
Grownups Reveal The Things Their Parents Did That Messed Them Up
[rebelmouse-image 18346766 is_animated_gif=Kids don't come with user manuals. Even the best, most well-meaning, parent can flub it and do some long term damage to their children without meaning to. Some parents, unfortunately, aren't quite so well-intentioned and they can deal out some damage as well. We're not talking about them, though. Those sorts of things are a bit more overt. We're talking about the little things that otherwise good parents do that can really do a number on the little ones. One Reddit user must have been thinking about their childhood and how it created who they were now, because they asked:
What do a lot of parents do that screws up their kid?
As parents, and people who have/had parents, the answers really made us think and re-evaluate ourselves. Here are twenty of our favorite replies.
Thanks Mom
[rebelmouse-image 18350433 is_animated_gif=Making it really hard to tell them things. My mom always freaks out when I tell her anything, and then as a defense mechanism she makes fun of whatever it is that I've told her.
I switched my major to criminal justice and she freaked out saying well good thing you don't want to be a cop, you were always so sensitive, you'd look pretty dumb crying in the uniform when someone says something mean to you.
Thanks mom.
The Perfect Angel Complex
[rebelmouse-image 18350434 is_animated_gif=Refuse to believe their child could do something wrong. I know a few f*ck ups and their parents are either totally apathetic towards them or no matter what the situation, blame other children or claim its some sort of conspiracy against their child.
Never Wrong
[rebelmouse-image 18350435 is_animated_gif=Refuse to apologize or admit when they're wrong to their kids or to other people in front of their kids.
Your children will remember all the times you hurt their feelings and then tried to pretend like it never happened. They will remember the cashier you yelled at for a mistake that you made but wouldn't say sorry for. They'll either turn into an assh*le or they'll overcompensate and feel responsible for everything that goes wrong because you set a horrible example.
This Double Dose
[rebelmouse-image 18350436 is_animated_gif=My mom was overly paranoid of everything, and my dad refused to acknowledge when he was wrong, take your pick.
Not Your Therapist
[rebelmouse-image 18350437 is_animated_gif=My mom didn't have any friends when I was growing up so she used me as her therapist. My mom would ask me what I thought she should do about big life decisions when I was in middle school. It was such a burden on a 12 year old. When I finally told her I didn't want her to do that anymore because it upset me and made me uncomfortable she basically guilted the f--- outta me because "she had no one else to talk to." It also didn't help that most of the time she was venting to me about my own dad.
An Honest Mistake
[rebelmouse-image 18350438 is_animated_gif=Screaming at your kid for fessing up to an honest mistake.
I accidentally broke a window when I was 5 and told the truth about it. I was promptly spanked pretty vigorously and sent to my room and told to stay in there.
What did I take away from that? Lie if it prevents you from getting into any sort of trouble. I was a pretty dishonest kid for years after that.
"Why Can't You Be More Like..."
[rebelmouse-image 18348547 is_animated_gif=Comparing them to other kids, especially siblings.
No kid likes to hear "Why can't you be more like so and so."
It's just so damaging. Your child is not so and so, they will never be so and so. Just help them along with being who they are.
Have Your Kids Back
[rebelmouse-image 18350439 is_animated_gif=Never standing up for them. Parents shouldn't be fixing their kid's every fuck up but they should be there for their kid when they get bullied. It's hard for kids to trust their parents if they can't be certain they have their back.
So much is said about helicopter parenting, but there's also the parent who just can't be bothered and comes up with excuses to do nothing.
If your kid arrives home breathless every day for two weeks and complains that a group of four older bullies chased them all the way home, don't give the kid the third degree under the presumption that your six-year-old must have provoked it, then tell your kid to ignore it and go back to reading your book. That's a cop-out.
Parents Little Doormat
[rebelmouse-image 18350440 is_animated_gif=Train their kids to be doormats. Drop what you're doing and do whatever I or any adult you know tells you to is a reasonable rule for a 5 year-old, but tons of parents continue to enforce that upon teenagers because it's more convenient to them for their teenagers to be doormats, and then big shock, they grow up to be adult doormats, unable to stand up for themselves or even assert their own desires.
