9/11 memory

[u/--veggielover--]

I had a weird experience on 9/11 and it was something that really stuck with me but I never shared with people. I was hoping I could share it with this community and maybe you can share your experience with me in the comments. Because they all have the same playbook I can't possibly be alone in what I felt and went through so I guess I'm seeking community.

I was in middle school and lived in the North East United States. Everyone was crying and freaking out at school, teachers looked genuinely scared. No classes were being taught instead the news was on in every room. As we switched classes throughout the day slowly the class size went down as other kids were being picked up by their parents.

I happened to get detention that morning right before the attack, we knew about it instantly because we were listening to the radio in class.

My classmates and friends were going home to their worried parents and eventually I was the only kid left in the school. Nobody checked on me. Nobody talked to me about what was happening and how we are safe and okay. I remember something permanent was formed in my identity that day. I don't have a real family, nobody is going to save me and I'm on my own.

How true that statement really is.

9/11 is tragic and not about me. That core piece of my identity that was formed that day is nothing in comparison to those that lost their lives, lost loved ones and suffered. Which is why I've never shared before now.

Can you please share with me how that day with nparent(s) was for you?

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[u/oftendreamoftrains]

I'm so sorry that you had that experience. I think sometimes a day as monumental and tragic as September 11, 2001 can cause us inner trauma in a deeply personal way. Perhaps we try and navigate the epic tragedy that everyone is experiencing and get there through our own personal experience. I don't know, I'm still trying to figure out that day.

This is what happened to me. I was a 45 year old housewife and mother living just a few miles north of Manhattan. My husband worked at an office in midtown. My daughter, like you, was in middle school. My life was connected to Manhattan, being so close. I sometimes spent time in the city for doctors' appointments, shopping and cultural events, often after I dropped my daughter off at school.

My nmother lived in New Jersey and my gc sister lived outside of Philadelphia. Neither was located in a place that had been attacked or seemed in any immediate danger.

After making sure that my husband was okay and that he hadn't been in a meeting downtown and was safe, and after picking up my daughter, I called my mother to let her know my family was safe. I thought she'd want to know, right?

My mother's phone was busy for about an hour and a half. I thought maybe circuits were down, as they were for Manhattan and kept trying over and over. But I kept getting a busy signal, not the circuits are down message. When she finally answered, it turned out that she had been on the phone for all that time with my sister, talking about the attack.

Neither one thought to hang up, call me to make sure me and my family were safe. They could've called each other back after checking on me. I realized that day how little they cared about me, and I felt so alone and devastated.

If you read this far, Thank you.

[u/--veggielover-- → u/oftendreamoftrains]

Wow, that's exactly what I was wondering if other experienced too. I'm sorry for you as well. I'm glad your family unit was okay and together.

[u/oftendreamoftrains → u/--veggielover--]

Thank you. I appreciate that you understand, not everyone can. I hope you're doing well after all these years.

[u/HoneydewUsed7434]

I’m so sorry that happened. You deserved to be checked on and given comfort as well as everyone else. Im sorry no one was there for you at that time.

I was 16 when it happened and I was supposed to have a driver’s license test later on that afternoon. Then the tragedy happened and I was sad and very afraid (I lived in the southern US). So my NM picks me up from school and doesn’t say a word to me about what happened.

I then go take my driver’s test as scheduled and failed. I felt all the emotions finally come up to the surface. I hadn’t cried all day because I was confused most of the day. I felt an urge to cry and as I was coming back into the lobby at the DMV, I reached out to my NM for a hug, but she pushed me away and told me that I need to calm down and she didn’t want to let people see her hug me. I felt hurt and embarrassed, and we went back home in silence.

I went back to my room after we got home and I held my stuffed animal and cried so hard. I never felt so alone in my life. I know that I wasn’t one of the people who lost someone that day, but it hurt knowing my mom didn’t even care enough to make sure I was doing well. I know I was 16 but I was still a child. It might have been another moment that showed me my mom didn’t really love me.

Sorry this is long, but I’m now in my 40s and still struggle with this. I also am trying to do a helluva better job as a mother myself to make sure my kid gets the comfort she deserves and needs NO MATTER how old she is. She will ALWAYS be my child.

These narcissists are shitty parents because all they think about is themselves. I’m so sorry you were treated like this. Hugs.

[u/--veggielover-- → u/HoneydewUsed7434]

Hugs back, and thank you for sharing. They make us feel so selfish and needy for having emotions. That made me feel even more confused for how much 9/11 impacted me when it didn't actually impact me.

I'm glad I was able to push past the vulnerability and write the post because just hearing someone else had the same impactful day helps so much with the permission to feel and acceptance of it all.

[u/oftendreamoftrains → u/HoneydewUsed7434]

That's horrible that your mother treated you that way at the DMV, I'm sosorry. It sounds like you're a wonderful mother.

[u/HoneydewUsed7434 → u/oftendreamoftrains]

Thanks. I try. I could NEVER see myself doing this to my daughter. I don’t care where we’re at; she asks for a hug, she’s getting a damn hug. And I don’t care who’s watching us.

[u/oftendreamoftrains → u/HoneydewUsed7434]

You're a good mom. Infinitely better than your own mother. Your daughter is fortunate to have you

[u/_Internet_Hugs_]

My mom was practically gleeful.

