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A Reddit user asked:
Who is the scariest person you’ve ever met?
And the question immediately made me think of my oldest kid... which I'm sure we will address later with a qualified professional.
But let me explain...
She was the first thing that came to mind, but my little one is spooky - not scary.
I was going to tell you guys all about how my family calls her "Spooky McPsychicpants" and how she has weirdly predicted lots of pregnancies ... but that's honestly just neat. It's not scary.
These Reddit users have met scary, and it isn't cute. It isn't an adorable kid with a cool little quirk.
It's heartbreaking. It's world changing. It can be the kind of thing you are never the same after.
Or maybe it's just a terribly mundane movie night with an axe murderer.
Read ahead with caution. There are some serious atrocities and triggers touched on here.
The Nice Library Guy
Probably this dude who worked at my local library around the time I was 17-18.
He was my age. I worked with his older brother at the local grocery store when I was 16 and had his dad as a teacher in 5th grade.
He was a nice guy, quiet, helpful. We'd chat whenever I had a research paper for school or a project.
He murdered them both - as well as his brothers girlfriend. He was sent to prison and was shot trying to escape.
Megacharm
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The pastor at a local megachurch goes to a doctor's office I used to work at. The church is basically a cult at this point, and everyone outside of it knows it.
He walked in the door while I was at the front desk, and right away all of my higher faculties just... got hijacked. I don't know how to explain it. In that moment, I wanted to be the most fantastic receptionist he had ever met in his life. I wanted to impress him so badly it hurt.
The second he walked out, I came back to myself like what the hell just happened?
A few months later the same exact thing happened again.
He didn't scare me, at least not as far as I was aware. But I'm open to the possibility that it was a fawning response. I do have a tendency to do that to …a lot of people.
This just felt sort of different; like pheromones in movies or something. I want to stay very far away from that man.
Poor Buck Taylor
When I was really young we were at a rodeo and met Buck Taylor. He was one of the actors who played a bad guy on Tombstone.
I was TERRIFIED of him.
I couldn't understand why my parents were chatting with a murderer.
The actor was a lovely guy, I just wasn't old enough to know movies weren't real yet.
My Brother's Mental Health Monster
Honestly, my brother.
He has severe mental illness that's incredibly unpredictable. Months go by with him seeming fine, and then there's a day that he just completely shifts. Having dealt with it for over a decade now you'd think you'd get used to it, but you don't, you just get smarter about seeing a break coming.
There's no countdown timer though and half the time it doesn't end up being anything, but saying something about it can trigger that break. The reason it's terrifying is because he's almost always around either myself, my mom, or my dad, and it goes from 0-200 in the blink of an eye.
The first violent episode it was just me, we just fought intensely for a while, and then he went around smashing everything he could find until cops came and had to tackle him. People joke about "crazy-strength", but it's no joke.
Since then, he's been stun-gunned, tased, flash banged, and bean-bagged by police. Mostly separate incidents, some multiple times.
He violently threw my mid-60s mom to the ground. He cornered my dad with a knife when he came to check on him at his apartment, which my dad did because someone who knew my brother called him to let him know that he was sitting in a public park in the city repeatedly stabbing a knife into the ground. That fiasco ended with my brother taken down by SWAT.
He's been involuntarily admitted to mental health facilities more than a dozen times, but they have a catch and release policy unless you've got insane money, which neither he nor us do.
I've learned a frightening amount about both our legal system and mental health system throughout these years. There are holes big enough to drive a bus through. He needs help and those around him deserve to be safe.
At this point, my dad has moved out of the country so the only option was for my brother was to move in with my mom or be homeless. She couldn't even begin to entertain the idea of making her son homeless.
After years of never owning a firearm, I do now - and I have a different perspective on why it might be necessary for some people. Some people just love guns; but some people have a legitimate reason for needing one...
Thankfully, for now, he's not a threat to either of us. Our relationships with him seemed to be going better, but then he got it in his head that we were part of a conspiracy that was seeking to kill him. So he went to the police station to report it.
They know both myself and my mom (at this point they've met us several times) so they called EMTs, but that spooked him. So he pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the cops (went through the Kevlar).
Thankfully the cop was okay after some stitches.
Because of that incident, my brother now meets the requirements to be kept in a mental health facility for a while. No idea how long though. And once he's out, he'll be going back to my mom's.
