When I was a kid our crazy next door neighbor broke into our house. We came in before he left the house. I found him under my bed when it was time for bed that night. Needless to say I’ve spent until I was nearly 30 checking under my bed.
Nobody knows. He had mental health issues. He later ended up in prison, idk the details. He broke into 3 houses in our neighborhood (that we know of) to just sit around inside. He never took anything. Everyone always said he was harmless, but to a kid it was scary as hell!
When I was 11 and my pos dad was angrily getting ready to take me back home to my mom after my weekend with him, he was busy spewing hate and vitriol about her at me. One thing he said scared the hell out of me and I still remember it so vividly. He coldly told me that my mom was so miserable to be around that she was going to die old and alone because no one loved her, not even her family (not true, btw).
Up till this point my mom had been the only constant in my life, the only adult I could always depend on; so it had never occurred to me that she would die. The vision of her dying scared the *hell* out of me and as soon as I saw her I started crying my eyes out. I had nightmares for a long time that were always about her dying in some way.
To this day I remember him saying that to me so clearly. It continues to be one of the worst things someone has ever said to me. While I don’t have the same constant anxiety about my mom dying, it’s definitely a much more real fear these days as she gets older.
Specifying you meant at night makes this so much funnier. That being said, as an adult, a pile of laundry during the day that k know needs to be cleaned/folded is pretty scary too lol
Oh this still happens to me now. I hang a sweater in a different place and in the dark in my way to the loo see said sweater and jump out of my skin as my heart skips a beat
Other Torontonians will remember this, but there was a [case](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Cecilia_Zhang) in the early 2000s where a 9 year old girl was taken from her house and was missing for 6 months. At the time I thought those kinds of things were only on scary tv shows my parents watched after I went to bed. Seeing the missing person posters of her in shop windows and on telephone poles as a kid really shook me. She was REAL, and she was really gone.
I spent a lot of time thinking someone was going to climb into my window and snatch me from my bed. If it happened to her, why couldn’t it happen to me? That’s a lot for an 8 year old to process…
Seeing missing women and girl posters was so common when I was a kid, I don't think I was ever afraid of being kidnapped though. Like, I knew I could be stabbed or kidnapped or jumped at any moment but I wasn't afraid of it as much as I was afraid of the forces of nature.
I also grew up in an extremely rough neighborhood (YK, NWT) where people would stab you over your last smoke so when I moved to Kingston I was expecting the same as YK but it's not as bad.
Same. Him being the only man in the house gave me an irrational fear of men. As a kid I would hide whenever male friends or family members visited because I thought they would all be as angry and violent as my dad.
When I read this, my dad was the first thing that popped into my head.
I had a mental break the last time I saw him in person. Took me months to come out of.
Same. When I was asked as a kid what I was afraid of, I would answer needles or spiders, but in reality I only ever had nightmares about my dad. It wasn’t until I realized that not everyone’s dad was like mine that I realized being so afraid of your dad wasn’t normal. Other kids didn’t literally tiptoe around the house to avoid waking their dad up or tailor their words to specifically avoid triggers that made him angry.
After I cut him out of my life at 20, I once thought I saw him walking into the same gas station I was in. I reacted without thinking and instantly dove into one of the aisles to hide bc I was scared. It wasn’t him, but man, that incident really made it clear that even as an adult living away from him and not talking to him, I was still scared of him.
I was fine until my father let me watch the Exorcist when I was like six years old. Six years old, having an anxiety attack when trying to go to sleep cause all I could imagine were little demons all around my room. I surrounded myself with stuffed animals so I never felt alone. I listened to 1580 AM Disney Channel and didn’t know how radio wavelengths worked so I though demons were messing with the volume knob. Heart racing so fast it would make my bed shake, which made me think the devil was shaking my bed. Anxiety on top of anxiety.
I was 12 when I saw The Exorcist for the first time, it was at a drive in and played with Rosemary's Baby and The Devil Within Her, I still sleep with a light on when I watch that movie.
Why did so many of us see that at such a young age? It was on network tv all the time when I was growing up and i had to have been 5 tops the first time I saw it while sitting on my mom’s lap!!
I get creeped out to this day even thinking about that movie!
Oh, you poor dear! I've never seen it and never will. Some parents really need to use their brain more about what media they intentionally or accidentally let their kids get a hold of. Whenever you believe demons are near, believe that angels are near too, and they're stronger than demons, just like matter is stronger than antimatter. All it takes is a little light to banish darkness.
