Sometimes, the worst moments in your life can actually be setting the stage for something just a little bit magical. Take it from me - losing my eyeball lead to a really cool job, a stint in a band, and the best romantic relationship I've ever been in.
It took time, obviously. It's not like I was rolled out of the surgical suite and life just handed me a gift basket of awesomeness as a consolation prize. But I can say with 100% certainty that losing the eye started the whole "ball" (yeah, eyeball puns are a thing now) rolling.
Reddit user DirtySyko asked:
What's something horrible that happened to you that ended up making your life better?
It turns out I'm not the only one who can pinpoint their positive life turns on one seemingly-negative moment. Check out all of these other people who, much like me and Queen Bey, made lemonade when life handed them lemons.
Go Home. Start Over.
Within a span of a couple months, the girl I thought I was going to marry left me for my friend, my sister was diagnosed with a life changing disease, my 11 year old cousin was diagnosed with Stage 2 brain cancer and my father walked out on his family.
Instead of self medicating and being depressed, my hardest decision in my life was calling my mom to tell her I was leaving college to come home to help get my situation better and help her with her own battles. And now, I'm the healthiest I've been mentally and physically and my family (excluding my father) is trending towards the right direction.
- GoEERs18
The Lost Scholarship
I lost a full ride scholarship and had to drop out of college. Afterwards, while working at a grocery store, I met my wife. Then she helped put me through school to get my masters degree.
Now she is finishing up her degree and when she gets a job I'll work from home and be a stay at home dad for our daughter.
Looking back now, it was a blessing. But it certainly didn't feel that way at the time. That was the darkest year of my life, and I owe a lot to the friends that helped me through. If you are going through a rough time, it may help to know it may be a positive overall in the end, and I hope you have people close to you that can help you work through it.
Thanks, Hurricane Katrina
GiphyI was going to college down in Louisiana. The school got hit pretty bad by Katrina an they had to cancel school for a semester.
I ended up going home and going to a local school for a semester, planning to return to my school in January. Then they announced in November they were on track to open... but were phasing out my major. I needed to find a new school and get accepted in the matter of a few weeks.
While dealing with all this I was driving to go get a hair cut. A woman going the other direction on a road decided to take a sudden left turn across my lane and I broadsided her. My car was totaled.
The last piece was my girlfriend dumping me for a friend. She was still in Louisiana and because I wasn't there she ended up with him.
As you can imagine, it was a pretty depressing time. I had been working my butt off, I thought I was doing everything right, and stuff still went all wrong.
Here's where things started getting better...
Because I was affected by Katrina, schools were amazingly helpful letting me apply and get accepted. My previous school couldn't get my information so they basically took my word that I was in good academic standing. I was accepted to another school in about a week. And it was in a part of the country that didn't get hurricanes (that was actually one of my selection criteria). The school was near a company that hired me right after graduation in the field that I wanted to be in. This got me in the door literally a month or two before the bottom fell out of the market in 2008 and new graduates were struggling to find a job.
The lady that totaled my car admitted to her and my insurance that it was all her fault. Her insurance paid out more than my car really was worth. I got a better one.
The school was far away from home but my brother had a friend from high school that went there. I met her before I went there and she said she'd show me around when I got there. This was all about 14 years ago... she's sitting on the other end of the couch reading a story to our two kids.
So yeah, stuff sucked. I wish I could have avoided getting emotionally beat up like that but I ended up in a much better place. It was totally worth it in the long run.
A Stranger From Reddit
I made the mistake of moving to LA for an internship. Absolutely hated it, had no friends, mild depression, and moved back to my college town as soon as I could afford to rent a vehicle (my only ride at the time was my motorcycle). Day after I moved back a stranger from Reddit helped me unload my motorcycle out of the dodge grand caravan I rented and now that man is my husband.
We have two gorgeous golden retrievers, a baby on the way, and my life is better than I ever imagined it would be.
7 Years Wasted?
Realized my grad school "mentor" that you needed to have in order to graduate was completely unstable and vindictive. Realized my chances of advancing in my chosen field was impossible without said degree and fell into a depression...couldn't leave my room or bed for a month. I basically wasted 7 years of my life with debt to pay off now. My landlady was amazing and being concerned would bring food everyday.
