Share a bad childhood memory

[Gothic Sponge]

I don't know why this popped into my head, but i remember my father bringing me to the movies when i was 6 to see The Great Gatsby! WTF was he thinking? Why would anyone bring a child to see The Great Gatsby?

[tuvor]

1. Oh, I thought this was more along the lines of

I had a juicy fart in grade 3 during a rope-climb in phys ed. Or something like that.

I didn't, by the way.

[demgrrrll]

2. I built a big igloo that collapsed on me and I was afraid I would not be

able to dig myself out. Very scary.

[chookie]

11. How old were you?

Fucking HELL! Feeling you were going to die, undiscovered, from lack of air, etc, is, uh, pretty primal. We're talkin' reptilian brain primal kinda stuff....

Any lasting problems, with insomnia, for example -- i.e. fear of falling asleep?

[demgrrrll]

35. Very young. It has been a lasting memory and I do have trouble falling

asleep unless I am dead tired but I always attributed that to all the caffeine I drink. Interesting to think about that in another way.

[HEyHEY]

3. When Auntie cathy babysat - Swear she hated kids

[chookie]

4. Why was it bad for you?

My mother often took us to "inappropriate" movies. It was a big deal to go to a movie at all, any movie, because we didn't get out much.

I remember seeing "Tom Jones" with her -- maybe aged 4 or 5 -- (which starts with an illegitimate birth and was pretty risque for the early 60s, with partial nudity, erotic meals, and suggested naughtiness) and "Cleopatra" -- which is LONG -- and having a great time. 99% of this stuff was WAY over my head, but the films were so skillfully done that they had things in them kids would love and remember. I vividly remember the opening scene of "Tom Jones" and the opening theme -- it was so charming, the little baby and must have embarassed my poor mama by telling people how much I had enjoyed seeing it....

Cleopatra made NO sense whatsoever, but the entrance of Cleopatra into Rome was a spectacle that was an immense experience to a poor dumb kid. Mummy exposed me to Richard Burton at an early age though, which might have spoiled me as regards expectations of men though (ha ha woof WOOF he is an eternal hottie!).

BTW -- Mummy would pop in certain bars for beers, taking us kids along with her. We had NO CLUE what booze was all about, but nothing ever unpleasant happened, and in fact, eating pretzels and watching Mummy "get happy" are very very fond memories....

amid a grim childhood.

[FuzzySlippers]

5. When I was about 6 my mother took me to have a perm.

I had baby fine hair, and the hairdresser left the curlers and solution in far too long. I came out looking like Bozo the Clown.

[chookie]

9. It was either the Traumatic Frizz, or the Pixie Cut

I feel your pain, honey, but the Pixie Cut was what I had to live through -- again and again and again and again.

Bad enough they fuck up your appearance, but these insane beauticians would usually burn you (with chemicals) or slice you like an Easter ham with their fucking scizzors as they cut your Pixie Bangs. I always had to get a haircut before Easter -- and ended up looking as beat-up as Jesus on Good Friday. Life.

Sorry -- our mothers had to have been nuts....

But, I guess, to put it into perspective, there are moms nowadays who get their kids mullets, or streak their hair a billion colors these days or bleach them white....

[FuzzySlippers]

13. OMG, I had the Pixie Cut, too!

LOL!

[chookie]

23. OMG I feel so lucky

I was ONLY subjected to the Pixie Cut. It was tough being submitted to the Pixie Cut, (with scars on my forehead from where "they" cut my bangs, but at least Mummy never thought I should have "curl" in my fine straight hair. Thanki HEAVENS I was regarded at hopelessly plain, at the time

THANK YOU AUDREY HEPBURN. I was thin and fine-boned and pretty like you, and I just got your Broadway(can't remember name of famous play) pixie cut. I distinctly remember my mother saying to me, "You know, you look JUST like Audrey Hepburn. My GOD I can't STAND her...." Thanks, Ma....it never got much better than that, between us....

