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Therapists Divulge The Most Common Secrets That Patients Are Scared To Tell Them
*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.
Curious to hear about the things patients finally opened up about in a therapy session, Redditor Music-and-wine asked:
“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.
Resisting Impulses
“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
Normalizing A Common Tendency
“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 Thing About Grief
“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
Feeling Out Of Place
“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
Common Topics
“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
What Makes People Happy
“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
Not Knowing Where To Start
“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
The Stigmatization Of Sex
“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/
Doctors Confess How They Behave When They Are The Patient
Something funny that I’ve always wondered… who’s the doctor for my doctor? Does that doctor have a doctor? And what about THAT doctor?
Wouldn’t there be an imbalance of some kind eventually? Does every doctor have a doctor in some never-ending loop? This has to be one of life’s greatest mysteries, right?
Here’s another question: What do doctors talk about when they go for their own medical checkups and yearly physical exams? Do they correct each other? Argue over results?
Oh, to be a fly on the wall…
As humorous as this is, remember: Doctors are people, too! They have to go to the doctor just like the rest of us (even if they refuse to answer my question about this seemingly never-ending loop of doctors).
But there might, in fact, be an answer!
Doctors were candid about their own experiences at the well, doctor after Redditor Still-Tangerine2782 asked the online community:
“Doctors of Reddit, what’s it like when you go in for a doctor’s appointment?”
“Do you and your doctor discuss what’s wrong with you like it’s a group project? Do you not go at all because you’re your own doctor?”
“It depends on what I’m going in for.”
“It depends on what I’m going in for. As a background, I’m an oncologist so I’ve trained in internal medicine before. For most internal medicine-type stuff, I don’t bother going in unless I need something that I can’t easily get for myself (e.g. labs or images).
“For specialty stuff I wasn’t trained in, I go in and try to give them the best history I can, but let them do their own thing.” ~ alkahdia
“Fastest consultations ever.”
I don’t get involved in the management. I let the doctor seeing me lead that unless they missed something huge and I would just double-check.”
“The main difference is I can present the whole history and relevant info in about 30 seconds flat and the doctor with that info can just give me the management plan in about the same time.”
“Fastest consultations ever. Very methodical.” ~ triple_threatt
“I don’t go often but when I do…”
“Doctor here (neurologist) I’m not good at going to the doctor. I don’t go often but when I do I usually just STFU, especially if it’s a field of medicine I have no idea about (like say…derm).”
“That being said, the doctor usually knows I’m a physician as well, and so the language tends to be more technical.”
“I also find that we practice less defensively with each other since we can be more open (“We could do ABC tests but honestly what you probably have is X so take this and if it doesn’t get better then we can do ABC”).” ~ Telamir
“Academically minded people tend to ask lots of questions…”
“The pace and density of the conversations is different, I’m sure.”
“I’m an emergency physician who has, over time, treated various physicians in my community including internists, surgeons, radiation oncologists, some from my hospital and some not. Keep in mind that each specialty is quite different from the others.”
“The Rad Onc, for example, thinks and speaks differently than the Ortho Surgeon, and I felt like my treatment of each of them was really quite similar to treating a professor of engineering.”
“Academically minded people tend to ask lots of questions and research stuff while you’re out of the room, as compared to populations that request a more paternalistic bent and just want you to tell them what to do so they can get on with their day.”
“I’m careful to credit that the number of hours that went into my family physician’s training is the same as mine; simply a different topic.”
“She knows tons of stuff about management and screening for chronic disease that I don’t, and I … well I know how to intubate people, manage a bad LSD trip, or use a jar of bubbles to distinguish between kids that are scared and kids that are head injured.” ~ procast1natrix
“For the most part…”
“I’m an ER doctor, and sometimes I have other doctors as patients. For the most part, they’re pretty good patients because they can give a good description of their symptoms in a way that’s useful to me.”
“They usually ask good questions and are well equipped to have an informed discussion about their diagnosis and treatment.
“Sometimes it’s hard for me to dial back my ‘patient talk’ where I simplify medical terms for laypeople. Sometimes it’s challenging if their area of expertise is totally unrelated to the issue at hand and they don’t recognize their limited understanding.”
“The worst patients are those who have just a little medical knowledge and think they know everything. Some version of: ‘My aunt is a nurse, and she said a need a whole-body MRI for this runny nose…’”
“As far as self-diagnosing, I usually deal with my own minor medical issues. If I noticed signs of something more serious, I would go to someone else.” ~ Yeti_MD
“It’s actually a strategy I’ve adopted…”
“Doctor here (family medicine).”
