Ex- Neo Nazis And Skinheads Share The Moment They Realized They Were Horribly Wrong.
Racism and anti-semitism isn't something we're born with. It's the product of influences around us. The people who teach us to think in terms of "us" and "them." Media stereotypes that infuse us with prejudice. Insecurities that tempt us to put others down to feel better about ourselves.
Below are stories told by previously racist and anti-semitic people who have come out the other side and realized how horrible their viewpoint was.
They provide some insight into why people are actually swept into hate in the first place, and how it can be unlearned.
Thank you to all the people who shared their story. Source found at the bottom of this article.
1. Some backstory; I was in a hardcore racist organization from 15 to 20 years old. They recruited me off the school grounds, where I was vulnerable and easily persuadable. I had been in brawl with a few Arab immigrants and felt strong resentment against them and the organization really sounded like they made a difference, like they could stop "them" and others who would "destroy" the country ...this is truly what I thought.
I shaved my head and started to wear the clothes. We used to vandalize immigrant "hotels" (places they live just when they came to the country) and stores. We would regularly get into large fights with immigrant and communist/socialist groups.
I really truly hated those people. Everyday I did something to make their life difficult. Everyday something related to this ongoing"fight" happened. Such was life in the organization. I was content with the hate.
But then there was a moment where that all changed.
I was sitting on the bus on my way home one day. I was listening to some music in my headphones. It was a cloudless autumn day and everything was a healthy yellow and orange color and blue sky. At a stop an African American man and a young boy, maybe 5-6 years, got on. The man was tall and had bad clothes, he looked like he did not have much. They sat in front of me. I immediately became annoyed and started to think about how I hated them, immigrants coming to my country, I thought. He is poor and I pay taxes so he can get welfare. I thought about how his son is going to become a lousy bum and abuse white women. I started to get mad and decided to beat the man up, I was going to follow him when he got off the bus.
I saw him press the button and got ready at the next stop, and just before we stopped I was about to get up and the man turned to his son and said something in a heavy accent that I will never forget in my life.
"I love you my son, be good."
He then gave him a big, hard hug and the boy got off the bus alone. He waved good bye and sat back down, with his hands on his face. I just stared out the window where his son had been standing. My world view came crashing. He was just a father who wanted his son to be good, he loved him just like my father loved me. For some reason this changed everything for me. I know this is a very small thing but I started to think about how he wanted a better life for his son. He was a man that had changed everything for his family.
I sat on that bus for hours, it kept going around. I thought about how wrong it was to do the things I had done. I left that city the next day and started over. I am much happier now. I don't feel the hate in my heart every day anymore.
2. This story is difficult to share. I am telling it at the request of my son.
I was raised as a racist. We lived in Southern California near a lot of racial minorities. My father was a union leader and I think his hatred of minorities came from his job, because the union was mostly white guys and they saw the minorities as trying to take their jobs. Whenever we would drive around and see them in the street, my dad would always point them out and talk rudely about them.
I grew up and had kids of my own. I was doing the same thing to them without realizing it. One day I came home and found my 14 year old daughter messing around with another kid who was Black. I threw him out of my house and beat him in my driveway.
The cops were called and I went to prison for assault. (Continued)
Continue reading this story on the next page.
In prison, I saw how ethnically divided everything was, but my counsellor was the one who basically shook me out of it. She helped me realize that continuing this hatred would really only hurt my own life.
I tried to avoid the racial groups in my prison. I stayed on my own and earned my GED. In my classes I met a lot of minorities who had also never graduated high school, like myself.
You know, I don't think there was really a single moment. It took a while for the subject to come up in my sessions, and I remember my counsellor asking me if I actually knew anyone of a different race, and I really didn't. I had always avoided them my whole life. So that was the start of my mind changing.
I listened to my counsellor and got to know them and realized what a hard life they had had. Before, I thought that they were just lazy and sold drugs for easy money. We actually went through a lot of the same struggles in our education.
When I got out, I started a construction company. I make an effort to hire both former cons and also minorities. I am trying to make up for the kind of things I have done in the past.
3. I was a huge racist neo-nazi, and I was visiting the holocaust museum because, as I thought at the time, I wanted to see a "shrine" to how the "great and powerful" Aryans had killed Jewish people. Goodness I was such an idiot. I actually thought it would be fun. Then, I saw a little girl's dirty shoes from one of the gas chambers and I totally lost it. Something inside me snapped.
It just took that one moment for me to realize how stupid I was being.
Today, I couldn't be happier. I also happen to be married to an African-American woman and she is the love of my life.
