Saying you’ve been “to hell and back” is typically just a phrase that people use to mean they’ve had a bad time. Nobody ever means it literally, unless you are the Kansas lady who officially died for 11 minutes and got a brief taste of the afterlife. Thankfully, her doctors resuscitated her and she was able to tell the rest of us what heaven and hell are really like. And, believe it or not (emphasis on the not), it sounds like all those Sunday school teachers were right.