Your story

Sweet or Sour · Post by **Sweet or Sour** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 1:39 am

Normally I do not post things about myself, so if this gets suddenly deleted, it means I have come to my senses. At the moment though, my mind is unraveled, my world in disarray, and I do not recognize myself as the weight of the situation at hand has smashed flat what little structure holds my already fragile persona in form, as tonight I come out to my family [as several of you have already been informed through private messages, as I was asking questions previously]. I have the sense that the bullet that is to kill me has already been fired, and now I need merely wait patiently for its arrival, but this inevitability I have accepted, and am prepared for. In any sense, regardless of outcome, this is to be a moment that will forever change me, and do so in a most drastic way, and while I could continue to hide, or I could run from this, I am choosing instead to go through with it. Life is full of these pivots of decision, and some decisions are certainly easier to make than others, where life presents you with a dark path that you cannot see into, or the choice of continuing along the road that has already been well explored by both yourself and nearly everyone else who has ever walked this path before you. The defining decisions that require a leap into the void, with little more than the hope of reemergence.

What is a moment that has defined you, a moment that you thrust upon yourself, that involved a decision you did not have to make. Some risk you took [or are planning to take] with the hope of bettering yourself, without certainty of the outcome.

… And for those who have walked the path that I am to soon walk, what are your stories?

Hopefully by the end of this I will have returned to some form of normality. [and this was the stress that was alluded to in the stress purge thread, for those of you who expressed concern, thinking I was going mad.] It is likely though that upon returning to normal, I will regain some of my reclusiveness. In all honesty though, I'm expecting this to be a rough road.

Awkwardschoolgirl · Post by **Awkwardschoolgirl** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 5:48 am

Right now all I can say is I hope it goes well, and you're a very, very strong person to do this. I send you a billion huggles and pats on the back and kisses and ummm pats on the bum. You rock, and I'm proud of you.

Wilmo · Post by **Wilmo** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:57 am

awkwardschoolgirl wrote:Right now all I can say is I hope it goes well, and you're a very, very strong person to do this. I send you a billion huggles and pats on the back and kisses and ummm pats on the bum. You rock, and I'm proud of you.

yes, hang in there. After all the crazy/insane stuff goes down, and the dust settles; life will go on.

Sweet or Sour · Post by **Sweet or Sour** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 2:21 pm

My delete button isn't working since there have been replies.

In any case, while the support is appreciated, I do not expect pity or unnecessary concern, the reason for the post is more for others to share the defining and drastic decisions that have shaped them into who they are, while describing the decision that I am on the verge of making, which will most certainly fit this criteria. Joining the military? Choosing to adopt? ect...

The events that presented you with the opportunity to make this decision, and the events involved in making it.

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 5:34 pm

I have had several of what I might see as watershed or breakthrough or somewhat defining moments.

One story I've told here before is of the first time I saw someone pointing a gun at me. It was a criminal in a military helicopter hangar. I came around the nose of the chopper, and he said "Freeze!" or "Don't move!" ...or "Rumplestiltskin!", for all I remember, to be honest.

My choice, which had to be made in a hearbeat, was to either surrender, or stand defiant... Fight back in some way. I said, in a measured, even, confidant (I hoped) tone "If you shoot me with that, I will kill you." as my hand moved slowly toward my holstered .45.

Another was a time when myself and a few friends pulled a woman out of a big, burning tent... She was crying, babbling, straining as she reached innefectually back toward the tent... Eventually I understood her to be saying "My baby!"

I ran back into the tent, keeping low and fast, feeling around with both hands, since the tent was in full conflagration, and there was just no way anyone could see in there. Nothing... Nothing... Nothing... I kept searching, meanwhile, people outside were bobmarding the tent with a dozen fire extinguishers.

Eventually, the fire was mostly out, but I had just found a fifty pound propane tank, the hose whipping like an angry snake with a head of fire. I yelled "Run! Run far away!" as I tried to find a way to turn off the pressure valve... I was so afraid it would explode, I knew that much steel shrapnel could kill dozens of people in that kind of crowd, so I put my body between the tank and the bulk of the crowd and kept trying to turn the valve off.

Obviously, I got the gas turned off before the tank exploded... Eventually, someone who worked at a gas company told me that those tanks are designed in such a way that they almost can't explode... So I guess I was safe enough. I might have lost a hand when the valve blew.

The point is, life puts us in these situations... And you don't have time to think about what you're going to do. You find out what kind of person you really are, because in that moment, you will react, and your true colors will show. My heart -raced- after events like these. My hands shook and my chest hurt, and I cried... But I made it through them ok.

