During a student presentation, something was making the projector glitch. Our teacher was trying to unsuccessfully fix it.

Teacher: “Scheiße.”

Me: “Miss, you shouldn’t swear in German.”

Teacher: “You are not supposed to know that.”

CONTENT WARNING: Childhood Trauma

I grew up in a pretty unsafe household. I had no peace at school, either, because one of my parents worked at said school and could have any teacher’s job if they wanted to, so while some teachers tried to help me, they could only do so much. This is the story of the first time I ever felt truly safe. The dialogue may not be completely accurate because this happened about ten years ago, but I’ve preserved the meaning of the words, at least.

We went to a rollercoaster theme park for our senior trip before graduation. The park had a dedicated night for this, and all kinds of high schools from near and far had come to this park for this one epic night.

Thankfully, neither of my parents chaperoned, but a few of their minions unfortunately did. One of those chaperones forced me to eat more than I felt comfortable with, and I ended up throwing up in a park trash can. To cover her butt, [Chaperone] scolded ME for “not telling her I’d eaten so much.” None of the other chaperones said anything, even though they were witnesses and knew that this was a total lie.

So, to continue the “of course, I’m very concerned” act, [Chaperone] decided to force the group I was with to go with her while she dragged me to the first aid place at the park. She got us there and insisted I be seen. Little did I know that her stunt was going to end so very well for me!

The on-site doctor (or nurse, or PA — I never did learn for sure) took one look at me and realized something was up by how frazzled and upset I looked. My group had held me upright so I could get there in the first place with the world spinning around me, which probably didn’t help.

Doctor: “Let me take a look at her. Can you sit right here please, miss?” *Motions to a gurney*

I yanked my way out of everyone’s arms, focused very hard on walking straight so I wouldn’t annoy anyone, and sat down, ready to get scolded by the doctor, as well. But… the scolding never happened. He asked a few gentle questions in a soft voice (much appreciated with how much my head hurt) about what had transpired, tried to get specifics out of me that I wasn’t going to provide because the chaperone was staring me down, and proceeded with a quick exam. He presumably knew I was fine after that, but I was anxious so my heart rate was probably up. He looked up at [Chaperone].

Doctor: “I think she needs a bit of a rest. Could you please go wait out in the waiting area?”

Chaperone: “Okay, fine.” *Huffs and leaves*

A few of my group mates, people who were actually friends, stayed behind without the chaperone noticing. They were clearly concerned, and he probably would have been content to let them stay, but eventually, the doctor helped me shoo them out, too, because I wasn’t resting. I was trying to get them to leave me alone and go enjoy the park so I didn’t impose on their night out. (I later found out that one of the girls stayed out in the waiting room anyway — WITH the chaperone. I hadn’t realized how much she cared about me before that night, and we stayed in touch after graduation.) Before the doctor shooed them out, though, he did get the whole story out of them, because I was too afraid to tell, and he convinced me to drink some water with the help of some peer pressure.

Once everyone left, I gave in to how dizzy and generally crappy I felt. I flopped down on the gurney; I’d been propped up on my elbow. There was no one in this area except the two of us and some security cameras. And this human embodiment of protection and compassion pulled up a chair and sat down right next to my gurney, watching the door.

Doctor: “It’s okay; no one’s here now. Get some rest.”

Me: “But I should get going soon; I’ve already taken up a lot of your time. I’m so sorry—”

Doctor: *Cutting me off* “No, no, no, absolutely not. You have no deadline. You leave when you feel better, not when you feel like you ‘should’ leave. There is no one here. It’s been a slow night. There is no reason to be sorry. If anything, you’re giving me something to do during a boring shift.”

Me: “If you’re sure…”

Doctor: “I’m completely sure. I don’t mind if you want to sleep all night here. I’ll be here and keep an eye on you. It’s safe here.”

We actually had the above conversation a few times after this, but it was the same conversation and this is long enough already. I finally closed my eyes and relaxed. But after a few minutes, I heard movement. Someone was coming in! I popped into an upright seated position out of pure instinct.

The intruder was [Chaperone], this time with an irritated, impatient expression. But there was… a white coat partially obscuring the view? I’d never had anyone put themselves between me and someone else to protect me until that point in my life, so it took me a moment to realize that he’d sprung up as fast as I had and put himself between me and this power-tripping chaperone. He had been watching the door so I didn’t have to!

Doctor: *Practically roaring* “GET OUT! Go wait in the waiting room! She needs to rest!”

The chaperone was not expecting this, and she backed out of the room quickly, the doctor staring her down the whole time. Once the door had closed and she’d taken a few audible steps away, he turned to me as he sat down again.

Doctor: “I’m sorry you had to see that, but you’re safe here. Do you think you can lie down and try to relax a bit?”

