People Confess The Scariest Thing Their Spouse Ever Said To Them
Reddit user i_like_purple_clouds asked: 'What is the scariest thing your spouse ever said to you?'
Content Warning: Mental Health, Suicide, Suicidal Ideation, Violence
It's so hard to know what someone else is thinking or going through.
Even when they tell us, it can be difficult to fathom the feeling without living it ourselves.
Because of this, sometimes a person can really surprise us by saying something we never expected, even the people we love the most in the world.
Redditor i_like_purple clouds asked:
"What is the scariest thing your spouse ever said to you?"
Absolute Nightmares
"'Look at all those snakes on the ceiling!'"
"It was the middle of the night. He was actually fast asleep. There were no snakes."
- morganafiolett
"My ex was an arachnophobe, and my son had a fever dream/nightmare and was very distressed, screaming that he had woken up and seen 'tarantulas' scuttling into the corners of the underside of the upper bunk of his bunk bed."
"I was doing that, 'Honey, you're very sick, and you've been asleep, and I know it feels very real, but I promise you that there are no spiders...' speech when my ex just ran in, scooped up the boy, and hollered, 'F**k that noise, woman! Call me when you've flipped the mattresses!!' and legit ran out of the apartment with kiddo, lol (laughing out loud)."
"This annoyed me to no end at the time, but my son later told me that my ex made him feel very heard."
- kifferella
Their Reason for Living
"'There are times when I only wake up because I know you're here.'"
- Foreveridosyncratic
"Very sweet, but it would break my heart to hear, which is exactly why I don't say it to my husband, even when it feels true."
- Silhouette_Edge
That Familiar Heart Stitch
"'I think I'm having a heart attack.'"
"It was her first panic attack. I broke every law driving her to the hospital. Thankfully she's doing better now."
- HyliaSerket
"I said this to my fiancé last winter after (being in the process of) getting diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia. I woke him up SOBBING in the middle of the night when he was dead asleep and said, 'I think I’m having a heart attack.'"
"Poor guy. It’s insane how a panic attack can mimic a heart attack. My arm even went numb/tingly!"
- SummerSunset8
Truth Mid-Session
"During our first marriage counseling session, we were asked about our goals for this session. She said, 'I don’t want this to work.'"
"And it did not work. That was the end of our marriage. At the time, it was the scariest moment of my life. Today, three years later, I can honestly say neither of us was happy and needed some help."
"Therapy works. Sometimes honesty hurts and revelations are hard."
- ATENFOOTTURD
Always, Always Ask For Help
"'I thought about hanging myself in the garage last night.' That was my husband when he finally told me how bad he was struggling with his mental health."
"I had no idea he was in such a dark place. Hearing that come out of his mouth both scared the s**t out of me and ripped my heart out."
- heyypeach
The Ultimatum
"'If this is what being with you for the rest of my life is going to be like, I want out right now.'"
"This was said six months into my second marriage."
"I finally heard it: that I was damaged and that I needed help."
"I immediately found a therapist and went steadily for 10 years. It was hard as f**k. Lots of uncomfortable times."
"But it changed me. We are together now pretty f**king happily, 23 years with now two amazing kids. S**t doesn’t have to last forever."
- um8medoit
What's with the Lights?
"'All the lights downstairs just went on. There is someone in our house...'"
"I was on a business trip and my wife called me at 3:00 AM. Never felt so helpless in my life."
"She called the police and they searched our home from top to bottom but we never found out who switched on every single light on the ground floor!"
- GnOeLLLmPF
"Our basement was like this. My husband kept blaming me for leaving the light on, but I had stopped going down there because I was pregnant and didn't want to do unnecessary stairs."
"When he, quite upset at me for continuing to do what irked him so much, told me, 'Can you stop leaving lights on, I'm the one who has to pay the power bill,' and I was like, 'Actually, I haven't been down there in weeks.'"
"I assumed the basement was haunted or we had someone secretly living down there (unlikely because we have security set up... And dogs). But it turns out one of the light switches (the type with a dimmer) was just broken. You'd turn it off and leave the room... But then a few minutes later it would short and turn back on."
- evange
Undervaluing Themselves
"At her lowest point of depression, whilst out shopping, with no apparent trigger, she deadpanned, 'You'd be better off if I didn't come home.'
"Fortunately, she got out of that rut, but doesn't remember saying it and how much it terrified me."
