Who doesn’t have a childhood memory that haunts them to this day? A traumatic field trip, a brutal exam, or moving to a new school, there are all sorts of experiences many people went through as children, but for some, life was a lot tougher. 

One netizen asked others to share childhood experiences that they only later realized were traumatic, horrible, or life-altering. People listed all the things that happened to them as kids, which they didn’t have the tools or experience to process at the time. Be warned, some of these stories get pretty dark. Be sure to upvote the most interesting and comment your own thoughts and experiences below. 

#1

Our babysitter died while she was watching us when my twin and I were 3. We had no concept of death, and tried to wake her up.

She had spilled water when she fell, and I still remember getting a dish towel to wipe it up, thinking she would be proud of how responsible I was being.

I remember going to get our little toy pots and pans to bang together to make noise to wake her up, we had no idea what a heart attack was.

Image credits: Mushrooming247

#2

I was 4 years old and my nighttime routine was always telling my mom and dad how much I loved them. One night, I couldn't find my mom to tell her goodnight. I searched everywhere in the house, backyard, etc. Finally, 4-year-old me goes out the front door, looks around, and sees a person standing in the middle of a crowded street with cars zooming by and swerving around them. I started walking down the sidewalk to get a better look because I thought it was the weirdest thing. Turns out it was my mom, but what was weird was that she wasn't answering to my calls. I started getting really scared because my mom was blind (and had only gone blind in the past several months). I ran back to the house and got dad because I was too afraid to go in the street to get her. Wasn't until many years later that I realized I had witnessed my mom attempting s****ide via getting hit by a car. She was severely depressed due to having gone blind at the age of 34 with two small kids. Makes me sad to think about it sometimes. She's better now, but still unfortunately blind.

Image credits: hybridginger

#3

Having a 'cluttered house' and needing to spend a few hours carrying everything from the living room into my bedroom to make the living room appropriate for guests. I would sob and beg for it not to go into my room because I knew it would never leave, and the living room would get filled again with TJmaxx bags and garbage we don't need. Turned out a hoarded house isn't normal and it made me a pretty awful roommate to my friends in my teen years.

Image credits: plantsndogs

Psychologists differentiate childhood trauma from other traumatic experiences because of its unique effect on a not-fully developed brain. Kids often can’t exactly understand and process certain experiences, particularly as they do not have a good frame of reference for what things “should” look like. As many of these stories demonstrate, people only fully understood what happened to them much later.

Even if they couldn't quite understand why they felt a certain way, trauma can still leave a lasting impact not just on a kid's psyche, but their physiology as well. They must suffer from issues in their nervous system, a weakened immune system and are at a higher risk of developing depression later in life. 

#4

What my mum meant when she planned to drive us to heaven. She was talking about wanting to drive us into a lake.

Image credits: oO_ICE_Oo

#5

Adopted, stepdad punished me by forcing me to watch them shoot my dog. I was told he was going to do it about 10 hours beforehand and he made me dig a hole out in our pasture. Evening comes and he drags her out there, absolutely oblivious as to what is going to happen. He threatened to shoot me when I refused to go out there with him, so what could I do? I tried looking away but he told me I'd have to watch or I'd get it too. So he held his rifle up to her head and pulled the trigger once, then a second time after she hit the ground. I then spent the next hour pulling her body into the hole I had dug and buried her. She was a great Dane, just over a year old. I was 11. My parents got the dog but then passed the responsibility of her onto me because they were "too busy" to take care of her. I'm 17 now but that s**t still f***s me up. I got outta there a few years ago and was shocked that nobody else could relate to what I went through. Edit: This all occurred about 6 years ago. I appreciate the kind comments I have received. I always thought it was my fault and that I should have done differently. I do not live with them, or near them, anymore. I live with my grandparents who are disgusted by how I was treated.

