The Dumbest Things People Were Ever Scared Of As A Kid
Reddit user _Veron_ asked: 'What was the "dumbest" thing you were scared of as a kid?'
Hindsight is 20/20, but our ability to look back and realize that a situation wasn't as bad as it seemed won't lesson how hard that situation was in the moment.
This is also true for children and the irrational fears they are facing. Learning later on that those things are irrational will not change how scary those things were at the time, but it's fascinating to look back and see what we feared the most.
Redditor _Veron_ asked:
"What was the 'dumbest' thing you were scared of as a kid?"
The Sweet Potato Man
"'El Señor de lo Camotes' or 'Sweet Potatoes seller.' In Mexico, there are people who sell sweet potatoes and bananas with cinnamon, candy, or honey, and they bake them on a tricycle with an oven with a chimney while they walk the streets."
"The sound of the chimney is a bit creepy and loud! I was terrified as a child, and even more so when my dad told me that the sound was from bad kids that the man was burning on his tricycle."
- KerenGO
Godzilla
"Godzilla. The old school black and white cheesy fake dinosaur looking one. I could not sleep for days."
- Mamadog5
The Cowardly Lion
"The lion in 'The Wizard of Oz..."
- seekthegiant
"Consider yourself lucky you weren't shown 'Return to Oz.' So much nightmare fuel. I still remember chunks 30 years later and I certainly haven't rewatched the thing."
- m0le
The Quaker Oats Man
"The Quaker Oats guy. He reminded me of Reverend Kane from 'Poltergeist.'"
- Ronnieb85
"I totally forgot I used to be afraid of this guy, lol (laughing out loud). My grandma always had some when I was a kid, and I don't know… He just had a creepy stare, and his eyes followed me no matter what."
- Fates_The_Great
The Loud Popping Noise
"Popping a balloon."
- SuvenPan
"When I was a kid, lots of birthday parties had a game that involved sitting on a balloon until it popped. I was terrified of that, but the adults made me do it anyway."
- UltraRunner42
Dun-Nuh Dun-Nuh Dun-Nuh, Shark Kite!
"Kites. Especially shark kites."
"When I was very little, family friends and my family went to fly kites in Sacramento. The older of the two boys had a shark kite and the corner of it poked him in the eye. There was blood everywhere and screaming/crying. After that, any kite being flown triggered me."
"Meanwhile, a year earlier a dog literally attacked my face… but did that deter me from loving dogs? H**l no. But a shark kite? No f**king way, man. Those things are dangerous."
- theWildBore
Omniscient Bears
"My brother and I used to set our stuffed animals/toys up and stare at them from a long distance using binoculars. We would take turns, but each of us could only last a few seconds before freaking out, squealing, and handing off the binoculars, because we were just CONVINCED that they were going to start moving or looking in our direction."
- AquamarineCheetah
"Toy Story: Horror Edition."
- madmonkeman
Theme Music
"'Unsolved Mysteries' intro song."
"I loved the show, but for some reason, the intro music scared the s**t out of me. Many times, I’d make a point to go to the bathroom when the song played so I didn’t have to hear it, lol (laughing out loud)."
- PhotographIcy600
'The Ring' Movie
"'The Ring' movie, which I never even saw. Someone recapped it and it haunted me for years…"
- Mr_Trumpets
"I would recommend that you never see it then. Because it is the images that stay with you."
- Dr_broadnoodle
"I had to unplug the TV in my room for like a month as a kid before I stopped being scared. It wasn't even a big enough TV for that b***h to crawl out of. It was probably a 12-inch screen."
- panda388
Something Out There
"UFOs. The first time I saw a spotlight in the sky (was a car dealer having an event), I nearly passed out. I was probably around 10."
- Ruseiriousmars
The Worst Possibility
"Those outdoor stairs where you could see through the steps down to the bottom, I was convinced I could fall through."
- LibraryVolunteer
"Or unfriendly hands reaching out to grab your ankles."
