The body is built for pain. That is what I've been told. "No pain, no gain!" Remember that catchphrase? Well... it's all madness and lies.
Pain sucks, that's why it's called pain. It's not called joy. Physical pain can be debilitating. The body is strong but it is also sensitive.
And when physical trauma happens, you don't forget quickly.
Redditor u/ameli3eefelt like chatting about what our bodies have survived, by asking:
What was the worst (physical) pain you've been through?
The worst pain ever? A toe stub. Why is that? I tell you, I have been blinded and near passed out due to toe pain. Such a small part of the body riddled with immense trauma. This little piggy...
Stoned...
GIF by World Kidney DayGiphy"First kidney stone. Pain was so sharp and intense I could imagine a knife sticking out of my kidney."
The Eyes have It
"I got shot in the eye with an airsoft gun at about 350 FPS and I went blind in my left eye for a while, I developed traumatic glaucoma and the pressure from the glaucoma was indescribable, I could barely walk or speak. There's pics of my eye on my profile for any of you that wanna take a gander. Some context since some of y'all are askin' I was at an airsoft arena with eye protection and a face shield."
"Somehow the bb managed to hit me in the eye even with the eye pro (how? Idk I wish I could tell ya) theory is it bounced off my face shield and somehow went under the eye pro but who knows. I'm not blind anymore but I do have an implant that keeps the pressure down and I have a synthetic lens so I can see."
Lungs
"Pleurisy. Inflammation of the outer lining of the lungs. Causes each intake of breath, however slight, to feel like my ribs have been sharpened into swords that are impaling my chest. I've had it a few times and would constantly faint because I subconsciously wasn't breathing."
The Foot
"When my foot got torn off in an accident. In 2004 while riding my motorcycle I was hit from the side and my foot got torn off in the incident. I was lucky the doctors were exceptionally good and were able to reattach the foot, but to this day the number of steps each day I can take are finite before it starts hurting like hell."
The Jump
Odd Future Jump GIF by JASPER & ERROL'S FIRST TIMEGiphy"Jumping off a high dive and missing the pool. Horrifying injuries ensued."
I could faint from everything I've heard so far. I never dive, and now I never will. And a foot torn off? What?!
We need "D"
drag race drugs GIFGiphy"If your body runs out of vitamin D, you'll wanna die. Especially if you don't know that's what's causing it at first."
After the Poop
"I used to get hemorrhoids that would get so big that they would eventually burst and bleed for days. That was painful, and it was literally nothing compared to the recovery of the hemorrhoidectomy. Taking a crap after surgery is like literal hell on earth. Fun fact opiates cause constipation, so that's a super fun rope to balance on."
"Even though I took prescription stool softener to the point that they were the consistency of mud, they felt like I was passing jagged rock hard glass. After every poop, I would very carefully wipe as best as I could, and then shakily get in the shower so I could fully clean myself to prevent infection."
"After I was clean I would run a bath and try not to weep. The first week was so bad, I'd be starving and terrified to eat. After the first week every poop hurt to the point where I could just grit my teeth and grunt through it. They didn't fully quit being painful for about 2 months."
- FnCraig
In Hindsight...
"I'm a weak little coward who's lived a soft life so the only excruciating pain I've been through was a 10 hour period of kidney stones. I had no idea what was going on when it started, so I thought an internal organ had burst and I was dying. I've never had something be so painful for every single second I went through it. After about 9-10 hours I finally went to the er (hindsight I thought about going an hour into it, but I kept talking myself out of it) 10/10 would not recommend."
Razor Thin
"Trying to poop after having a baby, with an almost 3rd degree internal tear. I'm fairly sure I ripped some stitches getting out of my car (she left the suture string hanging out and I didn't know) the day after I was discharged. It was like someone was ripping me in half from my butt."
"It wasn't the pushing that hurt, it was when everything retracts back up after going. Second most painful thing I've ever had was mono. My throat felt like razor blades and I couldn't even swallow water. (These statements from someone who has had two babies and was impaled in the leg on a metal bar from a car frame lol)."
Poor Feet
Boiling Hot Water GIF by BrewDogGiphy"Had boiling water dropped on my bare feet. And then about a week later my dog stepped on one of my feet and because it was all blistered up it tore much of the skin right off of it."
Now I'm going to have nightmares. And I'm going to try to live in a bubble. In my house. I will only use cold water and walk slowly.
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Curious to hear from strangers online about their teenage years, an anonymous Redditor asked:
"What was 'the incident' at your high school?"
