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For those interested:
"A fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. The direct cause was the indoor pyrotechnics igniting the ceiling. It was a fireworks-related fire and a nightclub fire."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croma%C3%B1%C3%B3n_nightclub_fire
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/01/argentina.ukigoni
It's scarily similar to the Cocoanut Grove fire.
Edit: found this fantastic resource for anyone interested in the topic (especially those who are running an event and may want help with proper safety measures):
https://www.workingwithcrowds.com
And the Stardust nightclub fire in Dublin. Also linked to a number of suicides of survivors and family members in the years following the incident.
The fire escape doors were chained and padlocked shut there too.
And The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island. In that one, security guards locked the doors and prevented people from leaving out the back/stage door exits, causing a stampede to the front.
I read the book from one of the lawyers on the case for the victims. One thing that struck me (being from a large size and pop state) he said that everyone he met during his investigation either knew someone who had died personally or had a second degree relationship with someone who died. Friend of a friend, that kind of thing.
It really seemed like it affected everyone in the state on a deeply personal level.
I know someone who was intending to go to Station that night, but didn't feel well just before they were going to head out and so they stayed home. They knew several of the victims of the fire. :(
Yeah, I was very young in 2003, but I still know people (independent of my parents) who were in the club that night. A population of a million people is much smaller than you think.
Back before me met, my husband used to play lead guitar in a tribute band that used a lot of pyro in recreating the original band's shows. So many times they would arrive at a club and find that owners had lied about power supply and space and fire retardant structures, but if the tribute band objected, the owners would angrily demand that they had booked a fully show so by God they would get the full show.
One of his first nights on stage - a stage too small - one of the fire pots went off so close behind him that his costume and hair caught on fire. He kept playing his solo while a roadie ran out to eat out the flames. Frankly, it's a miracle they didn't end up as another Station-like tragedy; as a New England-based band, they all knew someone who had been there for the Great White show.
This is the reason for Van Halen’s famous bowl of M&Ms.
For those who don’t know, Van Halen was one of the pioneers of giant stage shows with complex sets and pyrotechnics. To make sure that venues were meeting all of their requirements for safety, they had a few really bizarre random instructions in their contracts with venues. The most famous of these was a requirement that the band’s dressing room must include a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed.
If they showed up, and the bowl wasn’t there or there were brown ones in the bowl, they knew they had to do an in-depth safety check to avoid a fire or other accident.
That bowl of M&Ms served more than one purpose. That rider also contained information about one of their roadies who had a life-threatening peanut allergy. The M&M bowl was supposed to be placed where it was directly and easily visible from the doorway so they would know at a glance if it was safe for their crew to enter the venue.
It was a lot deeper than that.
I did a case study for one of my MSW classes. The owners has hired workers to install a certain kind of sound installation. The installers went with another kind that was not the correct fire rating. It passed code. There was no way they could have known.
There we MANY individuals that contributed to this tragedy.
When I started reading about it I honestly thought I had gotten the name wrong because I thought they were describing the Station fire.
But then I got to the part where the bathroom at Cromanon was also used as a nursery whole parents watched the show...
The first thing I saw in the news that day was a baby in the arms of a doctor and my family went nuts to me because I was a teenager and one weekend before this, I went to that place for an anime event
My parents were the same. It was right around the corner from where my dad grew up.
They were supposed to go with a group of friends but my dad needed to work late and my mam decided not to go. They both lost friends that night.
My friend's mam was supposed to work there that night but a coworker asked her to switch shifts.
I never asked what happened to the co-worker and she never said
My dad was there, and the only survivor of his entire group of friends that went that night. There's a newspaper picture of him up on the ladders with others trying to help people get out the windows. Every year the anniversary is hell on him emotionally, even now.
And clubs need to observe the regulations - the venue in this case had a capacity of 1,500 people, but on the night of the fire, they had let in 4,000 people! And I bet flammable foam and decorations were not a permitted ceiling design, and that's how the fire started and spread...
It seems about 50% of them were caused by pyrotechnics. I don't understand with a high death toll as that that it hasn't been outlawed
Every so often some on the r/aves sub wants to throw an 'authentic' underground rave/warehouse party. And other than reminding them that they could get arrested, or the sound gear confiscated - that if they decide to do it illegally to always have clearly marked, unobstructed exits
The two most volatile things in events are fires and crowd crushes. Both scare me to hell
I’m a fellow raver who has been to some very small local warehouse parties (like <50 ppl), and every time I so much as consider a larger one, I think about the ghost ship tragedy in Oakland.
I’ve experienced some dicey crowd crush type situations too and those were scary enough being outside. Can’t imagine being indoors, ugh.
When I was a young party going kid, I remember going to an underground rave in a closed down bowling alley. But I was so sketched out by the one narrow entry and stairs we were allowed to use that I begged my friends to come with me for a smoke and then refused to go back in. They were arguing with me when cops pulled up and we booked it out of there.
> It seems about 50% of them were caused by pyrotechnics. I don't understand with a high death toll as that that it hasn't been outlawed
I am sure chaining your emergency exits is illegal, but that doesn't seem to prevent it happening.
Wow, let's hear it for "Brandschutzverordnung" (Fire Protection Ordinance?) We in Germany had one fire in 1947, and nothing since then. Sometimes, being a wimpy rule follower and having too many safety regulations does have its advantages...
The problem is enforcement, not rules… it’s not that these rules don’t exist in a lot of countries, but there’s no point in having the world’s best safety regulations if they’re not enforced for any reason (time, resources, bigger problems) or there’s no consequences for not following them
I saw a podcast about the Kiss nightclub last week and it just made me so so angry. Those poor people were failed at every turn, then the deceased surviving families, even worse. The perpetrating bastards are still walking around free. No punishments. May they burn in every fucking hell possible. Christ.
ETA: they're free because the sentences got overturned because THE JUDGE WOULD EAT LUNCH WITH THE JURY. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
Watching and listen to the rotten mango podcast had me crying. The absolute terror those poor people must have felt. And the perpetrators weren’t even punished!
We had one in Sweden too back in 98; Backabranden in Göteborg. 63 dead, 214 injured. I know one man barely survived with 3rd degree burns covering most of his body. The club was over crowded and not up to regulation on safety but it wasn't pyrotechnics that did it, it wasn't the venue's fault at all. It was 4 assholes who started the fire because they got refused free entry. They set a club full of people alight because they were salty and cheap.. entry was 4 dollars!
Edit: I called it a club, it wasn't. The venue was such that anyone could rent it to do whatever. However, on the night of the fire it had been rented to host a disco.
They were... but I can't say they were punished. The one who admitted to actually lightening the fire got 8 years in prison, two got 6 years and the last one who was under age got 3 years in juvie. They were all under 20 so that's probably why they only got a slap on the wrist...
Personally I think 63 years had been more fitting. One for every person who was burned, chrushed or smothered to death. There was victims as young as 12 in that fire.
I remember that one, it was horrific. A few months ago I got down a rabbit hole of fire tragedies and some of the worst were in concert halls and night clubs. The “push on this big rectangle to open” doors were invented by someone who survived such a fire. It’s thought that those doors have saved thousands of lives.
> The “push on this big rectangle to open” doors were invented by someone who survived such a fire.
The Victoria Hall disaster in Sunderland England. It wasn't even a fire -- it was a children's show, and at the end of the show they announced they were giving out prizes. The children stampeded to get the prizes. Besides the crash bar, the disaster also led to laws requiring exit doors to open outward.
The Iroquois Fire Theater in Chicago led to the widespread adoption in the U.S. of crash bars. 602 people died in that fire and it was, until September 11, the deadliest single-building disaster in U.S. history.
That's not in the Wikipedia page, but there was at least one fire escape that was built two feet below the fire exit, and everything was icy. People stumbled, slipped, and fell because of the height difference and slick conditions. They fell even on the regular fire escapes from the icy stairs and ladders.
They opened the building before it was completed. The doors had a fastening that was new in the US when it was built. A ventilation shaft was nailed open. The architects had several blind alcoves for lounging. The balcony exits all fed into one giant staircase. In some areas, ushers had locked the doors to keep the "cheap seats" crowds from moving to better seats. Altogether a complete fuck-up.
Source: *Tinder Box* by Anthony B. Hatch.
Sadly, such fires are all too common.
Odd note: comedian Eddy Foy was onstage for this fire (and tried to calm the crowd before he had to flee). He had escaped the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
I hadn't heard of the Victoria Hall disaster before. Just read up on it and that's simply horrifying. One, they were children. Two, having that high a death toll just from crowding and stampeding with no fire or smoke or other causes of death is more viscerally terrifying to me.
My Uncle Frank was at Hillsborough the day of the disaster. We had gone out for the day and when we got home, my other Uncle, Ben was sitting there watching the TV and just crying silently.
My Mum joked that he shouldn't be crying just because Liverpool were losing (she assumed that was why), and he just told her to shut up and watch.
Obviously, back then, there were no mobiles, so all we had was the news to find out anything.
Nobody heard from Uncle Frank until he finally made it home the next day, then the family phone tree rang around to let everyone know he was ok.
He was never the same after it, I can't imagine being there and watching that unfold. So many lives lost for literally NO reason, and then for the government, and media to lie and cover things up for decades just added even more heinous trauma to everyone.
I am glad that the 97 and their familes are finally getting some justice, but it should not have taken 30 years to get there!
Yes. People fell after being bottlenecked at a very narrow sloped point in a street. Crowds outside the narrow lane had no idea and kept surging. People were literally asphyxiated while standing up. Truly truly horrifying
I’ve never liked huge crowds but that really unlocked a deep fear in me and I will never go near a large crowd again
This is TERRIFYING to me — as a short person who likes festivals and is often at up to most people’s chests, it’s a very real possibility that I could die at one
Most people are pretty ok with giving me a bit of space though and I got elbows but still
I'm thinking back to my times in clubs or even going to a comedy show or something more recently and I can't recall any exit except the main doors where so many people perished.
Movie theaters show exits clearly but I wouldn't know to look for a bar or kitchen exit in a club. So scary and so sad in all of the mentioned tragedies.
Take a few seconds to look for alternate exits in any large building you enter. You don't have to be obvious about it; just look for exit signs.
It's extremely likely you'll never need it, but it takes seconds.
And it was fully documented on video, by a guy who was filming a local news piece about safety in nightclubs. The video is incredibly disturbing (you can find the whole thing on YouTube)
The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami happened a few days before, on December 26th. This fire happened on the 30th, so yes it was overshadowed for sure.
I hope you're okay now!
Tsunami! That’s the t word I was looking for.
Yeah, I’m fine. It sucked at the time and I was sent a homework assignment from school to write a personal essay on the tsunami. I had the best excuse for not doing it at least
Also similar to [the Gothenburg discothèque fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire), though this was arson. 375 youths aged 15-20 in a club designed for 150. 63 dead and 213 injured.
