I thought everyone had constant suicidal ideology for years. I thought depression just meant you had it worse.

I still have a really hard time believing people who tell me they've never even considered killing themselves.

Intotheopen Report

POST

Thinking burnout was just part of working hard. Turns out, it's not a badge of honor—it's a big red flag.

elainesbaddecisions Report

POST

My childhood was worse than I thought. Not as bad as others, like nothing physical. But those are extremes and I need to understand that you don’t need to go through extremes to go through a bad time.

mnl_cntn Report

POST

The level of anxiety I felt growing up. everyone gets nervous sometimes. Not many people get nervous enough to start vomiting about minor stressors.

Kasmusser Report

POST

Hoarding. Grew up in a hoarder house, didn’t realize until my teenage years that living in a house covered with hundreds of boxes, decade-old food, and cat p**s is actually bad for one’s health and hygiene. It’s also incredibly hard to unlearn.

Dagid_pl Report

POST

My sister going to the bathroom after every meal. She told me she had a bad stomach, but it turns out she's bulimic. Wish I could help her, but I can only support and love her with all my heart. We'll get through it, Cara.

Dressed_Up_4_Snu_Snu Report

POST

When I was younger I used to hear the ice cream van at night as well as all throughout the day. One day I mentioned it to another kid and they all said I was crazy. Turns out, it was a stress reaction from what would go on to be my bipolar.

BananaHairFood Report

POST

Was always tired. Sometimes multiple naps a day, sometimes falling asleep doing something. I figured I was just a sleepy person, or maybe it was because of my autoimmune disease. My dad kept telling me I had to see a doctor because how much I slept wasn’t normal. Turns out it’s type 1 Narcolepsy, worst case my specialist had ever seen.

Kirst_Kitty Report

POST

I thought movies and shows of parents caring for their young kids was like Disney with princesses. I thought being 8 and knowing how to cook (self taught) was completely normal. It wasn't until I was around 14 I realized how fed up my life was.

prettysouthernchick Report

POST

Snoring. Turns out I have sleep apnea and stop breathing 80+ times an hour.

jono454 Report

POST

Parents fighting *viciously* quite frequently across the scope of my upbringing then immediately act like nothing happened afterwards

ikindalold Report

POST

I thought that everybody has to go to a hospital at every three months for a check up and has their blood sample taken and ultrasound done.
Turns out no, my classmates where horrified when I began to explain in detail how does certain medical prodecures work and where I got my scar on my stomach.
To sum it up I had kidney cancer at the age of 4. It was so bad the surgeon had to remove my whole left kidney.
I really thought that this was normal.
My father is a cancer survivor, my mother has rheumatoid arcthitis. Going to any kind of doctor is basically a family trip for us.
Now I am more mindful of how I speak about this, because when I was younger I used to say things like "and thats how I got my blood drawn sixteen times on one day! But the nurse was so nice she played polly pockets with me after that! :D"
And the face my classmate and her mother made is burned into my head this day.

luca_aaa Report

POST

Having skin like velvet and being super duper flexible. turns out i have ehlers-danlos syndrome. whoops.

wifeunderthesea Report

POST

I had a headache, which happens sometimes. I don't know that I'd call it "normal," but it's not so abnormal that I saw it as cause for immediate concern. Whatever, I'll just go to bed early, surely I'll be fine the next day.

A visit to the emergency department led to a nearly two-week stay in the hospital, where they administered an MRI, which led to a diagnosis of acute autoimmune idiopathic dissemminated encephalomyelitis.

In other words, for no readily apparent reason, my immune system decided something it should attack is the protein sheath that is the insulation for the complex circuit that is the brain. It's not supposed to do that.

metalvessel Report

POST

I had a friend growing up when we were 14 who had an older brother in his 30s that would hang out with us when we had parties and him and his friends would flirt with the girls. At the time we thought he was the coolest dude but now looking back at it he was just a predator.

novicemma2 Report

POST

Antagonistic parents. People succeeding in spite of them instead of with their support. My parents abandoned me, my guardian was super abusive. The kids I knew at school also had wildly s****y parents in different ways (some had cult-level religious brainwashing, some were narcissistic and relied on children to take care of them instead of the other way around, etc). For the longest time I thought everything I and the people I knew had to deal with was just normal.

Silvervirage Report

POST

Mormonism.

Ydok_The_Strategist Report

POST

Drunk driving, parents did it alot and honestly drove better drunk than normal, it wasn’t until I was 14 and a friend was driving me home after a beach party late at night and almost killed everyone in the car because he fell asleep for a few seconds.

