We constantly take for granted the fact that life is fleeting. We should savor every second and we rarely do... shame on us. Sure we all survive everyday to live another day, but then there are people who have miracles, where they survive events that are unthinkable. They make it through moments where you continue breathing that are improbable. And those souls are left often with a burden to bare.
Redditor jpAtmosphere wanted to hear from life's survivors about some of their greatest challenges by asking....
People who have survived events in which others were killed, how has your life changed since? Do you have survivor's remorse?
The Waters are Dark.
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Was in a boat accident with my entire family when I was 8. I wasn't injured but my sister was killed. I saw her bloody body in the arms of my grandfather in the remains of what used to be his boat. He was never the same man after that. I'm still unpacking how much it's affected my life, but I know I'll never forget the image of my dead sister.
Yes, I have very real survivors remorse, as this boat trip was the first time the whole family had been on the boat together, and my sister and I fought over sitting at the tip. I won, she died. aspen41
Faces in the Fear.
In the summer of 2012 I was taking a road trip with my family when we got T-boned by a guy going 50 mph. Luckily I was sitting on the left side of the car right behind the driver seat but my sister and my step mom weren't so lucky. Almost every day I see their faces right before the crash happened and the sheer terror split second before they died.
I very rarely take automobiles now and only like biking or trains. Sleepynoodles47
Savor the Miracle...
I was born with cancer in the late 80s (Canada) and at the time chemo wasn't really used on kids. A European doctor came to Toronto and took 14 of us and gave us chemo. I was cancer free by the time I was 4 but only half of us walked off the floor. I'm 31 now and have 4 kids but I often think about those poor souls who didn't make it. Emrhyss
Go with your Instinct...
I didn't 'survive' it, but I did make a choice to not get in the car that killed one and severely injured my best friend.
The driver was the one killed, but there was no remorse for the guy. He was always a dangerous driver.
However, there was a bit of anger towards him for what he did to my friend. It changed him. Years of childhood memories wiped away due to the head injury. The stuff he did remember was some of the bad times we had, including the argument that led to me not getting in the car.
Our friendship was never the same after that. FromMyFingers
A Kamikaze Survivor!
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A relative of mine served in WWII, and apparently when he was stationed on an island base in the pacific (fighting Japan) a Japanese plane just showed up out of nowhere and landed on the airstrip. They just kind of left it there for a few days until they decided that it probably wasn't a kamikaze, and went to confront the pilot. They found him there starving to death and chained to the cockpit. Eventually he told them that he was supposed to have been a kamikaze pilot, and that all of the propaganda about how brave and willing to die all of the kamikaze pilots were was just to cover up the fact that no kamikaze pilots were volunteers, and they were all forced to die in those planes. E01000010
Shoelaces for the win.
I met a man who survived the Korean airliner crash on Guam. He had bent down to tie his shoe at the moment the plane hit the mountain and a fireball went through the interior of the plane. He told me he felt so bad that so many had died while he had survived. At the time, I was so confused and only years later realized he suffered from Survivor's Guilt. smithy-
The lingering feelings....
I was on my way to school with my sister, our driver was making a turn onto the street where our school was when a bomb went off. Everything stopped and I huddled my younger sister under me as glass exploded.
It was just scary because I had no idea what to do in that kind of situation, I was just 13.
What's crazy is that we had stopped for gas otherwise we wouldn't have been late. A few kids and teachers lost their lives and one happened to be a teacher I was very close with.
I wasn't able to attend school there anymore, I used to get scared from the vibration of big trucks and loud pops, even balloons lol. I don't have survivors guilt but always will have that morbid feeling in my stomach wondering what if we hadn't stopped for gas. iris_Is_a_flower
PTSD!
Las Vegas shooting.
I actually don't have survivor's remorse, but I think I have (minor) PTSD from it. I feel uncomfortable in large crowds because I'll imagine gunshots going off and seeing people running everywhere in chaos. It's gotten better but still unsettling sometimes. paralleljackstand
I would like to add trauma comes in many forms. I got PTSD from having no human contact during the first few weeks of my life. If I knew that was possible I could have been diagnosed and treated much sooner. Education on mental illness overall needs a lot of improvement. DaughterEarth
Bombs in the Air!
