Everybody needs a friend. We especially needs friends when we're young. But sometimes the right friends don't arrive soon enough, so as placeholders.... we make up friends to fill the void. The imaginary friend, really and truly is everyone's first best friend.
It can be a fascinating look into a child's psyche when you listen to the world they create with imaginary friends and often times, in can be downright scary. Some of these invisible people can be no good. Which is worrisome.
My friend's name was Alfred. He's dead now and he knows why... don't ask.
Redditor u/destinykarmalove wanted to hear from all the parents out there about some of the people their children hang with that they may have issues and possibly.... don't exist in corporeal form by asking.... Parents, what's the creepiest thing you remember about your child and an imaginary friend?Robert
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I heard from my parents that I had an imaginary friend named Robert, apparently he had died in a fire. I don't remember this but my parents told me that I would stare at our fireplace in the winter and say "Turn it off, Robert doesn't like fire." and "Robert said fire burns." I would say some really creepy stuff.
"get rid of her."
My daughter had two imaginary friends when she was about 8. The first one's name was Lucy. Apparently she had asthma and one day we were driving in the car with the windows down. It was summer and the AC wasn't working so it was pretty hot. My daughter was sitting in the front seat and she said Lucy was sitting on the floor between her legs.
All of sudden she's screaming and crying because Lucy had an asthma attack and died because she was so hot.
She got a replacement friend. Her name was Keeshe, and according to my daughter, she was Japanese and Jamaican. Well Keeshe was mean and she used to bite people so my daughter said she had to "get rid of her." Whatever that meant.
Nobody.
Not a parent, but my sister's imaginary friend died in a hunting incident. "Mr. Nobody" was accidentally shot, due to the fact that he was invisible.
My brother and cousins and I all had a shared imaginary friend named Mr. Nobody. He was also invisible.
Woah I called my imaginary friend Mr Nobody when I was a kid.
Everly.
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My brother had an imaginary friend called Everly. Whenever we got into the car my mum also had to put the seat belt on him. Extra ice cream's were bought for him as well as extra breakfast, lunches and dinners dished up. Looking back I think my brother was just a greedy moron.
Meow.
My daughter used to chat away to nothing looking at the end of the bed. Quite some time later (months), she said she missed her friend. Asked her who she was talking about and she says the boy that used to sit and the end of her bed and talk to her.
She also knew the name of my cat who died before she was born and we are sure no one told her.
Chills.
My daughter had started having an imaginary friend named Riley shortly after we moved into an apartment. It was all cute until she told me he died because his mommy was a bad person. A few months later I met an upstairs neighbor who told me a few tenants ago there was a lady who killed her son named Riley. I had chills.
Chuck.
When I was about four, I had an imaginary friend named Chuck. One day I started screaming because I saw my dad run Chuck over with the lawnmower.
About a year later, my brother grabbed some hamburger off the shelf in the supermarket and had me sound out the sticker on the front: GROUND CHUCK.
My brother is ten years older than me. I'm 40now, he's 50, and he's still a fool.
Jack.
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When my daughter was around 4 she had an imaginary friend named Jack that lived under our back porch. He liked to shove sticks down people's throats. I told her that maybe Jack wasn't the nicest person to hang out with!!
All my Pals....
Me as a kid had multiple. The memorable....
- Gogonagi. Gogonagi was a 9 foot long rat. I got the idea from a movie that I have never been able to find again.
- Silly Beaver. Silly Beaver use to jump in my head and I would jump around hitting the side of my head shouting "silly beaver silly beaver get out of my head". This gave my father nightmares.
- Soggy. Soggy lives in a pond. He had a very wide smile.... bc someone made it with a blade. Soggy may actually have been a ghost. AllMyBeets
Hey Grape....
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When I was little I had an imaginary friend named Grape. My parents told me that I believed he lived underneath the floor in my room. I remember him being a dark purple silhouette, but I have no idea if that's a false memory or not.
It returned.....
I didn't remember this until my mother reminded me and then the memories came pouring in....
About 3 or 4 yrs old. I used to see a woman's face appear in the ceiling, or she would appear full-bodied in the strangest places. She had black hair, fair skin, reddest lips, green eyes and wore white.
She would usually only appear in my bedroom in the ceiling or sitting above the curtains. One time i saw her sitting on the bonnet of the car when we were driving... i would always freak out when i saw her.
My mum was kinda superstitious so she told me to ask it to leave me alone. It didn't come back for a while. Then maybe year or so later my mother asked me if i had seen it lately, i decided to see if it would come back so i called out for it. It returned. I told my mother and she told me to ask it what it wanted. I did and it answered it was just watching.. i never saw it again after that, but i like to think my countless near-death experiences have been narrowly avoided thanks to this being.
