Reddit user BlueberryJingle13 asked:
"What is something harmless you were scared of as a child?"
Most of us outgrow those irrational childhood fears, though that doesn't mean they didn't have us in their grips when we were younger.
Here's what freaked Reddit out.
Drains!
drain GIFGiphy"The drain in the bath tub. The tiny whirlpool of water would suck me down with it"
- JAR-man999
"Apparently when I was a toddler my dad told me spiders would come out of the drain if I stayed in the bath after the plug got taken out. I still feel uncomfortable taking the plug out the drain if I'm still in the bath, even now I'm 28"
- ImQuiteRandy
"I seem to remember being a daredevil with that and sticking my finger in it while holding onto the side of the tub to make sure it couldn't actually pull me in."
- doomalgae
"I had a children's book about a baby crocodile that was sucked into the drain and was crying alone in the sewer system because it didn't know how to get back to the zoo and it's parents. Also scared me for a while after reading that."
- More_Example6153
"38 years old and I’m still frightened I’ll get sucked down the drain."
- Arkady2009
Auctions
season 7 GIFGiphy"Fidgeting at a livestock auction and accidentally buying a cow."
- graceamazed
"This one made me lol. This is exactly the brand of anxiety I would have as one-off fears as a kid."
- Triairius
"I went to a house foreclosure auction in my 20s and I had the same concern. I was convinced that I'd make the wrong move and end up buying a house that I couldn't afford."
- UndeadBread
"2000$ to that little kid that scratched his head. SOLD"
- l0u1s11
Sinkhole De Mayo
"I had an irrational fear that a sinkhole would randomly open under me. I would walk around grabbing onto nearby objects just so I'd have something to grab onto when the Earth inevitably tried to consume me."
- DatWeirdo04
"I was scared a hole would open up under me just to swallow me then close up as if nothing happened."
- Theveryshyboy
"Me too!"
"What’s ironic is that I’m 34 years old and moved to a town 2 years ago and there’s been 4 sinkholes already! Like why?!"
- TitusLemonades
"Holy sh*t! I thought that I was the only one with that fear!!!"
- Tricksyknitsy
"I'm not alone. Yaaaay"
- gliitch0xFF
Draft Or Giraffe?
"Giraffes. Not because of what you think. I lost a fair amount of hearing due to a compilation with my tonsils, so when my dad tucked me in at night and said “I’ll close the window, wouldn’t want the draft to get you…” Well, you can assume what I heard."
"I thought there was a rabid giraffe that would step over backyard fences and eat kids if their windows were open."
- SsjAndromeda
"That’s too funny and somewhat wholesome. It was sloths for me. I used to have nightmares of a sloth slowly chasing me. You can never run fast in dreams."
- Strongbad23
"Bro, same f*cking thing. My mum used to say wow the drafts coming from there at a cold dark place on the house and I used to imagine like a giraffe hiding there or an invisible giraffe and it was kinda scary lol"
- notarealpersondw
"I literally had the same fear!! "
"I was in a car when I was told to close the windows so that the draft doesn’t get in and I also heard ‘giraffe’, I then envisioned rabid giraffes trying to break into the car.. I thought I was the only one with this experience!"
- Kovu-and-Dedenne
You Too Will Have A Mullet
"My brother told me someday I too had to get a mullet haircut"
- MuluLizidrummer
"I have a mullet currently. I'd be scared too"
- BlueberryJingle
"Such an older brother thing to say"
- catnmoose
"I mean, mullet families are a thing. I used to see at least a few day when I lived in the midwest. Granted the oldest son usually has a buzzcut."
- 0kokuryu0
Loud Sound Check
scared season 5 GIFGiphy"The THX sound before movies"
- Geezson123
"The audience is now deaf…”
- User Deleted
"Convinced that's why I have tinnitus."
- DillPixels
"Same, little me would run behind the couch and plug my ears. Now I've just learned I have sensitive hearing, and that urge to run and hide when it comes has never left."
- OtaPotato
Vacuums
"When I was really young, like 3 - 5 years old, I thought the vacuum would come to life at night and try to suck out my lungs while I slept."
"So, I insisted that the vacuum be kept in the basement, locked in a closet, because clearly it couldn't climb two whole flights of stairs."
- smokehidesstars
"Imagine you wake up one night and the vacuum is just in the middle of your room LOL"
- BlueberryJingle
"Lol. My sister was terrified of the vacuum as well but it was because one time it caught the edge of her nightgown and I guess she thought it was going to suck her up. She was scared of vacuums until a pretty unreasonable age"
- mercenaryblade17
Surprise Flush
"Automatic flushing toilets in public places."
"Not me, but my 2 daughters when they were young (like 3y-6y). I had to stand next to them with my hand over the sensor so they could escape the stall before the toilet flushed."
- AltyMcSalty
"Loud toilet flushes still scare the crap out of me, even if they aren’t automatic and I’m prepared. I have no idea why. I’m 27, and I still have to sprint from the washroom at once I flush."
