Even if you loved your four years of high school, receiving an invitation to your class reunion can be stressful — and that’s to say the least! The whole event usually runs the gamut from exciting to nerve-wracking, tempting even the most successful people to skip all the uncomfortable emotions that bubble to the surface. You know, the sadness of aging, the longing for those rebellious days of your youth, and the tremendous worry of facing the old you.
But out of morbid curiosity or a craving for drama that happens at these spectacles, many of us inevitably attend. Then feel extremely surprised by just how much things have changed. So several Reddit users invited the Ask Reddit community to open up about the most amazing and completely shocking transformations they’ve witnessed at their high school reunions.
Former classmates and teachers immediately jumped to the comments section to chime in with their stories. From people turning out exactly how others expected to folks proudly shedding their poor reputations, we’ve gathered some of the best responses to share with you. So continue scrolling to read these entertaining stories, as well as find our interview with social psychologist Dr. Laura Martocci. Then be sure to upvote your favorite ones and let us know how your recent reunions went in the comments below!
Psst! If you’re interested in even more spicy changes people saw in their ex-classmates, take a look at our previous piece right here.
#1
A student of mine went through a really tough time. His dad was actually convicted [criminal] during his time at school, which sent the mom in to a sort of apathetic depression. I walked him to trial, I testified, I was in close contact with his therapist and social services.
He’s now a year from taking his masters in software engineering and he has a baby on the way. He’s really happy and his wife is the sweetest you’ll ever meet.
He told me that I was his role model for parenting. Made me cry. Like ugly, snot, can’t breathe-crying. I wish him all the luck in the world. He’s gonna be a great dad 🙂
Image credits: regnstorm90
#2
Not a teacher, but I went to my ten year reunion. Back in highschool we had a kid who has aspergers and was a little weird. He was, however, amazing at the yo-yo, having picked one up during middle school when we had that yo-yo trick assembly. After everyone else had stopped walking the dog in 8th grade, this guy was doing more and more elaborate tricks every day during lunch. He was bullied and teased but he continued doing what he loved.
So, at our ten year reunion, people from every strata of high school popularity was there, including this guy. He was his same old self, but more confident. I asked him if he still yo-yos, and he busted out his custom made titanium yo-yo that he said he made on a CNC lathe. He then starts to do some tricks and a large crowd gathered around. It was quite the show, he had gotten very good. When he finished, people clapped and cheered, and even the jockiest dudes from back in the day fist bumped him and told him how badass he was.
The most amazing transformation was everyone else. Nobody teased him for being who he was anymore, they now admired him for being so passionate about something.
Image credits: specialdialingwand
#3
I’m friends with a lot of teachers (my mom is a teacher, so it just happens). So this isn’t my story, but a friend’s.
The story that always got me was of a autistic boy that dropped out of high school. He was miserable, depressed, and lonely.
Fast forward a few years and he got a job in a factory, working in an assembly line, doing the exact same thing all day every day.
And you know what? He loved it. He told my friend that he was happy to finally be doing something with his life, that he’d finally found something he could do, no matter how small, and he felt like he was a part of something that was bigger than him.
I have never met him personally, but I think of him often.
Image credits: SunflowerSupreme
#4
In high school I was pretty good friends with a guy that was a bit overweight, about 6’4″, really smart and a bit nerdy. Lost track of him after high school but saw him at our ten year reunion. He was the talk of the reunion. Still tall, lost all the weight and was in great shape, had long hair like Fabio and was a doctor. He showed up with a beautiful wife. He gave us his contact info and invited us to Atlanta to stay with him in his huge house.
After the reunion I tried to get in touch. Contact info didn’t work, and thru some sleuthing I found out he was neither married nor a doctor. He was still in good shape, can’t fake that, but faked everything else.
Image credits: KevWill
#5
Going to post my Mom’s story because she doesn’t have an account. She was a home economics teacher and specifically she had one class called “Relationship Psychology” where every day to start the class she would read through that cheesy “Dear Abby” newspaper advice column to talk with the class on how they would respond to the problem. One day ahead of class she noticed that a letter published talked about a kid who sounded a lot like a student in her class and was located in our hometown (they always end the letter with a name and city and my Mom was always very involved with her students and their personal lives). The letter talked about a kid who was terrified of going to college and how he got rejected from all the school’s he wanted to go to, had no self-confidence, abusive father, money problems, that he would lose all his close friends, couldn’t stand the idea of leaving his disabled Mother, and that he felt enormous pressure as a 1st gen college student and had ultimately decided not to go to college at all. She read it to the class and they discussed and she could tell the boy in her class was very uncomfortable.
After class she asked him about it and it was in fact a letter written by him. He never thought it would get published and responded to by the Dear Abby column and was super embarrassed. He (like most students) never even knew what the Dear Abby column was until they took her class. Afterwards she talked through everything with him and talked with his Mother and evaluated his options on how best to approach college. She taught him finances, loans, scholarship options, his Mom’s condition, and everything and got him to a place where he felt better about his future.
4 years later the kid ended up being the speaker at his college graduation of over 7,000 kids, met his wife at college, all of his groomsmen, and got a killer job through his career fair on campus before graduating. She flew out and attended as he invited her.
Was always blown away by that.