My mom was waiting for my sister at the Boston Marathon bombing. She saw the bombs go off and as a medically trained professional, she felt that she should have gone there to help but she also didn't know where my sister was and whether more bombs would go off. So she left and found out that my sister had only avoided being at the finish line because her period had started in the last mile of the marathon. It took them hours to get out of Boston. My mom said she could still smell the bombs and felt intense guilt for not helping and a lot of rage towards the bombers. simplyderping
You have to Live.
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When I was 21, I was in a tandem hang glider accident that killed my dad. Just a few seconds after takeoff from the hill, a wire came loose and the glider plummeted to the rocky hillside. He took the brunt of the impact for the both of us and died two days later, while I was relatively unscathed.
My dad raised my brother and I on his own from the time my brother was still in diapers. I credit him for my values and my resilience in the face of misfortune. He died just as I was starting my career and finding my own way. I often miss being able to share my trials and triumphs with him - adventures, marriage, births and his grandbabies growing up.
But I never once wondered why it had to happen this way. Our only thought on the subject was to imagine that he would've had it no other way. Maybe he even, in those last few seconds, did what he could to shield me from injury. He was a skilled and advanced pilot, achieving his instructor rating after almost three decades of enjoying the sport. He likely knew the outcome of our predicament. But I'll never know since the seconds before and after the impact are a blackout.
So no, there's no guilt. That's not where my head goes for acts of pure chance, however tragic. I just miss him, sometimes terribly. Dusty923
What If....
I was swimming off a beach in Vietnam. There were a whole bunch of people. I was on the edge of the group further out. There was another guy, maybe 50 years old maybe five feet further out than me. Strong current swept me and the older guy out even further away from the group. In a slight panic, I started swimming and made it back ok. The older guy did not. I remember making it back to the shore and the lifeguard on duty was being yelled at by other people to go save the old guy.
The lifeguard froze up and it was several minutes before he swam out there and pulled the guy back in. The old guy was limp and they didn't even try CPR. They just loaded him up on an ATV and drove him off.
I think about it and wonder every now and then if I could have saved him. But not being a great swimmer or trained rescuer, I probably would have died too if I tried. AsherFenix
Surrender your keys please...
I was in a head-on collision in which a drunk driver hit me and another car in the lane next to mine. The 82-year-old lady in the other car died the next day due to her injuries. When she was pulled from the car, one of her legs looked badly twisted and broken. But other than that, she looked much younger and in good shape, so I figured she'd be fine. I walked away with only some scratches from glass in my face, and some soreness. The drunk driver was taken away on a stretcher, but she survived and is in jail now.
I felt terrible for the lady who was killed. I didn't find out till a day or two later when a police officer called to get my statement. I didn't feel survivor's guilt, because it had nothing to do with me, and I just felt lucky to be alive. I was 41 years old and getting married a few months later. The daughter of the lady who was killed contacted me a few years later, just to hear first-hand what happened that morning. I felt terrible for her and her family, especially since i lost my own mom and dad within two years after that accident. But I didn't feel guilty. Just sad. Batphone13
You're Allowed to Live...
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I survived a terrorist attack. Many people died and I survived and now I have the worst survivors remorse. I remember reading headlines about all the people that died. There was a father and a son who died together and the son was little like 12. I feel so guilty every single day that I got to to go my prom, go to college, make mistakes, have fun, get my driver's license, and keep doing all those things when this little boy can't do anything ever again. He doesn't get to keep learning every day like I do. His family will never get to learn his personality, he'll never meet his first love, or feel pain, or accomplishment, or try something really hard and succeed. Its really hard to put in words the feeling that I feel every day. Its not that I want to die, its more that I feel this incredibly deep sadness and this feeling that I don't deserve any day or any joy that I feel.
