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“Panic Attacks”: 30 Things People Can Never Truly Understand Until They’ve Experienced Them
No one can experience everything in life. And sometimes, that’s a blessing! If you had to suffer through every possible traumatic situation, enjoying life would become extremely challenging. But the more that we have been through, the more we can relate to others.
Redditors have recently been discussing experiences that no one will ever fully understand until they’ve lived them, so we’ve gathered some of their thoughts down below. From grieving a loved one to being burdened with chronic pain, I’m sure you can relate to some of the experiences here. But perhaps this list will be a reminder to be a little more sympathetic towards the things you haven't seen first hand.
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Panic attacks.
A full blown panic attack is the feeling you are going to die. Can't breathe, sweating, shaking, blurred vision, vomit. It's not anxiety. It's panic, no matter where you are
Pet loss.
Chronic pain.
Its easy to say, but since I have it. The worst thing you can do with cronic pain is let it stop you moving, because our whole body mechanism is designed around movement to make us healthy. Unless we move we dont get fresh blood to all our cells, we dont expell our waisteproducts efficiently. We stiffen and our musckle shortens, wich inpacts the bloddflow and the waiste products. Thats not to mention all the positive hormones you also dont get transported around your body. Our brain is so ready to give us the right medicine, but we are so used to thinking that movement and excercise is pain, that we forget that its nice to sit and rock, to swing our bodies gently, to roll from one side to the other. And the more we do the small, soft movements, the more we gain the positive effects, and even supportive muskles to ease the pain of the main. Pain isnt always the body telling you something is wrong. Most often its just to tell you that you are doing it wrong, or not doing it enough <3
An a***sive relationship
Always easy to say, "Well if my SO would use violence against me, I would be gone in seconds", until you've lived through it.
"I would never let someone treat me that way", until the one you love actually does...
Learned this the hard way.
There are a thousand reasons why someone can't or won't leave an abusive relationship. Maybe they have no money or nowhere to go. They might not know where to turn or who they can trust. Society in general dictates that being alone or single is a bad thing so they may have conditioned themselves into thinking that a bad partner is better than no partner at all. Maybe they've just accepted the abuse as normal and no longer think there's anything better or that they deserve better. It is surprising what you can get accustomed to and it is surprising how quickly you can get used to it. I've experienced all of these things. I could write a book on the subject.
Discrimination
Some people think it straight up doesn't exist because it's never happened to *them*.
Worse, many think that some classes aren’t discriminated against because “nobody’s trying to hurt you or kıll you or take away your rights”. Discrimination comes in a wide variety of forms, and they all hurt in some way.
Migraines. I'd love for everyone to experience a migraine at least once so that they stop calling it 'just a headache.'.
The outrage and despair when something really unfair happens to you.
People will tell you to just choose to be happy, or get over it, or forgive, but words are so cheap.
Moving past something and forgiving is a process you go through. You don't actually have complete control over it.
And it takes as long as it takes. Nobody really knows how they are going to handle a situation until they are faced with it themselves and nobody has the right to judge you.
Period Cramps.
And knowing you're going to have them almost every month or so for 35-40 years!
Clinical depression. Everyone thinks they understand it because they’ve been depressed, but true depression is a whole different thing.
Numbness is mostly what I remember from when I had it. I am so thankful that I managed to reach out to my mum when I was suffering and she made sure I got treated. I still have social/generalised anxiety but I find it easier to live with than how it was back then.
The struggle of dealing with mental health issues in silence!
No need to be silent. shout it out <3 so you can get the help from those who see you shouting. The rest of them probably have enough with their own stuff or dont have the mental capasity to help anyway. But dont silence your self to please others. It only makes it worse, and many people want to help you, even if it is only a kind or validating word from an internet stranger, it is a start. Its helpful. It allows you to "be", in a context where you are not judged and if they judge, its not to earthcrushing. And so you learn to find your words, to feel the right to express yourself and with time and confidence, you learn what you want and need.
Addiction.
Losing someone close to you.
5 years ago lost my stepdad, then my aunt (my moms sister) a few months later. Last year my husband lost his uncle and I lost my uncle within a few weeks of each other. We just lost a family friend last month who I have known since I was little, so like 30 years.
The damage and consequences of childhood abuse/trauma/neglect, the adult you now has to deal with living n healing CPTSD.
Jupp. But we also can be quite basa§§, good listeners, have great perspective on life, live in the moment, because we know thatt is is all we really ever have, and are strong enough to wake up and sieze another day by its horns while shaking of the nightmares that comes at night. Im not making light of anything here, but we are made to go through and live after much worse, so unless you are being eaten by a bear or a lion, there is hope you will find your way to the other side, as long as you keep moving your body, work through your experiences and have faith in your self and the fact that you made it here. And that is awesome (in the correct use of the word). Even the "gutter" has life and hope, and most of us have more than that. Even when we have or had very little. Love you all <3
Your home burning down.
The fire is only the first day, the following 2 years it takes to reclaim your life is so much worse.
I feel for all the people in Australia and North America who are experiencing this from the bush/wild fires at the moment.
War. Source someone who’s never been.
True loneliness and how it feels to be completely isolated.
