
You don't know what's happening when it's happening, you just know how you feel.
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Reddit user, u/lethargic_apathy, wanted to know the moment you felt the fear in your gut when they asked:
What's the scariest thing you lived through?
You never want something bad to happen to you in school. School is supposed to be a safe place for kids to go, but as evidenced by looking at the news at any point in the last few years, that is sadly not the case.
Only In America
"I went through a school shooting. It doesn't bother me much anymore but I still remember the shots, the screams, and all the kids crying and looking for their siblings, trying to get enough signal to call their parents. People who were so goofy and light hearted that morning were sobbing on the ground, others just looked numb. I'll never forget the one kid who was an jerk to everyone just sat down next to me held my hand and told me that everything was going to be okay."
Just A Lot To Deal With All At Once
"During my high school years 1999-2002, my class experienced 8 student deaths (car wrecks, cancer, suicide), Columbine and 9/11. No extra counseling from our school. We literally went to back to back funerals then sat through a full day of school the very next day. (Two kids were killed in the same accident). I'm 37 and still haven't recovered."
"...he sits right behind me."
"I was on a public transit bus to go to high school one morning. I usually walked, but it was so cold that day. So I'm on a bus, alone, it's like 6 am and still dark because of winter. Dude gets on the bus. He could sit anywhere he wanted....he sits right behind me."
"He grabs my hair and sniffs it with this nasty sounding inhale. Keep in mind I'm 15....and I just hop off the bus and speed walk to my school. He got off and followed me. For this two to three minutes of walking I kept thinking of what my family would think if I went missing...I got to school safely but yeah I still think about that sometimes."
Accepting your own death is not something we want to do, but something all of us will have to do some day.
Doing Your Best To Keep It Together
"My friend going through psychosis and crying/laughing insanely on my shoulder about snakes coming out of his back and all kinds of insane terrifying sh-t"
"I talked to him for a long time and calmed him down and he fell asleep eventually. Then I went outside and cried for like half an hour because of how scared I was the entire time but couldn't show it because I had to be calm so that he would be calm. It wasn't a great evening"
Accepting How This Will Be How You Go
"On a flight with my husband and 3 month old daughter, our plane suddenly had to be diverted to a nearby airport, even though our destination was only about 30 minutes away. The flight attendants came around to teach us the "brace for impact" position. I had a special one for bracing for impact with a baby. People were quietly panicking and praying. My husband's anxiety was through the roof. And I just accepted that this might be how we go. Once we landed, we saw that an entire fleet of ambulances was waiting for us. The guy in front of us just turned and said, "Well that's reassuring…" There was a lot of speculation once we got off the plane, but I never found out what had happened."
Oh, There Goes The Roof...
"Typhoons in the Philippines. I could see rooftops blown away easily. One almost hit my apartment, but a light pole luckily was in the way to block it. The next morning, a ton of debris were in all walkways of my apartment and we couldn't leave our campus. Water and electricity were out for more than a week. Thank goodness my brother and I had personal lanterns we had brought from America."
Being Forced To Endure Something Terrible
"Giving birth to my daughter who had died in my womb a few hours before."
"I'm so sorry. Nature is brutal"
"Thank you. It was years ago, but the death of a child never leaves you whatever the circumstances."
People Break Down The Best Purchases They've Ever Made | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Hallucinations Abound
"Steroid induced psychosis. I have brain cancer and had to take dexamethasone and I had a super rare reaction where I went crazy and was having hallucinations which made me think I was trapped in hell. I don't remember most of what took place but from what I do remember it was absolutely terrifying."
"I had HSV encephalitis induced psychosis and it was terrifying for both my family and I. I had the wildest hallucinations, became violent and they had to heavily sedate me and put me under a ventilator."
"I would never wish that on anyone…"
Never Forget: Worldwide Pandemic
"After the first lockdown, my family stayed COVID-free for about 7 months. When we finally did catch it, my dad was the only one who didn't recover - me, my mom, and my brother experienced minor symptoms for a day or two and were fine afterwards, but somehow, the one with the strongest immune system in our house got hit the hardest. He ended up having to spend 8 days in the hospital, and I was really nervous wondering what might happen to him. To me, the scariest thing you can live through is losing someone you love, so seeing my dad vulnerable like that really shook me up. He's fine now, but I still worry sometimes."