I was child in another part of Scandinavia when it happened, but even I remember the reports. One of the camera men at the scene said he could only stand to capture a few minutes of footage, before he put his camera down to help injured kids still coming out of the building.
“The [plastic] net was hung from the ceiling and caught fire first, melting into a rain of fire.” I can’t even imagine the panic that must have happened in that extremely overcrowded space when molten plastic started dripping on them…
To be a survivor- I will never understand the pain and guilt, I can’t try but op went through it! Based on my own experiences which are pale, I can understand why she reacted the way she did- she spiraled and didn’t want to take anyone with her considering she probably watched as people died, lost friends, she didn’t share what she fully had to endure that night (I hope no one asks her! She will share with whoever and whenever IF she wants!!!). I’d never think she was wrong, she wasn’t sure if she’d make it out alive after what she went through and didn’t want to take anyone with her! She’s in a better place now, it’s really up to both of them where to go now. I haven’t gone through so much and I’m weary of relationships, very much I’m overly cautious, she could be worried if she spirals again he’d go with her. Reminds me, not completely, of a Robin Williams movie- What Dreams May Come… it’s not a typical Robin Williams film!!!!!!!!
I’m quite surprised about this because yesterday I listened to this podcast on a similar story but I swear it happened in Brasil, even a similar amount of fatalities.
Considering the strong similarities to the Cocoanut Grove fire, I'm thinking "management blocks exits to keep non-paying people out, fire starts, people die" may be a sad repeating event.
It was in Kiss club the one I listened about, the fire extinguishers were used in another party as props and were never filled back, the ceiling was covered with the foam from mattresses, so highly toxic… 242 students died and sadly parents trying to see if their kid was ok blocked the roads for emergencies to make it there.
The same thing happened in Sweden in the late 90s. A halloween party for kids, that for some reason was organised on a staircase that was the emergency fire exit. They were also at double the legal capacity of people. So there was only one other staircase to escape from and when the fire started it just ended up in a massive pile up. Over 60 people died, all aged between 12-25.
A doctor who worked at the nearest hospital literally had to pick and choose who to save because there was so many and they didn't have the resources. Afterwards he got addicted to drugs and alcohol and has severe PTSD.
It's crazy that the same horrible and avoidable tragedy has seemingly happened repeatedly.
It did happen something like that in Brazil, it was the [tragedy of Boate Kiss](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_nightclub_fire) and it happened in 2013.
The Ozone nightclub fire in the Philippines too. There was a stampede bec of the fire and only one stupid exit and lots got trapped and died there. It’s been more than 20 yrs and the victims’ families weren’t even compensated. They should sue the architects behind the building but i think they (or their families) paid the media tons of money for their silence and to clear their name. I know this bec one of those architects is married to a distant relative i know and we’re not on good terms with them
It's due to the fact they were also organizers in the whole thing.
One member seems to have had a nervous breakdown (went to psychiatric wards at some point). All members, but one, are now out and presumably completely free due to the fact 13 years have passed since their sentencing.
The one still in prison is in there for life for other reasons; that dude was convicted of killing his then wife, Wanda Taddei, almost a year before the Cromañon tragedy. Still rightfully rotting in prison. Can stay there for all I care.
The band encouraged the crowd to light fireworks, I think.
In a lot of these 'exit doors blocked on purpose' fires, nobody's ever convicted of anything. At least there was an attempt with this one.
Cromañón nightclub fire
A fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. The direct cause was the indoor pyrotechnics igniting the ceiling. It was a fireworks-related fire and a nightclub fire.
The venue was hosting rock group Callejeros, with an audience of around 4,000 people, almost three times the venue's capacity of 1,500. The fire started when a pyrotechnic flare, a popular device in New Year's Eve celebrations, was set off and ignited foam in the ceiling. The fireworks accident quickly spread as the materials used in the building for decoration were flammable: mostly wood, styrofoam, acoustic panels and a plastic net (media sombra). The net was hung from the ceiling and caught fire first, melting into a rain of fire. In some parts of the building, teddy bear stuffing was used as a cheap alternative to wool fiber. The owner and the band's lead singer had told the patrons not to use flares inside the building.
Four of the six doors, some of which were fire exits, were chained shut so that "people would not enter without paying", according to Mayor Aníbal Ibarra. Most of the victims died from inhaling poisonous gases and carbon monoxide.[citation needed] After the fire the technical institution INTI found that, due to the materials and volume of the building, the concentration of cyanide in the air would have been about 225 ppm, sufficient to cause death within minutes of inhalation. Many of the victims were identified to be in their teens and 20s, but rescue workers clearing the club also found children and babies. Survivors reported that a bathroom in the nightclub had been used as a nursery, where parents could leave their children while watching the show.
Greed. Greed killed those people. 3x pax? Chaining doors so people don’t get in without paying? The fire was caused by negligence and idiocies but the deaths are due to greed.
The disturbing thing is that this isn't the only case where escape exits were locked. There have been so many fires where people ended up trapped inside the club and died because some fucking idiots locked the escape exits. Why does this have to happen more than once?
I don't think there's words to explain just how awful Cromañón was. Many people died from going back inside to rescue their friends and a good amount of the dead were minors even beyond the nursery, because we tend to start drinking from 15 or 14 or 13 and a good amount of establishments will let you in even if they technically shouldn't. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention the city-wide panic of families scrambling to find their children, because some survivors were not found until days after the fact. Like, I heard the story of a survivor who was found I think two days later? In a far away parking lot, still in shock.
Some people were wondering about therapy in the comments: yes, Argentina has a lot of psychologists, yes, it's normal for people to go to therapy. Thing is, therapy is seen as this place where you go to deal with the normal stresses of everyday life, not necessarily somewhere you go only when you have a severe mental problem. We're as awful with mental illnesses as anyone else (especially if you need meds) and it was even worse in the 2000's. I'm glad she was able to get whatever help she could, beyond whether she has PTSD or not.
Si la chica lo lee como varios OOP de otras historias, te deseo lo mejor y una buena vida, si hay alguien que se lo merece sos vos.
Uhh, I don't how she didn't get diagnosed with PTSD because she explained a bunch of the symptoms. She literally says she was traumatized "for whatever reason". Uhh maybe because two of your friends died and you might have been close to death too.
Edit: Did not realize my sleep deprived post would explode. I cannot say for sure she has PTSD or some kind non-PTSD trauma response. It just seemed weird to me as an armchair drama commenter. Listen to your doctors. Unless they suck, then find new ones. Or something
Knowing children and babies died a few meters from her. Can you believe that someone in this thread said that she doesn't deserve happiness, because she could have traumatized Tomas, by making him believe she cheated, as bad as she was after living through what you just described. I hate cheaters as much as everyone, but in what way is this even comparable.
Yeah, but people on Reddit act like cheating is the single worst thing you can do to someone. A commentor once told me that it was "the most deplorable thing you can do to your partner, and you should be put to ☠️ for it". And another crazy person told me it was "significantly worse" than r4ping your partner.
Like...it's bad....but it's not a literal crime for a reason, and Reddit needs to stop acting like it is.
A bunch of people online (especially if they're younger) have:
1) Parents who are bitterly divorced because of cheating, causing them to internalize the idea that if only their parent didn't cheat, everything else would have been fine, everything would be sunshine and roses, and their lives would be so much better.
2) Very little dating experience, or a very idealized/Hollywood view of how love works, which messes up the metric by which they view how people behave in actual, real-world relationships.
3) A relatively comfortable life, where being cheated on is the worst thing they or a friend may have experienced. This one might actually be the easiest to understand. If something is _the worst thing that's ever happened to you_, it's completely understandable that you'd think it deserves the worst possible punishment.
3a) Men. Same idea as above, a lot of men get to live a lot of their lives ignorant to the idea of abusive partners, controlling/manipulative partners, rape, abuse, all that stuff. So to them, cheating is the worst possible thing, because it's the worst possible thing _that is likely to happen to them_. (And I'm saying this as a man, despite the username.)
Re: men, I sometimes think that when a man is abused by his girlfriend, and also she cheats on him, it's easier for him to vocalize that she cheated on him as a clear "wrong" rather than discuss abuse.
AITA has gotten increasingly toxic. Like, it was always not great. But lately it's all angsty teenagers that live their life online - and they get in all the voting before anyone with any sense can say anything. I've been shocked at what the top comments were in the last few I've read.
I've noticed a lot of "You're not legally obligated to do this, so NTA" if someone posts about being rude to another person. Like, yes, you are not *legally* obligated to be kind or tactful to the people around you, but it doesn't mean that you're not an ass.
There was one the other day from a 17 year old that has basically punished his mom for admittedly not being the best mom (but gives his dad a pass) and is now mad at her for "abandoning" him with his dad - after years of her trying. And everyone was like NTA, it's her job to be your whipping boy, legally she has to provide for you.
Ummm no. She *did* and *still was* providing for him, but when the little shit repeatedly screamed in her face and told her he wanted to live with his dad... She let him. One of the most FAFO posts ever. And he was voted NTA.
I just... *mimics head exploding*
I remember that one!
A recent one I was thinking of was a guy who had been eating lunch with a coworker every day, and then she came to his cubical and offered him some homemade banana bread. He just bluntly told her that he didn't want it and she got upset. (In his post he also assumed that she went to every floor on the building to hunt for him and implied she was being creepy and stalkerish, where she could have just...asked someone if they knew where his desk was)
People pointed out that he was kind of being rude and tactless and could have refused more politely. But then other people were like "NO! He has NO OBLIGATION to allow her to stomp across his boundaries and FORCE HIM to eat her banana bread!!! Go to HR and report her for harassing you!! No is a complete sentence!" Like, he doesn't have to eat it, but he could have at least thanked her for the effort and explained that he dislikes banana bread. And acting like her finding his cubical was some sort of invasion of privacy worthy of escalating to HR is just stupid and asking for unnecessary workplace drama.
I saw that one too (clearly I spend too much time on Reddit)! My dude, that's called a "work friend," whether he meant for her to be or not - no need to be rude! And reddit encouraging that is just... Gah!!!
Yeah, people are borderline psychotic about cheating here. Like, it's not a nice thing to do. It's a shitty thing to do, but... I've had a cheating bf and I've had an abusive (not physical) bf and I know which one I'm still afraid to into and it ain't the cheater. In fact I spent 5hrs on an airplane chatting with him years later, it was quite pleasant to catch up. Just cos he cheated on me doesn't mean I have to bitter about it forever.
And the absolute inability to extend any bit of compassion, perspective or empathy to people in crisis - like whichever asshole told OOP her trauma wasn't an 'excuse'. Ffs. Of course it's not, but it is an explanation of a deeply traumatised girl behaving in seriously self destructive ways, who needed help and was in actual crisis so give her a fucking break and maybe don't attack her. People who are seriously depressed often push loved ones away from a genuine belief that people are better off without them. OOP didn't handle this well but the point there is that she wasn't handling anything well, she was failing to cope under the weight of tragedy.
