What Single Event Had the Biggest Impact on Your Life ?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Call it “the SD Therapist”. What event in your life so far has most made you who you are now ? Was it a death ? A life ? Some genes ? Or perhaps something much more random. Lay it out, after all - we are all family here.

I’ll go first.

Without a doubt it has to be the fact that my sperm doner, uh birth father, left my Mom and I when I was 3 and has never returned. I know now that much of what I did and who I have become has been effected by that one event. This gets very complicated (of course), yet I doubt that I am the only Doper with a parent MIA. In fact it seems as if my whole generation is plagued by this problem. Guess what ? I turned out fairly well adjusted. I don’t rob banks or have a taste for human flesh or wish to become a clown who trains headless dogs. It, if anything, has made me extremly independent. Almost all the “guy stuff” I know, I taught myself.

What about you ?

2

the worst impact? Entering elementary school in the backwoods town that I grew up in. I went through hell there, think of it as Shirley Jackson meets Deliverance meets Lord of the Flys. Eight years of pure hell. Upon recieving my 8th grade diploma, I kissed it and screemed “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty! I am free at last!”

The best thing that ever happened to me was attending the Vermont Governor’s Institute on the Arts my junior year in high school. I had always felt like an outsider, a freak. I liked art. I liked acting. I liked talking, conversing, relating. GIA is a program run by the state where 150 students from across the state (chosen by audition) are sent to a state college campus for 2 weeks in the summer. You live in dorms, and take classes (2 classes per day, 2 hours a piece) taught by professional artists. Students are incouraged to start their own student taught classes, which is where I picked up improv comedy. But the amazing thing was that EVERYONE there was an outsider. I made some of the best friends I have there, and walked away a changed person. I can’t imagine who I would be today if I hadn’t gone.

3

My parents were very strict with me when I was growing up. I was the youngest child and the only girl so they were more strict with me than they were with my two brothers. My mother wouldn’t let me go to a Def Leppard concert when I was 12 because she was afraid I’d get raped and killed… she was very paranoid about that for some reason. From 16-18 I had to be home by 11:30 on Friday & Saturday nights. During the week I had to be home by 10:00. Not that there’s anything wrong with curfews but my brother is only 15 months older than I am but his curfew was 2:00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday and 12:00 during the week. It just didn’t seem fair that they treated me so differently because I was a girl. I wasn’t allowed to dress the way I wanted to and wasn’t allowed to do a lot of things that my friends were doing. It really sucked. I rebelled as much as I could which only made it worse.

Because of a strict up-bringing and not being able to do a lot of things because of my mother’s paranoia that I was going to be raped and killed… I moved out of my parent’s house on my 18th birthday and partied my ass off for the next two years. That included a lot of drinking, (and I mean a lot of drinking) and a lot of sex. I was pretty wild during that time. I don’t think I would have been as wild as I was if I would have been allowed a little freedom growing up. I’m still the black sheep of the family and they still disapprove of a lot of things I do and have done in my life but oh well.

4

I’d have to say it was my first “real” job. I was 16 and a sophomore in high school. I had everything planned out. I was going to graduate in a couple of years and go to UT Arlington for my EE. A friend of mine (a little older) was working in a little ma and pop computer store that built custom machines, did repairs, etc. I was looking for a job and had been around computers for as long as I could remember. My dad was a toy nut. I met the guy who owned the place, Bill, and he decided to give me a shot and see what I could do. I trashed a motherboad the first day(when hooking up a power supply, black goes on the inside), but I hung on and had a few good laughs. I ended up loving it.
This job completely thrashed all of my future plans. I ended up going to a community college for a couple of years and hitting UTA for a while in hopes of getting a computer science degree. I’m not sure, but I think I’ve dropped out. I haven’t been in a long time. I went on from that first job through some sales, and support, and now have ended up in telecom with a great career and everybody telling me not to bother finishing college. I’ve discovered that my experience speaks for itself when looking for a job.
I guess the point I’m trying to make is, none of this would have happened if Bill hadn’t taken a chance on me. That one job ended up changing my whole life. I’m already established and into my career now, and most of the people I grew up with are still in college. I have a huge head start on everybody. And, while most of my friends dread going to work everyday, I love my job. I hate to think that I might be at a job I hate had I continued along my initial path. Just something I think about sometimes.

