As much as we’d like to be cozy, comfortable, and content all the time, that’s really not how the world works. Life is full of sadness—it’s an inseparable part of the human condition and we need to learn to embrace the less-than-savory parts of life alongside the pleasant ones. You can’t have happiness without sadness and each gives the other meaning.
Redditor Graham_craker invited their fellow internet users to share some of the saddest facts that they know in a viral thread. And, we’ve got to say, these hit hard. Really, really hard. For instance, the recording of the Kauaʻi ʻōʻō bird singing its mating call and not getting a response because it was the last of its kind, hit me in the feels so hard, I just want to curl under a warm blanket and eat ice cream all week long.
You might end up feeling blue just like us and Eeyore the Donkey. Remember to upvote the facts that made you appreciate life and how fragile it is even more as you scroll down. Just remember to grab a pack of tissues because you might end up tearing up. (PS—here’s a wholesome post to pick up your mood afterward.)
Of course, constantly living just with negative emotions and nothing else isn’t good for your mental health. Bored Panda spoke about depression, how to recognize it, and how it doesn’t always look like sadness with Emma Morton from the University of British Columbia. You’ll find her insights below, so be sure to read on, dear Pandas.
#1
There’s a recording of the last Kaua’i Oo bird singing before it went extinct. It was a mating call sung by a male bird. The song has breaks for the female bird to respond. There’s no response because the male Kaua’i Oo is the last of its kind.
Image source: azalea, Wikimedia Commons
#2
On 9/11 the search and rescue dogs were getting so sad from finding so many dead bodies that the search and rescue helpers hid themselves in rubble to make the dogs happy.
Bonus fact: dogs stay up thinking about their problems just like humans do.
Image source: Satans_Dogwalker
#3
Laika, the first dog to be sent out to space, died alone up there. She had no idea what was happening and I still find it extremly cruel that she got sent to space “for science”. Poor Laika :/
Image source: NineTailedDevil, zarya
#4
The money in off shore bank accounts 5 years ago could end world poverty for 50 years. Forbes once had the headline: Poverty is a choice, just not by the ones in poverty.
Image source: MrMToomey, pixabay
#5
Elephants will mourn other elephants in their group dying and will hold funerals for them and will even recognize the bones of said elephant and cry out in sadness.
Image source: wanderingstalker, Amaury Laporte
#6
Dodo birds were really friendly because they had no natural predators and we killed them all.
Image source: Zach_Zootah, Wikimedia Commons
#7
Cats are the most euthanized pets in shelters even over pitbulls.
I worked at an animal shelter when I was a you g lad and every f**king time someone came to adopt a pet it was a dog! I even heard a family say “ we want a dog only cats don’t love you”
I socialized many of their cats and most of them were so sweet, and cuddly and made me just so sad inside everyday watching people adopt dogs and ignore the cats. This was a no kill shelter but still it was so heart wrenching I quit because of that.
Cats do love you back you just have to earn their trust and they show it differently than dogs. All animals show love in their own special way.
Image source: MrAtomMissileer, Maryland GovPics
#8
Read about a dolphin who had learned some basic communication and was in some sort of pen. Dolphins can suicide by going under water and refusing to go back up for air. This dolphin was miserable and told it’s handler goodbye before going under and killing itself. The fact the dolphin was sentient enough to chose suicide breaks my heart.
Image source: MsAnj77, Captain DJ
#9
There has been a day when you and your childhood friend got out to play for the last time and none of you two was aware of it.
Image source: Authwarth, Kindel Media
#10
The United States government:
Fed radioactive oatmeal to mentally challenged children to see what would happen.
Allow black men with syphilis to believe they were being treated while actually letting them die from it to see what happened when it was left untreated.
Plus:
There are people that do not vaccinate their children because of internet memes.
There are people that truly believe the world is flat.
Image source: Howabouthatnow, Will Bakker
#11
On december 5 1942 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, after the round-call of the morning, which was atrocious since you would need to stand still for hours until the count matches, the SS took the entirety of the women camp moved them in front of a ditch within the camp and asked the 6000 present alive women to get naked.
Then, the SS armed with whips, pistols and canes got over the ditch, made two parallels lines to create some sort of corridor. Then they screamed the women prisonners to jump over the ditch and run through the corridor of SS soldiers.
During the run, the SS with the whips and cane struck/whipped/pulled away all the women they deemed “unfit for labor” due to sickness and physicall exhaustion. Out of the 6000 women that day, around 1500 made it to the end of the corridor without being pulled away : They were the lucky ones and the camp commandant made a speech sort of like “You were chosen to live”.
The 4500 women pulled away by the SS or who couldn’t jump far enough to pass the ditch were pushed into trucks and send to the gas chamber. They apparently screamed like banshees full knowing they were sent to their death.
Very few women survived from 1942 to 1945 in auschwitz, but the detail of this day is present in the few books/testimonies from survivors because of how horrible it was.
Image source: Matrozi, Wikimedia Commons
#12
One of my neighbors has a nine year old daughter who has a very rare genetic condition. She’s not expected to live much beyond her mid – late teens. The girl doesn’t know and believes she’s a perfectly normal child. It’s heartbreaking to hear her saying that she wants to be a hairdresser when she grows up. She ain’t never gonna grow up
Image source: Johhnymaddog316, adorn hairdressers
#13
Hachikou was a Japanese Akita dog who each day would wait at the train station for his owner to return from his commute. One day his owner had an aneurysm at work and passed away. Hachikou would spend the next ten years waiting at the station.