- takesbribes
A Secret Life
"I discovered he was addicted to cocaine. It was completely out of the blue. I would have never found out if I hadn’t stained my shirt and had to go home to change and walked in on him snorting a fat rail at 1:39 PM on a random Tuesday."
"I gave him an ultimatum: my support during rehab unconditionally, or we completely part ways if you want to continue snorting coke all day."
"He said, 'The coke, I don’t want to talk to you.'"
"He chose coke and we divorced, and I have no idea whether he is alive or dead. Frankly, the man I married never actually existed. I have such a bad picker I’ve decided to just give up."
- Glldinkiering
"Honestly, bless him for being straightforward and allowing you to get out quickly. He could have taken you through multiple years of hell of trying to get clean and relapsing over and over. Staying home to do lines alone on a random Tuesday is pretty deep in it, so it's a blessing you caught him that day and got out."
- anoidciv
"He also did me a solid by insisting we have a prenuptial agreement which protected me when his @ss was sued into oblivion by his business partners for embezzling money for coke."
- Glldinkiering
Terrible News
"'I've been in an accident...'"
- Ok-Detective-1721
"I’ve been that guy, she happened to call me as I was being lifted into the ambulance with my head smashed after being hit by a car. I had regained consciousness only seconds earlier."
"Somehow I had the presence of mind to phrase it, 'I’m okay, but I have to go to hospital because I’ve had an accident.'"
- lilgreenrosetta
Bad Dreams Love Company
"'Who’s that standing in the corner?' she said at 2:00 AM while sitting up in bed and pointing towards the corner."
"I was still half asleep but freaking out and then she just laid back down and continued sleeping like nothing happened. No one was in the corner."
- futbo2
"One time I got out of bed to use the bathroom, and as I crossed in front of the bed my wife sat up and started screaming like nothing I’ve ever heard."
"I had an injury that has had me sleeping with extra pillows to position my body comfortably since I was early twenties. The pillows made it look in the dark like I was still asleep next to her. So when she saw me crossing in front of the bed, she thought someone had broken in and was in our room."
- PerfectionPending
Unwelcome Houseguests
"She was filling our water bottles before coming to bed and I was just on my phone in bed. I heard her come up the stairs almost like she tripped on the last step because she usually misses that last one."
"Just as I’m getting up to go see if she’s alright, she comes flying through the bedroom door closing it behind her. I never saw her scared like this and I was confused until she said, 'Something just followed me up the stairs.'"
"I nearly s**t myself, that type of fear where tears spring to your eyes and your stomach knots."
"I’m not sure what I would have done if it was just the two of us alone in the house. (There were others, but they were in their room and asleep.)"
"At first, I thought it was the dog, but she confirmed it was very much not. There was nothing there. She claims it was a large black mass behind her that she could hear. We both had a bit of trouble going to sleep that night."
- MonsterMontvalo
"My best friend was at a friend's house and had a dark mass behind him, over his shoulder, and looking down on him."
"In the middle of the night on the way to the restroom, he felt it. He paused for he didn’t know how long, 10 seconds or 10 minutes, he couldn’t say. Then he looked up and saw it in a mirror at the end of the hall. He sprinted to the restroom and stayed there until the sun came up."
"His friend said he looked terrible in the morning and he responded by saying he saw something last night."
"His friend said, 'Oh man, talk to Mom about it.'"
"He told the Mom about the experience, and she asked, 'Was it the light one or the dark one?'
"Dark one. 'Ok good, the light one is mean.' And that’s all that was said."
- M_n_Ms
F**k Cancer
"'I’m tired and want to go home.'"
"He died six hours later, after only fighting cancer for six weeks."
- Bulky-Tomatillo-1705
"She told me, 'I want to die at home.'"
"She had been battling cancer for five weeks and wanted to be home. She had a few weeks with me and died eight weeks after the inital diagnosis. F**k cancer."
- kazz-wizz
Talk... About What?!
"We need to talk when you get home."
"Folks, I spent the next six hours going over every possible thing I could have done wrong to warrant that response. We were in the middle of buying a house and planning our wedding and I thought everything could possibly be crumbling."
"Turns out my darling wife, the love of my life, and my best friend missed the f**king memo of what 'we need to talk' means in a relationship and wanted to talk to me about CARPETING FOR THE HOUSE."
"That conversation happened over a dozen years ago at this point and I still remind her from time to time about how she almost gave me a heart attack."