“I self diagnose most things, but for my 1-year-old daughter I decided a while ago that I don’t want to do that for her. So her pediatrician doesn’t know I’m a doctor – I never told her. I want her to treat me like any other parent, and explain everything to me like I’m 5 years old.”
“I’m afraid of being too nonchalant with my daughter’s health that I’ll miss something (or the doctor assuming I know more than I really do).”
“It’s actually a strategy I’ve adopted since on myself; if I go to a doctor (say a gynecologist for a routine check-up) I sometimes just don’t say what I do so I can legitimacy ask dumb questions about things that I should really know – or so that the other doctor won’t leave out important info that they assume I know for fear of insulting me.”
“On the other hand, my regular doctors do know, such as the gynecologist who saw me through my pregnancies, and that enables more complex and nuanced discussions about health decisions, as in debating questions and giving me options that he wouldn’t necessarily do with it he patients, because he can be sure I understand the medical pros and cons well once I’m given a basic explanation.” ~ HermioneGranger8888
“It is a bit dependent…”
“Doctor here – it is a bit dependent on the field of medicine involved.”
“For example, I don’t know much about neurological issues so if I went to see a neurologist I certainly wouldn’t be chipping in.”
“For more generic conditions I have previously offered my thoughts to my doctor about what it could be. Ultimately I still go to the doctor as they can prescribe drugs/order tests for me that would be difficult/questionable for me to do myself.” ~ drbigmac69
“When we do go in…”
“Doctor here. In general, we are not good about going to the doctor. For me, it’s physicals about half as often as recommended and that time I had strep a year and a half ago that didn’t resolve with whatever antibiotics I had in my medicine cabinet.”
“When we do go in, it is like a group project. We usually hash things out together but ultimately I am going to defer to someone with more expertise than me in that area who can make an objective decision.” ~ nellyann
“I always go to someone who doesn’t know me…”
“I always go to someone who doesn’t know me, and I wouldn’t say that I’m a doctor as well. On the other hand, my significant other is a doctor too, and whenever we feel something we do discuss it like a group project in which he always refuses any treatment until his symptoms get to the very worst.” ~ eatfart420
“It can be weirdly stressful…”
“I try to act like any other patient. Medical people can very much sabotage their own care by taking shortcuts or perhaps declining to approach their own problems the way other patients do.”
“It’s a mistake. I have seen harm done that way. I don’t come in for trivial things like self-limiting infections or things that are harmless because I know that they are. But I do go see my regular doctor for problems that really bother me or for routine exams like anyone else.”
“It can be weirdly stressful to be the doctor or the patient in this kind of interaction. I’ve learned to not let it bother me when I am the doctor seeing other doctors. It can be harmful to the doctor as a patient if you let that kind of interaction get to you.”
“I try not to generate stress for other doctors who see me and know what I am. That could be detrimental to me.” ~ Zapranotho777
“I keep my mouth shut…”
“Forensic pathologist here: I keep my mouth shut and let my doctor be a doctor. I have a pulse, so I am not the expert here. Doctors that self-doctor are scary and arrogant, in my honest opinion.” ~ TheresNoIinAutopsy
Well, it’s safe to say I learned a lot.
These answers are remarkably insightful. Next time you go to the doctor, you’ll have a newfound appreciation for them and what they do.
Doctors are people just like you, with concerns about their own health. Given their experience and knowledge, it also takes a lot of humility to just let other professionals do their jobs.
Therapists Divulge Their Biggest ‘Holy Sh*t’ Moments With Their Patients
Going to therapy is the first big step you should take if you feel like your mental health needs assistance.
If you need it, do it. Don’t be ashamed.
That being said, there is a lot therapists have to deal with on a daily basis, not all of it good. Sometimes they can’t help but judge the people they’re trying to help.
It’s not explicitly said, and from the sounds of it they maintain their professionalism, but sometimes that’s what the internet is best used for—venting your frustrations about what awful people your clients are.
Reddit user, homowithoutsapiens, wanted to know what happens when the hour starts.
They asked:
“Therapists of reddit, what was your biggest “I know I’m not supposed to judge you but holy sh*t” moment?”
