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Original poster

To want to know a light-hearted childhood fear?

239 replies

GeorgeAndTimmyTheDog · 06/03/2023 19:33

What I mean is you can possibly laugh about it now.
For instance because of reading the Unexplained magazine growing up I was convinced I was going to "Self human combust" as that was an article in there.
Also an adult told me that bleach "Makes things smaller" so I was petrified to sit on the loo if I could smell bleach as I thought my bottom would disappear.

OP posts:
Cocochai · 06/03/2023 22:26

I read my cousin’s supernatural magazines and there were a few articles on spontaneous human combustion complete with photos and ‘evidence’ and I became so worried that it would happen to me too.

I borrowed a short story book from the school library when I was about 10 and there was a story about a girl who ended up in a psychiatric hospital because she was so terrified of rats. For months I became convinced rats were living under my bed and I was petrified to get out of bed to go to the toilet in the night (I’d never actually seen a rat in my life). A very strange book to have in a primary school.

DonutsAreNotLunch · 06/03/2023 22:26

I was terrified of old ladies, no idea where the fear originated but I still have very clear memories of some extremely terrifying (to me) experiences with old ladies who probably thought they were being nice to me.

Choccyoclocky · 06/03/2023 22:27

@JuneBridie @Nimbostratus100
There is a house near me that I felt the same about when i was younger... also mustard coloured!!

Nimbostratus100 · 06/03/2023 22:31

Choccyoclocky · 06/03/2023 22:27

@JuneBridie @Nimbostratus100
There is a house near me that I felt the same about when i was younger... also mustard coloured!!

wow 😂

we have uncovered a whole new, hither to undiscovered medical condition

lets call it sinapisphobia ( latin for mustard - got to sound serious and medical)

ThisIsTrifficult · 06/03/2023 22:38

The oboe option on my gran and grandad's electric organ. Made me cry

Onedaytherewasapear · 06/03/2023 22:39

The Count from Sesame Street...I was convinced he was coming to get me!

BonjourPetitPois · 06/03/2023 22:52

Staircases with gaps between the steps. I grew up in Guildford and to get to the kids section in the Russell & Bromley shoe shop there you had to go up a flight of stairs with gaps in. I can still picture it now and we moved away from the south 30+ years ago when I was 5! Still nervous about that type of stairs now...

Ultravox · 06/03/2023 22:54

Daleks. Quicksand. The FingerBob man.

Whatfreshhellisthisss · 06/03/2023 22:55

I was terrified that an arm would come out from under my bed and grab my leg. Always had to jump in from as far away as possible and there was no chance of hanging a foot out even if I was boiling hot

waterlego · 06/03/2023 22:56

ThisIsTrifficult · 06/03/2023 22:38

The oboe option on my gran and grandad's electric organ. Made me cry

Sorry but this sounded sort of sweetly comical and almost made me giggle and then I remembered that I had a real aversion to that Billy Joel song ‘Just the Way You Are’. It made me feel a real sense of dread for some unknown reason. I must have made an early association between it and some negative event or feelings, I guess.

In later childhood, my best friend had an electric keyboard (a very desirable item for a kid in the 80s!) with a few preset tunes on it (so you could tap on the keys and pretend you were playing very competently), one of which was the aforementioned Billy Joel song. I was too embarrassed to tell her I hated it for no reason so sometimes had to suffer hearing it 😂

JMSA · 06/03/2023 23:05

The gap between train and platform.

JMSA · 06/03/2023 23:07

I wonder how many of us tried explaining these fears to our parents, and who just internalised them growing up.

The latter was the case for me as a child. With working-class Glaswegian parents in the 70s/80s, resilience was key!

Em308 · 06/03/2023 23:10

Moomins - I absolutely hate hated those things 😖

Sunbird24 · 06/03/2023 23:10

Black holes. Specifically the Earth getting sucked into one.

LittleRedYarny · 06/03/2023 23:12

When I was about 6/7 my mum took me to see the animatronic dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum. Somehow (I strongly suspect my nasty older brother had a hand in this) I was convinced they would come alive one night and that I would walk into my bedroom and see a T-Rex’s eye at the window. For years (read into my mid teens) I would rush into my room staring at the floor and close my curtains without looking out the window so I didn’t have to see the scary dinosaurs.

celerysticks · 06/03/2023 23:16

I used to have a recurring dream about A4 paper chasing me up the stairs. I was terrified of A4 paper for a while 😆

SoupDragon · 06/03/2023 23:16

Onedaytherewasapear · 06/03/2023 22:39

The Count from Sesame Street...I was convinced he was coming to get me!

