35 Surprising Moments When People Realized Their Bodies Weren’t The ‘Norm’

Our bodies are unique, and what we grow up considering “normal” might turn out to be quite different from others’ experiences. Recently, someone on Reddit posed the question: “What about your body did you think was normal until being told otherwise?” The answers were surprising, eye-opening, and sometimes even a little funny.

#1

Image source: 2194779109, Ivan Samkov/Pexels

I didn’t realize people breathed through their noses till I was 18. I thought they were just there for occasionally smelling things. Turns out I had a severely deviated septum.

#2

Image source: _Hopped_, Jonathan Borba/Pexels

Hypermobility – apparently it freaks people out if you stand with your knees bending the wrong way.

#3

Image source: TheDanaA, Tima Miroshnichenko/Pexels

The two little toes next to my big toe are connected part way up. My mums are the same. Didn’t know it was weird until i bought toe socks when i was about 10 and they really hurt my toes so i told my dad and he was just like yeah you and your mum are actual freaks.

#4

Image source: H20fearsme, CHUTTERSNAP/Unsplash

My friend has a 3-inch tail, he didn’t seem to think that was abnormal until I told him no one else has tails.

#5

Image source: Crow_eggs, Runshi Zheng/Pexels

I was 22 when I found out I barely had a sense of smell. Random allergy test for something else flagged up some weird lactose intolerance thing that knocks the smelling device in my headholes on its a**e when I eat dairy. Gave up dairy for a few weeks. Turns out the world f*****g stinks, and life without cheese or milky delicious cereal isn’t worth living. No regrets.

[eats large piece of cheese].

#6

Image source: utnapishtim, Cameron Casey/Pexels

I didn’t know until I was in my twenties that people had different faces, unless there was something usual like a really big nose or a scar. Turns out I have me some face blindness. When I was working in a grocery store around 2000, I saw this woman walk in. I thought she was really cute, so I watched her as she shopped in the produce section. It wasn’t until she came up to me a greeted me that I realized she was my then live-in girlfriend. Once I learned there was something called face blindness, it kind of changed my life.

#7

Image source: anon, Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

I thought music has colours for everyone until I realised no one understands what i’m talking about. 10 years later I discovered there’s actually a name for it – synaesthesia. Thanks, criminal minds :)

#8

Image source: luckyjayjay, cottonbro studio/Pexels

Period pains that no otc d***s would touch and that kept me home from school several days every month.

I was just told it was the curse of being a woman and that periods are supposed to hurt.

Turns out I have endometriosis and the pain was caused by internal bleeding every period.

Thanks mom.

#9

Image source: anon, Pixabay

My science teacher held up a color blind test, the one with all the colored dots, and everyone in class is yelling out the answers and I’m looking at them like the guy at the beginning of Ghostbusters getting shocked and wondering how the girl is getting them right. This cleared up a lot of confusion with my crayons.

#10

Being born with only one ear and a few other issues with my face. Potential diagnosis of mild Goldenhar’s. I thought it was the best thing ever and totally normal until I got to school and tried to make friends. Nobody likes the ugly freak. Had a new ear created in 2001/2002 by the wonderfully renowned Dr. David Matthews of NC. It failed and had to be removed. They never learned why. I’ve since accepted it and no longer give a f**k what others think about it.

Image source: anon

#11

Image source: anon, Chinmay Singh/Pexel

My internal monologue is entirely in song. My mind is a musical and I didn’t know that was odd till I was talking to my GF when I was like 25…

#12

Image source: teriyakiburns, Polina Tankilevitch/Pexels

Getting an itchy mouth after eating chinese. I figured it was part of the whole “hungry one hour later” thing. Turns out I’m allergic to soy.

#13

Image source: Emilina_, Kaboompics.com/Pexels

I thought everyone had tiny red bumps on their shoulders and arms. Turns out I have keratosis pilaris.