- Bladenkerst_Baenre
The Concept of Impermanence
"One of my earliest memories is of my mom telling me to hurry up and eat my ice cream before it melted. It was the first time I learned about things melting and that concept scared the s**t out of me for some reason."
- acct4dumbQs
Santa Claus
"I was terrified of Santa Claus as a kid. He just looked big, fat, and scary to me. He used to freak me out to the point of tears!"
- Elizabeth_Winters
"'He sees you when you’re sleeping.'"
- Madmonkeman
"You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. Santa Claus is coming to town."
"Are we sure this isn't a warning?"
- Outatime76
Spontaneous Combustion
"When I was a kid I watched a tv show about spontaneous human combustion while I was sick with the flu and was 100% CONVINCED I was going to burst into flames. The fever dreams afterwards did not help."
- Chapstickie
The Loading Sound
"The PS2 startup sound. I used it to play games and watch DVDs but I would turn it on then run and hide then wait for the 'scary part' to be over."
- plutodite222
"It's certainly kinda spooky, can't blame you for that."
- ooo-----D
We can all look back on our childhoods and point out things that we irrationally feared or believed, but while we may think those things are silly now, that will not change how the kid version of us perceived it back then.
While it may be funny now, it was pure nightmare fuel then.
Being home alone isn't always the most tranquil thing.
No one is there to help or protect you.
And things that go "bump" in the night... sometimes they do more than bump.
Redditor ag9910 wanted to hear about the times home felt like an unsafe place to be. They asked:
"What is the scariest, strangest, most unexplainable thing that has happened to you while home alone?"
I'm always freaked out when I'm home alone. Lights on. Yeah, my electric bill is high.
Dorothy?
Wind Conan Obrien GIF by Team CocoGiphy"I dreamed the front door blew open at the exact time the house alarm went off... I hopped up and sure enough, the front door was open. No intruder."
fatowl
I See You
"Not home alone but only one in right side of the house. Went to my mom's bathroom to wash my hands and saw a pair of feet behind the half open door. Laughed and said 'very funny Ma, I see you.' then finished up and left. Bumped into my mother in the kitchen unpacking, nobody else was in the house. I'm glad whatever was behind the door didn't peek out."
SatanWithFur
“It’s Doug!”
"One night I had forgotten to lock my apartment door and woke up in the middle of the night. My bedroom door was about 2 feet from my front door, as you walked into the apartment. First a big dog ran by, then a person. Holy crap I was so scared and I screeched 'Who is it?!?!!'"
"A man said 'It’s Doug!' As I was thinking to myself, who the f**k is Doug, he said 'oh, crap.' He turned around to go back out the front door saying 'Sorry.' I asked 'Didn’t you have a dog with you?' He said 'Oh, yeah. Hey, c’mon!.' He left, his dog ran out after him and I locked my front door."
"Edit: glad you all thought this was funny, because I did too, once my heart quit trying to beat right out of my chest! The next day the girls at work thought I was crazy for not being upset, but eh, done is done. Peace!"
scarletohairy
Confused...
"My sister and I were home alone and we heard someone big running up the stairs. The stairs make lots of noise with slight pressure so when there’s someone big on them you can tell. I went out of my room to check but saw no one anywhere and my sister also came out of her room and she asked if that was me I said no and we both looked around to see if there was anyone but found no one in the whole house. We were confused and called our parents and just waited until they got back and that was that."
JtSudbury04
I See You
Staring I See You GIF by QuikTripGiphy"I very clearly saw a guy walk into my room. But when I went after him there was nobody there. I checked in the closet, under my bed, everywhere one could hide in my room."
HighlyOffensive10
This is why home video surveillance is key.
"NO"
Season 5 No GIF by The OfficeGiphy"My parents were on a road trip, just left, and I sat down at my desk. I thought 'Weekend alone by myself' and a voice yelled into my right ear 'NO' so loud it hurt."
