Have you ever felt evil or that something was deeply wrong?

[crochetmonkey74]

Inspired by an experience I had recently that has really rattled me. It's very outing as I've talked to everyone in my real life about it, it bothered me so much so I'll keep it brief.
I met some people I hadn't met before to buy an item from FB marketplace. Its a fairly rare item, and an expensive one so I went off to see if it was the right thing. The house was beautiful, it was a very large manor house that has been turned into huge expensive period flats,the grounds were amazing and the people were nice but a few odd things happened that were boundary testing and also some oddly timed things happened. While I was there I felt OK, it was a beautiful place, very quiet and entrancing but as I drove away I had this overwhelming sense of relief that I was leaving, and I was scanning my brain for any information I'd told them about myself in case they could find me. I am not a scared person or one prone to flights of fancy , this has never happened to me before. I had a physical reaction to the street they live on when I drove past some days later. My brain said "I'm never going up there again" and I keep having that feeling of having been in a bubble, it bursting and me being glad to be away from it. A weird story I know. Anyone had similar? I just know there was something deeply wrong there. I even asked my lovely neighbour to send a prayer up for me to protect me , and I would consider myself a non believer!

The only time I’ve had a visceral reaction to someone was fairly recently. I was in the park with my ds2 and baby in the pram. Ds2 was bumbling around playing on the equipment and a group of maintenance workers came in and started doing some work to one of the slides. I got a very, very bad feeling about one of them (who looked perfectly non descript), felt massive anxiety like I had to get my son away from him asap. I was just looking at him thinking I’m being silly, he’s literally done nothing wrong and then I saw him glance at my son and look round and the other children and something about the way he was observing them made my blood run cold. I grabbed my son and told him we needed to go and took him to the cafe. Once I’d calmed down a bit we walked back through the park and I watched him from a distance as we headed towards the exit. It was only then I noticed the back of his hi vis jacket said community service on it. I don’t know what he was convicted for but I’m fairly certain whatever it was was the tip of the iceberg, he just emitted evil towards children to me. Never felt anything like that before.

At times in the past and present, I have different gut feelings, some I listen too, some I ingore, some.have been correct, some.it's 50/50.

They may have smelt of cat.

Haha, I’ve had that a few times. It’s quite unnerving.

And now I'm wondering if we are classmates 😆

whatsup00

I agree if you are experienced heightened anxiety at the moment then reading The Gift of Fear may not help right now. The link below is to the YouTube channel which has the whole Gift of Fear masterclass, you could save it to watch when you're feeling more resilient.

Although some of the cases Gavin De Becker talks about are chilling I also felt his analysis was encouraging. We already know what we need to stay safe but we often suppress our gut instinct and fail to act because we don't want to appear rude or we are worried people will think we are paranoid and a bit crazy.

Some of the things he talks about were really useful. For example: when a man says no it's the end of the conversation but when a woman says no it's treated as the beginning of a negotiation. Treat anyone who refuses to hear your no as someone to beware of and repeat your no forcefully wit no apology or explanation for your refusal. It doesn't matter if you are refusing a cup of tea or to go on a date with someone.

He also includes details of cases where people did not stop to question their fear but acted on instinct and the outcome was good for them. I think his message is to listen to what you already know and keep doing it so that you hone the skill.

youtube.com/channel/UCMN48JPOuzz5u66j50QvqXg

I don't believe in any woo AT ALL. But I do believe in 'instinct' as the sum total of all the information we absorb without noticing, and process unconsciously. If your brain decides it's necessary to break through all the normal stuff to issue an urgent message, I tend to think one should act on it.

In the same vein, this is why it's often best to 'stop thinking' when you've got a problem to solve - after a shower, a run, meditation, whatever works for you, you'll often find you did have that information after all and can now formulate your solution.

@crochetmonkey74, I suspect the posters accusing you of overreacting haven't felt the kind of deeply visceral response you describe. It isn't anxiety, or even what we'd normally call fear. More like a strong warning, right? I've had that two or three times, and have also acted on a friend's. No idea if the 'warnings' in these cases were appropriate or not - but there didn't seem to be any sense in hanging around to find out!

Gavin de Becker's The Gift Of Fear is quite reassuring in this regard. Since reading it, I've been trying to hone my 'instinct' for weird & out-of-place details that could genuinely indicate a threat. I'd say your sellers were definitely weird, no matter what else!

