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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask what your lightbulb 💡 epiphany moment was?

577 replies

DelusionalBrilliance · 16/12/2023 18:53

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

OP posts:
user1493111960 · 17/12/2023 17:47

I've had intensive emdr therapy and kept questioning people's actions and my therapist said but people have choices. And that was it guilt removed from people who used to guilt me into things now I don't accept things I don't want to x

NonPlayerCharacter · 17/12/2023 17:50

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 17:40

in truth have known for many many years (and well before example upsentence, but some lessons need to be relearned), but some folks' declared political views might have sod all to do with society and rather more to do with the needs (very possibly crippled) of their own ego. if you are reading this, person who was forever telling me about their anarcho syndicalism, take a bow/the podium.

anarcho syndicalism

Is that like cryptofascism?

CatsnCoffee · 17/12/2023 17:52

Received my diagnosis 2 years ago at 56! Explains so much. I’m not just the odd, quiet, eccentric victim of which I was perceived.

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 17:52

MarleyandMarleyWoooo · 16/12/2023 21:15

A couple spring to mind.
My dad is a horrible man, used to terrorise us, very verbally and physically abusive. Anyway, I was visiting one day after my parents had split, and something triggered his rage and he went for my older sister. I stepped in and got his attention and he pinned me to the wall and spat in my face, more than once. It was horrendous and I thought there and then, I am never seeing you ever again, you’re dead to me. And that was that. I was only 14.
The other was when I was in an abusive relationship and I looked to the right as my boyfriend was screaming in my face with his arm on my throat and saw my dog, who was petrified but just staring and shaking because he didn’t want to leave me. And I thought, my god that would be our children. Absolutely terrified and not able to save themselves. So I left him a week or two later, did a midnight flit.

hugs - ah the wisdom/empathy of dogs. happy christmas.

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 17:53

ps - you took your dog with you I trust?

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 17:57

NonPlayerCharacter · 17/12/2023 17:50

anarcho syndicalism

Is that like cryptofascism?

Show quote history

I have no idea :)
as have long had an innate suspicion of what I see as over-complicated over-intellectualised political beliefs. I have maybe since read that anarcho syndicalism is the special refuge of middle class poseurs, many possibly working out personal resentments/issues. I won't tell you what this particular one is doing now as it might be outing. Let's just say that it's another layer of bullshittery.

MrsPetty · 17/12/2023 17:59

Realising a particular ‘friend’ wasn’t a friend at all. I stopped making an effort and the friendship was no more ….

Twinkly64 · 17/12/2023 17:59

Having a family day out and my mother said something really awful to me. I knew she never liked me as much as my siblings, but I'd always tried so hard to do everything I could for her. After the comment she made, it hit me that no matter what I did, it would never be enough. I've disengaged and am distant but friendly, grey rock I suppose. It's made a real difference to my life, I don't get upset or stressed, it is what it is, sadly she's lost a person that was really kind and helpful. Not my problem.

Henrietta70 · 17/12/2023 18:07

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ilovegranny · 17/12/2023 18:07

Mine is more lighthearted; years of idly wondering how women impregnated themselves with a turkey baster, which I always thought was a long-handled shallow spoon. And then I saw the other version…

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 18:08

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 17:53

ps - you took your dog with you I trust?

ah I see someone else has asked the same - off in search of an answer :)

alwaysthepessimist · 17/12/2023 18:14

That my OH - we are still together is lazy and thinks the world owes him a living, he doesn’t drive (he’s 51), he can drive just won’t and sulks if I refuse to give him a lift anywhere, 2024 will be the year we break up, it’ll be hard because we’ve got an 11 year old but it needs to happen, I’ve completely detached from him now and have no feelings.

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 18:16

ZekeZeke · 16/12/2023 19:53

Accepting I was an alcoholic and if I didn't stop drinking then I would lose DH, my children, my job ans probably die.
I'm sober 7 years.

So sorry. And well done for being sober for 7 years 🌺

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 18:27

EmptyYoghurtPot · 16/12/2023 21:32

On my 50th birthday (last year) a very wise lady in her 70’s told me that, for her, 50 was the age where she stopped worrying about what people think about her. Not that she has done anything outrageous but just stopped fretting about how she dressed or if people liked her or not. I’ve always been an overthinker and it was literally life changing for me. I realised that probably more than half my life was over and I’d wasted time on unimportant little things. I have family and friends who love and support me so if a person at work or Church or in the street thinks I dress too young or my hairs not fashionable or I don’t like or do or say the right things then that’s their issue, not mine. It was so liberating.

Edited

That wise lady could be me 😊. Took me until my 50s to realise this. I now genuinely don’t give a flying f**k what people think of me.