5

In terms of how my life has turned out now, the one defining moment came 20 years ago, when a family friend talked me in to joining the local volunteer ambulance brigade. Until then I had no leanings towards medical matters at all. Since then I have successfully pursued a career in EMS, which has totally influenced my whole life: who my friends are, how much I earn, where I live, and indeed, the woman I married.

It could have been quite different. If someone had suggested to me while I was still at school that my future career was with SA Ambulance Service, I would have laughed them out of the room.

6

Hands down, joining the Navy had the biggest impact.

One final thought: I’ve got to get to know Rachelle better!

7

There are a lot of them, too many. But I’ll choose one that is particularly life altering, within my distinct memory, and may serve as a warning to parents with teens.

I didn’t get along with my parents very well. Suffice it to say that I had sufficient reason for not getting along with them, and I say that now as a 29 year old adult. Anyway, at 16 I started dating a guy my parents didn’t like. They asked me not to see him anymore. They changed my curfew to 10:00 (it was 11:00 when I was eleven). Then, they made a fatal error - they forbid me from ever seeing him again.

Looking back, I strongly suspect that had they told me they didn’t like the guy and left it at that, I would have grown bored with him very quickly. We had nothing in common - I was impressed with him because he was 19 and had a car, and I think because I knew they wouldn’t like him. As it was, having been expressly forbidden was the last straw in a series of conflicts, and I ran away from home. They then made fatal error number 2. The next day when I went to get some stuff, they told me that if I walked out the door, I could never come back.

I believed them, 100%.

Now, weeks later when I did want to go back, I didn’t even try because they had told me that, and I believed them.

Fortunately, my life has turned out quite well. But I went through many years of hardships, and I think my mother may have gone through worse, worrying about me. Most of the time, she didn’t even know where I was.

My daughter is 12. Some day, she is going to bring home a boy I don’t like. When she does, I will let her know my opinion if she asks for it. I will then swallow anything else that I want to say about him personally. I will also never, ever tell her that she cannot come to me with her problems.

8

Forget to include that the 19 year old ended up being the father of my daughter, and my ex husband. We were married all of 5 months.

9

Undoubtedly the death of my dad. It gave me great joy to take care of him while he was ill, to have that time with him, but it broke my heart to the deepest core when he died. A part of me is gone forever.

I now look at it as the best experience I have had in that we shared so much together.

10

I’m glad you turned out okay. Two of my kids have an MIA biological parent. I got married too young and to the wrong guy, kinda like KimKatt’s story. Anyway, I was 24, divorced and had a 3-year-old child. Met a guy with a 2-year-old, whose wife had left him for another man…just up and left one day whe her child was 6 months old.
We got married and now have a child together. We have each adopted the other’s child, so the girls both have mom and dad, but they both are missing a biological parent. We have a very happy family life, but I sometimes wonder if either of them will feel a need to look for their “other” parent.
I have no idea where my ex-husband is; he was more than happy to sign off his parental right (no more child support! yeah!)
My husband’s ex-wife ended up living with a series of different men, last we knew she was going to Florida.
NothingMan, do you feel any pull to look for your father?

11

The single event that shaped MY life happened 6 months before I was born, when my elder sister died of Cystic Fibrosis. The fact that it was genetically linked, meant my mother, while watching her eldest child slowly die, also got to die a little each day with worry about her child yet to be. Turned out I didn’t have it, but much of my childhood and how I was raised was based on their fear that something would happen to me, and my parents own inability to deal with grief.

I have a theory that we parent either by repeating what was done to us or “By God, I’m not going to do THAT to MY kid”, so have raised my son, hopefully, with communication and freedom, yes, with rules, but with reason. So hopefully, I’ve broken that chain. Reality is that I am in charge of who I am today, even given my bizarre upbringing. interesting thoughts here

12

As non-earthshaking as it seemed at the time, it was a suggestion by a buddy. I had edited my high school paper, and when I started in college, I figured I’d try out for the campus rag. But when we got there, the office was closed, and my buddy suggested we go across the street and try the campus radio station. That led to my going into broadcasting, which led directly to my first marriage, my ultimate decision to change careers, all the moves I’ve made, meeting Mrs. Kunilou, etc. etc.

