65 Men Recall The Exact Moment Everything Fell Apart

I have three from my time being a first responder. I had a rough childhood and was in the army as an infantryman but these were rough.

I was first on scene to a drown 3 year old girl, my son was 4 at the time. Her parents were upstairs, she snuck off, got out somehow and fell in the pool. Luckily dad found her quickly. I ran in and he handed me a completely lifeless little girl, not breathing and purple. Luckily FD was right behind me about 30 seconds so I handed her off to them. They brought her back to life in the ambulance. It was amazing.

I was first on scene to a girl that sh*t herself with a 410 judge that her fiancé had committed s*****e with the same pistol, in the same house a year earlier and it still had our evidence tag on it. It was returned to his family after the case was closed, she lived with them. I've been first to a lot of s**cides but that was brutal in a lot of ways. I can still taste and smell how that room was 5 years later.

I was first on scene to a mid 30s year old lady that drowned in her bathroom and her 6 and 4 Y/O daughters found her. She slipped getting out of the shower, knocked herself out, it somehow over filled, the door was jammed with her clothes and she drown in about 2 inches of water. I sat on the couch with her kids for 45 minutes watching SpongeBob while FD/EMS worked on her on the back room of the house. She was military, divorced and they had no family to come get them so I just sat with them. She didn’t make it and I waited with the kids about 2 hours for a family member . All I could think of was small me watching my mom d*e. It was pretty rough.

I’ve been to over 100 deaths, m*rders, auto fatalities, etc but those stick out. I’ve forgotten about most of them until one of my buddies starts talking about one and has to remind me.

When my mum accidentally let slip that I was the child to save the marriage. He’d already left at this point.

The only thing that matters is if you are useful to others.

One of my best friends died last year in a car accident. I arrived from a horrible Vacation, where almost everything went to s**t and I was so happy when I finally get out of that plane and then I got the message, that he died last night.

I could not even cry, not one tear. I just was standing there and didn't know what to do, what to say and what now.

At the evening I went to my other friends, we were just sitting there, drinking some beers. And everyone cried and tried to say something about him.
But I was just sitting there. Calm and sad. But somehow I felt like something inside me died too.

Miss him.

When I realized that in my environment, all my life, the only one having my back, is me. No one is gonna stand up for me, so I’m going to. Even as a kid, no one really had my back.

I had a very vivid imagination as a child and routinely played alone with my toys. Going on adventures, replaying alternate endings of movies or shows very standard imaginative kid play.

We moved when I was 12 or so, when I unpacked my toys and set them up in my room I was all excited and I unpacked them and the feeling wasn’t the same.

Whether it was going through the grief of missing my old house or something entirely different about getting older, I realized that the spark of the play was gone.

When I realized my relationship with my family (parents and sibling) was one-sided.  When I stopped putting in effort, we just stopped talking.  Glad my little family is solid (spouse and kids).

When I accidentally discovered that the love of my live with whom I've been living for 10 years was lesbian.

Emotional a***e is real, and it'll destroy even the strongest people in time. When that day comes, you turn into a different person with little to no hope of ever coming back.

You just pray that moving forward puts you in a better place for all around you, including yourself.

The day I walked in on her in bed with someone else. Previously I had always had a positive outlook on people I was romantically involved with. After, I seriously question if two people can ever be happy together long term.

I was s******l for ten years and hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t know how to reach out. And one night I felt like I couldn’t hold on anymore so I blurted out to my wife that I was s******l and I needed help. She stared at me and said, “I don’t know what to do with that.” I knew that I was on my own at that point. I love her, but she is emotionally stunted. That came from how she was raised. I’m much better now, by the way. Mushrooms took care of the bad thoughts.

When my son was k****d.

I've been arguing with my step mom recently. Told me that my relationships are transactional and then didn't say she loved me on my birthday.

Turns out love IS conditional, and if I'm not receiving the same validation, respect, and awareness, it's going to make it very hard for me to do the same.

The day I went through my then wife's phone and found the messages.

Went on a cousins vacation with 4 of my adult cousins. Not a single one of them would make even the smallest decision about anything. “What do you want to do?”-me “i dont know im down for whatever” - all 4 of them. Mentally, something in me broke that trip. I felt like a mother duck with 4 fully grown clueless ducks following me. I hate having to think for an entire group. How the f**k does no one have a preference or idea during an entire trip.

The time I was holding my wife and said “I love you” and she replied “I want someone different.” I stayed awake that night and listened as her phone received text after text from that “someone” else. She later moved him into my home. It got worse - much worse.

But that’s the night I stopped believing in happiness.

The day I realized I could not rationalize with irrational people.

I always assumed growing up, that you could always get through to someone with the right combination of words. Be it either, speech, inspirational quote, or just basic logic.

A part of me died the day I realized that some people are very comfortable believing in their lies, and no amount of logic, or reason, will ever change that. Some people are just lost, forever.

Forth of July weekend 2015. Found out my wife had been having an affair for over a year. When I confronted her about it all she said was “🤷‍♂️ my bad”.

Texting favorite cousin by 7am she's gone by 3pm.

March 8th, 2024: I was a passenger in a bad rollover accident which resulted in my hospitalization due to partial scalping and the tip of one finger being partially severed. Fortunately, the scalp grew back, the finger was reattached and the pain, though the worst I've ever felt *by far*, was managable even without the benefit of pain meds (turns out intravenous opiods just kinda don't do anything for me).

The worst part about it, by far, was when my wife walked into the ICU and saw me in that state for the first time. She'd just lost her mother three weeks previously, and knowing that I'd almost put her through that pain a second time just broke something inside of me. I'll carry the guilt from that as long as I live.