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!

Sideshow Mel is even worse!

Shipwrecks, just lurking under water, rusty and creaking and groaning. 🤮 Same with huge ships docked. Too big!
Submarines. I would die on the spot if one surfaced anywhere near me.
From being a child I've had an irrational fear of anything huge and inflatable. I was only little, but I used to cry and freak out if a hovercraft appeared on TV. Eew the inflatable skirt! My mum used to laugh, because they were all down south and we were in Leeds! But I was still petrified of them!
Airships. I worked near Elland Road football stadium for 20 years and if a match was on, they'd have the Goodyear airship circling round, filming the match from above (my whole body is prickling now!)
The times I've nearly crashed the car leaving work, because I was keeping an eye on it and making sure it wasn't above me at any point! It used to circle away from the stadium to reposition itself. Gross!
I am absolutely fine with hot air balloons, I could watch them all day long! It's the enclosed inflatables that cause me issues.
I've actually been up to the golf balls at RAF Menwith Hill, as my husband worked there for many years! It's basically a film covering surveillance equipment and radars. They didn't bother me either, funnily enough.
What does bother me is that they removed the one at RAF Fylingdales on the North Yorkshire Moors on the way to Whitby. Now all there is is a looming concrete pyramid, which gives me the heebie jeebies more than the golf ball did!
Anyone remember the ferry blowing onto the beach at Fleetwood in extraordinarily high winds one year? My husband walked right up to that, while I hyperventilated by the railings on the path above the beach! He actually touched it! I couldn't wait to get away! I have a photo of it somewhere just for posterity and it still freaks me out!

Fine jewellery or any piercings. Making my skin crawl just thinking of it.

I think I traumatised my son by reading “Love you Forever”. He found it way too clingy even before it reached the elderly parent stalking adult child bit.

When I was a young child (late 70s/early 80s) I was absolutely and utterly petrified of the Wombles. There was one in particular, Tomsk. I used to have literal nightmares about him, frequently. It was the big wide eyes and the long faces.

There was also a cartoon when I was really young called Ludwig, which was terrifying.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_%281977_TV_series%29

Oh Lord, does anyone remember Animal Kwackers from the late 70s? Used to make me cry with fear.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Kwackers

Whenever I’m stopped at the top of a hill at traffic lights (uncommon, fortunately) I have this horrible image that I’ll start rolling backwards.

The ‘whistlers mother’ painting in the Mr Bean movie scares the shit out of me. I used to cry myself to sleep after watching it as a kid. So even now if I see anything Mr Bean related it makes me feel sick/uneasy. 😂

I’m always worried that I’ll accidentally breathe one in🤦🏻‍♀️

The Tunnel by Anthony Browne was the worst thing I ever read as a child, and even as an adult, I can't think about it. I told my 5-year-old so she never chooses it as her school library book because I couldn't bear to read it to her, but the little gremlin finds it hilarious so will definitely snatch it up and bring it home if she finds it!

The video to Bohemian Rhapsody… shudder

Sorry,she was convinced she'd seen spooky spoon in our loo

(She was about 4 at the time)

It was a nightmare for years,I had to go with her whenever she needed to go

Repetitious sneezing. I'm talking about people sneezing into the double figures. It doesn't happen to me, but does to people in my family. And before anyone asks, it's nothing to do with germs.

This is such an interesting thread! Mine is I think a megalophobia thing - I get absolutely freaked out by films or pictures of whales breaching or - even worse - swimming along visibly under a boat or something. If it’s in a magazine or book I literally have to turn the page quickly. I think whales are beautiful and interesting and I’m not scared of them
per se but they’re just SO BIG!!

Oh my god it’s all come flooding back. I think it was his roar more than anything. He really was a vicious and nasty wolf. I will not be reliving the horror on YouTube.

I think those are quite normal, quicksand in particular

Me too. I still don’t like them. Nor public/restaurant toilets where there are certain tiles, or too many pipes, or it’s accessed down a long corridor. Double scary points if they have lights that switch off after a certain amount of time. Squatty toilets too.

As a child I was scared of wolves and foxes - mainly due to books like 3 little pigs or little red riding hood. The pictures always freaked me out. I still get freaked out by animals dressed as humans.

Large flowering plants freak me out. Not trees but just plants with big leaves or big flowers. I grew up in South London but had to put Kew Gardens on my 50th birthday bucket list because I was always too scared to go. I felt I needed to get over it. I'm not allowed to do any bush pruning in the garden because I just go nuts and hack it to nothing! .

I hated Water Babies! My mum loved it so used to put ut on all the time but I hated it. I can't remember it now but I've no inclination to watch it again to find out!

I loved The Racoons! You can run with us... we have everything you need... you can cone with us.... living freeeeeee".

I am also freaked by those films where people are stuck somewhere under water eg the corridors in titanic or in a sinking car and the water starts coming up til there is no room to breathe. We were driving by a lake today and I started to worry if we crashed and our car toppled over the edge …

In the 80s we were only ever one corner away from falling into quicksand! 🤣 I had a plan that if I ever fell into quicksand, I'd lie on my back and spread out as much as I could and stay still and I'd be fine, no fuss.🤣 But then I read about sand dunes built on ancient forests and that really scares me now and I hate walking on them.
Dont google if you dont like quick sand.

This is a really weird one but I can’t look at sugar lumps. You don’t see them often now but they used to bring you a little dish of them when you had coffee out. I think it comes from eating them like sweets as a child, I don’t think I really liked them much but my friends ate them so I did too. Makes me feel sick thinking about it .

Elmo really freaks me out. Can’t stand him.

I’m also a little creeped by goats. It’s the eyes

My kids were scared of Mickey Mouse when they were young.. My mum brought back a stuffed Mickey from America and they had nightmares about it!

Sink holes!

I visited a building once, the next week the building had a leak and they realised the whole building was perched on top of a giant hole in the ground! No one was hurt but I really wanted to cry when I found that out. The building was closed for years while they sorted it. I would ge so scred if I had to go back to it!

There are so many videos of people waiting in their cars at the lights and the road gives way underneath them or houses just dropping. There is that video of a sink hole opening up under an American football field and floodlights falling into it. Terrifying.

Dentists, particularly the sound of the drill.