Belittling
[rebelmouse-image 18350441 is_animated_gif=Once I got to the age where I was formulating my own opinions and not just parroting hers, I realized we were always having two different conversations. I was having a give and take, and she was having a pissing contest. If I said something she didn't like or didn't know how to respond to, she'd shift the focus onto some perceived negative about me and belittle me. Conversations about politics turned into how I'm only a Democrat because I'm entitled. I'm pro-choice because I'm a slut. I'm atheist because I'm lazy and want to be cool. Yadda yadda.
News flash, this just means your kids will stop f*cking talking to you about anything more than the weather. Don't do this.
Too Much Freedom
[rebelmouse-image 18350442 is_animated_gif=Giving a kid freedom as a teenager is key. However, giving a kid so much freedom that you essentially check out from any sort of parental role is bad parenting that ultimately leads to the kid trying to make life decisions without any real guidance and somewhat fucks up their life.
It's Their Lives Not Yours
[rebelmouse-image 18350443 is_animated_gif=My mother wanted to be a professional tennis player but she wasn't good enough for it. She tried to make me take up tennis but I got out of it because I was also doing Karate at the time and I said if I did both I wouldn't do well in school. Recently, she has managed to mold my brother into liking tennis and she even pays (mostly foreign) college students to play tennis with him and train him. When my cousin and I talked to him about it, he said he didn't even like Tennis and he was just being forced to live out her unfulfilled dream.
Sexual Anatomy
[rebelmouse-image 18350444 is_animated_gif=Making sex and sexual anatomy taboo. Parents who refuse to talk to their kids and write it off as "embarrassing" are doing their kids a huge disservice,
I actually just posted a PSA about it in the parenting sub yesterday. My son woke up yesterday with extreme pain in his testicles. We ended up rushing to the hospital and found out his has testicular torsion. They were able to do surgery and he'll be as good as new shortly. The doctor told us that his last 3 cases of testicular torsion involved having to remove the testicle because the person waited to long. All three were teens around my son's age and all were too embarrassed to speak up sooner. Don't do that to your kids. It could cost them their ball(s).
Privacy, Please
[rebelmouse-image 18350445 is_animated_gif=Besides the obvious abusive answers, invading the kid's privacy. My mom (along with many other parents) would read my texts sometimes and confront me about them. I never felt comfortable locking my door, it was always associated with being angry or spiteful. I didn't even realize knocking was normal.
It kind of messed up my idea of privacy in relationships. Didn't really think snooping was that wrong for a while.
Older Siblings Are Not Parents
[rebelmouse-image 18350446 is_animated_gif=Pass on the bulk of the parenting of younger siblings onto the older ones. You signed up for this and it is incredibly gross to expect your child to take on an unpaid part to full time job because you didn't realize it would be a lot of work.
With any luck, your child will only resent you and not their siblings.
"Clean Your Plate"
[rebelmouse-image 18350447 is_animated_gif=Forcing your kids to eat when they're not hungry is really, really unhealthy.
I know so many people (myself included) who had parents or grandparents who insisted they "clean their plate". Growing up, I didn't really eat when I was hungry. I ate at mealtimes, and I ate everything on my plate. That's just how I was brought up.
My parents meant well, I know. They fed me pretty healthy foods, so it's not like I was being force-fed Big Macs. They didn't want me to waste food and they wanted to make sure I was getting enough nutrition. So I don't fault their intentions.
But it's only now, when I'm almost 30, that I'm actually figuring out how to decide whether or not I'm actually hungry. I ate "by the clock" for so long that I never really learned how to pay attention to my own body and follow its cues for deciding when to eat and how much. I'm working on that now, but it's surprisingly difficult to figure that stuff out when you're not used to it.
Lots of people end up with lifelong weight issues because they had parents or family members who pushed them to ignore what their body was telling them and just keep eating past the point of satiation. It's really hard to unlearn that shit.
Parents should, as much as possible, let their kids decide when to eat and how much they want to eat. I think it's OK to impose some restrictions, like telling your kid, "If you don't want to eat anymore of your lunch, that's OK, but you won't be getting anything else until dinnertime." But you have to let kids stop eating when they decide they aren't hungry anymore.
