
Most of us have kissed a few toads before winding up with the love of our lives.
That doesn't mean the process of ending relationships is easy or any less painful as we pursue the next significant other who won't break our hearts.
Curious to hear about painful relationship transitions, Redditor SCP-JakeYT asked:
"How did your previous relationship end?"

These birthdays were not so happy.
"He told me on my birthday that he and his ex want to try again and that they are moving in together. We were talking about getting married a week before. The funny part is he was promising her to find an apartment for them in the same time we talked about my engagement ring."
– masri_13
Birthday Bust
"I was given a day off work that happened to fall on my birthday. I told him about it, since we had planned to hang out that night. BUT I told him that while I suddenly have the day off, I'd like to still spend my morning to myself now that I had the time to relax and play some video games."
"He began screaming at me about what would 'others think' if I didn't spend my birthday with him. I said, 'it is still with you, I just got surprise time off and wanna chill a bit first.'" He then sent photos of the birthday gift he was going to give me going in the dumpster. That was the end of that."
– ventigrey
Taken Away
"She passed away from pancreatic cancer on my birthday in 2015. We built a wonderful life together and I will never stop loving her. I was truly blessed to have her as my wife."
– ItsMyView
These people were never matches to begin with.
Pattern Of Violence
"I took his abuse for a while. Like years."
"Had tried to leave him a bunch of times but never could. I was a young stay at home Mom who dropped out of highschool. I had no skills or qualifications besides childcare."
"Eventually the abuse turned from me to our daughter and that’s when I left. Didn’t care how we were going to survive but had to get her out."
– dollyprincessb
Matter Of Life Or Death
"He tried to kill me. Was a huge deal breaker."
– crazedplantlady
Bad Timing
"He proposed to me in the middle of me breaking up with him. True story."
"The reason I was breaking up with him was because I thought he was kind of controlling and didn't listen to me. So him proposing in the middle of our breakup was actually very on-brand."
– Particular_Fault1275
The Omen
"She told me that as she was leaving to drive to my place a homeless guy walked past, looked at her and shook his head and that it was a sign from God that we should break up. I wish I was kidding."
– Whosagoodboyyyyyy
The Drug Addict
"Ex was a drug addict and when we started dating was pushing drugs onto me. Pretty soon I was hooked. After 2 years I escaped and got clean. He found my new apartment and traveled 6 hours to beg me to take him back saying he was clean. I'm an idiot so I believed him."
"Within 2 months he had cleaned out my bank account, robbed my apartment, wrecked one of my cars and stole the other. I called his mother and gave her my deal: he could keep the car, I would release interest on it and not call the cops if I never heard from or saw him again. Shortly after, I met my husband and we've been together for 10 years. I haven't heard a peep from my ex and I don't regret making that deal."
– deeznutz066
It was time to move on without the other.
"It Is What It Is"
"I was a fool. I was unhappy with myself and I think I externalized that and assumed I was unhappy with the relationship. It's not that there weren't problems, weren't problematic differences, weren't things I wished could have been better, but little did I know looking back that in many ways it would be my best relationship. There was so much that she was and that she did that I couldn't see, took for granted. Even though things had hugely improved between us, I wasn't letting go of past hurt, and dragging it along to frustrate our then present."
"We parted somewhat mutually, both feeling like the relationship wasn't going anywhere. She spoke the phrase that captured it all, 'It is what it is.' And so she moved out, got her own place. I'd imagined we'd stay close, maybe try to reboot things having left our baggage behind. But she, quite reasonably, didn't want that, wanted more of a clean break."
"And so we stopped communicating, except on rare occasions. I found out she started dating someone new. I was happy for her. The jealousy would come later. She once asked me, months later, if I ever regretted breaking up. I said no, but the truth was a lot more complicated than that. Some part of me will always wonder about the life I too carelessly gave up."
"Ah well, the pain of undoable elections, unwindable histories. Life moves on, new choices get made, get lived with, and interwoven in those new lives are bits you are grateful for and don't want to unbear. Still, you don't forget. I hope she's well, I haven't spoken to her in a long age, she created a new family, moved to Peru."
– paconadamas
Lessons Learned
"We were no longer compatible. We met in our early to mid twenties and after 4-5 years we both realized we wanted different things. I learned a huge lesson from the relationship to trust your intuition when you are no longer happy."
"I needed to draw boundaries and prioritize my needs first and when it was clear she no longer can give what I wanted long term I realized I had to let her go. I still have the memories but it was a tough pill for me to swallow."
– SlightlyConfusedGuy
It Was Nice Knowing Ya
"We hit a glass ceiling. We work well as friends, we worked well casually dating, but didn't work as a couple. Our respective day-to-day lifestyles didn't mesh; for one to be happy the other had to be miserable, so we went our separate ways."
"No harm, no foul, it happens."
– foxden_racing
Dodging A Bullet
"She moved to a different state and joined a cult."
– Zinope121
Very Texan
"She dumped me, moved out, literally took my truck and my dog, most Texas thing ever so I moved to Nyc."
– Bbwpantylover
These guys were not someone you'd take home to meet mother.
It Ended With A...
"With a restraining order."
"I was in a pretty emotionally abusive relationship, and I was getting closer with a coworker who I realized I had feelings for. I decided I was tired of being constantly afraid of my ex, so when I went to work that morning, I decided I'd break things off with him after 3 years. He didn't take the news particularly well. He called and left several threatening voicemails from different numbers. I blocked all of them. When I wouldn't answer his calls or texts, he broke into my apartment. When I wasn't there (still at work), he showed up at my job and my manager had to call the cops to get him to leave. The cops listened to the voicemails and gave me a case number to take to small claims court so I could get a restraining order."
"That was 5 years ago. I ended up dating my coworker. We joke that our first date was the following morning when he drove me to the courthouse for the restraining order. We got engaged yesterday, so I'd say it worked out alright."
– orangejello1984
False Accusation
"She accused me of being her stalker and left me ... For the man who it was later revealed to be her stalker !"
– Ireallyamthisshallow
The Hypocrite
"Together for 4 years. He started accusing me of cheating on him, making my life hell. Turns out he was cheating with someone he met at work and they had been 'in a relationship' for weeks."
– schwiffttyy
"Not Ready"
"He left me saying his head wasn’t all the way in the relationship and said he’d come back whenever he felt 100% ready. Literally like two weeks later he told me he actually lost interest and less than a month later he was with this girl who had rejected him prior."
– MielMogu
COVID Companion
"She cheated on me with her cousin after a year of dating. After Covid hit he was the only guy she was around during quarantine. Still devastated."
– PennyLaneTheBeagle
Navigating relationships are tough, especially after you've been burned once before.
But don't lose hope. Because no matter how cynical you become about finding true love, I firmly believe there is someone for everyone.
And while clichés about the right person coming into your life at the right time is trite, there is some truth to that. At least I think so.
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BFFs don’t always last forever, and even the best of friendships can end in the worst ways. From unpaid debts to spreading gossip, these people took to Reddit to share the most memorable and infuriating reasons why they broke off a friendship.
1. Wild Support Payments
I lost close to $5,000 to a friend. He was going through a bad breakup and needed to pay child support. He told me that the first child support payment had gone out of his account without him expecting it and he had nothing to cover his expenses and rent for the month. I loaned him a total of $5,000 over about three weeks, and this was also when my wife and I were planning our wedding so we had a heap of expenses, but a bro needs help and that was a priority. Later, I found out the dark truth about him.
Some mutual friends confessed to me that he’d used the money on living large and a few big weekends out with girls. I confronted him, he told me he couldn’t pay, then started ducking me. I moved away after I got married and he ended up no longer speaking to our group of friends once they all found out about it. Ten years of friendship, gone.
