Hey Pandas, What's The Most Life Changing Thing That Has Ever Happened To You? (Closed)

being in a toxic/emotionally abusive relationship at 14 (when i didnt know how to respond or what to look for in a toxic relationship). she was so good at manipulating peoples feelings that i still miss her, even now that i know what she did. it really messed me up. (we only broke up two months ago so its still pretty recent)

My most “life changing” experience was the day I was born. My mother died while giving birth to me. 70 years later, I still wonder what it might have been to have known her.

I have two:
Number one: Probably losing my dog. He passed away prematurely due to being run over by a vehicle on a road by our house. Basically this was the most life-changing because he was one of the biggest parts of my life. I had him since I was one year old. So basically my whole life. Losing him was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through in my entire life. It taught me grief, and it taught me how to try to move on. I still think about him constantly.
2: (Don’t worry this one is happy, I don’t want to be a party pooper) Moving where I live now. I lived in Redding, California for a few years, but after a while, my family moved to Bend, Oregon. I met the people I know I’m gonna know for the rest of my life. I experienced true happiness and I made new friends and family. I also learned what incredible food was like. Very nice. Changed my entire life.

My best friend died from an overdose 2 months before his 31st Birthday and 1 month before I was going to visit him. We met in a recovery program but both ended up relapsing. After a few years he ended up moving down south to get sober and was successful at first. We both would only get messed up occasionally. 2 days before he passed we talked on FaceTime and I remember thinking he looked so much healthier. I got a text from his mom telling me he had died shortly after she found out. My entire life changed in a split second. I was home alone with the child I used to babysit and waited hours for her to call me back with details. I knew exactly what happened and it was devastating. I could not believe that he was gone and the pain I was going through was unbearable. I could not imagine how his mother was feeling. That was it for me I was done I got sober less than a month later and have been clean for almost four and a half years. The thought of putting my family thru so much pain if that were to happen to me was enough to make me finally get sober for real. I miss him every single day, he saved my life and I will live the years I have left for both of us.

Postpartum depression. I hadn’t heard of this condition before, and my mother and other family & friends had never dealt with something like this, and most didn’t even what it was called. I never had dealt with depression before, so it was like a ton of bricks had fallen out of the sky & landed on me. I was so ashamed that I was so sad, and felt guilty about it. I was a mother to this amazing, beautiful, little baby girl, I felt like crying 24/7. I doted on her and made sure she had a ton of attention, love & affection, (I still do, even though she’s very much grown up) but nobody could understand why I was down. It seemed that all the color drained out of my life, and now everything was gray. Then one day I was at the urgent care clinic, and this doctor looked at me (and to this day, this doctor is a hero to me & will always be) and sat down and asked how I was feeling mentally, I poured out everything to him. Then he started to tell me how he went through a dark time, and spoke about depression. Of course he recognized that mine was postpartum, and that was the first day in a long journey that I had an inkling of hope. And as I got more help and was healthier, I made a promise to never be ashamed to relate my experiences to other people, because like that doctor, you never know whose life you are saving. There is so much help available, and even though I lost myself before, I am here and stronger for it.

I would have to say a lot, different chapters in life holds different life changing events, but this current chapter I'm in will be this Friday. I have to put my dad on end of life care. He's been on a ventilator for 3.5 months and he's not getting better. I honestly don't believe he'll live through the weekend. He's only 62. This whole experience has definitely changed my life as I know it, and when it's all over I will never be the same.

I was diagnosed with and incurable and ultimately fatal disease 7 years ago. It turned me into a much better, kinder person. I do volunteer work, I donate money and time, I always help my friends when in need and protect those I care about. It changed my perspective on life and how we should live it. I never waste a day, my friends don’t know where I get this energy from but I use every hour I can. It progresses slowly so I know I got a good couple decades and who knows modern medicine may fix it so I am optimistic.

Being a mom. When I found out I was pregnant it changed my whole life. I used a lot of drugs and was in an abusive relationship. The moment I knew my son was in there (luckily it was really early, the test said 1-2 weeks) I quit drugs and smoking, left my abusive boyfriend and started to make sure my life was in order before I went in labor. I didn't want that kind of life for my child. Now I'm a lot happier, more loving and opener to other people. I do still have cptss but I'm in therapy for it. Although it is really hard sometimes to be a single mom, going through intensive therapy and having a son with adhd and maybe autisme, I love being a mom and my son is just such a beautiful and loving child. I really do believe that my son saved my life.

for me, its making a true friend

My husband and I had just bought our first house, within that year, I found out he had cheated with a "friend", he left, but just one month prior, my mom, who I was I was incredibly close with and spoke to everyday on the phone, if I didn't see her, was diagnosed with Leukemia. (She pasted away a year later at age 60.) We, husband, two children and myself lived with her prior to buying our house. The two children were in elementary school ages nine and seven and I only had a 2-hour day job working as a lunch lady at the school in the neighborhood for extra money. I didn't think I never come out of that tailspin. I didn't know how I was going to support my children financially, emotionally or pay my bills, keep my house. But you never know how strong you are until you really are put to the test! My mother came to live with me for the last 4 months of her life. I gave her the master bedroom I painted the color she likes and that's where she passed away. I was in that house until both children were grown and on there own.
I'm proud to say they are highly functioning, very loving, kind adults and I did that by myself. Now I'm in a relationship with somebody I've known my whole life, in love and happy. We didn't reconnect until we were 50. Life does get better!

