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People Break Down How 'Fake It 'Til You Make It' Majorly Backfired On Them

We are told that, if you're not confident, you should just "fake it til you make it."

This is great—in theory.

In practice, sometimes "faking it" can have extremely real and terrible consequences, which these people found out the hardest of hard ways.


Redditor SaithSiro asked:

"When did 'fake it until you make it' backfire?"

Here were some of those answers.

A rude awakening.

I faked being depressed to get pity when I was young. I kept thinking fake it till I make it but like, I didn't realize I was actually depressed...

Therapy starts Saturday, wish me luck.

killyourself-og

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When It Becomes Offensive

At Nelson Mandela's funeral, people took note of the sign language interpreter that seemed to just be making random hand gestures instead of actual sign language. Turns out he had made quite a few appearances previously and nobody had caught on that he knew literally no sign language. To me, this dude is just the poster child for 'fake it till you make it'.

Eentweedriego

Whoops

My brother in law took out a loan without my sister knowing. He couldn't find a job of his liking so he would leave like he was going to work and come back like his day ended. He paid himself with the loan like it was a pay cheque. He even remortgaged the house and kept this up for THREE YEARS! No one knew and it all came to a head and they are now split and my sister is now laid off because of medical and no way of paying off this debt and now awful credit because of it.

He faked it but never made it.

Talisintiel

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Catch me if you can.

Frank Abangale.

He was a literally infamous check forger in the 1970s. They made a movie out of his book, "Catch Me If You Can," but the book is way more entertaining than the movie IMHO.

In addition to his most famous impersonation (A Pan Am pilot,) at one point he impersonated a pediatrician. In a teaching hospital. He had residents and interns under him. His technique was, when faced with almost any case, he'd ask the resident, "What would you do in this situation?"

The resident would say, "Well, I'd blah blah blah," and Abangale would say, "So do that."

....until a resident ran up to him and said, "Doctor! We have a blue baby in room 102!"

And Abangale laughed and said that he'd attend to that right after the "green baby in 203!"

He didn't know that a blue baby meant an infant that was not breathing and thus cyanotic. He literally saw the look on everyone's face, ducked into a linen closet, and looked up 'blue baby' in the pocket medical dictionary he carried around. Then he burst out of the linen closet to "help" the residents run the code.

I'd say this qualifies.

Note: He also impersonated a DA in Alabama or some southern state. I'm telling you: The book is AMAZEBALLS.

dramboxf

Oof.

I would always fake my personality. At school I tried to act like a bubble cheerful person because my mom wanted me to be popular like she was in school but then it backfired when I had an extreme anxiety attack and started balling my eyes out.

EmmaDaOne21

A happy ending.

I had the opposite happen once. I had an internship with a company, and I impressed them. They had an opening for a job that I really wasn't qualified for, but they assumed I could work it.

I couldn't, and I transferred to a more fitting job months later. I still keep in touch with them, though. They fully admit I wasn't a good fit for the job, but they know I have other skills.

C5521

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Like them for who they really are.

I carefully finessed my online profiles until i was able to obtain the attention of the man I wanted. Turns out that being 110% charming, funny, confident, and attractive is a LOT more exhausting/impossible in person. I tried way too hard, got burnt out, didn't know who I was, and ultimately lost the guy anyway.

I did that twice in my early 20's. Never again.

My current boyfriend is the best of the bunch and "securing" him was a gloriously low-key experience.

whatnowalt23

Oh no.

I was working an XMAS job in college for a Jewellers; and made the mistake of selling a diamond brooch. I didn't realise such things had to be sold by a qualified professional and come with a authenticity certificate. But they couldn't actually punish me since I was ignorant to the fact.

Same place; also tried to replace a customers watch batteries with no idea of what I was doing. I thought 'how hard can this be?' and completely scratched it up, and then ran off and left it there, knowing it wouldn't be collected until tomorrow when I wasn't there.

The s**t you get away with as an 18 year old makes me laugh in retrospect.