13

A car accident years ago that took the legs out from under me. I didn’t know what I would do with myself or how I would live my life. When I asked the doctor if I would be able to walk again, he replied, “Do you want to?” Somehow that made it clear to me that even though I had a set back and my life wouldn’t be going in the direction I had hoped, I could still make my own decisions and the closing off of one path just opened up others. Everything that has happened since then is a direct result of me not being able to play baseball. I went to school and got my degree. I am perfectly happy with my life and look forward to being married with children in a house in the suburbs. And since the odds of me ever getting out of the minor leagues were very slim (how far can you get with a great glove but only a so-so bat at best?), this is probably all for the best anyway. And I still have fun playing baseball, so what if it’s only on the Playstation? At least I’m not getting heat exhaustion in the muggy St Louis summer heat.

14

My ‘defining moment’ occurred when I was 4 years old. On a hot day in June, three teens came up to me and my brother and offered us a drink of water from a bottle they had with them. My brother allowed me the first drink. Unfortunately, what they had was not water, but hydrochloric acid. And I took a good draught before the realization set in.
The damage was fairly extensive, but certainly could have been worse. My lips, of course, got burned. My entire esophagus was destroyed. When I dropped the bottle, it spilled all over my legs (that was the last time I ever wore shorts in public) and some got on my shirt and burned a hole through it. Many folks thought I was done for.

I spent the next six months in the hospital being patched together. I had to relearn how to talk (through the miracles of modern medicine, they managed to rebuild my esophagus) and how to walk, but I also took the opportunity to teach myself to read.

This event basically turned me into the shy, introverted type. Because of my appearance, I was ridiculed by most kids, so I was never the ‘popular’ sort (aside from being a popular target). Having little else to do, I just started learning stuff. Had this not happened to me, I probably would have turned out like the rest of my family, and become either a criminal or a drunk. This has also allowed me to weather some very difficult times in my life by giving me perspective: “I drank acid and lived…no matter how bad things get, it’s been worse and I survived, so I’ll survive this too.”

I’m certain that I would not have the inner strength, so to speak, that I have today were it not for this. I would have been a very different person, but I’m sure I would have not been a better person had this not happened.

Despite all that has happened to me, I wouldn’t trade being who I am for anything!

15

Mauve, you’ve told that story before, and I still want to know, what happened to those guys? I hope they’re still in jail.

16

Giving birth. Giving birth rocked.

17

This isn’t nearly as striking as events such as Mauve’s (Mauve, please tell me that something was done to those boys in retribution!), but it’s a huge impact for me.
Strange as it is, it’s had a positive effect - moving. Not exactly one single event, but one single series of events. Does that count? I’ve moved 10 times in 19 years - not as much as career military people, but my dad’s in the medical profession. Long stories for another forum.

School count: 3 elementary schools, 1 middle school, 3 high schools. And even though sometimes I rue the constant upheaval (I’m in college and haven’t yet unpacked my room at home from last summer’s relocation), there’s something that makes me appreciate it all. My last move in high school was hardest; I had been at nationally academically ranked schools, and was suddenly transferred to BFE, Missouri (being on an AP track and then being told you can only take AP English because that’s all that’s offered is quite the shock). Within 2 weeks of joining marching band, I had been told quite clearly that I was an outsider and that I had better not try to mess with the status quo. So, wrenching myself out of band full-time, I explored opportunities.

I became the first girl to play full-time on the high school’s Quiz Bowl team. Joined Odyssey of the Mind and found out I was creative. Met a physics teacher that I absolutely worship as a role model and rediscovered my love for puns. And showed up my entire section in band by placing in 2 local/regional honor bands, getting solos, and taking a quintet AND a solo to state music festival. (Ah, sweet revenge.) I also met the most wonderful guy in the entire world, who has become my anchor for the rough seas.

[Disney Channel movie] Aside from all that, moving has taught me that you can’t depend on anyone but yourself to change the world, and that sometimes you have to draw from within yourself to be entertained. [/Disney Channel movie] I’ve been told I have a sharp sense of humor and kick-ass letters to the editor.

