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People Reflect On Their Most F**ked Up Memories From Childhood

Reddit user Specific_Dimension77 asked: 'What’s something f*cked up you witnessed during your childhood, but didn’t realize the severity of until you were older?'

Little girl looking out a window
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Memory can be a funny thing.

There are some memories in which every moment will remain completely vivid in our minds for the rest of our lives.

Others we might remember the context and moments from, but find ourselves a bit hazy on some specifics and details.

Some people have memories like that from their childhood, where they weren't exactly sure what they were remembering.

With a little time, as well as some context from others, discovering what these memories were is sometimes a very rude awakening indeed.

As the only way to describe these particular memories could be "F*cked up."

Redditor Specific_Dimension77 was curious to hear from people with memories from childhood which they learned in adulthood were a bit more unsettling than they realized, leading them to ask:

"What’s something f*cked up you witnessed during your childhood, but didn’t realize the severity of until you were older?"

Unknowingly Complicit...

"My dad and I used to play 'Spaceship”'and to get the spaceship started, I’d have to blow into a tube to hear the electronic beep."

"It was his DUI test to start the car before they started putting cameras in the cars."

"Glad he’s sober these days."- Expensive_Change_893

"Pretty sure when I was 7 I was an accomplice to robbery."

"I was supposed to stay the night at my friend's house."

"Her parents said we're stopping to look at a house real quick."

"I didn't think anything of the adults all black outfits."

"They were still professional."

"I did think it was odd that they had me go through the bathroom window to unlock the door, but they said the realtor forgot to give them the key."

"This was such a beautiful, wealthy home."

"They didn't take anything large, but I did notice the mom leaving with a lot more jewelry on the she came in with."

"She said she left it last time they were there."- prettylittlepastry

Sometimes Its A Blessing When A Memory Gets Foggy

"I was sitting on the couch at 5 yo when my parents started arguing and my mom threw a red book at my dad."

"Just thought it was a fight."

"Turns out it was their pre-divorce fight after my dad caught her cheating."

"Didn’t learn about the cheating until I was 16 and only recently learned it was a brick that she threw at him."- missybeputtinitdown

"To Err Is Human, To forgive Is Divine."

"One of the times my dad left he would send me beautiful letters with the envelope decorated in different cartoons and cute drawings."

"I was maybe 9 at the time and clueless."

"A few years later I realized he would decorate the envelopes to take attention away from the red 'inmate mail' stamp on it."- Smolbeanis

Sense Memory

"When I was about 12, me and dad were walking the dog, when we saw a huge fire at a house at the end of our street."

"My dad was a fireman at the time, so his first reaction was to sprint towards it."

"Naturally, I followed him."

"A crowd of people had gathered around a bus shelter nearby, so I went to see what was happening."

"On the ground was a kid from my school, I think he was 2 or 3 years below me."

"I'll never forget how badly his face and hands were burnt."

"The skin was a strange mixture of charred flesh and fresh blood."

"I just froze for what felt like an eternity before my dad found me and sent me home whilst he stayed to help."

"The kid survived, but it was years before I saw him again."

"He was horribly disfigured as a result."

"I don't think about it much, but every summer we have a barbeque, and the smell of the coals takes me right back to that evening."- Full-Cardiologist233

Privilege Check

"When I was a kid, we took a family trip to Las Vegas and stayed at Circus Circus."

"My mom wanted to get a magnet or souvenir from Caesar’s Palace, so we parked somewhere and went inside."

"I wanna say we might have parked in an area reserved for staff?"

"Or it could’ve been for guests/visitors."

"That part is very fuzzy."

"My parents didn’t care regardless and had never been there."

"When we were walking back to the car and over a sewer grate (the kind with slots) I sneezed."

"A gruff, male voice from below in the sewer said 'bless you!'"

"Being an innocent kid, I said thanks as my parents hurried my brother and I into the rental car."

"Years later as an adult, I watched a documentary about homeless people who live in the Las Vegas sewers."

"In it when they’re inside one of the sewer tunnels, their guide pointed up at a sewer grate above them and said 'you see this?'"