Stop Yelling
[rebelmouse-image 18350448 is_animated_gif=Yelling. There's very little reason to yell, it's one of the easier ways out of a hard situation. If your child's doing something wrong then reason with them as a parent talking to a child, don't jump straight to yelling at them to stop without any rhyme or reason.
Even if it's something they didn't do wrong like got lost or they got hurt, why yell at them over your concern for them being okay? Why make them feel worse, and that it's their fault?
Obviously it's hard and the fact that you have to do it every day, all the time is even harder, but try your best to be that role model for your kids. Don't have them grow up and shutter or cringe every time they hear a loud noise or loud footsteps. There's no reason to grow anxiety into a child.
Tough Love
[rebelmouse-image 18350449 is_animated_gif=Say something incredibly damaging to a child's self esteem (ie "You're fat and you need to lose weight etc") and then when the child speaks up about their hurt feelings about it, turn the blame on them and cover up their words under the guise of "It's just tough love"
Just that phrase in particular "It's just tough love" alone really screwed me up for the longest time. Because I just kept taking verbal abuse after verbal abuse from my mom for years thinking it was just "tough love"
Caving To Tantrums
[rebelmouse-image 18350451 is_animated_gif=Give in when kid is being demanding or throwing a tantrum. And I don't mean giving in once in a while to keep the peace in a public place, I mean every time.
I found a dollar outside once when I was about 9, I was with my 4-5 year old neighbor who got really jealous and demanded I give it to her. I refused (I found a dollar and I'm a 9 year old that's a big deal!) and she ran home to her mom upset and about to cry. Her mom tried to explain that I found it, so it was mine only one time before she solved the issue by grabbing a dollar from her purse and tossing it into the bushes while her daughters back was turned. "Hey look! There's another one! Now you found one too!"
That kid was a nightmare with a very warped definition of "fairness."
If it were an isolated incident I wouldn't have thought twice. It was not, she was spoiled rotten and her favorite way to handle "no" was hitting, scratching, hair pulling, and biting. Discipline wasn't really a thing in her house. She was an actual nightmare child and she didn't outgrow it for a long, long time.
Also consider this: the lesson this little girl is learning is that the world will bend to her will whenever she gets upset, not only will Mom and Dad give her what she demands, but apparently so will the universe.
H/T: Reddit
And there are just as many grievances for which we are not at all sorry.
Curious to hear about people's track record of their questionable behavior, Redditor NanoPKx asked:
"What is something bad you have done with no regrets?"
Is it petty theft or flat out stealing? You decide.
The Parting Gift
"'Forgetting' to bring back a company ipad after they forgot about me having it. Actually they never asked for it back so I still have it and use it."
– Koetjeka
Furry Companion
"I stole a barn kitten while delivering packages for FedEx. He kept climbing my legs and getting into the van, sitting under the wheel when I tried to back out (it was a steep driveway, no way to swing the van around). I called the number on the package, looked the name up on facebook, called the local non-emergency to get contact info, all failed."
"So I took him. Now, if you're not from a rural environment, you might not understand that barn cats like that are 'no-man's-cats.' For all the owners know, he got sick or got got by a coyote. And he would have died, because when we got him to the vet he had a nasty upper resp infection and some other nasties."
"Now, one deformed nasal passage and the cutest snore later, we have a bonkers little orange cat with the heaviest penchant for snuggling I've ever seen (his name is Monty btw)."
"Edit: I forgot to pay my Cat Tax: https://imgur.com/a/HIXS4us"
"Edit Part 2: Monty loves the attention. Thank you for loving him as much as we do :3"
"MmmmMMMMRrrrrrrrrrrAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAW" -Montgomerey Valentine, 2022
– SonOfSkinDealer
The Dirty Treat
"A housemate of mine kept eating mine and my girlfriends food and even though I asked him to stop the only thing he would ever say is 'I thought it was mine' then keep eating it."
"Well I bought my girlfriend some ice cream she really enjoys and she put the half she didn’t finish back in the freezer. Well when she want to get the rest it was gone and it made me madder than I think it probably should have."
"The very next time I saw him and somehow keeping a straight apologetic face I told him how he accidentally ate our sex ice cream and that bits of it had been on our parts etc. I told him I felt guilty not to tell him and that I had to apologise for him to eat such a thing."