2. Son Of A…
I went on a mini-vacation, which was supposed to be four days, with my best friend in 2021 to New Jersey. She brought her then-eight-year-old son, and I brought my then-four-year-old daughter. Her son was so disrespectful, dropped curse words, had a nasty attitude, and was so mean to my daughter the entire trip.
The last straw was on the morning of the third day when he ripped a box of cereal out of my daughter's hand. She started crying and he slapped her across her head. I tried disciplining him and my friend blew up at me and proceeded to DEFEND her son, as she called my daughter a "whiny baby".
We started arguing, I packed our bags and said we were leaving. I drove 4 hours home without saying a single word to her or her son. Got to her house, threw her bags on her front lawn, and peeled out of her driveway.
3. Jurassic Snark
I cut ties with my friend due to lots of little things that eventually became too much. For example, 7-8 years ago, he bought 15 tickets for a midnight premiere of Jurassic World for our entire friends group to attend.
The day of the show, he texted me to tell me that he forgot to buy "my" ticket, so I couldn't go. Of the 15 he bought, how did he decide it was "my" ticket that he didn't buy? Well, it turns out, he gave my ticket to a girl he met the week prior so he could take her instead.
That was just one of many things.
It's all truly minor stuff like that, but when you have 100 minor things, it becomes clear that they aren't actually your friend anymore.
4. Two In One
My mom’s friend had a son that was 3-4 years younger than me so we became friends by default. Honestly, I just tolerated him because was a foul-mouthed little instigator whose mom let him get away with everything and never disciplined him—but then he went too far.
One summer day we had all just gotten back from going somewhere, I had gotten myself in trouble with Mom and was given a time out on the front porch while our moms went inside.
He proceeded to get my toy cars out, and while I’m sitting there he starts throwing them at me and calling me names with every throw. I’d had enough of being pelted and threw one back. And he screamed his head off and started bawling. But I wasn’t the only one who lost a friend that day.
His mom came out of the house, scooped him up, yelled at me, and took off in her car. My mom asked me what happened and I told her. She didn’t blame me for not taking it, and called up his mom to explain everything. She wouldn’t hear it, hung up on my mom and that was it.
5. A Friendly B&E
It was my last year in a country I previously lived in and at the time it was during summer vacation which we normally spend in our home country. We had to cut our vacation short because we got a phone call telling us that our house had gotten broken into and robbed. We came back on that day and my friend was talking to me, telling me he saw the authorities by our house and he hopes everything is OK.
It was horrible. There was stuff stolen, furniture destroyed, closets torn down, and fully emptied. My family decided to accelerate the move from that country and that was that. A year later, he sent me a long email explaining how sorry he was and that he was responsible for it, that his friends were the perpetrators, and that he knew who did it but didn’t want to expose them.
When we showed the email to the authorities and they questioned him, it turned out he was part of that group as well.
6. DU Why?
My friend got a D.U.I. while driving my car and then lied about it and lied about why my car was towed—but he didn’t stop there. He lied about losing his license. Suddenly, he just wanted to walk everywhere for the exercise. He lied to my friends and told them it was my fault because my registration had lapsed. And when I finally confronted him about it…he kept lying.
7. Neutralize The Threat
My friend’s girlfriend got mad at him for being at my birthday party. He was my best buddy ever since second grade, my parents and even my grandparents adored him. The day after my birthday, I got a call from him. I could hear her voice in the background, he was so loud telling me to delete all the photos we took on my birthday and cut ties with him.
She made him block me everywhere and I was sad for some weeks. I'm still tearing up typing this. I was the first one he opened up about his relationship with. I used to ask how she is every time I saw or called him. I tried to be friends with her but she didn't care. The thing is that he has other female best friends too—but she has a problem with me. And we don't even see each other often after graduating because of the distance, and don't text or call often because of our studies. It was after months I got to see him on my birthday. I miss him but I have to respect their relationship.
8. Ultimate Betrayal
My friend was telling my girlfriend at the time she should break up with me—but that’s not the most twisted part. This was happening a few weeks after my mother’s death and I was still dealing with the trauma. He successfully managed to talk her into dumping me, only for me to find out they'd been sleeping with each other a week beforehand. To add to this, he didn't even have the balls to tell me to my face, I had to find out from a mutual friend. I'm glad I haven't seen that jerk again.
9. She Wanted A Maid, Not A Bridesmaid
My friend told me I was her best friend, but didn’t put me in her wedding party. But then she continued to ask me for wedding styling advice for her bridesmaids. It all stung but I got over it. She then told me she needed me at her bachelorette and I was helping her brainstorm ideas.
We talked daily. One morning we talked like normal and that evening I saw posts of her on her bachelorette. We’d been best friends since high school, but she had a girl she’d only known for six months on the trip with her. Her response when I asked about it? “Oh someone surprised me with it, sorry you’re upset”.
I blocked her and haven’t looked back—and I’ve been a bridesmaid for better friends multiple times since.
10. Escaping The Friendzone
This one friend I had in particular seemed to be giving me real signals. She was being really flirty, saying things verbally that were almost flat-out saying she wanted it, and touching me on more than one occasion. But then later, she would go on about how we are just friends.
All this happens, then I hear her talking about one of her other friends one night—a guy I also know. What she said made my blood run cold. She told the other girl: "Yeah he would love to get a piece of me but I'll never let him, I always make him think he has a chance though. When we go out to a club I will grind up against him and turn him on", and she was also encouraging the other girl to try and turn this dude on/tease him too.
Forget that. That guy isn't your toy, and neither am I. Being flirty is one thing, but purposely turning guys on just for your own ego trip is another. I haven't been friends with her since, and I don't regret it one bit.
11. Office Space
My best friend since high school chose her Microsoft coworkers from five years ago to be her bridesmaids over her actual best friends. We had always talked about how I would be in her wedding party, and of course, she had been in mine. I was hurt and confused. I messaged her on Insta asking what I did wrong a few months before the wedding, and then promptly unsent it. The aftermath was brutal.
She saw the message pre-delete and then proceeded to ignore me and be totally rude to me at the wedding. She pretended I didn’t exist. She didn’t invite me to the pre-wedding hike. Her other best friends didn’t know who the heck her bridesmaids were either & came up to me & said they were shocked I wasn’t in the wedding party.
She came up to me crying at the after-party, buried her head in my shoulders, and told me how sorry she was and that she loves me. She thought I didn't like her fiancée. I never expressed such a thing. Apparently, that’s why none of her best friends were included. And these random Microsoft people? She thought they “worked well as a team”.
Somebody who can be that cold to their closest friends is not somebody worth keeping around. I still talk to her a ton because we have a lot in common and there’s obviously a lot that I like about her. But I’ll never come to her with real things again, and our actual deep friendship is over.
12. Best Man To Worst Man
My friend was seeing a woman and moved in with her. We'd hang out when we went there to visit and everything was fine, but he would come to our city and visit and would cheat on her. He kept claiming everything was on the up and the girl he was in a relationship with was fine with that.
Well, at some point my wife friended her on Facebook and my friend lost his mind over it. He was saying my wife was meddling in their relationship, etc. But here's the thing, if everything was on the up, why would that have bothered him? Clearly, he had been lying to us. And a shame because the girl he was seeing was so sweet.
We had to cut ties because it was just so hard to watch him mistreat someone. We were the best men in each other's weddings and all, but he changed after his divorce. He treated people around him terribly. Our friendship of about 20 years ended just like that.
13. Just Own Up
I loaned my friend $250,000 to pursue his real estate dream and six months later he ghosted me. He ignored about 50 emails/texts/calls/postcards and two certified letters. Infuriating!! He also stopped paying real estate taxes on it without telling me. I lived across the country so it was extremely hard to manage the resolution. I eventually got all the money back but no help from him.
I think we could have still been fine if he had kept communicating, and acknowledged the errors. We finally talked—but what he said on the call broke my heart.
