There are a lot of stories about truly horrible things out there in the world: kidney stones, migraines, bed bugs, panic attacks... Some stories everyone believes, while others give us doubts. Thankfully, not all of us have experienced them firsthand... but those who actually have taken the internet to describe the things that are actually as bad as everyone says they are. Trust their work and thank whatever higher power you believe in that you were spared from experiencing them yourself.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 At Least Someone Understood
I had a math teacher bang his hand down on the desk beside me after I told him I had a migraine and needed to stop working. My vision blurred from the pain, and I could not walk straight as I left his classroom. He was yelling at me to get back to my desk, while my best friend was yelling at him to stop. I just walked to the office and told the secretary I was going home.
Thankfully she got it because she took one look at me and asked if I needed someone to walk me home. (She knew I only lived about a two-minute walk away.) I never did get the detention the math teacher promised me either. I think the secretary marked me medically absent from his class. At least someone understood what I was going through.
#2 Bed Bugs Are Everywhere
It's been five years since I had bedbugs and I still panic every time I visit a hotel, buy something that could carry them, go into a thrift store, or get a bug bite. When I was in college, my roommate and I moved into an apartment where they came in through the walls from the neighbors. The landlords apparently knew this was an issue on our floor, but neglected to mention anything to us despite it only being a matter of time before they spread.
They tried to make us pay for the heat treatments and blamed us for bringing them into the residence, but the pest guy had our backs. They sealed the wall (it was drywall that had been haphazardly attached to brick when the building was converted from a warehouse), killed the bugs, and gave us a letter so we could go to court if they tried to continue being shady.
#3 The Horrors Of Chemo
Chemotherapy. I'd say it is way worse than what most Hollywood movies and TV shows depict it to be. It is not only painful, but it is also humiliating because often you don't reach the toilet bowl before you throw up all over yourself.
#4 A Cure Worse Than The Tattoo
I've had four one-hour sessions of laser removal so far for a large tattoo on my back. It's more painful than the original tattoo process. During the session, it feels like someone flicking the same area over and over again with a bunch of rubber bands, which doesn't sound bad but it's in quick succession and being in the same place gets old very quick.
After 40 minutes, you feel weak and generally can't take anymore. Your pain threshold is just done. Then comes the skin weeping from a bazillion little blisters that come from the process. The constant wiping needed due to them popping and staining your shirts. Finally, after a week of blisters comes the itching and skin shedding as it heals. Oh, the itching!
Then you go to the next session and repeat after about three weeks which obviously comes around way too quickly. All in the ultimate hope that it will fully remove the tattoo or at least leave a mere watermark.
#5 The Worst Feeling On The Planet
I’ve been having minor social panic attacks for about six months, and I never thought anything of it other than “I’ll learn to control it.” I had my first major panic attack driving down the highway and I was convinced I was going to crash, or puke, or both. I had to pull over and try to lay down in my back seat to calm down—but every time I’d try to muster up the courage to drive the rest of the way home, I’d get the feeling again. Finally, I was able to get myself to drive home but had to pull over three separate times on a seven-mile trip to calm myself down. It was the absolute worst feeling on the planet, and I’m already dreading my commute tomorrow, in fear that it will happen again.
#6 Dangers In Hawaiian Waters
I got hit a couple of years ago by a Portuguese Man O' War while snorkeling in Hawaii. At first, I thought I was caught up in some fishing line... then, all of a sudden it felt like I was being electrocuted. I freaked out and swam to shore as fast as I could. The horrible burning pain lasted for hours and I feared for my life. I would not recommend it.
#7 Migraine On Photo Day
In high school, I got a visual aura on Photo Day and they still made me take a picture despite my protests. With flash. Twice. I temporarily lost sight in one eye and the other was like looking through a murky pond. And then I puked from the pain. Migraines are horrendous.
#8 Fevers Make The World Unreal
High-grade fevers. I got the swine flu in college, and my fever maxed out around 104.5 or so. I'm not 100% sure though because when it got that high, I had trouble thinking straight. I was sick for two to three weeks, but I have trouble remembering because of the foggy hallucinations and blank spots in my memory.
At some points, it felt like I had been sick for months, and other times it felt like only a few hours. I honestly wanted to die. I couldn't make rational decisions and didn't realize how dangerous such a high fever was for me. I honestly still don't know which of my memories from that time period were real, but I do remember how miserable I felt.
#9 Every Day Is Misery
Back injury. It’s actually worse than you think. Mine happened over a year ago and because Worker’s Comp likes to give people the runaround, I’m nowhere close to better. Every day is misery. I’ve pretty much lost the will to live. I find no joy in life because of constant severe pain that sometimes makes my legs not work. Yay. I don’t think I would wish severe back pain on my worst enemies.