After a long counseling session with my dad, I chose a brand new direction and through a string of luck and hard work I now have a higher paying job the previous degree would have ever gotten me and am truly happy. I've always been interested in psychology but also business. Discovered a thing called market research and found an internship as I was technically still a student.
I had set hours but as I had no idea what I was doing I volunteered to stay extra hours so I can learn skills from current employees without pay. Work ethic + skills = job offer. Continued learning new things on YouTube, webinars, and other resources. Changed to other companies and made my way upward. To be clear it's not my own company. I work in social media strategy for a major movie and TV company.
The thing I learned when talking with my dad was that higher education doesn't necessarily only teach you your major. It teaches you a new way of approaching problems and expands the way you think. I applied that to my new chosen career. Be curious, learn random related stuff, try harder than the others and do more than required.
- C2BSR
Happy Thanksgiving
My wife of 12 years told me she was engaged to someone else and wanted a divorce - a week before Thanksgiving!
My older brother, whom I had never really gotten along with, found out I was living in my S-10 truck came from 3 states away, put me up in a hotel, and helped me find an apartment. I reconnected with him and his family due to that major low point.
February the divorce was finalized.
March I met my new wife and married her in October. We have been married for 14 years now and I am over the moon in love with her. Never would have met her if the ex hadn't been so selfish. My brother and I text at least 2 times a week and talk every other week. He said that hearing about my problems made him decide to be a big brother. Seeing what I went through made his marriage better, and my little sister said it has changed her marriage for the better as well.
Don't Need To
GiphyI was thrown out of my house on my 18th birthday with just the clothes on my back and a few bucks in my pocket. I decided I was not going to put myself in a position to have to rely on anyone ever again.
I worked my a** off. I put myself through college. I saved my money. I bought a business. I used the profits to buy a second business.
I still work, but I don't need to.
- Jdoe74
Undiagnosed
Quitting a job after only two weeks because I was so anxious about going in every day that I couldn't sleep.
This caused me to reach out to a counselor for help. Got diagnosed initially with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but after a year of therapy was told by therapist that it seemed likely that the source of my anxiety and problems in life seemed to stem from undiagnosed ADHD. Got an appointment with a psychiatrist and ended being diagnosed as "a classic case of ADHD".
Quite possibly might have gone my entire life undiagnosed if it hasn't been for how bad that job went for me.
- DJBlok
Death Was The First Step Towards A Better Life
My grandma dying at age 16.
It sucked that she passed but it was the first step towards a better life.
I would have worked in a going-nowhere position at a gas station until my dying breath taking care of her because I loved my grandma she gave me a safe home. When she died I had no friends and after her death I saw what my family was greedy and selfish.
I had to go live with my mom, which was worse but I now lived in a town and had ways to build myself away from my family and towards a future.
My life isn't perfect but at least I'm not dealing with them or physical isolation and there is some potential.
Credit Cards And Birth Control
I was an insurance agent, and I helped a customer make a change to her policy that required her to make a payment. She gave me her credit card details and I ran them through our payment system, as I'd done thousands of times before. Then I went on with my life.
The customer later found unauthorized charges on her card, and since cases of big companies losing customer data were all over the news, she contacted our company, somehow ended up speaking to my boss's boss, and told him her concerns.
Since my boss's boss knew that our company had not had a data breach (or at least, he was not aware of one) he decided that I had likely stolen her credit card details. The next day I arrived for work and was swiftly pulled aside and told that I could not be in the building because I was under investigation for credit card fraud. My boss apologized and told me that he knew I hadn't done it, but that I had to go home and I couldn't come back until they'd concluded their investigation.
It took them two weeks to clear me, most of which I spent either gripped with terror, drunk, or both. I knew that I hadn't stolen her credit card details, but I also knew that, if they decided that I had, I would definitely lose my license to practice insurance and would very possibly go to prison. I was an insurance agent not because I particularly enjoyed practicing insurance, but because a college degree was not a prerequisite for it. I did not have a college degree and therefore did not have a backup career.
