I bet that little girl felt so loved by anon, and died more happy having had him in her life than without. I can’t think of a better way to live and to die.
Live your life so that there is someone out there that will never feel alone even when shit is really bad, and die knowing that someone out there loves you so much and will miss you when you’re gone.
My friend has PTSD from dealing with "incidents" involving dead children and a friend. One of his coping methods is taking a step back and considering the kids would probably have grown up to be a regular dickhead like the rest of us anyways. Makes it less sad to think about.
This brought up something I never talked about until now and pushed down and forgot about.
I was approximately 11 or 12. My first real girlfriend. Holding hands, talking on the phone. Smooches, nothing too crazy. She lived in a huge house in a really good neighborhood. I will go over there on the weekends. This happened for four or five months.
One weekend, I don't know how I found out of the specifics, but I was unable to see her and didn't really understand why.
Before I go any further, warning trama warning, don't read any further if you're sensitive.
The father shot everyone in the house except for one of the younger sisters. Murder suicide situation.
Wait, I remember a little more. How I found out. my parents went to drop me off at their house and their cops and police tape everywhere.
I never realized how deep my subconscious that event has been pushed down and why I feel the need to speak about it, now. Thank you, poster. Maybe I can deal with it now that I remember it.
Had a little neighbor girlfriend when I was little. She was super sweet.
In second grade, on Christmas night, she had a brain aneurysm that paralyzed the right half of her body. She was in the hospital for months. After that, she was allowed home for a day or 2 at a time, but had to go back to rehab centers. I'd get to visit with her for a few minutes, but then she'd get worn out.
The finances got too tough and they ended up having to move out of the house.
I have a few kindergarten memories. Not many. Those most profound are easiest to recall. I'd imagine losing your best friend because they died would be tremendously hard to forget, regardless of how old you were when it happened.
My older sister playing school with me. I was three or so. That's how I learned to read.
When my mum taught me about the "little dragons" in our bodies; basically a child-friendly way to teach how sickness works, and how our bodies deal with them.
My 4yo birthday. It wasn't anything special, but I remember jumping all happy across the kitchen.
A few times that my father ruined family meal. Making my sister cry, making me cry, whining incessantly about the food, encouraging me to eat the cooked yolk that my mum would use in the dish, this kind of thing.
My grandma pouring condensed milk over my chocolate milk, and saying "shh, don't tell your mum".
Locking my grandpa's dog inside the basement, and getting gently lectured by him, on how the dog would feel afraid and lonely.
My ophthalmologist asking me if I wanted pineapple or strawberry-flavoured eye drops. I was six or so. (More than three decades later, he's still the one taking care of my eyes.)
The more traumatic the event the more our brain tends to create strong memories around it. And if it’s super traumatic you get ptsd since the memories are so strong that your brain can relive those moments very vividly. It’s basically a adaption for survival when we were cavemen, so you don’t forget bad things and learn from it. Like seeing your uncle getting mauled by a lion so you create a strong memory and never forget that you have to avoid lions.
If you don’t remember shit you probably had a good childhood.
Yup, the only memory I have from early childhood is probably created, since I vaguely remember visiting my grandpa at his home. He died when I was 5 from Alzheimer's, so there's a very good chance I created that memory, but it's the only one I've got about him.
After that, I vaguely remember some of my teachers in elementary school and some of the vacations we went on.
Assuming the story isn't fake, this could be a sufficiently traumatic memory to still be available even after many years. Really strong emotions can form strong memories, and cancer is a common enough topic that those pathways would see gradual maintenance over time. I certainly remember the first girl who had a crush on me, and that was back in first grade.
It's on 4chan though, so the easy assumption should always be that it is fake.
I don't remember either. Never even went to kindergarten. In my country it was just pre-school at like 6 then normal school at 7.
I remember getting a sega/Nintendo bootleg thing at 5 that broke almost immediately with some looney tunes game on it and some bootleg unlicensed figure abomination combinations of Spider-Man and power rangers.
I remember getting a PS1 eventually in around 2004, then PS2 a year later, a PSP a year after that and a PS3 in around 2008, plus the first Full HD TV we replaced our Samsung CRT TV/VCR with, I was apparently also responsible for busting the VCR part of that by shoving a tape in backwards as a baby.
We got DSL and WiFi a year after that, watching YouTube on Dial-Up and 3G was like a day-long affair, but i wasn't ever bored as a kid.
I remember breaking my childhood best friend's nose and it's how we became friends. I remember being bullied, mostly beaten daily for being different, mostly because I was not a muslim and not as poor as some of the other kids. I remember growing up and going overseas on my own for the first time at 10, with a travel group ofc.
I remember leaving my home forever at the age of 13 to go study overseas, what it felt like knowing I'd never live with my parents again, and that I wouldn't even see them for 3 months, when the previous max was maybe a few weeks at most. It was lots of mixed feelings and with a heavy heart. Now as an adult I will never see my childhood home nor my parents again, which sucks sometimes, I had some nice things there, like a print copy of Welcome to the NHK LN i had to save up for.
I remember coming into my own a bit at 14 and becoming a nihilist edgelord which finally let me have lots of friends, at least back in the old country, but eventually also in the new one too. I remember really blooming at 18 and even more so at 20 post-transition. Now as an adult even each year is better than the last.
I have also very few memories from kindergarten and around that time, but when I was a teenager we moved back to the town where I used to go kindergarten at and all these guys I had no memories about remembered me and welcomed me back
Yeah, most of us forget things from before about 7ish pretty fast; often before we even leave elementary school (or the equivalent where the name differs).
I have managed to hold onto a decent amount of memories from kindergarten, though definitely not with the same kind of detail and clarity that started being possible about 3rd grade.
But even those memories are getting weaker and more blurry around the edges over the last decade. I can remember meeting a guy that would be a close friend later on, some of the cool teachers and things they did in kindergarten (the golden fairy and the prize box, which is a boring story if you weren't there, but influenced me heavily long after). And I definitely remember some of the students that I was in classes with as we went through school.
Like, this one kid that dropped his pants to pee at a urinal the first day, I remember that, even though my next memory of him isn't until 6th grade. But others, I can recall conversations whispered while we were supposed to be taking naps and have memories all through school because we interacted more.
Kind of trippy how memories get laid down and reinforced, or don't.
Back in the early 1990’s i went to a grade school for sick and disabled children. I have a visual disability myself. Some of the kids were very, very sick. Leukemia, lung diseases, etc. So we’d usually lose about two, three kids per year.
The Christmas holiday was always rough. Some would hold on just to celebrate one last Christmas. When we’d return back to school in January, you’d always hope to start with the same number of classmates…
I had a childhood friend but I never understood what happened until I was an adult.
We lived in the country about half a mile to a mile away from each other. We hung out all the time. Then she stopped walking to my house but I kept walking to hers.
She went bald and I didn't think much of it. Soon after that her parents told me she couldn't come out and play when I walked over. I eventually stopped walking over and her family moved.
I don't know if she died or not but I remember not understanding why her parents didn't want her to play with me anymore.
One day as an adult I was talking with some people about childhood friends and I started to tell a story about one girls shitty parents who wouldn't let her play anymore... Then it hit. Oh. She couldn't walk to my house anymore, she couldn't play anymore, then they were gone.
I had a similar experience with a "proto-VTuber", except I completely lost any connection to her. However, I do sometimes see "ghosts" to use an industry term (haven't heard her real voice if it was really a "her" and not just a guy who put way too much effort into trying to catfish someone), but again at the same time in history, a lot of "emo girl" existed, which makes stuff even harder, so I don't really know who would have been an old "internet friend" of mine.