Things you were scared of when little (but got over)

[letsgomaths]

Not fears which have followed you into adulthood, but little things you remember being afraid of. I'll start:

My shoes walking away without me (I'd seen it in a cartoon).

Seeing a toilet with the seat up: it looked like a monster with a wide open mouth, and teeth (the rubber supports), and right at my eye level as well. Also, if I had to put it down myself, there was a danger that it might fall with a bang, before soft-close seats.

Sinking into mud, as if it was quicksand. My brother once lost a welly in some particularly sticky mud.

Alarm clocks, especially if they glowed in the dark, or had bells on top.

Oh and a book called Marianne Dreams. Although I may still be scared if that now!

My DS is scared of candles. We can't have them on the house.

Marianne Dreams was terrifying. The stones with eyes! The radio static!

House burning down
Boiler in my bedroom exploding - used to talk to it to placate it 😂

The Incredible Hulk. I was terrified as a child and would hide in my bedroom until it had finished. I used to dream that if he touched you, you turned green.
Also ghosts. I was obsessed in my teens and read everything about them. I was so disturbed that it gave me insomnia and panic attacks. I don't believe in them now and have never seen anything I couldn't explain

I was scared of stairs without backs - I was convinced I’d fall through the gaps in them. And also bridges where you could see the water below through gaps in the planks for a similar reason.

Rabies! It seemed to be a real big deal in the 80s

Black holes, was absolutely terrified for months after learning of their existence (aged 7 or 8 I think?) about one swallowing the earth!

Rabies
Quick Sand
Paranhas (I blame James Bond for this).
Being buried alive (although that does actually still scare me)

Being squashed between two big metal.walls (I blame James Bond for this too)?

Marty Feldmans eyes and moths, my mother told me they lived on human hair, nice one mam !!

Dentists. I was terrified of them as a child, which meant I didn’t visit one for many years as a young person, which meant I didn’t look after my teeth as well as I should have done which means that in middle age I have lots of.......

Dental problems .

I had to get over my fear of dentists once and for all, and I'm now on first name terms with Raj, my dentist, and his team. I visit the place so frequently that I should be in line for an invite to their Christmas party.....

Huge flowers swallowing me up.

Quicksand
Stairs without backs
The IRA Not of being bombed. I must have seen them on the news and been told they were bad men. I thought they'd come and get me in my bedroom.

Daleks
Thunderstorms
The dark
The devil
Churchyards
Vampire bats

Dentists
Dogs
Spiders
Snakes in toilets (I always had to check)

Boys with ginger hair
People vomiting
Bare feet

A monster under the bed/in the wardrobe.
Grotbags.
The intro music to Mastermind.

There are a few more odd ones but I think they'd be too outing to share.

Our loo had a hatch to the attic in the ceiling. I used to flush the chain and run like hell so the attic monster didn't get me.

Dogs. Without a doubt.
Crossing the road
The dark (ironically I’m now in a pitch black room )

Harry Potter in general. Wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole until a was at least 10! No idea why but I found it so scary. Ended up loving it in the end.
Dementors from Harry Potter. Made the mistake of reading the chapter with the dementor’s kiss right before bed and I got paranoid!

Stairs with gaps inbetween them
Stairs with no handrail

The movie rise of the guardians scared the shit of of me for a few years. When I was really little my cousin used to tell me stories of the bogeyman and terrified the shit out of me and it seemed to stick

It’s fine now I watch horror films right before bed (and an episode of a children’s series after that) and manage to sleep okay!

Tandem pushchairs too for some reason

I was around four and in reception, friends mum had one for her (same age) and baby brother, she was in the back and I was terrified that she was eaten up by the pushchair 🤣. Didnt last long thankfully approx 2 years later was taping two toy pushchairs together to make my own ones!

Buttons
The Pink Panther
😂

@Lonelykettleshed the little handheld spark machine that people used to light a gas cooker. You'd have been terrified of my grandmother's gas arrangement; she believed in making old devices last, keeping a twin tub going for 35 years. Alongside her electric cooker, she had a single portable gas hob on a shelf, connected to the wall by a flexible tube, and used one of those handheld spark machines to light it: clicking furiously until it finally lit, with a big flame. Gas safety people would always condemn this device when they came round.

I used to be scared of teenagers, in that I wasn't sure if they were grown up or not. My mum was a secondary school teacher, and once took me in to an open day, where I was surrounded by teenagers. I thought it was odd that my mum called them "boys" and "girls", when they looked grown up to me, especially as the boys were wearing suits.

At a friend's birthday party, the birthday girl's teenage sister was in charge of the games. I watched the other children having their go at pinning the nose on the clown, and she was blindfolding and spinning them in a brisk fashion, which made me nervous. After everyone else had done it, I hung back, hoping to go unnoticed. But she saw me, looked at me with a very knowing expression: she had the scarf to blindfold me with in one hand, and the finger on her other hand was beckoning me towards her, like a parent or teacher does to a naughty child. She was in a party costume as well, which made her look all the more creepy! I did have my go, but I was terrified when she put the blindfold on me, saying "let's make sure you can't see".

My reflection in the mirror not copying me.