When You Finally Understand...

what did you learn about an odd unique person that made you say i get you now my dad always sleeps on his back his arms and legs are never spread out despite having tons of room in his bed he might as well sleep in a coffin it was weird to me then i found out that before he emigrated to the us he was stuck in a north vietnam prison for seven years where everyone slept together side by side therefore you had no room to spread your limbs he essentially is completely used to it my grandma sleeps like this but it more because when she was growing up in the 40s and 50s they said it would cause wrinkles sooner if you slept on your stomach or side i share a few hobbies with a guy from my town and every single time i run into him it's a wonderful experience the guy is kind funny warm smart the kind of person who's never without a smile who buys everyone coffee or lunch just because he wants to never accepts anything in return i had a chance to get to know him better through a bi-weekly gaming league he works a nine-five job volunteers on his weekends at the humane society or the local mission university educated the more our gaming league spent time with him the more we all sort of loved him except he doesn't have any friends seemingly at all he's always alone at game night when we talk about our friends and adventures or whatever he smiles and asks questions but never tells his own stories he does have a wife but we didn't meet her for a long time after a few months of this she eventually came around the store and we got to know her a bit just like him possibly the most wonderful couple of people i've ever met on the planet would do anything for anyone and we eventually learned from his wife that he suffers from schizophrenia and has major depression she told us that he doesn't maintain friendships or social groups because of these issues often he apparently goes from being the life of the party to just sitting at home staring off into space and will disappear for months on end without making contact with anyone he's often convinced that no one actually likes him and no matter what he does he'll never be valuable he comes to these game nights because his wife and therapist insist that he gets out of the house it's just a dang shame that such a wonderful person has to deal with that crap but now we finally get it we do our best to try to ensure that he knows we like him and that he's great but even now he's been me for a few weeks hope he's doing okay when i was in college i was partnered up with a strange dude for an assignment he had a really terrible odor smelled like b.o mixed with dirty hamster cage and he always wore a black trench my so had actually gone to high school with him and said the guy was pretty ostracized for his smell he was always friendly with me and i thought he was a pretty cool guy actually he still lived with his parents and i ended up going over there so we could work on our project together oh my god think of the worst episode of hoarders involving animals and that was this guy's life animal crap mixed with cedar shaving covered the floor there were litter boxes stacked two feet high with crap and had a 10 foot radius of crap around the boxes i was shocked but of course didn't say anything after i got home the smell clung to me i felt so bad for the guy and his little sister his parents really disadvantaged him by raising him in that environment that smell was his identity in a lot of ways we developed a friendship although i never went back to his parents house again last i heard he had gotten his own place and was doing well the new guy at work who i thought was weird and a little annoying he greets me overly exuberantly asks our manager's long drawn-out questions explains pointless things that didn't need explaining and doesn't always finish his projects on time mainly i was annoyed with him because he'd start irrelevant conversations with me while i was in the middle of projects and didn't have time to talk he looks a lot younger than he is and i assumed he was just out of high school and still in the awkward phase i was smoking a cigarette outside during my break one day and he came outside to smoke he tells me he is a recovering pill addict and just passed his one year anniversary of being sober he also is a single father and has a young son who is the reason he got sober he doesn't smoke around his kid and quit everything else cold turkey at once including alcohol because he didn't want his little one being around it i'm a recovering addict too and instantly in my head i was like that explains it i realize that all his behavior is in fact pretty typical of someone recovering from drug abuse and i actually found it admirable that not only did he get a job and get sober to be a good father to his kid but also that he had the courage to admit that to a co-worker i gained a lot of respect for him after that my uncle's always been a bit of a conspiracy theorist my mom mentioned a few years ago that he was oliver north's driver when he was in the army and suddenly his fascination with conspiracies made a whole lot more sense for those of you who aren't familiar with recent american history oliver north was a general who got caught selling weapons to iran so the government could funnel the money to terrorist groups and nicaragua it was a huge scandal and my uncle personally knew the main figure in it no wonder he started to not take things at face value there was a girl i went to high school with who seemed to never quite get it who was always a few steps behind everyone else never got the joke right away just generally seemed a little bit off senior year she began wearing her hearing aids to school she wasn't dumb or slow she had severe hearing loss and had been attempting to get by without her aides for years for fear people would make fun of her there's this guy who constantly makes suicide jokes they were pretty good but he went above and beyond with them one day this really annoying kid in the class says your parents are disabled kid was known for consistently insulting anyone calling them down eyes your mum's a virgin not sure how that works etc the suicide joke kid laughs then says that his parents are in fact disabled i think i'm the only one that actually realized then why he