If it wasn’t already clear as day, bodies are weird. And that’s just on a regular day. Bodies can get weirder given the right (and the wrong) circumstances. And then you have to live with it.
Folks were recently sharing some of the things they have to live with and the online thread picked up speed really fast with folks answering the question what’s weird about your body?
My body does not make it’s own antibodies. So once a week for the last 15 years, I’ve had to get an infusion of antibodies that are pulled from plasma donations.
If you donate plasma- thank you for keeping me alive!
My proportions are all over the place.
I used to study art. In drawing class, we had to study human proportions using our hands in strange positions and our bodies in front of a mirror. I got a bad grade, was told that my proportions were wrong. I had to go show the teacher that, yes, my thighs are unusually long, my pinkies abnormally short etc.
My grade was changed.
I have 5 nipples. 3 on the right, 2 on the left. I call the unpaired one Lonely Tim. The others do not get names as they do not need them. They have eachother.
It’s hard to pinpoint what is normal in terms of bodies. The easiest way to explain it is that which is usual, typical and expected. But that’s based on statistics.
And since subjectivity is a thing, there can be a different normal for everyone depending on their condition, situation and experience.
Lost my lower legs, from about mid-tibia. Now I stomp around in carbon fiber and titanium, have great parking options, and I’m generally snake proof.
Following this definition, you’d think there has to be some sort of, say, average height, average weight and average anything else.
That holds true for situations in which, say, most folks have 5 fingers, but that one person has 6. But then you have something like weight, which has a norm, but it’s based on your height, as per the body mass index.
I know what human spinal fluid tastes like.
Last year, a sinus specialist discovered I had a 7mm hole in the wall between my left sinus cavity and my cranial cavity. No clue exactly how long it’s been there but I’ve had a “runny nose” as long as I can remember. It was spinal fluid. Very salty. Got it patched up and after some insane headaches while my cranial cavity regulated the pressure, I’m doing much better.
Edit: I’ve seen replies of people having the same symptoms. I highly encourage you to see a specialist because CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) leaks are how meningitis can happen. Tell your doctor that the liquid is clear and watery and has a very salty taste. Those are the hallmarks of CSF.
My sweat is extra acidic. I can fully rust guitar strings in a week or 2, and have eaten holes on 2 laptops where I rest my hands, both happened within a year of use.
But then again, does having six fingers affect your life in a significant way? Does that entail some sort of debilitating disease or condition? There might be social stigmas, sure, but that’s irrelevant in the grand scheme of things because you are beautiful and amazing and loved.
My right ear has a little point at the top… like an elf. My son’s right ear has a notch, like it’s missing the extra I have… weird!
My fingerprints have almost faded away. I’m 56, and I can’t use those fingerprint readers for anything. It happened to my mom, and now my 31-year old daughters are going. It’s weird!
Woke up paralysed from the chest down one day aged 27.
Spinal MS/Transverse Myelitis – no recovery, none expected but it’s so weird that even my neuro is like ”this phenotype is vanishingly rare in Europeans and whatever you’re doing seems to be working” when I ask him for any advice. Looking through local medical records (university access) I can’t pinpoint a single person with a case like mine in the last 100 years.
For example, obesity is considered by many—professionals included—a chronic and often progressive health problem. At least in Canada, roughly 6 million people are considered obese—that’s 17% of the population—and that alone costs around 4% of the yearly healthcare budget. But while the risk is obvious, it is still just a risk, not a reality.
Some medical professionals have started finding people who, despite having a problem of obesity, show no health problems associated with it. You know, diabetes, high blood pressure, increased cholesterol and even certain types of cancer. This is what’s known as metabolically healthy obesity, a kind of obesity that doesn’t have associated health problems.
I can wiggle my ears, my pupils, dilate my eyes on command, make my ear drums vibrate to help damper loud noises, but I can’t think in pictures and color.
I was born with a webbed hand. Had a bunch of surgeries to correct it but my hand is smaller than my normal hand and my co workers call me Tiny Paw.
So, again, what’s normal? Bringing subjectivity into the mix, for people who have physical abnormalities, these things might not necessarily be, or even feel, normal, but they would very likely not feel weirded out by it either.
In that sense, weird is the new normal and everyone has their own.
My eyes have been misaligned since birth. I’ve had two surgeries (one immediately after birth, and one in high school) to try to correct it, but they are still misaligned by about 1 degree (possibly more now considering it’s been many years). This means I’ve never been able to use both of my eyes at once, so I do not have depth perception. People sometimes ask what it’s like not having depth perception, and my response is what’s it like TO have depth perception??
Until the second surgery I had to wear glasses, but afterwards my eyes were close enough that my brain could automatically choose which one to use based on the distance of whatever I was looking at. This is handy because one of my eyes is near-sighted and the other is far-sighted, so I get the advantages of both.
I’m also double jointed in the hips and can put my feet behind my head, and I walk duck-footed thanks to my weird feet.
I am biologically female. Was born female. Live in a female body.