4. I was a skinhead since I was a kid..about 13. We ran in a gang and listened to both racial music and also non racial music. We were a bit mouthy etc about race, but the place we grew up in was totally white. There was one Chinese lass in our whole school of about 1,200 people. It didn't take me too long to realize that the "they took our jobs" talk was a load of crap, as there were no ethnic people in our town and no jobs. So I did grew out the explicit racist thing pretty quickly. Still, I harboured some deep-seeded beliefs about race, and usually thought of non-white people as "the others."
It was only really when I went to university that I actually encountered different races. I got to work beside Black and Asian guys, played football with Africans and Greeks and generally had a great time and met great people who I still keep in contact with. At that point, even though I didn't consider myself outwardly racist, I couldn't imagine me having Black friends, or going on holiday with a group that included several Muslims, which I did do a couple of years back.
There was a moment, for me, that turned everything around. (Continued)
Continue this story on the next page.
I went to live in another city, and was just myself..talk to anyone. One night I got a cab. The driver was a Muslim in full Pakistani cultural gear. I thought, people are people and have the right to do or dress how they want, but I don't think we are going to have a lot to talk about, not much common ground. I gave him my address and sat back to chill out.
Guy turns round, you a Scot (Scottish)? I said yeah mate. Then he starts chatting about when he first came to England in the 60s before the majority of Pakistanis, he used to get picked on at school. The other guys who were picked on were Scots and Irish. So they formed a gang of the eight of them. From that day they could go watch football, go out at night, and generally stick up for each other. He said, that was a long time ago, and I still get a shiver when I hear Scots or Irish accents. Now he teaches kids at the mosque not to dislike white Christians, and the best ways to mix and interact. We sat for 20 minutes when we arrived at my house and just shot the breeze.
I think that's when the last bit of bigotry left me.
5. I moved to London when I was 6, from Poland. Back in Poland everyone in my community was racist to a degree, so I never really thought about it. I was raised with the (false!) knowledge that Muslims were the cancer of the Earth, Black people were just the poor, scum of society, and this was just accepted as a truth. Racism and Xenophobia in Eastern Europe is pretty bad.
Anyway, I moved when I was about 6, maybe 7, to a housing estate in South London, and what I saw disgusted me at the time. The amount of minorities around where I lived was huge. I remember just starting secondary school (age 11) and quickly falling into a group of friends who were primarily European, all of which shared my uneducated views. Like I said, I was poor and so were they, and so we put the blame onto anyone we could. It's just how it was. For the next couple years I was constantly in trouble for fighting and making trouble with other kids, and they were almost always Black. I was a real jerk at that age. At 15 one of my friends was stabbed by a gang member, and I just felt angry and let down, blaming other minorities more than ever.
When I got a bit older, and I was studying at college (not university, the two years before university is called college or sixth form in the UK) there were no other Eastern European people in my class. I was one of 3 white people, the other two being English, the rest being Black or Muslim. I felt isolated, until I was forced to sit next to a kid called Tristan. (Continued)
Continue reading this story on the next page.
He was involved in gangs, selling drugs ect, and for the first week I didn't talk to him at all, but I realized that actually, despite what I saw in him when I first met him, he seemed like a nice guy, so I started talking to him a bit, and I realized that all the things I'd been through getting caught up in violence, drugs and everything else that came with being a young poor impressionable Polish immigrant, I could relate to him. Anyway, he became one of my best friends, and my 18th birthday was coming up so I told him he should come along to it (parents got some money together and hired out the top room of a pub near where I live). Well, you can imagine what happened. My attitudes had changed a bit so I didn't think much of it at the time, but my old friends started getting violent towards him and his girlfriend who he'd brought. I saw all those people from a different light, and I haven't spoken to them since.
I'm in my second year at university, and I'm still trying to kill any pre-judgement of people that hangs over from how I used to think. If anything, the people I prejudge most are Eastern European.
6. I never ran with a group of racists, but I harboured some really racist views for a long time, listened to RAC (basically Nazi punk rock) a lot, and frequented the Stormfront (White Nationalist Community) boards.
I realized eventually that being filled with hate all the time, was having a really negative impact on my life. at the same time that this thought crept into my head, I started working in the oil patch in Northern Canada. I ran into a lot of people who were extremely racist, who said things that even I didn't agree with, and even met some guys who identified themselves as neo nazis.
It struck me that there was one thing in common for each of these guys.
One of the common things these guys shared, is that they were extremely uneducated and, often, of little intelligence. Maybe someone knows some smart racists, I never have actually met one.
