My mom has this really old photo of her dad standing outside the little grocery store he used to run. It's faded, has a crease through the middle and she's kept it in the same frame for years.

I thought it'd be a nice surprise to restore it for her birthday. Scanned it, used one of those AI photo restoration tools and ordered a large framed print. Looked amazing to me.

Gave it to her over the weekend and she seemed happy at first, then got really quiet.

She pointed out that the software had straightened his crooked front tooth, removed a scar above his eyebrow and slightly changed his smile.

I barely noticed any of that. She noticed immediately.

She said those were some of the things she remembered most clearly about his face. Then she put the original photo back on the shelf next to the new one.

I feel like an idiot because I spent all that time making a photo look better without realizing I was changing the person in it.

I've ordered another print using the original scan, with all the scratches and imperfections left alone.

TL;DR: Tried to surprise my mom with a restored picture of her late father, but the AI changed his facial features and I basically gave her a picture of someone who never existed.

This is my first ever Reddit post so bare with me. I was talking to and seeing a man I met on hinge and it was going extremely well. I told my friends I had never felt like this towards a man. My past is not good with relationships and I’ve only had 2 (27 f). He was safe, he listened to me and validated my feelings. I’m notorious for not liking physical touch but I noticed I wanted to be touching him all the time. He communicated very well. Our first date he bought a game called “let’s get deep” so we could get to know each other better. He referred to me as his girlfriend and told his dad about me. All of a sudden like 2 weeks down the line it seems like he switch’s up. He was responding less, hours in between texts, no longer called or FaceTimed me. Was not planning dates or even asking or planning to see me in person again. I brought it up over text 2 times asking how he was feeling about us and his response was “all is well my love” so I asked what that meant and I was left in delivered from 7 pm to when I messaged and ended things at 5 am. Here’s the part that I regret and wonder if I fucked up. I texted him “thanks for wasting my time🖤” and blocked him for a few hours before I unblocked him. Part of me feels good because I wasn’t getting anything from him anymore and he had switched up out of nowhere. I feel bad for how I handled it and now I’m regretting it. Should I have given more time and patience, would it have changed things? Was this me self-sabotaging again? What if he is the one and I ran away? I guess I’m just looking to vent and validation that I did the right thing or I in fact did self sabotage something that could’ve been great?

TL/DR: did I fuck up a potential relationship because I was self sabotaging and ran away.

You could say I’m a type B person, which is necessary to understand how this poor planning occurred.

Story takes place earlier this year in the Bay Area.

I’d take monthly personal trips to Florida, often booking flights in advance to save money. I worked in tech and had a flexible schedule. My lease was coming up so I found a new place a month ahead of my move out date. Scheduled movers. All good, except for one small detail: I never bothered to add things to my personal calendar. Including my move.

Small digression bc it helps add context to that week: On the morning of my flight out of SFO, I marched with a cute guy and wanted to meet him. Flight was at 4pm, had plenty of time to kill. He drives over, he’s cute, vegetarian. I lose track of time, almost miss my flight but he drives me to the airport. Nice!

Days later I’m chilling in Florida, out at lunch with a friend. I received a text saying “Hi, we’re downstairs for your 9am appointment”. I’m like oh fuck, what the fuck. I’m supposed to be moving out today.

So I text back “sorry, can’t meet you downstairs. I’m in Florida right now” and then handle the date adjustment with the landlords.

TL;DR I forgot I was moving out of my apartment in San Francisco, ended up on a personal trip to Florida. Had to deal with the bureaucracy of adjusting move out / move in days with angry landlords.

I was driving slowly on a gravel / back road, no cars nearby, both sides of the road fenced off for the livestock - what could happen, right?

I was looking up from my phone every now and then to make sure I'm not driving off the road and that's when I saw a beautiful pheasant walking right under my back wheel...

I slammed on the breaks but still slid about a meter or so and it was too late.

I jumped out of the car and looked back to see the poor bird all messed up, but still moving on the ground, and in that split decision I thought to just end his misery and drive over him again. Then I saw his Mrs on the side of the road - looking back at me. I burst into tears and still crying, and I can't forgive myself.

I swear to never be on my phone while driving again, no matter how slow I'm going.

I'm so so so sorry....

TL;DR: I was looking at my phone when driving and killed a beautiful bird. I suck.

Last summer I was on vacation in Venice. Over 30 degrees Celsius (86 F) every day. My groin was sweating so much that after walking all day, by the evening the folds of my groin were chafed completely red.