"It’s only when I’m alone though for some reason. During shifts when lots of other people are around, I have no issues. I have no explanation for this fear."
- TwiceUponADecember
"As a former daughter who was petrified of auto flush toilets, I want to thank you on their behalf."
- wevegotscience
"Pro tip for if you become a grandparent. Carry a pad of post it notes. Stick one to the sensor so the toilet won't flush unexpectedly."
- Paradisedreamer7
Bald Head
"The bald head of my uncle"
- italoomg
"Bald heads used to freak me out too when I was a kid, they just looked weird to me."
- idratherchangemyold1
"As a teen, I thought going bald would be the worst thing imaginable. Now that I’m 40, lost most of my hair, and shave it down every day, I couldn’t be happier. I love the easiness of having a bald head."
-Every1onRedditisDumb
Aqua Vacuum
Water Satisfying GIF by MaytronicsGiphy"My grandparents robotic pool cleaner 😂"
- minivan2022
"Oh man I can't believe the first comment is one I can actually relate to. I totally forgot about it until reading this. Yeah that 'creepy crawly' thing sliding around the bottom of the pool was unsettling, especially since when in the water at the same time of it you could hear it 'ticking' every second through the water. I remember asking them to pull it out before I went in. This was a fairly brief phase but it happened."
- Chromattix
"Lived in a house for years with a pool vacuum. Many adults are scared of those too lol"
- Triairius
"I actually have an irrational phobia of that thing it's wack"
"Stupid Barracuda/Creepy Crawly pool cleaner it looks so creepy"
- thegoldilocks_zone
"I came here to also say pool cleaner! We had one with two long “tentacles” that sprayed water out of the tips and swirled around the bottom of a pool….like a creepy robot octopus ."
- HAYYme
Do you and Reddit share similar phobias?
Is there something you want to add to the list?
Want to hear about my (completely understandable when you know the backstory) severe distrust of clowns that USED TO BE a childhood phobia?
Let's get into it in the comments.
When I was a kid, I had my fair share of enduring a variety of punishments.
Being grounded and missing out on an allowance were frequent penalties, while being spanked with a belt was saved for the worst of my rotten behaviors.
When Redditor Thefishman1 asked "What is the worst punishment you received as a kid?," strangers on the internet shared their most traumatizing memories they would soon like to forget.
Some of the responses will leave you convinced that the punishment definitely did not fit the crime.
Intense Spanking
"Got a citation at school for yelling at a bully in middle school. It was a fake one from a cop to scare me."
"Parents took it well and told me to straighten up and to not let people get to me. Dad didn't really seem to mind."
"Few days later I was playing outside with my cousins, dad comes out high on Xanax and goes 'oh yea, that goddam citation come here.'"
"He gets very very very angry and abusive ok Xanax and he would pop several."
"I'm confused because I thought everything was okay, I thought it was over."
"Drags me up stairs makes me pull my pants down. I couldn't sit down without it hurting for a week. Told my mom I was gonna tell someone at school but she said not to. He never touched me again after that but I'll never forget it."
"He also used to destroy everything in the house when he got high. Like literally destroy. Throw TVs out in the yard , knock over sh*t. Mess with my mom. Break sh*t."
Abusive Mother
"One time when I was around 8, my mom said she would help me with my math homework. I don't remember in detail what it was about, but I remember that it was oh so easy for mom, and I just didn't get it. With every 'huh?' from me she got more and more mad, and finally she threw everything to the ground, jumped up, dragged me from my chair, all the while hitting and slapping me. I tried to cover my head and walked backwards until I reached an armchair, she threw me in it and continued her blows until she got tired, then left me there. I hid in my room for a few hours, she started to vacuum outside. That year, we had planned to go to Disneyland Paris for the summer holidays, so I made a little eiffel tower out of legos as a 'make up gift' for making her mad, brought it outside and placed it on the ground. One standard behavior when she was mad was to pretend I didn't exist, so my eiffel tower didn't exist too and she hit it multiple times with the vacuum, shattering it all over the place, sending me in a hurry to clean 'my' mess up to not make her mad again."
No More Electronic Devices
"Senior year, high school. Long story short, I had learning disabilities and due to things changing in the district, those programs us disabled used were very suddenly axed and threw us out into normal classes. Where the teachers couldn't bother to give a quarter of a f'k about us and pretty much all of us started failing, badly."
"My mom, however, saw this as more of a my fault thing, that it was my fault I wasn't adapting. This was right after she met someone new and that someone new was VERY hardline in his parenting and that rubbed off on my mom."
"So as my grades fell, I lost everything dear to me. My laptop, my iPod, my old CD player (that I kept around even when I moved to an iPod), my cell phone. I cobbled together another computer from old 90s parts just so I could manage to still complete essays. That got taken too. My grades plummeted further. I was just managing to barely pass my classes, now I was actually failing them."
