Things you were afraid of as a kid?

name some things you were afraid of when you were younger, mine were...

The dark
Insects (spiders mostly)
heights
ghosts
aliens
the closet at night
deep water
sharks
being alone
And dogs but I got over that really quick lol

Oh and zombies, they scared the crap out of me.

Spiders
Bees and wasps
Ants
Any kind of public speaking or attention of anybody other than family directed at me
Boys
Deep water, definitely

:-)

Me too, but they terrified me and made fun of me. I'm not sure I ever recovered! :hi:

:hi:

and I am still irrationally afraid of all of them.

If a thunderstorm is predicted I will usually take a Xanax. If there is a severe storms/tornado watch or warning I will get in my closet. I have weather radio to keep me alerted.

Since being on the Bozo show as a child, I have completely avoided clowns at all costs.

Seems like whenever they were around, they would target me to dance with them. They KNOW it too!

Ah yes, those were the days.... :eyes:

would describe in great detail how the soviets were able to destroy us any old time they wanted to. I would hear a plane flying over at night and I would be terrified.I did eventually outgrow the fear but it was a long time!

Scary things under the bed.
The big octopus furnace in our basement.

Bad things happen in the dark, man. Bad things.

There's a very disturbing bunny in that movie.

My mom would make it and put the open pitcher in the fridge (no cover). I wouldn't drink it because I thought 'someone' might have snuck in, opened the fridge and dumped poison in it. :yoiks:

Especially the furnace.
My dad...sad but true.

Sad for us; but sadder still for him, I think. Can you imagine having your children fear you more than love you?

He was very militant when it came to raising kids. He's ok now though. I think the divorce humbled him some.

Know it all too well. Sorry you had to live in that misery, too, sweetie. :hug:

but... it was usually worth it :P

:hi:

I would see his truck in the driveway and would have a panick attack every time when I came home from school. He suffered from from stress syndrome after being in vietnam so I have since forgave him for being a jerk. When he divorced from my Mother he was always so kind to me. Go figure. He used to always use the belt on me when I was bad.

So I got pranged a lot. I did learn, eventually, from my mistakes.

I got taken to the museum in Mpls when I was about 7. Everything was cool until I went to bed. I just knew he was coming for me! What a mummy would want with a 7 year old white kid from Mpls, I don't know.

I figured I could always outrun them.

still terrified of spiders.

Heights
bears
monsters (especially the ones under the bed)
the Ferris Wheel

If I see a spider I can't identify I'm afraid of it. Daddy Longlegs are the only spiders that don't scare me because I know they are not a danger to me. I know in my mind that most spiders are not dangerous, but I still freak a little if I turn the light on and there is one on the wall or ceiling. Thankfully we had our house fumigated for termites last year and since then the spider population of our house is dramatically less - at least for now. I have not seen an actual black widow on our property but there are some spiderwebs that have their telltale random pattern. Fortunately brown recluse spiders are basically unknown in San Diego. And fortunately we don't have scorpions here in San Diego, but there are some in the desert 2 hours east of here and one night I saw a tiny one running in my direction and I flew into the car faster than you could believe. We do have rattlesnakes in the canyon in back of my house, and last November there was a baby rattlesnake on our front porch! They are just as dangerous because they can't control their venom flow. We happened to have an electrician here that day and he killed it for me, but I'm still uneasy about snakes here and I don't go down into the canyon any more. A full-grown rattlesnake nearly 6 feet long ventured up into the backyard about 5 years ago, but I just watched it from the bathroom window and threw a roll of toilet paper at it, missed it but I think the vibration scared it and it left shortly afterwards.

I used to hide under the couch cushion during that part.:rofl:

I'm good with it now.

As long as the lights are on.

And I'm not alone...

the deep end of the pool - especially the drain and especially at night

eventually while still a kid I developed a phobia for (of?) caterpillars which I still have, along with public speaking. That is about it.


oh yeah clowns, but isn't everybody afraid of clowns?

not kidding

SO and I went to Target the other day. Walked down the toy aisle for the hell of it. She picked up a jack in the box and started grinding the handle. That fucking music....gave me chills. I jumped when the clown popped out. x(

I still hate 'em, but I can deal with them without going completely bonkers.

