College Professors Recall The Most Genius Things Students Have Ever Done In Their Class
College is a formative time in many people's lives. It's usually the first taste of real freedom, and real accountability, many people get as young adults.
Some choose to coast through the experience with as little effort as possible, while others struggle with the extra responsibility and expectations. Still others find their calling in education and really apply themselves to the whole experience.
College professors deal with a wide variety if students from different backgrounds, with different interests and abilities, and this can lead to some pretty interesting outcomes in the classroom.
Reddit user ziggiddy asked everyone on r/AskReddit:
19.
I'm a student, and On our exams we are able to have an index card we can write notes on to use as a reference during the test. Most kids just write super small, but this genius wrote some notes in red ink, and others that overlapped in blue ink. They then used 3d glasses to be able to read the jumbled mess. I sat there in astonishment. m1234321p
18.
I was a TA, we had a statistics course at our university that was unnecessarily hard to get through our undergrad business program. Anyways we had a student who recorded himself using doing the homework and uploading it on YouTube for the other students to understand (it was genuinely helpful). He even used different numbers and examples and what not to not give ya the answer.
The professor caught wind of it and claimed he was cheating gave him 0's on every assignment/test up to that point, threatened to sue him for using her materials to make public, and made him public apologize to the class for "academic dishonesty". That guy literally helped so many people that would struggle in the class or be in tutoring for HOURS. Forget that professor. Batterypacked123
17.
While teaching an algorithm class, I prefer giving assignments that require no code. Instead, I ask them to write pseudocodes.
Nevertheless, most of them try to convert a piece of code into pseudocode. However, one of the students handed me in almost a full technical paper using LaTeX. I admired that student. Talked to him after grading, and told him that I wish I was that smart when I was in college.
Nobody topped him yet. PisEqualToNP
16.
I was taking an easy elective class in college and my professor would give out 30-40 question test-like homework assignments. While googling to understand some of the concepts, I came across a site that had every question, word for word, and in order. I could tell that the questions were the same through the google search preview, but opening the page blurred everything except a subscription box in the middle. I think my teacher was trying to make extra money off of selling her own answers. Either that, or she was stealing the content.
Regardless, I'm no good with code so I didn't even think to try anything fancy. I just used a ctrl+A on the page and pasted it into a word document. It worked. I had plain searchable text I could reliably pull from the internet every week. I didn't tell a soul and got everything I needed to "pass" the class just through the homework assignments. BurberryPert
15.
Not a college professor, but I was in a 400+ student auditorium when a bizarre incident occurred during a final exam.
Barely five minutes after we started the test, a student gets up, hands in his paper to the proctor, yells "WE OUT!", and JUMPED OUT THE WINDOW.
It was the first floor, but still. dysenterychampion
14.
My Dad is a chemistry professor. This means that he gets to filter all the students trying to get into medical school. A surprising amount of them are cheating morons, which doesn't bode well for medical school. You can't cheat your way through a surgery. Nevertheless, I've got stories.
One time one of my dad's colleague's students managed to secretly install on his professors keyboard software that would track what was typed in. He figured out the professor's password, got into the grading system, and changed his and his friend's grades. They almost wanted to give him some credit for ingenuity, but the school makes its students sign an honor code and part of it is that they understand not to cheat, so he was booted. Poor kid. I hope he's using his clever tricks to better society.
Lately my dad's been stressing out about the whole online class thing and how you prevent students from cheating. His solution was to make tests way harder but allow use of the internet. He didn't feel he had to specify that you shouldn't get somebody else to do problems for you (edit:) after he had already stated so clearly.
But he found one of his students using this one website (edit:) called chegg where you could post the question and have people solve it for you. The students apparently making this really compelling case that he didn't know it was cheating. Maybe if he gets booted he can go to law school. CrimsonDawnSyndicate
The Best "Give The Hardest Job To the Laziest Person" Success Stories | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
13.
There's always that story of the guy that showed up to class late, saw a problem on the board, and assumed it must be the homework for that week. He completed it and turned it in the week after.
Turns out it wasn't homework, but rather a famous unsolved mathematical principle that he just discovered a proof for.
12.
I am a professor, so... My students are very bright for undergrads, but there are no real Good Will Huntings. One clever thing I notice a student do now and then is instead of (or in addition to) copying a long-detailed timeline or diagram I spend writing an hour writing out on the board, they will pull out their phone and take a picture of the board. narwhal_
11.