Now I’m planning to go to Italy again. Having learned from last summer’s experiences, I googled how to prevent all that sweating. I found a tip that there’s a super effective antiperspirant called Absolut Torr available at the pharmacy. If you apply it, you won’t sweat for a week. It contains some kind of aluminum that clogs the sweat glands.

According to the instructions, you’re supposed to apply it to a thoroughly cleaned area a couple of hours before going to bed. So, at 10 p.m. I washed up and then applied the stuff to my groin. By 10:10 p.m., I started to feel a slight stinging sensation. I figured it would pass before I went to sleep. By quarter past, it felt like it was burning. I reread the instructions, which said that if the skin is moist, it might sting. I had dried it well, though. Around 10:30, it felt like someone was burning my groin with a flamethrower. Just to be safe, I wrapped my dick in paper towels so it wouldn’t get affected. I cried a little. By 10:45 the pain was unbearable, so I jumped into the shower and tried to wash the stuff off. That’s when I realized what it really means when they say it stings on wet skin—it was like scraping my groin with burning sandpaper.

I opened a bottle of wine and sat naked on the couch, legs spread as wide as possible, with a fan blowing air on my genital area. It didn’t help. The dog sat next to me and stared like I’d gone insane.

Around 4 a.m. the pain started to ease up enough that I could finally go to sleep. Maybe it was because I drank a second bottle of wine.

I recommend it to everyone—it’s really effective!
Can’t wait for the trip.

(I guess I should’ve googled “Absolut Torr experiences.” This is what people say:
“It’s some pretty intense stuff and eventually eats holes into your shirt at the armpits.”

True story.

TL;DR: Prepping for a trip to Italy, I tried Absolut Torr antiperspirant on my groin to avoid last summer's agonizing sweat-chafing. Instead of a sweat-free groin, I ended up with a chemical-burn flamethrower experience at 10 PM. Washing it off made it feel like burning sandpaper. Spent the night naked on the couch with a fan blowing on my junk, drinking two bottles of wine while my dog judged my life choices. Slept at 4 AM. 10/10 experience, can’t wait for Italy.

Oh man where to begin? I'll start by giving you some context, since this story is a wild one. I've been with my girlfriend for 6 years, we're both 24 and I'm a guy. For 4.5 of those years we've lived on her family's property. They have 9 acres and multiple houses, so when I got kicked out at 17 they were kind enough to let me stay with my girlfriends dad in the second house. I do mean that her grandparents let me stay, not her dad, he has no ownership over the property, and has been avoiding eviction for decades before I even moved in. I wasn't aware of this then, but learned over the years when he wouldn't pay the electric bill for months (literally his only bill, we cover WiFi and garbage) and it would get shut off. My girlfriend and I would have to figure out how to find $1,200 out of nowhere, and most of the time we had to rely on her grandparents, who are retired, so their income is limited. They wanted (let's call him Dumbass) Dumbass to leave for years, the evictions i mentioned weren't from a landlord, it was from his own parents. This man worked 12 hour shifts 4 days a week, and is 51 years old, and couldn't pay a single bill. That's the kinda person we're talking about. On top of his financial tomfoolery, he was an addict of numerous things. I won't get into detail, as this story is long enough, but it wasn't as simple as just alcohol or marijuana. Him and I didn't exactly get along, but he had no authority to kick me out, and we knew eviction via the courts would take a while, so my girlfriend and I worked quietly in the background to have him removed via police and a court order.

It's important to know that I have a giant dog. A husky/English mastiff who I love with my entire being, but I will admit she's a lot to deal with. She's dog aggressive, which doesn't matter on such a property, but the grandparents ended up rescuing an older (tiny) dog. I was down at the grandparents house when my dog and the old tiny dog basically squared up with each other. I yelled at my dog, she backed off, and I figured that's the end of that. Apparently dumbass saw them squaring up, and hopped in his car to drive down to us, thinking my big dog was going to attack the little one. To be fair to him, it did look like that, but I had it under control, my dog listened. He rushed down the driveway in his jeep, and jumped out next to us. I didn't even have much time to process what happened, I was in between my dog and him, and he was coming towards her looking ready to fight my dog. As he got close, he reared back his leg to kick her in the face, and on everything I love, I completely blacked out. I don't have any memory of what happened, but when I came back to dumbass was on the ground bleeding from his face, and my fist was bloody and hurt. I'm 6' 1 and 220, he's 5' 6 and 150 on a good day. That's to say there was no real contest as to who'd win, and if I wanted to I could have gotten on top of him and kept going.

