What experience most shaped who you are?

February 2, 2005 4:41 AM

Life-altering experiences. Can you point to a single experience in your life, as a child, which you can define as having contributed to the person you are today? (+)

I guess I'm looking for an experience which you can look back on and say " That shaped my personality as an adult." An example might be: I went to a slaughterhouse and decided to become a vegetarian.

posted by jeremias to society & culture (215 comments total)

Why do you want to know?
posted by reflecked at 4:55 AM on February 2, 2005

1. Wayne Arnold let me hold the trumpet he just got from school (I was in kindergarten) and at that moment, I knew that I would have to play. 32 years later, I still play.
2. 3^rd grade we learned the phrase "Renaissance Man" (sexist though it is) and at that point I chose that as a goal, which I think I've acieved, inasmuch as it is a continual process of lifelong learning.
posted by plinth at 4:59 AM on February 2, 2005

I was taken on a visit to a newspaper office when I was seven. Stood on the floor of the press hall and just knew.
posted by bonaldi at 5:15 AM on February 2, 2005 [4 favorites]

When I was seven, my father bought me a turntable and allowed me access to his record collection. 30 years and thousands of dollars in gear and recordings later, music is my passion.
posted by black8 at 5:23 AM on February 2, 2005

I once did an exercise in mapping out significant moments, where I listed about 10 'points' leading up to adulthood that had been important to me, and about half of them were books I read. I'm going into academia, so I guess it all makes sense.

Choosing one 'moment' would be hard for me, though. It would depend a lot on my mood, I think.
posted by mdn at 5:31 AM on February 2, 2005

When I was ten, I got a job as a caddy at the local golf club, and fell in love with the game that I hope to be playing when I die.
posted by lobstah at 5:34 AM on February 2, 2005

In 2nd grade a couple girls were teasing me and I walked away without saying anything in return—like you're supposed to. After recess they lied to the teacher saying I threw ice at them. She would hear none of my story. Even my parents didn't believe me. The teacher made me write an apology to the girls along with, "I will not throw ice. It is as hard as rocks and could hurt people," a hundred times.

I'm small and bitter to this day.
posted by mealy-mouthed at 5:48 AM on February 2, 2005 [11 favorites]

When I was 4, I had 2 fingers partially amputated in a lawnmower. Reach your own conclusions. heheh ;-P
posted by mischief at 5:56 AM on February 2, 2005

1976: Age 14
Heard Ramones.
Everything changed.
posted by davebush at 6:08 AM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

My father died when I was almost 5
posted by Pressed Rat at 6:16 AM on February 2, 2005

Age 14 - I watched my mom give birth to my little sister. I decided that I was never doing that, and I've been happily childfree ever since. Getting fixed this year, whoo!
posted by mabelcolby at 6:25 AM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

Why do you want to know?

I have a three and a half year old, and as he's growing older I'm becoming aware of how intense his experiences are, and it's made me curious what sort of things "stick" with people over the course of their life. It's also made me think more about what sort of control (if any), I have as a parent.
posted by jeremias at 6:25 AM on February 2, 2005

Staying up late at night, when I was about 13, hiding under the duvet, headphones on with John Peel on the BBC to keep me awake.
I was just doing it until my parents went to bed. I could creep downstairs to catch some seriously lame film with some flashes of skin, but when you're 13 that's quite some incentive. The weird noises would serve to make sure I couldn't possibly nod off, even if I wanted to.

I stayed in bed instead, and listened. There was no way I was giving up John Peel and dub for half-baked nudity.
posted by NinjaPirate at 6:33 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

I was in nursery school (about 1969), and I was passionately interested in astronomy. My dad had read me lots of books about the cosmos, and I was as educated about such matters as a four-year-old could be.

One day, I was arguing with friends about the moon. I said the moon was like a small planet. They disagreed. Finally, I called a teacher over to help settle the matter. I KNEW I was right, so I was looking forward to the teacher vindicating me. We asked her if the moon was a planet.

She said, "no, the moon is a star."

You could have knocked me over with a feather. My pride was hurt because I lost the argument, but that wasn't the main reason I was stunned. I still knew I was right, which meant the TEACHER was wrong. Not only was she wrong, she was ignorant about something I assumed was common knowledge.

Before that, I hadn't known grown-ups could be wrong. This profoundly shaped the way I viewed people as I grew up. Whenever I heard anyone deifying another person, I thought -- and still think -- "that's silly." From that point on, I had no respect for authority. To earn my respect, you have to be smart or talented. I'll never respect you just because you happen to be in charge or have a degree.
posted by grumblebee at 6:37 AM on February 2, 2005 [28 favorites]

1. When I was a little kid, I ran after a kite a little boy lost hold of while flying it on a windy beach. I had a "peek experience" at that moment. I have continued to behave as though the "peek experience" - being fully human and reaching my potential - is of primary importance.

2. A year of so later, during 6th grade, I was punched by a bully. I did not fight back because violence is wrong. I told my dad about it, proud that I took the high road, proud that I had a mature revelation about violence and the importance of alternative resolution methods. He thought I was being childish\stupid and he berated me for it.

From that day on, I have known that when it comes to paternal guidance and fatherly support, I am completely on my own. I was only 10 but I remember that day because it was the day I "lost" my father.
posted by johnj at 6:42 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

Parents' divorce and alcoholism. I learned these lessons early: I trust few people, never think about the future (in a fatalistic sense, not a live-for-today sense), and err on the side of caution every time. Life is a long series of hazards to be avoided and inescapable heartbreak.
posted by scratch at 6:58 AM on February 2, 2005

I enlisted in the Army (many years ago), and Basic Training developed confidence, pride, a realization that most roadblocks to success are self-imposed, and demonstrated that a team is not limited by the weakest individual, but is limited by how much inspiration can be instilled in them.
posted by forforf at 7:06 AM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

Christmas, 7th grade. Instead of the usual half dozen gifts apeice, my parents gave my brothers and I a TRS-80 Color Computer. 23 years later I'm posting about it on an internet forum instead of asking someone if they want fries with their Whopper Jr.
posted by bondcliff at 7:18 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

I won't talk about specific instances, but the abuse and neglect I experienced as a child has shaped the adult I am. I'm shy, withdrawn and have an extremely low sense of self-esteem. It has been, and will continue to be, a lifelong struggle to overcome my childhood.
posted by deborah at 7:23 AM on February 2, 2005

From the age of 2 to 5-1/2, my parents kept me locked alone in a cage. To this day, decades later, I find it impossible to form meaningful social relationships. Frankly, I'm surprised I'm not a serial killer.
posted by SPrintF at 7:27 AM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

We were at my uncle's house, he's a kinda mountain man, and we'd go there to build things and shoot things with bullets and arrows (often the things we built). My cousin was probably 11, and had decided to do some target practice on some full paint cans with a bb gun. My uncle was, understandably, a bit upset, and told my cousin if he had to shoot something, he should go pick some doves off the telephone line. My cousin shot three, and was pretty excited until my uncle made him kill them, clean them, and eat them for dinner (we had chinese).

My cousin is now a vegan.
posted by cosmonaught at 7:29 AM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

I've always attributed that event to him becoming a vegan, and 13 years later, at my brother's wedding, I found out that he linked it back to that, too.
posted by cosmonaught at 7:32 AM on February 2, 2005

You might also want to check out previous AskMe threads about singular happiest moments and life-changing epiphanies. :)
posted by furious blush at 7:41 AM on February 2, 2005 [4 favorites]

SPrintF-Are you serious?

I can't remember the exact age I was, but the first time I read a book. I was old for my age, I didn't learn to read till I was in second grade. It was about this silly little dragon, and I was flat on the floor in the living room. I got up and told everyone, very proud of myself, and then went back down to read the next. And the next. And the next. As so on to a life-long addiction.
posted by stoneegg21 at 7:44 AM on February 2, 2005

My hippie uncle came to visit me when he was doing a tour of communes on the east coast when I was eight or so. He lived in this awesome bus with a woodstove inside it and had a ton of tattoos and earrings and was friendly and relaxed in a way that my parents never were. I watched him change from that into a somewhat more mainstream social activist and fairly successful and happy actor. It gave me hope at an early age that I could do something different and unusual and still have a worthwhile life and livelihood, even though people might look at me sideways. Also, that being friendly to people can overcome a lot of first-impression weirdness that they might otherwise have.
posted by jessamyn at 7:55 AM on February 2, 2005 [8 favorites]

12 years old, just beginning to take those "career aptitude inventory" tests they give you, I share with my father my interest in one day becoming a computer engineer. His response, "How the hell are you ever gonna help anybody doing that!?" leads me to completely devalue my own interests and goals for the next four years or so in favor of what I think other people think I should be doing. Later I get my head on straight and realize he was being a complete jerk, but the damage is still done. I still base my feelings of self-worth on the opinions of others (even though I know that's what I'm doing).