We were trying to patch things up, but he admitted only to the taxes part, not to all the other stuff. I had known him since college, like 30 years. Sheesh
14. Friendus Disappearus
My 16-year-old sister got me tickets to the Harry Potter exhibit in New York City when I was 13. She spent her own money on it for two tickets. Me and her. My best friend found out and threw a fit at her mother that “She should be going because she is a bigger fan” and the mother massaged my sister to tell her to give her ticket to her daughter because “It’s the right thing to do”.
My sister told her to get lost.
15. Not-So-Sober Companions
I cut off my friends when I realized that all we had in common was binge drinking. They offered no support when it came to my attempts to cut back. Instead, they got irritated when I didn’t want to go to the bars. I kept saying no and explaining I wanted to avoid situations with drinking—but one guy was so much worse than the others.
He told me that I couldn’t be part of “our” friend group if you don’t like going out drinking as some sort of intimidation tactic.
16. No More Free Therapy
I didn't realize that slowly, over 20 years, my friend had basically turned me into her own personal therapist. Every single day, almost 24/7, she'd be calling and texting, expecting me to sort out every single one of her problems, and validate her hurtful behavior.
Then one day at the end of last year, I got into an accident that left me hospitalized. Whilst I was mostly fine functionally, I had a lot of scarring and was told that I might need skin graft surgery later down the line, depending on how it healed.
My best friend since we were 11 didn't even ask how I was. Not once, not for two whole months. The only time she acknowledged that I was even injured was when she said, "That's a bad way to start the morning" when I told her that I was in emergency.
She just...didn't care.
And once I realized that, walking away was easy. I haven't missed her at all, the best decision I ever made.
17. Dear John…
I had a friend that was with me since we were three years old. Let’s call him “John”. About ten years after we met, we were going to this youth camp together. I’m so excited that John’s coming with me. But he seems…different. There’s another friend coming along with him, and now John is constantly avoiding me. This went on for about a day at the camp…before the avoidance turned into being nasty. He was constantly insulting me.
At some point, I had a panic attack at the camp—not related to John being a jerk and all—and here’s how our conversation went, with a few other friends watching:
John: “So where even were you last night?? You weren’t at the dorm”.
Me: “I had a panic attack, so I was told to sleep somewhere else. I dunno why”..
John: “Oh, so you have mental issues. Haha”.
Later, as I was playing with another friend that I had met at the camp, John came over to me with his other friend. The new friend that I was playing with said: “Oh, are you one of his friends too, John”? John’s answer was devastating.
He said: “Nah, he thinks we’re friends but I’m just forced to watch him all the time”.
That was the last straw. I was done talking to him from that point on.
But then, weeks later, I received a call from John. I picked up, and he was just talking to me as if he had never been mean to me. Ever. He was just talking about some random stuff about Minecraft. I just mumbled some “okay”s and went on with my day, confused.
I decided to call him later, and I confronted him about what happened at the camp. He said he never said any of those things. I said I’m pretty sure he did. He said: “I was just kidding about the mental issues thing”. He denied that he ever said the stuff about not being my friend though.
Throughout the entire call, he never apologized. And the worst part is, I almost believed him. I almost thought that I was just imagining it, and that maybe John was a good friend after all. Keep in mind I wasn’t very mature yet, despite my age. So I just…sort of…continued thinking of him as a friend. But as I did mature, I just started cutting contact with him, and we never spoke again.
18. Kissing Cousins
My BFF’s cousin made a pass at me while I was visiting her. The cousin was in a long-term, committed relationship at the time. I never saw or spoke to the cousin before or after the pass he made at me. He kissed me out of nowhere that one night.
My BFF called me a week later because the cousin dumped his girlfriend and asked my BFF if she could call me and connect us. She blamed me for ruining her cousin’s relationship and life. She was angry at me. We never spoke again.
19. Brunch Is On You
There was a lot that led up to it, but the straw that broke the camel’s back was a trip where I went out and visited her after a year of her guilting me for not coming. I was a classroom teacher, so paid time off during the school year was hard. I was also working on my MA thesis.
When I arrived, she left me at the airport for five hours because she decided it was a good time to break up with her boyfriend. Nothing big had happened, she just wasn’t feeling it and wanted to do it when I would be there for support. That was the first red flag—but there were more.
The next morning she took me out for an EXPENSIVE brunch where she drank a whole bunch. When it came time to pay she’d forgotten her wallet.
The next day was a Monday. She was also a classroom teacher and wanted me to visit her school. I told her I could, but asked if she could take me to a coffee shop on my lunch break because I needed to work on my thesis. She did but told me not to go anywhere cause it wasn’t a good area. She said she’d pick me up at 3:00. At 3:30 I tried calling and she didn’t answer. She ended up finally coming at 5:00, saying she’d had a phone interview for a new job.
She asked me to take a cab (this was before Uber) that evening to get to the airport because my flight (which left at 9:00) was too late and she’d be tired for work. I also had to work the next day.
I didn’t hear from her for six months until she came back to town and texted “Hey! This is your estranged best friend. Maybe we could reunite and you could pick me up from the airport and we could get lunch”? This airport was an hour away, in the middle of the school day. I told her no.
20. Wake Up, Sheeple
My friend went DEEP down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I’m talking flat earth, Columbine false flags, Lizard People, and 2012. Obviously today, he’s on the “the jab is going to kill us all”.
If it was just an interest of his he liked to talk about, I’d be fine with it. But it was a thing where he couldn’t stop talking about it and berated anyone who disagreed with him. He turned into a complete weirdo.
21. Food Fight
My best friend in high school started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I distanced myself from her and she started trying to spread false rumors about me because she was mad.
One day at lunch in the cafeteria, she came up behind me, picked up my tray—that had fries, nuggets, and two big puddles of ketchup and BBQ sauce—and smacked me across the face with it. Well, I wasn’t about to let her get away with it.
I immediately got up and set up in a fighting stance. She tried to lunge at me, so I did what any normal petite girl would have done…I side-kicked her so hard in her abdomen that she fell back and got laid out on a lunch table.
Thank goodness I had endured years of fighting my older brother and male cousins. Anyway, years later I ran into her. She had taken up boxing.
22. Time To Socially Distance
The pandemic ruined my friendship. I have been friends with her since I was in diapers but I am also disabled and highly at risk of dying. She drank the Kool-Aid. The last straw was when she kept saying only people with pre-existing conditions would die so the rest of society should continue on as usual. Except I’m one of those people that would die…
23. Bye, Soul Sister
My former best friend and I were together 24/7 for like 7 years. He was my soulmate but not in an intimate way, like a “soul sister”. He’s gay, so we would call each other sisters. We moved to a different city together and everything was great for a few months then he started asking for help for his portion of the rent—which I was okay with AT FIRST—but he would take longer and longer to get it back to me and eventually, I wouldn't receive it for months.
It was his first apartment but I had been living on my own for a while already, so I was used to the rent payments and utilities, but I guess he wasn’t. But he would still buy weed and go out for drinks with friends. I finally confronted him about it and said that he can’t be spending money on these “luxuries” whenever he has debt to pay me. His reaction was insane. He completely blew up on me.
One month after renewing our lease—I know, stupid of me—he told me that he wanted to live alone. Little did I know he was actually going to move in with another friend of his. He left very suddenly and when I tried contacting him about his part of the rent and utilities for the last month, he blocked me.
So I called up the friend he was now living with and he refused to speak with me. His new roommate said sorry, hung up, and blocked me too. I was stuck paying almost $3,000 by myself—thankfully I was good at saving money—and he still hasn’t paid me back any of it four years later. I’ve given up on getting my money—but I didn’t expect him to act the way he did when I saw him again.
