To think all children have strange fears and worries ( or was i just an anxious child)

[Mygotupandgowent]

Can anyone else remember having unreasonable ( but not at the time) worries and beliefs as a child?
I heard someone mention " the gates of heaven" recently and it brought back my fears as a child. I imagined the gates of heaven as like my dad's workshop with a small door inset into the bigger ones. It had a small hatch to look out of. I was afraid that Saint Peter would look out when I knocked and not look down and see me as I was ( and am) very small.i didn't tell anyone but I was so afraid!
I also thought that time passed faster as the hands came down the half hour on the clock and went slower on the way up to the hour. The teacher tried so hard to teach me to tell the time and I never once mentioned my theory.

Yes, I used to go to sleep with my head hanging off the side of the bed. My reasoning was that if murderers broke in to kill us all, they would think I was dead already and not bother killing me.

I don't recall feeling any distress or terror associated with this decision, mind you. It just seemed a pragmatic response to a possible problem.

I am a completely normal 50 year old adult :)

I was 7 when 9/11 happened and lived near an airport and became terrified a plane would crash into our house. I clearly overestimated the international importance of my family home!

I also had quite an involved fire escape plan accounting for the fires being in a lot of different places and occasionally carried out a personal fire drill.

The only one I can think of is curtains in my bedroom when drawn reminded me of the Snow Queen which was on tv at the time. Oh and of a crocodile being in my bed and biting me.

I was terrified of asteroids and meteorites and would stare out of the window every night convinced the end of the world was imminent.

I suffer from health anxiety now as an adult and have a deep anxiety of world war 3

Yes and no. Kids absolutely do strange things but I used to worry my parents would die a lot as they always went on weekends away and I’d be stuck with my gran who had zero patience for my concerns and regularly told me off for it. I’m now a constantly worried adult.

I was terrified of a colony of alien/monster type things that came into my bedroom via the closed window at night, I had to sleep under the covers and not move a muscle.

When my Dad was made redundant from his job, I assumed we would effectively starve and be made homeless from our Council house, move in with my Grandparents 100 miles away, new school for me etc. I was terrified.

When 1st Gulf War (1991?) started I assumed my Dad would be called up to war and killed in the trenches. Resulting in a similar disruption to redundancy! I even asked him if he was ever called up to war would he hide in the attic - neither parents registered I was basically shitting myself about the whole thing....

We used to go out in a rowing boat with an engine. I was scared that a swordfish would come along and saw a hole in the boat.
I must have watched too many cartoons 🤣

I also used to think that when we came down a particular road, that we’d go uncontrollably through the low wall across the road and into the sea.

It really worried me!
I remember voicing my fears and my mum reassured me that my dad was a very safe, careful driver. Which was true.
That seemed to put my mind at rest.

It seems childhood is very difficult for many children . I am remembering the 1950's ,it must be worse now with 24hour news , disasters captured on social media etc. I also remember reading " the day of the Triffids" and fearing plants taking over the world. Travelling down to London we drove past major roadworks and there was a sign " warning.Heavy plant crossing" my mum joked that she imagined a huge vegetable. I was about 11 and was so anxious ..

Yes. Mainly about death. Other people dying. I remember not being listened to. 1960s. I remain an anxious adult.

Aren't children practical when they need to be as regards coping with such fears. And very brave .

When the rest of my family were downstairs and I needed to go up to the toilet. I’d sit there working out what I’d do if monsters came in. So squirt toothpaste at them for example. I was all ready for being attacked 😂

I used to be really scared of Mr Blobby and my brother used to pretend he could talk to him on X box and terrorise me.

He would say stuff like “yes she is here Blobz… no she won’t get the fuck out my room… okay so you’ll be round in ten? Thanks mate” and I would cry and get really upset.

This is very interesting to me. So I read The Anxious Generation recently and I was irritated by his unilateral response to rising MH problems in Gen Z. He would very briefly mention other possibilities but dismiss them immediately as nonsense.

One such possibility was the sheer mess the world was in throughout the 00s. The decade literally started with this insane fear the computers were going to get us (or whatever everyone was freaking out about). A year later we had 9/11 and incidentally, this was also when we got Sky so my Mum had the news on constantly. I was TERRIFIED and I say this is where (as a younger millennial) my issues with anxiety began. Obviously then plunged into the Iraq/Afghanistan invasions. 7/7 bombings. Also remember a lot of news about children being abducted - Maddie McCann, Holly and Jessica etc.

Haidt brushed this off because he was so adamant it was all screens and social media but nah, I think that shit had a real impact on the young developing brains forced to watch.

I was a ‘highly strung’ DC, had a lot of worries and things I was scared of. Had some ‘must do’ rituals at night, eg making sure no gaps in curtains, hiding certain items.

Had some scary recurring dreams.

A big fear as a small DC was going to the bathroom at night, I thought Darth Vader would get me! worsened at university (mixed sex halls of residence, bathrooms were single sex but didn’t feel private or safe). Resolved itself when I moved to housing I felt safe in.

As an adult I have anxiety issues.

I remember being terrified that there were witches hiding in my house, waiting to get me. I’d get ready to run, with my hand on the toilet flush, bathroom door open, then press and sprint downstairs because the noise of the flush would tell the witches I was there.

