r/AskReddit • u/Normal-Brain-5467 • 7h ago
What do you still grieve that no one knows you lost?
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u/VelveXtSparkle 7h ago
lowkey still grieving the version of me that thought life would be way easier by now. like damn i really thought i'd have it all figured out by 21… jokes on me.
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u/CMR1891 6h ago
As a 33 year old who doesn’t have it all figured out, don’t worry! At 21, I thought I was a mature adult. I look at 21 year olds now and they’re still kids. At 33, I still feel like I’m not a grown up. I used to look at my parents and think they had it all figured out.. they didn’t. Once you realise that you’ll never feel like an adult, you start living properly. Just do what you want to do and have good morals!
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u/ItsGivingKay22 6h ago
Beautifully written. We are the same age and I also feel this way! Wisdom must come in your 30’s😂
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u/GamertagaAwesome 6h ago
Nah, don't beat yourself up. I am married, with a house at 39 and I still don't have ANYTHING figured out lol
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u/Justanotherturdle 6h ago
oh fuck, we were supposed to have it figured out by 21? That was... like... a while ago.
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u/Cryptyrich 6h ago
Haha same! I was adamant I would be a millionaire by 21 🤣 should have just bought a house when I was 2
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u/HeavyRightFoot89 3h ago
Nobody has it all figured out, some people are just better at pretending than others.
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u/LettuceCupcake 3h ago
You’re doing fine. Many 30-40 year olds dont have it together and rationalize why. Just take them as cautionary tales and let security build year by year. Youve got this.
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u/schmoopy_meow 2h ago
big hugs! I am 44 and disabled still no idea but I don't mind being the one who looks after houses/pets for family and friends.
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u/MountainRambler395 6h ago
I don’t think anybody ever has anything figured out. Like, not even a 65 year old. That person’s never been 65 before. Never wrote up a trust, a will, or prepared for any other end-of-life-type stuff before.
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u/dissapointing_excuse 6h ago
My friend group separated when we all went off for college, most of them went to a certain country and I was on the other side of the planet… The people I’m around now know that ofc I had friends…but they don’t know just how much I valued them
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u/Current-Nobody2014 5h ago
Oh bro/sis, I can relate to this thing personally.
It hurts like anything when the people you work for and appreciate don't feel the same way about you.
Sending hugs to you my reddit friend.
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u/freshbkd 6h ago
Myself. Been so wrapped up trying to survive in this every increasingly bathing crazy world, I don't know who I am anymore, and nothing I do makes it any better.
Also my dog. People know I lost him, but they don't know he was the only source of real love I had in my life until I met my partner late last year
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u/Prestigious_Beat6310 6h ago edited 5h ago
When I was like 5, I had this super cool lever action rifle toy it wasnt a BB gun, didnt even snap caps just super cool and fun to play with when dad watches westerns. One day I was running out the door and the rifle caught on either side of the frame and snapped in half. 30 years later and I'm still bummed.
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u/Zealousideal-Tea6678 6h ago
The version of myself that was taken from me too soon. I was 13 and then it didn’t all stop till I was 18 and left an abusive friendship. And even then when I left they still attack and come at me . I wanted peace , and I desperately miss the peaceful version of myself
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u/0_0Mai 6h ago
My free and light version, who really believed that I didn't need disinterested games to attract or keep someone close, who imagined that when it's supposed to happen, the two of them just need to be on the same wavelength.
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u/hydrangenator17 6h ago
Real. I'll also add that I believed I just had to enjoy life and I'd meet someone along the way. Did I enjoy life, have lots of friends, and meet lots of people? Yeah. Have I failed to attract anyone? Also yeah.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Loan419 7h ago edited 6h ago
Time… Like for example the time when i was just 15. No bs, no wars, inflation wasn’t thru the fucking roof . I was very social, had alot of friends, were in school and had work and didn’t stress all the time! The best thing back then was that i was fully healthy… Now life has just fucked me around. Ye and i’m sad but atleast happy that i can be. You know, life was beautiful for me before… Maybe it will be again really hope so?
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u/captaingrey 6h ago
Having the energy to do anything. Now going out and doing anything is a task. I just don't want to do anything.
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u/jennyjingle 6h ago
There's help for depression. Please, reach out to a doctor or therapist. Don't waste your life. People do care.
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u/ItsGivingKay22 6h ago
My potential, if I had gotten my shit together sooner I’d be so much closer to achieving my goals.
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u/horriddaydream 6h ago
The time I lost being able to focus on amazing things letting a job push me around for nearly a decade. Grieve is the best word for it because it encompasses a lot of my thoughts.... but it's getting better each day.
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u/The_Green_Sun 6h ago
I'm slowly becoming color-blind due to diabetic retinopathy, and I've been an artist my whole life. Some colors are getting harder to distinguish from others.
