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!

The film Watership Down. How this is a kids film is beyond me. The scariest thing Ive ever watched & Ive neveret my kids watch it.

Scene from the actual rated U film.

It's not a kids' film, though. I think that in the 70s, people just still thought that animated films were by definition 'kids' films', and that a film about talking rabbits was obviously some kind of Disney cutiepie thing, rather than the much darker affair WD is -- I think that's why so many people took their kids to it. Apparently the distributors also had difficulty marketing it, because the makers didn't think of it as a kids' film, but the cinemas assumed 'animation + bunny rabbits = kids'.

The PG and 15 classifications didn't exist until 1982, for instance. WD is rated PG now. Common Sense Media has people advocating it as suitable from anywhere from 11+ to 14+.

Huge ships - like massive cruise liners or oil tankers. The idea of swimming in the sea and then suddenly having one of those looming over me…ugh!!

Agree about Watership Down too, though I sort of loved it too - it is a haunting and disturbing film that I probably watched too young. That strange opening sequence about the creation of the world and evil (I think?) - chilling.

Oh wow this happened to me in a theatre too, it wasn’t the height it was being on the same eye level as the light, I froze and nearly wet myself, never had a reaction like that before, my kids still talk about it and we laugh as I totally freaked out

I get freaked out by being in a landlocked country or being really far from the coast. It’s weird as I live an hour away from the coast and never go but I know deep down it’s there, being so far from the coast makes me feel trapped

Can I also give you The Singing Ringing Tree?
There was a Princess , a Handsome Prince (who was cursed and was transformed into A Bear ) and an Evil Little Goblin type creature who hid inside empty sea shells and hollow trees .
It was eerie and grim.

I've just searched it up , I'd forgotten the creepy huge golden fish and the horse with antlers .

Adds Brain Bleach to shopping list

@wherethewaterisdarker
https://www.worldofbooks.com/en-gb/products/how-to-avoid-huge-ships-and-other-implausibly-titled-books-book-joel-rickett-9781845133214?sku=GOR001068006&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=19553277260&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI74W-jrLIlQMVeptQBh1NEx2iEAQYASABEgJp6_D_BwE

Photos like this - I had to search for one that wasn't an obvious AI generated but a smallish boat just innocently floating and a mahoosive whale or shark ( Yes I know they live in the water and have every right be be there ) just hovering there !

Basking Shark , huge but allegedly harmless

@acrossthepond55 ventriloquist's dummies- horrible bloody things. And the Emu/Rod Hull combination. And thinking about 80s TV - Dame Edna Everidge. All freaked me out.

Pylons
Toilets with high level cisterns
Safety pins
All weird and odd but they all freak me out .Otherwise sensible professional mother of 4 aged 60 plus 😬

That really old simpsons episode with the babysitter.

Im the opposite. I love the sea but it scares the bajeesus out of me and I can’t stay too close. Tsunamis and all that. Looking at maldives photos makes me feel a bit sick!

I get very claustrophobic when there's mountains everywhere.

I am nervous about steps and uneven surfaces, especially going downwards, but in my case it's due to co-ordination disabilities and risk of falling. I know someone who has similar issues, in her case associated with very poor depth perception.

The Water Babies totally freaked me out as a kid. I had an illustrated copy and somehow the pictures made it worse. Nasty creepy little babies with fins under the water. Horrible. Really upset me.

There was a cartoon in the '80s called Racoons which scared the shit out of me for some reason. I had actual nightmares about it.

I was also scared of daleks and the Incredible Hulk when I was very small but I think that's reasonable.

I was obsessed with horses as a kid and spent most of my spare time at the stables, but seeing horseshoe imprints in mud or sand make me feel very weird!

I work in manufacturing, my company is a household name that’s traded for decades.

Unfortunately safety is much lower priority than output.
That isolator still hasn’t been installed, I doubt it ever will be because it would cost money.

Staff can’t even get physiotherapy when they pull their back out moving 3 tonnes of weight around for 12 hours, getting therapy after seeing a colleague turned into paté isn’t a thing.

We did get tins of cold soup as a thank you for working Christmas though.

Why was there a spoon in the bathroom? May just be me being stupid

Those "lamp posts" with no lamps that are designed to let gas escape from underground pipes.

Electricity pylons.

The sink holes in swimming pools.

Plumbing in general.

Oh yes, weirs scare me. And driving to an unfamiliar place on an unfamiliar route. I literally have no sense of direction whatsoever, but always use a sat nav system.

I think it's more of a crutch than anything else to be honest, but I feel a huge rising sense of panic and anxiety when my sat nav has recalculated a route, or worse still, stopped. I then have to (shock, horror!) use my own brain to get me somewhere... (and if I'm totally honest, I have quite little faith in it after 3 concussions and also an injury from a prescribed off label antipsychotic 😢💔)..

So, I try to find a way of driving to unfamiliar places on routes I don't know, but I have a huge anxiety about it. Yes, I've looked at maps and make notes about roads and junctions etc, but I still get v nervous 😓

I remember pestering my DPs for them to get this out of blockbuster for ages when i was about 10 , they relented after a few weeks, we all expected a cartoon about rabbits and their great adventures. Christ were we wrong ! It stuck with me for many years , i watched it againg about 5 years ago. It's still scary

This, big time!!

Squirrel Nutkin did it for me. Where the owl took off his tail 😮

Quicksand. Oh and pylons after that creepy programme in the 1970s.