Trying To Inform Them Of The Proper Way To Cope
“I work with youth and adolescents who have anxiety, trauma, and/or depression. Some of the kids I worked with had some pretty severe attachment issues. Regardless of this, I never thought I’d have to seriously explain:”
“You can’t just buy a straitjacket for your kid.”
“Feeding your kid ultra Spicy Ramen each night instead of the meal everyone else is eating isn’t specifically defined as abuse, but you have to understand the emotional abuse that this causes.”
“Your kid isn’t trying to kill you because they stand in your doorway at night crying. Thats likely because they’re scared of their traumatic nightmares, but feel like you will just yell at them if they wake you up.” ~ Shozo_Nishi
That’s The Opposite OF Social Distancing.
“Here’s my most recent one: As the pandemic worsened here in the US and more lock downs are on their way, one of my most extroverted clients and I brainstormed ways to meet her social needs while remaining safe.”
“The following week she canceled her session and told me that she’s positive for COVID after attending an orgy, which definitely wasn’t one of our ideas. I let out the deepest most defeated sigh after I hung up the phone.” ~ gyakutai
You Are Allowed To Move On
“Not a judgment – you kind of train your brain not to judge, because you are seeking to understand and help. When you do those things, you can’t simultaneously judge. We could all use a little more of that in real life, I suppose.”
“I’ll share this though. I do feel concerned about this recent phenomenon of young people I worked with self-diagnosing, sharing, and identifying very closely with mental illness; as if the pendulum quickly swung from ‘never, ever share your feelings’ to ‘OMG, you’re depressed? All of us are too!’”
“Life’s challenges can be tough and they don’t need a scientific-sounding label to be valid and real. You are not your diagnosis. We can find validation and support in healthier ways.” ~ Reddit
Take. Care. Of. Your. Child.
“Clinical psychologist working primarily in forensics here. This means my clients are usually involves in legal proceedings (family court, juvenile court, criminal court, etc…)”
“My job is usually to evaluate or provide treatment. I’m not there to judge, that’s the judges job, but of course I have my thoughts.”
“I am usually impressed by the justifications people make for sh-tty behavior. The one that irks me the most is when parents manipulate their child against the other parent.”
“I’ve had to do therapy for a 5yo who said she doesn’t want to see a parent because they haven’t paid child support. Excuse me? What 5yo knows, understand, or needs to be worried about child support.” ~ FriktionalTales
Aware Of Your Own Shortcomings
“Once had a patient whose wife shook their baby to death. He wanted help reconnecting with his wife.”
“At the time I was a young father of a newborn myself, and he triggered a lot of fear in me for my own child, a deep loathing of his spouse, and pity (the ‘how pathetic’ kind) for the patient.”
“I tried for 3 sessions, met his spouse and everything before handing the case over to my supervisor (who knew about my initial reactions, and tried to help me through it).”
“Unfortunately, it ended up being more about my feelings than his, and I was new to the profession at the time. These things are expected to crop up from time to time, but I was still taken aback by my own reactions.” ~ PrimeGuard
A Serious Lack Of Support At Home
“I work in mental health and have worked in acute and crisis settings for the majority of my career. The most notable event I experienced was when a young person had presented with significant ongoing suicidal ideation who was dealing with a lot of sh*t.”
“I spent a lot of time with them mostly deescalation and working out what the plan should be moving forward.”
“One of their parents came in a little while later and I had the opportunity to speak to them about where their child was and what had been going on, with their consent of course.”
“Midway through me trying to explain some of the psychological constructs and ways the parent could help they said to me, ‘is this going to take much longer I have a show to go and watch’.”
“All I can say is, I never judge my patients, I have never walked their path or viewed the world through their eyes. But the people around them who perpetuate the suffering of the people I work with through ignorance, malice and selfishness, I judge them.” ~ Tedkin
Seriously. Why Dunk On Your Child Getting The Help They Need?
“Therapist here,”
“To piggy back on what others have said, it is highly unlikely for me to have moments where I judge my clients. It happens sometimes, but I’m able to shut down those thoughts quickly in my head and return to being present for the people I see.”
“People are so incredibly complex that my judgment wouldn’t have any meaning anyway and it doesn’t have a place in our work together.”
“I will admit though, something that does get me feeling a little salty is when I have a client’s parent that attempts to sabotage the therapeutic relationship I have with their child, or pulling them out of therapy entirely when some of the things we talk about challenges some potentially unhealthy family dynamics. I don’t feel anger toward the parents, mostly I feel bad for the kid.” ~ dirtyberti
I’m Here To Help, But You All Suck
“Lots of people discussing pedophilia as an example of the toughest stuff to not judge despite our training. I haven’t yet treated a pedophile thankfully. At least not an identified one.”