made all these jokes then it was to help him get along my fiance was kind of spoiled as a kid his parents put him and his brother before themselves all the time and constantly praised them and drove them places whenever they wanted and saved up for awesome family vacations etc don't get me wrong i'm looking at having the best in-laws i could possibly ask for and i love them but for a while i did criticize them for sheltering my soul and never making him do things he didn't want to but his mom is a therapist and once she was talking about her experience working with kids in the system all with different stories of abuse and sexual assault that must be heart-wrenching to hear as a parent his parents just wanted them to have the best childhood possible knowing that some kids just don't get that ex-co-worker at a factory i worked at annoying as frick super childish brown nosing her way to supervisor type of person very immature her husband worked at the same factory i learned over time that she was 25 he was 50 and they had a 10 year old daughter mfw i realized a 40 45 year old knocked up a 15 year old and they kept the kid all of her bitchiness kind of melted away to insecurity because she probably didn't finish high school and probably had her emotional development stunted at 15 because of the whole baby thing i took her annoying nature with a grain of salt after that and didn't push back on her as hard as i did before after i put that together have a friend who would be happy for a few months would tell me he loves me would wanna see and talk to me and generally be a happy guy that i loved then he would just not talk to me for months and whenever i saw him he'd be moody or sad or down would tell me he doesn't actually love me but he does still want to be my friend despite how he was acting me being me massively overthought a ton about what had done wrong he had done wrong i consulted other people ones that knew him and ones that didn't as to what i should do one night he was out with some other friends and got absolutely plastered he then drunk dialed me and told me that he has bipolar disorder and that's why he had been acting how he did in the only person outside of his family to know he hasn't let his university know he didn't let high school know his best friend who he's known for way longer than me doesn't know his girlfriend doesn't even know kinda makes me confused about how he feels about me and it makes our friendship kinda tough but i love him so i stick it out i never understood my mother completely but my first eureka moment came when i read and of green gables my mother lived in her own world this i knew from a very very early age but i couldn't grasp what world it was until i read that book then things began to make sense my mother was badly treated by her mother and became very narcissistic and she found her escape in books and was her favorite in that world was where she lived she became extremely angry when events of the real world intruded on how she wanted it to be she held grudges forever for it i was a very scared and confused little girl i got to know this guy through my boyfriend they have been friends forever he's little bit socially challenged tells jokes at wrong times talks and talks and talks even though the other person is clearly bored and says what he thinks no matter if it's offensive he is weirdly obsessed about things and knows a lot about them like cars and oh how he just talks about them so long you feel like you would rather get hit by a car his friends tell him straight to his face shut up you've been talking for ages they've been friends forever but i thought it was kind of rude at first then i realized he appreciates it he has autism and is really bad with social cues i understood it all suddenly got to know him better and it's easy to see why he is part of that friend group you couldn't find more loyal and trustworthy friend and when he isn't nervous it's actually great to have conversations with him he's absolutely great guy if you make the effort and get to know him when i had hard time with my boyfriend his best friend he actually texted me how i'm doing and told it's going to be all right amazing gesture and everything turned out all right like he said my son is the same way he's very self-conscious about accidentally annoying or boring people so he's actually grateful when someone tells him directly that they are tired of the topic i phrase it a little more gently because that level of bluntness would hurt his feelings but it sounds like that works in their friend group when i was growing up my mom was very anxious i had a cold when i was a teenager and woke up in the middle of the night because apparently she had called 9-1-1 because i had a fever in my sleep even now when i'm in my late 20s she calls me up randomly just to see where i am and if i'm safe i found out in my teens that her dad died under mysterious circumstances there was a good chance he was purged by the soviets i have a friend who had a really odd way of pacing around and constantly fidgeting clapping but only on some days randomly come to find out they were prescribed aderall for adhd and would sometimes randomly forget to take it before school after learning this a lot of other weird or unexplained things i saw and heard about her doing made sense my best friend is a bit crazy her sense of humor is a bit off and people never know if she's kidding or not me included sometimes i think she makes a joke in her head makes a follow-up joke to that makes a follow-up joke to that and only says the third thing she also is quite christian with a big fascination with israel she's smart but she occasionally does weird things with her diet keeps kosher cuts out gluten decides asserting food is bad being friends with her is always an adventure i've had several last-minute cross-country road trips because of her anyways i always thought she was crazy then i met her parents their christian fundamentalists similar to pentecostals her father spent all of dinner lecturing us on random bible verses and a couple hours telling me about his campaigns in local elections they also live in the middle of nowhere after meeting them and seeing how she was raised i found her to be surprisingly sane i later met her grandparents which lent a whole new level