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People Admit Their Worst Mistakes That They Fixed In The Nick Of Time

People Admit Their Worst Mistakes That They Fixed In The Nick Of Time

People Admit Their Worst Mistakes That They Fixed In The Nick Of Time

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Everyone makes mistakes, but when we say that phrase we're usually talking about something small like accidentally dropping something, or bumping into a stranger. Not every mistake is so benign, though. Every now and then we make one of those mistakes in life that leaves us making that face and wishing we could find the UNDO button. Sometimes, the universe throws us a freebie and we manage to narrowly avoid catastrophe. One Reddit user asked:

What's the biggest fuck up you ever made that was fixed before anyone knew about it?

Obviously we were clicking that immediately. A parade of terrible failure turned into glorious victory? Pssssh click it like you mean it, yo. We grabbed a few of our favorites to share with you, so kick back and enjoy these emotional roller coasters.

Way Too Many Zeroes

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Instead of charging a customer's credit card for $150. I charged $15000 and it went through. I ran up to a private office and immediately called the issuing bank. Told them what happened and they made it as if nothing happened.

"Mango!"

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Was taking care of my neighbors bird, and he flew out the house as i opened the door and went over and behind it. I shat bricks cause she really loves the bird and had it for a while, heard him chirping on the trees behind the house and kept calling him "Mango! Mango! Mango!" He came to the windowsill and i lured him in with food. Best believe i didn't let him out of his cage after that

IT Terror

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Started an apprenticeship in IT and was woefully underqualified. I was given the responsibility of maintaining the intranet site for our whole department, obviously given a role that's internal so I couldn't f*ck up customer facing things. They underestimated my power. On one cheery Friday evening when half my department had gone home early I was experimenting on the site, creating and deleting test pages in a hidden area. I got two different delete buttons (on the same page) mixed up and accidentally deleted the whole site... there is no undo. I didn't have access to the change log. What I DID have was another tab open with the same site on it in edit mode that I forgot I had. I hit 'save changes' on that page and voila, everything is back! After changing my pants I went home and spent the whole weekend terrified that my boss would find out. They never did.

Fast forward two years, I've been training hard and now I design systems for our staff. Never f---- up that bad again. Yet.

The Golf

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When I was in high school, my parents had a VW Golf and a station wagon. I had keys to both cars, although I normally drove the Golf because it was a GTI and a hoot to drive. Our local mall had the movie theater, arcade, and food court all near one particular entrance, which was normally my preferred place to park.

One Saturday I didn't have much going on so I got up, drove the station wagon to the mall, played some games, tooled around for a bit, hung out with friends, then got in my car and went home. When I got home both my parents were gone, which was weird, but I thought, "It's cool. I can watch what I want to on tv". So I grabbed a bag of chips and started watching some movie on HBO.

About an hour or so into the movie I realized.... "hey wait a minute, I didn't drive the Golf to the mall. But I drove the Golf home..... oh crap!" I realized my parents had driven to the mall in the Golf and used the exact same parking area I used. When I got out of the mall I must have seen the Golf, just got in it, and absent minded driven home. My parents were still at the mall, had been for over an hour (which was a record for my dad), and I was certain my father was in the midst of calling the cops to report a stolen car.

I jumped into the Golf, drove as quickly as I could back to the mall (had my mother seen the way I drove, she would have killed me). By some miracle the EXACT spot my parents had parked in was available, so I parked the car. I then walked the couple rows over and got into the station wagon and drove home.

My parents came home like 30 mins later. I asked them how the mall was and my father started bitching about how my mother made him shop for a new bedroom set or whatever. But other than that, it was fine.

I didn't tell them that story until I was into my late 20's.

Forgot The Baby

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New baby arrived and pretty sleep deprived, my wife heads out for some shopping. She was not a happy camper

I'm getting ready for work, all organised, open the door and F----- F--- I remember the baby is home with me, just before I'm about to close the door.

Slink back in and sit on the couch til she gets home.

Baby would have been fine sleeping in the cot for 20 min but I think the marriage would have been over.

Cracked Windshield

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Okay not mine but a mate. Basically when he was a kid him and his brother were fooling around and throwing things at each other in the yard. A wayward throw sent the projectile right onto the windscreen of his dad's car, cracking it.

