I don't think humans appreciate or grasp just how quickly a life can change in an instant. Do you realize how fast an instant is? Things can go from calm to outrageously off the rails in a breath. And when that happens we're all just left in a stunned silence. We have to think of life like a roller coaster... we explode from a quick crawl to a flying blast. Now do we get it?
Redditor u/neboi69 wanted to hear about the times when things went off the rails rather quickly by asking... People of Reddit, in which moments of your life did "S**t go from zero to 100 really f**king quick?"I can't count the amount of times my life has gone to one hundred, heck, two hundred before I could even get a good jog going. Mostly, it's happened to me when I was waiting tables. Y'all have no idea. One minute it's quiet and we're going along at a nice glide. Then ten minutes later, you've got ten tables, people are yelling and half the menu is already sold out. I still have nightmares.
Its Coming!!
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36 weeks pregnant. Went from "oh I think my water just broke, yay, time to call my midwife" to "oh crap that's not just fluid it's blood!" Ambulance ride and emergency C section all within a couple of hours.
Health Issues
I was a few months past my 32nd birthday. I went to bed, strong as a bull and literally woke up with cataracts. Not exaggerating; They formed overnight. My wife took me to the hospital and we found out that I had Stage 4 Systemic Sarcoidosis. Legs. Lungs. Liver. Kidneys. Intestines. Spleen. Eyes.
15 years, seven surgeries, bad reactions to meds and tons or rehab later, I'm back to work. I'm only half of what I used to be, but I'm really grateful for that half.
Fine on Paper...
Dad randomly fainted and was unconscious for probably 10 minutes or so. Ambulance came, took him to the E.R., every test was normal. He was fine on paper.
Came home, went back two days later as he was severely septic. Bounced between the hospital, specialty hospital and rehab hospital and nursing home 13 times in a year's time. He was in a coma, every organ shut down and came back to life, he developed a list of infections and problems.
His brain took the biggest hit. He died in the nursing home in his sleep.
He went from respiratory therapist with a high intellect to confusing me for my mother. Broke me so hard. We knew what caused the initial infection but still never found out why he fainted. The two incidents were unrelated but the infection he got came from the hospital during the first stay.
An Asda Night
I was leaving Asda one night after buying a few bits and I heard a loud crash like two cars had hit at the roundabout. Sorta chuckled to myself and thought 'ooft, I'd be annoyed' because I knew two cars hitting on a roundabout in this area likely wouldn't be fast or a risk to life.
I continue walked another 10 seconds or so and notice an old man in the middle of the road.
A guy had come off the roundabout and this old bloke, If I recall right he was 84, was cycling across the road with no reflective gear and he went straight into him.
Driver was in shock and nobody else was around so I dropped my stuff and ran over to do first aid/get help. This was October last year, I still don't know what happened to him but he was barely conscious and couldn't move anything.
It was one of those situations where you always wonder how you'd act if it happened to you and I'm so glad I kept my cool as opposed to panicking.
Blood Work
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Wife was feeling fatigued, got a call from her doctor who ordered blood work saying she was likely in kidney failure.
Later determined to be glomerulonephritis, went to the hospital for an ultrasound of her kidneys and it was confirmed he creatinine level was 12.0. She had to start dialysis the next day and thankfully got a transplant about 8 months later. 7 years later and she is still doing fantastic post transplant.
See there, we're not alone. Life is an erratic gamble on all of us. And there is no amount of planning that can prevent the downturn. Life is gonna life. We can prepare to roll along better. Let's see who else understands...
the money pit...
When I was 12, my parents were considering the possibility of moving to a bigger house for our growing family, not enough to have hired a realtor, but enough that they were casually looking at houses. My mother fell in love with a house above our price range, and went in during an open house.
The agent asked if she wanted to make an offer, and she wistfully threw out an offer she could afford, but was definitely lowballing.
Unbeknownst to my mother, the house was being sold because the family was relocating due to the father's work, and the sale needed to happen urgently so the relocation could happen as quickly as possible.
The agent had been instructed to take the next offer that walked in the door, and the company would make up the difference if it was below market value. The agent accepted my mother's offer.
My father got a phone call while he was work with a frantically excited "Don't spend any money! We just bought a house!"
Detroit
Was like 9 or 10, dropping the mail off at the drop box on the corner in Detroit. Dude came out of his house, I remembered hearing the heavy metal screen door open, and I turned to look just as he jumped off the porch running right at me with a knife.
Never ran so fast in my life.
Felt like an eternity but I finally made it to my house and broke down in front of my mom, who was sitting in our van waiting for me to get back so she could take us to school.
Morning started off like any other, don't even know why he did it. I think he was just freaking with me but holy hell lol.
Grand Canyon
1990 ... I'm 40 ... with climbers on North Rim, Grand Canyon.
Bedded down for the night way down in Saddle Pass.
9:30PM ... all peaceful ...
THEN ... in the pitch dark a flash flood roars through camp. Stones the size of VWs rumbling by.
From that day, I sleep one eye open and ALWAYS pack clean underwear 'cause this will make you crap your pants.
Yeah... crap went too 100 really fast.
The Diagnosis...
Really wasn't that sick but something was bothering me so I went to the doctor. Went in to discuss the lab results and found out I had cancer. Dr. Had already started coordinating with the other doctors/surgeons that had to be in the Operating room, because I had to have major surgery. I had 10 doctors appointments in one week, another procedure and actually forgot to go to work.
