What To Do Next?

"That the writer of LOST were making it up as they went."

"Turned out to be absolutely true."

– homarjr

That last one was kind of obvious!

Do you have any to add? Let us know in the comment below.