Image credits: TiggerOnA

#6

When I was a toddler, we lived in rural Texas. My mom put me down for a nap in my crib one afternoon, and went to take a nap herself. Apparently she told my older brothers to keep an eye on me, and since they thought I was asleep in my crib they all put a movie on in the living room. I couldn’t sleep, and somehow got the idea in my head that I wanted to go get the mail. I walked past my brothers watching their movie and right out the front door, and then walked about a hundred yards down our gravel driveway to our mailbox on the edge of a county road. Just about everyone had outdoor dogs in the area, and let them roam freely. Some were friendly, and many were not. There was a particularly giant Weimaraner named Buckwheat that belonged to a neighbor who met me about halfway down my driveway to walk with me. Apparently when I got to the county road where our mailbox was, he got on the “street” side of me and stood and blocked me to the curb as several cars/farm trucks whizzed past. A man returning from work saw me out there by myself with a huge dog and pulled over. He said when he got close, the dog got defensive and started pushing me away from the road again as his car approached. The man pulled up and asked me where I lived, and offered to give me a ride home. I didn’t know not to get in the car with strangers but thankfully in this case it was a good guy. He knocked on the door of my house and woke my mom up from her nap. Told her that he had found me barefoot in the road, where I had a dog guardian angel that was actively protecting me from traffic, and it was thanks to that dog that I was still alive. Here’s to you, Buckwheat.

Everything from anxiety to anger management issues can be traced back to a person’s childhood, but the sad part is that without some proper introspection, one might never really know its origins. While it might seem a sort of silver lining, that kids don’t actually understand everything they see around them, psychologist Bessel van der Kolk, in a book with the same title, argues that “the body keeps the score,” and that we can’t just escape bad experiences. 

#7

The teacher not letting me use the toilets in elementary school and peeing my pants under the desk, than getting yelled at by same teacher

Image credits: drpepper1992

#8

My mother has borderline personality. Everything was horrible. As a kid, you think it’s totally normal. When you reflect on your childhood as an adult, you realize it was child a**se.

Image credits: likeistoleyourbike

#9

My father urinated on my head once. I was outside and he was on the porch 2 stories up. It was dismissed as "he thought it was my mother." Like that would have somehow made it okay.

Image credits: cogmanroad

While some of the examples might be a bit comical, like the child of a hoarder continuing the same in a college dorm, most are tragic. Not knowing that alcoholism or random violence isn’t actually normal comes with all the negative effects one can think of. Old-fashioned wisdom would argue that it “toughens” kids up, but without being able to understand why something is happening, a child won’t really learn from it. A first grader isn’t “toughened” by sitting in a college algebra class, for example. 

#10

My half sister tried to drown me twice when I was little. It took me into my late teens to trust women again and still have a phobia of water deeper then 2ft. No, my parents didnt try to help. She waited till those little lapses of being watched.

Image credits: nxnphatdaddy

#11

Getting almost no guidance. It felt like freedom when I was a kid, but once I left home I realized it left me very unprepared to face the real world.

Image credits: DeathSpiral321

#12

Bullying, it made me socially awkward that's a disadvantage now

Image credits: darshan8711

There are a few, rare cases where these kinds of experiences actually do build what psychologists call resilience. Kids who grow up in wealthier families and undergo childhood trauma tend to develop more resilience than their less well-off peers, however, this only applies if this wealth is actually spent on them. 

#13

It took me almost 25 years to realise that alcoholic parents aren't normal and other people have it different.

Image credits: Veeyas

#14

My mom would frequently have backyard "camping adventure nights" or "spooky nights" where we would tell scary stories in the dark. I realize now that this was because we were so in debt that not having electricity was a frequent occurrence.

Image credits: AsteriusNeon

#15

In 4th grade a bunch of 6th graders, after torturing it, threw a cat from high up and it landed right in front of me and died. I was never quite the same since then and it took until early adulthood to realize certain aspects about myself are because of that event.

Image credits: LaughingIsAwesome

This is all to say that it’s best to first understand what actually happened and then think about how it affected one’s development and adulthood before passing judgments on whether something was good or bad. Just like weight training, smaller, controlled doses of “reality” can help a child mature, but it’s vital to remember that a kid isn't some project but a human being who needs a childhood to become a functional adult. 

#16

I was brought up in a cult

Image credits: Nanoid321

#17

How much my mother used to F me up, physically and verbally. She can't physically anymore today, but boy oh boy does she still have that sword of a tongue... And will never, ever, ever admit to it. Ever. Crazy.

#18

Living in an environment with addicts. Having your head on a swivel and things going from zero to 100 in .5 seconds is not normal. As a teenager I turned to alcohol to cope and that was the only tool in my toolbox for most of my adulthood - did not realize the severity of how bad I had got until I was in my 30's.

Image credits: moosegoose2222

#19

An assistant football coach used to bully me a lot during practice (6th grade). One day, I looked right at him and told him to "shut up." He was so offended that a child said that to him that he just decked me, full force. I lost consciousness and came-to on my back staring up at the sun. I never told anyone about it and now, in my 30s, I replay this event very frequently...it causes me great anxiety.

