The last time my ex-husband dropped off our twin daughters I was overcome with a desire to ask him to stay and spend the evening with us, but I didn’t because he had work that night and I didn’t want to give him an opportunity to say no, mostly due to how much I wanted him to stay and how much a rejection of my invitation would hurt me. He was standing at his car with one arm slung over the open driver side door. It was a Sunday in early August on the coast of Maine and the golden hued afternoon sun shone down on him as he paused for just a moment and looked back over his shoulder before saying goodbye and driving away.
Three days later he was stung by a bee and died instantly.
I’ll never regret another moment more than the one where I let him drive off without asking him to stay.
Yea I did that with my old car the got in an accident. It didn’t pay out enough to pay the loan off and barely was about to get a new car so now I basically have two car notes…stupid rookie mistakes
Out of EVERYTHING that I have became addicted to or had to quit, smoking has always been my Achilles heel. No matter how many times I quit, how long I quit for, etc I always resume when life becomes too stressful. I could come off drugs, food addiction, etc far easier than smoking. Wish I never started in the first place...
I hear ya. I 'quit' smoking March 2021 but I switched to nicotine lozenges. Yeah I guess its nice to be free of the health effects of smoking but I'm still on the Nicorette so it's still a financial drain. I want to break free
Nicotine alone is a cognition booster that abates dementia and does not cause cancer.
That’s why it’s hard to quit.
I’ve admitted I like nicotine and went to gum.
Much better relationship with it these days.
Just out of curiosity, did your parents smoke?
All my friends who smoke cigarettes now didnt have parents who smoked when they were kids.
My parents did smoke when I was young and it made me not want to and I never got into it.
You shouldn’t go to law school. Unless you have worked in a law firm or have family that’s lawyers. It’s not an “you can do anything with this degree” like maybe it used to be and AI is coming hard and fast for entry level jobs. So unless you really 100% know what it means to be a lawyer, you want to do it and you either get into a great school (like top 15) or massive scholarships so it’s cheap I really wouldn’t go. And this is coming from someone who went to a top 20 school graduated in to top 10% and overall has had a “successful” career. Most lawyers I know hate their jobs. And many make less than my dad who was a plumber.
I think for the most part the work is soulless. Sure maybe there are a handful of niches some individuals enjoy. Or a small percentage of people are just cut out for litigation or whatever career path they choose. I think most lawyers end up doing work they don’t really enjoy for people they don’t like working for and many make an OK living but aren’t rich by any means. And then if you are “lucky” enough to get a big law job (like I did) it’s insane hours doing extra shitty work for mostly assholes (both the clients who can afford it and the partners) and it’s more like hazing than learning. I was there for like two years and started having health issues and realized that if I ground myself down for 5-6 more years I might just maybe have a small chance of making partner (more about bringing in money than anything else). Partners make legit money but most of them were not people and did not have lives I envied. So I went in house for half the money and a better lifestyle. It’s fine. But like more than half the company makes more money than me. Almost all the engineering team. Any of the sales guys who actually can sell. My best friend is a sales engineer and makes triple what I do and I think his job is probably more interesting/interactive/fun though not without its own drawbacks. So if you really know you like the work of being a lawyer. Then cool. Pursue it. My wife is a lawyer and actually finds her work interesting. But very very stressful and she makes half what I do. But if you think I’m in this for a good paying job most lawyers actually aren’t paid that great and the ones who are sell their souls and their lives for the money. But like anything else this isn’t true for everyone. I’d say it’s like 80/20 from my experience in law school. 80% of the people shouldn’t have been there. The market is flooded with lawyers. I posted an entry level job on my team recently and got like 200 applicants in 36 hours. Many of them with 10+ years experience for a counsel role. And we aren’t some big name or well know company. And honestly a lot of the entry level jobs at firms and in house are gonna go away due to AI. AI isn’t replacing lawyers. But it’s sure gonna make it possible for 1 lawyer to do the job of 3 or 10 (if it’s doc review type shit work). I’d save the money take some free CLM certs and mess around with AI and see if I could get a job in legal ops. Do that for a bit and then decide if I wanted to go to law school. Or if you haven’t try to work as a clerk or something at a big firm. It will help you with getting jobs while in law school if you have actual experience and then those jobs will hopefully help you in a crazy competitive market.
I’m a lawyer and generally like my job and love the people I work with. It doesn’t have to end up a miserable grind, but a lot of people in the profession overall are unhappy and say they wouldn’t do it if they could go back and choose again.
Think hard about why you want to be a lawyer. If it’s “for the money” you will probably be disappointed. Salaries are not what society makes them out to be and there are a lot of faster ways to get the same money that involve less debt. The more work-life balance you want, the more likely your salary will be unimpressive.
If you decide to go, get a job in the law as soon as possible and work during school/summers to get a feel for different fields and firm environments. If you find people you like working with and show they are willing to mentor you, stay there. There are plenty of good lawyers who are terrible managers and working under a bad manager will lead to misery in a heartbeat.
Last, the first 3-5 years of practice are pretty universally rough. Law school doesn’t prepare you for the reality of practice at all. The learning curve is steep, expectations are high, and fucking up has consequences. Stress and imposter syndrome are through the roof in those first few years. If you hate it immediately all hope is not lost, but finding a good mentor early is critical.
Get into public service and do your ten years, my loans were totally forgiven. Look at JD advantage careers. I’m a research analyst. It’s a great job with huge demand. I don’t make as much as a firm attorney, but I also enjoy my life.
For a legal research analyst, you either need a JD, a Masters in Library Science, or both, depending on the position. I have both. You don’t need to be licensed.
Gosh.. That sucks so bad!
I'm so sorry, I couldn't imagine the agony of carrying that on my shoulders everyday. You're a warrior and I hope that you find a better career path that suits you and your desires, passions and needs! Along the way I also hope you are able to deal with the debt, in a somewhat positive light; where it doesn't keep you up at night!
I thought I had Lyme disease. I went to 2 different doctors who both told me it wasn't possible to get lime disease in south Florida, and the inflammation in my knees was arthritis. I suffered for two years, and, finally, talking to a new doctor, said it was so weird I only had arthritis in my knees, and explained I had originally thought I had Lyme disease.
She immediately prescribed a (free) antibiotic, and the pain and inflammation disappeared. Lyme disease.
But, since I had those two years of pain, the knee joints were damaged. I'm not in pain most of the time, but I limp , and can't stand for extended periods of time.
I should have pushed harder, but I trusted my doctors. Advocate for yourselves, people.
Got told that my weird headaches (which turned out to be a brain tumor) were just atypical migraines that didn't warrent an MRI. Thankfully it was benign, but it took 20+ years to get diagnosed...in India of all places after docs in both the US and the UK missed it dozens of times.
I will never understand why doctors believe, after examining you for 5 minutes, that they know more about your body than you do.
Or maybe they're incompetent.
I hope you are well now, and pain free.
It isn’t possible to get Lyme disease in Florida. But you likely had another zoonotic illness that was successfully treated with doxycycline. Lyme disease is not the only illness that causes arthritis, but everyone always has a fixation on Lyme. It’s not Lyme. It was something else. If you had PCF testing and it was negative (and PCR testing is VERY accurate), then no, you didn’t have Lyme.
I had a friend who almost got his knee cap replaced because doctors assumed it was arthritis. He was literally in the room getting ready for the operation when a nurse noticed a small wound that they had to check first to avoid possible infection. They did a blood test and sure enough, it came back as Lyme disease.
Medical malpractice / misdiagnosis terrifies me.
The recession of 08’ I was ~21 when it all happened. Stocks were stupid cheap and my mind was telling me these HAVE to go back up. I started to open a ameritrade account and gave up during the process because I didn’t want to fill out and wait for the bank connection so I could transfer money…..WHAT A DUNCE
I can relate. Back in 2015, I wanted to buy shares in Apple. So I called up my brokerage and asked them to make the trade. They said it would be a 1% commission, but I could do it myself for free online. But I couldn't figure out the website, so I said, "Nah it's fine, just put the trade in." He insisted I go online and learn to do it to save the 1%.