“I did run a men’s anger management group though, and some of those men had done some terrible things to women. Most of them I found ways to like and admire for their positive aspects, but there were two guys in that group I just could never find ‘unconditional positive regard’ for.”
“One guy basically never spoke in group. He would give one word answers and occasionally just discuss how unfair the ‘system’ was to him. I worked really hard to open him up and find things to connect over but he never opened up to me or the group.”
“He left the group after he strangled his girlfriend and went to jail. She survived thankfully.”
“The other left group early routinely, showed up late, participated minimally and similarly never wanted to open up honestly. He left early one group after we had discussed him staying to the end and threatened me when I told him he wasn’t going to get credit for attendance (something the court required).”
“Oddly, I eventually moved into the apartment below him (completely without knowledge) and listened to him scream at his girlfriend and break sh*t while I called the cops.”
“I judge these men. They’re sh-tty. Maybe they’re redeemable, but redemption requires self-exploration and they both refused to do so.”
“It’s worth noting how differently I felt about them than so many others in the group; men I found ways to help and admire and respect even in spite of their awful behavior in the past.” ~ MyFianceMadeMeJoin
People Are Too Down On Themselves
“Okay, real therapist here. I got one.”
“Some of my clients are SHOCKINGLY BAD at giving themselves credit, holy sh*t!!
“Like they might get a nearly straight A GPA in a brutal major while battling depression, or overcome years of phobia and get behind the wheel again, or write a literal novel, or raise a kid as a single parent with low income, or build new relationships after being burned, or cope with OCD well enough to hold down a job.”
“And they’ll talk about themselves as if everyone on earth is better than them, as if their accomplishments are worthless. And I know it’s because of depression or anxiety or another condition, but I’m often stunned by how differently I see them compared to how they see themselves.” ~ Reddit
Don’t be afraid to share with your doctor.
That’s what they are there for.
Get the help you need.
Doctors Share Their Craziest ‘I’m Glad You Mentioned That Symptom’ Moments
Believe it or not, doctors are human, too. They don’t always get it right and it can be difficult to narrow down symptoms and come to conclusions.
That’s why many of them might ask you a million questions–or repeat some that you were under the impression you had already answered.
Doctors depend on you just as much as you depend on them! That’s why it’s up to patients to advocate for themselves and be as open, direct and as honest as possible about any and all of their symptoms.
As you can imagine, all doctors have crazy stories about how they were able to come to a diagnosis… and how it came down to a patient mentioning something, no matter how innocuous it might have appeared on the surface.
Doctors—and some patients—told us about medical problems eventually detected and treated after a Redditor asked:
“Doctors of Reddit, what’s your ‘I’m glad you mentioned that symptom’ moment’?”
“The oncologist decided to stage the cancer immediately…”
“Family member recently had a breast cancer diagnosis and in passing mentioned their hip hurting really badly. The oncologist decided to stage the cancer immediately and it had spread to the bones, specifically the hip and spine.”
“Was encroaching on the spinal cord…they started radiation fairly quickly and were able to control its progression on the spine before starting hormonal treatment. But it’s a good thing they did mention the hip pain as they usually don’t like to “complain” as they put it.” ~ surfinwhileworkin
“She was relatively young…”
“Absolutely lovely patient presented with low back pain. We worked together for a few weeks, she was getting better, and she mentioned she got up several times a night to urinate. She was relatively young, that isn’t super normal, so I asked how often.”
“Six to eight times a night! Not only was she exhausted from lack of sleep, she mentioned intercourse had been painful for years since the birth of her child. She thought it was normal, and just suffered through.”
“No one wants to talk about urinary or fecal incontinence or pain with intercourse, but it happens so frequently in reproductive age women I’ve started screening questions so I can direct people to pelvic floor physical therapy.”
“She caught up with me later and said the PT was life-changing.” ~ anthrologynerd
“20 minutes later…”
“I was a patient. I’d gone in to see one doctor, complaining of headaches. My eye was red and swollen, and I was sensitive to light. She said it was allergies and migraines, and told me to use eye drops and take Midol.”
“After two weeks, it was so much worse, so I saw a different doctor in the same building. I gave her all the same symptoms, but this is where I changed it.”
