Tell us about your past!

Well my three strongest and best memories have been my three trips

1) Family Trip around the West Coast of Australia and down the centre of Aus

This was really fun, and still to this day we have fun filled conversations about the poem that my sis made up, the HUGE spider on my dad's back, the time my dad kicked in a dunny door cos my sis was scared cos there was a hunstman, circumnavigatin (i think thats the right word) around Uluru....Funniest memory (well its funny now, not then) was when i fell out of a cravan...

Okay to do this justice, i have to let you know the Routine...Basically everyone had their own job to do when setting up the caravan site...Me and Bec's job was to unload the caravan and set up for dinner. Jen's job was to hook the cover over the caravan to underneath the caravan so it didnt blow up with the wind or anything...So after ive done my job, i go to read on the bed...I roll over, and suddenly im halfway out of the caravan; my top half clawing away at the matress trying to get a hold on the sheet so i dont fall out completely, while my legs are kicking like mad, trying to get a hold of something...It may be important to note here that i was 7 at the time, and i thought the distance between the caravan adn the ground waslike 10 metre....so i was screaming for help, and what do my family do?...stand outside and crack themselves laughing!....eventually i got down, and its one of the things we still laugh about today

2) My school trip around Europe

The school organised a trip for 32 students and 4 teachers to go on a trip from Turkey, to Italy, to France and England...and luckily i was oneof the 32 students...YAY...I had a great time...all of my friends were there, and i saw some amazing stuff, for a full story of what happened (or at least up to about Rome i think, i did a few blogs on it a while back)

3) Kairos

this is like a religious retreat run by the school, but the most memorable moment was in my small group consisting of me Sam Cass Emily and Ash (Ash is one of my quasi-semi-ex-best-friends) and the final night we have a BIG D&M meeting...I basically admitted that i felt invisible at school, that i had no friends, that i was gay, and then i burst out crying for about 15 mintues....it was really good, cos after that we had a big discussion for about 1/2 hour about me being gay and stuff, and later Ash was telling me that she had no idea about any of that stuff (apart from the gay part) and that she was really sad that ihadnt been able to come to her to talk about it

After that, life really turned around...now i have a GREAT group of friends (well at least some of them, some are a bit bitchy, but oh well) and i dont feel lonely or invisible at school anymore...YAY

 

Rather than doing a big copy-and-paste job, here's my live and coming out story on my website http://www.paul-uk.me.uk/pages/coming-out-story/part-1.php

 

OK, you just asked for it.

Years ago, when I was still a toddler, I was dignosed with an Aspurgers Syndrom. Since I was slightly off, I was placed in another class. I didnt learn how to speek properly till I was, I think, 8. Back then, though, I really didnt even know better. I was just happy to be with my family, being my Mother, Father and Brother. Father was a heavy drinker, and that soon led to the davorce. I dont see him anymore. Around 2 years after the davorce, Mother was arested for useing a void Credit Card. No legal Guardian avalible, My brother and I where put into a foster home. Steven (thats my Bro's name) Was a good kid, and he helped me up when I got pelted with tomatos on Cristmas. However, when we moved to the second foster home (well, technicly a farm), He changed dramaticly. There was a horse ranch next door, and a gate to keep them in. My brother dared me to touch the fence for some candy. I thought for a moment, and figured that if the hourses where touching the fence and where just fine, I'd be ok. I didnt know back then that a horse could take more of a shock from, say, an electric fence then a mear child could. Shocking, isnt it? (and the worst part is I never got the candy.) A few months later, The foster Father said that We where moveing to another home where the family didnt understand English (the only language I knew...and know), and would beat us. I was scared the whole car ride untill I saw my mother's face. I was over joyed. Of corse, Steven learned new tricks, such as when I was takeing a shower, he turned off the cold water and turned on the hot water. I almost got 2nd dagree burns. ...Well, after that, all we did was move from home to home and Steven calmed down to be just plain anoying after he stuck a penut in my ear at the landry mat (i was deaf in that ear for 2 weeks). ...Well, thats me in a nut shell up till now.