Social_Knight

When Non Je Parle

This reminds me of a TIFU post where OP moved to a new neighborhood for just a few months and decided to take some LSD to break it in. OP thought it was a good idea to go for a walk and when he went outside, his new neighbor greeted him. Being on LSD and a bit of an introvert, he avoided conversation by speaking French as he knew enough to get by and did not plan on staying there for an extended period of time. This went on for about eight months (longer than he expected to stay there) and eventually the neighbor had a friend of hers over who also spoke French and tried to start up a conversation with him. That's when he was like "yeahh... I don't speak French."

tHeNiGhTmAnCoMeTh413

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Climbing the ladder.

Almost living it right now. I'm a decent engineer. I work at a small firm. I don't think I want to do this type of work much longer, and I sure don't want some major controlling interest in a firm. But I do this because it's something I can do well, and provides will for my family. I'm currently looking at other career options that can make use of my ability and still provide as well.

I was told I'm on track to replace the head engineer, who's second in command and had 49% ownership of the firm.

Chesty_McRockhard

No surprise there.

My colleague was trying to impress a potential client. During a conversation, he was asked if he liked the Toronto Raptors and my colleague, who knows nothing about sports but wants to "fake it" says that he's a huge fan and loves baseball! And this was when we just won the chip.

Basically, he didn't end up signing the deal...

gibs1111

Yikes.

I faked I was 15 when I was 8, I'm 11 now. Anyway this was a game and a girl told me she was 15 so I told her I was 15. We chatted for 6 months (well it weren't really chatting it was mainly "hey." "Hey." "What are you up to?" "Nothing much, you?" "Same" ) then eventually she became my much older online girlfriend.

About another 6 month then I came clean and told her I was 9, she wasn't angry or disappointed, she didn't care, so that was the time I basically dated a pedophile for a year.

PewDieKai11

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Jeez.

I am a cop and I was on a murder case. The evidence lead me to a stadium during a baseball game and there were some strong leads suggesting one of the players on the field could be hiding a gun. I had to figure out how to mix in with the players and luckily I found out there was a guy who was supposed to sing the national anthem.

I visited him in his room while he was preparing for the show, knocked him out and took his place. All worked fine until I had to step out and actually sing the anthem.

Dortann

When You're Looking Busy

Guy I used to work with told me about when he used to work as an electrician apprentice at a plant. When there was nothing to do, which apparently was most of the time, the lead guy and him would walk out to a random spot in the plant with a ladder a conduit bender and a bent piece of conduit. Then one of them would stand on top of the ladder and the other on the ground holding the conduit and they'd just chit chat all day. If any of the bosses wandered by they'd nod and pass the piece of conduit up to the guy on the ladder who would then make a show of trying to fit it in somewhere.

Said they both made it through 3 rounds of layoffs doing that, until they too got canned.

sharrrper

Truth.

The Trump presidency.

thatslikesupermean

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When You're Not Flexible Enough

I was 8 years old and I told my dance teacher I could do a backbend (I couldn't) so she moved me up a level in acro and put me in a special role for our recital. For the next week my mom tried to help me get a backbend but it wasn't happening and I had to come clean. Luckily she didn't get too mad. I had to move back down a level, but I still got to keep my special role!

ihatevegtables

LOL

I remember reading somewhere that some dude lied on his job application that he was a skilled piano player. To his surprise, his boss arranged for him to play at the yearly company party. So his friend bringing him there caught him Googling: "Most painless way to break your hand".

That story always cracks me up.

Doctor_Philly

Taking it too far.

Some guy online liked me in a sexual way and kept wanting to roleplay with his weird kinks, so I started pretending to be a psychopath to drive him away, until it came to the point where I started making threats.

I lost control of myself then, and now that guy hates me to this day.

Memeboi336

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Oops.

There was that one time when I boasted I was an ordained priest in Guam. It worked as a way to get discounts at the video game store, as the owner was very religious.

Unfortunately, I was boasting to a friend one day and a married couple later walks up to me and says they overheard me, and asked if I could officiate their wedding. I said sure and it worked out great. Got a girlfriend out of one of the bridesmaids and sang karaoke.

It wasn't until the fourth wedding I was asked to officiate was where I was exposed, where I gave a sermon out of the Bible, shocking the crowd. The couple and a lot of the crowd were Jewish.