About a year ago, I was hanging out with friends from our hometown—they were mutual friends because we were always together—and he showed up randomly. It was a good evening but I knew in my head that I wasn't doing this again. He said it was just like “old times” and he missed me but I wasn't going to get caught up in that again.
To this day, he sends me memories on Snapchat and says “We were so cute” and I just reply with a heart emoji and that’s it. I would delete him off Snapchat but I don't want there to be any drama between my friends and him because he's definitely one to cause drama if something like that happens… and he likes to make people choose sides. I really don’t know how I didn’t see any of this when we were besties but I’m glad it’s over,
24. Time To Cut Ties
My old Navy buddy got into some trouble involving a girl. He got detained and falsely charged. The girl lied to the authorities about the whole thing. He was so depressed about it that he tried to hang himself with the bedsheets in cell after his initial arrest. Then he spent years trying to clear his name.
During that time the girl was in and out of rehab and had been caught lying multiple times. Nothing went his way and I was nothing but supportive toward him. Then he started lashing out at me regularly. I would try to joke around with him like we used to and he would accuse me of talking down to him or trying to mess his life up when all I would ever do is be an ear for him to vent to.
I would listen to all of his problems and frustrations, and basically, whenever I would have any type of input he would immediately take it the wrong way and lash out. I finally had enough and snapped on him one day and called him an unbelievable jerk.
He immediately shut me out of his life and probably to this day still thinks I was the bad guy. I still never understood what I did, I think he was just using me as an emotional punching bag. He was my best friend for 10 years and seeing him so broken was incredibly heartbreaking.
Luckily he’s a lot better now and we talk from time to time but not in any way like before. We might as well just be casual acquaintances who barely know each other now. Maybe it’s for the best because I couldn't imagine ever treating a close friend the way he treated me. A good life lesson I guess, sometimes you just need to cut nasty people out of your life.
25. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished
There was one guy I was good friends with back in middle school. Everyone in the school hated him and I was scared for his mental health back then, so I decided to become friends with him, not wanting to see him take his own life. He eventually moved away but we were still on good terms—but then he took a dark turn.
Cut to a few years later and he’s now big into politics, claiming things about Latinos and religion—both groups of which I am a part of—that are hateful and just flat-out untrue. Needless to say, I cut all ties with him, I can’t believe this is what I get for sacrificing my social life for him.
26. Just Married
My friend no-showed to my wedding. We had been drifting apart already for a few years due to work and other life things getting in the way. But I made an effort to still invite him because he had been an important part of my life and helped me through some hard times. He never responded to the RSVP. I called him up to see if he had lost it, gave him the date, and told him I was excited to see him there and celebrate.
He didn’t show up, didn’t even send a text or call with a reason, and never even offered a single congratulations.
He instead messaged me a few weeks after with the audacity to ask if I wanted to take some photos of his dad’s car that he was trying to sell. When I confronted him and told him how disappointed I was, he gave some nonsense about how we’ll always be friends no matter what. No bro. Not cool. Actions speak louder than words.
27. Stuck In The Past
My friend’s now-boyfriend and I hooked up once in 2018. I talked with him and told him I wasn't interested in that happening again. He starts dating my friend in 2020 and it's a volatile relationship. I guess my name gets brought up when they are fighting and he bragged to her about hooking up with me. Her reaction was devastating.
She blocked me off everything and I was left wondering what had happened until someone else told me. Oh well. She really could have talked with me about it and I would have been happy to set her mind at ease.
28. False Positive
My friend always talked about herself, never asked about me. She didn’t see any problem with hitting on/pursuing men in relationships but would lose her mind if a girl even looked at the guy she was with. She faked a pregnancy to get a guy to commit to her. And last but not least, chewed me out for being nice to her new boyfriend—the first decent person she had ever dated—because she thought I was interested in him.
29. Sleep On It
I was really good friends with a coworker of mine. That's how I met my significant other. We went on vacation together with one other couple at one point. For context, we went on vacation and my spouse and I had to sleep in a room with twin bunk beds while the other two couples got queen/king-sized rooms.
We ended up resorting to sleeping on the pull out couch simply because there was more space. Before said vacation, me and her had spoken of this already, my spouse mainly being the unhappy one regarding the sleeping arrangements. We giggled about it mostly because I hardly cared and my spouse chilled out about it. It wasn’t an issue.
Maybe four years ago now, a few months after the vacation, I spent the 4th of July with my alleged "best friend" and everything went completely normal. We had fun, and things were great. I tried texting her a few days later and no response. Weird...I didn't work with her anymore because I had gotten a new job in the city I live in. I thought maybe she was just busy as she wasn't that great of a texter. Tried her again a day or two after that, but again, no response. Now I knew something was up. I reached out to her a half dozen more times after that and continuously asked her what was wrong or if she was even okay because maybe something terrible happened to her and I just didn't know.
She just completely ghosted me. I get a random text one evening from her—and what it said left me in shock. It was rather confrontational asking me about how my spouse and I weren't happy with our sleeping arrangements during the vacation we took together. I responded to her and said it wasn't something me and her hadn't already talked about and it wasn't that big of a deal. Never heard from her again.
My spouse and her husband are childhood best friends. Cut to me seeing her for the first time four years later this past Thanksgiving. I was dreading the situation because she's rather confrontational, but we're adults, and I'm not afraid of her. I was almost thinking we would just hash it out as I have been genuinely confused this whole time why she's so upset and can't even offer me an explanation. She said zero words to me. Didn't even look in my direction.
I guess I may never know, and I've come to terms with that. There are just some people that are petty and can't communicate I guess.
30. Some People Always Change
This is dumb but sometimes…people are dumb. We went to Vegas, dinner, and a show. After dinner, my dress felt tight so I wanted to change into more comfortable clothing—from a dress and heels to a sweater/jeans and flats.
My best friend was annoyed that I “always do this” and “didn’t show up for the night” by getting dressed to the nines. She didn’t speak to me or the rest of our friends for the entire night. Weeks later, she called to tell me we’re just different people and after 17 years we can’t be friends anymore.
All because I changed my outfit. Good riddance girlfriend!
31. Heard It Through The Grapevine
My friend spread rumors that I took some of her things. She never confronted me over the supposed theft even though we were seeing each other daily and doing our normal friendship things. I didn't even know anything was going on until another friend, from a different friend group, overheard one of the stories and came to me to ask me what was up with that. That’s when I learned the deranged truth.
It turns out she had been talking badly about me behind my back for a while so I ended up cutting ties. And that theft she had accused me of? It turns out it never happened. Her sister had recently moved out and had boxed up some things that belonged to her by accident.
32. Jealousy Hates Company
My best friend from middle school stopped talking to me after I started becoming successful around 20 years old. I excitedly told him I finally landed a good job and he asked how much I was making so I told him, thinking he'd be happy for me. Nope. He went silent for a bit, got cold, and we ended the call shortly after. I called him sometime later and his girl answered and I could hear them arguing. She was saying "Pick up the phone and talk to your friend" and stuff like that. Then click, the line went dead.
That was the last time we ever spoke. I was ghosted by my best friend of like 8-9 years because he was jealous of my success.
He had a pretty rough life in a lot of ways, really struggled in school, and as he got older had a hard time adapting to women as they got more mature. Back in the day, immature girls couldn't get enough of him, but as they grew up they were less impressed with him. They had all already dated a guy like him and his game just wasn't up to snuff anymore. By that time I was already settling into a long-term relationship with a beautiful girl. Between that and not seeing any prospects for a more successful life, I guess he felt like I was rubbing it in his face.
33. No-Flex Zone
For my friend, EVERYTHING was a flex on Facebook—how much money she'd made that day doing Instacart, her husband buying her a car, her full refrigerator, being able to stay at home and not work a 9 to 5 (she was also an occasional MLMer), her new RV, her spoiled tween son playing Xbox in the new RV, pictures of her plastic surgery, vacations, etc. Every conversation somehow, magically, turned the focus back to her, her life, her family, her possessions, and her struggles. Finally, I decided to say something.
