02/24/25 - Chinese friends, my brain cells are accepting China’s specialty training.
A compilation of people who thought their illnesses were superpowers:
“When I was little, whenever I suddenly opened my eyes, I’d see weird amoeba-like shapes, and thought I could see microorganisms with my eyes. As a little kid, I did a ton of experiments and found that I could see more “microorganisms” whenever I looked at the sun. In ancient times, Leeuwenhoek discovered microorganisms, and nowadays, I discovered I was a human microscope. After I investigated all my classmates, I was the only one who could do this. At the time, I immediately understood the situation and deduced that I had superpowers. Lol, it was just floaters.”
“Frequent dreams, and I can remember most dreams, and occasionally lucid dream. I thought I was really special. Turns out, it’s an early symptom of schizophrenia.”
“Don’t scare me! I dream almost every day too and often remember the contents of my dreams. Sometimes, I can even make a certain dream repeat a few times…”
“Have you ever felt heartbeats in weird places on your body? Like, certain body parts will keep pulsing?”
“I do! Sometimes, it’s in my thighs, or in my back or arms. Like there’s a heart there or something.”
“I don’t know what’s up, maybe it’s just cramps, but it’s happened in both my arms and legs.”
“I used to think I found a great way to relieve anguish by pulling myself out and treating my pain like a stranger’s pain, then I figured out it was dissociative disorder.”
“Holy shit, I used to brag to people about how I could get super efficient by pretending to run myself like a machine and I figured out I had dissociative disorder too.”
“That does sound super awesome and useful though.”
“I could manually focus or blur my field of vision and thought everyone could do this. Then I learned it was just astigmatism.”
“I can do it too and I’ve gotten checked at a hospital and the doctor said I didn’t have astigmatism O_O”
“Sometimes, I enter a state where I don’t understand why I’m human or why I’m here. I looked it up and found out it was dissociative identity disorder.”
“OMG, I’m like this all the time too and I just thought I was super into philosophy.”
“I got neuritis under my ribs and kept feeling a needling pain, and thought I was the Chosen One, the embodiment of the God of Thunder, because it felt like getting shocked.”
“Thank you. Now I know why I keep feeling like I’m getting stabbed by a needle.”
“I have a super vivid imagination. I recreate things I’ve seen in my brain perfectly. I can close my eyes and see every single building, car, crowd, and environmental background noise of the walk from my house to my school. The pro is that I’m really good at spatial reasoning and geometry. The con is that I have too many leaps in logic. And I got diagnosed with anxiety and OCD. Once my brain starts spinning, I can’t make it stop.”
“Me too. I still have leaps in logic and my brain goes off on all kinds of tangents when I’m trying to go to bed. Sometimes it’s just memories, and sometimes it’s random new ideas popping into my head.”
“I always thought certain numbers, letters, and characters had colour. I was 20 when I found out that wasn’t the case for everyone, and it was synesthesia. I thought it was pretty interesting.”
“I dream almost every day and I remember most dreams, and a lot of dreams seem really meaningful. I often dream of the same location and often get sleep paralysis or layered dreams. Sometimes I can lucid dream, but only for brief moments. I also didn’t realise this wasn’t common until I got to college.”
“Was it those learning cards you used as a kid to learn numbers and letters? Some of those colour the numbers and letters and cause them to have colours in your memories.”
“I always thought I was really awesome for being able to hear the sound of electricity until I found out it was just tinnitus.”
“I can hear this weird metallic noises like rust falling off of an iron stick from my neck. I have no idea what it is.”
“Me too, weird metallic noises in bouts.“
”Hahahahaha, me too. I was wondering why I had such hearing even though I had headphones in all day. Turns out, it was tinnitus.”
“Always imagining things. Going through life making up stories in my head. I always thought I just had a vivid imagination, like I was just talented or something. Then I started taking anti-depressants and it went away.”
“I imagine all kinds of TV shows I’m making up in my head when I go to sleep at night until I fall asleep.”
“Frequent dreams, and the contents of my dreams are super exciting, fantasy worlds, magical landscapes. I like to watch scheming/politics TV shows, so I often dream entire cohesive stories with a logical plot line. My brain works ten times better inside dreams than in the real world. I can lucid dream too but usually only when I’m about to wake up. My dreams have colours (supposedly, a lot of people still don’t have coloured dreams). I even remember my dreams having sound and taste. I’ll sometimes repeat a dream I saw once a long time ago, or have the same dream repeat several times in a single night. Later on, I found out this might be schizophrenia. Also, I have sleep paralysis. Boy, my life is interesting.”
“Me too. For several years now, I have dreams every night, and it’s usually ones where I experience an entire day of normal life. And I never have nightmares.”
[A post by an international student in China. His IP isn’t showing so I have no idea which country he’s from.] “I have taken my seat, slave mentality. Chinese universities, please passionately train me! [the word for “train” here, 调教, has a notable sexual connotation because it’s often used in the context of BDSM scenes.[
Chinese friends, my brain cells are accepting China’s specialty training. I hope Chinese universities will break me apart, break knowledge down and shove it into my brain!”
Comments say, “Who did you learn Chinese from.”
“The person who taught you Chinese. Did you meet them through proper means?”
“Is this what my English homework sounds like?”
A compilation of things people will be guilty about for the rest of their life:
“Our advisor held a class meeting and talked about how young people are so unhealthy these days, especially the class committee, who always take forever coming to his office for a signature. Our class committee guy pulled up the legs of his pants and showed the advisor his prosthetic leg and went, “Sorry, teacher. Your office is on the fifth floor and this really hurts if I climb too many stairs with it on.” The advisor didn’t say anything at the time, but around 3AM, he sent a message in the group chat saying he got a teacher’s card and put it in the self-study room. Next time someone needs to go to his office, they can just use the card to ride the elevator up instead of taking the stairs. I don’t think he slept at all that night.”
“I would wake up in the middle of the night and slap myself if I did that.”
“Most people only feel guilty about these things because they’re super kind.”
“When my daughter was little, she loved yelling mom while giving me a hug, and I’ll respond to her and hug her back. One day, another little girl about her age also ran up to me while calling me mom and wanting a hug from me. I got super awkward and told her she had the wrong person, but the kid’s grandma told me all embarrassed that both her parents are deaf and mute and she’s never experienced calling someone mom and actually getting a response. I almost cried I felt so guilty, and I immediately responded to her.”
“There was a girl in the sales department who never applauded during meetings. The Deputy CEO held a meeting just to chew her out and tried to pull her up onto the stage. The poor cry was bawling her eyes out, and when the Deputy CEO grabbed her arm, her sleeve was empty. She only had one arm. And a male sales guy ran up and hit the Deputy CEO. Because of this, the Deputy CEO lost his job. He was kind of an asshole anyways, maybe the company just needed an excuse.”
“I had a stye a while back and had a band-aid over my eye. It was kinda hard climbing down the stairs with only one eye, and the delivery guy called me multiple times to hurry me up. Once I got downstairs, the moment he saw me, he had, “I should go die,” written all over his face.”
“During military drills in high school, a guy was wearing a hearing aid and had a hat over it. The drill sergeant was inspecting everyone, checking guy’s hair lengths and stuff, so he had everyone take their hat off. He was standing in the last row so maybe he didn’t hear or something, but he didn’t move. The drill sergeant yelled three times and he didn’t move, so the drill sergeant thought he was rebellious or something and grabbed him by the collar and demanded what he was doing. He looked all confused and took his hat off to show his hearing aid to the drill sergeant, and gestured that he couldn’t hear and could speak. The drill sergeant put his hands together and bowed and apologised and had him go sit in the shade after that.”
“Last time I was playing Werewolf with my boyfriend in the middle of the night and got matched with a little kid, so my boyfriend teased him, “Careful you mom finds out about you stealing her phone to game at night.” And the little kid went, “I don’t have a mom. My mom died.””
“I got a fracture and had to get a cast, and our Committee Secretary sent me multiple messages hurrying me to get some papers or something. When he saw me come into his office on crutches, he completely panicked and looked all over for a chair for me. I’ll never forget the look of panic in his eyes.”
“I had really severe bruising on my pelvis. Felt like someone stabbing me in the waist with every step I took. I was in a wheelchair for about a month. Just as I was getting better to take a couple of steps at a time, I bought a pair of crutches. The delivery guy called and was really gruff with me, hurrying me down the stairs to pick up my package. I really couldn’t get down there so I asked him, “Bro, could you carry it up here and I’ll buy you some cigarettes?” When the guy came up and saw me in a wheelchair, I could feel he stopped breathing.”
“Entered a debate tournament and passed out from low blood sugar. Later on, I heard a team member of mine say that he thought the other team pissed me off so much I had a heart attack.”
“One time I went to get my ticket rescheduled at the train station and met a guy trying to cut in line. For the first time in my life, I bravely stood up to him and he pulled out his discharge papers and military disability certificate and went, “I’m sorry, I’m in a hurry.” Every time I think about that, I want to slap myself.”
“I was interning at a daycare and one of the little kids woke up from nap and suddenly clutched his eye and went, “Teacher, my eye just fell out.” At the time, I’d already made plans for where I wanted to be buried. Then I learned that he had a prosthetic eye.”
“I had a sudden illness and had to be hospitalised so I took about 10 days off of work. Since everyone’s job is super critical at our company, I kept working on my laptop and phone while in the hospital. I had some nasty side effects from my surgery so I had to be hospitalised for another week, but my supervisor wouldn’t believe me. Insisted that I was just lazy and trying to get out of work. She held a big meeting that day and projected my phone camera on the big screen in the conference room, and I appeared in front of the cameras with my hair in disarray, wearing a hospital gown, with an oxygen mask on. She got chewed out by our boss! Hahahahaha, I didn’t even need the oxygen mask. I put it on on purpose!”
“I was in 9th grade and watched our teaching director whip a 7th grader in the prosthetic leg with the rubber seal strip off of one of the old windows, and the guy didn’t react at all after 5 or 6 whippings. The teaching director pulled up his pant leg, went silent for a few seconds, and just told him to leave.”