@DuckDuckNo

And now I'm wondering if we are classmates 😆

Haha, it’s perfectly possible! Ok here’s a quick test, see if you get the reference- if I say Monkey, you say……? 😁

crochetmonkey74, I suspect the posters accusing you of overreacting haven't felt the kind of deeply visceral response you describe. It isn't anxiety, or even what we'd normally call fear
Yes it's like they've missed the bit where I said it's happened once in 47 years and was unlike any other feeling I've had. Totally different, a deep knowing , a deep fear and odd worry or revulsion. A knowing that I should not go back there. For context I've been very very frightened before (chased by a man who followed me off a bus when I was 18) I've also met someone who did a truly hideous crime and found him creepy, I've been scared of horror films and had nightmares and couldn't sleep, I've had intense anxiety. All of those feelings were totally normal,not out of the ordinary. This was so so different, especially the feeling of being in a bubble that burst and that feeling of deep relief to be driving away and knowing its unsafe to go back. I'm not exaggerating when I say you could offer me 50,000 pounds and I would not go back there. I feel grateful to have got away once, I wouldn't tempt fate.

Have you seen the film Get Out? This is giving me the same vibes

I’ve had a visceral reaction twice in my life. The first was the Camelot Hotel in Tintagel. I can’t explain it, the whole place just felt suffocating and ‘off’.

The second was, sadly, a child I taught. There was just nothing at all behind his eyes. I avoided eye contact where possible because it was like looking at a vacuum. It was almost like, through his time at school, he learnt to mimic ‘normal’ emotions but not feel them, if you see what I mean. He had a fascination with hurting people to see their reactions, e.g. I saw him wait till he thought I wasn’t looking, then sharpen a pencil and push it into the hand of a mute child in our class, who wouldn’t call out when in pain. When caught, the boy would make a great show of apology, but nothing he was saying/doing would match his body language.

He was privately diagnosed with autism the year after I taught him, and his parents then disclosed a lot of worrying incidents at home. Most of his teachers/ex teachers firmly believe that this diagnosis is not entirely correct/not the full story. I watched an old episode of Criminal Minds a few months ago wherein a child displayed this exact behaviour and killed his brother. I sent a link to a colleague without a comment and a while later she messaged back saying oh my goodness that’s exactly like X isn’t it.

He’s at secondary now and I see him a lot as he lives in our nearest market town. I’m always carefully to be blankly polite to him, just in case, while also desperately hoping he gets the help he needs for everyone’s sake.

I've had this once. I'd gone with my mum to look at a village, where there was a property she was considering. It was a lovely, peaceful quiet place, but at soon as we went into the little park across the road from her I was filled with dread. I just knew that if my mum moved here then harm would come to my little boy and it wasn't safe. As soon as I started driving away that feeling started to ease. My mum later said she felt uneasy whilst there as well. Cant think of any reason for it at all but I'm glad I don't have to go back there again

This is almost the exact same behaviour as De Becker describes in that awful rape case where the man had helped her carry her shopping upstairs. Grim. 😖

I've changed my username for this.

I've been reading through the whole thread with great interest as I also have had a similar experience and it's something I still occasionally think about years later, but it is odd, very odd IMO and I would be very interested to hear other opinions.

About 20 odd years ago I was dating a man who already had a GF who lived abroad. They had a long distance on/off relationship. I know that sounds bad but we were all young, still studying and childfree. No homes were broken up an their relationship was on the way out once he met me.

It wasn't a nice situation to be in and we used to go camping/hiking alot.

One particular time we were walking in Kent, on the High Wield I think, just walking along, chatting having a nice time and decided to stop for a drink of tea (we had flasks). I had known him for about 6 months at this point, maybe a bit more. How he was going to end it with his GF was always a topic of conversation. We decided to go into some woodland to find a log to sit on. As we entered the woods I got the most awful sense of danger. I was really scared I was at risk. So scared the feeling has stayed with me for well over 20 years. It briefly crossed my mind it would make things easy for him if I disappeared and I was very frightened and suddenly felt very vulnerable.

I cannot stress enough that this feeling came straight from my gut. This man had shown absolutely no signs on any dodgy or violent behaviour to make me think this.

Anyway we had our (quick) drink of tea and went on our way. He seemed unaware of my fear and I made an excuse about the wood being creepy, they weren't I love woodland.

If things had ended between us it would be easy to look back and think maybe I dodged a bullet BUT he did make a very definite split with the GF and we married. We have been married for well over 20 years now and have children. We are happily married and he has never shown any signs of weirdness or violence, not even the tiniest hint. In fact he is a lovely man. Hard-working and a supportive husband and father and I consider myself lucky to have met him.

So the question is why did I get that feeling from my gut that I still remember well over 20 years later? It does puzzle me.

@NuttyNutNut

It must have been the place not the person? But you mistakenly thought it was the person.

Have you ever been back to the same place? Maybe you could go and test your response.

I suppose that is entirely possible. I'm not sure I could ever find it again as it was such a long time ago and wasn't close to where either of us lived at the time. I really wouldn't want to go back as the feeling was so very frightening.

