We’ve all been taught that when we don’t have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all. Some people never seem to adopt this mantra, but others appear to think about it constantly. You know the type, the extremely kind and soft spoken people who are somehow always in a good mood. Those who agree to help anyone and everyone at work and who never pick a fight with their significant other. There is nothing wrong with being gentle and sweet as much as possible, but the fact is that nobody can stay like that all the time. At one point or another, something’s going to crack…
One curious individual reached out to the Ask Reddit community and posed the question, “People who’ve seen nice people finally snap, what happened?”, and thousands of readers began sharing stories of when straws finally broke these camels' backs. Below, you can read the hilarious and shocking stories featuring people who were tired of being taken advantage of or walked all over finally standing up for themselves, and they might even inspire you to speak up about something in your personal life as well. Below, you'll also find an interview with Dr. R. Douglas Fields, neuroscientist and author of the book Why We Snap: Understanding the Rage Circuit in Your Brain, to get his insight on the topic.
Be sure to upvote the stories that stand out to you, and then let us know in the comments if you have any similar tales to share, whether it was a surprising situation you witnessed or a time you finally decided to defend yourself. Then if you’re interested in reading another Bored Panda piece featuring people standing up to their bullies, check out this story next.
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#21
This is a story of myself. I've been a pretty normal and tame dude my whole life. I'm very diplomatic and I'm definitely not the fighting type.
Our story begins with my parents forcing 15 year old me to go to a Summer Church Camp for a week. Hadn't really been fond of religion my whole life, so this already had me on edge. I go to the camp and for the most part, things aren't awful. For context in the next part, I'm an old man at heart; I go to bed early, wake up early, and enjoy peace and quiet. I had just learned that all kids had to stay up til midnight at some camp party thing every night, so I was already pretty bummed about that. After sitting in the corner for a few hours trying to make everyone disappear in my mind, the party finally ends and we all get sent back to out cabins.
Here's where the s**t hits the fan. After doing my nightly hygiene rituals, I climb into my bunk and I believe it's lights out. 30 minutes go by and kids are still chatting. I ask everyone to please either take the conversation outside or be quiet as I'm incredibly tired, as a diplomat would do. 30 minutes later, two kids still talking rather loud. I ask once more. Another 30 minutes go by and they're still laughing, joking, and ruining my sleep. I finally outburst with "I ALREADY DONT WANT TO F*****G BE AT THIS JESUS SH*TCAMP, CAN YOU SHUT YOUR GODDAMN MOUTH" and then it's quiet for another 30 minutes. Laughing picks back up again and I leap from the top of my bunk to the laughing kids bunk across from me and just start f*****g going ape s**t with my fists until the camp councillor barges in and I get sent home.
Zero f*****g regrets.
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69points
Thankfully, there are several methods we can use to learn how to properly express our feelings. One way to get in touch with our emotions is to practice mindfulness. It is surprisingly easy to have no idea how we are actually feeling when we don’t take the time to think about it. You can ask yourself how you are doing through journaling, meditation or by simply doing daily check-ins. Therapy is also a great way to learn how to put words to your feelings, and having someone to confide in can be a great first step into working through your complex emotions.
#22
I snapped when a co-worker accused me of training her improperly and then purposely getting her in trouble for the things she claimed I told her... she kept a journal of daily things I told her to do and then yelled at her for. Our boss boss was confused but believing her - I mean she kept a journal right? Until I pointed out I wasn’t at work on a number of days she had written I did something.... oooooops. I went off on co-worker big time for trying to ruin my career... later the boss and my other coworkers were like wow you’re always so sweet... yeah until someone accuses me of bogus b******t
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66points
#23
I am one of them. It was when I was still in highschool, some guy behind me was constantly kicking my chair for a few hours. Asked him five times to stop and also tried the "they get bored if you ignore them" tactic. I was wrong. Suddenly I snapped picked up the guy (I was tall but my arm muscles are basically non existent). The window was open and we were on the ground floor. I basically thrown him out the window during class. He fell about 1.5 meters in prickly bushes and I sat again calmly to pay attention again.
My teacher asked what happened and I said he was annoying me. Never got punished because "if ILoveToiletpaper did that the guy definitely deserved it"
It wasn't something I thought of doing, back then I thought I wouldn't physically be able to.
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59points
#24
A long time ago, I used to do call center tech support for fairly complex issues. A really nice, quiet guy went through the same training class. He talked if you talked to him, but never went out of his way to chat.
Right after training, the call center changes a ton of stuff - we start getting squeezed on the amount of time we can do documentation, how much research time we have, just metrics in general. It was utter b******t, because the favorites got to go on smoke breaks as often as they wanted with the managers. We'd essentially be punished for that because we had to keep the *average* numbers in a certain area. He did all the right things. Talked to his manager, talked to their manager, then to HR. It kept getting worse, plus enforced overtime. Then he got a super long call (he was on it at least two hours) about a complex issue, and the customer was just straight up abusing him but he had to take it because the managers wouldn't give permission for him to hang up. And they were basically screaming at him to resolve this issue and get to his next call, but we couldn't end calls, the customer had to.
One day he just stood up, stepped onto his chair, then onto his desk, threw his headset on the desk and sort of growled something like "f**k this," quietly. He looked around, staring people in the face, especially the people who took those long breaks and the managers.
Then he walked out and no one ever saw him again. Everyone was super quiet and afraid to move or say much of anything.
