You can never say "never". The possibilities of life are too great.
Such it is when you find yourself in a position of saying, "Oh, that will never happen to me."
You can't know that. In fact, now that you've totally jinxed yourself, it will almost definitely happen to you.
u/barrack_osama69 asked:
What was the "im sure it wont happen to me" but then it did?
Here were some of the answers.
Standards Of Living
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Poverty. It hits you fast, and hard. Both my parents were off work most of last summer. We still haven't recovered and it's just getting worse.
Oh man this one is too real. All of a sudden dad has no money and I didn't know until our power outage was actually the company turning the lights off. Mom got laid off maybe four years later, aka Dec 31st. Right now, out of 6 people of working age in my family, I'm the only one with a job. It's so surreal to me bc I grew up a pretty healthy lower middle class. I had to learn to be poor as an adult. I help with what I can but I help support my gf through her upper education on a $26k a year salary in California. I can only do so much when I wish I could do everything.
The Bottle Down
Alcoholism. After a breakup a year-ish ago, I wanted to feel numb and now I drink too much too often.
I feel this. It wasn't a break up for me, it's been my anxiety over the past year, maybe just under a full year now. About half way through last year I just decided drinking whenever I felt like that was just the easiest way to take the edge off.
Spoiler alert - I was wrong.
I spiraled, acted self destructive and now I am just trying to get my sh*t together again.
Please see someone, a counsellor, family/friends or AA (or the likes) because honestly that was the most important step for me and as hard as it was (and how shameful I felt beforehand) I am so glad I took the steps.
I wish you all the best! :)
Survivor; Don't Give Up; Don't Stop
My mom getting shot during a robbery/ gang initiation.
This is the story. About 8 years ago my mother was working for a family owned pawn shop with another worker and around closing time just as they had put up the jewelry and other valuables the suspect barged in shot the co-worker dead and preceded to have my mother get into the safe they had put everything in. Once he was done he had her kneel facing forward and planned to shoot her execution style.
However she happened to turn her head towards him as he fired causing the bullet to instead hit her in the eye, it ricocheted and ended up next to her carotid artery. She played dead, he tried to fire a couple of more times but the gun jammed and he left. After my mother felt like she waited long enough she found the phone and dialed 911 and she was rushed to the hospital. They had to put her in a chemically induced coma and got most of the shrapnel during the surgery. She was in a coma for about a month or 2. They did end up catching the guy he was put on trial and my mom testified, he was given life for murder, 30 years for attempted murder and a few other things. My mother is still alive today and is well. I'm very grateful she's still around even after everything that happened.
A Chef's Nightmare
My husband was helping cut up carrots for stir fry using a mandolin (super sharp). His mom was telling him to be careful because he could take his finger off with it, and not a few seconds after he says "I'll be fine" I hear "oh crap".
We (his mom and I) were both like "are you joking?" Until he drops the carrot and goes for paper towel.
It was just a sliver of thumb, but it was taking forever to stop bleeding even with good pressure so we went to the ER. When I signed him in I wrote "mistook finger for carrot" in the "Reason for Visit" line.
Poorly Trained Pit
My dog and me getting attacked by two pit bulls. You always hear stories about this, and I never ever thought it would happen. We're both okay thankfully, but, if you'd have seen or heard it, you would have thought someone was surely dying.
Against All Odds
Having a kid. Years of skateboard and unfortunate freak accidents basically ruined my nads, with doctors telling me I was 95% sterile. My SO was told she was infertile, and on birth control. We are expecting our first child in October.
Favourable New Points Of View
Marriage.
I was heavily against it as a kid and teen since when my parents split up dad ended up getting pretty much all property and paid us a pittance (he transferred cars etc to his relatives etc) and the judge was absolutely fine with him getting super low child support (roughly $50 a month for a kid, in late 90s Czech Republic) etc and we got kicked out of a flat my mother's parents bought for us and so on.
But then you meet the one and you know it is the one.
That was the point when I realised there is a marginal difference when the marriage is because you knocked someone up during a one night stand but her dad is pretty high up in law enforcement and freaking scary dude (father left after my grandfather's funeral, he could not make it more obvious that he was scared shitless by grandpa) vs when the marriage is because you met someone absolutely amazing, caring, understanding and overall the exact right match for you. And suddenly I found myself looking up differences between diamond and moissanite, asking her parents if she has like any rare metals allergy (never seen her wearing gold or silver, only high grade stainless steel, titanium etc) and measuring her favourite ring when she's shaving her legs.
Luck Is The Only Reason I Got Through This
Car accident. I don't know anybody who was ever in one, and I've only witnessed like 2 or 3 in my life.
Ended up flipping my truck because I was being an idiot. Both me and the person in the truck walked away without a scratch, but the guilt of putting someone else in harms way has haunted me for years.
Bringing Down The House
This summer the lightning struck my house and started a fire. The walls are still standing but they had to tear down almost every bit of interior and most of the things we owned are now gone. Luckily neither me, my parents or my sister was home, but we had left our German Shepherd so that he didn't have to be in a hot car all day.
It's just something that happens to others, because why would it ever happen to you?
Catfishing Is WILD
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My 'best friend' catfishing me.
This was last year and I'm still kind of shaken up about it now. I wasn't into him (I'm a woman btw) but I told him both my dream guy / girl. He then created this completely fabricated person who fit those profiles and tricked me into falling in love with them.