I once had a student who turned in an essay not in full sentences, but in bullet points. I was about to fail the student, except that all bullet points entailed one clear, concise point, every point clearly indicated its purpose for the overall argument, and the structure was more logical than most essays I had read before.
It was a bit like going from a late-Wittgenstein to an even more condensed version of an early-Wittgenstein. I decided to use my grading scheme on it, and basically the student met all the requirements I had communicated before, so it was an A.
In another instance, a student decided that my assignment was boring, so they started the essay by arguing that the question was boring for the following reasons, coming up with a better question (which was admittedly more interesting, but would have been too hard for the assignment), and then answering this question by using arguments established in the previous part about how the original question was boring. That one was an A+. fidadst
10.
I watched one of my students write a crib sheet on a small piece of plastic and place it perfectly inside the label of her water bottle so that it was barely visible, but readable inside. Over the course of a two-hour lecture. It was magnificent. No I did not call her out on it or demand she throw her water bottle away. It's not my business what she chooses to do in another class.
Students cheat for a lot of reasons, but often times we find it's because the professor's expectations are ridiculously f*cked (it's usually this one), or because the student is dealing with far too much on their plate and cheating can alleviate at least some of that burden of stress for an underprivileged student. I'm not saying it's right, but I understand it.
9.
A friend of my brother's was doing a Bachelor in Pharmacology and the only elective that fit his schedule was Philosophy. He had no interest in it but had to pass with at least a C in his final year. When he got to the exam there was one question on the paper:
"Is this a question?"
After the 3 hour exam he was talking to fellow classmates and asking what they had come up with. They had discussed word etymology, structures of thought, ideas on different cultural elements of language, the impact of spiritualism on philosophical questioning and reasoning and so on. He said "Oh no" and got real worried. Then a fellow student said "What did you write?"
He said "I wrote "If that's a question then this is an answer" and then left the exam room after 5 minutes. To his astonishment he got an A+
8.
I taught a lab that had a microscopy section back in the late 00s. Despite having a microscope camera for taking pictures of the field of view in my own high school labs and the technology being readily available, it was not something the university was willing to spring for the students of a 100 level class. One of my students just stuck his IPhone camera right up to the ocular lense of the scope and took a picture. I was floored. Now looking back I'm thinking "of course that would work why wouldn't it?" but at the time myself and my Blackberry were very impressed.
7.
We had assignments based on the daily lectures in class. Assignments were due at the end of the week, but this one student always turned his assignments in minutes after each class. I notice on his laptop, while everyone else was taking notes on theirs, he would be filling out the assignment as the professor went through his powerpoint. He would also ask the professor questions about the lecture that gave him the answers to the assignment. Not only was he learning from essentially taking notes, but he never had to do homework outside of class.
6.
Not me, but I took and Intro To Accounting class that was required for all Business Majors where we had a teacher that was teaching his first college class ever. He said T Accounts were for nerdy accounting people and wanted to show everyone how to look at the P&L and Balance Sheet like a business does.
He would assign us things to do and if you couldn't figure out the answer he would tell you to re-read the chapter the answer was in there. As you could guess a ton of kids struggled or had to cheat to get by after the first test.
But then there was some kid who had taken accounting before at a different university and the credits didnt transfer so he was forced into this class and he knew all the answers. He hosted a Homework Review in the library on a whiteboard and answered any questions and helped everyone study. I think we all just learned from that dude more than the teacher.
5.
I'm a TA for a chemistry class. Twice a week the students have to turn in a worksheet to me, and I require them to have them stapled because of the mess it turns into otherwise.
Anyway, one student made it through the class without buying a stapler because they figured out some wierd oragami like way of folding the corners together in such a way that you physically could not get them unstuck without carefully undoing the folds. Now I teach it to my students and tell them if they don't own a stapler they can just do that.
4.
On an exam, a student answered a question about DNA topology with an answer that neither the prof nor I had ever seen...and it was correct. And neither of us had come up with it.
And that made us have to go back and re-grade the entire class's answers to that question.
3.
This wasn't so much genius as it was ballsy, but in the last class I taught, students were required to give a 10 minute persuasive speech about a topic. I listed some common topics from previous classes like whether college athletes should be paid, legalizing marijuana, stuff like that. They were supposed to do a little bit of research and incorporate empirical evidence into their presentations.
This guy did a whole 10 minute speech, complete with a powerpoint presentation, on why one food item was better than another, similar food item. It was completely and totally irrelevant, subjective, and not related to anything the course discussed.
However, the presentation was very well done. Where students often struggle with the use of filler words, improper preparation and a flat, boring speaking voice, this student was engaging and seemingly excited about the topic.
