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People Share Horrific Crimes That Took Place In Their 'Safe' Town

People Share Horrific Crimes That Took Place In Their 'Safe' Town
Ichigo121212/Pixabay

Even the safest seeming places aren't immune from crime. Sometimes the quiet, upscale neighborhoods are the ones hiding the darkest secrets.

*Content Warning: This article contains mention/descriptions of heinous crimes including murder, school shootings, animal abuse, and assault.*


Reddit user u/eluey asked:

"What horrifying crime took place in the 'safe,' 'quiet,' or 'upscale' part of your town?"

20.

Man kills his wife, drives a couple of hundred miles (UK so a long distance) to a massive lake, gets a boat, rows out with the body wrapped up with weights and dumps her over the side. Goes back home and reports her missing saying she had run off with her lover. Man was a upstanding citizen, got lots of sympathy and the police accepted his word on the events.

A couple of years later some divers find the body on a underwater ledge, tell the police who investigate and the man is convicted of the killing.
If he had dumped the body over the other side of the boat it would have missed the ledge and sunk further than normal recreational divers go, so it probably would never have been found.

This was only the second recorded murder in the village, the first was 600 years ago and the murderer escaped by climbing out the church window into the arms of the devil who carried him off to safety, as the legend goes.

-TheNewHobbes

19.

A father (whos wife was divorcing him) went over to the apartment where his wife and two teenage girls lived. He shot and killed both of his daughters, shot his wife then killed himself. The mother survived the shot and called the police. I went to highschool with the girls. It was crazy. Stuff like that never happens where i live

-Maroczy-Bind

18.

Several years ago, a doctor my wife worked with invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. The doctor lived about 8 blocks away from us, and had overheard her mentioning that we had no plans.

The next day, my sister called and told us she wanted to get all of my siblings and I together for a big Thanksgiving, so my wife let the doctor know we couldn't make it.

On Thanksgiving day, we found out by watching the news that the doctors nephew -who had been struggling with substance abuse and mental health issues for years- showed up and killed 4 people with a shotgun, the doctor's wife and 4 year old daughter and the nephew's parents.

The doctor had been shot himself, but survived. He managed to wrestle the gun away and had his nephew in a choke hold when the police arrived.
Needless to say he took quite a lot of time off work. Since he lived so close to us, me and my wife made sure to check in on him from time to time.

The next year, we invited him to Thanksgiving dinner with my family. He later said that seeing my enormous clan (there were about 40 people there, which was actually a pretty low headcount for one of my family gatherings) all together and laughing and loving each other was one of the things that really made him realize that his own life wasn't over.

He got married again a few years later, and he has two sons with his new wife. The oldest is the same age as my youngest, so we still see each other. He loves those boys to death, and is a great dad. He's a really good guy, and it still choked me up to think about what he went through.

-MjolnirPants

17.

I live in a small town (like 20.000 inhabitants) but one guy killed his FIL in their own home because he kept harassing his wife/gf. Turned out this has been going on since she was like 10, and now she was ~30. He then brought the body to the police station, and drove back home. It all happened in my neighborhood.

I found a news article, this is what happened: the guy strangled his FIL after he made jokes about abusing his daughter (the guy's wife). The guy was there with his wife and kids, and they all witnessed it. They then drove together to another town (~15 minute drive) and brought the body to the police station. The guy had to stay but his family went back home.

The guy got 8 years, so he's in jail until 2026.

-guywithanusername

16.

Someone poisoned like 20% of the dogs in my neighborhood. Injected gasoline into hotdogs then threw it over fences. Almost got my neighbor’s dog but they got it out of their system before it was completely digested.

-Exho_Foxtrot_123

15.

Woman asked for divorce, which enraged the husband, so he slit her Achilles tendons and dumped her in the lawn to watch as he burned the house down with himself and their 5 year old daughter inside.

-Vaisbeau

14.

A guy on my street was tied to a chair and tortured by gang members over drugs. My street is 3 blocks, he was single, same race and in the same decade of age as I. Only my banker called to check on me when it made front page of paper.

-bluesun68

13.

A girl around 10 years old was kidnapped and murdered by her neighbor. Tossed into a dumpster. It was almost two, because there was another girl with her at the time, but the guy couldn’t get to her.

-ten-bears

12.

Here’s the back story: I managed a security team at a hotel across from the building that this incident occurred. I remember the prior night, Chris Mohan was at my place for a get together, having drinks and what not, just a friendly few drinks with other buddies.