I can see what the OP and others on this thread are talking about when they describe the feeling. It's a totally unexpected gut reaction you have no control over.

I have had similar @NuttyNutNut with my now DH - in our early relationship (first few months of sleeping over) I had a sudden middle of the night wave of "he wants to strangle me" and found myself assessing if I could over-power him. He was fast asleep, and the next morning I woke up feeling completely normal again.

We've been married for ten years, nothing even remotely dark, scary, violent, abusive, controlling or anything else has happened.

That's not to say that the gift of fear, and what OP and previous posters have experienced, is not real, or that fears should be ignored - of course not, as several people mention, we subconsciously process lots of information our conscious mind is not aware of - and our fear response is a safety mechanism.

But sometimes it's more to do with what's going on with US, than what's going on with other people and places.

And to add - I was in my own bed, in my own flat, which was a place of security and safety, I never had any bad feelings there before or after.

I’ve had a lot of these types of experiences. I do think we sense a lot more than we realise.

The most recent one was on a tube journey. I was with dd aged 18 and it was quite a busy ish tube and a man got on and stood opposite us. He was perfectly average, not behaving weird or anything but he just made my blood run cold. I genuinely felt like if he didn’t get off or we didn’t get off something really, really terrible would happen. We had a couple of stops to go and when we got off dd turned to me and said (without me prompting) that she had exactly the same feeling about him! 😳

@Throwawaytoday that is a good point and it's especially useful to see that you had a similar experience, thank you :)

I had a weird experience when looking at a flat to buy. The exact area I wanted, size, Edwardian and a roof terrace overlooking the Thames. I couldn't believe it when I saw the details. Was surprised by the price (this was 20 years ago) but figured the place needed work hence the lowish price.

At the viewing I got the creeps...seriously hair on arms standing on end type of reaction and couldn't get out of there fast enough. When the Estate Agent asked what I thought...I was honest and said 'that place freaks me out - sorry I know that makes no sense but no price would be low enough to buy it'. Her response was 'yeah...we've heard that before about this flat - very very weird'. It was sold eventually I'm sure but never before, or since, have I had the feeling of 'run like the wind'.

More sinister than evil, but I was sitting in a vets waiting room with my DD who was about 2-3, and we were the only ones there. The vets room door opened and a scruffy middle aged man came out with his cat, he clapped eyes on my DD and was just fixated staring at her. I got off vibes from him immediately. He walked past the reception desk where you pay and beelined for us. My DD was very shy and didn't engage with strangers so just ignored him, but he came right over to her and was talking to her, asking if we'd got a kitten in our basket. I replied and said no, but it was like he didn't hear me. He was practically salivating over her. Luckily we got called through to the vet and left him stood there, but it all felt really, really off.

I’ve logged in just to add my own story as I’ve never told anyone in real life.

I have two small children and over lockdown, we used to explore nearby open spaces. One day, we went to a small woods with a stream. The whole woods were on a downhill slope, the parking lot was at the top and then some meandering stairs were carved down the face of the hill. We were walking and saw a man coming towards us. I’m not usually afraid of lone men/ other walkers and as he passed, I said ‘hello’. He looked back and said hello and we made eye contact. I have never felt as terrified as I did when I looked in his eyes. It was like a wave of ice cold terror. The closest I can describe it was as if he was in gleeful anticipation of hurting us. I felt like I had to be extremely careful not to show my reaction. Once out of sight, I coaxed my children off the path at a hidden place and we climbed the hill at a far point and circled back to the car park. I have a dodgy ankle and I would have never taken the risk if I wasn’t so scared of him. When we got to the car park, from our higher vantage point, I saw him sitting half concealed in a bend on the steps that we should have used to leave the woods.

I wonder if you were inadvertently correct, and it was the location inspiring the feelings rather than the person. Would be interesting if you could remember the place to google it and find out it anything terrible had happened there.

The guy you work with sounds similar to the man I knew. He was sort of geeky (glasses, not good looking). Gave off a slightly nerdy impression. Took one interaction with me to see that he was a nasty individual and that his previous crime was justified. Sadly, quite a few people will overlook this, especially if they think the person has 'changed' when in reality, these types just get very clever at hiding it, until their mask slips.

I used to work with someone else too (just made a few sexist, sort of mildly racist comments) a bit like this. I always complained about him and we worked together fine for a while. Then one day a younger female colleague told me he'd been sexting her on her mobile, but unprompted and unencouraged from her - they're both Muslim (they'd swapped mobile numbers). She didn't know what to do and I was thinking about leaving anyway (contract). I just said to keep an eye on it and to report if necessary. The thing is, if you'd asked him about this outright, he'd just deny it and claim banter. He'd also passed his law degree.