Because I use a rubric, I told him I had to take off points for the fact that his "research" relied mostly on personal opinion rather than evidence, but I still gave him an A- because the actual presentation itself was well done. Honestly, it was one of the better speeches I heard that semester, if you don't factor in the content.
2.
My math professor told the class a story about an incredible student he had. He liked having both calculation questions (solve the diffeq, etc) and proofs testing conceptual things in the class. Well one time, this incredible student managed to proof things that were well beyond the scope of the course. She would also ask questions that suggested incredible insight about the class.
He was impressed and had to see what her math background was. Well, it turned out she was a C and D student. In fact she failed Calc 3 and got a C (I think) the second time. Her first exam also suggested that she had a very difficult time solving and applying the kinds of things learned in the course. Yet she could prove the bonus question extremely well.
He realized that she just had a hard time with applied math but was incredibly gifted at pure math. So he went to the head of the math department and after some fighting, managed to convince the department chair to give her harder exams on the account that the exam must be approved. Well that's what he did. And the department was astonished at the difficulty of the 2nd exam. She could never complete this! But she did. And she got an A in the course.
To this day he and her are good friends and she visited the class near the end of the semester (she was doing a pure math phd).
This stuck out to me. Honestly, I don't think she would have pursued mathematics. And that would have been a shame. The professor stood out to me. Not only was he an incredible teacher but he really cared about his students.
1.
I was taking a Romantic era lit class in University, due to some quirk of scheduling it was twice a week, 6-9 pm. We all had to do presentations for a tiny part of our grade on whatever the topic of the day was throughout the term. We were encouraged to take a very wide ranging view of what could constitute a presentation. This prof was pretty great and actually managed to get a bunch of 20 year olds to dress up in period costumes to read poetry to the class, or to tell pulpy stories about all the banging the Byrons and/or Shellys got up to.
Buddy was a super friendly guy who had time for everybody. Imagine the personality of Jack Black in the body of a 24 year old Harry Potter.
His day to present comes up and the poem is Rime of the Ancient Mariner. At first he doesn't show. The Prof goes through the preliminary matters and then before she can ask where he is, Buddy KICKS down the door to the class and struts in with somebody dressed as a fisherman and a woman in a showy prom dress. These people are not in our class.
He proceeds to take a literal boom box (this is like, 10 years after those stopped being a thing?) to the front of the room, plug it in, and start playing the Rime of the Ancient Mariner metal song by Iron Maiden. We think "Ok, cool, this is his presentation..." NO!
Dear reader that is not what happened.
What happened next was a 60 plus minute reenactment of the overall story of Rime of the Ancient Mariner through a Hunter S. Thompson Lens. The woman is initially the guest going to a wedding whom he stops, but then terrorizes her and holds her captive with a reenactment (a presentation within a presentation) with his captain friend about how he killed an Albatross in an aviary while pressuring this captain figure into driving him around to score more drugs as things kept spiralling out of control.
As this is going on the girl at first seeming terrified of them, circles around throws on some dark makeup and suddenly, with everyone's attention on this weird gonzo reenactment, makes her entrance as death and his rival from the play, lecturing them for their mortal hubris and both demanding her attention and ignoring her.
The metal song stopped playing 15 minutes ago and the whole class is caught off guard by this reversal when they thought the whole thing was wrapping up after he got to the part in his weird story about the dead bird.
But she keeps going in a fury! She throws out the sea captain / driver. And then she and he finish out the rest of the poem, with the mariner receiving his curse. They must have been rehearsing for weeks, there's no reference to anything written down, and they are just LIVING the emotional depths of this reckoning.
As they draw to the end she resumes being the woman waiting for a bus / wedding guest. They finish. Take a bow. The class is part amazed, part confused, and just besides themselves. There is some scattered applause, then he abruptly takes his boombox and they storm the fu*ck out.
Never came back to the class that night.
The proff takes a break, pokes her head out to look around. Tries to talk about the poem but she just can't. We've all just witnessed something together. Something weird, and wonderful, and spell binding. None of us put a stop to it, least of all her. There was nothing left to say about Coleridge.
No presentation I have ever experienced in my educational or professional career will ever approach the time I saw a gonzo re-imagining or Rime of the Ancient Mariner in a lit class.
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "🤐" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
People Explain Which Things They Thought Were Fancy As A Kid That Totally Weren't
Reddit user SinkingFeelingBruh asked: 'What did you think was fancy as a kid that isn’t?'
Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash
Have you ever gone back to your elementary school as an adult and been amazed that everything looked smaller than you remembered?
