People Share Unexpected Traumatic Events, Stories Are Nightmare Fuel

What’s something that most people don’t realize can be pretty traumatic?

As many people know, I’m a fan of scrolling Reddit at least once a day to check out whatever might be popping off.

Whether it’s funny, educational or something else, it’s always a fun way to get the day started while sipping on some straight black coffee.

Well, things took a bit of an interesting turn this morning.

Traumatic experiences go viral on Reddit.

While scrolling, I stumbled across a thread titled “What is something that is actually more traumatizing than people realize?”

Naturally, I immediately clicked, and the results were pretty interesting…..or scary, depending on how you look at the situation.

Check out some of the responses below, and let me know your thoughts at David.Hookstead@outkick.com:

• Concussion. Got my first at age 60. My memory was really good before, nearly photographic good. Now, I forget the names of people, objects, and almost anything. It’s like part of my brain got locked up, and I don’t have a key for it.
• Being betrayed by someone you considered trustworthy
• Working for a sh*tty boss / supervisor. It plays on your brain.
• Trauma seems dramatic but getting laid off really f*cked me up. Every day waking up with a pit in your stomach. I still think about it daily at my current job and it’s been years.
• Emotional neglect—it leaves deep, invisible scars
• ICU stays. I’ve been intubated twice this year and ICU delirium is so real and so awful and scary you really have no sense of reality and it makes processing anything next to impossible. I hallucinated my dead boyfriend decomposing in front of me and just generally had no idea what was real
• Friends breakups.
• The death of a pet.
• Getting fired
• Being bullied
• Living with an invisible chronic condition – in my case, crohn’s disease. In my wife’s case, fibromyalgia. We both look fine on the outside, but frequently deal with different types of unseen pain and discomfort that others have trouble relating to. Even though they’re different conditions, It’s nice that we each have a brief understanding of what the other is experiencing.
• Parents not teaching you basic life skills. When I turned 18, My parents never taught me how to do anything so i had to learn everything from google and sometimes my adult coworkers, thankfully I had someone there who taught me that stuff. Hearing about peoples families giving them life advice and skills just hurts.
• Being left out. Even though I’m accepted and have a pretty strong voice in my fraternal order, I still have intense feelings of loneliness left over from growing up that I have a hard time expressing.
• Having someone manipulate you for years in a relationship and realise when it’s ending that you’re a shell of who you once were.
• Watching someone you love die. I mean, I didn’t expect it to be good or easy, but omg I’ll never be the same as the day my mom died.
• Being robbed

Well, that thread is certainly an interesting way to get the day rolling. Some of that is pure nightmare fuel, and it’s a reminder that no matter how bad you think you have it, there’s probably someone out there who has it worse.

There’s one mentioned on that list that’s pretty hard to disagree with, and it’s the death of a pet. Losing a pet can be absolutely brutal.

I lost my favorite dog Jake nearly a decade ago, and it still hurts when my brain goes back in time. I think I’ve shed more tears for that dog than actual humans I know who have died. The reason? I liked that dog more than I like humans. He was an absolute beast, and the greatest hunting dog I’ve ever witnessed go to work.

So, I definitely understand how much losing a pet can hurt.

Do you have one that sticks out in your mind? Let me know at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.