"'This is the parking lot of Caesar’s Palace'.”

"That whole realization that I was there as a kid gave me whiplash."- snickerdoodle_bandit

The Truth Can Really Hurt

'My seventh grade English teacher accidentally gave me a document he had written."

"It was on an old floppy disc he assumed was blank."

"It described how he volunteered with an humanitarian group in the 70's that traveled through impoverished countries and provided free vasectomies."

"They eventually trained him how to do it, and he would do them, even though he had no real medical training."

"This is not even the messed up part."

"He goes on to explain that he decides that he wanted a vasectomy and to do it himself. He then described in very graphic detail how he did it to himself."

"He even said the date, like March 1st, 1981, or something like that."

"He described in detail cutting through things, and how rubbery it felt."

"Again, not the f*cked up part."

"I thought the story was hilarious because he wrote scrotum so many times, and I was a seventh grader."

"Well, I spread the story around to my friends."

"It eventually spread to a parent, that shared it with the school."

"His wife who was also a teacher there, promptly quit."

"Their son who was younger than me, born in the 90's, also left the school."

"He kept his job."

"What I figured out much later was that his wife had cheated on him and had gotten pregnant, but pretended like it was his."

"The f*cked up part is that he obviously knew she cheated, but never told her."

"He had raised the boy as his own son."

"Once she realized he was sterile, and he's known the entire time, she left him and took the kid."

"Had I not shared that story, that kid could have lived his entire life without knowing, and that family could have stayed together."- fredsam25

The Things People Do For Money

"I was sledding with a friend and saw smoke on the horizon."

'His mom came and picked us up."

"It was my 3rd-floor apartment on fire with my mom and grandma (and others) outside in the cold."

"Everyone got out safely, but we couldn't find our cat (until later)."

"My computer and Star Wars collection among so many other things were destroyed."

"We still have the photos."

"Found out later, unknown to her, my mom's BF owned the building and had the dumb a$ manager wack a pipe so he could get the insurance $$."

"My mother has been somewhat of a hoarder since."- determinedforce

Not Trusting Others Cause No One Could Trust Him...

"My parents divorced when I was 3 because my father got another woman pregnant."

"When I was 6, my father took me and my two older sisters (10 and 15 at the time) to 'donate blood'."

"Decades later I’m talking to my mom about it and she reveals it was a paternity test, as my father didn’t believe I was his daughter."

"Test proved I was in fact his."

"Probably should have realized sooner that a 6 is a bit young to be donating blood."- miss-quiche-lorraine·

Some might say these poor people would be better off if they didn't know the truth.

But facing the truth and confronting our demons is sometimes the only way we can move on with our lives.

Even if the memories will never stop haunting us.


People Confess The Real Reason They Never Went To Their Class Reunion

"Reddit user Throwyz asked: 'People who never went to their class reunions, why?'"

A group of graduating friends throw their caps in the air
Photo by Pang Yuhao

In movies and television, school reunions look like tons of fun.

Everybody attends and hilarity ensues.

But in real life, there is a lot of mystery surrounding these events.

Who plans them?

Who pays for them?

Why would anyone really go?

After decades start to pass, these people are really just strangers.

And it's also proof of aging.

Who needs other old people wandering around reminding you you're old?

Redditor Throwyz wanted to know why people chose to skip school reunions, so they asked:

"People who never went to their class reunions, why?"

My high school reunion was ok.

The sexy guys were still handsome.

That was all I cared about.

Who Cares

I Dont Care Shrug GIF by Puss In BootsGiphy

"I don’t care about the people I went to school with."

SnooLemons5609

"Same. Who cares. I stayed in touch with those I cared about. The end."

TinyNightLight

A Selective Process

"I keep in touch with the people from high school I want to keep in touch with. No need to go to a mediocre event and be judged by the others."

Leeser

"Living in the age of Facebook everyone I care about from high school knows what's going on in their lives already. Anyone I actually want to interact with I already do."

mousicle

The In-Crowd

"Didn't want to be there as a kid, so had no desire to return."