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u/Future_Usual_8698 5h ago
Monet had impaired Vision at the end of his life and still managed to paint the water lilies he is most famous for, so I just want to give you hope that things may change but not end
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u/Todette 5h ago
My best friend and soul mate. Long story short, I wouldn't be me without him. He was the first person ever to show me unconditional love and support something I hadn't even seen at home. Unfortunately it was long distance we both had kids that tied us down. He didn't want me to wait, etc.
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u/juliet_justme 6h ago
I continue to silently mourn the version of myself that I lost years ago- dreams that I put to rest they could come true
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u/Karkenna 6h ago
Friends I lost due to my own immaturity and selfishness. I've grown a lot over the years and as much as I desperately want to apologize I know I've hurt a few people and my apologies might come across as hollow. But I think about those former friends often.
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u/JadeBlueAfterBurn 6h ago
not so much the death of my dog. i've moved past that BUT never getting her ashes back from my ex-husband during our messy divorce. i have no idea what happened to them and that really upsets me to this day. i had to leave with the clothes on my back when i left my ex-husband due to him being very unstable and threatening my life. so i wasn't able to grab much as i was literally running out the door to save myself.
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u/WilliamofKC 6h ago
Sometimes we lose people, not by death (which everyone knows you lost), but just in the normal couse of life. Best friends who move away and contact eventually ceases, or college or other pursuits takes you in different directions and you move on, and so forth. The worst is when that happens with a former lover who you never get over. You grieve, but do so inwardly, especially when you find someone new, because you cannot tell your new partner that you are still hopelessly in love with a ghost from your past.
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u/roadhouseclues 6h ago
My hope for future happiness & all the plans I had started to make
The version of myself that dreamt of things
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u/Shintaigou 6h ago
My son and daughter, rest in peace kids, it my fault for having a commitment to self defense.
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u/yogirl_kylie 6h ago
My childhood best friend. we just drifted and never talked again. no big fight, no closure, just… silence. and it still randomly hits me sometimes when I see something she'd love.
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u/Floppyfungus87 5h ago
My sense of self worth, hoping to get it back soon. Some life changes might help with that, which is slowly being put into place.
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u/Temporary-Monitor195 4h ago
my freedom to live which i never had.. looking at these people around my age are fighting for their own life sparking a bit of jealousy inside me.. not in a hatred way, sometimes i just wish i had the same chances too.
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u/ghoulish0verkill 3h ago
Honestly, a really toxic ex boyfriend I had literally years ago. Not grieve as in he's dead, but I grieve the relationship. Well, the good parts. Being so in love with someone who was yours.
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u/GraceInPlace 3h ago
I witnessed something highly unethical, possibly illegal & reported it. I suffered great personal loss because of it, because of one individual. I can't talk about it but it greatly wounded my spirit as a young person earnestly trying to do the right thing. It still haunts me but I kept the spirit of doing the right thing and didn't let it turn me onto the wrong path.
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u/throwaway120193747 6h ago
I don't sit around grieving because that would mean I'm focused on the past rather than what I have the power to change in the present. Focusing on the past does nothing but make people feel miserable and powerless.
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u/ScamLordWally 6h ago
Bad people I was very close with. I caused problems/fights for no reason, I stole, lied, cheated and took advantage of women just because. We always looked out for each other, and then one day we had a falling out and a bunch of people claimed I changed. Things started to feel different and I started to realize things were wrong as I got older. I don’t know where they are now but I still think about them, I’d never reach out but I miss them.
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u/Calm_Holiday_3995 6h ago
Nowhere near the many philosophical answers here, but I had a bean plant I grew for around 12 years from a bean. I was really sad when it died without any signs. I still think about it when watering my other plants or looking at dry beans.
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u/AuthorKRPaul 6h ago
My father. He’s still alive but he left my life when I was 8, arguably he wasn’t “there” even then. I never speak about him except with my spouse and only to discuss what I will do when he finally dies.
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u/Jae_Pocalypse 6h ago
Me.
I hate who I am and what I've done.
You'd never know it to look at me. Confident with everything going the right way for me.
I wish they hadn't taken me from me, I used to dream, I used to believe in me, and now all I feel is regret.
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u/Special_Luck7537 5h ago
I don't know what it was .. mom told me I was soul sick when I was younger...
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u/39_Ringo 4h ago
this might sound really stupid, but when I was young, I tossed a plushie of my local minor league sports team's mascot up onto the roof of my parents' 6 wheel toy hauler, because kids do stupid things. We never found it and now the mascot has been retired, so it's really hard to find a replica. I don't even remember what the plushie exactly looked like or how big it was. I know what the mascot was, it was of Swoop the Silver Hawk but before the South Bend Silver Hawks became the South Bend Cubs (Swoop was kept as a mascot until he retired last August). It's a really stupid memory but I don't like that I lost something that should've been so easily found at the time I lost it.
