Pre-9/11 airport travel
Every time I’m at the airport, I’m haunted by the memory of how it it was. We really fucked up. For something as important as public transportation, we really screwed up by sacrificing privacy for the fake feeling of security.
And it’s just theater. They aren’t catching more people because there aren’t more people trying to do things. Instead we make old ladies in wheelchairs take off their diapers for inspection (true story) pat ourselves on the back, and pray to NIMBY Jesus.
My wheelchair bound ex wife was “randomly” pulled out of line at 2 airports during the same flight at the start and during a transfer. They made her stand up so they could pat her down. I almost became a felon that day.
In 2017 there was an undercover test of how effective TSA is.
About 80% made it through, and apparently that was an improvement compared to 2015.
At one point in 7th grade I was hospitalized and put into a psych institution for mental health and poor school attendance. Because I was so young i was dropped into a place that was more of a prison/juvie instead of a hospital/treatment facility, and the staff reflected that. They were pretty insensitive and said things that most people would shake off but would be crushing to somebody extremely depressed. For example I said I was sad and wanted to talk to somebody, I was told to journal and bring it back to discuss it. After showing them my journal the first thing they said is “what is this? Chicken scratch?”. Again for context this was to a depressed, 12 year old boy whose parents, family and home were being torn apart by a vicious divorce.
That’s not even the worst of it, just an example of those who worked there. The real haunting experience happened like this.
They would let the kids play outside as a break and would pat them down and use a metal detector when reentering the building to make sure they didn’t sneak anything inside. This one employee decided to play a trick on me. He scanned my back where I couldn’t see and suddenly the detector beeped. He started getting angry saying “Yo what is this, what you got here?”. He told me to take off my jacket. It beeped again as he scanned a second time.
After that he started threatening and accusing me. Saying things like “what the hell are you tryna pull dude” “have you ever been put down before?” “You seriously tryna get detained dude?”. I was mortified because I had no idea what was happening and I thought these guys were gonna crush me, because another staff member playing along started cracking his knuckles and his neck while staring threateningly at me. As I started to break down crying and sobbing the guy, no shit, pulled a “just a prank bro” and told me “I was just playing damn, why you getting so worked up?”
Some of the other kids that were used to this (they were pretty similar to the staff) told them off saying that was fucked up.
This was all about 6 years ago but I am still mortified by metal detectors body scanners and general security procedures.
Damn what country is this? Can’t be the USA cause we don’t have mental health care.
Sorry…you did not deserve this friend
USA lmao. New England specifically, which actually has very good healthcare and is arguably the most developed region of the US .
Cool that’s awesome that you have good healthcare in New England.
There is good health care, and New England does have top tier care.
If you can afford it.
It doesn’t sound like OP had access to that kind of health care.
Haha my parents were actually rich and we lived in a really rich town, the hospital was horrifically mismanaged, frankly most of the children’s psychiatric hospitals were horrifically mismanaged and caught up in some form of bureaucracy.
A girl I met told me that at another hospital they threatened to withdraw her medication if she told anyone about a certain event that happened. Additionally if a kid was ever detained the staff would make all the other kids watch. She was also SA’d by another kid and they didn’t care.
If you are ever a parent and you child needs mental health treatment DIG DEEP. It’s seriously important they aren’t sent to these “sick jails” that will fuck them up even more.
Anyway my psycho parents got caught up in a brutal divorce and lost much of their fortunes. You reap what you sow I suppose.
You’re utterly naive. I don’t want to be mean but this is what we want as a country. Guess you never noticed before.
I’m not sure what you’re saying.
I think they’re saying the US wants freedom, including the freedom to be exploited and not even get healthcare for it.
Yeah I don’t know. Everywhere I’ve lived in the US you couldn’t even get institutionalized in a shitty facility unless you have insurance that will cover it or money to pay for it. They send people who need mental help out into the population because they are poor. Kids with emotional problems get ignored and shoot up their schools. But what do I know, I’m utterly naive.
About 20 years ago, while we waited at a red light, my wife and I saw a kid chase after his skateboard into an intersection. The oncoming traffic was coming over a blind hill. The driver didn’t have a chance to react.
The kid didn’t die, but the scene was horrific. It took me many days before I could fall asleep without seeing it in my mind, and to this day it stays with me.
That poor kid.
A panic attack I had about 5 years ago. I was walking to my car and just froze once I was about 30 ft away. I couldn’t move, I was just freaking out. Had to call my dad to come get me and physically help me walk to the car then drive me home.
Never been so terrified in my life, and I wasn’t in any danger. I was left genuinely traumatised by that 20 or so minutes that I was waiting for my dad.
I’ve always got panic attacks but that particular one was so bad that I’ve struggled to recover from it. I’m still suffering from some agoraphobia as a result.
Having my virginity taken from me by force. Almost 20 years ago but fuck that guy. So much counseling and it’s impacted every aspect of my life and he’ll never know how much it affected me. He probably doesn’t even remember.
(.づ◡﹏◡)づ.
Hug for you
I’m sorry that happened to you. I’ve seen the bad effects of SA on a friend of mine and it breaks my heart very much. Hope you’re in a better place today 🌹
So if you were to, hypothetically, hit him with a pipe he wouldn’t immediately think of you as the culprit, interesting…
When I had just started driving, I was heading home from something one day and was turning left at an intersection. An ambulance pulled up in the cross traffic with the siren on. My light was green and I had just started to pull into the intersection when this happened. I stopped, thinking the ambulance was gonna keep going, except they also stopped. I got confused, panicked, and floored it. They almost hit me as I cut right in front of their path. I freaked the fuck out and pulled into a parking lot to calm down, feeling like a dumbass. Years later and I still freak out when I hear sirens near me on the road thinking I’m gonna fuck up again somehow.
I’ve had something really similar. They were coming from my right side, turning left (so back the way I was coming from) and I was already in the intersection waiting for the path to clear. A few cars going straight just went through but then the ambulance waited for a period that was long enough I wondered if they were waiting for me to clear out of their path. It wasn’t a near collision but I got the honk siren when I actually did get in their path.
Or another time I got confused pulling up to a red light because the car ahead of me ran the red as it changed but I didn’t see the change, just the red that he ran. No one else was going and I thought “oh shit, the light isn’t working and they are waiting for me to go” and turned left right as the intersection started going.
Thinking about it outside the moment, I know that people would be honking or waving if they were waiting on me. Also that even if someone is waiting on me, it doesn’t mean it’s time to panic accelerate. It’s not the end of the world if you annoy someone. Which is how both of those ended up turning out, I just annoyed some people, no accidents, tickets, or road rage, hopefully I’ve learned from those (haven’t been in that situation since, so who knows at this point), but there’s no point in dwelling on them.
When I was a kid, I always had this weird recurring hallucination where I would be transported in front of a wooden door. In this weird state, I am still somewhat aware of my surroundings since I know where I am in reality and I still can hear the muffled voices of the people around me but time would dilate as if I was in slow motion and my vision would gradually zoom towards the door knob . So slow in fact, that I would usually snap out of it before reaching it, but sometimes I would and the door would open itself, revealing some kind of library full of bookshelves. In it’s center, lies floating above the brown floor, a giant spinning hourglass. Afterwards, I always felt a strange dizziness that made the world around me rotate.
A bird walked in the path of my bicycle at the last minute 😭
Getting raped by the friend of my (much older) boyfriend when I was 15 years old. I can pretty much point most of the shit that happened in my life later down the line back to that in some way or another.
Not finishing school with my friends, eating disorder, bad health because of eating disorder and alcohol abuse, abusive relationships, mental health issues, anger, loneliness, …
It’s a perpetual circle of problems making more problems when you somehow were unlucky to be the victim of a violent crime.
That’s so shity. I’m so sorry you had to ensure that. I dont know what else to say but fuck that guy! I admire your courage in sharing and hope things are going better. I guess I just want you to know that your being listened to.
Finding my husband after he passed away in his sleep. He was 56 and had a bad heart, but this was still unexpected and awful. It’s been six years and I still struggle with intrusive flashbacks of the scene, though not as frequently as in the beginning.
Person self immolated in front of on campus and I felt the heat of the fireball. Then he rolled around on the ground screaming while someone tried spraying him with water, which has the same effect as with grease fire in the kitchen.
That’s terrible.
Everyone is being very serious.
When I got my first smartphone, circa 2009, I left it on the toilet paper holder in the employee bathroom at my work. I didn’t realize I had lost it until I went to clock out and my boss handed it to me and laughed at me for taking a shit on the clock.
The worst part is, I didn’t even use the toilet; I went in there to adjust my pants and redo my belt, and I took my phone and my wallet out of my pockets and set them down on the nearest surface.
I’ll never forget my boss’s face when he called me out. He was a nice guy, but it was super embarrassing.
He called you out for using the bathroom while on the clock? What line of work were you in?
Toilet salesman?
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The NLRB protects your right to shit on company time. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Unless it’s Jeff Bezos, then you’re fucked.
Joyriding as a teenager.
9/11
Honestly, none.
Between the random wildlife encounters from living in Australia, to nearly being by lightning, the teen/young adult “cringe” stuff, and high risk work of working on radio towers. None of it haunts me.