And polio. It was very scary. Had a multiple fracture when I was 7, had to go into the hospital to get it fixed. Came to from the surgery and I was in a ward with about 10 other kids. Three of us were in beds, the rest were in iron lungs. So of course I added two and two and came up with 27, figuring that wrecking your arm was what started you into polio. Very glad that one isn't around to scare kids any more.

She used to freak out when us kids played in the ditch by our house. At the time I couldn't figure out why.

Ghosts (especially after reading two articles in the Reader's Digest: The Ghost in Elke Sommer's House (November 1966), and "I Don't Believe in Ghosts But... There's Something Strange Going on at the George and Dragon Inn" (July 1967).

Spiders (especially black widows, and giant tarantulas (after watching some movie about a giant tarantula that terrorizes a town))

Nearly all the fathers in my neighborhood

the Hamburger Helper Monster in the dark(thanks Star Trek), and a few other things.

I think it was their size that scared me. Now I am more scared of sharks and I love whales.

T. Rex (the dinosaur, not the band)
Ghosts/Poltergiests
Nuclear war
Bigfoot (thanks to movie, "The Legend of Boggy Creek")
The thing that lived under my bed
The Devil
Banshees
Marcel Marceau
Grizzly bears (thanks to the book, "Night of the Grizzlies")
Springheel Jack
Gargoyles
The Draft/Vietnam
Tornadoes
Heights
The Six-Legged Woman (folk story that spread through northern Mississippi and Alabama during the late 60's)
The rose bush that scratched at my bedroom window screen when the wind whipped up

...a white-faced, grinning Marcel Marceau peering from behind a door frame.

I found the picture frightening when I was 2 or 3 years old. So, my brother used to use it to torture me.

but sleeping alone came in a close second.

that the Soviets had deployed bombers to come and bomb West Palm Beach, FL.

In the 50's, btw.

Also afraid of snakes.

I believe it was painted with purple eyes. I was about 2 and I would cry when I saw it.

in the Wizard of OZ

It was not without a reason.

I would wonder if OUR house was the one on fire.

My parents dying. That was about it. I was a pretty fearless shit, hence my total lack of any semblence of a sense of self-preservation as a child so long as there were no fucking rabbits.

It was based on a dream....I opened up the shower curtain in front of the tub and I saw a whole bunch of minature whales swimming in the bath tub. So for a while I was afraid that minature whales would come out of the drain and into the bathtub when I was in there.

Weird. But I was 4 at the time so I guess it's excusable.

a ghost flew out. I think I had that dream when I was 5 or 6 and for a while I was afraid of going in the laundry room, especially at night. For some reason I thought ghosts only "lived" at night and were somehow inert or dormant in the daylight. I think I got over that fear after a while, but I still remember that dream.

Especially those electric heaters in bathroom ceilings. We had one in our bathroom and I never really got to the point where I was comfortable having it on. I would only go in the bathroom if the lights were on but the heater was off. Those glowing red coils above me scared me. I'm still not a fan of electric heaters in general, mainly because of the weird smell they give off when you first turn them on. Thankfully sun lamps seem to have gone away, and I never really got near one, but we knew someone when I was a kid whose eyesight was slightly damaged by one. My roommate in college had one but I would stay out of his room anyway. Electric blankets are kind of freaky to me, I have never used one and prefer to just pile on more regular blankets if it's cold. I'm not really afraid of these things any more as I understand them better now, but I still would not be likely to turn on any of these devices.

Remember the one with the peeling tomato?

Something about the strings--to this day, I get uneasy when I see one.
I hated balloons because they popped and the noise scared me--I still don't like balloons.
I didn't like Jack-in-the-Boxes because of the noise when they popped out.
I was afraid of the dark.
I am still afraid of deep water and heights.
Ghosts.
I have an unusual phobia based on a scary experience. When I was 4, I gashed my head, right above one eyebrow, and had to have stitches. I was not cooperating, so the nurse wrapped me in a sheet to restrain me, pinning my arms to my sides. I remember screaming, "Let me go! Get off of me!" More than 50 years later, I still PANIC if I feel like my arms are restricted in any way. I was in high school before I'd wear any article of clothing that had to be pulled over my head. I have to be able to touch my face with at least one of my hands at all times. Weird how one scary experience can do that to a person.