Surgery was less than 2 weeks after diagnosis. Got a major infection within a week and back in the hospital. Started chemo six weeks after surgery Which rolled into radiation. An intense nine months.
I've been cleared but dealing with the aftereffects I have from chemo and radiation was not something I expected and is seriously taking a physical and mental health toll on me.
Grandma
I was just sitting on a couch watching tv then i heard my grandma fall, and she literally ripped open her entire knee somehow. I had to call 911 and it was horrible.
About three days later they released her and as soon as she got home she passed out, I was the only one home with her and i had to call 911 again.
A week later she gets released and she has a SEIZURE and I had to call 911 AGAIN.
She fell a few times after that but nowhere near as bad as the first times, we still don't really know whats wrong.
When in June...
Sometime in June, rather hot weather, the eldest daughter got a mild case of a stomach bug. Wasn't anything we haven't dealt with before, she wasn't even throwing up anymore, just mild fever. At one point she falls asleep and I think, okay, let her sleep it off.
She wakes up 30 minutes later and I go check her temp. She went from 98.6 to nearly 104 during those 30 minutes of sleep. And as I am taking the thermometer away, her eyes just roll back in her head, and she keels over.
Massive seizure, bloody foam at her mouth, bitten through her tongue. Completely unresponsive, just trashing and convulsing. Call the ambulance, they arrive within 10 minutes, they sedate her and start to pack her up for the ride to the hospital. She goes into another seizure just as they're loading her into the back of the ambulance, despite being already sedated.
Spent 4 days in the hospital, multiple scans, the works. Turns out she has epilepsy and the seizures can be triggered by rapid fever.
The Dead
My roommate had some friends over but my fiancé and I went to bed. I was dead asleep and about 3am my roommate bursts into my room and shouts RUSTY WAKE UP FRIEND JUST OD'D and runs out. I immediately jump up and sprint after him to find friend unresponsive on the floor of my roommates bathroom. We drag him out of the bathroom so I could lay him flat and oh damn he's not breathing. I shout back to my fiancé to call 911 right now and tell them Friend OD and he's not breathing.
So I give him a couple of rescue breaths and oh damn I can't find a pulse. He's freaking dead. So I initiate chest compressions. After a couple of rounds oh thank God he's got a pulse now, but still isn't breathing, so I switch to rescue breaths. The paramedics arrive and he sort of gasps for a breath but not effectively. So the medics slam him full of Narcan and he lived.
Not Funny
Watching a funny bar argument turn into a not funny bar shooting because one of the guy's girlfriend couldn't keep her mouth shut. Every time security calmed the two guys down she would get it started back up.
Flipped...
One minute I'm taking the back roads to work, come over a small rise, and hit a stretch where they had just laid gravel.
Next thing I know, my car is flipping through the air. According to a witness, did 3 complete flips. Utterly destroyed the car, front wheel torn and hatchback torn off, engine knocked loose, all the seats but the driver's broke free.
I cut my hand.
Alone
Parents took me involuntarily to the middle of nowhere for a year, led to me being a year behind my peers back home, and was threatened to leave us there to fend for ourselves, and that our mom would walk out on us if we didn't behave.
Buckle Up
A fair ground ride malfunctioned and I was in the malfunctioning seat. It was summer so a lot of the employees were teenagers who just seemed to be glued to their phones in the control booth.
We're going up on a drop tower ready for the drop when suddenly the lock on my seat unlatched. The only thing keeping it from bursting fully up was the belt buckle which I believe was way too long.
I'm unfortunately a short dude so the moment it dropped I slipped out of the side and found myself gripping the handles for dear life. Guy next to me noticed and moved his leg twisting it like he was a mountain climber to keep me from falling further, person on the other side is holding my arm.
The freaking employee was on his phone with most of his back to the ride. People on the ground began to notice and got his attention even then it took him a minute to realise. Ride was cut short and we were let off so they could run maintenance.
It was fixed within a few hours though so I went back on it.
Baby Baby Baby
Super chill pregnancy. Mild morning sickness, a little back pain, everything else downright boringly normal. One lovely Thursday, we go for the routine 20-week ultrasound. Cute pics!
Not half an hour later, we get a call—there's an abnormality. They're referring us to a specialist. Half an hour after that, we get a call from the specialist.
She gives us the next available appointment; she apologizes that that's not until Monday. Monday rolls around. Baby has a great big tumor hanging off its lower back.
Life's kind of crazy now. Baby might die. My chances are better, but I might die, too. High-risk pregnancies are terrifying.
Hey Cuz...
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Checked FB on a break at work and had a message from my cousin "Sorry to hear about your dad, he was a good man" That's how I found out my father died. 66 days later I get a phone call from the police dept. that they found my mother deceased in her apt.
Timelines...
May 2017: Came home from work early to find that my husband was/had been cheating on me. Knew at that moment that my life as I knew it for the last 20 years was over.
June 2017: Had to put the house on the market as I couldn't afford it by myself.
July 2017: Boss told all of us that he was selling the business and we were all out of a job.
August 2017: Moved into a condo and started a new job the very next day.
If it wasn't for needing to be strong for the kids I don't know how I would of made it.
Buckle up kiddies. It's going to be a bumpy life. You just have to learn to love life at one hundred miles an hour. At least when it doesn't revolve around tragedy.
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Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
​Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
​This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
​Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
​This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
​Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
​Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.​
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run