They seemed to forgive me, as I read from the Old Testament the first time, and they were lenient about the botched Hebrew in a song the couple asked to sing. It wasn't until I said the wrong pronunciation in an oral passage that the crowd caught on, and I was not only stiffed of payment (though a friend of the groom gave me some cash for fooling them that long a couple of days later, possibly out of amusement), but I was chased out and threatened legal action.

Mcfuggery

When 你使用谷歌翻译

I hired a mandarin translator for a game I'm developing.

Ran her translations through google translate, to find they were a good match. TOO good a match.

Showed it to a friend of mine who's from China, told me the translator just google translated everything and that the end result was barely comprehensible.

YourDailyDevil

Little white lie.

During a job interview I was once asked my age and for some reason I said several years higher than I really was (said 25 when I was 21). I didn't mean to lie but at that point I couldn't say "oh, I mean 21" because I would sound like an idiot. Plus they weren't supposed to ask that anyway. So I just went with it. He wrote it down on my resume next to my salary expectations.

I did get the job and I'm sure they realized pretty quickly, if not immediately, but never said anything.

zprz

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Not the smartest choice.

Not me but my aunt. She was offered a position to stage manage some performance in Quebec...in French.

When asked how well she knew French, she responded "Comme ci, comme ça," implying she knew it...at least barely conversationally.

She knew approximately zero French.

I forget the exact details but it didn't end smoothly.

JoJoMcDerp

 Catching up.

Possibly this year.

I got my MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, but on the adult track, meaning I didn't learn anything about how to teach kids.

Fast forward a few years of tutoring adults around my city, I land a job (miraculously) at a local elementary school. I know zero standards, don't know any of the acronyms (aside from ESL ones), none of the buzzwords. The school didn't even check to see that I had my MA, just trusted my word because they needed another ESL teacher. I faked three years of knowing what I was doing at that school, but got shit pay because it was a disorganized mess.

This year, I got hired at a new school that has their shit together. They offered me over 10k more, and I'll be the sole ESL teacher for the entire school instead of one of six at a high ESL school like I had been. This means all eyes are on me.

I know a lot of the buzzwords now, and I have the acronyms down, but in the past I've always been able to field specific primary school questions to our head ESL teacher whom I will miss so very much. Now the spotlight is on me and I am terrified.

travelingunraveling

When Cousin Couldn't Keep It Up

Went to visit my older cousin in a big city (small town girl). Before going out, he told me that the friends we would be meeting are super snobby, and would probably make fun of me if I told them I was from SmallTown-A (today I would tell him to get better friends, but when I was 18 I just wanted to fit in). We agree I would tell them I'm from City-X.

So the blonde bombshell in the group (6 years older) starts talking to me while my cousin and his friend head off to buy shots. "Where are you from?"

'uuhm... City-X'

"OMG, me too!" She proceeds to ask me which school I went to, which coffee shop was my favorite and where my parents work - just making polite conversation. Of course, I do the adult thing and confess make up an entire fake life story.

My cousin gets back to the table with the shots and I have never been more grateful for the opportunity to put alcohol in my mouth and stop words from coming out. At seeing me knock back my shot like an animal, my cousin forgets our cover story and loudly proclaims "Good god! You don't have to drink like you do in SmallTown-A, just chill!"

I did not look at Bombshell for the rest of the night. I have seldom wanted the earth to swallow me as much as I did in that moment.

ZeddicusMortis

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Stay far away.

Basically all the times I faked nice to customers I didn't give a crap about as a cashier.

One customer was a middle aged man thought obligated polite conversation during transaction = he had a shot. He proceeded to invite me to his workplace for a free cup of coffee. Where did he work? The truck stop at the sketchy part of town.

Did faking nice lead to an invitation to be trafficked? F**k if I know. Man shows interest in me? My lesbian a** instinctively goes in the other direction. I will never be sorry for that.

lesbianlabrador

That's how you learn.

I moved to the United States when I was about 11. At the time I had a very Indian accent and being in middle school it did not fare well for me as other kids started mocking the way I speak. I started faking an American accent just to avoid the mocking and eventually it just became the way I talk.