It got me thinking, about my future, about the kind of people I wanted to be around, about the people who I wouldn't have in my life if they knew I had become a full on racist, and about having a bunch of idiots as my sole peer group.
I really didn't want that, so I worked hard on changing. I threw out my Bully Boys c.ds, I went back to school, in a course with many different cultural groups, and realized that most of the time, these people that I hated were a lot more like me then they were different from me.
And towards the end of my course, I stopped at a car accident, where a car full of middle eastern people had flipped off a road. They had kids and the mom inside, and they were in pretty bad shape. (Continued)
Continue this article on the next page.
When I looked at them, and saw their eyes, and the fear and pain, I knew, that we are all people. I could have never left those people to die, I could have never hoped for a different outcome for those people than for people of my own skin color (this didn't happen right away, it took a few weeks from the accident). I still have racist thoughts pop into my head (driving in Vancouver can do that), but I catch them, and realize it is just a reactionary response, built up from years of habitual thinking, and they don't usually last all that long.
I work as an EMT now, and it has been the best thing for me. It is a constant reminder that we all have the same fears and the same response to emotional and physical pain. And it has worked, I no longer think of myself as racist there are things I'm still ignorant about, but I'm working on it. Nobody's perfect. It's all about the ability to step back and realize where that thought is coming from. It requires being willing to self-critique which is never an easy thing.
That family in the car ended up being o.k, the paramedics and fire crew arrived on scene and extricated them, they were hurt but no one died, and I got inspired to make my own positive mark on the world, and picked my career.
[deleted]
7. While I was not a KKK member, I used to support David Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK who ran for Louisiana governor, because of his racist views. I had preconceived ideas about racial minorities, and often told people that I hated how Black people would walk in the middle of the road, and were quick to anger. Mostly, it just felt good to look down on someone else.
I later came out as gay but remained a racist. I changed my mind when I moved from Louisiana to California and took gender/race/sexuality study classes. Wow! That really turned things around for me. I realized I was racist because I didn't understand other cultures and motivations of minority groups. My new perspective was further enforced when I, too, became angry at stuff that happens to minorities and felt the need to act out.
Also, as a side note, I also read that the whole "walking in the middle of the road" thing for people in low-income neighborhoods is because humans are territorial, and people who live in the projects don't have true sense of ownership. So public things become their territory. Pretty interesting.
Continue reading on the next page.
8. In my Primary school years I was nearly suspended due to racist comments towards a person of color in my class. I was a brat (to put it mildly) as a kid. Probably down to coming from a rich family that became a broken, welfare needing home in the matter of months. Acting out, you know.
As I got older I got drawn into the whole racist / anti-Semitic view because of my grandparents. Farm folk from a village in Kent, England with about 15 inhabitants. Nice people seriously, they just hated Jewish people, and anyone from a differing racial or ethnic background. Ironically my Grandfather was born in Guernsey, the Channel Islands so wasn't actually English.
The Neo-Nazi idea was one I could relate to. I used to walk around with military boots and trousers, biker jacket and bandanna. I'd listen to really abusive racial music, have a general disgust for the 'cancer' on this Earth as I used to see it as. I admired how the Nazis had become such a powerful government through racist policies. This somewhat supported my ideals.
Where I lived at that time was surrounded by Indian students, studying for medicine at University. I used to have a go at the groups of them, push them around. Some would cross the road to avoid me. Like a group of 10 avoiding just me. I was 6 foot and 260lbs back then.
Now this is the twist, throughout the neo-nazi esque years I had been into watching a lot of gay porn secretly. But I was homophobic as all heck. When I eventually worked out I was being a dick because I was projecting the hatred of myself outwards. I changed. I came out to my parents and grandparents who all supported me surprisingly, just as long as I didn't flaunt it.
Now for the grand ending: I'm engaged to a half Irish Half Algerian, gorgeous man who has been with me for the most wonderful three years of my life.
Doctors Explain How A Patient Went From Nothing Serious To Life-Threatening In An Instant
One Redditor asked: 'Doctors of Reddit - what is your craziest story where a patient present with mild symptoms thinking it was nothing and it turned out to be a serious life or death situation?'
Generally speaking, if we have a cough, headache, or runny nose, we assume it's nothing to worry about in the long run and don't bother seeing a doctor.
Most of the time, this proves to be the case, as our ailments and symptoms tend to go away after a few days.
Other times, however, what we thought was a minor illness ended up being more serious than we could have possibly imagined.
In some cases, had we gone to the doctor any later, we might not have lived to tell the tale.
