It's easy to forget that what we think is impossible, could potentially happen. There are people out there who have lived through their worst nightmares- stuff that seems unimaginable. Here are their stories.
Incognito1101: People who have survived an attempted murder, what is your story?
When pizza delivery goes lethal.
"I delivered a pizza to a house just outside of the city. On the way back, I stopped to help a car that pulled over in front of me with their hazard lights on. I pulled up beside them and thought it was weird that nobody rolled down a window or made any kind of contact with me for around 15 seconds. The passenger then jumped out of his side of the car yelling that they needed help as he made his way toward my car. I thought something was weird about this. As I started to pull away before he could get to my passenger door, he began shooting at me. I ducked my head after the first shot entered through the back window and embedded in my passenger seat headrest. Another shot entered through the rear window, while the other 3 only hit the outside metal parts of my car, he missed all together with another shot.
I remember being sure I was about to die as he fired more shots at me. I was very surprised that it wasn't panicky, it was just like "Oh, I guess this is it."
Turns out it was a plot to rob me, the pizza was ordered and the guys were stationed down the road to intercept me. They knew who I was and they knew that I would be able to recognize them, as I had delivered a few orders to them before. The guy wasn't wearing anything to cover his identity, which leads me to believe that he would have shot and killed me if he would have made it inside my car.
By the next morning they had all been arrested. The shooter was found guilty of attempted murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison. He later appealed that sentencing because there was a word wrong in the jury instructions, he won the appeal and ended up being sentenced to 10 years, and was released November of 2010 after 5 years. The remaining 5 years were to be served as parole/probation. He was arrested twice for parole/probation violation when he was only a couple months away from total freedom. I laughed."
That's messed up.
Giphy"Had a girl cut my brake lines on my car, didn't know until we checked the camera from the apartment complex.
Luckily she cut straight through them vs slitting them, when I attempted to crank the car the brake pedal went straight to the floor and I immediately knew something was wrong."
Bet that shooter feels really stupid.
"Random dude shot me in the chest because he thought I was my drug dealer neighbor. My neighbor was 6'3 and black. I'm 5'11 and white.
Jokes on him, all he got were a few cigarettes, some pocket change, and 35 years on an attempted 2nd degree homicide conviction."
What a horrible birthday.
"My older sister tried to stab me with a large knife in an attempt to kill me on my 16th birthday, my mother grabbed the knife off her before it got my stomach and slammed her against the fridge and yelled at me to run
Last time I saw my older sister she said "I've gotten over it and you should to, it's pathetic to hang onto it" she then told people it was self defense because I tried to hurt her. I was literally eating my birthday breakfast.
I didn't sleep properly for 2 years while she was in the house because she constantly tried to break into my room at night to slit my throat while I slept. I hate her."
Wrong place at the wrong time.
GiphyMy uncle was attempted murdered by random and pure bad luck.
He was living in a high rise and some crack head pressed every single buzzer. Someone let him in out of laziness/not caring/wanting the buzzer to stop. The crack head proceeded to knock on every single door down the hallways and my uncle is the first to answer the door.
The crack head pulls out a pair of scissors and plunges them into his throat.
The crack head then nonchalantly walks out of the building and says to a passing couple, 'you should probably call the police because I just murdered someone'.
He was picked up very quickly, and my uncle survived.
For a year or two before his epilepsy killed him.
Absolutely terrifying.
"My mom attempted to murder me and my sister when we were younger. She was going through a psychotic episode and pretty suicidal, and I said the wrong thing that set her off. She chased us down to the basement with a knife. We ran into my room and my sister hid in the closet while I tried to fight my mom off at the door. She was trying to push it open while I was trying to push it closed. It was a back and forth struggle until she put her hand in the door (I think she was trying to engage my non-violence because she thought I wouldn't shut the door on her hand) but I slammed the door over and over again.
Meanwhile, my dad who was in the house finally came downstairs to check in what was happening (mind you, this all happened VERY fast and my dad has a habit of zoning out when my mom gets in her episodes.) He ended up pulling her off of the door and my sister and I ran out of the house and jumped in our van. He drove around the corner and turned off the lights and we all ducked down in our seats to hide and stayed there until my dad saw her drive our other car off."
Not related? Seriously?
"When I was a kid, probably around 2nd grade, our house got robbed and my mom and I came home while it was in progress. For whatever reason, she decided to go in and interrupt them. She grabbed her gun (didn't shoot), yelled at them to "get the f out of my house" and then we drove off in a hurry to the corner store to call the cops (this was before cell phones).
Less than 2 weeks later, my mom and I are sitting in the living room on the couch, our backs to the front door. Someone drives by and fires about 6 or 8 shots into the front of our house. Thank God for a steel front door. The cops came and said they didn't think the two incidents were related."
Some people are just truly awful.
Giphy"This happened a couple weeks ago. It was 4:00 AM on a Monday night, playing Rust with some friends and my curtains were slightly open.
All of the sudden I hear a loud pop and my monitor jumps and starts smoking. The screen is completely messed like I had thrown it on the ground, and I was utterly confused as to what happened.
Turns out someone was looking for someone to hurt. When they saw me through the window, they thought they had found their victim.
A .22 pistol bullet was shot through my window at my chest and was stopped by my monitor. Who knows how long I was aimed at, or why they wanted to hurt someone. All I know is I got really lucky, and I should send a thank you card to Asus."
DANG.
"I posted this story already a long while back. But basically, I worked in a jail and a guy from a biker gang tried to pay $10,000 to have me killed because he somehow got the idea that I was the fed who busted him and was merely pretending to be a jailer so I could spy on him (don't do meth kids.)
