People Are Sharing Their Final Straw "I'll Do It Myself" Moments, And I Was Not Prepared For Many Of Them
Part of growing older is learning to take matters into your own hands. Then again, some people start very young, as I learned when u/Djwhat6 asked people, "When was a 'screw it, I’ll do it myself' moment for you?"
FOX / Via giphy.com
Here are some of the many times people decided to do it themselves, and how it turned out:
1."My airline accidentally sent my luggage to China instead of the UK with me. After 11 months of back and forth, following up on their 'search' for my suitcase with no results, I decided to do it myself. I flew back to the country of origin, drove over to the airport, told them I want to see the lost luggage room, and waited for the police escort. Once I got in the room, I found my suitcase within 10 minutes. I took it, left, filed a complaint and claim for reimbursement, and eventually got that money back."
2."While working at a restaurant when I was younger, I cut myself with a knife doing prep work. I asked for first aid, and I learned in that moment we didn’t have someone first aid trained on shift. I was going to have to go to the hospital to get stitches and wait in the ER for hours. Instead, I decided to cauterize the cut myself by using a spoon on the star top burners. No one looked at me the same after I did that."
"There was no infection, but I still have a gnarly scar." —u/ChadBranson
3."A while back, I was looking for a werewolf novel about female werewolves. Literally, the only books I could find, the entire purpose of the woman was to choose which alphas she would mate with. I finally decided, 'Fine, if I have to write it myself, I will.' So I started writing short stories about a werewolf private investigator in Seattle. Eventually, I wrote a novel-length story. The third book in the series won me an award, and last year, I released the 10th and final book in the series."
4."My husband's mother previously lived with us, and it was not going well. She tried to con her way into being our dependent along with her daughter and their two pets. They claimed they were looking for an apartment, but they turned everything down and set their budget impossibly low. I got sick of watching my marriage fall apart, so I bribed her into leaving. My husband was mad I went behind his back, then he thanked me two hours later and cried because she stressed him out so much but couldn't just kick his mother out. I found a way where everyone was happy. Now, my mother-in-law and sister-in-law are living their best life four states south of us, and my husband and I got our home back."
"I didn't like going behind my husband's back. I also didn't like that my husband wouldn't stand up to his mom. But I'm damn proud of finding that money and sending her packing." —u/anoukdaae
5."I had an appointment at the dentist to have a rotten tooth removed. I turned up, talked to the dentist, she numbed me up with a local anesthetic, and set to with her pliers. She yanked. And pulled. And yanked some more. Nothing happened. It's worth mentioning that she was very small, maybe 5'1", and she said she'd see if she could find a stronger colleague. 'No problem,' I said. 'Let me have a go.' She replied, 'Er, ok.' So she put the pliers back on my tooth. I mumbled and drooled, 'Are you absolutely sure it's the right one?' She said yes, so I carefully took hold of the pliers as she released her grip on them. She had another peek in my mouth to ensure they were gripping the correct tooth, and nodded. I pulled like hell, and my tooth came out."
"She even gave me a 10% discount off my bill." —u/purrcthrowa
6."At 25 years old, I had been saving for a car for years. I was living with my folks, and my dad told me if I saved up $2,000 he would help me get a car. I saved it easily, but every time I asked to go look for a car, Dad would tell me I needed to prove I could hang on to that money. I was paying my own medical bills and costs on an $8.50 an hour salary, so of course, I couldn't 'hang' on to the money. Around that time, my younger brother graduated from high school. My dad and uncles banded together and bought him an old shitty van, no strings attached. I was livid. I dragged my dad down to a dealership and bought my first car. I took out a loan and everything."
"He was hella pissed because he didn’t want me to be in debt, but nuts to that. My dad always tried to stunt me growing up, but I was over being a kid. I was 25 years old for crying out loud.
Now I’m 31, on my second car that I bought brand new, and have great credit, all because my brother got a free car, and I wanted to spite my dad." —u/elondria18
7."A previous teacher would give us hot chocolate. She would tell people that she let all her students have some, but in reality, she actually only served her favorite students some. She would actively deny a select few kids, who it was clear she didn't like, from having any. I was one of those 'favorites' but would actively choose not to have any. One day, a kid asked if they could have some, and she yelled at the kid, 'Bring some yourself!' So I, like the smart-ass I am, said, 'If she won't share, then I will.' The next day, I brought some pouches of hot cocoa and shared with the kids I knew she didn't like. Hot cocoa was no longer given to anyone after this event."
8."I tried to start many bands to play the music I’ve written, but there’s so much weird ego crap when playing music with people you aren’t close to. So I gave up and reinvested in bedroom music production."
9."I had sewn through my finger, all the way through, and the needle broke. With COVID-19 taking over the hospitals, I decided to pull the piece out myself with pliers. It was so painful, and such an adrenaline rush."
