We all have times from our past that make us look back and cringe.

Times when we weren’t very nice to other people or maybe we felt overwhelmed and lashed out at someone.

What was a moment when you realized you were being a jerk?

Here’s what people on AskReddit had to say about this.

1. That’s enough.

“I developed a pretty serious drinking problem, and in one day everyone finally had enough.

I got fired, kicked out of my apartment, disowned by my friends and my family. I was left utterly alone, and homeless, with $2000, and a 1986 Volvo Station Wagon.

It was coordinated between everyone in my life, and it f*cking hurt. But I wouldn’t take any of it back for the world.

Things are far better now, but that was the sort of life event that is supposed to change you, and I let it do so for the better.”

2. You were way off.

“I asked two black ladies at work what language they were speaking.

I am really big into languages and I felt like I hadn’t heard the one they were speaking before.

English. They were speaking English and they just both happened to have really thick accents.”

3. A learning moment.

“My girlfriend recently dumped me.

Looking around my room and seeing all the things they bought me and being reminded of all the things they did for me and then noticing I hardly did anything in return.”

4. Not very understanding.

“I told my friend that she shouldn’t use medication for her mental illness because I was convinced she could just use sheer will to get through it.

It was an *sshole move to make her second guess getting professional help to address her mental health issues.

I wish i just instead offered support instead of trying to “fix it” when she mentioned the side effects, when I had no idea what I was talking about. This was when I was a teenager and thought I knew everything…”

5. A rude comment.

“While hungover at a breakfast diner, the waitress asked me if I wanted a box for my food. I said sure, and she asked what size of box I needed.

Without thinking, I say “I dunno, I’m not a box expert.”

Immediately felt like an *sshole after that.”

6. Terrible.

“My buddy wanted to set me up with a new coworker of his. I got to his apartment early and started getting drunk with his roommate.

He called and said they were going to be late. He said, “She’s a bigger girl. Don’t mention her weight.” He had told me this previously as well.

By the time they showed up, I was pretty drunk and I wanted to make a good impression. I said, “You’re not nearly as fat as they said you were”.

She turned around and fled.”

7. An honest mistake, but still…

“I used to tend bar…I was very busy at a freestanding bar.

I was literally surrounded. I went to wait on the next customer, I made eye contact and asked what I could get him as I turned to throw something away. He gave no response. I asked again as I started wiping up a spot someone had vacated, no response.

This kept going a couple more times. As customers were building up, I turned with a bit of attitude and said something to the effect of “Sir, I’m getting deeper in the weeds and all these other people are getting pissed, you need to order or move aside so others can.”

He then informed me that he was deaf and as I kept turning away, he couldn’t read my lips.”

8. You were a kid…

“I grew up fairly poor and as a kid, the concept of money didn’t mean much to me. I just knew we had less things than the other kids in my class.

So when the Nintendo started getting super popular, I asked my mom for one. She obviously refused since we couldn’t afford it but apparently, later on that evening I had drawn a picture of a Nintendo along with a comic strip of me and my mom playing a game on it together.

Apparently she had stayed up that entire night crying because she had felt guilty about not being able to afford it (as my dad told me years later).”

9. Felt awful about it.

“I was running a bit late for work one afternoon, and traffic was oddly heavy for part of the drive, all these cars were driving like 15 under the speed limit.

As soon as the road opened to two lanes I slammed on the gas pedal and flew around this ridiculously slow line of cars. Until I got to the car in the front driving so slow and realized it wasn’t just some slow a**hole, it was a hearse and I just flew past a funeral procession.

In my defense, every one I’d seen before had their hazards on and little flags on each car so this sort of thing doesn’t happen.

But I felt awful.”

10. Oh, man…

“In my junior year of college, I was working on a team project with a classmate who was a senior.

I was supposed to turn in the project to our professor, but apparently I forgot. This caused us to get an F for the project, until I turned it in later and he could give us an actual grade.

Unfortunately… this temporary F caused my teammate to fail the course, and for whatever reason this prevented him from graduating. So he had to graduate a quarter later…”

11. Yikes.

“Las Vegas. Second to last row for a Blue Man Group show. The people behind us were talking loudly the entire show.

They were basically giving a play by play of everything going on. We shushed and glared repeatedly to no avail. By the end of the show we were so mad that we were going to throw some harsh words their way.

The lights come up. We turn around. There was a group of people and their obvious chaperones. This was a group of blind people. Many of them had NO EYES!

We slipped away feeling just awful about our behavior. We really should’ve apologized.”

12. Time to come clean with yourself.

“This entire year.

Been recovering from my divorce last year and it forced me to take a hard, honest look at myself and all the sh*t I used to do and how I actually treated those around me.

A lot of tough to swallow pills, but a lot of much needed reflection taken place.”