It's a great example of how our perception of the world around us is shaped by our own experiences and where we are in life.
As a child everything seems big because we're small.
Our childhood perceptions of other things were also skewed. Things that seemed grand luxuries became ordinary or mundane as we aged.
Reddit user SinkingFeelingBruh asked:
"What did you think was fancy as a kid that isn’t?"
Mc's Steakhouse
"Getting to eat McDonald's all the time..."
~ 02red
"This was my first thought, and it was also the first comment I came across opening the thread."
"You are so right..McDonald's used to be so exciting. I don't even eat it anymore."
~ kasparzellar
GiphyWith or Without Crusts
"Cutting sandwiches diagonally."
~ 787la57la47al
"As a college student, I love dressing up my husbands plate when he eats mediocre meals. If he wants a sandwich, I will dress it up like it’s fine dining."
"I made us air fries nuggets and had the ketchup dots and swirls garnishing the plate lol. It makes things more fun."
~ ireallyamtired
Cocktails for Children
"Shirley Temple/Roy Rogers drinks."
"I remember when my parents would take us to a 'fancy' restaurant and we would be able to order these."
"I felt so adult! With the skinny straw and the maraschino cherry..."
~ Iron_Chic
"Okay but low key though… I still love myself a Shirley temple."
"Like if someone were to offer me one I definitely wouldn’t turn it down."
~ faithle97
GiphyWelcome to the Club
"As a kid I thought going to a restaurant and having a club sandwich was the height of sophistication. Probably because I learned about club sandwiches from a family friend who introduced me to them."
"I used to think the little toothpicks with the plastic frills that held the sandwiches together were sooooo fancy. I always brought my toothpicks home with me to play with."
~ Bebe_Bleau
Processed Foods
"My friends whose kitchens were filled with junk food like Captain Crunch, Twinkies and Ding Dongs, hot dogs and American cheese."
"I thought they were so fancy and I was so jealous."
"My mom cooked from scratch every day, and we thought we were so neglected because she wouldn't buy that sh*t for us to eat."
"We were so lucky. Thanks, Mom."
~ riceme0112358
GiphyOoh la la!
"Viennetta ice cream cake was the peak of fancy for me."
~ KaleidoscopeVast9290
"I came here to say this! They marketed it really well to 7-14 year olds."
~ Holiday-Armadillo-34
The BIG Box
"Back in my day, kids who had Crayola 120 colored pencils were considered the elites of society."
~ Prism_Red
"Or the Crayola Crayons with the sharpener on the back."
~ Spoozle64
GiphyA World Tour in a Mug
"A cup of General Foods International Coffee to cap off your five star evening. Might I recommend the Suisse Mocha?"
~ Smooth_Riker
"That was upper class shiz that I begged my parents to buy for company."
"Turns out, Folgers out of the red can was all encompassing; for home and company. Sigh."
~ burgerg10
"My 10 year old self would walk around my room sipping a cuppa and pretending I was grown in my own apartment."
~ odd_kumquat
It's the Foil Wrapper
"Ferrero Rocher chocolate."
~ SirRobynHode
"Richard Gere did the commercials in a tux. I thought these must be the most fancy and expensive chocolates imaginable."
~ Either-Durian-5517
"Dude I'm 22 and they're still fancy to me."
~ rubbersoulelena
GiphyUnder Glass
"Desserts in the display cases (eclairs, bon bons, petifores, etc...)."
~ Med_Vamp
"This jogged my memory of those iced cookies they’d have on display at Giant (American grocery store)."
~ nicheencyclopedia
Pardon Me, Do You Have Any?
"For some reason, as a kid I thought Grey Poupon was some fancy delicacy by the French. I imagined some fancy guy with a gray wig slathering it on a baguette."
"Like only the rich had access to it."
"It’s just mustard. WTF. Still haven’t had it."
~ JackfruitCurry
"When I got married, my dad insisted upon renting a Rolls Royce to take hubs and me from the church to the reception."
"I jokingly asked the driver 'pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?' in my snootiest faux-British accent. He popped open the glove box and there it was!!!!"
~ RefugeefromSAforums
GiphyBeep, Beep
"Old cars from fancy brands."
"Kids are always like 'whoa he drives a BMW' without realizing it's not impressive to drive a 1999 BMW in 2023."
~ slightofhand1
Get Some Quarters for the Bed
"Hotels were the fanciest as a kid, weren't they?"
~ Non-opisthokont
"I thought a motel or an inn was fancier than a hotel."
