Top Stories

People Who Left Stressful Jobs For Their Mental Heath Share Their Experiences

A truly stressful job can destroy your self-esteem and confidence. It's been said that people don't necessarily leave jobs, they leave management.

Indeed, bad management can leave you feeling unmoored and unsupported.

There has been a wider conversation about hostile work environments over the last couple of years now that the COVID-19 pandemic has afforded many people the opportunity to switch careers and/or call it quits with their awful jobs.

No job is worth your mental and physical health.


People shared their stories with us after Redditor yourmaeve asked the online community:

"Redditors who changed careers from a high paying but stressful job to a lower paying but low stress job, was it worth it, why or why not?"

"My wife and I sold the house..."

"I didn't make the switch until I was 50. Something about turning 50 sparked a change in me. I previously had high blood pressure issues and I was having stress related fights with the people I love. I started to hate myself. Something had to change."

"My wife and I sold the house in the city and moved up to the high country. I took a low-paying job with a small startup company. I wanted to make a difference (and not just make an income)."

"EVERYTHING about my life got better almost instantly. Do I miss the money? Sometimes, but not often actually. The quality of life is way more important for us. We often comment/joke about how we still feel like were on a vacation."

PitBullFan

Congrats on the change! It sounds like you guys are much happier and healthier to boot.

"The check is smaller..."

"Yep. The check is smaller, but comparable to what I would have lost in a divorce in a couple years."

"About a 45% pay cut, but my "real" labor hours dropped from like 65 and permanent on-call status to about 35 hrs or so and after 4pm, I CANNOT BE CONTACTED... worth it. I'm genuinely happier, healthier, and family life is now GREAT instead of slowly decaying."

Greed-oh

Congratulations on saving your marriage and family.

"I left after 30 years..."

"Had an IT job. On call 24x7x365 - never knew what situation would come up. Phone would ring and it would make my blood pressure rise. I left after 30 years as they made me part owner, but God that was stressful."

bulletmissile

Glad you got out! 30 years is a hell of a long time.

"Although what's interesting..."

"100%. Although what’s interesting is once I didn’t hate my job I did a much better job advancing and now I make about what I did back then."

[deleted]

It makes sense though that you would naturally just do a better job if you aren't hating your life.

"I'd rather be broke..."

"Yes. I'd rather be broke than suicidal."

NeverPostAnything69

Amen to that. Glad you're still here with us.

"It has come with some sacrifices..."

"Yes. It has come with some sacrifices, like I can't do the lavish vacations or buy the super fancy cars that all my neighbors do/have, but I also get to be at home every night and weekend. I learned through a stretch of rapid ascent up the corporate ladder that I don't care about that kind of ambition and got super burned out. I'm finally healing."

deepbluesteve

Healing is necessary. It's great that you've found what's important to you.

"Money is temporary..."

"Most definitely it was. Money is temporary but the peace of mind and much better family life are everything to me."

lizzpop2003

Peace of mind? A better family life? It sounds like you won the lottery. Well done!

"I used to rake in paychecks..."

"Yes. Yes. Yes."

"I took a 25% base pay-cut 4 years ago to escape a terrible situation at a terrible company. My new job was salaried, no overtime pay but also no real expectation of overtime. No regrets."

"I used to rake in paychecks that started with a $5xxx, net, with overtime but the negative effects on my health made it pointless. If you're working crazy overtime for too long, you're going to wind up in the hospital, especially if it's a high-stress job in a hostile work environment."

"I gave up the overtime, the title, and the base pay for a far better job elsewhere. To be honest, I haven't really even noticed a difference financially since I have far fewer medical expenses nowadays."

sump_ersen

You have your health! That's huge. Kudos for escaping such a toxic work environment.

"I didn't really change companies..."

"I didn't really change companies but I had my middle management position eliminated (60+ hour weeks, stress) but was assigned to another position with about a $20k decrease. But it was 35 hour weeks, low stress, less meetings and when the day was over I was done: no after hour calls, no late nights."

