What moment changed your life completely?

choking as a child at an IHOP. a doc saved my life by performing the Heimlich, then nonchalantly sat back down to finish his meal while my grandma was still flipping out. i wanted to be like that.

My Father was diagnosed with an advance stage of a rare cancer, he fought for over a year with traditional chemo and radiation. In early 1999(ish) a radical and trial surgery became available for him in Philadelphia.

The whole family left on a road trip to the hospital where the surgery was scheduled for, about half way to Philly, we stopped for lunch. At the end of our meal, he announce to us that he decided to not go, and to return home. He said "I want to have fewer good days with you, rather than more bad days." We then turned around and went home.

I will never forget that day.

I had a stroke. Quit smoking and drinking. My life is so much better now even with the residual affects of the stroke

Divorce of my parents

A tornado hit my home town. It was one of those really bad, destroyed a huge part of the town, end up on the news and the President visits type natural disaster.

My mom was a nurse at a nursing home. A police officer told our neighbor that the nursing home was destroyed and that everyone had died. She came over and told us, which was fucking stupid, since our dad wasn't home and it was just my sister (9th grade), me (7th grade) and my brother (4th grade).

She wasn't actually dead - in fact, no one at the nursing home died, though we didn't find that out for hours. But it completely changed me because I realized that terrible things can happen to anyone. I lost that sort of protective child bubble where you think nothing bad could really happen to you.

The whole experience of the town cleaning up after the tornado, knowing some kids who had died, knowing people who had lost everything, would have been an important event no matter. But thinking that my mom was dead for hours was life changing. It also changed how I viewed my stepdad, who was cold and often cruel, but I saw him cry like a baby.

I had a friend die at a graduation party I was at. It dramatically changed how I approached high risk situations.

I was 14 and I finally had enough of my parents and the mud-slinging, bitterness and character assassinations that come from a divorce/custody battle that first started when I was 3.

I told them both, this is it, a line has been drawn in the sand. I cannot pass judgement on what either of you did in the past because I was a kid. But I can pass judgement on what you do now. I don't wanna hear it, I don't want any part of your arguing. Leave me out of it. It is not my place, as your child, to take sides so stop fucking trying to make me.

That was the moment I realized I was an adult, and my parents realized I wouldn't put up with their shit.

I was fifteen years old and had a semi-illegal job at the library. They paid me under the table. My mom lost her job and with it, her ability to pay for her bipolar medication. I was paying for our rent with my income, but that really hurt her pride and upset her. During a manic episode, she punched herself so hard that she bruised herself, and then told me if I didn't quit my job, she would call the police and tell them I assaulted her.

I went into work and quit my job. I was arrested for assault about fifteen minutes later.

Cops wouldn't listen, it didn't matter that I was a third her size, a 4.0 student, a kid with a job, I had never had a record. None of it mattered. I spent three weeks in jail because my mom had a manic episode and was homeless when I was let out.

tl;dr: Went from being a straight A student with a job at 15 to a homeless kid with a record in the span of fifteen minutes because my mom was crazy and the cops were dicks.

Traumatized by needles in my legs for vaccinations and my dad had a stroke and almost died a few times....