#20

Both of my parents were too burned out from their own childhood trauma to be functional and loving parents. For the most part they did their best to provide for me and my siblings..... But there is no love in my development. I am incapable of forming meaningful human attachments.

Edit. Thanks for all the interest everybody. It helps to know we're not alone in this. You've given me some great suggestions and stoked my interest in continuing therapy. Let's all be part of the solution and love our children the way we should have been. Good luck my friends!!!!!

#21

Not to me, but there was a family of kids that were being severely a**sed by their mother and nobody did anything. As children we obviously saw adults do nothing and thought it wasn't serious. One of them ended up drinking caustic soda when he was 12 in an attempt to kill himself. Looking back I see that nobody protected those kids. Every adult failed them.

#22

Mom took me along when she was buying drugs. Took me 30 years to realize waiting at a gas station at 6 am on a Saturday wasn’t a thing, and neither was driving WAY into the ghetto and having her friend drive around the block with us. Turns out not everyone sleeps on their laundry and goes right to bed when they get home EVERY DAY either.

Image credits: deadliftburger

#23

Raised by single mom. She emotionally dumped all her problems on me starting as far back as I can remember (5? 6? Years old). Def screwed me up as an adult.

Image credits: feltonvillain

#24

I lost my sister to brain cancer at 7 years old. Parents shut down after and never were able to go back to healthy people.

Lot more to the story than that, but this situation being the majority of my childhood. I didn’t realize how f*****g awful it all was until I was an adult and out of the house.

Kinda like a frog in boiling water, I had no idea how rough my situation was.

#25

When I was 7 years old I was outside playing with my friends. An older boy who was a bully in the neighborhood walked by and started saying racist things to them. The boy and I are white and my friends are black. I didn’t understand what he was saying was racist and to be honest at the time I didn’t even fully understand the concept of race. I didn’t think of my friends as any different from me. I did know that he was making them upset so I told him to leave them alone. He called me a “wannabe” and a “n***** lover” I had never heard the n word before but I knew I was being insulted. There happened to be a big stick lying next to me on the ground so I picked it up and whacked him across the face with it. He started crying and ran to his house. I went back to playing with my friends like it was nothing.

About 20 minutes later the boys came back with his uncle. The uncle called me over and told me I needed to be put in my place. He then made me stand there while the boy slapped me across my face. He told him to do it harder again and again. The uncle was really angry that I wasn’t crying. I really wanted to, because it did hurt but was always told to never cry in front of the person who made you cry. Anyway, I’m not sure how long this went on for. At some point the boy started asking his uncle if he could stop. The uncle said fine and told me that if I had more white friends I would become a nicer girl that knew how to act.

I never told anyone and kind of felt like maybe I deserved it for hitting the boy with a stick. And it wasn’t until I was much older that I understood everything that happened.

#26

I was having really bad depression and s****dal ideation at the age of eleven. my parents took me to see a child psychologist and they sat in the first session. I guess they didn’t like what I had to say cause my dad yelled at me on the way home and threatened to flip over the car since I wanted to die so bad. he kept saying things like “you ungrateful child” and “you made us seem like bad parents” and “why don’t I flip over the car since you’re bored and making things up” and the whole time my mom was looking back at me and laughing, as she thought of it as a joke. 24 now, and due to the economy being so bad, still staying at home. but once I move out, I’ll never speak to them again, as the problems just got worse after that. why would they say that to their eleven yeaeleven-year-oldr old?

#27

Bullied in elementary school for being Jewish. Pennies thrown at me and epithets as well. Now, I don't take the slightest "attack" of any sort. I am intolerant of any sort of disparagement of anyone and will react forcefully when I encounter it.

#28

My mom used to whoop my a*s really bad whenever i did the slightest thing wrong. I was genuinely afraid of doing literally anything.

As a kid i didn't like taking baths because my mom wouldn't stop telling me everytime that i stank and that i was a pig, that i was reeking of c**t and that i was completely gross and unhygienic, and also because the shower was too loud for me. I thought i would drown: the sound was too overwhelming in my ears when i had to wash my hair, so i was crying really bad, telling my mom that she was going to drown me. She slapped my mouth so i could shut up and stop moving, but she slapped me so hard that my mouth was bleeding. I couldn't do anything more besides bowing down my head, crying in silence as i was internally panicking because of the sound of water, while seeing my blood flowing through the shower drain.

