My God, that hurt just thinking about it. . .
– Sylence
And now, for my next trick, I will talk in spooky half-references.
Coldfire: Yeeeeeeeeeek! Ick, ack, eek, uck, bleh, nyar, feh!
I must say that I, too, am grateful for the life I’ve led after reading the trauma so many of you have lived through. It makes my life traumas (which I realized I never really related, and came back here to do) look minor. That is a good thing.
I’ve decided that yes, Mom putting Lady to sleep last Thanksgiving was seriously traumatizing. Mom had offered to take Lady when I moved into a place that took no cats; she promised that if there was ever any problem with the crotchety old Siamese, she would let me know first. Lady started spraying in the sinks, Mom put her to sleep. (Did bother taking her to the vet, either.) Did Mom tell me? Nope. Waited for me to come on freakin’ Thanksgiving morning, let me walk around shaking the Pounce can calling “Here kitty kitty!” and checking the still present food dishes, cat bed, litterbox. Mom didn’t tell me because she “didn’t want to hurt me.” The one good thing is I remained lucid in my fury, and told my mother what is the ultimate trauma she has caused in my life: “How poorly do you know me that you think that THIS is what was best?” Taking care of me ain’t her forte. As is with all things involving emotional damage and family, it’s a long history.
Trauma #2 further explains that story. I think I was 5, I’m not sure; the memory is mercifully clouded. I’m naked from the waist down in a neighbor’s garage, and there are several–it felt like 25, but it was probably 5 or 6–“older” kids (probably 10-12) all saying and doing weird things to me. I don’t remember being touched, although it was likely; I just remember the naked part, and the kids laughing. Although this memory is the most vivid, it is unfortunately not isolated. It went on for years. I’d tell my mother, and she’d just tell me not to play with them. Then she sat on a sofa for a decade reading romance novels, and when I’d come home crying because the kids had followed me home and done something else (however minor or major), she’d just stare at me. Nurturing is not her gift. My regret is that I didn’t fight against those bastards; someone had to stand up for me. Dammit.
Trauma #3…hmm. It’s probably just another event precipitating from #2 above; there were plenty to choose from.
Geez, this wasn’t meant to be the “Why I’m Fucked Up” thread. I quote Harry from “Night Court”'s father: “I’m feeling much better now.”
I, too, hope this writing wasn’t too self-indulgent. Certain things are buttons for me, and these events still leave much to vent about for me.
God bless you, Shadowfox!..and your new man!
Okay, now I’m feeling like I shared too much. Anyone else get that feeling after posting to this thread?
Okay, I’ve resisted posting in this thread for a couple of days, but it keeps popping up, so I gave in.
In no particular order:
Getting hit by my dad.
Getting hit by my dad.
Getting hit by my dad with a belt.
Getting hit by my dad with a yardstick.
Getting hit by my dad with a yardstick for making freaking water balloons.
Coming home from school to find out my dad has taken both dogs “out for a ride” and left them out by the side of the road somewhere. In winter.
Walking in on my mom crying in her bedroom after an argument with my dad. (I was about five.)
Getting slapped by my dad for answering a question truthfully because it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear. (I was about five or six.)
Getting slapped by my dad for singing the second verse of Silent Night after the first verse because he thought I was singing the verses in the wrong order–he thought that verse was the third verse.
(Can you tell that some of these situations have been burned into my brain? I’m stopping now.)
Well, my most traumatic experience would have to be…My dad deciding that he wanted nothing at all to do with me. And having to make the decision on how I should handle it. Another traumatic experience was when I found out the man I thought I was going to marry was lying and cheating on me quite frequently. Talk about hurting like hell. That was one of the worse ones. After being dumped by one man of importance in your life Turing around to get dumped on by another. What’s really bad is he still turns up in my life every now and then (my X). And Its going to be a Vary long time before IM over either of those situations.
