To be fair, I think it’s easier to turn a good person into a monster than it is to turn a monster into anything resembling a good person, so maybe the people answering this question have a little bit of an advantage.
That said, it can be hard to believe that anything could change a genuinely good person into something sinister, right?
You might not be so quick to believe that after scrolling through these 18 (very insightful) replies!
18. It can bring out the worst.
Being used and hurt can bring the worst out of a person.
I saw one of my best friends go from happy, cheerful and overall just positive to an addict and so emotionally numb that he barely even listens to you when you speak and gets enraged over the smallest things.
Thankfully he is doing better now.
17. Just ask any new parent.
Sleep deprivation.
Yeah big part of training in marine corps boot camp. The three day event known as the crucible is 3 days with about 4 hours of sleep between them. The physical is tough but the mental worse. Your brain struggles to do even the simplest tasks.
Infantry school is worse. It’s about a month long and the average sleep is 4 or 5 hours
16. It’s hard to feel safe.
Being genuinely hurt and having done nothing wrong, yet everyone chooses to support or side with the person in the wrong.
I dont feel safe or comfortable at work anymore. Where i used to feel happy to go above and beyond, after what happened I am actively seeking and have found somewhere else to work.
15. A shadow of themselves.
Obsession towards another. Especially with people who don’t have any foundations or a sense of self.
They will base their whole existence on a particular person which can cause them to turn into a shadow of themselves, only rushing for the goal which is to obtain.
14. That’s not selfish.
2 “friends” homewrecked 2 of my relationships.
Everyone took their side because I “shouldn’t stop love for selfish reasons.”
13. It’s a real problem.
Brain injuries. People can recover and be very much like their former selves, but they often don’t. Even then, during the recovery process they can be really violent.
Anger is a real problem with people who suffer a brain injury. I run a TBI support group and had a brain injury in 2001. I drove all my friends away. Many TBI survivors wind up divorcing because the spouse cannot handle the mood changes. Eventually it gets better but for most it is a long, long road.
12. Some people never recover.
Really devastating heartbreak
You can go from being a cheerful optimistic person, to the person everybody steers clear of because you’re miserable, angry, and too depressed to pull yourself together because of the emotional pain.
This then creates a self feeding loop that causes you to close yourself off completely and get worse the more time passes until no trace of that pre-heartbroken person exists anymore.
Some people never recover from a broken heart either and its really sad to watch them slowly turn into a monster.
11. Brains are delicate.
From what I was told, my mother was the kindest, gentlest, most fun loving person. She loved her nieces and nephews, preferring to play with them instead of visiting with the other adults at family gatherings. She acted like the perfect mother I was told, and when she got pregnant with me she was beyond ecstatic.
They discovered a very aggressive tumor in her brain not long after that. It was serious enough that the doctor decided they couldn’t delay long enough for me to be born and did a risky operation while she was in the second trimester (this was the mid-70s). He “took a little extra” to ensure the entire tumor was removed.
Everybody said she woke up different. She was a shadow of her former self. Never mean, but skittish and always afraid of something. She used to love risks but post operation she couldn’t get near ledges or theme park rides. Too nervous to play much with me and could never think of things to do, unlike before when she had endless ways to entertain the kids. She never got to do almost any of the things with me she had dreamt of.
F**k cancer.
10. It’ll give you a complex.
I met a guy once who I thought was a good sincere human. He became my role model for a year maybe. Turned out he was an insecure man child/monster who hurts people smaller than he is because he thinks its fun.
I now have a complex where if I meet someone extremely nice, I am immediately skeptical and untrusting of them. And conversely, if someone is kind of a dick, I respect their honesty and try to earn their respect.
9. Not as simple as it seems.
The flu.
I was going to post this top level, but it’s actually a special case of what you said.
People forget that you are your brain, riding around in a skeleton meat suit. A prolonged fever of 106 can cook that brain, resulting in a drastic change. Other brain injuries can do the same thing: the resultant person is completely different than the person before the damage.
8. Thank goodness for good moms.
I used to rely heavily on alcohol and oh man, looking back now I can’t believe that I did the things that I did. The person I hurt the worse was my mother and I try to make it up to her every day.
The woman helped me even though I was an absolute monster.
7. One more time for the people in the back.
Mental health issues that go unaddressed.
I realized something was really wrong around age 12. Begged my mom for help but my problems were mostly obsessive, nonsensical thinking. She told me I was weak-minded. I loved her more than anyone in the world.
Ten years, mom’s death, and a little suicidal ideation that landed me in the hospital, and a diagnosis later, I’m figuring out which medications are working for me and I have a support network. It gets better, but damm actually being listened to made a difference.
If you’re a parent reading this and the above story sounds familiar, listen to your f**king kids.
6. Those formative years.
Being bullied relentlessly.
I dated a guy for a couple of months who was bullied really badly, and he was mean and selfish. He seemed like he was always grabbing everything and screaming MINE (figuratively speaking) and being defensive before anyone had the chance to bully him again (even though I was just trying to exist and be understanding).
Like for the rest of his life he’s going to be fighting against those bullies in his mind when really he just pushes away every decent person.
5. They’re called needs for a reason.
Lack of any basic needs. Lack of sleep, lack of food, water, shelter, affection and love of any sort, those are some of the biggest things that can hurt a person’s mind and turn them into someone unrecognizable.
It always makes me so sad to think about.
4. You feel broken inside.
The loss of a child really messes with your brain for awhile, and your behavior can end up all over the place as you struggle with learning how to cope with it in healthy ways.
I lost my 18 year old daughter 2 1/3 years ago to complications from gallbladder surgery. I saw a therapist for 1 1/2 and then he left the practice. Haven’t found another one I like.
My wife can’t leave the house without having a panic attack. She is in really bad shape mentally. Seeing a therapist once a week.
I still work 40 hrs a week, but I feel broken inside. Getting harder to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t do anything over my weekends off except sit on the couch and watch TV. There are things I want to do but no ambition.
We try to support each other but it usually turns into a crying session.
Neither of us know what to do…. Just don’t care about anything….
3. It affects you for a long time.
Jealousy.
I’ve been cheated on and lied to in numerous relationships and now I can’t be in a relationship without wondering and worrying whether it’s happening again.
I feel like a monster.
2. It might be a joke…
Monopoly.
I’ve read that the board game was made to show the bad side of monopolies, and boy did it do the job.
1. They hardly recognize themselves.
Drugs.
I survived the 80s somehow, and by 1993, I had quit chemical drugs. I don’t touch alcohol, but I do enjoy some cannabis.
I’m still thankful to not have drugs in my life, especially when I look back and review those days.
These are pretty fair assessments, probably, no matter how uncomfortable it can be to contemplate.
Do you have something else you would put on this list? Tell us in the comments what you think we missed!