It was so normal for me to be beaten up and also the typical "wait till we get home and you'll see" and getting beat the s**t out of me for talking when i shouldn't, that it was really weird for me when i'd go to friend's houses and seeing their moms talking to them with respect and not slapping them.

"Huh? Her mom doesn't... slap her or scream at her? Why? Is it because i'm here? My mom also slaps me in secret so if If i'm not here she will definitely slap her, yeah"

My father was more gentle but they were divorced and would visit us once every couple of weeks. I would call him and he was soo gentle and caring at washing my hair, like he was afraid of hurting me if he used more force, on contrary of my mom.

#29

I lived in the countryside in a farming town. Alongside the road my family lived on was a small concrete ditch. It was visible for about half the road and then went underground the rest of the road until it flowed out into a large canal at the end.

I was a really thin and small kid. When I was about 9 or so my sister and I and some of her friends were playing in the small ditch to cool off. My sister thought it would be interesting to see if I could fit into the pipe that led underground. So my 12 year old sister and her friends held me by my arms and lowered me into the pipe until my hips were in. I could feel the rushing water pulling me in. I yelled at them to bring me back out. They did and then we left.

I didn’t tell anyone about it for years and when I finally did they looked horrified. So yeah if my sister had lost her grip, I would have gone underground and likely gotten stuck and drowned.

#30

I was in summer camp and had made friends with the weird girl there. We were probably both around 7 or 8, both awkward kids who weren't good at making friends but we got along with each other. She had a very perverted sense of humor and was constantly talking about everyone's genitals. Didn't think much of it at the time.

Once she was sitting in a chair at a table and I snuck up behind her as a joke and grabbed the back of her chair and shook it to startle her. She was laughing and yelled at me to stop it. So I stopped it. She asked why I stopped. I told her she'd just asked me to stop so I did. She said that her dad told her that if a girl says stop it means do it harder. She wanted me to shake it harder. So I did.

Now that's a memory that got lost in my brain for years collecting dust, but thinking back on summer camp one day and remembering that made me think wait... what the F**K? I mean I hope my assumptions are wrong, but it really seems obvious what was happening to her at home. How did an adult there never notice all the signs?

#31

Starting to eat LSD at 13 at the encouragement from my father because “it was cool and made everything look like cartoons.” In retrospect, its mind boggling and so absurd to convince a child to do that insane of a drug. I’m grateful for my experiences and I think I have some unique perspectives thanks to the copious amounts of hallucinogens I ate 13-16, but I would absolutely never in a million years encourage my 2 children to do that. It hurts my heart.

#32

My mum divorced my step dad when I was around 7 and 6 weeks later she was moving into her new partner's house ( up the street from our house ) we had a dog that I've had since I was tiny, and her new partner had a dog, they didn't get on. so my mum left the dog in the now abandoned house alone. I remember using my pocket money and stealing money to get dog food, steal the keys, and feed her. I vividly remember the smell of the house. and how much weight and fur she'd lost. this was for about 2 weeks and I was the only one who tried to help her aged 7. my dad visited and I told him and he was horrified and we took her to a rescue that day. now when I see anything to do with a stray or a**Mysed animal I'll have a full breakdown

#33

How unreliable and emotionally neglectful my parents were, I thought it was normal to only see them on the weekends and to not trust them to show up when you needed them to. In my head, all parents did was work and be “vague authority figures” that I didn’t actually know.

Image credits: izzypy71c

#34

In Elementary school, I won 1st place in a Halloween costume contest. Finally, all those kids who teased me for looking like a girl would see that I was awesome! My parents helped me make my Cat in the Hat costume for like a week. Just recently saw pictures - wicked cute.

School principal called me up on stage and announced, as the first place winner, I got to choose any of the prizes from the girls' table. I had won best costume for the girls as a 7 year-old boy who was already teased for being girly. From this day forward, teasing turned to beatings.

The moment of looking out at all of the whole school, as well as the parents (mine, too), and more and thinking "see, I'm a winner!" as they all laughed at my confusion has caused damage I'm still undoing 40 years later.

EDIT: thank you everyone... I expected you to make fun of me (even now). Thank you for your kindness.

