"I Was Briefly Anti-Vax": People Share What Made Them Change Their Stance On Something

Universal Healthcare.

I used to be AGAINST it. I now SUPPORT it.

I did a college project showing the case AGAINST Universal Healthcare. I had fantastic insurance through my dad's employer at the time.

Fast forward: 26th birthday.

Lost my dad's insurance.

Had a crappy retail job and couldn't afford insurance. Wasn't able to find work in my field. Was also in my state's gap for coverage. I was scared to death about getting sick. Even the simplest problem like needing antibiotics scared me so so much. There was no way I could afford a hospital bill.

Eventually I clawed my way up and landed a job with good pay and great health insurance. Regardless those few years where I was uninsured scared me so much... I worry about those who don't have adequate coverage and aren't fortunate enough to move up in the workplace. It's a nerve wracking place to be.

Everyone should be taken care of. Period. Nobody should have to make a choice between keeping a roof over their head or having health insurance.

Edit: some words.

I used to think poor people were just lazy, but then I learned more about history and racism and economics. Now I basically think rich people are the problem.

As a teenager I used to debate people online about why gay marriage is wrong.

Then I went to a Christian college, studied my faith and Hebrew, and realized the Bible doesn't even say that. Yay for my hippie Christian school. Now I'm still a Christian, but one that's a LGBT ally and who tries to convince others they are wrong about what the Bible says about gay people and others.

(Also realized my faith alone shouldn't dictate law anyway).

I used to be super anti abortion cause I grew up with horror stories of it being a situation where the babies were ripped apart and pulled out.

I got more educated, and then had a friend go through one, and now I'm pro choice. I still don't like the idea of abortions. It's way better to prevent pregnancies. But I support them being legal and the woman being able to choose.

I used to be a staunch Republican and now lean heavily to the left. In essence, I stopped voting for "me" and started voting for "we".

I used to be anti-union, because I saw too many "lazy" workers being protected. After a few years, I saw too many "great" workers left unprotected. I realized that unions help protect the balance.

Used to b***h about "frivolous lawsuits" and say things like "a******s can sue McDonald's when their coffee's too hot".

But came to learn the truth of that suit (Documentary "Hot Coffee") and realized the courts are one of the last places where the average person stands any chance against the wealthy/powerful/corporations.

I grew up in a religious cult believing that I liked other guys because of imperfection and sin, and whole heartedly devoted my life to suppressing that “illness”.


I ended up in the hospital on an attempted to take my own life by overdose. During my mandatory psychiatric stay, a psychiatrist gave me quite a figurative slap in the face. Unlike therapists up until that point, he had absolutely no respect for the idea that I could suppress being gay. He was openly against it to the point of being rude. Would straight up laugh in my face when I said with all determination that I could lead a celibate life. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but his words stuck with me and made me rethink my priorities. Long story short, I’m now out of the cult and have 0 contact with any of my old friends or family. It still hurts a lot but I can say with confidence now that I made the right choice.

I was briefly on the anti vaxx train with it causing autism and s**t. Then seen a point about how we just got better at diagnosing it and was like “that makes sense” and that was that.

I'm a latino person that hated "those" latinos that made me look bad.

Stopped watching Fox news after I moved out. After a few incidents with racists that can't differentiate legal/illegal, realized myself and parents are brainwashed.

I thought people who didn't want go to college or people who didn't even try to pursue a higher education were making a mistake. Now with the cost of college, student loans, and meeting people who were successful without college, I totally get it.

I used to think it was bad for kids to be raised by a gay couple. I wasn't militantly against it, but I disagreed with it thinking the kids would be mercilessly teased. Then in college while writing for the school newspaper I was sent to cover a lecture given by two guys who adopted d**g addicted babies and gave them a home. They even nursed an HIV positive baby to being HIV negative. Opinion changed almost immediately.

Growing up in a religious Jewish household, Israel was meaningful and important to a lot of my family members, some of whom were holocaust survivors.