"Boom, now my parent(s) took my door away, no more privacy. They also 'took away' my rides to school, as punishment I had to walk to school (which involved me waking up at 5am so I barely slept as I had to stay up until midnight just to keep my head barely above water with the massive amounts of homework I got and no computer to help me get it done faster)."
"When I failed some classes, that resulted in my electives being taken away, so now school was all academic, all the time. No fun allowed, AT ALL."
"I still don't know how I managed to pass and graduate, but it was the most hollow f'king victory I ever got. The constant punishment I took that year wasn't worth it."
"EDIT: for those wondering, I did eventually put this all behind me and I'm fine with my mom now. Her boyfriend had a near death experience and in that moment he regretted all the sh*t he put me through. Some say I'm too easy, but in my eyes it's more energy to hold a grudge than it is to just accept it and move past it, learning from experiences."
– We1tfunk
The Yelling
"It might sound silly, but getting yelled at by my dad. Hes got a short temper and sometimes I felt like I was walking on eggshells around him. Even hearing him yell at my siblings sent me into shakes and tears."
"EDIT: Thanks for all the nice comments and support, and hugs to all of you dealing with similar things. Happily I'm living with good friends and I've cut off contact with my dad, so I'm doing okay."
– mx_tae
Tied To A Chair
"I have no memories from my childhood except for this one. I must have been 8 or 9 but one time, i stayed 15 min in class to help the teacher clean the brushes and tables from the art class. My mom was very particular about not letting us play outside, each day after school we just couldn't be late. As I was helping the teacher in school and not playing with other kids i thought she wouldn't mind but i was sooooo wrong."
"when i came back, the entry of the building was occupied by some drunks so i decided to enter by the north entry to avoid them (i was terrified to even look at them). i ran past some other girls playing and arrived home to find my sister concerned about me 'where were you??? mom is going to kill you!' 'But i'm only 20 min late.'"
"here comes my mom, veins popping out of her face, she starts to yell at me, letting me know that the girls playing told her i was running the other way around from the building and then she tied me. to a chair."
"The rest was kind of blurry but i remember she put harrissa in my mouth (it's a very spicy sauce), she hit me on the stomach and left me alone in her bedroom for until dinner (so about 6 hours)."
"yay"
Consequences Of Wearing A Favorite Shirt
"When I was 4 years old I was supposed to change into a nicer shirt because we were going to my grandma's on Mother's Day. I refused to change because it was my favorite shirt and my mom lost it and stripped me buck naked."
"She dragged me into the car like that with my siblings laughing at me. When we got to my grandma's house she paraded me out in front of the neighbors and I was so hysterical by the time we got inside that I wet myself all over my grandma's carpet. I got yelled at even more."
"It's a really awful memory that sticks with me even now."
The Quarter
"My parents weren't particularly punishing, in fact my dad has frequently lamented their decision to not spank us. The one really d*ckish punishment they used was to make us stand in front of the wall while my dad pulled a quarter out of his pocket. He placed it against the wall and we would have to hold it in place with our noses for a set time. If it fell, he'd replace the coin with a smaller one and start the time over again."
The Shovel
"I refused to clean my room so my mom got out a shovel and anything that was on the floor was shoveled into a big black garbage bag and thrown away."
Taste Of Soap
"Physically having my mouth washed out with soap for blurting out the F word. I don't think I had even started school yet, (uk), so who knows if I really knew what I was saying."
"I can still taste the soap now 🤢"
Scared Of Dad
"One evening, I went to my friend's house (which was directly opposite to mine) to play. Both of us ended up watching a movie and only when it ended did I realize that it was 15 minutes past my 'curfew time.'"
"My father was already waiting for me at the door when I left my friend's house. When we entered my house, he caught hold of me and smacked me across my face. The impact was strong enough to send me flying back against the wall. He grabbed me and slapped me again. By the time he was done, I had already pissed my pants twice (I was six)."
"I was always afraid of him after that."
Food
"Forced to eat food I absolutely despised until I vomit. My mother never believed I hated certain food and they make me absolutely ill."
"From the age of 8 till I was 12. Then when I started cooking because she was working, I made sure twice a week to make things she hated just to force her to make her own meals."
Belts And Spoons
"My parents were fond of physical abuse, dad preferred belts, mom liked wooden spoons. The stuff that really got to me though was the verbal and psychological stuff. Worst was taking the door to my room. I suddenly didn't have even a trace of safety at home anymore. I still have nightmares about it."
– KirinG
Stove Burns
"Ye old hand on stove was my nightmare, still got rings on my hands from the scars. It's pretty common, I've met lots of people with the same burns."
Combat Boots
"I wouldn't salute so I was punched in the sternum and while laying on the ground trying to catch my breath I was kicked with combat boots until I was coughing up blood."
"Dont ask why this happened. I dont remember. I do remember realizing that this was probably not normal."