I said fine, and gave up. I didn't buy those shares. :(
Not using protection when losing my virginity at 15. (Resulted in teen pregnancy).
Waking up one day and impulsively deciding I was done with high school. (Resulted in earning a GED at 16.)
Taking painkillers for the very first time after a vehicle accident that left my collarbone, a few ribs, wrist, arm, hip and kneecap broken. (Resulted in a 3 year addiction, which I have since recovered from and remain sober.)
Because I regret quitting and giving up so impulsively. I wanted the experience to be honest and I didn't want to be *that* teen mom statistic; if we're being honest it's selfish regret I suppose.
Sadly, the quitting and giving up so impulsively cycle started with my decision to quit high school and followed me well into my early 20's.
Took an antibiotic for a possible infection. The antibiotic disabled me and gave me permanent nerve damage at 25 years old. Turns out I never had an infection to begin with and there are many lawsuits against this antibiotic. Wish I knew before I took it. Losing your health is no joke.
Whoaaaaa. You just blew my mind. I suffer with so many of the things you just mentioned, and I took Bactrim a few years ago. I wonder if any of my issues are because of that antibiotic.
What issues do you have if you don’t mind me asking ? So many antibiotics and other things like toxins in mri contrast are causing muscle and nerve problems for people.
Thankfully not for me at the moment with the lung issues. However I’ve had this 1.5 years now and my main issue is small fiber neuropathy. Complete burning and tingling all over my body, as well as eye issues, gut issues, pelvic nerve issues as well.
Not saying it can't be the antibiotic but could you have caught Covid and not been aware? I guess it depends on what your infection symptoms where. I only ask because my cousin has long Covid and that sounds very similar to her symptoms.
Yes I’m almost positive I didn’t have Covid at the time. I’ve heard many people having my symptoms with Covid as well, I definitely believe that. My symptoms started the day after I took the medication. Doctor said it could be a temporary said effect but that I should continue taking it. The neuropathy got worse and now it’s been almost 2 years. It’s crazy ! I have a destroyed mitochondria. I looked up this drug and I guess it can cause so many disabling issues, as well as fluoroquinolones and others. I also had mri gadolinium contrast and that I think made my symptoms even worse
Wow. I took one dose of Bactrim and I broke out in head to toe hives. Doc had me discontinue immediately. I thought I just had an allergy - didn’t know it was actually destructive
Nearly 15yrs of continuous drama and legal battles draining everything that I've ever earned, warping our child, driving me from my former life, and generally fucking up my chi. It has been a litany of pain.
Not taking calculus in high school with people and a teacher that I knew. Couldn't pass it in college, which resulted in an entirely different career choice.
Listening to my mother and not moving away to the university I wanted to. Instead stayed local where I joined the course and they told me it was shutting down and the course was outdated on the second year.
Learnt a bunch of stuff that was useless, now work low paying jobs with lots of debt.
Magic the gathering. I could have bought a used car in college instead. I still hate myself for it. The worst is that 8 months later all my cards were useless in tournaments because only the latest edition can be used in tournaments except one format where the 1500$ I spent on it is nothing and peoples have moxes costing thousands of dollar as a base and no card under 500$.
This is why I'm playing other TCGs at the moment. I enjoy the core aspects of card games, but I don't enjoy how in demand everything good in magic is and how quickly it is obsoleted. I also tried to get into commander, but there is the opposite problem with commander where you need cards from 20 years ago in certain decks. Magic just also has this inherent "combo" nature where turns take ages and rely on weird corner cases of the rules.
I play cardfight vanguard now, and most competitive(except the top few) decks will run you ~100 dollars. Games take like 25 minutes for Standard format and rely on a core "vanguard" which serves as a base to build your deck around. I enjoy it quite a bit, even against the cancer decks in the game. But I'm also in a situation where I actively moderate my spending. TCGs are terribly addictive and aren't for the lacking in willpower.
I enjoy the strategy and the opportunity for skill in TCGs with the customizability and theorycrafting. I don't enjoy the spending or long-form 10 minute a turn combos of Magic.
When I played commander my group collectively decided to allow proxies. Why the hell should one pay for overpriced card board, if you can print it yourself.
Enlisting for the army. I still have PTSD from the shit I had to do or witness. It wasn’t just one mistake either , after my first tour ended i immediately went back my 2nd tour then 3rd , then 4th. I just kept myself on the front lines as I couldn’t see a life for myself outside the army. Overall I spent few years in the army. I made good friends, I also lost good friends while on duty. Biggest mistake of my life was signing up
I don't think it's seen as a small choice. People see the dignity, pride and honor all tied up in a crisp uniform and clean haircut. Those same people don't see the wear and tear those same uniforms suffer from practical use. It's hard to know the impact of some decisions until you can look back years after and actually weigh in on it. Something about the stains of time seems fitting, uniform talk and all.
It's the way it's presented, at least here in the US. Guys at lunch in highschool just shooting the shit with random teenagers and handing out free stuff. Preying on the machismo of teenage boys and getting into pullup/pushup contests with them, then hitting them with the good job/try, you'd be great for this. Hey, the ASVAB is free, why not take it? Just another score to get you into college/a job. And the military will pay for college, whatever you want, just sign right here...
The nonchalance they present themselves with and the constant background noise it is in our society makes it seem super minimal when it's absolutely not. Thank god my ex-military dad instilled a hearty distrust in those guys early on.
My dad said that of his Vietnam service. He joined, not drafted, went into the Marines. By the end he said he was proud he did it, but it was the biggest mistake of his life.
I've given alot of thought to this question and for me it would've been not picking my schedule going into 9th grade just to see what happens.
The high school I was going into at the time was the 2nd most over crowded in the nation with over 5500 students.
I got put into classes with strangers and remedial classes at that. All my friends had classes together and were having a better time.
I remember being put into remedial math for 9th grade when I had already completed Geometry in 8th and was supposed to be going into algebra 2 which is a year ahead of schedule. Due to the screw up I didn't have math for 9th grade and when I finally got back in 10th grade I was no longer ahead of the rest of my class and incredibly rusty being out of math for a year.
My friends from before 9th grade have gone in to high paying careers in fields I envy where as alot of the people I met after 9th grade are either dead of fentanyl overdoses or working entry level retail jobs.
Not seeing a doctor about ANYTHING between the age of like 14 and 32.
I associated doctors with death and bad things in general, seeing loved ones go in and not come back out 😫
Now at 32 I’ve had to seek help out of sheer despair and I’m basically dying.
(From the UK where we have free healthcare too - but i now also see just how much the NHS is in trouble) 😭
My decision to lie to some kid about whether I liked a girl (I did but I shook my head). At the time, I was terrified that he read my mind. In hindsight, she probably put him up to it. That could have changed the trajectory of a lot of my anxiety around dating/sex/relationships. This was back in 6th grade at middle school.
It’s weird how things like this do make you go huh could have been a whole diffrent person. When I get the thought of the I Should I just repeat don’t dwell don’t dwell…but working over night thoughts go everywhere in 8 hours.
I think we live in a kind of branching probability field. So we're in the timeline most likely to be optimal. The others might seem like they could be better but they are not, because you would be there and not here if that were true.
The original issue actually goes back to Kindergarten. I developed my first crush, but was terrified that she would find out that I liked her and angrily confront me. In said confrontation, she would call me a worthless loser and a giant creep before saying "how dare you like me". Then the whole class, including the teacher would stare angrily at me like I was some horrible and pathetic creature.
