To ask what your lightbulb 💡 epiphany moment was?

[DelusionalBrilliance]

In regards to anything, as long as it was big or life changing! A moment where something suddenly hit you and made a realisation, something that forced you to make changes or think about it differently?

Today I got talking with a few friends and they had all had at least one of these moments and it dawned on me I’d never actually had a life changing thunder clap of a moment where something clicked, either I’m boring or dead inside I think.

YANBU - I’ve never had one either
YABU - I’ve had them / several

I did not realise that until recently. (Aged 50!). I was always so cravenly grateful for a job- when in actual fact I am very qualified and work hard and I am skilled and well liked by colleagues.

The last job I quit I knew at the interview it would be a horrible place to work- and it was. Finally after 5 years DH said to me; 'Why don't you sack them?'. It had never occurred to me that I could 'sack' my employer. I did. And am so much happier for it.

That I don't have to be in contact with people just because we're related by blood. I have a cousin who is very privillaged and doesn't realise it i.e her parents have their own business, have their own detached home, two family cars, so, she's always benefitted from this, naturally. She's mid 20's and has just decided that she doesn't want to work. Fair enough. Yet, she still contacts me to complain about everything and I only hear from her when she wants to talk about herself.

Also, you are not obliged to support friends/family members mental health, especially if it is impacting your own.

That my mother is abusive and my silence and covering up for her is only protecting her and prolonging the abuse of me

On my 35th birthday that husband was never going to change and I wasn't doing myself or our children any favours continuing to be married to him, I started by telling him it was over 5 days later.

Despite my next boyfriend dying suddenly after almost 3 years together my life is infinitely better since I ended my marriage.

I wish my mother would realise she does not have to be in contact with her abusive sisters just because they are related by blood. We all would have been much happier for it. She has been in a groove of trying to please her sisters (who LOVE this and make her jump through hoops for the laugh of it) and she very severely impacted my childhood because of it because if I or my siblings did not play along she would get violently angry for not 'helping' her and would scream at us or physically attack us.

She never had our backs.

I don't see her that often really.

For years I thought my options were either:

1. have a hard, toxic relationship where everything was difficult and I was fundamentally misunderstood and i was disrespected OR
2. be single.

My lightbulb moment was when I realised that it was possible to have a loving, non toxic relationship where you love and respect each other AND your life is much much better together!

Sounds really silly saying that. As a child/teen I’d been stuck in a house with a mum and dad who showed their outright disgust for each other on a daily basis for a decade. Unsurprisingly, that seriously fucked my head up. (Moral of that story is don’t stay together for the kids!)

My ds was the only boy in the dance class at primary school. He wasn’t included in the ‘show’ dance at the local village hall because the teacher thought he wouldn’t like it, but hadn’t actually asked him. I felt it was so unfair.
We watched the display at the village hall and it was so bad! I learnt then that I should not worry about whether my kids were involved with things at school because sometimes things did not always turn out well and it was actually for the best that he wasn’t included. My ds was also extremely glad he had not been chosen!

Sitting in a meeting at work, on a random Tuesday, hearing all about the latest thing I'd got wrong - and realising very suddenly that I didn't have to put up with being bullied and victimised any more.
Left the meeting, went home, wrote my resignation letter and handed it in the next morning. My replacement was lined up barely 24 hours later.

This was nearly 6 years ago now - and I've gone on to have the best 6 years of my life since then. I'm the happiest I've ever been. I don't take shit from anyone, and I know my own worth.

Visiting my now 80 yo domineering abusive father on one of my four yearly visits to his country and he made me take him shopping in my rental car. He insisted I changed lanes to prepare for a turn off several miles ahead and I said no as there was a car coming nearly level with mine. He grabbed the steering wheel and tried to turn it!!!!!!!

Luckily he didn't succeed, luckily it was on the way back to his house not far away down that turn off ahead.

That was my light bulb moment. I have not and will never visit him or see him ever again. I have finally - in my 60's - broken free.

Realising that once I had given up (at his insistence) my prestigious and lucrative career my successful, wealthy and handsome husband only viewed me as a housekeeper/maid, no longer as an equal partner. I stuck it out for about a year then left.

That all the 'beach body ready' stuff is just crazy. When I get to go to a beach it's full of families building sandcastles and eating ice cream. No one gives a rats what anyone else looks like they're more interested in keeping the sand out of their picnic.

It might be a different story on Malibu beach but that's a world away from my life.

@IHS about the kitchen scissors made me think that I had one when I realised that if I didn't like the hard pillows at say the in-laws house, I could take my own with me.

This has expanded into staying in other places like if going on a residential weekend or cheap hotels. It makes such a difference and not a huge issue to stuff it in the boot of the car.

Realising that I could stop drinking alcohol because I didn't want to any more. I felt so much pressure to not be weird or awkward as everyone else seems to drink.
I stopped (not that I drank much anyway), no more hangovers, no more spending £8 on a glass of shit wine in the pub, no more tiredness and upset stomach. What a revelation!