“I said, ‘The pain in my head is so bad, it’s only on this side, it feels like fireworks behind my eye, and I want to take a knife and cut my head right here’ – I pointed directly at my temple – ‘so the pressure can be released.’”
“Apparently the delusion of believing I’d survive that, combined with the way I described the pain, clicked something in her brain.”
“20 minutes later I was on the way to the ER with a diagnosis of orbital cellulitis which was eating its way towards my brain and had been for nearly three weeks. They were close to removing my eye and surrounding tissue but I luckily responded to the emergency antibiotics.”
“The pain was so bad that I was screaming even on morphine. Eventually, they switched me to Dilaudid when my dad mentioned that morphine didn’t help him or my grandfather. I guess we metabolize it too quickly or something?”
“So I learned two things that night: If I hadn’t mentioned how severe the pain was and the lengths I’d go to for it to stop, I don’t know if they would have caught it before there were more serious consequences.” ~ itsbadtonight
“I had stomach pains for months…”
“I had stomach pains for months and kept going back to my GP about it. We tried tons of different meds, but I still kept waking up in the night with this horrible stomach pain. Finally, probably my 7th or 8th appointment, I mentioned having shoulder pain when my stomach hurt.”
“Boom.”
“She immediately knew I had gallstones and had to have my gallbladder removed. I think because I was young and in good health, it didn’t even occur to her until I mentioned the shoulder pain. Apparently, that’s a symptom of gallstones.”
“Doctors aren’t perfect, but people have to be their biggest health advocates. If I had just given up or gotten frustrated, I might never have figured out the problem.” ~ ScarletWitch2138
“Months later I started seeing flashes…”
“Patient here. My eye doctor mentioned in passing that I needed to come in if I ever saw new flashes or floaters. I am young but very nearsighted.”
“Months later I started seeing flashes. I wasn’t worried about it but did have my doctor’s voice in my head so I made an appointment. Sure enough, my retina had detached and I needed emergency surgery to save my vision.”
“I am so thankful the eye doctor casually mentioned that and I listened to my gut.” ~ moor1238
“I had a dude come in…”
“I had a dude come in with abdominal pain and vomiting. Had been vomiting for days. Was going down the surgical route with him until he mentioned that he showered up to 20 times a day to help with the pain.”
“Turned out he had classic cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.” ~ kenhutson
“He also was extremely malnourished…”
“Doctor currently in residency here.”
“Had a patient I was taking care of in the inpatient medical ward who was admitted for seizures in the context of alcohol withdrawal.”
“He was a young guy who had become depressed due to several life stressors including divorce and losing his job which exacerbated his pre-existing alcohol use disorder.”
“He also was extremely malnourished (not uncommon in alcoholics) and had a very low BMI. Apparently, he had zero appetite due to depression. At one point he had started feeling better and his appetite improved.”
“However, his heart rate was consistently very high for no clear reason and he was experiencing palpitations. I had a hunch to check electrolytes and several had dropped to very low levels. The reason for this is something called ‘refeeding syndrome.’”
“Basically if someone has not eaten for a while and suddenly starts eating a lot, they become very insulin sensitive which can lead to electrolyte disturbances that can cause abnormal heart rhythms and even death.”
“We put him on continuous cardiac monitoring and aggressively replaced his electrolytes, but it was scary how at-risk he was to going into an arrhythmia simply for just eating food.” ~ PMME
“I had food poisoning once.”
“Google doctor.”
“I had food poisoning once. For a couple of days, I didn’t eat anything, couldn’t hold down much water. The vomiting passed, still didn’t feel like eating, could drink water though. Felt like death, really weak, on edge, like I was going to die.”
“‘Impending feeling of doom.’ – I Googled that phrase plus ‘food poisoning’ and came across electrolyte depletion.”
“One dose of rehydration salts and I went from ‘I feel the end is near’ to ‘F*ck, I’m starving, where’s the nearest Subway?’ in about 20 minutes.” ~ nousernameusername
“My doctors in the U.K. said I was just getting older…”
“Patient. I was getting awful brain fog, getting pretty sleepy in the day but almost insomnia at night, I’d get random heart palpitations that made me feel sick, manic states of anxiety at night, and I’d get a UTI pretty much every other month.”
“I felt like I was losing my mind. My partner at the time just said I needed to exercise and lose weight. My doctors in the U.K. said I was just getting older and the UTIs were normal for reproductive age.”