"It was awesome and I ended up being glad I didn't leave for another company and another management position. I have since moved on but i wouldn't go back to a stress filled life."

[deleted]

That's great you were able to stay in the same company but find something right for you. I feel like a lot of people have to completely change their field to something different in order to find what works for them.

"Have since moved up..."

"I used to be a healthcare administrator for private practices. High stress, but pretty good pay. Got into IT at the very bottom. Low stress, low pay."

"Have since moved up and my pay has returned to previous levels. Some stressful days, however my worst day now is like an average day in my previous job. Most days are just fine and the good days are very good."

"I'm not high profile anymore and I don't have to wear a tie anymore. It has been worth the pain of losing 70% of my salary for several years. I sleep better and don't dread going to work everyday."

lordrel

Sleeping better is the goal! Well done.

No job is worth sacrificing your health. Remember that the next time you feel like you're going to lose it and your management team isn't being supportive. You absolutely deserve better.

Have some stories of your own? Tell us more in the comments below!

If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).

To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/

The Corporate Decisions That Were Met With Huge Public Backlash

Reddit user Astro_Shogun asked: 'What decision by a company received the most amount of backlash from the public?

Corporations don't get big overnight.

A lot of tough decisions, big wins, and sometimes even bigger losses, go into their growth.

But sometimes companies make mistakes that the public simply cannot let slide, and it can be hard to imagine how the company could stay afloat after the backlash.

Redditor Astro_Shogun asked:

"What decision by a company received the most amount of backlash from the public?"

Dang It, Photobucket

"When Photobucket decided to take the whole internet hostage by asking for 400 dollars a year for what was previously a free image storage solution. The move broke years of forum posting and erased a significant portion of the web collective knowledge."

- denpo

"Yup. And now they're holding almost all of my son's childhood photos (some of which I managed to save in other places) hostage."

- KnockMeYourLobes

"Browse any forum thread from the early 2000s and practically all the images are gone because everyone used Photobucket back then. It will be the same way with Reddit whenever Imgur goes under."

- NothingOld7527

So Salesy

"JCPenny doing away with sales and trying to present itself as a more upscale store. Sales immediately plummeted, and they reversed course quickly."

- flyingcircusdog

Cheap Jewelry

"Gerald Ratner said the reason his jewelry company could sell stuff so cheap was because the products were crap. It destroyed the company overnight."

- simplemtbman

Front Wheel Drive

"Ford, in the '80s, tried to replace the aging Fox body Mustang with a front-wheel drive, Mazda-based car. This was pre-internet, but car people got UPSET and deluged Ford with a letter expressing their anger."

"Ford backtracked, kept the Fox body around, and released the vehicle that was going to be the new Mustang as the Probe. It lasted two generations, but the Mustang soldiers on."

- StillN0tATony

Online Only

"Microsoft got roasted when they announced Kinect and always-online were required for the Xbox One. Took all the momentum they had from the 360 era and put them miles behind Sony."

- Jerry_Williams89

Childhood: Destroyed

"Sonic having human teeth."

- LightDash

"I just immediately pictured teeth in a Sonic milkshake and had a horrified reaction before my brain caught up to you meaning the character."

- Rolizas

Questionable Upgrades

"Very recently, T-Mobile. A company that 10 years ago called itself the Uncarrier by making a series of pro-consumer changes to its plans and the previous CEO built almost a sort of cult of fans of the company. Then T-Mobile acquired Sprint and got a new CEO."

"A couple of weeks ago, T-Mobile internal documentation revealed it was going to automatically upgrade customers on old grandfathered plans up to new plans, which were more expensive. Customers would have to call in to opt out of the change. 'They weren’t raising customers’ rates, they were moving them to better plans.'"

"Well, major tech news got ahold of that, and then even some local news stations, and T-Mobile quietly 'clarified' a week later via internal communications that only one percent of their customers would be affected."

- artimaticus8

Coming Together in Hate

"Anyone remember the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad when she solved police brutality?"