I have since moved to yet another country where my friends mock me as "the most white sounding Indian". I can't change my my accent even if I wanted to.

alnaqv

Gross.

The entire Dr. Death podcast series. He was the WORST surgeon and continued to maim and kill patients.

memorablemember

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Wow.

I forced myself to vomit everyday before school so I didn't have to go. I got diagnosed with appendicitis and had to go the hospital. There wasn't anything wrong with me (obviously) and I ruined my grades.

DaFierceDragon

Ah, elementary school.

In 2nd grade, I had to give an oral book report on The Duck Who Thought He Was a Watchdog. I did not read it and was just making up everything. My teacher obviously knew I was lying, and kept asking me questions about it, and I kept making stuff up.

Eventually she had enough of it, and slammed the book down on the ground and yelled at me in front of everyone.

RyFromTheChi

When You Need A Job

A few years ago I got a job interview after months of looking. I was desperate. I thought I was going to be working in the mail room for the City but when I arrived it turned out it was for delivering mail between City offices. Okay, no big deal, I can do that. Well, in my province we have G1 (Learners), G2 (Still have some restrictions about when/who you can drive with) and G (Full License).

Well, I needed my full G for the job but hadn't gotten around to doing the test. No big deal, I thought, I'll just go along and schedule a test ASAP, hopefully before any paperwork needs to be done. So I went through the interview and I think I'm home free, but no. They want to do a driver's test right then and there, and I need to present my license to the testing company.

Thinking quick, I tell them I don't have my license on me. Well, they need it and they were willing to find a City employee to drive me back out to my house (~30 mins away) and get it. Backed into a corner I finally have to admit that I don't have my G license. I blurted it out and basically ran out of the office and didn't look back.

Still one of the most embarrassing moments of my life.

McWhiskey

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Nice try.

John Spano was a fraud who almost bought the NY Islanders hockey team. He was only worth 5 million but he "bought" the team and their cable rights for 165 million.

He was found out once the payments were due and instead of sending 17 million he tried to pay 1,700 instead. He ended up getting arrested for wire fraud.

BriBongGin

When You Don't Know What A Manhattan Is

Got a part time job as a bartender to help with bills. Told them I knew how to bartend. I can pour a whiskey coke and beer so just figured I'd pick up the rest as I went along. 1st week I was serving to get to know the menu and someone called in sick. Owner makes me bartend. So I'm doing fine, just beers and a few mixed drinks. Then a party of about 40 people coming from a wedding come in and starts asking for all these different shots, different specialty drinks, etc. Total Yikes.

anon_2326411

When A Cat Screeching Is Your Theme Song

I took orchestra in elementary school and I eventually realized that I was just not going to understand violin. But I still wanted to be in orchestra because it had some perks. So, whenever we had lesson I put my fingers over the strings and moved my bow around like I meant it. When we had to play individually, I had to do it for real. I thought maybe, by some miracle, I'd get it and play normally.

I didn't.

wheatable

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Good advice.

Faking your whole life by not living as yourself as you turn into someone else and fail to achieve happiness. You constantly distant yourself from your loved ones in search for money thinking that it would eventually solve your problems. But it doesnt end there and it gets worse and worse until you get crippling depression and are ready to hang yourself.

Be yourselves and be happy.

idgasf01

When It Could Have Backfired, But You Got Lucky

Okay, I guess it ultimately didn't backfire, but it's a pretty good story I was told in film school eons ago. Back in the 80/90s, a guy snagged an interview for a camera operating job at a TV production company that was way above his experience level. The interviewer gave him a camera, said "okay, take this apart and lay it all out for me. You have 20 minutes," and left him there. After panicking for a minute, he walked down the hall, found a technician working and asked him to take apart the camera for him, which he did. Interviewer comes back, says, "good work. Now put it back together," and goes off to put out some other fires. Our guy tracks down the tech, who obliges again, and he was hired. When I heard this story the guy had worked in the field 15 or so years so I guess things worked out.

ambulanceblues

Don't do that to yourself.

I had a new part-time job. First couple days there I felt terrible, stressed, anxious, and depressed. I pushed through it and starting feeling ok with the job with occasional feelings of stress.