Divorced parents…….. honesty

After years of drug addiction, I got sober. 1 year, four months, 4 days, and counting!

I have some trauma to unpack, being trafficked, becoming sober from IV drug use, becoming a mom to twins and having one almost die of heart disease ( they are 11 now). Just as I thought ok I'm ok, in each of these, and many other things, but these things in particular..changed me as a person. I got some emotional things to still sort out but overall.. I'm sober, I'm a married mom. And I do my best to be who they need me to be. Stuff the trauma down stuff the residual coating of what these situations have done to me as a human. I'm different.

Having to identify my brothers body following a fatal motorbike crash in 1978 - he was 17, I was 19, my Mum couldn't be contacted (pre mobile phone days) as she'd gone to a party and hadn't informed anyone where it was and my Dad who was in the RAF was on exercise in Africa ; he didn't find out for 2 days. Changed me and our family mostly for the worse if I'm honest.

Being kicked out at 19. My mom and I butted heads horribly. Out of the blue she told me I was moving in with my sister in a month, so I better figure it out. I loaded up my bed, dresser, and clothes, and moved from my isolated small town to East LA. I shared a room with my 2 toddler nephews and paid for room and board. When I couldn't find a job, mom said I could move back.
On conditions which boiled down to I had to love jesus. I told her I'd rather live in a card board box in down town LA. My sister offered for me to stay so I wouldn't be homeless. Few weeks later I found a job. I've been financially independent for 21 years. I fear who I would've been if I'd never been kicked out.

I had a full on psychotic break. I lost all touch with reality, truly and deeply believed that I was a ghost, and couldn't function on any level. I'm not dead because of my best friend who pretty much bodily dragged me through life until I started to come out of it. (To doctor appointments, to therapy, to take my medications, to eat, etc.)

On the other side, though, I'm so much better than I ever was before it happened. It made me realize what was important.

I was 15 and dating a drug dealer 8 years my senior. I started taking ecstasy, shrooms, acid, and many other drugs in all sorts of combination. Eventually, he got me into meth. I was leading down a very dark road. I tried breaking up with him several times but somehow he manipulated me where I started begging him back into my life. My parents didn’t know what I was doing but they saw how ill I looked. They somehow shipped me off to Asia where I detoxed for a month and got my head straight enough that I was able to break up with him over the phone. I told him I cheated on him (I didn’t) and he started screaming at me and I just hung up the phone. I felt so much relief afterwards that I started crying that it was finally over. I came back to the states and met him to pick up my belongings and I was fine enough to not get sucked back into him. If my parents didn’t send me away, I would be dead. My parents and I haven’t had the best relationship but this I will always be grateful for.

I enrolled in a top-ranked MBA program at UCLA but my economics professor was a horrible instructor and I was told that I had to take that class with THAT professor. But I decided that was simply not acceptable so I went to another professor teaching the same course and asked if I could enroll in his course. He agreed and I made the transfer. That course changed my life. I learned that prices and wages were set by supply and demand in the market, NOT by greedy bosses and corporatists. And this process prevents inefficient surpluses and shortages, which is why market economies have been the ONLY successful economic system in ALL of human history. Every wage and every price is a FAIR wage/price if it's accepted by workers and consumers. If it wasn't, they would find a better one elsewhere.

Understanding economics helped me to acquire $40 million by age 55 and retire. It's sad that this isn't taught to everyone.

One word ...........Puberty

My husband and I had just bought our first house, within that year, I found out he had cheated with a "friend", he left, but just one month prior, my mom, who I was I was incredibly close with and spoke to everyday on the phone, if I didn't see her, was diagnosed with Leukemia. (She pasted away a year later at age 60.) We, husband, two children and myself lived with her prior to buying our house. The two children were in elementary school ages nine and seven and I only had a 2-hour day job working as a lunch lady at the school in the neighborhood for extra money. I didn't think I never come out of that tailspin. I didn't know how I was going to support my children financially, emotionally or pay my bills, keep my house. But you never know how strong you are until you really are put to the test! My mother came to live with me for the last 4 months of her life. I gave her the master bedroom I painted the color she likes and that's where she passed away. I was in that house until both children were grown and on there own.
I'm proud to say they are highly functioning, very loving, kind adults and I did that by myself. Now I'm in a relationship with somebody I've known my whole life, in love and happy. We didn't reconnect until we were 50. Life does get better!