I had a sister, who, while attractive, was of a more "peasant" cast, heavy boned and muscular. Her trauma? Mama had allowed her thick chestnut hair to grown to below her ass -- it was her pride. Mama took her to the same idiot who lacerated my forehead in cutting "Pixie Bangs" . She showed up with her gorgeous chestnut hair in braids. The barber cut one braId off, and then another -- and pronounced it a completed hairdoo. Although laceration across my forehead in cutting medieval peasant style bangs was 100% a-okay with Mummy -- she did get pissed off about the summary execution of my sister's gorgeous thick chestnut hair.

I am like so open to listening to children.... if any sane adult paid me a moment's attention -- hell -- it was an extraordinary miracle -- which created deep empathy within me, forever....

[FuzzySlippers]

25. ROTFL!

Your posts are hilarious!:7

[FreedomFry]

53. I suffered through Pixie cuts AND Toni home permanents ...

... but the worst was when I grandmother got out her ancient curling iron, heated it on the stove, and burned the crap out of my hair. It was the only time I got really mad at her. She'd been a beautician in the '40s and probably thought she knew exactly what she was doing. I'll never forget the look of dismay on her face, and now she's not around for me to laugh about it with her. That feels the worst.

[nini]

47. I had the pixie cut that my mom pin curled at night

so I looked like I had a perm.

I had a 'fro before they became popular in the 70s! I was quite the babe! haha

It was a cruel joke our parents played on us back then. We were told that's what we got for crying when we had our hair combed out.. :eyes:

[Justitia]

6. locked in the cloak closet in kindergarten and left there at end of day

My kindergarten teacher locked me in the cloak closet (probably for talking). I cried myself to sleep amongst the supplies and crossing guard uniforms. She forgot I was in there and it was way past dark when my family finally found me, still at the school.

My mom had the teacher fired. I still remember it, especially the neon orange patrol sashes and galoshes. Weird huh?

Yeah, I still talk a lot too - bet my hubby would like to lock me in a closet every now and then.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

10. What a bitch!

She had no business teaching kindergarteners.

If your talking is compulsive, I wouldn't be surprised if it's because you were traumatized.

[Justitia]

18. even better - in 4th grade...

one of my teachers made me hold a punch card (remember those from data entry days?) in my mouth and stand in the front of the class for talking. How humiliating. She also liked to draw a circle on the board and make kids stand on their tiptoes and stick those nose in the circle for endless amts of time.

Guess I was a chatty Cathy back then. Not so much after grade school. I was an only child until 7, and school was a big social event!

[warrens]

7. In the fifth grade...

I had the toughest teacher in the world, Miss Herd. She was a classic. Like something out of a movie. If she caught you whispering, you had to stand in the hall for an hour.

And boy was she a tough grader. I would get papers back saying, this would NORMALLY be an A paper, but I can tell you didn't try.

So the day I finally got straight A's, the only person in the class to do it, I was kind of excited. I brought it home and my father looked at it and said, about fucking time.

Nice.

[chookie]

8. May I ask?

Was this the bullshit that set you set you against authoritarian bullshit forever?

They just THINK kids are dumb, and don't see how stupid and out of control and dysfunctional **they** are -- truth is, kids can see through this shit. Heck, I always knew these folks were nuts! Only mistake I ever made was thinking that when I got older, the fucking crazies would be gone and I would have control over my life. HA HA HA HA HA HA. Oooops.

As for the creeps who did this shit to you -- I offer my third finger, erect, on both hands (I can't find the emoticon).

[GoddessOfGuinness]

12. The egg broke in my hand in the neighbor's car...

when she was driving us to school (I was in 6th grade). I'd brought it to show a trick I'd heard about on TV, in which you could squeeze the egg on either end as hard as you could, but the shell wouldn't break. Naturally, it didn't work, and I was terrified to say anything to the woman who drove us to school. There was raw egg all over her back seat and on my brand new coat.