Major school incidences ranged from the bizarre to tragedy.
Prank Gone Wrong
"Senior prank, someone dumped a few hundred pounds of flour and yeast into the school indoor pool, in hopes of turning it into a giant glob of dough (I guess). It didn’t work, just caused about 100K damage to plumbing, pumps, filters, etc. Prankster never caught."
– Sea_Ganache620
Cruel Morning
"In high school Two kids both named Logan. Both last names were very similar. One was popular and the other was not. Unpopular Logan was drunk and ran across a road in the middle of the night and was killed by a semi-truck."
"The next day the principal announced that popular Logan had died. Popular Logan was late for school."
"Everyone was very sad. Then popular Logan showed up and all school rejoiced that unpopular Logan was the one who died. Was f'ked up."
– AggressiveSmoke4054
Sudden Death
"A sophomore (my classmate) dropped unconscious in gym class and was rushed to the hospital. 3 days later they took him off life support and he died from a brain aneurysm."
"Edit to add: his funeral was held in the high school gym and damn near everyone went. Never in my life did I think I’d attend a funeral AT school."
– DisappointmentToMost
In The Nick Of Time
"A friend of mine in high school had a brain aneurysm, also as a sophomore. He'd been complaining for a few days about sudden, brief, very intense headaches. He was on the JV football team and went to play a game. Took a hard tackle and the aneurysm ruptured."
"That actually turned out to be the luckiest possible time for it to happen, because the school always had an ambulance on call at the side of the field during football games, so he was in the hands of EMTs within a minute of people realizing something was wrong. He was rushed to the hospital, they removed part of his skull to reduce the pressure on his brain and he spent a week or two in an induced coma. But in an absolute damn miracle, he made about as complete of a recovery as one can from that kind of injury; the only long-term effect was some very minor loss of muscle control in the left side of his face, so his smile was a little crooked."
"That was back in 2000."
"He just died three weeks ago from an accidental drug overdose."
– Lachwen
Lockdown
"A kid came to school with a machete and tree saw and slashed 7 students the day before Thanksgiving break."
"And a girl fell through the gym’s acoustic ceiling tiles and had to wear a halo."
– usfgirl1020
Incidences were not limited to just the students.
Murder
"A science teacher was beaten, chased and fatally set on fire by her husband who then shot himself."
– Fracture_98
Domestic Violence
"A teacher at the school I attended was being chased by her abusive husband. She drove to a police station with him following and tried to go inside but the doors were locked (it was some holiday). He shot her dead there and drove off. After that they made a rule to always have someone on staff and the doors unlocked."
– TheW83
There's no avoiding the brutal shaming that accompanies the high school experience.
Special Gym Class
"We had so many pregnant teen girls that they had their own gym class."
"A friend of mine who had a fake leg— he had a solid metal rod from mid thigh to mid calf from childhood leukemia so he couldn’t bend at the knee, was in the same class. Just this one poor guy and 30 pregnant 16 year olds."
"I was a teenager in the late 90s and grew up in the southeastern United States. It was a suburban area where a ton of people (still) identify as Evangelical Christians, it’s also called the Bible Belt. The required sex education classes didn’t teach anything but 'Just Say No' so there were girls who thought jumping up and down would prevent pregnancy. Not kidding. These were really sheltered girls who would attend Purity Dances, so it was quite a scandal that so many were pregnant at the same time. Most of the baby daddies were just dumb teenage boys who didn’t know the facts of life."
"Remember that there was no internet at this point so it’s not like teens could get information on their own especially if they were from a super religious background. A girl on my street was 'sent away' to live with an aunt when she got pregnant."
"Also, the pregnant girl gym class was technically for the physically disabled kids, hence why my friend was the lone guy in the class."
"His leg, from what he explained to me, had cancer in the bones of his knee. They didn’t want to amputate his whole leg so they removed the knee and grafted a rod in place— this would have been back in the late 80s so I’m sure they do stuff differently now."
– Malicious_Tacos
Students Can Be So Mean
"a girl had an epilepsy attack and she lost control of her bowels. Not a pretty sight."
"Mean girls type made fun of her, and she transferred to another high school."
– StuntCockofGilead
Teenagers deserve more credit than they're given.
These days, they are forced to grow up fast and learn important life lessons earlier than their parents like for them to experience due to various circumstances unfolding on campus.
If they can survive high school, they can survive almost anything in life past graduation.