As a child, my mother had all the ppd's posible and she couldnt stand touching me. My father touceded me but only to saticfy his own sickness. When they divorsed he would keep me and my brother (for status) and left us for days and weeks at a time from I was three til I was nine. I would walk in peoples shoeprints to feel a connection to others. I would sneak peaks into peoples homes, and i would stand outside favorite houses, so I cold smell their dinnertime and hear their laughter. I even learned to hug pinetrees, and had a few nests around, jiust to be close to other living organisms, besides the bacterias growing on my filthy body Cats and dogs would avoid my desperation. Now I have many friends, in my favorite tv series and documetaries, the love artists share when they make their content, internet strangers who see me, only for a minute while they read my comments. I could have real friends, but im not good at it, having been raised by dogs and cats. And i feel my life is full
Giving birth.
It's a truly unreal and terrifying experience from start to finish for an onslaught of reasons. It was the only time in my life I have wondered if I might just die from pain alone. When my daughter finally came out and they plopped this slimy, wet, purple baby on my chest I actually said, "oh my god, it's a baby."
Side note, *parenthood* is another one of those things you don't really get until you've done it.
Tooth pain.
i had a broken tooth one of my molars and i was eating a hamburger bit down on it as i was chewing i felt like someone just straight up clocked me in the jaw.
The way an abusive relationship truly wears you down and the lack of options you may face, or the harsh penalties you may experience for any choice
"Just go to a shelter!" 🤦♀️.
I love the "Just leave" people... Where should I go my man? Should I just go live on the streets while getting slandered to kingdom come with 0 reprecussions for the offending party?
What it’s like to be seconds away from death. The fear. The fight. The exhaustion followed by acceptance that that was your entire life. The feeling of being saved at the last possible second. It’s hard to understand if you haven’t been that close to death.
I get to join this one. My 18-year-old is upstairs crying her eyes out because her Dad 54 years old just passed away at 3:30 this morning.
The only reason I'm here on Reddit is because I'm tired of crying my eyes out. I was married to him for 15 years. He was a good man and never should have died before me.
Homelessness.
My mum and stepdad took in a couple of friends of my late stepbrother in the last couple of years because they were homeless. Having to pack up their meagre belongings and move in with people they only peripherally knew was hard to comprehend. Now one is going to be homeless again, after finding a place to share for a while, and my stepdad won't help again.
OCD!
As someone with OCD, It is quite annoying when someone "jokes" about having OCD because all of "whatever" is lined up perfectly, and if anything is misaligned, they have to fix it right away. My OCD ruled my life. It was something that affected me non-stop. In addition to the usual "counting" thing, and needing to eat a sandwich in 8 bites, I had a major "oddity" that a friend insisted was OCD, and she didn't even understand the complexity of what I was doing. Friend dragged me to see OCD specialist at Johns Hopkins Hospital. When I told him about my thing, he looked very thoughtful and said that he had never heard of anything like that before, but he quite confidently said that it had all the hallmarks of OCD. I started getting better that day, knowing that it had a name. There are still aspects of it that control my life, but I'm able to override some of it now. So yeah, making sure all the pictures line up straght ain't suffering. Folks with real OCD actually suffer from it.
The depth of love from a good mom.
While it’s impossible to *fully* understand some things without experiencing them, some people use that as an excuse to not try or to accuse others having no idea at all. We should always try to understand things to whatever extent we can, and we shouldn’t try to prevent others from understanding what they can of our own experiences. IOW, don’t gatekeep compassion and understanding.
Gaining working knowledge of any software is entirely possible, though you may not know the coding behind, and better the UI, the easier it is to learn. This analogy applies here, I think.
Load More Replies...I'm going to add in: Being neurodivergent. They mentioned OCD but for me no one but an autistic person can truly understand being autistic. That said if any of my lovely fellow pandas have questions about autism please ask me I am always happy to educate but please keep in mind autism is different for everyone and I can only speak to my experience.
I'm also autistic. Can I ask if there's like, a favorite part or something that you really like about your autism?
Load More Replies...ADHD having racing thoughts all the time knowing that you need to do something but cant work up the drive to do it. Then hyper focusing on something and zoning out from everything around you to the point that you realise someone has been talking to you.
While it’s impossible to *fully* understand some things without experiencing them, some people use that as an excuse to not try or to accuse others having no idea at all. We should always try to understand things to whatever extent we can, and we shouldn’t try to prevent others from understanding what they can of our own experiences. IOW, don’t gatekeep compassion and understanding.
Gaining working knowledge of any software is entirely possible, though you may not know the coding behind, and better the UI, the easier it is to learn. This analogy applies here, I think.
Load More Replies...I'm going to add in: Being neurodivergent. They mentioned OCD but for me no one but an autistic person can truly understand being autistic. That said if any of my lovely fellow pandas have questions about autism please ask me I am always happy to educate but please keep in mind autism is different for everyone and I can only speak to my experience.
I'm also autistic. Can I ask if there's like, a favorite part or something that you really like about your autism?
Load More Replies...ADHD having racing thoughts all the time knowing that you need to do something but cant work up the drive to do it. Then hyper focusing on something and zoning out from everything around you to the point that you realise someone has been talking to you.