I called her out on it. She said it was because she had anxiety and depression issues, she and her husband didn't go to college, and she was afraid of being judged.
Her constant need for attention grossed me out and I wasn't interested anymore.
34. A Short Fuse
I wouldn't necessarily say the guy was my best friend, but I'm pretty sure I was his best friend, if that makes sense. We met in middle school, and we had some common interests and some mutual friends. As we got older, he got a really bad Napoleon complex because he remained on the short side while the rest of us got taller.
A lot of our mutual friends distanced themselves from him, I was the last holdout because I felt bad for him and because I'm too nice. His arrogance and anger issues peaked in eighth grade. In the span of two weeks: he broke up with his girlfriend, punched two girls in the face, got dodgeball banned in our Phys Ed class, tried to choke one of our school's soccer players, and then got beat up by a girl behind the school. I had to give it to him straight when he started venting about his situation to me; he was kind of a tool. He disappeared the following week and I haven't seen him since.
35. Bridezilla
I got pregnant; my due date was the month of her planned wedding. I said I'll try to be there but I couldn't be her maid of honor anymore. Her reply was unforgettable. She said: "I wish you would have waited".
This was after my first pregnancy ended as a miscarriage. Well, she ended up postponing her wedding anyway…
36. Keeping Up With The Jones
I had to cut ties with my friend when she became an early Alex Jones convert. The sweet, wonderful person I knew turned into a paranoid nutjob.
37. What A Gas
My former best friend needed a place to live during the summer and I let her move into my tiny room in my apartment. I told her beforehand that I needed her help to pay rent and she said that she could. So fast forward, she moves a ton of stuff in my room that is already full of my things, doesn't give me a single cent, and doesn't even show any gratitude. She constantly told me she had no money to pay rent while she would talk about how she went out every night spending $80+ on drinks.
Anyway, we were supposed to move into another apartment together. She bails at the last minute and I have to find another one fast; being in college, everyone leases way ahead of time so it was really hard to find a place. I was mad but I shook it off. Big mistake.
The next day, I needed a ride to the bus stop because I was taking the Greyhound home. This bus stop was literally 5-10 minutes from my apartment. She has the nerve to say "I only put enough gas in my car to get to work and back"...seriously?
I packed her things up and kicked her out. Haven't talked to her since.
38. Why So Shellfish?
I had to dump one of my oldest friends. Finally, the penny dropped, and I realized that he was some kind of sociopath, constantly taking advantage of me, talking down to me at any opportunity, causing problems for me for No reason, except that he could. That was a very difficult (and painful) thing to realize—and I think he never did realize that he did it, even when I told him about some of the crazy things he'd done to me.
One time, he ate all the food I'd cooked for us both to eat that evening, apologized, and then did exactly the same thing the following evening.
He was also constantly borrowing small sums of money from me, not bothering to pay it back or keeping track of how much he'd borrowed—saying that was my responsibility.
He would also claim he "could throw me out on the street" whenever he wanted to, from the apartment I paid 50% of the rent for, to sleep on the sofa. This was when I finally gave up on him.
He riled up a common friend because his ex had flirted with me; he was trying to split that friendship up.
Once, he called everyone who I'd invited to a dinner party, saying the party had changed location to another city.
Weirdest of all? He brought me a gift of a big frozen crab. I've never eaten shellfish, during all the years I've known him. He put it in my freezer box and didn't close the door properly, so I had a big pile of water in the kitchen the next day and had to throw away everything in the freezer.
He also bricked my bank card PIN by entering the wrong code three times, saying he "thought it was his because they were similar". The card was at my apartment.
39. I Thought You Knew
My "best" friend from high school spread rumors about me because he wanted my then-girlfriend. When I went off to college I kinda left him behind, not really thinking much about it—but it wasn’t over yet.
Fast forward four years later, he storms into my apartment in a rage that I slept with his wife. Which is true, but I slept with her a year before they even met. After that incident, I knew our friendship was over. He pretty much just viewed our "friendship" as a competition of who can get the most women.
40. Don’t Be Late
My friend took advantage of me and would sabotage me constantly. She would embarrass me or be rude to my other friends. I would put up with it because I felt bad for her. She had bad relationships with family, no boyfriend, etc. The straw that broke the camel's back was the time she chewed me out on the phone for being 10 minutes late and said—I kid you not—"You being late is the same level of disrespect as giving someone AIDS"!
Yup. AIDS. The lateness wasn't even my fault, it was a designated driver I had arranged to take us to a bar. I wanted to cheer her up.
41. Stop The Car
I met a really cool chick at university who was doing the same course as me. We hung out most weeks and did all kinds of cool stuff. We became good friends really quickly.
I lived with my two best friends, a gay couple, and decided to introduce them all to each other so we all went out one evening and had an amazing time. I ended up staying at her place that night.
The next morning she was driving me home and she decided to tell me that she didn't like my friends because they were gay and she was brought up as a Christian. In the same paragraph, she went on to tell me that she didn't like Asians, poor people, or people that went to public school. I got out of that car and I have never seen her or spoken to her again.
42. Wore Out Their Welcome
My significant other and I bought a condo and invited our mutual friend to move in with us. He got a girlfriend right about the time when we bought the house. Now, we were good friends with this guy and hung out quite a bit.
So he starts dating this girl as we begin to tear apart and redo the entire townhouse. Peeling off wallpaper and sanding down every crack and cranny. My boyfriend and I are working our behinds off on this huge investment. We keep asking him to come and help us, since, you know, he'll be living here too. He shows up exactly twice in two months of non-stop work, and one of those times, he left an hour later "just to drop off some keys to her" and obviously never came back. They had been fighting the whole time he was with us and he was summoned elsewhere I guess. So that's pre-moving-in.
He moves in and the girlfriend is immediately there every night and most days. She has no job and no car, so he goes to work and she just sits around at our house. She just hangs out at our place all day, with her one-year-old. She eats our food. She uses our electronics. She never leaves. She contributes nothing and asks us to buy her milk for her baby.
Our roommate can contribute nothing for food or anything other than rent, because of his new little family that he is responsible for. Our friend defends this, saying her kid is his son now. They'd been dating for five months and the child was not his, but he referred to him as his son.
There's way more, but those are the basics. She once told me, as she was eating a meal that my boyfriend and I cooked with the food that we bought and kindly included them in, that she "forgets that food costs money". This is the person that basically lives rent-free in my home.
She sat around all day and her kid ran around unsupervised. One very memorable time he picked up a knife that we were using to do a project. She didn't notice. God, I could go on for ages.
He, who was once an adamant atheist, is now wearing things that say, for example, "JESUS 4 LIFE"! That was hysterical. She was very religious.
Anyway, they went on vacation and were mad that we didn't pick them up at the airport last minute. The second they returned to the house, we argued—and what an argument it was—and then we sat them down and told them to get out. He is no longer friends with us. It felt awesome.
43. Talk About Paranoid
For background there is me and my boyfriend Dan, and then my friend Tiff and her boyfriend Todd. Two couples, all friends.
When we first all started to go out I was really good friends with her, but as time went on I saw more and more that she was selfish and egotistical, she once complained that her parents bought her 24k gold diamond earrings for Christmas when she just wanted the money, and so on. There is a long list of faults with her.
We roll around to a friend’s 21st birthday about a year ago. Her boyfriend cannot go anywhere without her except for work. No lads night out, he can't even look at other women and you can tell it grates him if I mention that Danny was going away for the weekend without me, or we'll be rating the lovely beer providers of our local pubs. But that’s not the most ridiculous part.