During those two weeks, which I spent as a neurotic drunken chihuahua who started crying every time the doorbell rang, I didn't remember to take all my birth control pills. However, I did have sex with my husband. Shortly after being allowed back at work, I discovered that I was pregnant. Suddenly, insurance was not just my shitty day job for right now, but what I was going to have to do for at least the next 18 years. It was horrifying. Sufficiently horrifying to have me enrolling in trade school at three months pregnant. Now I have an awesome preschooler and a job which doesn't drain my soul.
Dear Ol' Dad
My biological dad was a liar and bragger. He lived a couple thousand miles away and wasn't really in my life, but visited enough to mess with me. He constantly lied about supporting me while my mom struggled and eventually I had to support myself if I wanted to be more normal with what I did and had. Eventually he remarried and started being around less and less (which is saying something for someone whom I saw 2 or 3 times a year) and even stopping telling me when he was in my home state (30 mins from me) to see my step mom's family. I just became a back burner and maybe saw him once a year for a few years.
After a few years of forgetting birthdays and holidays he managed to call on my 21st birthday and he said something that left me unhinged and I laid into him on the phone. It's been 6 years since we've spoke almost and I've never felt better in my life.
Being lied to my whole life about everything has given me an insane skill set with detecting BS and I'm pretty grateful for that. I also learned a serious work ethic so that I didn't have to burden my mom for anything financially. I'm a stronger person for it and pretty happy and thankful for the whole situation.
Of course I may be a bit dramatic because it's nowhere near as bad as other people's stories with bad parents. Honestly I never tell people anything about it because I was so fortunate to have my mom and her parents that it just doesn't seem right to complain about one bad character.
Getting Laid Off Paid Off
GiphyI got laid off from a 9-5 min wage job at a hardware store. I was a single mom with 2 kids. I seriously thought we might die. I had no idea what to do. I started looking at ways to make money and have my kids with me so I could cut the daycare bill out of my life. I got my school bus license and started cleaning businesses and houses (I had permission to bring my extremely well behaved kids ). I found various other things to do and was making $3000-$4000 a month. Plus I had the freedom to take days off to do stuff with my kids/travel when ever I wanted.
This was 9 years ago and I never worked 9-5 again. Now I'm in a position where I only drive a school bus. Working 5 hours a day and only 180 days a year is a dream come true.
Redditor BBQPancake wanted to hear about the times people almost let the devil win, so they asked:
"What was the closest you've gotten to killing someone?"
Everytime someone CHOOSES not to use a turn signal, I roll the dice if this is the moment.
No Hazards
lauren conrad car GIF by The HillsGiphy"Dude was changing his tire on the side of the freeway about half past midnight, dressed in dark clothes, no hazards on, and sitting halfway into the right lane. Almost splattered that dude."
Flooded_Strand
Totally Weird Experience
"11:30 pm Remote country road with no streetlights. There’s a tiny traffic island in the middle of the road and I see what looks like a slightly different-colored silhouette standing there. By all rights, I should not have seen him there but something in my brain clicked and swore there was a figure standing there so I slammed on my brakes as the figure jumped out in front of me, car stopped about 2m away."
"He smiled really sinisterly and started walking towards the car, I reversed and made to move around him slowly and he jumped in front again, I managed to drive on the wrong side of the road to escape him."
"A minute down the road I stop to flash my lights at every passing car to warn them and I sh*t you not the second car that passed was a cop and I explained what happened. I circled back a minute later and saw the dude on the side of the road in cuffs. Totally weird experience."
HeyMrCow
SLAM!
"When I passed my driving test many years ago, I asked the instructor if he had any advice for a new driver. He warned me that if I ever saw a ball roll into the street to immediately hit the brakes because there was a good chance a kid will follow. I never forgot that and have religiously followed it ever since."
"A couple of years ago I was driving down a residential street and it happened again and something in my mind told me to SLAM on my brakes and so I did. I came to a stop just feet from a really little kid who was completely frozen in terror."
"That driving instructor is probably dead of old age by now, but wherever he is, I hope he understands that he saved that little kid's life and saved me a lifetime of guilt and heartache."
MaybeADumbass
The potatoes were stuck
"Pneumatic potato cannon. My friends and I were shooting it in my backyard. Must have launched off dozens of potatoes at this point. We decided to stuff 3 potatoes in the barrel. When we open the valve to shoot it nothing happened. We were sitting around 60 psi and had no launch."