- vernon3

"Those moments are precious. There are a few things these days that bring everyone on the Internet together. That was one of those things. We all hated the Pepsi ad that solved police brutality."

"That ad had it all. Pandering, ignorance, arrogance, and talking down to their audience."

- notwoutmyprob

"And a Kardashian."

- Kitchen_action

With Every Purchase

"I couple of years back a local Detroit area car dealership decided the best way to celebrate MLK day was to give away free car alarms with every purchase."

"Nobody liked that."

- graveybrains

A Sale Gone Too Well

"Hoover UK offering two free flights to America if you spend £100 on their products. They anticipated that people would spend a lot more than the minimum required which would cover the approximately £600 value of the tickets."

"When the company was deluged with purchases around the £100 mark, they reneged on the offer, which prompted a very expensive lawsuit. The fallout was so bad that the UK division of the firm was sold to a rival company."

- Live-Dance-2641

New Drink, Who Dis?

"New Coke."

- PeggyWithPhatA**

"After the relations disaster, the public clamored for the decision to be reversed, and Coca-Cola released 'Coke Classic.'"

"Coke Classic soon had an even higher market share than Coke did before the public relations fiasco, and a new theory made the rounds: that Coca-Cola deliberately made these decisions, simply to gain publicity, and increase market share."

"The reaction from Coca-Cola’s executives was, 'We aren’t that smart, and we aren’t that stupid.'"

- Malthus1

A Tweet Turned Sexist

"Burger King stating that 'Women Belong in the Kitchen.' What they were TRYING to say was that they wanted more diversity. People didn't see it that way, and in the end, they had to issue an apology."

- zerbey

The Downfall of an Incredible Publication

"Here’s one there should be a public outcry about."

"Disney bought National Geographic and controls everything it does. This is the last year the iconic magazine will be available. I’m incensed."

- redheadMInerd2

(The writer of this article is equally incensed.)

Predicting the Future

"I feel like whatever YouTube is cooking up lately will be the next one."

- Just_Aioli_1233

"Tech companies sure know how to kill off highly popular and profitable apps, super quick. It’s interesting to watch it happen in real-time. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, all losing tons of followers and destroying their own stock."

- Eleanor_of_Accutane

It's easy to see how all of these mistakes resulted in huge backlash, sometimes at the total expense and downfall of the business.

But some of these mistakes were made by companies that are still huge today, and to a certain extent, that's kind of surprising.

Demonstrator holds sign that reads, "Drop this act of corporate gree!"
Patrick Perkins/Unsplash

Companies are typically in business for profit, and very few have the goal of keeping the customer's interests in mind.

But some corporations go even further to get more out of their customer in exchange for their "quality services" and as a result, the line between general business and scam becomes blurred.

Redditor jwwin asked:

"What is a predatory business that shouldn't be legal, but is?"

Students paying an exorbitant amount in tuition in order to seek higher learning should be warned there are additional expenses to cover for.

A Textbook Example

"College textbooks, they will release an 'updated' edition every semester but the information doesn't change. And then after you spent a fortune on the books the places that buy textbooks will give you like 5% of what you paid for the book."

– teethalarm

A "Double Whammy"

"Former Prof here. I talked with a book rep about this once and learned a lot. It is a bit complicated but worth understanding. Book publishers rely on large quantity sales to make any money on a book because the cost of production is so high up front (author, editors, printing, etc.). So, for a book to be profitable, it has to sell a lot of copies to spread the cost of production across all the books. A paperback in the fiction section might sell 100,000 or more. A textbook might sell as few as 1,000. So, the publisher needs everyone to buy the book to break even."

"Now add colleges into the mix. Somewhere in the 1980s (give or take), colleges saw publishers selling books and making larger profits on them than the college bookstore was making per book. So they got the bright idea to start buying used texts and reselling them. Before that, a text would come out and 97% (making the number up but it was close to that) of the students would buy the book in year one, 85% in year two, 75% in year three, 60% in year four and 50% in year five. A $50 dollar book would cost $25 to make (again, making the numbers up), sell to the bookstore for $40 ($15 publisher profit), and be sold to the student for $50 ($10 bookstore profit). Across the five years, the producer would make a profit."