"I will never forget the face he made when I told him. A face of pure self disgust and shock to which all he had to say was 'I wish you never told me that' and proceeded to move out around a month later."
"Although he didn’t actually eat sex ice cream, like why the f'k would you put it back after use anyway? Sometimes I wonder if I went to far but in that moment I just did not care at all. He still doesn’t know it isn’t true and I’ll probably never see him again."
"F'k you Vitas buy your own food."
– SpicyDolphin74
Vengeance is sweet.
Payback Time
"A drunk driver hit my parked car, left a huge dent in the front driver’s side door, and then drove away. I happened to be looking out the window at the time and saw the whole thing, including his plate number. Cops got there not long after and took my statement. After a couple days and a couple phone calls, I found out nothing was going to come of it because he was the son of the sheriff the next county over."
"Fast forward a couple months, I see his car parked behind a local bar within walking distance of my apartment. I got out my hunting knife and sliced all four of his tires, and made a couple trips around it destroying the paint job. Yellow Pontiac Sunfire, and I still remember the goddamn plate number even after almost 20 years."
– IgnoreMe304
For The People
"I was a GM for a retailer that was going out of business. During the liquidation I let my employees that worked until the end store product they wanted to buy in a closet I claimed I didn't have a key to. Oh the final days I sold them all the items they requested for 95% off. 70" tvs, ipads, gaming laptops whatever they requested."
– Midnights606
Surreptitious Swap
"Years ago I worked for a wealthy dude who was married to someone semi-famous. He would waltz in every morning and talk about the fantastic dinner he had the night before, how he hung out with some other famous person or whatever else."
"He paid me peanuts. I had a hard time making ends meet."
"I was the office assistant and IT guy. So it comes time to get a new computer for one of the designers. I spec something out, and show it to him. It was a ripper of a machine for the time (early 2000s). But it wasn’t expensive enough for bossman."
"So I added a really high end graphics card. Boss was happy then. The card added nothing for the designer: they only did illustrator and photoshop."
"So I came in that weekend and swapped the graphics card for my aging one from home."
"No one ever knew. Or cared. And I got a new graphics card."
– Dudeinairport
When times are tough, people had to do what it took to survive.
T.P. Crisis
"In college I was so poor I would steal toilet paper from the supply closet in our major building."
– Business_Loquat5658
Hungry College Buddy
"I stood watch for a college friend who was going hungry because he’d been disowned and his roommates had made living with him intolerable after he came out."
"I was loosely affiliated with an off campus program with local churches that gave free student dinners on Thursdays. We would go to church to eat, then bring dishes into the kitchen."
"Anyway, he would go in there and steal stuff like peanut butter, literal bread (not an allegory), granola bars etc. while I watched out for the pastor."
"Eventually we both got caught, the pastor for the college students got a bit mad because he was responsible for us while we were there to eat. And I think it was offensive on some level to steal from church. But then he saw what my friend was taking, and asked him if he had enough to eat. My friend shamefacedly said no, not usually."
“'Okay, fine. Put the food back, and come with me.' Took my friend grocery shopping instead, got him connected with the food pantry and community garden at church instead."
– SchnarchendeSchwein
Based on these examples, people didn't twice about their actions in the heat of the moment.
Within reason, we all gotta somehow get by.
But do you think their actions deserve punishment?
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When a person sees someone they care about going through a struggle or crisis, their instinct is to uplift them with positive advice.
But sometimes, the wisdom imparted by friends isn't always helpful or relevant to the situation.
Curious to hear from strangers online who could do without specific knowledge, Redditor Saibotnl1 asked:
"What life advice can just f'k off?"

These Redditors have a problem with how certain people have on outlook on life.
Time To Rest
"Sleep when you’re dead."
"Cool, but you’re going to be dead a lot sooner."
– Tag2graff
Irrelevant Sadness
"People have it so much worse than you so don’t be sad!"
– notrachelmar
"To that I like to say, 'people have it so much better than you so don't be happy!'"
– ___jupiter____
Your Life Path
"Almost anything relating to what age you must be in order to buy a house, have children, marry, have a profession, or do anything else. Seriously, everyone's life is different from everyone else's. Make your life the way you want it to be. If you so desire. Up to you."