Of course, she called my mom, and my mom told my dad. That's when things went from bad to worse, because my parents wouldn't believe that I took the egg to school to show off a trick. They said I had to have taken it to school to throw at somebody. My dad spanked me with his belt until I told him what he wanted to believe...which was a lie.

[chookie]

17. Children recognize injustice....

Obviously you made a simple error. Hon -- if it had been my car, I would have laughed and then said, let's review this bit of science and see why it didn't work this time!! (I am one of those rare "let's learn to THINK and to heck with "mistakes" -- which are only the gateway to understanding!! Once you figure out WHY you fucked up, you'll never fuck up in this way again. I tell my students to LOVE their mistakes and use them, to be honest about them. I LOVE to talk about my own errors -- I am an expert in errors -- but I strive for real solutions and the truth, and am never content with errors. Unlike, uh, the current administration, which is institutionally ensuring error. - factual/reality, that is. Anyone who doesn't want to scream at this point is either asleep or totally hopeless.

That some bitch "reported" you to your parents -- and that it reached the point of absolute absurdity in that you were falsely accused of planning malicious mayhem when you were just a kid trying out a trick (I remember these clever instructive "science tricks" we were supposed to try to learn some fucking important POINT about physical reality -- and that you would ultimately be PUNISHED fby your own Dad or the idiocy and blindness of others -- sorry hon -- erect third fingers all around to these assholes.

Too bad you had to deal with these "morans". But -- you early on learned a lesson which has been extremely relevant all your life -- that creepy assholes in authority exist, and that injustice happens all the time, for NO reason at all. Might this have been a formative experience in spontaneous developing mmoral political conscienceness? I'lll bet on it....

[GoddessOfGuinness]

39. Absolutely...

And a lesson in believing your children which I'll never forget.

Certainly, I've doubted my kids, or caught them in a lie on occasion. But when they've insisted on their version of the story, I've taken them at their word; and when their lies have been exposed, it's time for a serious talk about being honest...not beatings.

I've tried to learn from my parents' mistakes. I hope my kids will learn from mine!

[clover]

14. when i was 3 my parents dressed me as aunt jemima

for halloween and they took a picture that my mother gave to me for my 45th birthday


then, when i was 5 they took me to see psycho


gorppp.

[bloodyjack]

15. German measles!!!!!! when I was 2 or 3

Now I can never ever give blood.

Also living in Kuwait during Gulf War I. Not a great time to be alive, no.

[China_cat]

43. But you could get paid

plenty for the antibodies in your plasma.

[Huckebein the Raven]

16. In either 1st or 2nd grade, I was hit by a car on my way home from school.

Wasn't looking when I crossed the street. Luckly only had to get stitches in my lips.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

19. Actually I saw that in the theater when I was pretty young also. I

remember the violence pretty vividly, and that it was sad and depressing.

When I was a little kid in NYC I used to get up early on weekends to watch TV -- "Wonderama" with Bob McAllister was a personal fave. The TV had to warm up. We had a fish tank, I remember going up to it to look at the fish one weekend while the TV warmed up. I felt something squishy on top of my foot, and it turned out to be a fish that had somehow made it out of the tank (jumped out) and was gasping its dying gasps. Still remember that.

I still remember my uncle, when he was staying with us in our apartment in the Bronx, stepping on a mouse that was running across our kitchen floor.

[chookie]

24. is your family Irish?

Having lived there, I witnessed the stomping of rodents on a regular basis. I was amazed at how many human-squashed rodents were about! It was BIZARRE....

Apparently,this is not considered "weird." Believe it or not -- there used to be a jelly candy produced in the Netherlands in the shape of mice. There was also another brand, which was in the shape of a, squiz, that was marketed as "Stompeden Mousen" (whatever the Dutch is... -- in any case, English translation was,one brand "STomped Mice" and the other brand was "not stomped on mice."