Growing up during the Vietnam War I remember newscasts about the fighting between our soldiers and Gorillas. I, or course, had no idea they were reporting about Guerrillas. I was amazed how smart, organized and well-armed these gorillas were -- ambushing our troops, breaking out of prison, etc. -- and hoped they'd never come and get me in Cleveland.

Pretty funny to visual, actually.

Also:
alien invaders
tornadoes
The Wolfman
Zombies
My brother
Godzilla (or any other vengeful, gigantic creature)

I had a terrible accident when I was around 7 in which I almost died. :scared: From then on I became absolutely terrified of dying and would spend hours thinking about the many horrible ways I could die at any time.

It made for a rather paranoid childhood. :D

Especially since my mother screamed at me whenever I did anything the least bit risky, "STOP that! You're going to KILL yourself!"

When I was real small, I lived in a heavily Catholic neighborhood. Our neighbors used to invite us to all-you-can-eat spaghetti dinner at the social hall. Wandering around and seeing figures for the 1,001 Catholic saints for all occasions was scary for me.

Oh, and Jesus scared me, too. I had a friend who had a print of Jesus on the wall. Whenever I had to go to the bathroom, I had to run by so Jesus wouldn't see me!

I was also scared of the expanding and contracting of the pipes in our house.

You could hear the ducts expand when it cycled on in the middle of the night. It sounded like something was walking down the hall toward my room. :scared:

the dark. There are still times when I think bad things are going to happen.

swimming. Even though I know how to swim, I still dread it. Could be from almost drowning as a kid.

heights. I can't even bear to look over the edge of anything over 10 feet.

bugs. Fortunately I'm old enough and big enough that I can kill them when needed.

If I laid down on my side, I would hear this thumping in my ear. I had zero idea what it was. Thump. Thump. Thump. It mystified me. Thump. Thump. Thump. I never said anything to anyone about it, just worried for years.

i would jump to and from my bed if i had to get up in the middle of the night :rofl:

i'm still pretty freaked out by moths and sharks, tho :scared:

Thunderstorms, tornadoes, the dark, meeting new people, birds, deep water, bridges, boys (especially older boys), falling asleep and never waking up, boats, roller coasters, snakes, gym class, our elementary school janitor, my grandfathers (they had loud voices), speaking in public, anger, oh, just about everything I think.

I'm much better now although birds still scare the bejesus out of me. And I still don't care a whole lot for long or high bridges that I have to drive over.

some sort of green metalic paper thing was in it, possibly a dragon puppet.

in the pool or in my granny's water bed. My older brother sneaked us in to see Jaws. I will not go into any body of water I can't see the bottom of to this day.

that was going to grab my ankle when I tried to get into bed. I took a running leap instead.

I still fear deep water. And I'm still not too crazy about lightning, either.

Spiders
Werewolves
Aliens (specifically from the movie Aliens... my parents let me watch a lot of horror flicks that I should not have been allowed to watch)
Volcanoes
Jelly fish
Heights
Under the bed and in the closet at night

This hasn't changed.

especially if it was at a new school, I hated being the new kid.

I watched too many war movies.

:scared:

I would play down there, as my sisters, and usually at some point one of my older sisters would up the stairs, turn off the light. I'd stand there and scream until brave enough to run up the stairs.

2. Being de-pantsed by the big kids down the street.

3. Being chased by dogs when on my bike.

These are nothing compared to the terrors of adulthood.

I had an active imagination and I had very vivid dreams and nightmares.
but what I was afraid of most was getting possessed. I happened to walk in the room when I was a kid and my older cousins were watching The Exorcists. It still scares me (the movie, not getting possessed).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qw0zZttfUaw

Wigs by Dairy Queen

:scared: