What was your childhood trauma?

It wasn't really a trauma, but there is an event in my childhood that I will always remember.

When I was young, about six or so, my mother suddenly became very ill. She couldn't move from the couch because of the extreme pain she was in and she had lost her appetite. Yet, she refused to go to the hospital. My aunt kept pressuring her but she still refused. Finally, my aunt picked her up from the couch and carried her to the car. She drove her to the hospital that she worked at, burst into the emergency room, and told the doctors she needed emergency care immediately. The doctors took one look at her, hooked her up to an IV, and immediately began running tests. They found she had a hole in her large intestine and had become septic. After treatment they performed surgery in which they removed a good portion of her large intestine. I remember standing outside the operating room with my aunt. As they wheeled my mother around the corner, she turned her head around and waved. She was crying and so was I. After that I would visit her in the hospital and I dreaded leaving. I would bawl every time we had to leave.

The doctors said that if my aunt hadn't brought her into the hospital at that moment, she would have died the next day. I will always remember the moment when they wheeled her into the operating room.

My trauma was, well, still is the Grim Reaper. Its weird, I know but when I was little, I always hated the dark. One day, I had a dream about a house. The house had many doors. I went to each one and yelled into the dark rooms, and then the Grim Reaper came and screamed at me and shoved me out of the way. I got through this by staying happy. I am no longer afraid of the dark because I realized that the dark is nothing. Its just the same place without light in it.

I was born in 1929, at the start of the Great Depression. Times were really hard and adults had a very difficult supporting their families. Dad found a night job and earned $7.00/wk. But he had to sleep during the day, and Mom had to keep me (a baby and toddler) quiet! So whenever I was upset or angry, she locked me in the tiny bathroom until I was quiet and put on a smile! I finally leaned how to clamp down on my anger, but as an adult, it started giving me trouble! I finally had a mental breakdown and had to go through out-patient therapy to finally learn how to express my feelings in acceptable ways-[---AND to set limits on abusive people--like my husband! I don't remember any nightmares, but I was a nervous wreck until I was a fully functioning adult!

I was afraid of a road grader...It looked like a monster to me at age 4.

My parents would tell me it was just a vehicle there was no harm with it.