Redditor mothermurder88 reached out to the Doctors of Reddit to hear shocking stories of minor illnesses that turned out to be far more serious, leading them to ask:
"Doctors of Reddit - what is your craziest story where a patient present with mild symptoms thinking it was nothing and it turned out to be a serious life or death situation?"
The Cause Of Severe Back Pain...
"My dad woke up with severe back pain one morning after not doing anything strenuous the weeks/days leading up to it."
"My mom flipped her sh*t and finally put her foot down that he had to go to the doctor after him putting off going to a doctor for years even for a routine check-up."
"That appointment showed a broken rib from a huge tumor on his spine, along with tumors around his buttocks/pelvis and upper back."
"Diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer."
"5 years and 100 treatments later he’s still kicking it."- vulpesvulpex
An Antacid Won't Cut It...
"Saw a patient with minor cardiovascular symptoms and a slight pain in his upper back."
"The senior debated back and forth whether it would make sense to run a CT to rule out anything more serious."
"She finally decided to do it and it turned out he had a massive aortic dissection and was basically wheeled right into the OR."- Beneficial-Bee7765
A Parent's Worst Nightmare
"My son."
"6 weeks old."
"He was also 6 weeks premature."
"Only symptoms at the time of me bringing him to the ER was inconsolable crying and wouldn’t drink his breast milk."
"Was told by others that I was just being a paranoid first time mom…he probably has gas or was colic."
"My instincts just told me otherwise."
"Brought him to the ER."
"Triage asks me what my concerns are."
"I told them he won’t stop crying and I can get him to eat."
"A couple hours later my 6 week old baby coded blue and went into respiratory failure."
“'Code blue pediatrics' will forever be the most haunting thing I ever heard."
"Since he was so tiny they were having incredibly difficulty intubating him."
"Was being kept alive in between attempts with that bag thingy (unsure what it’s called) and compressions."
"His diagnosis was late on set group b strep, sepsis, and bacterial meningitis."
"Had I not brought him in when I did and waited, my son would not be alive today."
"So yea…listen to your instincts, you have them for a reason."- PokemomOnTheGo
Mints Won't Cut It...
"A man came to the hospital because his wife always complained about his bad breath."
"Long story short, I met him because they consulted my department when the tissue biopsy came back as esophageal cancer."- TeamMiserable
Never Underestimate The Importance Of A Check Up
"I'm a dentist."
"New pt came in with what he thought was a mild ache in his teeth."
"Thought it was a toothache."
"Hadn't seen a dentist in years."
"Took a radiograph and the jaw bone around the teeth looked strange."
"Had him see an oral surgeon that day."
"Turned out was a very aggressive metastatic bone cancer and died a few weeks later."- jakeology_101
A Second Opinion Never Hurts
"I’m a nurse, not a doctor, but we had a guy come in years ago asking for a medication to 'help him stop sweating'.”
"He said he had had a sore throat for about a week, went to a walk in clinic, was diagnosed with strep throat and put on antibiotics, but he was so sweaty and just wanted a break from it."
"He looked pale and was indeed sweaty, so we took him back and ran some blood tests."
"His white blood count was the highest I’ve ever seen and he was diagnosed with leukaemia."
"We sent him to another hospital for immediate treatment, but we were informed he died literally hours after arriving. Incredibly sad, I couldn’t believe it."- madicoolcat
"I am a nurse, so naturally my mother called me one day when she had strange symptoms."
""'Earlier today, I had this feeling like there was a squirrel running around in my belly'."
"I reassured her that it was probably gas."
"It happened again a few days later when she was in the car with me."
"Something made me take her right to the emergency room."
"The doctor evaluated her and basically accused her of making things up."
"I asked for a different doctor, because she is not a complainer or a drug seeker."
"Turns out it was a malignant brain tumor (glioblastoma) that was manifesting itself as abdominal seizures."
"They said she had 1-2 years to live."
"It is now 7 years since surgery, chemo, and radiation and she is still alive."- feistynurse50
Some Things Need To Be Seen
"Patient’s wife called."
"Patient had a temperature of 98.6."
"No other symptoms."
"I explained that was a normal temperature but the wife said 'that’s a fever for him'.”
"She said she felt like something was wrong, despite no other symptoms."
"I told her that I respect that and that if she feels something is wrong she should get him checked out in the ER."
"The ER doctor called four hours later and said they did all they could do for him but he died of sepsis."
"He appeared to be normal when he got there but rapidly declined."
"That gave me a new appreciation that we truly can’t evaluate someone thoroughly over a telephone."- DisastrousNet9121
The Cause is More Important Than The Symptom
"8 year old girl gets brought in complaining about back pain she'd had for 3 months, several different doctors had given her painkillers to no avail."