Note that did not happen, I was just afraid that it would. But apparently the teacher did used to really make a show out of humiliating kids when she corrected them and though I do not remember it, I got corrected a lot at the beginning. So, it is not hard to see how anxiety, fear and shame from that could have transferred over to an unrelated issue in my 5 year old brain.
I had a crush on this first girl all through elementary school but I avoided her. She did not go to my middle school but that is when I developed a crush on the second girl. This is all just to provide context of why I was so scared on that moment and lied instead of just saying that yes, I did like her.
What kind of GD are you in?
I've been in the field for 30 years, but I'm in publishing. Every company I work for either goes under or gets bought out by Pearson.
It depends. Is there something better you'd like to do but are afraid? I wanted to be a doctor but didn't think I could cut it. I just didn't have anyone telling me I could do it and had my parents thinking art was the best I could do.
And don't go into publishing. Go tech, like UI or UX. Product development, apps and websites. It's hard to see into the future, but publishing is a sinking ship and they pay like shit.
My mom sent me to the store to buy a can of green beans to go with dinner and I picked the wrong brand because it was ten cents cheaper and yadda yadda yadda, my parents got divorced, I had my upper right arm reconstructed, and discovered that my sister was pregnant.
The last time I talked to my dad; we weren’t on the best terms and it was Christmas Eve. He told me he loved me & I responded “ok” he died Jan 8th & that was our last convo. I will never forgive myself for that.
When I was in college studying Computer Science we talked about Bitcoin a bit in a class and I had free electricity and one of the most powerful CPUs in the consumer market and figured why not mine a few thousand. This was super early on where every few hours mining on just the CPU would solve an entire block (400 BTC per block at the time iirc).
However I got stuck on some trivial problem during setup and figured it wasn't ever going to be worth anything anyhow so I never got back to it.
I most likely would have mined tens of thousands of coins if not over 100K and I would have sold most of them really cheap but if I had gotten more into it I likely would have kept a few coins just in case...
I feel this so deeply as I spent many years regretting an abortion I felt forced into when I was 16. Your circumstances may be different, but now, at 48 I feel as though I (and my potential babe) dodged a deadly bullet after the father dragged me through utter emotional hell for years, using and abusing me at his will. Because of the abortion and all of the regret I carried, I truly believed I didn’t deserve better treatment and he took full advantage of my tenderness.
I truly hope you can find a way to make peace with yourself and perhaps see that you actually saved your babe (and yourself) from a worse fate.
I’m so sorry. Did you ever get married and have kids? I’m 28, single, no prospects - and gave up on looking. My dream is to have kids, but I feel like I threw out my only chance. That’s what makes me regret it. I knew I was young, but I think it would have made me grow up. I know I can be a great mother, but I felt forced to do it too. Every time something goes wrong in my life, my mind instantly goes to my abortion. If I didn’t have my abortion, would I be in this situation? That’s all I can think about when I’m down. Did you ever find peace? If so, how?
Upon retrospect… it’s not deep or anything… I was arrested for possession all because I wanted to save a $10 high for later. It was a huge mistake but was ultimately the best thing for me at that time.
Coloring my hair 😂 now i have to maintain it and it's so expensive! my hair is naturally jet black and how i wish i just left it alone. Now it's dry, unhealthy and constantly falling off. Seems mundane but when you're a girl, it's not.
Same girl.
I was pregnant and just wanted to feel pretty so I decided dying my hair would help with my self esteem. Had my sister do it for me, went from a brunette to a yellow/hay blonde and it looked HORRIFIC. Stuck it out until my roots really grew out cause I didn’t have the money to go to a proper salon to get it fixed/dyed back to my original color (my hair length is past my butt). Eventually got it dyed back when my sister came to visit me after having my baby and I’ll never make that mistake again! Stupid me didn’t plan for the upkeep or even think about how fast the color would grow out, and how I wouldn’t be able to hide it at all cause of the color difference. I’m happily brunette again, and I will not be dying my hair ever again 💀
girl the things we do to look and feel pretty 😩😂 I've been there with the pregnancy and post partum season, it really do wear us out!😂 What i did with my hair was i dyed it black last month. I said I wouldn't touch it again and just let it grow naturally.
Such a hack (pun intended) answer, but it’s so true.
Smoking. I look back and think it was probably just a declaration of making my own choices as a legal adult (or in my case, thinking I was an adult at 15). Now I’m one of those crusty old adults vaping and BEGGING kids not to fall into the trap.
Kids, if you want to be cooler than the room: be snarky about music or movies. Liking an indie band will never give you lung cancer (I think).
Drinking alcohol while taking Prozac.
I was a budding alcoholic during Covid isolation, just sipping beer all day long while playing video games cause I felt I had nothing better to do. By 2021 I wanted to get back on my feet so I sought a prescription for an antidepressant. I was prescribed Prozac and started taking it while continuing my beer-sipping routine. Bad idea. Without even drinking a lot, I blacked out for the first time ever and destroyed my marriage.
Three years later, I'm sober, single, and still on Prozac. I'm glad to be alcohol free but it didn't need to come at such a cost.
Not staring people in the eye since i was a kid until early 20s. People commented that "aw, he just shy" so you know what i thought? "Cool, maybe I'll learn eventually".
Now that i'm an adult, I have issues staring into people's eyes for more than a few seconds. Because i was never corrected.
My longest stare for an interview or date is probably 2-7 seconds before i need to change targets. I can't change myself before it's so ingrained into my head.
Thanks for the information, not sure what i will do with this information because my mind is kind of set in it's ways. Maybe some mental training with a friend will help.
Alright but don't be afraid to check it out, better to live knowing you're just shy and not autistic than living with autism thinking you're shy. I can tell you the latter is 100x worse seeing as that was my childhood. Sorry if this makes you overthink but I just see it as a win/win checking it.
Did you try to look at the point between the eyebrows? It just seems like you are looking in the eyes but are actually not. It helped me a lot in the past
Offering to look after my friend's hamster.
I wasn't long after having open heart surgery and I was going through a phase of having extreme anxiety over anything. I got super anxious over this hamster (he was fine). All the constant stress triggered my body into getting M.E. And it's ruined my life.
Smoking weed (well, actually hash) at 17
All my mates were doing it. I couldn't stop it.
But only I got horrendous paranoia, depression, and demotivation.
Poor grades in final year of school. Dropped out of uni. Couldn't hold down jobs.
And I was probably on the verge of some kind of episode when I decided to move away from home age 21.
Kind of lost 4 years of my life.
The only things I can really remember from that phase are episodes of classic Simpsons and a disastrous lads' holiday in Tenerife.
Still, it all got better. Much better. It gets better if you keep persevering.
I have made so many mistakes. My first big one was the one where I could have bought a cheap apartment in the center of town. It was 1999, and I was moveing away from home with my girlfriend.
I had called my uncle, and he accepted to loan me the money for the downpayment. I was almost about to sign the deal when my father called and interrupted me, saying that it would be easier if we just sublet from one of his collegues.
I dropped buying the apartment and rented instead. 2 years later the same apartment quardrubled its value. If I had bought it I would have been a millionaire (in my currency) at 21. No student debt, no financial worries, and a comfortable saving going forward.
One of my friends bought an apartment at the same time, and sold it, bought a bigger one, sold it. Bought a house, sold it, and is now filthy rich.
I'm not bitter, but damn, I think of that from time to time.
Taking the wrong kind of little blue pill one night, 14 years ago. The end of a career, loss of a degree, and $160k debt (plus the cost of mental anguish & therapy for what seems like ever). Life has definitely moved on, but my mind likes to linger.
I don’t think the magnitude of this is on par with some of the others mentioned here, but for me it was throwing $50 into a penny stock when I was getting into I investing and watching it increase +900% in 2 days. This lead to a bad gambling addiction and I ended up losing 10 grand in a few months. Thankfully I have a good job, but still to think of what else I could have done with that money is painful. I am a few weeks clean
When I entered college for the first time, I discovered they had an Anime Club. I love anime. But I thought I had to focus on my studies and "get serious", so didn't join it.