They decided not to face the music and just went inside without saying anything. The next morning the dad before leaving for wok comes in and says "You wouldn't believe it. I was hosing the ice off the windscreen and it bloody cracked it"

Ruining Christmas

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I used to work at a call center for a popular gift company. This one couple calls up and says "we need to cancel our order!" I look it up, and tell them UPS already has the order to deliver it. They tell me "You dont understand. We are sending this to our son and his wife. We accidentally put his ex wife's name on the card. It will ruin Christmas if they receive this gift!!!" I was finally able to call UPS and get them to not deliver the package. Not my screw up, but dang.

Someone REALLY Broke The Internet

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I once was configuring the network firewall of the university I worked on and accidentally and without realizing toggled a switch that effectively cut all internet access of the university. I realized it only when someone in the room asked another person about the Internet being weird, then it hit me. My heart started racing as I went back and correct the configuration setting.

I cut the University from the world for about 5 minutes, It probably affected about 150k people, at the very least. "Internet glitch" was the official diagnose.

Nutella To The Rescue

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Not myself but my Dad. Had the story confirmed to me by him and a number of his friends who were there too so definitely was true.

He was on rugby tour with his team and in classic rugby tour fashion, were being idiots in their hotel, drinking too much, being rowdy, that sort of stuff.

At one point it ended up my dad chasing one of his teammates down the hallway. The teammate he was chasing was in the room right on the end of the hallway, they got up to full sprint, the teammate got into his room before my dad could catch him and slammed the door behind himself.

My dad was 6ft 5in (195cm) and weighed around 17 stone (238lb) in his playing days, so he was a big guy. He didn't have time to stop when his friend shut the door and ended up going straight through it. He took it straight off the hinges and cracked the wood in a number of places.

They were due to leave the next day from the hotel and due to a number of other breakages and the team generally just being awful, the manager had said that if anything more was broken, they were to be thrown out and there was going to be full room inspections before they left either way.

My dad was a bit of a handy man so carried a small set of screwdrivers with him wherever he went and luckily he had them on this day. His team mates and him managed to screw the door/hinges back onto the frame. The issue after this were the cracks in the door.

The door was a dark brown colour with the internal wood just being some light brown cheap chip board like material. Due to this the cracks were very noticeable.

One of his teammates came up with a plan. In each of their rooms they had the standard complimentary tea/coffee/biscuits as well as a small tub of Nutella (no idea if Nutella is a thing outside of Europe but for anyone who doesn't know, it is a nutty chocolate spread, dark brown coloured, rumour also has it that it is actually nectar from the Gods) to go with the biscuits. Nutella, conveniently, was almost a perfect colour match to the broken door.

A number of their rooms donated their Nutella to the cause and they smeared the cracks with it to make them blend in.

Along came the room inspection upon check out and the manager checked each room one by one with them watching. Apparently they had left the door open for him in hope that he would not use it at all. He didn't look at it at all on the way in and just shut it behind him on his way out, the door with makeshift chocolate flavoured cement held together and he didn't notice a thing. They had got away with it.

As far as any of the guys involved know, the owner never got in contact with the club regarding the door over the following few weeks so while he inevitability found out about it eventually, the running theory goes that due to him missing it in the inspection, they couldn't be blamed however many days/weeks later it was noticed.

Invading A Country

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I technically invaded Iran.

I was serving in the Navy during the War on Terror, on my second deployment, and was in Navigation. Our Captain was a little... eccentric? And he liked f---- with people. So one night he came on the bridge in his robe and fuzzy slippers and asked me to plot out 12 nautical miles from Iran. Which marks the shift from territorial to international waters.

My "mission" for the rest of the night was to ride that line. Either to let them see us on radar just outside of their waters, or just to give me something to do for shits and giggles. So for the next few hours I was advising course corrections and doing everything I could to keep us close to but not inside that line.

Except for the little slip up of forgetting to account for drift once. Whoops. So for about... 10 minutes or so the US Navy had technically invaded Iran's territorial waters. They apparently didn't notice, and I corrected it quickly.

In truth it's probably not nearly as big of a deal as it sounds, but at the time 21 year old me was fucking sweating bullets, thinking I'd just declared war on a foreign country or something.

Sh*t The Bed

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One day after a night of heavy drinking, I woke up to find I had shat myself whilst I was asleep. I was absolutely horrified as you can imagine. I quickly showered and stripped the bed, taking extreme care to remove any trace. I was just finished when my boyfriend came home. He didn't suspect a thing.

Carrot Cake

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When I was 15, I tried to bake a carrot cake, and I think I misread how much carrots to put and ended up with maybe 10x the amount of carrots you're supposed to make. Whatever I did, it became the mushiest "cake" ever.

Guests were already coming, and in a stroke of genius, I told my mom's friends, "Since two of you are bringing your babies along, I made it extra soft for them. I also reduced the sugar and increased the carrots to make it healthier!"