MahStonks

"This is the answer. I've skipped all of my class reunions and never regretted it."

"But one of my friends decided to go to a class reunion a few years back. He said it was amazing (or scary if you will) how quickly old group dynamics re-emerged, even 30-plus years later."

"The guys and gals who made up the 'in-crowd' back around 1988/89 had mainly peaked at 16. Everyone acted much more mature, obviously, but he said the whole affair got really cliquey really quick. Like I said, I never regretted not going."

Fresh-Hedgehog1895

Not Welcome

"First of all, I wasn’t invited. I’m still as invisible to them as I was back then. Second of all, f**k those clowns."

Sweet_Platypus4981

"LOL, me too. I wasn't invited to the five-year reunion, and I still lived in the same town! I randomly worked with an old classmate, and she told me that the official list had me under 'could not find.' It was just so hilariously petty. I considered writing a note to suggest that they simply consult the local directory for my name but decided I didn't care enough."

ChangeTheFocus

Peaks and Lows

I Know Right Mean Girls GIF by filmeditorGiphy

"I feel like reunions are for all the popular kids who peaked in high school who want to return to either gloat about how successful they are or to relive the 'good old days' if they weren’t."

ScoutJulep

The popular kids always have to show up and show out.

Even when their lives fall apart.

Irrelevant

Romy And Micheles High School Reunion Interview GIFGiphy

"Are class reunions a thing in the time of social media? We can find out everything we want from everyone we ever met should we choose to do so."

Lumpy-pad

Forget Them

"I stay in touch with my best buddies from high school and university, don't care enough about anyone else to make the effort of traveling for a reunion."

Bu**holeQuiver

"This indeed. Half of this thread is people going 'f**k those guys.' I literally don't care. Hope they're doing well in a general sense but if I wanted a follow-up, I would've gone after it sooner. I can't be ar*ed."

Hotemetoot

"Exactly the same reason for me. If I was still local, I probably would have gone, but it was not worth traveling almost 1000 miles round trip."

SharksFan1

Nightmares

"I was bullied, had my property vandalized repeatedly and permanently (my car was keyed to sh*t more than once), got in fights, had inappropriate comments made by teachers. Why the actual f**k would I travel out of state and pay hundreds of dollars for a ticket to be surrounded by those memories?"

Chaotic-NTRL

Didn't Know Most Of Them Then

"I graduated with 450 people and I didn’t even know most of them then. I personally think class reunions are for people who want to brag about how much money they have or how great their kids are. Show off the new plastic surgery. Why the f**k would I go to something like that? Later losers!"

lunalovegood17

Never Look Back

"I hated HS, couldn't wait to get out, hated where I grew up, felt like a caged animal, and my life only got better after leaving there. Didn't look back and didn't want to look back. Now 55 and retired with lots of good years in front of me."

Important_Outcome_67

"This is relatable. Plus, I already know how all of those people from high school are doing-- they're all wasting away their lives in a shitty small town, still living out the same drama from 12 years ago. And I'd rather not hear all about their latest MLM bullsh**t. Enjoy your retirement!!"

Think_Doughnut628

The Quest

"Millennial here graduated from HS in the mid-to-late 00s."

"I'm still close with a core group of friends from HS. Those I'm not friends with, but still cordial acquaintances with, I keep up with through Facebook, which I'm slowly trying to remove from my life aside from my Quest 2 and looking at cat pics and vids on Instagram."

"I wasn't very popular in high school. I have some great friends from then, but I was also relentlessly bullied. Seeing as I can keep up with the positive parts of my life from then via just talking to my friends, why go back to the people who bullied me? I don't think about them anymore, I'd rather live my life without communicating with them."

tacobelmont

Decades Past

Aging Matt Damon GIFGiphy

"I haven’t spoken to a single person from my high school class in over 20 years. I never really liked many of them back then so I’m damn sure not wasting time going to a reunion. Also I never even got an invite."

Technick83

As time passes, you care less.

Wish others well, but you don't have to know them forever.

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