“I went to my doctor to talk about getting another set of antibiotics for a new UTI when I mentioned I had been getting some heart palpitations. Luckily he probed further and sent me for a blood test.”
“Turns out I have a lifelong autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid, essentially depriving me of hormones and sending my adrenal gland into overdrive.”
“Now I’m medicated I no longer have any of those symptoms aside from afternoon sleepiness. I hate to think what state I’d be in if I didn’t get it sorted when I did.” ~ MD564
“This lady had been seeing nothing…”
“Black stools. Folks, if you’re having black poops for f*ck’s sake, mention that sooner rather than later.”
“This lady has been seeing nothing but black for MONTHS before she thought to mention anything. We found several gastric ulcers and a hemoglobin level that circled the drain.” ~ RowanRally
These stories are wild, and if you’re currently re-evaluating your prior approach to doctor’s appointments, then good. They’re there to help you, so you might as well be honest, right?
The lesson here, and we’ll repeat it, is be your own advocate. You are your best advocate.
Speak up!
You’ll be happy you did and doctors will thank you later.
People Divulge The Most Morbid Facts They Know
Life ends. All life does.
And entire new biological processes take place in death that we would never know about—or want to.
Except, that is, if you DO know about it. If you’ve been gifted the awareness of what exactly happens to a human body while it decomposes, you would be the bearer of a morbid fact..
And as a matter of fact, morbid facts are a lot bigger of a demographic of facts than you would really think they are.
So when a Redditor asked:
“What morbid fact do you know?”
Here were some of those answers.
The End Of Life Cancels All
“If bodies are kept in coffins that are sealed tight enough, such as the in wall type of memorial, sometimes enough gases can build up that the body basically explodes and can spill out onto the ground.”-Mangobunny98
“If you electrocute someone while they are submerged in water, it won’t leave burn marks.”-R3dShield
“I think this is pretty well known on Reddit, but it’s a common misconception that your hair and fingernails continue to grow after you die.”
“What actually happens is your skin dries out, and recedes, which gives the appearance of nails/hair being longer than they were before death”-Antitheistic10
“In Formula 1, safety belts were not mandatory until 1972.”
“Before then, drivers believed it better to be ejected in a crash, and either die instantly from a broken neck or suffer many broken bones.”
“The alternative, they thought, was to be trapped and essentially cremated alive should the gas tanks ignite.”-[username deleted]
“A professor at my lecture today said that deer will lay on decaying corpses because they produce heat and the deer like that. Basically deer treat corpses as their personal sauna.”-4ensicmess
Thud
“An adult human body impacting on concrete does not sound organic or ‘wet’ at all, it reminded me more of a car accident than anything else.”
“Source: Last week someone committed suicide by jumping off of the building I live in, I heard the impact and saw the body when I walked out onto my terrace to see what was going on.”
“Second morbid fact, from the same source: The human brain looks far more white & pink when it gets ejected from the skull, I always thought a ‘live’ brain would be red from the blood in it but I was wrong.”-Octosphere
“In the middle ages, you could be boiled in a pot of lead for certain crimes. What crimes they were I have forgotten, but it certainly was a thing.”-necrophiliaisillegal
“Before you die, your last words could be, ‘I don’t feel so good.’”
“I was a paramedic for 15 years and heard dozens of people’s final words. The phrase I heard most often, possibly from half to three quarters of them, were some form of ‘I don’t feel so good.’”
“I’ve also heard, ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘Somethings happening,’ ‘I don’t feel right.’ ‘Wait, somethings wrong,’ ‘It’s happening,’ and ‘Oh no, Oh no.’”
“People feel the blood leaving their brain I think. Must be like a rush.”-Forbidden_Donut503
What A Way To Die
“The whole “‘f your erection last more than 4 hours, receive immediate medical’ or whatever is the reason why the Brazilian wandering spider (located in the Amazon) is so dangerous.”
“Its bite is supposed to make you have an erection for a long time and it’s pretty hard to find medical services when you’re in the Amazon.”
“What happens with boners is that blood fills up the penis and mostly stays there until the boner is gone. If it stays longer than 4 hours, the blood is deprived of oxygen.”
“It can turn into a jelly like substance with lots of clotting, so leaving it untreated could clog you up as the blood flows back. By the time you get to a doctor, they have two options.”
“One is get a 60ml syringe w/ a needle and suck out the blood (that’s the consistency of toothpaste), while also flushing it with salt water (also w/ syringe and needle) when those clots stop the needle.”