#35

knew it was bad, but not how much it affected me (a short list)

getting injured by a knife from my dad (who didn't even realize he cut my hand in his delirium)

stopping my dad from swallowing the 2nd pack of sleeping pills and forcing him to throw up some and the whole hospital ordeal, my mother arrived home only the day after

being "taught" to be manly and never cry, and having the punches only stop once i stop crying



something that i disliked but only after some time realized how bad it truly was: being forced to eat rotten/insect infested food bc we couldn't afford proper food (regular alcohol, drugs and $8 a pack cigarettes were affordable though)

#36

Brooklyn NYC, 1981

My parents had an argument in the kitchen. My mom had been drinking and for some reason decides to open the drawer and pull out two massive knives and bangs them on the kitchen counter to prove her point. My dad reckoned she lunged at him.

Whatever it was, my dad lost his s**t and f****d her up. 5 year old me at the just froze in the living room chair. He went to jail, she went to hospital, I went to the neighbors.

#37

My mom once highlighted my report card and wrote "this is what failure looks like" and put it on the fridge because I got a C

Image credits: MinimalistHomestead

#38

When I was in grade 1 my teacher grabbed me by the hair and shook me because I couldn’t understand a math question. I was shocked and traumatized but put it behind me (although never forgot obviously).

Can you imagine the consequences of that happening today? This was around 1979.

#39

Cops followed me home and pointed guns at me
“Told me I looked like a criminal” showed me a photo of some random guy who looked nothing like me

#40

I remember sitting on the floor, excited to open this VHS tape of Aliens, because I really wanted to watch it. My mom was in the middle of a drunken haze when I asked her for a knife to open the movie case, and she put it up to her wrists - screaming at me, red faced, tears, completely angry, telling me if I wanted her to kill herself, all I had to do was ask.

I just wanted to watch my movie. That same night she didn't make dinner, was passed out half naked on the couch, and I remember listening to her snore and looking at the knife she left me like, "Why don't I just kill her?" Never did, obviously, but it was one of those 'child stands over parent with a knife' scenes from a movie.

I never thought of my childhood as *bad* until I told it to my girlfriend and she started crying. Then everything just started to make sense: lack of empathy, closed off, anger issues, etc-etc. I get frustrated when people don't think the way I think, but the way I think is sociopathic. Nowadays I understand that.

#41

My older cousin tried to drown me when I was a toddler.

She kept dunking me under water at a public pool, telling me to hold my breath, but not giving me a chance to. She wouldn't stop taking me underwater no matter how much I screamed

#42

It wasn't so much horrible but reality of growing up without much money. In elementary school I was breezing straight A's high honor roll. Would get rewarded with a toy for my report cards. I didn't want flashy toys like video game systems or ask for a new video game. Back then it was like a $5 wrestling action figure.

In middle school my attention focused on girls lol. So I went from toys to wanting to wear nice new clothes (always wore hand me downs and never cared much but in middle school years you I guess want to establish your own style identity). My dad was only income in household. Worked his plant job and was supporting a 7 person household as mom was just a housewife. He wasn't a big money engineer or anything just one of the worker bees.

Well 11 year old me got straight A's and instead of going to the mall as a reward or a new toy, I told my mom I wanted new clothes. New name brand Clothes were obviously way more expensive. My mom told me we would try next report card to get new clothes. Well obviously 11 year old me was not thrilled about that. So I guess I stupidly said "if you guys don't buy me new clothes I won't make straight a's anymore". My dad was in the kitchen eating an early dinner after he got off a long shift. Didn't say anything. The next day after school I got home. My dad came home from work usually aj hour later. He switched his work clothes to put on his casual clothes and I said where are you going he said get dressed were gonna go to Belk to buy you an outfit. They put it on the credit card even though we probably coudlnt afford it. When I got home later that night my sister a few years older than me (whom I shared a room with) kinda chewed me out and lectured me on how I threatened my parents to not doing my job in school if I didn't get clothes, when our family was already struggling for money.

That little life lesson really made 11 y.o. me sit back and think about what I said. Made me think about all the times my dad came home looking tired but never complained and just kept going to work the next day. And literally from that point on I never asked for any reward, any compensation or allowance for anything. Never told my sister how thankful that lesson in humility was for me. I will one day. Helped me appreciate the smaller things and what we already have. Less materialistic and more experiences.