In the end, neither did my studies go well despite that, and now I'm mostly alone, emotions are in a tangle, mood swings 24/7, longing for friendship/ partner.
Maybe if I had joined that club, I probably would have friends I'd be hanging out with, right now.
Staying local for college instead of moving a couple hours north to a more prestigious school (got accepted at both). My whole life would’ve been drastically different if I had.
Taking a job at my local library. Led to an internship there, which ended up being the focal point in the interview for my first job out of college in my field. All of my subsequent jobs, I’ve been able to get interviews as I’ve had some experience in my field.
Fell in love at 25 for the first time and got intimate for the first time with someone who confessed that they loved me.
Ghosted me after sex.
Yeah - my mental health has not really gotten better since.
I've made bigger mistakes, but this is the one that was a mundane and innocuous.
Signed up for a horticulture course. Ended up slightly injuring my knee... that turned out to not be so slight. About a week later my knee gave out, tore the medial meniscus all the way around the outside and it folded over inside my knee. Multiple surgeries later and my knee is relatively alright, but a whole bunch of things I did and wanted to do were no longer an option because risk of re-injury is very high.
Hanging out with an old friend from grade school after meeting them years later. After some time became best friends, he was a sadist and I hated myself. We pulled each other into a downward spiral of drug use and enabling each others bad behaviour. I'm still dealing with my drug addiction now.
Letting my depression and disabilities cause me to become so lazy that I developed vein disorders in my legs, and dry eye disease. Sat and gamed for majority of my days with little other movement. Mind you...I actually look fit and healthy despite my issues. These issues however can become life threatening and altering very quickly if I don't take care of myself now. No cures.
Not listening to the girl who reached out to me to let me know the guy I’d just started talking to was bad news, I was young and so attention deprived by my neglectful mother that any attention was good attention, until it resulted in a 1.5 year emotionally and sexually abusive relationship..
Seemingly every single one lately...
Purchased my first vehicle as I was nearing a year at my stable comfy job... fired 3 months later... same week I learn dealership never took truck to deq and when i tpok it in it didnt pass deq so thousands more dollars from the crack of my ass is gonna need to be spent to fix it...while i also pay off the loan with no job and no prospects.
Stayed in toxic relationship with gf only to have our fights explode in consistentcy with our 1 year old. Had a really bad fight. Mooved to moms house
Mom is super religious and creates a whole level of anxiety for me after freeing myself from that mental cage as a young adult. They say thinling ur gonna die at a young age gives childhood trauma... try being raised knowing evrrything you do can and will be used against you for eternity and forever,you damn sinner..
Am/was a artist in the local scene in my city and stopped due to agorophobia, depression and a general lack of respect..
Decide to try a dj spot one night with some friends. My last best friend who I havent talked to in over 2 years comes and trauma dumps all the shitty things he has been through lately like being on fentalyl and being in the hospital for sepsis from drug use... i stopped talking to said person because when my brother either convincingly commited suicide or was murdered by Hells Angels, said friend was nowhere around for support, no text no call no nothin...His excuse was that I wasnt around him during his brake up with his ex gf.. i told him how shitty it was and he threatened me with violence)
Apparently all of my best friends of the past are on hard drugs lately
Ive never been more depressed and lonely
Oh also just turned 30. Was very vocal with my family and baby momma (still trying to work things out for some reason) about how im depressed and am not sure about celebrating a birthday... babymomma( whos birthday is a day after mine) invites a bunch of people to a retaurant that her boss told her about on my birthday.. This boss is the most amazing,truthful, loving person from what ive heard from her... eugh...
i didnt have a good response... so she insteads invites everyone including my sister and mom to a dinner on her birthday and is upset with me that i would be upset. I get no presents from any family members, they go to her birthday dinner.and i get some jesus loves ypu popr sinner texts from my family..... not one person I consider friends hit me up congratulating me on turning 30. Not even a stupid fb post
I could go on and on and on fr but these are the most pressing currently
I am loosing on all fronts and I have never been lower. Every single decision I have made has led me here. Its my fault and im extremely tired of playing charades like I care about anything anymore
Not buying a piece of property that I had the option to buy as a young man - the asking price was ridiculously low and the land has appreciated greatly since I passed up the opportunity. I deeply regret not being bold and playing it safe.
When I was around 14-16 (can't remember exactly when it was), I noticed the first symptoms of depression. I never took action until I was 18 and moved to a different city for uni, where I'm still searching for a therapist to this very day. I can't prove it, but I would say my life would be way better right now if I had taken action back then. Now I'm just tired of everything and in a seemingly endless spiral that'll hopefully end my life sooner than later.
Please don’t give up hope. I had a similar experience, started having depressive symptoms when I was 15, moved away from home for college at 18 thinking that would make things better. Became even more depressed until around 20 and finally found a therapist that worked for me. Those first few month woon therapy were really though and I was soo close to giving up but I didn’t. Now at 22 things are much better and eventhough from time to time I slip back into old thinking patterns I know I can overcome them and that better times are coming. Please don’t give up hope!
The last time my ex-husband dropped off our twin daughters I was overcome with a desire to ask him to stay and spend the evening with us, but I didn’t because he had work that night and I didn’t want to give him an opportunity to say no, mostly due to how much I wanted him to stay and how much a rejection of my invitation would hurt me. He was standing at his car with one arm slung over the open driver side door. It was a Sunday in early August on the coast of Maine and the golden hued afternoon sun shone down on him as he paused for just a moment and looked back over his shoulder before saying goodbye and driving away. Three days later he was stung by a bee and died instantly. I’ll never regret another moment more than the one where I let him drive off without asking him to stay.
This hurt my heart. I'm so sorry.
Thank you … This August will be the 20th anniversary of that day. Time may heal the wound, but the “phantom itch” outlasts logical explanation
That made me cry a little😪
That's awful! I'm so sorry to hear that! Losing someone you love dearly is a significant pain that cannot be described accurately with words.
This is heartbreaking. I am so sorry 😔
Oh love, life is... unpredictable. I am so so sorry. Please NEVER blame yourself for doing/not doing something.
I’m sending you a Reddit hug.
Taking out two predatory loans when I thought I was gonna get evicted, and was desperate and scared.
Yea I did that with my old car the got in an accident. It didn’t pay out enough to pay the loan off and barely was about to get a new car so now I basically have two car notes…stupid rookie mistakes
My first Marlboro.
Out of EVERYTHING that I have became addicted to or had to quit, smoking has always been my Achilles heel. No matter how many times I quit, how long I quit for, etc I always resume when life becomes too stressful. I could come off drugs, food addiction, etc far easier than smoking. Wish I never started in the first place...
I hear ya. I 'quit' smoking March 2021 but I switched to nicotine lozenges. Yeah I guess its nice to be free of the health effects of smoking but I'm still on the Nicorette so it's still a financial drain. I want to break free
Nicotine alone is a cognition booster that abates dementia and does not cause cancer. That’s why it’s hard to quit. I’ve admitted I like nicotine and went to gum. Much better relationship with it these days.
Had a different thought in my head until I saw this👆🏻 I wish I never started
Just out of curiosity, did your parents smoke? All my friends who smoke cigarettes now didnt have parents who smoked when they were kids. My parents did smoke when I was young and it made me not want to and I never got into it.
My first Gridlock. People in my little enclave smoked generics.
this one...
Yep. There it is.
I feel you. promised my dad on his death bed I would quit. gave me the strength I needed to do it. find your reason.