#14

Image source: Alfetta, Ninz Embalsado/Pexels

I have anosmia (can’t smell). When I was younger, I just thought that I was being stupid when people said “ohh, can you smell that?” and I couldn’t. However, now I’m older, whenever someone asks if I can smell something I just can’t. It became pretty obvious when a manure truck drove past me and a friend one day and I had no reaction.

#15

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Being able to dislocate one of my shoulders at will.

An orthopaedic consultant then told me that I shouldn’t do it even if the Queen asked me to. Fortunately that situation has never actually arisen.

#16

Image source: psprouse, Ksenia Chernaya/Pexels

My best friend got glasses when she was 10. Until that point she had no idea that trees had individual leaves on them, she thought they were just green blobs on brown trunks like you draw when you are a kid.

Edit: To clarify, of course she knew they had leaves, but she just thought they fell from the big fluffy tree blobs. Not sure about if she had climbed a tree, maybe she was just too busy playing to make the connection.

#17

Image source: Danger_Possum, Angela Roma/Pexels

I genuinely believed that everyone’s hands and feet turned blue in the winter, and hurt all the time during the summer, or in high temperatures.

Turns out I just have Reynaud’s Phenomenon.

#18

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The constant ringing in my ears. Took me years to realise that not everyone experienced it and it was actually tinnitus.

#19

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I never thought much about the weird yellowish lumps I’d sometimes find in my mouth until I realised they were tonsil stones and not everyone gets them.

#20

For decades I just sort of assumed everyone’s head would fill up with these terrifying, violent scenarios that would make you feel like a terrible person. It was either that or I was a psychopath. I figured everyone felt the need to do stupid little things like me, but it turns out saying a made-up prayer in your head every time you have a violent intrusive thought to keep yourself from going to hell is abnormal.

I found out much later that OCD wasn’t always just counting steps while wanting everything neat and tidy.

(edit): To anyone reading or commenting here, now thinking they have OCD or any other related illness – trust not what you read on the internet to give you a diagnosis. Take what you’ve read and written here and think long and hard; if you still feel that my experience fits your symptoms, talk to your doctor, male an appointment with a therapist or psychiatrist and be open and honest about what you experience. Leave it to experts who are sitting in front of you to diagnose what you’re experiencing.

Image source: bigsie

#21

Image source: MattSimmons93, Saul Ticona/Pexels

I occasionally have vivid hallucinations; normally they’re benign, but every so often I see thousands of ostriches around me. I never realized it was abnormal, until I climbed into the ostrich cage in a zoo because I thought they were all just hallucinations. After I hit one of the ostriches to try and prove it was a hallucination they told me I’m no longer allowed to return to that zoo.

#22

I can make both my calves painfully cramp just by flexing my foot a certain way. Works every time. Like a Charley Horse on command. And if I hold it long enough (20-30 seconds) the pain will start to kind of ease, at which point I can briefly make it cramp by pointing my foot instead.

Apparently this is not normal.

Image source: ceeceea

#23

Image source: anon, RF._.studio/Pexels

I’m double jointed and I thought everyone had the same rage of motion. I hurt my friends hand in elementary school because she said she couldn’t get her thumb to touch her wrists, and I was convinced she just didn’t try hard enough.

#24

Turns out its not normal to have constant feeling of fight or flight due to anxiety.

Image source: vTimx

#25

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Grew up with PCOS. I thought everyone had periods once every 2 or 3 months which would completely flatten them. I’m talking 10-12 days of pain so bad you can’t get out of bed.

#26

Food would routinely be very hard to swallow.
Often would get stuck and involve either throwing it up or forcing it down with other food or water.
Lived like this until 21.
Turns out I had eosinophilic esophagitis. It’s basically a constriction of the esophagus due to allergic reactions that are more or less permanent without treatment.
I sought after medical help, upon my first endoscopy the scope found my throat to be 7mm in diameter.
A normal one is 20mm for comparison. I’ve since had upwards of 10 dilatations to achieve a normal status of 15mm.
All is well now.