Six weeks in I had a mental breakdown in front of some coworkers. I quit later that week out of shame and to help my mental health. I later weighed myself and found that I had lost around 20 lbs. over the time I worked there, weight I wasn't trying to lose.

leorlev

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That's dangerous.

We had a 'doctor' one time at the hospital going around giving orders and stuff for 2 whole weeks until another doctor called him out for doing something stupid and he disappeared.

Turns out he wasn't a doctor and apparently had been going state to state faking it. I don't know how he got access to our computer system and an ID badge but he did somehow

mmutk

More background checks, please.

I worked with an absolute sociopath. After she got fired for stealing (of course) she applied to be a programmer at a huge business.

She didn't even own a computer or know how to turn one on.

I would give an arm and an eye to have been there her first day. She'd told me that she was "ballsy" and "ambitious" and would "figure it out" because she's so "intelligent."

I hope the hiring team got a workshop in background checks.

Wohholyhell

Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel....

This will get buried, but this is a semi relevant story to when I was in first grade.

Some back story here: Every Christmas we would go my Grandma's house and spend Christmas there. She had various toys around and a few in particular were spinners. They were basically plastic cones with a peg sticking out of the bottom. You would simply spin them on the point of the cone similar to like a bey-blade. The spinners were some of my favorite toys at Grandma's house.

So in First grade we're learning about different religions, cultures, etc. Up comes the topic of the Jewish religion. The teacher is explaining that around the Holidays, Jewish people would spin Dreidel's and celebrate Hanukkah. She then asks if anyone is Jewish so we can learn more about their culture.

I raise my stupid little hand thinking the little plastic spinners I was spinning at Grandma's house must make me a Jew.

She proceeds to ask me questions like if we celebrated Christmas, etc. A lot of other questions too which I probably answered like an idiot and confused the hell out of her, but the rest of the class was learning from this "experience".

It wasn't until a few months later that my mom comes home from Parent teacher conferences and is like.. Why did you tell your teacher you were Jewish?

I'm just like.. we're not?

ensum

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Smart choice.

I tried football in grade school. Didn't put in the time to memorize plays and stuck to defense. My last year, one of the coaches thought about putting me in offense, and I had to come clean.

Stopped playing after that year for many reasons, that being one of them.

Craftsman42

Sorry Mom.

This is my friends "fake until you make it story":

So at our elementary school there was this book club that did competitions and had meetings every Friday. My friends mother told her to sign up for it and she forgot about it and missed the deadline to sign up. So, for 7 months straight she pretended to be in the group and had her mother buy the books the club was reading (the school was supply the club with the books).

It was all going perfectly her mother learned a big competition was coming up and she had to write an essay to try out for the team (it was mandatory). So, her mother went to the library and asked the lady for the essay prompt and date of competition. The library employee then told her that her daughter had never signed up and she had wasted money on books my friend would never read/need again.

It took a while for her to earn her mothers trust back.

Clemthefruit

Bad call.

I worked for a Savings and Loan which refused to give me a raise to the salary of the guy I replaced. This irked me because I was already doing his job in addition to my own, so I took a contract job and left for greener and frankly more lucrative pastures.

The guy they replaced me with was rejected by me in my interview with him: he didn't know 'C' programming, SunOS/Solaris, Sybase database syntax or anything else I did. I wore a lot of hats. Anyway this dude announced in the interview he was going to "optimize" the server to disk layout and really take care of things but couldn't explain how. But he was a friend of one of the System/36 guys and they both seemed to think "How hard can UNIX be? We know mainframes!" Whatever.

A few weeks later I got a call from my wife who still worked there: the servers were down because Mr. Optimize was hired and did exactly what he said. He apparently rearranged all the cables and when the servers didn't come up he declared I'd remotely hacked into the system and crashed everything. Sigh. I called my old boss and said "Look, believe whatever you want but I told you that guy doesn't know a root prompt from a hole in the ground. Call this dude at the local Sun office and he'll fix you right up."

Sure enough local Sun SE came out and figured out which disk controller was supposed to go to which disk and corrected all the mount points either by switching back the cables or changing the device names. Either way I was vindicated and Mr. Optimize The Server was fired.

technofiend

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.