Childhood traumas

[Kitsa]

Post traumatic stress disorder is a real thing, that's for sure. Not that this is a childhood trauma, but...

About 15 years ago my parents had a minivan and my dad hated it. He kept wishing something would happen to it so he could get something else. One day, he was driving down a country road in a snowstorm. Without warning, all of the power lines collapsed over the road. One line draped over the minivan and dragged it and my dad into a ditch.

He was trapped there for a long time. The live wire actually burned a hole in the roof of the minivan. My dad couldn't do anything but sit there and try not to touch metal; there was water in the ditch on one side, and a live wire draped over the other. There was no way to safely get out.

Fortunately, he managed to get enough of a "car phone" signal to call for help, and the car trapped in front of him belonged to NIPSCo, the power company. They were able to locate them by GPS, shut off the line and help them out.

The fun didn't end there, one of the guys who was stuck was a dwarf and had to be helped over snow piles and fences back to the main road. That had to be humiliating. Anyway, he got his wish. The van was absolutely totaled.

To this day, my dad freaks out if he sees a crooked powerline. I saw something similar happen last fall during Hurricane Ike and have a touch of the freakouts myself.

[b_squared]

My husband is a lineman. I have a high respect for those powerlines.
He was in an underground vault that blew up because the power was not de-energized correctly.

He now has some hearing loss, skin graphs over his face and head, and wrists, some lung damage and some back trama.

But couldn't wait to get back to work. If I think about it too much I worry for him, but he loves it.

[Geggy]

My childhood memories are starting to fade out but I am being reminded of how my phobia of amputees got started whenever I see one. It started in a swimming class at YMCA when I was 6 year old. This kid in my class had only one arm. It was my first time I've ever been exposed to amputees. It didn't get any better after my first time watching the movie The Swamp Thing on HBO. Now my body trembles whenever I am near an amputee. I would soil myself in the pants if I ever were inside the walter reed army medical center.

[ZeldaQueen]

When I was a child, it was autumn and I was playing in a pile of leaves. I threw a few handfuls into the air and thought that it would be a good idea to look up at them. Needless to say, I wound up with two eyefuls of dirt and leafy grit. My mom and grandparents (who were visiting) got me inside and my grandparents let my mom use some of their eye drops to help get the stuff out of my eyes. I was terrified of letting more things get in my eye and I pretty much had to be pinned to the bed and had my eyes pried open before the drops could get in. After that, it was along time before I played in leaves or felt safe with eyedrops.