The guy was bragging about it and one of the other inmates who I had saved from a heart attack with first aid didn't like that so he beat the living snot out of the guy and then told me about it. Phone call recordings confirmed that he had promised the money to two guys if they shot me in the back of the head while escorting him to court and busted him out.
Federal Marshals rolled them up and on his way to court I whispered to him "your friends won't be joining us" when we got to the planned ambush point, instead of a bond hearing he got charged for trying to have me murdered and organizing an escape."
She's lucky to have survived.
"Not my story but grandmother's friend was getting picked up from work by her husband when he shot at her 5 times. He missed 4 times and the 5th bullet hit the underwire of her bra. He then turned the gun around and killed him self. He had just been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.
She's alive, and was completely uninjured. She now jokes about how bad of a shot he was to miss that many times. Crazy story."
That's so messed up.
"When I was 6 years old I saw my bio dad stab my bio mom 20 times in front of my little brother and I. He took my bio mom's blood and rubbed it on my brother's face and said "this is your mothers blood".
She almost died right in front of us. They got her to the hospital in enough time to save her life. But it was scary, and I remember everything. He only went to jail for 8 years. He claimed he heard demons telling him to do it."
How can someone be so evil?
Giphy"I was 3 years old and went to this lady's house for swimming lessons. What my parents didn't know was that the lady hated boys.
One day she threw me in the pool and left me to die. I sank to the bottom. I was under for several minutes.
Some how a teenager saw this, jumped the fence and rescued me. The ambulance came and I was in ICU for a week. My parents never found out who the teenager was.
The lady wasn't arrested. The cops told my parents that it would cost them money to take her to court. A lawyer read an article in the newspaper and decided to go after the lady, pro bono. She had several businesses involving kids. He was able to shut her down. She ended up as a waitress and eventually got cancer and died.
As a lovely parting gift, growing up I sometimes felt like I was drowning when taking a shower or in water. I've over came this and eventually got a scuba license and still enjoy swimming."
Dammit, Cindy.
"I had just bought a full sheet of acid (this was 20 years ago, sorry FBI) and I went over to where my friend was living with a bunch of roommates to share the wealth. I knew most of the people he lived with, but there was one guy staying there who I hadn't met before. I basically handed out however many doses people were tough enough to take at once, including three or four hits to the new guy.
We came to find out pretty quickly that new guy had never taken LSD before. OK, no problem, he's at home, he's surrounded by people he knows (except me), he can just chill and have a good time. We wanted to watch a movie so we landed on the Brady Bunch movie (which is trippy af, btw). Everything's going good, we all start peaking and we're laughing and having a good time...and then, on the movie, the little girl Cindy is getting advice from her dad and says "But I don't want to be a snitch..."
New guy stands up and roars "IS THAT WHAT YOU THINK? YOU THINK I'M A FUCKING SNITCH?" We all try to calm him down, explain to him that it's a line from the movie, we even rewind the movie so he can watch that part again, but nothing is working. He's tripping too hard to reason with, and he's convinced that we're accusing him of being a snitch. Then he starts pacing back and forth, back and forth, muttering "This is the kind of shit that makes motherfuckers kill. This is the kind of shit that makes motherfuckers kill." over and over. Great."
"He zeroed in on me, I'm sure because he didn't know me, and he's still pacing back and forth and muttering but now he's giving me a death glare while he does it. I'm getting pretty uncomfortable, obviously, and I'm also peaking from like 10 hits of acid so my ability to cope with the situation is pretty low. I stand up because, well, there's a guy I don't know pacing around behind me muttering about killing people, and I don't want my back to this dude. This would be a really intense situation even if I wasn't tripping balls, but the acid certainly doesn't help.
Suddenly he pulls out a huge hunting knife, lunges at me, and tries to stab me. I dodged him, then he made another try but by that time his friends had jumped up and were holding him back. He's struggling to break free and screaming "YOU THINK I'M A FUCKING SNITCH? I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!", and I took the opportunity to bop right on out the door. I was about half a mile from my house but it took me about two hours to find it because I was tripping so hard and I kept getting lost in my own neighborhood.
Addendum: He was, in fact, a snitch, and the whole house got raided a few weeks later. A bunch of the guys who lived there got arrested for drugs, although my friend had moved out by that point so luckily he wasn't one of them."
That guy shouldn't be a doctor.
"I don't think it was really attempted malicious murder, just ignorance murder.
I was in the ER for what I found out months later was a gallbladder attack. At the time I was in so much pain I couldn't think or see straight, I could barely sit up, I was sweating, it was bad. Doctor tells me I'm on drugs. I've never done drugs in my life. I don't even drink. I'd even quit smoking! He ignores me and tells me to stop pretending. He gives me toradol.
I am very, very, very, allergic to toradol. I broke out in a rash from head to toe and my whole body felt like it was on fire. I told the doctor, he told me I'd done it to myself from being so dramatic and he's discharging me. He leaves and I start getting super lightheaded and start shivering uncontrollably. I kept pressing my call light and I was crying and saying 'help' but no one was coming. A nurse walked out of a room next to me and peered in and saw me and fucking RAN 'We need help in room 7!'"
"Within seconds my nurse was there, with a big cart. I'm laying down at this point I remember her yelling at me to answer and stay awake but I couldn't. I remember the blood pressure cuff going off and looking at the numbers and they were low, and pulse was dropping too. I was just really warm and sleepy and didn't care about anything any more. She kept telling me not to go to sleep but it's the only thing I wanted to do in the whole world.
I woke up about 7 hours later still covered in a rash and kind of confused but otherwise ok. Alive, at least. Still hate doctors to this day."
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.