Was it deja vu? Am I awake? How much did I drink? All good questions, all valid questions.
When we have lapses in time every so often it can be daunting. It's like having little mini amnesia strokes. At first, we wonder if we even lost time and we try to put the puzzle together.
How much time is gone? What happened right before? On soap operas, the amnesia thing is intriguing, in real life... not so much.
Redditor aadrita__ wanted to hear from the "amnesiacs" out there by asking...
Redditors who have 'missed' time (e.g; you're doing something at 4:28, the next moment it's 8:00, and you have no recollection of anything that happened in between), what's your story?
Emergency Levels.
Giphy"Usually I'm un/undermedicated with adhd and hyperfocusing. I look at a clock it's 9am seconds later my paper it done, it's 10 pm, I'm thirsty, hungry, tired, and have to use the bathroom all at emergency levels."
Skyrim.
"Accidentally played Skyrim for 13 hours straight once without realizing it. I don't think I even took breaks. Just suddenly the sun was coming up and I was like "oh crap."
The Usual.
"I'm epileptic, so this can happen to me quite often."kerrangutan
"I only had 1 episode but it was a doozy. I was sitting on the couch with my mom and dog around 6:30 PM. I woke up in the hospital around 1:00 AM to my mom saying "you had a seizure, I called an ambulance. Then you were sitting on the hospital bed and they didn't put the bars up, you had another seizure and fell right on your head, they are taking you for a second MRI."
"And that is how I lost all memory of the year 2015. It was really strange to be told I had a boyfriend I did not know and a new job. Didn't keep the boyfriend, kept the job."
Closing/Opening
"I was exhausted after being rotated Closing/Opening every other day for two weeks. I got in my car after a particularly long day, started it up and waited for it warm up, next thing I was aware of was sitting in my parent's driveway (I was about 20 at the time, had just broken up with an fool and moved back) with the car off but I was still buckled in."
"My job was 12 miles, straight shot on the freeway, from home."
"I have no idea how I drove myself home safely, because I have ZERO memory of it."
Those 2000s....
Giphy"Early 2000s, I used to do a rural paper route, 6 days a week, 1am to 5am. I never saw other humans or even animals often. My route almost never changed, no new customers, no new areas added, the monotony made all the days blur together. One night, 1:00am, I drove out of the depot where I pick up the papers, blinked and it was 4:30am and I was on the road to my house with no papers in my car. I remember very clearly the radio skipping from an advertisement to the middle section of an Unwritten Law song."
"My car lights were off too, the thing that snapped me out of it was that my rural street to my house has no street lights (most of the route had on the road) and I was driving into total darkness. I was confused and even called in the next day to make sure my papers got delivered, and they did. I think the level of boringness just made me go into a mindless trance."
Those Pills....
"Xanax- I was prescribed a great deal of Xanax daily due to an extremely traumatic event. I have very little recollection of those 2 years."
Don't Forget....
"Mainly ADHD, sometimes I get to work, forget to take my medication and then realize literal hours have gone by and I've got no idea what happened in that time."
Don't Panic...
Giphy"I didn't miss hours, but did miss minutes. I was driving home from work in the middle of the way and all of a sudden was conscious and felt like time had passed. I looked around and was in a completely different area. Not a "oops I zoned out and drove straight and missed my turn," but in a I had been driving for 20 minutes and was on a different side of town."
"In order to be gotten there I had to have drove straight for a while, turned right, turned right and got a highway, stayed on it until it ended, which it ended in one of those round practically circle exits, exited, got 3 lanes over, left turned, then drove straight for a while, left turned again, drove straight for a while and woke up there."
"I panicked, pulled over, and called my dad. He said I probably just zoned out and that I was fine. I found out a year later that it was some type of seizure. Haven't had a seizure in about a year."
I had an "urgent cesarian."
"I had an "urgent cesarian."
"I remember being in the operating theater and my baby being whisked away to the nicu. My next memory is being in a room with my husband and he's about ready to head home, but got me snacks."
"Apparently I missed five or so hours of my life in the recovery room after surgery. I was having full on conversations with everybody that entered the room, but I can't remember any of it. I've asked my husband what I would talk about and he said everything, whatever the means. I don't even remember what the recovery room looked like."
"ETA I wasn't under general anesthesia. I had a spinal block and fentanyl."
It happened to me in first grade.
Giphy"It happened to me in first grade. Class was over and I remember walking deliberately to the bus pickup area. Only, when I got there, there were no buses. No kids, no teachers, just an empty parking lot. I went back inside where my teacher found me and called my mom. I've always wondered if I'm repressing some horrible event."
Scariest moment of my life.
"I decided to take an impromptu weekend trip for my son's birthday. He lives in Wichita I lived in Atlanta. Flights were too expensive so I decided to drive."
"This is a 17 hour drive each way without including stops. I made it in time for his birthday but had to drive back home a few hours after."