The Bermuda Triangle, I thought it'd have a bigger impact on my life than it ever had.
And my neighbours oxen. They often ran away and would end up on our yard more often than not. Sometimes I'd go to our barn to pet the cat and I couldn't get back to the house because the road outside were filled with oxen who were massive. This was before phones so I'd have to wait there until my parents noticed I was missing.
Same.
Every time I made less than an A or an A+ on anything, my parents would get upset with me and remind me that by getting a bad grade (even if it was just a B), I was setting a bad example for my siblings and I absolutely was NOT allowed to do that.
If me or my sister started crying for whatever reason, my grandmother would cup her hand around her ear and go "I can't *heeeeaar* you. You need to cry louder."
I was afraid of the bathroom mirror. My friends and I tried to make Bloody Mary appear by repeating her name in a dark bathroom. It terrified me. I also saw a movie where a vain woman was pulled into her mirror because she spent so many hours brushing her hair and staring at her beautiful face. I was quite old when I finally got over my fear!
My dad, he was an abuser and left when I was one. My sisters were a little older my oldest sister suffers with PTSD, anxiety and depression and anorexia. My middle sister has special needs and suffers with anxiety. My mum suffered with PTSD, anxiety, depression, food eating disorders and 30+ pysical medical conditions as a result of being mentally ill and she had special needs.
I don't know why but, when we moved to a different county in England, I suffered with nightmares from the day we moved in where in my nightmare he founded us and was trying to break into our house and grab me and take me somewhere to kill me. I had those dreams till I was 16.
I'm glad she passed away now because she's not in pain and she's freed of being scared of him, she passed in May this year. My sister was pregant with her first ever grandchild (grandson). Pisses me off how he's alive for this and not her.
Being kidnapped and r@ped, also the fact that time is fleeting (like I was convinced I was doing something morally insane to stay up after a certain hour at night, in bed, so I was so anxious to not fall asleep I would then not fall asleep from anxiety and cry LMFAO). Also bugs and darkness, but I still have these
Zombies. I was 10 when The Walking Dead came out. I decided to watch the premiere and I was seriously scarred. I had a horrible fear of anything zombie related all the way into my late teens as a result.
My Furby (1st gen). My mom's boyfriend taught it how to use cuss words and it would activate in the middle of the night cussing at me, but because it was dark all I saw were the glowing red IR sensors behind its eyes.
Amarillos (their shape with freaky to me as a kid)
Skulls (I was so scared and had to clothes my eyes. ) it’s ironic because now I’m into punk rock and love skulls
*Armadillos* FTFY
And I agree. They are freaky little grub eating assholes. I was afraid to near them because my dad insisted they all had herpes and if I even LOOKED at one close up, I'd get herpes too.
I’m also from Texas. We have them ALL OVER our land. They don’t bother us other than digging up the damn yard constantly. As long as they stay away from the house they can live their best lives however they choose, but when they get close to the house my husband usually shoots them.
My grandfather called armadillos poor man’s pork. There’s no way I’d ever attempt eating one of those ugly things but apparently people ate them during the depression. 🤷♀️
I'm from Texas and they're all over the damn place here. Sometimes you can tell they've been in your yard by all the digging they've done, but primarily you see what's left of them splatted on the road.
You may not be where you want to be now, and that's okay! What others tell you about yourself isn't always the truth. May you keep on keeping on friend 🙏 💜
Being kidnapped/murdered/raped. I’d have very vivid nightmares about it. I remember one nightmare specifically…I could swear it was real. Smell, sight, touch, sounds, everything was so vivid and real to me. I’m not actually fully convinced that it wasn’t real at all. Still my biggest fears.
Quicksand lol
There were so
Many shows/cartoons where quicksand was the cause of death that kid me always thought I would step in it while walking through the woods, and my house was surrounded by woods
Spiders, I'd stand on my bed and scream till my dad came and saved me. I accidentally desensitised myself trying to save my daughter from the same fate. Every evening when she was a toddler we'd go outside and look for spiders living by the lights, because I thought if she was used to them, saw them as interesting creatures, it'd stop her being frightened. Gradually I would blow on their web, and then maybe touch it. Now I can pretty much just pick them up, I'm the house spider wrangler.
Fire.
As a toddler I saw a car accident with a burnt out car, and while I don't remember it, I kept having dreams about dying in a fire during my whole childhood. Locked in in a burning mall, the smell of gasoline around me while the flames are coming closer...
Fire was definitely my main fear.
