Usually, questions about superlatives are difficult to answer. “What's the best," “What's the most," “Who's your favorite," etc. are all so tough to come up with because too many possible options makes narrowing down to one nearly impossible.
But answering which is the worst experience of one's life is dreadfully simple: the event is unparalleled and the answer is obvious.
But it's difficult all the while, for a different reason. The moment was
rockonyou717 asked, "Redditors, what is the worst thing you've ever had to experience?"
Professional Opinions
"I was stung by a Tarantula Hawk once and it was 5 minutes of the most excruciating pain I've ever felt.”
“Like, it sucks so bad the official medical advice for getting stung is to lie down and scream until it's over so you don't accidentally hurt yourself."
-- TheSorge
When a Child Mourns it’s as Confusing as it is Sad
"Good friend of mine committed suicide. We were 13. Just walked into a dead quiet school. Seat next to me was empty in 5th period. Nobody sat there the rest of the year."
"Still have the sticker she gave me a few weeks before she passed. I miss her so bad still."
-- BeeboIsHigh
A Gradual Slipping Away
"Taking care of my wife as she suffered from Alzheimer's. She was beautiful to the very end." -- OldGeezer
"Your answer broke me." -- _i_want_to_go_home
"That's one of the most beautiful statements I have heard in my life.
"As an older guy myself, who has struggled w the thoughts of 'poor me, poor me,' it's uplifting to know there are people like you and relationships that exist, where love or commitment or compassion, last until the end." -- norfolk-gentlemen
First Sadness, Then Rage
"My best friend was murdered when I was a kid. He had a twin sister. We were like the 3 amigos."
"After he was killed I fell into a deep depression and started having sleep paralysis. Killer was caught and felt zero remorse at trial. I wanted to kill the guy."
"His sister and me never recovered our friendship."
-- dbeey270
Pragmatic, Often Unmentioned Details
"Pulling my grandpa's life support 2 days after Christmas. He gagged for air for 30 minutes until he died. My whole family was there."
"He had a massive brain hemorrhage in his sleep the night before. Brain dead on arrival at the hospital. Totally healthy until then."
"I had a shot of whiskey with him 2 days earlier."
-- westdan2
Plugged In and Powerless
"I woke up during an upper endoscopy while intubated. I didn't fully wake up, I just became conscious. Couldn't move or open my eyes."
"Had about 2 hours of feeling like I was suffocating while they finished the procedure."
"Had nightmares for a month and still don't sleep well."
“Well I’ve Had Quite Enough of That.”
"I was on a fire department for a few years after high school."
"A decapitated 3yr old at a car accident, dad through the windshield, basically eviscerated, and the mother with barely a scratch but screaming bloody murder."
"It broke me and I quit a few weeks later."
-- KingBrinell
The Great Scism
"In 2016 I had a tooth removed in the back of my mouth and the hole got infected causing an abscess that pushed my teeth apart."
"When I went to the hospital they told me if I had waited a few more days it would have split my face and broken my jaw."
Dinner for Two
"5th grade, had a parasite for 9 months. Didn't know I had it or what it was, but it was just awful. I skipped nearly that entire school year."
"I didn't eat anything except an applesauce every other day or so. Barely any water. Always had an upset stomach but nothing to throw up, so I often threw up bile which made my throat and mouth feel all burnt."
"I didn't do anything but puke and try to sleep. Didn't talk, didn't watch TV, nothing like that. It hurt way too damn much."
The Poison Cure
"Being diagnosed with cancer and going through chemotherapy during this pandemic. I am young, and was healthy and extremely active before all this. I never got sick."
"The cancer was tough enough, but now I can't even see my friends or family who kept my spirits up."
"I'm terrified I won't make it out of this mentally the same, if at all. Each chemo decimates my immune system. Even a regular cut that gets infected could be life threatening."
Do you have something to confess to George? Text "Secrets" or "" to +1 (310) 299-9390 to talk to him about it.
Curious to hear about some of the more creepy indiscretions people get away with, Redditor Flytechofficial asked:
"What is perfectly legal, but creepy as hell?"
These things that happen in public restrooms can be considered criminal.
Respecting Splash Zones
"Using the urinal next to me when there were plenty of other choices."
Nightmare For The Pee-Shy
"hanging out in a public bathroom timing how long people pee."
Bad Timing
"I swear to God. I did a lot of work in hospitals for a while, big f'king hospitals with tons of bathrooms all over the place. For some God damned reason, regardless of what time or bathroom I selected to take a sh*t in not 30 seconds after I sat down a janitor would knock on the door to clean the bathroom. It's not as if it was one janitor, just some random janitor would inevitably need to clean whatever bathroom I was in as soon as I got comfy. It's like I was being stalked by the janitors."
"So now I'm trying to take a sh*t knowing full well there's somebody out there actively timing how long it takes."
Looky-Loo
"I was drunk in a casino and went to use the washroom. The floors in there were a polished marble or something. Sitting on the toilet, pants down, my stall neighbour made eye contact with me on the reflective floor tile."
The following examples involving minors have no legal repercussions.
Outside Watchers
"Technically, you can stand on the sidewalk and stare into someone's house through a window. It's not illegal as long as you stay off of their property, but it's really freaking creepy."
Keeping Tabs On Someone's Age
"A national newspaper having a countdown for when a child actress becomes 'legal' for sex."
"Answers to questions that will surely come. ....Yes. The Sun (UK). Emma Watson."