Love Always and Forever,
Heather Lee
XheatherleeX@aol.com
When I was in Junior High, I was not exactly skinny. I was not exactly good with the women, either. I was also smart. And dressed poorly. I got picked on, alot. Don’t get me wrong, I had friends, and popular ones. But they just sort of turned their heads. The bullies could do whatever they wanted, the teachers didn’t care, and I was too pussy to stand up for myself. I would lie awake in bed at night, crying, praying to God that he would kill me so it wouldn’t go on. I wanted to not wake up the next morning. I would beg God every night for that one, only, thing. I did not want to go on living. If I had had any more spine, I know that I would have killed myself. But I was so weak that I didn’t even think of it. I just expected God to kill me for me. What’s worse than that is that those years taught me to block pain and sadness. I have only cried few times since then, no matter how ‘emotional’ something should be. My friends die, and I don’t feel a thing. My heart can be in my throat, but those years taught me to hold it in, not to feel it, ignore it and it’ll go away. I wish I could cry. I wish I could feel more than I do.
I had a dog. I loved that dog. Even during junior high, when everyone hated me, and I hated myself, when my mom and I would get in screaming fits, when my dad would scream at me for making my mom cry, when my brother would beat the shit out of me for no reason other than to see me cry, when my sisters hated me, my dog loved me. Cocoa loved me. Mom had her put to sleep one day. I cried for two weeks straight. No one really cared.
Touching as this story is Homer, the thought of you having blocked emotions like the ones described really explains a hell of a lot regarding your statements in another thread in this very forum.
Just observing, not judging. Not here.
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
- Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
Cripes, I almost forgot–my #3 above was followed immediately by my mother, while taking me home for spring break, screaming at me about what an ungrateful and lazy person I was, then pulling her truck to the side of I-71 N outside of Cleveland, and throwing me and all my stuff onto the shoulder and driving away.
Also, finding out that my mother had had our dog, who I loved more than most things, put to sleep without telling me or asking if I wanted to be there.
“Argue with what I said, not what you think or hope I said.” - Me
I see two types of trauma stories here: natural/accidental/shit happens and inflicted by someone else.
For my pure accidental: being bumped (really quite accidentally) into an irrigation canal. It was 30’ wide, 15’ deep, and full of muddy river water going about 5 mph. I remember falling in, seeing my siblings and their friends standing on the valve pier that I’d just fallen off of. Then my vision being covered over by muddy, cold, river water. Next, being pulled out by someone. It probably only lasted a few seconds, but I remember it vividly.
Another accident, but caused by my brother: He came to pick me up from my babysitter’s house. But his car had broken down, so he’d ridden over on his 10-speed. He sat me side-saddle on the crossbar, much to my protests that Mom told us not to ride double. Not 30 feet down the road, my right foot got caught in the front spokes. My whole lower leg got mangled into the spokes. And before he stopped (within a second, but it seemed like an eternity), I had a ground view of the traffic coming towards us. Fortunately, one of the cars was a phone truck. The repairman got his wire snippers and freed my leg.
Humorous (to me anyway) sidenote: my brother took me to the doctor (probably got a ride from the babysitter; I can’t recall). And who was our doctor’s receptionist? Mom! She screamed when she saw her oldest son carrying her youngest with a very blood leg injury. The look of chagrin on his face made up for all the teasing he’d ever done to me. (I think he actually stopped teasing me after this.) Twenty-seven years later, he still feels guilty when he sees the scar on my leg.
Weird co-incidence of these two stories: the near-drowning happened behind my to-be-babysitters house, the bike accident in front of her house. And 13 years later, my brother ended up living in that house.
The only traumatic experience I can remember happened during a family vacation to Florida, when I was maybe four years old. On the sidewalk outside the hotel room, I saw a bunch of little bugs that looked icky, so I started stepping on them with my sandaled feet.
Fire ants don’t like being stepped on, and they were quick to show me their displeasure.
I’m sorry, but I gotta respond to this.
What makes you think suicide is an act of courage?
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
Sealemon: “The Pass” comes to mind…
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
- Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
The most traumatic moment in my life was watching my 18 month old daughter have a seizure. After that, she just collapsed in my arms and I genuinely thought she was dead. I thought she had accidentally eaten something and had been poisoned. I had a sort of mind-out-of-body experience where I was above looking down on myself cradling her in my arms. Everything happened in slow motion.