One! ah ha ha ha...

kidsandpuppies · 06/03/2023 23:19

I was absolutely terrified of the bin man.

Tarkan · 06/03/2023 23:19

Giants.

I grew up in Glasgow and my mum was on friendly terms with Robbie Coltrane who went to the same newspaper/tobacconist shop that my mum used and they first got talking about cigars (mum used to smoke Hamlet cigars when I was growing up) and then just general chat when they met. He was apparently a lovely guy but this shop wasn't the biggest and he easily filled the doorway. I was tiny at the time and I was honestly convinced he was a giant. Apparently he used to shake my hand and I would try to hide behind my mum.

I also have a proper phobia of scorpions (even typing the word makes me start to freak out). I don't think I've ever been near one in my life.

ridemesideway · 06/03/2023 23:29

The Daleks. Evil Edna.
The theme tune of Tales of the Unexpected

EyesOnThePies · 06/03/2023 23:41

We had Lino on our toilet floor, that my Mum used to polish. I used to walk in really cautiously as I was terrified that I would slip on the Lino and end up stuck headfirst down the toilet and drown.

Surely2023IsTheYearForMyRainbowBaby · 06/03/2023 23:44

I couldn't walk to my bedroom which was smack bang opposite the steps onto the landing if the loft hatch was slightly opened. I was terrified Bertie the dummy would come out and grab me 😂 cheers Dad. I think I must've carried that fear into adulthood too as I couldn't sleep after the electrician had gone up into the loft and hadn't latched it up again. Although if I could afford it I'd get mine converted into a bedroom and en-suite.

The dark. I was petrified of the dark, and also sleeping with my ears or nose sticking out of the duvet in case a monster came in and bit them off. Now I love a dark room to sleep in, but I still to this day cover my nose and ears whilst I'm asleep in bed.

Been abandoned. I used to hate it if my Mum and Dad told me to sit on a chair in a shop whilst they looked for something. Especially if they disappeared from sight. I remember one time I was sat holding my Mums handbag whilst they were with the shop assistant (out of my line of sight) and sitting there crying cos I thought they'd left me there, but consoling myself at the same time that my Mum would need her handbag. They were probably gone for all of about 3-4 mins but to 4-5 year old me it felt like 3-4 hours. They did actually abandon me many years later in Walmart though. We'd all gone off to look at various things. Everyone else had met back up at tills didn't even register I wasn't with them and they got half way back to our villa before my exH pointed out I wasn't sat in my seat.

And this one I have no idea how it stemmed possibly from learning about the war in school and pretending to evacuate, but I was terrified whenever a Plane flew overhead in case it was going to drop a bomb on us. I was even more scared during the night if I heard one and Id hide under my duvet trembling. Thank fuck we didn't live somewhere like Heathrow or I'd be a nervous wreck by now! I vaguely remember hearing something about fighting in the middle east and bombing and thinking it meant us in the East Riding of Yorkshire. I don't think I was very old at the time though.

zaksmum1 · 06/03/2023 23:48

Oh my there's a few..

Gangrene- think my mum let us watch a movie where the plane crashed and everyone got gangrene and had to have their limbs amputated.. after every cut or scratch I got I used to think "well there goes my leg"

The Bermuda Triangle- we used to travel to the Caribbean often to visit family and after mum told me about it every flight I used to think this is it we're gonna get sucked into a weird universe

Hedgehogs- I'm still petrified
Stepped on one barefoot when I was young and I'll never forget the feeling
My sister has a hedgehog made of little twigs and my toddler handed it to me the other day while I wasn't paying attention
I almost threw up I definitely cried but I couldn't stop laughing
Why am I like this

shieldmaiden7 · 06/03/2023 23:52

Avalanche, thankfully managed to avoid them in Cornwall. But terrified for years.

Tarkan · 07/03/2023 00:00

The comments about different public safety adverts reminded me of the ones about pylons, electricity stations and overhead wires etc, including those on train lines.

The only train I went on in childhood was the Glasgow Underground. Some of the stations/platforms there were scary though. I liked to stay far back against the wall but there are some stations where the platform is between two lines and I was petrified in those ones.

Also aging myself here but the Kings Cross Fire had me so scared of the escalators in the underground stations for a long time. I still think of it going up any escalator even now.