Image source: Burfie

#27

Image source: anon, MART PRODUCTION/Pexels

Even though I have a year long tan thanks to genetics, you could still see all my veins across my whole body. I looked like a human road map. I also shook a lot.

It wasn’t until someone mentioned how weird it was that I went to the doctor about it.

Turns out I had been severely deficient in many nutrients for years.

#28

I thought everybody got itchy and bumpy in the cold. Then a friend told me my face was terribly swollen. I was diagnosed with “Cold Urticaria”. I am literally allergic to the cold. And I live in Michigan.

Image source: TropicalSnack

#29

Occasional crippling headaches where any light or sound would destroy you and sometimes you throw up but to feel better you take a 4 hour nap in the middle of the day. Legit thought all that was normal. In other news, migraine specific prescription pills are a godsend.

Image source: PastorOfPwn

#30

Image source: PantoHorse, Jenna Hamra/Pexels

Getting blisters under your tongue.

It suddenly started when I was 21 – I’d get little blisters that would burst and give me a really horrid taste in my mouth for a couple of seconds. Then it would be fine, and a day or so later a new blister would pop up. It was irritating, but I thought it was like mouth ulcers, nothing serious. I went to the chemist after a couple of weeks and asked if mouth ulcer stuff would work on the blisters – she told me what I was experiencing wasn’t at all normal and to go to my dentist.

Turned out, I had the teeniest tumour you’ve ever seen in your life growing under my tongue. Its location had interfered with a mucus gland and that was causing a build up of mucus to form little blisters and then burst, hence the rancid taste.

It was caught obscenely early because of the mucus build up. If it had went undetected for a longer time, I could have needed more extensive treatment. If it had went on long enough, the cancer could have even spread to other parts of my body and put me in real danger. As it was, once they removed the tumour, that was me cancer-free. It was no more traumatic for me than a trip to the dentist. I’m pretty lucky.

So, feel pretty lucky to have had my little mucus blisters giving me a heads up.

**EDIT:** So, I’ve apparently sent a lot of people into a bit of a panic by making them think getting oral blisters means they’ve got cancer. Sorry about that, folks. No panic was intended in the making of this post.

I got blisters because the tumour grew in a way that interfered with a mucus gland. Blisters aren’t actually a common symptom of cancer, so if you’re getting oral blisters, please don’t panic. My case was unusual, and you’re probably fine.

I am not a medical professional however, so if you’re concerned I encourage you to get checked out by your dentist. Even though you’re probably fine, better safe than sorry, right? And getting checked out will help put your mind at ease.

For anyone concerned about mouth cancer, here’s a list of the most common symptoms to look out for.

#31

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That only using the phone on one side was completely normal, and everyone picked a side.

Turns out I’m just deaf in the other ear. Explains why headphones never worked properly for me.

#32

I didn’t know it wasn’t normal to start daydreaming during a test or have periods of time when you got hyper-focused to the point of shutting the world around you out.

Until I started studying to become a special education teacher. Then it was like, “Huh… imagine what my life would have been like if someone had actually diagnosed my ADHD while I was still in school…”.

Image source: newenglandredshirt

#33

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My friend has no mind’s eye. He can’t picture things in his head.

He didn’t know this was unusual until he saw a documentary on it on the BBC earlier this year. He never understood why books had so much descriptive stuff in them and thought ‘picture this’ was just a phrase.

#34

Looking at the sun makes me sneeze. I know it happens to a lot of people, but I thought it happened to everyone.

Image source: quarky_uk

#35

Image source: anon, Pixabay/Pexels

I have visual snow, which is sort of TV-like static that overlays your vision. AFAIK, I’ve had it since birth, or if not I developed it at such a young age that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it. I thought that everyone’s vision was the same as mine until I was in my mid-teens.