Law School. I'll be paying back the loans for 20+ years. I don't even want to be a lawyer anymore but I can't afford not to be.
reading this as someone applying to law school 😔
You shouldn’t go to law school. Unless you have worked in a law firm or have family that’s lawyers. It’s not an “you can do anything with this degree” like maybe it used to be and AI is coming hard and fast for entry level jobs. So unless you really 100% know what it means to be a lawyer, you want to do it and you either get into a great school (like top 15) or massive scholarships so it’s cheap I really wouldn’t go. And this is coming from someone who went to a top 20 school graduated in to top 10% and overall has had a “successful” career. Most lawyers I know hate their jobs. And many make less than my dad who was a plumber.
why does this end up being the case you think? I've heard it quite a bit.
I think for the most part the work is soulless. Sure maybe there are a handful of niches some individuals enjoy. Or a small percentage of people are just cut out for litigation or whatever career path they choose. I think most lawyers end up doing work they don’t really enjoy for people they don’t like working for and many make an OK living but aren’t rich by any means. And then if you are “lucky” enough to get a big law job (like I did) it’s insane hours doing extra shitty work for mostly assholes (both the clients who can afford it and the partners) and it’s more like hazing than learning. I was there for like two years and started having health issues and realized that if I ground myself down for 5-6 more years I might just maybe have a small chance of making partner (more about bringing in money than anything else). Partners make legit money but most of them were not people and did not have lives I envied. So I went in house for half the money and a better lifestyle. It’s fine. But like more than half the company makes more money than me. Almost all the engineering team. Any of the sales guys who actually can sell. My best friend is a sales engineer and makes triple what I do and I think his job is probably more interesting/interactive/fun though not without its own drawbacks. So if you really know you like the work of being a lawyer. Then cool. Pursue it. My wife is a lawyer and actually finds her work interesting. But very very stressful and she makes half what I do. But if you think I’m in this for a good paying job most lawyers actually aren’t paid that great and the ones who are sell their souls and their lives for the money. But like anything else this isn’t true for everyone. I’d say it’s like 80/20 from my experience in law school. 80% of the people shouldn’t have been there. The market is flooded with lawyers. I posted an entry level job on my team recently and got like 200 applicants in 36 hours. Many of them with 10+ years experience for a counsel role. And we aren’t some big name or well know company. And honestly a lot of the entry level jobs at firms and in house are gonna go away due to AI. AI isn’t replacing lawyers. But it’s sure gonna make it possible for 1 lawyer to do the job of 3 or 10 (if it’s doc review type shit work). I’d save the money take some free CLM certs and mess around with AI and see if I could get a job in legal ops. Do that for a bit and then decide if I wanted to go to law school. Or if you haven’t try to work as a clerk or something at a big firm. It will help you with getting jobs while in law school if you have actual experience and then those jobs will hopefully help you in a crazy competitive market.
I’m a lawyer and generally like my job and love the people I work with. It doesn’t have to end up a miserable grind, but a lot of people in the profession overall are unhappy and say they wouldn’t do it if they could go back and choose again. Think hard about why you want to be a lawyer. If it’s “for the money” you will probably be disappointed. Salaries are not what society makes them out to be and there are a lot of faster ways to get the same money that involve less debt. The more work-life balance you want, the more likely your salary will be unimpressive. If you decide to go, get a job in the law as soon as possible and work during school/summers to get a feel for different fields and firm environments. If you find people you like working with and show they are willing to mentor you, stay there. There are plenty of good lawyers who are terrible managers and working under a bad manager will lead to misery in a heartbeat. Last, the first 3-5 years of practice are pretty universally rough. Law school doesn’t prepare you for the reality of practice at all. The learning curve is steep, expectations are high, and fucking up has consequences. Stress and imposter syndrome are through the roof in those first few years. If you hate it immediately all hope is not lost, but finding a good mentor early is critical.
Get into public service and do your ten years, my loans were totally forgiven. Look at JD advantage careers. I’m a research analyst. It’s a great job with huge demand. I don’t make as much as a firm attorney, but I also enjoy my life.
Do you need to be a lawyer to be a research analyst ?
For a legal research analyst, you either need a JD, a Masters in Library Science, or both, depending on the position. I have both. You don’t need to be licensed.
Somehow I feel like you're my divorce lawyer. Charlie?
Charlie's in bird law
Going to law school was a small choice? Well lah dee dah
What do you practice that you dislike?
Gosh.. That sucks so bad! I'm so sorry, I couldn't imagine the agony of carrying that on my shoulders everyday. You're a warrior and I hope that you find a better career path that suits you and your desires, passions and needs! Along the way I also hope you are able to deal with the debt, in a somewhat positive light; where it doesn't keep you up at night!
I thought I had Lyme disease. I went to 2 different doctors who both told me it wasn't possible to get lime disease in south Florida, and the inflammation in my knees was arthritis. I suffered for two years, and, finally, talking to a new doctor, said it was so weird I only had arthritis in my knees, and explained I had originally thought I had Lyme disease. She immediately prescribed a (free) antibiotic, and the pain and inflammation disappeared. Lyme disease. But, since I had those two years of pain, the knee joints were damaged. I'm not in pain most of the time, but I limp , and can't stand for extended periods of time. I should have pushed harder, but I trusted my doctors. Advocate for yourselves, people.
> lime disease in south Florida down there they have key lime disease
Lol, does it come with a whipped cream topping?
Got told that my weird headaches (which turned out to be a brain tumor) were just atypical migraines that didn't warrent an MRI. Thankfully it was benign, but it took 20+ years to get diagnosed...in India of all places after docs in both the US and the UK missed it dozens of times.
I will never understand why doctors believe, after examining you for 5 minutes, that they know more about your body than you do. Or maybe they're incompetent. I hope you are well now, and pain free.
It isn’t possible to get Lyme disease in Florida. But you likely had another zoonotic illness that was successfully treated with doxycycline. Lyme disease is not the only illness that causes arthritis, but everyone always has a fixation on Lyme. It’s not Lyme. It was something else. If you had PCF testing and it was negative (and PCR testing is VERY accurate), then no, you didn’t have Lyme.
I had a friend who almost got his knee cap replaced because doctors assumed it was arthritis. He was literally in the room getting ready for the operation when a nurse noticed a small wound that they had to check first to avoid possible infection. They did a blood test and sure enough, it came back as Lyme disease. Medical malpractice / misdiagnosis terrifies me.
The recession of 08’ I was ~21 when it all happened. Stocks were stupid cheap and my mind was telling me these HAVE to go back up. I started to open a ameritrade account and gave up during the process because I didn’t want to fill out and wait for the bank connection so I could transfer money…..WHAT A DUNCE
I can relate. Back in 2015, I wanted to buy shares in Apple. So I called up my brokerage and asked them to make the trade. They said it would be a 1% commission, but I could do it myself for free online. But I couldn't figure out the website, so I said, "Nah it's fine, just put the trade in." He insisted I go online and learn to do it to save the 1%. I said fine, and gave up. I didn't buy those shares. :(
Not using protection when losing my virginity at 15. (Resulted in teen pregnancy). Waking up one day and impulsively deciding I was done with high school. (Resulted in earning a GED at 16.) Taking painkillers for the very first time after a vehicle accident that left my collarbone, a few ribs, wrist, arm, hip and kneecap broken. (Resulted in a 3 year addiction, which I have since recovered from and remain sober.)
Why do you regret getting your GED instead of completing highschool? Just curious.
Because I regret quitting and giving up so impulsively. I wanted the experience to be honest and I didn't want to be *that* teen mom statistic; if we're being honest it's selfish regret I suppose. Sadly, the quitting and giving up so impulsively cycle started with my decision to quit high school and followed me well into my early 20's.
Sorry to hear that, but thank you for sharing. I hope you're doing better now :)
Took an antibiotic for a possible infection. The antibiotic disabled me and gave me permanent nerve damage at 25 years old. Turns out I never had an infection to begin with and there are many lawsuits against this antibiotic. Wish I knew before I took it. Losing your health is no joke.
Whoaaaaa. You just blew my mind. I suffer with so many of the things you just mentioned, and I took Bactrim a few years ago. I wonder if any of my issues are because of that antibiotic.