Not Fred
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When my daughter was eight, My wife went to wake her up for school. Her window was open, so she asked if she was hot last night. She replied:
"No my friend Fred comes over, and he takes pictures with me at night."
Instantly my wife goes into panic mode. She asks her teacher about anyone named Fred in class or any teachers with that name, nope. Therefore, she asks for more details about Fred. My daughter then pulls out all the letters he's written her. Well, the letters are in her handwriting, so you could easily tell he was fake.
Ohthankgod crisis averted.
gabba....
When i was little i had an imaginary friend named abba gabba. abba gabba was a fish boy who used to be a fish before his owner dropped his tank and killed him. I don't remember much about abba gabba, but i do remember that he had these weird sorta sunken black eyes and red and blue skin, along with long gills extending down about fifteen-ish feet off of his face, and had kinda sharp teeth and a long blue tongue. and for some reason he liked finding curly hair because his owner had it before he turned six.
Coincidentally, six was abba gabba's favorite number. i told my dad about abba gabba one day and he went all pale. apparently my dad had a fish named abba gabba that died when he dropped his tank on his eighth birthday. my dad also had curly hair up until he was six. freaks me out to think about it now.
Effie.
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I have a funny, not a creepy, imaginary friend story. For years my son had an imaginary friend name Effie. Effie was a robot with a tail.
When he was probably 4 or so, he told us that Effie's mom had come for a visit. When I asked him what Effie's mom's name was, he thought for a minute, and responded matter-of-factly, "Mother Ef".
I nearly died of laughter. He had no idea that mother ef had actual meaning, to him it was a clever name he thought up all his own.
I am from Eastern Europe....
I wonder if this is some sort of cultural phenomenon. I am from Eastern Europe, and I don't recall kids having imaginary friends, or concepts like this. I came across this concept in American films.
Eastern European who hasn't had any imaginary friends or known anyone who did. However I remember reading a bunch of stories about children's imaginary friends in a local mommy forum There was one funny story about a lady who had to drive all the way back to the store after shopping because her daughter forgot her pack of imaginary friends in the parking lot and was inconsolable lol.
Evicted Gale....
I have told this story before but the creepiest thing about my son's imaginary friend was that he was so... lame. My son said he had a triangle as a head and square as a body and lived behind one of our chairs in "his apartment".
His name was Gale and he always had problems at work and a boring job.
Eventually he got married and had to work more because of his wife. They are eventually had three or four imaginary children and still lived lived in the tiny imaginary apartment. Gale kept his imaginary lame job and had to deal with his wife and kids.
I felt bad for the guy.
Kenya Lives....
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My kid had an imaginary friend named Kenya. She was a pretty great imaginary friend. One day, my daughter casually mentioned that Kenya is dead and likes to visit her.
Dark Lady...
My son used to start screaming at night about a lady with dark curly hair in his room, he was about 4. He said she wanted to tickle him and kept telling him to relax. We assumed it was a recurring nightmare and brushed it off but then he started telling me he couldn't go in the living room because she came out of the wall there during the day. It really started impacting our everyday life.
We even asked a therapist about dealing with it but it still continued. A month or so later we moved (unrelated) and it stopped. I asked him about it casually so I wouldn't freak him out and he said she was sitting on the floor in the hall outside our apartment door. She had asked him if she could come in and he said no. No more episodes after that. I don't believe in the supernatural but that creeped me right out.
Sacos and Pacos.....
I had 2 imaginary friends. Sacos and pacos. They were a blue square and a yellow triangle. Then one day someone called our house asking for Pacos. It was just a wrong number for a Paco but my dad busted out laughing thinking it was a prank call.
In the Shed....
My daughter and I were in the shed one day, she was about 4 at the time. We were just chatting etc. when I notice her looking over my shoulder, she looks back at me and says" daddy, who is the man standing behind you?" I look around quickly thinking I left the door open but it was shut. Forget me, sent a massive chill down my spine! Not sure what she could see, but whatever it was, I couldn't see it.
Bob.
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My daughter had a man who she called "ghost bob." She said he hung out in the corner of her room.
My grandfather was named Robert, who I called Grandpa Bob. I was very close to him and he died of lung cancer when I was 13.
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Real life contains the scariest horrors you could ask for. So aren't we all living in a horror movie, in a way? At least, these people sure freakin' were.
MisterSnowman69 asked: What was a moment in your life that felt like a horror movie scene?
In the words of the legendary Mary Vivian Pierce in the film Pink Flamingos, “Murder merely relieves tension”. I’m sure the following Redditors felt differently.
Nothing scarier than the woods at night.