My parents' friends kept going on about what a thoughtful, sweet kid I am, baking a cake specially with babies in mind.

The weird thing was, the babies were hooked on the cake. One of the moms kept calling my mom for the next few months asking if I have time to bake that cake again. I did try to replicate it but I just couldn't so I kept pretending I was too busy.

I met her kid again when she was 11 and apparently, one of her earliest memories was eating that cake. Her mom told me I was the one who baked it for her so she was really excited to meet me, because in her memories, it's some mindblowingly awesome cake that no cake has ever compared to. I had to burst her bubble and tell her what really happened.

A Little Carpet Trimming

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Dropped a hookah coal on the living room carpet and burned a dime-sized hole in it. I didn't know anyone who could fix it, so I took scissors and trimmed some carpeting out of a little spot in a corner of the room and superglued it into the melted spot. It's still perfectly camouflaged and mom is still completely unaware a good 7 years later.

Don't Tell Your Mother

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My Dad blew up a lava lamp when I was about 12yrs old.

My Mom was working late ad he was cleaning some stuff out of the basement when he found an old lava lamp. Decided to try to get it working again. He set it up and had it on for a while but it wasn't doing anything. It had been laying on its side so all the wax was stuck on one side. He got impatient. We had a gas stove so he puts it on the burner on low. That got the wax down to the bottom, he puts it back on its base. It's still "not working" fast enough for him, so what does he do? He shakes it. The top blows off and the entire contents spray across the living room. All over my Mom's brand new La-Z-Boy love seat. It was her first piece of furniture that was white, and she absolutely loved it.

I had been taking a nap, and woke up to absolute chaos: sisters freaking out, Dad freaking out. We spent 2hrs using kerosene and rags to clean red wax and oil off the love seat, lamp shades, wall, and carpet. Somehow we got it all up, except for some red stains on the lamp shade, so we turned it toward the wall. My Mom walked in about 15mins after we got everything put back together. Didn't notice a thing, except maybe that we were all acting a bit strange.

We didn't tell her til years later, after we were all adults. I have never seen my Dad in such a state of panic, before or since.

Yes, we still tease him about it, 30yrs later.

Useless Boss

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I was working for a large news organisation. We all MSN messenger on our computers (this was early 2000s). Meant to message colleague re useless boss being an utter tool. Sent it to boss. He was with someone and talking to them rather than looking at his computer so I break the land-speed record and basically shove him out of the way to delete the message, mumbling some excuse...

Please Don't Boil Renee Zellweger

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I had my first job as a wardrobe stylist assistant. We were shooting Renee Zellweger for the cover of a magazine. I can't remember which one. The stylist asked me to fill up the steamer and turn it on. The steamer was one of those big ones where you can't see how much water is in it. I filled it to the top. Apparently there is a stick with a line to tell you how much but I didn't know it and had way overfilled it. After about 1/2 hour, boiling hot water starts spewing out of the steamer! Luckily, it spilled in the only area where there wasn't either Renee getting her make up done, or the very expensive clothes she was going to wear. I unplugged it and cleaned it up. Crisis averted.

Elmer's Glue

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My brother got my mom a small western statue that had a cowgirl riding a horse for Christmas the year before he passed away. While moving the statue one day I dropped it and the woman's head broke off. I found the only glue I had which was Elmer's school glue and glued it back on. Amazingly, it stayed. She never knew what happened and I never plan on telling her. It was probably the best thing he had gotten her for Christmas in a long time and it would break her heart since it was the last thing he got her.

Yard Golf Gone Wrong

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As kids my best friend and I were golfing in his front yard. He hit a chip shot right into his picture window shattering the outer pane. With some quick thinking we grabbed one of those copper BBs from my BB gun and placed it between the panes of glass and left for the rest of the day.

When we came back later his mom explained to us how someone BB-shot their window and that she called the cops and insurance. It got fixed and nobody ever suspected our golf ball.

Years later he told her it was us and she didn't talk to him all day.

The Salvaged Surprise

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About 6 months ago when I bought an engagement ring I was so excited that I sent a picture to my girlfriend by mistake, having meant to send it to my sister. My plan was to propose as a complete surprise so this would have fucked everything up. Well my girlfriend came home cursing her phone because the battery had drained too soon that day. I casually said "oh, so that's why you haven't answered my texts, let me plug that in for you". Plugged the phone in, turned it on and deleted the picture while she was taking a shower. The surprise was perfect!

H/T: Reddit

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.