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

This sounds very cocky, but I don’t think I’d ever realised that some people will just never come around to your way of thinking and even though you might think their ideas or batshit, that’s them! (After an argument with a relative once)

I used to be an inordinate people pleaser, and I remember trying desperately hard to make a particular person like me when they were making their disdain for me really clear. I suddenly realised one day that there was nothing I'd done make her feel like that that, nor was there anything I could do to change her opinion. She just didn't like me. It was a huge lightbulb moment.

When my partner of 10+ years made it clear to me our family and I weren't the most important thing to him, and he made some selfish choices.
It hit me in that moment that I needed to cut things off in a way that I couldn't take back, in order to look after myself.

Fast forward 5 years, and we are married and the happiest we've ever been.

How things can change in a way you, at times, could never imagine.🙂

Realising how much more influenced by emotion men are (as anger is also an emotion) than women has changed how I approach a lot of things.

That I need to stop caring what other people think, I would probably never see most of them again. I was 18.

Then I realised I had to stop trying to keep my family happy….that took longer.

Being independent and relying on yourself (myself) is the most liberating thing in the world.

If I need anything that I can't do myself I pay someone to do it for me.

A few, although probably not really epiphanies.

One of mine was the realisation about having friends - half the challenge is finding them, the other half of the challenge is finding the exact right sort of people who you can be friends with. I have no friends. None. Zero. This next bit might sound insanely snooty - until the calibre of people improves, I will remain without friends.

Nothing in life is ever guaranteed. You can make all the right decisions, do all the right things and say all the rights things and still get absolutely nowhere.

There is being on your own, as in being all by yourself. But genuine loneliness can be felt while physically being around other people.

I had a life changing diagnosis that is life limiting.

I just thought in that moment of all the things I've regretted. And it was nothing that I have done, I regret the things that I didn't do. So now I always throw myself into everything.

Realising that a good romantic relationship is not determined by all the things which I thought it was /society suggests it is or features of the significant other will make it into, such as:

• a man who earns a minimum amount
• a man who is a minimum height
• a man who shows he is a good father to his children
• a man with high status
• a man who "does"stuff around the house
• a man who is independent
• a man who is not needy
• a man who proposes and puts a big bling ring on your finger and/or agrees to the wedding of your dreams and marrys you
• a man who buys you whatever you want
• a man who has as many children with you as you want

Although some of the above might contribute to your feeling of satisfaction with the relationship none of them give any guarantee whatsoever that the man in question loves you and will continue to love you.

The only thing which gives you any reliable indication that a man loves you and will continue to love you is the way they show up each day and have demonstrated that as a pattern over a very long period of time and that they chose you over everyone else as their number one priority in their life. Finding someone who does that is the recipe for a happy relationship,the rest are all trappings which can be and often are transient.

@vidflex I am SO sorry to hear about your diagnosis x. I'm glad you're able to throw yourself into things.

When I read that 99% of what you worry about never happens

Love this

Thank you x

I have had a few

The religion that I was taught as a child
versus
Embracing learning a wide variety of religions & beliefs

Whether it is at school, work or homelife. If you want to do something, it is up to yourself to put in the time & effort. Even if someone offers help, ultimately the responsibility remains with yourself.

It is OK to choose how YOU want to live your life. You do not have to follow other people's

We are all different, no two people are the same

Realising at 54 that being somewhat co dependent with a partner does not necessarily make for a balanced life and that guys who appear to adore you are suprisingly also perfectly capable of shitting on you too.

I second this

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.

Most people live in a world-bubble that is centred on and surrounds their own head. They're almost totally pre-occupied with that, so they are paying much less attention to you than you believe they are. They are the stars of their own internal show, and you are an afterthought.

This is SO true and I have definitely come around to this way of thinking (mid 40's) it is extremely liberating.

Thankyou for posting this.

Good for you!

Realizing that the "divide" symbol is actually a fraction bar (aka a vinculum) and the dots above and below are saying "put one number on top and another number down below."

I am a bit of a nerd.

When I was married to my ExH. Young kids. Life was pretty shit in that we weren't on career paths, always skint, nothing to look forward to. Every day was a graft of just surviving.

We were having a conversation about the future and I talked about taking the kids to Disney one day. His response was that I was dreaming - we'd never achieve something like that, why even think about something so ludicrous. To him, such a thing was like winning the lottery, a one in a million dream.

It made me realise that he had no ambition. He was happy treading water, the same shit day in and day out and had no intention of climbing out the hole with me.

I got out of that relationship and now, many years later, I could take the kids to Disney if I wanted. They're taller than me these days so it's not part of our dreams anymore but it's nice to know that I worked hard and achieved the impossible (well, impossible as far as he was concerned)

When my ExH said to me that our DD had self-inflicted the massive bruises on her arm that she said he had done.

I just felt such contempt that he would tell such an obvious lie (they were on all of her arm, there is no way it could have been self-inflicted)

And then he said the she had made it up to get him into a trouble.

A 46 year old man hit our DD and then tried to claim she was making it up.

Pathetic.

In my 30s I realised I had a huge amount of internalised misogyny.

It was really hard to admit and process all the toxic stuff I'd learned in life, how I saw women and myself.

I was angry, heartbroken and ashamed.

Since then I've worked VERY hard to be a good woman, learned to love myself as a woman, fight for women's rights and advocate for myself and other women and girls.

There were 2.

First was when a therapist said to me "there isn't a belief system in the world that requires you to value other people MORE than yourself"

Second was when my child was struggling with mental health issues. We had access to excellent therapy etc (so lucky where we live) but one morning when we were really struggling, trying to get them to school, trying to balance different advice, thinking about medication it occurred to me that everyone else saw our child for 50 minutes, gave their best but then went home to their own problems and worries. The only people for whom this was a matter of life or death were dh and me. I said it to DH and it empowered us to listen to each other and make decisions that helped.

I spent a decade pining after my ex who dumped me. Then he asked if I wanted to try again and I said no! Because I finally realised that love needs to be reciprocated. I loved him but he didn’t love me (otherwise he wouldn’t have dumped me in the first place) and that ruled out any relationship between us. This applies to everything in life - if you aren’t getting back what you’re putting in it’s time to stop and walk away.

I also realised that I had been mistaken about who he actually was. I was pining after the person I’d thought he was, not the person he actually was. I realised that we often project onto people, we see what we want to see, and what we need to do is see the truth. Shame it took me ten years to figure that out!