Went into a real deep woods hike for only the second time in my life.
My gps broke and had to rely on my compass. Got turned around a few times because I couldn't remember the direction I came from, and it was getting dark. Lost the trail way.
But the woods are weirdly silent in the dark and alone.
It was around 2am by the time I found the trailhead.
Darn foxes.
the simpsons react GIFGiphyMy friend and I got lost late on one foggy night in the Italian countryside. There were rats all over and every once in a while we heard someone scream.
I've never been more sure I was about to get murdered than I was that night.
It was probably a red fox that was screaming.
Could've also been a lynx, but they are much rarer in Italy.
At least she wasn’t speaking in tongues.
My mom is quite the sleep talker, but it's usually pretty short and incoherent when it happens. One night as a teenager, I woke up to her scream-yelling the Hail Mary prayer (my bedroom was across the house and upstairs).
Difficult to get back to sleep after that one.
Sometimes scary sh*t ends up just being funny coincidences. Super funny. Right?
Don’t give them any ideas.
I was exploring an abandoned mental asylum and then got the scare of my life when a scary looking person inside one of the rooms was just staring at me without moving. Turns out some joker had left a cardboard cutout there.
And now I have plans this weekend... Just need to find a couple of cardboard cutouts and to break into the local abandoned asylum.
Don’t you hate when that happens?
Evil Dead Horror GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphyI was driving home on backcountry roads at midnight in heavy fog. Like can't see 10 feet in front of you thick. Suddenly I see an all-white silhouette running in front of the car. Every hair on my body stood up. I immediately think "oh god, oh f*ck, it's a f*cking woman in white, I'm gonna f*cking die"
Nope just a drunk who dove into the ditch.
Gotta love paranoia.
When I was about 12, my parents went out for dinner leaving me home alone. We lived out in the country, on a private road with only three other houses, surrounded by cow fields and wooded areas.
I went into the the kitchen and glanced out the window towards the trees and there in the fading light I could see a person walking slowly through the woods. They were wearing all black, moving slowly and appeared to pause behind trees. My heart started pounding so hard in my ears I couldn't hear anything else and I was weak and shaky from fear. I froze and just watched them. Would they come to the house? Where were they going?
This was before cell phones but I suddenly remembered my mom had left the number of the restaurant by the living room phone. Slowly, I made my way towards the living room, trying to watch this stranger in the woods.
Just as I entered the living room, all the lights in the entire house went out. By this time it was nearly dark outside. I started openly sobbing and in the dark I heard a weird boom like noise. That was it, I ran to my parents room, hid under their bed and sobbed. That's where my mom found me hours later (it felt like).
Well, turns out the stranger in the woods was a stupid cow that had busted through a fence, the lights going out was from an accident a few miles away (hit the power line) and the boom was the pilot light in the gas stove. Man, I have never been that scared in my life though!
I have a lot of questions.
A naked man who was covered in blood chased me across a park at 2 in the morning. I was totally alone. He just wanted money for a bus (????) and luckily nothing bad happened but I thought I was going to die.
But of course, the genuine horrors do exist. And they aren’t scary in a fun horror movie way, they’re actually terrifying because they can happen to anyone.
A scary few seconds.
car chase GIF by Mayans M.C.GiphyI am a "baby" in a car seat in between cousins in backseat. Dad is driving. This is in the 80s and it is my aunt's insistence that I am in this seat even though I am like 5.
A sleeping semi driver is coming over into our lane and there is a cliff on other side. Basically my dad did some amazing driving but semi blew us up. I am uninjured sitting in the seat swinging my legs while everyone is unconscious. They all wake groaning. Dad doesnt wake up.
Long story short just minor scrapes and dad has broken leg. But the crunch of metal and those few seconds/minute of being the only "alive" person was quite fear inducing.
Glad they’re all ok now.
Two days after my now boyfriend told me he liked me he fell from a zip line and broke his back. Almost died. 6 months later he got into a car wreck from a drunk driver - almost died. 6 months after that, he passed out and had to have emergency brain surgery, again, almost died. I now have severe anxiety/separation anxiety/and ptsd. That whole year was a f*cking nightmare
Edit: we're both okay now, the brain injury was almost a year ago. But TBIs take a while to heal so he still has side effects. Thankfully our relationship is still strong; he's physically getting better and I'm healing emotionally too. Lucky for him, the trauma of the injuries has caused him to forget the majority of the pain and memories of those incidents.
ALWAYS wear a helmet.
Driving home from work at 23, listening to my favorite song.