– Frn071
On The Contrary
“Cheaters never prosper”
"Yes, they f'king do."
– waqasnaseem07
People can get out of any situation they find displeasing.
But others feel people should just "stick it out."
Ignoring Bullies
"Just ignore bullys or get someone else to handle it for you. I have never seen this work, only makes it worse. The only effective way I've seen to deal with them is by not making yourself an easy target and make them scared to f'k with you again. If going psycho on their a** is the only thing they'll respond to that's their fault. Also want to add in schools they will punish you for self defense but that punishment is only sitting around a few hours in detention or sitting around at home with a suspension. The punishment is temporary boredom, it's absolutely nothing compared to being bullied and when it's over the important message will still stand that you will not tolerate being a victim."
– User Delted
Remain to be Miserable
"Stick it out"
"Whether that's sh**ty jobs, shi**y relationships, shi**y living situations..."
"By all means don't just give up on things when you face challenges, but if something feels wrong or is wrecking your peace then take some control and change it if you can!"
– petitezoey
"Easy for you to say," might be an auto-response to these suggestions for many people.
Invitation For Recklesslessness
"Live like everyday was your last"
Yall know what people do when they learn they have a single day left to live?"
– LimeGrass619
A Possible Consequence
"I did that as a teenager and ended up homeless and addicted to heroin. Didn’t pan out for me too well."
"19 years sober though today."
– Open-Section-7263
A Practical Approach
"If I knew with certainty that I had one day left, I'd double-check all my financials, my will, and my insurance policies, make sure my wife had all of my passwords and knew where all the money was, spend the rest of the day with her and the kids, then call the medical examiner and ask to lie down on the gurney so that when I die they won't strain their back moving my remains out of my house."
– Asteriad
Nose Stuck In A Book
"Work while they sleep. Study while they party"
"That's not a recipe for success, that's a recipe for a lot of white hairs, burnout syndrome and a stroke before your 40s..."
– Khomuna
Doesn't Apply To Everyone
"Do what you love and money will follow"
"I love walking my dogs and grilling food for my friends but That sh*t doesn't pay the bills as well as my engineering degree!"
– Elons_android
While people's intentions are good, they're better off keeping their two cents in their own pockets.
Not everyone likes to hear platitudes.
Sometimes, people just want to know they're not alone with their problems over listening to unlikely solutions that are nothing more than superficial pick-me-ups.
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Kids start going to school from the age of five, and for the most part, they spend more time at school than at home. Because of that, teachers can become very important figures in the lives of their students.
Some students don't have the best home lives. Some keep it to themselves, but others confide in their teachers.
Curious about various situations, Redditor Delicious_Mastodon83 asked:
"teachers of reddit what is the saddest thing you found out about a student?"
In Need of Parents
"Not a teacher but was a school-based therapist. Had a student (7 -8 y/o) I didn’t know knock on my office door and ask if I’d adopt her and “if you have room, my brother too, but if not, that’s ok, we can be split up. We’re split up now. And I don’t take up space. I just need a sleeping bag”. Broke my heart."
– secretkpr
Heartbreaking, But Industrious
"My mom taught at a school in a bad neighborhood in Chicago in the mid 90’s. There was a second grader that would save his milk and ketchup packers from lunch for his mom so she had something to eat when she got home from work."
– PowerstrokeMe
Big-Hearted Mom
"Not a teacher but a parent with a 9 year old son. Every day I pack extra in my sons lunch because he tells me he has a friend that never has anything to eat. It's winter and my son came home and told me his friend was turning up with shorts and shirt and holes in his shoes. So I sent in a jumper and long pants for him to wear and some slightly used but good condition shoes. I have been up to the school recently and the teacher pulled me aside and thanked me profusely for helping this child. Apparently teachers are not allowed to aid kids they teach here in Australia and they have already reported the issue 3 times to child welfare without results so I was the only one helping this child. The teacher told me before I started sending in more food and clothes, this child would steal others food from their lunches and look through the bins because he was so hungry. They doubt he gets fed at home. So now I make sure to always send an extra lunch and some school clothes/supplies when I can. I can only hope child welfare eventually does something but it breaks my heart."