to understanding her family her grandmother is also a fundamentalist but more and her grandfather is an atheist happily married for decades despite it i love her but her family is something else can't wait for her wedding next year i love hearing about old people who have been married for a very long time especially despite what should be an obvious obstacle who would have though it a christian fundamentalist and an atheist pretty cool learning about autism made me realize that my dad probably has a mild form and that could be why he does some of the things he does one of the kids in my class's sophomore year of college had super long hair like looked like jesus kinda hair and beard and was well spoken but always just seemed off he vaguely mentioned sleeping in a bathroom on campus some nights and i started to think something was up maybe problems at home i was kind of right it turns out he escaped a cult i suddenly went from thinking he was a little socially awkward to being one of the bravest people i'd ever met when i heard his story how timely i just saw my friend yesterday and spent the first hour of our visit patiently waiting for her to finish being an angry b to me audra has two modes happy and angry lashing out b but you see audra grew up with an emotionally abusive mother and five abusive brothers who were jealous of her the only girl there was no healthy form of expression in her household she could never show weakness in normal emotions like having hurt feelings or injustice and she could never truly defend herself against her bigger stronger male siblings in the end her brothers put her mother in a care home walked away and took everything but she is one of the most loyal friends one could ever have she has a giant soft spot for animals is kind to them and every single pet she has ever had was a direct rescue by her i can always count on her to house sit and i know that the house will be cleaner than when i left and my pets will be loved while i am away she's always up for pretty much anything has a great sense of humor and she's just a great pal so when she is angry lashing out b to me i know that it is because she is hurting over something it's not personal i'm sure it would sound like it is to an outsider but i know it is not i try to stay patient and listen because i can usually ascertain the root of the issue through her ranting and i respond to those things instead of becoming defensive or at least i try to but she forgives me for the hurtful things that i have said in frustration she is a wounded bird with a tender heart and over the years i have grown to become fiercely protective of her she doesn't deserve a hand that she was dealt in life and that she has now left to cope with so when i walked in yesterday to angry lashing out biodra i reflected on how it's difficult to be her friend sometimes but with a little compassion and a great deal of patience we move through it and she comes around she's always sorry that she was a bee i always hug her and say i know you are and we go on about our day and have a good time she's a thoughtful caring friend and i get her i know where she is coming from and she is worthy of my love and friendship that's beautiful you're a lovely person my friend before we were friends i knew her as that short emo girl well it turns out the reason she was emo thought she was ugly and horrible was simple that's all her parents ever told her crap made me cry when she told me a friend of mine doesn't drink not a sip not a gulp not a toast not a non-alcoholic beer probably doesn't even put rum in pancake batter doesn't tolerate drinking in a partner it's not the weirdest thing out there but you know it's kind of normal in our culture to have a drink here or there and very normal for college students to drink one night out i was drunk and filter less and asked why that is so and they told me that they grew up with their grandparents because their parents were working in another country and that their grandparent was an abusive alcoholic ptsd stricken war veteran who later died due to his alcoholism so after that i can definitely understand why alcohol is such a huge no-no had a buddy who would eat everyone's leftovers it got to the point where if you were going to throw away food you would ask him if he wanted it first he got picked on for this quite a bit the way kids get picked on until another friend explained his situation his parents had gone back to their home country for medical reasons and he 14 at the time and his older brother 16 at the time had to fend for their own food it made so much sense and was a little sobering knowing that's something most of us didn't have to think or worry about but since finding out i went out of my way to make sure he was invited to my place to eat with my family for every holiday until recently when he got his own place and started his own family you are a hero i had an uncle who was a bit of a black sheep in the family he was the guy at the family reunion with the ponytail who would sneak off to smoke pot and sleep outside in a tent he also moved out of the rust belt to colorado so we never saw the guy the rest of that side of my family is super duper conservative and wholesome i moved out west out of college and hung out with him a couple of times the fact of the matter is he was living the good life he owned a cabin on top of a mountain had solar panels and even a green toilet i also learned he suffered from night terrors which was pretty embarrassing for him he actually lived the good life had a great support network of loose women and bearded outdoor types unfortunately he died in his cabin a few years back and he did live with someone he probably would have gotten to the one time oh well sounds like a man who lived exactly the life he wanted one of best friends in middle school still my best friend used to act almost completely opposite of the rest of us as far as gender relations are concerned we are all guys and used to try and pick up girls and the few times it happened he just wasn't into it he never dated any girl and all his friends outside our group were girls our group of friends never really thought anything of it because he was our amigo fast forward to april fool's day this year and we get a group call from our friend it's been about two or