I remember thinking, “I’m going to bury my child.”
If anyone has ever truly lost a child, my sympathies are with you. I can’t imagine anything more painful.
Interesting thing about reading this thread and everyone’s experiences is that I think, and I’m speaking for myself, everything we have gone through has made us stronger and probably more tolerant. I know I am and it’s why I think everything happens for a reason.
Roughly in order of magnitude:
-The death of my mother when I was 25. She died while waiting for a heart transplant in Pittsburgh. My sisters and I were taking turns staying there, but couldnt all go because we all worked at the family business.
She was there for 2 weeks, after being in and out of the hospital in our home town for months. I was there the last week, and she had had several small strokes and was not doing well, but we HAD to leave(not my choice, my older sister had the car and the money for a hoter ect) I remember my mother looking at me, unable to speak due to being intubated and the fear, and pain in her eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life. I got home after a 6 1/2 hr drive, went to bed and was awakened 2 1/2 hrs later by my best friend calling to say how sorry he was. He had found out before I did! I finally got a call from an uncle about an hour later.
She was the last “parent” I had as my father killed himself when I was 3, and my maternal grandparent, who helped raise me had died when I was 12(grandmother), and 22(grandfather). She died six years ago, and my friends still know not to expect enything from me during the week around the anniversary of her death.
-Drowning when I was 7 in a public pool in LA. I can still remember going under and blacking out, waking up a couple of minutes later on the side of the pool with lifeguards and my mom standing next to me.
-Having a doctor tell me I had a tumor the size of a golf ball in my neck.
Turned out to be non-malignant, but this was less than 6 months after the death of my mom, and I had previously lost my grandfather and two aunts and an uncle to cancer.
-Waking up in the hospital and having No memory of the car accident that had put me there, and being unable to see due to the bandages on my head and face.
-Hearing the bullet go past my head Before I heard the sound of the gunshot, standing there like an idiot and realize only after the SECOND shot that someone really was shooting at me!
-Being taken away in handcuffs after an AMAZINGLY stupid series of events. (See the thread-Whats the stupidest thing you’ve ever done-for details)
“The universe doesn’t give first warnings or second chances”
I’ve finally come to a simular conclusion about my father’s death.
The benefit of 20/20 hindsight shows me that warning signs were all there years before his suicide, but I didn’t see them. I idolized my dad. Even when he attacked my mom, I thought he was spooky(understatement), but he got help, and in the next month or so, he seemed just fine.
When he died a year later, I had no warning at all (in my view at the time). I spent years in shock, walking around in a daze, and feeling such rage at the world, my dad, myself, and God, that I was blinded at times by it.
But it made me stronger. I know that he did it because he felt another bout of paranoia coming on, and he was afriad that he might actually hurt one of us this time. I know that it was no one’s fault but his own for giving up.
And I know that I love him.
The main things I took away from it was to get an appreciation for life and everything in it. To not let my life become stress. To show my emotions, and talk to people.
To laugh off the petty bullshit in my life, because I’ve been through so much worse.
I also apparently learned how to ramble 
ColdFire: I haven’t seem “The Pass”. All I know is that there are very few concevable hypothetical situations where suicide is an option, much less an act of courage.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
Hello, frequent lurker and much less frequent poster here. I feel the need to share. Traumatic experiences in order:
- The still birth of my half sister (father’s and stepmother’s) in second grade. My half brother (mother’s and stepfather’s) had been born only a year earlier and I couldn’t understand what the point was of God (?) allowing her to be in utero if she was never meant to be.
- The next door neighbor, whom I called “Grampa” sitting me on his lap, putting his hand up my shirt and asking me if I knew what the word “FUCK” meant. At the age of 11. I ran home and told my parents who did nothing, except to elect me to take the sympathy card over to his wife when he died in a car crash about 3 weeks later.