– spetzie55
Amazing Big Sister
"It was right after winter break and before class started I was just talking with some students and asked if they got anything fun for the holidays. One girl said on no, I don’t ever get presents, my mom is a drug addict. But I went out and got some stuff for my little sister so that she can have a real Christmas."
"She just said it so matter-of-fact. She was so used to being the parent to her little sister that she didn’t even care about her own childhood. It totally broke my heart."
– tonydanzascaulk
The Importance Of Human Affection
"Second hand story from my mom, elementary teacher for 30ish years. She had a hug or a handshake out the door policy, just some small contact and a proper goodbye, and had this young boy who always picked the hug. She wondered why he always went for it, most kids would go back and forth depending on their mood that day, so she asked him why he was always so excited for the end of day hug? His answer, "It's the only one I ever get.""
– needsawholecroissant
Coming Out The Other Side
"Two teenage boys (16/14) with learning disabilities were on my caseload, they never missed school but often ditched class. They were homeless mid-year after they went home from school to find the locks changed, their Mom had abandoned them for a new boyfriend. She didn't leave an address for them to find her."
"*Edit: both eventually dropped out, however a couple of years later the younger brother came back to visit. He and his brother were both working construction, and his brother had gotten married, had a child, and was living with his wife’s family."
"The younger had roommates and was saving for a car. He told me it was a shame I didn’t have kids, because I would make a good Dad."
"People often persevere, even with the odds stacked against them."
– Kursch50
True Parentification
"Not me but my daughter is a teacher, she has lots of stories but one that stands out for me is one of her kindergarten kids saying she was tired and her asking why, the little girl explained that she had been up all night with her mums newborn baby. She did this every night, fed her bottles and everything."
– lb47513343
Luckily, He Was Resilient
"This year I had a 17 year old kid enroll at my school. He was sitting in my math class and I could tell he was struggling. After class I took some extra time to go over a concept with him. I asked him to read the question to me, and he sat there silently. He then looked at me and said “I’m not going to lie to you, I cannot read. I have no idea how to say these words""
"Turned out at age 17 he was illiterate and had been kept out of school by his very religious, controlling parents. Over the past few months he has worked very hard! Now he can finally read at an 8th grade level and he is STILL improving!!"
– User Deleted
A Heroic Teacher
"I worked in an inner city charter school. One of my students (`M10) had a sib (M8) in a lower grade. The mom was there every day in the beginning of the year encouraging them, helping them and generally being very supportive... until a CPS agent spoke to me asking about her behavior. After CPS left things went downhill. The boys showed up late to class even though they lived a half block away from school. When in school both boys were tired from sleeping in the car while their mom "went fishing". She also had two very young girls which she dragged around making the boys take care of them. One day the boys didn't show up and their teacher walked over to the house to find the mom had loaded up the fridge, paid the rent for the month and abandoned them. The teacher (a candidate for sainthood btw) took them in, adopted them and grew them up to be great men."
– mopedarmy
This is really heartbreaking stuff! Luckily, teachers aren't just another adult in your life; they can be your saving grace as well.
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TRIGGER WARNING: This article contains sensitive content about depression and mental health.
As the stigma around mental health lessens (however slowly), people are more forthcoming about the problems they are facing. One of the most common mental health issues is depression.
Depression can affect many different types of people. Factors such as gender, race, nationality, and even age have no bearing on whether someone suffers from depression or not.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), globally, "...an estimated 3.8% of the population affected, including 5.0% among adults and 5.7% among adults older than 60 years..."
Depression displays in certain patterns, such as mood changes, physical difficulties, and social isolation. However, depression manifests differently in different people and feels different to different people.
Reddit users divulged what depression felt like to them when Redditor iodineseaspray asked:
"What does depression feel like to you?"
Some of this is sure to sound familiar.
The Worst Kind Of Boredom
"Like being more bored than you could imagine but also not wanting to do anything at all, even breathe. So you want to do something, but you can't imagine anything that you would like to do so you're just sort of stuck."
– BuddhistSlater
"So you then spend literally hours staring at a blank wall hating yourself, your life, and everything around you. Well, as much hate as you can summon in the absolutely mentally numb state you find yourself sat in day after day."
