Things People Thought Everyone Was Exaggerating About Until They Experienced It

We've all gone through situations that were incredibly intense that other people might have undervalued.

From illness to troubles in a relationship, sometimes you cannot imagine how hard someone has it until you experience it for yourself.

Curious, Redditor rentinghappiness asked:

"What did you think people were exaggerating about until you experienced it yourself?"

Learning To Walk

"I’d say learning to walk again. It’s not anywhere as easy as it may seem."

"Your mind says, 'I got this… I know how to do it.'"

"Those first few steps are when you realize that this is gonna take time. Baby steps… again."

- surveyor2004

"When I got paralyzed, it was so weird. Someone told me to move my leg and I tried, but it felt like the leg just wasn't there! It was just laying there, a stupid piece of meat, not moving."

"It felt so unreal. Of COURSE I can move my leg, but why wouldn't it move? Something so simple, not even a toe wiggle was possible. But somehow the pain was always there."

- emilypeony

Living With Back Pain

"Back pain. I used to think it was just an excuse for others not wanting to do something. One ruptured disk later… back pain is very real and sucks."

- OriginalCoop

"Same here until I had a pinched sciatic nerve. During that, I once woke up in the middle of the night screaming; I think screaming in my sleep woke me up. I never want to experience that ever again."

- 6-2Noob

Physically Feeling Emotions

"Physical sensations that stem from negative emotions: Sinking feeling in your stomach. Heavy heart. Tight chest. It's all real."

- Mountain-Lemon-1987

"Dying of a broken heart is a real thing, too. I’ve seen it happen. My Great grandparents were married for 71 years and once my g grandma died my g grandpa changed drastically."

"His body just started shutting down and he died around seven months later. Prior to my g grandma passing he was healthy, still driving, and still living independently while taking care of my g grandma (she had dementia). Even the docs said he seemed to have just died of a broken heart."

- TSchab20

Not Just Another Headache

"Migraines!"

- CurrentDowntown8154

"It's hard for people to understand that when I have a migraine, every sound, little bit of light, and strong smell feels like I'm being punched in the head."

- ecodrew

"I'm so glad you've added this, I get them daily and it's a hell like no other. I've had people not believe chronic migraines are a disability until they're literally having to carry me into an ambulance with stroke symptoms."

"It's one of the most disabling conditions by WHO standards and there is absolutely minuscule amounts of funding for research into migraines. I hope you don't get them often, it's awful enough experiencing it once."

- DrChonk

"'It’s just a bad headache!'"

"No. No, it’s not. Unless a bad headache requires you to lay down in pitch darkness with the AC blasting and a wet towel over your eyes otherwise you’ll vomit and pass out."

- ayjak

Kidney Stones

"The pain from kidney stones. Just awful."

- Mooseagery

"A couple of years ago my grandpa ended up in the ER (he ended up being fine) and while we were in the waiting room, we saw this car pull up outside and the driver got out and was obviously in a massive panic."

"He grabs a wheelchair and goes to get his passenger. When he opened the passenger side door, we couldn’t really see into the car from where we were sitting, but we can hear this guy screaming in pain. My parents and I looked at each other expecting to see something awful, like a gunshot wound or something really horrific."

"Nope."

"He had kidney stones. This was his third ER visit that week. By the time my grandpa got discharged, they still hadn’t seen the poor guy so idk what ended up happening. But I’ve never seen someone in so much pain."

"He was a pretty tough-looking, redneck type of guy too. He was crying, yelling out. And then he’d apologize for being disruptive. Kidney stones are no joke!"

- thatwitchlefay

Anxiety and Panic Attacks

"A legitimate panic attack."

- theMIKIMIKIIKImomo

"Same for me and anxiety. I always thought it was rubbish really and just pull yourself together much to my shame."

"Then it hit me hard after looking after my Dad for six years and his subsequent death, and I wondered what the bloody h**l was going on and why I was shaking and my heart racing like a train!"

"Yeah, I won't ever knock genuine anxiety sufferers again."

- Hockey_Captain

The Loss Of A Parent

"The loss of both parents. You feel like a fully adult orphan."

- Nxy124

"I’m 42. Lost my dad end of 2023 and nothing could have prepared me for it. I truly felt like a little kid who lost her dad’s hand in a busy mall. All alone in the world and so, so lost."

"Even with my husband and kids and mum still being here, man. It’s not something you can put into words. I’ve lost aunts, uncles, grandparents, even my best friend, but losing my dad was something else entirely."

- vegemitebikkie

The Impact Of Loneliness

"How much loneliness can change a person."

"I’m completely normal at work talking all day and then once I leave, I don’t have a reason to open my mouth until I’m back at work, making up what I did on my weekend."

- Full-Profession3252

"I enjoy being alone, but there is a difference between 'alone' and 'lonely.' I recently learned that the hard way."

- maertyrer

"My wife, newborn, and I left our family and friends to pursue a better-paying job in a different state. We justified it that we really only saw them like once a month and that we would make new friends there anyways."

"It turns out making friends as an adult is very difficult if you aren’t in the same phase of life, and our marriage and mental health got so strained, we decided to move back after two years. Loneliness f**king sucks."

- Blandemonium

Toxic Relationships

"The delusions of toxic relationships, I never thought anyone, let alone myself could overlook the most obvious red flags about someone."

- chasingdandelions

"Yes, it's baffling in retrospect."

- Lusor_Jonny

"I feel this to my very core. There are three years of my life that I look back on and just cannot fathom what I was thinking or why I made the decisions I did. It's such a hard feeling to explain, like all of a sudden one day I was out of the whirlpool and could see it so clearly."

- ExcellentMongoose680

The Life Of A First Responder

"What it's like to be a first responder at an accident site."

"My teacher emphasized that no matter what, we could not be trained in what it would be like, because people react vastly differently once they are in the situation. Some people go completely catatonic. Some people break down and weep. Some people spring into action and cause problems because they don't think. Some people faint."

"You will not know till you stand there. The first time I used my training was to keep pressure on a guy who had his hand mangled in a machine. I could see the tendons and fat layers. The main thing I remember is how much my hands hurt afterward, from clamping down so much to stop the bleeding."

- interesseret

Vertigo Spells

"Vertigo, I thought it was just people making an exaggeration of motion sickness. Nope, a split second of my vision spinning followed by the most intense nausea and a general sense of never again, please."

- Moonstar_III

"Vertigo is debilitating!! Trying to pretend like everything is fine when the world is spinning is terrible, and it just comes and goes as it pleases."

- Lee_Tea

Dental Pain

"Tooth pain. I remember hearing about people complain about it before it happened to me and I just didn't get it. Like, how bad could that possibly hurt?... Well, let me f**king tell you, it's A BUNCH."

- PunkPizzaVooDoo

"I've been doing fantastic mentally for a while now. Like I absolutely love life pretty much everything gives me immeasurable joy. But holy sh*t how fast I lost my will to live when having tooth pain for about a few weeks."

"I couldn't even think without thinking of pain. I just reminded myself that I'll enjoy life without pain again one day and now here I am!!! (Eating candy at 4:16 AM, oops, just waiting for another tooth problem.)"

- ifeelyouranger

The Realities Of A Breakup

"A breakup. Nothing can prepare you for how horrible it’s going to feel, because it’s like the death of a future you had planned and you’re suddenly in the dark and lost about everything."

"Especially if it comes at an age where you were ready to 'settle down' and after the relationship went on for years."

- IncomeAppropriate370

"This thing about the future is so true. I broke up a week before the wedding with my ex (a nine-year relationship). The weirdest thing was really to wake up the next morning and having to start over."

"We spent so much time planning for real estate, kids, different places we wanted to live, and way to manage money, generating all those memories… You build, build, build, and one conversation, one sentence reset everything."

"One minute, it’s all here, the next you are back at the bottom of the mountain."

- Jujulechaud

ADHD Medication

"ADHD meds when you have ADHD."

- Gothic_Flower

"Real talk. When I was first starting. I saw a lot of results. But I had also attributed it to the structure, routines and mindfulness I was employing. I had an episode of imposter syndrome and went off my meds."

"Yeah…. Those things are key. But the meds are the glue that holds everything else together. Pretty wild."

"I was diagnosed in my early 30s. Having that realization that “Oh, so this is how the rest of the world functions” was pretty eye-opening. It’s nice to just be at a baseline level of functioning and not having your brain sabotage everything you try to achieve/do."

- CorruptCanon

"I cried the first time I took my medication. Like, all ofa sudden, things were quiet and I could choose what I wanted to concentrate on. Then I thought, 'This is how normal people are? Oh God, I've wasted so much of my life! I would have been a straight-A student, I wouldn't have dropped out of college!'"

- jedadkins

A Visceral Experience

"Having two instead of one monitor. You would think you were living as a caveman before."

- MortalBreath

"I thought I was good with two... but then I saw my coworker with a third monitor flipped vertically, and I was so f**kin' jealous."

"Gotta talk to IT about getting me a third monitor now that I have to go into the office again. I'm a man, not a caveman, d**mit!"

- smr312

It's impossible to imagine what someone else is going through without walking a mile in their shoes and going through their worst experiences is no different. While migraines and breakups might seem like something that anyone will go through and come through just fine, it takes experiencing them to really understand how intense these experiences can be.