- The death of my previously mentioned brother when he was 14 of heretofore unknown causes. I was about to turn 21 and we had just started having intelligent conversations.
- The murder of my cousin last year, who was essentially my twin while we were growing up. He died from multiple gunshot wounds from his ex-girlfriend while he was sleeping in his bed at 11 o-clock on a Friday night. He didn’t drink, smoke, take drugs, or even go out. He never did anything to anyone. His mistake was trying to be nice to this girl and break things off with her slowly because she was pathetic, thereby leading her on. Thankfully (sorry, it’s the way I feel), she downed a bottle of Motrin, drank some bleach and shot herself in the head for good measure.
- My godmother’s brother, my “uncle Tony” was murdered earlier this year in front of their children by his pill of a wife who calls my godmother from prison to ask her to take care of her possessions for her so when she gets out, she can reunite with her children, whom my godmother is caring for.
I think that’s it. I think that’s enough.
Sealemon,
I must have misremembered (is that a word?), but I thought you were a Rush fan too. “The Pass” is one of their songs off the ‘Presto’-album, and it’s about suicide.
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
- Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
- The death of my best friend in a car accident, the summer after sixth grade.
- The Christmas tree incident.
- The radiator incident.
- Having my lip split because I wouldn’t submit to being gang-raped.
- Waking up in the emergency after a grand mal seizure and not remembering the previous day at all.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
The last 8 years have been one long traumatic event. Ayesha and The Lion, and anyone who has Hepatitis C or has a loved one with it, don’t read this. I’m sure this is a worst case scenario, and I don’t want anyone to be filled with fears that, hopefully, will never be realized.
I have been trying to write this for weeks now, but today, the day after another depressing, empty Thanksgiving, it has come spilling out rather easily.
Dad first got sick before Thanksgiving, 1991. He was weak and cold all the time, and mom finally took him to the emergency room. It was discovered then that he had Hepatitis C, and his liver was so enlarged that it was putting pressure on the veins of his esophagus causing them to become varicosed (esophageal varices) and rupture. He was bleeding internally, and if he hadn’t seen the doctor when he did, he would have bled to death within a matter of days. To this day, we don’t know where or how he got the Hep. C, but the doctor said that, at the time he was diagnosed, it was so far advanced that he may have had it as long as 15 years.
For the rest of his life, he spent time in and out of hospitals, in McMinnville and in Portland at the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). But one of the worst times was that same holiday season of 1991. He had been told he’d have to spend Christmas at OHSU, which of course totally depressed him. But he’d resigned himself to it. Christmas Eve we came up to visit, and we were going to come up again Christmas Day, but a nurse met us in his room and said he could go home for Christmas. We were so happy! We bundled him up and took him home.
Christmas morning, we opened our presents. Dad had a cup of chicken broth for breakfast, because with his delicate esophageal veins he had to limit himself to soft foods and liquids. After presents and soup, he got up and went to the bathroom. From the bathroom, he called to mom. He was throwing up blood. The veins in his esophagus had begun to bleed again, this time so much that he was throwing the stuff up.
We called the ambulance and they took him to McMinnville. Mom and I followed in the car while Bonnie (my sister) stayed home to call the family and let them know what had happened. We sat in the McMinnville Community Hospital waiting room for about 1 or 2 hours before they had him stabilized enough to LifeFlight to OHSU. We followed in the car. I can’t remember how long we were at OHSU, but I think it was after 9:00 PM before we were able to see him. My God (and, as of this writing, my belief in him is still shaky, at best), he was so pale, so yellow! I forget how many pints of blood the human body holds, but that day they gave him one more pint than that, meaning he’d bled out all of the blood in his body and then some. At one point, his blood pressure was so low that he suffered a heart attack, on top of everything else. But he was awake and alert and, above all, alive.
So this was the beginning of a new life for all of us; doctors’ appointments and stays at OHSU, pills of every conceivable shape, size, and color, sitting up at nights listening to dad sleep and worrying if he was all right, if he was breathing funny, or if he was getting up, possibly to be sick. There were good times, of course, and sometimes he’d go months at a time without any kind of an episode. But then there was Christmas, 1996.
