What’s something you didn’t understand till it happened to you?

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  2. Coming home from work after the funeral and expecting her to be there, just out of sight in another room.

  3. Postpartum depression. Being a new mom is nothing like the media portrays. They always show the brightness and joy, but never the stress and darkness that hits some mothers. So before becoming a mom, like many other I judged, until it happened it to me.

  4. why people stay in abusive relationships. you don’t realize you are slowly being destroyed until it’s too late

  5. The frequency of small talk and over sharing. I moved to the United States a couple of years ago why are you, a complete stranger, telling me about your divorce and how your husband is abusive without a care in the world lmao.

    I actually really like Smalltalk though. It makes me feel more connected to those in my community and now I be telling everybody the tea about my life.

  6. How it feels to lose a loved one completely out of the blue, with no chance to say goodbye.

  7. That you can’t power through grief and just decide you’re over something and are ready to move on. Grief goes at its own pace, whether you’re tired of being crushed by it or not.

  8. Parenting in general. You hear so many platitudes about how hard but amazing it is, but you don’t really know how it feels until you have kids.

    And anxiety. I had zero anxiety until I randomly developed PPA. I had no understanding of what it felt like or what “triggered” really meant.

  10. Chronic illness. I remember seeing a commercial for medicine for Crohn’s and UC. Didn’t know what it was and remember thinking that sounds awful and those poor people. Hope I never get anything like that. A year later diagnosed with UC out the blue. No risk factors, fam hx, no way to prevent it. Just boom, life-changing diagnosis. I get it now.

  11. I expected how much your mind can shut down during sexual harassment and how you can enter a haze of confusion, even when your instincts and alarm bells are screaming at you. What I didn’t expect was how ashamed you may feel about that shut down.

  12. How you can love your kids unconditionally with unending love and simultaneously want to run screaming from them at the same time.

  14. Overwhelming grief. A dark place that you can’t explain. You have to be there to understand it.

  16. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it many times over again—you cannot appreciate how awfully ableist our society is and what exclusion feels like until you become disabled, yourself.

  18. Cheating –

    I used to think that women who let themselves go, or weren’t great in bed , or just horrible people got cheated on.
    In short – that women were responsible for that.

    Wow.

    Was I so wrong.

  22. The effects of sleep deprivation.
    You don’t realise for how long someone can “function” with a little sleep (a lot), and also how tired they feel (very much).
    It’s easy to dismiss someone who is sleep deprived (such as new parents) because it seems like they can still more or less do everything

  23. Sounds daft but the whole “blink and your kids are suddenly grown up” thing feels really really real.

  25. People who stay in an abusive relationship, it’s not because the love is there but the trauma bond is.

  27. When i was younger I never understood why people enjoyed a boring life. And now that’s literally all I look forward to. I would give anything for just a normal boring night over chaos. Sitting at home with my normal boring family and my normal boring dogs. Not out at a bar or a club trying to impress people that I don’t know or care about. My life is incredible now and it’s the most boring it’s ever been. I don’t have social media (besides reddit) and I don’t drink anymore (boyfriend is a recovering alcoholic) and most nights I’m falling asleep on my couch by 11pm. It’s fucking wonderful.

  29. Grooming. When you are getting groomed, you can’t comprehend the situation and become so vulnerable. Once you are out of it, only then you see everything that was wrong.

  30. Chemo. Intellectually I knew it was awful, but until I went through it myself I did not appreciate how horrible it can be. I had it worse than some, less bad than some, but pretty bad.

    Also, how important and helpful it is to get messages of all kinds (text, phone, email, cards, gifts) from kind friends and family while I was going through it. That will definitely be something I will do more of for other people in the future.

  31. Freezing during a sexual assault. I used to be someone who always wondered why they didn’t run, scream, say no or fight back. Now I know why.

  33. Panic attacks. I feel like until you have one it is impossible to imagine how scary and severe they are. I’ve had one in my life and I hope to never have another one.

  34. How fucked up the socialization of women is. I thought I knew better than to be the quiet doormat to a manchild since my parents were both educated, stressed the importance of equality and I was educated as well. Turns out watching my mother do everything in the house on top of working more and earning more than my dad and her putting up with it impacted me more than her empty words of “equality”.

  35. Post grad depression. I was so focused on my work and world that when i was done, i didn’t realize how stressful I would be when making decisions for my life and future. Im starting over again and i just don’t feel ready to jump

  36. Super super broke for a period of time. How expensive it is to be broke

  37. Love.

    I did not really believe that you could do crazy thing, even die for someone you love, or that you could do absolutely anything to make someone happy. I could believe a separation could lead to suicide or depression. I used to think that romances where exaggerating everything to add drama to the show.

    Then I met my husband and I swear this fantastic man became my reason to live and every romance made sense to me.

  38. Fibromyalgia. I never understood how you couldn’t just get over it and deal. I’ve had my diagnosis for a year now but realized my symptoms have actually existed for years. I just thought everyone had this pain every day. It’s gotten worse as time goes on and is unbearable some days. You’ve no idea how heavy it is to be in pain every day with no relief.

  39. Migraines. I just thought they were a bad headache until I started getting chronic ones and they’re no joke!

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