– pdirth
The Young Subjects
"When I was a child, we had a creepy horrible neighbor that would harass my family constantly. One of the things he did was stand at the corner of his yard and videotape me playing in a pool with my friends (we were around 8). My parents called the police but were told that it's legal if he's on his property."
These perfectly harmless examples can give you goosebumps.
Macabre
"Hanging your doll collection from the trees in your yard using string made from human hair."
People's Taste
"I believe the act of cannibalism itself is legal so long as you didn't murder anyone to do it. If your homie gives you his arm to gnaw on, it's fair game."
I recently treated myself by going to a movie theater after what seemed like a long hiatus for much of the year.
Streaming blockbuster movies from home, while convenient, has never made as much of an impact when compared to the moviegoing experience.
But after my recent trip to our local AMC, I'm beginning to think watching entertainment from the comfort of my quiet home is a much better option.
I forgot that a good majority of audience members are disrespectful and pretty much ignore all the rules—including no texting or talking during the movie.
The normal volume conversations and the number of lit screens from people's smartphone's in my peripheral vision throughout the movie were huge distractions.
Maybe as I'm getting older, my patience has worn thin, or I happened to have a particularly unpleasant experience. But seriously, how can anyone enjoy going to the movies when people are constantly updating their status inside a darkened auditorium?
It should illegal. Rant over.
I feel like if there is nothing after life, it just invalidates life. But maybe I'm just dramatic. I hope there is peace. Thoughts?
black and white two funerals GIFTogether...
"When we die, the whole world as seen by us, dies together with us."
"Yes it does. As does the entire universe. Only when we are alive can we experience the passage of time. The instant we die the entire universe will experience heat death and cease to be. It my take a million eons but since we can no longer experience time it will be relatively instantaneous."
- OkEbb749
Thanks Alan
"It's one of the great wonders of life: What will it be like to go to sleep and never wake up? And if you think long enough about that, something will happen to you. You will find out, among other things, that it will pose the next question to you: What was it like to wake up after never having gone to sleep? That was when you were born. You see, you can't have an experience of nothing. Nature abhors a vacuum. ~Alan Watts"
So Romantic...
"When I was much younger, I had a dream where I died. Not a typical dream, not a romanticized dream. It was a dream where I was an archer in a medieval battle. About 5 minutes into the battle, chaos was all around me, and I watched an opposing archer aim and loose an arrow straight into my left eye."
"I remember the sensation of impact, ringing in my ears, and falling to the ground. I remember the warmth of the blood on my face. The feeling of life leaving my body, and the sense of worry evaporating into warmth and peace as the world left behind me."
"I remember waking up shortly after thinking that the feeling and reality of that experience was so vivid and so detailed that it must have been an experience from a previous incarnation hundreds of years ago. From that moment on, I've never feared the actual process of death. I feel like I've experienced it many times before."
Erase
Computer Reaction GIFGiphy"I think one of your best friends delete's your browsing history."
"Take the hard drive out of my computer at home… Put it in the bath… And make sure it's completely wiped. -Tensai Slime"
If you love me... rule number one... HIDE THE EVIDENCE!!! Let that be heard far and wide. And dreams, always so intertwined aren't they?
Before & After
Happy Baby GIFGiphy"Exactly the same as before you were born."
- whumoon
"I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. -Mark Twain"
Moving On...
"We clean the bed and assign it to another patient."
"The REAL reason why nurses are so dark. 90 year old man in hospice got hit by a car on his way to get fitted for his funeral tuxedo, and didn't have a DNR. Kept him alive for four hours, and now it's time to document everything that was done to save his life because there will inevitably be a lawsuit from a family member who has had four years to say goodbye but somehow didn't get to."
Again...
"Play again?
Yes
[No]
I don't know what they mean or how to utilize them. I'm a Buddhist (but a gamer first and foremost) so it's cool you guys made those connections This totally makes up for r/movies continuously banning me."
Oblivion...
"I've answered this one before but here it is again. Either two things happen after you die: you either go somewhere or it's oblivion. If it is oblivion, then we're just going back to the same place before we were born and there's nothing wrong with that. We were there for billions or trillions of years, possibly infinity."
"You lose that concept of time since your brain doesn't work anymore so you don't even know it's over. It's not nothing because nothing would be something and that means that you are aware, which you can not be if you're dead. If we do go somewhere, then that's something no one understands because no one has ever come back to tell us."
"Those stories of people coming back after they "died" and "saw stuff" weren't really dead. Their hearts stopped but their brains were still working. If the Universe continues to recycle itself infinitely, then there's a chance we will be reborn or continuously reborn but have no memory of our previous selves."
- jamoh20
On Holiday
"When I was a kid I drowned while on holiday with my family, a giant fat man jumped in the pool on top of me and no one noticed till I was on the bottom of the pool. I remember the feeling of my lungs being on fire, then shivering then as everything was going dark a strange sense of peace and I was ok with it, No panic or terror then it went black."
"I was resuscitated at the side of the pool a few minutes later. I remember nothing from the black to being "alive" again. I was around 7 when it happened and since then I've been strangely at peace with the fact that one day I will die and slip into the dark void of nothingness. Hope that helps."
Popcorn?
500 days of summer cinema GIFGiphy"You wake up in a chair in a cinema and learn that the other are past lives of you and you're about to watch your next life very soon on the big screen."
The truth is none of us know the truth. We live everyday with the afterlife being a gamble. And that seems like it's going to have to be enough.
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.