Th4ab
Wild
"I managed to lock myself out of my house on my birthday during a tornado while trying to bring my cats to the basement for safety. I later found out that the tornado was approximately a couple miles or less from me at that exact time. The sky was green and it got weirdly calm and then I could hear what sounded like a train coming before I found an unlocked window to climb through. Wild times."
SilverGnarwhal
Saturday morning in the 80s...
"I wasn't home alone but I was awake by myself one Saturday morning in the 80s when I was around 7 or so. I believe my mom was the only one home because my dad went to the lake to go fishing that weekend, and I'm not sure where my older brothers were, maybe they went with him, idk."
"Anyways, my mom's sleeping in, and I'm in the living room by myself, watching Saturday morning cartoons and making a fort out of sheets and cushions. Something made me turn around and I saw my dad in his pajamas standing in the hallway entrance with his hands on his hips, looking the mess I was making and shaking his head."
"He then turned around and walked into my room, which was just off the hallway entrance. Dude. I didn't even look, I just booked it to my parents room and woke my mom up. I don't remember what happened after that, this was around 35 years ago. And yes, my dad was fine, nothing had happened to him."
smriversong
Get the Bat...
"I was at home by myself on a call with some friends when all of a sudden my dog begins to bark like crazy, which was odd since it was the middle of the night and he's usually sleep. I go downstairs to check on him and find him barking at our hall closet, terrified I grabbed my bat that I keep in my room just in case and open the door. There was nothing out of usual at first at then I look down and notice a familiar looking object at the bottom of the closet."
"It was my mom's necklace she had lost when I was 9, (i'm 15 now just to put in perspective how long it's been). I showed it to my mom at breakfast and she was just as shocked as I was. I still have no clue how it got there or how my dog knew it was in there, definitely one of the oddest occurrences of my life."
SomeRandomIdiot14
Meow
Happy Cat GIF by ChubbiverseGiphy"Many years ago, I was 14 or so, my first night alone in the house when my parents were out. Lying on the living room floor reading, my cat sleeping next to me."
"Suddenly, cat wakes up, stares intently into the dark corner of the room behind me, hair on end, growls and then bolts out of the room and upstairs. I look behind me and see nothing, but follow cat upstairs and hide under the covers. Freaked me out."
LairdofWingHaven
Thank God for alarms. I hate being home alone.
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People Confess What They Saw As A Kid That Actually Gave Them Nightmares
Children are very impressionable. They're also little humans, remember, and all quite different. Some are more afraid of some things than others. When I was a kid, some of my classmates were utterly terrified of Chucky, the killer doll.
I think he worked the best in the first film and to a larger extent in the second, but after that? Those movies got a bit ridiculous, wouldn't you agree?
Well, the memories linger, as you can imagine.
People took us on a trip down memory lane after Redditor teacatpeng asked the online community,
"What’s something you saw (as a kid) that gave you nightmares for a long time?"
"Specifically..."
"The movie Signs. Specifically the scene where they are recording a home movie and catch the feet under the fence or something. Greetings from my nightmares extraterrestrials!"
Okenthusiam509
Oh Lord, this movie. I don't think it has aged well but it did pack a punch when I was younger.
"My young mind..."
The Fly (1986). My young mind was not ready for that movie.
thenightcrew88
To be fair, who is? Thanks, David Cronenberg!
"There was a TV movie..."
"There was a TV movie (Fire in the Sky?) I remember watching and all I can remember is a scary red sky and the guy laying on a table. Terrified me as a kid!"
Jefz
You are correct! The movie is indeed Fire in the Sky and it appears to have successfully traumatized an entire generation!
"My whole class..."
"I was around like nine or ten? My whole class saw one of the alcoholics in our town viciously beat his girlfriend right next to the school grounds. It was… a little bit traumatising."
UngusBungus
We're sorry you had to see that. This is devastating. Hopefully you were able to get some help afterward.
"I saw..."
I saw a car crash when I was about 7. I don't know if it is a result of that but I still have a phobia of driving and don't have a driving license at 26."
Lord-AG
Possibly? You'd be surprised how much is rooted in childhood fear!
