It's true that sometimes we just can't understand what someone's going through until we walk in their shoes.
This can be especially true of physical ailments, particularly the less visible conditions that many would rather assume are figments of the sufferer's imagination.
On the flip side, we can try to be empathetic, but truly, sometimes until you've experienced it yourself, you just can't imagine how bad it is.
Already cringing, Redditor fyflate89 asked:
"What's way more physically painful than most people realize?"
Endometriosis
"Endometriosis. I end up bleeding for two weeks straight if I miss a dose of my birth control. Last time I was bedridden for at least three days and could still barely function the next few days."
"When I had to drag my a** out of bed because my grades would drop if I missed any more class (I’m a college student), I was in so much pain, anemic, dehydrated, and nauseous..."
"But, ya know, it’s just 'cramps,' right? Get over it."
- ChipTheOcelot
Ear Infections
"Ear infections are no joke."
"I had an eardrum and canal infection in my right ear. Completely deaf for a week with a ruptured eardrum."
"I couldn't so much as touch the right side of my head without being in complete agony. I could barely talk or eat because opening my jaw was excruciatingly painful."
- izzyishot
Degenerative Disc Disease
"Degenerative Disc Disease in C4/5/6.I look completely fine and can't get disability."
"I also can't look up for longer than 30 seconds, drive for more than 15 minutes, mow my lawn, work on my jeep, or even change my brakes or oil without being laid out in pain for days afterward."
"At its worst, it causes ocular migraines that partially blind me and both arms go numb and I can't hold anything."
"The disability Judge said I was exaggerating my symptoms. F**k him. I hope he gets the same thing."
- Demonae
Depression
"Depression. When I get it bad, my bones and my skin ache. I can feel it in my teeth."
- Darfer
"Colors fade, too."
- knee_bro
Nerve Pain
"Nerve pain… Mine has come and gone at different intervals and intensities throughout the last 10 years, and I can completely understand why people go through serious depression and thoughts of suicide when they feel so helpless because nothing helps reduce the pain."
- theithe916
Not Even for the Worst Enemies
"Getting a colposcopy (cervical biopsy where they rip out a piece of your cervix to test it for cancer)."
"Getting a uterine ultrasound with contrast dye that is injected into your uterus to see if your fallopian tubes are clear (felt like someone punched your uterus from the inside)."
"Getting an intestinal blockage. Getting an intestinal blockage that results in gangrene."
"Those are the most painful things I’ve experienced and my wish for you who read this is to never experience them, especially the intestinal blockages. I wouldn’t wish any of these on my worst enemies."
- iamcrazy4cats
Everyday Pain
"I once worked a six-hour shift as a cafe manager with active appendicitis, when I showed up to the ER (after my doctor and my boyfriend demanded I do), they were astonished I’d been running around and lifting/serving for that long."
"Two years later, I was diagnosed with stage 3 endometriosis, and I had a cyst the size of a golf ball. Parts of my organs were stuck together and they’d always been dismissed as 'normal period pain.'"
"It’s amazing how much pain you can go through when everyday pain is your baseline. A good endo day for me, pre-surgery, was a three or four out of a ten-point scale. A bad one had me on the tile floor clutching a heat pack, feeling like I’d been stabbed in the front and taken a shotgun to my back."
- burntknowledge
Period Pain
"Periods."
"I'm a dude so I've never experienced them, but I've had two girlfriends, completely healthy young women, who've needed to be carried to the bathroom due to the pain."
"My boys, we lucked the f**k out on this one. Be respectful."
- Wazula23
Kidney Stones
"Kidney stones."
"Hear me out. People think passing them is what hurts and they couldn’t be more wrong. Passing them is a minor inconvenience."
"The part that hurts is when the stone is making its way to your bladder. Three- to five-hour bursts of unimaginable pain that has no way of being subdued. I was dizzy, nauseous, and walking around like Quasimodo when those bursts happened."
- PewpyDewpdyPantz
IUD Insertion
"The unexpected pain of having an IUD insertion was actually traumatizing. There’s no f**king reason they shouldn’t warn people about that beforehand."
"They said, 'Oh, it’ll just feel like period cramps.'"