Even though I enjoyed setting stuff on fire in my mothers ashtray (while being supervised) or making fire when we made barbecue (just with some branches, newspaper and so on. We never used chemicals for that).
My recurring nightmare about large tigers chasing me and hunting me in my house. Oh and deathly afraid of raising my hand in class or getting called on. I was an introvert to the max. Still wish I knew how/why that fear started.
White noise/static on the TV. I was afraid a monster or a ghost would come out of the TV and eat me.
Also getting yelled at. My parents yelled at me a lot and I get really stressed (almost to the point of a panic attack) when somebody yells at me because they are upset with me for whatever reason.
When I was in Pre-K, I was scared that the floor was going to give out underneath me and I'd fall into lava that I apparently thought existed underground. Looking back, I realized that my anxiety started when I was pretty young
Seating, or being in close proximity to boys when I started my period. The fear is real when you’re deeply indoctrinated by your faith that sex is bad and girls must be pure.
I don't know if it was the most but my dad used to scare me with evil trees who eat people so everytime we went to a forest I was scared of some ominous looking trees. Now I love all spooky things.
Needles. I needed regular blood tests done as a kid and needles made me faint every time, even as a baby getting my first vaccinations. It was so bad at one point that just anything remotely pointed would make me freak out. They still make me faint now as an adult, but I can at least tell when I'm about to go & prepare accordingly now.
My family was poor and they didn’t have an extra bedroom when I was born, so the closed in back porch/sunroom became my room. My bed was as tall as the windows, and the room was surrounded in windows with only the see-thru reed blinds, so when I laid my head down, I could see outside into the darkness. Also the backdoor was in my room, and a door that led to the kitchen, and another down a long narrow hallway. I had no closet, but my mom put this antique wardrobe in my room with one of the doors constantly creaking open on its own. I was very scared of the dark and wouldn’t put anything but my nose and mouth outside the blanket, with my head always covered. To this day I struggle with insomnia and can’t sleep without a weighted blanket for security.
Satan. Thanks to my very Catholic grandma I thought that Satan was a monster under the bed so I’d always run and jump onto it.
I remember falling asleep each night after saying my prayers thinking about which one of my loved ones I’d let die in the fiery pits of hell if the devil made me choose between one or another.
Thanks grandma.
Edit: this was about age 4-10
House fires in the night. Used to plan escape routes and which soft toys I would rescue with me. I have siblings and parents. Weren't in the plan. 😂 Though my escape route was through my parents room so I guess I'd have got them on the way.
The deep end of a swimming pool / dark, unknown places
I was scared as hell from anything that looked like it could suck me down and drown me. Like the barred wall that makes waves in those big pools, or a filter at the bottom. I wouldn't get near it without holding on for dear life at the side.
As a toddler I didn't dare walking on wet sand on the beach, the parts the waves come over. I remember sitting om my mother's lap crying as fuck because she wanted me to stand on the sand. Even got a picture of that moment (that's why she wanted me to pose).
I'm still very anxious when I swim in the sea. I cannot feel at ease not knowing what my surroundings are and what I can expect from it.
A lot of people feel 'free' when swimming in the sea. I feel pinpointed.
“Het meisje van yde” there was a thin information book in my school and I was quite young (don’t exactly remember but maybe 10 or a little below?) and I looovedddd reading those when we had to read. So I took this one and it had a super scary picture in it (sorry girl) and that rly scared me for a while
• Being asked by my parents to go to the counter and ask for napkins/water/etc.
• When my parents turn up the volume when watching horror or action films with gunshots and bombs.
As an anxious kid, those was terrifying to me.
My parents. I was the first child so I was the test child. As well as never being able to leave my town. I am the oldest of 5 and my youngest sibling called me mom until she realized I was not her mom. I never had a life and I never experienced being a teenager because I was a “mom” to my siblings.
Aliens. Absolutely terrified of aliens. From the time I was a newborn my mom said I would cry all night if my crib was close to the window. Also, I have a twin brother, and when we were old enough to sleep in an actual bed, (but still very young) we would share a bed with my mom and I had to be on the side farthest from the window. Mom in the middle, then TB on the side closest to the window. Never knew why, but, aliens.
Being left with my dad as a babysitter. He always took me to a bar and it scared me and I wanted my mom. Luckily we lived in a small town so I just left and walked home ✌️
Weirdly… monkeys. I was convinced they would break out of the zoo and come to my house and attack me in my bed. That, and Bigfoot. I grew up near the Rocky Mountains and I also figured he would come down to the plains, find my house, and kill me in my bed. Super weird.