 

Hmmm when i was 7 or 8 my 13 yr old cuzin taught me a "game" which was to suck his penis and my mom and dad never talked about sex so i didnt know it was bad nor did i know of porn anything like that. He said that if i didnt suck he he would tell on me so i did then from then when i was 10 or 11 me and my friend messed around and did oral and then last year he started to act bad and he was sent away and thats me up till now. =D

 

When I was baby, everytime I cried, my parent brought me out to the yard and let me lay there for the rest of the day on the chair, and because of that, the sun kilkled my eyes,because of the ultra violet. So I had to do surgery, and now each of my eye has a scar on it, you problaly dont see it but if you look closer, it's there, and I had to wear glasses, which i really hate

When I was 4 , it was the 1st time I drank beer, and that night was so awful, I threw up alot.

And at the age of 7, I experieneced teh 1st sexual ativity

In my past, my family has moved from place to place, I have attended 3 school in elementary, 2 school in middle, and I came here 4 years ago

My dad used to beat me with a stick when I made a mistake, there was a tiem he slapped me so hard that I bounced to the wall, ands my nose bleeded all that night. And since then, my nose bleeded almost everyday, not sure because of that or because of blodd cancer, but it really scared me

My parents got devorced 3 years ago, and my mom said she'll never return to this house agaian, back at that time, I had to struggle with everything, and I got no one to talk to, and I had to get over things myself.

 

OMG, wow. I really admire the people on this thread who have had to summon up a lot of courage to talk about their less-than-perfect childhoods. It must've taken a lot of strength and determination to endure and overcome such abuse and neglect. (*hug*) (*hug*)

My early childhood was generally very lonely. Our family moved around quite a bit and I was, and still am, treated as the black sheep. Not sure why. I think the only people in my family whom I have a very close relationship with are my sister and my cousin. But I didn't let this fact affect my extremely high self-esteem and confidence levels and as soon as I started school I made quite a few friends, most of which I still have today. So I guess everything worked out fine for me.

 

Nothing much to tell. I'm an only child and I was never treated badly or any stuff like that.

I'm away at school now, but we live in quite a big, old house which is like nearly 300 years old. It was a bit scary when I was young, coz there's parts that not used.

My mum and dad were away overseas a lot when I was young and my nanny looked after me until I was sent away to school. My dad died five years ago, but even when he was alive I only ever saw him and my mum for like about one hour every day when they were in the UK.

Most of the time I only saw nanny and the household staff and it was mega boring, so I was happy when I went to school. I'm ashamed to admit it, but my nanny tells me I was this weird little kid who used to read a lot and had imaginary friends, LOL! :badgrin:

I had this real friend who was a very old lady who lived not far from us in Kent. She knew me from the time I was born and she was like a grandma to me. I used to spend my school holidays with her. But she died over a year ago, and I miss her a lot.

Oh well, that's it, just about nothing interesting has happened to me, except maybe last year, when my uncle took me with him on this big trip to loads of countries. It was awesome! (!)

 

uhmm ok when i was 7 years old i was intived to have sex with a kid my age i think he was older like 8 but we ended up have sex behind a shed in my private christan school. the fence was one of those wire fences and just out side of it was a busy road and the daycare manager saw us and we both got kicked out of the school.

