bizarre childhood fears

brindlechewy · February 2012

I saw a thread like this on another board last night and some of the responses were very funny.
Mine is oddly specific: I was terrified of the owner of the Johnson & Johnson company (they make No More Tears baby shampoo, band-aids, and similar products). When I was 5 or 6 years old, my family went on a vacation to Lake Erie. We could see Johnson's Island from our cottage, so my grandpa--for some unfathomable reason--told me that the owner of the Johnson and Johnson company lived on the island. Apparently, the owner was angry and wanted revenge because his sons had taken the company away from him and hadn't given him any money. I spent the rest of the vacation terrified that I was going to be abducted by the owner of a pharmaceuticals company and it was years before I felt comfortable around band-aids. Does anyone else remember something they feared as a child that seems funny now?

teeley · February 2012

not me, but my husband had a leprechaun show up in all his dreams randomly and would say "if you tell anyone about me I will kill you"

Dauntlessness · February 2012

Fish. Every time I swam I thought a big fish was going to bite my leg off and bring me to the bottom of the lake. Mind you, I went swimming almost every day of the summer when I was younger because my Dad lives on a lake. I would kick my feet until I got back in the boat.
I also had a dream about the snow white dwarfs being outside my window on their way to mine...never watched that movie again. LOL

JoDeeD · February 2012

I have an unreasonable fear of coffee. I don't drink it, I don't like the smell and I can't eat anything that has a coffee taste. It comes from when I was 8 and had a fresh pot of coffee break on my back. I was burned pretty bad on my back and had to spend the summer (probably only a couple of weeks) inside.

Enspiria · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

kekl · February 2012

I used to be afraid of falling asleep in public or being 'put to sleep'. I guess I watched too many action cartoons where the characters got sleeping gas and I was absolutely TERRIFIED, I had nightmares all the time about it and lived in fear of having to get my tonsils removed because of the anesthesia. You can bet this made dentist visits so much more exciting, also, haha.

ohpiper · February 2012

After seeing a movie when I was a kid, I was afraid Bigfoot would try to break into my room and carry me off. Later, when he showed up in movies like "Harry and the Hendersons" he didn't seem quite as threatening.

i_love_vinegar · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

Same here. I also had a fear since I was maybe 11 or 12 that I was being drugged and raped in my sleep. o-O I still have both of these fears to this day...

court182 · February 2012

The Disney characters at Disney World and any other costumed suited people like that. I wouldn't go within ten feet of any of them. My parents have all these photos of my brother smiling with the gang while I was nowhere in sight glued to the parent who wasn't taking the picture. I hated going to Chuck E. Cheese too.

That and I was totally afraid of old people. Going to the nursing home to visit my great grandma meant me having a meltdown!

Ah, the memories of childhood...

teeley · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

that is funny, I sleep on the egde of my bed with my leg and arm hanging over...

brindlechewy · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

I always had to be completely covered by blankets to protect myself from alien abduction. I was allowed to watch a lot of "Unsolved Mysteries" and "Sightings" as a child with no supervision. Even as an adult, having seen movies like The Grudge doesn't make it any easier to sleep with appendages uncovered. :frown: Although the ghost is actually in the bed in that scene, so I guess I'm out of luck, regardless.

JanetLM73 · February 2012

I hate clowns, I always will....it started when I watch poltergeist when I was in Grade 5......many, many, many years ago.

Pookylou · February 2012

Watership Down terrified me, I remember watching it with my brother and dad and not wanting to look scared so sat through the whole thing..... The music and that black rabbit still scare me today *shudder*

Wendi_S · February 2012

Thanks to my older cousin and a lot of ghost stories told while spending weekends at my dads 'hicksville' cabin - I also will not sleep with anything hanging over the edge of the bed for fear that something is living under the bed and is going to grab me.

To this day, if I have to get up in the middle of the night when I come back into my bedroom I have to put the light on to make sure no one came in while I was gone.

I also sleep with the blankets tucked under my feet because I'm afraid of snakes crawling up from the bottom of the bed (need to thank my older cousin for this also)!

catfish9 · February 2012

I don't know where it came from, but I was always terrified that when I flushed the toilet, it was going to overflow. Also, the chupacabra. I watched a documentary about it with my parents as a kid, and it was borderline traumatizing. :P

Wendi_S · February 2012

Also, my mother once told me a story about a 5 fingered man who would hide in peoples trunks at the grocery store. When they would open the trunk he would jump out and abduct them. I have shied away from owning cars with trunks for this reason! Even now if I have to open the trunk in my husbands car I do it from the side- figuring I can run away before 5 fingered Freddy gets me!!!!