Chris is employed with me at the hotel and during that time he was my partner at work (a buddy system), the next day when he did not show up for his shift I began calling him but to no avail. But what I saw that day was there were a lot of cops around, literally the whole force. When I spoke to one of the officers he said that there was some sort of gas leak and had casualties.

Later I was informed that there had been a murder at the same building that Chris lived at, a total of 6 bodies in one apartment, my heart sank when I heard the news and I was worried for Chris and I wanted to go check on him but the whole block was cordoned off, no one was to enter and ppl got questioned as they leave the property.


The next day was confirmed that Chris was one of the casualties, he was amongst one of the two innocent people that had been murdered. A lot of of his colleagues at work were devastated and I can’t even imagine what his parents were going through.

I remembered going to his funeral and it was an open casket, I saw a hole (exit wound) on Chris’s check it was unbearable seeing him like that. I’ll just stop here and suggest that if some people here would like to know more, google the surrey six and go down that rabbit hole. https://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/surrey+victim+co...

-maesterz

11.

Not really a crime, but horrifying nonetheless. 17 year old kid in a nice neighborhood of a rich college town designed and 3D printed a miniature guillotine with a rope, a weight, and a box cutter blade and used it to cut his tongue nearly off. Called an ambulance before doing it. Being treated for schizophrenia now.

-thisisfelix_

10.

The Dupont de Ligonnès murders and disappearance

Very bourgeois family of five goes missing in a quiet neighbourhood of Nantes, France. A few days later, police finally digs under the terrace and finds the body of the wife plus the four kids. Father is missing.

This was one of the top crime stories in France in 2011, mostly because of the family's background--catholic, private school, old money, etc. I must have walked past the house a hundred of times and I'm still shocked no one heard anything. It's a city house, so semi-detached, and it's a busy street.

The father, obviously the top suspect, is still missing by the way.

-Xiaozhu

9.

Someone poisoned like 20% of the dogs in my neighborhood. Injected gasoline into hotdogs then threw it over fences. Almost got my neighbor's dog but they got it out of their system before it was completely digested.

-Echo_FoxTrot_123

8.

The Abbotsford killer. He kidnapped two girls, beat and killed one of them, and the other one barely escaped with her life. He remained unidentified for months, while taunting the police with his crime, but was caught through voice recognition. His mom heard the voice tapes, and called the police on her own son.

-ferdaboiz

7.

The school shooting today. A mile from my house. Nice safe neighborhood.

A follow up-Last night our kids were released from the meet-up point (Central Park) and are home safely. I can't imagine being the parent of one of the kids that won't be coming home.

-esreystevedore

Same, Saugus was my high school too. F*cked up.

-YoungtheRyan

Me too neighbor. Our town really is super safe so this was a shocker.

-ieatallthethings

6.

Maybe a year or two ago, a body was found buried in the backyard of a house on the nice side of town. The victim was in his early 20s, didn't have a record, and according to close family/friends no one knew why this would have happened. Turns out, he had gotten hooked on meth. He was with his friend and his friend's girlfriend when he overdosed and instead of calling an ambulance or the cops, they decided to burn the body and bury him in the yard to hide the evidence. Weirdly enough, my dad is coworkers with the girlfriend's mom.

-lookbothwaysdamnit

These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...

God I know several people who've died from overdoses because people were too scared to call 911. In fact I one time had to make that decision while giving mouth to mouth to my friend. I thankfully did call and he was Narcaned and saved. Now it's possible he would've been fine, the situation was chaotic enough it's been unclear if he would've died without first responders, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. It was a real decision though because I was in a state I was unfamiliar with and with the laws there as well. Thankfully it was a state that won't prosecute you for calling 911 and the cops were very nice about it. But we really need to stop prosecuting people for accidental ODs and then publicize that fact heavily. You can't get help for your addiction if you're dead.

-HimmlerHirnHeistHeyd

5. 

Another one, a girl I went to high school with was taken from a bar in her college town, assaulted, beaten, and choked by a guy. He shoved her into a container and took a Lyft to his grandparent's house to stow the body away in a shed. She wasn't dead when he left the body. She slowly suffocated to death in the container. Sadly, she had tried to text her friends beforehand to ask for help but of the two people she chose, one was asleep and the other's phone had died.