"Then, college bookstores began offering students $25 for a used book and selling it for $40 ($15 profit - $5 higher than that of a new book). Students would then prefer the $40 used book over the $50 new book. But that cut the publisher's sales from 97% to 50% in the first year. Because they could not sell as many books they had to do two things: (1) raise the initial price of the text to cover the production cost in 1-2 years rather than 4-5 years, and (2) cut the cycle down from 4-5 years to 1-2 years to ensure that they got sales of the book. That is a double whammy. Texts that used to cost $50 now cost $300 or more. And they have a new version out every 18 months or so. Students refuse to pay that price and that cuts the sales numbers even further forcing the price up again. And, with new editions out so frequently, it is harder to sell them back to the bookstore."

"That's why you see so many 'course packs' now - where a professor will pick a few pages from a book to give to the students. I went from having nearly every student purchasing a text in my early career to having zero students with a text late in my career. Your professor probably dislikes the state of affairs as much as you do. I cut down what books I would select because I could not justify students paying that much for what they were getting. I would also recommend students look for older editions on Amazon and the like which got me in trouble with my administration because I was not supporting the bookstore. But, it was difficult to teach from a text that no one had or had access to. The University's desire to generate revenue from texts truly was killing the chicken because it was not producing enough eggs."

"So look for an older edition on Chegg, Amazon, or the like and match it up with what your professor is teaching from the new edition. You are right, it probably has not changed. Be careful for the problems at the end of the chapter - that is often where the changes are."

– BewnieBound

These businesses parade as services but they are notorious for taking more than what you're willing to pay for.

For A Future Owner

"Rent to Own (furniture, appliances, TVs, video game systems, etc.) The mark up on the interest over time ends up costing 4 times the purchase - or more."

– PartyAlarmed3796

"Well the trick is to not pay (seems to be what a lot of people do)."

– Expensive_Ad2695

"Which is why those places are so expensive and why they're actually kinda necessary for some people."

"They're taking a pretty big risk on people with no credit, and if a person with shi*ty credit needs a refrigerator or other necessary appliance, there's usually nobody else willing to work with them. Also, most of them report to credit agencies so you can build your credit through them."

"I'm not a fan by any means and I hate that people are buying video game systems and couches through them, but I still think they're filling a need."

– Pitiful-Pension-6535

Money Sucker

"Payday loan companies – they're like financial vampires, sucking the life out of people with high-interest rates."

– neonliolia

"And yet most of them are owned by major banks... hmmmm."

"Bank of America, Wells Fargo, US Bank, JP Morgan/Chase collectively all own the largest payday lender companies."

– Bramtyre

"In Canada, there is an effort to turn Canada Post into a kind of bank that offers basic banking services to the most vulnerable. Not sure what happened to that, but it was an alternative to check cashing and payday loan rackets."

– hobbitlover

Greedy Event Vendor

"Ticket Master."

– LTVOLT

"Agreed. We went to a preseason hockey game the other week. Tickets were $5 each but there was around $8 of Ticketmaster fees for each one and you had to use their app to get in the door because the barcodes change like every 30 seconds or something. It's ridiculous."

– darfus1895

Where can citizens turn to receive genuine care without drying up their financial resources?

Big Pharma

"Health Insurance and over priced perscription drugs."

"Wife is type 1 diabetic. Her pump is over $1000 a month WITH 50% coverage. $177 for just the sensor pack. We have the best coverage we can afford."

– Dukeboys_

"US pays the middle man for health care coverage. The middle man and the health care provider come up with "health packages" you can buy into, just in case you get sick. It's just sick how they funnel money from the middle class into this."

– dcoolidge

"Healthcare insurance industry. They can straight up reject claims you should be covered for and make you jump through near endless hoops to get them to pay for the service that is part of your plan."