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 18:28

alwaysthepessimist · 17/12/2023 18:14

That my OH - we are still together is lazy and thinks the world owes him a living, he doesn’t drive (he’s 51), he can drive just won’t and sulks if I refuse to give him a lift anywhere, 2024 will be the year we break up, it’ll be hard because we’ve got an 11 year old but it needs to happen, I’ve completely detached from him now and have no feelings.

Good luck for 2024. 🌺

StarSublime · 17/12/2023 18:29

@alwaysthepessimist good luck for 2024. Wishing you much strength and happiness.

My revelation was that my mother lies. Habitually, all the time, to undermine others and gaslight. It's incredibly freeing to know this.

And just how abnormal and damaging it is to choose to send a 9 year old to boarding school.

Slowrealisation · 17/12/2023 18:29

Mine was a slow realisation as opposed to a thunderclap moment. I lost my beautiful sister almost two years ago. She was my best friend, confident and loudest champion. She was also my fiercest ally in the face of our Mother. We have another sister who is very much the golden child. I was, and am lowest in the pecking order.

I struggle greatly with the grief of losing her and have been on therapy for the past 18 months. What I realised during this painful journey that not only was I grieving for my sister, I was grieving for the Mother I deserved. It resulted in me being a people pleaser and having an ED. Nothing I ever did or will do, will be be good enough for my Mother. I realised my Mother is a covert narcissist. Three days after my sister's death, my Mother started her usual verbal digs at me, I snapped and told her she can't use me as her whipping boy anymore, it stops now. Her reaction? "Oh I only have one daughter now' and "You're tearing the family apart".

On my healing journey I listened to a podcast by Dr Gabor Mate. He said siblings have different parents, that was a sharp realisation for me. The Mother the GC had was loving and supportive, the Mother I and my other sister had was very different.

Lauram82 · 17/12/2023 18:40

Realising in my late 30s that if I took paracetamol when I had any ache/pain/cramp (particularly pertains to menstrual pains) it would go away, never thought twice when I had a headache it just never occurred to me to treat period pains with painkillers 🤷🏻‍♀️

wasdarknowblond · 17/12/2023 18:43

Realising what a toadying, lying, conman my ex was and deciding then to train for a decent job so I could pay the mortgage and boot him out, which I did.
Realising some ‘friends’ are completely false and full of shit and dumping them.

Offwiththecircus · 17/12/2023 18:47

as so often with me, lightbulb moment a bit late/after the event, but still before death and plenty of life to lead, so be thankful:
walk away from malice
a person may be angry, even with you, pissed off - you maybe have given them reason, or they might be just having a bad day and taking it out on you - not great but maybe understandable.
but no excuse for malice - they are feeding on your hurt or trying to - it might only be imagined - but that imagined hurt just betrays their desperate need.
so walk - even if you think you love them.

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 18:51

So many posts on here resonate with me; mostly the ones about getting older and not caring what people think anymore and not being a people pleaser.

Nearly 20 years ago I had a total meltdown, sobbing,, crying, stuttering and shouting because I had been completely overlooked for a family wedding ( accommodation booked for everyone, focusing on the ‘ other side’ of the family, except me).
My epiphany was to look at myself, blame myself and change my whole attitude and behaviour towards other people. I realised that I was not as important to certain other people as they were to me. It was a very , very hard lesson.
I immediately stopped all the visiting, all the “Oh,I’ll bring pudding!/I’ll come early and help to cook - and buying gifts that were always a tad too generous…. Etc etc.
i stopped ringing people when I realised they never rang me. I stopped so much.
it has been totally liberating. I have never been happier. I have a small number of friends who are lovely, I am in a couple of clubs with really nice people and mainly I do what the f**k I want 🤣

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 18:52

PS I love this thread!😊

AInightingale · 17/12/2023 18:56

Lauram82 · 17/12/2023 18:40

Realising in my late 30s that if I took paracetamol when I had any ache/pain/cramp (particularly pertains to menstrual pains) it would go away, never thought twice when I had a headache it just never occurred to me to treat period pains with painkillers 🤷🏻‍♀️

I'm 51 and only realised last week that ibuprofen helps ease the pain of a sore throat. It simply never occurred to me before. 🤦

Ilovecleaning · 17/12/2023 19:03

Halifaxnights · 17/12/2023 14:22

I was failing to lose weight and was considering bariatric surgery. Suddenly I realised that my eating was not 'out of control', I was in total control of what I ate - I was the only person putting food into my mouth. I started intermittent fasting the next day and lost 5 stone within a year. Sadly it had taken me a very long time to reach that realisation!

Not ‘sadly’. Its fantastic! Well done 🌺

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