We don’t deserve dogs, they are too good.
Image source: lnfomorph, Wikimedia Commons
#14
For animal testing involving dogs, most laboratories use beagles as they are the most forgiving of the people inflicting pain on them.
Image source: ShutUpChunk, Daniel Flathagen
#15
There is a genetic disorder that makes it impossible for some people to sleep. So far only 20 people are known to have it, and none have lived past 30…
Image source: Safebox, Andrea Piacquadio
#16
Somewhere right now a child is being abused or fearing it happening again. Child abuse is the saddest f**king thing to me
Image source: LikeDingledodies, FeeLoona
#17
All whales eventually lose the energy to surface for oxygen, so they essentially begin to sink and drown
#18
The first and only time most men receive flowers is at their funeral.
Image source: BellaFace, Jakub T. Jankiewicz
#19
Swans can die of a broken heart when their mates die.
Image source: supadupaman, Northwest Power
#20
Animals are routinely horrifically abused and neglected, and nobody cares unless they’re a cat or dog.
#21
Yesterday I found out my wife has only a week left
Image source: CitronThink, Kim Siever
#22
Whales that sing in the wrong key get lost and are alone in the ocean.
Image source: MeowthePrettyKitty, Wikimedia Commons
#23
One day, sometime far far far in the future, someone is going to speak your name for the very last time and then you’ll be completely forgotten about.
Image source: all0fherheart, kickize
#24
You never get to see your child’s entire life.. Or you do..
Image source: mikecheck23, pixabay
#25
That sex trafficking children is real, actively ongoing, and adults will be professionally doing it all across the world at any given point
Image source: PuppetPatrol
#26
There is a remote island in the south Pacific that had a lighthouse built on it in the 1700s. The keeper kept a cat to keep him company. Everyday the cat would bring the keeper a dead bird. The keeper had never seen birds of this type before, so he kept the tiny carcasses to show scientists who’d be on exploration ships. The scientists determined that they were flightless songbirds – the only known species of flightless songbird ever discovered, then and now. One day the cat just stopped bringing the birds to the keeper. One cat caused the extinction of an entire unique species. No one ever saw a living specimen and no one ever heard their song.
Image source: Rainy_Katy, Richard Leonard
#27
There’s more people in slavery now than in the 17-1800’s. Pretty sad
Image source: Gunner253, Wikimedia Commons
#28
785 million people do not have access to safe water. (Access includes having having water within a 30 minute round trip for collecting it and carrying it home).
Image source: moinatx, Joe Cheng
#29
Life can be heartbreakingly unfair. A friend‘s sister suddenly passed away because of a heart attack last summer at age 40, leaving behind a bright, young, then orphaned son. My friend and his wife immediately took him in, gave him a home, and cared so much for him. They were very careful, loving, and considerate. They found a preschool for him, went to therapy with him and participated in it in order to support him getting through the trauma of losing your only parent. In December my friend passed away because of a heart attack.
Image source: Esist1996, Skitterphoto
#30
Many people go through the last years of their life sad and chronically lonely
Image source: bettyfordslovechild, Rick Kimpel
#31
A guy in my area had just retired on a Friday. The following Wednesday he was out fishing and a thunderstorm came up. He pulled his boat out of the lake and while standing next to his car on the boat ramp lightning took him out. 5 blessed days of retirement.
Image source: Hoppertime, Tim Green
#32
I’m madly in love with my wife of 35 years. We are each others best friends and we are together 24/7. We do massages on each other every morning and snuggle/spoon together all night. We haven’t spent a night apart in 3 decades. We are older now and I know one of us is going to die alone.
#33
The Ukranian Famine (Holodomor) killed at least 3.5mil people back in 1932-1933. Stalin’s insane plans to optimize state crops while starving out the farmers themselves is some of the most horrific sh*t I’ve ever heard of. Death by starvation has got to be one of the worst possible ways to go.
Image source: JollyGreenStone
#34
Rwanda genocide School children massacred with machetes It could have been prevented And this is why I hate the expression “everything happens for a reason)
Image source: ImagineMSI
#35
You can do everything in your power and work as hard as you possibly can, sometimes [stuff] just doesn’t work out. You very well won’t ever accomplish your dream, despite all your efforts.
Image source: booksoverppl, Charles Parker
#36
Stephen Hawking died a little over a year before the first photograph of a black hole
Image source: AdvocateSaint, Wikimedia Commons
#37
Researchers accidentally killed the oldest animal in 2006
Image source: ppmanstrikes, Wikimedia Commons
#38
There is a plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Image source: Meh657, Konstantinos Koukopoulos
#39
A majority of people, when asked, would rather die at home than at the hospital. A majority of people, when recorded, die at the hospital rather than at home.
Image source: DaShortRound, Magician’s Assistant
#40
It hit me like a brick. Was thinking about my dad who died at 73. Thinking about my age (44) I realized my life was likely more than halfway over.
Image source: kgold0, HolgersFotografie
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