38 Things Nobody Is Ever Prepared For

The death of a parent. No matter how young/old.

Being raped.

Sure, you know it as a concept, a horrible concept that happens to other people. And then it happens to you, and there is no way to be ready for how it will make you feel like you are nothing more than an orifice. Like you are worthless and disgusting. How you will be terrified of men for years and not let anyone touch you. How you will try to date and eventually give up because you can't feel anything.

How your heart will start to race anytime you see a car that looks like his, or walk past someone on the street who vaguely looks like him. You could be thousands of miles away, but that fear is still there.

Living with chronic pain. It's not something you can understand unless you deal with it yourself. And it's not just the pain that wears you down. It's the isolation, losing the ability to do things you love, and watching your life slip through your fingers like sand.

Tyranny of the majority.

In school, if you got a question right that most of the other people got wrong, you were praised for being smart.

In real life, if everyone else around you believes something wrong, it simply becomes right.

When you don't see your parents often anymore and they get noticeably older each visit

Realizing that making and keeping friends is extremely hard. People drift apart pretty easy.

Burying their child. I have a few stories, but any way you cut it, some of the most rational people I know have buried their own kids and I don't think anything before or after, no level of therapy can make you the same again. A family friend's son was basically executed because his roommate was selling weed and some assholes decided to kill them for all of a couple ounces of fucking marijuana. A decade later, they put on a face, but you can tell they're still just going through the motions. It's heartbreaking, there's nothing you can say that I'm sure they haven't already heard a thousand times from well wishing friends/family, it'll just never be the same.

The first time you go to jail. Aside from the 'oh shit' feeling you have about whatever landed you there, there's the realization that you can't leave. It sounds really obvious, but think about it: in the vast majority of places and situations you find yourself in, you can leave. It might not be wise, it might not be right, and it might have consequences, but you have that option. You're used to having so many possibilities in your day to day that you don't really think about it. Until it gets taken away. You mostly get used to it with time, but nobody is prepared the first time.

Watching a parent slowly slip away. I'm currently holding the hand of my dying mother. Two weeks ago she had a massive stroke. She is currently in a coma like state in a hospice facility. She will never recover, just slowly slip away a little more every day. It pains me to see her in this current state. I talk to her as if she was normal, as they say hearing is the last sense you loose. I reassure her everything is ok and there is nothing to worry about, but I leave the room sometimes just to cry.

Alzheimer’s and Demetria. Now imagine that you didn’t know anything that you knew before. It all suddenly is just so far away for you to remember. What if your mother, someone who gave birth to and raised you suddenly forgot who you are or confused you for someone else. That honestly scares me more than death. The sum of everything that people did with their lives is really on held in your memory, material is temporary and can easily be destroyed or taken. But imagine your on your death bed and you die only knowing a few of any details of your life. Imagine if your child came up to say hi and you couldn’t recognize who they were and you thought they were a stranger. Imagine the hurt they would feel. Alzheimer’s is one of those things that really hurts everyone around you. It’s like your body is their but a whole bother person is occupying it and your not their anymore. You're not you anymore.

Googling an old ex to see how she's doing these days since you haven't spoken to her in over 7 years, and finding her obituary online.

It took my brain a good 5 minutes to actually process and acknowledge that the picture of her that came up was from a funeral home website.

Finding out your SO is cheating on you.

That sort of betrayal of trust is brutal and even if you suspect something, you still want to believe it's not true.

Unexpected layoffs. You'll never feel safe at work ever again! :)

"We need to talk"

The loss of a sibling.

I lost my brother a couple months ago and while he was sick we never saw his passing as a reality. It hit the whole family like a truck. None of us are the same and likely will never be the same.

The family dynamic has completely changed, the roles we had filled for the past 30 years all shifted. We're all adrift. We're all flailing. We're all seeking to fill the void of his presence.

No amount of accepting it will change these things. There is a void in our family that only he could fill. We were not, are not, and will not be prepared for dealing with it without him.

Come home, Wife is gone. Kids gone. She took them and left the state.

Sudden disability. Its been almost a decade and I still don’t feel like I fully grasp it and how it changes everything lol...

Childbirth. I just had my daughter five days ago. I thought I was prepared for labor, but holy s*it, back labor is the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. No amount of mental preparation would have made me ready for that. On the plus, my husband finally won the argument of two kids (our daughter is his second) vs. three kids. Because I’m never doing that shit again.

Also, the never ending anxiety of “can I keep a completely vulnerable and fragile human alive today”?

Coming to grips with your own mortality. It just hits you some day that you're going to die, and eventually will be forgotten.

Aint nobody ready for that.

The feelings of your first true heartbreak. That felt like nothing I've ever felt before. Couldn't eat or sleep for a week and the effects have lasted months after. I've had love before but it took me til 28 to truly feel heartbreak like this.