– merryman1
Lack Of Motivation and Energy
"Complete lack of motivation."
"Ignoring people that I love, and who are trying to help."
"Just sh*t"
– HatFromStraw
"I feel it extra at work. Letting things slide until you either get into trouble or trying last minute to prevent it."
"Funny those times when I'm working to save my butt, the depression goes away and i feel super focused and motivated."
"I try to carry that energy over but no, it's rinse and repeat."
– ExtraBitterSpecial
Powerful Insecurity
"Insecure about absolutely everything, no hope for the future, dissociation from society and not knowing how to “act” anymore, feeling like I’m not as good at the things I always thought I was good at or that the “talent is wasted on me”, only food cheers me up and sometimes even that doesn’t work"
– tenamonth
Loss Of Creativity
"This. It's like some numb fuzziness you feel in your brain. It's the worst thing ever for an artist who just wants to create but your brain comes up dry with a dense fog that wants to just lie down for a few hours"
– FinnProtoyeen
A Mental Inability To Breathe
"For me, it feels like I’m in a lake with a ball chain tied to my feet, desperately swimming up for air, the only problem is the chain isn’t long enough. I can only get an inch of my head out of the water to breath, and as soon as a high tide comes, the water just floods over me and I feel like I can’t breath again. I live like this, constantly feeling like I’m struggling to breathe, weighed down by my own mind. It’s a struggle and I can’t really describe it in any other way, I’m jealous of people who don’t worry about depression"
– DrowningInBrokeness
"Like suffocating under a heavy cloak"
– kmartfreak
"Like being crushed. Like if the air was crushing my muscles and bones and I can’t breathe because I’m being crushed…"
"Kinda like that."
– Afreshnewsketckbook
Listlessness
"Scrolling thru your steam library. Thinking you want to play something, either not settling on anything or not wanting to put the effort into the game. Going back to the scrolling."
– Aistadar
"It feels like you're forced to play a game of Monopoly (represents life) and your just rolling the dice to appease everyone but you genuinely don't care about where you go, where you land, what you pick up, what you pay, what you gain."
"You kind of just watch it happen without interest and while people are cheering or oh no-ing for you, you genuinely don't care. Everyone is a piece on this board that hardly matters and you feel like we're all just running in a circle over and over again and it's boring and disinteresting as hell."
"You lose all curiosity for everything and just let everything happen and pass by you. No motivation, hardly any love, hardly any care. Feels like the world is in black and white and your waiting for the game to end became it's so absolutely boring and disinteresting, but it never does."
"You come to resent the game and eventually hate it because it feels like you're being forced to play it and suffer it's consequences when you never asked to play it in the first place."
"That's what depression felt like for me. Since then I've been medicated and recieved therapy. I'm doing a lot better now and I don't feel this way anymore, thankfully."
- KnlghtLlghts
A Relation To Fantasy
"You know that scene in the Lord of the Rings where Bilbo is describing to Galndalf what having the Ring all those years felt like? "I feel thin. Like too much jam spread over too much bread." That's honestly the best way I've seen to describe it."
– Electrical_Age_336
"I always say the closest thing to compare it to is a dementor in harry potter. It sucks every ounce of happiness out of you until there is only darkness left."
"Side note: chocolate always helps"
– sunfacer
Fear Of Lack Of Justification
"Like someone close to you died yesterday. Expect no one has, and nothing has happened to justify how you feel."
– AlterEdward
A Physical Pain
"Physical pain in my heart, will start crying just by attending to the physical sensation in my body."
– sagieday
Help Yourself
"I've always described it as having a shadow fixed to your brain which fuels things like indecision and negativity. You can do things to temporarily help but you can't truly shift it. Previous normality is forgotten. But it's amazing how much you can mask it."
"I found I didn't realise how bad I was until I started to get better"
"For anyone suffering with depression. Please, please speak to someone. Best thing I ever did"
– DavosLostFingers
Depression isn't something you can just deal with or get over. Learning to cope is not easy. However, as Redditor DavosLostFingers pointed out, talking to someone can literally save your life.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with depression, contact the American Psychological Association by phone at 800.374.2721 or 202.336.5500.
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