I am 💯 male at the cellular level. My DNA is male. And I no longer have the blood type I was born with.
Edit: I had a stem cell transplant from a male donor. I have his blood type and DNA now.
I birthed a FULLY INTACT empty amniotic sack when I gave birth to my son. The doctor looked at me like I shape-shifted into an alien.
And again, if some layers of society push an agenda where certain out-of-the-ordinaries are considered abnormal, there’s going to be a community or several that are accepting of it. So, the idea of normality is all over the place.
My vision is black and white like 1/3 of the time for no reason, doesn’t relate to being lightheaded or anything, just weird.
In a philosophical twist—or just a shower thought—if someone does admit that they have an abnormality, and shares it online, after being asked to, that alone kinda sorta feels normal at the same time. Even if they admit that this is a deviation from the norm, sharing how they’re cool with it, and others seeing that it’s weird, yet still feeling normal about it normalizes it. Does that make sense?
My body manifests suppressed emotions and stress as debilitating chronic pain.
It’ll be so bad I can’t sleep or think or do anything really, and the only thing that helps is for me to root around in my subconscious for whatever is bothering me emotionally and then cry about it. After I cry, the pain will disappear over the next hour or so, only for the cycle to start again anew the next day, since I’m always stressed or suppressing emotions.
I was getting custom moulded ear plugs made to block out the sound of our next door neighbour and his (at least) 3 different alarms that go off between 02:00 and 05:00.
I have always struggled with the normal foam earplugs, ever quite able to get them to fit properly or having much sound-deadening taking place when I did manage to get them crammed into my lugholes.
The audiologist who was taking the impressions of my ears commented that I have “unusually narrow ear canals”
Guess that explains the problems with other earplugs!
One last thing: the idea of being abnormal doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It’s like having a super power sometimes. Yes, the body can go through genetic mutations that allow folks to be morbidly flexible, resistant to poison, shock proof or even immune to pain. That last one doesn’t mean you’re invincible, though, so don’t get any bright ideas.
When my anxiety gets bad i don’t have panic attacks or anxiety attacks i just faint. it’s a blessing and a curse because my “anxiety attacks” last a max of 15 seconds but it’s literally impossible to hide. i’ve had to explain to multiple professors that it’s not a d**g overdose because that’s always everyone’s first thought.
I’ll try to sum this up 😂
My biological father has Juvenile Type 1 Diabetes, so autoimmune. I was tested periodically growing up and was never diagnosed with either Type 1 or 2.
Flash forward to having my first child at 25. No gestational diabetes. Second child at 29. Gestational diabetes during my pregnancy. Follow up lab work showed I was back to normal.
Two years later, I rapidly developed severe PSOD. I need an emergency hysterectomy. Lab work shows I’m Type 2. I continued to be Type
2 until another year after that. I landed in the ER in DKA. The ER doctor came charging in my room demanding to know why I wasn’t taking my insulin. I had NO IDEA that i was Type 1. I had gone through a lot of trauma from right before my 2nd child’s birth until moving back home for support. That’s when I landed in the ER. My immune system and pancreas decided they were finished.
It is a major, major struggle.
So, what’s something weird that you got on your corporeal vessel in this plane of existence? Share your stories in the comment section below!
And if you’re looking for more content to go through, look no further.
I can’t picture things in my mind. It’s just a blackhole. Always thought it was a figure of speech. Thanks, Aphantasia.
Coffee has put me to sleep since the first time I tried it when I was 12. Got diagnosed with ADHD 10 years later.
I have an [epicanthic fold](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epicanthic_fold) but I’m neither Asian nor do I have Down syndrome.
Edit since people are asking about my heritage: Yes, I’m European. No, I did not take (make?) a DNA test. But at least according to my skin color, I’m not from Asian descent or any people that look similar. Neither is anyone in my heritage that I know.
Edit 2: I know this also appears among European people. It’s just not common.
Ever since my earliest memory I have found the sensation of ANYTHING touching my neck & anywhere near my collar bone area absolutely unbearable. skin-crawling, want to peel out of my body, can’t hold still when i think about it unbearable. I can’t drive with windows down, I stretch my shirt collars out in my sleep, at the dentist i have to constantly be pulling that little bib that they put on you down away from my neck. I can’t even look at someone wearing a turtleneck or a choker or even a tight-ish necklace. It really actually gets in the way of me enjoying a lot of things and is really embarrassing lol. I have tried exposure therapy like wearing things with a somewhat snug fit around my neck or a somewhat tight necklace but I just can’t do it. It’s awful.
I can literally stare anyone down without blinking for several minutes at a time. Freaks people out.
I was born with one breast a congenital abnormality, I had six kids and breastfeed them all, after having the kids I got saline breast implants and due to being born with a congenital abnormality the government payed a great deal of the costs of surgery, had my implants for 29 years now and love them and love the feeling of not covering up.
I have a little stump in my pinky that’s an extra finger. Doctor wrapped thread around it when I was born.
Note: this post originally had 66 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
