Ask Lemmy

That not everyone secretly wanted to be a woman.

I remember one day realizing it was odd that my dad would hug my mom but my mom would never hug him back. She would just stand there and let him hug her. Yeah he was an abusive husband and I was very happy for her when she finally left him after over a decade!

Knee pain. Everyone told me it was normal growing pains, until one little league coach notice I run weird. Queue years of doctors and specialists and tests and scans and surgeries, and now I'm a 40 something guy with advanced arthritis that could have been much much worse if left untreated.

Being unable to think of something without a prompt.

I guess most people can just remember things without sticky notes and calendars.

Homophobia

I was raised in a right wing, rural area, and i didn't meet a gay person til higschool. When he said he was gay, i assumed he was joking.

Im trans now lol

Getting locked in the basement without water, or thrown out into the streets for half a day, when you misbehaved as a child.

Apparently, it isn't normal to just space out during a test. Yeah, I went through K-12, undergrad, and grad school with an undiagnosed learning disability. This was only one of the symptoms...

Social democracy

In general the political system you grow up in seems to becomes a normalcy in your mind when in reality there's so many different ways of governing

Not everyone has tics they must surpress while in public.

Long, skinny stools. Turns out it was because of a precancerous blockage.

I don't know if this counts, but when I was little I'd go to friends houses, then later in high school to my first serious girlfriends house, and I remember their families were like... loving? I loved spending time with at my girlfriends house especially, hanging out with her Mom and her Dad even if my gf wasn't there. They were so nice, and you could tell had genuine affection for their children (and to some degree, me). I miss you Mr. and Mrs. Miller!

Reading.

When I got to high school I started taking book out from the library there. Over three years I took out about a dozen books that had never been read; they'd just been sitting on the shelves for years.

Growing up using a poop knife.

Well, the feeling of one side of your hip being out of place. Then twisting slightly to snap it back.

It's hip displasia.

gun assault survival training for kids

yeah, no, this is just locally normal

Being able to see during ocular saccades. I was surprised to hear in so many videos “your brain blinds you because it would be nauseating”

No it’s not ? It’s just blurry.

Also, apparently some people can’t consciously control the focus distance of their eyes.

Excruciating period pain that would leave me fainting and vomiting every. Single. Time.

"Every girl goes through this" said the doctor, convincing my parents that I was just "dramatic".

Turns out I had huge polyps growing out of control! Left scarring in my uterus and high-risk when pregnant.

Dealt with that hell every fucking month since I was 11 until I got onto birth control in my 20s.

Sharing socks. My family used to have a sock basket next to our shoes. You didn't own your own socks, you just grab a pair when you need them.
I mentioned "the sock basket" offhand to a friend in elementary school and she thought it was crazy. That's when I learned that not every family has a community sock basket. Looking it up though, I find a couple reddit threads from people with the same experience (and people replying that it's weird) 🤷‍♀️

spelling goto as one word.

Intense aversion to unpreferred tasks

The way I was raised.

I grew up thinking it was normal for grown men to be attracted to little girls. My mother had a habit of pointing out random men who just happened to be around and telling me they were staring at me/thinking about how beautiful I was/in love with my/trying to look up my skirt. The way she talked about it made it seem like it was a common, acceptable thing.