"NO, you f**king id**t, I couldn’t see straight, I had an actual fight-or-flight response where I had to be held down because I was trying to get off the table and run out of the room with no f**king underwear on, I was bleeding heavily for DAYS afterward, and I had cold pain sweat all over my body."
"That s**t was the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life and I cannot believe they do that procedure every day without ANY sort of anesthetic."
"I was curled up in a ball and wouldn’t let anyone touch me for like two weeks afterward."
- Pippified
Gallbladder Issues
"A gallbladder attack. I've undergone so many spinal surgeries, my family literally lost count. I know pain. I know pain very well."
"I was in such agony from my gallbladder freaking out that I had it taken out as fast as I could possibly have that done. I wasn't about to f**k around and find out."
- an_ineffable_plan
Dental Problems
"I've never been happier that dentists exist AND get paid as much as they did until I got my broken, aching wisdom tooth removed. Instant pain dissipation, and even though I was awake during the whole thing, he always made me feel comfortable and taken care of."
"When people say rotting teeth used to kill people back before modern medicine, I 100% believe it. I wanted to kill myself at a couple of points, and I didn't even have tooth decay."
- Pariah0119
An Abscess
"There’s toothache and then there’s a full-blown abscess. The kind where the side of your face is swollen. It’s not a toothache anymore. Now it’s a migraine and earache."
"The pain is always there and comes in waves of pain excruciating pain. No pain meds work. Only antibiotics will take the pain away."
- King_Baboon
Broken Ribs
"Broken ribs. Typically no outward signs to anyone that you're injured, but trust me it's painful as h**l and takes a long-a**ed time to heal."
- waywardcowboy
Migraines and Cluster Headaches
"Migraines."
"I'm not talking about bad headaches. I'm talking about the absolute h**l that is an actual blurred-vision, face-numbing, uncontrolled vomiting-inducing, skull-splitting classic migraine."
"Have you ever contemplated death over pain? A particularly nasty migraine will make you do that."
- SupertrampTrampStamp
"I get cluster headaches. There was this one medication, sumatriptan, that worked a third of the time, and you may have heard about treating them with mushrooms, but that's also a dice roll. Sometimes it's immediate release and a preventative. Sometimes it just pushes a worse one two weeks down the line."
"It's not as comprehensive as a migraine, it's a single spot in particular. There's a tiny demon on my trigeminal nerve with a tiny lava/wasp sting knife. Most of the time they don't last long. Sometimes ibuprofen and a frigid shower are enough. But at the worst, it's definitely asymptomatically approaching suicidal."
- AudiieVerbum
These conditions leave us cringing to think about, especially the ones that leave the sufferer wondering if they can make it to the other side of the pain.
The most important thing to remember is how invisible many of these conditions are, even a broken rib, and that even if you can't see what someone else is going through, doesn't mean they are struggling through it.
People Reveal The Real Reason Why They Stopped Having Sex With Their Partner Or Spouse
Whether we intend for it to be the focus of the relationship or not, one of the defining features of a romantic relationship is its physical interactions.
Anyone who deeply values physical touch might not be able to understand how a relationship could continue if the couple was no longer intimate.
Curious, Redditor cold_h*e asked:
"People who stopped having sex with their partner/husband/wife, what made you stop?"
When Health Gets in the Way
"I was on an antidepressant that shut my libido down. No desire whatsoever, and if we tried, it always ended in my failure. Slowly improved, weaned off it over six months, and things began to get better, all around."
"About that time, my wife began getting sinus headaches. It was subsequently diagnosed as an incurable brain tumor, and she was gone 18 months later. That bout of depression was a walk in the park..."
- psilome
Autoimmune Problems
"Sex hurts her (autoimmune problems)."
"It's been seven years. It turns out I love her more than I thought I could."
- redditusernamehonked
Living Stress-Free
"He has a medical problem that means he can't orgasm. Sex always ended with him getting frustrated and upset about it. So it's not worth the stress. I'd rather have him and be celibate than be with anyone else."
"It bothered us at first, but only because we were locked into the idea that married couples need to have a sex life. We went to couples counseling and basically figured out that we love each other and are happy together without sex, so why does it matter what is considered 'normal'?"
"We're a couple of happy little weirdos, and it works for us."