Please, encourage your child to pursue his or her own interests, not those you think he or she should have. Within reason, of course.
posted by ruddhist at 7:57 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

Two things:

1) In fourth grade, someone screamed in the lunchroom of my school. A number of people pointed to me as being the guilty party, although I was not. I was then taken to the principal's office and berated for hours by Sister in an attempt to get me to confess. I did not. Eventually, the real culprit confessed. I was sent back to class without an apology.

2) My mother died of cancer just days before I was to begin high school. I missed the first day because of the funeral.
posted by tommasz at 8:10 AM on February 2, 2005

like grumblebee. discovering adults could be and were wrong sometimes--and on various levels; wrong factually as well as capable of behaving improperly/having prejudices/being deceitful--was like being punched in the stomach. i'm not certain i've gotten over it even to this day.
posted by ifjuly at 8:13 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

and yes yes, learning to read! i have the most vivid sense memory of that moment--where exactly i was, what was around me, the smell of the classroom, the time of day--when all of the struggle and not-quite-fluid comprehension glazed and became in a swift moment a light-bulb-turning-on event and my entire world gained a new layer of symbolism and meaning. it sounds highfalutin but that's really what it felt like. i was bowled over.
posted by ifjuly at 8:16 AM on February 2, 2005

My father had a serious heart attack the day before my twelfth birthday, and was not expected to survive. A very good cardiac surgeon completed the bypass operation on my birthday, and he survived for the next 18 years.

It was definitely an eye-opener about doctors, how important they were and how they sometimes did world-shaking things. I don't know if it's fair to say it's why I became a doctor, but it definitely got me thinking.
posted by ikkyu2 at 8:46 AM on February 2, 2005 [7 favorites]

I don't know. Maybe when I left/got kicked out of college. For better or worse, it set me on the path that created a lot of my worldview.

And like others have said, discovering music. When I was 12, I inherited a bunch of albums from the kid up the streets' older brother. It was fairly standard classic rock stuff but it set me on my way.
posted by jonmc at 8:50 AM on February 2, 2005

In preschool, I made friends with a kid who sat next to me, and I suggested we color in our respective mimeographed sheets of scissors, etc. together. He was leery, and I understood why, when I was accused of cheating. Hmmp.

Traveling alone showed me a quicker, more confident facet of my personality I always hoped existed, but rarely saw.

Reading Autobiography of Malcolm X revealed the existence of a whole culture I had never known, and let me know there might be others.

Working offshore showed me what hard work was.
posted by atchafalaya at 8:55 AM on February 2, 2005

When I was 3 yrs old, my parents checked me into the hospital for surgery without telling me why, When I woke up, I had colostomy.

My parents referred to it as "my operation" and although they didn't tell me to keep it a secret, even at that young age,I knew it was a private family matter. As a result, I becamse insecure and withdrawn because I wasn't like "normal" people. The operation was reversed when I was 11 yrs. old.
posted by lola at 8:57 AM on February 2, 2005

In first year of high school, I finally managed to ask my crush out on a date. We were both geeky, but I was the more socially inept and outcast one. By lunch, everyone knew about our date. They made fun of her, laughed at me. She blamed it on me, saying I told everyone, but I hadn't told a soul. The date didn't happen. I found out her best friend is the one who spread it around. They stayed friends, I was outcast even more. To this day (years out of college), I haven't had even one relationship, although not for lack of trying.

Looking back, I haven't had many happy experiences. But hey, that must mean that they're all ahead of me, waiting, right? Right? ...
posted by splice at 9:01 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

splice, I feel for you.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:16 AM on February 2, 2005

When I was ten, I got a job as a caddy at the local golf club, and fell in love with the game that I hope to be playing when I die.

Wave your clubs in the air during a thunderstorm. Should be no problem achieving your goal!

Myself, I can't think of defining moments. Perhaps partly because I can't remember s.f.a. about my past. Sigh.

SPrintF, I honestly hope that that was true. Otherwise, you have managed to be about as truly thoughtless and malicious as any user has ever been, particularly given the placement of your message in this thread.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:18 AM on February 2, 2005

I got made fun of a lot in grade school. I used to have to buy my spot at the lunch table, and my nipples were bruised for months because of constant "titty twisters." The experience made me very introverted and untrusting of people, usually I'm convinced people are trying to make fun of me when they talk to me.
posted by drezdn at 9:18 AM on February 2, 2005

The Good - In kindergarten my teacher noticed that I was reading faster than most of the other kids in class and she spent a lot of time encouraging me to read as much as I could. She even gave me the teachers' edition of one of her books. The teachers' edition! That was a big deal for five year old me. I remember being so proud and happy that day. My time in her class still remains one of my favorite childhood memories. I believe her encouragement was one of the main reasons I am such a rabid reader today.

The Bad - I was overweight in middle school and junior high and was teased mercilessly by several other students. I suffered in silence for a year and a half before finally breaking down and telling my parents that I couldn't take it anymrore. Their response? Ignore it and it will go away. It was bullshit. I knew it. They knew it. I realized then that they weren't going to help me and I was going to have to deal with it on my own. Which I couldn't. I became shy and bitter and distrustful. I needed my parents to help me and they refused. It took me a long time to get over that. I'm not really sure I am completely over it, to be frank.
posted by LeeJay at 9:27 AM on February 2, 2005

4 things, that all happened within about the same year, when I was 9.

1) My Dad lost his self-made fortune.
I was reared in comfort, though not with a silver spoon in my mouth (there was no estate, or trips to the country club, or nanies, or anything like that). Almost overnight, it was gone. Learning to cope with this change was the most defining thing in my life.

2) My parents held me back from skipping, oh, about all of elementary school.
I was probably going from grade 2 to grade 7 (and then perhaps, beyond), but my teachers and parents were not sure about my ability to cope socially (I was quiet and shy)... blah blah blah...

3) I discovered Dungeons and Dragons. :-)

4) I was introduced to computer programming by a very very cool teacher.
(Thanks Mr. Pino! I have a career today because you were awesome enough to take me aside during lunch hours and let me mess around with LOGO and BASIC on the school's Apple IIs.)

And that's my story. Yay. (My roots in nerd-hood are very deep.)
posted by C.Batt at 9:35 AM on February 2, 2005

When I was 16, our house burned down while our family was away. We had spent the last 6 years building it. We lost essentially all of our possessions. I lost a stamp collection and an Atari 400 that I'd worked an entire summer to earn. My father lost negatives and equipment from a 20-year photography career.

Building the house taught me and my siblings what hard work was, how to face it and thrive in it. Losing it, and all our possessions, taught me that things are just objects, not the center or my life or cause for deep, abiding emotional attachments.
posted by sacre_bleu at 9:36 AM on February 2, 2005 [7 favorites]

In the last couple years of elementary school, and junior high school, other kids knew that I was very ticklish, and that they could get a rise out of me by tickling me, poking me, or even making sudden threatening moves towards my midsection. This stopped when I got to high school, but by then, I was nervous about letting anyone touch me, or even get near me.

Just before my 15th birthday, my mother had a large number of leftover peppermint candies. She gave me a big bag of them to share with fellow members of the school choir on the way to a concert.

There was one particular girl in the choir, Dovie, a senior, who had always been kind to me (and to everyone in general). When I gave her a mint, she looked at me as if it were the nicest thing anyone had done for her in a long time. And she gave me a hug.

It took me a second to realize what was going on, and hug back.

Because of how I had been treated before, I had forgotten that letting someone touch you can be a good thing. Over the course of that year, I talked to Dovie some more, and occasionally, I hugged her. But even though I knew that she was a very nice person who enjoyed hugging her friends, I kept a certain distance from her, because I was afraid. I didn't want to take any chances; I didn't want to risk imposing on her or wasting her time.

At the end of the last day of school, I realized that I would probably never see her again, and that I had squandered an opportunity to get to know a really nice person.

After crying a bit, I resolved that I wouldn't let that happen again. I now knew that there were some very nice people out there, and if I met one, I wanted to get to know her. I knew that being touched could be a positive thing, and decided that I would hug any friend of mine who wanted a hug.

I haven't fully overcome my shyness, and I'm still a bit nervous about letting others near me, but I'm a lot better than I was back then, and knowing her was what motivated me to change. To this day, when I meet a woman who is sweet and affectionate, I say to myself, "She reminds me of Dovie."
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:43 AM on February 2, 2005 [14 favorites]

In 1978, when I was 12 years old, my school got the first computer I (or anyone I knew) had ever seen. It was the first Radio Shack TRS-80 computer - cassette drive, extremely limited "Level I Basic" with only two string variables - A$ and B$, very limited memory, etc.

There were no computer classes at my small rural school - nobody, including the teacher who had bought the computer, knew anything about programming.

For some reason, I was interested enough to borrow the "LEVEL I BASIC" manual and take it home. I puzzled over it for several days, and can distinctly remember lying on my bed reading it, and finally experiencing a "Eureka!" moment - I understood the "for...next" loop concept, and had the realization that I could make this thing do my bidding...

Developing software has been my primary obsession and vocation for the last 26+ years. I can't imagine what I'd be doing now if that teacher hadn't brought that computer to school - would I eventually have stumbled onto the fact in some other way that I had the interest and ability?
posted by JeffL at 9:47 AM on February 2, 2005

In sixth grade, a girl who I found attractive, sidled up to me and showed me a cover of a book which had a trio of kids climbing on the cable of a suspension bridge. She pointed at the picture and said that no one in our class would do such an adventurous thing. Somehow the message that I needed to do adventurous things to win the love of women got imprinted.
It changed the way I have lived my life. Only recently did I connect this dot.
posted by JohnR at 9:49 AM on February 2, 2005 [6 favorites]

This is a fascinating thread - great question, jeremias.

There are two events that changed my life completely.

The good: moving to the US from Norway when I was 14. I was teased mercilessly in Norway and was an unpopular, ugly bookworm misfit whom nobody would ever ask out on a date. When I moved to NYC, everything changed - I got contacts, cut my hair and sprouted breasts, and because of my 'novelty value' and accent, I became the most sought-after girl in school. I went from the bottom of the barrel to the top of the world, and it changed everything.

The bad: a fight I had with my mother when I was 22. It turned out that just about everything she had told me about my family and my childhood was a long, fabricated, malicious lie invented to make sure I knew that nobody but she would ever love me or could be counted on. Trying to pick out the pieces of truth from the few things I remember from my childhood has been like walking through a minefield. I am reminded of what Arthur Golden called 'the onion years' - peeling off the layers one at a time, and crying all the while.
posted by widdershins at 10:01 AM on February 2, 2005 [6 favorites]

Age unknown (able to sit up, able to play with toys, teething):
My mother took my plastic toy wrench I was chewing on and screamed at me, then jammed it back into my mouth rattling it around inside my mouth yelling about chewing on my toys. I learned mothers inflict pain.

Age 4:
Told by my mother, during a beating,that I was a useless child, a whore at that. (I never knew what a whore was until about 12 years old.) I learned to hide. Fade into the background, keep my distance.

Age 14:
My mother went into a rage after I told her my new clothes I got for christmas were too small. Growth spurt you know. The hitting and cussing began, this time I became a slut. I snapped and kicked her ass. I learned I don't have to take a beating. The beginning of my not being shy and fading out.

Age 17:
Mother found my birth control pill, flushed them and called the doctor to say never give me more. No planned parent hood then, had to have permission from parents to get the pill. yeah I forged my Mothers signature to get them but I knew it was the only way to get the pill. I wasn't ignorant, I was sexually active and trying to be responsible. Condoms didn't work I had a baby 2 months before my 18 birthday. I learned my mother was insane.

Age 24:
moved to the west coast of the USA. Do or die, away from my nutty family. Best thing I ever did. I learned that I was not the useless piece of shit my mother always said I was. I learned to realize she had serious problems.

Age 25: Forgave my mother for all her hurtful ways. I learned to let go.

I live my life trying to not be like my mother. So far so good.
posted by bratcat at 10:02 AM on February 2, 2005 [8 favorites]

• Loss of religious faith
  When I was oh, 11 or 12, I was a fairly religous boy, went to church several times a week, was an altar boy, both my parents were devout catholics. I was riding my bicycle, going to the library, and I was carrying probably about 7 or 8 books, during the ride, my books kept falling, over and over and over again. I said "Lord, please help me, I can't do this", I was crying because I was so frustrated. My books kept on repeatedly falling. I haven't believed since, and I am now an atheist.


• Becoming a man
  Like forforf, I also enlisted in the Army at 18, and it was life-changing to be stripped of everything that I knew in the world, and to realise that I was a strong person capable of excelling where others fail, that --I-- am in control of my life, no one else. My success and happiness depended only on my actions and attitudes on life.

posted by patrickje at 10:07 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

I was seven years old when I was inches away from being hit dead on by a truck. It's difficult to explain, but I was seized by the urge to run across a busy road. I thought I could outrun oncoming traffic. Instead, I froze in total fear. The driver of a truck hit the breaks in time to stop only inches away from my face.

Yes, life has the potential to be cut short at any time. Whenever I need motivation to do something I think of that day. After all, I could have been dead 23 years ago.
posted by quadog at 10:18 AM on February 2, 2005

Man some of you guys are bringing me down. Here are some of mine

- When my dad gave me my first real camera, his old Canon A1. Shortly there after I made my first print in the darkroom. Haven't put down a camera since.

- When I got my first skateboard. After that I learned how to surf. Then I learned how to snowboard and I've spent a large portion of my life looking for the perfect ride.

- Seeing my first Fugazi show, when I was 16, was huge for me.
posted by trbrts at 10:18 AM on February 2, 2005

I was always very aware of the landmarks of my life. And no, my parents getting divorced was not one of them. I remember the markers that I am still trying to figure out. Signs of mental/neurological illness that my mother ignored go back to early childhood. Watching TV and old movies that shaped my unsquashable need to go into acting, even though I have tried with all my might to ignore it.

Mostly though, and most importantly, the behavior of my parents. Their emotions, their needs, their naked motivations, what they did in secret, what they wouldn't tell me, have absolutely and irrevocably shaped who I am. Children are effortlessly intense observers and analysts of human behavior. You can't hide anything from them, so don't try.
posted by scazza at 10:19 AM on February 2, 2005

Wow. This thread is blowing my mind. Thanks everybody for the responses.
posted by jeremias at 10:25 AM on February 2, 2005

bratcat, I get that. Very very much. My horror stories are on a par with yours.

My life-shapings came from my mood-swinging, physically and emotionally violent mother on the negative side. The physical stuff is abhorrent and I still don't really discuss it. But there are fingernail scars on my hands and arms to this day and they're from when I protected my face. Age 10, death threat. Age 16, she told me she hated me and never apologized. She waged a constant campaign to tell me that she was the only reason for my success, and that without her influence I would surely fail. When I got my current job, and moved to my current house, she made a big deal out of not buying anything for me since "you'll probably lose the job anyway, you're too lazy to have a demanding job like that."

But the thing that really changed everything was when she pulled me out of college.

I was a college junior at age 16. As part of her "I still own you" campaign, she'd call me three or more times daily to make sure of my whereabouts. She'd call my professors to make sure I wasn't skipping classes (I was, and getting a 3.4 average anyway and was the darling of my department), she'd call my RA to see if my room was clean (yeah. that'll happen), she'd call my roommate to see when I was getting to bed (come on, 4 AM is early, not late).

In the end, she ended up telling me that if I 'fucked up' any more, she'd pull me from school, and that I wouldn't know she was coming until she showed up at the door. Her exact words as to what this would result in: "the life you had before will be nothing compared to the hell you'll experience if I have to pull you out of there."

So I ran away. I returned my computer I'd bought a few weeks before got the thousand bucks for it. A friend in pennsylvania offered to put me up for as long as I needed (I was in iowa). I got on a greyhound bus as I had no car.

As it turned out, that was my big mistake. Even though I used a fake name, they found me. When the cops found me, they said they'd have to return me to my parents - the only other option was sending me to juvenile, and "you're not the type." After unsuccessful pleas to be put into juvenile rather than be returned, I told them very calmly that I was pre-law, that I had nothing but respect for the law and its officers, but that if they didn't send me to juenile I would kick them in a very sensitive area and they'd have to send me for assaulting an officer.

They took the hint. As it turns out, being caught in Indiana was my other mistake. They can only hold runaways for 48 hours unless they think there's real danger to them.

I hoped my mother would conduct herself the way she usually did at the meeting to see whether I was in danger. Instead, she brought a gift - a christmas tree ornament of the Misfit Doll from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. It was something I'd wanted. When I saw it, I knew I would be going back with her. I was sniffling and dehydrated, and juvenile had been pretty hard on me. I walked back to the car hoping that maybe she'd have changed, something would have been different.

