Unfortunately, we as people are capable of doing some pretty awful things. Worst of all, we are capable of doing said awful things to each other--to other humans, whose suffering we understand above all else.
The drive behind these things is unclear, variable, and sometimes totally absent. But hurt people hurt people. It's as simple as that, and sometimes, we are the unfortunate receptor of that hurt.
Redditor Tomato_Shelf asked:
"Whats the worst thing someone has ever done to you?"
Here were some of those answers.
Christmastime
"My parents divorced when I was 7 (my father had an affair), my father remarried and got a new family, my mother remained single and bitter (she still loved him)."
"They always used to argue about whose turn it was to have me, they were trying to spite each other but the only thing that actually happened was that I realised neither of them must of loved me."
"One Christmas Eve when I was 14 they were having the same argument, my dad and his new family were staying in a hotel and told my mum they hadn’t booked a room for me, I walked to my mums and she said it was my dads turn to have me and locked me out."
"I slept in a car park fire hose (it didn’t actually have a fire hose in it). I was so scared and cold (skinny kid) I knew I couldn’t ask my friends to stay because it was Christmas Eve and already close to midnight by this point, I started to cry when the snow started falling at about 3am."
"I wish I had known back then that I could have just called the police but my juvenile brain didn’t know that, I went to live in a children’s home shortly after that and honestly I loved it, I still think of my key worker like my dad, he was great."-ILoveMyCatsSoMuch
Dad Needs Therapy
"Was early high school. Joking around with my father, horrid temper, switch flipped with him."
"He chased me down the hallway, thought we even playing till he pinned me down, hand around my throat strangling me till I passed out."
"Burst blood vessels in my eyes. Had to wear sunglasses for a good week to hide em while at work or elsewhere."-MisterJ33
Bamboozled By Family
"My 60 year old mother in law wanted to sign her house over to us because she has no retirement and no money saved. My wife was pregnant with our second child and she told us she wanted to be a stay at home grandma."
"I would be coming in and paying for everything. So we sold our house, paid off our debt, and cut a check for 54,000.00 dollars to her ex husband, which paid off the house in full."
"Then I made 10,000.00 dollars worth of home repairs. All bills were transferred in my name. When it came to sign the deal, suddenly she didn't want to do it. Told us she wanted things to go back to the way they were."
"My father in law told her well then we need to take out a home equity loan to give then their money back. She refused. The next week she served us an eviction notice and moved her boyfriend she claimed was abusive to her back in 2 days later."
"She threw her own daughter, my 3 year old, and my 3 month old baby on the streets. We tried to reason with her and then she had her lawyer threaten us with a restraining order."
"So now I'm suing her for my money back. Luckily my father in law is on our side and we were able to stay with him for the time being."-BananaSmoothie95
These stories really make you want to trust nobody.
She's The Ex For A Reason
"My ex wife made me believe I was making up all the proof that she was having an affair.. for a couple years."
"I went through therapy and anger management, accepted that I was just a f**ked up person and should have never disrespected my loving wife by accusing her of such things. She pushed all the help on me, praised me, etc."
"Two weeks after we divorced, she cheated on the guy she was dating(another affair dude) with me and admitted to everything. I kicked her out my house immediately."-elagentink
Black Widower
"My stepdad stole two houses, two cars, a scooter and a boat from us when my mother died. He then proceeded to commit perjury and tell the judge that he was broke because he paid me and my sister 60,000 each."
"This got him out of a loan that he had from my aunt, who loaned my mother hundreds of thousands of euro's so she could buy a house."
"Basically he did so much acrobatics that i didn't even get my own bed or clothes back, and he ended up with everything that could remotely be stamped as my mother's property."
"Overall, the worth of everything he stole (not just from my side of the family, but his EX WIFE that he got back to later) is upwards of half a million."
"His wife then ALSO DIES and he takes whatever's left. My lawyer told me i couldn't do anything since now two wives of his died in a three year span and there was no way a judge would look at him and say he owes anyone anything."
"Honestly i think he married my mom and then killed her. The same with his then-ex-but-current-after wife who also died rather quickly."-Toasted_pinapple
The Worst Kind Of Feeling
"Freshman year of college i met a girl and we became best friends. We did everything together. Then one day in class she told me she didn't want to talk she wanted to read. Thats was fine of course. She did that two more days."
"The fourth day she moved her seat from next to me to across the room. I tried to get her attention to talk but she avoided me. Next week we both happened to be washing our hands in the bathroom together."