GreatAd6193 Report

POST

That repeat illnesses with pneumonia and sinus infections was just part of having allergies and asthma. Two years ago, at my annual appointment, my immunologist asked me to get a blood panel I’d never heard of before. I’ve had the test several times now, and it turns out it’s an antibody titer, and I don’t retain immunity to polysaccharide bacteria, even with repeat immunizations. I’ve had a pneumovax every year for almost 15 years and I have almost no immunity to 14 of the 23 variants tested, and, of the ones I do have some immunity to, only two have fully “protective” immunity. What kills me is that my mom, who was a critical care nurse, was convinced that I had something amiss with my immune system. She passed away in 2009 unexpectedly and I didn’t get to tell her she was right. Way to go, Mom!!

susanreneewa Report

POST

Grew up with an erratic volatile unpredictable very unusual quite beautiful mother who I thought was “eccentric” and it was just normal to me. She spoke with a strong accent and was very silly and flighty and energetic and would enroll me in things but then sabotage the event—children’s pageants, department store modeling runways, local tv shows, summer children’s events, acting auditions, pets that were gifted but always disappeared after a week or so. I learned not to get attached to any thing or situation.

The upside tho was that I very quickly realized that, even as a very young child, I could not depend on her much and needed to always rely on myself for planning and safety and care. I became super-independent and capable at a young age. It made me very strong and creative and self-confident.

But it all got much worse later—public fits, outbursts, arson, nudity, inappropriate language—and we realized that she was mentally ill, finally diagnosed as schizophrenic, moved on to near-constant paranoid hallucinations and a frightening death.

This was all a long time ago tho. She passed more than 35 years ago.

lemeneurdeloups Report

POST

I grew up routinely bullied by cousins for everything from the way I talked to the music I liked and even the way I walked and stood up. I didn’t think much of it because I assumed if they’re family it means they love you and the behavior is normal.

thedustoflife Report

POST

Health insurance. Masquerades as a way for people to be able to get healthcare but really doesn't give a damn about you or ensuring you actually get healthy. .

greenmachine11235 Report

POST

That my dad would never speak to me. Like, at all. He would rarely eat meals with me, never asked about my day, or had any interest in what I'd been up to.

But, he would pounce on the opportunity to yell at me or belittle me for any perceived failure. There were never any mistakes or accidents, only personal failures that meant I was doomed for failure forever, and that meant I was utterly worthless.

It never ended as long as I lived with him, but he chilled out later after getting cancer. I intentionally rebuilt our relationship, mostly because I think he's probably autistic, definitely was abused as a kid, and was not able to form emotions in a healthy way, and because I want that closure when he does eventually pass away.

AbismalOptimist Report

POST

I thought being light headed and almost passing out and then panicking was normal for people. I had random spurts of it often, especially in middle school. My parents thought I was making it up, even after I did pass out once.

Turns out it was a mixture of anxiety attacks and chronic dehydration, with the stress of school. I can't hold water like most people can so I drink a lot every day. If I don't then I start getting the symptoms again.

sicksages Report

POST

I thought that my brother coming into my room every night when i was a child was normal until my first boyfriend in middle school told me otherwise.

WonderfulDrawing8585 Report

POST

That your partner shouldn't cheat on you. I grew up with my dad constantly cheating on my mom and being her therapist through it. I would go through his phone for her or listen to them fight and then be the therapist for her the next day. I never knew how bad it was until I met my friends parents who loved one another, rarely fought, and never had issues with cheating. When I spoke about the things I knew (like my parents swinging) and how my life played out, they were HORRIFIED. I still struggle with being the therapist friend and allowing myself to be treated like s**t and cheated on....

BriBee1301 Report

POST

When the light switch finally came on and I realized I was, in fact, raised in a cult. I would not be able to list all the things that I was raised to believe were normal lmfao.

itsnotastatement Report

POST

My mom discussing all of her life and marriage problems with me in middle school. Basically *wanted* me to believe my dad was up to no good and cheating. Also shared way too many details about their sex life, or the lack of one.


Their parenting was just a big mess, but everything seemed fine because there was no physical abuse, they had jobs and we lived in a nice house.

randomasking4afriend Report

POST

When i was a little kid i thought it was normal during big thunderstorms to hang out with your neighbors and shop vac water out of basements. turns out there was an actual problem in a wall of the basement that took* a while to find and fix.

Eternal_Bagel Report

POST

Eating the same thing for a couple weeks in a row like rice or baked chicken.

sweetpealadyyy Report

POST

Lots of abusive behaviors from my parents. I knew my childhood wasn't awesome, but didn't realize the extent until I'd pop jokes to my friends about some of that s**t and they'd look at me like ??. Then I'd get self conscious and say something like "just a joke, it wasn't THAT bad..." It was usually worse.

gut_sack_ Report

POST

To some degree I knew that my partner drinking a whole bottle of wine plus 6 beers in a day wasn't a normal thing when I first started dating him but the extent of the addiction and the affects of his health didn't become fully clear to me until some time had passed .

Mischiefmanaged715 Report

POST

A school I went to used to give out around 10 pieces of homework everyday and at least half have to be handed in by the next day.

Turns out even by Asian school standard mine was insane.

542Archiya124 Report

POST

Constantly ruminating about things. Apparently not everyone does this.

YamLow8097 Report

POST

Smoking in adolescence. Well, I've been a smoker for 15 years now.

NoRecording66 Report

POST