As we walked back out to the car, she said: "You're in for a lot of changes, princess. This will NOT happen again."

There followed a period of 6 months when I was pretty much cut off from contact with the outside world altogether (after an investigation by the DCFS which determined that my smiling, nice mother who baked cookies for the DCFS agent was a very nice woman indeed!), until I finally ran away successfully.

What did I learn from all this? That I can survive anything. That I can keep my wits about me even when I'm surrounded by insanity of the most malicious kind.

I would never wish what she did upon anyone. And I'm sure with many people, that treatment would break them. But as for me...I like who I am today in almost every respect. And while I still wrestle with insecurity issues that stem from her, and I still hate housework from the cinderella-like task lists I used to receive, the most important thing I learned is that I can get through damn near anything. To this day, I'm an eternal optimist. If my life can be this good now after all those years of hell, there has to be hope for most everyone.
posted by u.n. owen at 10:39 AM on February 2, 2005 [6 favorites]

I have a three and a half year old, and as he's growing older I'm becoming aware of how intense his experiences are, and it's made me curious what sort of things "stick" with people over the course of their life. It's also made me think more about what sort of control (if any), I have as a parent.

This isn't an "event", but it speaks directly to your stated reason for asking your question: I grew up in a house full of wonderful, mind-expanding things (though my family wasn't rich). My house was full of books. Not just literature, but also art books from all different periods. There were framed pictures on the walls. My dad had been collecting LPs since he was a kid and had thousands of them. And we had one of the first video-tape players in the country (it was reel-to-reel!).

I had full access to all of these things, and (this next part is KEY) my parents NEVER made a value judgment about my choices or tried to push anything on me. If I chose "Spiderman" over "War and Peace," that was fine with them. If I chose spacing out over anything, that was fine with them too. They just created a rich ENVIRONMENT and let me lose in it. Had they told me that certain things were "for my own good," I probably would have fled from them.

I grew into a polymath. By the time I got to high school, I was surprised that most of my peers had either never read Shakespeare or hated reading Shakespeare. Most of them disliked classical music, too.

More important than the fact that I got an introduction to specific media was the fact that I developed a lifelong love of learning. Learning is the most important aspect of my personality. I'm miserable if I don't have a new book to read or a new movie to watch or some new music to listen to. I'm usually doing all these things at once.

The downside: I hated school. I naively assumed school was about the same sort of exploratory learning I cherished. If my teachers had just left me alone, I would have been fine. But of course, they forced me to do all sorts of busy work that didn't interest me. This could have been solved with home schooling or sending me to some sort of special school. But I languished in public school and nearly flunked out. I remember getting up from the sofa, where I had been sitting, reading "King Lear," checking the mail box, and seeing that my report card had come with a F in English.

The positives outweigh the negatives.

Oh, and my parents always let me have a little wine at the table when they were drinking. When I got to college, and everyone was getting drunk all the time, I didn't get what the big deal was. So I never really got into drinking heavily. I'm grateful for this, too.
posted by grumblebee at 10:41 AM on February 2, 2005 [26 favorites]

Oooh! One landmark: while preparing to go out for the evening, I think to the symphony, my wife was chattering away at me and I was mindlessly chattering back while at the same time considering committing suicide and whether she'd be okay after I was gone, and whether it would be more unfair to her than fair to me, and so on.

And then it suddenly snapped into sharp focus that this thinking was really not normal and that I had better own up to it and see a doctor and get rid of the depression demon.

And so I've slowly been learning that there are two of me: a me that is depressive, and the me that is not, and they are almost completely different people from my introspective point of view. And I've slowly been learning that I quite like the non-depressive me, and don't need to bring back the depressive me. It's been a long haul, especially as for almost all my life, I've only known about a depressive me.

I quite regret that it took so long to get a clue. I really could have had a much better life if I'd known.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:44 AM on February 2, 2005 [8 favorites]

My father's childhood was one of those horrorshow ones about which others have written.

My deepest respect for him is that as a young man, he swore that he would never be like his father. And to his credit, he broke the cycle of violence. That took a lot, I'm sure.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:49 AM on February 2, 2005 [5 favorites]

When I was 7, my mother married a man who adopted me and became the only person who I would call Dad. I hadn't realized how much he had shaped my interests in life until a couple of years ago, unfortunately just before he died. He was a train and steam engine hobbyist, and one of my fondest memories of him is walking a 19th century factory site and mapping the vanished railroad spurs and tracks, and mucking about in the factory ruins while he showed me how the machinery in the factory would have been set up. His help brought the factory to life for me, and the research I did was recently used in a state archaeology preserve publication, as well as having been presented at many conferences. There are many other ways our interests coincided later in my life, and I miss him terribly. I only hope I can plant some of the same ideas in my sons' heads!
posted by kittyloop at 10:50 AM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

Thanks, all of you, for sharing.
posted by euphorb at 11:07 AM on February 2, 2005

Hmm, So many. I'll hit three of the big ones..

When I was 8, I was offered the opportunity to skip the 4th grade and go straight to 5th. My Mom Asked me if it was something I wanted to do and I said yes because I was so Bored in School. It was a colossal Blunder on both our parts. I was already a bit younger than most of my classmates, and that made the age difference such that I was not as emotionally developed as most of the folks I was in school with until probably high school. This decision turned a minor emotional difference into a yawning divide, and left me unable to really understand or relate to my current classmates. I had always been a quiet and solemn child, but this was one of the things that started me down the path to becoming a true introvert.

When I was 10 we moved to a new City. About halfway through my second month there I had a shouting match with a small group of teenagers. An hour later those 3 and 6 of their friends jumped me. I was always very big for my age, and looking back on it, they probably thought I was the same age as them, but at 10 this was a terrifying experience. That is when I started staying at home and eating instead of going out and playing. That fear colored every interaction I had with my peers until college, and reinforced that sneaking suspicion I had that it was just easier to avoid other people..

At 16 I left for College. It was like escaping from prison. I was finally able to really see the people around me and realize that if I offered them warmth and respect, the 9 times out of 10 that was what I was going to get back. That's when I realized that I had a choice about what kind of person I am and how I impact the world.

I am still an introvert. (but not a misanthrope)
I still sit at home and eat too much (working on it)
Consciously or Unconsciously, I still make a choice every day. I try to neither credit nor blame anyone else for the consequences of those choices.
posted by ad hoc at 11:11 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

I was 7. I watched "Somewhere in Time" with my mother, and to this day, my ideal man is tall, dark-haired, blue-eyed, and would literally move time to get to me. (As you can imagine, this has caused some disappointment...)

I was 13. I had my first babysitting job, and I took along a copy of Stephen King's "Pet Semetary" to entertain me after the kids went to sleep. I scared the everliving shit out of myself, but almost 20 years later, my first novel is a southern gothic horror that I hope some kid takes on her first babysitting job with her.
posted by headspace at 11:13 AM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

How thoughtful, the question and lovely answers.

Forty years ago I was six, in a department store with my dad, waiting on my mom. We stood idly watching an unsupervised kid my age kneeling at the bottom of an escalator playing with the moving rail, hand over hand, right near the base where the rail snakes into the structure. My dad said, Kid, get away from there, you're gonna get hurt, and in an instant, the kid's sleeve got caught and his fingers and hand and on up to the elbow were pulled in. My dad raced over, and not knowing where to look for the 'Off' button (no sensors at the time) he strong-armed the mechanical rail with all his might until it stopped! The kid's arm was half up inside, but it wasn't wrenched off his body, which it certainly would have been if my father hadn't stopped the rail. The store manager reversed the thing to release the kid and his purple arm with the shirt sleeve torn away, paramedics came, and my mom finally showed up swinging her shopping bags. After hearing what happened, she dropped the bags and threw her arms around my dad's neck and held on. He picked me up into the hug, and I could feel his arms still shaking from the effort.

I have since always kept a somewhat compulsive eye on other people's unsupervised kids everywhere, think of my father as a real live superhero, and I cannot resist lionhearted men with great arms!
posted by thinkpiece at 11:16 AM on February 2, 2005 [28 favorites]

When I was about 12, a friend of mine set me up with an account on a local public-access bbs. That's where I learned much of what I should have learned in high school: how to write for an audience of strangers and follow an argument, how to find my way around a UNIX system, and also where to buy drugs and how to have safe sex. And I got to eavesdrop on a bunch of geeks in their twenties and thirties as they talked about their jobs and kids, which was just as educational in its own way.