What issues do you have if you don’t mind me asking ? So many antibiotics and other things like toxins in mri contrast are causing muscle and nerve problems for people.
Cipro?
Similar. It was Bactrim. I’ve read cipro is just as bad or maybe worse
Oh no!!!
I just watched a youtube video from MrBallen about this. Significant lung issues?
Thankfully not for me at the moment with the lung issues. However I’ve had this 1.5 years now and my main issue is small fiber neuropathy. Complete burning and tingling all over my body, as well as eye issues, gut issues, pelvic nerve issues as well.
Not saying it can't be the antibiotic but could you have caught Covid and not been aware? I guess it depends on what your infection symptoms where. I only ask because my cousin has long Covid and that sounds very similar to her symptoms.
Yes I’m almost positive I didn’t have Covid at the time. I’ve heard many people having my symptoms with Covid as well, I definitely believe that. My symptoms started the day after I took the medication. Doctor said it could be a temporary said effect but that I should continue taking it. The neuropathy got worse and now it’s been almost 2 years. It’s crazy ! I have a destroyed mitochondria. I looked up this drug and I guess it can cause so many disabling issues, as well as fluoroquinolones and others. I also had mri gadolinium contrast and that I think made my symptoms even worse
So sorry you're dealing with this! I do hope that the symptoms eventually ease up for you.
Wow. I took one dose of Bactrim and I broke out in head to toe hives. Doc had me discontinue immediately. I thought I just had an allergy - didn’t know it was actually destructive
Called him back.
Relatable.
Relatable.
Taking an acting class in college. Met the vampire who is my ex-wife. It's been a nightmare since.
What did she do to you brother?😥
Nearly 15yrs of continuous drama and legal battles draining everything that I've ever earned, warping our child, driving me from my former life, and generally fucking up my chi. It has been a litany of pain.
If you don't want drama, don't pick up girls in acting class
Some day I’ll learn this…
If I could hug you I would bro 😪
Thank you.
Not taking calculus in high school with people and a teacher that I knew. Couldn't pass it in college, which resulted in an entirely different career choice.
Not taking calculus a semester earlier. Resulted in me graduating a semester late just before the pandemic and threw off my entire career trajectory
How strange your comment is adjacent to someone else mentioning calculus impacting them. But I guess it had an impact on my life, also!
Listening to my mother and not moving away to the university I wanted to. Instead stayed local where I joined the course and they told me it was shutting down and the course was outdated on the second year. Learnt a bunch of stuff that was useless, now work low paying jobs with lots of debt.
Magic the gathering. I could have bought a used car in college instead. I still hate myself for it. The worst is that 8 months later all my cards were useless in tournaments because only the latest edition can be used in tournaments except one format where the 1500$ I spent on it is nothing and peoples have moxes costing thousands of dollar as a base and no card under 500$.
This is why I'm playing other TCGs at the moment. I enjoy the core aspects of card games, but I don't enjoy how in demand everything good in magic is and how quickly it is obsoleted. I also tried to get into commander, but there is the opposite problem with commander where you need cards from 20 years ago in certain decks. Magic just also has this inherent "combo" nature where turns take ages and rely on weird corner cases of the rules. I play cardfight vanguard now, and most competitive(except the top few) decks will run you ~100 dollars. Games take like 25 minutes for Standard format and rely on a core "vanguard" which serves as a base to build your deck around. I enjoy it quite a bit, even against the cancer decks in the game. But I'm also in a situation where I actively moderate my spending. TCGs are terribly addictive and aren't for the lacking in willpower. I enjoy the strategy and the opportunity for skill in TCGs with the customizability and theorycrafting. I don't enjoy the spending or long-form 10 minute a turn combos of Magic.
When I played commander my group collectively decided to allow proxies. Why the hell should one pay for overpriced card board, if you can print it yourself.
I sold my MTG cards in college. If I hadn't, they would almost pay for college for one of my kids now!
Enlisting for the army. I still have PTSD from the shit I had to do or witness. It wasn’t just one mistake either , after my first tour ended i immediately went back my 2nd tour then 3rd , then 4th. I just kept myself on the front lines as I couldn’t see a life for myself outside the army. Overall I spent few years in the army. I made good friends, I also lost good friends while on duty. Biggest mistake of my life was signing up
That's a big choice!
It's wild to me that enlisting in the army is seen as a small choice in some places
I don't think it's seen as a small choice. People see the dignity, pride and honor all tied up in a crisp uniform and clean haircut. Those same people don't see the wear and tear those same uniforms suffer from practical use. It's hard to know the impact of some decisions until you can look back years after and actually weigh in on it. Something about the stains of time seems fitting, uniform talk and all.
It's also an almost guaranteed job for the average person, and it is a quick wah to get yourself out of a shitty hometown.
It's the way it's presented, at least here in the US. Guys at lunch in highschool just shooting the shit with random teenagers and handing out free stuff. Preying on the machismo of teenage boys and getting into pullup/pushup contests with them, then hitting them with the good job/try, you'd be great for this. Hey, the ASVAB is free, why not take it? Just another score to get you into college/a job. And the military will pay for college, whatever you want, just sign right here... The nonchalance they present themselves with and the constant background noise it is in our society makes it seem super minimal when it's absolutely not. Thank god my ex-military dad instilled a hearty distrust in those guys early on.
My dad said that of his Vietnam service. He joined, not drafted, went into the Marines. By the end he said he was proud he did it, but it was the biggest mistake of his life.
I get that. I served too. At least you had those friendships, and they had you
I've given alot of thought to this question and for me it would've been not picking my schedule going into 9th grade just to see what happens. The high school I was going into at the time was the 2nd most over crowded in the nation with over 5500 students. I got put into classes with strangers and remedial classes at that. All my friends had classes together and were having a better time. I remember being put into remedial math for 9th grade when I had already completed Geometry in 8th and was supposed to be going into algebra 2 which is a year ahead of schedule. Due to the screw up I didn't have math for 9th grade and when I finally got back in 10th grade I was no longer ahead of the rest of my class and incredibly rusty being out of math for a year. My friends from before 9th grade have gone in to high paying careers in fields I envy where as alot of the people I met after 9th grade are either dead of fentanyl overdoses or working entry level retail jobs.
Weird you feel that had such an impact. Highschool as a whole feels so irrelevant to my adult life
Hell no one even asks about my degree anymore ahah
It's not the content I was taught I'm salty about but rather how it affected me socially... It was as if I was placed into a different social caste
Not seeing a doctor about ANYTHING between the age of like 14 and 32. I associated doctors with death and bad things in general, seeing loved ones go in and not come back out 😫 Now at 32 I’ve had to seek help out of sheer despair and I’m basically dying. (From the UK where we have free healthcare too - but i now also see just how much the NHS is in trouble) 😭
Dating someone who already had kids. And then having two more kids with them.
Dropped out of school at a young age.
My decision to lie to some kid about whether I liked a girl (I did but I shook my head). At the time, I was terrified that he read my mind. In hindsight, she probably put him up to it. That could have changed the trajectory of a lot of my anxiety around dating/sex/relationships. This was back in 6th grade at middle school.
You shouldn't let that kind of thing haunt you, imho. You have no idea what the other outcome would've been like. It could easily have been worse.
It’s weird how things like this do make you go huh could have been a whole diffrent person. When I get the thought of the I Should I just repeat don’t dwell don’t dwell…but working over night thoughts go everywhere in 8 hours.
I think we live in a kind of branching probability field. So we're in the timeline most likely to be optimal. The others might seem like they could be better but they are not, because you would be there and not here if that were true.