At this party, Tiff drinks and gets paranoid that a girl, who is a friend of ours, at another table is talking about her and decides to demand that none of us talk to her anymore. At this point I've had enough of her nonsense, tell her “She's free to make HER boyfriend do whatever she likes and he can be dumb enough to follow it but she does not have the right to try and control MY partner, so she better shut up, sit down and stay away from me for good”, and walked away.
I haven't said more than five words to her since, and only see her when Danny and Todd want to go to the pub.
44. Request Denied
A couple of people in high school stopped speaking to me for going to the prom with a lesbian friend. They have tried to add me on Facebook since, which is hilarious since I haven't spoken to them since 1996.
45. Friendship Is Magic
My friend was just like a brother to me; I'd never had that kind of relationship with someone before, especially since my direct family is quite dysfunctional. Ergo, I value my friends (the ones I have left) highly. This kid is about a year older than me, him being 17 now. We met at a meetup in our city and sort of hit things off from there.
After a long time of talking and relating, we decided that we were the best of friends and hung out as much as we possibly could. Due to distance, this was limited to each weekend. Our platonic relationship sort of pushed me to develop feelings for him—we were already acting like we were dating anyway, although it was just holding hands. He asked me one day if I liked him and I said yes, but I don't want a relationship because I'd just come out of an ugly one.
Here's the weird part. He goes off his nut and starts going on about how he'd be cheating on his girlfriend in Japan…whom he doesn't have on Facebook, whom he talks to once a month at best, whom he had only brought up once and didn't even reference her as his significant other at the time. He said that if he continued to see me, now knowing my feelings, it would be wrong. He claimed that he was an honorable man and had morals, and would dislike it if his "girlfriend" was hanging out with a guy who had feelings for her…not even my farthest rationalization could convince him to see reason.
He deleted me, ceased all contact with me; lived each day after as if nothing had happened. It was, to say the least, one of the most painful things I've had happen to me. I still love him as a brother/close friend and I still miss him. This was in May.
46. Nice Knowing You
My best friend got a girlfriend, so he had less time for me. After a few years, I got home and saw them moving stuff out. We lived in the same apartment, but a different floor. They never said anything to me at all, no hint. They just left, not even a card or an invitation. That was the end of the friendship.
47. Benign Tumor, Malignant Friend
I had a friend for maybe three years, she had originally been the girlfriend of one of my guy friends. I listened to all her tears and agony when they split up, all her depressing stories, and so on.
One day I went into the hospital for a biopsy, I was terrified I had cancer. I came home and looked at my phone—and what I saw made my blood run cold. It was full of texts from her about having a bad day, and a huge email about how she wanted her ex back. She didn't ask how I was, or how the tests went, all she wanted was someone to listen to her. That day I put her number on the block list, and blocked everything of hers online.
48. Best Friend, Worst Roommate
I moved in with my “best” friend, her horrid boyfriend, and her antisocial sister. The friend and I had been incredibly close throughout all school, but over six months that deteriorated. The boyfriend wouldn't let her go out unless he could come too. He was pedantic and argumentative for the sake of “winning” a fight.
The sister wouldn't let me invite people over (my boyfriend included) unless she knew about it a day or so in advance. She claimed she had a severe phobia of “outside” people. But the final straw was when their mother came to visit. She stayed with us for two weeks without anyone informing me in advance, who I knew yes, but had decided to tell me what to do (no drinking, etc) as if I were her child as well. At one point I remember the mother told me it was a bit too late and loud to have friends over.
The friendship fell apart, she would side with her sister and boyfriend. We became bitter, there was note writing on their part, and she put dirty dishes on my bed, etc, to the point I would avoid going home. They decided to move out without telling me. I had overheard them discussing movers. In the end, the girl and I sat down and decided it would be for the best. But my nightmare wasn’t over yet.
The evening that she moved out there was a complication with money, my friend couldn't pay the movers. I decided out of respect for what we had, I'd loan the money and take it out of her share of the lease, along with the remainder of the bills, etc. In total, it was $600. She had government aid in paying the lease (which she knew about but hadn't informed me) and her share went back to the Department of Housing.
I was unable to properly contact her again. I had been spat on constantly for six months and then when she was crying and begging I thought I was doing a good thing, only to have been ripped off by my “best friend” I had known since I was 10 years old.
49. Snitches Get Stitches
I was 17 and my older girlfriend was staying with me while I had the house to myself. This friend was jealous and decided to tell my parents what we were doing. The aftermath was brutal. It resulted in a huge fight with my dad involving broken glass, screaming, lies and threats. I had to talk to the authorities and got threatened by them as well.
My friend tried to claim she had nothing to do with it…but I knew it was her. I cut off all contact and haven't spoken to her in 10 years.
The Final Destination movies are not good for those who have any phobias, as the franchise taps into all your fears.
In spite of the films making audiences paranoid about cheating death, it does make you think about our mortality and of the many times we may have had brushes with death.
No matter how hard the characters tried to avoid it, they could never change their fate because any attempt to do so would only result in death striking back with an unforgiving vengeance.
However, there are exceptions.
Strangers online reflected on their evasiveness when Redditor yuckyduckph asked:
"How did you almost die?"
Beauty grows in nature.
But don't be fooled, for risks abound.
Potent Bloom
"Got lost in the Bolivian rainforest for three days after consuming tea made from angel trumpets."
– Leftsuitcase
"I have Angel's Trumpets (Datura) in my back yard, and everywhere in my neighborhood / around town. I don't know how many people realize how toxic they are. In some areas in S America, people refuse to even stand near them. They're quite beautiful in full bloom, tho. NS if all the species (inc hybrids) are dangerous. Cue: botanist."
"I've never understood you people who go drink random plant potions in the jungle, far from hospitals, with 'shamans' 'n' sh*t. Half of my friends have done that. But another friend of mine recently died that way. He was super smart and cautious, too. Had a family. Always be skeptical, wary, and weigh out risks.""
– manlypanda
Warning Ignored
"I was leaving a restaurant with my boyfriend one night and saw a couple in the parking lot messing around."
"She was dancing seductively with a big bunch of Oleander flowers gripped in her teeth."
"For those that don’t know, Oleanders are very popular for hedges, hard to kill, but are extremely toxic. You’re not supposed to trim them without gloves."
"I stopped in a panic screaming at her to spit it out while telling her boyfriend they were toxic and she should go to the ER immediately."
"They thought I was kidding and told me to basically f'k off. My boyfriend dragged me away and said we should get out of there because we didn’t want to see how it ended..."
– flavius_lacivious
Rare Respiratory Attack
"Caught an incredibly rare fungus that attacked my lungs and would have attacked my other internal organs. Took two years to diagnose because it’s so rare. Only patient my respirologist has ever seen with it. Dropped to almost 80 pounds. I could literally feel myself slowly dying."
"Infectious aspergillosis. Extremely rare. Almost everyone has some aspergillis in their system because it’s everywhere."
– KathAlMyPal
The ocean holds many secrets.
Dangerous Stunt
"In the fall of '91 I was in Hawaii and dove into this blow hole in Hanauma Bay. (That's not me in the video, but it's the blow hole.)"
"My buddies were doing it and it was no problem for them."
"The problem for me was that I was a lot bigger than them, so my lats got stuck as I was face down in the hole."
"The concept is you time the waves and dive in just as the water recedes and the flow pulls you through."
"Well, I got stuck and had to wiggle my way down, ripping up the skin on my lats and ribs."
"So I finally get down and I have to swim like a mofo, but it's too late...the next flow is coming in."
"I'm at the edge, almost there, so I have to grab onto the edge with both hands like a kidnapping victim holds the doorframe so as not to be abducted."
"The wave cycle is not very long, but when you're doing something new and panicking, it feels like an eternity."
"I've heard they have closed off this portion of the bay."
"I know I don't need to do that again!"
