How old were you when you first learned that the real monsters come in human forms?
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@PhoenixSerenity I was 3 years old set in front of the black and white tv watching the news. I asked my Mum “are they going to kill him?” She replied yes explaining that the man had broke the law in USA by doing something really bad. I sat in thought for a minute then wide eyed quietly said “how can they take a life for a life?” Mum was staggered and no more was said. Every now and then she recounts this story to friends and family.
@AAA365a I will never understand why televising executions was ever OK. I got sickened learning in my teens that people wanted to buy tickets to movie theaters who showed televised executions on big screens. I can't imagine watching one.
@PhoenixSerenity @AAA365a 'televising' is surplus to requirement, too
SDAM aphantasia bars any clear marker of the when, but suffice it to say myself was still a few years out from finally getting placed in a group foster home (thereby escaping the monsters) when this was already well and truly understood.
@beadsland You survived multiple living nightmares 🫂
Well, just the one. Everything thereafter amounts, at worst, to a disjointed dream, by comparison.
The group foster home wasn't Orphan Annie, despite my grandfather's threats of such. It was actually a place of safety. Although my own stay there fell within a brief window when that happened to be the case.
@PhoenixSerenity Around five.
The first few minutes of Disney's "Bambi" tells you everything you need to know.
@NickSchwanck @PhoenixSerenity My mom always told me that nobody is bad, but that some people are misunderstood, or may have come from difficult backgrounds and learned wrong behavior.
I tried to believe this, but then I saw a 12-year-old girl, a guest at a birthday party, drown at our swimming pool due to the negligence of the lifeguards — and then all the families *defended the lifeguards* and refused to do anything. They just couldn’t be bothered.
After that, I had to rethink humans.
4th grade. Bullies who laughed harder and harder the more I cried and begged.
That's the same sadism evident in all the world's worst abuses right now. The fact those kids could act that way and nobody seemed to find it alarming, and nobody did anything about it... That taught me some very important things about how society works, and the fact that something is deeply and terribly wrong.
@violetmadder Global lack of empathy crisis.
Humans aren't built to care about this many other humans at once. Our brains top out at being able to relate to maybe a couple hundred other people, like the couple dozen who live in our village or troupe plus some dozens we visit every few seasons. BILLIONS has us totally overwhelmed by strangers.
@violetmadder We aren't built to be constantly plugged in to digital devices either. It's sad.
@PhoenixSerenity The first time the priest accosted me was as I was clapping the schoolroom erasers clean outdoors in the first grade, so 6 or 7. Though I was already scared shitless of my mother by then.
@mx_sumisu I was 6 when church abuse started. Many of us can relate.
@PhoenixSerenity Tbh I was never scared of monsters as much as I was scared of my father. There were moments when I thought he’d literally kill me
@farah That's truly terrifying to feel that a parent wants to kill you. Gentle hugs for your heart n soul 💗🫂💗
@PhoenixSerenity I think this was kinda always present in the fiction I watched/read and in what my mom told me about the world, so it’s hard to pick an exact date or year.
@PhoenixSerenity i learned other kids could be awful when i was still in primary school: one day police visited our family home with an allegation that i had harassed a teacher at my school, turned out it was actually another kid who had signed an abusive letter with my name. i learned how awful adults could be when i heard about the depths of South African apartheid at age 13 and the impact of nuclear bombs at ?15. i would have learned more at a younger age had the internet existed in the 1970s
@PhoenixSerenity Four, I think. Cuban Missile Crisis.
@PhoenixSerenity The lessons continued.
@sunumbral All the adults, who told me that things will be better when I grew up, were liars.
@PhoenixSerenity Far too old to admit to. 😔
@a I've met people who didn't learn until their 60s. Never too late.
@PhoenixSerenity I was a child and it had nothing to do with politics or policies.
@StaceyCornelius My awakening came from church abuses.
@StaceyCornelius Several folks who responded also had church abuse related, humans are the real monsters awakenings, in their childhood too. Seems to be pretty common 😔
@KayJanes Almost everyone who responded/shared their awakening moments, found out at young ages. That speaks volumes on how sick society has been - across generations.
@PhoenixSerenity Sadly it makes a lot of sense.
@PhoenixSerenity I was under 10 years of age I remember that much.
@nando161 Pretty sad how many people learned about human monsters before age 20.
@PhoenixSerenity@beige.party As early in life as I can remember. Family should be a safe place, it isn't always.