He was my best friend so I trusted everything he told me, he even created fake friends and bullies for them it was insane. That 'Girl' who we're going to call L tried to pressure me into having my first kiss with my best friend at the time. I jokingly said 'oh maybe Haha' but i still made it clear that i didn't want to. A few days before he went away on holiday he attempted to kiss me and it escalated. A few days later I found out he had been lying about all this and he's now not allowed to be near me, talk to me or even make eye contact with me. Safe to say it was a nuts situation.
What did you think would never happen to you until it did?
- It Won't Happen To Me (clip) - YouTube ›
- It Won't Happen to Me - Safety Talk Ideas ›
- Don't think 'it won't happen to me' - Israel National News ›
- It Won't Happen to Me: Susan Newman: 9780399513428: Amazon ... ›
- It Won't Happen to Me | Prudential Financial ›
- Why it won't happen to me: perceptions of risk factors and ... ›
- The Optimism Bias: It Won't Happen To Me | HuffPost Life ›
- “It won't happen to me”: The optimism bias | Online Psychology Degree ›
- It Won't Happen to Me: The Psychology Behind Optimism Bias - VICE ›
- It Won't Happen to Me! ›
Try not to follow the bad advice given here, because you don't want to get the results that these guys did.
U/Duckerton375 asked: What's the worst advice someone ever gave you, but you still followed?
The workplace can bring a cornucopia of terrible advice. Don’t follow these unless you want to get fired.
Bad jobs are usually not worth it.
Stick with a job no matter how bad it is. I stayed with a terrible job working retail, dealing with horrible customers and sexual harassment. I was told I wouldn't find anything better.
"No, no, you misunderstand. I said you wouldn't find anything better at making you feel like complete garbage."
This gets really creepy really fast.
frustrated workplace GIFGiphy"After you put in a job application, you need to call them at least once a day every day until they hire you."
Note: this did not get me hired. It got me called out by the HR person I was calling and forbidden to ever contact their facility again.
I work for a law firm that employees over 1500 people in the home office alone. Once I received a call from the building security saying, "Insert Name is here to speak with the owner." Well we are run by a committee so that's odd. Found out they just applied for a job and wanted to talk directly to the person that would potentially hire them. Told him the firm will contact them to schedule an interview. They refused to leave without "talking to the owner." Had security escort them out of the building.
This is absolutely not true.
"Sleep is for people who do not want success" great words from my uncle, it almost killed me.
Now I may be oversleeping.
Interpersonal relationships are also a big breeding ground for terrible advice. Don’t listen to any of these.
Heartbreaking.
My father always tought me and my brother that "having friends is bad and in the end they will never be there for you" so everytime I told my father about my friends he would get kinda mad and give me the advice to stop talking to them.
Now I am afraid of people and have several trust issues, thanks dad.
This won’t end well.
A Christmas Story GIF by filmeditorGiphyIn the fifth grade my teacher was talking about bullying, then she said "if anyone tries to bully you just agree with them." So the next time I got bullied I agreed with the bully and they bullied me more.
Dude one time I saw an anti bullying video that told the victims to just BE NICE TO THE BULLY. Like the bully was hurling insults and the victim was smiling and complimenting him. My first thought was about how much I hated the mere thought that this would work. My second thought was of how the people who came up with that method had clearly never been bullied.
Oof.
When I met my now wife at the age of 19, one of my coworkers said that it's very important to start at the bottom with presents and work your way up, she still has the socks I gave her on our first anniversary on the wall over our bed as a reminder...
I'm still trying to teach my boyfriend about good presents and bad presents. Biscuits from the supermarket = bad present. Cheap unbranded laptop battery from China as my only present = bad present (and only lasted 2 months). Anything off my 7-page wishlist = good present. It's literally a list of things I want to receive as presents.
Can tell you from experience that this is a bad idea.
Had a falling out with some friends. My husband recommended I reach out to an old friend who ghosted me suddenly in a manner that induced some pretty severe abandonment trauma. Went for it anyways because "it's been so long, surely they changed". Am now experiencing the same things as last time.
When you follow bad advice, it can lead to mistakes that you just can’t come back from.
Buying a house is tricky.
for sale dancing GIF by Lisa VertudachesGiphy"Buy a home now before the prices go up!" -my FIL in 2006.
We bought in 2007 and paid $259,500 for our 1,300 sq ft house (we really couldn't afford it and had an 80/20 so we had 8% interest for one loan and 6% on the other) and in 2008 it was worth $97,000 so refinancing wasn't even an option. We watched all of our neighbors walk away or get foreclosed on but we kept paying our bills and as of this very moment our house is worth $462,000. I'm so happy we stuck it out, we both worked our @sses off and the house will be paid off in 2 years.
It worked out for us, it's a horrible idea. Especially since 1300 sq ft houses are $460+k
My heartbreaks for future generations, I honestly don't know how people are going to afford housing in the future.
It’s there for a reason.
"Never apply for any government assistance."
Cue years of suffering trying to work full-time with a painful disability. Quit a particularly terrible job, and wanted to apply for food aid until I could find another gig; a friend with lots of DHS experience recommended I apply for Social Security "just to get in the system." Turns out my disability was bad enough to get accepted the first time, which I wasn't expecting. Really could've used that support, oh, the 30+ previous years of my life.
Credit is important to have.
I was told to not get a credit card until after college. I was super fortunate to have my college paid for so I had no loans, car paid in cash, no credit card or anything to start building credit. Found myself out in the world at 22 years old with a credit score of 0.
So while a lot of this bad advice came from trusted people, oftentimes they were too misinformed to give that advice in the first place. Don't trust the word of one person--do your research, and make decisions for yourself.
It'll be way better in the long run