I WISH I was making this shit up. I WISH. But this is true....If you can Google back to late 70s/very early 80s I will be vindicated....

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

26. Actually we are of Asian background. And I WANT some of that

Stomped Mouse Candy!!!!

[faithnotgreed]

31. lovedloved wonderama. watched it before church every sunday am

iirc.... hands on hips hands on hips come on everybody put your hands on hips

[corporatemedia]

20. my bad childhood memory - ages 1-12

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

21. Atomic War

[FuzzySlippers]

27. What?!!!

There was an atomic war when you were a kid?!!!

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

29. Never heard of Nagasaki or Hiroshima?

[FuzzySlippers]

30. Well, yes of course.

But you were involved in it?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. Speaking of inappropriate movies/kids... When I saw "The Cell" (crappy

movie by the way), a movie about a serial killer full of horrific scenes, disembowelment, all kinds of twisted imagery, some woman in my row near me had brought her son who looked about six years old.

I guess years of expensive psychotherapy is cheaper than a babysitter, eh?

[bluedeminredstate]

28. My best friend's brother ambushed me during

hide and seek on a summer's evening and carried me to the back yard. No one knew he was there - it wasn't like he was playing with us. He offered to pay me if I let him "put something like a stick right here..." (fingers indicating the place). I was 10, he was 15. I told him I'd cut his pecker off and tell my big brother if he didn't return me to the ground and leave. It felt good threatening to cut his dick off, but he stalked me and my friend for a long time after that. I finally told and the "offers" ceased.
He's probably a pedophile - hopefully in prison - now.
:scared:

[GingerSnaps]

32. Walking past the railroad tracks after a man was cut in half

A man got ran over by a train and cut in half. I was coming home from grade school and I will never forget it. His car was smashed into bits and there was blood all over the windshield and his clothes were ripped up and laying on the tracks :scared:

[St. Jarvitude]

33. I fell into a halloween themed yard waste bag

I was leaning over the railing on our front porch, and I flipped over it into the black yard waste bag with a grinning orange pumpkin painted on the front. And it was full. I nearly suffocated.

True story.

[Neoma]

34. Which one?

I've got too many.

All bad situations cannot be measured by how much worse this bad memory or that other bad memory was. they are all the same.

My bad memories are from verbal abuse though.

[KDLarsen]

36. When I was 13 (I think)..

.. I was told that I could have normal hearing, since the doctors had finally found out what the problem was. So, off I go to the hospital & when I woke up 8 hours later, it was to the message that nothing could be done & that my hearing loss would be permanent.

The only good thing about that, was that I got a week off from school & it was the week leading up to fall holiday. So that gave me 2 weeks to run around being bitter at everything & their mother.

[DelawareValleyDem]

37. Nixon gets elected over McGovern

[Dogmudgeon]

38. Other kids' spankings

For some reason, a lot of my neighbors were into very heavy corporal punishment for their kids. My own parents said they "believed" in it but were very reluctant to use it at all.

(I think the "reason" why it seemed so popular was because the suburbs I grew up in were mainly Fundamentalist and/or Catholic, and near military bases. I can recall hearing about how awful this particular doctor, Dr. Spock, was. Many of the parents complained that he was against spanking and/or was a Communist.)

The earliest such episode I remember was when the little girl next door (who was about three at the time) was marched down to the basement and whipped with a belt. Her drunkard father left the window open, so everybody could hear, and all the kids playing in their yard could see. He looked like he ripped her dress off (he actually pulled it off her roughly) and whipped her until she stopped crying.

Then there was my psychotic aunt who used to "spank" my cousins with a riding crop. Well, she had "modified" it to take the flapper off the end, so it was a leather-wound rod. The boys screamed at the top of their lungs, but the girl forced herself not to cry or scream.

I was also sent to a church school for grades 1-3, and seldom did a week go by without a fairly intense spanking with a paddle or a yardstick. In many cases, the "bad" kids were bent over a desk during story time and given a whack every minute or so, resulting in 20-30 minutes of crying and sobbing.

Another trick was to send the real "bad kids" to the principal's office where the paddlings -- using a paddle that was about two feet long -- were administered while the public address system was turned on. Every kid in the school heard them, and since there were loudspeakers outside, anyone passing by could also hear.

Finally, in junior high school (grades 7-8), we had several gym and math teachers who were the spankers, and had at least half a dozen paddles. The year I went into 9th grade and left the school, several girls were paddled, and someone's parents finally complained.

But even so, my shrink swears that my anxiety disorders are entirely the product of "biochemical imbalances". And who knows? But I think that the banal PTSD of childhood should get a Dishonorable Mention.

--bkl

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

40. ....

I am the Queen of Bad Childhood Memories.

Should I start with the drunk stepfather breaking my arm when I was in fourth grade?

Or our mother dropping us off on a busy street corner saying she didn't want us anymore?

Running away when I was seven and sleeping in someone's back yard?

Ok I'll do a morbid yet oddly funny one. My mother was always in such a hurry she never FULLY STOPPED the car when she picked us up from school. She just slowed down and threw open the door of that Oldsmobile. So my brother and I got really good at timing it and running and jumping. The kids on the playground made fun of us because our mother wouldn't even stop the car for us.

One time my brother didn't make it. He got his foot entangled in the non-used seatbelt (this was about 1978) and fell back, but she was still going. It kinda dragged him a few feet and I was screaming "HE'S NOT IN THE CAR!" so she stopped and yelled "GET HIM!" I pulled him in and shut the door. (Warning: No longer even remotely, darkly funny from here on out.) He was crying and she threatened to beat him if he didn't stop crying. Then she said the experience would build character. I sat in the backseat with him, picking gravel out of his scalp (he was about six). Once at home, I doctored him up in the bathroom with some hydrogen peroxide, because he was bleeding.

He was ok the next day though!

[FuzzySlippers]

48. Oh God, Moonbeam.

I'm so sorry about your miserable childhood. You have me in tears.:cry: :grouphug:

[Deja Q]

41. Okay. I'll share some, not going into any detail. But be warned.

I was sexually assaulted in a church, after months of mental anguish brought by she and her friends' actions
I was sexually molested by my gym teacher
I had been molested by a 'friend' who was 5 years older than me
I was often bullied and taunted quite often, even by my friends
I was the recipient of homophobic violence (unrelated to the other issues)
I was often called "God's little joke"
I was the recipient of disgusting jokes and set-ups (from bogus accusations of eating worms and putting thumbtacks on chairs to a jock conniving me to taste cum while his friends giggled and encouraged me to do it, it seems others figured me out long before I did. Oddly enough, my pervert of a phy ed teacher put a stop to that before anything happened. Incidentially, I only realized how cruel that prank was only 3 years ago, the incident itself happened 15 years ago.)
I'd been beaten up, unprovoked, by a known bully in front of a neighbor's house. The neighbor was sitting out front, smokin' a ciggy. Didn't do a fucking thing about it. In the principal's office, the bastard said I had provoked him (which was an utter LIE.)

Wanna hear more? I've barely scratched the surface and I've got MANY memories. (Now if people still wonder why I'm so introverted and afraid of people and why I'm single and prefer to hide in my hole on the top floor apartment... sigh. What compels me to give a damn about the human race should be the universe's biggest mystery. But I do. And I have no regrets about caring, despite it all. It could be worse.)

Thank you for reading.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

42. What's funny is

when people who had fairly normal childhoods (relatively speaking) start talking about bad childhood memories and people like you and me pipe up and we just kill the whole thing.

I've had one guy say "we didn't mean totally fucking depressing demented childhood memories!"

Ok so maybe I shouldn't have mentioned my mom trying to drown me.

P.S. I'm sorry for what you've been through. My abuse was different, but I can definitely relate.

