Have you ever seen something that disturbed you so much that you have never forgotten about it?

[Anonymous]

I saw a baby born with an Apgar of zero. And his parents praying and begging for him to take a breath. I will never forget that.

[Anonymous]

Seeing an airplane flying at about 500 mph toward the Pentagon, and the giant ball of flame that followed. I missed the moment of impact, fortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen a lot of shitty things in my life but one that always haunts me is when my dad was beating my older brother (probably a 7th grader) with a belt. My brother was trapped behind a door and I vividly remember what my dad was wearing, the color of the belt, how he held it in his hand, the sound it made when it hit my brother, the words my dad was screaming at him, the sounds of my mother whining/crying but not doing anything to protect him. I remember everything about it - the color and shape of the door, the color of the paint on the walls, the trim, the carpet. My brother killed himself when he was 27 and I'll be forever haunted and pained by that memory. And others.

I'm so sorry, OP. How awful for you and your brother.

[Anonymous]

I have a few.

The first one that jumps out in my memory is the set up at an emergency medical area on September 11 in NYC. It was in a studio of some sort and IV bags were taped to lighting poles and desks, tables set up as gurneys. Looked like a movie version of an urban MASH unit. Scariest part is that very few casualties came there because most either walked away or died.

Second one that comes to mind: the blood on the carpet in my mom's room from my stepdad's suicide. And days later after that was cleaned up, realizing that there was still blood between the little lines on the speaker area on his desk phone. I wish they'd just thrown away everything in that room.

Third: working as a nursing student in an ICU -- saw an old man with a leg wound infested with maggots. Flesh was rotten (and smelled like it) and maggots swarmed out when bandages were removed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In an article about leaving people who have forgotten to drop their babies off at daycare on a hot day and coming to the car at the end of the day and finding the baby dead. One of the stories was about a dad who's car alarm went off multiple times during the day and he looked out the window, saw it was nothing and used his remote to turn the alarm off. At the end of the day when he realized what happened and the police came he tried to take their gun to kill himself.

This article was truly haunting. The part that stuck with me was the child they found that had pulled out all her hair beforing succumbing to heat stroke. I couldn't continue reading past that part.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:17:18, that was Jeffrey Dahmer (the boy escaped from him and the people who found the boy gave him back to Dahmer and he was killed). Horrifying.

My friend was the paramedic who picked up Dahmer from the prison after he was assulted and killed. He was killed in a very horrific manner and I know too many graphic details about the injuries he had sustained.

My dad's friend, a police officer, asked me if I could come down to the station to help him with a paper. He was writing the paper on a child abuse case that had haunted him for a few years. There was a case were infant siblings both thought to be SIDS cases, one baby died under the care of the mom, and the other died under the care of the dad. It wasn't until they had their 3rd baby in the waiting room at the welfare office that anyone suspected them of abuse. While they were sitting there the baby wouldn't calm and the mom held the baby while the dad snapped his leg. The welfare office was just two floors down from CPS and those parents left there in the back of a police car.

In the middle of this story the police man pulled out Polaroids of the exhumed bodies of these babies. He tossed them onto the desk and told me that was my dad's first case as a CPS worker. I knew my dad had seen terrible things but I found it especially haunting that this was his very first case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2 girls and one cup.

Thailand?

[Anonymous]

Yes. I was in London a few weeks before Christmas, 1993. A young woman, who looked exhausted and gaunt, was holding a sickly, listless baby, just sitting on the edge of the sidewalk. She was just sort of robotically asking, "Spare any change, spare any coins, can you, can you..." while people rushed by. For whatever reason, I stopped to give her a few coins, took a good look at the baby and decided I better make it a whole pound. I was 19 at the time, a pretty naive college student. I asked the Mom if there was anything else I could do to help: help her find a shelter? Make a call for her? Instead, she said, "You're a nice one. You like kids?" Startled, I said, "Um, yeah, I do." She replied all in a burst, "Take the baby, take her. She's got no chance with me." I was so freaked out, I literally took off at a run. Ever since, I've wished so much I would at least have found a police man, let someone know what was going on. It's not rational but I've worried ever since that the next person actually took her up on it.