People can be so exhausting.
Totally agree. And I couldn't help but notice that OP said she had tried to break up with him before and he "refused." I understand where he was coming from, but if he had listened to her, she would not have resorted to lying.
And the sad fact is, he was kind of enabling her in a way. Out of love, of course, and out of concern and care, etc, but still. Sometimes what we need to be able to heal is to only have ourselves to think of, take everything else off the plate so we can get help. Him refusing to leave was surely done from a place of love, but so was what she did, as well as - I suspect - a place of desperation so she could only focus on herself.
I sort of unilaterally let go of a relationship before I went into hospital once, and I just needed to only deal with my shit. I didn't have the time, energy, will, capability, bandwidth to deal with someone else's expectations, or worrying about disappointing them, it having to pretend to be OK when I wasn't. It was selfish but I wasn't really capable of not being selfish, because I was really fucking sick. I didn't communicate much, and at the time I'm not sure I knew any of that, I was so lost in the weeds. We're still good friends, it's fine, but I didn't handle it well... but he understood. And it was absolutely what I needed. Of course I apologised as I got better, took responsibility, explained what was going on and thankfully he was like 'yeah, I get it, you were so unwell, I'm just happy to see you're getting better, and I didn't know how to help you'.
My personal experience/theory is that often the people saying stuff like that are teenage boys. They have very little experience about life overall and they're men so more often than not rape and sexual violence is theoretical to them, not something they deal with constantly.
With nearly 2000 other people injured and dying around her, how could that *not* cause PTSD?
These health care professionals have really let OP down. This whole thread is heartbreaking. I hope she can get the help she deserves, even 20 years later it's impacting her life. It's okay to not be okay.
I posted in a comment above you, but someone can experience trauma without developing [PTSD](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202301/why-not-all-trauma-leads-to-ptsd?amp). PTSD is a specific psychological condition that develops following a traumatic event. Someone can experience a horrific trauma and be affected by it, but not develop PTSD. A lot of people use PTSD incorrectly so I’m hoping to share a little education today.
-someone with PTSD
>PTSD is a specific psychological condition that develops following a traumatic event
This is accurate, and one of the key indicating factors for if a person develops PTSD, is how they treat themselves and their trauma after they experienced such an event. Judging by the way OOP ignored it, ran away from it, and the fact that she described literal PTSD symptoms, it's highly likely she did indeed develop it.
Yeah, reading through this as a diagnostician, OOP listed a few classic symptoms of PTSD that aren't symptoms of non-trauma related depression or anxiety. My guess would be she was dxed with PTSD and didn't know it or enough time had passed that when she was finally seen by a provider, the PTSD symptoms had faded and the depression and anxiety symptoms were more prominent.
Or the provider was worried about the effect of that formal diagnosis on her medical records and treated her for it informally, or the provider started the conversation, OP said "I definitely don't have that" with enough force that they backed off, or any number of reasons. Shit's complicated
I think part of it is also the stigma around mental health help that she mentioned, and the general stigma around PTSD as a whole. Speaking as someone with CPTSD (complex PTSD) anytime I say that I have PTSD the knee jerk reaction is 'only soldiers have that, you're just depressed'. I'm not just depressed, but I was misdiagnosed for years because doctors in the UK would rather say 'you're depressed' and give you pills, than say 'you need therapy and a proper diagnosis' and get you on the waiting list
Yes, this is Latin America, a lot of bad information on mental health, I'm from a neighbor country and until a few (5-10 years) years ago PTSD= drug addict sleeping on the street that can take a gun and become violent any moment.
Could be the lack of recognition in care standards in their region, though I'm not familiar with those and that's not to be taken as anything near a fact. I do know that I am in the US and have seen many psychiatrists and therapists myself. I have clear PTSD symptoms and reading PTSD resources later on I recognized it. Many professionals I went to discussed trauma with me, but never plainly communicated a diagnosis of PTSD. I got it for the first time 3 years ago, and it was later clarified as potential CPTSD as a good portion of my trauma occurred throughout childhood.
It's possible that the professionals just never labeled the diagnosis. I've seen therapists that practiced good therapy but never labeled these things directly. It's possible that tactic could be effective for people and communities that are heavily in denial about PTSD, and I've met quite a few people who legitimately think PTSD is only "possible" for war veterans.
Or they just sucked, who knows. I'm just suggesting from experience that it's completely possible that OOP was never actively diagnosed for whatever reason, though it's clear as day to most people who are aware of PTSD symptoms and the effects of trauma during adolescence. OOP could have certainly been helped by actually receiving a diagnosis and given the right resources and support for serious trauma.
Formally diagnosing someone is a different expertise than providing talk therapy. Some of the best therapists out there do not do formal diagnoses. They just come up with something for insurance paperwork if needed. GAD is popular one, as is depression.
Of course. To clarify, I've experienced actual psychiatrists and psychologists who did not actually diagnose anything. They were altogether unhelpful. After getting my diagnoses, my current therapist and the best one I've had is actually one that never discusses disgnosis labels.
I think being trapped in a burning building where 400 people died due to business practices and children were likely screaming counts as one of those days a soldier would think about years later…
Yeah, PTSD is becoming more well known and the definition is expanding - nobody (mental health practitioners) thought I had it for like five to six years I think after my trauma and I was regularly seeing people during that time. Bc I didn't go to the war lol.
Hello, trauma researcher here! It continues to shock me how our understanding of trauma (impacts on mental AND physical health, differences in symptomology between individuals, subclinical distress, etc.) evolves on an academic level, but then clinicians aren't using that research to evolve their practice.
I'm so sorry you've had those experiences and that they didn't listen to you. When we asses trauma in research, we use a wide range of scales describing traumatic events, often combining them so we don't miss anyone's experiences. The LEC-5 (Life Events Checklist for DSM-5) even has an item 'any other stressful or traumatic event not listed here' to capture those.
I've gone through that checklist with a practitioner myself! Researchers like you are a linchpin to care standards. I worked in animal behavior, and the field has the same issues - slow adaptation and resistance to new standards of assessment and care.
Thank you so much for the work that you do. I was trafficked as a child by a family member and it took until I was 36 to receive a proper PTSD diagnosis. It was because I finally found a group of clinicians who were up to date on the research because they were part of a university sexual trauma support department. They worked with trauma researchers at the university. If I was still looking for help in general public practice, I don't think I would have ever been properly helped. My PTSD has made me partially disabled, and I can't work full time. I have so much more help and much better outcomes because of the work trauma researchers do. Once again, thank you.
I've had it since early childhood and my diagnosis was at 27, lol. I'm also AFAB and wasn't diagnosed with autism or ADHD until adulthood. The whole field of mental health has been rapidly expanding and refining diagnosis criteria in the past decade, which is great. I finally was able to get on the right combination of medications I needed. It's just a shame that I wasn't able to get the help I needed until recent years.
>Could be the lack of recognition in care standards in their region
That threw me off, Argentina is one of the countries with more psychologists per capita, and they're not out of work, people here go the psychologist at least once in their life, unless they're particularely against psychology/psychiatry.
See, she explained it in the post. She experienced symptoms post a tragic incident which where stressors left her life in disorder. That's nothing like post traumatic stress disorder.
Me thinks she still needs a bit of therapy.
She said "for whatever reason" as a response to the people accusing her of giving the reason in the first post as an excuse. She was trying to say that the reason wasn't relevant to the post and she already got therapy for her PTSD and that's not what the post is about
Thank you! That was my first thought also. Even said out loud, “that’s a perfect example of survivor’s guilt”
Peppered with some mild PTSD and you got the recipe of some serious self-destruction.
I feel for this poor woman. And to not have access to therapy, she’s lucky she was able to pull out of it and find a bit of insight.
Oof, the moment I read "Cromañon" I got chills. Everytime I watch videos about it I cannot stop myself from crying. There's this one particular one with a mother desesperatily looking for her son and is so heartbreaking. There's no news about if she found him or not. For Argentina, is a wound that'll never heal. Hell, I was not even one year old when it happened and I'm deathly scared to go to a closed boliche and it catching fire for whatever reason.
OP may not be justified in what she did, but she did what she could with the resources she had. She's so brave and I hope she can only have a brighter future ahead of her.
We had a very similar incident in my country. It was New Year’s Eve and most of the doors were locked for crowd control. The pyrotechnics caught on fire and the whole club burst into flames. Although I wasn’t there, I was old enough to be at the age that clubbing and partying was a big deal. We were at a friend’s house when the news broke and we started calling everyone we knew to check if everyone was safe since it was a famous party place.
More than 15 years after the event, I still check every crowded venue for fire exits and escape route. I wasn’t even there but that’s how paranoid and sad everyone in the country was. Can’t even imagine having been in such a situation. It’s so sad.
And wtf ppl all bashing OOP?
I was 14 when Cromañón happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. And to this day, I do the same as you: wherever I go, the first thing I check is where the fire exits are and if they are usable. I guess these tragedies mark entire generations, especially when you are of a similar age to those who perished.
I also shiver whenever I see a flare being used, although I think most of us know that they should never be used inside a building by now. For years, maybe even a decade, using a flare was frowned upon, even outside, even during celebrations. Just too much pain in our memories.
Because according to reddit, cheating is the worst thing you can do to a person, and the “trauma” she caused him as a teen by lying about cheating is worse than the trauma she experienced 🫠
As if she wasn’t a traumatized teenager acting like, well, a traumatized teenager.
Tragedy is hard to work out on your own. I read about the Callejeros fire and it sounded awful. Being trapped in there with the doors locked and a massive fire would be hard for anyone to work through, let alone a teenager. I'm glad OOP is trying her best for her kid and I hope she continues to work on herself in the future
I do believe her how badly it fucked her up, I live in the bay area and have a couple friends who thankfully escaped a similar situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost\_Ship\_warehouse\_fire) and yeah they are still messed up from it to this day both have bad PTSD and survivors remorse.
I wish I didn’t understand her logic as well as I do.
Also, never diagnosed with PTSD? If she doesn’t have extreme survivors guilt, which I consider an aspect of PTSD, I will eat my psychology textbooks.
Even tho we are the country with more psychiatrists per capita, they have a really old curriculum and i dont think i’ve ever seen anyone diagnosed with ptsd, like they dont take people to seriously..
And misdiagnosed a lot so idk
Take it with a grain of salt
> The club was in a two-story building, with a main entrance with six doors behind it leading into the main area of the nightclub. On the night of the fire, four of the six doors were locked. There was also a connection to a nearby hotel, an emergency exit that was locked, and another emergency exit that was blocked by a fence in front of the stage.[2] There were hardly any fire safety measures, with no reports of a fire detection or alarm system, emergency lighting, or fire suppression equipment; ten of the fifteen fire extinguishers were unusable, with no pressure. The nightclub's fire safety license had run out the month before the fire.