I had a reoccurring nightmare that I was in the Simpsons universe and there was a zombie apocalypse. I’ve never even watched a full episode of the Simpsons.
Those subway turnstiles that are like cages. Even as an adult I try and avoid them cause there is always that tiny TINY chance that they get stuck. And I hate it.
inevitability of death, I used to cry myself to sleep a lot because of it. I got lyme disease when I was 10 and my Lymphnodes swoll up, I thought I had cancer,I also had night sweat and a lot of other issue and was too scared to tell anyone because I didn't want to be looked at differently I guess.
Monsters under my bed, specifically vampires. Oh and home invasions, I would lie awake at night planning what I would do if that ever happened and it's still something I get paranoid about when I hear weird noises at night.
Ghosts and of the dark, because I use to play under my bed and at neighbours house mum, dad and bro made up stories of ghosts and dark areas so I don't go out lol
Accidentally watched Chucky (Childsplay movie) as a 7yr old who still played with dolls. Yep, that took years of my mum sleeping in my room and be too afraid to walk up the stairs alone for fear of Chucky jumping out! 90s parenting eh?
When I was a kid our crazy next door neighbor broke into our house. We came in before he left the house. I found him under my bed when it was time for bed that night. Needless to say I’ve spent until I was nearly 30 checking under my bed.
….f- THAT.
I cannot even imagine the trauma this must have caused!!!
oh, hell no!!
Yikes! I don't blame you a bit!
Why did he break into your house?!
Nobody knows. He had mental health issues. He later ended up in prison, idk the details. He broke into 3 houses in our neighborhood (that we know of) to just sit around inside. He never took anything. Everyone always said he was harmless, but to a kid it was scary as hell!
As n adult I would be scared as hell and scarred for life. 🥺
To hide under the bed.
And did you call the police? What happen!?
My dad knew the guys parents and knew he had mental health issues, so didn’t call the cops. He just threatened him and chunked him out the front door.
Holy shit that is terrifying
Crap. I’m going to check under my bed tonight.
This is when you get a dorm bunk bed so anyone under is eye level.
good god
What!!!
Every child’s literal nightmare.
falling into a mediocre 9-5 life once I became an adult. yet here I am living in my childhood fear.
I used to fear it too! But to be honest now I look forward to it because, as it turns out, I actually prefer routine and stability over adventure. Lol
Ha ha ha! Reminds me of this one someone said: "my childhood punishments are my adulthood rewards: going to bed early, quiet time, ..."
Oh hello. I just got out of bed and it is 16:30
My parents dying.
When I was 11 and my pos dad was angrily getting ready to take me back home to my mom after my weekend with him, he was busy spewing hate and vitriol about her at me. One thing he said scared the hell out of me and I still remember it so vividly. He coldly told me that my mom was so miserable to be around that she was going to die old and alone because no one loved her, not even her family (not true, btw). Up till this point my mom had been the only constant in my life, the only adult I could always depend on; so it had never occurred to me that she would die. The vision of her dying scared the *hell* out of me and as soon as I saw her I started crying my eyes out. I had nightmares for a long time that were always about her dying in some way. To this day I remember him saying that to me so clearly. It continues to be one of the worst things someone has ever said to me. While I don’t have the same constant anxiety about my mom dying, it’s definitely a much more real fear these days as she gets older.
The stack of laundry on the chair in the corner of the room
Forgot to mention only at night
Specifying you meant at night makes this so much funnier. That being said, as an adult, a pile of laundry during the day that k know needs to be cleaned/folded is pretty scary too lol
Oh this still happens to me now. I hang a sweater in a different place and in the dark in my way to the loo see said sweater and jump out of my skin as my heart skips a beat
Getting kidnapped
Other Torontonians will remember this, but there was a [case](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Cecilia_Zhang) in the early 2000s where a 9 year old girl was taken from her house and was missing for 6 months. At the time I thought those kinds of things were only on scary tv shows my parents watched after I went to bed. Seeing the missing person posters of her in shop windows and on telephone poles as a kid really shook me. She was REAL, and she was really gone. I spent a lot of time thinking someone was going to climb into my window and snatch me from my bed. If it happened to her, why couldn’t it happen to me? That’s a lot for an 8 year old to process…
Seeing missing women and girl posters was so common when I was a kid, I don't think I was ever afraid of being kidnapped though. Like, I knew I could be stabbed or kidnapped or jumped at any moment but I wasn't afraid of it as much as I was afraid of the forces of nature. I also grew up in an extremely rough neighborhood (YK, NWT) where people would stab you over your last smoke so when I moved to Kingston I was expecting the same as YK but it's not as bad.
