What are some terrible things to be cursed with?

“May the fleas of a thousand camels infest your genitals as your angry mother in law runs you out of the house for bleeding on the furniture from your open sores.”

Ancient Arab curse

May you live in interesting times.

Toxic semen.

Semen that you have no way of ejaculating.

An inability to breathe without getting whacked hard 100 times a day.

An allergy to mosquitoes such that when you get bitten, your skin breaks out in itchy welts that you can’t stop scratching.

An allergy to the scent of your beloved.

A black thumb.

A financial black thumb, such that everything you try to do goes down in flames.

Or everyone you ever work with loses their job a year after they work with you.

Or everyone who breaks up with you is never happy with anyone else.

Do you really need more? I could go on and on and on. And by the way, most of these are real, or based on real things I have experienced. But I believe that just about everyone has been cursed, and we usually figure out how to get past those curses. It’s life, may. Life.

Oh yeah. How about being cursed with a vivid imagination?

Having everything you touch turn to gold. (See the myth of King Midas for attribution.)

Hair that bursts into fire any time you try to hide and your hiding place is revealed.
Hands that turn limp and unusable when ever you need them to be strong.
A mouth that fails to form the words you think in your head.
Eyes that see double when you try to see more accurately.
Ears so sharp hat you can hear worms moving in the earth.

Not being able to touch that last piece of cake

Being born in Chicago’s south side.

Chronic halitosis and the heartbreak of psoriasis.

-Being cursed with not being able to control saying exactly what one thinks. Even though this person may mean no harm to anyone, she might have thoughts about people that would hurt them or embarrass them, but unfortunately for her and everybody around her, she must say everything she thinks and cannot stop herself.

-Being extremely beautiful, but having a horrible stink that cannot be removed by washing or covering up with perfume. People see her photo, or see her from a distance and think she’s an enchanting beauty, but when they get within 10 feet of her, they are overcome by her horrible stench.

-Being extremely funny/nice/smart, but having a face full of pustules that cannot be relieved.

-Being one of the most honest and compassionate people in the world, but having some type of problem that makes other people think (maybe because of a horrible rumor or misunderstanding that has taken on a life of itself) that this woman is a big fat liar and is not reliable and they don’t trust or believe her.

Ginger hair?

Being completely unable to tell a lie, even a very tiny, harmless one. (see The Invention of Lying)

Seven years of bad sex.

Some interesting curses are ones that involve normally good character traits:
– Unable to tell a lie (already said before)
– Unable to break any promises

On a similar note, there are some that involve other social interactions
– Extreme empathy (person feels pain when she feels people feel pain)
– Understands English, but speaks in a language that no-one can understand (without knowing)

There are some that originate from mythology:
– Everything she touches turns to gold (already mentioned)
– Perpetual hunger, and immortality, but unable to eat
– Achilles’ heel

Crazy stuff that has happened in real life:
– Unable to go outside in sunlight
– No long-term memory since a certain time in her life (effectively lives the same day of her life over and over again, without noticing and forgetting about the existence of the previous day)
– Smells like fish

Some other stuff:
– Can predict the future, but unable to affect it in any way. (might be hard to implement)

Reddit has just the thread for you, today.

Indecisiveness. It’s much worse than you think.

Every one she meets falls in love with her, but she is unable to love.

There is no such thing as a curse. Just one more excuse for being a loser.

^^ Are you saying that a good person that is afflicted with a condition that makes them appear to be repellent to others is a loser? Like the case with my example: Being extremely funny/nice/smart, but having a face full of pustules that cannot be relieved.

Bummer for all of the handicapped people out there : (

^^ There is no such thing as a curse. If it pleases you to believe that there is, ignore the rest.

^^ I think some people would equate an affliction as a curse. I don’t mean in the spiritual or magical sense, like a witch or a troll put a curse on you, I mean it in the sense that some people have been dealt blows that have made their lives much harsher than they would have been if they didn’t have a medical disease or condition. Some of those diseases and conditions cannot be remedied. Do you think those people are losers?

Words mean something. You do not get to change them to suit your circumstances. An affliction is not a curse. It is an affliction. A curse is something a mummy or Marie Laveau does.

How about she can touch any man, but if she falls in love with them, her touch will wither their dicks forever. God that sounds so mean.

@Adirondackwannabe I once knew a woman like that. She “sold” well, but as it turned out, she was so screwed up that you could not wait to get the fuck away. I suppose that qualifies as a curse.

@josie I am using the figurative meaning of the word cursed. I just looked up the word cursed in the dictionary and one of the meanings and its use were “he was cursed with crippling arthritis.” which means the same thing as “he was afflicted with crippling arthritis.” In that sense, the word cursed is used figuratively, an idiom if you please.

Of course no one can be literally cursed, because there is no such thing as the kinds of witches and trolls that we read about in fairy tales. Neither can they literally be blessed, because there is no such thing as a big magic man in the sky. Although one can figuratively be blessed as in the term, “He was blessed with a beautiful singing voice.”

The word affliction is considered to be a hypernym of the word curse.

@Kardamom So why not keep it simple. Use the word affliction and prevent the inevitable meandering into linguistic confusion. It happens too much on this site, and it makes it tough to answer otherwise good questions. I will go first. It would be terrible to be afllicted with ALS. There you go.

@josie Because the English language is rich and full of nuance.

@josie I dated a girl JUST like that an thankfully I was able to break that curse!