“The second option, which is usually saved for last, is to vertically insert a small blade inside the meatus/slit in the head and sharply twist it by 90°. Then just let it drain.”-marcy1010
“After the Pulse night club shooting, when the cops were investigating, you’d think it was pretty quiet in there.”
“It was actually a cacophony of ringing cell phones. So many friends and loved ones calling people they knew were there, hoping they’ll answer the phone and say they’re ok…”-Veritas3333
“There’s something called ‘Anaesthesia Awareness’ where of certain people go into surgery and they don’t give you enough anaesthesia, it will look like you’re asleep (eyes closed, not talking or moving), but the patient can still hear and feel everything that’s happening.”
“But here’s the scary part. You’re unable to move, speak or open your eyes. Unless they have a monitor to show your brain activity, you’re stuck with having to endure the pain.”-EveryNameIsStolen
Was It Worth It?
“On Mt. Everest, you have the rainbow valley, the last zone to climb to reach the peak.”
“Which sounds cute but it’s really the colorful jackets of dead climbers who are frozen in time against the white harsh snow.”
“Also, when close to the peak, the oxygen levels are so low that the body is starting to die. You only have a few minutes to reach the top.”-tarantulaboi
“Also, not sure of how much of a standard practice it is, but if you donate body to a school they will possibly ship your body elsewhere.”
“I know I saw a comment about how you need to be nearby the place you donate to because they dont want to ship you to them, but they may ship you elsewhere.”
“I know at least at the local college by me, they get all their cadavers from Texas (in Illinois, and we ship ours to them) so that theres less of a chance that a student may know the person.”
“And they also cover the faces unless doing any sort of head/face things (again at least the one by me does)”-future_nurse19
“Mausoleums have not only a ventilation system to prevent smells, but the crypt slots are angled towards the back and have a drainage system for uh…liquids coming out of the caskets.”
“Airtight caskets are a problem in mausoleums because the body liquifies inside and can build up so much gas that the lid can almost explode off of the caskets, sometimes even breaking the stone slab at the entrance of the slot.”
“Can you imagine walking through a mausoleum and suddenly the slab to a slot just shatters from the inside?”-crescentcactus
Despite being bone-chilling and morbid in life, these facts could actually be useful for you some day—but hopefully for most of us, that day is very, very far away.
Doctors Divulge Little-Known Facts From The Gross Side Of Human Biology
Human biology is a fascinating trove of grossness, but it’s grossness most of us don’t encounter.
For the majority of us, our in-depth exploration of biology stops once we’re out of school. We live the rest of our lives focused on our own biology, maybe that of close family members or partners and that’s about it.
But medical professionals spend their days surrounded by human weirdness and they want you to know that yes, humans are gross.
It’s perfectly natural.
Reddit user “Bitictac” asked:
“Doctors of reddit, what’s the weirdest/grossest fact about the human body that no one seems to know?”
If you’re squeamish, we’re going to suggest you go ahead and back out of this article now. We will be getting very up close and way too personal as we talk about all sorts of bodily fluids and functions.
Proceed with caution.
Cartman Was Right?!
“Not a doctor. Nurse here. If you have a bad gastro-intestinal obstruction you can vomit feces.”
– fire4ashz
“This happened to me once after I accidentally ingested some poisonous mushroom. Yes it was as awful as it sounds.”
– komandanto_en_bovajo
“Had a guy when I was out doing wilderness med that ate too many MREs (which essentially operate as the exact opposite of a laxative) and his breath smelled awful and he had severe abdominal pain.”
“We realized he had a GI block from the MRE food turning into a brick in his intestines and his breath was because his sh*t was flowing back into his stomach since it couldn’t leave his body.”
– nukeularkupcake
Inside Out
“Old ladies often have prolapse of their pelvic organs.”
“This means their vaginal walls got so weak that it can no longer support their bladder or uterus. A grade 4 prolapse is when it’s really sticking the heck out of their vagina like an alien head. -Nurse practitioner”
– vespertinas
“Happened to me after having 4 kids in 4 years. Had a hysterectomy at 29.”
– thefrozenfew
“Before modern surgery to help relieve that, you’d get a wooden mushroom looking thing to insert to push and hold things back up there.”
“In poor areas, root vegetables could be used.”
“Not everyone gets surgery now, so there are still silicone versions of it in use to this day.”