"To this day, she thinks it's hilarious."
- Trendsa
Brutal, To Be Honest
"Good god, I have to stop reading these. So much heartbreak here."
"It’s good to be reminded to not take things for granted in good times."
- slaphappypap
This conversation was a great example of how little we might know of what's going on in someone's head, even if it's the person we love the most in the world.
But at least in these Redditors' cases, their partners were willing to share this information with them, which gave them an opportunity to make the situation better.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
I have seen many a scary movie.
A horror movie done right can haunt you forever.
Have you seen "The Exorcist?"
Good Lord.
I don't know if I'm ready for the new sequel.
I love to be a little frightened by a movie.
But haunted for life is a different story.
Plus, I can't sleep with the lights on...
Redditor Specialist-Crazy1466 wanted to hear which movies we still see in our nightmares, so they asked:
"What is the scariest movie you ever watched?"
Some scary movies give me heart palpitations.
So I try to be picky about the stories I watch.
The Balance
the descent horror GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphy"The Descent. Horrible monsters mixed with darkness and claustrophobia makes a scary movie."
itsminimal
"I was looking for this movie. Imo this film is the perfect balance between bloody, physical horror and actual psychological terror."
AkiraN19
Too Much
"White Noise. Wasn't scary when I watched it in the theater but became VERY scary when my car stereo only picked up static the whole ride home."
stfupcakes
"Oh damn, that was so good. I worked at a video store in ~1996 or so, and a coworker put it on. I was mesmerized. I later took it home and watched it in the dark, as you should, and damn. That's a masterpiece."
Far_Blueberry_2375
"Took my high school girlfriend to it, and she was in tears she was so scared. Almost 20 years later, and she still freaks out if I bring it up."
Prp076
Chilling
"The Day After... I watched it when I was a kid and it absolutely terrified me. When it originally aired, ABC had to set up a phone hotline with counselors standing by. It's one of the scariest depictions of nuclear war in film in my opinion. Chilling."
scarletmanuka
"I've been thinking about these movies, and how unrealistic they are. We all just survived a pandemic. What happened? Things were bad, tent hospital, turned away, truck morgues. And people just... learned to bake bread. Made music."
"Gave up offices and started doing things for their neighbors. Nuclear war would be obviously, a horrific shitshow and not to be entertained, but I really believe, we'd come together and make a good world after. It wouldn't be the complete collapse of our humanity, and the rest can be rebuilt."
Cheap_Doctor_1994
The Splatter
"The Grudge. I don't know why, but this f**king thing is so scary. I had to pause it. Never had this before. Even the worst splatter is nothing for me, but this... No."
Yggdrafenrir20
"It was when the lady got sucked into the bed when she was hiding under the covers. Like they took away my only defense in the dark as a kid."
Colossus245
"I had the same reaction. Something about it just made my skin crawl in a way that other similar movies like The Ring didn't. For several years afterward whenever I had a nightmare, the grudge lady was somehow involved. Yugh."
JonEleven
Turn it Off
Happy Got You GIF by BounceGiphy"There are definitely better movies, but Sinister has always scared the crap out of me. It took me 2 tries to watch it. It’s the only movie I’ve ever turned off from being so scared."
Cobonmycorn
Never saw Sinister.
And now I know to skip it.
My nightmares are bad enough.
"The Thing. My first viewing was at night, and I was maybe 5 or 6. It scared me so bad I only watched subsequent viewings during the day until I matured a little more."
Same-Reaction7944
Never Again
“'The Ring' when I was 9 or 10, that was scary."
DelusionalGorilla
"I saw it in my 30s, on pain meds for kidney stones, while my wife and kids were away. The thing that freaked me out the most was that in the middle-end of the film someone called me from an unknown number and hung up."
EnIdiot
"It's the only movie I absolutely refuse to watch ever again. I saw it ONCE as a kid and I'm 30 now. I still have occasional nightmares about it. Sometimes I'll be eating and this movie will pop into my head for NO REASON and I lose my appetite completely. I'm haunted by it."
guiltyonallcharges
Too Much too Handle
"Event Horizon... or maybe Pandorum."
Nulltan
"Worth noting Event Horizon is one of the most famous cases in the lost media community. It had 30 minute cut for being too grim for the test audiences. 30. Minutes. While some scenes did make their way to the 2006 DVD, most of it is considered most likely lost for good barring some miraculous surprise discovery."
