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Professional Movers Reveal The Weirdest Things They've Seen On The Job

Professional Movers Reveal The Weirdest Things They've Seen On The Job

Professional Movers Reveal The Weirdest Things They've Seen On The Job

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Being a mover has got to be one of the most physically demanding and strenuous jobs around. You have all that lifting, transporting and sometimes packing. However, one of the things most of us never think about is the possible danger issues. You're dealing with human beings on the daily. Some people are bound to be certifiable. And what sort of treasures does a certifiable person pack? And what sort of life situation are you walking in on?

Redditor _\Dumpster_Fetus _**reached out to the public to ask **Movers of Reddit, what's the weirdest/worst/peculiar thing/experience you've seen/had in someone's home? **_After reading this... I promise you'll be grateful for whatever other job you have. _**

BE CAREFUL OF THE ROCKS!

I did this for a summer a number of years ago, and there was house one in particular that will always stand out.Family of four. Normal looking people. 2 story single family home, no basement. Thought to myself "thank God, an easy gig today." Oh no. No no, I was very wrong. We walk in and lots of stuff is already in boxes (thanks!) and were told to head to the kids rooms first.

12 year old kid who likes rocks. REALLY likes rocks. Like, is obsessed with rocks. There are rocks EVERYWHERE in his room. Big ones, small ones, gravel, sandstone, bits of clay, sea shells, bits of concrete, asphalt, and a pile of what looked like bone fragments. _"He's a rock collector" _Mom says.

No kidding, there were so many rocks in the room that the you couldn't only see narrow paths between the door, the bed, and the closet (which, indeed, was full of rocks).His sisters room was fine and mostly packed besides the furniture and the boxes full of belongings. The parents room was similar, everything normal and somewhat neatly packed.

We shoveled the rocks into wagons to clear the room. Dad was upset that the shovels were going to "stretch the carpet." Ok dude. We loaded several hundred pounds of rocks into our truck that day.Business as usual after that, felt odd that the family didn't seem to be bothered by it. They gave us each an extra hundred in cash for our troubles.

ARE YOU CERTAIN YOU'RE NOT THE A&E SHOW?

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Not really weird but....

I moved a hoarder family once. They had a 2 story house that had a 1ft deep layer of crusty clothes and garbage through all 2 floors and the basement. We brought snow shovels and shoveled it all into wardrobe boxes. The two teenage boys were there smoking pot and being generally in the way the whole 2 days of took us to shovel their stuff into boxes. I found their bong collection and put it in a box labeled Christmas decorations.

GOTTA LOVE FAMILY SECRETS...

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When my mom died i went through her things. her and my sisters weren't on speaking terms but i found photos of them and their children taken by private investigators in the different states they lived as well as info the investigators dug up like where they lived, where they worked who they associated with. i was just shocked at the steps she took to know about their lives cuz she had that _"they're dead to me" _attitude. i was also really said that all of them let things get to that point.

THE "HAZARDOUS" THINGS WE KEEP...

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I wasn't a mover but doing demo work in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. It was in the old French quarter, not the touristy French quarter, and it was an old home that had been abandoned and then squatted in. The place was beyond a wreck, is was more likely a biological hazard zone. Not just from the storm, but it's inhabitants. The neighbors said they were there for at least six months. Inside there was mainly three things: a lot of women's clothing, creepy dolls made from said clothing.

HOW HARD CAN IT BE TO SCRUB WITH SOPAS ONCE AND A BLUE MOON?

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I worked as a mover for a few summers in college, and the worst one was this family of 4 that was moving from one unit in a complex to another unit in the same complex. My boss told me it should be a relatively easy move because the stuff wasn't going far and no stairs.

We show up and walk into the apartment and it was a complete mess. The carpet was stained dark brown, the paint was peeling off the walls, there's crayon drawings all over the walls, and it smelt like absolute crap. It looked like no one had cleaned in years. We had to take constant breaks cause the air was just heavy with a stench. We finally get everything out, when the dad tells us there's one more room we need move, and need to be extra careful. He walks us to a door that had pad locks on it, and he opens it up. Inside are giant, intricately designed doll houses. These things were about 6' x 3' x 4' and had every tiny detail perfect. It was also the only room in the apartment that had clean carpet and didn't smell like hell.

RACHEL! RACHEL! RACHEL!!!

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I work in mortgages and see lots of appraisals. I once saw a bedroom which was a shrine to Jennifer Aniston. There was a wall of framed photos of her in various poses. Candles (like yankee candles not religious ones) and a kneeler like a Catholic Church. So weird.