– paperconservation101
Move Over
“When a patient gets a kidney transplant, they usually leave the old 2 behind unless there’s a significant problem with them.”
“The extra kidney is just tucked in the peritoneum leaving the patient with 3 kidneys.”
– Medicaljargon-itis
“The kidney comes with the renal artery, vein, and the ureter still attached, so all they have to do is hook it up to the iliac vein/artery and the bladder. Like they really just plug that bad boy in and then let it be.”
“I watched a video of a transplant and it was way easier than I ever would have imagined it would be.”
– shineymermaid
“Honestly I’d be annoyed about the kidney thing. I don’t want extra organs in my body.”
– shicole3
Black Hairy Tongue
“Dental student here. Black hairy tongue is a common condition and it’s exactly what it sounds like.”
“It’s just caused by buildup of dead skin that becomes hair like because of tobacco use or antibiotic use. Usually combined with lack of frictional forces from brushing/scraping the tongue.”
– Alarm-Potential
“My very first patient at the hospital had black hairy tongue & I was just shocked.”
– neqailaz
Mucosa
“Lips are made of a membrane called mucosa.”
“The anal sphincter, the nostrils, the glans of the penis, urethras, and the vagina are also made out of mucosal membrane. Pretty much any of your super delicate skin that is often wet is mucosa.”
“It’s often used in areas where a little protection could be used, since the cells in mucosal membranes are really densely packed. They also often secrete some form of mucous (lubrication, boogers, saliva, etc).”
“It’s all the same tissue. It all feels pretty much the same. Do with that what you will.”
– Oisillion
“So if they ask me to kiss their a**, I can just kiss them in the lips?”
– Mr_Skeleton_Shadow
“I think you’ve just ruined kissing for everyone forever.”
– TiredGayAtheist
“… Speak for yourself.”
– blamethepunx
A Leaky Nose & A Blood Plug
“You can leak brain fluid (csf) out your nose because there’s a bone with a bunch of holes for your olfactory (smell) nerves called the cribiform plate.”
– philthy333
“I remember a one-off character in Grey’s Anatomy that was leaking csf from his nose! Thank you for explaining it.”
– outrunmyself
“Leaking brain fluid… that made me want to disintegrate…”
– uhdontaskme
“To help you not have nightmares, it’s pretty rare and you’d probably know – the photophobia and headache that go along with it are pretty bad.”
“That doesn’t stop people from thinking they have it when in fact they have allergic rhinitis, or they’ve not realized that the sinuses can fill up with fluid, and when they dump that fluid they can dump quite a lot.”
“There’s two angles your sinuses are most likely to leak from too for most people – eyes straight down, and looking straight up. Tilt your head about about 10 degrees.”
“In the unlikely event that you are actually leaking brain fluid, it’s actually surprisingly simple to fix for most people.”
“Usually it just takes a little bit of your own blood. It’s squirted into the spinal fluid and the blood clot it forms seals the hole up.”
“You become your own tire plug.”
– PavlovaPalava
“Holy sh*t I may have had this done when I had meningitis!”
“They shot my own blood into my face and I was too out of it to know what was happening other than being confused why they took my blood only to put it back in me.”
– PsychedelicWeaselGun
We’re Basically Cuttlefish
“Every single melanocyte on your skin (you know, the ones that give your hairs color, and your skin its skin color) is connected to your sympathetic nervous system via modified synapses.”
“No-one knows why they’re connected that way – but we do know that under stress, those nerves nuke the pool of stem cells that create hair pigment, which is why it makes your hair go grey.”
“A few mutations and you could, theoretically, be able to control them and change color like a chameleon.”
“So in many ways, we’re basically walking cuttlefish.”
– PavlovaPalava
The Most Doctor Answer
“The thing with this question is, I don’t know what people consider gross or weird.”
“Lots of questions about pooping, but that’s neither gross nor weird to me; its a bodily function.”
“I have stories about gross stuff that made me gag, but I wouldn’t consider any normal bodily function gross.”
– Gk786
“This is the most doctor answer ever. I’m sure most doctors are so desensitized that they don’t know what normal people even consider gross.”
– Ya_boii_95
Vagina Bleach
“One that a lot of men don’t tend to know: the vaginas discharge can bleach underwear, even black underwear.”
“It’s perfectly natural and normal.”
– ahumanpileofgarbage
If you’re a medical professional with an interesting or gross human body fact to share, let’s meet in the comments!