And even now, as I think about these, and other moments, my heart beats a little more heavily, and my chest feels a bit tight and my face feels a little flushed... Even after all this time, my body is preparing for a life or death fight, or deadly peril of some kind.

It's that same kind of instinct that makes it difficult to tell your family if you're gay, or bi, or that you love a black girl, or that you're leaving the church... And I've had to tell family and friends all of those things. There are so many people in my past who I never can talk to... Or people who I talk to a few uncomfortable minutes every few years. It's not that there is anything the least bit wrong with these things... It's that you know, or at least suspect, that your revelation will be met with disappointment, or even outright hostility.

That puts it right back into the jurisdiction of the exact same part of your primitive brain sutructure that is called on when you run into a burning structure, or face down a person with a gun, or get chased by a hungry tiger. Your concious mind says "this could get me ostrasized." and your primitive brain, thinking in terms of when it's software was written, a few million or so years ago, says "Ostrasized!?! Holy fuck!! That's a death sentence!!!" because it was, back then, and it says "I don't care what it takes, you have to do anything to keep this from getting out!! It's a goddamned survival imperative!" and your concious mind says "Nope." because it understands society, and the need to be true to yourself, while the primitive brain doesn't, and it says "I -have- to do this. I can't keep living this way... I might as well be dead."

And "dead" your primitive brain understands very well indeed. Thus begins a massive, raging battle between the concious and sub-concious... It'll tear you apart, and drive you mad... And the only, only, only way clear of it, outside of the grave, is to open up, be honest with the world, and be yourself. Come out, be strong, and let the chips fall where they may.

You may lose friends. You may lose family. You may lose a lifestyle, or a home, or a community. You may have to move to another part of the country or even world, to a place where people are more urbane and accepting and mature. But, after all that, you will still have you. And a much better, safer, saner, more healthy you than before. And everything else, with that fine and healthy foundation, will work out just fine.

And, for the rest of your life, you'd still miss those people who were too primitive and brainwashed and unevolved to accept a reality with you in it, and you'd still cry sometimes from the pain of missing them, and being shut out by them. But even if you had to lose every person now in your life and start all over again, at least the new life and community you gathered around you would be honest and accepting and true to who you are.

And that's what makes your world a beautiful place... 345 or 355 days a year of sunshine and 10 or 20 days of misery and tears sure beats the hell out of 365 days of hiding who you are from those who are supposed to be closest to you.

Gible · Post by **Gible** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 7:59 pm

Its not really my decision but today, this morning actually, my GF finally admitted that she has a problem with alcohol & prescription meds. I've been carefully watching her sink for the last 6 months or so and hoping for her realisation of what was happening (I don't believe in the whole intervention thing unless its life threatening - better for people to chose to stop). While I feel relief that its finally happened I'm numb about the struggles to come, and more than a little scared that its going to be harder than the last 6/12 months. She has IIH, which is fairly devastating on lifestyles and relationships anyway, and I'm honestly not sure how much of her erratic moods/behaviours is caused by which.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 8:57 pm

I don't know that I've had any specific event that has changed my life. I tend to view things as short sequences of cause-effect relationships that have hammered life lessons in to my thick skull.

Lesse.. I kicked smoking and drugs. The change there is that I'm going to live past 30.

I was shot in the head while on the school bus in my senior year of high school. Not really a turning point, per se, but a lesson in the frailty of life.

Having a son has been a long chain of life changes. I'm a lot more relaxed now than I ever was. I've learned how to put my needs aside and concentrate on someone else.

I'm slowly learning that I only have to be myself, and everything will work out alright.

Goddessmisca · Post by **Goddessmisca** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:16 pm

Life changing things eh?

My fiancee, about two weeks after proposing, informed me that he had gotten so caught up in the idea of love he never bothered to find out who I was, and he wasn’t in love with me. He and I have been more or less together for about 5 and ½ years–never had really made it official it just kinda happened. That destroyed me.

He knew me, but it wasn’t me he was in love with. It was the idea of someone to hold him and be there, and with me going to the Seattle area for college, I was breaking that idea. Sad thing was, I knew it...and just was ignoring it until the night he told me.

The first really life changing moment I can think of is when I was 14 my father and I were fighting, over something stupid, like me not understanding how he was explaining my math homework. He took my book, and note book and hurled them across the room. He then grabbed my hair and pulled me out of the chair so I was looking at him after I tried to pull away he slapped me across the face and then pushed me into the corner of the dining room table. I got up and at that moment I told my father if he ever laid a hand on me again I would walk out of my house and never come back–both of us knowing full well I had friends who would put me up. He never hit me again.

