Testicular torsion. As a teenager, I woke up early in the morning with the worst back and stomach pain I had ever felt in my life. I remember thinking I might be sick, vomiting, then passing out from the pain. My parents found me later that morning because I was delirious and moaning. They took me to the hospital and it was fixed.

Just kidding! My parents are shit bags so they told me I just had the flu and I was being dramatic. After my testicle swelled up to over double the size later that day, they called our family doctor who said I probably had a hydrocele and he’d look at it when he got back from vacation. For the record, mine was textbook testicular torsion, my doctor was as idiotically negligent as my parents.

The pain again became excruciating that evening and I was exhausted from lack of sleep, so I started yelling and demanding my parents take me to the hospital, which they did the next morning. There was TV to be watched, they couldn’t bother with taking care of their children. The ER determined my testicle was quite dead. Surgery was scheduled for that evening and I’ve had one testicle since. Get fucked, mom and dad.

Being sexually assaulted. I feel like in terms of things that are top tier awful experiences I would probably rank any unwanted sexual experience worse than pain or death.

I had no job, no money and no family. I was young and had no identity documents, and was knocked back from government services because I couldn’t prove who I was. I took the first safe shelter I could. With the benefit of many years experience, I know there were other options but at the time it seemed like the only option. There are ways of accessing help without ID, but I didn’t know where to look.

It was a small, dodgy outbuilding at the back of someone’s property. It was clad by nothing but tin. The wind would lift the rusty roof up and slam it down with a deafening crash for hours at a time. No insulation, no services of any kind. I slept on an old mattress, just laid on the floor. It had a slope to it and the springs were poking through. I had a single, sweat-stained blanket.

I lived there long enough to experience both an unusually cold winter and a heatwave. I remember the sound of the frozen grass crunching beneath my feet. It was the first time I’d ever experienced temperatures that low, having grown up in a hot climate.

The owner would occasionally let me use the facilities inside their house, but only ever during the day when it was unlocked. They gave me enough food to survive which they’d leave outside for me. We’d have a very brief exchange maybe once a week. Apart from that I had a total absence of social interaction. The property was isolated if you didn’t have a car - which I did not.

It was a trap. It seemed better than the streets, because I had relative safety and a roof over my head. But it also left me totally unable to change the situation I was living in. I couldn’t go anywhere to find help, I couldn’t contact anyone. I didn’t want to leave because the alternative seemed worse. I was stuck.

The owner had meant well. They had their own mental health issues and, even if they had been high-functioning, they had no idea what to do. They were a hoarder and the inside of their home was somehow filthier than my “living” space. The situation was a result of the contradictions between their heartfelt desire to help, their own anxieties and other mental demons. They were trapped too, in their own way, and had barely more contact with the outside world than me.

Isolation destroys your mind. You can’t think straight, you lose your ability to solve even basic problems. You become paranoid. You hallucinate. Your memory is obliterated, not just for the period of the isolation but the memories formed before and after too. I had to piece together a time line of major events in my life from a couple of years before and after from little scraps I kept.

I lost my inner monologue during that time. The voice in your head. My thoughts became sensations and movement, like water being poured into a network of branching channels and spreading amongst them. They’d remain that for years and even more than a decade own it’s still not the ‘same’.

I was almost non-verbal at the end - finding even a few basic words, to say “yes” or “no” to a question was exhausting. My manner of speaking is not the same as it was and my accent isn’t quite like anyone else who was born here. For at least a year later I was still losing time, hours or days, and was unsure of how I got there.

I was aware I was losing my mind throughout the process. I’d try to force structure and logic upon what I was processing but it doesn’t work. The information you’re receiving is already corrupted, then it gets further twisted in your mind. There is nothing more terrifying than being trapped in your own mind.

Eventually the owner, in a more lucid moment, managed to get mental health services to come out. I felt so betrayed at the time. I was terrified of them, unfamiliar faces after so much time alone. I was deeply ashamed. I’d come to realize this act saved me, but I hated the owner for it at the time.

I had a old boomer call for my hanging when I was a teen.

I’m brown. I am minding my business at a store. some boomer said I should “Remember there’s cameras in this store.” Like wtf? I said, “Those cameras are for you.”