"If you know..."
"Event Horizon. If you know, you know. If you don't know, you'll sleep better not knowing."
stx06
Oh, I definitely know. That movie was creepy. The final act loses its way a bit but wow, is the rest of the film effective.
"Scared the hell out of me..."
"The Exorcist - watched it during a sleepover at my friend’s house when I was 9. Scared the hell out of me and couldn’t sleep right for weeks afterward."
VictorBlimpmuscle
Who could blame you? It's amazing that this film continues to attract more fans each year. It's exceptional.
"Nightmares for weeks after..."
"I was about 7 or 8 years old when The Poseidon Adventure aired as a late night movie one evening when my parents were out and we had a babysitter. Nightmares for weeks after, and I wouldn't swim in pools that whole summer."
AmishH*eFights
Come to think of it, the 1970s disaster movie craze no doubt made some people think twiice about boarding a ship... or being in a high rise... or an airplane...
"I remember seeing..."
"I remember seeing a commercial for a horror movie when I was younger and it featured a scene where a woman's face was melting. It terrified me and gave me nightmares for weeks."
staffs-burglaries
Now I need to hunt this movie down! What could it be?
"My bedroom..."
"Poltergeist III. My bedroom had a wall of mirrors in it at the time. I still have a hard time looking in a mirror if the lights are off."
willowgrl
The scene you're mentioning is probably the most effective one in the film and by then the series had definitely overstayed its welcome.
Are some of these posts bringing back some unsettling memories? We apologize in advance. You probably saw more scary movies than you remember, come to think of it.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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"One, two, Freddy's coming for you..." Sound familiar? It should.
The burn victim that terrorized children in their sleep from the popular Nightmare on Elm Street movies kept many moviegoing audiences up at night.
And while some of these horrifying images seen in the films were purely fictional, people continued struggling with some of their own, very real, night terrors.
Curious to hear from strangers online who have a hard time sleeping because of their nightmares, Redditor 999beersonthewall asked:
"What is a regular theme in your nightmares?"
For many students, going to school in itself can be a nightmare. Even more so after they have long graduated.
Perpetual Student
"I dream that I have to go to school in the morning, even though I am 30 years old."
Upcoming Final
"I have nightmares that I have to do a final for a class I didn't know I was registered for and didn't do any work for and I've been out of school for 5 years."
A List Of Dilemmas
"I'm 48 and I still have high school and college nightmares featuring -"
- I can't find my locker
- I don't know my combination
- I don't know where my classes are
- I forgot to go to a class all semester and it's either (a) final exam day OR (b) I was supposed to do a group project
- I forgot to do a major assignment and I fail the class
- I can't find my car at the end of the day
"And more!"
Incomplete Assignments
"Or class neglect. I still have dreams im 10 years behind on assignments at a 3 month class im apparently still taking at community college."
Something is always after these Redditors, and only the alarm clock can bring them out of the situation.
Always Being Pursued
"Being chased. I've always had that as a theme in my nightmares. When I was a kid, it was usually a T-Rex."
"When I got older, I had a six month period where I had the same nightmare of being stalked almost every night."
"Since then, it's often something unseen chasing me."
"It's always a very feral feeling - like, I'm moving and I just know something's after me. It's like I move on instinct."
– Barl0we
Slow Runner
"In my dreams of being chased I can't run fast. It's like I'm trying to run through molasses."
Glute Ghouls
"I used to get chased in my grandmothers basement by a giant @ss cheek monsters when I was a kid."
Certain fears have been realized in these Redditors' dreams.
Lack Of Air
"I have falling dreams, and then I land in a body of water and drown. This actually makes a lot of sense, my heart rate is always super low when I sleep and I'm probably literally not getting enough oxygen irl so I feel like I'm drowning in my dreams."
Loose Gums
"One tooth feels wobbly, and then as I go on to see what's happening to it, it just falls out, and one by one all of my teeth are in my hands."