"You can read about what was cut at the Lost Media Wiki here: https://lostmediawiki.com/Event_Horizon_(partially_lost_unreleased_130-minute_cut_of_sci-fi_horror_film;_1997)"
Lights On
"The Exorcism of Emily Rose. I kept waking up at 3 am on the money for weeks afterward. Didn’t help that I found and listened to the original tape-recorded material of her speaking fluidly in different languages while being exorcised."
Opening-Ad-3775
"This is it for me. I watched it in theaters when my boyfriend was out of town. I went home and slept with the lights on. I love scary movies and had never done that before or since. I’m going to have to look for those tapes!"
LostintheLand
Wobbled
kathy bates misery GIFGiphy"Misery. My knees were wobbling when I walked out of the theatre. No more Stephen King for me."
suzymwg
"I watched that while dealing with a stalker. Horrible choice."
sethro919
I love scary movies, but some of these sound like a step too far.
Misery still haunts me.
CW: Graphic stories and experiences.
Life is full of all kinds of events.
Events and things we can never unsee.
Or actions we can never undo.
I don't know if there is any way to be prepared to see the worst of life or to find yourself involved in such things.
It all just seems to happen.
A dark twist and turn can be just around each and every corner.
Redditor Similar_Helicopter27 wanted to see who would share about some of life's darker moments, so they asked:
"What's the most f**ked up thing you’ve ever did/saw?"
I've witnessed muggings and car accidents.
That's why I try not to leave the house.
Bounced Back
Kid Dancing GIFGiphy"I saw my little brother getting hit by a car and flying a few meters through the air when he was only 6 years old. Fortunately he didn’t even break a bone but damn, I‘ll never forget this."
ShaiHuludTheFirst
In a matter of seconds...
"The most f**ked up thing I’ve seen was a guy who had just been in a motorcycle accident bleeding out on the side of the freeway. He was clenching onto the hand of the girl who was the driver of the car involved. She was crying hysterically. I saw his hand turn white in a matter of seconds. I remember it whenever I see someone on a bike."
Mellopiex
Like a Movie
"I witnessed a bad car accident once. The car launched off of an overpass as I went under it. The car flipped several times. It was like something out of a movie. I was the first person on the scene, my wife called 911. It was not a pretty sight. wasn't much left of the person's body."
Upbeat-Character-938
That's a NYC Story
Bored Episode 15 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy"Found a dead body on the sidewalk in front of my building on my third day living in NYC. When I told my supervisor about it at work, hoping to process it with someone, she just kind of brushed it off like 'welcome to New York.'"
quinnards
Only in New York is a dead person on the street just another ordinary day.
3AM
excuse me wtf GIF by Chicago FireGiphy"I tripped over a dead body in tall grass working an accident trying to find the missing passenger. It was 3am and raining."
HAWMadden
It was spiritually bad
"I worked for a horse training ranch for a month when I was a kid. Me and the dude I worked with found a cow that had been dead for a while out in the field. It was bloated and gonna' blow soon. We did not engage with the cow, we weren't prepared for a clean up that day."
"When we came back prepared for cleaning the next day it had ruptured and the smell was life changing. It was spiritually bad. Since I was basically an unpaid intern, the paid guys told me to take a hike. 14 year old me took a hike. I was a hard working kid and they knew it so let me off with that one."
ProfessorWhat42
Poor Baby
"The photo evidence for a child murder case that they showed in court when I worked for the department of human services. The parents wanted to retain custody of their older son which is why they were involved with CPS. I was 22. There were just countless pages we had to look at while the expert witnesses explained what we were seeing. The images are burned into my brain forever, and I’ll never forget his name as long as I live. That poor baby."
FloridaMomm
The Boy
"Saw a kid I knew get hit by a car, flip through the air, jump up and picked up one of his shoes and then collapse and got airlifted out. The rest of us were sitting on the corner eating hamburgers. Never saw him again. They said he was paralyzed."
"I brought his banged up bike and glasses and shoes back to my house but they never got picked up. My dad was on the volunteer fire department and managed the Medivac landing and was first on scene because we only lived a few doors down."
unwittyusername42
Silence
Sad Rabbit GIF by Muffin & NutsGiphy"Watching a car traveling at about 130mph in my rear view mirror almost hit me but instead hit the base of a bridge, the crunching sound then bodies flying everywhere, then total silence."