"After five days, I was still feeling pain in my finger, so I went to get an x-ray. There was still a five millimeter-long piece in there, so I ended up at the hospital anyways!" —u/maaaagicaljellybeans
10."I had a group project in college where my group completely flaked. They skipped meetings, missed deadlines, and never delivered. The day we were supposed to meet and combine all our parts into a single report, no one showed. They didn't even e-mail their parts. I learned then that they all planned on writing their parts that day, the day before it was due, though had nothing and now weren't even going to try. So I did it all myself. I took all their names off the project, and added our e-mail chain as an appendix. It wasn't until I was presenting it in front of the class solo that they realized what happened."
11."I went to get a new battery at a local tire and lube shop. They quoted me $350 to change it out. I laughed out loud, left, and replaced it for about $60. It wasn't top of the line, but neither was the car. The experience made me learn a lot about fixing minor things on cars going forward."
12."At the start of the pandemic, I had a cyst growing in my hand. It was so painful. I couldn't lower my hand below my chest or it would be agony. However, I wasn't able to go to the hospital because of the lockdown, and the hospital was already overflowing with COVID-19 cases. I was just given antibiotics that did nothing. So one night, I woke up at 2 a.m. in unspeakable pain, and had enough. I dug the cyst out myself with some sterilized tweezers, a surgical knife, and a shitload of kitchen towels to mop up the blood. I already had six cysts removed before that, so knew what the deal was. I did it while watching WrestleMania. It was the only thing on that early in the morning. The next day, I video-called my doctor because I now had a perfectly circular hole in my hand. It wasn't deep enough for stitches, so he just advised I patch myself up with some plasters, and he sent some more specific antibiotics to my house."
WWE / Via giphy.com
"He mentioned the cut looked pretty well done, and the cyst was entirely removed, so I thought that was pretty cool." —u/DanHero91
13."I'm a scientist. My doctor told me if depression is related to hormones, there was nothing that could be done about it. My response: 'Want to bet?' So I researched and wrote a peer reviewed medical paper on women, mental health, and estrogen that got published and continues to be heavily cited. This was a pivotal moment for me."
"I now try things that I believe should be investigated. My latest is reviewing literature on the connection between alcoholism and gut microflora, and made an informational video on it." —u/HomemadePaddle
14."I used to, like most people, notice and ignore problems around me because they were someone else's problem. Rubbish on the ground? Someone should pick that up. Shopping cart left in a parking space? Someone should move that. Then I realized, someone wasn't coming to do the thing because someone was already there: Me. I am someone. I can do the thing. Now, instead of waiting for someone who cares, I do it myself because I don't care. I don't care about the three seconds it took to bend over a pick up that bit of rubbish, or that it wasn't my shopping cart — I'm walking there anyway, and might as well take the cart back with me."
"It really 'renewed' my outlook on life." —u/MagicOrpheus310
15."I worked in a fish market in college and would drop back in whenever I was in town to say hi and stock up on smoked salmon and crab cakes. One time, I was waiting for my old boss to come back from an errand, and a customer came in needing some salmon. The staff in the shop were all fairly new and weren't allowed to fillet a salmon, so they told the customer he'd need to wait a while. I knew the customer's order by heart: One pound of salmon, from the middle, skinned and deboned, cut into four pieces. So, I just hopped behind the counter, washed my hands and did it myself."
"It was just like riding a bicycle, only with a knife." —u/SquirrelNinja3
16."I was working tech support for a company, making $12 an hour, doing internal pre-alpha testing on a new product. I figured out the root cause for the biggest problem keeping the product from working properly — which at the time was threatening the launch of the product. I told the engineer responsible. He ignored me. Later, at an all-hands meeting when the problem was being discussed, I brought up my findings again in the presence of all involved, including management. The engineer said, 'Go get an engineering degree, and then tell me how to do my job.' Coincidentally, that day happened to be the last day of open enrollment for the next semester at my local university. I quit my job, took out the student loans, and went to school full time from there. Now I've got an electrical engineering degree, and a six figure salary doing factory automation with companies like Tesla on my resume."
"I never did take the time to go back and tell that guy how to do his job. But the old company eventually fixed the problem, which was exactly what I said it was, and the product was highly successful." —u/ecdmuppet
17."In my senior design project, I was put into such an underperforming group that I told the professor that I could have done better alone. He asked if I would care to prove it. I said yes, and he gave me a month to come back with the design docs improved and a working model. While the updated project wasn't as clean as I'd have liked, he gave me a full letter grade increase and even offered more time to get higher."