Scooter Death Incoming
"Nearly getting hit by a car while on my scooter. The driver was about to overtake another car (both way too fast and looking at each other laughing, probably friends I guess). I couldn't really do anything about it, as I was still moving and the car was also going pretty darn fast, and for a second I remember just thinking "welp, guess that's life"."
"The guy saw me just in time though, and managed to pull to the side and hard-brake. Still nearly hit the side of his car, but worked out okay."
"To be honest, it wasn't all that scary at the time. Afterwards, I was just a little confused by how okay I was with dying or being maimed."
Two For The Price Of Oh No
"Hurricane Sally. It was in mid-September 2020 and we were watching this tropical storm that was supposed to hit Louisiana. It kinda turned northward early and made landfall as a Category 2 near Gulf Shores, AL (I live in Destin, FL). It kinda just sat there for a couple days and we got 2 feet of rain in 3 days. The night it hit, I didn't sleep because it was so loud. I though that my balcony doors would burst wide open because of the wind (whenever there's a hurricane we just wrap a bungee cord around all of the patio door handles in the house just in case). It wasn't as bad in Destin as it was in Pensacola, but my neighborhood still flooded in some parts and we didn't have school for a week."
"Or maybe Hurricane Michael in October 2018. It was a Category 5 that made landfall in Mexico Beach, FL, about 50 miles east of me. However, it really wasn't that bad because we were on the west side of the storm which is usually not nearly as bad as the east side. Mexico Beach got washed away tho. We kinda dodged a bullet there. We were worried it would turn towards us beforehand. My mom was considering getting us up at 1 am the night before it hit and having us evacuate but she didn't, and we were fine. No damage at our house. No flooding either (it was a fast moving storm). Can't say the same for the areas farther east though."
"TL;DR Hurricane Sally, Hurricane Michael"
No child should be forced to carry the burdens of their parents' issues.
Unfortunately, you can already see where this is going.
Walking Through The Crime Scene
"one day my mom called me telling me, "the cops are surrounding your dads house. he's outside in cuffs covered in blood. are step-mom and the kids okay??" and I went into a panic. i drove like a madman. my step-mom met me at the home and my siblings were luckily at school. my dad had beat my uncle to a pulp and shot him (he's alive praise goodness). crime scene wouldn't clean until we cleaned personal belongings, (fridge, deep freeze, etc). so I took it upon my self to help my step-mom, when we walked in the house it was like a horror film from the kitchen, to the bathroom, to the bloody handprint slid down the door."
"some of it wasn't dried after the 8 hours we sat outside. some things were left behind like a bloody splinted chair leg. i ended up miscarrying the next day, it absolutely ruined me. worse off, my dad i've feared most of my life may get off easy on these charges even as a known felon and repeat offender due to some circumstances (special needs uncle can't recall the story, and uncle was on meth at the time of attack, dad was just drunk as usual. however spent years saying he'd kill him if he got the chance as he hated how "slow" he was)."
Unable To Think Or Process
"My dad committed suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning and I found him. It was scary in that I didn't know what to do. I couldn't logically process at the time he was already dead and I thought I could take some measure and save him."
Wait Until She Abandons You
"My mother's mental illness and delusions when I was a kid. I remember one time when she made me and my sister sleep in bed with her because she saw demons hovering around our bedroom window, trying to get in. I woke up to find her staring down at me and my sister with a butcher knife in her hand. She was smiling but there were tears running down her face. I just closed my eyes and pretended to sleep. Stuff like that, for years of our childhood. When she finally abandoned us, I felt so much guilt at how relieved and happy I felt that she was gone."
Be careful out there.
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? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
It's highly believed that it is important to learn history as a means to improve our future.
What is often overlooked is that what is taught in history class is going to be very different depending on where you went to school.
And this isn't just internationally, even different regions of the United states will likely have very different lessons on American history.
This frequently results in our learning fascinating, heartbreaking and horrifying historical facts which our middle or high school history teachers neglected to teach us.
Redditor Acherontia_atropos91 was curious to learn things people either wished they had learned, or believe they should have learned, in their school history class, leading them to ask:
What isn’t taught in history class but should be?
The Irish Troubles
"The troubles."
"Too many people in America do not understand why a wall straight through Ireland would be a BAD idea."
"I’m referring to the Brexit referendum and possible outcomes."
