when i realized that adults routinely lie.

Young age to realize it, too.

Sorry that you had to go through that.

Kind of blows my sob story out of the water!

I suppose there's something to be said for "the sooner the better," but too soon is too soon.

Nice way for a five year old boy to wake up for his first day of kindergarten and see dear old Dad sitting at the dining room table in a white v-neck t-shirt with a padded bra underneath that made Dolly Parton look small.

Yup, real nice. Too bad I can't dig him up and sue him for the cost of my therapist.

I have a health condition for which life-saving surgery was required. I was aware that 1) I could die during the procedure 2) without it I would not live much past about 10 or 12.

Facing your own mortality at that age makes you a much different person than you otherwise would have been.

edit: I'm supernova. Forgot I was writing under lexx21's account.

At 7 when I first felt anxiety after being approached by an African American child. (Up to that point, I played with anyone and had no consciousness of racial differences)

And again at 12, when I learned exactly the nature of the Vietnam war.

Today is my 58th birthday, so that all happened a loooong time ago! I'd like to think that innocence lost means compassion and empathy gained. I wouldn't trade a minute of my life, my hard-learned years, to go back to the days of innocence. However painful the truth may be, it's always better to know.

I was staying at a friend's house and his dad was murdered by an escaping thief at a restaurant.
Then a few weeks later, I was molested by a priest. The worst part was that he became my stalker for a year.

I wish, however foolishly, that I could erase those incidents out of your life.

for sure that there was just one age when it happened.

It seems to have been a gradual thing, maybe starting from the age of 9 or 10 (?), when my parents' fighting became more frequent and violent.

Somebody found a box of dusty old Pleistocene souls in their attic and decided to recycle them.

They fought verbally before that, but I don't think anything fundamental in me changed until I saw the violence.

I had saved and saved, hoping to buy a pony. When Dad explained I'd need a place to keep a pony, I figured out how much it would cost to fence in the two empty lots behind out house.

Then Dad explained "attractive nuisance" and "liability" and how if some other kid climbed the fence, rode my pony, got hurt, and their parents sued my parents we could lose our home.

I've been a pessimist ever since.

My brother was killed in a hunting accident. My mother was devastated and never recovered. She was killed by a drunk driver almost exactly a year later.

Innocence gone.

It was the year JFK was assassinated. My dad and I saw Oswald murdered live on tv, then early the next month my brother (5) was killed in an accident and some other relatives were also killed that same month in a car accident. So sorry about your brother and your mom. My mom is still with us but in some ways she never recovered after losing my brother.

At least these days there's grief counseling available. At the time of the deaths in my family, we all just had to tough it out. That's what farm folk did.

I try to see the world through the eyes of my childhood as much as possible. That's not to say I don't think about the bad stuff, but I spend a lot more time thinking about the good. I enjoy life in general and try to have a good time wherever I am as much as possible.

was complete by the time I turned 54.

I was only skeptical before.

I was 9. I fought my brothers and sister for the newspaper every day when my dad got home from work. June 6, 1968 was the day I became a cynic.

I was 7.

it was when i was old enough to realize why there was dirt left over when we dug a grave for one of our pets

physical abuse from my mother started at the age, ended when I was 14, seemed like an eternity.

Thank you for some quite helpful perspective, and thank you for sharing.

I didn't really get that anyone actually hated us until then. I feel like that is something that a lot of people tend to really just come to realize gradually. Not me.

My parents put my bro and I to bed on Christmas Eve and then went next door to a party. Unfortunately, I woke up to find them missing. I sat in the hallway and cried until they came home (which I didn't think would happen). I don't think that I was ever the same.

I guess in the early 70s, the islands were considered safe enough to do this....

I got bullied by one of the girls on my cheerleading squad.

when my dad locked me in my room at his house. My mother and him were divorced at the time, but I really wasn't privy to the infidelity that had been going on at the time, since I was only two. But I was there and I remember getting up and trying to use the bathroom and finding the door locked. I cried the rest of the night and he brought me home earlier than he usually did the next morning, complaining about my whining. I told my mom and she immediately tried to call him once he would have gotten home. Predictably, he never answered and I've never seen him since. Good.

I've told the story several times, but I eventually realized that people don't believe me so I stopped. It was a bizarre situation, and it was my first experience with depression.

I was born cynical, thinking the world was a dark place.