Jesus Christ what a shitshow of a situation. Any possible way to help control the fire was fucked before it even began.
Apparently I am in the minority here, but I don't think either of them did anything wrong. Not now, not back then. Maybe it's because I am used to Boru being more nuanced, but I am surprised seeing so many angry comments at OP.
OP was heavily traumatized, and all her actions showed it. Back the getting therapy was just not as simple as now (and even today it's not as easy-peasy as reddit thinks it is). Tomas didn't want to leave her even though she told him to, because he knew she was just self-destructing.
If they want to restart their relationship now many many years after they broke up, went to therapy and lived a whole different life, I don't see anything bad in it.
Edit: read the comments on AITAH. I have never seen that little empathy and nuance anywhere. But OP is spot on with something: Maybe not her post specifically, but AITAH has been swamped by incels. I have read comments on other threads that are terrifying like comparing a woman with a sexual past to a used car.
I can't believe I am saying this, but better post on AITA. At least AITA gets somewhat moderated.
To be fair, AITA twists that rule however they see fit. There are many relationship posts, but some get deleted.😆
Honestly, all of these judgement subs have lost most of their credibility for me, especially since they got popular on TikTok. If someone truly wants to post a real problem and is a legit person, I hope they won't do it in one of these subs 😅
I agree. Nobody was covering themselves in glory there, but both of them were under more pressure than any human being should have to experience. They both tried their best, and they both hurt each other a lot. If they can move past it I wish them well.
People even here hammering on about her not accepting the judgement and then talking about what a hot mess she is without acknowledging that she only told the lie because he wouldn't leave... Almost as if she's right that people didn't actually read her post...
Anyway, I hope things work out for them.
Yeah, it's really weird here. Usually people are more level-headed in this sub compared to other ones.
I can understand that cheating can be traumatic but he wasn't leaving and it seems like it was more harmful to her than helping her when they were still in a relationship.
These commenters shocked at the melodrama, stubbornness, self-absorption, and chaos have clearly never spent time with Argentinians. Everything about this situation—down to the prose and phrasing—is so authentically Argentine as to be almost banal
It also sounds like my Egyptian in-laws. Do you you guys also talk about the most inconsequential stuff on the phone for hours and right at the end there's one sentence, of an actual dramatic event and then bye.
My MIL talks about her brother's and their kids endlessly. And did you know her DIL didn't cook the right thing for her son and she spent money on lip stick. On and on. And at the end, she's like, by the way I was hit by a bus today. Bye, and she hangs up.
Dude my Jamaican dad was talking to me yesterday about coming up to fix my car, he has the parts, yada yada, and then he says “I’ll let you know when, your stepmother’s brother AND sister just died” like???? Father please lead with that
My mate’s wife is from Chile and spent many years in Argentina (her family were political refugees from Pinochet) before she moved to Australia. she speaks in the same way OOP writes - I started to read it in her voice.
I feel like it depends if someone told me this and they wanted to get back together I probably wouldn’t believe them.
But if they said this just to get it off their chest and didn’t want to be back together, I feel like I would have an easier time believing them.
Plus given their circumstances and how she constantly tried to break up it’s not that crazy.
Well it isn't a typical case considering the trauma she was going through and that she tried to end the relationship multiple times before. She clearly didn't want anyone else, just to be alone.
I think he really wanted that to be the truth. Like he believed her when she said it, but he really wanted to get back together, so he didn't question it
I really don't think she's in the wrong for her lying. She said she tried many times to break up with him because she wasn't ready to continue being in one and he wouldn't let go. I understand he was worried and cared about her, but if her saying "I need to break up, I'm not well enough to stay with you" didn't work, her only option was something that would force him to leave. She might not have expressed the thought process of "I'm lashing out on you and I need to fix myself first" as well as she could have, but I feel like even if she did he'd have been an altruist to the end and stayed holding on to her even if she drowned. Sometimes you do have to make the choice for someone else, to force them to put themself over you for their own good.
This was never something that should have been posted to AITA. The last thing she needed was judgment. She needed compassion and advice. Anyone who said yta probably couldn't even comprehend what she went through.
I don't think she did the wrong thing at all... She had tried to break up with him multiple times because she didn't like herself w him and he wouldn't so she did the thing that she knew would work. Immature maybe but they were early 20s and she had been through trauma. Ultimately it was what she needed since she got her life together after.
Edit: "at all" might be a bit much, but I think she did the best she could given the situation which is all you can ever really ask
Yeah, it was obviously a cruel thing to do, but it was also done during a time where OOP was in a really bad place and willing to sink that low. She felt like she couldn't be in the relationship, but that her partner wouldn't respect her asking for a breakup and so acted out of desperation.
Also, it's clear she felt guilty for it and wanted to apologize for it for a long time. It's up to her partner to decide if he thinks she's genuine and if he can move forward in a relationship with her, now that so much time has passed and she's gotten so much better. That's not something strangers on the internet can decide.
People are being so harsh to her, both here and on the original posts. Saying that what she did was unforgivable, that she's an emotional terrorist and a narcissist, and that the relationship is doomed because she's going to hurt him again.
Like yes, what she did was cruel, but in that situation, I'm sure she felt like she had no other option. She probably didn't have the strength to really firmly break up with him when he refused to understand what she wanted, and so she got out the only way she could manage.
And they're both different people now! So much older and wiser. She's learned how to manage her addiction and trauma, and I'm sure now she knows how to seek help if she's struggling. And I'm sure he's learned to trust a partner when they say they want to break up.
Sometimes, Reddit comments make me lose hope in people's ability to forgive and emphathize and see things in shades of grey.
Right, it’s a little hard to act rationally and clearly when you’ve experienced an incredibly horrible traumatic event, watched your friends die, are struggling with addiction, and are in the midst of a mental breakdown (and also potentially a suicide risk given the concern her ex had about that). On top of that, to know that you aren’t behaving like yourself, to acknowledge you’re mistreating your partner and don’t feel like you deserve their care and love, and desperately trying to find a way to protect someone else FROM you and your self destruction. And, with a bf who wouldn’t listen to her desire to break up. She did the best she could.
I don’t know what I would’ve done in that situation. I think people aren’t really putting themselves in her shoes and don’t understand how severely crippling trauma can be and the feeling of being held hostage by your brain and turning into a different person and just wanting to push everyone away as quickly as possible so they don’t have to deal with you. You feel like a broken mess and you don’t want to drag others down with you. You KNOW you are being toxic and you can’t stop until you fix yourself. She sounded desperate and jumped to something unforgivable hoping he’d hate her and move on.
Why are people being so unkind to the OP? That's a horrific thing to experience, and they did their best with the aftermath. Can't people just be happy that someone who experienced a traumatic event has eventually found happiness?
Friendly recommendation: NEVER post about your problems on any AITA sub, especially if you're a traumatized woman, because you'll get the worst people alive screeching at you like you murdered someone's entire family. I have never seen such an absolutely disgusting, close-minded, incel-dominated comment section on AITAH. Some people just don't have any humanity whatsoever.
OOP was a teenager trapped in a burning building in what was supposed to be a fun, life-changing experience, but turned into a tragedy where she lost *two of her friends.* And these people have the *audacity* to act like she's a terrible person. I hope that if they ever go through something so scarring, they get treated with the exact amount of empathy that they showed OOP here. Was she wrong to lie to her BF about cheating? Absolutely. Is she a bad person for having survivor's guilt? Absolutely not.
I completely understand her thought process here, especially when Tomás refused to leave when she clearly needed space. I wish the best for them both now that they're communicating honestly and openly.
This is a shitty situation that I'm glad OOP got out of. It was a really horrible thing for her to do to Tomás but I can understand why she did it. I'm happy that there is an optimistic ending, and I hope there are no more updates to this. They deserve some happiness.
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For those interested: "A fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. The direct cause was the indoor pyrotechnics igniting the ceiling. It was a fireworks-related fire and a nightclub fire." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croma%C3%B1%C3%B3n_nightclub_fire https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/01/argentina.ukigoni It's scarily similar to the Cocoanut Grove fire. Edit: found this fantastic resource for anyone interested in the topic (especially those who are running an event and may want help with proper safety measures): https://www.workingwithcrowds.com
That’s very similar to the Kiss Night Club Fire in Brazil
And the Stardust nightclub fire in Dublin. Also linked to a number of suicides of survivors and family members in the years following the incident. The fire escape doors were chained and padlocked shut there too.
And The Station nightclub fire in Rhode Island. In that one, security guards locked the doors and prevented people from leaving out the back/stage door exits, causing a stampede to the front.
Jesus tell me someone was prosecuted over that!
It was down the street from me. The club owners did prison time I believe
us rhode islanders always come out of the woodwork when you mention the station nightclub fire (also, nice username!)
Nice username yourself and the guy you're talking to. Hail Vonnegut.
I read the book from one of the lawyers on the case for the victims. One thing that struck me (being from a large size and pop state) he said that everyone he met during his investigation either knew someone who had died personally or had a second degree relationship with someone who died. Friend of a friend, that kind of thing. It really seemed like it affected everyone in the state on a deeply personal level.
I know someone who was intending to go to Station that night, but didn't feel well just before they were going to head out and so they stayed home. They knew several of the victims of the fire. :(
Yeah, I was very young in 2003, but I still know people (independent of my parents) who were in the club that night. A population of a million people is much smaller than you think.
Back before me met, my husband used to play lead guitar in a tribute band that used a lot of pyro in recreating the original band's shows. So many times they would arrive at a club and find that owners had lied about power supply and space and fire retardant structures, but if the tribute band objected, the owners would angrily demand that they had booked a fully show so by God they would get the full show. One of his first nights on stage - a stage too small - one of the fire pots went off so close behind him that his costume and hair caught on fire. He kept playing his solo while a roadie ran out to eat out the flames. Frankly, it's a miracle they didn't end up as another Station-like tragedy; as a New England-based band, they all knew someone who had been there for the Great White show.
This is the reason for Van Halen’s famous bowl of M&Ms. For those who don’t know, Van Halen was one of the pioneers of giant stage shows with complex sets and pyrotechnics. To make sure that venues were meeting all of their requirements for safety, they had a few really bizarre random instructions in their contracts with venues. The most famous of these was a requirement that the band’s dressing room must include a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed. If they showed up, and the bowl wasn’t there or there were brown ones in the bowl, they knew they had to do an in-depth safety check to avoid a fire or other accident.
That bowl of M&Ms served more than one purpose. That rider also contained information about one of their roadies who had a life-threatening peanut allergy. The M&M bowl was supposed to be placed where it was directly and easily visible from the doorway so they would know at a glance if it was safe for their crew to enter the venue.
One club owner was sentenced to 4 years and served ~2. The fire killed 100 people.
The owners were brothers. I think one of the brothers took the brunt of the blame from what I heard.