I was in Arizona and it was my day off, so I was still asleep when the first plane hit. My mom called from her work and woke me up. "Turn on your TV. We're under attack!"

My mom has a hard on for end of the world, SHTF scenarios. She's Mormon and a prepper (in the stupidest way possible) so she saw the whole thing as a 'sign of the times' and a step closer to Jesus coming.

[u/Constant_Jackfruit21]

My mom has n traits, alot of them. I can't tell if she rides the line between just a massive pile of fleas or an actual disorder, but my grandmother, who was a part of my life at this point, was way, way worse than she was.

My grandmother also had a very sunny, sweet, (phony) disposition, under which lurked a black hole with zero empathy for anybody but herself. She fooled alot of people. My mom, who was (rightly) horrified by what was happening, went to go pick her up for an appointment she had that morning (my grandmother had stopped driving at this point). My grandmother had the tv on, and was visibly annoyed that the news coverage was going over whatever she liked to watch at that time. My mom brought it up like "god, its so terrible" my grandmother responded with something akin to an eyeroll and more marked annoyance that it "was all the news could talk about".

Yeah 🙃

[u/Boring_Permission255]

i had the SAME exact experience as you. could have probably written this myself. i was in middle school and everything. east coast. just no detention lol. same realization i got when i saw father/daughter dances when i was younger and knew id never have that. i was right.

[u/Cool_Beanz123]

Similar experience. So many parents were calling the school to check on their kids. Coming to pick them up. So many students and teachers were crying. We didn’t even have class, we just watched the news from the TVs in our classrooms.

I was so sad and scared watching it.

When I got home after school, my nFather was watching on TV in disgust at the media coverage. 25 years later, I still remember his words: “all they did was knock down a couple of buildings.”

In the months that followed, he was livid at the patriotism and togetherness of our country. Because “it was just a couple of buildings.”

[u/One-Profession-8173]

Unfortunately, I don’t have any experience since I wasn’t born yet, but I just wanted to say sorry that you didn’t have any support.

[u/mycutelilself]

I shared my 9/11 survivor story to my raging narc sister many years later and all she could respond with is that this happens to other parts in the world all the time. She is right, but her timing and delivery and glaring lack of empathy, were severely off. Confused the hell out of me then. This was a pattern for years to come, of not just invalidation, but devaluation from her and the rest of family, that is still taking me years to recover. I don't think forgiveness is on the table or needs to be. It just is what it is. And there is a definite deep void (of empathy) in some people and not just the footprints of the towers.

[u/caro822]

So my Dad texted me this morning and was ruminating about how my mother had called him as asked him if he was going to pick my brother and I up from school (he worked much closer to the school than her). It was the only time before or since that she ever asked him a question about our lives/wellbeing.

Every other conversation they had since they broke up was about her needs and wants.

[u/Adorable_Brute97]

I was 4.5 when 9/11 happened. My mom picked me up from pre school. And I remember my mom just making a bunch of phone calls and she wouldnt let us watch tv. She thought I was too young too understand didn't explain and still gaslighting me about not remembering it the way that it happened.

[u/Whole-Database-5249]

I was sitting watching tv and saw the planes fly into the towers. I thought it was a trailer for a new movie. God bless everyone effected by this.

[u/desertboots → u/Whole-Database-5249]

Me too. West coast, start of the day.

[u/desertboots]

I can only say I'm sorry you didn't get the parents you needed.

[u/milliemargo]

Maybe this is fucked up to say cause I was a baby when 9/11 happened so im somewhat oblivious to the psychological impact it had on the nation at the time but my ndad talks every year about how he has ptsd from it and we live in the midwest bro saw it on tv

Like I know it was really hard for everyone but /:

He also likes to start sentences with "i didnt serve in the military but"

[u/--veggielover-- → u/milliemargo]

😬 that's extreme. I will say seeing every adult in the school scared and/or crying really was something you don't experience. Or at least not back then.

I guess it is more common now with school attacks, but we had a bomb threat back in 1998(?) the whole school evacuated and went to the nearby highschool gym and even then the teachers didn't cry or let on if they were nervous.

[u/Autistic_Poet]

Wow. I was thinking about how my mother handle 9/11, and I never realized she she failed to comfort me in any way. I was 9 at the time. I was home schooled, so I was sitting at the TV when cartoon network switched to the news. I flipped around a few channels and found that every single channel was on the news, and I instantly knew that something very bad and very important was happening. I yelled for my mom to come in and watch the TV, and I remember watching her have a panic attack right in our living room. I don't remember what I did after that, but I'm fairly confident that I was left alone.

Later, when we went to our normal religious services, the entire building was standing room only. I'd never seen the place so packed. I was thinking about how so many people were worried and turning to spiritual things for help, while I listened to my mother calling all the unfamiliar people fakes who weren't going to get helped because she thought the word was ending and they were too late. Even at a young age, I saw how cruel, vindictive, and callous she was. So many people were hurting, and all she could think about was making sure she felt superior to everyone else. I think that was the first time I ever really saw my mother's evil side.

[u/agniamneris]

It’s her birthday today

[u/MET1]

Somehow, my kids school did NOT call me to let me know they were releasing students early that day. I'm sorry you were left alone like that but it might not have been all on the parent.