I'm a generally very calm person, I was pretty shocked to be in this scenario, and as he started to get back up he lunged for my face, trying to claw out one of my eyes and pulling my hair. I pushed him off of me fairly easily, and when I looked up from wiping my eyes he was pointing his handgun at me. Just then his dad (my girlfriends grandpa) pulled his gun on dumbass, forcing him to put it away. He started yelling, we all started yelling, and then he got in his car and started taking off down the driveway. I figured he was going somewhere to cool off, but I saw my opportunity to get him evicted, I started walking the opposite way up to the house, where my phone was. The plan was to call 911 and report him trying to shoot me. I'm about halfway up to the house when I looked back to see dumbass coming back incredibly quickly in his jeep, so I ran the rest of the way, locked the doors, and called 911. While explaining this whole situation to the dispatcher, he's trying to get in the doors, and I'm just locking them as he unlocks them with his key. This feels like it goes on forever, but then he backs off, and I figure he finally gave up, so I start asking the dispatcher when they think the cops will arrive. Just then I hear a loud noise coming from dumbasses bedroom, and he comes out looking quite pissed. I'm at the front door still, and I almost left the house right there, but my dog was still inside, and I worried that might be a death sentence for her, so after briefly opening the front door, I closed it again and started walking towards dumbass, who was maybe 5 feet from me. He pulled out his gun again, aiming at my chest, and I stopped, putting one hand up, and the other still on the phone with 911. In that moment, I wasn't really scared, I didn't think he'd actually shoot me, I mean come on I've been with his daughter for 6 years and we don't fight, we don't cheat, we're solid as hell. Even if he hates me, he should respect that I truly love his daughter.

Just then he tipped the gun up to be pointing at my face, and in that split second I realized what he was about to do. He pulled the trigger, sending a .45 about 3 feet before entering my face, going through my sideburn, into my eardrum, and stopping in my cerebellum. As far as I remember, it got really loud, then I couldn't hear at all out of the right side of my head, and as I started to fall back I remember thinking "oh shit I'm dead aren't I?" But then I hit the ground, and it hurt. My head started pulsing with pain, and I felt blood pouring out of my ear at an alarming rate. Believe it or not I remained conscious this entire time. I specifically remember dumbass pointing the gun at me again, this time I'm on the ground, and before he can do anything else his dad kicked the door open harder than I knew a 70 year old man could even muster. Immediately he pulled his gun and aimed it at dumbass, stopping him from finishing me, and dumbass starts screaming and crying that he didn't mean to. Grandpa yells something like "you son of a bitch you killed OP!" And I grabbed his leg (I'm laying on the ground) and said "I'm still here actually." I remember the look in his eyes. A mix of relief and absolute horror as his own son just shot me, someone he genuinely prefers over his own son.

I started focusing on using my jacket to block the further blood loss, but I heard dumbass refusing to put the gun down until grandpa nearly shot him. Grandpa forced him to turn himself in to the cops outside, who arrived just after grandpa, and they arrested him. Then a cop came in and asked me if I could get up, and I gotta say what a fuckin idiot, I was just shot in the head and I'm bleeding everywhere but yeah move me before the paramedics get here. I refused, and his supervisor, or someone with clear authority over him started yelling at him to shut up, and that I'm not supposed to move at all. When the paramedics did arrive they couldn't quite get me to the stretcher, so I had to walk to it with the help of half a dozen cops, again I'm a big dude. The rest is fairly difficult to remember, as soon as I got into the ambulance I was pumped full of painkillers, so it's pretty much fog and bits and pieces. The important part is that my brain started hardening around the bullet, so there was no real risk of it moving, and I can walk, talk, and even passed all the little tests the doctors kept doing. After 3 days I was free to go, and much preferred being home anyways. After that I've just been recovering and keeping as stress free as possible ever since.

There's a bit of a plot twist here though: this didn't happen today, or even that recently. It happened in January of this year, so it's been about 9 months since then. So let me update you on what's happened since.

Dumbass took a plea deal but will be in prison for 5 years then probation for a while afterwards. Trust me I know that's some bullshit, even the current DA (who didn't write the deal, the previous one did) agrees with me. The judge gave him the max he could under the deal, and told me and the entire court that dumbass got off light.

As far as my physical health I've been better, but I'm still here. I can play guitar, video games, talk, walk, drive, and I wrote this out myself. While locally I'm a bit of a celebrity for the whole thing (small towns yk) I've never had someone be able to guess that I took a bullet to the brain. I got incredibly lucky. It's not all good though, I struggle to do anything super physically intensive, and even just focusing too long can make me very tired or give me a headache. I'm incredibly grateful, but it's hard to know my physical peak is behind me at 24. Some days are easier than others, and I won't lie I'm incredibly paranoid now, and sleeping has never been so rough, just nightmare after nightmare most of the time, but I'll take that over death.