Then i got fat at arounf 10ish and realized i was gay but i kept it a big secret and at 11-12 i went through 6th grade. it was the worst part of my life becuase i was constantly made fun of all my friends left me and i was alone so i started cutting my self esteem was seriously low. then my mother went insane and is still mentally unstable. i ended up meeting a verry beautiful girl named casey [who is still my best friend now] whos personality i fell in love with. she was almost axacty like me in the way we acted. Soo me being still confused i thought i loved her so i asked her out and me being very unattractive at this point she said no of course. but this was becuase we were such good friends.and she didn't want to ruin it. i took this the wrong way and thought was because i was ugly and stuff. then casey comes to me with a problem o hers [she is bisexual] and had a crush on another friend of ours [becky] and becky has had a huge crush on her from the start. so i told becky that casey was bi and and then casey came to me the next couple of days later saying she wasn't bi . so i tell becky.. and becky took this extreamly hard and contemplated suicide after being heartbroken lke that. once i found out about it i called her and stayed up all night with her on the phone and tried to keep her from doing anything terrible to herself. the next day we all go back to school after all that drama to more drama. some random girl [katelyn simpkins #1 fake bitch of seventh grade] started crying in class and told the teacher what had happened with becky and we all get called down in to the office and casey was crying her eyes out and i'm there like.... "Wha?" so we walk into the clinic and the nurse sends us to a differnt room...[ i think it was a old bathroom that had a wheelchair in it] so i wiped caseys eyes and we walked into the mystery room and there becky was and katelyn getting up right as we walk in to go hug becky. so we both sit down accross from each other and look at eachother while katelyn is crying. [trying to get attention] so we talked and becky should us her arms were she had screwed up with a razor the night before. then katelyn tried to make it all about her again and i sat in the wheel chair and spun around in circles [ i was bored] then after all the drama ended there we went to our classes and then like a few months later we were all friends again and spend more time playing around like we usally did and then i somehow got a crush on the now ugly guy named jake. we had a really close realationship but its gone now. we don't even look at eachother anymore. soo later on during the year i got a eating dissorder and gained confidence with every pound i lost. then we all go into eighth grade. me becky and casey all still best friends and stuff find out when have no classes together. >< except for me and becky we had science together witch was fun. i thought i was bi at this time and still liked jake and casey >< the biggest mistakes ever... so i thought till i became friends with casey ex-boyfriend danny....i'll make it simple he just sucks. hmmm


blah blah blah..... one day i got so tired of likeing casey i told her something fucked up and we stoped being friends for like 2 days... casey cried the entire first day like from her first class till her last. we talked once on the second day and i made her laugh then we made up and then...... me and misty became friends and we made up a book to right in and kep our random thoughts in it and so we did i put in there... " i can't stop thinkingabout jake" somehow jake got it and read that and he was like is patirck gay? and we never talked again.... and then casey took the book and kept it..[ still under her bed as you read this] and i made alot of new friends accepted being gay but kept it a secret.....[more drama] ....then somemore and then


summer...

*sigh*

[predicts more drama]

 

ah-hem. now it's my turn.

my childhood was not perfect.

like for example, when i was forced to do things with a 16 year old couisn which i didn't want to do.( yes, i was forced.) hide mostly everything from my family, but one of these days, who knows........

During middle school, i thought i was at my peak. everyone knew me as the smartest kid. and it felt great. but then i realized i was gay, and that kinda brought me down until later.

I moved from Mexico, and am one day moving back.
looking forward to it too.

I wish I changed some things back then...

 

Like most of us here, my childhood was not perfect.
It also wasn't a terrible experience.

When I was 4 my daddy had a stroke. For the next 5 years we lived in his hospitals and nursing homes. When I was 9, he died, and that closed that chapter of my life.

Around the time I was 7 I started making friends with the kids in my neighborhood. Before that, I only had one friend, his name was Christopher. All of my happy memories until I was 10 involve Christopher. We did EVERYTHING together. His family was my family.
I eventually met Juan and Jennifer, around 8 or 9. We began hanging out alot and being really good friends. Alot of happy memories I have with them. We were just kids. Christopher moved, we got into an argument, and I'll continue on him later in the chapter.

Until around 7th grade when things started to sour.
Jennifer began to dip into the pot scene and Juan followed her because he fell in love with her. I felt distant from them. Around this time I also was hiding my sexuality and not really liking it alot. I got quite depressed. Around this time I hit what I'd call my 'rock bottom'. Not the worst it could have been but the worst it ever was. Then my life turned around. I began to accept myself, stop my self-destruction, and be happy again. I had Juan and Jennifer back for a while and we had another happy year.

That summer they started to get back into the drug scene. I refused to follow. I'd known how hard habits are to break (I won't call it an addiction, I hate the word) but I grieved the loss of them. It was really hard for me, and I cried for months.
A little while after I'd begun to heal from it, they came back to me.

At present I'm distancing myself from them once more. Jennifer is becoming addicted and Juan is following. I've lost most of my respect for both of them and I'm dealing with the loss of them.

I miss Christopher every day and wish he'd find me, since I can't find him successfully.

I really did enjoy my childhood. I lived it well and have alot of happy memories which will stay with me for all of my life. I cherish my childhood memories more than anything in my life.

This sounds depressing, but I'm actually quite happy with my life. I've been very vague in my details here, simply because I don't like discussing the dark matters in my past. They're destructive forces and I don't like inviting them back into me.
It took me to get to the very bottom to turn my life around and live it happily. It sounds really cliche, but it took alot of self-hatred, cowardice, and passiveness and turn me into the strong, independent, proud, opinionated, driven person I feel I am today. I know I will succeed in my life, and I really credit the hardships I've endured for it. I gained a ton of confidence. I am NEVER ashamed with myself or my opinions. I stand up for what I believe and refuse to cave. I really like myself, and I carry myself in that manner. It makes a world of difference.

I am a different person and I've locked away the old me.

I want to use these qualities to improve the world.

 

My childhood was ok. It was not great but it was ok.
My dad had a very bad temper and would yell a lot. Most of my early memories of him are him yelling at me. He would sometimes yell at me to stop crying. It did not quite work. as a reasult we are not very close. As a kid I was smart so I was put in advanced math. I started realizing I was gay around like 4th or 5th grade. 7th grade was just a bad year for me. I was in two advanced classes and I was working very hard to keep up, I was having trouble accepting I was gay, my friends where fighting a lot and I was always the ref, plus I was on meds that caused depression as a side affect. That was the low point of my life, but I bounced back and I am a beter person because of it.
I am also well traveled for my age. I have been to Paris, Rome, Venice and Florence. I have also been to the Domincan Republic but I had a nasty parasailing accident = ( I have also been all over the US. I came out like a week ago too. My mom and sister are supportive. My dad is ok with it. He is not happy with it and we are less close then ever. Well thats my life so far ^_^ If you actually read this you rock!!!!

 

My childhood up to the age of ten is a part of my life I miss a lot. I was too naive and ignorant to recognize my parents' faults, so I didn't hate them. I have a lot of good memories from that time... we always had good neighbors, and usually there were at least a few kids my age on my street, so I have many good memories of playing with friends. That was all before I lost my faith so I actually enjoyed church, and I have a lot of good memories of time spent with friends from church and sunday school teachers and pastors and the like. There was this hill right next to the church with a tree on it, and our parents would often stay late after church and talk so my best friend and I would often sit out there and talk and play.

We used to visit my grandparents a lot more often back then, and they were the best. They would feed us candy, let us eat peanut butter out of the jar, let us jump on the bed, let us play with their prysms, and let us light and blow out candles repeatedly until the apartment was filled with smoke. My grandma made the best mashed potatoes. They would take us everywhere and do all sorts of things with us. They had this couch bed which we slept on when we stayed the night, and in the morning when they folded it up they would do so with us still in it and make "sandwiches" out of us, which we thought was the coolest thing ever. They always had coloring books, bubbles, and all sorts of neat things.

When we started homeschooling we met a couple other homeschooling families with kids me and my brother's age, and we played all the time. There were six of us who would generally hang out - me and my brother, two brothers from one family, and two brothers from another family - and we had so much fun. We would stay up late and play Monopoly, or we would play video games or play outside... we often played this game in which we pretended to be Mario characters (I of course always had to be Princess Peach, being the only girl) and that was a lot of fun.

When I was ten we moved... there were a few kids my age in the neighborhood for the first couple of years, but eventually everyone moved away and since we didn't go to school, I didn't meet people so I didn't really have any friends. That was the point when I really started burying myself in fiction more than ever, started writing in earnest, started letting the worlds and characters in my head take the place of friends.

When I was eleven I got my first horse. She was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and since I didn't really have any friends at that point she became my best friend. I have so many memories of her... one time when I was riding her bareback I fell off because I wasn't very good at riding bareback yet, and when I fell I hurt my leg really badly and couldn't get up. She came back and stood by me with her nose by my face and stayed with me until I could get up... and then she let me pull myself up on her and use her as a crutch to walk back to the barn. I was rather surprised, as I hadn't expected her to really care enough to come back and stand by me, but she must have realized I was hurt.

When I was thirteen I lost my first horse. She was injured and had to be put down. My depression had started getting worse when I was twelve and my horse had been a huge help to me through it, but when she died I became more depressed than ever before. Until that point she had been my whole world, my whole reason for living, and now all that was gone. It was a very difficult time, but I managed to get through it, and become a stronger person.

When I was fifteen I reached my lowest point. Between not having any friends that I felt I could trust besides online and having to deal with my parents, I became extremely depressed and was almost constantly suicidal for a year. I developed many, many problems that year, many of which I still deal with. It was also the year I lost my faith, which was a very difficult, turbulent time for me. I buried myself in music to deal with everything, and discovered several of the bands that have literally saved my life when I was at my darkest points... or, to phrase it more accurately, helped me save my own life.

When I was sixteen I discovered that a few of my friends were much better friends than I had ever thought they were. I started to open up a little bit, and established a friendship with one of the people I've known most of my life (one of the homeschool kids I mentioned earlier) but was never really close with. I healed a lot during that time.

And that pretty much brings me to the present. I had another long bout with depression a little while ago, but it seems to have passed for now, and I feel I'm stronger than ever. While there are many, many, many things in my past I regret, many things I look back and hate, in all honesty I don't think I would change anything if I had the chance. If I had not had to deal with the depression I dealt with, if I had not had to suffer through being constantly supressed by my parents, if I had not had to feel loss as close as I have, I would not be the person I am now. As much as I sometimes hate my past, it made me so much stronger than I ever would have been if I hadn't gone through it... and gave me a purpose and mission, to help others dealing with depression and similar issues... which I probably would not have such a passion for had I not experienced it first hand as I have.

 

I had a wonderful childhood up until I was 8, I had the picture perfect family (for the most part) We didn't have much money, but my dad only worked 4 days a week, and my mom worked at home, so we had lots of family time. We had a big yard, two great dogs, and I had one brother. School was good, and I really had nothing to complain about.

Then all hell broke loose, my dad who was a police officer, and my brother were both killed, 10 days after my 8th birthday. This changed everything for me and my mom. We were alone, depressed, broke and in shock. Ever since then has been a battle up hill, and while life has returned to normal for the most part, I still think of that day, the last tings I did with my brother, and dad, and it has taught me to not take things for granted. However with friends I have been able to continue, happily. The last two years have been wonderful, especially since I have found Tyler, who I plan to spend the rest of my life with. He is there for me whenever I need him.

Life is not always good, you will do things you wish you have not done, and loose people that mean a lot to you, but if you stay strong, follow your dreams, and find support in people that love you, everything will be fine.

 

Some of you had very tough childhood's. I hope you can think of some good memories while thinking of all the bad stuff too.

I had two parents with very different parenting styles. My dad was very strict and my mom was this calm peaceful person who read to us, talked to us, and was very patient. The only time she really lost it with me was when she had got a slip in the mail from school saying I had skipped over 100 times. Oops.... She slapped me across the face. It was a psychology class and I hated the teacher. He was very mean and liked to humiliate people in class. I wish I would of had the confidence to just tell my mom that I needed to switch classes but instead I just skipped every day.

My favorite memories are times when we slept out in the yard because it was too hot to sleep indoors. My parents would sleep outside with us. We did lots of camping trips which were fun until I was a teenager and my Dad MADE me go. We camped at Walton Lake which was a small lake with a trail around it so we would ride our bikes around that trail numerous times. Then when the trip was over, we would ride our bikes down the mountain which was 7 miles. My Dad had 13 brothers and sisters so I had numerous cousins which we did things with. When my grandmother passed away a couple years ago, one of my cousins' was invited to do the eulogy. He talked about memories that I remember vividly and some I had forgotton. My cousin (Rick, he was my age) thought it would be a good idea to jump off my Grandmother's garage onto an old seat out of a car that was below. All my boy cousins did it. I had to be urged. When I finally did it, it resulted in a broken arm. That was not the only time I broke bones when my cousin Rick was involved. We were playing on a merry go round once. He was making it go really fast. I fell off and broke my arm. I was roller skating on two different occassions with Rick and broke arms. He was an accomplice to four different broken arms and I still chose to play with him. What was I thinkin'?

We had great holiday get-togethers. We played baseball, hunted Easter Eggs in my uncles field (sometimes my uncles would put them under cowpies), and had the best water fights.

One time we went on a family vacation to Canada and my Dad thought it would be wise to race a trucker on a very winding country road. As a parent looking back, that wasn't so wise but when I was a kid, oh my gosh. That was alot of fun! My Dad always picked up hitchhikers too. Scary!

One of my best memories was when my Dad adopted a family for Christmas that was struggling. They had four children. We picked out gifts for them and invited them over on Christmas Eve to open them. I was way more excited to see them open their gifts than I was to open my own. I actually remember things we bought for them but I don't remember hardly any of my own gifts that I got growing up.

My favorite color is purple and has always been purple. Well one time I went away to 6th grade outdoor camp and when I got home, my mom had bought me new furniture, painted my room purple and had bought new bedding and curtains. I absolutely loved it and was so surprised.

I am grateful for having had a really great childhood.

 

I grew up in a kind of depressing neighborhood. I say depressing 'cause it was full of old people, so, there were lots of nurses going around. 'Cause of that, I grew up alone. No friends to have, and when some of the "kids" (more like teens) tried to tag me alone, my over-protective mother wouldn't let me out of the house, so I hated living there. My only friends were my family, I never knew what it was like to stay over at someone's house for a sleepover, being invited to join them for a party or just going to the beach. In school I never had any friends, maybe 'cause I was too shy, or they just didn't like me, I just think the worst part 'cause I've always been hard on myself.

I was the smart kid in school, and no one liked me 'cause of that, they thought it wasn't fair that I was so smart and younger than them (I skipped a grade, kinder btw, and yeah, they did tell me that part). So I hated school. Just recently, it was that they kinda started to accept me, but still, they didn't really care about me.

Their comments were really hard on me. Since I was the chubby kid, they would insult me, hit me with basketballs in PE and all of that. No one ever liked me, when I walked down the halls I would hear people making fun of me, saying I was ugly, making fun of my hair, my face, etc. They would use any excuse to insult me, so that was kinda harsh.

I just hated myself and the way I was. To this day I still think that I'm the ugly fat kid that no one would ever like.

I kinda fell into depression during those years of school, I would have suicidal thoughts, just thinking that if I wasn't here, everything would just go away. I starved myself to lose weight 'cause I was tired of being insulted because of my weight, etc. I don't see myself in any positive way, I always think people are judging me even if they're only looking at me, I believe people think I'm ugly, I'm a loner, I hate being social, basically everything negative.

To this day, I still hate myself, I still feel alone, eventhough I have a family that cares about me, I still starve myself or just barely eat and go hours without eating anything else.

Oh, and to top it all off dealing with all the sexual orientation thing, well, that's just the icing on the top.

I used to like girls, maybe cause I thought it was the right thing to do, but when I got to about the 7th or 8th grade I started to care less about 'em and just like boys. I would supress any feelings and keep them hidden and just feel even worse about myself. Just about 2 months ago I realized what I was, but still don't feel comfortable with anything.