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#10 Eats Away At Your Life
Eating disorders. They’re relentless, all-consuming, chronically life-affecting, and make you feel nothing but the worst kind of mental agony and self-hatred. They make you mistrustful and resentful and they slowly end you one day at a time. I hope no one ever is misfortunate enough to experience going through an eating disorder in their lives.
#11 No Hope Of Getting Better
A chronic illness—you never get to be better and people don't get that unless they experience it themselves. No one will ever understand the toll it takes or the help you need. They never think that there's something out there that could be invisible but so debilitating. They don't get the loneliness it causes or the mental toll it takes to be sick all the time. There is no better, there's only getting by.
#12 Mental Hell Of Your Own Making
Anxiety/panic disorders. From the outside, it may just look like a person is freaking out for no reason or being dramatic or just being silly, and people dismiss it, but when an episode occurs, that person is in a personally tailored mental hell of their own making. They are doomed to suffer through it because the mind is inescapable.
#13 There's A Monster In Your Head
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. It’s just awful in a way I can’t really describe to someone who doesn’t have it. It’s like having a monster in your head that holds everything you love hostage and demands you do exactly as it says or it’ll destroy everything. And every lie it whispers is just so goddamn convincing. It’s exhausting and you spend most of your waking life trying to get it to shut up, but doing that just ends up making it louder in the long run.
#14 Must. Not. Move.
Bruised or broken ribs. Can’t laugh. Can’t sneeze. Can’t move. Can’t sleep. Can’t breathe. Can’t stop agitating the problem. Can’t cry. Can’t stand up. Can’t do anything but feel sorry for yourself. They make it seem like it's not that big of a deal in movies and television shows, but when until you've been bedridden for weeks on end, you'll never really know the pain.
#15 Grand Mal = Very Bad
Grand mal seizures. Especially when you’re alone. The shaking starts, your legs turn to jello as your eyes roll back into your head, then you lose complete control of your body as you're flailing on the floor like a rag doll being shaken as hard as possible. Internally, you're praying you will maybe hit your head on the wall or something to make it all stop. ANYTHING to make it stop. Afterward? Imagine your worst hangover with memory loss. I wouldn’t wish epilepsy on anyone else in the world.
#16 Can't Sit Or Lay
Appendicitis. It's literally the worst feeling ever. Imagine being stabbed in the gut, and having no idea why... only to find out the cure is an eight-inch incision. The healing process is the worst part. The appendix is in such a weird spot. It's uncomfortable to sit up and lay down.
#17 Nothing Quite Like An Inner Ear Infection
Inner ear infections. I'm 20 and somehow I got this infection. It was the worst pain I'd ever felt. I couldn't sleep because the pain was constant but also spiked every few minutes. I was crying heavily. After two days, my ear closed and I couldn't hear anything. It was swollen. The only way I got to sleep was by taking Ibuprofen at 1,200 mg. He was hesitant, but after he saw me shaking and sweating in the office from the pain, he gave it to me. It took a week for everything to get back to normal, but I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone.
#18 Talking With My Dead Grandparents During A Fever
I had a really high fever, around 104, from the flu once. My husband was worried because I started talking to my dead grandparents and asking them if they had come to take me with them. The conversation made perfect sense to me at the time, but he was like, "Holy crap, what do I do now?"
#19 18 Months Of Sleep Before Annoying You
My girlfriend is a community nurse. She goes to people's homes directly to give them care. The amount of people that live in disgusting environments containing all sorts of wildlife from mice, bats, cockroaches, bedbugs, etc. is unbelievable. She one day, got bed bugs from one of her clients, which she apparently noticed almost immediately because when she called the pest control, the guy only found one or two casings, which meant there was likely only one or two of them living in her mattress.
That was enough though to cause her to strip down before entering back into her house every day, and both of us had several scares. THEY CAN LIVE UP TO 18 MONTHS, DORMANT! NEVER EVEN FEEDING ONCE! 18 MONTHS! Bed bugs are honestly the scariest thing to me and it's made me paranoid to touch anything made of fabric, honestly.
#20 Such Crippling Back Pain
Sciatica and back pain. I have six herniated discs on my back, and most of them are in my L-spine. Between the pain that I have to deal with every day, the limited mobility, the weakness in my leg, the depression that comes with it, and the perception that most people with "back pain" are just looking for pills—it's ruining my life.
#21 Nothing To Learn But How To Ruin A Life
Illicit substances. I have seen two people throw away the best years of their lives because of them... College, relationships, parties, etc. Neither of them passed away, but they are shells of the people they used to be. If you have any curiosity, suppress it. It's just not worth it. It's not like some trip where you could actually learn something about yourself. They just mess you up to a point where you don't want to ever stop having that feeling.
#22 Acne Can Be Life-Shaping
Let me tell the parents out there, on behalf of someone who's done Accutane: do it. Acne isn't just a superficial thing, it literally shapes your kids. They end up ostracized, teased and made miserable during the most formative times of their lives. Treatment and dosing have improved, and yes, side effects do happen, but seriously. I wish I had started far earlier on and wonder often how different my life might have been if I hadn't felt like such an outsider all throughout school.
#23 Such Hatred For Three Letters
The DMV. It is awful. I have been there for hours on end in my life and I hate it. Everyone hates it. It smells weird. There are weird people there. It always takes forever. I hate the DMV. I have never talked to anyone who likes it. And if you do: What is wrong with you?
#24 Waterboarding Is Not Like Choking
People seem to think it's having water poured on your face and choking. Nope. The idea is to fill your respiratory system with water, which triggers the limbic cortex's death response. This is not to be messed with. It's not unpleasant, it's torture. If you don't think it can possibly be that bad, ask why people who have undergone it have admitted to things that would ultimately get them or their loved ones executed.
#25 The Monster That Keeps Coming Back
Obsession. People sometimes think it’s this easy thing; like only losers struggle with OCD. But it is really bad. Dating or living with someone with OCD is tough. They lie, they cheat, they steal, they say awful things meant to hurt as much as they possibly can... But the rare times they’re fine... it’s like being around someone you’d happily spend the rest of your life with if only that other monster didn’t keep showing up.
#26 The First Is The Worst
Your first breakup. I have had much longer relationships that ended and hurt, but I don't know that it will ever hurt as bad as that first one. God, it was hard... fifteen years ago and it still hurts today. If you'd told me back then that this far in the future I'd still feel this way, I don't know if I could have gone on. Don't get me wrong; I don't sulk in it anymore, but to say that it doesn't still hurt when I do think back on it would be a lie.
#27 Destroys All Trust
Being cheated on by your high school sweetheart after eight years of marriage, the births of an adorable five-year-old girl and brand new baby boy, signing the mortgage on your first home, starting your first high-paying job, and the passing of your father. Worst pain ever. It's so difficult to ever trust someone again after you openly trusted someone with the faith of a child and they took that trust and stabbed you in the back with it.
#28 No Shaking This
Clinical Depression. While being depressed and clinically depressed are two different things, clinical depression you can not shake. For most people, meds work, and for others, other forms of stimuli work just as meds do. However, many people can't seem to wrap their heads around the fact of there is a difference between a healthy person getting depressed and someone who has clinical depression. We can all agree that depression sucks, but there are just some people who don't understand what they're talking about when it comes to depression.
#29 Shingles Are Really That Bad
Shingles. It's torture. It literally feels like red hot hooks are underneath your skin. I had no insurance when I got it, so I had zero painkillers. The only thing that helped at all was overeating. It didn't really make the pain go away, it just made me forget I was in pain at all for a little while. I probably gained a good 20 pounds while I was suffering from it.
#30 Cat Hoarding
Cat hoarder homes. I know one quite well. It's not just the 300+ cats that existed in it at one point and the filth that comes with that. It's the multitude of things combined that lead to the whole situation and keep it continuing. I could write a best-selling book.
#31 Almost Dead Over A Kidney Stone
My mother-in-law almost passed away from a kidney stone a few years back. It was the size of a peanut M&M and within less than 12 hours, it blocked off the ureter, causing a massive infection. They had to take her into surgery to put in a stent rather than blast it then and there. She almost didn't make it during surgery as she went septic so fast.
It was terrible watching her going in and out of consciousness on the car ride to the hospital—she was sixteen seconds awake, eight minutes out in intervals. It was so scary when the hospital chaplain made an unscheduled visit to her room. She's happily alive and well now, but she still suffers some minor memory loss from the period of time she didn't have full oxygen to the brain.
#32 Not Like Any Other Pain
Nerve pain. A bulging disc in my neck caused horrific neck and shoulder pain, as well as pins and needles in my hand and down my arm. The max dose of codeine was doing nothing to stop the pain. At times I felt like my shoulder and arm were on fire. It makes every other pain I've ever had in my life seem like child's play, even toothaches. 10/10 would not recommend.
#33 95% Sucks
Hard labor. Growing up, I worked in farming fields, construction, landscaping—you name it. My dad was a custom carpenter and handyman with the most brutal work ethic I've ever seen. All through my youth and into college, he took me to work with him. It sucked 95% of the time. It's always too cold or too hot. Your muscles constantly ache and it feels like you can never get enough sleep. Not to mention they're usually not high-paying jobs and it's very risky work as you could be injured at any moment.
#34 Pills Worse Than The Pain
A broken back put me out for eight weeks with a pretty much-unlimited supply in a combo of tramadol, short-release and long-release. I'd drop two long-release every six hours and two short-release every three hours. Then, I realized that the pain I was medicating wasn't my injury—I was dope-sick. I cut it cold right there. It was awful. My broken vertebrae felt like little embers inside my spine. Because I didn't wean off, I shook quite badly, agitating the injury. I was so scared I'd start to vomit and sever my spinal cord in the process. I'd still rather fight through that than lose my whole life to a pill addiction.
#35 Silver Lining To A Very Dark Cloud
A parent with dementia. I had to explain to him that his parents passed away over 25 years ago multiple times a day. It was brutal, but seeing him get excited every time I reminded him I was engaged made it hurt a little less.
#36 It's More Than Just A Hole
Getting hit with a bullet. Sure, the bullet punching a hole hurts and blood loss is scary. But what they don't tell you is that the bullet (and powder if you're unfortunate enough to be that close) will burn you as it blasts through you. So you will have internal and external third-degree burns. You also never hear how a bone shatters like glass from a direct bullet hit. No amount of painkillers will help that. They had to use a nerve blocker to shut down my entire arm to ease the pain in my hand.
If that wasn't bad enough, recovery is constant agony until the shattered bone sets. Any movement or jostling of the general area of what is left of said bone will hurt like the moment it happened.
#37 Couldn't Even Bear To See Me
During my first year of college, my skin was terrible and I'd wake up every morning just crying because I had to go outside looking like that. I legitimately had to hype myself up every day just so I could be seen by other people. I would get home and keep all the lights off so I didn't have to look at myself. I would study in the dark because if I couldn't see myself nobody else could.
Not even my personal space was safe. The worst was on the weekends though. I had to go to the cafeteria to eat, and they wouldn't allow cookable food in the dorms. I didn't have to go to class, so I would spend the entire weekend in my room, all 48 hours, living mostly off of tap water and energy bars. Glad those days are over.
#38 You Never Get Used To Being Empty And Alone
Breakups. I’m going through one right now and I was always told that as you get older or date more people, they get easier. That's not true. I’ve put so much of myself into this relationship and now I just feel so empty and alone. It’s especially hard when you were so sure you were going to go on to get married and everyone around you thought so too.
#39 Better And Worse, Better And Worse
Mono. I got it when I was 19. I was sick for a month on-and-off and severely for two weeks. I couldn’t eat anything solid because my throat was so swollen and blistered, and the pain was unreal when I swallowed. I ran a super high fever. I was exhausted—like, I could barely move my body—and my face got all red and massive from the swelling.
They couldn't do anything for it! I didn’t even know what I had for two weeks because I would get better, then get worse, and I kept putting off going to the doctor because I was 19 and broke. When I finally did go, they shrugged and said sorry. I went back 10 days later absolutely miserable and in tears begging them to give me something for my throat so I could at least eat. One steroid shot in the bum and a Tylenol-3 prescription was all they could give. I had small flare-ups for months after.10/10 do not recommend.
#40 Acne And Depression Lead To Lights Out
I had an old roommate that had pretty bad acne problems. He also had really bad depression. Each morning we would be getting ready by the one vanity we had in the house. He would always turn the lights off as soon as he was alone in the vanity area. It pretty annoying because it became a constant battle of lights on, lights off.
Eventually, we asked why he kept turning the lights off. He said it was because he didn't want to look at his face in the mirror each morning. He could usually make it through the day easily, but if he saw his face, he was going to spend the rest of the day with no confidence. I still think it is one of the saddest things I have ever heard. It was some pretty heavy stuff I was not prepared for.
#41 The Ease
Following a nasty accident in which I burned my hand, I was prescribed Percocet. Following that, I quickly became dependent on it. The funny thing is, I didn't even notice that anything was amiss at first. I'd take a dose in the morning when I woke up, take another in the afternoon, and then take the fourth right before I went to sleep.