Mechanical Failure
"My car brakes never fully work. They only slow the car down, but I can never fully stop. It's weird."
– Smite76
Disconnnected
"Needing to call for help or use my phone but it glitches out in my dream and wont work."
Nightmares having to do with locating a bathroom is apparently a thing.
Pee Shy
"Needing to pee but there is no toilet around. Or if there is, it is not separated from the rest of the room so everyone can see you."
"This is me too. Sometimes it's a deuce I need to drop. Sometimes I can't because the toilet is completely filthy. At least once I couldn't take a sh*t because Anne Hathaway was trying to talk to me and I didn't want to be rude."
"I did not, contrary to popular belief, actually do the deed in my bed, however."
No Normal Toilets
"I have a reoccurring dream where I'm trying to go to the bathroom but there are no stall doors, just random toilets scattered in a room, various sizes, makes and models and they are all disgusting."
"I get home and my own toilet has exploded and the shower is just spraying water onto the floor because there is mysteriously no tub."
"I have not once been able to dream of a normal bathroom and I am a lucid dreamer. I think my goal tonight will be to dream of a nice bathroom with ONE CLEAN GOLDEN toilet!"
A recurring nightmare for me has nothing to do with masked maniacs wielding a mask and chasing me down a dark street or demons eating me alive.
My night terrors are steeped in reality—as with many of the Redditors above—where I go onstage as an unprepared understudy for a Broadway show and I forget my lines, or I realize I missed taking a class at university that could result in me not graduating.
Yeah, very scary stuff, because they could actually happen!
Give me Freddy or Jason anytime.
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Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay |
Life is hard. It's a miracle to make it through with some semblance of sanity. We are all plagued by grief and trauma. More and more people of all backgrounds are opening up about personal trauma and its origins. Finally! For far too long we've been too silent on this topic. And with so many people unable to afford mental health care, the outcomes can be damaging.
All of our childhoods have ups and downs and memories that can play out like nightmares. We carry that, or it follows us and the first step in recovery is talking about it. So who feels strong enough to speak?
Redditor u/nthn_thms wanted to see who was willing to share about things they'd probably rather forget, by asking:
What's the most traumatizing thing you experienced as a child?
I am claustrophobic. It paralyzes my life. I can't ride elevators. I freak out at amusement parks. And don't get me started on trains in New York that get stuck in the tunnel. Why am I like this?
The Uncle
"I was about 7 or 8 when I heard some noise coming from the garage. My mom was at work and I was being babysat by one of my uncles. I went to open the garage to find my other uncle strangling his girlfriend up against the car. She had blood coming out of her nose and mouth. I just froze and stood there staring and my uncle didn't even notice and continued choking and strangling her."
"My other uncle came to the door where I was standing saw what was happening and grabbed me. He called my mom and then the police who later came and arrested my uncle. There's more to this story I wasn't privy to at such a young age. But yeah my other uncle is crazy. He's been to jail a few times, has anger and control issues."
- RedTWL
Filth
"Going to another person's house and realizing that living in filth and decay and having breathing problems isn't the norm. Having dinner every night and a clean room was just a regular day in their household. Grass is always greener right? Especially when yours is dead and everyone from school thinks your house is haunted. Smh good riddance."
Grandpa
"Watching my grandpa slowly waste away on our living room couch. He had a paraganglioma on his pancreas, and there was nothing (especially in 1980) that could be done for him. I was four, and he was my favorite person, and I couldn't sit with him, or hug him, or anything. I miss him even after 40 years. Either that or my best friend dying over Christmas break in 1988. I miss her too. I pretty much hated everything after that."
Swept Away
"I saw my Dad get swept away and drowned when I was 11. It's really something I've never recovered from. It's been 16 years and not a day goes by I don't remember it. I live with it. I think we have to for those who we've lost. I always kind of imagine it as a sort of like an emotional loss of a limb. I haven't lost a limb, but I imagine you adapt to not having it. You learn. But you never forget you are missing an arm or a leg."