– ColdHardPocketChange

All Out To Get Ya

"Homeopathic 'medicine' sellers."

"Psychics"

"Domain search engine registration scams (fake emails or physical mail that shows up saying 'your domain search registration is about to expire' and look exactly like warnings that your domain name is about to expire)"

"Fake homeowner warranty/car warranty scams loaded with so many limitations and exclusions they’ll basically never pay out."

"Multilevel marketing systems like Amway."

– 4wqrewtety

Losing Sight Of Kids' Well-Being

"From my experience working in group homes for youth are awful. The owners only want money and the more kids in care the more money."

– OddReputation3765

Going Nowhere Fast

"Car insurance."

"You get penalized for using it. Even just once in some cases."

– Effective_Sundae_839

"1000% agree. I was rear ended by a hit and run driver while i was stopped at a stop sign. Literally came to a stop for 3 seconds max and got destroyed. Car insurance wanted to give me 4k and shut me up. It’s called the nuisance fee. I eventually lawyered up and got 25k out of it. But like wtf. B*tch that’s what we PAY FOR, following renewal of my policy it increased hundreds of dollars a month and that was even after i switched to a different company. 'A claim is a claim regardless who is at fault.'”

– HitBackZach

Businesses taking advantage of their customers should be a crime, yet here we are.

What companies can you think of that legally continue to look after their own profitable interests above providing a decent service?

Two women looking on over a sunset
Photo by Briana Tozour on Unsplash

Everyone has disagreed with their friends, even their best friend, at least once in their life.

Sometimes these disagreements might even lead to arguments or fights.

Of course, the sign of a true friendship is the ability to forgive and forget, and if all is not necessarily forgotten, it eventually becomes water under the bridge.

Sadly, this isn't the case for everyone, as sometimes words are said, or incidents occur that are difficult, if not impossible, to forgive and recover from.

Bringing even the closest friendships to an effective end.

Redditor Duemont62 was curious to hear what led people to cut one or more of their closest friends out of their lives, leading them to ask:

"What's something a friend did that made you end your friendship with them?"

Meow!

"She was a cat hoarder and when I talked her into giving up 20 she said that would help making space for the fall litters (outdoor feral)."

"I gave up."

"She had 120 cats inside her house."- MeowMix24

Not Even The Tiniest Gesture...

"I was run over by a drunk driver years back."

"Died temporarily and had to be revived at the hospital."

"Both my brothers told my best friend of over 20 years what happened."

"Not once did he reach out to see how I was or ask if I was ok or wished me well."

"I was hurt by it, but tried to make some sort of sense of it, like maybe he just didn’t know what to say or he was shocked by the news or he wanted to give me space to recover."

"Months later I’m home but still in crutches and can barely move without a great deal of pain."

"Reached out to my friend on the phone, talked a bit and asked if he felt like coming over to watch a movie, play some games and just hang out."

"I was lonely and missed him."

"He seemed enthused but asked if I could WALK to his house in December on icy roads barely able to hobble around on crutches to hang out there instead."

"He lived 0.2 miles from me and couldn’t drive or walk the roughly 5 minutes to my house."

"I stopped talking to him shortly after."- MitchConnor555

Victim Of The Bottle

"I had one where the guy was a horrendous drunk."

"Super sensitive to alcohol and would very easily slip into blackout status."

"When he would get drunk, he just wanted to f*ck with people and be a sh*t disturber."

"One night he was pretty drunk and we didn't feel like f*cking with with so we went out without him."

"We come home around 11 that night and he had a bunch of sketchy people in our house that we're also obnoxiously drunk."

"He was almost passed out on the couch after he had burned a huge hole in our carpet after going into my room and getting my hookah setup."

"I go upstairs and there are just random people I had never met just chilling out in the random bedrooms."

"Some people smoking weed on my bed."

"One random drunk guy was screaming at someone on the phone and gave the person on the phone our address and told them to bring everyone over."