That 99% of adults are blagging it 99% of the time, and that just because you know you haven't got a clue what you're doing there is no reason to assume you'll be any worse at it than all the confident people around you. In my view adulthood is reached when a person learns this.

another one - Covid lockdown and being out of the office, made me realise how toxic my working environment was and how many of the men there who are very competitve undermine me and other women all the time, just through minor throw away comments, constant little digs, I dont even know if they know they do it, its so ingrained.

and how being out of the enviroment where they are constantly rubbing their successes in your face made me much much happier. ploughing my own furrow without having to keep looking left and right and behind to see what everyone else is doing made me much happier.

similarly staying off social media and just not knowing what others at work are up to, to compare and worry about my own progress work achievements = much happier me.

I had a big lightbulb moment when I was just seventeen. In common with many teenagers, I was shy and lacking in confidence. I realised that this was actually very unfair to others and that I couldn't expect people to come up to me all the time and not make any effort myself. I decided that I would be the one to go up to others and ask them about themselves, learn how to make small talk and be more interested in other people than myself. In the decades since, I have met many interesting people and made lots of friends. Not everyone wants to talk or be particularly friendly with me, of course, but I try to not let it worry me. It is far more likely that they have their own worries and preoccupations than anything to do with me. Underneath, though, I am still an introvert, needing time by myself to read and debrief but I have taught myself to grow into my more extroverted persona with others. It doesn't mean that I am the life and soul of the party - the very thought of this makes me shudder - but that l take an interest in others, one or two people at a time.

Someone once said to me words to the effect of ‘are you going to do anything about it? If not you need to move on’ They were spot on and it’s become my mantra in life.

Often people will comment on how well I deal with stress and nothing seems to get to me, it’s because that moment led to a more grounded philosophy, life is going to be life and I can’t change that so I will focus on the bits I can do something about and the rest of it I will live with.

When I called the police on my abusive ex for the final time. 2 male police officers, part of the DV team, were so kind and one of them said "where is this going to end?" Wow a lightbulb went off then. He also said "so what if social services come out? They'll see you're giving the kids a good home etc" and he was right. The thing I'd feared the most (and the excuse for never reporting) whilst God awful, didn't result in the children being removed.
I'm not always a big fan of the police but the kindness and understanding shown by them, and their words have stuck with me.

another one from me - I was very shocked to realise in later life, too old really to get this for the first time, that your personality is not fixed once you attain adulthood and experiences can change you fundamentally

so someone who was extrovert can become introverted almost overnight if they suffer a major trauma

a very confident person can develop crippling anxiety and become a very nervous anxious person

people who are worriers can grow into those who dont care

aggressive career ambition can disappear

and so on and so on

I had a bit of a lightbulb moment when I realised that I am very much an introvert and what one was!

Bizarrely (or maybe it's not bizarre, tell me!) I actually really really like maing small talk with random people I have just met - I have no probelm with that at all. My issue is that I like one on one conversations with very good friends, and I like the first 2 to 30 minutes of meeting someone new (and they can be anything from unemployed old to minor aristocracy and young, I don't care!) but I don't like all the interaction in between - spending time in groups of meeting people who I have met before who are not great friends!

I've had a couple of epiphany moments in my life. One was 20+ years where I decided that I just didn't want to be with my exDH and left - it was worth all the crap I went through over the next year or so.
Then again when I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer and had to go through the whole regime of treatment which made me realise that I just don't have take crap off people anymore even though some were gaslighting me at one of the worst times in my life that I was going through!!
Mind you it took a few sessions of therapy before I came to that realisation - now I couldn't give a monkeys about them and although there is still contact - it is minimal and I can quite happily ignore the barbs and jibes even if they are supposed to be family.

Realising that I should use all of the things that I save for best because that day might never come. Candles that I love the smell of but that scent is discontinued and I worry that if I use it I’ll be sad and it’s a waste if I just burn it every day. A notebook that DH bought for me that’s too nice to write in in case I make a mistake and ruin it. When a friend died in summer at 38 and left behind her two children I realised that I might never use them, and then that would be the real waste.

Twice for me.

Staying with my ex in a beautiful holiday resort, one of the most romantic set ups I can imagine, having spent ££££ so we could be together and reconnect. After three days of no sex, no conversation, no affection, barely a glance in my direction as he lay on the bed of our accommodation and watched CNN (only to channel in English we received) and went and sat on the balcony and realised that he didn’t even LIKE me let alone love me. Separated after ten years within weeks of getting home. Met my now DH six months later and never been happier!

In my early thirties after attending a night out that I really didn’t want to go on with people I had long since outgrown and my best friend said to me “if it’s not a ‘fuck yes! 😀😀😀’ then it’s a ‘no thank you’.” I’ve used this guidance for every social event since!

With exercise, the only way you can 'ruin' a workout is to not eat enough protein and carbohydrate afterwards.

After decades of diet culture and an almond mum, my weight stablised for the first time in my life.

Realising that my husband not only didn't love me, but that he extended more respect to friends and work colleagues. It took a further six months for me to work up the courage to tell him our 18 year marriage was over, but it was like a weight was lifted once he moved out.