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My Little, Naive, Innocent Brain Is On Fire After Learning About These Horrifying, Shocking, And Upsetting Things

Once you learn what an oubliette is, I guarantee you will stay up allllllll night thinking about it.

Note: some graphic stories ahead including one about murder.

1. The story of Mary Toft, a woman in 18th-century England who scammed doctors and the public into believing that she had given birth to rabbits. She would accomplish this by literally putting small rabbits and/or their body parts up inside her vagina in secret and then "birth" them later.

old drawing of people standing around a bed as a women gives birth to rabbits

2. The fact that oubliettes used to exist. An oubliette (from the French "oublier" meaning "to forget") was a type of medieval dungeon that had a trap door at the top, just out of reach of the prisoner. The worst part was that the dungeon would be shaped like a really narrow passage so that the prisoner wouldn't be able to sit or even get on their knees. So, yeah, they were basically forced to stand and starve to death.

dungeon gate

3. In August 2022, Celebrity Cruises stored a dead man's body in the ship's drinks cooler where it was apparently "left to rot for six days." When the body was found, it was reportedly in "advanced stages of decomposition."

large ships out in the water

4. Heather Mack, a convicted murderer from Chicago who, along with her boyfriend, brutally killed her mother, Sheila von Wiese-Mack, in Bali, Indonesia in August 2014. The crime drew a lot of public attention due to the fact that Mack and her boyfriend stuffed her mother's body in a suitcase.

woman in handcuffs being escorted  from a courtroom

5. The existence of Cymothoa exigua, aka the "tongue-eating louse," a parasitic isopod that severs the blood vessels in a fish's tongue, causing the tongue to fall off. After detaching the tongue, the parasite then attaches itself to the remaining stub, basically serving as the fish's new "tongue."

6. Images from the aftermath of the Apollo 1 tragedy that killed astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. On Jan. 27, 1967, during a launch rehearsal test, a fire swept through the Apollo 1 command module, burning all three men alive.

the burned inside

7. The Mummies of Venzone, a collection of dozens of naturally mummified bodies — who became that way thanks to mold — that were found in Venzone, Italy in the 1600s and date back to as early as the 1300s.

8. The story of David Charles Hahn, aka the "Radioactive Boy Scout," who built a homemade radioactive neutron source in his Michigan home's backyard when he was just a teenager.

bodies wearing rubber boots and suits

9. The death of Paulette Gebara Farah, a four-year-old girl in Mexico who disappeared, but was later found dead under suspicious circumstances. Her body was discovered seemingly hidden in her own bed.

banner for the missing child

10. The existence of this fascinating (but horrifying-looking) creature called a Cosmoderus Femoralis, aka an armored fighter cricket, which is apparently quite rare.

crickets with thorns on each leg

11. This 1950s news clipping from the New York Daily Mirror that asked, "If a Woman Needs It, Should She Be Spanked?" And then had responses by three men ranging from, "Why not?," to "Yes when they deserve it," and "You bet. It teaches them who's boss."

the answers from the three men with their photos printed

12. Joe Mellen, a "psychedelic adventurer" from the UK who drilled a hole in his own skull in order to "stay high" in 1970.

illustration of a head with a machine attached drilling into it

13. This terrible story of a leaping sturgeon that jumped out of the water, hit, then killed a five-year-old girl in Florida who had been out boating with her family.

fish jumping out the water

14. The fact that a medicine called "One Night Cough Syrup" was made in the 1800s and it contained wild ingredients like alcohol, cannabis, chloroform, and morphia, sulph (an old name for morphine).

old cough syrup label

15. Finally, this shocking/wtfffffff video of what it looks like when an "angry" camel inflates its dulla — an organ in male camels' throats that is "believed to be associated with the display of dominance among males and for attracting females."

The whole video for the full effect:

EmptySpaceForAHeart / Via reddit.com