"We kicked everyone out which of course was a huge scene and conflict."

"We booted the guy out the next day."

"Haven't talked to him since"- PutinBoomedMe

When People Refuse To Change...

"Maybe not anything dramatic but my best friend from university came back to visit his parents who live in the same city as me and we wanted to have dinner."

"I knew he was super flakey in university, so I made sure I kept my week open because I knew he wouldn't know when he was available until the last minute."

"I was so excited to introduce him to my fiancé and show him our new house."

"We got everything for a really nice dinner."

"The day before we had planned to have dinner, he texted me that he didn't feel like driving over from his parent's house (30 min) the next day because 'he might be tired'."

"I was mad that he was flaking on such important plans, but I offered to bring all the stuff for dinner and drive out to him instead."

"He said, 'No thanks'."

"I realized that he really didn't care about anything that was going on in my life and was still as immature as he had been in university."

"I decided it wasn't a friendship I wanted to maintain anymore."- kitskill

It Was All Fine Till SHE Came Along...

"He married a girl who is incredibly hard to get along with and turned into a robot."- Gua_Bao

Warped Priorities...

"Friends for over a decade."

"I was her maid of honor."

"She had 3 children with her husband, whom I was also very good friends with."

"I was very close with the kids, they called me auntie."

"I worked for her out of a home office."

"Watched the marriage deteriorate."

"She started a relationship with one of her clients after the marriage ended."

"She then started to treat her children like a burden."

"The new relationship was (and still is, to the best of my knowledge) more important than her children."

"When someone starts to severely neglect their children for a new exciting f*ck boy, I have to walk away."- redrainbow76

Friends Don't Take Advantage Of Other Friends...

"They were using me for free rent and as a scapegoat."- Chicago_Synth_Nerd_

The Green Eyed Monster...

"After talking to a guy I liked, we found out my 'best friend' was telling both of us that the other person didn't like us/found us annoying."

"He would ask her to invite me to parties, and she'd tell him I couldn't come, or that I said no and that he annoyed me."

"She'd tell me that he didn't invite me because he thought I was annoying."

"All because she liked him but wouldn't admit it to anyone."

"When we finally realized, we got together and stopped being friends with her."

"We've been together for 11 years now!"- horton_hears_a_homie

Not There When You Needed Them...

"The last straw: showing me no support when my dad passed away."- didyoubutterthepan

What Goes Around Comes Around...

"My best friend of 10 years and her husband had a falling out with my brother because my brother chose to stay out of a situation they were having with someone else, another mutual friend of ours."

"He didn’t wanna get involved."

"I agreed he shouldn’t get involved."

"They got so nasty and bitter about it all over time, and ended up lying to my brothers new wife and told her he cheated on her with one of our other friends."

"I knew this not to be true at all."

"They continued to make up stories and lie to her about him and it eventually destroyed their marriage because it created mistrust and conflict."

"His wife already had a lot of mental health struggles and it made it worse for her."

"They eventually divorced."

"I cut them out of my life."

"Since then, they have apologized and admitted to making up all the stories out of hurt and bitterness that my brother wouldn’t take their side in the conflict they were having with someone else, but it is all just too late."

"My brothers marriage was destroyed and so was our friendship."

"No coming back from that."

"By the way, my brother didn’t get involved because they were the ones in the wrong and if he told them that, imagine how much worse their revenge would be!"

"They’re unhinged."

"And their own marriage has since fallen apart."

"Karma."- NachosandMargaritas

Some might say that any true friendship is salveagable.

Leading one to wonder if any friend you found yourself cutting out of your life completely was ever a real friend at all.


An hourglass with blue sand sits among a field of rocks
Photo by Aron Visuals

Just the other evening, I was walking home, and I barely survived.

I tripped on a dead tree branch.

The next thing I knew, I was flying in the air and landing on my back.

My belongings were strewn about.

And my to-go burger was dead.

A simple walk.

A simple dead branch.

And almost lights out.

Redditor Typical_XJW wanted to hear about the times people eluded death, so they asked:

"How did you almost die?"