13. Ouch.

“At the movies once it was just me and friends and one other group sitting in front. There was a guy in front that kept slurping on an Icee really loudly.

Like he just really really wanted to get every last drop. After a few minutes I got really agitated and made a super obnoxious and loud slurping sound to make them aware that it was annoying me.

Literally as soon as I did it I saw that it was a disabled man and his parents and he had a suction tube. I was so ashamed I walked out of the theater quietly whispering to them “I’m so sorry.”

I never went back in.”

14. Sounded snobby.

“Years ago I went into a Hot Topic and as I was at the register, the girl working started telling me about all the new Metallica shirts they had gotten.

For some reason, I told her I wasn’t really into wearing band shirts anymore, which was mostly true, and even though I didn’t mean to, it came out sounding really snobbish.

At the time, I thought her reaction was kinda strange, even accounting for my accidental condescension. Shortly after I left the store I remembered I was wearing a NIN shirt.”

16. Still feel awful.

“In early high school, late 90’s, so if you got a girls number it was the house number- I called a girls house and her dad answered.

She was out, but I noticed his speech was a bit slow and slurred. Next day at school I mentioned I had called, and asked if her dad had been drinking….well turns out he didn’t drink much since his stroke.

Still feel awful about that!”

17. You got called out.

“I was drunk at a pub and shouted for the band to play Free Bird.

They stopped in the middle of the song they were playing, started up Free Bird and called me up on stage to sing it.

I froze, forgot all the lyrics and made an absolute *ss of myself.

Props to that band though.”

18. Shame.

“I was making fun of an old guy I’d seen outside our school at a basketball tournament to some friends in the locker room. He looked and talked like Farmer Fran from the Waterboy.

Turned out to be the dad of one of the guys I was talking to. Still can’t even think of that movie without it bringing up endless amounts of shame.”

19. Sorry about that.

“At my former job my boss was looking out the window and saw this guy get out of his car and head towards out front door.

Boss says out loud “oh man, look at this toothless redneck.”

Co-worker says “that’s my father-in-law”.

Boss told me later “that’ll teach me “ and facepalmed.

Co-worker wasn’t mad, he agreed FIL looked like a hick.”

20. Harsh treatment.

“”Broke up” with my first girlfriend who was really attached to me, just by ignoring her.

I feel so bad.

I was just a kid but that was a harsh treatment.”

21. Oof.

““What’s your name?” I asked.

“Shara.”

[Trying to be playful.] “Oh cool, like ‘Sarah-with-a-lisp.”

“I have a lisp. My name is Sarah.”

Oof.”

22. Never too late to change…

“When I realized the reason I’ve lost so many friends is that I’m so sh*tty at getting back to people.”

23. That was rude.

“Someone I hadn’t talked to in years came up to me and started telling me about how they haven’t been doing that good lately and that they found out they have cancer.

Well… I was at work and only half paying attention so after he stopped talking I said “That’s good.”

Haven’t seen him since.”

24. Brutal.

“8th grade. Speech class.

A kid had been absent a few days, and when he came back, I started razzing him a bit. We were friendly, but not friends, so I felt okay kidding around, claiming he was just pretending to be sick to get out of class, that sort of thing. Nothing really mean, though.

He took it for a bit, then turned, looked me dead in the eyes, and said in the flattest voice “No, my mother died.”

And turned back around.

If God had struck me dead with a bolt of lightning, when I stood before him at the Pearly Gates, I’d have said “Yeah, fair enough…””

25. Not cool.

“I was in the Army, making fun of a guy, said he couldn’t even get a medal for something in the special Olympics.

He then pointed out his daughter was in the special Olympics.

I profusely apologized, and he accepted, but it still keeps me awake at night.”

26. A sad story.

“My friend group tried to stay close after high school but we all fell out of touch as you do as everyone forged their own path in life. Well, mine led me down a path of depression, anxiety, and failure.

So every year or so they would hold a get together to reconnect and hang out. I attended a couple of these, but as time went on and my downward spiral got worse I stopped responding to calls, texts, invites, etc. because I thought that no one would want to hang out with this version of me.

I was invited to two weddings which I didn’t even respond to because of this negative loop, and then when my best friend from that group was diagnosed with cancer I couldn’t even bring myself to face him, I tried to go to his funeral but couldn’t enter the building because I felt that I didn’t deserve to be there.

Finally a few months ago the parents of one my friends saw me at work and wanted to talk to me. They told me that my friend group was really broken up that I ignored all of their attempts to reach out to me.

It was then that I realized that in all of my stress about being miserable to be around, I had become an *sshole to those who tried to care about me.”

Have you ever had a moment like this before?

If so, please tell us all about it in the comments.

We’d love to hear from you. Thanks!