By the time I got to college, I'd spent years doing all my socializing online. My freshman year, I met the president of the Folklore Society, and to my amazement we got along. Even more astonishing, she started taking me to folk dances and I discovered I was good at it. Contra dance was the perfect way to balance out all those years of living in my head and online. I took my first solo road trips to get to dance weekends, and I've met a great many friends (including my current girlfriend) over the years I've been dancing.

Later in my freshman year, I tried to kill myself for the first time. That was life-altering too. I had to start paying attention to myself and my own happiness.
posted by nebulawindphone at 11:29 AM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

I was sexually abused by some older male relatives when I was a little kid (from about 4 to about 8). I was 8, and I was watching the news about the AIDS epidemic, and I heard someone talk about it being a "gay" disease. Not knowing what gay really meant, I found out, and to my horror thought that I was gay and that I might have AIDS too! I remember the constant feeling of dread of holding this inside, and coming to terms with my impending death.

It finally came to a head when I got caught caught cheating on a spelling quiz, and I confessed to everything, including the abuse, that I was "gay," the fact that I was going to die of AIDS anyway, so it didn't really matter if I cheated or not. Needless to say it got lots of people involved, and I was put through lots of counseling.

Turns out that I was not gay and I didn't have AIDS, but it fucked me up for a long time.

My other one isn't such a bummer. I was always a fan of weird music - from metal to industrial to punk - but my whole relationship to music changed the day I first listened to Propaghandi's first album "How to Clean Everything." It was punk - which was fine - but the lyrics somehow changed me. Anti-racist, pro-gay, pro-feminist, pro-animal - it had such a profound influence on the way that I thought about the world and how I acted.
posted by Quartermass at 12:06 PM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

When I was in 3rd grade, my dad was beating the crap out of my mom, I stepped into the room with a baseball bat and threatened to kill him. He started beating the crap out of me and left my mom alone. He never hit her after that and I got in the physical fights with him instead.

I don't regret it. I'm still happy I could take the pain away from her and to me. It made me feel powerful, in control. To this day, I'm more empathetic than a lot of people. And I have a cute little bend in my nose from where it was broken.

When I was in 6th grade, my parents decided to get off drugs, get back together and send me away. They never told me if it was permanent or temporary, whether I would ever see them again, etc. I lived with my aunt and uncle in this sort of "I'm unwanted" limbo until my Ps moved to Chicago a few months later and I moved in with them. I realized what a burden I was on their marriage and developed an extremely skeptical and guarded view of love that remains to this day. I can't respect anyone who loves me in a way that isn't tainted with guarded sarcasm and hostility.

On a happier note, when I was a little kid (1st or 2nd grade), I told my dad I liked cartoons. He sat me down at the art desk and made me storyboard out a cartoon. We shot a cut paper animation. He let me splice the film and record all the sound effects. I've been in love with cartoons ever since.
posted by Gucky at 12:35 PM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

One time when I was 7 or 8 my dad was supposed to pick me up after school. I waited until dark and he never showed up. I knew that he and my mother had forgotten about me. I started walking home when it got dark. While waiting for somebody to come get me I decided that I was alone in the world and couldn't even trust my parents. I've been basically distrustful of people and an introverted loner ever since.
posted by Justin Case at 12:40 PM on February 2, 2005

When I was in fifth grade I read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh. The book is about a young girl who spends her time observing her peers and writing it all down. I began keeping my own book of observations about the goings on around me. Twenty years later I am still writing, but now the words are in your morning newspaper.
posted by haqspan at 12:41 PM on February 2, 2005 [4 favorites]

-I remember playing on the playground at school when I was in second grade. I was usually the last one left at school, waiting for my parents to pick me up. Some years later, while at CCD classes, waiting in the office for my parents I finally waited long enough and walked the 4 miles home. Life altering lesson is to be places when you are expected.

-The times growing up, mowing my grandparents lawn and trimming the hedges during the summer vacations. Life lesson learned was that nothing beats the feeling of a job well done.
posted by brent at 12:49 PM on February 2, 2005

Wow. I've been checking this thread all day and I have to say it's brought tears to my eyes more than once. I think it's a testment to the resiliency of the human spirit that so many of us have turned out as well as we have.
posted by tommasz at 12:52 PM on February 2, 2005

And on the same direction as nebulawindphone, the first time I logged into my local ddial and realized I could converse with people, that people cared what I had to say and that boys could possibly like me, I was totally hooked.

It made me more outgoing in school (I went from painful shy to the varsity speech team), I started dating guys that weren't a-holes (well, computer guy assholes are at least a lot less scary than metalhead a-holes) and I started to appreciate myself as a writer. Even if my bbs poetry was super-painful-bad.

I also smile every time I hear the 300 bps connect noise. There's nothing more soothing in the world.
posted by Gucky at 1:00 PM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

What tommasz said.

I'm still processing the life lessons I had from a difficult childhood - I look forward to seeing what I can learn from my experiences.
posted by Space Kitty at 3:06 PM on February 2, 2005

1. My dad telling me that he had felt, his whole life, that the car accident he'd suffered at the age of 11 had left him brain damaged, left him with less potential than he might've had. I realize that this amazing man, to whom I owe so much, has this immense insecurity about himself. It changed the way I look at people. Made me maybe a little more empathic.

2. Getting my first lead in a play. In the space of a month, I went from friendless teary-eyed nerd girl, sitting alone in a corner of the playground, to flamboyant arts geek, never to return.
posted by stray at 4:30 PM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

I had appendicitis when I was twelve, and self-diagnosed it.
We had an old Merck manual in the house (I was home from school with a bad fever and a horrible ache in my then-extremely tender gut), read over the symptoms and I told my mother, who laughed out loud. To prove me wrong, I think, she and I walked to the doctor's office (just a few doors down, me hunched over in pain).
Dr Hill, an ancient Texan, examined me, looked at my mom, and said, "goddammit, take him to Mercy Hospital."
I had it bad. Not sure how close to peritonitis I was, but it didn't matter.
Taught me never to laugh at what my kids say.
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:35 PM on February 2, 2005 [5 favorites]

..unless it's comedy, of course...
posted by nj_subgenius at 4:36 PM on February 2, 2005

FFF, you have mail at the address in your profile.
posted by deborah at 5:04 PM on February 2, 2005

Sorry to reply so late, but with regard to this:

From the age of 2 to 5-1/2, my parents kept me locked alone in a cage.

SPrintF-Are you serious?

Yes, I'm completely serious, I'm afraid.
posted by SPrintF at 7:07 PM on February 2, 2005

My father was an Episcopal priest, and a very spiritual man. Long story short, for a time in the 80s he was essentially a substitute preacher, driving to small towns in our state when the local priest would be sick or on vacation or somesuch. I would often go with him, getting up at the ass-crack of dawn and driving the one or more hours to get where ever we were going.

There's no time that stands out from the rest, really. It was just a succession of quiet times spent with my father, him contemplating his sermon, me reading, often, and then when we would drive back we would have discussions about theology or history or science.

I'm no longer part of the Episcopal church. I'm a Buddhist now. But much of my spiritual education, and ideas about what is right and wrong, comes from my father, and my time spent with him.

One of my favorite memories of my father, and something that has shaped me for my entire life, follows. When I was around 12 years old, my stepmother caught me reading a Time-Life book on evolution. My stepmother was raised a Baptist, and was a particularly negative and anti-intellectual person. Close-minded, in other words. She freaked. She then took me to my father and said "Are you going to let him read this trash?"

My dad then said "Woman. Listen to me. The bible is not a scientific text. And a book about science is not the bible. Let the boy read his book."

One of the few times my dad stood up to her. It still makes me grin when I think about it.

I studied science in college.
posted by geekhorde at 7:12 PM on February 2, 2005 [12 favorites]

Geez—I came here intending to write something happy and uplifting and light-hearted. I really did have a mostly happy, care-free childhood. But all the stories that come immediately to mind have to do with my older brother’s violence. The one that keeps coming up is when I understood what welts were. I’d seen that word used in various books, but when my brother hit me across the leg with a bamboo fishing rod, I saw a welt rise, right there, on me. It was strangely fascinating. I also remember calling my dad at work that day, and his telling me, basically, that he was too busy to deal with me and my brother.

To all fathers (and mothers) of boys out there—the “boys will be boys” attitude is a terrible, terrible thing for the younger, smaller brother. No, it didn’t toughen me up. It made me into a wimpy, overly-accommodating kid, afraid of all types of confrontation, who decided it was easiest just to avoid other people whenever possible.

I also remember every little detail of the day I realized I was bigger and stronger than my brother. It wasn’t a fight, just a strong, definitive shove, when I was 19, but that ended it.

I went through some therapy. I got better, mostly. Now, 20 years later, my brother and I are starting to be friends.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:35 PM on February 2, 2005 [1 favorite]

I was raped by my babysitter at 4. It went on for some time. He told me that he would kill me and my parents if I ever told, so I never did. As a result, I think I became very good at acting, specifically hiding my real feelings. Later on as a teenager, I was bitter and angry about "not being a virgin" and was quite promiscuous all through school.

Finally in my twenties, I let the anger go. I had a good love life and a great sexual life. At that point I realized that I should take some credit for how I had managed my own mental health. It shocks me to this day how much I was "handling" as a four year old.

On the brighter side, while I was raised with little access to books, it didn't stop me from becoming a voracious reader. As a beginning reader, I read whatever I could find-- not just trashy best sellers and pulp fiction-- but also the encyclopedia, Austen, Dickens, and the Bible. Austen was a tough nut to crack for a little girl, but I made many attempts and finally succeeded in the third grade. Jane Austen turned me into quite the little Anglophile and I started collecting P.G. Wodehouse as a teenager (I have quite a good collection.)

I still read everything, but my heart belongs to the British.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:47 PM on February 2, 2005

I learned to read when I was really small, two or two and a half, and I remember vividly my mom telling me "You don't have to always read out loud -- try reading it inside your head." I didn't leave that little world in my head for a long time. It's still my favorite place, as my apartment full of books can testify to.

And as far as the bad, I was given an IQ test when I was five, to place me in a gifted program. I was told that I wasn't very creative, that I would be better at analytical things. Twenty years later, I'm still trying to prove to myself that I can be a creative person, by writing and knitting and making an artistic life for myself. Maybe it's not so bad -- it's given me an impetus to do something, like write a novel, that I might never have done. It's definitely affected my self esteem, though.

Still hate the fucker who said that to me though. I was a baby! You don't tell children what they can't do with their lives, when it comes to something like that.
posted by sugarfish at 8:00 PM on February 2, 2005 [3 favorites]

I still read everything, but my heart belongs to the British.

In an active day for Metafilter, this is the best thing I have read here all day. Thanks.
posted by Quartermass at 8:06 PM on February 2, 2005

I don't remember any of my childhood. Nothing particularly traumatic caused this, but the general combination of my heavy depression and optimism lead me to only strive for the future. When I had to write "what happened over summer vacation" assignments in grade school, I almost always broke down in tears. The present and past did not exist for me.

For some reason, that changed the winter of my freshman year in high school. My dad happened to be living in Boston for the moment, and he invited us up there for New Years. Boston has an excellent First Night celebration every year, but that year it happened to be below 0 degrees fahrenheit. I was inadequately dressed, but I was not the kind of person to complain. So, my sister, my dad, and I were running around downtown Boston stopping in to see various musical groups and fringe art groups, all of which were totally foreign to me. The hypothermia I was feeling, combined with the new experiences, somehow broke through my filters designed to keep reality out. I was really experiencing things for the first time ever. There was more to life than fitting in your hole and doing things perfectly, there was a world to experience.

That night, capped off with the best fireworks I'd ever seen, changed my life. That night is the first event of my life I can remember. I never cried again when I had to write about myself, for I had finally started to exist as a person.
posted by JZig at 8:13 PM on February 2, 2005 [5 favorites]

SPrintF: Sheeeyit. That's vicious. Can you share more about it? Did you get removed to foster care? Were there consequences for them for what they did? And, most importantly, how on earth did you overcome that sort of start in life?
posted by five fresh fish at 8:18 PM on February 2, 2005

I'd like to thank everyone for sharing so openly. It amazes me. And for anyone feeling a need for a hug, I embrace you strongly and securely. You are loved, just for your being.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:23 PM on February 2, 2005

I remember being kidnapped by my organized-crime-boss-father when I was eight or so, who kept me until he was arrested for murder, a year or so later.

I also remember telling my grade seven guidance counsellor about the kid who beat me up at lunch (I got beat up every lunch, but this was worse than usual, and I was worried he'd actually kill me sometime soon), and my counsellor telling me that we were going to open the door of every classroom in the school, and when we hit the classroom with the kid in it, I'd point him out.

I got scared and backed out, I was terrified of what he'd do when he found out I fingered him. The counsellor grabbed me by my jacket and slammed me into a locker, yelling: "You can spend your whole fucking life letting little fucks beat you up, Jairus, or you can stand up for yourself. Your call."

He walked back to his office, and I spent the greater part of the period leaning against the locker, before I went back to his office and started checking classrooms.

...

There's a lot more, but I don't want to clog up the page.

I really think this thread would make a great start for a website.
posted by Jairus at 8:27 PM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

what a thread this is. and people scoff at the notion that we're a community?

and MrMoonPie, i gave mine a black eye and that stopped it, finally.

mine is kinda semi- and obscurely related to Jairus' first one, but i'm not comfortable talking about it. it totally shaped me tho.
posted by amberglow at 9:07 PM on February 2, 2005

When I was around 6 or 7, I came down (along with my younger sis and brother) with chicken pox, and was therefore confined to bed. My neighbour came over to entertain us, and she read to us stories from various books, and I especially remember the giant book of Ukranian Folktales. She kinda sparked my interest in reading/writing and books are my life support system to this day.
posted by dhruva at 9:11 PM on February 2, 2005

Did you get removed to foster care? Were there consequences for them for what they did?

There were no consequences for them. They were never caught. They had gone to some lengths to ensure that the neighbors were unaware that they had a child. (I left the cage behind at 5-1/2 because that's when I started kindergarten.)

And, most importantly, how on earth did you overcome that sort of start in life?

Once I learned to read, I grew up in the public library, my true home away from home. The friends of my youth, Charlotte, Sherlock Holmes and Bilbo Baggins, were always there to cheer me up.
posted by SPrintF at 9:13 PM on February 2, 2005 [5 favorites]

so many of us (myself included) have used reading and books to get by (or to escape into)--it's heartening in a way.
posted by amberglow at 9:29 PM on February 2, 2005

many, many thanks to everyone who's shared here.
posted by equipoise at 9:42 PM on February 2, 2005

It's been a privilege to read so many thoughtful, brave, and heartfelt answers.

deborah, I just wanted to say that in other comments you've made in the past, I've admired your kind heart. You made that choice for yourself, and you should be proud of it.

SPrintF, too...I had a childhood nothing like yours, but there was cruelty and chaos in it, and books taught me a different way to live and think, and were a refuge (as amberglow says). I respect you more than I can say.

SLoG, I've always liked what you've written here, and now I know the root: my heart belongs to the British too.

The hell with it: I'm just going the fff route and hugging everyone in the dang thread.

jeremias, from another thread (started by fff, actually) that also may prove useful to you, this is mine.
posted by melissa may at 9:48 PM on February 2, 2005

All day I tried to think of some moments that truly shaped me and weren't merely traumatic, and I think I finally locked in on a couple.

- Every year, I spent a week at my grandparents' house (both sets of them, a week at a time) and I think I was about 8 when I discovered their full set of outdated late 60s encyclopedias. I was dubbed a "gifted" child and school bored me to tears but I never liked to read because my mom forced it on me.

But those encyclopedias were amazing and I couldn't put them down. I spent the entire week indoors browsing them all from beginning to end and would return to them whenever I'd visit again (we only lived an hour away so I saw them monthly or so). It showed me a whole entire world beyond the concrete jungle of southern california and I've enjoyed travel and reading about exotic things ever since. Those encyclopedias are why I started liking elementary school again and why I went to college and specifically why I went on to grad school for a masters, since I didn't feel as if I knew as much as what was in those books when I got my bachelors degree.

- I was about 12, was hanging out with a friend that suddenly developed a GI Joe streak. I was never into fighting or army junk or aggressive stuff in general but his new found love of all things military manifested in a lot of weird ways. We rode our bikes across the street to the big municipal park with the huge lake (I now know how lucky I was as a kid, though I had no idea then) and I don't know why but when we found a bunch of trash along the trashy side of the lake, he started throwing empty beer bottles high into the shallow lake, and we could hear them crashing below. We kept this up happily for about 5 minutes until someone behind us yelled, telling us to stop.

