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.

The toilet monster
Quicksand
A monster under the bed
The dark
My mummy going away and not coming back

My DS went through a phase of being scared of balloons.

The sound of the toilet flushing. It's a wonder I didn't come to grief running down the stairs to get away from it!

Skeletons. My parents loved watching history and archaeology programmes. I was scared witless. I now love history and archaeology.
The daleks - a pretty common one!
The dark
Anything that had a whiff of supernatural about it. Again I love horror films now.

Cows.

I got "mooed" at as a 4 year old.

Cows can still be big and scary but I've no bother smacking my neighbour's highlander on it's arse to get her out of my garden.

Dogs... was terrified as a child. By the time I was 16, I was walking other people's dogs for them.

Oh and specifically the gorgs from Fraggle Rock standing under our open back staircase (if that makes sense) grabbing my ankles as I walked down. They never did, thankfully.

Letsgomaths my brothers (older obviously) used to chase me around the house with the gas lighter. I spent hours in the loo as it was the only room with a lock - so much time that I used to keep a stack of books on the windowsill.

Oh my grandma also had these terrifying lamps in her bedroom with gargoyles on them. I used to be put to bed in her bedroom, with my sister sleeping in my grandad's room, so that we wouldn't talk for hours and keep each other awake and I was terrified of them! I never told anyone because I didn't want her to be upset. I tried to hint at it once and she just laughed and said "I think they're funny, it's just a funny man."

Both my brother and I were scared of electric fans, especially if they slowly moved from side to side.

@BertieBotts When I slept in my grandma's room, I ended up hiding an alarm clock, and a figure of Christ on the cross, which glowed in the dark. Those gargoyle lamps of your grandma's sound creepy! How brave of you being tactful and not saying anything.

The electronic game "Simon", which had four lights which flashed in a certain order, and you had to press them in the same order, and it made a rude noise if you got it wrong.

I remember being scared of shoe shopping: the device for measuring my feet, the smell of shoe shops, and having shoes put on me by someone else. At a young age I resisted fiercely when my mum buckled some red closed-toe sandals on my bare feet: I couldn't get them off myself, my toes felt trapped. (Being afraid my shoes would walk away without me came later; perhaps my mum had warned me this would happen if they weren't done up.)

My grandma had her washing machine in the bathroom. When it was spinning it would move across the floor. Fortunately I'm over my fear of washing machines now.

Same grandparents had a holographic picture of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. It was both fascinating, and terrifying. Catholic kitsch at its best.

Other grandparents had open tread stairs that went round a corner, but the stairs didn't meet the wall at the corner so there was a gap big enough for children to fall through. Tbf I think I'd still be scared of them!

Cybermen coming out of the wardrobe. I'd put a chair against it at night!
Dogs, I'm now a dog person and have two.

The dark.

When I was small (actually even as a teen ) I couldn't sleep without the light on in the bedroom. The amount of lightbulbs my parents went through has probably made a good dent in the ozone layer 🙈(bedside lamps were no good, it had to be the main light!) and you know what I'm still not totally over it. Not that I have the bedroom light on, DH would have a fit but I do have to leave the bedroom door open a crack (it's so I can hear the dds if the get up in the nigh....ahem....!) don't know what my excuse will be when they've all move out 🤔🤔

Sleeping with the lights off and tarot cards (Catholic family). I'm still creeped out by the ye olde Jesus and saints pictures my granny had - not sure what happened to them after she died!

The overflow on the bath.

The eyes on the animal curtains that my gran lovingly made me.

Complete dark cause I was scared I wouldn't know if my eyes stopped working.

"Burglar lights", that turned on automatically when you approached them. My grandad bought one, which had a single circular "eye". It was summer then, so I didn't see it actually coming on as it was still daylight at my bedtime, so it was an unknown quantity. The very idea that this light could "see" you was terrifying, and I was glad it wasn't in my bedroom. I asked if animals would make it come on: he told me that a cat probably wouldn't, as it would be too low down. But he added that if a horse walked up to it, that would make it come on. The idea of a horse suddenly walking into my grandparents' garden was almost as scary as the light itself!

Having heard the story of Hansel and Gretel, I was fearful of being burned up in an oven, like the witch. But oddly enough I wasn't afraid for Hansel at all when he found himself locked in a cage; in fact, I kept wanting to be Hansel, shutting myself in cupboards or dog crates, pretending to be him, holding out a bone for the witch to feel

Humpty Dumpty