Have you ever had a gut instinct?

[confusedbydating]

Inspired by another post.

have you ever just had a gut instinct that something was just wrong that you couldn’t put your finger on? Did you or didn’t you act on it? What happened?

one time i had this overwhelming feeling to stop and stay quiet. I did. Next thing I know something heavy fell off a balcony I was meant to be walking under.

have never not trusted my instincts again since.

I live in the ME, have done for the best part of 20 years.

I have worked here the whole time. About four weeks ago, I was in Dubai doing some work that finished on the Thursday. Given Thursday is the end of the week where I live, I could have stayed on for the weekend (my best friend from childhood now lives in the city).

I booked my flights/accommodation back in late January. Something was telling me 'don't book beyond Friday' which was odd, because it was an ideal time to see her, but it was a gut reaction saying 'go home' on the Friday. At the time, I was even wrestling with my head saying, 'but why not spend more time in Dubai seeing Jill*?. This went on up until the time I went there. Saw Jill, all fine, but I kept thinking, 'why aren't I extending this trip?'.

Got home, a few hours later this whole thing with US/Israel/Iran happened and I would have been stuck for a bit.

*Jill not real name.

A few years ago,I worked with a lady who had two adult children and a handful of grandchildren

She thought the sun,moon and stars shone out of all their arses

The dd and the grandchildren where lovely people but the ds-he was a different story

He didnt just give me a gut feeling he turned my gut inside out

There was 'something' about him and I cant put into words what it was-it was like the 'red pill hating woman' crap on the internet-the 'jokes',the put downs aimed at women and the look in his eyes said he meant it

He oozed evil

I spoke to colleagues and all but one said I was being daft and he was a 'top geezer'

So I just stayed out of his way,watching him get 'in' with the top bosses and wonder why nobody felt the same as I did

Few years later,a woman was attacked and beaten almost to death on a street id walked myself less than half an hour earlier

It was him-hed left work,walked around the corner and saw her walking towards him

I once met two blokes at work (customers) and one put my teeth on edge-his mate was fine

Both lovely blokes,very friendly and polite

The 'bad' one murdered his girlfriend a year later,rolled her in a roll of carpet and ran away

My gut also saved dds life as a baby

She had been ill and id finally got her to sleep

Something told me to phone an ambulance and get her seen

The doctor said that if id left it another 2 hours,she would have died-it was meningitis but she didnt have a rash

My granddad always told me to trust my gut as one day (self employed joiner) he'd taken on some work and my granny said to cancel as she had a bad feeling

He did,found more work and about the time the original project would have been coming to an end,the firm went bust and he wouldn't have been paid

I remember as a small child being forced to hug my grandmother (different woman to the one above-she died before i was born) and I can still feel the terror i felt as a 3 year old-and I got a smack for not throwing myself into her arms

All my childhood,I hated being around her and my grandfather

Then,when I was about 18/19 I heard what she'd done to her dds (my mother and aunts)

Fuck me this woman was rose west (the only difference was she hadn't killed anyone,but given a tiny bit of a chance,she would have done and not blinked) she was evil to her core (they both where) and when I say evil,I mean pure-you-cannot-imagine-just-how-evil,they did things that they should have gone to prison for life and being hated by everyone

It's the reason I never ever force a child to hug me or make a child hug anyone they dont want to

I always listen to it-its never let me down

My gut is highly tuned. I knew exH was having an affair even though I had zero evidence. Unlike many affairs he hadn’t changed his behaviours or routine. We still had very regular sex. He didn’t suddenly buy new clothes or start going to the gym. I just knew, and I don’t even know how.

Another time I had gone out during the day with my SIL. While I was taking her home, about three miles from hers, I had to pull over to let an ambulance past. I just knew it was going to my SIL’s house for my DNiece. I didn’t say anything to SIL and had no reason to think anything had happened to my perfectly healthy niece. When we got back to hers the ambulance was outside her house. Her DH had called it as DN had had a seizure out of the blue.

Another time I had a nightmare about my DB. He was running frantically and really scared. I could see him pushing his way through bushes. I woke up and woke DH and said “There’s something wrong with DB”. DB was living in London with our cousin at the time, having moved there for work. I wanted to phone my cousin (the days before mobiles) but it was 3am and DH said I was mad. So I got up and had a cup of tea instead. A couple of hours later my cousin rang. DB had taken an overdose of antidepressants and then panicked. He ran all the way to the hospital which was the other side of a big park to cousin’s house.

I never ignore my gut now.

I used to go for countryside walks on my own in my early twenties. One time, I saw a man in a van driving past the field I was entering watching me. I had a weird gut instinct so I walked on for a minute, and then turned around and back out of the field onto the housing estate. The same man drove back past in his van. There would have been little reason for him to turn back on himself as the way he was going before had three ways he could have gone or looped around.

Thank you. I tell myself (and had therapy where I was diagnosed with PTSD) that it wasn’t my fault, but it’s easier to say it than believe it.

One thing I realised a couple of years ago though - I was on a work trip away and wanted to head back to the hotel around midnight/1am. It was really light, lots of people around and I was happy to walk the 5/10 mins back. My boss was insisting I had to get a taxi back, and I felt anxiety rising and rising until I quite literally screamed at him that I wasn’t getting into a car with a man I didn’t know. It was at that point I realised that since that night in 1997, I have only ever been the passenger in a car being driven by a man if it’s my dad, my now-husband or if I’m in a group and it’s a taxi. I don’t think it was conscious, but clearly my mind had linked the two things and I’d avoided it ever since. It was massively triggering for me, and I suffered with nightmares for months after that night.

Isn’t it funny the way our brains work?

My husband believes I have genetics of a witch and if witchcraft was still tested today I would have drowned/burned at stake before I was 12 years old.

Im not so good at predicting my own fate, but in any given situation I often anticipate others, even if they are an acquaintance.
Old example- my husband’s bestmans girlfriend was on the Zeebrugge ferry when it turtled over and I saw the news and insisted we called him to let him know she was okay. Even he didn’t know she was on it after missing the previous ferry she was actually booked on. We didn’t originally know she was in the Netherlands either. He called us three days later, it took that long to locate her, yes she was on the ferry but had managed to get out onto the hull of the ferry to be rescued.

Recent, riding home pillion after a long trip and I asked my husband to stop, which he did, pulling into a lay-by. We got off the bike and I said something was wrong but I didn’t know what, so he decided since we had stopped he would make tea. We heard a crash down the road. If we hadn’t stopped we would have been involved in a multiple crash on the junction.

These just are flukes, or?

When the phone rang at midnight with nothing there in August 2009 I didn’t think anything of it though.
When my husband’s mobile did the same I went to check our son’s bedroom, he hadn’t come home from a go-kart meeting. Then a second call from our son’s phone, a stranger asking us to go to the hospital to meet the ambulance, our son had been knocked off his motorcycle with both legs broken.
I didn’t get that one.

Yes - it was from picking up very tiny signs of someone's behaviour that I was not consciously registering and I felt very unconfutable around them

This is what is is usually about not something spiritual and some people are just more alert to these tiny signs than others often down to experiences in life (not always)

I do believe woman experience this more but we are usually weaker than men so its a way to keep us safer

I had a gut feeling not to use prescribed psychotropic drugs that I was given for severe insomnia and anxiety after a head injury and post concussion syndrome a decade ago.

Unfortunately, verging on a serious breakdown, I had to take the medication to get better. My gut instinct was correct, ignored at my peril, and to my detriment for life. I was permanently injured by the off label antipsychotic prescribed and I have a neurological involuntary movement disorder called tardive dyskinesia now.

I have always had a gut instinct that certain psychotropic medication isn't good. I wished I had stuck by it but my mental health and survival was saying otherwise at the time. 💔

Yes and I was wrong

I also knew my ex was shagging someone else

He was a cocklodger but I really thought i loved him-looking back,he was incapable of love

We where obsessed with each other and on the surface,nothing had changed

But I just knew something was wrong-to this day,I cant put it into words-everything was normal,but everything had shifted at the same time

I ignored it as I loved him and it turned out he was knocking someone else off behind my back

She was my best friend-my ride or die friend,the woman who i told first that i was pregnant,who held my hand during a very high risk pregnancy,the one who was the first to meet my baby,the one who was there in the middle of the night,the one who absorbed my tears during post natal depression and all the time,she'd been shagging my boyfriend

They lasted 6 weeks together and 20 years on,shes still spreading her smear campaign about me,painting me out to be the biggest slapper ever and how I refused to give her my baby to bring up

(Shes a bit of a fantasist who believes her own script)

Now I keep a very close eye on my relationship with dp-and if it comes to the worst,I won't ignore it like I did then

Not so much a “ listening to my gut” as much as “ mmmm that was a strange thing to happen……one day last summer I was on my way to my hairdresser of 17 years…I was ready early so for the first time in 17 years I asked if I could come early…all fine she said …I felt absolutely fine on the journey and between parking my car and knocking on her door I started to feel ever so slightly off…when I got inside I said “ can I just sit down for a minute I don’t feel very well”….so I did….promptly passed out and when I came round she was screaming “ Kevin, you’re throwing up blood…” and I threw up a lot of blood…over a litre before the ambulance arrived….my BP was 50/29…. Blue lighted to hospital, blood transfusions and all the usual procedures….the Dr said to my DH that basically if I had been admitted even 2 hours later I wouldn’t have made it”….. I’m abs fine now ( had 4 staples in the veins in my stomach via endoscopy later that day) but to this day me and her just say I was meant to be at her place at that time…..coincidence for sure but a small part of me thinks it wasn’t my time !!! Very interesting thread OP…. X

Yes, since I was very small. At about 5, I really didn’t like a friend of my Grandads. I can’t explain it, he never came anywhere near me, but I remember he had a funny smell. Apparently I described him as smelling of “wrong”. Years later, he died in prison after being convicted of paedophilia.
I’ve felt it a few times since, a visceral sense of “this is NOT a good person” and I’ve never been wrong. The ONLY time I’ve gone wrong is when I’ve ignored my gut instinct. I don’t do that anymore.

I work in retail

One day a bloke walked in and I couldn't get away from him fast enough

Totally normal looking bloke,bit entitled but polite/friendly enough

I point blank refused to serve him and my colleagues thought I was over reacting

I just couldn't (and still cant) go near him

I was talking to a friend who's lived in the area all her life (I've lived here for about 10 years) and she filled me in on this bloke

I won't go into his crimes against women and children but I will say he should still be in prison-hes a dangerous man

Female babies,small children,teenagers or woman-hes not fussy

He's spent about half his adult life in prison,comes out does it again and back in he goes

He walks about freely and its only a matter of time before he strikes again and the police say they cant stop him from going near schools or my work (think golden arches-with a lot of kids running around) until he does something again (even though the courts have banned him from certain areas,the police refuse to enforce it)

He's one of 5 people i refuse to go near or serve