"After about 5 minutes I asked her if she had any problems going to the toilet, she says it's 'foamy' when she pees."
"Bone cancer."
"She made a full recovery, and from what I know is in her 20s now, but to this day I hate how she'd been suffering for 3 months and no other doctor had bothered to even ask any more questions as to why an 8 year old girl was getting severe back pain."- PalpitationAdorable2
Never Fault A Doctor For Being Thorough
"Still in school and I was not present for this patient’s initial admission but rather her clinic follow up."
"However, patient was healthy 50-something year old who had an extended nosebleed after a long hike."
"It wouldn’t stop so they went to ER to get it cauterized/impacted (happens all the time)."
"Anyway, they did a CT scan as protocol and discovered she had a 20+ cm tumor on her uterus that was wrapping around her right kidney."
"She was immediately referred to a serious academic hospital and had a specialized oncology surgeon remove it."
"Amazingly, They got it completely removed without even having to damage the kidney."
"She had an amazing outcome and about a half a foot scar running around her abdomen from the surgery."
"I do not believe the CT scan was due to the nosebleed itself but rather I imagine as they looked further into her blood work and coagulation studies they found something that warranted further work up."- KocoaFlakes
Most of the time, a cold is just a cold, and an achy foot is just an achy foot.
Even so, should you have even the slightest bit of doubt, there is no shame in consulting your doctor about it.
As doing so may turn out to be a literally life-saving decision.
When it comes to romantic relationships, it's a lot harder to maintain a relationship than it is to start one. And unfortunately, it's all too easy to end that relationship.
A lot of things can end a relationship, and sometimes, it could be as simple as a single comment. Sometimes it's so hilariously stupid that you can't fathom being with the person any longer. Other times, the person says something so cruel that you know it's time to run. And sometimes, the comment isn't even necessarily bad -- just ill-timed.
Redditors know all about this and are ready to share.
It all started when Redditor AdditionalDentist100 asked:
"What's something you confessed to your partner that ended your relationship?"
Faking It
"Not me, but someone I know was finally told that her husband was faking his English heritage, background/upbringing in England and fake accent. Dude kept it up for years, eventually admitted that it was all a lie and that he grew up on West Coast."
– NE_Golf
"I would think that was a lie but there are people who have faked being a 9/11 survivor. Apparently this type of stuff happens more frequently then I'd imagine."
– jdefr
Oh, The Humanity
"That I didn't rinse off the Mac and cheese noodles. This isn't even a joke it's a true story."
"They were done cooking and I didn't rinse them off. And yes this was a break up waiting to happen I guess lol."
– Ohlookavulture
"It says right on the box not to rinse them."
– Strong-Solution-7492
"The starch is good for the sauce. Dodged a bullet, I'd rather die alone than eat sh*tty mac & cheese."
– pleachchapel
The Past Is Not The Past
"Didn't happen to me, but a guy I knew married a girl I knew (both a bit older than me) and everything seemed great. However, they were at a party and someone mentioned that the guy used to smoke weed in high school (he admitted it, didn't think it was a big deal). She divorced him a month later, claiming that she couldn't forgive him for smoking weed. 😳"
– bomland10
"There had to be something else going on with her because this is so ridiculous. It's not even something he was currently doing."
– woodenmittens
But Faaaamily
"I didn’t want us to move in together with 6 other relatives."
– Ne0nGalax-E
Three Words, Eight Letters
"I believe it was "I love you.""
– AssistantManagerMan
"How f**king dare you!"
– Illustrious_Cancel83
"Oh yeah, I was out of line."
– AssistantManagerMan
And She Communicated
"I wanted better communication sooo she broke up with me."
– Plus-Bunch-4265
"I mean….."
– Outrageous_Egg6340
"Loud and clear."
– EchtGeenSpanjool
Run!
"I said, while crying because he got angry with me at a restaurant, that “I am sometimes afraid to tell you how I feel because I’m afraid of how you’ll react.” And he said, “well, thats f**king pathetic.”"
– internetgoth
"My partner had a habit of starting a convo by asking how I felt about something, then would criticize me for feeling what I felt. It always ended up being a debate about why I felt the way I did. It was never okay for me to feel sad, worried, scared, etc."
"Over time I started to feel anxious when he’d ask questions, and purposely responded vaguely, or just straight up said that I didn’t feel comfortable sharing (which would incite anger or more judgment)."
"Eventually my response became exactly that. A teary “I don’t know if I want to share because I’m worried about how you’ll react/respond” and his responses were along the lines of “that’s stupid” “you’re ridiculous” “don’t be an idiot” “seriously?”"