PinotGreasy
"The instant silence after so much noise is odd it is like a second but almost feels like several minutes of pure peacefulness then bam the sound is back and everything is crazy."
Ok_Dog_4059
Well, that is a lot of nightmares being relived.
Bless you all for sharing.
Kidnappers, neighborhood murders, robbers in the dark...
Yes, growing up in NYC was a load of fun.
But I'm not an anomaly.
All of these things are happening around us at any given moment.
It's why we turn back quickly when the wind picks up the leaves.
Is there something in the shadows?
Things are going to spook us and make a dark impact on our lives.
It's just a fact.
Redditor LBE wanted to hear about the times in life we've all been left with unease and shivers down the spine.
"What is the Creepiest or most Unexplained thing that’s happened to you that you still think about to this day?"
Noises. My creepiest enemy is simple noises. I've wasted hours hunting small noises that could be someone hiding. I'm always on guard.
Vanished...
"To this day, there was a kid in my class that no one else remembers. I distinctly remember playing with this kid in kindergarten, and we were pretty much inseparable. About a month past Christmas break he disappeared. No one remembered him."
"Not the teachers, or the others in my class. No one. I even asked the school counselor if he was okay, and she humored me by going through records to see if he’d transferred. She couldn’t find a thing. I think about it at least once a month."
CrippledUnironically
Deliverance
"Was delivering newspapers on my paper route when a longtime customer pulled his car next to me and asked me to just give him his daily newspaper now because he was going on a long trip. I handed him his newspaper then skipped his house as I continued my route."
"The next day I was collecting the weekly fees (you used to have to go collect the money back then, no internet payment yet) and I went to his house to collect my fee. His wife answers and promptly complains that I missed her house on my deliveries the day before."
"I explained to her that her husband pulled up next to me, I told her what he said and that I gave him the paper. She started crying, told me that he had died a couple weeks ago and it was obviously not possible that I spoke with her husband the day before."
"I know what I saw and nearly 30 years later I still think about that situation. I have no way to logically explain what happened and it still give me the creeps."
avionchef
All Black...
"I have a weird memory that's not mine; I'm a small boy with a suit and tie, I'm at a party in a huge ceremonial church or something and there's lots of men and women wearing fancy black clothes, they all get in a circle its the middle of the day light was brightly coming in through the windows and there are old-ish couple dancing in the middle of the circle with some very classy/fancy music."
"And I was trying to look at them through people's legs, suddenly the man falls, no gunshots no one did anything to him and then the second he falls everyone starts screaming, people were running away but the men were running towards him, I think I was trampled because I was lying on the floor and then everything goes black."
"That's all I can remember. This is a clear memory that has stuck with me since I can remember, I'm really creeped out because I know that memory isn't mine, I've never gone to a fancy party in a church when I was little and I don't know what happened to that man because I fell over."
waterbottleman8000
Spooked
"Driving home from work late one night I was followed and it was weird. I left the hospital and turned off the main road to a bunch of side streets I would take. At one point I noticed a car behind me that made the same left turn as me. They sped up to get behind me. I thought nothing of it. Then I briefly thought about running to 7-11 to grab some food and turned on my right signal."
"But I realized I had food at home, so I turned my signal off. The car behind me turned on their right signal and turned it off as well exactly as I had. At that point I got a bit spooked. So I turned my right signal on and they did as well. Instead at the next intersection I turned left even though my right signal was on. They did as well. They proceeded to follow me through a series of odd turns."
"Eventually I turned onto a cul-de-sac I knew about and figured I could turn around there and look at the driver to see who was following me. As I approached the end of the road they figured out what I was doing. They stopped and did a fast k-turn and sped off. It was weird. Still don’t know who it was."
BiologyJ
Bad Vibes
"This didn't exactly happen to me, but I got some backlash and bad vibes from it. My best friend and his mom were moving out of their house (they were the only ones living in the house) and he went to take one last selfie in his room. When he showed the picture to his mom, she goes 'Who is that?"
"Upon further inspection he notices there was a straight up white face almost like a mask looking over his shoulder from the attic hatch above his room. He always heard things from the attic but never saw anything. A few weeks later we went on a wrestling trip and stayed in a hotel. He showed the pic around to everyone in our room, and then some spooky things started happening."