Oh, and the cop my brother stabbed is suing my mom and trying to go after her homeowners insurance. That could very well make them drop her, even if it doesn't go anywhere. She would have an extremely difficult time finding a new company that would cover her based on all of this. So there's that.
This newest episode almost broke my mom but she pushed forward, and I'll never forget the sound in her voice when she told me that she'd received that notice in the mail. It was like it finally broke her.
She's tried her best to help, but there's only so much she can do. The cop involved is close enough to retirement that I have to think he's trying to leverage this to make that date come sooner, but I don't think he realizes what effect that'll have. Or maybe the department is forcing him to go after her?
The system is f*cked, and it breaks my heart to think there's likely one of two outcomes in the future:
Either I'm around when he snaps next and I at least have a chance to defend her (she will never raise a finger against him, even in self-defense)
or
I'm not and I get the worst phone call of my life.
She doesn't even believe he's capable of such a thing because she sees him through rose-colored glasses (he is her son), but his consistent history makes it obvious to anyone else.
He literally tried to kill a cop but I don't think she understands that it very well could have been her. Psychosis overrides the person you know.
The only fitting comparison I've ever been able to make is if you'd had a dog that you loved for years and then all of a sudden, it got rabies. It's just not the same dog anymore. But it can be close to impossible to accept that when you're looking at the dog you've loved for so long.
We'll have to see what they decide in court due to the severity of this incident, but at this point we genuinely have no idea if he'll be out in a few months considering "time served" or if it'll be longer than that. The prosecutor also made the case that he's mentally fit to stand trial, which I think was done to increase any penalties against him, but that carries significant effects.
It means they can't force him to take his meds - which makes things worse the longer he goes without. It also means he'd be placed in gen pop if he's found guilty, which is dangerous both for him and anyone else he's locked in there with.
Either way he will get out eventually. He will go back to my mom's. Then it's just a matter of time until the consistent escalation of this reaches the next level. He's only gotten worse over the years, and I'm terrified of what the next manifestation will be.
- caangus
Escaped Only Because Of His Whims
I met a guy in a Parisian brothel who was 'security' - but in reality was there to pressure customers to buy the overpriced drinks and max out their credit cards on the 'ladies'.
I didn't know it was a brothel and as soon as I saw they were charging $25 for a small glass of beer and the place was full of young women who were all far too interested in my ugly @ss I started to nope out of there.
This intimidating muscular man in a suit, complete with facial scars, held my bicep and pulled me back inside. I told him I wanted to leave and I would call the police if he tried to stop me.
At that point he gave me a look ... and to this day I swear he looked like he was trying to decide whether to kill me or not - and it was a close thing.
He let me go with a face like thunder. I truly believe I was in mortal danger and I escaped only because of this guy's whims. Or perhaps he didn't think he could avoid problems with the police.
One scary mother f*cker. Definitely killed before and would again, in my opinion.
Human Traps
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Maybe 8 years ago now I was working at a local Subway with this really nice kid who always seemed eager to help.
I was watching the news one day and saw that he had gotten arrested for setting up traps for humans up the canyon.
Saturday Dinner
I work in a mental health facility. Every Saturday I watch a movie with a man who killed his step father with an axe.
"Cold blooded killer" right? Some of his family members absolutely hate him.
But he's kind. He loves movies and media. He helps the other guys. He listens....hell the other staff and I sometimes joke that he works there.
"Hey "Bob" you wanna go grab this room check?"
"Yea man I got you lol."
He's an inherently "good" person who committed a horrible crime because he was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. In situations like this all you can do is take it day by day and do your best to help these people.
"Of Course"
The leader who ordered a teenager to shoot into a truck full of girls on their way to school.
It was a big deal locally that these girls were starting school that day.
The man who ordered the attack was completely nonchalant when questioned about it. "Of course I told [teenager] to do this. He wanted his soul saved from evil, so I told him when and how."
"Of course they should die. [the girls] They were on their way to school to be made into whores for America. We had to stop them from being corrupted."
This went on and on. He acted like it was the most commonplace, banal thing he'd ever done.
Like tossing a piece of paper into a trashcan. Or cutting up vegetables. "Of course I cut up the carrots, how else do you put them in stew?"
It was insane. He was terrifying.
Most of the girls survived the attack. Every one of them had horrific injuries, though. Hope they eventually went to school, but I don't know.
Just Because He Could
My ex. Dear God...