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58points
It is also important to start being honest with yourself and others about how you feel. Once you have gotten a hang of mindfulness and you know how to properly articulate your emotions, it’s time to start sharing them with others. This can be scary at first, especially when your friends or family members might not be used to you bringing up any conflicts or issues, but it will feel like a huge weight off your chest. You can prepare what you’d like to say ahead of time and write it down if the idea of confrontation makes you nervous, but I promise, it will be worth it to start being truthful. It is never worth the stress to conceal your emotions.
#25
I consider myself a nice friendly guy, and I'm pretty quiet. So I was dating this girl and it turned out my friends, who I consider even friendlier then I, bf dated this person as well, and my friend told me that she was a really toxic person. It didn't bother me too much, as I'm one of those people that don't want too judge people based off of others opinions. But about a month or two into the relationship, I started to see what my friend was talking about. So, a few days later I broke up with her. In the following days she started s**t talking me and started spreading rumors about me and my friend. My friends bf heard these rumors and broke up with her. So we were both pretty pissed about the situation. Three days later, my friend caught her ex kissing my ex and confronted them. She was relatively chill about it, its not like he was really cheating, but it hurt either way. She was about to leave, but my ex said "it probably hurts you more to know I was doing him while you were dating." My friend slowly turns around and asks her to repeat herself. My ex happily obliged. Worst mistake of her life. My friend jumped on to her and started beating the s**t out of her, even ripping out some of her hair. When she was done with her, she went up to her ex and said "you want to cheat on me, that's fine. But you can get your s**t beat with her" slapped him and kicked him in the nuts. We still talk about this today.
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56points
#26
My freshman science teacher was a super nice and funny older man. One day someone messed up a lab he spent a long time planning and the dude absolutely lost it. He was throwing stuff, breaking stuff, tearing stuff off the walls, etc.
He was fine the next day and never did that again. It was like it never happened.
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55points
#27
To make a long story very short, I went to a middle school that was very conspicuously gerrymandered in the sense that around 60% of the school district were from upper middle class neighborhoods, with the remaining 40% residing in a backdrop from a 90's John Singleton film. That being said, it was an interesting mix of students and always a great laugh.
My 8th grade year I decided to take Spanish as a foreign language, and while I was serious about picking up as much of it as I could the other half of the class spent most of our class periods roasting each other, beat-boxing, and generally creating an atmosphere of chaos and good-humor.
Enter my Spanish teacher, she was at most twenty-three, beautiful, sweet, and very naive. From the moment she walked into the class, she expected that she were there to change lives, a task who's impossibility would quickly become apparent.
As time went on and the chaos in the classroom became increasingly apparent, one day she literally just snapped. She walked over to the corner where some of my class-mates were playing dice (literally gambling in the middle of class), threw their cardboard and dice across the room and just exploded, I've never seen anything like it, she went from sweet and soft-spoken to screaming at the top of her lungs and completely losing it. In a single class period she suspended 9 students, threatened suspensions for anyone who as much as said a single word for the rest of the year, and even flagged down some security guards to tear some of the more intense problem students away from their desks. Around a week later, she disappeared and was never seen at school again.
tl;dr: Teacher was a kind and gentle soul, went hulk-mode, lost her s**t, and was never heard from again.
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45points
Humans are capable of experiencing a complex range of emotions, and we are meant to embrace them all. And although it can make for a funny story when nice people finally snap, it is sad that they felt the need to ever mask their emotions in the first place. Keep upvoting the stories that you find most interesting or shocking, and then let us know in the comments if you have any similar anecdotes to share. Remember to let those emotions flow freely, and if you need to blow off some steam, I recommend finding a healthy outlet like working out or screaming into a pillow.
#28
I do research at a university in Virginia under the PI, otherwise known as, the boss lady. This lab is a cardiac MRI lab and we are encouraged to ask lots of questions and make sure we ACTUALLY UNDERSTAND what we are doing, so we do it correctly.
We work on over 30 patients, so you mess up one, you will most likely mess up all and that could mean a months worth of work.
Now talking about the boss lady.....wonderful, knowledgeable, patient, and kind woman. Never once had a bad experience with her. I do what she wants, she treats me well.
Well, she hired a new person in our lab and let's say she doesn't understand how important it is to do it correctly the first time but keeps knodding her head when asked if she knows what to do. Not even a question asked.
Fast forward 2 months, the research is about to be submitted to NIH and etc., so this is a very important time. New hire gives the spreadsheet data to the boss lady and all stats are wrong. Messed up for sure, a mistake definitely happened somewhere. This stats took 2 months to retrieve.
The look on the PI's face was priceless. She looked at the new hire and back at the stats. You could tell she was trying her hardest not to be angry, but she was picking out everything that was wrong. I have never seen her behave this way and it absolutely scared the s**t out of me. She was trying so hard to control her tone, but her anger was showing through.
Well, now, I haven't seen the new hire in a few weeks and I think I know what happeneddd.
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44points
#29
Was in Boy Scouts a few years back at summer camp. There was a Scout in my troop who was basically a giant teddy bear. Him and his whole family are the nicest, sweetest people you will ever meet. We’ll call him James. Anyways, there was this a*****e kid who loved to f**k with everyone’s s**t. We’ll call him Chad. One of the days during summer camp, James made a boat out of wood. He brought it back to our campsite after the day was over. He was sitting with Chad and some other scouts, including myself. Chad began to mess with James, asking to see his boat. James allowed him to see it. Chad demanded to hold the boat, and James said no. Chad began messing with James even more, trying to snatch the boat from him. Then Chad managed to grab the boat. James grabs him by the waist, picks him up, and sends him f*****g crashing into the table. James began to cry while smiling. We basically bullied Chad out of the troop after that. It was glorious.
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43points
#30
My extremely docile sister punched me in the face because I kept calling her a dingus. She's never done anything violent in her entire life.
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40points