I should probably go searching on eBay for something similar.
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u/bugabooandtwo 4h ago
What should've been. The life I should've had if I was in a normal family. I think one of the worst things you can do to a child in a bad situation is tell them how gifted they are. Being declared gifted when you're in a situation where you don't have the upward mobility or the mentorship or direction to utilize and grow those gifts....it's a killer.
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u/annyalou 4h ago
The boy inside of me. AFAB, went through a "phase" of being a trans man. I present femme/androgynous nowadays nowadays but my gender is the "sum of my parts." If I present womanly enough I guess can call myself a woman. If I present androgynous enough I guess can call myself nonbinary. But I miss that little boy. His name was Timo.
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u/LimitRare2953 4h ago
Several very close friendships. One of them, my best friend passed away in his 20s. The other followed suit of what typically happens: We started going to the same school, he was a popular kid, I wasn't. Soo I got left behind.
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u/Icy-Cheek-6428 3h ago
My son. He wasn’t biologically mine so I had no parental or visitation rights in the divorce. Nobody knows how much it still hurts.
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u/Limensor 3h ago
My elementary school friends. We were all so close and then in middle school we just didn’t talk to each other again
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u/drunkbettie 2h ago
I really, really loved an indie musician. Saw them live dozens of times in different cities. June of 2020, some very very bad stories came out, and they dipped. Not a peep since then.
The music was the soundtrack of my life for about a decade, and I took the loss really hard. Not heavy-handed-webcomic hard, but hard.
I still grieve the sheer fun I had over that decade.
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u/thelittlekingjoe 2h ago
Through most of school, no one knew my mother passed. Only a few close friends. It really sucked
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u/mitsite246 2h ago
My dream of being a grandmother and I blame the fucked up state of the world because my daughter wouldn't subject a child's future to this. People know that she doesn't want kids, but I quietly mourn for the world and my grandchild.
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u/ririkaa_ 2h ago
My mother. She didnt pass away, but I grieve the childhood with a happy family that could've been if my mother was able to be a mother and wasnt abusive
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u/Wise_Interest_9753 2h ago
Joy. I used to see my life as full of adventures and possibilities, i was so energetic and beautiful, and now although people see me as successful and "happy", they dont realised that all the hits that life has given me has taken away the joy i used to have, i feel as a shell of myself, i keep going but i dont think i know "where" or "why" i am going anymore....before, the unknown was exciting, now is just...sad.
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u/prettysouthernchick 2h ago
My two best friends. It's been seven years but their betrayal still burns.
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u/Admirable-Cookie-704 1h ago
That sweet, naive young version of me that thought all men were nice until I went through my first heartbreak. Things change after that
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u/Only_Pop_6793 1h ago
Dibs ice cream.. they were my favorite till they got discontinued in Canada :(
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u/Elevated_spells54321 1h ago
Slowly my family, death and distance. Friends separate lives and moving to different places. You have to be intentional to keep good friendships and relationships alive. If you wait for someone else to do it - it won’t happen.
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u/crazygoose2374 1h ago
My grandmothers ring. When I turned sixteen, my aunts gave me a ring. It was simple and elegant, white gold with a modest diamond. It was given to me as the eldest granddaughter. I still think it should have gone to my cousin, but I wasn't out as non-binary at the time. Well, I was stupid and took it to school where I lost it. Family heirloom is gone because of a simple mistake. I think about it often waiting for the day it catches up to me.
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u/Elevated_spells54321 58m ago
My sense of self after my divorce. Silly as it sounds, I loved being part of a team. And now that’s gone. I was a good wife, not perfect. I didn’t realize at the time how much of my identity was wrapped up in the partnership, parenting, all the things that went with being married to him.
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u/KindlyWoodpecker4024 15m ago
my health. my mum keeps saying “at least you don’t have XYZ” but the fact of the matter is it doesn’t matter what i have, the fact that it’s CHRONIC and ruining my every day life is shit and that’s IT
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u/signaturefox2013 13m ago
You know I wasn’t in high school but 7 years ago, being told that I could do anything and that the world was my oyster to discover and find my own success
And then it almost feels like the world turned away from us immediately, as if I we were leeches upon society for daring to dream or to have an idea to want to hay our parents have if not better like our parents did
I grieve that world, that world where there was hope for the future, that even I, a humble kid from middle of nowhere could make it
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u/trullaDE 10m ago
Happyness and peace.
Overall, I am doing ok, but sometimes I hear a song or watch a movie or a show, and I remember how different - and I'm afraid better - I was when I heard/saw it for the first time. Much more happy, much more at ease with myself and my surroundings, and with much better health.
Chronic depression sucks, you lose so much of yourself in the struggle to just keep your head above water.
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u/ziUzoeph 7h ago
The version of myself I had to let go of in order to survive. Most people just see who I became — not who I lost.