When/how was your innocent view of the world destroyed?

[meltdown75]

i can't quite say for certain when or how. lots of turbulent rough times due to family dysfunction as a kid.

 

[Zee]

elementary school, when a bunch of shit was stolen

 

[Lola]

When I was 7, my parents got a divorce. The divorce was not very bad, but still was extremely hard on myself and brother.

 

[hiromizu]

Was at a sleep over when I saw my best friend's parents dressing up as santa and wrapping up presents. Man that was a spocker.

 

[meltdown75]

Originally posted by: Lola
When I was 7, my parents got a divorce. The divorce was not very bad, but still was extremely hard on myself and brother.

divorces are hard on kids.

my parents separated, got back together, and then separated again for good. then my Mom married an abusive alcoholic (RIP) while my Dad had several relationships (most of the women had kids as well - ugh) and finally got remarried.

good times, good times

 

[jjones]

The summer I was 15 when my father put his foot down to my mother and insisted that his son would not be entering high school while still breast feeding.

I miss those funbags, mom.

 

[Ryan]

Your innocence was my ignorance, and still is!

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: FallenHero
Grandparents dying to a drunk driver 2 days before my 10th birthday. That birthday was attending a funeral service.

ugh...

You are a police officer now right? How do you restrain yourself from just beating the shit out of any drunk driver you pull over on the road?

 

[Joemonkey]

Oh, to add to the thread...

My dad had always been a little racist towards blacks, not necessarily to the point of using the N word but just little things. In 2nd grade my best friend was a black kid, which annoyed my dad enough to the point he wasn't allowed over to our house to play because "he would probably steal stuff." When you are that young (unless you have been raised to BE a racist) you really don't care about skin color, and I didn't understand why he based behavior on skin color. One day I brought some transformers into school, and after recess they were missing from my desk. I told the teacher and she made everyone show what was in their desk and turns out my "best friend" had stolen them. All kinds of weird thoughts went through my head that day, that my best friend would steal from me, that my dad had been "right" and that I had never dealt with being someone to stereotype another (hell i was in 2nd grade). After that incident it was very hard for me to trust ANYONE, regardless of skin color.

 

[Vonkhan]

My first time cheating on my then, now ex, gf (high school sweetheart)

 

[wwswimming]

between the time a retired professor friend loaned me a few hundred
history books and i found out that real history is A/ fascinating and
B/ grim, in some case.

and when i had LASIK eye surgery & met a few hundred other people
who had bad outcomes from same & it became obvious that some American
doctors will, in fact, lie & knowingly hurt patients, if it will help them become wealthy.

& then came 9-11.

 

[Homerboy]

Originally posted by: Locut0s
Can't ever remember such a defining moment to tell you the truth. Though spoiled as a kid, single child, I was never raised with that magical bubble feeling that some kids have and that bursts one day. I was raised an atheist, never really believed in magic, mysticism and the like. It's not like my parents raised me with a bleak world-view or anything they simply never went out of their way to put the blinders on. I can remember one day as a young kid near Christmas coming into my parents bedroom and asking "Santa Clause doesn't exist does he"? To which he answered no. I always knew somehow.

Sounds like a fun childhood!

 

[ggnl]

I don't think there was ever one big event for me. More like a gradual descent from ignorant bliss to cold reality with a bunch of shitty milestones along the way.

When my parents divorced. When I started to realize my family was poorer that most of the other kids I went to school with. The first time I got dumped. When I started to realize that both my parents are racists. The second time I got dumped. And on and on and on...

 

[Xavier434]

When I started posting in ATOT.

Ok, seriously, somewhere around the time that I realized a lot of people do a lot of things that I disagree with and justify doing so through their religion. I don't think I ever really believed in a magical innocent world though. It just got less and less innocent over time and to a degree it still does even today which is quite upsetting considering I am approaching 30. Makes me wonder if that trend will ever stop. I continue to remain optimistic though and cannot say that I am unhappy.

 

[videogames101]

9/11


I was 9 and that pretty much destroyed my happy view of the world.

