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

Most of mine are to do with french words that I actually thought were English and when I realised they were French it was like a jaw dropping moment 😂 like when my Mum used to drag me around M&S and I always thought hey what is this "lin-ge-rie" word it makes no sense, then I got to my 20s and realised it was French and how it was pronounced.

In an article I was reading someone wrote that Worrying about something is the same as praying for it to happen. Changed the whole way I think of things.

the lightbulb moment when I realised my 14 month old third child (now 6yo) was autistic - it was like a 5 minute montage of everything all adding up.

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.

Reading a book that taught me I didn't need to care about other people's opinions if I wasn't behaving like an idiot and I was just doing what made me happy. It was so freeing. I realised I only have a small amount of spare time in between the stuff I have to do (get kids to school, pay bills). Why not spend it exactly how I want rather than feeling obliged to spend it to please other people. Life-changing! I'm so much happier and I haven't lost any friends because I spend quality time with those I value and everyone else is an acquaintance not actually a friend.

I can say “no”.

I used to worry whether people would like me, now I wonder if I like people.

That I can buy dusters and don’t have to wait for clothing to be old/out grown to rip up new dusters.

That on dustbin day there’s more than one dust cart and team. (Sadly, this is a recent discovery and I really should have know better at my age.)

Probably the realisation that alcohol has absolutely no benefits, acts like rocket fuel for anxiety, and that it is possible (and preferable!) to live without it.

@IHS I had a very similar realisation a few years ago. I had accidentally bought a deodorant whose smell I really disliked, but i kept using it anyway. One bright day, I suddenly realised that I didn't actually have to keep using it until it was gone - I could just throw it out and buy another one! It was such a revelation!!
I felt like such a grown-up once I'd done so too (I was about 40 at the time). 😁

I love this. Thank you.

In my late 30s, I suddenly realised (from reading something on here) that what I had always thought of kids being kids was actually me between the age of 5-7yrs being sexually and physically abused by an older child, and it explained my promiscuity and drug & alcohol abuse from the age of 13yrs to mid 30s.

A very slow dawning epiphany that it really is ok to be me and not what I perceive society/others says I should be. But it’s taken years of knowing this logically to feeling & accepting it deep down.

@KeeefBurtain - this is totally off topic so sorry to everyone else, but what exactly made you realise your 14 month old is autistic. I'm currently desperately worried about my 14 month old, I think she might be autistic.

Quite a few!

That if you give in to compulsions to check things, your brain rewards you with relief that everything is okay, and so you are training yourself to want the reward so you crave checking! Does that make sense? So if you find yourself overchecking, you've got to stop to break the cycle.

Also that if someone treats you badly then it's not really important what's in their heart. Maybe they care greatly for you, maybe they hate you, maybe they can't help it - at the end of the day, you can drive yourself crazy wondering what's in their motivation, but you deserve to be treated well so their intentions aren't that important and shouldn't really be taken into account.

Oh, and that my exH wasn't just really ditsy with bad luck - he was actively sabotaging my outside relationships, my job prospects and my health. I can't believe how long it took me to realise that!

Amazing. Good for you. But please tell me you also took the dog

When it occurred to me that, NO, I don't have to answer private, rude and intrusive questions from nosey inquisitive people I've only just met.

So, I "invented" two answers of which I am inordinately proud!

They are:
Oh, now that is a very looong story
The less said about that the better!

The questioner usually stares at me not knowing how to respond (the goal).

It has removed all panic and these now roll off my tongue as I've used them quite a lot.

Oh of course!! He’s snoring next to me on the sofa as we speak, 9 years later, just a bit older and greyer 🥰

Again something I read on here, that people on the street etc don't care what you look like/do, they won't remember you, they are too busy thinking of their own stuff.

My DC is autistic and at 2yrs old, before we knew, or at least the nursery suspected but I was in denial, he had a very very limited diet and I read on here that someone's DC had a limited diet and they were autistic. I was in bed reading it and suddenly thought, of course DC's eating isn't a fad or fussy eating, it's so extreme there's obviously something going on and I burst into tears, it was an awakening for me and I realised the nursery were right.

@ClaraBean the ‘lightbulb’ moment was when he wrote the alphabet in order - uppercase and lower case - Aa Bb Cc etc - on his chalk board easel. lots of other clues from about 6 months - not responding to his name, not including us in his discoveries, no pointing/clapping/waving, ignoring animals, getting distraught if we walked on the opposite side of the road that We usually did. Obsessed with watching the clock, ignoring loud noises like the fire alarm or phone ringing. Lots of little bits that added up, and thankfully the health visitor agreed and he was assess and diagnosed at 2.5years.

happy to chat via pm if you’d like to talk x

That my sister and I would have a better relationship if we saw each other a lot less.

I was right. We do!

When, as a depressed teenager, I realised that my personality is not inate and that I could choose my own path and my own narrative. Specifically, when I read a Leonard Cohen quote, 'act the way you want to be and soon you'll be the way you act'. Helped me become a person that I genuinely like and I often remind myself of that quote if I'm feeling fed up about something.

It took me until I was 49 to realise that people being close to their parents and enjoying time with them wasn't odd and it was actually me who was odd for not being able to understand it at all.

With your dog I hope 🤞

I've always tried to live an eco friendly life and am very "into" the environment etc. I fully believe in veganism as the best choice for the planet but I really really struggle with the reality of it and gave wrestled with personal guilt over not being vegan, but always made the excuse that I just can't do it for x,y,z reasons.

Then it dawned on me that part time vegan is better than no time vegan. DH uses a phrase a lot "don't throw away good in search of perfect". I'd always just thought I couldn't be vegan and so have never bothered.

I eat about 80% vegan now. And no guilt with the other 20%. It's really changed how I eat without really too much difficulty.

Can I ask whether you’d share more in your experience of taking meds? I don’t know what specifically - I’m just trying to wrap my head around how it might impact me (if I ever move far enough up the tritiation waiting list to find out!) No worries if not though :)

60mg Elvanse, 10mg Dexanfetamine boom!
organised, calm, ED free!

I was 23 and on a volunteer year abroad. i was insecure, always worried about what people thought of me, social anxiety related. My flatmate who I clicked with instantly (and am still best friends with ten years later) said to me one day "but is that person important to you? No? So why does it matter what they think?"

It was such a lightbulb moment. Today, I don't overthink social interactions anymore, I don't care if someone appears to dislike me or is rude to me. I'm polite, friendly and if someone is rude, instead of it bothering me, I don't bother with that person anymore. It was and is very liberating to be able to let that stuff go no.