"In our room we began hearing knocks on our door when nobody was there. We also saw flashes or glimpses of a figure in the mirror in our room. Everyone was a little freaked out about it and thought it could be the demon from the picture, and my friend who took it became so paranoid he played bible verses to ward any demons off all night. He said ever since he took that picture he has had weird things happen to him."
Xander20021
Always listen to your bad vibes. They know all...
The Grunt
"I would cut weight/train for wrestling in high school, which meant a lot of dark-night runs at the middle school track. It was an old gravel one close to the woods with no lights. I didn't like running at the high school track for some reason so I'd just go there. I'd hold my phone to time my laps and one night while I was looking down at it, someone tackled me out of nowhere."
"We rolled around on the ground and he never said a word. Just grunted. Luckily, I got up and ran towards the middle school. I ran into some people and they called the cops. I left all of my stuff behind and he didn't take any of it. It was pretty strange."
Dragoevsky
3:21
"Driving from Northern California to Southern California through the middle of the night about a decade ago. I was tired, and the scenery along the freeway through the central valley isn't very interesting. I remember passing an old silo, looking at my car clock and it was 3:17 in the morning."
"Drove some more, passed a powerline, and it was 3:21."
"I blinked, shuffled in my seat, and passed that same old silo, and it was back to 3:17. I was in disbelief. I just stared at my clock for a few moments."
"Drove a little bit more, passed the same powerline, 3:21. Don't know why or how, but I went backwards about 4 minutes. Never experienced anything similar or since."
haysus25
Meow...
"A random cat on the street once protected me from a man who I didn't realize was following me."
"I was (stupidly) talking on my phone while walking home at night. I saw a man who was talking to himself near a park and I deliberately chose to walk down another street to avoid him. In the middle of my phone conversation, this orange cat comes up beside me and starts walking next to me."
"We walk in tandem for about three blocks, me telling the person I was talking to how funny this was."
"Suddenly, the cat starts to turn around and head back the other way. I look and see that same man I'd seen earlier, who had changed his original direction and had been following me for a few blocks. The cat got in between us and howled at him until he turned around and went the other way."
"Then the cat and I walked another block together, at which point he peeled off into a yard. I double-checked and the man was had disappeared. I can't be sure that the man wished me harm, but I know I wouldn't have noticed him if it weren't for that cat. I never believed in guardian angels or anything of that sort until I had that experience."
Mgnolry
Prints
"You know on cold days inside your car you can breath on the window and draw on the glass? I got in my car, and as I look at the windshield I see a few small baby hands. I thought it was strange someone would let a baby play on my cars windshield. I had an urge to touch the baby prints and as I touched it, I wiped away the hand prints. The hand prints were made from inside of my locked car. This is probably the strangest creepiest unexplained phenomena that’s ever happened to me."
ScootyPufff
Sucking lIfe
"I had a recurring nightmare of a pitch black parasite sucking the life it of me. Sometimes it waited for me in dark corners to go to bed. My cats always slept on my bed during that time. For me it was a very stressful time, a got an itch at the place of my chest where I dreamed the parasite was sucking my life out of me."
"I got sick and felt a pea sized lump. I went to my doc and they ordered a biopsy of that lump. As it turned out I had male breast cancer at the age of 28. After I got well again the dream never came back and my cats slept in their places again and not on my bed."
"The dream was creepy enough what it made for me were my cats protecting me."
Mechanic84
How do any of us sleep at might?
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Ah, the great outdoors.
One of the worst places ever.
I have never understood people's fascination with camping.
Give me a TV, a bed, and air conditioning any day.
Camping only leads to trouble.
Convinvce me otherwise.
Redditor Dolphins_With_D*ldos wanted to hear from everyone who has been left shook by spending time in the great outdoors. They asked:
"What's your scariest camping experience?"
I barely wonder into the backyard. Last time I was there, there were snakes. Hell no.
A Few Sips
Cardi B Drink GIF by MOODMANGiphy"Solo camp in the middle of nowhere. When I woke up in the morning someone had made a cup of tea and partially drunk it in the middle of the night. No sign of anyone anywhere."
Magnus_40
Four Spots
"Camping with my kids in the woods for the first time. They were very nervous, but I assured them that nothing was out there to be afraid. Immediately after one of my assurances, we heard something moving outside of the tent. They started crying a bit, and I said it was either the wind or maybe a racoon a little bit away. At that moment, something came down on the top of the tent... something pushing in at four spots. They lost their minds with terror... even I screamed."