WHERE'S THE VALUE OF THE DOLLAR?

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I spent one of my high school summers working for a guy who bought up a bunch of foreclosed McMansions in my area after the 2008 recession. Dude paid me great money under the table to clear them out.

It was clear in most of them that the families literally up-and-left (plates on the kitchen table, closets torn through while frantically packing. One got me particularly hard -- it had a fully-furnished basement playroom that was the stuff of dreams for a 6-12 year old kid. Huge TV, a bunch of gaming systems, a nerf gun arsenal, super intricate hotwheels tracks, etc.

All of the toy cabinets had been dumped out and torn through and there were a couple of bags of packed-up toys left behind.

I know a lot of these people made fast money through ethically-questionable means, and spent it even faster -- but the thought of an 8 year old kid, no matter how privileged, having to pick the toys he could carry out of the insane dream playroom he will never see again kinda pissed me off.

PAGING JERRY SPRINGER!

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I once found intimate pictures of a couple when I was helping a friend move out. I show the pics to my friend and she proceeds to freaks out and yells at me to give them to her. I do and she just stares at them and says "that's my mom and uncle." So she cheated on your dad with her sister's husband, it's bad but not unheard of.

BLESS IT ALL! JUST IN CASE.

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One lady had the word Jesus written on everything with what looked like permanent marker. I mean everything. The walls, the furniture, all the decor had the word Jesus on it. Couldn't get out of that house fast enough.

DOES BIG BIRD LIVE HERE?

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Moved a couple in their 60's who had 3 cats and 2 large African Grey parrots. All of these animals roamed freely in the house, and every surface in the house was coated in a thick layer of dust, bird poop and cat hair. I would estimate that the house hadn't been cleaned at all in about 5 years or more. The bedposts were caked in about a half inch of bird poop which ran from top to bottom, I assume the birds perched on top of the bedposts at night and poop all down along them. The smell was atrocious and the air felt thick and heavy inside the house.

While packing up the master bedroom, I found thousands of Xanax pills. Like WAY more than a person would ever be prescribed by a doctor. The house also stank of weed, like they had been smoking indoors for years and never cracked a window. The husband was disabled and wore an adult diaper, and there was a very strong smell of It coming from him as he showed us around the house.

Overall, a f--ing bizarre and disgusting situation.

THERE IS NOT ENOUGH MONEY IN THE WORLD!!

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Late to the party so this might get buried. Last year I worked for a moving company (pretty big name) in LA county. Needless to say we saw the best of the best and the worst of the worst. Helped Bob Harper move, one of the trainers on The Biggest Loser. He helped us pack and move almost everything and tipped each of us 200 at the end of the day, there were 5 people. Great guy. Anyway, arriving at a job and the notes say,_"may have difficulty moving through apartment," _which typically meant furniture and things are messy simply because they are moving. No big deal not our first rodeo. We show up and we're greeted with this horrendous smell, the only thing I could equate it to is that fresh skunk spray smell. We start walking through the house and realize we can't see the floor, I mean we are at least a foot from the ground stepping on miscellaneous crap. Hoarders. With our company we had the leisure of being able to call in and say the apartment isn't up to working conditions. Hoarders fall under the category but if we saw spiders, rodents, we could call it in and leave the site without repercussions. It had been a really slow month for our branch and after calling our supervisor and arguing for 20 minutes they advised we needed to, _"tough this one out," _for the sake of our jobs. The 3 of us calmly took some deep breaths, and got to work. About 30 minutes in I can hardly stand the smell anymore, I'm gagging just being in the house. We go to move an old night stand and a rat the size of a 3 month old cat scurried away. We dropped the nightstand, told our other coworker and we walked out. The customers were furious because we were being babies and couldn't handle a little mess to clean up. Our supervisor called within minutes of us driving off and said if we don't go back we are fired. We all decided to pull over, turn the truck off, lock the keys in the car, and get Uber's home. We figured since we were being treated so bad we'd do the same, hopefully leading to them having to the job. It was 8 pm at this point, we clock in at 6 A.M. so everyone's gone except the supervisors waiting for us to get back. We got word the next day from coworkers that the supervisors didn't do the job because the house was too messed, never got an offer or an apology for our job back either.

I'M NOT MOVING AN ARK.

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Moved this family out of their house. The entire house had been pissed on everywhere by cats and dogs. The daughter had a room that had rats, hamsters, mice, who knows what else roaming free destroying her room... she didn't care. She had a couch in there they named "the rat couch."