"I don’t know if it’s because I got so used to it, or from being distracted by all the other bigger things in the relationship…but for some reason I didn’t even notice that this was another bad thing until reading this comment. It was just…normal."
– alexanteros
Looks Always Matter
"It’s not necessarily what I confessed, but I showed him my picture from 8th grade and he couldn’t handle that I used to look like I did in 8th grade."
"If I knew that I had to peak in middle school I would have at least plucked my eyebrows 🥴"
– aero_love
""Sorry babe, you just weren't hot as a middle schooler. Gotta end it here.""
– bobbitdobbit
Happy Ending
"True story. I confessed that I wanted to do more for her. I thought I was neglecting her and working too much."
"That next week, she sat me down and told me that I was threatening her independence and that she needed a week to think about us. The week after that, she broke up with me."
"I later got the real reason from her former best friend. She never had a guy who wanted “all in” like I did and panicked."
"At the time I was destroyed. LOL I thought I was going to marry that woman. Turns out I was one woman off and my next relationship would turn into my current family. So all’s well that ends well."
– Salty-Technology8912
Better This Way
"Broke down crying during a more realistic war movie. She told me to suck it up."
"After she confronted me for drinking too much I finally sought VA disability. Diagnosed with depression, PTSD, anxiety, among other things. Bills started pouring in and I told her we can’t afford certain luxury things because I was the sole breadwinner. I said I felt like I was drowning and my head is slowly slipping under the surface. She told me to “figure it out.”"
""So, I did. We divorced. And I’m much more happy and no longer on the train of “be a man and tighten your boot straps.” I got help and know that it’s okay to do so."
– NyetRifleIsFine47
"So much easier to keep your head above water without the anchor around your neck."
– Probably_Not_Evil
The Cards Don't Lie
"That I didn’t believe in astrology and tarot cards. She then said her tarot cards told her to break up with me. Sure dodged a bullet there."
– Zenith_21
"The tarot cards were right! And still you don’t believe!"
– TDLMTH
Let's Hear It For The Boy
"I didn’t confess, I just went to a couple bars with her to dance. She left me because “YOU CAN’T DANCE!” Of all the things that she could’ve said that was the weirdest reason ever. Like, I had no response. I was 28. I’m happily married for 22 years now to someone who I constantly do bad dancing for because she thinks it’s hilarious. I mean, since I was told I can’t dance, I developed a habit of dancing badly when celebrating ANYTHING. It’s a real crowd pleaser. I am loved for my bad dancing now."
– generic230
I can't dance either! But this is exactly why we all need to find someone who loves us for our quirks, not despite them.
I have been left utterly bewildered by what some people believe is acceptable thought, conversation, and behavior.
Like... "Do YOU hear you?"
It shows when a person lacks life experience and/or brain cells.
Words expose everything.
And sometimes shock is all that is left to grapple with.
Redditor nlwfty wanted to hear about all the things people have overheard that left them utterly stunned, so they asked:
"What's the most out-of-touch thing you've heard someone say?"
I once a friend's friend moan about how she and her husband were nearly destitute.
Almost penniless.
All while she was straightening up the house for the new au pair they had just gotten from Columbia.
The Who?
"My boss once told me to have 'the maid' drop my car at the shop. WTF!!"
amboomernotkaren
Be Happy
"'You won't be happier at work if we pay you more, but we need to figure out why workplace happiness is so low.' This coming from a guy that made 10x what I did and was born into old money."
Dirac_comb
"I had a job that was paying below market rates and 'expected' daily overtime (unpaid, natch) and was trying to figure out how to improve morale. They were considering bringing in consoles and having video game nights after work... as if we weren't stuck there too long already."
"I did have the fun of leaving, then being asked to come back as a contractor to help out, and taking advantage of being on a short-term contract and giving no f**ks to suggest that maybe they should consider at least TRACKING the overtime people were working, even if they weren't going to pay for it since there was probably a whole extra job's worth of hours in there and maybe hiring another person might improve morale and reduce the risk of the kind of errors tired people make."
"Didn't stay long as a temp. Apparently telling the truth and discussing facts with your co-workers isn't good for morale >_< They told everyone I was leaving because I got a better offer (!), but I told everyone exactly what was really happening when they asked XD."
princess_ferocious
It hasn't?
"My dad (who is now the Director of Accounting for the school district I teach for) was talking about how my starting pay was way more than his starting pay."
"I said, 'Well, yeah... The cost of living has increased a ton since then.' This motherf**ker straight up said, 'No it hasn't.'"