"After about 4 hours of driving it was 8am. I remember distinctly checking the time. Next thing I remember is glancing back down at the clock and it being 2pm. Scariest moment of my life. I panicked like I had just slept through work but instead I "slept" through 6 hours of driving."
The Computer Knows.
"It's not the juiciest story, but it really freaked me out at the time. I was playing games on my computer one evening at around 10 PM and decided to just finish what I was doing and then head to bed since I had work the next day. Next thing I know, I'm sat in front of a black screen in just my undies and it's 4 AM. Computer was cold, so it must've been off for at least a little while. No idea what happened because I don't have a history of sleepwalking."
No Mixing.
Giphy"Do not mix sleeping pills with alcohol"
"Was on a transatlantic flight. Got into a good conversation with my seatmate, had several glasses of wine. Then about 4 hours from the destination, we both decided to get some sleep. But I was still animated from the discussion so took a sleeping pill."
"On landing, the flight attendant woke me up. I exited, went to baggage claim, was picked up by my friend, went to her house, then crashed on the sofa."
"Several hours later I awoke and could remember NOTHING of the landing, getting off the plane, going to baggage claim and immigration, meeting my friend, the drive to her place, our conversation---NOTHING. A complete blackout. Complete memory loss. No telling what I did or said during that time."
"They mean it when they say on the pill bottle DO NOT TAKE WITH ALCOHOL."
Before Phones.
"I use to work nights a long time ago (I was about 19 or 20 at the time). This was pre-cell phones. I got off work around 4am and it usually took about 30 min to get home. There is a fairly empty stretch of highway to get home (small farm in the mid of no where)."
"Driving along the road and it was like I drove into a cotton ball. Everything was so white and so bright. It washed out the color. I could only see the road a few feet in front of me so I stopped and pulled over. It was weird. No panic. Just a mild curiosity. I got out of the car and looked around but it was cotton ball every where and so quite."
"And then it wasn't. It was like a vacuum sucked up the whole cotton ball up and turned the color back on. I looked around and there was another car, maybe 100 feet away, and both of the passengers were like me, standing outside and looking around wide eyed. We waved at each other got in our cars and left."
"When I got home Mom was at the kitchen table and asked were I had been. I gave her a funny look, she said she had been worried as it was almost 8am (I am normally home by 4:30). I would have sworn that the whole thing lasted less than 15 minutes total. That the sun had come up really didn't register. The missing time didn't register. I never turned the car off and the tank did not reflect it running for an extra couple of hours."my_alt_4096
Darn NyQuil.
"I was sick, had a long day at work, and I made the mistake of asking my in-laws if they had anything to help with my cough."
"My mother-in-law came back with a little dosage cup and told me to drink it."
"One moment I was feeling better and playing video games in darkness, the next I was being handed the phone by my wife in a room flooded by sunlight."
"On the other end was my boss, concerned with why I wasn't at work."
Me: "I'm sorry, sir. I took something for my cold, and the last thing I remember was yesterday a little after 10. What time is it now?"
Boss: "It's three-thirty in the afternoon! You must have been sicker than you looked. I'll put it down as a sick day, take tomorrow too."
"I'd spent seventeen hours passed out in an office chair because my mother in law had given me a double-dose of NyQuil instead of cough medicine."technos
A Few Summers Back.
"I went to a festival one weekend a few summers back. It was a pretty heavy weekend, but nothing out of the ordinary. I drove back to my apartment on the Sunday and figured I'd have the day to myself and just chill, get some takeaway etc. So I get in, pop a couple etizolam (similar to Xanax) and smoke a joint."
"Come to and it's Wednesday evening. I had missed 3 days of work, most of my stash is gone, call log shows I had two 7 minute phone calls with a director from my company at some point and I had absolutely zero recollection of anything since Sunday afternoon."
"It was absolutely wild, never been so disorientated in my life. Luckily everything was OK with my job and I ended up just going in on Thursday with minimal repercussions. I had a bit of a drug problem at the time and this was the low point that made me start turning things around."
The gaps.
"I had a suicide attempt that ended up causing me serious brain damage. I woke up having no memory of the last 5 months prior to the attempt. 7 years later I am just now beginning to fill the gaps."
"Glitch in the Matrix"
"Not me, but there was a "Glitch in the Matrix" thread that had a pretty cool one. From what I recall, a guy was taking his drivers license exam and they were approaching the first stop sign. He remembers preparing himself for what to do as it was a 4 way stop."
"The next thing he remembers is his driving instructor saying "Did we pass that stop sign?" followed by him looking in his rear view mirror to see it already behind him."
Lost in Translation.
Giphy"I have PTSD and this happens a lot, just flashbacks and memories I get caught in and can't escape. I snap out of it sometimes minutes or hours later, had full text conversations whilst in the middle of it I don't remember."
Some of these were quite distressing! We hope everyone that submitted stories is doing alright.
Do you have something to share? Let us know in the comments below.
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.
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.