~ tobiiam
"Omg, yes! Lol, the vibrating beds were so fancy & fun! I’d always beg my parents to get me one."
~ Sad-Comfortable1566
Jumping Michael Chiesa GIF by UFCGiphyBut There's Cheddar in the Biscuits
"Red lobster."
~ MonsoonMermaid
"A guy I worked with (in the 90’s) said he treated his women right."
"When he went out to eat, he took them to places like Red Lobster. What a baller!"
~ eastcoastme
"Oof, I took my junior prom date to Red Lobster back in ‘00. Sorry, Michelle…wherever you are."
~ kyd712
The Beer Fridge
"I thought that having a second, older fridge in your garage meant your family was rich.
"Actually, hell, if you had a garage at all I thought you were rich."
~ CoolBugg
"Didn’t realize people used their garages for cars for YEARS. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around it."
"It feels like such a waste of storage space to keep a car in there. Where else do people keep lol their tools, holiday decor, and sh*t they don’t want to throw out but also don’t want to use anymore?"
~ Ithinkillgrowthis
"When we bought our house it came with a fridge in the garage."
"I audibly gasped."
~ Aggravating-Dig-8987
GiphyMy Father was in the military, but didn't want to live on United States Navy bases, so we lived off base in a trailer.
Back then, trailers were much smaller and easily moved from place to place. So each time my Father was stationed at a new base, our trailer was packed up and moved to a new trailer park near the new base.
Because of this life of trailer parks, my idea of luxury living wasn't a mansion—it was a double-wide trailer.
What did you think was fancy as a kid?
CW: suicide.
When we're asked how the "lonely guy" in high school was, we can all think back and come up with an example.
Some peers may have referred to them as weird for keeping to themselves, but sometimes, it's surprising what they end up achieving after all those years of seeming isolation.
Curious about others' experiences, Redditor Sad-[c-word]-420 asked:
"What happened to the lonely guy in your high school class?"
Major Career Move
"Well, I just googled him, and he's a Georgetown law professor."
- BulletDodger
A Simple, Happy Life
"The person I always thought of as possibly lonely retained the same couple of friends for the past 13 years, and they still seem to enjoy getting together and doing the things they did back then. Video games, anime, etc."
- ptbus0
The Lost Friendship
"I lost touch. You can't be a one-way street to someone forever."
- NewPickleballer
Data Science Things
"He is sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."
"I am sitting in a data science conference reading Reddit."
- zykezero
Tragic Therapy
"He didn’t like to be around people much, so he spent a lot of time riding his motorcycle alone, which he said he found therapeutic. He died at 20 in a motorcycle accident."
- Disastrous-Year571
Sometimes The Loneliness Sticks
"Still lonely, However, he worked his way up within a KFC franchise through high school and bought his first house early on even though he didn’t do well at school. Then he worked in the army for 10 years and bought properties number two and three. "
"Now he works as a director on a cruise liner and goes from country to country by himself."
"No partners or girlfriends ever, but he's financially well off."
- ethereumminor
Secret Model
"He became an actual model for high-class perfumes and brands and not one those Instagram or TikTok 'models.'"
- dkguy90
"I was in the suburbs of Buffalo. A super quiet, shy, plain girl everyone kind of ignored, was modeling on runways in Paris or doing high fashion photo shoots in NYC from about age 13. No one knew until Senior year when she had her portfolio with her because some journalist was going to interview her at school."
- NYCandleLady
Shoutout to the Late Bloomers
"I got a degree, got married, and started a career. Not much different from others, just started later."
- Ben_Thar
Success Stories
"He grew several inches after high school and went into tech. HE was very successful and now has a supermodel wife and a beautiful family."
"Another guy became a pediatric surgeon. He was married and had a daughter... Over the years his wife disappeared from his Facebook post and it was just him and his daughter. In a few years ago, he married a supermodel Eastern European nurse."
- wastingtoomuchthyme
Nothing Short of Tragic
"He joined the army and then literally went AWOL two years later. No one has seen or heard from him since. His mom posts his missing person flier up on my hometown's Facebook page every year on his birthday. It's really f**king sad."
- nails_for_breakfast
Funny in the End
"He became an entrepreneur of a really successful company."
"He employed the three jokers who used to bully the heck out of him. They still don't know who he is."
- AbsurdFormula0
"'Employed the three jokers.'"
"Is he Batman?"
- panzer22222
Hard Work Pays Off
"That was me. I always sat at my own table with the occasional foreign exchange student."