– saleswhisperer
Massive Rip Tide
"I swam under the diving rock at Waimea Bay and almost didn't make it to other side (smoker). Same day they dug out the lagoon channel to make the endless wave. My 'friend' took me out to learn bodysurfing the shorebreak and it was about 8 foot sets which were HUGE and heavy. We go to swim out and get absolutely pummeled and pulled out. Then trying to get back in we got sucked into that lagoon river outflow and it was basically a massive rip tide. In about five minutes we were 400 yards out in the bay with out a boogie/surf board. We had to swim east towards sunset Bay to get to shore. I still can't believe we made it."
– Brutusmatic
Place To Avoid
"Exploring tidal cliffs, accidentally slipped into the water. Went in sideways, narrowly missed hitting my head. Just barely clawed my way out of the rough tidal zone; it was way over my head & was so choppy I was being slammed against rock. Please be careful around tidal cliff zones!"
– beachblanketparty
Grateful For Jellyfish
"When I was about 14 I slipped on a tidal cliff hit my head and went into the water, luckily I didn’t go unconscious but I was caught in the under current and couldn’t see which way was up because it was so f'king cold and dark (Oregon coast, pacific ocean), and just as I was about to give up I saw all these tiny jellyfish above me and swam towards them, got me to the surface and I was able to make it back to shore because I was a pretty strong swimmer at the time."
"Thank you Jellyfish"
"Several years later two people I know were hit by a sneaker wave very close to the same spot and they both died being crushed up against those rocks."
– CurseofLono88
Things don't get any better on terra firma.
Nearly Skewered
"T-boned by a cement truck. Guy at the tow yard couldn’t believe I was still alive."
– psharp203
"I can't believe you are still alive either, I've watched two of those cave a road and heard horror stories about them tipping. You good? Got all ya bits n pieces?"
– FlyerOfTheSkys
The Major Rescue Operation
"Went on a high elevation alpine hike on Mt. Rainier with an out of town friend. At around 10,000 feet we decided it was time to head back down the mountain. About five minutes into the descent I was in an uncontrolled glissade across a snow field."
"Even though I knew better, after I was unable to slow myself I put my feet down. That's when my crampons bit into the snow and stopped me, sending all of the force into my legs. I heard an unsettling pop and felt excruciating pain. As soon as I stopped I looked down and saw that the heel of my left boot was where the toe should have been."
"I had severely broken my leg and I was at least a 3 hour hike down with sunlight (and warmth) declining. We were not equipped to be there after dark. Within a couple of minutes I could feel my extremities beginning to tingle. Was going into shock. Fortunately, I had some glucose gel packs which I began to suck on. And that seemed to keep the shock at bay."
"Which was a good thing because the radiating pain was quite enough. Our cell phones weren't working well but another stroke of luck was that I had put a GMRS radio in the bottom of my pack and as such we were able to get word out on the radio that we were in trouble and needed help."
"Ham radio operators heard us and relayed our position and the details to the rangers. The National Park Service couldn't get a helicopter that was willing to fly to that elevation so late in the day (on a Sunday in early October). So they had to gather a party of climbing rangers to come get me."
"A couple of other climbers on the way up the mountain really saved me by giving up their climb and assisting me, covering me with sleeping bags and making tea while one of them went back down the mountain to meet the rangers coming up. Shock and hypothermia very likely would have done me in that night if they hadn't happened upon us and helped."
"It was pitch dark and freezing cold by the time the rangers arrived four hours later. They strapped me into a litter and had to carry me off the mountain. Unfortunately, the climbing rangers are not EMTs and do not dispense meds. So even though they were doing all of the work on the climb down it was absolutely excruciating for me. It was almost 9 hours between the time of the accident and the time I checked in to the emergency room."
– cjboffoli
The one time I casually got certified as a scuba driver was when I was in Cozumel, Mexico, I almost drowned.
I went exploring in an underwater cave, where I probably shouldn't have gone as an amateur diver. I remember swimming upwards and smacking my head pretty hard on some rock work. I felt like I was about to pass out.
I tried my best not to panic, which probably saved my life. I slowly found my way out of the darkness and eventually out of the waters. I felt dizzy the rest of the day.
Yeah, I haven't gone scuba diving since.
Memory can be a funny thing.
There are some memories in which every moment will remain completely vivid in our minds for the rest of our lives.
Others we might remember the context and moments from, but find ourselves a bit hazy on some specifics and details.
Some people have memories like that from their childhood, where they weren't exactly sure what they were remembering.
With a little time, as well as some context from others, discovering what these memories were is sometimes a very rude awakening indeed.
As the only way to describe these particular memories could be "F*cked up."
Redditor Specific_Dimension77 was curious to hear from people with memories from childhood which they learned in adulthood were a bit more unsettling than they realized, leading them to ask:
"What’s something f*cked up you witnessed during your childhood, but didn’t realize the severity of until you were older?"
Unknowingly Complicit...
"My dad and I used to play 'Spaceship”'and to get the spaceship started, I’d have to blow into a tube to hear the electronic beep."
"It was his DUI test to start the car before they started putting cameras in the cars."
"Glad he’s sober these days."- Expensive_Change_893
"Pretty sure when I was 7 I was an accomplice to robbery."
"I was supposed to stay the night at my friend's house."
"Her parents said we're stopping to look at a house real quick."
"I didn't think anything of the adults all black outfits."
"They were still professional."
"I did think it was odd that they had me go through the bathroom window to unlock the door, but they said the realtor forgot to give them the key."
"This was such a beautiful, wealthy home."
"They didn't take anything large, but I did notice the mom leaving with a lot more jewelry on the she came in with."
"She said she left it last time they were there."- prettylittlepastry
Sometimes Its A Blessing When A Memory Gets Foggy
"I was sitting on the couch at 5 yo when my parents started arguing and my mom threw a red book at my dad."
"Just thought it was a fight."
"Turns out it was their pre-divorce fight after my dad caught her cheating."
"Didn’t learn about the cheating until I was 16 and only recently learned it was a brick that she threw at him."- missybeputtinitdown
"To Err Is Human, To forgive Is Divine."
"One of the times my dad left he would send me beautiful letters with the envelope decorated in different cartoons and cute drawings."
"I was maybe 9 at the time and clueless."
"A few years later I realized he would decorate the envelopes to take attention away from the red 'inmate mail' stamp on it."- Smolbeanis
Sense Memory
"When I was about 12, me and dad were walking the dog, when we saw a huge fire at a house at the end of our street."
"My dad was a fireman at the time, so his first reaction was to sprint towards it."
"Naturally, I followed him."
"A crowd of people had gathered around a bus shelter nearby, so I went to see what was happening."
"On the ground was a kid from my school, I think he was 2 or 3 years below me."
"I'll never forget how badly his face and hands were burnt."
"The skin was a strange mixture of charred flesh and fresh blood."
"I just froze for what felt like an eternity before my dad found me and sent me home whilst he stayed to help."
"The kid survived, but it was years before I saw him again."
"He was horribly disfigured as a result."
"I don't think about it much, but every summer we have a barbeque, and the smell of the coals takes me right back to that evening."- Full-Cardiologist233
Privilege Check
"When I was a kid, we took a family trip to Las Vegas and stayed at Circus Circus."
"My mom wanted to get a magnet or souvenir from Caesar’s Palace, so we parked somewhere and went inside."
"I wanna say we might have parked in an area reserved for staff?"
"Or it could’ve been for guests/visitors."
"That part is very fuzzy."
"My parents didn’t care regardless and had never been there."
"When we were walking back to the car and over a sewer grate (the kind with slots) I sneezed."
"A gruff, male voice from below in the sewer said 'bless you!'"
"Being an innocent kid, I said thanks as my parents hurried my brother and I into the rental car."