"If people were wondering why we were talking about walls through Ireland in the first place."- CLCVS.
Forgotten elements of World War II
"What the Japanese did to the Chinese during WW2."
"Unit 731."- CaptainMcBoogerJew.
"Japan gets off easy for their war crimes in WW2."
"They killed an estimated 16mil Chinese civilians and another 8mil soldiers"
"Also, Pol Pot."
"Didn't know who he was until I was like 25."
"Worst dictator all time (in terms of percentage of population he decimated)".
The truth about the American Revolution
"That the American Revolution was part of a wider cold war type of conflict with France."
"The American Revolution was basically the UK's equivalent of the US version of Vietnam."- vinsant7.
The Dark side of Swedish history.
"As a Swede, I'd like to know more of all the horrible sh*t my country has done throughout history."
"It's a damn shame we're trying to hide our history."
"For example, Swedes killed a metric sh*t ton of all Polish people when we were at our strongest."
"That's the kinda sh*t we don't get to learn."- mogwandayy.
Colonization
"Basically what Belgium did to the Congo."
"A lot of people are telling me that they are taught about this actually."
"I'm glad to hear it because I wasn't taught about this in the USA during my public school days (1995-2008)."- EconArch.
The truth about "heroes".
"While teaching about historical Heroes they should also tell students about the unspeakable things some of them did."
"Many famous figures throughout history who are pillars of morality actually did many terrible things." - User Deleted
Intolerance for Mental Illness
"The dark history of mental illness treatments."
"I think it's worth learning about."- 7dayexcerpt.
Slavic Mythology
"Slavic mythology in Slavic countries."
"Don't get me wrong, I love both Greek & Roman mythology and as a person from the Balkans both of those cultures are part of my country's history and had great influence over not only my region but the entirety of the continent & the western world but I wouldn't mind knowing more about Slavic mythology as well."- ShorsShezzarine.
The truth about the CIA
"How the CIA was made and all the shady things they did over the years."- ALargeChip.
There is a lot about the history of our world, not to mention our own country which shouldn't be ignored.
And it's from learning from our mistakes that we really improve our future.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again.
So apparently we are in the endemic phase of this nonsense.
We have light at the end of the tunnel.
So what now?
Where do we go from here?
Normal seems like an outdated word.
How do we get back to normal though?
Is it even possible?
What are reaching back to?
Life pre-Covid.
Those were the days.
If only we could bring them back.
Redditor hetravelingsong wanted to discuss our new normal in this hopeful "endemic" phase. So they asked:
"What’s something random you miss about pre-COVID times?"
I miss people being sane. Though that maybe election cycle issues not COVID. We'll never know.
I thought I was Alone...
"Being able to grocery shop after 11 pm."
Reading_Rainboner
"Hell yes. I miss the days where the Walmart across the street was open 24 hours."
Small_Tax_9432
let's just go...
"I miss spontaneity... everything now seems to have a barrier of difficulty."
iidosee
"I live very close to Disneyland so I have an annual pass. My friends and I would just go there after work and hang out and grab a bite to eat."
"Now, we have to reserve a day to go. And most of the time, the days are at 'full' capacity so we couldn't even reserve. I don't want to schedule to hang out at Disneyland for a couple hours for July. So yeah, I definitely miss the 'lets go eat at Disneyland tonight?' texts."
mymymissmai
Not til 24-25
"Functioning global supply chains. Ah, the product you want has got microchips in it? 9 month wait."
richard-king
"Minimum, I'd been saying for a while now that I wouldn't expect a true return to normalcy in terms of electronics prices till 2024-2025. Although Crypto crashing through the floor really took some of the pressure off graphics cards which I really appreciate."
statiiic
WTF?!?!
"How affordable everything was!"
Disastrous_Hour_6776
"Yep. Today I was bagging up my things at the grocery store and I heard the cashier say to the lady behind me 'thats $78.12.' She had -- 2 boxes of Kellogg's corn flakes, a carton of 12 eggs, milk, strawberries, raspberries, blue berries, a small cheese cake, English muffins, coffee, and a small whole frozen chicken that could maybe feed 3 people if the meat portioning was small."
SnowyInuk
Sushi
"My favorite sushi place. It was good quality, close by, kid-friendly, and not too expensive."
InannasPocket
All of this... it was a simpler time.