"I got out of school and worked really hard. I just turned 48 and I still haven't peaked. I have a large portfolio of real estate and do a lot of traveling."
"I wanted something more for myself but I didn't really have that confidence until after school. I now live an incredible life. There is hope for us losers who aren't afraid of a little work."
- kjschaben
Wishing Them Well
"He was the smartest person I ever met. He was very quiet, kept to himself, and did 110 percent on anything he was ever given to do. He always got the best scores."
"Me and my best friend were the second and third place, but it wasn’t worth chasing first place with him around. We always tried to be his friend, but he wasn’t interested in friends. He was always polite but didn’t seem to want friends. He always accepted me as a friend on social media though, and we were always friendly."
"I was 21 when he posted for the first time on Facebook. It was a suicide note. Thank God someone got to him in time. I messaged him after and let him know I understood and he could talk to me."
"He sent me a long message back, and I understood so much of what he was saying. The constant pressure to be perfect, the trap of trying to please your parents, the spiral downwards when you realize you aren’t a superhuman… I had no idea how much pressure his parents were putting on their kids."
"We talked for a bit, but he eventually stopped responding, and I moved to a different country."
"I hope he’s doing well now, he is an amazing guy. Love ya Scott, if you ever see this."
- lorealashblonde
A Thriving Life
"He ended up graduating top of the class, got a full-ride scholarship to Cornel, got his master's, makes seven figures a year, and is happily married with two kids."
"I was one of his few friends in high school and the dude is doing amazing in all aspects of his life."
- Superb-Pattern-1253
Doing Just Fine
"I don't really know what happened to anyone from high school, and I'm okay with that."
- FireyToots
"Found the fellow lonely person."
- Kiltemdead
"So it seems the lonely guy from your high school class is doing fine."
- CleaningMySlate
"I don’t know why, but this made me really proud of myself. Thank you random internet person for making this other random internet person feel good."
- FireyToots
Thinking back on high school, it's surreal to think about all the people we knew but have lost touch with, unable to really know what's going on in their lives anymore.
But some of us might hold a special place for the quiet kids and wondering how their lives turned out. Just because they were quiet in school doesn't have to mean that they didn't make huge change after graduation.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
People Divulge Traumatic Things That Happened As A Kid That They Didn't Realize Were So Serious
Being nostalgic for happy childhood memories is something we do from time to time as we get older.
The stresses that come from adulting make us yearn for how much simpler things were when we still possessed a sense of awe and fascination with the world that was slowly revealing itself to us before we refined our critical thinking skills.
While there are the warm and fuzzy memories of being with family during the holidays, a favorite toy, or a beloved pet, there are certain incidences from the past that are not-so-pleasant when looking back through an adult lens.
Curious to hear from strangers online about their childhood, Redditor beesechugersports asked:
"What horrible thing happened to you as a kid and you didn’t realise the severity of it until you got older?"
For children, it's all fun and games...at first.
A Dangerous Game
"I lived in the countryside in a farming town. Alongside the road my family lived on was a small concrete ditch. It was visible for about half the road and then went underground the rest of the road until it flowed out into a large canal at the end."
"I was a really thin and small kid. When I was about 9 or so my sister and I and some of her friends were playing in the small ditch to cool off. My sister thought it would be interesting to see if I could fit into the pipe that led underground. So my 12 year old sister and her friends held me by my arms and lowered me into the pipe until my hips were in. I could feel the rushing water pulling me in. I yelled at them to bring me back out. They did and then we left."
"I didn’t tell anyone about it for years and when I finally did they looked horrified. So yeah if my sister had lost her grip, I would have gone underground and likely gotten stuck and drowned."
Playing Dead
"Oof… my sister was messing with me and pretended to be dead. I thought she was kidding but I was little and not completely sure cause I hit her, pinched her, checked for breathing (those classes where EMs show you what to look for and firefighters telling you to stop drop and roll and don’t be scared of their masks REALLY paid off!)"
"So I went and dialed 911 but thankfully my sister decided she didn’t want to have to explain to my parents wtf happened so instead she got chewed out by the operator lol"
– ovrlymm
Kids get an early lesson on death.
Dying On The Job
"Our babysitter died while she was watching us when my twin and I were 3. We had no concept of death, and tried to wake her up."
"She had spilled water when she fell, and I still remember getting a dish towel to wipe it up, thinking she would be proud of how responsible I was being."
"I remember going to get our little toy pots and pans to bang together to make noise to wake her up, we had no idea what a heart attack was."
