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Some things, whether good or bad, can’t be put into words; they have to be experienced firsthand for a person to understand what they really feel like. For some people, it’s holding their newborn in their hands for the very first time, for others it can be something way less magical, like coming face-to-face with an alligator; but in both cases, there is simply no way to convey the experience with words.

Curious about such instances, redditor u/Slow_Inflation8701 addressed members of the ‘Ask Reddit’ community asking what's something people don't understand until they go through it themselves. Fellow netizens shared their insight covering everything from abuse to parenthood, and much more, so scroll down to find their answers on the list below.

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#1

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Being with an abuser (mentally, physically, or both) and how hard it is to leave

Proof_Category_7061 , Anete Lusina Report

Final score:
364points
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#2

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Depression, actual clinical diagnosed depression.

If I had a dollar every time I had to explain to someone it’s not “just feeling sad, bro!” and can get over it just like that, I could retire.

MitchConnor555 , Ron Lach Report

Final score:
344points
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#3

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Having to cut off your family because they are very toxic. It's almost impossible to come off as the reasonable person in this situation to others, even if your life was in danger. People just don't understand

SansevieraEtMaranta , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:
295points
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The OP told Bored Panda that the reason they decided to start the thread was curiosity. “Just like everything posted on the ‘Ask Reddit’ forum, it's just something that came to mind. I was thinking about my own experiences and I wanted to know what other people's were.”

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But little did they know that some of the answers would really move them. “I was surprised because I heard things about what people were going through that were unimaginable,” they said.

“But on the other side of the spectrum, I saw comments of people going through things I have gone through that I fully understand but they explained in a way I could never think to articulate myself. I spent days combing through the comments responding and trying my best to encourage everybody I could.”
#4

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Chronic debilitating illness and disability. How quickly life can change permanently without you doing anything wrong.

melkesjokolade89 , MART PRODUCTION Report

Final score:
280points
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#5

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Experiencing the death of someone you love

hollyjazzy , Pavel Danilyuk Report

Final score:
278points
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#6

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Struggling without anyone or anything to fall back on.

Fried-Pig-Dicks , Keenan Constance Report

Final score:
263points
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In the redditor’s opinion, the main thing that no one can understand unless they’re going through it themselves is mental illness. “Nobody understands; it's proven true in both society and our healthcare system. Depressed people are lazy for not getting out of bed. People with anxiety are dramatic. People with OCD are said to be compulsive cleaners and neat freaks.

“Everyone lacks empathy and basic understanding of how mental illness truly works. And it doesn't help that there's people on social media claiming that they love their mental illnesses and it makes them who they are, when there's people like myself suffering and battling daily with our minds. It makes it hard to get through simple tasks,” the OP shared.
#7

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Not having enough money due to unforeseen circumstances. Not every poor person is poor because of their own decisions. Finances are like traffic, you can do everything right on the road, and have your life completely flipped by some other a*****e driver.

WhereTheMoneyAtBoy , Towfiqu barbhuiya Report

Final score:
253points
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#8

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Sexual assault

Royal-Somewhere-849 , MART PRODUCTION Report

Final score:
226points
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#9

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Living with PTSD.

SpykeATA , RDNE Stock project Report

Final score:
216points
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#10

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Mental illness.

RareAd3435 , Liza Summer Report

Final score:
206points
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#11

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Homelessness.

NOTHING prepares you for it, no amount of knowledge about “ resources “ street smarts etc prepares you for the devastation that is homelessness when you’re not mentally Ill or high to the hills.

You quickly learn all the “ resources “ we like to lie to each other about and pretend those “ lazy bums “ have are a crock of s**t.

Shelters are dangerous, filthy, abhorrent places , understaffed and simply don’t have the funding to do much good.

Yiu can get food assistance, but that’s about it.

Everything is a waiting game, rapid rehousing in most of the country isn’t rapid, youl be on a waiting list for ever, AND when politicians want to save a few bucks or show how fiscally conservative they are, guess who’s funding gets cut first?!

Never mind the trauma of never having privacy, a bathroom, a place to sleep safely, a place to keep any belongings without them being stolen, the constant threat of being robbed in your sleep or assaulted if you’re female, or maybe some teens feel like pelting you with eggs. Etc

TheGremshire , MART PRODUCTION Report

Final score:
195points
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#12

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Anxiety or The Anxious feeling of something bad always feels like it’s going to happen, and imagining things before they even happen and not being able to cope.

Myrealgirlfriend , Engin Akyurt Report

Final score:
173points
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#13

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves How extremely devastating being on cheated is. It's a truly sickening feeling in your gut, and nothing in your life is the same afterward. Some people are never the same ever again, others take over a decade to go back to normal. But that initial feeling is the worst. The suspicionions, the adrenaline as the truth unfolds, the severe depression, and the imagination all come together to bring you one of life's most devastating experiences.

visionsofcry , RDNE Stock project Report

Final score:
173points
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#14

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Losing a child.

rushray112 , RDNE Stock project Report

Final score:
156points
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#15

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Nerve pain

LaughingIsAwesome , Andrea Piacquadio Report

Final score:
148points
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#16

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Babies who don't sleep. Especially if you have more than one child. It's relentless, unending torture from a tiny being who you love with everything you have but find yourself having terrible thoughts about. You plead and beg, soothe and hug, rant and yell, nothing works, they don't care, they won't sleep.

Every time you close your eyes, you know it might be 5 minutes or 2 hours or 20 minutes or 3 hours before you'll get woken again, and you have to go back in and be the best version of yourself for this tiny human.

If you have other kids, you then wake at day break (if you've slept at all) and then your other little ones wake, who also need you. It's not their fault you're completely deranged from the nightly torture, they need their Mum as well. Be on your game or struggle with the guilt, exacerbated by your exaggerated emotions as you're Just. So. Tired.

Driving becomes dangerous, you can't sort reality or process things, and again - small people who have no sense of the effect their regular little kid behaviour has, no empathy, just unleashing and you have to cop it and be a good Mum. And this is night, after night, after night, relentless, no hope in sight and no energy to summon any. And there's no real way to tell anyone how tired you are because there's no way to communicate a tiredness that is a physical weight you feel, like your body and mind don't belong to you any more but you've still got to perform.

Sleep deprivation is a war crime and babies are tiny terrorists. It's hell.

Haai_Vyf , Sarah Chai Report

Final score:
145points
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#17

Having an abortion. When Roe was overturned I had to hear everyone's opinion on abortion at work (both sides). It's such a talked about 'hot button' issue that people don't really think about the fact that if you are in a room with 10 women, you are probably in a room with one who has had an abortion, and they might not want to hear what you think about it. Whatever side of the line you fall on.

opheliaonthelake Report

Final score:
143points
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#18

Having a child with special needs

ArtaxIsAlive Report

Final score:
140points
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#19

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Losing a parent at a young age. You’re not sad because you miss them. You’re sad because you were robbed of ever knowing them.

Schmaron , Pixabay Report

Final score:
137points
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#20

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Having a disability

Mrwoofwoof , Marcus Aurelius Report

Final score:
133points
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#21

Being poor

nowhereman136 Report

Final score:
129points
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#22

Panic attacks

MarkoDSamir Report

Final score:
126points
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#23

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves How bad toxic people and gaslighting are. The thing about that kind of abuse is that you never feel it like you would pbysical abuse. I know when I'm being punched, I don't know when I'm being gaslighted.

visionsofcry , Timur Weber Report

Final score:
124points
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#24

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Birth. We all know it's "hard" but sometimes even the baby books and videos don't prepare you for what could happen. When I had my son my placenta adhered to my uterine wall. Resulting in me nearly bleeding out. When my water broke it was ALL dark blood. And when I got to the hospital after my water broke I stood up and immediately heard a splash and a HUGE pile of dark red blood pooled on the floor beneath my feet. I had to have a c section after being in labor for almost two days and failing to progress. And on the table they tried pulling it out just a little and I felt EVERYTHING. I started bleeding out and they let me see my son and I was told that there was something wrong with my placenta and they had to put me under. I was intubated and given iron transfusions and blood transfusions over a two week period on top of healing from a c section.

Slow_Inflation8701 , Jonathan Borba Report

Final score:
122points
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#25

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Grief.

When it’s been a a while since, it’s common for people to say something like, “it’s been a few years, move on.”

It truthfully doesn’t work that way. You remember them forever. And even when times after are extremely good and happy, a little part of you is looking in that empty corner.

Don’t say the “move on” thing to grieving people. It truthfully is great that you don’t relate, grieving people don’t want you to try and relate. They’re in the middle of a process that, at least in some ways, lasts forever.

Sweddy-Bowls , Kampus Production Report

Final score:
120points
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#26

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Addictions.

dmbgreen , Ozan Çulha Report

Final score:
115points
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#27

Dieing. Getting old. I'm 84 and, while I'm ok, lots of activities, tons of pain, low energy. It is nothing like I imagined and before that final exit, there are a lot more surprises. (One of the interesting things is that I have NO fear, but maybe that will change. lol)

kelrunner Report

Final score:
113points
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#28

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Working in customer service

bobpetersen55 , Olha Ruskykh Report

Final score:
102points
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#29

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Blindness, or bad eyes in general.

Available-Fly-8268 , MART PRODUCTION Report

Final score:
99points
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#30

Narcistic abuse

what_is_user_name Report

Final score:
98points
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#31

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Cancer.

What it really means to go through cancer treatment.

Japan_Superfan , Ivan Samkov Report

Final score:
94points
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#32

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Having real OCD.

Exciting_Telephone65 , cottonbro studio Report

Final score:
87points
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#33

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Miscarriage. It's truly devastating.

drinxonme , Andrea Piacquadio Report

Final score:
79points
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#34

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Car crashes

NameTheEpithet , Mike Bird Report

Final score:
72points
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#35

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves How unprepared you are for a physical fight. Most people way overestimate their abilities.

TheTopNacho , Pavel Danilyuk Report

Final score:
69points
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#36

Chronic insomnia

FeckinKent Report

Final score:
28points
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#37

Growing up with parents that abuse alcohol and substances.

And constant bullying.

It follows you forever, you grow up in fear, you don't know how a healthy relationship looks like etc. It will mess you up.

In the time others learn how to socialise, how to form meaningful relationships and who you are as a person. You learn how to stay quiet, how to handle random acts of emotional terror, how to take care of your parents and siblings. You learn to survive, not to thrive.

You learn what it means to be really lonely in a room full of people, because nobody understands you. They can't. They don't realise and you grow up thinking it's normal, until you realise it's not.

You can learn all of that later, but you will always lag behind the others.

bobwoodstock Report

Final score:
24points
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#38

Being stalked. The constant of being on guard, the fear, the adrenaline, the need to be educated and prepared and armed, the complete absence of trust in all you once believed about the goodness inside people... It exacts a hefty toll. And still the thought creeps in, years upon years later, when will that individual return and repeat.

ImCrossingYouInStyle Report

Final score:
23points
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#39

I mean in my case having a very good relationship of ten years end abruptly because your partner started talking to someone from a cult, got brainwashed, and left to be with them.

Never in a million years thought this would happen to us. And I'm so tired of people telling me how she is wrong because she was "looking" for someone else. Like she was on tinder or something. That's not what happened and no matter how much I try to explain to my friends and family they just don't get it.

Pluviophilism Report

Final score:
20points
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#40

35 Things People Can Only Fully Comprehend After Going Through Them Themselves Super high stress events. People, even me at times, will say that they will do something or how they will react to a super high stress event. I work in a career where you can be sitting at a table and chatting with co workers and the next second, you have the largest adrenaline dumps of your life. Lots of people will say they will react a certain way, but most people will freeze if they haven't been though events like that often. I still to this day make that same mistake more often that I'd like to admit.

tannerwooden , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:
17points
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#41

Being in a terrible relationship. I always saw s****y couples and thought to myself “I’ll never be in a relationship like that. If I were in a relationship like tha one I would leave in a second.” The wife and I are now in something of a “rough patch/rough everything all the time” in our marriage and I get really get it now.

cloudstrife1191 Report

Final score:
15points
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#42

Parenthood.

Imboredboredbored Report

Final score:
13points
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