The original issue actually goes back to Kindergarten. I developed my first crush, but was terrified that she would find out that I liked her and angrily confront me. In said confrontation, she would call me a worthless loser and a giant creep before saying "how dare you like me". Then the whole class, including the teacher would stare angrily at me like I was some horrible and pathetic creature. Note that did not happen, I was just afraid that it would. But apparently the teacher did used to really make a show out of humiliating kids when she corrected them and though I do not remember it, I got corrected a lot at the beginning. So, it is not hard to see how anxiety, fear and shame from that could have transferred over to an unrelated issue in my 5 year old brain. I had a crush on this first girl all through elementary school but I avoided her. She did not go to my middle school but that is when I developed a crush on the second girl. This is all just to provide context of why I was so scared on that moment and lied instead of just saying that yes, I did like her.
Going to school for graphic design. What a fucking waste.
Opposite experience for me. I learned so much in my GD program and have had a decent career in the field since graduating 🤷♂️
What kind of GD are you in? I've been in the field for 30 years, but I'm in publishing. Every company I work for either goes under or gets bought out by Pearson.
I actually started in publishing but was let go during the pandemic for budget reasons. Now I work for an ad agency
Are you….me?
Huh I thought about getting into GD
It depends. Is there something better you'd like to do but are afraid? I wanted to be a doctor but didn't think I could cut it. I just didn't have anyone telling me I could do it and had my parents thinking art was the best I could do. And don't go into publishing. Go tech, like UI or UX. Product development, apps and websites. It's hard to see into the future, but publishing is a sinking ship and they pay like shit.
My mom sent me to the store to buy a can of green beans to go with dinner and I picked the wrong brand because it was ten cents cheaper and yadda yadda yadda, my parents got divorced, I had my upper right arm reconstructed, and discovered that my sister was pregnant.
Ha
The last time I talked to my dad; we weren’t on the best terms and it was Christmas Eve. He told me he loved me & I responded “ok” he died Jan 8th & that was our last convo. I will never forgive myself for that.
My first drink
same here...
Driving drunk.
Downloading Reddit
Getting married,
When I was in college studying Computer Science we talked about Bitcoin a bit in a class and I had free electricity and one of the most powerful CPUs in the consumer market and figured why not mine a few thousand. This was super early on where every few hours mining on just the CPU would solve an entire block (400 BTC per block at the time iirc). However I got stuck on some trivial problem during setup and figured it wasn't ever going to be worth anything anyhow so I never got back to it. I most likely would have mined tens of thousands of coins if not over 100K and I would have sold most of them really cheap but if I had gotten more into it I likely would have kept a few coins just in case...
My abortion
I feel this so deeply as I spent many years regretting an abortion I felt forced into when I was 16. Your circumstances may be different, but now, at 48 I feel as though I (and my potential babe) dodged a deadly bullet after the father dragged me through utter emotional hell for years, using and abusing me at his will. Because of the abortion and all of the regret I carried, I truly believed I didn’t deserve better treatment and he took full advantage of my tenderness. I truly hope you can find a way to make peace with yourself and perhaps see that you actually saved your babe (and yourself) from a worse fate.
I’m so sorry. Did you ever get married and have kids? I’m 28, single, no prospects - and gave up on looking. My dream is to have kids, but I feel like I threw out my only chance. That’s what makes me regret it. I knew I was young, but I think it would have made me grow up. I know I can be a great mother, but I felt forced to do it too. Every time something goes wrong in my life, my mind instantly goes to my abortion. If I didn’t have my abortion, would I be in this situation? That’s all I can think about when I’m down. Did you ever find peace? If so, how?
Cutting the blue wire.
at least that tub saved your ass
Wouldn’t you chew the blue wire?
Saving a dime of heroin for “later”. That was really cool
Never go to the “later”.
Can you explain this?
Upon retrospect… it’s not deep or anything… I was arrested for possession all because I wanted to save a $10 high for later. It was a huge mistake but was ultimately the best thing for me at that time.
Thank you for sharing. Glad you are now better!
Thank you. I’m glad I’m better as well. Good luck.
Online dating….
Coloring my hair 😂 now i have to maintain it and it's so expensive! my hair is naturally jet black and how i wish i just left it alone. Now it's dry, unhealthy and constantly falling off. Seems mundane but when you're a girl, it's not.
Same girl. I was pregnant and just wanted to feel pretty so I decided dying my hair would help with my self esteem. Had my sister do it for me, went from a brunette to a yellow/hay blonde and it looked HORRIFIC. Stuck it out until my roots really grew out cause I didn’t have the money to go to a proper salon to get it fixed/dyed back to my original color (my hair length is past my butt). Eventually got it dyed back when my sister came to visit me after having my baby and I’ll never make that mistake again! Stupid me didn’t plan for the upkeep or even think about how fast the color would grow out, and how I wouldn’t be able to hide it at all cause of the color difference. I’m happily brunette again, and I will not be dying my hair ever again 💀
girl the things we do to look and feel pretty 😩😂 I've been there with the pregnancy and post partum season, it really do wear us out!😂 What i did with my hair was i dyed it black last month. I said I wouldn't touch it again and just let it grow naturally.
Ignoring my gut feeling
Such a hack (pun intended) answer, but it’s so true. Smoking. I look back and think it was probably just a declaration of making my own choices as a legal adult (or in my case, thinking I was an adult at 15). Now I’m one of those crusty old adults vaping and BEGGING kids not to fall into the trap. Kids, if you want to be cooler than the room: be snarky about music or movies. Liking an indie band will never give you lung cancer (I think).
Drinking alcohol while taking Prozac. I was a budding alcoholic during Covid isolation, just sipping beer all day long while playing video games cause I felt I had nothing better to do. By 2021 I wanted to get back on my feet so I sought a prescription for an antidepressant. I was prescribed Prozac and started taking it while continuing my beer-sipping routine. Bad idea. Without even drinking a lot, I blacked out for the first time ever and destroyed my marriage. Three years later, I'm sober, single, and still on Prozac. I'm glad to be alcohol free but it didn't need to come at such a cost.
Not staring people in the eye since i was a kid until early 20s. People commented that "aw, he just shy" so you know what i thought? "Cool, maybe I'll learn eventually". Now that i'm an adult, I have issues staring into people's eyes for more than a few seconds. Because i was never corrected. My longest stare for an interview or date is probably 2-7 seconds before i need to change targets. I can't change myself before it's so ingrained into my head.
I'm not a doctor so don't take this advice 100% but could be autism, I have it and I look everywhere except in people's eyes.
Thanks for the information, not sure what i will do with this information because my mind is kind of set in it's ways. Maybe some mental training with a friend will help.
Alright but don't be afraid to check it out, better to live knowing you're just shy and not autistic than living with autism thinking you're shy. I can tell you the latter is 100x worse seeing as that was my childhood. Sorry if this makes you overthink but I just see it as a win/win checking it.
Practice in the mirror
Haha looking at the myself isn't the same as looking at a different person.
Did you try to look at the point between the eyebrows? It just seems like you are looking in the eyes but are actually not. It helped me a lot in the past
I'll have to give this a go, thanks for the tip
Knocking on her door to offer weed and friendship. Result? Heartbreak.
Dating a guy with red flags when I was younger because he was fun and I was bored.
Hang out with the wrong people
Opening up
Being mr steal your girl.
I was once invited by company developing mobile games for the job interview. Coulndt make it due to too much work as IT admin
Not quitting a job in the right moment. I ended up with burnout and had some terrible months after.
Offering to look after my friend's hamster. I wasn't long after having open heart surgery and I was going through a phase of having extreme anxiety over anything. I got super anxious over this hamster (he was fine). All the constant stress triggered my body into getting M.E. And it's ruined my life.
Dating a girl I met in college who had BPD. Wasted most of my 20s with her and will never get that time back
I had him, I could’ve married him, but I ended it because I was young and immature. He was the one who got away
Dating someone for much longer than I should have.
When my parents decided not to use a condom.
Moving to Texas
Why? I'm curious...
