Do you remember a specific thing that made life much more difficult for you as a child? Well, you're not alone. Reddit user u/i_never_ever_learn asked: "What was your personal hell on Earth when you were a kid?" — and people had thoughts! Here's what they had to say below:
1. "Other kids. Nobody cared if you were bullied in the '70s and '80s."
2. "My name rhymes with a few unfortunate words. Kids calling you names every minute of the day in the class while the teacher does nothing for two years straight literally changes a person."
"My last name is literally Head. Can you beat that? I assure you, I've heard every insult possible by kindergarten. Try getting a woman, any woman, willing to be Mrs. Head."
3. "My 'friend' Jacqueline's house. I didn't actually like her. I just felt like I had to go on playdates with her because that's what you do. Her parents were horrible people, her brothers and cousins were assholes, and she stole my Polly Pocket and one of my Barbies and told me she donated them to poor kids in Russia. I saw my Polly Pocket on the top of a bookcase in her house a month later and that's when I was DONE with Jacqueline."
4. "When a kid would bully, I would tell an adult. Their answer? 'oH, tHaT jUsT mEaNs tHeY lIkE yOu.' Yeah, because that's a totally healthy way to learn how to develop relationships or find your way out of toxic ones."
"Or 'just ignore them' — but that’s kind of hard to do when they get away with everything and the administrators and teachers protect the bullies and not the victims."
5. "Hearing my mother tell my dad it was liver night. That meant a power struggle with my parents that I would eventually lose. Dinner was at 6 p.m. It was not uncommon for me to sit at the table until my bedtime. I did not care if I went to bed hungry."
6. "So, I've always loved animals. Especially as a kid, I was a huge animal lover and LOVED seeing animals... living animals, that is. I despised taxidermy with a fiery passion. It totally grossed me out, and anytime I was around it, I wanted to get as far away as possible as soon as possible. So imagine my 'delight' when we had a field trip to my classmate's grandpa's house, who was a big game hunter. It was just a giant room of dead animals, including multiple endangered species (they were grandfathered in, I guess, but I didn't understand that concept as a kid). For added fun, the room smelled dusty, musty, and gross. It was as if someone wrote down my worst nightmare and was like, 'Holy crap, this is the perfect field trip!'"
7. "Middle school cafeteria."
8. "Not understanding why nobody seemed to like me. It seemed like everyone was always frustrated with me but I couldn't figure it out. ADHD Middle Kid problems, I guess."
9. "My mom was one of those people that everyone on earth would tell their life story to. I lived in fear of my mom getting into a conversation with anyone because it would always be (or feel like — I was young) hours before we could leave. I still get super antsy if someone keeps talking when I'm giving 'gotta go' vibes."
10. "Having to work from a young age and skipping what should have been a normal childhood. In some ways, it helped me, emotionally... not so much."
"Same boat, friend. I was forced to get my first job two weeks before turning twelve — roofing. I got laid off (not a roofer anymore) at the beginning of the pandemic, and while I was scrambling to find a new job, which took six weeks, I told my wife, 'This is the longest I've ever been out of work since 1987.'"
11. "Daycare. I swear that woman hated me."
12. "I had such horrible, not-noticed vision until my oldest brother brought his girlfriend to dinner. She was an ophthalmology tech and brought it to my parents' attention. I didn't speak much because I couldn't see."
13. "Having to play sports and always being on the bench."
14. "Having a random day off from school. You know the ones — like some odd religious holiday or 'Teachers Institute Day.' It would be just a random Tuesday without school. These were the worst because everyone else would be giddy making plans like 'Let's all go bike riding' or 'my mom says I can have people over to go swimming' but none of that was ever allowed, and I knew better than to accept invitations. Days off were suddenly commandeered as 'we're going shopping,' 'visiting grandma,' or 'taking your sister to get her clarinet adjusted.'"
"Also, all dentist, doctor, and orthodontist appointments were always scheduled on these days off, too. I never could figure out why the other kids got to mysteriously leave school mid-day as a freebie for appointments but days off were always wasted on this stuff.
It got to the point where I absolutely dreaded these days because they represented nothing but missing out on fun times and having to hear all about what everyone else did the next day. 'What did you do JP?' 'I had to go to the discount clothing store and try on 25 different pairs of paints, and my mom made me change right there in the store because I took too long walking back and forth to the changing room.'"
15. "My older brothers created my personal hell for me. They finally remember all the times they would tease me, break my toys, roll me up in a sheet and swing me around by the ends of said sheet, splash me in the face at the pool, which gave me, some kind of complex about having water in my face to the point where I cannot shower if the water is hitting my face, just mean older brother crap. And when I would try to tell on them, my mother would just say, 'Wait until your dad gets home, and my dad would laugh it off."
16. "I used to have a very elevated sense of smell. My mom would pack me a sandwich for lunch, and three hours later, it would stink to me. Badly. I would always try to go through it, but some days were worse than others, and it would cause me to dry-heave. I’d sometimes just throw it away so my parents didn’t know I didn’t eat it, because I got in trouble for bringing my lunch home, even though it was because I physically couldn’t stomach it. My mom did eventually realize I wasn’t just being picky, and worked hard to figure out a way I could eat my lunches, so props to her!"
17. "School assemblies. The sound of about a hundred kids talking all at once is like nails on a chalkboard. Having to sing the school song and 'America the Beautiful,' and then do the Pledge of Allegiance, was tedious. And the assembly itself was always boring at best. It usually also meant being bullied somehow, because it was hard for the teachers to supervise their classes and some assholes would take every opportunity they got to bully me."
Was there a specific thing that felt like a personal hell for you as a kid? If so, tell us what it is and why in the comments below:
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.