#43

I thought I was alergic to a certain type of food, after eating it the first time I became extremely sick, could’ve been coincidence but it happened every time I ate it at my aunts place.
So skip forward 20 years and I have to do some more allergy tests.
Turns out I’m not allergic to the food. So me being completely bamboozled explain my symptoms to my doctor, he told me that those were symptoms of poisoning not allergies… my aunt tried to poison me, multiple times… when I was 5…

#44

I've had so many horrible things happen to me but I'll keep it to less severe examples of my trauma.

One time we took in a pregnant cat and after the cat gave birth my mom put them all in a box and told me that we were going to donate them to the humane society because we couldn't afford them anymore.

Instead, she drives us to the middle of nowhere and tells me to put the box on the side of the road. I started crying and begging her no that it wasn't right to do that but she made me.

Another time I was staying over with my friend whose mom was a severe alcoholic. We were having fun until her mom got really drunk and started fighting with her boyfriend. The mom threatened to throw herself into an incoming train. I was the one who had to physically hold her back while my friend was sobbing on the sidewalk.

#45

Not a horrible thing but a very near miss.

In the 3rd grade, I accidentally got off at the wrong bus stop coming home from school. I grew up in a rural area so stops were usually miles apart on this county road with long dirt driveways leading to each property.

Once I realized I was at the end of the wrong dirt road, I had no idea what to do and started crying until a stranger in a truck pulled off the road to see what was up. Me, then an 8 yo girl, blindly trusted this stranger and got into his truck with no witnesses and nobody knowing where I was.

That could've been it for me but I got lucky and he just drove me to the police station. I can't imagine what my life might be like if the wrong person had found me first that day.

#46

My brother and I got kidnapped when I was six and he was nine. We got chained up in some dudes apartment. Wasnt until we were drunk and in our 30s that we even remembered it, but when we did we were like “ holy f**k, that DID happen”

#47

Being sheltered. Literally destroys your social life, mental health, and ability to properly do things as a person. Lost all of my good friends because of it and practically have no social life/ motive as of now yet it's my fault. Even to this day, it's still a b***h to do the simplest things and I see it being like that for a long while.

#48

My mom barely fed us when my dad was out of town. She only let me shower once every two weeks. She would tear my clothes off and lock me outside. She would randomly pull over, drag me out of the car by my hair and leave me to walk home, even if it was miles away and no safe way to get there. She would pull my hair until I fell on the ground and then kick me in my back until I wet my pants, when I was a teenager. I never had enough clothes and getting underwear and a bra was always difficult. I thought I was a bad kid and deserved everything she did, until I grew up and my dad got early onset Alzheimer's. I saw her do all the same awful things to him and I couldn't stop it. I reported her to adult protective services several times and asked her neighbors to report anything they saw as well. She cried and told APS her kids refused to help and she was overwhelmed, so they got free respite care several days a week. She would make the caregiver scrub the floor on her hands and knees instead of helping my dad. Finally dad fell down and hit his head, in the exact spot in the house where she always used to knock me down, and had to go to a certain hospital because it was the only level one trauma center in the area. I went in the middle of the night and told the ICU nurses about the a**se and neglect. I told the social worker at the hospital how my mom liked to withhold necessities because she liked seeing people "offer up their suffering to the lord." The hospital refused to discharge him back to his house, and he spent the rest of his life in various facilities. My mom had a pattern of getting kicked out of the facility and then moving him to a different one, where she would bully the staff and interfere with my dad's meds and feeding tube until they figured her out and kicked her out. After my dad died, she tried to find another old person to care for, even offering to be a free caregiver. She wants to move my sibling into her house, because my sibling is severely disabled after several strokes. She insists she can get sibling walking again, if sibling can't get any food unless they walk to the kitchen.

#49

I had an elementary 2nd-grade teacher who wouldn’t let me use the bathroom under any circumstances. I would be in distress begging that I be allowed to go to the bathroom. Needless to say, there were multiple instances where I’d pee myself in front of the entire class and I’d have to go through the rest of the day without having a pair of dry pants on. So being a**sed in any way as a kid when I think about it now is obviously not ok in any situation

#50

My friend and I were Groomed/persuaded by an adult man on the internet to send inappropriate pictures. We were 11.

#51

Sexual a**se , i only realised in my early 20's

#52

I almost drowned at 6 yrs old. Never was a big deal, kinda forgot about it til recently and for some reason I can vividly remember it now. Seeing the sunlight above the water and reaching for it, jumping, trying to get my head above the water. I guess someone pulled me out I dont really know that part. Horrible feeling

#53

My dad put dents in my mothers front door when I decided not to see him anymore. I felt fine after it. Now i sleep with a bat and knife.

