Current Events > What was the most traumatizing moment from your childhood?

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When I was 5-6 years old my dad chopping down tree branches outside the house and was using a woodchipper. I was playing gameboy when I heard a weird noise and saw my dad's legs sticking out of the woodchipper and tons of blood shooting out. Me being a kid then I thought my dad was making ketchup so I went inside and told Mom then she saw and freaked the fuck out told me to go to my room even shoved me a few times.

._.

Too many to count and plenty that would get me modded if I described them so

Damn wtf that's awful.

For me I was probably about 8 years old at the movie theater restroom and some sick fuck at the urinal next to me was beating off and looking directly at me. When I looked over to see wtf was happening I could visibly see his penis and him smiling at me. Didn't realize what had happened until I was much older. Shit is burned into my brain.

Either that or my family calling me fat all the time growing up lmao

Drowned in a boating accident when I was 10.

Did your dad survive?

Aside from all the screaming, it was my dad throwing me into the deep end of an olympic pool when I was 4-5. I disliked water until my 20s.

Also apparently he forced me onto a rollercoaster at Disney Land when I was 5. I say apparently, because I do not recall ever going to Disney Land at that age, even though there are family pictures. It would explain the extreme, wobbly-knees fear I get when attempting to get on a rollercoaster, though. Doesn't apply to plane turbulence or heights or other sorts of rides, just rollercoasters.

Michael Jackson transforming into a robot.

We had an outside toilet, and there's a river near the house.
So, when I was like 12, I decided to push it in the river and saw it float away, I used a combination of parents placing it ridiculously close to the river, and child ingenuity to move it into the river.

Anyway, later that evening my parents had found out that the toilet had gone downstream. I remember my mother and father sitting opposite me, and my father asked and I was like "No, not me, sir".

My mother then told the story about George Washington, and the fact he never told a lie -- and when he chopped down a Cherry Tree in his backgarden when his father asked, he could not tell a lie and readily admitted to it, and his parents decided that was enough punishment.

So, I smiled at both my parents and, and I remember it clear as day now "I am like George, I cannot tell a lie -- I did push it in the river".

My mother jumped up, and I still don't know how much pain she inflicted due to spanking my ass "It didn't just hurt that night, it hurt the next day as well).

I looked at my mother betrayed, and said "but George never got a spanking..."
My mother looked and me, straight in the eye and said "Well, I suspect George's father wasn't up the fucking Cherry Tree."

If a persons lower body is sticking out the entrance of a wood chipper and theres blood shooting out the other end.there aint no surviving that.

I have a feeling the op was a joke for some reason... Mainly due to the making ketchup part

Seeing some old guys slaughter and gut a goat in a mountain village in Europe.

My stepdad would get pissed off and just start firing his gun out the window, he did it once in the car while my mom was driving. He would also get drunk and say he was gonna shoot my mom. Shit was scary as hell.

Im not sad that hes dead.

Cardinals game. The urinal trough.

I almost drowned at the water park.

When I was 15 I watched a car going too fast in a strip mall parking lot hit another car and do a barrel roll onto its hood. There was an open sunroof and I guess the passenger didn't have a seatbelt so she flew out the open space and the car landed on her. Some guys from the bar nearby came out and tried to flip it over but they just kinda spun it around smearing her head into the pavement. She died obviously.

I always remember the driver (turned out to be her brother) crawling out and making this high pitched whooping noise while he was jumping around in just like, pure shock and agony. I just stood there not even believing what I was looking at. It was like 20 feet away from me. I had to do a driver safety course thing the next day for my license and the sheriff came in and talked to us about it and the importance of wearing your seatbelt.

the OP kinda reminds me of a story I once read online -

one night, this dude, as a kid, hears a loud bang from the kitchen and goes to find his mom standing over a mess on the ground, and asks if she was going to eat all of that spaghetti by herself.

his mom freaks out, and tells him to go to his room.

years later, as he's recounting his story to someone else, they tell him it's not normal behavior, so it gets him to ask his mom what happened.

his mom is confused until something clicks and she tells him what really happened: she heard a sound so she went to investigate it, and it was a guy trying to break into their house from the kitchen window.

she pulled her gun and shot him in the head, and as she's processing what happened, her son comes in, looks at the guy's leaking brains on the floor, and asks if she wanted to eat that by herself.

2 maybe 3 years old, undid the lock on my swing and fell face first into concrete. Had most of my teeth removed.

When I was 6 or 7, I was in the kitchen with my mom and she was explaining to me how important it was to be careful with knives. Because they were very sharp and you could hurt yourself if you're not careful. Well, while she was washing a knife, her hand slipped and she cut her hand really bad. We had to rush to the hospital and she got several stitches.

Now I'm 33 and I'm still really, really careful around knives >_>

holy shit wtf at OP

how badly did that fuck you up?

Almost drowned in a swimming pool as a kid.