It's taken me years to confront my struggle. Finally a little while ago, I tried hypnotherapy and I was able to recover a childhood memory that manifested into my phobia. I was trapped in handcuffs as a joke by my babysitter's brother. Six hours.
I wish...
"The older I got through my teens, the more my step-father's alcoholism spiralled out of control, and the more I was biding my time until I was 18 and would head off to college. Education was my only escape in my mind. Every instance of physical and emotional abuse had to be met with, "just shut up and take it, it'll be over someday." Really wish I could give that kid who slept on the floor of a three-bedroom trailer a hug and say that he'd make it out and get a master's degree. I feel like I just won a decade-long war."
Bouncy
"I had a dog that I absolutely loved. I begged for this dog in a Walmart parking lot a week before my 3rd birthday, my mom said I could have the dog but that meant no birthday presents or cake just the dog (she lied, I got presents, cake, and dog.) This dog went everywhere with me and did everything with me. Despite being a tiny mutt he would do his best to protect me from our Doberman who did not like me."
"In fairness to the doberman, as a 2 yr old I did stomp on his nuts for some unbeknownst reason so no hard feelings on not liking me. When I was 5 my mom became a truck driver so we moved in with my grandparents on their farm. While I was at school one day Bouncy had gotten into the fence with the donkeys and was kicked in the head."
"When I got off the bus I couldn't figure out why he wasn't waiting on me. My grandparents met me outside and told me what happened, then walked me in to where he was. He died 30 minutes after I got home like he was waiting to see me. I haven't been able to bond with a pet since."
911 Operators Break Down The Strangest Call They've Ever Received | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
The Collie
"I saw our neighbor's collie killed by a driver speeding through the neighborhood. As a young boy, it had real impact because I loved her, and it hurt when he stuck his head out the driver's door window, grinned, and just sped off - leaving the dog dead in the road and me - a kid - in tears. As I once commented, how anyone could be so callous and cruel was beyond my imagination."
Flames
"I actually don't remember the event much, but when I was really young (~6years old) I was playing outside and I heard a woman screaming. I was curious so I went across the street to see a bunch of smoke coming out of the cracks in the front door. Didn't see any flames initially so I didn't put two and two together right away. My Dad saw me across the street in the driveway just staring at the house and when he investigated what I was doing he realized the house was on fire. Whole house burnt down."
"Older woman fell asleep on her couch with a lit cigarette. I was traumatized by fire as a kid and I was petrified about burning alive in my sleep for quite some time. Dad had to install a fire escape ladder in my room, fire extinguishers, etc. I was obsessed with what to do in case of fires as a kid. No longer an issue, but my parents still tell me stories about how they knew that messed me up."
- grob33
Kitty
"I was 12 and sat down at the edge of a sidewalk to pet a cat crossing the road. I lived on a very quiet, but wide street. Even if a car drove by, there would've been a lot of room, as I was in an area reserved for parallel parking. (No cars were parked though). All of a sudden a big red car sped up and swerved to hit the cat. It missed me by inches, and instantly killed the cat. It was decades ago, and I still think about it often."
Mom
"Oh, hands down, my mother alcoholism. It really messes you up in ways that you cannot imagine. And you don't even realize that until years after. I still can't drink alcohol because of it, it terrifies me to even entertain the possibility to become something close to her."
- Matrozi
Blackout
"My mom was helping me with my homework in kindergarten. I needed to identify letters. Eventually we got to a lower case 'a' which I couldn't identify, because in that typeface lower case 'a' is different from how I had been taught to write that letter. My mother must have had a bad day or maybe she really didn't like helping me."
"Rather than correcting me, she just repeated told me to identify the letter and she got more and more frustrated as I failed to answer correctly. She began screaming at me, saying that I was being stupid on purpose and that she wouldn't accept that one of her children could be this dumb."
"Eventually she grabbed me by the neck and lifted/choked me as she slammed me into the wall and continued screaming at me. Things started going black, but she released me before I lost consciousness and I collapsed to the ground. She yelled at me more and pinched my ear hard, pulling me up by the ear and forcing me back into the chair. She told me to finish my homework by myself and left."