Women fawn over him, just like I once did. He is the most masterfully manipulative person I have ever met. An expert at reading people, and a most accomplished gaslighter.
Physically, mentally/emotionally, financially toward relationship partners.
You're either 100% with him or you're his enemy, there is no in between. It's all black and white. A thief and a liar and he actually just thought it was fun to fight people.
He'd just beat the sh*t out of someone because he could.
Impulsive and reckless, a loose cannon. And he was enormous, a giant block of muscle.
Grim
Probably the night I saw the grim reaper.
It was 3am and me and my friend decided to walk to get some fast food. The walk was on a well lit long street, no way on or off for a good long stretch on the way there. It was a very flat road we could see a good distance ahead. There was no one around. No cars, no pedestrians.
All of a sudden we see a guy ahead of us. He came out of nowhere. He was just there. We hadn't seen coming even though we had an insane and clear field of view.
We noticed him when he was about 10 meters away. Way too close. My senses told me to cross the road and avoid this guy, but instead we go quiet and pass him.
He is wearing all black - but not normal looking clothes. Like nothing I've seen before. He looks quite aged and he has a long black beard and a long walking cane that looks like it has a skull on it and its made out of wood, but like crazy wood like a staff or something. He was creepy AF.
After he passed us, I didn't look back right away for fear of our lives, but after a while we turned and looked. He was gone. We should have been able to see him still. There is no way he walked that far in that amount of time.
Every now and then I ask my friend about that night. We can't explain it. I've never been more terrified.
- HazzyP
Dad Was Usually Angry And Scared Us
Growing up my best friend's neighbors were a family with two boys, both younger than us. We didn't hang out with them that much, but would swim in their pool in the summer and their mom would bring us snacks.
She was really nice, but their dad was usually angry and scared us.
Their dad ended up killing their mom in the house, dismembering her body and dumping the parts in different dumpsters around the area.
He only ended up getting 11 years and tried to move near his kids once he was out, their grandparents had adopted them and had to get a court order for their dad to stay away.
The Reason There's No Cutlery
There was this kid at my elementary school who constantly got into fights. He was just outright aggressive.
He stared at people while hunching like an animal about to strike, made himself vomit on people he didn't like, slammed his head into the brick wall on more than one occasion, and stabbed people with the silverware so many times that the school ended up getting rid of metal cutlery entirely in favor of plastic.
A Sociopath Looking For A Place To Happen
I did administrative work at a local residential drug and alcohol treatment facility in my early 20s (I'm 35 now), paper pushing, filing and the like. The scariest dude I've ever met was this guy who was there for alcohol and some kind of narcotic.
I was delivering something urgent and unrelated to his counselor and he just happened to be in her office when I knocked on the door frame (door was open) and he looked straight at me a continued describing how he liked to get f*cked up, mutilate small animals (especially squirrels and cats) and masturbate over their eviscerated remains.
The way he said it was so matter of fact, like how a person describes how they like their coffee, and there was NOTHING behind his eyes. It was like they were dead and glazed over. It was like looking into the face of every serial killer mugshot I've ever seen all at once.
Looking at him was like getting hit with a low voltage electrical current. I dropped the message on the counselor's desk and avoided the hell out of that guy for the rest of his stay.
I still think about him a lot and to this day I hope that man is either dead or in prison because that man was a sociopath looking for a place to happen.
The Really Big Big Show
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When I was bout five I went to see a WWE match.
When it ended, I got the chance to meet The Big Show. While he was really nice to me, it was his shear size that scared me. The Big Show is really big.
The Pigeon Was Just The Beginning
When I was 5, my friend and I found a pigeon that was either sick or injured since it wasn't flying away. My mom has nursed animals back to health before, including a squirrel and a different pigeon.
My neighbor and his friend came out (teenagers) and wondered what we were doing. We told them and they said to wait right there and they will take care of it.
They returned with aluminum baseball bats and just start beating the sh*t out of this unfortunate creature like Glenn from The Walking Dead. My neighbor's friend said "You're welcome" and they just left.
We were horrified and left with a destroyed corpse.
A couple years later, I saw my neighbor's friend in a newspaper article. He killed a girl with an axe on Christmas or New Years eve, I forget. Decapitated her.
That f*cked me up a little bit.
The old wives' tales.
They are the stories of legend.
I think we all need a big DEEP Google dive though.
Where did they originate?
WHO ARE THE OLD WIVES!