It was a city cop, who happened to be walking around the lake on a patrol. I was young enough to be totally terrified and he went on to explain how all those broken bottles weren't just a trash nusance we helped make worse, but that it make the lake dangerous for all the ducks there. It sounds kind of corny now, but I learned what empathy was for the first time in my life because I felt like absolute shit at that moment, and from that point forward I never picked on weaker kids and became insanely protective of animals.

A few years ago I was near a duck pond with some 14 year old cousins that thought it was a hoot to throw rocks at the ducks and when I went apshit telling them to stop immediately, they didn't understand why it was wrong or why they should stop. I guess it was too late for them, as they've turned into thugish asshole young men since then.
posted by mathowie at 11:01 PM on February 2, 2005 [2 favorites]

Its my birthday today, so this is an oddly retrospective comment for me.

When I was a kid my two older sisters used to fight with me a lot (to be fair sometimes I would gang up with one of them against the other). A few times my sisters would hurt me in ways that wouldn't show obvious marks but nonetheless were quite painful. I feel an occassional dark streak towards woman (that fortunately is completely inside my head) that I'm almost certain stems from this.

Just a little over a year ago, one of my best friends died of leptospirosis. I had taken him hiking in an area where he had very likely picked up the infection. [As an aside, if you visit Hawaii and do any swimming/hiking in wet or muddy areas, get informed about lepto] I don't feel any residual guilt over his death, but I do know that my focus on getting things from life has completely changed since then.

Aside from getting attacked by my sisters until I was big enough to fend for myself, I had a great childhood. I agree with the earlier comments about having an enriching environment.
posted by onalark at 11:43 PM on February 2, 2005

Age 10, I was dragged to the Tate and saw Lichtenstein's "Wham". As a little kid it just blew my mind that this could be art, this could be art that is hanging in a major museum. I really think that without that moment I'd be quite a different man than I am today. A man I suspect the real me wouldn't particularly want to know.

Well, because of that and randomly seeing Bruce La Bruce's Hustler White much later on in life.
posted by aspo at 11:53 PM on February 2, 2005

There were two things, I think, both when I was fairly young:

1. I was in 2nd grade when my grandmother was over at our house teaching me how to cook lefse, the Norwegian potato pancake. She was sort of talking about what they used to eat growing up and began telling me a story about how when she was little, during the depression, she and her sisters snuck around and stole food from other families and she wished she hadn't done that. I began thinking about more and more things I did that way - if I'm 70 years old, will I have wished I did this?

2. My mom told me I had a twin who died. After that I never really thought about my parents or the way they think about me the same way. I think about it a lot.
posted by milkrate at 12:26 AM on February 3, 2005

The depressing: In high school, I had my one and only 'suicide attempt' - in retrospect, it was lame, and all it did was make me feel dazed and groggy the next day at school, like I was trapped in a slow motion sequence in a film.

It turned out that that next day was the day of the Challenger explosion. I sat in gym, on the sidelines because I was sick, and thought that if I had succeeded, I would have missed this momentous (and tragic) event. Since then, when I've felt in 'trouble', I've seeked out professional help.

The enlightening: Freshman year in college, I take one of those computer job aptitude tests. It coughed up three results: TV Producer, Novelist, and Roman Catholic Nun. Being a struggling Chemistry major at the time, I thought this one of the most asinine tests I had ever come across.

Well, I have since graduated with a BA in Communication Arts - Radio, TV, and Film, currently work as a Software Tester on a home media entertainment application, am seriously working on my first novel in my spare time, and a few years ago, converted to Roman Catholicism and became confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church. Where my spiritual advisor declared that I would make an incredible nun, and that I should seriously consider it.
posted by spinifex23 at 12:27 AM on February 3, 2005 [2 favorites]

So. When I was 13, I was living life locked up in juvie for no reason other than that my father could not deal with having a queer son. Shrinks came, I talked. I learned to converse well (I didn't get along with the other boys, no surprise) with adults.

Depression and anxiety and who knows what creeped into my soul, but I realized this. I saw myself going down. I talked about it to everyone. It only got worse and nothing changed, until one day yet another shrink came.

I didn't like this shrink. I didn't like his looks or his name. So I read him the riot act. I told him I would no longer speak to any shrinks as long as I reamined locked up. I didn't belong there and they either knew it, or weren't worth speaking to anyway. Told him I was being driven crazy, and they knew that, too, or were no good.

It wasn't long and I was out. Mind, at that time, I didn't know it was my father behind the lock-up. No one explained that 'til I started asking questions when I turned 18. I got out, back home to a bad place.

But I learned to take charge of my life! I learned in the next couple years that I couldn't raise myself, and my parents were worthless too. So I got out and found a man that gave a damn, who influenced me in an intelectual way. Made ALL the difference to the rest of my life.
posted by Goofyy at 5:25 AM on February 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

Generalized fear. At school we had bomb drills and hid under our desks, heads down. The nightly news was all about Vietnam and protests. More locally, the news was about the Zodiac Killer and riots in Watts. Basically, the world seemed pretty unsafe to me, and even though I lived in a cookiecutter suburb in Northern California I figured it was only a matter of time before the bad news I absorbed in front of the television each night was going to be outside my door. And it was: I had a couple of babysitters who really ought to have been locked up--one woman who used to hit me for asking "why?" (I learned to say "how come?") and one teenage male who tiptoed into my room at night until I told my parents not to hire him anymore. I absorbed these things as children do--that is, with no larger context and no ability to depersonalize. It never occurred to me to ask for reassurance or to tell my parents about the babysitters--I assumed the Zodiac Killer was right around the corner and that the actions of my babysitters were my fault.

Books saved me. I was the difficult kid in the family, the "underachiever" in school and mostly invisible to peers, but I did have one known talent: Reading. I read a lot. Reading was my drug and it probably saved me from over-experimentation with other drugs as I got older. Reading allowed me a glimpse of other worlds and other ways of living. Reading helped me to put my own experiences into that larger context children lack. As I got older and realized that adults were not always in the right I became a little obsessed with fairness and honesty. This did not endear me to others, but it is a quality I value in myself.

Another important piece of my childhood was my grandparents. I spent a lot of time with them on their ranch out in the country. Every day was the same: breakfast, riding the ranch with my grandfather to check the irrigation gates and the cattle, a large mid-day dinner, quiet time with books, some sort of craft with my grandmother, a light supper and then cuddling on the couch with them to watch Bonanza or Lawrence Welk (I never mentioned how lame I thought those shows were, I was too happy). Mostly, they thought I was the best thing ever and they made sure I knew it. Every child should have a set of adults like that in their lives.

Of course there are lots of other experiences and defining moments... but I think those early years really did shape how I coped with everything after.
posted by idest at 7:17 AM on February 3, 2005

Thank you, melissa may. I don't get many "atta girl's" and you've made my day.

A good thing I should have mentioned as others have: books. I was in 2nd grade and read On the Banks of Plum Creek. I, of course, was reading before then but that book hooked me. I read the whole series and have been a reading fiend since. Books were the one saving grace while growing up. When things were especially horrible they were always an escape - I could be anywhere but here.

Hugs all around, especially to SprintF.
posted by deborah at 8:21 AM on February 3, 2005

E'er since getting help for my lifelong depression, I've remained extremely aware of how lucky I am. I have a woman who loves me, I have more than adequate food and shelter, I have several very close friends who if push came to shove would likely go to the ends of the earth for me, I (now) have supportive parents who try hard to respect my decisions, I live in a peaceful country with endless opportunity, and I really did have a good childhood compared to so many others.

These stories serve to remind me that all problems and limitations in my life are solely my own creation, and are miniscule in comparison to the challenges faced by so many others.

Truly, I am blessed.

I suspect I have experienced a defining moment this past month or two: I helped place a homeless/disadvantaged guy in my friend's boarding house, convincing him that if he made a go of it, he would be able to create the safe, supportive environment he needs to stabilize and empower his life. I encouraged him to get a compatible friend into the second bedroom, and vetted a third fellow for the third bedroom. I have been involved in supporting them in cleaning it up, setting goals, etcetera. I think I've actually made a big difference in few lives... quite possibly their own defining moments.

The experience has blown me away. I am now transitioning from my paid work to volunteer service with the local social support programs. I've suddenly realized that I've always been happiest playing a behind-the-scenes, supportive role in helping others achieve their goals. I've suddenly realized that I actually do like people. It's all quite the revelation for a guy who has spent the past twenty years more or less in his own world, working in isolation and generally despising most people for behaviours that seem so stupid and malicious most of the time.

Compared to so many others, I've had all the breaks and all the advantages. It's now time to give back.

