Pre-9/11 airport travel

Every time I’m at the airport, I’m haunted by the memory of how it it was. We really fucked up. For something as important as public transportation, we really screwed up by sacrificing privacy for the fake feeling of security.

At one point in 7th grade I was hospitalized and put into a psych institution for mental health and poor school attendance. Because I was so young i was dropped into a place that was more of a prison/juvie instead of a hospital/treatment facility, and the staff reflected that. They were pretty insensitive and said things that most people would shake off but would be crushing to somebody extremely depressed. For example I said I was sad and wanted to talk to somebody, I was told to journal and bring it back to discuss it. After showing them my journal the first thing they said is “what is this? Chicken scratch?”. Again for context this was to a depressed, 12 year old boy whose parents, family and home were being torn apart by a vicious divorce.

That’s not even the worst of it, just an example of those who worked there. The real haunting experience happened like this.

They would let the kids play outside as a break and would pat them down and use a metal detector when reentering the building to make sure they didn’t sneak anything inside. This one employee decided to play a trick on me. He scanned my back where I couldn’t see and suddenly the detector beeped. He started getting angry saying “Yo what is this, what you got here?”. He told me to take off my jacket. It beeped again as he scanned a second time.

After that he started threatening and accusing me. Saying things like “what the hell are you tryna pull dude” “have you ever been put down before?” “You seriously tryna get detained dude?”. I was mortified because I had no idea what was happening and I thought these guys were gonna crush me, because another staff member playing along started cracking his knuckles and his neck while staring threateningly at me. As I started to break down crying and sobbing the guy, no shit, pulled a “just a prank bro” and told me “I was just playing damn, why you getting so worked up?”

Some of the other kids that were used to this (they were pretty similar to the staff) told them off saying that was fucked up.

This was all about 6 years ago but I am still mortified by metal detectors body scanners and general security procedures.

About 20 years ago, while we waited at a red light, my wife and I saw a kid chase after his skateboard into an intersection. The oncoming traffic was coming over a blind hill. The driver didn’t have a chance to react.

The kid didn’t die, but the scene was horrific. It took me many days before I could fall asleep without seeing it in my mind, and to this day it stays with me.

That poor kid.

A panic attack I had about 5 years ago. I was walking to my car and just froze once I was about 30 ft away. I couldn’t move, I was just freaking out. Had to call my dad to come get me and physically help me walk to the car then drive me home.

Never been so terrified in my life, and I wasn’t in any danger. I was left genuinely traumatised by that 20 or so minutes that I was waiting for my dad.

I’ve always got panic attacks but that particular one was so bad that I’ve struggled to recover from it. I’m still suffering from some agoraphobia as a result.

Having my virginity taken from me by force. Almost 20 years ago but fuck that guy. So much counseling and it’s impacted every aspect of my life and he’ll never know how much it affected me. He probably doesn’t even remember.