– Mushrooming247
Strawberry Ice Cream To Make It All Better
"I always remember a paramedic talking about responding to a scene where an aunt had died looking after a three or four-year-old child. The aunt was slumped on the floor but she had some strawberry ice cream around her mouth. Apparently the child had tried to feed her dead aunt some strawberry ice cream after she'd collapsed and died because whenever the child herself felt bad, sometimes her parents would give her strawberry ice cream. So she tried to help her aunt that way. That image really stuck with me."
– skonen_blades
Childhood traumas never go away.
Addiction
"It took me almost 25 years to realise that alcoholic parents aren't normal and other people have it different."
– Veeyas
"I remember asking a friend how many times they’d seen their parents drunk in their life when I was 16 or 17."
"When they said a handful I kinda knew I’d been f'ked. My dad had driven while drunk with me in the back more times than they’d even seen their parents intoxicated."
"It killed him a few years ago. Not while driving, like organ failure. People don’t notice it as much if they’re all extroverted and likeable when they’re intoxicated"
– CauliflowerThat6430
Abandoned On The Side Of The Road
"My mom admitted after she got sober that she would stop on the way home from work (an hour away) and get a 6 pack and drink 3 of the beers before she got home, then would drink a bottle of wine when she got home. She did this every day."
"My sister and I knew she was drunk, but my dad worked 2 jobs and wasn't home that much so he didn't see it like we did."
"The worst was when she drove me through the backroads at 10 PM and just stopped the car on the side of the road and told me to get out and that she didn't want me anymore. Luckily may dad was home when she got back and he came and got me."
"That f'ked me up for the rest of my life and she doesn't even remember it."
– TheGreensKeeper420
Daily Ritual
"My dad got drunk EVERY night, and his behaviour made us uncomfortable, but we didn't know it wasn't normal. He would send us to get him beers from the kitchen, and we'd gladly do it because it was one of the few things that reliably made him happy with us."
– LVL25_Lapras
These Redditors grew up in a hoarder household.
Moving The Clutter
"Having a 'cluttered house' and needing to spend a few hours carrying everything from the living room into my bedroom to make the living room appropriate for guests. I would sob and beg for it not to go into my room because I knew it would never leave, and the living room would get filled again with TJmaxx bags and garbage we don't need. Turned out a hoarded house isn't normal and it made me a pretty awful roommate to my friends in my teen years."
– plantsndogs
Symptom Of OCD
"A lot of people are unaware of the fact that hoarding is a symptom of OCD. Real OCD, and not the pop-psychology OCD that people claim they have."
"My bio-mom was a hoarder, and she had other OCD symptoms as well, everyone was expected to count the stairs as we climbed them, out loud, and one at a time, with no other options. Always monitoring the location of every person at every time (which was much harder in the 1970s than today), needing someone else to dial the (rotary) phone for them, because certain phone numbers were just "wrong," for various reasons (too many odd numbers, the pattern the dial sounds made were summoning demons, too many of the same number in a row, that sort of thing.)"
– Galaxy_Ranger_Bob
Ignorance is always bliss to a child until something goes wrong.
As a child, I was reckless and hyper and I would often ignore the warnings of my mother to dial it down a notch.
Kids, listen to your parents.
I ignored my mom when she told me to stop jumping up and down on the bed. I fell backward and slammed my head on the corner of the headboard that was also doubled as a low bookshelf.
Apparently, when your scalp ruptures, you bleed profusely. Even my mothers hands couldn't stop the bleeding. Since my dad was at work and my mom couldn't drive at the time, she had to call the neighbor and have them take me to the hospital where I got stitches in my head.
So yes, it's all fun and games until you get hurt. The consequence of refusing to heed my mom's warning is something that stayed with me and makes me appreciate all you parents out there who are doing the toughest job of all: Raising kids.
CW: Eating disorder.
Everyone remembers the first time they were in love.
Or, at least, the first time they thought they were in love.
Some people might very well have a true "one and only," remaining with their first love for the rest of their life.
For the majority of people, however, the first love is, indeed, their first.
The person who shows them what it is to love and be loved so they know when they've truly found the person they were meant to be with later in life.
With this in mind, some people find ending relationships with their first love easier than they might expect, as deep down, they knew it was never going to last.
Others, however, remember ending things with their first love as the first time their heart was truly broken.
Redditor xgc_promathia was curious to hear how people ended things with their first love and the lasting effects it had on them, leading them to ask:
"How did your first love end? Do you still think of them?"
The Folly Of Youth
"I was a dumb, selfish 23-year-old who wanted more than I had."
"Yes, all the time."- grow4road
"Summer Lovin'..."