- NimblyUsingAliens
Morning Sickness
"My wife had morning sickness for about half of every one of her pregnancies. Women are amazing at dealing with all of that. On the plus side, after it subsided, sex was great. Just got better and better until the birth."
- fatmanwa
Coercive Marriage
"He had more experience than me, and wouldn't listen to me when I said what he was doing didn't feel good. He would tell me he knew what he was doing and to just let him."
- Tygermouse
Self-Respect
"Before my divorce, I got tired of being rejected and having promises made that were never going to be kept."
- Im_not_that_angry
Possible PTSD
"I had an accident where someone accidentally fell on my face with their knee and crushed it some years ago (not my partner though)."
"I had some surgeries after that and my face is fine now, but I found myself unable to relax during sex since then. Somehow I am not able to give up control and just let it go while doing physical activities that include two people who are physically close together."
- LimaZim
Mental Health
"My mental health has been up and down lately so sex has been a rare occurrence. We had a dry spell that lasted about a year. People underestimate how much mental health can affect a person."
- BedBoundBean
Turned Away
"I got tired of being turned down, so I gave up."
- kwunshel316
Too Many Responsibilities
"He didn’t support/help or even pull his weight, we rarely went out anywhere, and when we did, I often paid and he’d ask to use my card so it didn’t embarrass him if I was seen to be paying."
"Basically, I was giving more than I was receiving and he cared too much about image over substance. Then he expected me to be up for sex as though I could magically turn myself on like a light switch. He’d walk up to me and grope at me when I was busy. Highly bloody irritating!"
"He also suggested I needed sex therapy when the idea of sleeping with him turned me off altogether. It felt like another chore to add to my already manic list since he didn’t do much to help. Both worked full-time and my job included long travel and entertaining out of hours."
"I felt tired and resentful and no matter how I tried to approach a solution, his response was basically that he doesn’t feel inclined to help as I didn’t put out so he didn’t feel loved enough. It exhausts me just to write that."
"I never cheated just to be clear, I wasn’t getting my kicks elsewhere. I did end it though and my sexual appetite returned with my next partner."
- TheFleaBagDiary
Double-Standards
"My ex was verbally and emotionally abusive, and also a drug addict. You can't call me those names and be horrible, and then expect me to be turned on just because you take your pants off. I spent most of my marriage on the couch."
- RosyAntlers
Feeling Unattractive
"We haven't been intimate for a long time, but I've decided to stay. We have a kid and yes, it had a lot to do with the decision. I just hope I can take it until my libido dries up."
"The worst part is feeling unattractive. I take pains to make sure she knows she's beautiful, and you'd swear I don't exist unless I beg to be noticed."
"There are times when it's better, but it's always after I've almost left over it."
- carsonArtsome
Changing Over Time
"We started dating when we were 15, we were pretty much the same person as each other. Time went on and we changed as people."
"She stopped working and I gained a bit of weight with stress and being overworked. She stopped being attracted to me and we were just two completely different people from when we first met."
"It ended horribly but I’m now with a lady whom I love very much and we’re getting married later this year."
- Korncakes
Unrealistic Expectations
"I was tired of being called a cow. I was left at home every weekend while he took our only car to his friend's house 2+ hours away. I was exhausted from working four 10-hour days and then spending my three days off doing all the yard work, housework, getting groceries, and then being expected to perform like I wasn't entirely exhausted."
"I lasted two years in that marriage."
- ItsSarahMarie
Whether it's poor relationship dynamics or health concerns, there are all sorts of reasons why the physical relationship between a couple will change over time. The question ultimately is how important physical intimacy is to both people and how to make sure they both continue to feel fulfilled by the relationship.
This is going to be difficult to talk about without getting graphic, so let's be up front.
Yes, obviously consensual sex with someone you trust is unmatched in sensation and feeling in the physical world.
So what comes second to that?
A lot, actually, if the internet it to be believed.
Reddit user, Confused_Citron, wanted to know what feels almost as good as sex when they asked:
"What is the best non-sexual pleasure?"
Not everything has to be physical to feel just as good as the sensation of sexual intercourse.
There are those life experiences, untouched by others, that can match that limitless sensation.
It Just Won't Stop
"When someone or something makes you laugh so hard you stop making sounds. Just happy gasps."
