Childhood traumas

[Colonel Flagg]

I fell 35 feet when I was 13 - it was back in the day before hospitals had effective trauma treatment. No PET scans or MRI's. I probably should have bled to death internally, but instead survived long enough to go in for exploratory surgery. The doc cut out all the badly damaged shit and stitched up whatever they could and hoped it would be enough.

So far so good.

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

Too many horror movies for me when I was under the age of 9.

Normal things don't bother me too much. I can deal with deaths in my family although I'm very close to a lot of them.


When Gremio died though forget about it. I was a wreck.

[ZeldaQueen]

My parents told me that when I was much younger, I was sitting in the living room while my dad watched Star Trek. In the episode, they came to a part where in the future, the captain enters a cave and finds Data's head on the ground. My dad quickly switched off, but I saw it and my mom said that I kept saying over and over "Data's head came off!" I don't really remember that now though...

[10,000 Volt Ghost]

He's a Mandroid though. He was probably okay.

[Kitsa]

Even if it was Brent Spiner the man, he'd still probably be okay.

[LordSappington]

When I was 8, I fell down this huge, rocky hill out in the woods and broke my arm and leg. My arm was at a good 45 degree angle, bone sticking out, and my leg was twisted 90 degrees to the left. Apparently, in the shock, I somehow made my way home alone. I still don't know how.

[Kitsa]

The one and only time I was ever allowed to ride a two-wheeled bike, I went down a big hill, lost control, and skidded on my face for several feet. I looked like hamburger.

Worse still, I was knocked out and a car almost ran over me. Luckily they stopped and called an ambulance.

Yep, it's been an odyssey into adult-trike lameness ever since

[Gato]

I fell off a top bunk bed and snapped my wrist once. When the Doc set the bone, my mom said I screamed so loud that people in the lobby started leaving in fear.

In the end, I wound up with a bitchin' hot pink cast all the way up past my elbow.

[ZeldaQueen]

Can't remember when this was exactly, but when I was first told exactly how Jesus was nailed to the cross, that freaked me out (the thought of having nails going through one's hands).

I also freaked out the first time I heard the phrase "stabbing someone in the back". I thought it was literal.

[Kitsa]

I'm getting that you come from a religious family, ZQ?

[ZeldaQueen]

No actually. I just heard the story at school or something. I'm pretty sure it was still elementary school though, because I read The Bridge To Terebithia around fourth or fifth grade and in it, they make reference to Jesus being nailed on the cross and I already knew about it.

[Fathom Zero]

It's like you're a barometer for sadness, Kitsa.

[Kitsa]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Downer

"Disney World is fun. It's like being a kid again. I mean, before my two-year stint at Children's."


(which is bonus funneh because I actually did have a two-year stint at Children's)

[JJ_Maniac]

Furry convention at house in front of mine. I was seven. I thought they were monsters. I guess I was right. Also, I was locked outside to play.

[Tadao]

Out of curiosity, how old were you?

[Fathom Zero]

Originally Posted by ZeldaQueen

In Kennywood (an amusement park near where I live)

I think I rode that one waterslide like thirty times, once.

[ZeldaQueen]

Originally Posted by Fathom Zero

I think I rode that one waterslide like thirty times, once.

The Log Jammer? That one rocks! If you're talking about the Pittsburgh Plunge, I never rode that, and I only rode the Raging Rapids once (when I had an ear infection, so not so good a move there).

I was pretty freaked when I first saw The Nightmare Before Christmas. Same with Pooh's Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (which was pretty dark for a Winnie the Pooh movie) and the trailer for Anastasia.

[pac-man]

My parents beat each other up something unmerciful.

[electric ninja]

When I was 6, I was climbing a tree and a spider bit me on the hand. I let go of the branch and grabed my hand and fell out if the tree and landed awkwardly.

[pac-man]

Seriously though, my childhood was cool. If I was traumatized that shit's buried deep.

[pac-man]

Originally Posted by electric ninja

When I was 6, I was climbing a tree and a spider bit me on the hand. I let go of the branch and grabed my hand and fell out if the tree and landed awkwardly.

Ninja please!

[b_squared]

My parents beat each other up something unmerciful.

It was one sided in my home..one hit(dad) the other bled (mom)...
She finally divorced and dated another
Who did the same thing.
so she broke up and married another
who did the same thing...
She finally divorced and never married again...

That was childhood trama... but a huge downer.

Anyway, something not so bad as above,

When I was about 12 we had a huge field in front of the house and every spring everything was blooming and bees were everywhere. Occasionally I would see a big black bee. I think they call them carpenter bees. I wanted to see one close up but I was afraid of them. So I got an empty glass jar with a lid and trapped the bee. I was so scared. Once the bee was in the jar it started buzzing and the jar was shaking and buzzing so loud. I screamed and dropped the jar, the lid fell off and the bee came after me. It took me a week to get enough courage to walk through the field again.

[MetalMilitia]

It's weird, for all the obviously extremely dangerous shit I did as a kid I never really managed to injure myself badly (never broken a bone or anything). Well, there is one possible exception.

Me and a mate used to get high and just fuck about in this wasteland/wooded area on a hill. We used to use this big branch as a kind of catapult to launch shit off the hill. One day we decided the branch had lot a lot of it's springyness and opted to find a new one.
We found an awesomely powerful crap launching branch, stripped all the leaves etc. off it, and proceeded to test it. My friend pulled it back just as I was walking in front and the fucking thing snapped causing the end to swing round into my eyeball. Apparently I did a full 360 before hitting the ground. The second it happened it was the worst feeling ever because I didn't know if I even still had an eye left or what. I couldn't open it or see out of it or anything. One trip to casualty later and a sleepless night of extreme discomfort and I was finally able to - more or less - see again. Took ages to heal and I still feel like that eye is less sensitive to colour but at least it's still in my skull.

To this day anything that looks like it's under a lot of stress - taught cables etc. - make me rather nervous.

[Dimnos]

When I was about 5 or 6 I found a pair of tweezers laying on the coffee table. I looked around to find where they go and decided the best place for the two pronged device was the electrical outlet on the wall. All I remember is waking up on the couch

When I was about 8 or 9 I was climbing across the top of some monkey bars. My hand slipped and I fell between the bars hitting the bottom of my chin on one of the bars. This caused me to literally bite off a small part of the tip of my tongue. The pain wasnt so bad, the worst part was all the blood that comes spewing out of your tongue filling your mouth to a point it looks like you are literally throwing up blood.

[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.