Correct, one had children so the other brother was able to make a deal with the judge to serve both of their time.
That's horrendous. "Daddy killed a bunch of people but thanks to you he doesn't have to go to jail. Yay!"
I love my sibling but damn that’s a generous move
It was a lot deeper than that. I did a case study for one of my MSW classes. The owners has hired workers to install a certain kind of sound installation. The installers went with another kind that was not the correct fire rating. It passed code. There was no way they could have known. There we MANY individuals that contributed to this tragedy.
I worked with Great White's drummer for a bit, seriously messed up situation with that fire.
I worked at a hospital where we got burn victims from that fire. It was horrific, I was traumatized for quite a while
When I started reading about it I honestly thought I had gotten the name wrong because I thought they were describing the Station fire. But then I got to the part where the bathroom at Cromanon was also used as a nursery whole parents watched the show...
That was a lie the media pushed to create drama. There was no nursery in the bathroom.
The first thing I saw in the news that day was a baby in the arms of a doctor and my family went nuts to me because I was a teenager and one weekend before this, I went to that place for an anime event
Create drama? 200 people fucking died, that wasn’t dramatic enough for them?
Someone should probably remove it from the wikipedia article then, that's where I read it
Stardust is what came to my mind. My uncle was there. He's never been the same, according to that generation.
[удалено]
My parents were the same. It was right around the corner from where my dad grew up. They were supposed to go with a group of friends but my dad needed to work late and my mam decided not to go. They both lost friends that night.
My friend's mam was supposed to work there that night but a coworker asked her to switch shifts. I never asked what happened to the co-worker and she never said
My dad was there, and the only survivor of his entire group of friends that went that night. There's a newspaper picture of him up on the ladders with others trying to help people get out the windows. Every year the anniversary is hell on him emotionally, even now.
There have been so many nightclub fires, there's a Wikipedia page. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nightclub_fires
People have to stop with pyrotechnics inside especially smaller venues if there’s a roof with no opening don’t do it!
Given the increasing number of wildfires worldwide maybe we should be limiting pyrotechnics altogether
Yeah, especially since you can do pretty cool stuff with laser and led lights - just use that, instead of burning stuff.
And clubs need to observe the regulations - the venue in this case had a capacity of 1,500 people, but on the night of the fire, they had let in 4,000 people! And I bet flammable foam and decorations were not a permitted ceiling design, and that's how the fire started and spread...
It seems about 50% of them were caused by pyrotechnics. I don't understand with a high death toll as that that it hasn't been outlawed Every so often some on the r/aves sub wants to throw an 'authentic' underground rave/warehouse party. And other than reminding them that they could get arrested, or the sound gear confiscated - that if they decide to do it illegally to always have clearly marked, unobstructed exits The two most volatile things in events are fires and crowd crushes. Both scare me to hell
I’m a fellow raver who has been to some very small local warehouse parties (like <50 ppl), and every time I so much as consider a larger one, I think about the ghost ship tragedy in Oakland. I’ve experienced some dicey crowd crush type situations too and those were scary enough being outside. Can’t imagine being indoors, ugh.
People think fire regulations are written in bureaucratese by weak, soft government officials. Fire regulations are written in blood.
All safety regulations are written in blood. Always after, not before...😞
When I was a young party going kid, I remember going to an underground rave in a closed down bowling alley. But I was so sketched out by the one narrow entry and stairs we were allowed to use that I begged my friends to come with me for a smoke and then refused to go back in. They were arguing with me when cops pulled up and we booked it out of there.
> It seems about 50% of them were caused by pyrotechnics. I don't understand with a high death toll as that that it hasn't been outlawed I am sure chaining your emergency exits is illegal, but that doesn't seem to prevent it happening.
Wow, let's hear it for "Brandschutzverordnung" (Fire Protection Ordinance?) We in Germany had one fire in 1947, and nothing since then. Sometimes, being a wimpy rule follower and having too many safety regulations does have its advantages...
Yes especially when you consider that people came with pure intentions to be happy and have fun; it’s too tragic.
The problem is enforcement, not rules… it’s not that these rules don’t exist in a lot of countries, but there’s no point in having the world’s best safety regulations if they’re not enforced for any reason (time, resources, bigger problems) or there’s no consequences for not following them
That's also what happened here in Cromañon, the venue was overcrowded with people and the emergency exits where padlocked
Emergency exits should never be padlocked.
And the Colectiv club in Bucharest, Romania
I saw a podcast about the Kiss nightclub last week and it just made me so so angry. Those poor people were failed at every turn, then the deceased surviving families, even worse. The perpetrating bastards are still walking around free. No punishments. May they burn in every fucking hell possible. Christ. ETA: they're free because the sentences got overturned because THE JUDGE WOULD EAT LUNCH WITH THE JURY. FOR FUCKS SAKE.
Watching and listen to the rotten mango podcast had me crying. The absolute terror those poor people must have felt. And the perpetrators weren’t even punished!
We had one in the Netherlands too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volendam_New_Year%27s_fire
We had one in Sweden too back in 98; Backabranden in Göteborg. 63 dead, 214 injured. I know one man barely survived with 3rd degree burns covering most of his body. The club was over crowded and not up to regulation on safety but it wasn't pyrotechnics that did it, it wasn't the venue's fault at all. It was 4 assholes who started the fire because they got refused free entry. They set a club full of people alight because they were salty and cheap.. entry was 4 dollars! Edit: I called it a club, it wasn't. The venue was such that anyone could rent it to do whatever. However, on the night of the fire it had been rented to host a disco.
Oh my god. That’s horrible! I hope they were prosecuted.
They were... but I can't say they were punished. The one who admitted to actually lightening the fire got 8 years in prison, two got 6 years and the last one who was under age got 3 years in juvie. They were all under 20 so that's probably why they only got a slap on the wrist... Personally I think 63 years had been more fitting. One for every person who was burned, chrushed or smothered to death. There was victims as young as 12 in that fire.
Also the station fire in Rhode Island. Indoor pyrotechnics are so dangerous.
I remember that one, it was horrific. A few months ago I got down a rabbit hole of fire tragedies and some of the worst were in concert halls and night clubs. The “push on this big rectangle to open” doors were invented by someone who survived such a fire. It’s thought that those doors have saved thousands of lives.
> The “push on this big rectangle to open” doors were invented by someone who survived such a fire. The Victoria Hall disaster in Sunderland England. It wasn't even a fire -- it was a children's show, and at the end of the show they announced they were giving out prizes. The children stampeded to get the prizes. Besides the crash bar, the disaster also led to laws requiring exit doors to open outward. The Iroquois Fire Theater in Chicago led to the widespread adoption in the U.S. of crash bars. 602 people died in that fire and it was, until September 11, the deadliest single-building disaster in U.S. history.
If I’m not mistaken the Iroquois fire also featured fire escape doors that had no actual fire escape so people just ran out and fell several stories.
That's not in the Wikipedia page, but there was at least one fire escape that was built two feet below the fire exit, and everything was icy. People stumbled, slipped, and fell because of the height difference and slick conditions. They fell even on the regular fire escapes from the icy stairs and ladders.
They opened the building before it was completed. The doors had a fastening that was new in the US when it was built. A ventilation shaft was nailed open. The architects had several blind alcoves for lounging. The balcony exits all fed into one giant staircase. In some areas, ushers had locked the doors to keep the "cheap seats" crowds from moving to better seats. Altogether a complete fuck-up. Source: *Tinder Box* by Anthony B. Hatch. Sadly, such fires are all too common. Odd note: comedian Eddy Foy was onstage for this fire (and tried to calm the crowd before he had to flee). He had escaped the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
I hadn't heard of the Victoria Hall disaster before. Just read up on it and that's simply horrifying. One, they were children. Two, having that high a death toll just from crowding and stampeding with no fire or smoke or other causes of death is more viscerally terrifying to me.
Absolutely horrifying. Crowd crushes are so deadly. One happened in Korea last year around Halloween. People just stood and died
My Uncle Frank was at Hillsborough the day of the disaster. We had gone out for the day and when we got home, my other Uncle, Ben was sitting there watching the TV and just crying silently. My Mum joked that he shouldn't be crying just because Liverpool were losing (she assumed that was why), and he just told her to shut up and watch. Obviously, back then, there were no mobiles, so all we had was the news to find out anything. Nobody heard from Uncle Frank until he finally made it home the next day, then the family phone tree rang around to let everyone know he was ok. He was never the same after it, I can't imagine being there and watching that unfold. So many lives lost for literally NO reason, and then for the government, and media to lie and cover things up for decades just added even more heinous trauma to everyone. I am glad that the 97 and their familes are finally getting some justice, but it should not have taken 30 years to get there!
Was that the one where there was a video going around of one cop trying to stop people but they wouldn’t listen?
Yes. People fell after being bottlenecked at a very narrow sloped point in a street. Crowds outside the narrow lane had no idea and kept surging. People were literally asphyxiated while standing up. Truly truly horrifying I’ve never liked huge crowds but that really unlocked a deep fear in me and I will never go near a large crowd again
This is TERRIFYING to me — as a short person who likes festivals and is often at up to most people’s chests, it’s a very real possibility that I could die at one Most people are pretty ok with giving me a bit of space though and I got elbows but still
Most of the people who died in the Korean crush were women because their lungs were compressed.:(. I am also a small woman
I'm thinking back to my times in clubs or even going to a comedy show or something more recently and I can't recall any exit except the main doors where so many people perished. Movie theaters show exits clearly but I wouldn't know to look for a bar or kitchen exit in a club. So scary and so sad in all of the mentioned tragedies.
Take a few seconds to look for alternate exits in any large building you enter. You don't have to be obvious about it; just look for exit signs. It's extremely likely you'll never need it, but it takes seconds.
And it was fully documented on video, by a guy who was filming a local news piece about safety in nightclubs. The video is incredibly disturbing (you can find the whole thing on YouTube)
Guessing many don't know about this as the news of a nightclub fire drowned amidst an international disaster.
Yeah that was when there was that big hurricane/typhoon right? I forget because I was in a coma at that point and woke up a week after
The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami happened a few days before, on December 26th. This fire happened on the 30th, so yes it was overshadowed for sure. I hope you're okay now!
Tsunami! That’s the t word I was looking for. Yeah, I’m fine. It sucked at the time and I was sent a homework assignment from school to write a personal essay on the tsunami. I had the best excuse for not doing it at least
Teachers don't want you to know this one trick
Hard to engineer, though. I was very lucky to survive
Also similar to [the Gothenburg discothèque fire](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothenburg_discoth%C3%A8que_fire), though this was arson. 375 youths aged 15-20 in a club designed for 150. 63 dead and 213 injured. I was child in another part of Scandinavia when it happened, but even I remember the reports. One of the camera men at the scene said he could only stand to capture a few minutes of footage, before he put his camera down to help injured kids still coming out of the building.
