Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
When I was 11 years old, my family went on a bus tour of Europe, and it was on that tour that I would travel the farthest away from home I’d ever been or would go. 9073 miles or 14,601.58 kilometers away from home, to be exact.
We started the trip by flying to London, England from Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada ,where we spent a few days sightseeing before we boarded the bus that would take us to mainland Europe. We woke up at 4 am. to have breakfast at 430,and board the bus by 5 a.m.,and we were off on our way . The bus was half full of Canadian passengers and half full of American passengers. By the time we got to Rome, Italy, I was already tired of traveling by a bus that was half full of loud Americans who were complaining at every turn .I was thrilled to finally get off the bus and spend a few hours sightseeing with my family. I didn’t expect the old Italian men pinching my 11 year old bottom black and blue, nor did I expect to aquire a lifelong phobia.
We were in a famous square, I can’t recall the name, and my father had his video camera with him. In 1976, video cameras were big, bulky, and heavy. He noticed that there were birds perched on the many statues of the square and had the bright idea to send his daughter to the middle of the square with a handful of birdseed and instruct her to throw the birdseed into the air so he could get a shot on video of the birds all flying to get the seeds. At this point, it should be noted that I wore thick glasses and was not athletic in the least. So I threw the birdseed into the air. Unfortunately, I threw it straight up, and as it rained down on top of me, so did all of the apparently ravenous pigeons . It was like a scene from Hitchcock himself. And that is my story about the farthest away from home I’ve ever traveled.
What is the phobia ,you ask. From that moment on, I’ve had ornithaphobia or a deathly fear of birds.
Wow. Talk about guaranteed ways to create trauma in a kid…
No kidding!
That’s terrible about your bird phobia, and the pinching as well 😡🤢
I have a couple of phobias myself, and my mother has one from an incident that happened when she was six years old.
I think the furthest I was ever from home was Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Home at the time was Regina, Saskatchewan, so I was 1,827.7 miles away. I was fourteen years old, which is also when I got the Palmetto bug phobia I still have today.
One of my favorite things to say is, the only thing that has wings that I trust is a maxipad😉. I completely understand your phobia.
And even those are debatable! 🤓
I don’t think any amount of “exposure therapy” would help me with P bugs, but I know it has helped others.
Glad for those it’s helped, but I’ve been around people’s pet birds and am still terrified if the bird isn’t in its cage . I feel like outdoors is their territory, and indoors is my territory,so I’m oddly a little less terrified outdoors because I’m more aware of the possibility of being landed upon. Indoors, I don’t expect it as much. If that makes sense?
That makes a lot of sense. I’m certainly not a fan of them flying around indoors either, and it leaves me feeling uneasy. Maybe I could adapt to that, but I’ve thus far I’ve been around birds indoors only if they were trapped inside.
A bird trapped indoors is one of my mother’s phobias, and she picked that one up from watching Hitchcock’s The Birds when she was really young.
Very interesting, and disturbing regarding the phobia. I was born in Rome in 1942 and, in December of 1945, amid the factional killings going on throughout the country, my mother’s OSS supervisor got the family out on a Swedish rescue ship. We crossed the Atlantic with rumors of German U-boats still at large, but made it to New York City. 5 years later we returned to Italy by ship, stayed several months, and then came back to the U.S. by the same ship
Over my lifetime I have been more places in the world than would easily be put in this message. But the Swedish ship did have an interesting moment. Smallpox broke out on the voyage and we all had to be vaccinated before being admitted into the U.S. When it was my turn I was stunned almost speechless by the pretty young nurse. She was blonde haired and blue eyed. I had no idea girls came in those colors and, not then knowing Swedish, could only stare at her. In fact I still remember her. So, I can’t say I developed a phobia.
I must say that your experience is proof that people who grew up without war are not nearly as strong as people who have, in general.