three years since we have all been together military families but we still stay in contact fairly often our group's sense of humor is kinda twisted i guess and we never miss a chance to roast each other our friend in question comes out to say that he has made decisions to undergo sex change and name change plus the whole nine yards one friend in the group call immediately starts laughing because this is very typical content for our group our friend was very serious but wasn't offended from the reaction that was the whole light bulb moment for my group it explained our interaction as friends almost in a sort of revelation experience we are all still friends even closer from this the best part was it was april fool's day and i think that was the point note didn't mean to offend anyone who is transgender i hear about this sort of thing all the time but this is my first exposure to it i guess just not real clear how to address the past and the future in terms of him or her thanks all for reading i usually stick with using the correct term for the time period unless they specify otherwise most of my trans friends think that's reasonable and easier to follow in general especially in a story like this it's almost required for the story to make sense why mmv on what other folks want also your good friend for not letting that change your view of her my uncle was never diagnosed with autism as it was totally not even considered a thing back in the 1940s and 50s people on the functioning side were considered slow and then on functioning were considered and i apologize for the term but mentally [ __ ] it now makes total sense why he is obsessed with model trains and airplanes he's lived a great life though got married and had two non-autistic kids and even got his pilot license and used to fly cessnas slow people flying cessnas ha i'm not sure if there's really a nice term to replace mentally [ __ ] neighbor is off smokes a ton of pot has serious drinking concerns doesn't see anything wrong with either even brags to me knowing full well i am an addictions counselor brain injury from workplace makes a ton of sense i feel for him i got really lucky with my brain injury that i am not that fricked up i was friends with the weird guy in high school he wore three hoodies three shirts three boxes and two or three pairs of pants every day people could not stand behind him people couldn't sneak up on him he slept with his back against the wall he was covered head to toe in thick scars some old some knew his humor was dark and he had a strange world view the relationship between him and his mother was strange she acted more like his lover and he acted like he genuinely wanted her dead but was so strangely submissive to her it was odd he was completely strange in every way but he was a genuine person he helped those in need and dealt with the school bullies he really wasn't a bad guy this year there was a court case involving his mother we graduated about four years ago but it was crazy to see his mom's name in the paper it turns out for as long as this guy's been alive his mother was pimping him out to child predators to get money for an expensive coke habit she had he's been raped almost every day of his life and made to think it was normal suddenly all of his quirks had a very serious meaning behind them i hope he's able to recover from 23 years of abuse this one really broke my heart i hope he is now living by a super wonderful life surrounded by good people my dad was becoming hazy and would seem to lose focus easily as i grew older tending to be very forgetful by the time i was leaving high school he had almost become delirious and it was hard to explain why he did certain things we found out he has mild alzheimer's i really love my dad and i miss being able to see him healthy and at his best coma the mental decline of my parents and family is something i dread the most there's only very mild history of it in my family though with my great grandmother developing almost a media dementia shortly after turning 100 so sorry to hear that it not only happened but so early in your life i have an acquaintance that i've actually known since elementary school recently we spent some time together and i found out that her childhood was much like mine with abusive negligent parents and a mother who was in competition with her daughter this explains a lot and had i known this 20 years ago we probably could have been better friends since both of our coping mechanisms ended up being drugs alcohol and crappy decisions it's probably better for both of us we didn't know this until now but it still explained so much i had a co-worker that started working at the company the same time as me we went through training together and i really liked him he seemed cool just a little quiet over the past couple of months i kept trying to make plans to grab a drink after work and hang out but i kept getting turned down i couldn't understand why he was always so busy after work didn't want to hang we got along really well during the day i sort of started to feel abba defended anyways he quit a couple weeks ago i found out later from his sister that he quit because he has consistently been making 3x more than we were getting paid by gambling professionally on all of these weekends that i was trying to hang out with him he was flying all over the country playing blackjack and counting cards on any average weeknight when i was watching netflix or hitting the gym he was being kicked out casinos if you are new to the channel you can subscribe i publish new videos every day until then check another video [Music] bye for now

Channel: Updoot Everything

Views: 98,932

Rating: 4.9608803 out of 5

Keywords: finally understand, understanding, i get you now, had to explain, strange moments, strange people, #updootst, updoot, reddit, r/askreddit, askreddit, ask reddit, best of reddit, reddit stories, reddit story, top posts, funniest posts, funny, funny posts, funny reddit stories, funny askreddit, reddit funny, askreddit funny, askreddit stories, reddit stories 2021, people of reddit, sub, reddit cringe, memes, toadfilms, updoot everything, updoot reddit, story, stories, rslash, comedy, fresh

Id: w4W3EQmWiUM

Length: 25min 23sec (1523 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 31 2021