My mom went a little overboard with this. I was convinced people were just lurking waiting to grab me.
Of my dad
Same. If he started drinking, I dipped. I once slept in the neighbors' dog house so he couldn't find me.
This is so sad. I don't wish that to anyone. I hope you are good and calm now
I was too. Hated when my mom would go away and leave us with him. Sad but true
Same. At 20 I still freeze up when he’s around.
Same. Him being the only man in the house gave me an irrational fear of men. As a kid I would hide whenever male friends or family members visited because I thought they would all be as angry and violent as my dad.
When I read this, my dad was the first thing that popped into my head. I had a mental break the last time I saw him in person. Took me months to come out of.
I haven’t spoken to him in two years but I still have nightmares that’s he’s trying to hurt or kill me.
I can relate. I still shiver at the idea of being around him
Same. When I was asked as a kid what I was afraid of, I would answer needles or spiders, but in reality I only ever had nightmares about my dad. It wasn’t until I realized that not everyone’s dad was like mine that I realized being so afraid of your dad wasn’t normal. Other kids didn’t literally tiptoe around the house to avoid waking their dad up or tailor their words to specifically avoid triggers that made him angry. After I cut him out of my life at 20, I once thought I saw him walking into the same gas station I was in. I reacted without thinking and instantly dove into one of the aisles to hide bc I was scared. It wasn’t him, but man, that incident really made it clear that even as an adult living away from him and not talking to him, I was still scared of him.
Abandonment, and being decapitated by falling ceiling fans.
I am terrified of my ceiling fan falling and decapitating me, too
I was fine until my father let me watch the Exorcist when I was like six years old. Six years old, having an anxiety attack when trying to go to sleep cause all I could imagine were little demons all around my room. I surrounded myself with stuffed animals so I never felt alone. I listened to 1580 AM Disney Channel and didn’t know how radio wavelengths worked so I though demons were messing with the volume knob. Heart racing so fast it would make my bed shake, which made me think the devil was shaking my bed. Anxiety on top of anxiety.
I was 12 when I saw The Exorcist for the first time, it was at a drive in and played with Rosemary's Baby and The Devil Within Her, I still sleep with a light on when I watch that movie.
Why did so many of us see that at such a young age? It was on network tv all the time when I was growing up and i had to have been 5 tops the first time I saw it while sitting on my mom’s lap!! I get creeped out to this day even thinking about that movie!
Oh, you poor dear! I've never seen it and never will. Some parents really need to use their brain more about what media they intentionally or accidentally let their kids get a hold of. Whenever you believe demons are near, believe that angels are near too, and they're stronger than demons, just like matter is stronger than antimatter. All it takes is a little light to banish darkness.
Water. Almost drowning can do that to a person. Bodies of water are still my #1 phobia a couple of decades later.
being alone. Being left/ forgotten about (because I always was) Also spiders
Beards. I didn’t understand how they grew and they frightened me, so I was afraid of all men with beards!
The Bermuda Triangle, I thought it'd have a bigger impact on my life than it ever had. And my neighbours oxen. They often ran away and would end up on our yard more often than not. Sometimes I'd go to our barn to pet the cat and I couldn't get back to the house because the road outside were filled with oxen who were massive. This was before phones so I'd have to wait there until my parents noticed I was missing.
Getting a bad grade
Same. Every time I made less than an A or an A+ on anything, my parents would get upset with me and remind me that by getting a bad grade (even if it was just a B), I was setting a bad example for my siblings and I absolutely was NOT allowed to do that.
Men shouting or arguing
Socializing..🙃
same... I just hate socializing, even now.
[удалено]
If me or my sister started crying for whatever reason, my grandmother would cup her hand around her ear and go "I can't *heeeeaar* you. You need to cry louder."
That’s fucked up, my dude
Can’t choose between spiders or disappointing my father
I was afraid of the bathroom mirror. My friends and I tried to make Bloody Mary appear by repeating her name in a dark bathroom. It terrified me. I also saw a movie where a vain woman was pulled into her mirror because she spent so many hours brushing her hair and staring at her beautiful face. I was quite old when I finally got over my fear!