And before I know it, he’s flipping out calling me a thug and that I’m lucky to be alive because in five minutes, he can have his friends lynch me.

Security guard came over and immediately took the Boomer’s side. And told me to either leave or cops will be called.

Welcome to America.

When I was 12 I hid under the couch while my Grandpa violently beat my grandma to death over the course of about 6hrs overnight.

Lived through and ethnic cleansing genocide. I always laugh when western keyboard warriors start talking about how war is “needed” or “coming” and larping out their movie fantasies. Real war is nothing like TV. Its hell all around. There are no victors in war. Everyone loses.

I was doing some work with an academic center that provided continuing education for the teachers and caretakers at orphanages. We always worked with local administration or charities who would educate the administrators and caretakers on how to maneuver the legal system in their country, while we provided the technical training and education resources. The goal was to get the children trained in a trade skill so they could support themselves when they got out. The areas we were working in were often remote and never in good areas, but the teachers and caretakers usually tried, they just didn’t know what they were doing and needed a little help. But at least they were trying.

By this point I had worked all over latin America, and a handful of countries in Africa. All of these people and cultures were different, but you could tell they tried, and the people in the villages and towns respected, and in many cases helped those that tried. Honestly it was some of the best and most rewarding work I have ever done.

I’m saying all of this because back in 2008 I ended up seeing an opportunity to go to Russia and do the same type work. I thought I’ve never been to Europe or Asia, sure that sounds exciting. Expecting to see the same thing I had seen in 18 other countries by this point. People in rural areas who saw a need and stepped in, now they just need training.

Instead of a rural town or village, we ended up in Kostroma, a city of a quarter million people. We find out from our contact from the Ministry of Education, that children are usually kicked out of orphanages at 14 as they are no longer profitable. At that point we should have immediately started asking questions, alarm bells should have gone off, etc. But it was the first day in a new country, we’re still getting to know our contacts before we start training. So there’s still some cultural unknowns, could be a translation error, any number of things.

While we’re doing our training, the teachers and caretakers were very standoffish, much more than we were expecting, but whatever, we’re the new people. They also have very strict times of when we have to be out of there. Makes sense, end of the work day, you’ve got kids to take care of, we get it.

We stayed too late one night and we found out the reason why the kids could become, “no longer profitable.” Evidently all of the orphanages in the area would sell kids for a night, and when they got too old, people didn’t want them, so they got kicked out. When we found out, obviously the first thing we did was try and report it. But we were told by both our contacts from the Ministry of Education, and the police, that’s just how they do business. If the kids want to eat they have to work.

We broke our contract with the Ministry of Education stating what we witnessed and left. Don’t know if anything has changed, but I’ve not been a fan of Russia ever since.

Racism. I’ve been called racial slurs for not just my race, but other races. I’ve been profiled by police. I’ve watched my boss not only allow racist remarks made by my coworkers for no reason (eg: working like a hard-R) but laugh along to them. People judge Tarantino’s movies for excessive use of racism but I think they’re the most honest depictions of American culture.

Being a child with an ear infection, rather than take me to a doctor to get antibiotics, my parents had my grandmother come over to pray for me and she told me that Jesus was my physician. I just remember wondering why my physician wasn’t fucking doing anything about it.

The Christmas parade massacre in Wisconsin

This thread really makes me appreciate how good I have it…

I was looking for a spot to watch my brother go by in his first Ironman while he was dieing at the hospital.

Living through fall of communism in USSR and the start of capitalist era. One of the memories I have from the period is when food shortages started happening. All the families in my neighborhood would end up lining up at the store early in the morning like black friday, and then the store would just wheel out a cart with whatever they had that day, and people would rush in to grab it. Me being a small kid at the time, I could squeeze between people and get to the cart quicker than my parents. So, I was basically risking my life being trampled to death just so I wouldn’t starve that day.

TLDR: fuck capitalism.

Went under to have my wisdom teeth removed and I swear I was in hell for 5 seconds. All I could see was faded yellow and orange and I was hearing screaming.

I was 6 miles into a very technical mountain bike ride, when I fell and broke my collar bone. No one had any cell service. Hiking out of there was pretty hellish.