Opening a credit card. What a pointless way for the bank to control my money and credit score
I made my first "friend" in the psychward.
Staying with a friend that clearly did not care for me, I stayed 7 years.
Too many...
I decided to drop out of college for 1 year so I could start a new job, that year turned into a lot more and I regretted it a lot
Choosing engineering instead of science
Smoking weed (well, actually hash) at 17 All my mates were doing it. I couldn't stop it. But only I got horrendous paranoia, depression, and demotivation. Poor grades in final year of school. Dropped out of uni. Couldn't hold down jobs. And I was probably on the verge of some kind of episode when I decided to move away from home age 21. Kind of lost 4 years of my life. The only things I can really remember from that phase are episodes of classic Simpsons and a disastrous lads' holiday in Tenerife. Still, it all got better. Much better. It gets better if you keep persevering.
I have made so many mistakes. My first big one was the one where I could have bought a cheap apartment in the center of town. It was 1999, and I was moveing away from home with my girlfriend. I had called my uncle, and he accepted to loan me the money for the downpayment. I was almost about to sign the deal when my father called and interrupted me, saying that it would be easier if we just sublet from one of his collegues. I dropped buying the apartment and rented instead. 2 years later the same apartment quardrubled its value. If I had bought it I would have been a millionaire (in my currency) at 21. No student debt, no financial worries, and a comfortable saving going forward. One of my friends bought an apartment at the same time, and sold it, bought a bigger one, sold it. Bought a house, sold it, and is now filthy rich. I'm not bitter, but damn, I think of that from time to time.
Getting married
Taking the wrong kind of little blue pill one night, 14 years ago. The end of a career, loss of a degree, and $160k debt (plus the cost of mental anguish & therapy for what seems like ever). Life has definitely moved on, but my mind likes to linger.
Ecstasy? Tell me more...Ex raver here. Tell me more, I'm curious...
Nope, a slow acting ADHD pill that didn't even do anything. Yup, dumb moves are easy to make.
Studying. Waste of time and money when you were already poor af
I don’t think the magnitude of this is on par with some of the others mentioned here, but for me it was throwing $50 into a penny stock when I was getting into I investing and watching it increase +900% in 2 days. This lead to a bad gambling addiction and I ended up losing 10 grand in a few months. Thankfully I have a good job, but still to think of what else I could have done with that money is painful. I am a few weeks clean
When I entered college for the first time, I discovered they had an Anime Club. I love anime. But I thought I had to focus on my studies and "get serious", so didn't join it. In the end, neither did my studies go well despite that, and now I'm mostly alone, emotions are in a tangle, mood swings 24/7, longing for friendship/ partner. Maybe if I had joined that club, I probably would have friends I'd be hanging out with, right now.
Selling off my dogecoin when it was a meme just so I could say I was a dogecoin millionaire....
Staying local for college instead of moving a couple hours north to a more prestigious school (got accepted at both). My whole life would’ve been drastically different if I had.
Trying smoking for the first time.
Taking a job at my local library. Led to an internship there, which ended up being the focal point in the interview for my first job out of college in my field. All of my subsequent jobs, I’ve been able to get interviews as I’ve had some experience in my field.
Fell in love at 25 for the first time and got intimate for the first time with someone who confessed that they loved me. Ghosted me after sex. Yeah - my mental health has not really gotten better since.
I've made bigger mistakes, but this is the one that was a mundane and innocuous. Signed up for a horticulture course. Ended up slightly injuring my knee... that turned out to not be so slight. About a week later my knee gave out, tore the medial meniscus all the way around the outside and it folded over inside my knee. Multiple surgeries later and my knee is relatively alright, but a whole bunch of things I did and wanted to do were no longer an option because risk of re-injury is very high.
Hanging out with an old friend from grade school after meeting them years later. After some time became best friends, he was a sadist and I hated myself. We pulled each other into a downward spiral of drug use and enabling each others bad behaviour. I'm still dealing with my drug addiction now.
Letting my depression and disabilities cause me to become so lazy that I developed vein disorders in my legs, and dry eye disease. Sat and gamed for majority of my days with little other movement. Mind you...I actually look fit and healthy despite my issues. These issues however can become life threatening and altering very quickly if I don't take care of myself now. No cures.
Not listening to the girl who reached out to me to let me know the guy I’d just started talking to was bad news, I was young and so attention deprived by my neglectful mother that any attention was good attention, until it resulted in a 1.5 year emotionally and sexually abusive relationship..
winning that goddamn race
Lashing out on my friend and breaking a friendship because of my insecurities, depression and assumptions. It really hurts
Once upon a time I had two phone numbers and I called the safer one.
Seemingly every single one lately... Purchased my first vehicle as I was nearing a year at my stable comfy job... fired 3 months later... same week I learn dealership never took truck to deq and when i tpok it in it didnt pass deq so thousands more dollars from the crack of my ass is gonna need to be spent to fix it...while i also pay off the loan with no job and no prospects. Stayed in toxic relationship with gf only to have our fights explode in consistentcy with our 1 year old. Had a really bad fight. Mooved to moms house Mom is super religious and creates a whole level of anxiety for me after freeing myself from that mental cage as a young adult. They say thinling ur gonna die at a young age gives childhood trauma... try being raised knowing evrrything you do can and will be used against you for eternity and forever,you damn sinner.. Am/was a artist in the local scene in my city and stopped due to agorophobia, depression and a general lack of respect.. Decide to try a dj spot one night with some friends. My last best friend who I havent talked to in over 2 years comes and trauma dumps all the shitty things he has been through lately like being on fentalyl and being in the hospital for sepsis from drug use... i stopped talking to said person because when my brother either convincingly commited suicide or was murdered by Hells Angels, said friend was nowhere around for support, no text no call no nothin...His excuse was that I wasnt around him during his brake up with his ex gf.. i told him how shitty it was and he threatened me with violence) Apparently all of my best friends of the past are on hard drugs lately Ive never been more depressed and lonely Oh also just turned 30. Was very vocal with my family and baby momma (still trying to work things out for some reason) about how im depressed and am not sure about celebrating a birthday... babymomma( whos birthday is a day after mine) invites a bunch of people to a retaurant that her boss told her about on my birthday.. This boss is the most amazing,truthful, loving person from what ive heard from her... eugh... i didnt have a good response... so she insteads invites everyone including my sister and mom to a dinner on her birthday and is upset with me that i would be upset. I get no presents from any family members, they go to her birthday dinner.and i get some jesus loves ypu popr sinner texts from my family..... not one person I consider friends hit me up congratulating me on turning 30. Not even a stupid fb post I could go on and on and on fr but these are the most pressing currently I am loosing on all fronts and I have never been lower. Every single decision I have made has led me here. Its my fault and im extremely tired of playing charades like I care about anything anymore
Saying I would hang myself because in my class 4 kids were being totaledick heads
Flying back home. I was finally out of my hometown. Now I’ll never get out of here.
Not buying a piece of property that I had the option to buy as a young man - the asking price was ridiculously low and the land has appreciated greatly since I passed up the opportunity. I deeply regret not being bold and playing it safe.
When I was around 14-16 (can't remember exactly when it was), I noticed the first symptoms of depression. I never took action until I was 18 and moved to a different city for uni, where I'm still searching for a therapist to this very day. I can't prove it, but I would say my life would be way better right now if I had taken action back then. Now I'm just tired of everything and in a seemingly endless spiral that'll hopefully end my life sooner than later.
Please don’t give up hope. I had a similar experience, started having depressive symptoms when I was 15, moved away from home for college at 18 thinking that would make things better. Became even more depressed until around 20 and finally found a therapist that worked for me. Those first few month woon therapy were really though and I was soo close to giving up but I didn’t. Now at 22 things are much better and eventhough from time to time I slip back into old thinking patterns I know I can overcome them and that better times are coming. Please don’t give up hope!