[Anonymous]

Persistent intrusive thoughts about something upsetting that you have seen is a sign of PTSD and or clinical depression. I don't mean to sound glib but, depression is basically an inability to put life experiences in perspective-it causes one to dwell on memories of failure, extreme behaviors of others and is a normal outgrowth of having been abused. Evolutionarily, humans would never have survived as a species if we had continued to dwell on disturbing images. Think about the existence of our forbears right here in America: wagon trains heading into forbidding territory people died horrible deaths; slaves suffering and witnessing unspeakable acts of violence on their journey to and while in America. None of us would be here if our forebears were unable to cope with extremely disturbing images and experiences. Buck up, people.

[Anonymous]

I moved before first grade and when I arrived there was a lot of talk surrounding a local family - library dedications and such. I didn't understand who they were until a classmate in 3rd grade explained his "life changing event" to our class. He said it was a nice day. His Mom and their friends (woman and her daughter) were going to the park together. His car was following theirs. The mother & daughter stop at the red light at the bottom of the hill and signal to turn right. Out of no where a semi truck comes barreling through the intersection and strikes their car before plunging into the ditch. My classmate describes, in detail, the horror of watching their car and hair, on fire. Realizing that easily could have been his car. The truck driver survived, was found negligent for driving a truck with faulty breaks.

[Anonymous]

Me too. That broke my heart, didnt sleep for days after it happened. The oldest had just gotten home from a sleepover, so close to being safe.

Anonymous wrote:Not something that I witnessed or had any connection to, but I am haunted by the murder of the Harvey family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_family_murder

I just can't imagine what they went through, and although I'm not practicing any religion, this makes me hope that there is a heaven and that this family is there and are able to do all that they did not get a chance to do here on earth.

And the scumbags that did this are nothing more than trash, and it scares me that there are people like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In an article about leaving people who have forgotten to drop their babies off at daycare on a hot day and coming to the car at the end of the day and finding the baby dead. One of the stories was about a dad who's car alarm went off multiple times during the day and he looked out the window, saw it was nothing and used his remote to turn the alarm off. At the end of the day when he realized what happened and the police came he tried to take their gun to kill himself.

Yep. I've never forgotten that either.

This happened at NASA Langley, where my mom works. Out of this tragedy, they were spurred to invent and develop the Child Protection Sensor, which can alert parents that they have left their child in the car.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not something that I witnessed or had any connection to, but I am haunted by the murder of the Harvey family:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_family_murder

I just can't imagine what they went through, and although I'm not practicing any religion, this makes me hope that there is a heaven and that this family is there and are able to do all that they did not get a chance to do here on earth.

And the scumbags that did this are nothing more than trash, and it scares me that there are people like that.

I lived in Richmond when this happened... shopped at their toy store often. This story still haunts me, too. For whatever reason, I came across a news story about a girl named Channon Christian. I was so intrigued and repulsed by it and followed the subsequent trials. I still can't get her name out of my head.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murders_of_Channon_Christian_and_Christopher_Newsom

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My bathroom scale

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Persistent intrusive thoughts about something upsetting that you have seen is a sign of PTSD and or clinical depression. I don't mean to sound glib but, depression is basically an inability to put life experiences in perspective-it causes one to dwell on memories of failure, extreme behaviors of others and is a normal outgrowth of having been abused. Evolutionarily, humans would never have survived as a species if we had continued to dwell on disturbing images. Think about the existence of our forbears right here in America: wagon trains heading into forbidding territory people died horrible deaths; slaves suffering and witnessing unspeakable acts of violence on their journey to and while in America. None of us would be here if our forebears were unable to cope with extremely disturbing images and experiences. Buck up, people.

The thread is specifically about upsetting incidents. It's not like I (or most here, I hope) sit around thinking horrible thoughts. I actually think it's healthy to get it out.