"I didn't ask her for help on my homework again. Unfortunately the work my school gave me in elementary school pretty much required adult supervision, so I just do as much as I could and lie if my mom asked. This of course made my grades suffer. My grades recovered around grade 7, because I had taught myself to study and didn't need adult help."
"She choked me like that on several occasions, because she really didn't need a reason to be violent. At some point I realized that she never touched my brothers. She stopped once I had grown to be taller than her at around the age of thirteen. Then if she was angry she'd scream at me, and threaten to call the police and tell them that I attacked her."
- dring157
Comatose
"I woke up during surgery when I had cancer, the vein they were using for the anesthetic collapsed and I wasn't being dosed. I woke up, punched a nurse in the head, yanked out my intubation equipment, aspirated, then proceeded to fight 11 doctors nurses and guards while they fuzzy cuffed my cancer riddled self to the bed. Stayed in a 6 day induced coma after that."
The Bad Guy
"Mine wasn't as traumatising as others I'm reading in this thread but here we go: my dad knows some dodgy people. That's because when he was younger he dropped out of school to play guitar and do drugs etc, until he hit 30 and changed completely lifestyle, when he met my mother and started getting into religion etc. My town is fairly small, so when you went around the centre you'd often meet these people, and although my dad wasn't friend with these people anymore, he'd still stop and say hi."
"One time, I was about 6-7 yo, we meet one of them, and after he take my hands and compliments me, he grabs me and start running. My dad runs after him and eventually stop him by grabbing him by an arm and almost getting him on the floor. My dad told me he just wanted to play with me, like a game. Thinking about it now, it gives me chills."
Slammed!
"Mild for most people, but trauma is trauma. My third grade teacher slammed the lid of the piano down on my little hands and screamed in my face "nobody wants to hear you play!" I am still struggling with that as a 61 year old musician. The crap sticks in your head."
Crash
"When I was 7 my dad, sister, and I got into a motorcycle crash. We were passing by a curve and there was a dog crossing the road, my dad didn't want to hit the dog so he swerved right. For some reason the dog decided to run back to the other side of the road, and it hit the back wheel of the motorcycle. My dad lost control and the motorcycle ended up falling. We were going a bit fast and I was in front, so when the motorcycle fell it kind of just kept drifting for 6 more feet with my face being dragged."
"I ended up with so much wounds on my face and arms, most of the scars remained years. I'm 17 now and I only have one scar left on my face. I've thankfully gotten the courage to ride motorcycles again, but whenever we pass by the place we crashed, I get really anxious."
- nyxnobad
Burns
"Well, when I was 11 a fellow boy scout playing with fire panicked threw burning camp fuel around which landed on me and lit me on fire. I was in the burn ward for a month before they peeled skin from one side of my leg to graft onto the buns. That was pretty traumatic."
Permanently...
"Probably my parents divorce. It was messy. There were several months where my mom won custody of my brother and I (except on weekends) but our dad won the house so we were homeless and living at my nan's place (grandmother on my mom's side, we called her Nan or Nanny)."
"It certainly effected us, mom worked full time to buy a new house, which wasn't paid off till like last year (I was 10-12 at the time, I'm 29 now) and that time alone really caused my brother and I to develop as completely different people. My dad, while never physically abusive, was very verbally abusive, regularly screaming at both my brother and I that we're stupid, worthless, lazy idiots."
"He didn't really realise that he'd completely alienated his only children till a few years after my brother cut off all contact with him, when I too snapped at him and cut off contact. Since then he's tried to change to get back into our good graces and while we're willing to forgive, both of our tolerances for his old rage BS is at an absolute ZERO. He yells at us one more time, that's it, he's done. Permanently."
I survived. But, I'm still haunted. I think I always will be. But I have learned to manage. We all struggle with the past. We were too young to process. But now we have to try. You're not alone.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/