(Try, for a moment, by the way to put yourself in the headspace of a holocaust survivor on this. You've been through hell and back and lost most, if not all of your friends and family on the other side, your entire life has been defined and dominated by antisemitism and being an outsider.

And then you find out Jews are getting their own m***********g country. HOT DAMN. Sounds pretty f*****g sweet. So, I get the appeal.)

So there was a lot of subtle pressure in my life to see the actions of Israel's government in a positive light, pretty much no matter what, and most of my Jewish peers went on "birthright" trips to Israel and came back really adamantly zionist (it was a little spooky even).

And I really just wanted to believe that and wanting to believe it for a long time functioned as believing it until... it just didn't anymore and now I'm just a self-aware critic of Israel. I don't think Israel can be made to not exist as a country, but I think there needs to a be a radical reformation within its government and culture that moves it away from being a flagrant ethnostate.

Honestly, though I never expressed them externally I had some rascist and superiority complex thoughts and had some aversion to people due to these thoughts. I slowly learned as I got older that these thoughts had no basis and were completely wrong and found myself quickly having friends who more likely than not were completely different from me :).

I used to think that death penalty was a good idea. I thought about the people who've been killed who were later proven innocent. I don't think we as people no matter what happened should have the right to take someone's life.

I used to want kids.

I really, really wanted to have kids. My whole life I wanted to be a Mom, dreamed of what my children would be like. I was always fairly practical about when I wanted to have them, though, and was pretty careful not to get pregnant. After being married for 5 years, my husband and I decided to go for it. We tried for a little over 2 years, unsuccessfully.

It sucked.

One day I got my period and was relieved. Relieved that I wasn't pregnant. I realized that I didn't want that anymore. Talked to my husband, he felt the same, I got back on birth control. That was a couple years ago, and now we are discussing sterilization for both of us.

I used to really believe that it's not worth doing something if you can't do it right. After all, no one wants someone who's not committed if there's someone out there who's more committed.

Kept this mentality through college and it cost me almost all my grades; I go to a really competitive school and the amount of work is such that it's absolutely unrealistic to expect to put my best foot forward all the time. I didn't understand that and as a result I would literally just not turn in assignments. I ended up failing 3 classes in one semester because I couldn't turn in any essays, problem sets, or fully prepare readings for class. I got depression and couldn't summon the energy to shower, brush my teeth, or eat breakfast, so I just didn't.

Taking a semester off made me realize that most of the things in life need to be done, more than they need to be done well. For example, I think most of us can understand that it's better to brush your teeth once a day, with no toothpaste, for 30 seconds, than it is to not do it at all. Similarly, it was a slap in the face when my English professor came up to me after I failed the semester and said, "you need to learn to be comfortable giving me s****y essays because a 40% is better than a 0%."

I've found it applies to more of life than just college. Closed mouths don't get fed.

I used to be super pro Second Amendment. I had been waning on it for a while and then the Las Vegas Massacre happened. I just couldn't justify it anymore. I'm not militant about it or anything. I don't think we should ban everything, but *something* has to be done. There are too many weirdos out there who are being radicalized online.

I used to think that people who claimed to have an anxiety disorder were mostly exaggerating and crying for attention. Then I moved away for an internship one summer and got to walk a mile in their shoes. I knew no one where I was living, and ended up isolating myself. Symptoms crept in one at a time, and while I never reached a point where I felt it absolutely necessary to seek professional help I did get pretty close.

Going from feeling generally comfortable in my own skin to constantly worrying about what you've screwed up and what you're going to screw up next is a terrible feeling. Not being able to sleep a wink despite being exhausted for nights on end is something I don't ever want to experience again either. It made my performance at that job horrendous. Luckily I spend enough time on the internet to stumble across really inspiring people and sources that helped me fix my situation. Others aren't quite so lucky, and have to work 10x as hard to battle through it.

I used to be solidly in favor a routine infant circumcision. I believe it was cleaner and healthier and that it protected the boy from a lot of problems. now I have learned better and I'm very solidly in favor of everyone having body integrity and all kids being protected from genital mutilation.