"He started working there in 1992. This conversation happened in like 2017 (about a year after I started working there). Again, he is the director of accounting."
pjsans
Move On
"'You seem sad.'"
"My mother to my sister, at her husband's funeral."
blarg-zilla
"My sister's son was murdered. Two weeks later my mom asked her if she was over it yet."
NeverCallMeFifi
"One of my sons was murdered 12 years ago. Many people started telling me that I needed to 'move on' after 4-6 weeks. My brother refuses to say my son's name, so I no longer speak to him. Sending my deepest condolences to your family from a mom who understands losing a child to homicide."
PDXer328
Good Idea!
“'I don’t know why people get big mortgages. Just save up for a few months and pay cash for a starter home!'"
Hopeful-Moose87
People with money always seem to have a plan, unless the plan is sharing.
FInd the Treasure
"When people were complaining about not being able to afford housing/food/living in general, one of the Dutch ministers (I think he was a minister or at least the leader of a party) said something along the line of 'well, find a rich boyfriend then'. ah, yes, that will solve the crisis!"
pastelchannl
Dumbfounded
"I went to an Ivy League college with lots of children of extraordinarily wealthy families. When discussing inequality and its effects on housing, my professor briefly mentioned how mortgages are out of reach for a growing number of Americans. The girl next to me stopped the class, and with a confused face asked the professor why people don’t just buy their homes in cash outright because 'surely the interest means it will cost them more over time.' The professor was dumbfounded. I found out later that she is the heiress to a major luxury brand that you have all heard of."
wildblue2
The Increase
"My former landlord and his wife dropped by to tell me and my financially struggling 20-something roommates that they were raising the rent, by nearly 25%. They said, 'We noticed on Craigslist that neighbors had higher rent so we’re doing the same.' The wife then earnestly reminded us that we’ve been great tenants but maybe we just needed to find some higher-paying jobs. 🙃."
agingcatmom
Not Me
"I was waxing a woman’s eyebrows once and she was complaining that sometimes after she gets a massage the pillow leaves a circular indent on her face and she can’t go out to lunch after. She then asked me if that ever happened to me? I was like ma'am I wax people for eleven bucks an hour; I’m not going out to lunch lol, let alone getting massages."
lomi08
Investments
"Something like: Give a rich person $500 and they will invest it into $1000. Give it to a poor person and they will spend it in a week."
"Yeah exactly give it to someone who’s needs are met and they can save… give it to someone who needs to eat/pay rent etc they will spend it to survive!"
ExaminationLucky6082
You need money to make money.
One of life's biggest lessons apparently.
So someone give me some money.
When we thing of something being gross, or nasty, or cruel, there are certain examples that we can all think of, like bullying or an uncleaned bathroom.
But there are other things in our lives that are actually much nastier than we would expect them to be, and we can only really uncover the truth by taking a closer look at them.
Cringing already, Redditor Strawberry_no_cake asked:
"What is nastier than people realize?"
Not So Sweet Now
"Ice machines in restaurants."
- Goodygumdrops
"I worked at a golf course after I lost my law firm internship during the pandemic. I basically just cooked people easy food (burgers, hot dogs, fries, BLTs, etc.) and tended bar in the clubhouse."
"I can confirm that the ice machine can get gross. I’d always do a quick wipe down clean if I saw anything on the ice, but it was typically on parts of the machine that never touched the actual ice we’d use."
- S**tfacedGrizzlyBear
Unexpected, but Makes Sense
"RN here: Hospital floors!"
"Seems obvious, but apparently it isn’t. I can’t believe how many folks will allow their CHILDREN to sit or play on the floors, or just generally treat them like they are sterile. I don’t even wear my work shoes into my own house."
"The other day I spilled a few drops of tea on the floor where I work… gave it a very light wipe with a cloth and the cloth was BLACK."
"I think people assume that since it’s a hospital the floors are in mint condition… absolutely no way, lol (laughing out loud)."
- gracebloome
Secondary Symptoms in Autoimmune Diseases
"Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis."
"Thanks to drug company ads, most people think it's just about going to the bathroom a few times a day. There's never any mention of fissures, fistulas, fevers, extreme pain, extreme fatigue, depression, anemia, drug side effects, joint pain, painful and horrific surgeries, mouth sores, skin disorders, etc."
- reddy_kil0watt
Our Enemies Don't Even Deserve This
"Dementia, especially advanced dementia. It's not just quirky memory problems, your brain controls every bodily function."
- youngboomergal
Carer Fatigue is Real
"Being a caregiver. Again, people know it might be nasty, but I think they still overlook the awful experience it is for people who are caring for an elder."
"My mom took care of my bedridden grandmother for three years. The amount of s**t everywhere (she had chronic diarrhea, and I don't know if it's just me, but old people's s**t smells like something of another realm), awful body odor (even when we were cleaning her constantly), the difficulty of changing diapers/sheets/covers as constantly as she needed (at least two times during the night)."
"So what I meant is that sometimes people think is 'nice' of a certain daughter/son to take care of their old parents (at least in my country where putting your parents in facilities is not common). But it's just such an intense, nerve-wracking, hard, and disgusting job, with no breaks, with little rewards (because at least my grandma was not in her right mind), and almost no social recognition that it blows my mind how underappreciated it is."
- FuelSelect
One Word: Cancer
"Cancer. People know it’s nasty. People know it’s nasty as all h**l. But here’s the thing. Going through it myself, I could have never imagined how nasty it truly is."
"I watched my mom fight stage four ovarian cancer 18 years ago (I’m 40 right now for reference). She was so far along, and so riddled with the cancer that she was given weeks to live, and sent away from three oncologists who told her to check into hospice and prepare for the end."
"Thankfully she found an oncologist (who is mine now) who took her in, and went to war with her. They cut her open from the chest down, and spent hours plucking tumors out of her while rearranging her internal organs. Taking out the bad stuff and building what he could with what was left. Then two long rounds of chemo. Hospital visits. Illness left and right. Side effects. Recovery. It was h**l for her, but she beat the odds and lived."
"Watching this, I understood what I could. I saw the pain, but now, going through it myself, couldn’t possibly comprehend how bad it truly was. I saw the illness, the nausea, the neuropathy, all the stupid side effects that hit you for no reason at all."
"So yeah, cancer. Everyone knows it’s nasty, but man is it even worse than that!"
- jdizzle161
Travel Luggage
"Luggage. It gets rolled throughout the world, often in gross airport bathrooms where floors are literally wet with pee, and then when people get to their destination, the first thing they do is toss it on the bed to unpack."
"Come to think of it, this also makes hotel comforters that never get washed even more disgusting."
- jgilbs
That One Article of Clothing
"Your belt. Think about it, it´s basically the only piece of clothing you never wash. And you always have to touch it after you pooped and before you wash your hands."
- KeplerFinn
Dusty Keyboard Keys
"Your keyboard."
"Seriously man, wash that thing. I can see the dirt from your window!"
- BowlOfJello___
A World of Germs in Your Pocket
"Phones."
"One time I was in line at a food service place, think Chipotle style where you tell them what you want and they make it behind the counter."
"There was this sweaty Door Dasher guy who couldn’t really articulate the order so he handed his phone to the kid behind the counter. The kid proceeds to take his phone, starts swiping and touching it WITHOUT GLOVES ON, and goes right back to touching people’s food."
"Disgusting."
- white_cyclosa
Where Has That Been?
"The top of a soda can. People buy them from a store and put it right onto their mouth without hesitation."
- fuzzynavel5
Far Beyond the Stereotypes
"OCD. It's not some goofy personality quirk. It's h**l on earth."
- MERT-x123
"'Oh, you have OCD? Well, how come your house is a mess?'"
"Oh, I dunno, maybe because I'm so consumed with intrusive thoughts I can't function?"
"'lol (laughing out loud), I get those too! They're normal, just ignore them.'"
"ha-ha-ha-ha sob."
- SerakTheRegallian
What We Wear Everywhere
"Shoes. They are filled with sweaty feet and go everywhere. Think about the gas station and airport bathrooms. The bathrooms you can feel the ick in."
- golamas1992
Also, Watch Straps
"Your watch strap: mine is white and the notches for the buckle go all the way around and every week I have to clean out all the lint and build up to stop it going funky. Makes me shudder at the idea of other watch straps where it may not be as obvious."
- durkbot
Kids Who Don't Know Better
"Speaking as a teacher of four- to five-year-olds:"
"Kids with colds who do not know how to blow their noses or cover their coughs and sneezes. Sometimes they just leave the snot on their faces, or wipe it on their clothes. They can produce a mind-boggling amount of snot!"
"The awful gross things kids will willingly put in their mouths, and then share with others!"
"I love them regardless!"
- CreepyCandidate4449
We're absolutely squirming at the thought of all of these situations, mostly because we haven't thought about them to this degree before, or perhaps even considered it (we're looking at you, belts).
Take this as a reminder to clean the things you haven't in a while, and perhaps take some extra health precautions in public spaces where other people may not be.