I pull up to a red light, and see this guy on a motorcycle coming up next to me in the other lane. I rolled down my window to compliment his bike when he stops. He doesn't, and runs the red light. He hits a car going at least 55mph. His motorcycle shatters apart, he goes flying, hits the hood of another car, and lands on the ground and rolls into the curb (no helmet). The car he hit with his motorcycle was totaled. I had to step over his body to talk to the police. He was still alive when they got there. I regret not holding his hand. It was just a normal day, and all of a sudden it felt like the rug was pulled from out beneath me. He was only 18.
Edit: The song was Sunny by Boney M., for those curious
What did we learn today, kids? Foxes scream like humans, shadowy figures are usually cows or drunken rednecks, and once again, PLEASE WEAR A HELMET WHEN YOU RIDE ANY KIND OF BIKE.
Scary sh*t surrounds us. But where there is horror, there are heroes. So next time you think you see a scary figure in the woods, know that Bruce Campbell is probably right around the corner
Hypocrisy is everywhere; it's like a disease. And sadly everyone does it. Some of us indulge in smaller doses than others. But some people live their life by it. Like how can you support civil servants, like police, firefighters, etc... yet try to find ways to hide money in order to not pay taxes? Tell me... I'll wait.
Manga...
Hungry Night Court GIF by LaffGiphyItalian moms that say you're too fat then say I'm making grandma cry by not finishing my pasta.
Asian moms too! Not only that if you try to not eat, they make to go containers for you. Oh, sorry I have to leave, RUNS AT LEAST HAVE SOME FRUIT.
Phonies...
Celebrities positioning themselves as champions for social justice while launching a clothing line with no comment on the labor conditions their garments are made in.
Sexy Times...
The Porn Industry
Why is prostitution considered a crime, but it becomes perfectly legal once a camera is put beside them?
I think the first amendment helps with that one. There's been many a supreme-court case about whether porn is protected speech.
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...
You can get away with WAY more crap, in general, when you're attractive.
But we all kind of aspire to attractiveness and it's not like it's attractive people's fault, exactly. So what is there to be done?
So true. Money and beauty are treated like virtues and they aren't. They're luck of the draw. It probably helps you to be a better person if people assume that you are gentle and clever just by looking at your face or wallet.
KIDS
GIF by MOODMANGiphyPeople screaming at you if you don't want Kids and Kids are the greatest thing in the World and then turn around and whine how expensive they are and how annoying yadda yadda.
Yeah see... humans are a mess. And too often then not, personal conviction and dignity are just a myth, or a punchline. Double standards have always been a way of life. And many of us have begrudgingly learned to navigate.
Fashion
Fashion Model GIF by NYFW: The ShowsGiphyIf a skinny person wears something out of the ordinary, it's a fashion statement and awesome. It can even just be something like a crop top or overalls.
But God forbid a fat person wear the same thing.
Distractions
The hypocrisy hypocrisy. People love to call it out but rarely notice it on themselves and if they notice it then it's something completely different or a distraction.
That's the worst. I hate that I have to hate that. But if I don't hate it, then the hate will just continue. So, really, my hate comes from my love of an end to hate. So anyone who hates my hate hates love. And we must hate anyone who hates love!
My Morality
My own personal hypocrisy; When I was a lot less well off financially, delivering pizzas trying to get through college, I kept a cup of coins in my car. When a homeless person would approach me for spare change, I gave them the cup. Most of the time it was nearly full, so there was probably 20-30 dollars in there.
Now that I have a good salaried job, even if I've got a few bucks in my wallet, I tend to not even make eye contact anymore. I know it's awful, I know it makes me crappy, but the last 4-5 years have made me a jaded craphead towards people in general. I used to be so hopeful and I wanted to help everyone, and tried to live a life that reflected that.
Now, while my general and political morality is pretty much the same, my personal morality has gotten more grey. I'd jaded, I hate people, I assume the worst of people I used to assume the best of. I don't really care about the strangers around me like I used to, but I still expect everyone else to.
Placing Blame
Victim mentality.
It's so freaking frustrating when it becomes entrenched. "You did this, it's your fault" "you should've known to do x, its your fault" Yeah bro your problems aren't my problems and if all you do is make excuses and blame me for them, it's not going to be my fault when you don't develop as a person and accomplish your dreams. I'm sure they'll find someone to blame though.
In D.C.
Donald Trump Reaction GIF by Election 2016GiphyPoliticians work part time, are given free housing, education, and health care, and exempt from the everyday violence we experience, but refuse to lift a finger to help us.
At this points most people running for a position in the government are only in it for the benefits of being a politician and the amount of money they can embezzle. Well in my country at least.
Just speak a truth and live it. Yes, it maybe hard. But what part of life isn't? Hypocrisy is just lying. Plain and simple. And it's a sin to lie.
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