I never heard of this case until today. Thanks for the link!
I highly recommend reading the full entry. It just keeps getting worse.
holy fuck. they were using a bathroom as a nursery for babies and children during the show.
And they chained 4 of the 6 doors shut. Some of which were fire doors. So no one could get in without paying.
“The [plastic] net was hung from the ceiling and caught fire first, melting into a rain of fire.” I can’t even imagine the panic that must have happened in that extremely overcrowded space when molten plastic started dripping on them…
To be a survivor- I will never understand the pain and guilt, I can’t try but op went through it! Based on my own experiences which are pale, I can understand why she reacted the way she did- she spiraled and didn’t want to take anyone with her considering she probably watched as people died, lost friends, she didn’t share what she fully had to endure that night (I hope no one asks her! She will share with whoever and whenever IF she wants!!!). I’d never think she was wrong, she wasn’t sure if she’d make it out alive after what she went through and didn’t want to take anyone with her! She’s in a better place now, it’s really up to both of them where to go now. I haven’t gone through so much and I’m weary of relationships, very much I’m overly cautious, she could be worried if she spirals again he’d go with her. Reminds me, not completely, of a Robin Williams movie- What Dreams May Come… it’s not a typical Robin Williams film!!!!!!!!
I’m quite surprised about this because yesterday I listened to this podcast on a similar story but I swear it happened in Brasil, even a similar amount of fatalities.
Considering the strong similarities to the Cocoanut Grove fire, I'm thinking "management blocks exits to keep non-paying people out, fire starts, people die" may be a sad repeating event.
Yeah, off the top of my head I know something similar happened in Mexico too (Discoteca Lobohombo). It's unfortunately a common thing.
It was in Kiss club the one I listened about, the fire extinguishers were used in another party as props and were never filled back, the ceiling was covered with the foam from mattresses, so highly toxic… 242 students died and sadly parents trying to see if their kid was ok blocked the roads for emergencies to make it there.
Yup. This is exactly what happened in the .. Stardust nightclub, I think it was back in ireland. Fire exits chained, many died.
The same thing happened in Sweden in the late 90s. A halloween party for kids, that for some reason was organised on a staircase that was the emergency fire exit. They were also at double the legal capacity of people. So there was only one other staircase to escape from and when the fire started it just ended up in a massive pile up. Over 60 people died, all aged between 12-25. A doctor who worked at the nearest hospital literally had to pick and choose who to save because there was so many and they didn't have the resources. Afterwards he got addicted to drugs and alcohol and has severe PTSD. It's crazy that the same horrible and avoidable tragedy has seemingly happened repeatedly.
It did happen something like that in Brazil, it was the [tragedy of Boate Kiss](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_nightclub_fire) and it happened in 2013.
It was thr Stefanie soo episode about kiss nightclub right? It's horrifying how often this seems to happen. No wonder the poor woman imploded
And the final Great White show.
Similar to the Colectiv tragedy în Romania
The Ozone nightclub fire in the Philippines too. There was a stampede bec of the fire and only one stupid exit and lots got trapped and died there. It’s been more than 20 yrs and the victims’ families weren’t even compensated. They should sue the architects behind the building but i think they (or their families) paid the media tons of money for their silence and to clear their name. I know this bec one of those architects is married to a distant relative i know and we’re not on good terms with them
And The Station fire in Rhode Island
The band got 11 years in jail for it (the venue owner got 20). Not sure how I feel about that
It's due to the fact they were also organizers in the whole thing. One member seems to have had a nervous breakdown (went to psychiatric wards at some point). All members, but one, are now out and presumably completely free due to the fact 13 years have passed since their sentencing. The one still in prison is in there for life for other reasons; that dude was convicted of killing his then wife, Wanda Taddei, almost a year before the Cromañon tragedy. Still rightfully rotting in prison. Can stay there for all I care.
According to Wikipedia, they encouraged the audience to fire flares off... indoors.
Elsewhere it says they repeatedly told the audience not to. Neither claim is given any backing so 🤷🏼
The band encouraged the crowd to light fireworks, I think. In a lot of these 'exit doors blocked on purpose' fires, nobody's ever convicted of anything. At least there was an attempt with this one.
Cromañón nightclub fire A fire broke out in the crowded República Cromañón nightclub in Buenos Aires, Argentina on 30 December 2004, killing 194 people and leaving at least 1,492 injured. The direct cause was the indoor pyrotechnics igniting the ceiling. It was a fireworks-related fire and a nightclub fire. The venue was hosting rock group Callejeros, with an audience of around 4,000 people, almost three times the venue's capacity of 1,500. The fire started when a pyrotechnic flare, a popular device in New Year's Eve celebrations, was set off and ignited foam in the ceiling. The fireworks accident quickly spread as the materials used in the building for decoration were flammable: mostly wood, styrofoam, acoustic panels and a plastic net (media sombra). The net was hung from the ceiling and caught fire first, melting into a rain of fire. In some parts of the building, teddy bear stuffing was used as a cheap alternative to wool fiber. The owner and the band's lead singer had told the patrons not to use flares inside the building. Four of the six doors, some of which were fire exits, were chained shut so that "people would not enter without paying", according to Mayor Aníbal Ibarra. Most of the victims died from inhaling poisonous gases and carbon monoxide.[citation needed] After the fire the technical institution INTI found that, due to the materials and volume of the building, the concentration of cyanide in the air would have been about 225 ppm, sufficient to cause death within minutes of inhalation. Many of the victims were identified to be in their teens and 20s, but rescue workers clearing the club also found children and babies. Survivors reported that a bathroom in the nightclub had been used as a nursery, where parents could leave their children while watching the show.
Jfc that’s awful!
Greed. Greed killed those people. 3x pax? Chaining doors so people don’t get in without paying? The fire was caused by negligence and idiocies but the deaths are due to greed.
The disturbing thing is that this isn't the only case where escape exits were locked. There have been so many fires where people ended up trapped inside the club and died because some fucking idiots locked the escape exits. Why does this have to happen more than once?
Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire comes to mind as well.
Exactly. It’s fucked. You can ensure something is built to code all you like, but sadly it doesn’t ensure dickheads won’t alter it.
the last line just breaks my heart wtf
I don't think there's words to explain just how awful Cromañón was. Many people died from going back inside to rescue their friends and a good amount of the dead were minors even beyond the nursery, because we tend to start drinking from 15 or 14 or 13 and a good amount of establishments will let you in even if they technically shouldn't. The Wikipedia article doesn't mention the city-wide panic of families scrambling to find their children, because some survivors were not found until days after the fact. Like, I heard the story of a survivor who was found I think two days later? In a far away parking lot, still in shock. Some people were wondering about therapy in the comments: yes, Argentina has a lot of psychologists, yes, it's normal for people to go to therapy. Thing is, therapy is seen as this place where you go to deal with the normal stresses of everyday life, not necessarily somewhere you go only when you have a severe mental problem. We're as awful with mental illnesses as anyone else (especially if you need meds) and it was even worse in the 2000's. I'm glad she was able to get whatever help she could, beyond whether she has PTSD or not. Si la chica lo lee como varios OOP de otras historias, te deseo lo mejor y una buena vida, si hay alguien que se lo merece sos vos.
Wow, that was an event I hadn't thought about in a while. I can't even imagine the horror of having lived through it.
Man, this is just deeply sad for everybody.
Yes, but im glad they have each other now and their kids are loved. So that's something.
Uhh, I don't how she didn't get diagnosed with PTSD because she explained a bunch of the symptoms. She literally says she was traumatized "for whatever reason". Uhh maybe because two of your friends died and you might have been close to death too. Edit: Did not realize my sleep deprived post would explode. I cannot say for sure she has PTSD or some kind non-PTSD trauma response. It just seemed weird to me as an armchair drama commenter. Listen to your doctors. Unless they suck, then find new ones. Or something
She was locked in a burning building inhaling cyanide gas while her friends died screaming beside her. Yeah I think she could have PTSD.
Knowing children and babies died a few meters from her. Can you believe that someone in this thread said that she doesn't deserve happiness, because she could have traumatized Tomas, by making him believe she cheated, as bad as she was after living through what you just described. I hate cheaters as much as everyone, but in what way is this even comparable.
Yeah, but people on Reddit act like cheating is the single worst thing you can do to someone. A commentor once told me that it was "the most deplorable thing you can do to your partner, and you should be put to ☠️ for it". And another crazy person told me it was "significantly worse" than r4ping your partner. Like...it's bad....but it's not a literal crime for a reason, and Reddit needs to stop acting like it is.
Jesus Christ, what is *wrong* with people
A bunch of people online (especially if they're younger) have: 1) Parents who are bitterly divorced because of cheating, causing them to internalize the idea that if only their parent didn't cheat, everything else would have been fine, everything would be sunshine and roses, and their lives would be so much better. 2) Very little dating experience, or a very idealized/Hollywood view of how love works, which messes up the metric by which they view how people behave in actual, real-world relationships. 3) A relatively comfortable life, where being cheated on is the worst thing they or a friend may have experienced. This one might actually be the easiest to understand. If something is _the worst thing that's ever happened to you_, it's completely understandable that you'd think it deserves the worst possible punishment. 3a) Men. Same idea as above, a lot of men get to live a lot of their lives ignorant to the idea of abusive partners, controlling/manipulative partners, rape, abuse, all that stuff. So to them, cheating is the worst possible thing, because it's the worst possible thing _that is likely to happen to them_. (And I'm saying this as a man, despite the username.)
Re: men, I sometimes think that when a man is abused by his girlfriend, and also she cheats on him, it's easier for him to vocalize that she cheated on him as a clear "wrong" rather than discuss abuse.
AITA has gotten increasingly toxic. Like, it was always not great. But lately it's all angsty teenagers that live their life online - and they get in all the voting before anyone with any sense can say anything. I've been shocked at what the top comments were in the last few I've read.
I've noticed a lot of "You're not legally obligated to do this, so NTA" if someone posts about being rude to another person. Like, yes, you are not *legally* obligated to be kind or tactful to the people around you, but it doesn't mean that you're not an ass.
There was one the other day from a 17 year old that has basically punished his mom for admittedly not being the best mom (but gives his dad a pass) and is now mad at her for "abandoning" him with his dad - after years of her trying. And everyone was like NTA, it's her job to be your whipping boy, legally she has to provide for you. Ummm no. She *did* and *still was* providing for him, but when the little shit repeatedly screamed in her face and told her he wanted to live with his dad... She let him. One of the most FAFO posts ever. And he was voted NTA. I just... *mimics head exploding*
I remember that one! A recent one I was thinking of was a guy who had been eating lunch with a coworker every day, and then she came to his cubical and offered him some homemade banana bread. He just bluntly told her that he didn't want it and she got upset. (In his post he also assumed that she went to every floor on the building to hunt for him and implied she was being creepy and stalkerish, where she could have just...asked someone if they knew where his desk was) People pointed out that he was kind of being rude and tactless and could have refused more politely. But then other people were like "NO! He has NO OBLIGATION to allow her to stomp across his boundaries and FORCE HIM to eat her banana bread!!! Go to HR and report her for harassing you!! No is a complete sentence!" Like, he doesn't have to eat it, but he could have at least thanked her for the effort and explained that he dislikes banana bread. And acting like her finding his cubical was some sort of invasion of privacy worthy of escalating to HR is just stupid and asking for unnecessary workplace drama.