Other than that, any time I hear a loud noise, my entire body stops working for a second. I cant run or I have a flash back of running. Sometimes I feel like 'That's So Raven' because I'll be doing a totally normal thing and then everything just stops and I am transported back to the place. And I have a permanent bruise on the top of my foot which is annoying. Also, I have learned to use humor as a coping mechanism and it makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable, which is a bummer. lobeezzy
That Girl...
Hit by car at 50 mph.
Ironically the girl in the car died from all of the glass and i only needed a few months to recover been 6 months still can stop thinking about her. Florid43
Nobody is Invincible....
I'm 33 now but when I was 9 I saw a 3 year old boy that I didn't know drown at a super crowded pool. My sister was with me and they were the same age. I had a hard time with it. I remember feeling like I could have prevented it if I wasn't playing and I was paying better attention. I couldn't get over thinking it could have been her. I started sleepwalking, lots of anxiety, and became super overprotective of my sister. I just felt so guilty that I was playing while that boy died. I really think that's when I stopped being a child.
I was seriously over protective. we were homeschooled on a farm in the middle of nowhere. so I knew exactly where she was and what she was doing all day everyday. I didn't go places without her I got really freaked out in crowds. My world became so small and centered around her. My parents were checked out. They were more then happy to just let me be her parent. It wasn't until I went to college the next town over that I got my own life.
The anxiety still pops up randomly like when she had a baby it took me a few days to bond with my nephew because I was so worried about her. (She is a champ, baby out 3 pushes absolutely no reason for me to be freaked out) but then the safety anxieties around her never went away and it's now moved on to the next generation. I'm an expert at baby proofing. jjkat87
Grief is strong....
I do have survivor's remorse. 13 years ago, I was running errands with my mom and my little brother.
My brother, who was 17 at the time, had just got his first job in the cafeteria of our local hospital. He just needed to complete his pre employment drug screen. We stopped by the clinic first thing to get it out of the way. After waiting for a bit I went back to my car because I wasn't feeling well. I was a few weeks pregnant with my son and had awful morning sickness.
While I was in the car I saw a truck come speeding through the parking lot towards the clinic. I thought "wow they're going too fast to take the turn" and they were. The truck hopped the curb and slammed through the clinic's window at the end of the little road. My mom and my brother were sitting right where the truck hit. They died an awful, painful death and I nearly did too.
I feel so guilty for not being with them. It's taken years but I have realized that my mom and brother wouldn't be angry or upset that they died and I didn't. I miss them so much. EverlyBlue
The Ice Cream Savior....
I was visiting a friend at her apartment, and we decided we wanted to go get ice cream. We hadn't even walked 5 minutes away from the complex when a jet (we live between 2 naval bases) crashes right on top of her apartment complex. Luckily none of her family was home, but a lot of people, including the pilot, died that day or were badly injured.
Sometimes I imagine what if we didn't want to get ice cream. What if we just started watching that movie we were planning to first? birb-brain
It's ok to Run for your Life....
Not me but my great aunt that lived in the Philippines during WW2. She was in a safe space with her baby and child watching through a slit underground and seeing her neighbors killed and such. The Japanese soldiers killed babies in front of mother's right before their eyes. She use to cry wondering and thankful she was the lucky one that got to keep her baby and young daughter but guilty she watched everyone else around her die and such. She died recently though. ReaBubbz
Screw You Cancer....
When I originally finished treatment and everyone was all "yay you beat cancer" I felt horribly guilty and honestly was struggling with how to deal with living with that guilt for the rest of my life. But the cancer came back so no more guilt for me 👍 XenusMom
Seek Counseling.....
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Not me, but my uncle. There was a major accident on the Garden State Parkway (NJ) where a dump truck went over the barrier into oncoming traffic. My uncle had just switched lanes with the guy who got hit by the dump truck just moments prior to the crash. He tried pulling him out of his car, but the poor dude was already gone.
He didn't sleep well for a while after that. We all told him to go to therapy but I don't know if he ever did. violetcandy86
