“I decided to try and be a parkour expert. My crappy coordination didn’t kill my motivation… Until one evening, I was at a local park, and decided to do a massive wall jump that failed epically. I fell on top of a jabbed surface and tore my intestines. Due to this injury, I now have a permanent colostomy at the ripe age of 16. Mistakes man, they suck.”

“Bought a penis-ring to have sex with my ex-GF. The first (and only) time I used it, I set the ring size way too small – basically choked my penis from lack of circulating blood. Completed sex, but the next morning my penis was shriveled (like half its normal flaccid size) and looked like it was covered in really tiny veins everywhere. Went to the ER and it turns out that I caused ischemia in parts of my penis, burst a few blood vessels, and basically destroyed my ability to get an erection for the rest of my life. I am only in my 20’s.”

“When I was 20 or so I was poor, my family was poor, and things got really bad that year. I decided I could make some quick money flipping stolen items (buy cheap, sell for a profit). I was an idiot and got busted. I got a felony for it, and 7 years of probation. Now I’m 28, can’t get a freaking job anywhere, and life is nearly pointless at this juncture. I’ve been on the good side of the law since that all went down, and with each month that passes where I wonder if I’ll eat tomorrow or have a roof over my head, I think more and more that, ‘I could solve this by getting back into crime…’ It’s a vicious cycle, and I’d rather be shot in the mouth than go through all of it again. I have no clue how ill ever get my freaking life back on track.”

“Going to get smokes for a couple friends in College. Back in 1988 I was a sophomore at small upstate NY college. I was back early that year as an orientation guide. Ran into a bud from my hometown that night (he was gonna be a freshman, no idea wtf he was doing there yet). He had 2 girls with him, and a case of beer. We went to my apartment, drank it all and some more, and they needed smokes. I don’t smoke. We decide to walk ONE HALF MILE to the mini mart. Now, this is a TINY college town, one stoplight. We start walking and just then it starts raining. The girls see my car – 1977 Red Trans Am. ‘Ohhh is that your car? Lets take that!’ I remember looking down at my keys thinking ‘Nope, shouldn’t do that.’ But I did. Start the car, vrrroom, peel out, tear off toward the mini mart. Doing probably 50 in a 30, and RIGHT PAST THE VILLAGE COP. I kept going to the mini mart, where I was met by the OTHER cop car, and arrested by all 4 Alfred, NY cops. I later had the distinction of being the first driving while under alcohol conviction in that village. It has followed and affected me numerous times since. It’s even cost me jobs. I lost my license for a year, had to sell the car, went into the ‘risk pool’ for insurance for 7 years. When I could finally afford another car basic, no frills, no collision, insurance cost me $3500 a year in 1991, my car cost $3000. Most recently, I’m now 40 freaking five, and I wanted to go to Canada with my wife and kids this summer. Cant get into the country with a DWI. Have to apply to the freaking magistrate and prove that Im ‘rehabilitated.’ Will cost $250-500, several months, and no guarantees. I have an otherwise totally clean record.”

“Not breaking up with my ex-wife while we were in college. One night we were doing laundry and we were right on the verge of breaking up. She had a bad relationship with her mom. She was too dependent on me. She tried to isolate me from my friends to have me all to herself. We almost broke up, but I backed down. We ended up getting married and had a couple of kids. My life is very messed up because of her now 15 years down the road…but I have two wonderful kids from the relationship, that would not exist if we had broken up that one night. Funny how so much of my life seems to pivot around that one night and that one decision. Without making the decision I made I would not have my kids. But my life would not be messed up. I think about that at night a lot.”

“When I was 14, I was getting ready in my room for school and from my window upstairs I could see my dad putting stuff into his truck to leave for work. I thought about opening the window and telling him, ‘Have a good day, I love you,’ and then thought, ‘Nah, that window is hard to open and I’ll see him tonight.’ I did see him that night… in a hospital bed. He was a contractor working on a 2 story roof and fell onto a brick patio. He was in a coma for 23 days and then we had to let him go. He knew I loved him and all that, but I still had one last chance to tell him and I didn’t take it for laziness.”

“I loved a woman that wasn’t clean and I knew it… ended up with Herpes a month later. 1.5 years later and a move to Michigan so her father could pay for her master at MSU, she cheated with a frat boy and broke things off with me. In the course of moving up there, I used all financial resources I had available and some I technically didn’t (welcome to credit card debt and low-wage employment at Walmart). I was also never able to get back into school after moving up there (despite trying for 6 months) so I eventually went into default. So let’s recap… Herpes, flawless 750+ credit score and savings to credit card debt, awful credit, so poor you’re living in your grandparent’s spare bedroom, defaulted student loans and did I mention herpes? I’ve been single now for almost 6 years and lonely as hell. Prior to being afflicted, I was always in a relationship.”

“Took my doctor’s recommendation to take a drug without questioning it. Ended up taking Paxil to help with my anxiety at the time and it didn’t chemically work for me. Ended up going crazy for a week, ending with me jumping off a parking garage from about 70 feet onto the street below. Now I have a wrist plate, replacement elbow joint, metal rods in both legs and a half cage in my spine that was put in wrong initially, causing me to lose function of my legs. I now have a little function of my lower legs, and have managed to get myself walking again with the use of a cane. Unfortunately this happened just before I was 18 and haven’t had a job since as I can’t drive and live with my family in a manual labor driven town. I can feel my independence slipping away with each day and it came down to trusting my doctor and the medication.”

“Getting my gallbladder out. I had been having mysterious symptoms for a long time and the doctor suggested getting my gallbladder out, even though my symptoms didn’t really match gallbladder attacks. They ended up convincing me, and then when they took it out nothing was wrong. And I still was in pain for another year. They thought it must be IBS then. But when I got off the birth control I was on, viola – my symptoms are gone! Soooo, three and a half years of pain and doctors appointments, daily diarrhea and cramping, medications and surgery, and _not one _doctor suggested it might be my birth control. I feel fine now except when I eat anything fatty or very spicy – I can never eat bacon again, and more than 1 egg roll or 1 slice of pizza and I’m sick because of no gallbladder. Ugh!”

“It was a very gradual shift over the course of a year from ‘if I eat a little less and exercise more’ to ‘if I eat absolutely nothing and exercise for 4-5 hours a day’ that did it to me. The entire time I felt like I was making a conscious, independent choice as I slipped further and further into a mental illness that kills 20% of its sufferers. Now I have a serious heart problem, osteopenia, and people still do not think I am sick. I would have less health problems if I were overweight. My doctors had to let me go once I was a ‘healthy’ weight but that didn’t help my mental health at all. Every day I struggle with putting the food I need to live into my body. To try to help you understand, for a lot of people with disordered eating, ‘healthy’ is a codeword for ‘fat.’ To someone recovering, it literally means you are gaining weight and that is terrifying. Anorexia puts you in a state of constant vigilance, because there is no way to maintain that sort of obsessive dieting and exercising for any long-term period. When people begin noticing that you are gaining weight (looking more ‘healthy’), then you think of that as a slip-up, and thus you recommit. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.”

“Taught my 21 yr old best friend/roommate to drive, then pushed him to get a moped while he saves up for a car. I was his sole transportation for two years, and it was starting to wear me down making four trips to our work and such every day. Found him a moped, got it fixed, let him drive it. Freedom at last, right? Wrong. Had moped two days, ran a red light, hit by an SUV. He went brain dead a few days later and they pulled him off life support. This past few has been the hardest week and a half of my life. I’m sorry Mike.”

“I took a job fresh out of high school at a major plant. One of the largest in the world. It was great, 8 years ago I started at 60k a year…I figured with all the loans I could skip and education time I would net more in my lifetime earlier & could retire very easily early. Ended up getting taken advantage of by the company, had a class action lawsuit for unsafe work practices (that doesn’t even pay for food now) and have constant issues with my internal organs & bacterial infections. Almost no money to pay for medical bills or any education for a job to do to make a living other than manual labor which compounds the health issue.”

“When I was around 5 or 6 I was learning to ride a bike. I had ‘training wheels’ and was learning to ride without them with the assistance of my dad. One Sunday dad was working and I wanted to ride. He told me he was busy so what did I do? Got my bike out and started riding anyway (without a helmet). I fell off in my driveway and hit my head so hard I got a concussion and now I have debilitating migraines. All because I was too stubborn to wait for my dad…”

“Not mine, but my moms. Trusting a sketchy dentist because he was in the neighborhood and took Medicaid. For every filling he gave us, he drilled out entirely too much healthy tooth and gave us each root canals. In each of our mouths (me and my older sister), the tooth that had root canal treatment completely broke off to the gum and all the teeth that he filled ended up breaking. He has since been put out of business and been charged with malpractice.”

“I decided not to change my official address from my mom’s house despite no longer really living there at all (pop in every so often for dinner, a movie, or just reading a book) while I lived with my dad. Two members of Homeland Security arrived at my office one day to inform me that child pornography was detected being downloaded by my mom’s IP address, and I am the prime suspect. I was told I could not return to work (I work with kids) and I had to tell all my clients that I couldn’t see them anymore. It broke my heart. They took my computer and phone, as well as those at my mother and father’s houses, with no indication of how long before I get them back. When executing the warrant, I was lying in bed reading, and within 10 seconds of hearing a pounding on the door had four men in riot gear in my hallway pointing guns at me. That memory has made it twice as hard to sleep as it already was as I irrationally await being arrested for something I not only didn’t do and find abhorrent, but can’t imagine anyone that had access to my mom’s internet doing. I can barely eat. I find little enjoyment in activities. I can’t tell my friends what’s going on due to a mix of shame and attorney advice. I feel like I’m living in a nightmarish parallel world where my real life is passing by without me. People keep telling me not to worry, that being innocent means I have nothing to worry about. As if innocent people have never been convicted of crimes before. I feel vulnerable as glass all day, terrified that no matter how things turn out, my career as a family therapist is over. All because I decided it was too much bother to officially change my address from my mother’s.”

“Cheating on the love of my life. Guys… Never, EVER cheat. I know it’s a common knowledge thing, but when you’re in the situation I was in and somebody is literally throwing themselves at you (she kept pretending to trip and fall on me, and she would just stay there and try to kiss me and would grab my butt as she was getting back on her feet), it’s really hard to say no. I messed up my entire future with the person I loved most in the world all because of some slut who knew my girlfriend and I had been fighting that week. I regret that decision every day of my life…Don’t do it. If you’re even considering it, either get out of whatever relationship you’re in, or push that thought out of your head. I promise, sex with some girl is NOT worth losing someone as important as she was.”