Not only did this practice keep the pain at bay, but it also left me feeling giddy and content to an extent that I'd never experienced before. Then, as my hand healed, I decided to start foregoing the evening pills... which is when the misery started. As the night went on, I had this odd compulsion to continuously move my legs, my entire body felt stiff, and the world around me was simultaneously too hot, too cold, and too dry all at once.
Worse still, being so wide awake meant that I was conscious as the aching, throbbing sensation in my hand climbed up to full force, and I eventually decided to take a Percocet to offset the agony. Only a few minutes after I'd swallowed the pill, I felt much better. In fact, it was almost as if... oh. Right. Fortunately, I managed to recognize what was happening before it got too far out of hand.
I still needed pain relief in order to effectively function in my day-to-day life, but I made a point to keep from taking enough to actually feel good. After my prescription eventually ran out, I left a pill in the bottle, just to prove that I had enough willpower to resist its allure. I almost tricked myself into taking it in celebration of my success, but I caught myself just in time. I was lucky enough to miss the real horrors of addiction... but I know exactly how easy it is to fall into them.
#42 A Category 5 Is That Terrifying
As a Florida resident for my entire life, I always thought hurricanes were over-hyped and nothing to worry about... well after 31 years, I finally experienced a real hurricane when Michael hit Panama City. Yeah... Category 5 hurricanes are really bad (Michael was technically a 4, but it was two miles per hour away from a 5).
I knew a Category 5 was bad, but you don't realize how bad until you experience it. It completely destroyed most of the east side, like something from Fallout (video game). I couldn't believe my eyes as I was driving around town. Everything was gone. People freak out over Categories 2 and 3, and I've experienced them and they do damage, but rarely anything too serious. Michael snapped the palm trees in half—that's something you don't see... ever!
#43 No Safe Normalcy
Epilepsy and seizures. It's terrifying, enigmatic, and disorienting to say the least. Not only do you have to live with the fact that it will get worse as you get older, but it is also hard being normal around others sometimes. You can't do certain "normal" things like driving ( it is extremely dangerous to drive with epilepsy) and other stuff, but you also have to consider and plan out accordingly how to get around your mental and physical disadvantage.
Not all forms of epilepsy are the same and for others, it can be very different. Some suffer more than others. Also, some seizures can be extremely painful. Grand Mal seizures will make you feel like you got hit by a truck and lived. The worst part was being unable to eat or drink for days on end afterward, and nausea came afterward as well.
The nausea. Being unable to hold down anything and being nervous to drink anything for the next week is debilitating. Another thing is the medication they give you. The side effects make you feel like a different person altogether. It makes your mind feel like it's stuck in a thick London fog. You get emotional for no reason, and so on. So yeah, when people say Epilepsy is as bad as they say, those who are afflicted by it really mean it is as bad as we say it is.
#44 Random Explosions Of Pain
Lower back pain. I threw out my back yesterday at the gym for the third time in my life at the ripe old age of 22. It. Seriously. Hurts. I was rolling around on the floor in pain trying to finish a study guide when I got back. This morning sucked too—it was not as bad but I'd get random explosions of pain through my entire body if I moved in a weird way.
#45 Never Enjoyed Being Able To Take A Leak So Much
Two years ago, I was at home having dinner with my ex. I suddenly get a pain in my side, feeling like I needed to go to the bathroom or be sick.I ran upstairs, throwing up, in immense pain, thinking it might be food poisoning. After three hours of me actually screaming my head off, my ex called an ambulance. For what it’s worth, I have a very high pain threshold so this scared the hell out of me.
The ambulance turned up and they injected me with morphine; I was literally screaming at top of my lungs in agony. They put me in the ambulance and rushed me to the hospital. I arrived and they rushed me in for an X-ray. Yep— a kidney stone. They give me some of these BIG suppositories, which actually relieve the pain, and put me on meds to help keep the tubes relaxed between kidney and bladder to help pass.
Three weeks passed and nothing came out, then that same agony started. Immediately, my ex took me to A&E. I hadn’t been able to go #1 for hours, so they attempted to fit a catheter TWICE which doesn’t drain anything and hurts like hell. After a few hours in there, the stone got stuck between my kidney and bladder, causing the kidney to back up and begin to fail. They said if I had waited another hour or two could have lost it!
So, they fitted a plastic stent, to keep the tube open until an OP could be scheduled to remove the stone as it was too big to pass. For 14 weeks this invention from hell was in me. I had to be on an antibiotic for the whole duration, and I had three urinary tract infections. Every time I went #1 it felt like burning needles—it hurt so much, but I never felt relieved, so had to go to the toilet every few minutes. After 14 weeks of that torture, I finally had surgery to remove the stone.