I just sort of nodded and flopped back down, completely unable to process what I’d just seen. I closed my eyes but couldn’t sleep. Strangely, however, I was more relaxed than I’d ever been before. If I started to tense up, all I had to do was pop an eye open and see the doctor watching the door to feel safe enough to relax and close my eyes again. I’d never had anyone look out for me like that, and had I felt well enough, I probably would have been anxious about it, but I was so worn out after a little while that I was just grateful, contentedly basking in the joy of being permitted such an unprecedented respite.

About an hour after I was first dragged in, I felt well enough to get nervous about taking up too much time (in spite of the fact that literally no one else came for first aid the whole time I was there) and insisted that I was feeling well enough to leave. As I left, the doctor wished me well and told me to take care of myself and to not hesitate to come back if I needed it. He also stared daggers at the chaperone as we waited for my group to come get me so I could continue on with them.

About a week later, I finally got a little bit of time alone with my parents out of the house. I sobbed for about an hour. It meant so much. The time I spent with that doctor was the highlight of the whole trip.

If you’re reading this, kind park doctor, thank you for taking the time to show a scared and traumatized teenage girl that she’s worth standing up for and that not everyone who wants to help is subject to consequences for doing so. It was probably an unremarkable and boring night at work to you, but it literally changed my life and I think about this night a lot, even a decade later.

Back when I was a teen, I was in the ATC (Air Training Corps) as an Air Cadet. This youth organisation was part of the RAF (Royal Air Force), and it gave us many opportunities to do things that you wouldn’t normally be able to do. In the spring of 1991, I got the opportunity of a lifetime.

Our squadron had a civilian instructor who worked for the RAF; he was a Chief Tech at his squadron and our RAF liaison officer. He was based at RAF Wattisham and was soon to transfer to RAF Odiham.

I don’t know if this is still the case, but back then, it was tradition to get a flight at your old RAF base before you transferred. Rather than take the flight for himself, he negotiated one flight from each of the squadrons, and these would be given to a couple of Cadets at the ATC squadron he volunteered at. You had to be eighteen or over and have a note declaring fitness from your doctor.

When our Commanding Officer announced the opportunity at the briefing at the end of one night, I stood up straight away, as did two others. The following week, I handed in my note, as did one of the others. Unfortunately, the third cadet wasn’t fit enough.

RAF Wattisham had two F4 Phantom squadrons: 74 (Tiger) Squadron and 56 (Phoenix) Squadron. The other cadet had his flight with 56 Squadron, and his experience was high-level flying at supersonic speeds over the North Sea. My flight was with 74 Squadron and was low-level flying over Somerset and Devon.

As you can imagine, on the days leading up to my flight, I was extremely excited. I had permission to miss school, and that morning, the Chief Tech picked me up and drove us to RAF Wattisham. The next hour or so was spent having a final physical from the RAF doctor. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy, as they put me in one of those Top Gun-style flight suits, and they are not easy to put on or take off.

The thing you don’t realise until you put them on is that the neck collar does not undo. You have to tuck your head into the overall (you are already partially wearing it at this point) and thrust your head up through the collar. As this is designed for keeping you dry if you bail out into the sea, the lining is quite a stiff rubber; there is no give. I’m not very flexible, but I just about managed to get it on, although I did contemplate removing my ears at one point.

One of the things I had to do was give a urine sample, and after the Hell of putting the suit on, I was not going to take it off again. Fortunately, it is possible to go to the loo, but (as I discovered) it isn’t easy.

The first bit is easy: undo the zip. Next, reach behind the zip at the waistline, reach inside, and unroll the rubber tube. Shove your hand and arm through the tube and undo another zip. Now you can rummage around your own clothing and find, um… the bit of you that is essential for delivering urine… and do your best to pull it through all the unbelievable layers of clothing. Then, remember you’ve still yet to aim through all that into a tiny sample bottle without leaving tell-tale embarrassments. Fortunately, I did succeed and didn’t have to curse the person who made me suit up far too soon, nor did I need to hide in the toilet waiting for the suit to dry and miss the flight.

I was given the go-ahead by the doctor, and it was on for the safety and flight briefing. After all the briefings, it was out to the hangar. I was seated in the navigator’s seat, which is the one behind the pilot. I was plugged into all manner of different things, including these pneumatic pipes that feed air into rubber bladders built into the suit legs. You know those blood pressure sleeves that go around your arm? They’re a bit like that. When you go into a tight turn, they inflate to stop all your blood from rushing to your feet.

I was shown where the sick bags were, the mic was tested, the cockpit closed… and we were off, taxiing to the runway.

The speed, oh, the speed! I had flown in gliders and propeller aircraft before, and those always seemed to climb so rapidly. But this… wow! One second we were stationary, then we were hurtling down the runway as we accelerated to about 170 mph, and then we were rapidly climbing up through the clouds.

It was an overcast day, a blanket of white as far as the eye could see. Once we were through the clouds, there was a bright blue sky and glaring sun. I can’t remember what altitude we reached, and looking outside it was really hard to judge as all I could see beneath me was cloud.

After flying straight and level for a while, the pilot said something to me I’ll never forget.

Pilot: “You have control.”

It took a moment or two to sink in… he was LETTING ME FLY THE JET!

In the run-up to this flight, I had joked with my friends about seizing control, putting it into a dive, and performing insane dogfight-style flying. And here I was, being offered the plane!

I remembered what I had to do. I put my feet on the rudder controls, one hand on the joystick, and my other hand to my mouthpiece, and i fumbled for the mic switch.

Me: “I have control.”

I had £18,000,000 of hardware at my fingertips, and all I dared do was bank slightly to the left and then slightly to the right. After far too little time (but still, WAY more than I could ever have dreamed of) he took control back.

A short while later, we reached Yeovilton, where the pilot requested clearance from ATC (a different ATC this time: Air Traffic Control) to descend for low flying. We eventually got clearance, but not before we had to circle round, and around and around and around and…

…I am really glad I remembered where those sick bags were kept.

When we had descended, we started by flying along the north Somerset and Devon coastline. A couple of years previously, I had stayed at Lynton and Lynmouth on holiday with my family. One of the places we visited was The Valley of Rocks to see the rock formation known as The White Lady. Some rocks had fallen in such a way that they formed an outline so that if you squinted just right, you could convince yourself it was a woman. If the day is cloudy (this is England, so that would be most of the time) it would appear white.

The reason I mention this is because. that day. I saw the White Lady from the other side! We were flying roughly level with the top of the cliffs (and The White Lady) over the sea.

I don’t remember a huge amount of the low-level flying, as I was still desperately trying to keep what was left of that morning’s breakfast inside me and also making sure that the bits my body didn’t want to keep made it into the bag.

I do remember this bit, though. In Somerset, on the top of a large hill, is The Wellington Monument. We flew by it, and we were lower than the top.

Eventually, it was time to fly back. The return flight was uneventful, and it was only after we landed and I was in the crew changing rooms that the last of my breakfast showed up.

I had timed my flight; I was airborne for one hour and fifteen minutes. When we went to Devon on holiday, the drive took about eight hours (including stops). It took a long time for that to sink in.

The bit Mum remembers most about that day was when I got home. She was expecting me to bound in, talking non-stop about my experience, and she might eventually get to ask a question after an hour or two when my jaw finally stopped working.

Instead, I let myself in, quietly went upstairs to my room, got changed out of my cadet uniform, and quietly came downstairs. After a little while, all I could say was:

Me: “This morning, I was in Devon.”

Eventually, the enormous feeling of being overwhelmed by the experience started to subside, and THEN Mum got the non-stop narration that she was expecting!

To Chief Tech [M]: thank you for giving me the opportunity of a lifetime!

I was a subject librarian at a university. I received an email from a professor who had recently retired from another school and moved to our city. He wanted to donate decades worth of books and journals to the library.

This sort of thing is often a LOT more trouble than it is worth since much of the material will be old, duplicate, or online, but some of the stuff he described sounded good, and frankly, he might be someone willing to donate money to the university in the future if we built a relationship. Also, he understood and didn’t mind that much of the material would end up being discarded, so it seemed like it would be worth the trouble of a few months of sorting through the material.

Being a cautious soul, I checked all of this with the collection management librarian, the dean, and probably half a dozen others. Everyone agreed that it seemed like a reasonable decision and gave me the go-ahead.

I contacted the professor.

Me: “I have the approval to accept the gift. Where are the materials?”

Professor: “In my old house in [State halfway across the country].”

None of us had thought to ask that. The library had to pay for shipping.

This incident is almost all secondhand from a witness.

I have terrible hand-eye coordination due to my epilepsy. It takes my brain a bit to process that there is something being thrown at my face, basically, as numerous broken glasses and black eyes can attest.

Every one of my teachers knew this. My eighth-grade math teacher had a thing where he would throw a foam softball at the students when he wanted to get their attention or get them to answer a question.

Around halfway through the year, I had a petit mal seizure during this math teacher’s class. During these seizures, everything turns black and I stare off into space unresponsive, which physically looks like dissociation or not paying attention.

My teacher saw me “not paying attention” and got angry, so he took his foam softball and chucked it at me as hard as he could… realizing at the last second that I was having a petit mal seizure. He watched in horror as the ball bounced off my still unresponsive forehead. Apparently, I didn’t even blink.

When I woke out of it a few moments later, I had to go to the nurse with a big red spot right in the center of my forehead, with the teacher stammering apologies in the background and me being extremely confused.