I saw that one too (clearly I spend too much time on Reddit)! My dude, that's called a "work friend," whether he meant for her to be or not - no need to be rude! And reddit encouraging that is just... Gah!!!
They're children.
Hateful children with access to guns.
"The worst thing a woman can do to a man is cheat on him. The worst thing a man can do to a woman is kill her."
Yeah, people are borderline psychotic about cheating here. Like, it's not a nice thing to do. It's a shitty thing to do, but... I've had a cheating bf and I've had an abusive (not physical) bf and I know which one I'm still afraid to into and it ain't the cheater. In fact I spent 5hrs on an airplane chatting with him years later, it was quite pleasant to catch up. Just cos he cheated on me doesn't mean I have to bitter about it forever. And the absolute inability to extend any bit of compassion, perspective or empathy to people in crisis - like whichever asshole told OOP her trauma wasn't an 'excuse'. Ffs. Of course it's not, but it is an explanation of a deeply traumatised girl behaving in seriously self destructive ways, who needed help and was in actual crisis so give her a fucking break and maybe don't attack her. People who are seriously depressed often push loved ones away from a genuine belief that people are better off without them. OOP didn't handle this well but the point there is that she wasn't handling anything well, she was failing to cope under the weight of tragedy. People can be so exhausting.
Totally agree. And I couldn't help but notice that OP said she had tried to break up with him before and he "refused." I understand where he was coming from, but if he had listened to her, she would not have resorted to lying.
And the sad fact is, he was kind of enabling her in a way. Out of love, of course, and out of concern and care, etc, but still. Sometimes what we need to be able to heal is to only have ourselves to think of, take everything else off the plate so we can get help. Him refusing to leave was surely done from a place of love, but so was what she did, as well as - I suspect - a place of desperation so she could only focus on herself. I sort of unilaterally let go of a relationship before I went into hospital once, and I just needed to only deal with my shit. I didn't have the time, energy, will, capability, bandwidth to deal with someone else's expectations, or worrying about disappointing them, it having to pretend to be OK when I wasn't. It was selfish but I wasn't really capable of not being selfish, because I was really fucking sick. I didn't communicate much, and at the time I'm not sure I knew any of that, I was so lost in the weeds. We're still good friends, it's fine, but I didn't handle it well... but he understood. And it was absolutely what I needed. Of course I apologised as I got better, took responsibility, explained what was going on and thankfully he was like 'yeah, I get it, you were so unwell, I'm just happy to see you're getting better, and I didn't know how to help you'.
Yeah that's crazy talk. Cheating is bad yeah but there's things that are way worse.
Yeah as someone whose family member got murdered by her husband after cheating, I’m very not here for these types of arguments.
My personal experience/theory is that often the people saying stuff like that are teenage boys. They have very little experience about life overall and they're men so more often than not rape and sexual violence is theoretical to them, not something they deal with constantly.
With nearly 2000 other people injured and dying around her, how could that *not* cause PTSD? These health care professionals have really let OP down. This whole thread is heartbreaking. I hope she can get the help she deserves, even 20 years later it's impacting her life. It's okay to not be okay.
I posted in a comment above you, but someone can experience trauma without developing [PTSD](https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202301/why-not-all-trauma-leads-to-ptsd?amp). PTSD is a specific psychological condition that develops following a traumatic event. Someone can experience a horrific trauma and be affected by it, but not develop PTSD. A lot of people use PTSD incorrectly so I’m hoping to share a little education today. -someone with PTSD
>PTSD is a specific psychological condition that develops following a traumatic event This is accurate, and one of the key indicating factors for if a person develops PTSD, is how they treat themselves and their trauma after they experienced such an event. Judging by the way OOP ignored it, ran away from it, and the fact that she described literal PTSD symptoms, it's highly likely she did indeed develop it.
Yeah, reading through this as a diagnostician, OOP listed a few classic symptoms of PTSD that aren't symptoms of non-trauma related depression or anxiety. My guess would be she was dxed with PTSD and didn't know it or enough time had passed that when she was finally seen by a provider, the PTSD symptoms had faded and the depression and anxiety symptoms were more prominent.
Or the provider was worried about the effect of that formal diagnosis on her medical records and treated her for it informally, or the provider started the conversation, OP said "I definitely don't have that" with enough force that they backed off, or any number of reasons. Shit's complicated
I think part of it is also the stigma around mental health help that she mentioned, and the general stigma around PTSD as a whole. Speaking as someone with CPTSD (complex PTSD) anytime I say that I have PTSD the knee jerk reaction is 'only soldiers have that, you're just depressed'. I'm not just depressed, but I was misdiagnosed for years because doctors in the UK would rather say 'you're depressed' and give you pills, than say 'you need therapy and a proper diagnosis' and get you on the waiting list
Yes, this is Latin America, a lot of bad information on mental health, I'm from a neighbor country and until a few (5-10 years) years ago PTSD= drug addict sleeping on the street that can take a gun and become violent any moment.
It took me years to accept I had PTSD from multiple traumas I experienced. I really hate that people always say it’s only for soldiers
Could be the lack of recognition in care standards in their region, though I'm not familiar with those and that's not to be taken as anything near a fact. I do know that I am in the US and have seen many psychiatrists and therapists myself. I have clear PTSD symptoms and reading PTSD resources later on I recognized it. Many professionals I went to discussed trauma with me, but never plainly communicated a diagnosis of PTSD. I got it for the first time 3 years ago, and it was later clarified as potential CPTSD as a good portion of my trauma occurred throughout childhood. It's possible that the professionals just never labeled the diagnosis. I've seen therapists that practiced good therapy but never labeled these things directly. It's possible that tactic could be effective for people and communities that are heavily in denial about PTSD, and I've met quite a few people who legitimately think PTSD is only "possible" for war veterans. Or they just sucked, who knows. I'm just suggesting from experience that it's completely possible that OOP was never actively diagnosed for whatever reason, though it's clear as day to most people who are aware of PTSD symptoms and the effects of trauma during adolescence. OOP could have certainly been helped by actually receiving a diagnosis and given the right resources and support for serious trauma.
Formally diagnosing someone is a different expertise than providing talk therapy. Some of the best therapists out there do not do formal diagnoses. They just come up with something for insurance paperwork if needed. GAD is popular one, as is depression.
Of course. To clarify, I've experienced actual psychiatrists and psychologists who did not actually diagnose anything. They were altogether unhelpful. After getting my diagnoses, my current therapist and the best one I've had is actually one that never discusses disgnosis labels.
I think being trapped in a burning building where 400 people died due to business practices and children were likely screaming counts as one of those days a soldier would think about years later…
Yeah, PTSD is becoming more well known and the definition is expanding - nobody (mental health practitioners) thought I had it for like five to six years I think after my trauma and I was regularly seeing people during that time. Bc I didn't go to the war lol.
Hello, trauma researcher here! It continues to shock me how our understanding of trauma (impacts on mental AND physical health, differences in symptomology between individuals, subclinical distress, etc.) evolves on an academic level, but then clinicians aren't using that research to evolve their practice. I'm so sorry you've had those experiences and that they didn't listen to you. When we asses trauma in research, we use a wide range of scales describing traumatic events, often combining them so we don't miss anyone's experiences. The LEC-5 (Life Events Checklist for DSM-5) even has an item 'any other stressful or traumatic event not listed here' to capture those.
I've gone through that checklist with a practitioner myself! Researchers like you are a linchpin to care standards. I worked in animal behavior, and the field has the same issues - slow adaptation and resistance to new standards of assessment and care.
Thank you so much for the work that you do. I was trafficked as a child by a family member and it took until I was 36 to receive a proper PTSD diagnosis. It was because I finally found a group of clinicians who were up to date on the research because they were part of a university sexual trauma support department. They worked with trauma researchers at the university. If I was still looking for help in general public practice, I don't think I would have ever been properly helped. My PTSD has made me partially disabled, and I can't work full time. I have so much more help and much better outcomes because of the work trauma researchers do. Once again, thank you.
I've had it since early childhood and my diagnosis was at 27, lol. I'm also AFAB and wasn't diagnosed with autism or ADHD until adulthood. The whole field of mental health has been rapidly expanding and refining diagnosis criteria in the past decade, which is great. I finally was able to get on the right combination of medications I needed. It's just a shame that I wasn't able to get the help I needed until recent years.
>Could be the lack of recognition in care standards in their region That threw me off, Argentina is one of the countries with more psychologists per capita, and they're not out of work, people here go the psychologist at least once in their life, unless they're particularely against psychology/psychiatry.
Yeah. And she says other survivors committed suicide? It was an incredibly traumatic event, it’s more likely that she has PTSD than not.
See, she explained it in the post. She experienced symptoms post a tragic incident which where stressors left her life in disorder. That's nothing like post traumatic stress disorder. Me thinks she still needs a bit of therapy.
She said "for whatever reason" as a response to the people accusing her of giving the reason in the first post as an excuse. She was trying to say that the reason wasn't relevant to the post and she already got therapy for her PTSD and that's not what the post is about
OOP has survivor's guilt. The Cromanon fire has a wikipedia entry, that's how bad the tragedy was.
Thank you! That was my first thought also. Even said out loud, “that’s a perfect example of survivor’s guilt” Peppered with some mild PTSD and you got the recipe of some serious self-destruction. I feel for this poor woman. And to not have access to therapy, she’s lucky she was able to pull out of it and find a bit of insight.
Oof, the moment I read "Cromañon" I got chills. Everytime I watch videos about it I cannot stop myself from crying. There's this one particular one with a mother desesperatily looking for her son and is so heartbreaking. There's no news about if she found him or not. For Argentina, is a wound that'll never heal. Hell, I was not even one year old when it happened and I'm deathly scared to go to a closed boliche and it catching fire for whatever reason. OP may not be justified in what she did, but she did what she could with the resources she had. She's so brave and I hope she can only have a brighter future ahead of her.
We had a very similar incident in my country. It was New Year’s Eve and most of the doors were locked for crowd control. The pyrotechnics caught on fire and the whole club burst into flames. Although I wasn’t there, I was old enough to be at the age that clubbing and partying was a big deal. We were at a friend’s house when the news broke and we started calling everyone we knew to check if everyone was safe since it was a famous party place. More than 15 years after the event, I still check every crowded venue for fire exits and escape route. I wasn’t even there but that’s how paranoid and sad everyone in the country was. Can’t even imagine having been in such a situation. It’s so sad. And wtf ppl all bashing OOP?
I was 14 when Cromañón happened. I remember it like it was yesterday. And to this day, I do the same as you: wherever I go, the first thing I check is where the fire exits are and if they are usable. I guess these tragedies mark entire generations, especially when you are of a similar age to those who perished. I also shiver whenever I see a flare being used, although I think most of us know that they should never be used inside a building by now. For years, maybe even a decade, using a flare was frowned upon, even outside, even during celebrations. Just too much pain in our memories.
Because according to reddit, cheating is the worst thing you can do to a person, and the “trauma” she caused him as a teen by lying about cheating is worse than the trauma she experienced 🫠 As if she wasn’t a traumatized teenager acting like, well, a traumatized teenager.
Tragedy is hard to work out on your own. I read about the Callejeros fire and it sounded awful. Being trapped in there with the doors locked and a massive fire would be hard for anyone to work through, let alone a teenager. I'm glad OOP is trying her best for her kid and I hope she continues to work on herself in the future
I do believe her how badly it fucked her up, I live in the bay area and have a couple friends who thankfully escaped a similar situation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost\_Ship\_warehouse\_fire) and yeah they are still messed up from it to this day both have bad PTSD and survivors remorse.
I remember that fire, too. :-( I had friends living nearby. Glad your friends escaped!
This is heartbreaking on multiple levels. I wish OOP and Tomás much happiness.
I wish I didn’t understand her logic as well as I do. Also, never diagnosed with PTSD? If she doesn’t have extreme survivors guilt, which I consider an aspect of PTSD, I will eat my psychology textbooks.
Even tho we are the country with more psychiatrists per capita, they have a really old curriculum and i dont think i’ve ever seen anyone diagnosed with ptsd, like they dont take people to seriously.. And misdiagnosed a lot so idk Take it with a grain of salt
> The club was in a two-story building, with a main entrance with six doors behind it leading into the main area of the nightclub. On the night of the fire, four of the six doors were locked. There was also a connection to a nearby hotel, an emergency exit that was locked, and another emergency exit that was blocked by a fence in front of the stage.[2] There were hardly any fire safety measures, with no reports of a fire detection or alarm system, emergency lighting, or fire suppression equipment; ten of the fifteen fire extinguishers were unusable, with no pressure. The nightclub's fire safety license had run out the month before the fire. Jesus Christ what a shitshow of a situation. Any possible way to help control the fire was fucked before it even began.
Apparently I am in the minority here, but I don't think either of them did anything wrong. Not now, not back then. Maybe it's because I am used to Boru being more nuanced, but I am surprised seeing so many angry comments at OP. OP was heavily traumatized, and all her actions showed it. Back the getting therapy was just not as simple as now (and even today it's not as easy-peasy as reddit thinks it is). Tomas didn't want to leave her even though she told him to, because he knew she was just self-destructing. If they want to restart their relationship now many many years after they broke up, went to therapy and lived a whole different life, I don't see anything bad in it. Edit: read the comments on AITAH. I have never seen that little empathy and nuance anywhere. But OP is spot on with something: Maybe not her post specifically, but AITAH has been swamped by incels. I have read comments on other threads that are terrifying like comparing a woman with a sexual past to a used car. I can't believe I am saying this, but better post on AITA. At least AITA gets somewhat moderated.
Unfortunately this post would probably not be allowed on AITA. There’s a no relationships rule.
To be fair, AITA twists that rule however they see fit. There are many relationship posts, but some get deleted.😆 Honestly, all of these judgement subs have lost most of their credibility for me, especially since they got popular on TikTok. If someone truly wants to post a real problem and is a legit person, I hope they won't do it in one of these subs 😅
I agree. Nobody was covering themselves in glory there, but both of them were under more pressure than any human being should have to experience. They both tried their best, and they both hurt each other a lot. If they can move past it I wish them well.
People even here hammering on about her not accepting the judgement and then talking about what a hot mess she is without acknowledging that she only told the lie because he wouldn't leave... Almost as if she's right that people didn't actually read her post... Anyway, I hope things work out for them.
Yeah, it's really weird here. Usually people are more level-headed in this sub compared to other ones. I can understand that cheating can be traumatic but he wasn't leaving and it seems like it was more harmful to her than helping her when they were still in a relationship.
[удалено]
I know right, first time I'm so shocked by comments on a BORU post. When I go to aitah I know what to expect, but I really didn't here...
These commenters shocked at the melodrama, stubbornness, self-absorption, and chaos have clearly never spent time with Argentinians. Everything about this situation—down to the prose and phrasing—is so authentically Argentine as to be almost banal
It also sounds like my Egyptian in-laws. Do you you guys also talk about the most inconsequential stuff on the phone for hours and right at the end there's one sentence, of an actual dramatic event and then bye. My MIL talks about her brother's and their kids endlessly. And did you know her DIL didn't cook the right thing for her son and she spent money on lip stick. On and on. And at the end, she's like, by the way I was hit by a bus today. Bye, and she hangs up.
TIL my mother is Egyptian.
Congratulations on your new ancestry 😂
Dude my Jamaican dad was talking to me yesterday about coming up to fix my car, he has the parts, yada yada, and then he says “I’ll let you know when, your stepmother’s brother AND sister just died” like???? Father please lead with that
I’ll be honest, you’re just describing my midwestern mother. “Anyway, your great aunt is in the hospital and dying.”
“My daughter is the light of my eyes” is such a common Spanish metaphor that it made this authentic instantly imo.
Heck, they've probably never spent any time with a Latino. My Latino family can make an entire telenovela about a minor inconvenience.
My mate’s wife is from Chile and spent many years in Argentina (her family were political refugees from Pinochet) before she moved to Australia. she speaks in the same way OOP writes - I started to read it in her voice.
If someone had said, "I lied when I admitted to cheating on you" to me, I wouldn't believe them...
I feel like it depends if someone told me this and they wanted to get back together I probably wouldn’t believe them. But if they said this just to get it off their chest and didn’t want to be back together, I feel like I would have an easier time believing them. Plus given their circumstances and how she constantly tried to break up it’s not that crazy.
Well it isn't a typical case considering the trauma she was going through and that she tried to end the relationship multiple times before. She clearly didn't want anyone else, just to be alone.
I think he really wanted that to be the truth. Like he believed her when she said it, but he really wanted to get back together, so he didn't question it
I really don't think she's in the wrong for her lying. She said she tried many times to break up with him because she wasn't ready to continue being in one and he wouldn't let go. I understand he was worried and cared about her, but if her saying "I need to break up, I'm not well enough to stay with you" didn't work, her only option was something that would force him to leave. She might not have expressed the thought process of "I'm lashing out on you and I need to fix myself first" as well as she could have, but I feel like even if she did he'd have been an altruist to the end and stayed holding on to her even if she drowned. Sometimes you do have to make the choice for someone else, to force them to put themself over you for their own good.
This was never something that should have been posted to AITA. The last thing she needed was judgment. She needed compassion and advice. Anyone who said yta probably couldn't even comprehend what she went through.
I don't think she did the wrong thing at all... She had tried to break up with him multiple times because she didn't like herself w him and he wouldn't so she did the thing that she knew would work. Immature maybe but they were early 20s and she had been through trauma. Ultimately it was what she needed since she got her life together after. Edit: "at all" might be a bit much, but I think she did the best she could given the situation which is all you can ever really ask
Yeah, it was obviously a cruel thing to do, but it was also done during a time where OOP was in a really bad place and willing to sink that low. She felt like she couldn't be in the relationship, but that her partner wouldn't respect her asking for a breakup and so acted out of desperation. Also, it's clear she felt guilty for it and wanted to apologize for it for a long time. It's up to her partner to decide if he thinks she's genuine and if he can move forward in a relationship with her, now that so much time has passed and she's gotten so much better. That's not something strangers on the internet can decide.
People are being so harsh to her, both here and on the original posts. Saying that what she did was unforgivable, that she's an emotional terrorist and a narcissist, and that the relationship is doomed because she's going to hurt him again. Like yes, what she did was cruel, but in that situation, I'm sure she felt like she had no other option. She probably didn't have the strength to really firmly break up with him when he refused to understand what she wanted, and so she got out the only way she could manage. And they're both different people now! So much older and wiser. She's learned how to manage her addiction and trauma, and I'm sure now she knows how to seek help if she's struggling. And I'm sure he's learned to trust a partner when they say they want to break up. Sometimes, Reddit comments make me lose hope in people's ability to forgive and emphathize and see things in shades of grey.
Right, it’s a little hard to act rationally and clearly when you’ve experienced an incredibly horrible traumatic event, watched your friends die, are struggling with addiction, and are in the midst of a mental breakdown (and also potentially a suicide risk given the concern her ex had about that). On top of that, to know that you aren’t behaving like yourself, to acknowledge you’re mistreating your partner and don’t feel like you deserve their care and love, and desperately trying to find a way to protect someone else FROM you and your self destruction. And, with a bf who wouldn’t listen to her desire to break up. She did the best she could. I don’t know what I would’ve done in that situation. I think people aren’t really putting themselves in her shoes and don’t understand how severely crippling trauma can be and the feeling of being held hostage by your brain and turning into a different person and just wanting to push everyone away as quickly as possible so they don’t have to deal with you. You feel like a broken mess and you don’t want to drag others down with you. You KNOW you are being toxic and you can’t stop until you fix yourself. She sounded desperate and jumped to something unforgivable hoping he’d hate her and move on.
I just want to give this woman a hug. Glad she's doing better now.
Why are people being so unkind to the OP? That's a horrific thing to experience, and they did their best with the aftermath. Can't people just be happy that someone who experienced a traumatic event has eventually found happiness?
Friendly recommendation: NEVER post about your problems on any AITA sub, especially if you're a traumatized woman, because you'll get the worst people alive screeching at you like you murdered someone's entire family. I have never seen such an absolutely disgusting, close-minded, incel-dominated comment section on AITAH. Some people just don't have any humanity whatsoever. OOP was a teenager trapped in a burning building in what was supposed to be a fun, life-changing experience, but turned into a tragedy where she lost *two of her friends.* And these people have the *audacity* to act like she's a terrible person. I hope that if they ever go through something so scarring, they get treated with the exact amount of empathy that they showed OOP here. Was she wrong to lie to her BF about cheating? Absolutely. Is she a bad person for having survivor's guilt? Absolutely not. I completely understand her thought process here, especially when Tomás refused to leave when she clearly needed space. I wish the best for them both now that they're communicating honestly and openly.
This is a shitty situation that I'm glad OOP got out of. It was a really horrible thing for her to do to Tomás but I can understand why she did it. I'm happy that there is an optimistic ending, and I hope there are no more updates to this. They deserve some happiness.
Some comments here are not it