Would you guys care to share an experience that changed your life completely?

The day when I was 12 that my dad told me what exactly he had to go through to make it in the United States was definitely mine. I remember one quote, 'Kid, if you don't work hard and keep your spirits up, the world's gonna break you and make you its slave. Don't ever let it get you down, and you'll do great things.'

Still remember to keep going even when life seems overwhelming.

What about you guys?

When two weeks ago I got caught sneaking out, and my dad sat me down and told me that he wasn't legally obligated to take care of me when I turned 18, and that he'll kick me out that day if I keep this up. Well my grades are looking great now and I'm working my butt off at my job. Thanks dad?

Probably my parent's divorce. Made me more independent if anything.

When someone told me that making an assumption that I wouldn't get what I wanted, meaning I never asked for it, meant I definitely wouldn't get it. One of those life wisdoms that you know intellectually fairly rapidly, I think, but sometimes doesn't truly sink in/you live it until a dramatic moment.

I won't explain the circumstances of my moment, but yeah...it was a dramatic situation, so it stuck. Well, mostly.

Probably the death of my grandmother (I was about 13 then). Without going too much into detail, life in the houshold took a slow steady decline. By the time I had reached my mid twenties I had severed contact with my family and continued on with my downward spiral. That didn't end until I found out that my father had terminal cancer. Suddenly all that had happened over the last (nearly) 20 years stopped being so important to me.

After his death, so began the slow process of healing, but I'm sure my family still harbors some resentment and anger over my actions.

We were all young once and made some mistakes...oh wait, some of us still are.

My life changed for the worst when I became a raging drug addict. It started out in high school, I'd get my 'stuff' from a kid I knew. I started using because it made me feel better about myself, and it shut me out from the cruelness of the people I walked amongst. Before I knew it I was living with my dad in Washington state and panhandling and scheming for ways to get cash just so I didn't get miserably I'll every day. All this is hard to explain in one paragraph, but my addiction lasted for 4 years.

Now I'm sober from opiates and living a relatively normal life.


That really changed who I am as a person, and made me realize that I'm lucky to be alive. I still have stresses and problems, but that's life.

I don't think there really ever was a single inspirational moment for me. My life was never truly one thing in one instant and a whole other thing in another. It was all gradual for me, I guess I should consider my self very fortunate not to have such a shock.

But the fastest change was probably when my dad got pulled over, while I was in the car, and arrested for driving while intoxicated and having marijuana seeds in the car. My mother had always told me that my dad had a little drinking problem, but she sugar-coated it.

That night really woke me up, and I realized what my dad really was and still is today.

The day my parent's got divorced (long before the former incident) was a bit of a faster change as well. I was in shock for a day or two, then became depressed and cynical, I started thinking of love only as electro-chemical signals in the brain firing off purely for the survival of the human race, which was no good for the planet anyways.

I've gotten better since then, started to move on from the prefect world I was in as a child and the rotted, putrescent cesspool I thought I was in later. Although I still have some left over pessimism, cynicism, and other -isms from that time of my life.

Well, you'd be right, but that's no reason to disregard that brain impulse is it? I don't understand the depression associated with scientific thinking.

2 things that have effected my life greatly.

Getting a blood clot that had a 66% chance of killing me. Now, I think everything is going to kill me. Those commercials with showing those smokers getting a rare disease where they lose limbs.....yeah, I quit 3 weeks ago the day after I saw the first one.

Second, the April tornados that hit last year in Alabama. My area was torn apart and now everytime the wind blows or it rains I completely freak out. I've watched more news and weather in the past year than the rest of my 32 years on this planet.

It mainly just gave way to me thinking that the human race svcked, to put it bluntly.

Well, in my opinion, it does as a whole. It's only individuals that give me hope.

I was born, if that didn't happen things would be a lot different.

This.

Summer 2007. I was reintroduced to anime in the form of Kare Kano. From this I found a new purpose, a new life, became interested in foss and technology, and other things not to mention all other major changes since then are related to my anime hobby. I was pretty much completely reborn.

My birth (of course), when my dad told me that he was sending me to America for a college education, and that I would be the first of my family to ever go to college, and when my fiancé moved in with me.

Nothing so far, but I have a feeling that something is going to happen soon.

