To ask what scares you /freaks you out that you would not consider common? Mine is a children’s book!

[elm26]

My 3 year old is obsessed with “We’re Going On A Bear Hunt” after having it read to her at preschool, she knows all of the words and we bought it as one of her gifts for her birthday.

We read a book every night at bed, whenever she reaches for this it gives me such bad goosebumps!

I don’t know if it’s the way it’s written, the pictures, I genuinely feel panic when they’re trying to get away from the bear and he’s in the background of the pictures and then at their front door and they’ve forgotten to lock it. I absolutely detest it 🥴 it gives me the right creeps!

This is baring in mind that all I read myself is psychological thrillers and I’ve watched so much true crime I could probably commit the perfect murder 😂 why do I have such a panicky/spooked response to a children’s book fgs!

I've been trying to Google it, but I can't find it, and I can't remember who the author is.

Years ago, I read a USA fiction book about a woman who had a physically and mentally disabled brother. He was murdered by being bound and gagged, tied to something, and then systematically tortured to death.

A female detective was helping the woman, but I found her terrifying! She was so creepy! I got into the first couple of pages of her character and couldn't go any further!

I've no idea if the author added that in intentionally or if it was just me being freaked out!

I've just YouTube'd the bear hunt book and I have to admit I find the entire thing really weird!

When my DD was very little there was an Australian children's programme on TV at lunch time. This was early 90s. It was about a group of kids and the adventures they had had. It also had a 'doll' toy who's head was made of what looked like polystyrene and it was white, no colours painted on it at all. I have no idea why it was in the programme and can't remember what the programme was called my DD was fascinated by it , but it totally creeped me out.

There’s a children’s book illustrator called Hans Arnold who was very popular when I was a small child. All books illustrated by him used to scare the heck out of me and I can still feel the stress response in my body just thinking about the pictures, even the ones that were supposed to be cute. (Look them up at your peril.)

(I also have megalophobia, trypophobia and submechanophobia but they all seem very common judging by this thread 😆.)

Similar to that but my fear is e fits of criminal suspects.

I clearly remember clearly when this started. It would have been the early 90s as I was about nine and had been allowed to stay up to watch an episode of crimewatch. They were appealing for information about a man who had stabbed a woman to death as she was getting in her car by a man in a sou wester hat.

I wasn't scared of the reenactment of what had happened but when the e fit of the suspect was shown in his creepy hat I felt absolute terror. I still can't see e fits without extreme anxiety.

I don't like bridges (high ones over dual carriageways/motorways) or elevated roads. Gives me jelly legs. It's not the height on its own because the ones over railways don't bother me and my office has floor to ceiling windows and I can look out of those and am happy to sit next to one (we're quite high up in a tower block).

I've thought of one I didn't like as a child - seahorses. I think it was because the video of them had sad background music too.

My mum doesn't like clowns and I was really into the Pierrot stuff in the 1980s. My poor mum! Now I understand why she said no to curtains though I had a pillow case, lamp shade etc,

I'm kind of ok with that. I tend to close the window when the plane is over vast ocean without land in sight. I just don't dwell on it. That's why I find the google earth thing is so peculiar.

Return to OZ. Traumatized me as a child. Even typing it out made me shiver. I hate that film 😂

Gawd that's scary!!

At six years old or so I read a discarded copy of Toby Twirl and the Magic Wishing Well. There's a segment where Toby's friend, the Teddy, falls asleep beneath an enchanted tree...which lowers its branches over him and forms a cage around him, then lifts him up high into the air. The "cutesy" illustrations were in fact utterly terrifying and I had some sleepless nights afterwards.

At least 50 years later I mentioned it in passing to my DH. It turned out that as a little boy he'd read the exact same book and had the exact same unnerved reaction.

Decide for yourselves:

looseandleafy.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-most-frightening-book-in-world.html