"Years later as an adult, I watched a documentary about homeless people who live in the Las Vegas sewers."
"In it when they’re inside one of the sewer tunnels, their guide pointed up at a sewer grate above them and said 'you see this?'"
"'This is the parking lot of Caesar’s Palace'.”
"That whole realization that I was there as a kid gave me whiplash."- snickerdoodle_bandit
The Truth Can Really Hurt
'My seventh grade English teacher accidentally gave me a document he had written."
"It was on an old floppy disc he assumed was blank."
"It described how he volunteered with an humanitarian group in the 70's that traveled through impoverished countries and provided free vasectomies."
"They eventually trained him how to do it, and he would do them, even though he had no real medical training."
"This is not even the messed up part."
"He goes on to explain that he decides that he wanted a vasectomy and to do it himself. He then described in very graphic detail how he did it to himself."
"He even said the date, like March 1st, 1981, or something like that."
"He described in detail cutting through things, and how rubbery it felt."
"Again, not the f*cked up part."
"I thought the story was hilarious because he wrote scrotum so many times, and I was a seventh grader."
"Well, I spread the story around to my friends."
"It eventually spread to a parent, that shared it with the school."
"His wife who was also a teacher there, promptly quit."
"Their son who was younger than me, born in the 90's, also left the school."
"He kept his job."
"What I figured out much later was that his wife had cheated on him and had gotten pregnant, but pretended like it was his."
"The f*cked up part is that he obviously knew she cheated, but never told her."
"He had raised the boy as his own son."
"Once she realized he was sterile, and he's known the entire time, she left him and took the kid."
"Had I not shared that story, that kid could have lived his entire life without knowing, and that family could have stayed together."- fredsam25
The Things People Do For Money
"I was sledding with a friend and saw smoke on the horizon."
'His mom came and picked us up."
"It was my 3rd-floor apartment on fire with my mom and grandma (and others) outside in the cold."
"Everyone got out safely, but we couldn't find our cat (until later)."
"My computer and Star Wars collection among so many other things were destroyed."
"We still have the photos."
"Found out later, unknown to her, my mom's BF owned the building and had the dumb a$ manager wack a pipe so he could get the insurance $$."
"My mother has been somewhat of a hoarder since."- determinedforce
Not Trusting Others Cause No One Could Trust Him...
"My parents divorced when I was 3 because my father got another woman pregnant."
"When I was 6, my father took me and my two older sisters (10 and 15 at the time) to 'donate blood'."
"Decades later I’m talking to my mom about it and she reveals it was a paternity test, as my father didn’t believe I was his daughter."
"Test proved I was in fact his."
"Probably should have realized sooner that a 6 is a bit young to be donating blood."- miss-quiche-lorraine·
Some might say these poor people would be better off if they didn't know the truth.
But facing the truth and confronting our demons is sometimes the only way we can move on with our lives.
Even if the memories will never stop haunting us.
Everyone is a bit leery of hospitals.
Even people who have to work there would rather be somewhere else most of the time.
But sometimes, a trip to the hospital is unavoidable.
More specifically, a trip to the ER.
We humans can really get ourselves into some ridiculous health-related situations.
All you can do is try to laugh about it.
And be grateful you lived so you can tell the silly story.
Redditor lugulaga wanted everyone to fess about the times their ER visits were more embarrassing than painful, so they asked:
"What is the stupidest reason you went to the hospital?"
I do my best to stay away from the ER.
I'll even suffer in silence.
Especially if I'm being an idiot.
Intractable
"Hiccups that lasted 24 hrs, stopped right when the doctor stepped in the room. Lol."
stargill70
"I’ve seen this a lot. Had a guy last Monday. 'Intractable hiccups.' Fun note: we use Thorazine to treat it. As in the anti-psychotic."
W6RJC
Down the Hatch
"Not me but I had to pick up a mate who swallowed a 50c piece to win a $2 bet. If you don't know, an Australian 50c is quite large. They had to do an endoscopy to get it out. They let him keep the black corroded coin too."
honest-aussie
"My son did this but with an American 25¢ quarter. He had it in his mouth but inhaled it. It was stuck sideways in his airway so luckily he could breathe. They had to put him under and got it out via endoscopy."
"He spent 9 hours with it in his airway and hardly spoke at all. That is the quietest he has ever been since he learned to speak. He was about 9 when this happened, he is autistic, though very high functioning, and was sensory seeking which is why it was in his mouth."
kaismama
While I Sleep
"A bat landed on my head while I was asleep. Rabies shots all around!"
olda**hit
"Ugh, my child had a 'mystery bite' from daycare that we ignored until it started looking infected. Doctors asking about animals and specifying bats-- reminds me that LAST YEAR the daycare had bats removed that were living in the roof but had no sighting since then."
But I said it. So they had to do the rabies shots, including IGG injected directly into the infected bite... on a 2-year-old. Most traumatizing experience of my life... thank goodness she doesn't remember!"
overweightthrowaway3
A Hard WInd
"My husband went because he was in extreme pain and thought he was having a heart attack. Turns out it was wind. He just needed a good fart."
blueboatsky
"I took my 1-week-old son to urgent care because he had abdominal pain for hours and hours. He cried in the waiting room for a couple more hours, then farted three times and immediately fell asleep."
"They called us in about 10 minutes after that. The doctor said, "As long as you guys are here, let's see how he's doing" and gave him the standard well-baby check. I thought that was nice."
EvadingDoom
Not the Thumb
"When I was 8 I was bored so I got a bottle of Gatorade from my pantry and grabbed a kitchen knife then proceeded to stab it over the sink to see how easily the knife would go through the thicker plastic of the bottle… almost lost my thumb."
New_Moon_Lotus
Kids and kitchen knives, a most deadly combination.
Merry Nothing
"Christmas Day, I dislocated my knee attempting to kick my brother during a sparring match. Needless to say, my martial arts career was over."
IDontThereforeIAmNot
Broken
"I was at a house party, all the bathrooms were full. Went outside, and decided I should crawl under the porch to pee. Everything went well until I tripped on the way out and rolled my ankle. Shrugged it off, limped back upstairs and someone said 'Your ankle is broken.' Sure enough, bone sticking out. DD took me to the hospital and got me ice cream on the way home. I miss you, Kyle. You're the best."
Ubermassive
Knobbed
"Butt cheek injuries caused by a door. I hate touching door knobs with my hands and always use my forearm to rub against the doorknob in a downward motion using friction to turn the knob. Was joking around with my gf saying I can open a door with my buttcheek exactly like how I use my forearm. Jumped at the door butt first and the little metal thing that guides the door cut my buttcheek (I think they call it strike plate or latch strike)."
"The cut wasn’t a clean cut because the thing wasn’t that sharp. 30+ stitches."
"After that, she had to stand behind me holding a bowl to cover my wound every time I take a shower so it doesn’t get wet, and we live in a hot country so she has to do that twice a day for like a month."
Normal-Focus9248
We did Nothing...
"I’m an ER doctor. About once a year I see a very nice young female who comes to the ER with three or four family members because her fingers are blue. They have always googled all sorts of fancy and exotic diseases that they are worried about. 100% of the time the patient has brand-new blue jeans on."
"Without saying a word I just grab an alcohol swab and wipe the blue dye off of their hands, and then I do the same thing to their jeans to show them it’s the same color. The collective sigh from the family is always what does it for me. Not surprisingly, half the time the patient doesn’t believe me and is angry that 'we did nothing.'"
Dan-z-man
All Sewed Up
"When I was about 3, I was running up the stairs in my house and fell. I hit my chin on a step and bit my tongue nearly off. My parents took me to the local hospital where they sewed up the gash in my tongue without anesthetic. I still remember it to this day."
Salty_Fixer
I feel faint after reading all this.
Thank the Lord no one brought up any eye issues.
I'd be on the floor.