And of course after I graduated highschool, I got on a plane and moved across the country to a college I found on google. That turned out well.

Indigo Violent · Post by **Indigo Violent** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:03 pm

That would be the instant I became a writer, or at the very least decided I wanted to write.
I think I was probably about eight or nine years old, and I finished reading something - I don't remember exactly what, maybe "The Hobbit" or "Charlotte's Web" or "The Phantom Tollbooth", something like that - and kind of went, "Wow, that was really cool. It would be pretty awesome if I could do something like that." Then just a little instant of clarity that gave birth to, "Hey, why couldn't I do something like that?" Ping. Determined to write ever since.

Warmachine · Post by **Warmachine** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 4:21 am

I have to agree with Honour's philosophy: always be who you are.

As an intellectual, my pivotal decision was triggered by an philosophical clash. When I was 12, my mother became a Jehovah's Witness and started taking me along. Amongst the dumber aspects of their theology is a literal belief in creationism and the flood. Their supporting arguments consisted of cherry picked, misinterpreted archeology, misinterpreting difficult-to-explain aspects of evolution, failure to present opposing arguments and dressing up dubious speculation as fact. As a schoolkid who loved mathematics and computing, I was sceptical of such non-rigorous thinking.

I really wanted a god that gave purpose to the Universe and strove to make it a better place. That my parents were going through a messy divorce didn't help. However, the evidence for such a being, the bible, was grossly undermined by such historical accounts.

At the age of 14, I still could not resolve this clash between logical and wishful thinking. This difference was reflected by my converted mother and intellectual father. I ditched the wishful thinking, left to live with my father and never looked back. It was a philosophical decision, not for love of either of my parents. That the Jehovah's Witnesses advocate not to going to university to preach instead was the final nail in the coffin.

Be who you are and never look back.

RantinAn · Post by **RantinAn** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:10 pm

Most life changing decision... offering up my heart on a silver platter to someone I'd only ever known on line.
Was worth every secong of angst leading up to it. Definately worth it

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 6:27 pm

I had a religion one, too, Warmachine...

My mother's side of the family were catholic... My father's family were LDS. So I kind of got raised in the middle, but visiting with family inevitably lead to discussions, comparisons, indoctrination attempts, or outright bashing of the other side.

I was doing ok with the Catholic side, until my mother moved us closer to my father's family sometime after the divorce. (Her family all lived in large cities, which she was opposed to for child-raising purposes). This got me a lot more familiar with the mormon side, and around ten or so, I started asking my mother which set of relatives were correct when they announced that my other relatives were going to hell.

Being rather proud of my little brain, her answer was, basically, "read the books, ask questions, and figure it out for yourself." which, to be fair, was pretty much her answer to all non-trivial questions. I think I mentioned she bought me a set of encyclopedia before I was even born?

Anyway, the more I studied the mormon ideas, the more I started thinking "Oh, come on... That's just silly." That caused me to take a closer look at the catholic ideas I'd been raised with, and what do you know...? Most of them were pretty silly, too. So I started reading about all the other faiths and religions I could find. Luckily, by the time I was 12 or so, I had a jr. high school drama teacher who felt that un understanding of greek mythology was crucial to a proper understanding of theater, so I was able to see similarities, and thereafter didn't feel obligated to stick to current faiths.

Eventually, I got back to mom... (this was always the final step in one of these quests, met sometimes with praise, and others with "Good. Wrong, but good. Do it again.") I'll never forget the theory I presented to her, nor the pride in her face. I told her I figured god is like Santa Clause for grown-ups... Something to believe in. A way to remind them they'll be rewarded for being good.

Which reminds me... Another life changing experience is being pulled out of school to be told that your mother is in the hospital, and this "cancer" thing that you knew was out there, somewhere, but never really got talked about, was finally doing it's level best to kill her.

Movies like "beaches" or "sweet November", about a beautiful, vibrant young woman with a rich and overarching love for life and a profound effect on those around them who quietly allow themselves to slip away into the grip of cancer, rather than allowing those they love to lose years of their lives to worry and dread... Those movies always pretty much wreck me.

Squidflakes · Post by **Squidflakes** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:01 pm

RantinAn wrote:Most life changing decision... offering up my heart on a silver platter to someone I'd only ever known on line.
Was worth every secong of angst leading up to it. Definately worth it

Personally, I'm glad to have been watching the last bits of that unfold from the sidelines. You two make the CUTEST couple.

Toawa · Post by **Toawa** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:03 pm

Wow. I don't think anything I can come up with can compare with most of that.