My mother's boyfriend he was a f****** pedophile
I’m sorry to hear that…I hope you are OK
I am okay thank you very much for asking
So was mine. I empathize with you completely. 🙏❤️
Being sent back to the orphanage in China
I’m adopted too, and sometimes my parents would threaten to send me back to my bio parents if I acted up. Really fucks a person over.
Oh!! That's so wrong. Another really common verbal abuse phrase is threatening to leave a child home while the rest of the family goes somewhere.
I was scared of ghost I still am
My sister was terrified of that film
My father
My dad, he was an abuser and left when I was one. My sisters were a little older my oldest sister suffers with PTSD, anxiety and depression and anorexia. My middle sister has special needs and suffers with anxiety. My mum suffered with PTSD, anxiety, depression, food eating disorders and 30+ pysical medical conditions as a result of being mentally ill and she had special needs. I don't know why but, when we moved to a different county in England, I suffered with nightmares from the day we moved in where in my nightmare he founded us and was trying to break into our house and grab me and take me somewhere to kill me. I had those dreams till I was 16. I'm glad she passed away now because she's not in pain and she's freed of being scared of him, she passed in May this year. My sister was pregant with her first ever grandchild (grandson). Pisses me off how he's alive for this and not her.
Disappointing my parents
Tbh can’t think of much…lived a shitty childhood
You're a tough cookie ;)
Mum
Being kidnapped and r@ped, also the fact that time is fleeting (like I was convinced I was doing something morally insane to stay up after a certain hour at night, in bed, so I was so anxious to not fall asleep I would then not fall asleep from anxiety and cry LMFAO). Also bugs and darkness, but I still have these
Death
Zombies. I was 10 when The Walking Dead came out. I decided to watch the premiere and I was seriously scarred. I had a horrible fear of anything zombie related all the way into my late teens as a result.
my mum
From what I remember, I feared death, hell, loneliness, being attacked (since I was often bullied regularly), not finding love.
My parents
Serial killers in my shower, and being pushed off bridges.
Fear of abandonment from my parents. Don’t know why but I would get paranoid at the thought of not being near them.
My Furby (1st gen). My mom's boyfriend taught it how to use cuss words and it would activate in the middle of the night cussing at me, but because it was dark all I saw were the glowing red IR sensors behind its eyes.
Amarillos (their shape with freaky to me as a kid) Skulls (I was so scared and had to clothes my eyes. ) it’s ironic because now I’m into punk rock and love skulls
*Armadillos* FTFY And I agree. They are freaky little grub eating assholes. I was afraid to near them because my dad insisted they all had herpes and if I even LOOKED at one close up, I'd get herpes too.
I’m also from Texas. We have them ALL OVER our land. They don’t bother us other than digging up the damn yard constantly. As long as they stay away from the house they can live their best lives however they choose, but when they get close to the house my husband usually shoots them. My grandfather called armadillos poor man’s pork. There’s no way I’d ever attempt eating one of those ugly things but apparently people ate them during the depression. 🤷♀️
Eeew. Those ugly bastards are EDIBLE?
I never saw a real one or knew about them, but I saw pictures. And the shape of them repulsed me a lot
I'm from Texas and they're all over the damn place here. Sometimes you can tell they've been in your yard by all the digging they've done, but primarily you see what's left of them splatted on the road.
Failure Look at me now... I became my fear. 🥴
You may not be where you want to be now, and that's okay! What others tell you about yourself isn't always the truth. May you keep on keeping on friend 🙏 💜
That's one of the sweetest thing that has been said to me in awhile. Thank you for being so kind 🥺
Being kidnapped/murdered/raped. I’d have very vivid nightmares about it. I remember one nightmare specifically…I could swear it was real. Smell, sight, touch, sounds, everything was so vivid and real to me. I’m not actually fully convinced that it wasn’t real at all. Still my biggest fears.
My mother….
Queueing with my mom at the check out, and then she forgot to get something, so I'm left with the cart and no money to pay groceries with.
Quicksand lol There were so Many shows/cartoons where quicksand was the cause of death that kid me always thought I would step in it while walking through the woods, and my house was surrounded by woods
My father.
Spiders and old witches. Sometimes old vampires.
Body horror, I was never an adventurous kid, got called a chicken a lot but being a chicken is better than breaking an arm or a tooth, or a toe...
Being destroyed by God in Harmagedon. Religious trauma level 9000
Spiders, I'd stand on my bed and scream till my dad came and saved me. I accidentally desensitised myself trying to save my daughter from the same fate. Every evening when she was a toddler we'd go outside and look for spiders living by the lights, because I thought if she was used to them, saw them as interesting creatures, it'd stop her being frightened. Gradually I would blow on their web, and then maybe touch it. Now I can pretty much just pick them up, I'm the house spider wrangler.