Image credits: doctorfeelgood33
#6
A former student of mine grew up in an ultra-conservative Christian home. He and his siblings were never allowed to socialize with other students during lunch and recess. Whenever they had free time at school they had to read their Bibles. In science class they were forbidden to learn about evolution. Every essay, short story, personal narrative, and poem he wrote for me involved some kind of Christian theme. When he graduated, he immediately enrolled in a big seminary in our area and that was the last I heard of him until his class invited me to their 10 year reunion. This same kid showed up with sleeve tattoos, piercings everywhere, slamming beer after beer after beer and smoking like a locomotive! When I asked what he was doing now, he responded he currently was a bouncer at a strip club.
Image credits: JediTaz
#7
A kid from my high school started a facebook group and began organizing our 10 year reunion. He booked a venue, sent out RSVPs, and started collecting $25 for tickets to the event. About two weeks before it was supposed to go down we found out that he never booked anything and was pocketing everyone’s money. Also found out he had a warrant out for his arrest in another state. Pretty epic.
Image credits: oculardrip
#8
Not a teacher, but there was a guy who was the stereotypical jock in high school. Very unemotional, stoic, etc.
Then he went into the military and got PTSD. Now he is a hippy and psychotherapist.
Image credits: Five_Decades
#9
Not a teacher, but I’ve noticed at my reunions that most of the cool kids peaked in high school.
Sadly, they’re still reliving those glory days many years later, while those (OK, like me) who were nerds in school have continued to grow since. And not just around the waist.
Image credits: KingNosmo
#10
Not a teacher, but…
Was at school with one girl, very geeky, very exuberant, she was in all the school drama productions, and she would tell everyone that she was going to be a famous actress some day. We were like, yeah, whatever, no-one from little old New Zealand ever cracks that level of fame these days.
She’s been the female lead in a number of movies now, alongside people like Woody Harrelson, Ewan McGregor, Courtney B Vance, Mark Rylance, to name a few. I actually got to be on stage with her in a school production, so she is my ticket in to six degrees of Kevin Bacon!
Image credits: Matelot67
#11
My mother’s latest high school reunion had a woman arrive who was in the yearbook as “Michael”. Apparently at middle age, when his 17 year old son came out as gay he told his wife he wanted to be a woman because the timing seemed right. Divorced. Transitioned. She seemed happy though!
Image credits: rugbybackliner
#12
A previous student of mine grew up in a horrible home situation. This individual was really smart and I did my best to help them apply/receive many scholarships and grants, and eventually went to an ivy league school to get away from their abusive home life. They made it big and I mean BIG – big time millionaire. Made their family jealous but in the end their hard work paid off. It was great to see and I was so proud of what they’d become.
Edit: The best thing was seeing them break the chain. The family had problems going back numerous generations and to see this generation change was all worth it.
Image credits: developingwaver
#13
I went to elementary school with a boy that bullied me and several others mercilessly. I’ve repressed (I think that’s the correct word) several of the memories but I still have one of him rolling pickles in the dirt outside and throwing them at me. He broke my glasses a few times too. He didn’t seem to have the best home life, never did his homework, and could barely read in fifth grade. I moved after sixth grade so that was the last I heard of him.
Nowadays he’s engaged to a girl we grew up with (who is the daughter of one of my father’s friends) and from the outside, they seem to have the purest love for each other. I remember him always having a crush on her, and she’s in love with him. He graduated from a good college early and is in a very reputable law school. It truly looks like he turned his life around and I’m honestly quite happy for him. A lot of people think I’m crazy for being happy for him given what hell he put me through as a child, but I know he had to work hard to get to where he is now and had to gain the insight to do that work.
Image credits: major_bummer
#14
I’m a middle school teacher of over ten years so some of my students are high school and college graduates at this point. I’m happy to say that a good number of them have reached out to me to share life stories and updates.
The one student that comes to mind was confidentially suicidal from a broken home with identity issues. She came to me for help and we found spoken word poetry as an outlet for her emotions, anxiety and discovery of self-worth. She is currently returning to school to finish her associates degree and she was the first in her family to graduate HS. I get updates from her on my birthday each year. She still writes and performs spoken word poetry in her spare time.
Image credits: Dsgorman
#15
I didn’t go to my 20th, but saw the list of dead people. I tried to look them up in my yearbook, but shockingly, every single one of the 7-8 people were in the “no picture” section, which was maybe 5% of the class. So either the yearbook cast a curse, or there’s some correlation between not being able/not wanting to take a yearbook picture and dying young.
Image credits: powabiatch
#16
I went to an all girl’s boarding school. This one particular hostel supervisor had been working there since she was 22 and has been there for nearly 40 years so she has definitely seen a lot.
Our school’s foundation day each year is attended by over 500 alumni. Some friends and I were chatting with her when this group of incredibly smart and intelligent women come up to her. After they greeted her, she told us that she never thought they would get anywhere in life.
These girls were the most notorious of all the kids that she had to deal with, they chopped off a teachers waist length hair and stole teachers cellphones only to bury them. Put on the janitor’s uniform to sneak out of school. Got fake blood and put up handprints outside the rooms of 9 and 10 year olds. Decided to summon spirits in a hostel building right after a visiting academic died of a heart attack, the rest of the girls in the hostel building were so scared that the school decided to lock down the building for nearly 5 years. They also took turns to stand on top of one of the buildings with a white sheet and showed it to kids in the farthest building, that’s how we got our infamous resident school ghost.
They all are in their late 20s now, great jobs abroad but looking at them you would never think they could pull something off like that in their teens.
Image credits: anon
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