Getting 7 stitches in my forehead when I was 8. My friend and I were throwing rocks at each other and I got distracted by something and when I turned my head back towards him I got beamed in the forehead.

escaping an attempted kidnapping
was at an outlet mall with my parents when i was idk 8 or so. i was bored as shit and being a little dickhead, and kept wandering away from my mom. some man and woman came up and the guy said he'd been waiting for me for a really long time and tried to walk out of the store with me and wouldn't let go when i tried to pull away. i started screaming and i guess he lost his nerve and i got away

I was 6 or 7, both tied to the same guy.

there was a bully at school. One day after classes were over I was supposed to walk to the schools entrance and wait for my parents there.

but on the way out of the classroom the bully was waiting for me and without a warning he punched me as hard as he could in the solar plexus. I could feel how air came out of my stomach through my mouth. I dropped to my knees in pain, crying. That was not the traumatic part: parents have a sixth sense. My mother walked into the classroom just in time to see the punch and me dropping crying - that humiliation was the trauma (she reacted like a kind parent, but it was still humiliating).

so 2 days later I was filled with rage and remembered we would kick pads in karate. So I adopted a power rangers pose and told the bully prepare yourself! (Yes, like the mortal kombat line) and kicked him right in the teeth.

two of his teeth flied with the kick, with a thin string of blood behind them, like in the movies, it was awesome. As my kicking foot touched the ground I could hear the guy scream/cry my tooth! And then blood gushed out and he was crying like a baby. I felt awesome because my little power rangers act meant I didnt sucker strike him, it had honor.

so why the trauma? School, being school, grounded me for my brutal attack, I was sent to the principals office and my parents had to pick me up. I was suspended for 2 days, I was shitting myself (not literally). Funny THE FUCKING SCHOOL DIDNT MIND WHEN THE BULLY PUNCHED ME even when my mom raised a complaint.

but my parents took me for ice cream because they knew the background of the story

I guess being bullied in grade school, even though I don't remember a lot of it. I switched to a different school in 6th grade.

That kind of stuff mostly stopped by high school. By then I think people were either afraid of me, or I just made them sad.

I don't remember suffering much trauma as a child.

I had a rather banal childhood

When I was 6 my dad and I went down an enclosed water slide and something happened where we both got banged up pretty badly. I wouldn't go down an enclosed water slide again until I was 11.

Hornswoggled posted...

I guess being bullied in grade school, even though I don't remember a lot of it. I switched to a different school in 6th grade.

That kind of stuff mostly stopped by high school. By then I think people were either afraid of me, or I just made them sad.

you dont remember because the mind blocks that kind of stuff to protect itself

Scohen posted...

you dont remember because the mind blocks that kind of stuff to protect itself

Yup. There was a birthday party I went to in elementary school. Apparently some kinda fucked up shit happened. I don't remember it at all. But my friend does. Apparently they convinced me to get naked and kiss him. Some how they framed it as I was a wuss if I didn't do it. And I didn't want to be a wuss so I tried to do it.

Man those kids that did that must have been fucked in the head. Or had something inappropriate done to them.

I'm glad I don't remember it. I feel bad for my friend that he does. Shits fucked.

I don't think I've ever been traumatized by anything. Mainly it's difficulty even remembering that far back.

I have a vague memory of seeing a bloody arm as someone was being taken out on a stretcher, apparantly it was a domestic dispute and the guy ended up being knocked out from a 2nd story window. But did that actually happen? I couldn't say, I have a lot of memories like this where I feel like they're something my mind made up cause it can't fill in the blanks.

I was probably 8-10 boogie boarding in the ocean. I went too far out and couldn't feel the ocean floor and couldn't get back onto my board. I started freaking out thinking I was going to drown but some guy came by and lifted me onto my board and I rode it onto the shore. For a few years after that I wouldn't go into the deep end of pools.

So that was a traumatic event in my life. But I don't recall it. Brain blocked it for self preservation. All I remember from that party is playing pretend war soldier stuff and playing Nintendo

Coming into existence.

sexually assaulted by a neighbor at age 8 or so

i got bullied a lot due to my cerebral palsy and the high standards of my parents made me hate myself. i basically felt like total shit whenever my grades ever slipped below an a and i can't ever feel satisfied with anything i do. all my dreams are dead (designing games, being a streamer) because i have no self-confidence and i can't take a compliment at face value

i can't even take any of my achievements with pride when i play video games. a lot of my friends talk about how cool it is that i play games with my one hand and how well i play (top 500 in guilty gear: strive, upper diamond in overwatch) but i can't help but read it as pity

Probably being molested, multiple times, by two older boys when I was five. I can see now how it fucked me up. Caused me to become what they call "hypersexualized." I was trying to do that same stuff with other kids my age and older. The situations I ended up in because of that weren't good and totally messed with my emotional development as well as my sexual desires.

If the opportunity arose today, I would absolutely end those fuckers that hurt me when I was so little and so impressionable.

I dunno. I feel like I was traumatized at one point from that song about elephants and weasles from the Winnie the Pooh movie.

Prob when I almost drowned at a beach. A lifeguard saved me

Feels like I mention this a lot, but a car wreck my family was in when I was 9. It was the 4th of July, and we were just out enjoying the day. Then in the way home, we went over a hill and I heard my mom shout "Oh God!" When I glanced up there a huge van crashing through our vehicle.