NASTY
"As a retail worker, just how f**king NASTY some people have gotten."
DmitriPetrov*itch
"They applauded you for being an essential worker but won’t vote for policies that’ll raise minimum wage while insisting a wage cap for heavily paid employees."
sketchysketchist
CHANGES your DNA...
"Some of the people closest to me became very bitter and petty over the last 2 years. So many people have the 'crazy eyes' now."
__--__7
"So true and holidays with the family is like who has the biggest tinfoil hat building contest. How many jumps does your brain have to go through to think that the Covid vaccine CHANGES your DNA into the patented DNA so that the government now controls your body."
"So like vaccinated people now have a singular DNA set. I feel like I still have a chunk of my brain just broken off due to that comment alone. I was also told by same family member that I could never donate blood again due to the vaccine. I guess it is so my patented DNA doesn't affect people?? FYI my vaccinated butt just donated today fine and multiple other times after the vaccine."
tyreka13
Homeward Bound
"House prices."
adrianinked
"I'm resigned to never thinking I have a chance on owning property where I live. I'm 30 and just can't imagine it anymore. And I don't want to live anywhere else so, whatever."
Osdab2daf
"That didn’t happen because of the pandemic. That was already happening regardless."
CH11DW
Oh Mickey
"All Day Breakfast at McDonalds."
hutch2522
"It was honestly hell to do, and not very popular. ITs margins aren't anywhere dinner and lunch specials. ON top of that, the temperatures are such that They require its own grill, meaning that if you have 2 grills in shop, you are down 50% of lunch capacity."
Freyas_Follower
Way back when...
"Hanging out with friends. And I mean waaaaaay before Covid. Like 2006 back when I had some friends."
LoocsinatasYT
I miss the old days. Maybe we'll get back there.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
What do you believe?
Is there a GOD in the sky?
Is he guiding us and helping us?
Life is really hard. Why is that is a big entity is up there loving us?
Atheists have taken a lot of heat for what feels like shunning GOD.
What if they've been right all along?
Maybe let's take a listen and see what they really think.
Redditor __Jacob______ wanted to hear from the people who don't really believe all that "God" stuff. They asked:
"Atheists, what do you believe in?"
I'm waffling between G-O-D and nothing. So please give me some education.
911
"We need to look out for each other because help isn't coming."
cknipe
Peace Out
"More than 2 decades ago, a priest was giving a sermon in my church and he said 'our faith requires you to believe without question. Why call it faith if you have to ask questions?' I haven't returned to church. Not until my wedding day but you know what I mean."
asiangontear
Delusion
"When I was young I used to think that after death you would have access to a PC that you could see absolutely anything about your life. Stats, any question you had no matter how obscure, replays of moments, perspectives of others in relation to you. No matter what you wanted to know, if it was relatable to you, you could see it. I know it's silly, but as time goes on I just want it to be real, and I don't think I'd have any issue allowing myself to fall into that delusion."
eggwardpenisglands
I think nothing happens...
"Realistically, I think nothing happens. We literally experience nothing after death. Same thing that we experience before birth. We don't exist, so it's nothing. I think the tenant that we should follow while living is to try to be happy and healthy while minimizing the damage we do to each other."
"What I would LIKE to happen after death is whatever you believe in, exists. I think Christians should get to go to heaven if they truly believe in it, Hindus and Buddhists get reincarnated, and everyone else also gets to experience what they believe they will experience."
"'I would still experience Nothing. Maybe it's one of those things where at the moment of death their brain makes them experience what feels like an infinitely long moment in time where they experience their afterlife. I just think it would be neat for everybody."
Better_Meat_
Shrug
"Best advice I received from a dear senior on their way out. 'You win some, you lose some' shrug. Nothing divine, life is that simple and wonderful, accept it and move on."
Tune_Kindly
It all sounds pretty simple. Why are people so up in arms about Atheists?
Whatever
"I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do."
imCIK
Cool with Empty
"Nothing. [Serious]."
rumblingtummy29
"I feel this way about death. When I was 5, my grandfather died and my cousin simple said, he is dead, that means you are gone forever. Everything ends up dying, even plants and animals. I'm now in my 40's and still have this simplistic view of life and death. People think I'm ambivalent to life and death but it's just what it is."
thepigfish82
puppet-masters...
"I think a lot of religious people struggle with the fact that we are all just swirling units of chaos. There is no grand plan or great orchestrator. I think that’s why people who are prone to religion are also susceptible to things like Q anon and the Cabal and all that. They REALLY want to believe that there is some almighty puppet-master who determines all of humanity’s fate."
Lngtmelrker
“we’re living in a society!”
"Just be a kind and empathetic person not because you’re worried about some cosmic justice, but because it’s the right thing to do. If there is some being that created us there’s no way they actually care about believing in it or adhering to some rules from over 2000 years ago."
"Also a big thing for me is that I find the idea that you need religion or the Bible in order to have morals and ethics pretty dumb. It’s pretty f**king clear that most evangelicals have neither. But my main thing is being a good person simply because, as George Costanza once said we’re living in a society!' If you’re only a good person in order to make it to heaven you probably aren’t actually a good and moral person."
conservative_genius
That's All
"You're born. You live. You die. That's it. After you die you cease to exist, the same as before you were born."
serefina
Believe what you want. We're all here together. So let's focus there.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
The list of what irritates me is endless.
I mean... breathing too loud or dust can set me off.
I'm a bit unstable, yes.
But I'm not alone.
So let's discuss.
Redditor Aburntbagel6 wanted to hear about all the times many of us just couldn't control our disdain. They asked:
"What never fails to piss you off?"
I feel like this article can go on forever. Let's get some highlights.
Wasted Time
"Meetings that could and should have been an email."
Sirena609
Lotto People
"Getting stuck behind people playing the lottery at a corner store."
thenuggetlover
"I also used to work in a gas station and you’re SO right. I f**king hated the lottery people. Especially since my store had a small staff and there was usually only one of us working at a time, which meant that I couldn’t get any of my other work done as long as they were there."
"And you’re right, it’s also pretty sad to watch. I had one lady who used to come in every day and spent hundreds and HUNDREDS of dollars on scratch tickets. One day, she won $200 after spending probably around $600 and she was so excited and saying she can 'finally pay her bills.'"
i-am-your-god-now
Aware...
"No situational awareness. Job, home, shopping, driving. Think for one minute and go about. OBSERVE!!"
Dizzy-Foundation8122
"My mom is one of those people who leave the shopping cart in the middle of the damn aisle and proceed to walk twenty feet away. After correcting her a million times to no effect I just walk away now so people don’t know I’m with her."
OutrageousEvent
Shut Up!
"Endless barking in the middle of the night, I love animals but that sh*t I can't stand."
Acceptable-Lemon2924
"Endless barking in general drives me up a wall. One of my friends dogs was barking almost an entire gaming session the other day. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack him for letting it go on."
bangersnmash13
Kindness
"People being mean to service workers, especially if the workers are very young."'
scaryboilednoodles
All of these things. I hate them all.
Admit It
"People who never accept fault when they mess something up. Like, why blame a million people when it was clearly you who did it???"
Quirky-Area-8978
From Above
"My upstairs neighbors."
lutzow89
"I had terrible neighbors at my previous apartment. It was a one person studio for students, but her boyfriend was clearly living with her illegally and he was loud."
"One night we knocked n the door at 3 AM because of the loud music and an unknown girl opened the door. I just thought they were having a little party. But the next door I saw the girl living there come home with a suitcase after having been away for the weekend... Her BF was cheating on her in her own apartment."
Th3_Accountant
Move Away
"People who sit directly next to me at the airport, movie theater, any other place where you can choose a seat when there is PLENTY of other seating."
BacardiPardy33
"I can’t YES this enough and the ones who can’t park for crap so they park so close you can’t open doors on one side of the car or the ones who park directly behind when you pulled through so the door won’t open to load groceries."
BacardiPardy33
It's Over
"People who try to restart old drama. Like I'm done with you, just leave me alone."
Tired_Potatos
"Yep, half the reason I've basically quit playing one of my favorite online video games. People keep bringing old crap up or sh*tting on on someone who used to be our friend. I got tired of it so I just ejected the game out of me."
CaucasianHumus
AHHHHH!!!
"People walking too slow in front of me with no way to get around them. It’s even worse if it’s a couple or group taking up the whole sidewalk. HAVE SOME SPATIAL AWARENESS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!!"
_-v0x-_
Life in general pisses me off. I'm easy.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.