Did I mention he had his cousin help move the container? He had no clue there was a body in it. Imagine hearing about that after the fact, that you helped a murderer. Messed up. And an addition, for everyone asking, the murderer was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence and transporting a body, but not the murder. The jury took less than 2 hours to come to the conclusion that he was guilty on all counts.

This is the organization that the family created in her name. They go around cities and give out these things called Blessing Bags. They give them out to the homeless, something that she used to do in her free time. Feel free to donate or volunteer at a city near you! I'm not sure if they go much farther west than Ohio, but when I volunteered, it was the best time of my life.

https://jennasblessingbags.org

4. 

There was a double homicide and suicide in a house 2 blocks away from my house and across from the public library. Bad stuff, an axe and shotgun were used.

The weirder part is that house recently sold for 4 times as much as any other house around it.

-lordfailure

3.

Double homicide. All the kids in the neighborhood walked by the house to the school bus stop while the killer was still inside and the daughter was on death's door.

Early weekday morning, neighbor goes out to get the newspaper and comes back but doesn't quite shut the door behind her. A man, who lives in the neighborhood with his parents, walks in with a knife and stabs and slashes her throat. He surprises the husband coming down the stairs to her gurgling and stabs him several times before slicing his throat. Their daughter is at the top of the stairs getting ready for school. He slashes her throat. Almost an hour passes as he searches for money in the house and keys to the nightclub the couple own.

Outside, kids are walking by to the school bus stop at the front of the neighborhood, including myself and my brother. Everyone finds it a bit strange that the obnoxious yellow hummer that is too big for the garage is still there. It's always gone this time of day. He waits until the school bus picks up kids and then takes the hummer to the nightclub.

School tries to call wondering why the daughter hasn't shown up. Girl picks up the phone but she can't talk. Someone checks and finds the scene. The mother and father are dead. But the girl survives.

The guy is easily caught (he's driving an easily identifiable yellow hummer 2 ffs as his getaway) and tries to say he was forced to do it by a gang. Suddenly almost everyone in the neighborhood has a story about how big a creep he had been, started random arguments, never cleaned up after his dog when taking it for walks in the morning in the neighborhood.

The girl came back to school to visit her friends a few months later, but moved in with her uncle and aunt out of town. The killer's parents were mortified and were a wreck about it.

-kpud075

2.

My school town, small population, touristy and famed for being a beautiful destination, full of old people who retired and families raising kids in the countryside, has the record of the longest prison sentence served before the 'perpetrator' was found innocent. That fancy house and clifftop shots in Pride and Prejudice? That's the area.

A young woman was found beaten with an axe handle in a churchyard, dying later, in the mid seventies. A seventeen year old groundskeeper, with a reading age of eleven and severe learning difficulties was found covered in blood after finding her and shaking her. In a nine hour interrogation, without any legal aid or his parents, he signed a confession of murder, aided by an eyewitness and a forensic believing the blood patterns matched him being the attacker. He moved prison eight times, facing assault from other inmates for his 'crime'.

27 years later, the teenage eyewitness also revealed she saw the victim unharmed at the same time, couldn't have seen anything behind a bank of trees, and was very short sighted. A journalist claimed evidence was burned, buried, linking the case to the yorkshire ripper, and a bloody palm print on the murder weapon was found not to match the perpetrator.

Thirty years and he's out with a new life and a wad of cash, but learning this in secondary school was a huge shock to me, our town is so peaceful, kind and friendly.

-NaiveScientist0

1. 

Lived in a safe and quiet neighborhood in rural Arkansas.

I mowed lawns for money and played with the other neighborhood kids.

One day I came home from school, and my mother wouldn't let me leave the yard.

Turns out, a man four houses up from ours murdered his wife and buried her in the back yard.

They only found her because neighborhood dogs kept digging at the same spot in his back yard, where the corpse was.

-critical_kurt

People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

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

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

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

PeachesnPain

Recovery

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

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

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

good_golly99

Take Me Back

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

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

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

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

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

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

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

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

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

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

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

Hannah_LL7

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

huntokarrr

The Fog

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

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

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

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

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

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

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

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

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

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

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

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

– r7ndom

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

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

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

– dee-fondy

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

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

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

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

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

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

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

– KatMagic1977

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

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

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

– WaySavvyD

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

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

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

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

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

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

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

– LiZZygsu

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

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

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

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

– Princess-Pancake-97

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

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

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

– snic2030

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

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

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

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

– dma1965

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

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

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