From there I developed a theory that the witches were setting traps for me and if I took a certain number of sheets of toilet roll or ate one food before another on my plate I would be sucked down into the witches’ den. I didn’t know what the ‘right’ numbers were so I lived in a state of constant fear.

why yes I am currently getting counselling for anxiety…

Oh also acid rain I was absolutely petrified of acid rain and my stress was compounded because no one was doing anything about it.

Remembered another one!

I was brought up on a Council estate with 100's of identical properties, the 2 bedroom houses had an upstairs toilet and the 3+ bedroom houses had a downstairs toilet.

My friends who had a 3 bedroom house, came the conclusion they were safer as if the toilet broke and poured a tsunami worthy amount of water into the house, all us 2 bedroom kids would be swept away in our beds and drowned 😂.

I was very keen on having a baby brother for a while after that so we could move house, my parents weren't so keen on the idea!

So, I’m part of the Xennial generation. I thought that term was absolute horseshit, but then I read some articles by psychologists who were lauding the term as necessary to explain the “micro-generation” that was born in an analog world and then the world went digital right when we were coming of age (for example, I went to uni in the US and we were one of the first unis to “get” Facebook, when it was only for US uni students. I deleted my account when they allowed my mum to join and she tried to “friend” me! Nothing against my mum, but there were a loooooot of photos I’d prefer she didn’t see).

It also means that our anxieties as children were amplified by the invention of the 24-hour news cycle. I was raised mostly by my grandparents and the biggest knockdown fight I ever had with my grandmother, who was absolutely my best friend, was about Fox News, and this was back in 2002, because I tried to tell her that it was designed to make her angry and afraid to keep her watching and I didn’t think it was healthy for anyone, especially the people I love.

All of this media is competing for eyeballs and the best ways to get eyeballs are still anger and fear, and so many of these people on every medium thrive on that. The world has become so, so angry.

Before my grandparents took over raising me, I was exposed to daily news at a VERY young age and it made me absolutely terrified that I might be abducted. I should not have known what the term “rape” meant at age 7. I also was allowed to read whatever I wanted at a very young age and the beginning of Grisham’s “A Time to Kill” traumatized me for quite a long time. Even as an adult, the only thing I felt came close was “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.”

This is why I’m such a huge, HUGE proponent of adults keeping track of their kids’ exposure to media. At 16, I ended up being stalked by a 25-year-old autistic heroin addict (he told me he was 16… then 18… then 21… and I didn’t know how to spot an addict OR a catfish at that age) that I met on ICQ.

I can only imagine how difficult it must be to be a fully digital generation. It’s no surprise to me that suicide due to online bullying has become such a problem. It is absolutely heartbreaking to see kids at age 10 or 11 think there is no way out and life will never get better, and they no longer want to be here. I applaud the recent decision against Meta and YouTube, and I don’t think the fine is nearly high enough considering they’re liable for inventing intentionally addictive social media, knowing how horrific and dangerous it is. These companies will only learn when their bottom line is severely damaged.

I was terrified of the moon as a small child. I remember only liking being in my dad's bedroom after dark because he had the curtains shut so I couldn't see it!
Also was deathly afraid of toilet brushes (still can't stand them!) and fire extinguishers.

I was very anxious like this as a child, far more so than my own kids are. But TBF I don't think I told my parents even the half of it, so maybe my kids have a bunch of random fears I don't know about.

For me it was superstitions as much as fears - having to do things "right" so that bad things didn't happen. Like having the curtains shut "properly" (and getting out of bed multiple times to check they really were shut properly).

I am an anxious adult (increasingly so as I move through my 40s) with some OCD-like behaviours, and some autistic traits.

Yes. Doing certain things ‘right’ for ‘protection’ - think it could be called ‘magical thinking’.

As a child I used to be scared of a monster coming out of the toilet if I flushed it to the point I would cry if my parents made me go back to the toilet and flush. I've got no idea what caused that fear.

When we moved to our second house when I was a child, for absolutely years I was convinced beyond all doubt that there was a ghost of a Catholic nun stood at the top of our stairs - even now I'm still wary when I visit that house.
Weird thing is, it was a normal bog-standard 1940s house and doesn't look remotely scary and is nowhere near a convent or church, yet the house we lived in before that one was a huge gothic looking Victorian house and I was fine there.

We did later find out that the previous owner of the second house had died in the bedroom closest to the stairs though.

I was petrified of Spitting Image, like I would hide behind the sofa. They were demons to me, their dark evil eyes would stare at me. I get shivers now

I was obsessed with pollution and the ozone layer... which weirdly we never hear about anymore despite China existing....

Also dying and going to hell.

I've always had terrible eyesight and have worn glasses since I was about eight years old, although I probably needed them much earlier than that.

Anyway, when I was about four or five, I decided that sooner or later, I would go completely blind and should make plans for this inevitabilty.

I would try to puposefully seperate myself from my mother in the smallish village supermarket and close my eyes. The idea was to memorise the layout so that once the blackness fell I would be able to shop and feed myself.

There were other times I did the shut the eyes and memorise exercise as well and the occasional drill with a stick in the garden for my white cane. I don't remember feeling frightened. Just knew I had to get sorted out before it happened.

I still have dreams about that supermarket to this day, so I must have programmed myself pretty well. It's been demolished and a pub built on the site for over twenty years now though. A contingency I hadn't thought of.