"It was our cat. My wife had let him outside, and he made his way down in the woods to see us. He was young and had never seen a tent before and jumped on top of it right above us. This was a few years ago, and my kids still bring up how scary it was and how daddy screamed."
joeltheconner
Alone
"I went camping alone (female) with only my son who was about four at the time. When setting up in a fairly remote place, there was a guy who just stood watching us from about 100 metres away (his tent was all set up). During the night, we heard footsteps walking around our tent for about half an hour. No other noises."
"I sat up with a mallet in my hands for the rest of the night. When it got light, I went outside and saw hundreds of emu tracks all over our campsite and a friendly camper neighbour congratulating me on getting the tent up by myself because he wasn't sure I could do it but didn't want to intrude."
essentialpuzzle
Food Hunt
"Sheer terror when I was a kid at boy scout summer camp. One kid left a couple airheads out on the picnic table. Everyone woke up in the middle of the night to, no joke 30+ raccoons fighting over airheads and going into tents looking for more food. If you've never heard that many hissing and growling raccoons at the same time good for you."
pirate737
Staring Out
Tired Over It GIFGiphy"Camping in the Serengeti with Masai tribe men as guards. Sitting around the fire when suddenly the Masi looks out into the pitch blackness, turns the flashlight on illuminating The eyes of a lion 40 yards out. Just staring at us. I never heard a thing."
pamacdon
Now why do people do this to themselves? When there are lovely Marriots.
Under the Stars
scared bear GIFGiphy"I was about 8, I didn't want to sleep in the tent with my sister so I slept on a cot under the stars."
"Woke up to a bear sniffing my head/neck. I was basically paralyzed with fear, the bear left me and went to sniff around for snacks. It made enough noise to wake my parents who then scared it away. I moved my cot into my sister's tent immediately after."
___okaythen___
"why, what happened?"
"I was camping in Zion National Park in late August 1992. The campground was almost empty by then. At 3:30 in the morning I woke up in midair. You know those dreams where that happens? I figured that's what it was... then I hit the ground. Earthquake. Then I was hearing cracking sounds, a few small thuds, then thud."
"Little bits of the cliff face had sheared off. Thankfully the campground was far enough from there that no one was injured. Had that happened in the daytime there's a good chance that a number of people would have been killed. The park was closed for a few days after that, and you couldn't get in or out for much of that day, as one entrance road was just gone, and the other one a boulder the size of a car had fallen on it."
"That one they got open that day and they kicked everyone out of the park. Anyhow I called home to say I was OK, everyone was like 'Why, what happened?' It hadn't made the news or anything, fortunately it was relatively mild, just some local destruction."
drebinf
Mama...
"I was tent camping in Arkansas around 2003-04, and The Blair Witch project was still fresh on my mind. I was about 20 years old at the time. Around 2-3 in the morning we’re woken up by what sounds like a small child running around our tent crying and trying to get in. I was thoroughly freaked out."
"Finally decided to open the tent and there was a kid that couldn’t have been more than 3 years old scared half to death and only wearing a diaper. I had lots of thought going through my head, but mostly - how the hell do I handle this. I can’t really go campsite to campsite, the ranger office is closed and I’m standing there in the middle of the night holding a child that isn’t mine."
"We had decided to call the cops, figuring it was the safest thing to do, just then a lady walks down the trail and is like ‘how did you get out?’ The kid was saying ‘mama, mama…’ and went straight to her. She nonchalantly said thank you and walked away. Now as a parent, I can’t imagine how much more that would freak me out if it were my kid."
khoelzeman
Lake Chelan
"I went on a road trip with some friends to Lake Chelan. We left late and got lost (this was before cell phones, we didn’t have a map and trusted my friends memory). So we pull off the road and decide to camp for the night at a grassy area. We have limited lights and quickly make our tent."
"We’re woken in the morning by someone hitting the tent and screaming to get off his property. We’d inadvertently camped on some poor guys lawn. We were just dumb 18 year old kids but have never packed up camp that quickly before!"
TuesdayWednesdayMe
Woof
wild dogs puppies GIF by Nat Geo Wild Giphy"Thought our tent was being attacked by 3 bears. Turns out someone's dogs just got loose and the light outside made them look gigantic."
mentallydistressed1
And this is why I only sleep in actual beds. Inside.