Reddit, what was your "ohh sh!t, I need to get my life together" moment? r/AskReddit | Reddit Jar

okay read it what was your holy [ __ ] need to get my life together moment it was 2014 I was working a dead-end retail job for 14 years bad marriage overweight hated life tried also I thought to get myself out but I realized later all I did was wallow in self-pity that no one wanted to hire me one day at work I was getting yo form the computer at work and the store manager I whom I had never really talked to just randomly said so what are you doing with your life why are you even here don't get my wrong you're a great worker but you're better than this place we ended up having a really long conversation about life and goals etc I was a little mad at first after going home to think about it I realized what he said was true the next day I was in better spirits the next week I told my husband I wanted a divorce over the next few months I started to seriously look for work enrolled back in school started eating healthy and eventually lost 85 pounds a few months after our convo and many interviews later I found a great job I make a living wage and then some and just last year I bought a house sorry if this is formatted wrong I've never posted on Reddit before I'm a long time lurker on here but only recently created a username honestly my holy sh t what have I done - my life has been a long time coming it started in New Year's Eve 2012 when I was sexually assaulted I spent almost a year following that getting drunk and chain-smoking myself into oblivion I moved home and got a decent job waiting tables but was definitely still bitter and always drunk I'm working hard now to 1 act like an adult and to be the better than I am now I guess I'm still trying to pick myself up but I've moved past not eating and always drinking - having a job in trying to control my drinking life's hard but I'm halfway out of the hole I think I assume this will be buried but I guess thank you for reading sorry if the formatting was wrong or I spelled anything wrong I was in a minor car accident a few months back and got laid off at work two weeks ago that differently feels like I need to get my life together moment the car accident was because I was tired I was tired because I don't like my job that much and it made me kind of depressed maybe getting laid off will fix it or at least give me time to figure something out during my first Mensa meeting when we all started swapping our IQ scores it dawned on me that if you have to tell everyone how smart you are you are not that smart to begin with the rabid insecurities in that room is what convinced me it was time to start accomplishing reals tea and life instead of skirting by on some test scores from long ago I was pregnant at around 23 I had recently dropped out of college C username , and knew that I couldn't take steps on that road since I was only working at a coffee shop and had no real future in any areas of my life had an abortion finished college now I'm 32 and doing great I'll probably consider having a kid in a year or two I was thinking about how cool it was you have had usernames since so many are already taken clicked on your profile and damn I don't think I've ever seen a 10 year account before one week I was so irresponsible with my money that I got paid on a Friday and three days later had only $20 to get me through the next payday I was so depressed hungry and embarrassed I never considered myself or rich until I had so little that I worried every second of the day how I would feed my self-respect to those who have made it through chronic poverty in August of 2015 at age 25 I was arrested for three counts of drug possession and fraudulent possession of identifying information between 10 and 50 items over the course of four months I had managed to take around $50 0 0 0 directly from banks without resorting to good old-fashioned identity theft all to support my secret drug habit the final tally once I was in custody was seven felonies all in one shot before this I had never so much has had a traffic ticket and not a single person knew that I had become an addict or criminal including my girlfriend of three years I was quite literally leading a double life and eventually lost everything my job reputation friends family girlfriend cars apartment dog instruments everything gone I served two years nine months on a six-year sentence in the Texas prison system TDC and was released on parole two weeks ago wish me luck coma being stripped naked with 50 other men while guards scream at you and degrade you shave your head and pack you into a thirty man cage nuts to butts as they called it was my holy sh t moment and that was just the first five minutes of prison there were many many more to come now after countless hours of planning and thinking about it I finally get the chance to get my life together here's to second chances sorry I got all serious on you guys but thought I'd share TLDR me and 50 other guys shaved our heads and got naked I had given up pretty much my entire life to my girlfriend at the time I pretty much just woke up and tended to her every need until I went to bed I felt like a slave it was a terrible experience I had given up most of my life for a year I wasn't doing my hobbies I wasn't paying attention to school etc it's a very long complicated story but basically I realized I needed to cut her out when I finally did my life completely changed and I turned it completely around early morning hours of my 31st birthday I was cooked up and with a very inexperienced college guy who really needed to clip his nails and who then broke down because he couldn't stay hard I had met him less than an hour before at a party where I had been drinking and doing any drug I could find and sucking titties I put my clothes on and cooled my friends who lived not far away from the house I was at and asked her to pick me up I cried in her car and decided I needed to get my sh t together