[Deja Q]

44. Well, that one can say 'totally depressing demented gerbils' all he wants.

A bad memory is a bad memory and the question invited answers. People like you and me don't ruin anything. We just remind the universe that 'normal' is one whopping bell curve. And the bell is the Liberty bell.

Likewise regarding your abuse. :hug:

[FreedomFry]

55. In defense of sharing old hurts.

I was going to go into some detail, like the stepfather who physically abused me, being abandoned for 4 years from the ages of 4-9, living with strangers in a blue-collar neighborhood and being regularly ganged up on by all the kids for being unwanted, and the "friend of the family" who tried to molest me in a lonely part of the park. It's no wonder many of us regard children as generally shitty, and adults just shitty kids with muscles.

And that doesn't begin to cover all the memories I have of the cruelty I've seen to animals and weaker people -- those are even worse than what happened to me, and a good reason why I read myself comatose every night with 19th-century English novels, otherwise I'll just lie there and call up old horrors whether I want to or not.

But what I *really* wanted to say was that both of you are dear to me just for opening up and sharing. I like to think that those of us who had lousy childhoods may have a deeper awareness of what human beings can do to each other and to other living creatures -- and perhaps a correspondingly deeper awareness of what it means to be kind and thoughtful toward each other. I only know that many, many times during my childhood, I said the words, "When I grow up and have children, I'm NEVER going to ..." And my only child is the kindest, most sensitive, loving and understanding person I've ever known. I don't congratulate myself for that, but I do know I've instilled in him the satisfaction inherent in living by the Golden Rule.

Bear-hugs to both of you and to everyone here who called up old hurts to share them with us.

[FuzzySlippers]

49. I'm so sorry Hypno.

:grouphug:

[Dem Agog]

45. Three days after my sister died...

I had to go back to school... I went to PE and I just couldn't take it. I asked to be excused and was sitting alone crying at the end of a slide while the others were "recreating"...

This girl, Betsy Gordon, a total whorebag bitch, came up to me and said, "Stop being such a crybaby! You use your sister's death as an excuse to get away with anything!"

I would kick her fat ass to this day if I ever saw her again.

[AlCzervik]

46. staying at my Aunts house for a week when i was 7

She was married to a total asshole and she has 4 asshole sons. she used to cook squid all the time and some other things i hated and you had to sit at the table until you ate everything. I sat in hjer kitchen one night until 12:30am until i finally fell asleep with the plate in front of me. She was truly awful, and when my mom died she was a bitch then too. About 5 years ago my cousin calls me up to tell me she died and i didnt really care.

[IronLionZion]

50. i was playing superman

and jumped off a table and broke my arm. I must have been like 4 or 5

around Operation Desert Storm time I was playing skeleton on a skateboard (lie down face first) and scraped my face up nicely. Told everyone at school that I was in Kuwait (and I was but that's another story)

eh what else? Playing soccer in high school like 6 years ago and got my front teeth smashed in. that was fun. haven't played much after that. my teeth are still a little crooked from that

[Hotdiggitydog]

51. Richard Nixon

'nuff said.

[arwalden]

52. I'd better not.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

56. Just

:hug:

[dolo amber]

54. This one time...at band camp...

:cry:

[NickB79]

57. Lets see, where to begin

When I was 9 I went to the dentist for the first time, and had a cavity that needed filling. My dentist gave me a shot of novacaine, but no gas, so I was able to feel some of the drilling. I tried to mumble that it hurt, but he put his hand over my mouth and told me to be quiet. His hand not only covered my mouth, but also my nose, so I couldn't breath. The more I struggled, the tighter he held his hand to my face. After what seemed like forever he finally removed his hand, at which point I promptly turned on my side and threw up on his pants and shoes. When I came out of the room my mom exploded at him because my face was blue, and she wanted to know what happened in there. We found a new dentist after that.

Oh, and having to point a loaded rifle at my abusive dad to protect my little sister and brother from being beaten when I was 17 was also pretty traumatic.