Shannonnn92 · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

I had a similar fear, except I thought that there were snakes under my bed so I had to make sure that nothing was hanging over the edge so they couldn't get me! haha

keywestsunset · February 2012

1. I also couldn't let an arm or leg hang over the edge of the bed, I was afraid this creepy witch would grab me.
2. I always felt safer with covers on, so even if I was really hot, I'd at least have to be covered by a sheet.
3 .When I was 10, we added on to our house, and my room was on the 2nd floor. I was always afraid an airplane would crash into the house, particularly into the 2nd story.

thought of another!

I'd always have to check behind the shower curtain before going to the bathroom, I was afraid someone was hiding behind it. I am starting to feel sad for the scared little girl I was!!

inchestopinch · February 2012

Clowns! Not sure why.... They freak me out! Always have - and probably always will!

p0stdramatic · February 2012

I just talked about this on another thread a few days ago, but when I was about 6 or 7 I watched a movie called Slaughter High. In one scene a girl is taking a bath and the water coming from the faucet turns into acid. I was terrified of baths and showers until I was about 25 years old. I knew it was ridiculous, and it was definitely my secret, but yeah. Then it just went away, thank God lol!

bhalter · February 2012

For a very long time, I could not sleep if my hands or feet were sticking out over the edge of the bed. I thought when I slept, a big sharp knife would circle around my bed like a shark fin and cut off anything that stuck out over the edge. Strangely enough, even though I know this is ridiculous, ( I knew it was ridiculous even when I was little ) I have trained my body to never let anything hang over the edge when I sleep!

I'm 26 and still think this!!!! Haha!

And I've been afraid of deer since I was a kid. When I was little, my cousin and I were in the car with my aunt one night on a back highway when she hit a deer. It flew over the top of the car and wasn't completely dead, because it staggered off back into the woods. My only memory of the incident was looking back through the glass into the dark and looking for the deer to appear. After that, I had nightmares about that memory and seeing a "zombie-like" deer stagger back towards the car to kill us. Since there, I've been scared of deer.

HauteP1nk · February 2012

Nothing specific for me that I can recall.

My sister was terrifed of Chucky (from Child's Play). My next door neighbor had the chucky the doll sitting in the window and my sister wouldn't even go into the yard...haha

She was also terrified of the toilet because my mom flushed a spider down the toilet in front of her and she refused to use it... That really set my mom back in potty training...

Oh, and my sister happened to watch 'It' by Stephen King with me... I think it took weeks before she'd shower without plugging the drain...lol

My fiance was terrified of this glass pig (piggy bank) that his mom had. It had this awful smile and it would keep him up all night because she left it in his room. One day he smashed it (killed it...lol) and when he came home he found it all pieced back together again in his room!!!! (His mom had super glued it....and put it back...haha). He thought the pig had put itself back together....lol He was terrified.

Kymmu · February 2012

Years before I'd ever heard of a tsunami, I used to have a nightmare that I'd be at the beach having a lovely time when a monstrous wave would come and drown everyone there and wash up along the glass of the holiday high rise buildings along the coast. I still don't like movies with huge waves out at sea.
We live in Australia, and go to the beach all the time, I just don't think about it during the day, only when I sleep.
I actually love going to the beach!

lruff1987 · February 2012

Oh boy do I have a good one! I had a fear of tiny porous holes. Like...when you make pancakes and they get all bubbly? Then the bubbles pop and leave little holes behind? Yeah that. Ew. Gross. Disgusting. I get all grossed out just thinking about it. What can I say? I'm a weirdo!

SouthernNHgirl · February 2012

When I was about 8, I saw an episode of Six Million Dollar Man where he fell into a snake pit. For years, probably until I was about 13, I had to sleep in the fetal position because I imagined snakes under the blankets at the end of my bed. I then figured out that if I slept with socks on, the snakes couldn't get me, so my legs could extend out a bit further. Then finally one day in my late teens the snakes went away. Sometimes when I'm in bed now, I think back and remember how silly it was. It was so very real as a child though.

bizarre childhood fears

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