it's been two years and I haven't touched coke or any hard drug since then still sometimes make questionable choices in the SX Department but I'm getting better I had an unruly bar patron and a rear naked choke tight enough so he knew I was serious but loose enough he was still conscious and had just pulled him off his feet towards the door I was 28 going on 29 and just hit four years as a bouncer and the same duration as a college dropout four years of late nights watching the crowd with what I hoped was the right amount of diligence and paranoia escorting people to the door cleaning up spilt beer and vomit in the occasional inexplicable splash of blood of the door to the bee room once the guy was out and the situation dealt with I thought to myself maybe it's time I finished that English degree after a fashion I did when I had gotten my heart broken by yet another guy and was crying in my bed and searching for a reason to live right then and there I realized I need to stop trying to find people who make me happy I need to learn to make myself happy because I am the only permanent person in my life now I have lived with that thought in mind for a while and I haven't been in such a good place mentally for years three years of unemployment and realizing that every problem was because of my presentation drug use and how I spoke I spent three months losing flab 370 - 340 sold my pc and gaming stuff and bought some new clothing and got a haircut started an a from my meth addiction and shotgunned my pathetic resume and got hired at a call center for at five years later I am now making more than 3x as much as that call center 18 K 265 K married and traveled to Japan twice if you told me five years ago I'd be here I'd called you and myself insane tailed my non-confrontational dad that I thought I had a drinking problem having him flat-out tell me I really did have a drinking problem with the end of me drinking my brother-in-law is the most compassionate kind person I know he was the first person to use the word alcoholic to describe me even though I already knew I had a problem hearing him say she's an alcoholic was a huge wake-up call when I stepped on the scale and was within 15 pounds of hitting 300 my heaviest was 287 pounds starting eating less counting calories switched the diet soda going for long walks I hate running jogging currently weighing in at 184 pounds still a bit overweight BMI for my height but it's way healthier than being obese edit Ladd thanks for the gold lots of support here too which I didn't expect I went to the doctor yesterday for a physical and whalen at 18 3 to anyone starting the journey it's not easy but it is worth it it's also slow and should be rapid weight loss is usually gained back but steady loss indicates positive lifestyle adjustments it took me just under five years to drop 100 pounds it's hard to describe just how much better life is at a more normal weight people treat you nicer I was freaked out the first time someone checked me out because it had literally never happened before clothes are way easier to find and airplane seats are much more comfortable short version was shitty to a chaplain got sober changed me forever long version in the Air Force first duty station was on Guam I stay drunk and I mean a fifth or day drunk got to weld that at the barracks and was taken in by the security police a few hours later locked in a room at the cop shop and the duty chaplain walked in to talk to me I asked him what it was like to be a virgin he kind of laughed until he wasn't that kind of chaplain pulled out his wallet and showed me pictures of his wife and kids I don't remember what we talked about after that but he got them to release me and took me back to my barracks I remembered what I said to him the night before and it was like God slapped me upside my head a chaplain gets out of bed in the middle of the night leaving his family to talk to a drunk that he doesn't even know and the best I got is to ask him that I wish I could say I never touched a drop after that but it took a very hard year of trying to stay straight before I got I've been clean and sober since the 8th of November 1984 the lasting lesson for me is that you never know when a few kind words can change someone's life forever I don't know that man's name but I thank God for him every day I had just been left by my now ex-wife who left out of the blue to go be with a new thing in Hawaii I hate her why now through a complicated arrangement where I was living in an apartment owned by my ex's boss this bridge got burned during the divorce I was being kicked out and was in the process of sleeping in my car and trying to find a new place I was extremely depressed and was drinking all day every day even while driving so one day I was driving home from work about a 90 minute commute wearing I would drink beer and smoke weed to stay alert a cop pulled behind me on the freeway and followed me for a good five minutes he then put on the lights I seriously almost tea my f king pants I've never been so scared in my life I knew I was f kharid here was no way to cover up so I pull over he walks up and before he even reaches my window a car rear ends another car at full speed about 50 feet behind us the cop says something like get out of here safely and then turned around running to go address the car accident I was seconds away from losing my license my job my whole life really I didn't drink for a few months after that encounter and I've since gotten that under control but damn it was the scariest moment ever but it sure kicked my ass into gear when my best friend told me to get the f ck out of his apartment after I showed up there after a three five-day drug bender I must have said something to him but I can't remember for the life of me what it was he's spoken to me exactly one time since I miss him but I've gotten sober and I got a new job and go to the gym every other day now maybe you can rekindle if he was your best friend once he can forgive and move on give it a shot good job bTW there's no worse feeling than knowing you said something unforgivable to a good friend and having no idea what it was or what to do you'll give anything to take it back and at the same time you don't really want to be confronted with what it was that you said and feeling like you don't really deserve to be forgiven having done this to a good friend once I remember just wanting to drive to their house and asking them to hit me repeatedly anything to take away the pain then slowly realizing that I had F carried up for good and there was no going back it took a long time to move on from that but eventually you will when my best friend looked me in the eye and said if you don't leave her you'll die double-quote it took that to make me realize that I had spent the last three months drinking myself to sleep every night because the girl I was engaged to spent most of her time alternating between telling me how worthless and useless I wasn't accusing me of cheating she told me daily how pathetic I was in how I was wasting my time with writing because I would never be published it took three tries to finally get away from her and then a wild couple of months where I tried to forget about all the sh t she put me through while also swinging on a roller coaster of depression six years later and I've had a short story published and novel published and I've been in therapy to fix the things she did to my brain just another alcohol-related post here drinking three pints of hundred proof Smirnoff a day I thought I was functional I got sick with a virus nothing serious but I couldn't keep food or liquids down for four thirty-eight hours I was throwing up and had a high fever through all of this I was shaking in my bed and managed to still keep my vodka down because the thought of an alcohol withdrawal seizure scared the f ck out of me cleaned up a month later and now I'm had just over two months sober he needed to change and it has gotten better sounds like me about a year and a half ago sweaty fever couldn't eat or drink without throwing up but that vodka sure made me feel better had my bf take me to the ER DAP tonight when he got home from work because it finally dawned on me that my dumb boss wasn't sick I was withdrawing the shame of walking into the hospital still makes me cringe I've had some ups and downs substituted wine instead of vodka and only drank randomly but once I take one sip I'm done for I don't know how to drink and not blackout today is day 10 and hopefully many many more are to come good luck on your journey when she told me she was pregnant I was 17 years old that was 28 years ago and we are still happily married after a few bumps in the road along the way but it was a cold dose of reality at 17 that I had a child on the way and I needed to be prepared for that and get serious about my direction in life I'm happy to report our son now 27 is doing great as well lives with his girlfriend and about to embark on a culinary career I was 25 and subletting a [ __ ] apartment from a co-worker in this restaurant we both worked at for the summer I didn't graduate high school and had worked these ball busting job since I was 17 and had really no future prospects I was sitting up one night on the computer and had the I can't believe this is where I am and this is what I'm doing intrusive thoughts I really was at rock bottom I looked at my local community college website that night and was signed up for classes the next day eventually I got my get as well so that I could transfer to university after my time was done there I'm getting ready to start my masters in education in two weeks coulomb close bracket I was in a 24 feet camper with a rotting floor there were trash bags for windows the roof leaked onto the couch big step up from homelessness a few months prior it was pouring rain the wind was about to rip the windows out and I had nowhere safe to take my newborn son I rode out a tornado apologizing to this brand-new human that we did not do better for him my husband got home and I told him I don't care what we sell or who we owe money to for it we need a house we have to do better double quote all it had taken was a layoff and financial emergency to knock us to the dirt two months after deciding to start trying for a family and getting pregnant and it took selling literally everything we owned that wasn't my husband's the work vehicle to put money down on a house but I'm watching my toddler play with his toys in a real house I'm pregnant again we are way way more secure now and all it took was everything best thing we have done when our literally became a case study I was 18 and on my third stint in a refeeding clinic for anorexia every time I went in I would be hyper compliant until they let me out and then immediately revert to my old behavior the third time I had a psychiatrist asked me if I could be a case study for their thesis on the rate of relapse and mortality and anorexic youth I was 32 kilos 70 lb at 5-4 I had the bone density of an astronaut I have so many digestive problems now that were only worse then and somehow the idea that I was going to be someone's case study was the moment I figured out I was going to die if I kept this up I am nearly a decade older now and I weigh a much healthier amount no idea what it is because I don't own a scale and haven't in over a year it's often still a struggle and likely will be for life but I'm doing a lot better now dropped out of college moved my way of the managerial ladder at Lowe's for the next three years was offered a promotion to department manager and saw myself working retail at 50 still taking crap from entitled customers went back to college and am now doing what I really love no offense to retail workers I just don't like people enough to make a career of that [ __ ] I am lactose intolerant I was obese and didn't care what I did with my body I didn't work out I didn't eat right I didn't even maintain myself well I one day ate three pints of ice cream in one sitting I got incredibly sick I mean almost anyone would but even Murray so after several days of feeling like absolute trash I decided enough was enough and started working out and eating healthy within a year I was down 70 pounds and by 18 months I was down 100 plus and I've kept it off that discipline helped me in other things in life I got a better job and grew as a person taking much more care of myself relationships and my surroundings amazing what three pints of ice cream can do I was dancing with a woman at a bar when I tripped and fell which led to a compound fracture of my left ankle after surgery I was told that if I continued the way I was living it would lead to an early grave I was drinking all of the time had high blood pressure and diabetes I quit drinking changed my diet and got my life together that was more than eight years ago before all of this happened I was at a dead-end job my relationships never lasted and felt like I was going nowhere fast today I am two classes away from obtaining a degree I have a great job and I'm getting ready to buy a house with the greatest woman I've ever met I was depressed out of my goddamn mind for about a year and a half it destroyed my life I treated my friends like [ __ ] quit all my hobbies and my grades went to [ __ ] I hated every second of being alive and I was so ready to end it all the only thing that kept me hanging on was the that I was going to get into a good college and get away from all the things that made me so sad however being depressed also made me not give a sh t about my college applications so despite having a good GPA and backed I bombed the essays and turned parts in late which meant I didn't get into any of the schools I wanted to go to the day the decisions came out I was a wreck I spent two days sitting in my room bullying my eyes out and cutting like crazy because I thought I had no reason to live anymore thankfully I had a moment of clarity where I realized that the only place to go was up and that I was the only one responsible for making that change I was finally sick of feeling sorry for myself and letting myself wallow in being so lonely and hopeless it's been a few months now and I can honestly say that I am happy for the first time in a very long time I have put effort back into all the relationships in my life I finished high school strong and I am putting so much effort into my mental and physical welding having my dreams fall apart and realizing it was my own fault was the wake-up call I needed to realize that things needed to change if I wanted to stay alive any thoughts that I had my mental health under control had been shattered when I was driving home from being at my best friend's house talking for hours but the moment I started pulled from the driveway I missed him so much it hurt my chest I started to cry because I knew it couldn't ever work being with him was the best feeling I'd ever had but I knew that it wouldn't ever be enough because I was broken therapy has helped a bit I guess I fell for a guy I met on study abroad he dumped me the second I left and started dating his housemate I was crushed thought I could get over him by hooking up with some guy I met on tinder but I actually just got pregnant when I was waiting for the doctor to perform the abortion I was just kind of sitting there alone breathing in this laughing gas and I started crying uncontrollably I was brokenhearted over one guy in pregnant from someone else I realized how goddamn pathetic that was and I could hardly bear it I realized things had to be different figured out that I had been using relationships as band-aids for crippling self-doubt and anxiety an incredible therapist helped very much a year later I finally took the plunge and started antidepressants when it became apparent that I was still crying a lot despite my circumstances being objectively great hitting rock bottom causes me to finally get help I really needed that felt really good to write jailed for a victimless a sex crime got out and had to register for ten years my friends abandoned me got fired from my job kicked out of my apartment finding a girlfriend was out of the question after three years of depression and self induced misery I decided to try something new to just be happy and change my attitude after a few short months I had some understanding friends went out and had some good time I found an apartment and a job that didn't background check after five years I met not only the woman of my dreams but a person I could be open with we hiked the entire 2007 hundred mile PCT together I lost my depression and saved enough for a house and started going back to college at the age of 38 this month I got my letter of release from the police Registration Office and I graduated college in two weeks I am in an internship land survey marking two times what I made in the service industry conclusion forced positive thought changes me from suicidal to extremely happy rock bottom when he told me that he wanted to be like Romeo and Juliet and meant it as in the end of the play I realized much later that I had been gaslighted into oblivion by this person I remember being locked in his garage that was his bedroom for days and not allowed out for food only to pee I wasn't allowed to leave his house or have my phone without his observance he was psychologically and systematically abusive and would regularly choke me or slap me blaming me and yelling when someone would flirt with me only allowing me to wear clothes the approvals etc being fed the same old I am the only one who will ever love you and put up with your [ __ ] spiel I still have long blank spots in my memory that I have no recollection of what happened probably repressed for my own sanity when I got out I had no idea who I was because he no longer wrote my story or defined me rock bottom was literally not knowing who I was because he had taken me away from myself p.s I am better and stronger now but still pissed that younger me was treated that way this was August of 2017 I had lost a second job had to go on short-term disability due to my weight had gotten into a car accident a few months prior due to issues stemming from my weight I was a mess just everything kind of hit me and I knew I had to get my metaphorical sh t together I still have a long way to go but since then I lost a bunch of weight got proper medication and treatment for my health and have a job I love like I said I still have a ways to go more way to lose still knew what my job so I still want to prove myself etc' and I could never have gotten this far without my girlfriend and my family they are the best seriously for nearly two years I was unemployed and supported by my father and living with some friends then I was kicked out for being hard-headed then immediately after my girlfriend of six years broke up with me and told me she would only get back together with me if I went to a mental hospital for a week I went to one for two days before my mom had to come tell the doctors to release me now I'm medicated and I worked two jobs at walnut and Dairy Queen n have a new girlfriend I'm much happier now but Wow sometimes you really need to hit that holy [ __ ] moments to get herself together however before I couldn't even leave my house by myself or make phone calls but now I'm working to customer service jobs and loving it three days ago I'm cleaning my room because the landlord will be here tomorrow it's three a em I'm sorting through sh t I need to get rid of I find a letter that was assigned to me as a school project my senior year the letter was supposed to be addressed to my future self being as invested as I was about the people around me liking me at the time I asked other people to write to me instead three people I knew did so so I read their letters to me I had read them before but my memory is so sh t I forgot what the hell they said all three told me I was so awesome in their own way tailed me how nice I was they appreciated me all this [ __ ] I'm sitting here out of shape in a job identifed King care about in the town I grew up in for F King years later and it dawns on me nothing about me has changed other than my abilities declining and my hairline receding not a goddamn thing I [ __ ] hate myself I spent four years of my only life pandering to people who didn't and don't care about me instead of finding something I was interested in and F came focusing on that setting goals that I cared about trying to be a better person matter of fact f-ck being a better person just trying to be myself in some way letting myself be ambitious and selfish lasting after and tasting success [ __ ] I wouldn't mind having a degree in something by now I wouldn't mind at least being worth more money or even feeling fulfilled by goals that I met so I'm realizing just now that I need to get my life together happened just this week actually I've been suffering from anxiety and depression since 2015 when I let a girl really mess with my head at the time I had left a great job I enjoyed that paid the bills and then some so it was a good gig in the time of knowing this girl I had alienated my entire friend group who were more like my family because my real family and I have a very shaky relationship that was 2016 and ever since I've been completely alone I've spent the last three years working jobs from no longer than three months at a time I've had ten different jobs in these three years I've lost all sense of self and became more depressed because of that in the feeling that I may never come to terms with who I truly am happy to be all the world I've been stoned from Sun up to the time I fall asleep at night basically using lead as a crutch to enable myself to not turn my life around I enrolled in Community College January 2018 - hoping to change all of that all the while never being able to actually be sober for an entire day I've floated through six months of college absorbing basically none of the material but somehow maintaining a 4-0 GPA I've realized now that it's finals week that I screwed myself by doing that I'm even more stressed now that I'm studying for all these finals and cannot remember any of it this last week I've made the decision to quit smoking and truly try to make a change it's now day three sober and I honestly can't recall a time where I've felt more clear-headed still stress that I'm probably going to fail all my tests but I know at least I'm putting in real effort now and it feels so damn redeeming when I found out my dad had cancer I had been crashing on my sister's couch not really doing anything after bailing on an abusive relationship I was depressed and had just kind of given up when my dad got sick I knew I needed to move back to our home state to be there for him I knew that to be there for him I needed to take care of myself - I got a job found a cheap room to rent and decided that I needed to make some friends so I wouldn't be totally alone all the time I joined a dance class made friends and lost 70 pounds my dad and I had a great three years together he did end up passing away in January and I miss him terribly but I have no regrets about the time we had together and the changes I was able to make in my life [Music]

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Keywords: reddit, r/AskReddit, ask reddit, askreddit, updoot, toadfilms, sir reddit, reddit jar, askreddit funny, askreddit dumb, reddit ama, reddit ask me anything, r/askreddit, reddit stories, reddit story, askreddit scary, askreddit stupid, scary stories, askreddit new, top posts, reddit top posts, reddit cringe, askreddit top posts, subreddit, funny reddit, best reddit posts, askreddit stories, best of reddit, reddit best, funny askreddit, storytime with reddit, r/

Id: PFQ54OcCQio

Length: 33min 28sec (2008 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 24 2019