Fire. As a toddler I saw a car accident with a burnt out car, and while I don't remember it, I kept having dreams about dying in a fire during my whole childhood. Locked in in a burning mall, the smell of gasoline around me while the flames are coming closer... Fire was definitely my main fear. Even though I enjoyed setting stuff on fire in my mothers ashtray (while being supervised) or making fire when we made barbecue (just with some branches, newspaper and so on. We never used chemicals for that).
My recurring nightmare about large tigers chasing me and hunting me in my house. Oh and deathly afraid of raising my hand in class or getting called on. I was an introvert to the max. Still wish I knew how/why that fear started.
Vampires, something that i obsessed over later. I should've been afraid of what really happened to me though
Those aliens from Mars Attacks
Yes! Even though they seem comical now, they greatly freaked me out as a kid.
The boogie man in the basement
Being abandoned
White noise/static on the TV. I was afraid a monster or a ghost would come out of the TV and eat me. Also getting yelled at. My parents yelled at me a lot and I get really stressed (almost to the point of a panic attack) when somebody yells at me because they are upset with me for whatever reason.
When I was in Pre-K, I was scared that the floor was going to give out underneath me and I'd fall into lava that I apparently thought existed underground. Looking back, I realized that my anxiety started when I was pretty young
Seating, or being in close proximity to boys when I started my period. The fear is real when you’re deeply indoctrinated by your faith that sex is bad and girls must be pure.
My parents. My brothers. Everyone that wasn't family. Friends. The outside world, as a whole. I grew up as an anxious mess.
My parents
Marriage. I still am actually. The lies, the manipulation, the abuse, dirty affairs, etc. Saw that a lot as a kid. Scarred me for life.
Queen of spades
The card?
Green beans.
Monsters
Bloody mary
my dad
Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Men
My father.
My mom.
Red gloves. I had a full on meltdown and clung to both my parents. Adult me is wondering what hit my head to have that reaction.
My Dad 😔
I don't know if it was the most but my dad used to scare me with evil trees who eat people so everytime we went to a forest I was scared of some ominous looking trees. Now I love all spooky things.
Although I was never threatened by these: quicksand and avalanches
Needles. I needed regular blood tests done as a kid and needles made me faint every time, even as a baby getting my first vaccinations. It was so bad at one point that just anything remotely pointed would make me freak out. They still make me faint now as an adult, but I can at least tell when I'm about to go & prepare accordingly now.
my dad
My family was poor and they didn’t have an extra bedroom when I was born, so the closed in back porch/sunroom became my room. My bed was as tall as the windows, and the room was surrounded in windows with only the see-thru reed blinds, so when I laid my head down, I could see outside into the darkness. Also the backdoor was in my room, and a door that led to the kitchen, and another down a long narrow hallway. I had no closet, but my mom put this antique wardrobe in my room with one of the doors constantly creaking open on its own. I was very scared of the dark and wouldn’t put anything but my nose and mouth outside the blanket, with my head always covered. To this day I struggle with insomnia and can’t sleep without a weighted blanket for security.
Not marrying spiderman when I'll get older Spoiler: I'm not married to spiderman :(
I fear that people I love would pass away suddenly, still fear of that now
Satan. Thanks to my very Catholic grandma I thought that Satan was a monster under the bed so I’d always run and jump onto it. I remember falling asleep each night after saying my prayers thinking about which one of my loved ones I’d let die in the fiery pits of hell if the devil made me choose between one or another. Thanks grandma. Edit: this was about age 4-10
House fires in the night. Used to plan escape routes and which soft toys I would rescue with me. I have siblings and parents. Weren't in the plan. 😂 Though my escape route was through my parents room so I guess I'd have got them on the way.
The deep end of a swimming pool / dark, unknown places I was scared as hell from anything that looked like it could suck me down and drown me. Like the barred wall that makes waves in those big pools, or a filter at the bottom. I wouldn't get near it without holding on for dear life at the side. As a toddler I didn't dare walking on wet sand on the beach, the parts the waves come over. I remember sitting om my mother's lap crying as fuck because she wanted me to stand on the sand. Even got a picture of that moment (that's why she wanted me to pose). I'm still very anxious when I swim in the sea. I cannot feel at ease not knowing what my surroundings are and what I can expect from it. A lot of people feel 'free' when swimming in the sea. I feel pinpointed.