"The potatoes were stuck. My friend went to look down the barrel. I saw what was going to happen and lifted the back forcing the barrel into the ground. At that time the potatoes shot out and left a small crater in the ground."
ELONGATEDSNAIL
I Shudder
shooting breaking glass GIF by PhazedGiphy"I was fermenting homemade kombucha in a tightly closed bottle. Which I forgot to burp. One day a bottle exploded, while my mother-in-law was in the kitchen. Luckily, she was far from the bottle at the moment and got only a scratch on her hand, but we had to dislodge glass shards from the walls. I still shudder from a thought of what would happen if she were closer."
nazanar
Closed bottles and pressure, that is a toxic mess.
Take shelter.
Avengers Unite
the avengers GIFGiphy"Every time I drive in Sydney on a weekend 4000 people either wanna walk out into traffic without looking or cycle onto main roads without pausing or merge into my lane without indicating/checking. By staying in defensive driving mode I've saved more lives than the Avengers."
RGH81
6 Inches
"Was on a film set working when a mentally unstable person with a knife approached me and another crew member."
"Was forced to take a swing at him with a gobo arm (it's essentially a metal rod with a metal knuckle on the end of it). Swung hard enough that if it connected, would have caved in this dude's temple."
"Just missed, and it coming so close must have jolted the guy back to reality and he took off. So closest I came to killing someone was about 6 inches."
Ringlovo
A Few feet from the Girl
"Used to work a delivery job. One afternoon, I'm driving back to work in the old POS delivery van and some girl bolts across the road (presumably to catch a bus that had pulled over up ahead)."
"Slammed on the brakes and came to a sliding stop completely sideways in the middle of the road no more than 2 or 3 feet from the girl. I still think about it sometimes, it was a heavy old Ford van, with no ABS. If I'd been speeding even slightly I think I would've hit her."
ZatyDaddy
Madre de Dios
"Driving a loaded truck, probably about 10,000 lb or so, at the speed limit. Traffic in the oncoming lane is at a standstill. Some [censored] decided he was too important to wait with everyone else and pulls out, face to face with me, at very short range. I swerved hard right, didn't really expect to miss him but somehow did."
"Then swerved hard left to avoid the people on the sidewalk, somehow missed them too. Didn't think you could make a truck do that. Apparently, my passenger (the owner of the truck I was driving for) didn't think it was possible either. I learned some new swear words in Spanish and what sounded like the prayer of thanks to Madre de Dios."
philzar
Fired
New Girl Facepalm GIF by HULUGiphy"High school friend's dad wanted to teach us how to shoot. Went to the range and when he wasn't looking I grabbed the pistol and tried the John Woo sideways grip shot. It flew out of my hand and the bullet ricocheted off the side wall. That was my last time to ever fire a gun."
eguez780
We really need to be vigilant.
Do you have any similar experiences? Let us know in the comments below.
Curious to hear from medical experts online, Redditor DrPloyt asked:
"Doctors and nurses of Reddit, what’s the most blatant lie a patient has told you about why they’re in the hospital?"
Those who felt ashamed thought they could get away with lying.
The STD Source
"Had a patient convince his wife he got an STD from a dirty toilet seat in the ER when he arrived to the hospital. He was in house for about a week or two after, his wife dutifully staying with him each day until about 6. She home cooked meals for him every night and would bring them to the hospital each day while trying to file complaints to us for his STD he got from us."
"A doctor had to kindly explain to her the impossibility of him getting that particular STD from a toilet seat and it also become active / symptomatic in that time frame. She never believed us."
"After she went home each evening at 6 to cook for him for the following day, his affair partner would show up from 7-10 each evening."
– Duffarum
Running From The Law
"I’m a paramedic. I had that. They called 911 to get away from the police and a fight that had been happening.Jumped in the ambulance and started screaming at us to just drive away. We locked ourselves up front and said that’s not how this works and he ran away."
– Fianna9
Substance Abusers
"I’m a paramedic, and it’s the ones who deny doing drugs and insist we don’t know our job. I had one patient swearing up and down he doesn’t do any drugs, he was just sleeping. On the kitchen floor. While cooking."
“Do you know why your mom is crying? She just did cpr on you because you stopped breathing”
"Then admitted to doing some weed. And crack. And heroin. And meth."
"ETA- this was after he woke up to naloxone. I always ask twice if drugs are suspected before moving on to other medical issues."
– Fianna9
Attention Seeker
"I've told this story many times before, but when I worked in the emergency department there was a frequent flier who would come in complaining of migraines, seizures and stroke symptoms. She was completely full of sh*t, just wanted drugs and attention. One time the symptom she presented with was that she could only speak Spanish, but the thing was that in reality she couldn't speak Spanish*,* so you had to ask her yes or no questions or she just wouldn't respond. If the answer was yes she would say 'si' and if the answer was no she would shake her head, because she didn't know the Spanish word for 'no' is no.'"
– PigWithAWoodenLeg
The Axe Thrower
"Psych patient told me she didn’t know why they were keeping her in the facility. She claimed nothing was wrong with her, wasn’t on drugs, and didn’t do anything to be admitted… after 30 minutes of talking she admitted to throwing an axe at her neighbor, unprovoked after use of meth."
– lanakame
Quick observations revealed these patients were untruthful.
The Ex
"I lied to hospital staff once before, my ex gf stabbed me in the hand and it cut me wide open. So I get to triage and I tell them I fell and accidentally cut myself, because I didn't want to get my ex in trouble (yes I know I'm an idiot blah blah blah I've heard it a million times) when I get into a room I look around and notice an unusually high amount of domestic violence posters on the wall, I thought 'huh that's weird' the first thing the nurse says is 'we know it can be hard to talk about being abused' like damn they were on to me from the start, I still don't know how they knew, but I ended up spilling the beans, they said they wouldn't tell the police if I didn't want them to."
– dayzers
Does Not Compute
"I was in the ER for a suspected testicular torsion, and we saw a guy with a pretty clear bullet wound on his arm. The lady handling intake asked him what happened, and he said he fell off his skateboard."
– doctordoctorpuss
What's Up, Doc?
"I had a frustrating itch inside my rectum and the carrot was the only object that I could fit in there"
– LithuanianLion
What The Ex-Con Did
"Easy. A guy came in complaining of being constipated and couldn't poop for 5 days. He reported rectal blood and difficulty passing gas. A CT was done and showed a 9 inch linear object bordering or slightly puncturing through his bowel with questionable free air. With the CT results in hand we confronted the guy. 9 MONTHS AGO, yep, 9 months ago this guy got out of prison where he stuck a prison shank in his butt to hide it during a cell search. It was already in there about a year before he got out. He didn't tell anyone for fear of adding on his prison sentence. He was never able to retrieve it and thought it would just pass naturally. He was just hoping we'd give him some prescription strength laxatives and he'd have better luck. He needed surgery."
– alwaysforgettingmypw
Things got out of hand for these patients with erectile dysfunction.
Hard Situation
"Back when Viagra first dropped, every grandpa in Miami with chest pain would lie about why they had a raging erection. Or the boner would be gone, and they'd be so much more confident in their answer. No matter how much we stressed how unsafe lying would be, no matter whether we ferried the ladies out of the room."
"It was quite a way for little baby nurse me to learn how low blood pressure could get. Being in Miami at the time was like being on the front of a boomer battlefield for erectile rights."
– MissAnthropicRN
Forever Stiffie
"Oh boy."
"I'm an admin in a hospital and just the other week we had a younger guy (30s) come in because he had injected viagra into his unit...his erection had lasted for a worrying amount of hours so he came to ED."
"After having 220mls drained from his member, he regained full function."
"My colleagues and I joked that he wouldn't be touching it for at least a day or two."
– HailCrystals
The moral of the story is, it's pointless to lie to your doctor.
The truth will eventually come out, and it should, because your life could depend on it.
And the truth of the matter is, doctors and nurses don't care about your situation, no matter how embarrassed you are. They just want to make sure you are properly tended to.
Any judgement from them will most likely be because you're a bad liar, not because you shoved a foreign object up your bum.
Redditor r3tr0gam3r83 wanted to hear about which realizations in life have left people SHOOK, so they asked:
"What is something that blew your mind once you realized it?"
Avocados are not vegetables.
They're fruits, berries to be exact.
Like what?!?!
Colleagues
GIF by Bud LightGiphy"Sometimes it is more important to like your colleagues than the actual job."
"I had shi**y jobs with the most amazing colleagues and had shi**y colleagues and the most amazing job. I'd pick the first every time."
chr989
Star Trekking
"That you could legitimately travel at warp speed through the center of galaxies and never run any real risk of hitting a star. That’s how spread out space really is."
justanotherguyhere16
"Also, galaxies, stars, and even the Universe is constantly moving. I think time travel has been invented, but they can’t figure out the 'space' part of it.
"Yes, they can travel back in time, but relatively speaking, they can’t figure out how to navigate to the part of the planet they want to reach. So when they travel back in time, it’s relative to where they currently are, and end up not moving through space, thus ending up in the middle of an empty vacuum."
theknights-whosay-Ni
Jaws is Old
"That sharks predated the rings of Saturn."
BeardedDominant
"Sharks also developed the immune system that ended up in both dinosaurs/birds and mammals."
csiz
"We don’t know that. We can’t say for certain that the rings are only 100 million years old. It’s still debated."
The_Kek_5000
"I'm pretty sure that sharks are older than trees."
Cayderent
From the Trees
"One day I sat on a tram, passing a river. There was a duck in a tree. I realized I'd never seen ducks in trees. No one else seemed to notice, but I was puzzled. Now whenever I come across something that seems intuitive but I have never considered I call it a duck in a tree."
Ol_Pasta
"This realization happened to me this past year. We apparently have a family of wood ducks in one of the big trees in our yard. Our neighbor said she has seen a duck walking around on a branch. I made it 37 years without knowing some ducks can roost in trees. My wife caught a video of the mama leading like eight ducks into the field next to our house. We aren't even near water."
jwbourne
Artistic Timeline
Confused Eminem GIFGiphy"Pablo Picasso and Eminem were both alive at the same time."
leebon427
"I’d bet a lot of people think Picasso is a Renaissance artist."
editormatt
I admit it. I'm one of those people. Pablo and Marshall, in one lifetime.
New facts are fun.
The New World
Design Loop GIF by xponentialdesignGiphy"They were colonizing the Wild West at the same time as they were building skyscrapers in Manhattan. I always think of them taking place eighty to a hundred years apart. It's wild."
Emilayday
Oh the Power
"Nuclear power plants are just steam power plants that use nuclear reactions to heat the water. There's no fancy magic extracting energy directly from nuclear material. They just boil water and spin a turbine."
RenaKunisaki
"Most electrical generation is spinning a turbine. Photovoltaic solar power is pretty much the only exception, and it's not the only form of solar power. There's solar thermal power, which uses mirrors or lenses to concentrate the heat of the sun to make steam and turn a turbine."
Brawndo91
The Empire
"The Roman Empire fully fell less than 50 years before the discovery of the new world."
South-by-north
"The Romans also had copper wire, magnets, and battery acid. They could have invented electricity hundreds of years before it was actually discovered. But they didn't. The wire was used for jewelry, the magnets as lodestones, and the battery acid was used to clean the rust off of swords."
Kahzgul
"RIP Byzantine Empire. 1453 never forget."
crossbowman44
The Witness
"Owl‘s silent flight. I mean I always knew that but a while ago was the first time I actually witnessed it. Owl came flying towards me and landed only a few feet away and you couldn‘t hear anything. Crazy."
Zealousideal-You-324
"I saw a barn owl swoop down and catch a mouse while hiking at night, and the whole thing happened in complete silence. It gave me a deep sense of unease because it was literally like someone hit the mute button on life."
VulcanVisions
Bad Kermit
Kermit The Frog Meme GIF by IdentityGiphy"Poison dart frogs aren't poisonous in captivity."
"I own 5 of them and anytime I tell someone I own some I always get 'Do you ever lick them' or 'Can you go kill someone with them.' But yeah they get their poison from what they eat, and all I give them is fruit flies."
JMfury
Poison frogs?
That sounds like something Rose would have a story about on 'The Golden Girls.'