"I said hi. She acted like i never existed. Soon she left the college. I went to grad school 3 years later (somewhere 2 hrs away) and lo and behold she was in my class."
"We were assigned the same group for a project. She looked uncomfortable and the next time class met, i found that she had dropped it. I never saw her again."
"It hurt me deeply because I had no clue why she did this. We didn't fight. Im not manipulative or catty or anything. This wasn't the worst thing to happen but it definitely ranked up there."-ghostiesontoasties
It reminds you to be thankful of the people you DO still keep around, and reminds you there's probably a reason you have.
The Family Is Often More Worth It
"Dated a woman for a time and eventually got involved with her teen kids and acted in a step parent role for years. Invested tons of my time, energy, and resources into them as a family."
"Then my GF went into a spell of depression and didn't want to do anything or talk about anything. Life went on around her, then when she saw me spending time with the kids instead of sitting on the couch doing and saying nothing like her, she became pathologically jealous and started accusing me of 'having too much interest in young girls.'"
"I spend a LONG time trying to fix and salvage the situation as I felt we were all bonded together as a family. Paid out of pocket for counseling for us, and for her exclusively for a long time after the therapist determined the focus of the problem was not me."
"She NEVER accepted responsibility for her claim and the effects it had. Thought she could just casually dismiss it at will, like she'd claimed I left the toilet seat up one time; thought I was making a 'big deal' out of everything."
"She never spent a second addressing the childhood traumas that openly affected her whenever there was a pinch, even invoking them as an excuse for acting how she did, then pretending they were fixed or nonexistent the 99% of the time she did NOT need to use them to manipulate the situation at hand."
"Finally had to walk away from the situation. Started dating someone else (who was a college debate coach with a PhD in English, night and day communication and interaction styles!) and she acted like 'I abandoned her,' even cheated when I made good on my promise to leave without effort on her part."
"Now a long time later I still hear from one of the boys who is now in his 30s and just had a baby. At least 2 of my exes grown children don't even talk to her at this point. I never tried to assemble a family again, but have had a VERY fulfilling love life since."-MentORPHEUS
Elementary Betrayal
"The girl I had a crush on when I was 8 only pretended to be my friend because she wanted to get embarrassing secrets out of me."
"She then spread them around and became one of the popular girls and I was horrendously bullied for years to come. Worst thing is we had after-school English in middle school together again and she was like 'hey why do you not talk to me' etc.."
"The b*tch made a solid quarter of my life hell and just forgot about it. I'm scarred for life and she will never remember it let alone feel bad about it."-New_General_6287
Shedding Old To Make Space For New
"The beginning of my junior year of high school I had a friend group that I shared a lot of good times with in years past. There were four guys (including me) and three girls, and we did nearly everything together. Toward the end of the year, they began to cut me off and hang out without me, lying about it, and overall just flat out excluding me."
"The whole while I was being told that nothing was wrong and I hadn’t done anything for this kind of treatment to occur, it was just scheduling conflicts or whatever. Nevertheless, I would continue to make attempts to organize things together, but was always ignored or given a lie."
"The final straw came after the end of that school year. I had always wanted to organize a float trip for the seven of us but there was never much interest from anyone else. Sure enough, a few weeks into summer before my senior year there were posts from the six of them on a float trip."
"I was so hurt to this point already that I finally cut myself off from continuing to ask and wonder why I was being disposed of. The way they treated me ate away at my mental health through the summer and into my senior year. I’d see some of them in class and they still would attempt to be chummy, but I reciprocated only enough to be cordial."
"I carried the weight of having my closest friends all up and abandon me with no reason for many years, and I attribute their mistreatment of me to many of the mental health and self-worth issues I still struggle with to this day."
"I still do see the occasional photo of all them together, and they were back in my hometown for the holidays at the same time as me, but thankfully I no longer yearn to be included nor do I expect an apology."
"They were/are incapable of seeing any wrongdoing on their part. It took me a bit to realize how narcissistic a good portion of them were, and the others were too timid to speak out against anything. I have a fantastic group of friends around me now that treat me thousands of times better than they ever did."-logan95
The only common thread through all of these misfortunes is that each of these people is here, afterward, to tell the tale.
That doesn't always happen--and when it does, it's very valuable to be able to see the thing that may have deeply affected you happened to someone else, too.
Hardly any human is ever, if at all, alone. And ultimately that makes up the defining piece of our human experience.
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