VHS? DO THEY EVEN WORK ANYMORE?

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Once helped a hoarder move who had 117 DVD players, 86 VHS players, and 18 of the exact same Audiovox portable VHS players (I counted).

BLANCHE DEVEREAUX? IS THAT YOU?

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I found an old lady's (past 80 she was in a nursing home) adult toys and diary of her conquests from the 50s. The diary had details of all her hookups from the 50s I think. It was kind of sad, she was never married and didn't seem very happy in the text.

I also felt bad about reading it, but I worked for the guy that found it and he read it aloud to the group during lunch.

I also found a bunch of money that her dad hid in the basement. Coins from the 30s and 40s.

This was a construction job in college, I used to to a lot of work remodeling old mansions in Shaker Heights OH. It was always fun to find old bottles and cans of beer in some weird crawl space I was moving through. I wasn't legal to drink at the time and I knew that teenagers 30 years ago tossed them in there after a party because I used to do the same thing at my parent's house

THAT'S NOT YOURS IT'S MINE!!

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I once helped a neighbor I barely knew move, who was separating from her husband.

They were both present and they hadn't really worked out who was getting what in the split. He was staying in the house and she was leaving. Worst moving experience of my life. It's bad enough that they weren't packed, and we had to put things into boxes as we went, but she would tell us to put something in a box and then he would come and grab it from us and tell us it was his. So awkward!

HOW BREAKING BAD.

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Managed a moving company and occasionally worked on the truck.

Moved this home that was actually pretty sad, this is all in Arizona where there's a big meth problem. Before I walked in I could smell they must've been cooking there. Guy, girl and a baby probably a year or two old. This place was filthy top to bottom and smelled the awful stench of meth and body odor. I was close to walking off the job it was so bad. We moved them to much nicer neighborhood and their credit card processed, which I didn't think it would, so convinced myself that they were trying to get out of a bad situation and be better parents

I did an estimate and this average looking male in his 50s had his toe nails painted a sky blue. Cool guy but only had a son and no grandkids, so I was real curious.

Moved a high end home and found a safe with about 20 pounds of weed. Guy was part owner of a dealership, at the end he tipped me double, $200, he knew I saw and I didn't say anything so maybe that's why the heavy tip?

SILENCE OF THE LAMBS : THE REALITY SHOW.

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I spent 5 summers working for a moving company between high school and college. I have seen a plethora of weird things in people's homes. I've found numerous forms of paraphernalia: bongs, bubblers, pipes and you name it in various shapes, sizes and colors.

Whips, chains, whistles, yo-yos. They were embarrassed when we charged into the bedroom to pack up their stuff. I once found an entire case of 7.62mm FMJ ammo.

One gentleman insisted that he show us his homemade adult video tape collection. It was hidden in the back of his closet behind a panel. It was him and various women doing the deed. Think of that scene in American Psycho with the two hookers. It was just like that but extra creepy because I was 16 & the dude was a total creep.

The strangest thing was a guy who insisted we stay out of one room in his basement. He had a padlock on it. We were packing his things and he had to run out to "take care of something at the realtor's office." We were almost done and doing our final walkthrough to make sure we didn't miss anything. The padlock was open on the door so one of the girls I was working with went inside. She came running out screaming _"Let's go, let's go. We gotta get outta here." _The rest of us poked our head inside to see what can only be described as a serial killer's torture dungeon. Knives on one wall man-sized butcher's block in the middle of the room plastic everywhere and an oddly stained bathtub on one wall, no toilet, mind you, just a tub.

THANK THE LORD FOR XANAX AND THERAPISTS.

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I worked as a mover with friends for a summer job while in college and there is definitely a horror story which sticks out in my mind. I show up as relief help to a crew which had already been at a house for 7 hours and as I arrived I was greeted with wide stares of the _"You aren't going to believe this" _variety from . The boys tell me to check out the basement. I got about 4 steps down the stairs before I was punched by the most pungent sour smell that I couldn't quite put my finger on. I buried my face in my shirt and took another couple unsure steps down the stairs to where I see a chest high shelf which runs around the whole room. The shelf is covered with bottles containing varying amounts of liquid. what was in the bottles? Pee. so many bottles of pee. There was an old beat up chair and a tv with an xbox surrounded by more bottles of piss. So much piss. I immediately left the job site but that visual and smell is seared into my memory forever. So much pee. They also found a dead cat behind a couch later. So I guess I didn't have it too bad.

People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.