"I just took the grade. Classes had been over, and I already walked graduation." —u/kalas_malarious
18."I was six years old, and it was my very first day home after my second open heart surgery. I was sitting on the kitchen floor playing with my Hot Wheels when I realized I needed to use the bathroom. I was taught I had to be very careful after being in the hospital for weeks. I was dosed with morphine and couldn't feel that my sternum which had been sawed in half was still healing. I called for my mom to come pick me up and help me to the bathroom. No answer. I called again. Nothing. Well, I was obviously not going to pee my pants. I was a big girl, damn it. So I very carefully pushed myself to my feet and walked unaided for the first time since my surgery."
"It freaked my mom out, and she was super apologetic that she couldn't hear me calling." —u/Symnestra
19."I cut my own hair during the peak of the pandemic. I picked an easy cut, and it came out pretty good!"
20."When I worked in fast food years ago, I used to ask the new team member to mop the freezer with water. Normally, they'd come out after a minute like, 'Haha, you got me.' But not Clint. I told Clint the usual spiel: Get super hot water in the bucket and go fast. He came out five minutes later and said, 'It wasn't working very well with just the mop, so I dumped the bucket out on the floor. I was going to mop it up, but it all froze.' Since I instigated that event, I told him to watch the line, and I chipped ice for like a half hour that day to get it all cleaned up."
21."I got myself through a severe depression. I dealt with two hideously bad therapists, a couple horrible pastors, and fundamentalist awfulness before I finally just said, 'Hell, I’ll do it myself.' I got a job as a janitor and clung to it for two years, just so I could prove to myself that I could stick with something. While I was there, a reporter who got to know me told me that I should go to college after reading a humorous note I wrote about not vacuuming because the vacuum broke. So, I did. And I was good at college. I still struggle with anxiety and take an anti-depressant, but I haven't had severe depression like that again."
22."I bought a house recently, and the previous owners didn’t leave the mailbox key. I had a million other things to do, so I figured I’d call a locksmith and let them deal with it. After getting jerked around by three different guys who refused to even give me a ballpark on cost, I drilled into the lock myself and replaced it. I got the job done for $30, which I spent on a new lock and a wrench, instead of probably $200."
23."I was in a lot of pain with my IUD. I knew I had to get it out because I have a tilted uterus and previously had an IUD expel into my cervix. When I called my gynecologist though, they had no appointment openings to remove my IUD for a few weeks. One night, I was having particularly bad cramps and was in a lot of pain while watching a movie on the couch with my roommate. I excused myself to the bathroom, reached in, and proceeded to pull the IUD out of my uterus with my fingers."
Women's History / Via giphy.com
"It was a little painful, but I got the job done without a doctor's visit." —u/notsuu_bear
24."The sewer line under our house was failing because it had deteriorated. We had three estimates — $2,750 to put a liner in part of it, $3,250 to put a liner in most of it, and $8,000 to dig it out under our wood and slate floors, and replace the run with PVC. Not including repairs to our floor. My buddy told me I could do it myself for under $1,000. He lent me his electric jack hammer and a saw that I could use to cut the concrete. Five days later, after repairing it and re-tiling myself, I'd saved over $7,000 and ended up with a better fix than I would have had if I'd gone with the contractor."
"I started at 4 p.m. on a Friday. I set up a canopy behind the back door where I was dumping all the concrete and dirt that I dug out. It had snowed two days earlier, so there was about six inches of snow on the ground still. I dug out the entire pipe, including a run to an old toilet drain that shot off to the side and went up the wall.
I was finally at the point on Sunday at noon where I put an angle grinder to the pipe and started cutting — the point of no return. I removed the horizontal and vertical lines in short order. I measured and cut the new PVC, dry fit it all and checked levels. I started gluing around 3 p.m. and had everything tied back together by sunset.
Went to work the next day, got off work, and went back to refilling the trench. Finally, I wrapped up on Wednesday. I only spent $800 in supplies and materials, and I gave my buddy $100 for the encouragement and letting me use his tools.
The kicker was that there was a massive stone set right against the pipe where the drain crew said the deterioration was. Turns out, that stone had somehow deformed the pipe. No damage, just an oval instead of a circle and, well, shit would clog up right there. If we had had a liner put in, the problem would have actually ended up worse than before." —u/Fun-Director-4092
25."I was eight years old and had been begging my parents to teach me to ride a bike for well over a year. I felt like the last of my friends to learn how to ride one, and it was embarrassing. I finally went into my dad's toolbox that probably weighed as much as I did and tried about a dozen tools until I managed to figure out how to take off my little pink training wheels. I spent the next couple weeks nonstop teaching myself how to ride a bike with no help. Absolutely, banged myself up numerous times. No one noticed or cared...except my friends who were stoked when I finally rolled up to them on two wheels."
Netflix / Via giphy.com
"I'm 30 years old now, and I weirdly find that memory to be a pivotal moment of my life. It seems insignificant, but to feel the power of self sufficiency at 8 years old was pretty dope and really built my confidence." —u/CommieDearestJD
What are the moments in your own life when you finally took things into your own hands? Let me know in the comments!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