You don't hear about them as much anymore.
It's like science and logic are suddenly a thing.
But they sure are a good way to keep your kids and their behavior in line.
Redditor the_spring_goddess wanted to discuss the tall tales we've all been fed through life, so they asked:
"What is an old wives tale that people still believe?"
"Wait an hour to swim after eating."
What a crock!
So many summer hours wasted.
I want revenge for that one.
Say Nothing
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"An undercover cop has to tell you he's a cop if you ask him."
LonelyMail5115
"Pretty much most advice when it comes to cops are old wives tales. I’m not even a cop but most of the advice you hear is pretty off."
I_AM_AN_A**HOLE_AMA
Say Something
"That you have to wait 24 hours to report someone missing."
Severe_Airport1426
"I really think this one is important and should be the top regardless. As it’s a piece of advice that needs to be relearned and the only way to do that is through awareness."
crappycurtains
"This used to be true. I think they changed it after some guy named Brandon went missing back in the '80s or '70s. You used to have to wait 24 hours if the missing person was an adult because they had 'a right to be missing' and then everyone realized that was stupid and stopped doing it."
AlbinoShavedGorilla
Body Temps
"That drinking ice cold water after eating oily foods will solidify the oil and permanently remain in your body. I informed my coworker that if your body temperature ever reached that point, you’d have bigger problems than weight gain."
chriseo22
"Oh, I have a cousin who 100% believed this. One of those guys who believed every early 2000s internet rumor and old wives tale. One night I chugged a big glass of ice water after dinner and he started freaking out and saying my guts were gonna harden."
"I sarcastically told him to drive me to the hospital if that happened. Obviously, nothing happened and the next morning I said something like 'Thanks for being on standby in case my guts filled with hardened oil.' He just walked off muttering under his breath."
apocalypticradish
Arms Down
"When I was pregnant, I was told by young and old alike that I should NOT raise my arms above my head or exert myself in such a manner because it could cause cord strangulation to my unborn sons and daughters."
Fatmouse84
10 Years Actually
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"Chewing gum stays in your stomach for 7 years."
"I remember accidentally swallowing a piece of gum when I was a kid in like 1995 and just accepting my fate like welp, gonna have this in my stomach til high school I guess."
Gecko-911
I was so afraid to sallow my gum when I was young.
This tale is haunting.
High/Low
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"You can tell the sex of the baby by how you carry."
LeastFormal9366
"Pregnancy certainly wins awards for the most old wives tales. So much absolute BS was repeated to us by everyone we talked to."
IllIIIlIllIlIIlIllI
The Cursed
"If you’re a woman and you wear opal jewelry but opal is not your birthstone (October), you’ll never be able to have children, or will be widowed, or just generally have bad luck or something. You can counteract this by having a diamond in the same piece of jewelry as the opal, though."
"I have a nice opal ring that my parents gave me years ago, and I’ve had other women give me this 'advice' unprompted more than once when I’ve worn it. I have absolutely no idea where it started, but I’m pretty sure this little chunk of silicate rock has no concept of what month I was born in, let alone of how my reproductive organs work."
SmoreOfBabylon
Stay In
"Going outside with wet hair will make you get pneumonia. Or an earache. Or maybe arthritis. Depends on which old wife you listen to."
"Jokes on them - I haven't blow-dried my hair in decades and usually leave the house with wet hair in the morning. On winter mornings, the tips of my hair get frozen. No ear infections or pneumonia or arthritis yet."
worldbound0514
Dreams and Facts
"You never make anyone up in your dreams you've seen everyone in your dreams somewhere else before and never make anyone up entirely."
"How would you possibly prove that to be true? My partner adamantly believes this and tells me this 'fact' whenever I have a dream about someone I've never met before."
mattshonestreddit
"My late wife used to tell me that before she met me she would have dreams of standing at an alter on her wedding day but could never see the guy's face, no matter how hard she tried. After meeting me the face was filled in with mine. Don't know if it's true but one of those things I like thinking of every now and then when I miss her."
Darthdemented
Cracked
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"Some people still believe cracking knuckles causes arthritis."
Choice-Grapefruit-44
"There's a doctor (Donald Unger) that cracked his knuckles a couple of times a day for 60 years, but only on one hand, just to prove it. Both hands remained exactly the same."
MacyTmcterry
I love my knuckles.
Do you have any tall tales to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below.
