What was the most random thing you were scared of as a child?

[ClassicStripe]

Me and DP are watching Mr McMahon on Netflix and it reminded me that when I was a child me and my sister were really scared of Hulk Hogan. We didn't have a clue about wrestling he was just on a poster at our cousin's house.

Dying in my sleep

Being inside large high-ceilinged buildings with no apparent supports other than the walls. I feel very queasy and panicky.

Years ago I went into the Noah's Ark church in Brighton. The shock and palpitations when I saw the interior! I had to stop and take several breaths before being able to walk round it.

Oddly, very large and old buildings often figure in my dreams, always foreboding and threatening.

We had a lesson on 'space' at the start of Y6 (I was young in the year so only a week past my 10th birthday).

Among other things, we discussed in detail about how the dinosaurs died and the chances of another asteroid hitting the Earth. And we had a class debate about what we thought would happen if something caused the Earth to stop spinning (the class decided that everything would be flung from the Earth's surface at a million miles an hour).

After that lesson I spent years (well into my teens) feeling viscerally terrified of asteroids or the Earth stopping spinning. Sweating palms, thinking I was going to faint if I thought about it, near panic attacks if someone talked about something vaguely space or universe related.

When I was about 12 there was a comet passing close to Earth and it was in the news about when to try and see it etc. I was off school for nearly a week whilst I sat in my room and panicked. When we came to do the Solar System in Y9, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't talk about or think about space in any capacity. I missed a whole topic and went to the nurses office sick for every science lesson for a month, claiming migraines.

I'm 38 and whilst I'm not terrified any more, I do still avoid 'space like' things when I can. So certainly no films set in space or watching the recent northern lights etc. Just no.

I'm actually a very logical, reasonable and calm/collected person in everything else. Not prone to anxiety at all - but that one lesson at ten years old really messed me up 😬

My parents had an old pale green electric clock, which had a window in the top third with a ship which moved up and down on an ocean against a cloudy colour changing skyline. The clock lived on the upstairs landing and I was absolutely terrified of it, to the point where I wouldn't go upstairs on my own. It lives in pride of place in my dining room now 😆

Jimmy Saville
Grotbags
Whizzbit
Kenny Everett (especially the leg sketch)
Falling rocks (I saw a sign saying "Danger falling rocks" on a coastal path). It freaked me out so much that I would not do the walk. I was upset at all coastal paths and would not go near caves.

Helicopters
Soldiers and police (grew up in Belfast, they carried obvious guns)
Footballs (convinced one would hit my face)
The Dark Crystal

Bridges over railway lines.

We used to go on holiday to a hotel that had a sharp bend ,overlooking the swimming pool…I always had to get out of the car ! We are talking mid 70s 🙄

The big ride on lawn mowers in the park

Daleks
Electricity pylons - still am; creepy and menacing
Toilet cisterns (overhead) and toilets with the lids up
Clowns
My Grandma- terrified me as a small child

The man on the wobbly bike

The singing ringing tree..

I’d forgotten about wolves. On the drive to my grandparents, usually done on a Friday evening when we visited for the weekend, we drove through a wooded area, Lake District, I was convinced there were wolves in the wood. We then drove past an escarpment with a lot of scree, which was known as the “slippy mountain, I would make my sister change places with me. I’d do the same if the road had a big drop on one side.
I forgotten that I had so many issues as a young child.
Didn’t and still don’t like seaweed in the sea when paddling. I still have a fear of deep water. I need to be able to see the bottom while swimming or in any boat smaller than a ferry. It’s known as thalassophobia. The drowning scene in Titanic was a bit triggering.

I'm old and had Pinkie and Perky wallpaper. It depicted P & P and their friends rigged out as minstrels with various musical instruments.

One of the characters was a crow in a striped blazer and straw boater but I was terrified of it. I was selectively mute for a fair part of my childhood and it was months before I was able to explain to Mum that I was terrified of these birds all over my walls. Dad painted them out and I slept for the first time in months.

Car washes !

Everything 😂

The vacuum, crossing bridges, gas cookers, crossing the road, chewing gum, opened curtains after dark, hairdryers, hand dryers, using public toilets, speaking up in class....the list goes on.

I'm surprised my parents weren't bald from pulling their hair out tbh.

Peep Peep The Boy from Space (series we watched at school)
Poltergeist
IRA bombs
Nuclear War
Daddy Long Legs in the school changing rooms

At home, my mother's 'upstairs' vacuum cleaner which was a Goblin.
Feathers.
The spiky leaves on tomatoes.

I was also scared of some things I saw on TV and, when older, read. I couldn't talk about those, some I would still find difficult to discuss.

I thought Frankenstein’s Monster and the Hunchback of Notre Dame were hiding in my wardrobe (saw some action figures in a toy shop with scary figures on the packaging). Had to go to sleep with my head right under the covers, for about a year.

Oh god , the “Singing Ringing Tree” weird bear like creatures, the masques were grotesque. Similar to the Trogladites in the 1960s “The Time Machine”.

The alien in “Alien” still gives me the shivers.

Our friends built a deck on the back of their house. I was terrified that I’d fall through the cracks.

We were walking in the foothills and we came across a tarantula. Mum said I wanted to pick it up and carry it.

I don’t get it either.

The Moomins
A picture on the front cover of an edition of one of the Lord of the Rings books. It was a sort of black demon type thing and I was terrified of it.

Also a tv show called I think Tripods? Big Robot things with three legs obvs, but evil. I think they were all different colours and the red one was the head mean one. But I must have been very young as I can't recall much more than that and scene of them walking down a hill towards an unsuspecting town, but I can still remember being terrified of them.

Vampires….I was quite worried about vampires.

Auntie Maggie (she was big and loud, but was friendly, still scary to a small child)

Spontaneous human combustion
Pylons
Rooms with closed doors. Hated not being able to see in.