I can only think of two moments that I'd call really significant:

1. When I was in third grade, my father would routinely check my homework. One day, we had a disagreement over which answer to a question was correct; ultimately he made me change my answer to his. Once I got the paper back, I found out that I had been right all along, and he was wrong. I used this fact as leverage to get him to stop checking my homework; this led to my development of independance.

2. When I first recieved a software catalog which advertised, amidst page after page of games, office suites, utilities, etc., three screen savers:

Ranma 1/2, Project A-Ko, and Bubblegum Crisis.

I'd say opening up my 12-year-old mind to an entire genre of experession, from which I have garnered possibly the most pleasure I have had in my life (to this point), could be called significant.

There are a couple of others that did let me learn more about myself:

1. I am not immune to situational paralysis. During the last couple of weeks of my last semester at UIUC, one of my suitemates had a seizure in our bathroom. I was paralyzed for about a minute, just watching. It wasn't until after it was over that I thought to get help. I realize that that was probably for the best, but if things had turned worse, where I had to act at that moment, I don't know if I could have. (The important lesson wasn't that I was situationally paralyzed, which I understand is quite normal for people who haven't been trained to act in such emergencies. It was that I was not immune to it.)

2. When I deliver a $20 pizza and recieve $240 in cash, my thought processes shut down momentarily. (Apparently, so did the customer's. It took her about 30 seconds after she closed the door to realize what happened, I was walking away slowly, dazed. I did not mean to take the money, and gladly gave it back, but I don't know what would have happened if she hadn't opened the door up.) I am now more prepared for such situations; it doesn't phase me as much.

Alter alias · Post by **Alter alias** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 7:56 am

Wow some real change everything moments up here. For me I think my defining moment in life was at secondary (high) school where a combination of too many comics and too much exess testosterone had me becoming the anti-bully effectively wandering towards any hostile situation I happened to see and disarming it with a simple "because if you hit him I will hit you a lot harder" a somewhat negative way to behave I now realise but it was about then that I realised what I realy want to do with my life one way or another is protect the little guy.

Warmachine · Post by **Warmachine** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:25 am

Is there going to be post for revelations?

Swordsman3003 · Post by **Swordsman3003** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 3:36 pm

Defining moment:

At 12 years old, I demanded to my parents that they either send me to college or send me to boot camp, because I sure as hell wasn't going to school.

Nithos · Post by **Nithos** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:43 pm

I started this post with the premise that I don't really have any life changing moments, despite having a lot of change in my life. The changes have almost always been small, cumulative things that lead to tomorrow being slightly different than yesterday, and that's still true for the most part, but Honor's post got me thinking a bit. I don't know that it qualifies as a moment, but it's an event that had a life changing impact, I'm sure. At a young age, I didn't really realize that I was much smarter than average, but I did realize that I liked certain things, and would read up on them in the school library. I didn't realize it was that odd, but I did it. I read a crapload of Isaac Asimov non-fiction books (which I later read he had always prized more than his works of fiction; I agree, they were good, had a real influence on me, and were far more readable than the Foundation series </shit stirring>). I also read a lot of little shortened versions of greek mythology starting in about second or third grade, and I kept re-reading these books all through grade school... between the hardcore astronomy/cosmology, and seeing the parallels between greek mythology and religion in general (in my case, very laid back roman catholocism), I stopped believing in god at about the same time I stopped believing in santa, the easter bunny, and the tooth fairy, all in one fell swoop (well, I don't think that timeline makes sense, but the idea works). I continued going to church, though, right up until the sunday before easter sunday my junior year of high school, when I would have been going to be confirmed (well, to fail to be, I hadn't followed through on all the requirements) with all my other catholic friends my age...

And once again I wonder from my original premise of not having life changing moments. I did have one shortly before that easter, when I realized I couldn't continue in the church anymore, despite managing to be a catholic that was devoted to the church while not believing in god for many years. I still like catholicism and catholics as a group (and more often as individuals than average, I've noticed) far more than most protestant groups. This life changing event is best summed up with a quick, two line conversation I had shortly after that easter sunday, before I had told this friend that I wasn't planning on ever returning to church. I still think is the best funny thing I've ever said, if not the out-right funniest:

Friend: So, what did you give up for Lent?
Me: Catholicism.

Wilmo · Post by **Wilmo** » Mon Apr 24, 2006 5:39 pm

Nithos wrote:Friend: So, what did you give up for Lent?
Me: Catholicism

Wewt!

Honor · Post by **Honor** » Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:18 am

You're right... That is simply one of the best lines ever.