 

[darkxshade]

I think it was today after reading this thread... I'm 27

 

[TehMac]

Originally posted by: Locut0s
Can't ever remember such a defining moment to tell you the truth. Though spoiled as a kid, single child, I was never raised with that magical bubble feeling that some kids have and that bursts one day. I was raised an atheist, never really believed in magic, mysticism and the like. It's not like my parents raised me with a bleak world-view or anything they simply never went out of their way to put the blinders on. I can remember one day as a young kid near Christmas coming into my parents bedroom and asking "Santa Clause doesn't exist does he"? To which he answered no. I always knew somehow.

You know all of life's mysteries now.

 

[tboo]

I remember watching the neighbor girl taking a dump outside on a rock & then licking one of her turds when I was about 10. Life has never been the same since then.

 

[effowe]

I was 15 when all this happened. My dad had a heart attack (survived), then my parents divorced, and I moved into a new house with the guy my mom was having an affair with. That pretty much sealed the deal.

 

[xanis]

Probably 9/11. I was 12 at the time and I remember being at school and seeing all of the teachers visibly upset but refusing to tell us what was wrong. I got off of the bus that day and saw all of these parents (my mom included) just standing outside waiting for their kids... I got home and saw everything unfolding on the news... I think it was at that point reality kind of set in.

 

[CrazyLazy]

Middle school it was totally broken and gone, but it was a gradual process starting in elementary school. There is no one defining moment, more just getting outside the sheltered world offered by my parents/family.

 

[Jeff7181]

In 3rd grade one of my classmates had a skin condition that caused her hands to be very dry and crack and bleed. She had special lotion for them. It had acted up one day apparently and her hands were extra dry and cracking, I commented on how gross and disgusting her hands looked and she started to cry and ran to the bathroom. It was then that I realized what I do effects other people and what they do effects me. I felt horrible about it but quickly forgot about it. We went to different middle schools, then I saw her again in high school and immediately remembered that incident in 3rd grade and felt the urge to apologize to her. I'm 27 now and if I saw her again I'd probably still have an urge to apologize for that.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: JEDI
i was 10 when 9/11 happened. people jumping from the towers at 100 stories up :Q
i was actually ok w/that. seen buildings collapse many times in the movies.

but innocence was lost when i saw the aftermath pics of their bodies. or rather their body parts. (think throwing tomato against the wall.) gives another meaning to terminal velocity

I was 13 when it happened and I certainly knew bad things could happen at that point - my mom had come to my school (I didn't know anything that was happening) and told me my dad was okay. Really confused the hell out of me and kind of scared me. When I got home, I saw the tv on and saw what happened and the connections all snapped into place - knowing that bad things can happen in the world, but it just hit so much closer to home than anything else could have. My dad worked in the WTC before 1993 and from '93 on, he was working across the street, so he would get off at the subway stop under the WTC (which he was under after the first plane had hit, walked to another subway station underground and got above ground just in time to see the 2nd plane hit).

 

[preslove]

I remember once incident where my parents were yelling at each other outside while I peaked through the blinds.

 

[xanis]

Originally posted by: Brainonska511

Originally posted by: JEDI
i was 10 when 9/11 happened. people jumping from the towers at 100 stories up :Q
i was actually ok w/that. seen buildings collapse many times in the movies.

but innocence was lost when i saw the aftermath pics of their bodies. or rather their body parts. (think throwing tomato against the wall.) gives another meaning to terminal velocity

I was 13 when it happened and I certainly knew bad things could happen at that point - my mom had come to my school (I didn't know anything that was happening) and told me my dad was okay. Really confused the hell out of me and kind of scared me. When I got home, I saw the tv on and saw what happened and the connections all snapped into place - knowing that bad things can happen in the world, but it just hit so much closer to home than anything else could have. My dad worked in the WTC before 1993 and from '93 on, he was working across the street, so he would get off at the subway stop under the WTC (which he was under after the first plane had hit, walked to another subway station underground and got above ground just in time to see the 2nd plane hit).

At the time my cousin worked for the Wall Street Journal. On 9/11 he took a day off and decided to work from home. Had he decided to go in to work that day, he would have been killed, as the WSJ office where he worked was totally destroyed. My cousin is like the older brother I never had. The fact that he could have been killed also brought some reality home.