I know that this story is incredibly hard to believe, so I'm gonna provide a couple pictures of the scans of my brain and me in the hospital. I swear on everything this isn't ai, and it isn't a made up story. This is genuinely something I went through and came out on the other side. If I'm being completely honest I really just wanna be featured on smosh, I've always thought it would be cool, and I was thinking about it, and there's no way surviving getting shot in the face isn't good enough yk? Worst case it was nice to write this out. I can't really afford therapy so I've been reliant on friends, family, and just telling people my story. I hope my finances get better, but tbh I'll likely never work again. Physically and mentally I just don't think it's in the cards anymore. That said, I'm okay, I'm not homeless, and I have a lot of cool stuff that isn't necessary for survival. I'm not living a perfect fantasy life, but I'm pretty damn happy that I'm still here. Thanks for reading.

TL;DR I punched my father in law in the face and he decided the best recourse was shooting me in the face. I survived, and he's in prison.

I'm at 36-year-old female, and I've finally got the official diagnoses today for a bunch of parasomnia disabilities. Finally getting confirmation reminded me of why I wanted to get tested in the first place.

This happened on 1/30/2026 at a little before 4:40 AM (will explain why I know that specifically below). I had been going through a rough year the last year, having fallen and hurt my back in June of 2025 to the point that I couldn't work and had to resign in December because it hurt too much to continue my job (cashier and stocker, so constantly on my feet and having to bend down and pick things up). I had been having trouble sleeping from the stress and back pain and now, no longer "having a set purpose" just added to it. I turned to OTC sleep aids and a bit of alcohol to take the edge off of the back pain enough to help me sleep. The night of my FU, I had a very vivid dream (unusual, as I rarely remember my dreams).

I had a dream that I was playing Sea of Thieves with my online streaming community. Including myself, there were six of us on the ship. We were exploring a polar region that they'd just released. As we were sailing out to explore the new area, I noticed a mermaid den and called it out. We stop the boat and start debating on who stays to keep lookout on the ship and who goes to explore and collect resources/treasure/what have you. I volunteer to be part of the exploration team since I'm streaming. Everyone else starts gathering supplies while I'm on the deck. I start climbing over the railing to make my way down when I feel something sharp on my leg. I look down, and there's a cat with its front paws in my leg. I call out and say something like "Very funny, which one of your pets is attacking me?" I get no response, so I look up. No one's on the ship. I try to move, but the cat starts meowing loudly at me.

I'm trying to figure out what's going on, when I notice that the cat has no name above its head. Then I see the health bar on the HUD hasn't changed, but my leg clearly hurts. My brain goes "Wait... hurts?"

I think I start to blink myself awake at this point, because everything starts changing each time I blink trying to make sense of things; the ship becomes the porch/balcony of the apartment, my clothes turn into my sleepwear (oversized tee-shirt and sweatpants), the strange cat turns into my tortoiseshell cat, Evee, who has got her claws in my pant leg and my other leg is lifted up over the railing. I kinda just freeze, blinking stupidly and still half-asleep, thinking "what the fuck just happened", when Evee starts yell meowing again. Autopilot takes over as I carefully climb back down, walk inside with Evee, shut the door, give Evee some food to shut her up (she has me wrapped around her paw), then head back to the bedroom. As all this is happening, all the pieces start to fit into place, like someone rewinding an old VHS tape. I'm halfway to the bedroom when the revelation hits me. I turn to my cat and ask "Hey... did I... like, almost die just now?" Evee stares at me judgingly and is maddeningly mute at my query.

I went to our community's Discord and post a question to one of the members still awake. This is how I know the approximate time of my FU, thanks Discord time stamps.

"Hey, random question, Rare didn't put out a new ice area for SoT, did they?"

"Uhh... no? Why?"

"...I think my cat just saved my life."

I sit on the bed trying to wrap my head around things while Evee is just nonchalantly loafing at the foot of the bed. With how fantastical the events sound, I half wondered if I dreamt the whole thing. Then I see the rip in my pant leg and realize that truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

I remembered this story and told my friend who had been awake at the time about getting diagnosed, and they suggested that I put this story here.

TL;DR: I nearly Peter Pan-ed off my balcony while sleepwalking, only to be saved by my gluttonous cat wanting food.