"We talking love or 'true love'?"
"My first love was a girl I met at summer camp."
"Shel lived and hour away and since we were both 13 we relied on our mothers to shuttle us back and forth, swapping weekends at each others house."
"The next summer at camp we decided that since we would both be going to high school the following fall that we should enjoy that summer camp time together then break up."
"The last night they had a farewell dance and we spent all night dancing to every slow song."
"I still think of her from time to time but haven't talked to her in over 35 years."
"I spent a hour or so looking her up online and I'm pretty sure I found her but it's been so long and age changes people so I can't be 100% sure."
"I do hope the woman I found is her because she has a beautiful family and from what I saw on FB she's doing really well for herself."- StuckInNov1999
What If...?
"My first true love, we were together for almost a year."
"I we lost our virginity to each other."
"We were making plans to elope after high school I broke up with her because I felt like she was hiding an eating disorder from me."
"She kept on losing weight and she started to look unhealthy, I kept on encouraging her to get help, I even offered to go with her and be there for support when she brought it up to her parents, she kept on refusing."
"I then broke up with her."
"I absolutely crushed her."
"She literally cried in school all day for a month straight."
"I felt really bad about it."
"Then she went NC with me for a few years and I stated to really resent her."
"We then reunited and buried the hatchet then remained friends."
"I haven't seen her in person for about 15 years."
"We are friends on Facebook."
"We comment on each other's posts."
"I think about her every now and then."
"Not so much the person she is now, but the fond memories."
"I have of 2 16 year olds intensely in love with each other."
"I wonder if we were really soul mates but we just met too early in life?"
"She has a nice husband and she seems happy."
"I'm happy for her."- Ill-Indication-7706
Forgive And Forget
"We were high school sweethearts, but we broke up shortly after high school because we were no longer good for one another."
"It was an ugly breakup, and we went several years without contact after I left the state."
"Five years later, my mother sent me a box of my stuff, and one of his old creative writing notebooks was mixed in with it."
"I reached out over fb to ask if he might want it back, and from there, we became friends again."
"Ten years later, we're still friends to this day."- Forward_Ad6168
Unable To Go The Distance
"Joined the military and long distance wasn’t working so I broke up with her."
"We tried to make it work but it was taking a toll on the both of us."
"Didn’t want to break up with her but I felt like it was the best decision for the both of us."
"This was over 3 years ago and yes I still think about her."
"I actually reached out to her for the first time since the break up last week lol."
"Was just curious to see how she was doing."- ReckSaber3664
Truly Love At First Sight
"Daily."
"I married him!"- Complex-Half8338
Ended Before It Could Truly Begin
"They died."
"All the time for last 20 years."- Deep_Ad_1874
Wrong Time, Wrong Place... Not Meant To Be...
"I was 18."
"He was 20."
"He was my first real boyfriend, my first sexual experience, and my first real love."
"We argued a lot all the time basically, I still thought we were good together."
"One day during an argument after he threw a plate of food at me I told him to get out."
"That was something I said a lot and it was a trigger for him because everyone in his life either died or abandoned him or kicked him out."
"He left, like actually called a cab took everything including his New flat screen TV and left."
"I spiraled."
"Eventually though after three years I moved on and met my daughter's dad."
"I have love for him and see that he’s now in recovery and having a baby with a new gf."
"This was over 12 years ago when we dated."
"I’m happy for him but also moved on and grateful for that."- SubstantialLove8330
"The Course Of True Love Never Did Run Smooth..."
"Long story short, my first 'real' love ended when she left to a different state."
"We were best friends for a long time but after she left, friendship ended too."
"We were young and I was too immature for a relationship."
"I was the one pursuing it and she wanted to just be friends which was one of the reasons it pushed her away."
"Like I said immature of me because I didn't consider her feelings and respect her answer at the time."
"Many many years later, I reached out and apologized for everything."
"Because I was the problem."
"She was in a broken relationship at the time and I didn't want anything but to say I'm sorry and become friends again."
"A few years later, she brought it up about a possible relationship with me and I agreed (and no I wasn't thinking about a relationship at the time because in my mind, that ship sailed LONG ago)."
"That caught me off guard."
"Years later after this conversation, we are married and have children."
"Not saying everyone's relationship will turn out this way but this was my experience."- VailStampede
As Nat King Cole once famously said, "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love, and be loved in return."
Sometimes, to know what it is to truly love, we have to have our hearts truly broken.
Making the chance to have a "first love," be it at age 15 or 75, a right of passage everyone deserves.