Christmas was uneventful, just a typical post-hospitalization thank goodness daddy’s alive Christmas. The one thing that does stick out in my mind from that day, though, that tears at my heart whenever I think of it and that is making my eyes tear up as I type, was in the evening, after presents, after dinner, after things had quieted down and we were basking in the post-holiday glow, dad petted our 13 year old Daisy dog and said, “Well, old girl, we made it another Christmas.”
The very next day he began bleeding again.
When a person digests blood, ammonia is produced. Normally, the liver is supposed to filter this out and I’m assuming that it had, in dad’s past. But now, so many years later, the Hep. C had caused such severe cirrhosis of the liver that it was unable to cope. The ammonia was poisoning his system, and the results were horrifying.
Dad was admitted to the new McMinnville hospital, the old one having been shut down in the years since this began. I think it was the next day when we got a call that there was something wrong, a new development. Mom and I went to the ICU where he’d been admitted and were met by his doctor. The doctor said he’d been moved out of ICU (big mistake, I think) to a regular room. But he said that dad wasn’t acting right. He kept talking about having to do farm type stuff, even though we hadn’t had the farm since 1980. He was disoriented and didn’t seem to know where he was or why. Mom became very upset at hearing this. She was sure he’d had a stroke, because this was the way her father had acted when he’d had a stroke. So we went up to the 2nd floor to see him.
I was filled with such dread, I think I was crying already. But when we got to his room, the door was open and he looked at us. I said, “Hi, daddy!” and he said, “Hi, baby!” I was so elated! My lord, I was soaring! He could recognize me, he could talk, everything was fine! I rushed to his side and said, “How are you feeling?” He said, “Hi, baby!” I paused, and thought maybe he hadn’t heard me. I asked him again how he was feeling, and he said, “Hi, baby!” Elation turned to horror so fast… I can’t recall another period in my life where I underwent such a rapid transformation of emotions, from the highest high to the lowest low in one fell swoop.
We sat there until well after midnight, if I remember correctly. It was snowing. My sister and Aunt Lois showed up anyway. We were sure he was dying. He said a little more besides “Hi, baby,” but none of it made a lot of sense. At one point he began asking, “Can you hear my hand?” We assumed he meant, “Hold my hand,” but even when we held his hands and tried to soothe him, he kept repeating that horrible phrase, “Can you hear my hand? Can you hear my hand?” I thought I was going mad.
Eventually, mom decided we should go. She and Aunt Lois returned to their homes, and I went to Bonnie’s house. Later, in the middle of the night, mom stopped by and collected us again and back to the hospital we went. Now dad was in a hepatic coma. He’d shut down from the ammonia poisoning. He would remain in a coma for a few days, and Aunt Lois and Uncle Dale, his brother and sister, both talked of shutting off life support and said their good-byes to him. But dad awoke on New Year’s Eve.
New Year’s Day, he was still groggy and disoriented, but he was awake and alive. The day after, he was more alert, though he didn’t remember anything about Christmas or some of the days preceding. The longer you’re unconscious, the less you remember about the days before losing unconsciousness. But Aunt Lois and Uncle Dale both came to see him, and both were amazed at his recovery after they’d given up hope. Dad was back! But not for long.
The next month and a half was spent in a nursing home, and he absolutely hated it. Senile and Alzheimer-stricken old people wandered in and out of him room, the food was horrible, the nurses were inattentive, and the place reeked of death. He cried on his first night there. In the middle of February, they decided that, with the proper equipment, he was well enough to come home.
They gave us a hospital bed for him, and a lift to help move him, and so on. He spent one night at home. The next day, mom had to be out all day. I don’t even remember why now. But I stayed home with him. And for some reason, I was so mad that day. I was mad at him. I don’t even remember why. I guess in his pain and exhaustion, he’d been short with me, and for some reason I let that make me mad. So I was so cold to him all day. Why??? I hate myself for that to this day. If only I’d known I’d never see him alive and alert again. But as soon as mom got ho