Question:

Is anybody triggered by 4th of July fireworks?

Or by the crowds at 4th of July?

Does anybody have any memories from childhood about 4th of July?

Puffer

I had really bad ear troubles as a little kid and the fireworks hurt me like crazy. I remember people saying I cried so much but everyone just thought I was scared, I think, not in pain.

When i was older it didn't hurt anymore though and I really enjoyed them. One time I remember some blew up on the stand and the firetruck came!

I hate big crowds ANYWHERE, not just forth of July. I'm not triggered by the actual fireworks though.

Extreme memories...I can replay 4th of July events in DVD-like clarity from age 4-on.

Some of those memories are actually quite majical for Robbie.

I tend to get a rather nasty case of "noodle-nerves" on and around July 4th. I hate fireworks because they startle me, and being startled is a trigger.

I am not good at all in crowds, anywhere at any time. I get triggered to the point I have to run and hide, when I see little boys with glasses between the ages when my perp. brother abused me.

It brings back to me the horrible memories of my abuse. I start to sweat and the tears flow from my eyes. My inner child is so ashamed of himself during those years. He just wants to hide and wants the memories to go away.

So, yea, I'm not planning on doing much of anything this weekend, that is with lots of people. My partner and I will probably go for a ride into the mountains and be by ourselves.

Ken

You ever try watching from a bit of distance with a small crowd? I grew-up on a medium-sized lake. We always used to run the boat over to watch the fireworks at the country club from some distance off-shore. Or even here you can see a lot from the tops of a few hills. There is a public hike-up hill open-space type of deal which is about a mile south from the Vista Ridge fireworks. Not much crowd to deal with there, either.

The best fireworks that I ever saw were the City of Cleveland's program at Edgewater Park the summer of 1988. They had five different launch points for a show that lasted over an hour. The city had the West Shoreway closed for the event, and my first wife and I just sat by ourselves on our blankets on the top of the concrete freeway median divider. Which gave us a half-mile headstart when it was time to leave.

So if you find a spot a little back from the crowd the noise won't be as bothersome, and neither will the crowd affect you as much. I'll see you there, at the hilltop, about dusk. BYOB.

Mark

I get quite triggered by fireworks...albeit for different reasons. The crowds are just a pain in the ass that I don't do well with anyway. The sad part is that, as a kid, I used to love the fireworks shows. Oh, to be a kid again.

I have a particularly happy memory about the 4th of July.

I was 10 years old. My father only rarely took me anyplace or did anything exciting.

For this 4th he bought a bunch of fire crackers of different sizes. Then he took my sister and me way out in the country (it was illegal in the city) and he lit off fire crackers for about an hour. He put them under tin cans and made them fly way up in the air. All of this was to my great delight.

Puffer

The 4th was never a happy time for me after the abuse began, before that there were some happy moments. It was so long ago that they are hard to remember.