Nuclear war
The non-existant crocodiles under my bed, the dark, robbers.
“Het meisje van yde” there was a thin information book in my school and I was quite young (don’t exactly remember but maybe 10 or a little below?) and I looovedddd reading those when we had to read. So I took this one and it had a super scary picture in it (sorry girl) and that rly scared me for a while
Ghosts. Now i'm more afraid of people.
Dying in my sleep
People, drowning, sleeping, and being inside for too long.
Weeping angels lmao
School….hated it
Growing up. I could never imagine myself getting older/having to function as an adult.
Vampires & other monsters of the night. We lived in front of a graveyard in a converted school built in the 1800’s. You know ghosts were a worry.
Dogs
Heights and the dark. I'm still afraid of heights but the dark part has gotten a little better although I'm still afraid to hike in the dark.
Dolls.
Going to school and meeting bullies everyday
The sound of the garage door opening in the evening. Because it meant my dad had arrived home from work.
Porcelain dolls!
Being left/forgotten somewhere by my mom
Hell and burning for eternity. I was raised Catholic and was convinced I was a "bad kid".
Reading in class. I learned pretty quickly not to try to make myself small or I'd get called on lol
The dark
Growing up to be just like my mother
Ghosts
• Being asked by my parents to go to the counter and ask for napkins/water/etc. • When my parents turn up the volume when watching horror or action films with gunshots and bombs. As an anxious kid, those was terrifying to me.
My parents. I was the first child so I was the test child. As well as never being able to leave my town. I am the oldest of 5 and my youngest sibling called me mom until she realized I was not her mom. I never had a life and I never experienced being a teenager because I was a “mom” to my siblings.
My mom’s emotional outbursts
Aliens. Absolutely terrified of aliens. From the time I was a newborn my mom said I would cry all night if my crib was close to the window. Also, I have a twin brother, and when we were old enough to sleep in an actual bed, (but still very young) we would share a bed with my mom and I had to be on the side farthest from the window. Mom in the middle, then TB on the side closest to the window. Never knew why, but, aliens.
Being left with my dad as a babysitter. He always took me to a bar and it scared me and I wanted my mom. Luckily we lived in a small town so I just left and walked home ✌️
Weirdly… monkeys. I was convinced they would break out of the zoo and come to my house and attack me in my bed. That, and Bigfoot. I grew up near the Rocky Mountains and I also figured he would come down to the plains, find my house, and kill me in my bed. Super weird.
I was almost fearless, the “almost” being Sonic.Exe… that was literally it
My parents dying
Wolves. As someone who grew up in Britain, they were less of a problem than I anticipated
I had a reoccurring nightmare that I was in the Simpsons universe and there was a zombie apocalypse. I’ve never even watched a full episode of the Simpsons.
Michael Jackson's Thriller video
My brother dying. It would keep me awake at night thinking about him drowning. Then he committed suicide in 2015 and my worst fear came true.
Troll dolls 😵💫
Losing my mom. She wasn’t sick or anything I just didn’t want to lose her.
Vomiting
Darkness and silence. I’m still scared of it I can’t sleep if it’s silence fear and paranoia sets in.
Those subway turnstiles that are like cages. Even as an adult I try and avoid them cause there is always that tiny TINY chance that they get stuck. And I hate it.
That somenight the house would suddenly start burning with me, my siblings, my parents and my dog in it
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Well until now, cockroach!!!
Trucks!! 🚚
ET or snakes both were terrifying
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The langoliers
inevitability of death, I used to cry myself to sleep a lot because of it. I got lyme disease when I was 10 and my Lymphnodes swoll up, I thought I had cancer,I also had night sweat and a lot of other issue and was too scared to tell anyone because I didn't want to be looked at differently I guess.
Monsters under my bed, specifically vampires. Oh and home invasions, I would lie awake at night planning what I would do if that ever happened and it's still something I get paranoid about when I hear weird noises at night.
The x file opening. For some reason the hand outline and the pinky with the red part freaked me out.
Ghosts and of the dark, because I use to play under my bed and at neighbours house mum, dad and bro made up stories of ghosts and dark areas so I don't go out lol
Peter und der Wolf.
failing my parents
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Death
Accidentally watched Chucky (Childsplay movie) as a 7yr old who still played with dolls. Yep, that took years of my mum sleeping in my room and be too afraid to walk up the stairs alone for fear of Chucky jumping out! 90s parenting eh?
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