Being the only of my siblings to go to college. So, going to college. It really is a great experience. I think my brother joining the military inspired me as well.

When my dad walked out on us... Both times. I remember them both vividly.

Coming out to myself as trans was definitely a life-changing moment. I didn't crossdress as a child or try to tell my parents "I'm not a boy!" or anything, plus I liked girls, so the possibility didn't really occur to me. Even when a friend of mine transitioned during high school I never thought "maybe I'm like him," because I had built up a monolithic story for all trans women that I didn't fit
into: all trans women knew when they were 4, crossdressed constantly as kids and teenagers, and liked men. I simply never gave the idea any serious consideration. This isn't to say there weren't signs, or that I was comfortable with my gender(I wasn't), but they simply got ignored and stuffed away as part of my personality, and the most obvious signs were very private things that one doesn't share with others.

To put it into forum friendly terms: guys don't want to have girl parts, and they definitely don't wake up in the middle of the night screaming because they can't find their girl-parts. It was that "middle of the night" incident that made me realize most men really, really like their boy-parts, and I began to look into the possibility of being trans. It went pretty quickly from "possibility" to "certainty." And...everything just sort of slid into place. Things about my life and myself just made so much more sense, and ever since it's been a bit like taking the red pill in "The Matrix."

One individual I believe deserves much veneration is one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Thompson,_Jr. He has inspired me greatly.

When all those around him were massacring children, women and the elderly, all of whom were totally unarmed, he aimed his weapons at his own men and told them to stop, putting himself between the civilians, endangering his own safety, and defying authority in an exemplary display of a thinking soldier.

Having my children. Havent messed up their heads too badly so far. *fingers crossed*

Also realising I didnt have to be like my parents.

Well I've had a few moments. Typical stuff but no less traumatizing i guess. Drunken dad who cheated on my mom and they got divorced. Walked out of our life after that except for once a year visits where my brother, sister and myself flew out to his place to visit with him. I spent the most time with him though. The repercussions of the divorce really erred my brother up and made a cynic of my sister. I was the youngest but it made me the reliable one to turn to for my family anytime they had a problem. He is still a raging alcoholic who only really can handle conversations with his children when drunk but is one of the smartest people I have ever known, he graduated from the University of Michigan after his service. He was a Navy Seal so I guess it is understandable that he has seen some messed up [censored] so he drinks to forget all the regrets of his life.

The next thing was my mom happily remarrying a great guy who had three kids who became my older step brothers and opened me up to the experience of an extended family. Most of my blood family(cousins and such) lives about 6000 miles away or so lol. Don't really even know em. After our families becoming very close the guy(my step dad) passed away after a heart attack in my moms arms. She is a nurse practitioner and felt totally helpless. He had a heart attack because a doctor was giving him the wrong meds and my mom was suspicious of it but feels like she did not do enough to get him on other meds. This event tore my entire family apart and for whatever reason it fell upon me to try and hold it together. I was only mildly successful. There are still great rifts in my family. I have a lot of respect for my mom who is one hell of a women who is very intelligent and independent but seeing her like that was almost mind blowing for me and made me very very aware of my own mortality and how my actions can have drastic effects on other people. Even my inactions. It made me a much more responsible and reliable individual or so I like to think so.

A few near death experiences also helped make me wake up to how stupid some I my actions were. 40 ft drop to compacted dirt while free running with friends cracked two ribs and broke my right arm in three places. Smacking my headl on coral while surfing a rather dangerous break and being greedy lead me to falling unconscious underwater and luckily me friend saved my life. Lastly partying with my friends a guy I fought with at another party tried to stab me. He was high on coke and it made me realize how bad that whole scene was so I slowly got out of it.

Guess that's the major things. Btw I was lying about all of that. That last sentence is a lie.

Really? I never thought about that! How observant of you.

You should be a detective.

I don't know what exactly changed me, but something definitely has. Was it newly discovered interests, or beginning to frequently draw, or maybe people I have met - I simply have no idea.
But I feel rediscovered and complete, unlike I felt two or so years ago. So, mysterious thing, thank you for making me what I truly am.

Leaving the wilds of Alaska to attend university. It changed my whole life and my views on the world.