I think I've finally found myself.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:50 AM on February 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

First post: After lurking for quite a while, this thread made me decide to finally get a login so I could post to AskMe. Thanks, everyone, for sharing so honestly. A few of my experiences:

- Sometime around age 5, standing at the corner of a busy intersection, waiting for the light to change. Two people were having a really bad argument in a car. I realized they would continue arguing when the light changed and they drove away: the world does not revolve around me.

- Junior high gym class, a friend debated me every day about the death penalty (at the time, I was pro-). After some months of her intelligently and thoughtfully challenging me, I changed my mind. It was the first time I rationally thought out what had been a knee-jerk reaction. More importantly, I found out that I enjoy being able to change my mind on significant issues.

- Age 20. My boyfriend's dad died in a car accident, and I had to find him to give him the news. I realized how fragile everything was, and decided it wasn't worth staying mad at my dad for the mistakes he may have made raising me. I vowed to get to know him as a person, and more importantly, let him get to know me. Our relationship has been a lot better since then, and I've let go of a lot of the sadness I carried from childhood.
posted by j3s at 8:58 AM on February 3, 2005 [1 favorite]

-I read Be True To Your School by Bob Greene when I was in junior high. After reading the entries about his job at the Columbus newspaper, I knew I wanted to work in journalism.

-In ninth grade, a guy in my French class who was friends with a guy I had a raging crush on at the time invited me to his Jayteens chapter pizza party, and mentioned that the other guy was going to be there. I went to the party and ended up joining the chapter, as did my friends who came with me and this other guy. If I hadn't joined Jayteens, I don't think I'd have considered joining the Jaycees when I moved back to my hometown after leaving college the first time...and Jaycees really has changed my life in many ways, mostly for the better. : )
The guy I had a crush on and I never got together...I got over my crush a few months later that year, but he and I became friends and we still are friends to this day. (He was my dog's vet for a while, actually, until he changed clinics)

Looking back, the first time I feel like I consciously chose what direction my life was going to take was when I chose a college.
posted by SisterHavana at 9:37 AM on February 3, 2005

the first time I read Peanuts, when I was about five
posted by matteo at 9:47 AM on February 3, 2005

When I was eight, I was in the kitchen getting a carving knife to cut up some food. My Dad started to say something, stopped himself, then said, "I was about to say 'Be careful or you'll cut yourself,' but my own father used to do that to me and all it did was make me nervous. Haul out that knife and chop away!"

It was good to be trusted like that. Children are generally more competent than adults realize.
posted by mono blanco at 8:14 PM on February 3, 2005 [4 favorites]

Hi.

The short and easy answer would be the death of my father when I was five.

The better answer would be the time when I was probably 12, at a church father/son event of some sort, with a neighbor. I won the door prize -- for the third year in a row. It struck me that the contest was rigged, and I was being given some consideration for the fact that my father was dead. I decided to not let on that I had figured this out.

There were many adults I knew as a child who, in a quiet way, tried to help me out in whatever ways they could. I doubt I was ever grateful enough at the time, but as an adult and a father, their efforts, even the feeble and transparent ones, are always on my mind, and I do believe that I have a responsibility to do the same for the kids I know.
posted by roger at 9:12 PM on February 3, 2005 [3 favorites]

I went to a military school, and was the small skinny smart kid who didn't fit in. And my parents went through a bitter divorce for most of my childhood, making me generally afraid of relationships.

So I remember a girl named Gail, who was two years older than me, and beautiful in an unassuming dark-haired kind of way, and friends with much cooler people than I was.

I don't remember how we came to be standing on the front steps of the school together--just passing by and saying hello, I think. But as she turned to walk off, she stopped and looked at me intently, and said, "You know, you have really nice eyes."

I was 13. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me. I would give almost anything to find her now, and tell her how much that meant.
posted by Polonius at 10:50 PM on February 3, 2005

Hard to pick a defining moment, and not so momentous as some here, but for what it's worth, this seems to fit this thread...

I was about 14 and deeply in awe of a girl in the same class at school. I thought she was so hot, in that way that only hormone-driven boys at around that age understand. I wasn't considered especially datable however, and knew it, so it took me quite a while to finally pluck up the courage to ask her out. I remember feeling very pleased with myself when she agreed.

On the way home from the cinema, waiting at the bus-stop, we were chatting about our families; childhood experiences, how well we got on with our parents, or not, comparing teenager notes, getting to know each other better kind of stuff. I thought things were going great. We seemed to be getting along just fine. She went on to tell me how much she admired her father, what a great guy she thought he was, how dedicated he was to his beliefs, how she wished she could do more to help him. I asked her more and it turned out he was a local organizer for the National Front. For those that don't know - far right, fascist, racist, violent, niche political party in the UK at the time.

In what seemed like an instant, the object of my affections turned into someone I really didn't want to be around and all I could think about was escaping. That evening I learned that being in lust isn't being in love.


(An all-time-great Ask MeFi thread. Big thanks to all.)
posted by normy at 1:07 AM on February 4, 2005 [8 favorites]

Here are a couple:

During the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I gained some weight sitting around and making my first webpage (another formative experience!). My mom approached me about the issue, made it feel less like something I should be ashamed of and more like a health issue, and I started exercising and losing the weight. A year or so later, I had returned to a more healthy size. One day, walking through the kitchen, my dad looked me up and down and said "Wow, Bridget, beneath all that weight there's a pretty girl!" and in one moment destroyed the healthy attitude my mom had tried to give me. My little mind swum with all the implications of what he had said - My mom hadn't mentioned anything at all about my not being pretty! I didn't know I had to be pretty for my dad to show me a moment's worth of genuine affection! Maybe that's how it is with all men!

I think part of the reason this had such a disproportionate effect on me can be traced back to another moment, this time when I was about 5 or 6. I had been reading these Classics For Kids books nonstop, staying up all night to read, and one day my dad was busy doing something and I was trying to tell him all about the book I was reading. He got fed up with me and said "Goddamnit, not everything in life is about books and school!" Since then, my achievements have been mostly academic and because of this comment (well, and his continuing inability to even appear sincerely proud of me for anything that he doesn't relate to directly), I don't feel like he relates to me at all. I feel like he was prouder the day I first smoked pot than the day I got into college. Looking back over the past couple of years, I'm pretty sure I've been subconsciously striving for my dad's attention, love, and respect my whole life, leaving me in a kind of double-bind where my interests don't reward me psychologically as much as earning his symbolic "respect" does.

But I've gotten past a lot of that because when my parents divorced, everyone else in my family cut ties with my father and I felt too terrible to let him go without any family at all to show for 25 years of marriage and fatherhood. So my dad and I still talk and I try to relate as best I can while still retaining my identity. It is hard sometimes, and he still makes a bunch of weight-related comments to this day, making it harder to get past those issues, but I feel some strange confidence in the role reversal, of being someone he needs (and who is there for him) rather than being someone who needs him.

And while it's been said before, thanks and kudos to everyone opening up in this thread. This is a fantastic reminder of why I love the internet in general and mefi in particular.
posted by pikachulolita at 1:46 AM on February 4, 2005 [1 favorite]

I was somewhere between 5 and 7 and I was driving with my father. For some reason he was ranting and raving about some woman he had to deal with who happened to be black. A thought popped into my head. "If women aren't as good as men, and whites are better than blacks, then black women must be the worst people on earth." I felt ashamed for thinking it. Intensely ashamed. The thought felt dirty in my head and I didn't like it one bit.

In hindsight that moment feels like it was the first time I had a real thought of my own. I think it was at this point that I started to reject the "values" my parents were teaching me.
posted by pookzilla at 6:40 AM on February 4, 2005 [2 favorites]

I think there have been a lot of defining moments, and it is odd to choose one that happened mere months ago...but it speaks to the always maleable nature of each of us:

After work one day this past November, I visited my father who lay dying of cancer in a room at a hospice care center. I knew he wasn't well, and during recent visits I had noticed with fear how pain and medication had made him less and less lucid, but as I enter the room and saw him lying on his side seemingly sleepy with heavy, rasping breaths, it was like a punch to the gut. Thiinking about it now makes me light headed. I sat at his bedside, holding his unresponsive hand, listening as he made murmuring noises as if in a fevered dream. Dr. Phil played meaninglessly in the background. I wiped the spittle from the side of his mouth, kissed him on the forehead, and left. He died probably an hour after I left.

That day and the months leading up to it were really a tragedy beyond compare to me, but, in the end, two things came out of it: it really brought my family together, but more importantly, it felt like the first time I had felt anything for a long...long time. Like when you have a horrible head cold and it breaks and you feel that clear, cool air rush in.
posted by tpl1212 at