18

My most important single event happened on October 24th, 1965. I was born. If not for that little event there would not have been any subsequent events to speak of…

Meeting Lola tops my list. She is the singularly most important being to ever come into my life. She is everything a partner should be and more. She amazes me constantly.

Becoming a step father to two incredible boys and then becoming the father of two beautiful girls. I never knew there could be this much joy in one’s life.

Everything else pales to these things…

19

Well, the truth is, I have no idea what happened to them. Being only four, and having been taken out of commission, as it were, for half a year, I never did find out what became of those three pillars of society. The rumor is that my parents sued them and got lots of money, but if that’s true, I never saw any indication. I guess my folks partied quite a bit during that six months…shrug

20

Wow, lots of great insight here…

I had a lot of really important events in my life, equally important in my opinion, so I’ll share them here…

Really strict parents who argued a lot growing up, youngest of 3, never liked school, although I always managed to end up in the advanced classes based upon testing scores. By 6th grade I had gotten into smoking dope and by 8th I was doing some LSD… When I hit High School I totally gave up and started engaging in substance abuse HEAVILY, every day multiple times a day. It got to the point where I was failing classes so miserably that my Mother (thank God for my mother, she turned out to be a prime influence in my life after my parents divorced and my father was a deadbeat) suggested I go look at private schools. My fathers family was quite wealthy and had no qualms with me going provided I made the grades. This was my total and complete savior.

I went to a small private school for kids who don’t really fit anywhere else. Drugs were rampant, as was just about everything else (violence, sex, etc). By the end of the first year I was doing drugs and doing decent in school, mainly attributed to the fact that there was no homework and everything was self paced, so you could finish the entire semesters worth of work in the last 6 hours of the semester if you worked fast. :stuck_out_tongue: I did such a massive amount of drugs that first year that I came to a realization of how juvenile and co-dependent I had become. I cleaned up the next year, to a point, but unfortunatly me being quite the entrepreneur, I got involved in the traffiking of some major illegal substances to the rather starved suburbs. Needless to say, this was Eye Opener number two… I realized what kinds of lows people can stoop to (robbing old ladies for heroine money,etc), and what the face of the criminal world really is. It ain’t pretty. I had just started to get out of things when the shit hit the fan, 3 of my previous customers had overdosed on tar heroin. Criminal investigations ensued, but I squeaked by untouched and out of sight due to my prior enlightened experiences in dealing with the human race, that and the fact that I wasn’t going near illegal substances for a long time. A lot of people I know went to jail, and a lot more died from drug overdoses. A few of my really good friends skipped town and are nowhere to be found. I attended 8 funerals that year for people who had either overdosed or been killed, that was eye opener number 3.

After this massive experience I decided enough was enough. I pulled my shit together and graduated from High School a year early, first in my class.

That last year at school I had gotten a part time job at a local computer store. A mom and pop shop, the kind of deal Aglorand had above. I had been playing with computers for awhile and decided I was ready. I got my ass handed to me in the interview, but they decided to pay me minimum wage to answer phones and tend to customers. Quickly enough I convinced them to let me work on PC’s and 9 months later I was the senior technician. I then began pursuing certification and embarked on a quest for knowledge to become the best I could be. This industry is the only one you can make 6 figures in without having a college degree, and without starting your own business. After two and a half years at that company I left to join the massive telecom industry, which I work in currently. Currently I hold 10 certifications and am working on my Cisco CCIE, which is considered one of the foremost networking certifications in the field, less than 5,000 people worldwide hold it.

I’ve been sober from drugs for a long long time now, alchohol is different, but I don’t get drunk very often, just a few beers here and there. I am very lucky to be where I am now, and cannot stress enough how many times I was in a life or death situation that I most likely didn’t even realize the full amount of danger I was in. At one point in my “backpacking days” (thats what I call them)I was driving down a highway with a gun pointed at me in the backseat of my car. I am glad I left all that behind and didn’t pay too dearly for my ignorance and stupidity.

To my mother I owe a great debt, she was probably the biggest influence that got me back on track again. I am also very indebted to that first manager who hired me to answer the phones, he gave me a chance to change my life for the better. Sorry this went on for so long, but I’ve had a lot to share.

Just remember that you have the power to change things for the better. Persistence and Perseverance!