HellionInAHoopSkirt
"When your stomach and cheek muscles hurt from laughing like that for so long."
RemarkableStruggle9
A Sensation, Unparalleled
"Going to bed with freshly washed sheets after a shower"
ta1234560
"And freshly shaved legs. And a fuzzy blanket. My husband had to shave one knee after a knee injury and he agreed that it feels awesome."
EurekaSm0ke
Letting It All Happen
"Getting into bed knowing you have nothing to do the next day"
LvL_XXiii
"I'd say waking up the next morning feels even better. When you realize you can stay under the sheets as long as you want, and you just kind of squirm around in the warm blanket with a big smile on your face."
JayString
No Better Feeling
"Plans getting canceled when you didn't want to go in the first place."
EurekaSm0ke
"I make plans just so I can cancel them."
MedicIRL
"In terms of instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin. -John Mulaney"
Lil_Polski
Move Your Elbows Freely
"When the door on the plane closes and the seat next to you is still empty."
DrOctopusMD
A Little Piece Of Peace
"Sitting for a moment over a good meal and not being f-cking bothered! AKA, being at peace. I finally understand why celebrities hide."
"If you work all day or have multiple streams of income, family, friends, etc., that moment if uninterrupted peace is priceless."
Professional-Doubt-6
However, we are human after all.
And sometimes a good scratch on the back is just as good as...that other thing.
Shooting All Over You
"Taking a warm shower, and then increasing the temperature ever so slightly, but not too much that it's hard to withstand, and feeling chills shoot across your entire body."
ChaoticBraindead
In, Out, In, Out, In...
"When you can finally take a deep, full breath through your nose after being sick."
Killed_with_Kindness
Scratch The Right Spot
"Removing an article of clothing that has elastic or has otherwise been cutting off surface circulation. Socks, underwear, bras, a tight belt etc."
NBAccount
"And scratching it after"
swagggyyyyyyyy
Look At All That Liquid
"When the water that is stuck in your ear finally comes out."
Skeets5977
The Ultimate Completion
"Closing 15+ tabs after you’re done with an essay"
dodecagon843
Popping Inside
"Having a painful crick in my neck, bending my neck ever so slightly, and getting instant pop/relief."
YourMothersButtox
"I consider this feeling sexual."
JayString
You Can Hear Everything
"When you yawn and your ears pop giving you added audio clarity that you didn't even know you were missing."
trans-positivity-BOT
Basking In The Glorious Aftermath
"Farting away a stomach ache."
HausKino
"OP said non sexual"
Away_Emu4980
"You ever fart so hard your back cracked?"
TZoness
*insert Scissor Joke
"When you’re cutting wrapping paper and the scissors start to glide along the paper."
purebredoregonian
Let's all cancel our plans.
That feels like a nice way to spend the week.
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People Share What They Think Are The Best Non-Sexual Physical Sensations
Physical sensations are part of our everyday lives, but not all of them are created equal. Hugging a friend, for example, feels way better than a papercut.
There are a lot of great sensations, though. One of my favorites is the feeling of the short fur just under my cat's chin, which she loves to have scratched. Her fur is super soft, and it brings me joy to scratch her chin because she so obviously loves the interaction too.
In search of more of these great sensations, Reddit user Zahfier asked:
"What is the best physical, yet non-sexual, sensation?"
Cool Drink
Giphy"Drinking water when you're really, really thirsty, especially after exercise. Nothing better"
Fall Air
"Taking nap in the fall with the window open and your blanket is a little bit cold."
Floss-tastic
"Finally removing the food that’s been stuck between your teeth for an extended period of time."
Simple Touch
"Someone lightly running their fingers up and down your back. My partner does it to me all the time and it is so relaxing"
Glasses
"Putting on glasses that work for the first time, literally like seeing the world through new eyes."
Crisp
"I get a similar feeling when I clean mine."
"Take them off, clean then, and then putting them back is like, “whoa! Look at the crisp colors!”
Songs
"When that part of the song comes on that gives you a tingle. It starts at the base of your neck and works its way out through your entire body."
Cats
"Waking up to my cat headbutting my face so I'll make room for her to spoon with me until my alarm goes off in 2 hours."
There is so much joy to experience! What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments.