fact
In 2014 when impoverished Ivory Coast cocoa farmers were asked what they were growing was made into, they didn’t know. The farmers knew cocoa was some type of food but they had never heard of or tasted chocolate until reporters brought them a chocolate bar to try.
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One of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill W., asked for whiskey on his death bed, but was denied and died 36 years sober.
The post One of the cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
Operation Alaska, Finalaska or New Finland was a proposed plan to evacuate entire Finnish population (3.8 million) to Alaska during the WW2.
The post Operation Alaska, Finalaska or New Finland… appeared first on Crazy Facts.
In 1987 Fisher Price released the PXL2000 toy, ultra low tech, video camera that recorded monochromatic, low quality, video on audio cassettes. A commercial flop at the time, its now highly prized by film makers and artists for the uniquely grainy, antique, mysterious look it creates on film.
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Weddings are meant to be a time of great joy and profound happiness.
Two souls converging and becoming one for all of eternity.
Love is abound like a free wheeling pixie. It’s a glorious sight to behold.
Until it’s not.
Sadly too many people jump into marriage for all the wrong reasons.
They try to fool the world, and themselves, that this is the right thing to do.
But more often than not, the world can see right through you.
Redditor Olya_roo wanted to hear about the red flags and flat out obvious signs they witnessed at a wedding that didn’t give them hope for the couple’s happily ever after…
“What wedding moment made you think: ‘They are not going to last long?’”
Let’s talk about love, while it lasts…
“Not the couple getting married but the Best Man and Maid of Honor who were married to each other.”
“Best Man’s speech was all about how hard it was to be married.”
“‘I’ve been married for a year and it feels like 100 years.’”
“Maid of Honor stands up to give a speech and just says ‘Ditto.’”
“It was so awkward and really brought the whole room down.”
“Brother of the bride stood up and gave a nice impromptu speech about teamwork and having a partner to go through life with.”
“How happy the family was to have the groom join their family.”
“Best Man and Maid of Honor were divorced within a year.”
“Couple who got married are still married 30+ years later.”
“I sometimes wonder if the speeches actually were helpful in how not to act as a couple.”
“For me the complex backstory.”
“Bride’s brother is gay and has been in a longterm relationship for 40+ years.”
“At the time he gave his speech about marriage he couldn’t marry the man he loved and I think his passioned defense of marriage was born from that.”
“When people would say they were against gay marriage because it makes a mockery of marriage I’d think of that night.”
“The married couple who had no respect for marriage could easily marry (and did over and over again) and the man who stood up and defended marriage could not.”
“He’s married now and lovingly takes care of his husband as he battles health issues.” ~ designgoddess
“When they were doing the vows and the priest got to the ‘for richer or poorer’ part and she said ‘for richer or richer and maybe for poorer.’”
“The officiant was not pleased. I think they made it a year.” ~ crm115
“I’M WITNESSING ONE FROM THE SIDELINES NOW!!!”
“My wife’s brother just got married this past May.”
“Bride’s mother is a big DO IT YOURSELF person and went a little nuts with extra flowers, table pieces, decorations, etc…”
“Note I said extra, it was already decorated by the venue, she just took it upon herself to buy and add way more stuff.”
“Anyway, a few weeks ago she sends my MIL (groom’s mom) and email with receipts of all the extra stuff she bought ($7,000 worth!!!).”
“And asked that she pay half since it was technically set up in time for the rehearsal dinner for guests to enjoy.”
“It’s causing a huge rift between the newlyweds since the bride is taking her moms side.” ~ WanderingRaindog
“The groom showed up to his own reception wearing a t-shirt with restroom-sign style stick figures depicting a bride and groom captioned ‘Game Over.’” ~ Reddit
“My wife got invited to a client’s daughter’s wedding.”
“The couple were both drama students. Many of the bridal party were drama students.”
“The maid-of-honour’s toast consisted of tearful declarations of unrequited love to the groom, along the lines of ‘if it couldn’t be me, I’m glad it’s my best friend that’s marrying you.’”
“The best-man’s speech was a lusty declaration of ‘if it doesn’t work out, call me, babe… like the previous time you called me.’”
“Other toasts were similarly weird.”
“A guy at the table I was seated at was a friend of the bride and said to me that he was ‘this close’ to standing up during the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ thing.”
“I’m still not sure if the whole thing was a bunch of emotionally f**ked-up 20-year-olds, or one big piece of performance art.” ~ sharplescorner
“I was maid of honor.”
“Me, best man and the couple went into a separate little room to do the signing stuff.”
“Bride excused herself to go the bathroom and the groom started making pretty mean remarks about her cooking (something she’s passionate about) to the officiant.”
“She came back, heard they were talking about cooking family meals together and gave him the warmest smile, thinking he had praised her.”
“He scoffed awkwardly and changed the topic.”
“That always stuck with me. He wasn’t laughing WITH her but AT her, behind her back.”
“They lasted 7 months.” ~ Kraken_of_BeverlyRd
“When my sister married her first husband she mouthed to my father walking her down the aisle ‘I can make this work, right?’”
“They were divorced 6 months later.”
“My whole family knew it wasn’t a good idea since the original engagement a year prior.” ~ IMgonnaDIE
“He ended up at the emergency room between the ceremony and the reception.”
“He went out out the night night before with his sister and friends and got plastered.”
“They had to hold a cold pack to the back of his neck to keep him vertical during the wedding photos.”
“Marriage lasted 30 days until they had a fight, she left the house and he filled the U-Haul truck with everything but her clothes.” ~ blackhart452
“Well here it goes…”
“My cousin got married probably a decade ago and during the wedding it came out that groom was not the best to my cousin while dating.”
“The bride’s brother did not take this well and during the after party a shouting match became a brawl between the two families.”
“Next thing you know the police show up and literally pepper spray everyone.”
“Including my grandma, kids and anyone near the area.”
“I don’t remember if anyone got arrested but the story got on CBS the early show for the international news.”
“Lol they did not last long to say the least.” ~ mendoza327
“When the bride drank vodka out of a pint glass and spent a significant amount of time making out with another guy on the dance floor.” ~ csdirty
Some of us are just going to die alone, or with a parrot.
And that is ok.
It is better to be alone than unhappy.
Besides if you wait just a little longer, the right one may not be far off.
Don’t say “I DO” until you’re 100% sure!!
One of the main reasons that people “rage quit” their jobs – meaning they leave in a dramatic fashion when they’re fed up – is usually due to poor management and abusive treatment.
In August of 2021, we saw the largest amount of people quitting their jobs at once in what is now known as the Great Resignation. Some left due to low wages and poor management, some left because of the pandemic, and some wanted to do work they actually loved doing.
While many of these people quit after working for quite some time, there’s a great deal of people out there who quit on day one of their new job.
Sometimes you start a new job and instantly you realize that it’s not going to be the right fit. Whether it’s red flags with management or the work isn’t something you want to be doing, there are so many reasons to leave.
We went to Ask Reddit to get the truth on why people left their job the moment they started.
“People who quit their jobs on the first day, what was your ‘I’m outta here’ moment?”
Here’s some of the best responses.
“When the microwave in the lunch room was coin activated.” – CaptainArsehole
“That’s real? What the ever loving f*ck?”
“That warrants loading that thing up with quarters, filling it with silverware and setting it to ten minutes on your way out.” – larry_flarry
“I work in building management and am personally responsible for many of the amenities tenants have in an office, and I can’t even imagine the conversation on that one.”
“I had a hard time putting in a cold brew and kombucha machine that was pay per use, I feel like if you are going to put something in an office it should be free, or just don’t offer it.” – BuffFlexson
“Worked in a hotel for a day.”
“No one told me where anything was. Got chewed out for it.”
“Guests enjoying their meals told me to pay no mind/I was doing a good job and that my boss is a c*nt.”
“I told the manager that I was quitting and wouldn’t be doing the next shift.”
“I arrived the next day, returning a work uniform and my supervisor approached me and yelled at me for being late. I told her I already quit but if I was working, technically I was 5 hours early for my shift.”
“Absolute nutcases.” – O5CR
“The not getting told how to something then getting told off for doing it wrong thing happened to me. I was so mad.”
“Got told to put something on shelves by checkout. Asked if there’s way any specific way it needs to be done? Get told ‘No, idiot, it’s not hard you just put as much as you can fit on the shelf’. Stack stuff on shelf. ‘Why didn’t you follow protocol around displaying stuff here? You have to count exactly how many you use for stock control and display them a certain way.’”
“Thought that one was a one off but the next day I ask what I should be doing after a busy period? ‘There’s nothing to do for a bit. Make us all coffee to practice using the machine.’ Half way through making coffee ‘Why haven’t you done really important job? You don’t have time to be taking coffee breaks!’”
“This was my trainer vs the manager. Turns out the trainer didn’t want someone else working with her so she sabotaged me and set me up for the manager to catch me doing the (wrong) things she’d told me to do.”
“I told them they clearly have some issues to work out among themselves and quit.” – Few-Evidence-7534
“I got a job at a Build A Bear knockoff at the end of a mall that wasn’t very busy. My interview with the owners was interesting. They were an older couple who said that they had wanted to open a Chick Fil A, but you need about a million dollars to do that.”
“My first day, one other girl was working, and she didn’t really talk to me. I had basically no training and she disappeared into the back. I was standing at the register area, which was underneath a giant storybook mushroom. A mother and her young son walk in and start to look at the bear skin options. I greeted them and left them to look around. They ended up leaving after a couple minutes and my coworker reappeared from the back with the cordless phone and handed it to me.”
“It was my boss. He told me that when a customer walks in, he wants me to come out from under the mushroom to them (‘come OUT! from the mushroom!’). After he finished speaking to me, I hung up and went to my coworker and asked about the phone call. She said the place has cameras set up and the owners watch them from their house and call in a lot. I did not come back to work after that day.” – pocketradish
“Not mushroom for improvement there.” – FreudianAcordian
“Owner didn’t seem like a fungi.” – TrippyReality
“Fast food chain: I was 17.”
“I found out during training that the place had been robbed 3 times in the past month and 1 employee was seriously injured.”
“Not worth the $5/hr. (This was the US state of Georgia in 2004).” – ThunderFlash10
“I worked at a KFC when I was 16. I remember the training orientation video told us over and over not to be a hero if you get robbed. Do they really think we’re gonna take a bullet for them? Like we’re gonna scream ‘Not on my watch!’ and dive over the counter?” – casino_night
“Took a summer job at a textile plant and the trainer said, ‘Forget about taking a break if you want to stay caught up.’” – p38-lightning
“Reply forget about being caught up.” – Big-Red-Husker
“Especially because ‘caught up’ is an arbitrary standard.”
“Breaks, however, are mandated by law and measurable.” – TootsNYC
“I applied for a job at my longtime favorite restaurant(celebrated my birthday there every year).”
“Owner asks me to come in for basically a try out, as I communicated I was looking at other job possibilities. I come in and they just stick me on dishwashing for an hour, no biggie. Then there dishwasher doesn’t show up, so the kitchen manager asks me to stay one for their lunch rush, says I’ll get paid for the hours. I do, kitchen staff was nice so I was happy to help out even though I figured I’d be taking a different job. I fill out a time card at the end of the shift and tell the manager I probably wouldn’t be back, he understands and thanks me for the help.”
“Fast forward a couple weeks and he tells me to email the owner after I ask him if I should pick up my measly paycheck. I do, she basically tells me to f*ck off over text. Tells me it was ‘staging’ and that she told me I wouldn’t be paid. I respond that I understand that but that I stayed an extra 3 hours which I WAS told I’d be paid for. She stops responding. I decide I want to be petty over the 40 bucks so I get the state labor department involved. Dude goes in there and makes her pay me for the hours including the first ‘staging’ hour. Couple weeks later I got my 40 bucks, never went back to that restaurant.”
“Firstly, ‘petty’ is not how I see it two years later. I’m VERY glad I did this and sharing the story with others in my city I learned this practice was very common with local restaurants. Hopefully others learned to stand up for their labor too from my small experience.”
“Secondly, this restaurant closed down a couple weeks after I got that paycheck. The owner made a long winded complaint on the FB page about how the food culture had ‘changed’ in the city and her restaurant didn’t fit in anymore (total bullsh*t, they were ALWAYS popular. Most people theorized the terrible mismanagement and employee abuse had caught up to her).” – sleepdyhollow
“You’re not petty, I wonder how many other people they fleeced for free labor.” – FaustsAccountant
“You would not believe what restaurants get away with. And they’re so blatant about it.”
“It’s such an insane work culture. I’m glad I experienced it but the thought of doing it everyday makes my job being a welder now a total cakewalk.” – providenthound
“My very first job was at a little drive in restaurant close to my high school. I showed up to work the first day, they lady said I had to pay her $50 for training. She showed me around the place and said that my pay would be $4.50/hour as a carhop(this was in 2010), and all the tips I made went into a bucket with all the other girls’ tips. At the end of the night, she counted up tips, kept 20% for herself and split the rest up evenly among EVERY employee. Also, part of our job was one day a week we had to spend 4 hours cleaning her house. It seemed super shady.”
“I literally left after listening to her go over all these rules. My dad was pissed until I explained, and another girl confirmed and my dad agreed I did the right thing.” – tlr92
“Shady and highly illegal.”
“Tip pooling is legal but is supposed to be only with other tipped employees, her skimming 20% off the top is not legal.”
“Pretty sure you can’t charge someone to train them for a job you hired them for.” – -Work_Account-
“I was hired at a chain restaurant to be a hostess. I was so excited because my last job was washing dishes and because of my eczema, I had to quit. It was too painful to do that job. So, I arrived at my new job dressed up to be a hostess and those mfers took me back to the kitchen to do dishes because the dishwasher just quit. I noped out of there real fast!” – Ismygrayshowing
“13 years in restaurants, I can say if you have any skin condition stay out of restaurants not because of your skin but the chemicals some places use for their dishwashers. I’ve seen people welt up just from industrial detergent.” – scootiesanchez2038
“Went into an Italian restaurant for my first day of work and I got 3 red flags on the very first day.”
“1- The manager said he had lots of hours for me and getting shifts would be no problem. Every single other employee told me that they were struggling for hours and that they had no idea why they hired me.”
“2- Everyone said the manager was an asshole. Even the customers.”
“3- It was my first day there, and I actually had to teach the woman training me how to do one or two things.” – Stevie-Avail
“Probably hired you to replace that woman.” – RonStopable08
“‘Salesman’ for Kirby vacuums. First sale call was to a single elderly woman who was supporting her son in hospital (they got us in the door by offering a free carpet clean as a demonstration). The supervisor training me pushed and pushed to make the sale until this old woman was in tears. Just as she was about to sign the paperwork I asked if she actually wanted to vacuum and she said it was lovely but she couldn’t afford it. I took the paperwork away from her and said not to worry.”
“Outside I told the supervisor I quit to which he replied I would’ve been fired anyway. No love lost. I hung around for half an hour playing on my phone to make sure the supervisor left because he was a real piece of work.” – Pokestralian
“Oooh I have a Kirby story! I worked for them when I was 17 – not selling the vacuums but setting up appointments for the salespeople. They had the shadiest way of getting their salespeople into people’s houses. They went around town with raffle tickets where people could sign up with their name, address, and phone number for a chance to win some cash prize. The kicker? There was no contest. It was just a way to get these people’s info.”
“When I would get the filled out raffle tickets I was instructed to look at the zip codes and throw out any from the lower income part of town. Then with what was left I had to make calls. I had a script where I would tell them they were still in the running for the cash prize but in the meantime, they had won a free one room cleaning. I’d get the details on which room they wanted to have done and set up a day and time for it. Their free room cleaning was a Kirby salesman pitching to them the whole time.”
“The whole thing was so dishonest I quit after a couple weeks.” – SavaRox
Not only do some of these jobs sound terrible, a lot of what happened was illegal.
With all the abuse, misuse of power, and poor wages, it’s no one these people quit on day one. If they stayed any longer it was bound to be stressful.
It can be difficult to figure out what you’re going to do as a career for the rest of your life. In fact, the job you’re working in now might have started out as, “Just that thing I’ll do until I find the real thing I want to do.”
Usually, these careers are filled with long hours, difficult clientele, and a secret load of hardships the outside world is not privy to knowing. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the “dream” jobs, the ones people spend all day wishing they had while they work their dead-end feeling jobs, may not be as great as some hoped.
The smells. So. Many. Smells.
“Which job is a LOT less fun than most people expect?”
“Zookeeper.”
“Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome to be around so many amazing animals and care for them…”
“But the smells are ridiculously, insanely foul.”
“I have a really strong stomach and it’s still tough for me…we’ve had some interns quit over it.”
“I was warned about the smells when getting into the field, but thought ‘oh I’ve volunteered at animal shelters, I know what animal stink smells like’”
“Nope. Not even close.” ~ wekoo9
“Paleontologist. You don’t get to work with full dinosaur skeletons and do all kinds of awesome expeditions.”
“You’re mostly sitting at a desk looking at some pictures and logging stuff on your computer, maybe examining a fossil occasionally.”
“If you’re lucky you can go on a real dig, and OMG SPEND HOURS IN THE HOT SUN DUSTING OFF ROCKS!!!” ~ MidwesternMonkey
“Baker. Coming into work at 3/4 am so you can have a six am baked goods is miserable.” ~ haireypotter
‘”o00Oo0h y0u MuST L0vE tHe wAY U SmëlL WhEn ù G0 h0Me!’”
“nope…I go home smelling like burnt oven” ~ Vdd993
“Working in a music store ( musical instruments )”
“Your days are spent listening to 50 different people play 50 different riffs poorly simultaneously, as if they’re all putting on their own concert.” ~ [usernamedeleted]
“Some of my (least) favorites:”
“Person who thinks playing well and playing loud are the same thing.”
“Person who wants to make sure you know they are very smart and you are very lucky to be in their presence.”
“Person who goes to absurd lengths to test out drum sticks to make sure they’re pitch matched without knowing how to execute any of those techniques. Extra points if they’re just going to shred them to splinters in a week anyway.”
“People who act like you’re in their way because you’re trying to do your job.”
“People who assume you couldn’t possibly know anything about the instruments you play and sell all day long.”
“Side note – I mostly loved my time working in a music store and I enjoy helping people but the people who come in with aggressive egos and nasty attitudes are insufferable.” ~ JessicaMessica
“Lifeguarding. Everyone expects Baywatch, act, saving lives all the time. But It’s usually just sitting there blowing your whistle telling little sh-ts to stop f-cking around.” ~ Theholynun
“Demolition”
“Everyone wants to break shit with a sledgehammer. Everyone is tired of lifting that sledgehammer by 5 swings.”
“Nobody wants to load the broken stuff into bags or a wheelbarrow and take it to the dumpster.” ~ Bill_S_Preson_Esq
“Gamemaster at an escape room.”
“It’s the same repetitive script, resetting the same stuff, giving clues and hints about the same things.”
“The patrons are often competitive families who argue, obnoxious impatient 13-year-olds, college students who have been drinking, idiots who break sh*t and touch sh*t that I SPECIFICALLY TOLD THEM NOT TO.”
“They never remember your initial instructions. If something gets broken during one group, you have to hurry and fix it before the next group.” ~ Reddit
“Video game tester.”
“You aren’t spending your time playing completed fully realized games. You are playing the same level of a game over and over seeing if there are bugs.” ~ Mr_frumpish
“Also, you are probably not going to test the next GTA, but something like Barbie’s Super Happy Funland 3, or some other game aimed for kids 8 and under. And you’ll have to play it for 8-10 hours a day, every day.” ~ __Hello_my_name_is__
“Lets see if I can clip through the wall in position 131, 875, -121”
“Lets see if I can clip through the wall in position 131, 875, -122”
“Lets see if I can clip through the wall in position 131, 875, -123” ~ RoboNinjaPirate
“I have seen this question before and then it was zookeeper at the top comment too. Nice.”
“Anyways, there’s this making-of Frozen 2 mini docu. Most animators work weeks for a minute of animation of one character, if not less.
“At one point they decided to leave out a piece that one person had solely been working on. Must be crappy to be part of the credits without being able to say “this is my part!”.” ~ ArrrSlashSubreddit
“I couldn’t believe it! It was even crazier to me when Sterling K. Brown recorded an entire song and it got scrapped. It’s insane how much ends up on the cutting room floor for a movie to be just right.”
“I was so psyched for the animator that did that end scene for ‘Into The Unknown’ though! She killed it.” ~ heronlyweapon
“Being a Character Performer at Disney.”
“Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing perks and truly magical moments. I know I’m super lucky and tons of people would love to be in my shoes.”
“But the day to day work is EXHAUSTING in ways I never thought possible. Guests are ridiculously abusive…I’ve had things said and done to me I never would have imagined.”
“The company isn’t always great – it highly depends on your leadership. And there’s so much focus on your body and face (good and BAD) that it can be incredibly depressing and difficult emotionally.”
“Plus, you have to accept that there’s very little upward mobility. Most people “grow out of it” and it’s rough to know that one day you’ll get “too old” or “too fat” and you will have to start all over in a new career field.”
“So you constantly are thinking either, 1) what you’re going to do when you leave, 2) how you’re going to keep yourself there.”
“I personally knew it would be temporary, and I now only work there seasonally while I have a “normal career”. But Disney has a way of sucking you in.” ~ TheMarvelPrincess
They say do what you love and you’ll never work another day in your life.
It’s clear after taking a look at these entries, that is not the case and coming home smelling like burnt dough and elephant feces is not the life many thought they wanted.
We’ve all encountered a bully or a person who likes to throw insults around for no good reason.
But only some of us feel gifted in the ability to throw shade back at the person.
When we think of a snappy reply or come across someone else’s, the burn almost feels like something worth celebrating.
“What is the greatest comeback to an insult you have ever heard?”
“On a construction site one afternoon, different trades were working in the same area. Like silly team sports, the sparkies always hang with the sparkies and the turd wranglers always hang with the turd wranglers and anytime they’re together it turns into a pointless dick-measuring contest (usually not literally)!”
“One particularly childish exchange saw two men chopping back and forth- my dick biggest, blah blah blah. Finally one of em spits out this classic:”
“‘I’ve got girth like a can of corn!’”
“And the clap back was unforgettable:”
“‘But you’ve got length like a can of tuna!’”
“Everyone busted up. Mister girth tried to hide his embarrassment but was tied-up. No come-back. And a room of men laughing uncontrollably.”
“Good times…” – heathenbeast
“My grandma got into a fight at the grocery store with a guy who told my 9-year-old brother to ‘move the f**k out of the way.’”
“They were going at it and his final words were, ‘Suck my d**k, b***h!’”
“She said across the store, ‘If I could find it, b***h!’”
“Not at Walmart. Even better – ALDI.” – grimmreaper514
“In middle school, a boy asked when I was going to grow some boobs. So I asked him when he was donating his……”
“I’m still really proud of that one.”
“Edit: I didn’t expect this to blow up. But I remember this clearly:”
“He was walking out of the English class I was walking into. We met at the doorway and were chest to chest.”
“And he looks me in the eye and said, ‘Grow some tits.’”
“Without missing a beat, I deadpanned, ‘Donate yours.’”
“Then I proceeded to proudly walk to my desk with a big smile.”
“Also, I did eventually grow some boobs. They are small but they are nice.” – Jaci_D
“Had a friend growing up who had an adopted brother a year or so younger. They would always talk s**t and fight a bit here and there.”
“One time my friend said to his brother that he was adopted and can go f**k off (he knew he was adopted).”
“Without missing a beat, he shot back at my friend, ‘Yeah well, clearly you weren’t enough for mom and dad. That’s why they bought me.’”
“Yes, he used the word ‘bought.’” – Atlv0486
“I have a bunch but one of the more memorable ones was back in 8th grade. For context, I didn’t make the basketball team in 7th grade, but I made the team in 8th grade.”
“This kid that was on the team the previous year but didn’t make it currently was really upset and telling me how bad I am and blah blah blah.”
“I told him that if he is better than me, then why didn’t he make the team, and he replied with, ‘It’s just cause of my grades, bro.’”
“So I replied with, ‘Oh so you’re just f**king stupid then?’”
“He gave up cause it was either accept that he was bad or accept he was an idiot, so…” – wuesteworld
“My sister started saying ‘go to h**l’ as a moody, often rude, teenager. She is a couple of years older than me.”
“One day she said it to me after she’d been chastised by our dad – for something she had done.”
“I usually shrugged off her insults because they were meaningless. This day, however, I retorted, ‘Why would I go anywhere you are?’”
“I’m still pleased with my 13-year-old brain for that one. I do remember her slamming her bedroom door as her comeback.” – shining_tiger
“I was bulls**tting with a couple of buddies, and may have suggested that I banged one of their moms, to which said friend replied, ‘My mom’s dead.’”
“My mouth bypassed my brain and replied, ‘That explains the dirt.’” – CGPsaint
“English class in Middle School:”
“Kid A – ‘yo, Kid B, your mama waited on me at McDonald’s last night. Must feel like s**t having a mom that works at McDonald’s.’”
“Kid B – ‘At least MY mom gets out of bed to go to work.’”
“English teacher far louder than he realized, ‘DAYUM!’”
“The rest of us were laughing so hard, the teacher next door popped her head in to see what was going on…” – Nutella_Zamboni
“I saw a clip of a standup comedian the other day, and he said something along the lines of, ‘The first time I had sex, it was terrible… the first time I had sex…’”
“A woman chimed in with, ‘You mean yesterday?’”
“The crowd laughed for a while, and while the comedian is waiting for them to calm down, you can see the gears turning in his head.”
“Once it gets down to basically a few chuckles, he just said, ‘Glad you remember,’ and the crowd just lost their s**t, it was amazing.” – JacenCaedus1
“I have a twin brother. I’m older.”
“He once told me when I came out, they knew it was a mistake and immediately tried again.”
“I told him he was the ‘Buy one, Get one of equal or lesser value free’ deal.”
“There was a fight after that one.” – dustyrags
While we’re not all great at giving someone a comeback in the moment, we can all appreciate those moments when we surprise ourselves, or when someone else achieves the perfect clapback.
These comments are often witty or brutal, perhaps even surprising, but the best thing generally is how memorable these moments are, even decades later.
*The following article contains discussion of suicide/self-harm.
Those who seek professional counseling are there because they want to improve their mental health and need guidance.
However, getting some patients to open up on their first meeting seems to be a challenge because they are struggling with their self-imposed shame.
“Therapists, what is something people are afraid to tell you because they think it’s weird, but that you’ve actually heard a lot of times before?”
Redditors who are in the field provided their insights.
“Intrusive thoughts. Nearly everyone has thoughts about pushing the old lady onto the subway train, swerving into opposing traffic, or stabbing their loved one in the stomach while cooking dinner with them.”
“Some folks, however, take these thoughts very serious that believe that they might act them out. It’s called thought-action-fusion. Most of us are able to brush them off, though.” – vedderer
“Unwanted intrusive thoughts are normal and do not mean you are a bad person (yes, even intrusions of sexual/religious/moral themes).”
“By definition, these are thoughts that are unwanted bc they go against your own values and highlight what you don’t want to do (eg, a religious person having unwanted blasphemous images pop into their mind, or a new parent having unwanted sexual thoughts about their new baby).”
“However normal these thoughts are (over 90% of the population), the moral nature of these thoughts mean that often people experience a lot of shame and take many years before they first tell someone about them.”
“Edit. Because this is getting more visibility that I realised : The occurrence of these thoughts/images/urges are normal.”
“The best way to ‘manage’ them is to accept that they are a normal (albeit unpleasant) brain process, and a sign of the opposite of who you are and are therefore v.v.unlikely to ever do.”
“Let the thought run its course in the background while you bring your attention back to (insert something you can see/feel/hear/taste/touch). I usually say something like ‘ok mind!”
“Thanks for that mind! I’m going to get back to washing the dishes and the sound/sensation of the water while you ponder all the nasties.”
“Carry on!’ I literally say it to myself with a slightly amused tone bc I am always genuinely amused at all the wild stuff my brain can produce!!” – cbearg
“The amount of people I see who feel like they should be grieving a ‘certain way’ and are afraid that they ‘must not have loved someone,’ or, ‘must not have cared.’ People grieve in all sorts of ways. The ‘5 stages of grief’ are bullsh*t.”
“I was consulting with another clinician who was seeing a couple whose daughter had died. The wife was convinced that the husband must not have cared about her because he ‘wasn’t grieving out loud’.”
“In reality, while she had been going to support groups and outwardly expressing, he had been continuing to work in a garden that him and his daughter had kept when she was alive, using that time to process and grieve as he did.”
“Both were perfectly fine ways of grieving, however it is expected that ones grief is more than the other. They both ended up working it out however, he driving her and others to their weekly support group, her attempting to work in the garden with him on the condition that they didn’t talk. Really sweet.”
“To that same extent, the amount of people who are unaware of their own emotions and emotional process is astounding. So many people feel only ‘angry’ or ‘happy’ and worry something must be wrong with them otherwise.”
“Normalizing feeling the whole gamut is just as important. Recognizing what we’re feeling as well as what it feels like in our body when we’re feeling is incredibly helpful for understanding how we process and feel.”
“As a whole, how we treat emotions as a society is kinda f’ked. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.” – sredac
“I’d say a common one is believing that there’s something innately, irreparably wrong with them that makes them unable to ever truly ‘fit in’. For a lot of people it’s such a deeply ingrained belief that it can be extremely painful to acknowledge or express, regardless of the level of personal success in their lives.” – GuidedBySteven
“Two topics come up with regularity: when someone discloses to me that they were sexually abused as a kid, and/or when some is experiencing suicidal ideation. Both are something I hear from clients every single day, and so I don’t find it weird at all.”
“But, when I have someone in front of me who’s talking about it for the first time, I know it’s important to validate the fact that even though I might be talking about this for like the fifth time that day, they have never talked about this EVER, and are in need of gentle care to feel safe.” – HighKeyHotMess
“That they do not know what they enjoy doing. Often they have people in they’re life, including therapists, say ‘try to do something fun today’ or ask ‘what do you like to do when you have free time?’”
“Many people I work with do not know what those are. Once I explain that I dislike these statements /questions because they assume people should know the answer, and that many people don’t, I can watch as they relax, take a deep breath, and say something to the effect of ‘oh my, that’s so good to hear. I have no idea what I like to do. That’s part of the problem’.”
“More often than not they feel like they should know and that everyone else their age has it figured out. They are embarrassed to say that they don’t know when in fact not knowing is very common. I couldn’t even try to count how many clients I’ve had this conversation with.” – ljrand
“A common one in the time I was a therapist was simply ‘I don’t know.’”
“You’d be surprised how reluctant people are to admit that they don’t know why they’re feeling how they are. But that’s exactly why you’re (or were, I’m not a therapist any more) sat there with me; so we can figure out why together.”
“It always put me in mind of a line from America by Simon and Garfunkel:”
“Kathy, ‘I’m lost’ I said, though I knew she was sleeping. ‘I’m empty and aching and I don’t know why’.” – kutuup1989
“Psychologist here. Basically, anything having to do with sex. There’s so much shame. Sexual abuse. Sexual fantasies and fetishes. Erectile dysfunction. Infidelity. Becoming sexually assertive.”
“I’ve been told that I have a good ‘psychologist’s face.’ I try not to have a strong reaction to normalize the discussion. With adolescents, they are extremely anxious to tell me if they’ve relapsed or aren’t doing well.”
“They cut one night or they were suicidal. They’re having a lot of negative self-talk or panic attacks.”
“They’ll come in, pretending everything is okay. It’s usually in the last 10-15 minutes that they’ll say something. They’ll reveal that they worried they’d let me down.”
“That I’d be disappointed in them. It usually turns into a discussion about policing other people’s feelings and tolerating emotions.”
“I explain that I care about their well-being and it’s my job to monitor my emotions and reactions, not their role.” – MyDogCanSploot
The takeaway from this thread is that psychologists and other therapists have heard it all and they are there to help patients, not judge them.
While it’s easy to say patients should shed their guilt when opening up about their issues, they should be proud for taking that first step by showing up.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Nostalgia is a wonderful thing.
We look back at the past through rose-colored glasses and decide the difficult thing we went through wasn’t really that difficult, or it taught us a valuable lesson, or it was the best moment of our lives.
Nostalgia doesn’t just work on events though, it can do a wonderful job at making yesterday’s villains the heroes of modern stories.
We see this all the time with Revisionist histories that take cruel and monstrous figures and morph them into benevolent and wise leaders.
“300-400 years ago, pirates were a terrifying force to be reckoned with.”
“Now they’re family friendly figures of fun.”
“What will be their modern day equivalent a few centuries from now?”
“Bloods and Crips type gangbangers, motor bike gangs, hell in 500 years the memory of people like the nazis, bolsheviks, and Al Qaeda will be such distant memories people might like them.”
“People dress up as Vikings for Halloween.”
“Atilla Th Hun was a good guy in Night At The Museum.” ~ devilthedankdawg
“ISIS … Just imagine the irony of western kids playing with ISIS figurines”
“Edit: Wow thank you all for the upvotes and the award. I really enjoyed reading all your comments” ~watergate_boi
“In 400 years cancer will be so cured that ever being seriously ill with it will be forgotten too. Then it’ll be inaccurately represented in historical stories whenever an illness is needed…”
“A: are you coming out tonight?”
“B: no sorry I’ve got cancer”
“A: ok! Well catch you tomorrow!”
“B: lol ok!” ~ Sell200AprilAt142
“ICE and Immigrants.”
“Instead of cowboys and Indians.” ~ spderweb
“Possible.”
“The irony, though, is that we remember pirates fondly because at least some pirate ships were more egalitarian than their legal counterparts.”
“You were treated better by your peers on a pirate ship than on a privateer’s crew… at least, that’s what is commonly believed.”
“That isn’t true these days. Drug syndicates and gangs are just as ruthless as legal business corporations.”
“The sole good thing that can be said about illegal organizations, that can’t be said about some legal ones, is, I suppose, that they offer employment to people who would otherwise be complete outcasts.”
“But that’s not an artifact of them being good— it’s a consequence of our society being so sh*tty.”
“I think movies and books have an influence here.”
“Fiction requires balanced characters, even among your antagonists.”
“A bad guy with no redeeming qualities is lazy writing. But in the real world, people with no redeeming qualities exist— they’re not even uncommon.” ~ michaelochurch
“Bikers in general.”
“They’re already being ‘diluted’ from predominantly (or almost exclusively) outlaw types into a subculture.”
“People who ride the traditional Harley and Harley-like cruisers already often dress the part, and try to give off an air of rebellion and counterculture, while doing things like charitable events.”
“We’ve had around 100 years of biker counterculture, and gone from the progenitors to the subculture I speak of. In another 200-300 years, I could easily see a ‘Jack Sparrow’ type biker character.” ~ Euchre
“Instead of looking forward, we should look back.”
“A lot of pirates of the past actually had political motivations/capabilities and commanded small navies.”
“Others acted as toll stations on popular sea routes.”
“Our views of them have been severely slanted by Hollywood. There were also several african/black pirates who became commanders.”
“We tend to think of most pirates as white, which was not entirely the case.”
“There also was an entire history of pirates inside the Mediterranean (Ottomans and Arabs) that has been completely ignored by history.”
“We tend to look on pirates as dirty criminals who were ugly and disabled, when in fact many were competent and rich.”
“My feeling is modern elites don’t like to expose stories of successful rebels in the mass media.”
“Anyone who rebels in a movie or story has to eventually be suppressed, with the message being that you can’t win against authority ultimately.”
“You can go out in a blaze of glory, but you’re going to lose.”
“The movie ‘Outland’ is a bit of a sci-fi space pirate movie, or at least one where a security guard (Sean Connery) sets up a defense against a hit squad.”
“Other than that, there’s Han Solo, and maybe a bit of Captain Kirk.”
“Other than the, the future pirate story is pretty underdeveloped, but there are past pirate stories that would make great ‘yarrrrns’ as well!” ~ soundtrackband
“In 6th grade I DID know they had something to do with hookers and I did a pimp voice/persona and all the girls at my lunch table called themselves my hoes and it was a big f*cked up joke that we all thought was hilarious.”
“Kids are messed up.” ~ Schnitzelgruben
“Narcos, we don’t even need a century to know that, just how people idealizes the figure of Pablo Escobar and others infamous narcos in Latin America” ~ Molokon92
“Yeah, the way they are presented is problematic.”
“At least movies like Sicario show the brutality of the narcos/cartels.”
“If anything, movies covering narcos/cartels should at most do what Godfather 1 and 2 did, where it was more matter of fact than glorification.”
“That being said, I wont fault a movie for glorifying the wealth and excess just like I didn’t fault Wolf of Wall Street.” ~ karsh36
Historical revision is a dangerous game.
We take the parts of our past we don’t like and paint over them so they’re a little easier to deal with.
The danger, of course, is we forget the past was filled with monsters to be learned from and avoided.
Be wary of false histories, but don’t forget to have a little fun along the way.