Don't even get me started on any and every car ride.

We're always moments from the end on highways.

Back in the Day...

Hunger Games Student GIFGiphy

"Almost drowned when I was 5 or 6, been hospitalized twice for sepsis between 2016 and 2019, and had a stroke this year. I'm 29."

ChristmasKid88

On the Disk

"MRSA infection in the disk on my lower spine between L5 and S1. Showed up two days after a cortisone shot but the hospital said it was from something else. Was in hospital 25 days multiple emergency surgeries."

EatA**FromBack

"I worked for a doctor who did these in-house and other procedures, and it 100% made me not trust medical facilities, cleanliness, and sterilization procedures. Had about twenty patients all come down with the same gut infection, 'coincidentally,' the same patients who came in for endoscopy procedures the same day."

dimlylit_

Saved

"Saving a younger friend from drowning, he panicked and almost took me out."

loztriforce

"Had that happen with a younger cousin when we were kids. His brother and I went to save him, he climbed on both of us and pushed us under. Lifeguard didn’t even see us until he pulled younger cousin out of the water, then we popped up gasping for air."

coffeejunki

Shucked

"16-year-old farm kid me, stepdad told me to go pick up a load of corn seed for planting. I had gone with him many times before, and driven the truck (full ton dually diesel) and hauled light stuff with it. Nobody told me how different it is to haul 10,000 lbs of seed on a big flatbed trailer on gravel. I had a lot of common sense and was driving slowly and carefully."

"Still… 10,000+ lbs pushed me down a gravel hill skidding, praying to god I stopped before the stop sign at the T intersection to a busy highway. I came to a grinding halt JUST as the front of the truck crossed the plane where the gravel turned to asphalt. A semi was coming from one direction and regular cars from the other. I shudder thinking about what if on that one. Don’t let untrained kids tow potentially deadly, heavy trailers, with zero training."

datnetcoder

Finding Tracks

College Sports Sport GIF by Sealed With A GIFGiphy

"Was backwoods camping in Yellowstone and if I hadn’t considered for 30 seconds if I REALLY needed to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, I would have walked out of my tent headfirst into a brown bear, which I heard before leaving and found tracks of next to my tent in the morning. Spookiest moment of my life in hindsight."

danvo5

Bears are a no go for me.

Camping is an even bigger HECK NO!!

Several Strikes

Reassuring Jimmy Fallon GIF by The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonGiphy

"Twice. 1. Woke up to my apartment on fire."

"2. Hit head-on by a drunk driver on a small bus, just after everyone got off bus exploded."

lizard_king0000

Oh Barb

"Lmao okay, so I was getting my teeth cleaned, and I got nitrous oxide because I have so many exposed roots. Well, my hygienist at the time was this lovely lady from Minnesota. Kinda flaky, but super sweet, and talked about her family all the time. So I'm in the chair and she hooks up my mask, and away we go. I actually fell asleep! Except not so much."

"Turns out Barb had forgotten to turn the oxygen on and had been feeding me straight nitrous. She only noticed because I started gasping for air while unconscious. So that's how I almost died at the dentist. I never saw Barb again, but I tell you, that was the best nap of my life!"

CharismaticAlbino

Climb Up

"I was snorkeling. I had my other stuff stored on a rock by the water, about 3 meters high. When I got out, I decided to climb straight up. Almost at the top, the rock I was hoisting myself up on came off and I fell back first onto the coral. If a friendly wave hadn’t come in, I would have broken my back, at least."

Yugan-Dali

Blood Loss

"I was diagnosed with a rare fatal blood disorder from birth, doctors projected I’d live till about 6 and then die from massive blood loss. As this was the mid-90s, they tested the idea of using stem cells from my sibling's umbilical cord; administering the first successful stem cell transplant from a sibling donor and I’m still here to tell the tale!"

Material_Cry1697

These were some tremendously close calls.

Do you have any near-death experiences to share? Let us know in the comment below.