#54

My mom asked me to type up a list on the computer so she could track which doctors prescribed her which medications. Dr. Smith prescribed the Xanax; Dr. Lopez prescribed the Klonopin, Dr. Johnson prescribed the Valium, Dr. Chang prescribed the Ativan, ... -- edit, for those unaware: these drugs are all addictive tranquilizers. No patient needs four kinds. A patient who receives similar, addictive drugs from separate doctors is probably a**sing drugs and not telling their doctors about each other's prescriptions (i.e., they are "doctor shopping").

#55

at age 12, keeping a knife in my bed side table and putting my heaviest draws in front of my door before going to sleep just in case my moms boyfriend got too drunk that night.

#56

I once brought home a bad test result from school and my mother took a pen to write „doof“ (stupid in german) on my forehead and them made me get in the car to drive to dads office, so she could show him. I was about 8/9 years old.

#57

Mentally ill parents, narcissistic. Extremely charismatic, center of attention, creative artistic intellectual types, attracted a very interesting eclectic variety of friends, had parties and lots of social life for themselves. But us kids? We were just objects there for them to a**se. We suffered terrible a**se because of their need to put us down in every possible way, tell us we were morons, ridicule everything we did and said, ridiculed how we looked and make us extremely self-conscious of our bodies. Basically made us learn not to trust ourselves in any way, destroying our confidence. I am the only one of four who was able to have a measure of normal success in life because I was the favored one(which was just my role in the family-gotta have one kid you train to be on your side against the rest so you have one who will do what you need when you’re old.) This destroyed my siblings lives, and also ruined mine because I was trained to submit to them. We all escaped at age 18. All had to make bad decisions or rely on the help of friends to survive. I moved in with an older man who seemed like a gentle person, and years later my mother pushed us to get married. Yes, I do blame her because she never cared about me, only she wanted one of her kids to get married and have grandchildren to continue the farce that we were a normal family. And I was trained by them to not trust myself, so I married him ignoring the warning signs that I really didn’t understand at all because all I was ever taught to do was to not trust my instincts and that I am the one who must be wrong. I eventually figured out he is a life long drug addict. But I worked through it and made a nice family for my parents to enjoy. Had to leave my husband when the kids were little and do all this on my own. I did an amazing job and have 3 wonderful adult children. Dad died 9 years ago, and I finally cut my mother and sister off completely, no contact, one year ago. Best thing I ever did for myself. Just sorry I didn’t do it sooner. I finally have my life.

#58

parents constantly said my sister and I aren’t that smart and they know everything. Turns out they were just narcissist who are dumb af. I still struggle asking girls out because my first thought is always “I am ugly and dumb so no one wants to be around a creep like you”

#59

My mother's Schizoaffective disorder and psychotic episodes. When other kids were afraid of monsters hiding under the bed, I was afraid of someone cutting the silver cord connecting my astral body to my physical so I would die. I had knowledge on the occult, the paranormal and other spooky stuff already as a 5 year old. I learned it from my mother's hallucinations and delusions.

#60

Gaslighting. Used to think all parents gaslight their kids which is why it was “stupid” to speak out against your parents because my mom always told heinous lies about me to my friends and their families if I ever spoke out about her.

#61

The emotional a**se my mom subjected me to. A lot of people had it worse, but it seriously f****d me up. It affects me every day.

#62

my father kidnapped me during my parents divorce, for two weeks i lived at my grandparents until i accidentally told my mother during my daily phonecall that dad was in jail for a**ault still love my father and he is doing amazingly well with a new wife that i love, but it wasn’t until recently that i realized it was super f****d up

#63

How much I got bullied, teased and beat up because of my autism

#64

Was bit by a dog and needed A&E. Obviously knew it was bad at the time, but was comfortable with dogs still as a kid. But over time I developed a very intense fear for any moderately sized dog... really ruined my dream of having 2 mastiffs as my first pets lol

#65

hooking up with my high school boyfriend in an alley between apartment buildings after sneaking out of the house at night (as one does when your relationship is forbidden and you both live with your parents) and then a “security guard” approached us. we got up quickly and pulled our clothes back on and he goes, “you don’t have to stop. i can watch.”

not into voyeurism or exhibitionism since then.