I was flung forward and it felt like slo motion. I remember feeling airborne before the seatbelt caught me. Glass went flying everywhere, people were screaming from the other vehicle. Mom and dad were in the front seat, while my brother and cousin were in the back, and I was in the back middle seat.

I looked at my brother and his head was totally messed up. He had a massive knot on his forehead. I literally thought it was brain leaking into his face and that he was dead. I tried to get mom's attention, but she was unconscious. Dad just got out and left the rest of us in the car. My cousin was shrieking like a maniac.

Some bystanders came to help and got us out of the vehicle. I chose to sit with my brother in what I thought were his last moments. He got med-flighted away though and did actually survive. By the time that happened I looked for my parents and they were gone. A cop cane by and yelled at me to get out of the way and go back to my family. I told him i was in the crash and couldn't find them. So he called the ambulances back... Because I got left behind. Guess it was my fault for sitting with my brother instead of my parents though.

We did all recover, even the guys in the other vehicle. But, not all of us made full recoveries. Me and mom still struggle with lasting affects. My brother was blind for a day but he also recovered but doesn't seem to have any lasting problems. Just thinking back to how he looked after it happened turns my stomach. I'm still pretty afraid to drive, but I do when I have to. I just can't really handle much traffic without skyrocketing my anxiety.

VeggetaX posted...

Michael Jackson transforming into a robot.

Lol! Sorry, but I can see why.

what happened to your dad tho?

I honestly have no idea i don't remember anything from my childhood prior to being like 12 years old.

I got backed over by a car when I was 8. I don't even remember the pain, but I do remember being practically covered head to toe in blood and understandably everyone (nurses, doctors, my parents, the dude that hit me with his car, random people) was freaking the fuck out when I went into the emergency room.

TentacleDemon posted...

Probably being molested, multiple times, by two older boys when I was five. I can see now how it fucked me up. Caused me to become what they call "hypersexualized." I was trying to do that same stuff with other kids my age and older. The situations I ended up in because of that weren't good and totally messed with my emotional development as well as my sexual desires.

If the opportunity arose today, I would absolutely end those fuckers that hurt me when I was so little and so impressionable.

when I was 5 there was another kid at school that would try to impose conditions so he would become my friend. The condition was always let me see your dick, though he didnt word it that way.

then he would try to go on with it. It happened twice. BOTH TIMES he got spooked and didnt go through with it and would run away, so he never did or see anything.

it didnt dawn on me what he was going to do and why and what it meant until I was well in my 20s and it came back as a random memory. Since nothing happened I wasnt traumatized.

I was real lucky I guess, thank God. Now it seems insane to me how close I was to tragedy.

yes this is the same school where the bully punched me and then I kicked off 2 of his teeth. My parents took me out of that shithole one year later, its the worst school ever

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


do you still remember it, or did your brain block it?

I identify with the fearing ____ could happen again part. Apparently its a trauma response too

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


this is super inspiring, coming from a salaryman who wants to exit the rat race.

how did you end opening your biz?

Scohen posted...

it didnt dawn on me what he was going to do and why and what it meant until I was well in my 20s and it came back as a random memory. Since nothing happened I wasnt traumatized.

I was real lucky I guess, thank God. Now it seems insane to me how close I was to tragedy.

Definitely lucky. I just hope that I didn't fuck anyone up with my stuff. I never tried to mess with anyone that wasn't at least my age group though. I am at least thankful for the fact that my interest was older kids. But this thought has brought me to tears on more than a few ocassions. What if I screwed someone else up? What if they went on to hurt other people? That would be my fault too.

The hardest part about it for me to understand was how it seemed like a possitive thing when these boys were doing it. They were significantly older, in Jr. high, and I thought they were my friends. I thought they liked me. One of them had the greatest toys. He-Man, Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc. So for a poor kid who didn't have all these awesome toys it was great having a "friend" who did. They're older and want to be my friend? I must be special if these older boys think I'm cool enough to play with. Then they started taking me into the bushes and doing stuff. It was all part of our "secret club." They managed to make it all seem ok and just what older boys do and I really wanted these older boys to keep thinking I was cool enough to play with. And they took advantage of that power dynamic. I wasn't cool enough for these older boys to want to me my friends. I wasn't special. I was just some kid stupid enough to be tricked into doing that stuff.

I'm sure it's all directly related to my lifelong feelings of worthlessness, my difficulty in forming emotional attachments with anyone outside my immediate family and a host of other issues. I was in my forties before I finally fell in love. Until that point I thought maybe I was just broken. That doesn't mean there weren't women in my life. But they were never more to me than a buddy that I can have sex with. I stopped looking for love and figured I was just going to have to settle for that. But when it finally happened I thought "Wow! I'm not broken. I can actually be happy." It was amazing and I wish I had never experienced it. Because it was just the universe fucking with me and it said "That's all you get. I just wanted you to know what you're missing."

That Tennyson quote "Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." is bullshit. I wasn't happy before. But I was ok. After, I am pretty fucking far from ok.