Were You Ever Afraid of Anything As A Child?

SeaBreeze

SeaBreeze

Endlessly Groovin'
Location
USA
I was afraid (or didn't care for) of a few things like clowns, dogs, dolls, dressed up Santa Clauses, etc. I never had dogs or cats as pets, so once I became familiar with them my fear went away and now I love them. Still don't care for clowns, dolls or anyone dressed in a costumer really.

How about you, were you fearful of anything as a young child?
 

I was afraid of what was in an L-shaped chicken coop in our yard. There were no chickens in it, but I was afraid to go around the corner. My parents finally took me in and had a bright lantern. After seeing that there was nothing there, I was no longer afraid. I was three years old.

There were monsters hiding somewhere in the edge of a stairway. Burglars broke into the house and came into my bedroom as well. I knew that I had to lie very still so they would think me asleep. Thankfully, the always left. This probably happened when I was about five.

There was a field with very tall weeds (it was tall grass prairie) near our home. A dirt road went through it. I always had a really bad feeling if I started to walk down that road. I learned years later that a man had kidnapped a woman and taken her into the place where he cut off her head. I first traveled into the area when I was about eight or nine.
 

I was deathly afraid of ghosts. In my mother's culture, ghosts exist. They live in trees and rocks and other natural things, and in abandoned buildings and active schools. My mother told me that ghosts that live in buildings and schools are the spirits of people who died before they could fulfill their destiny, and so they try to use the living, against their will, to fulfill their destiny (or do a task). She explained that this is very bad because it prevents the host person from completing his or her own task or fulfilling their own destiny. I guess they hang around school because children are naive enough to let ghosts get near them.

The ghosts who dwell in nature can be either evil or helpful, but you never know which kind they are until you ask for help. Therefore, I was also scared to death of forests and lakes until I started following my brother around. He hiked all over the hills, through the forests, and around these ponds that were a couple of miles from the house. Actually, I was still scared, but as long as I was with my brother, I felt relatively safe (meaning, if I ran fast enough, the ghosts would get him while I escaped).

I lost my fear completely when I was 11, and read a book about cultural superstitions.
 
I was afraid of lighting a match to light the gas stove but that didn't last too long.


I was also afraid of the bogeyman but didn't know him by that name. In Hungarian culture it was something else.

if I translate it exactly it would translate to "Crab man" lol
 
Earthquakes. After experiencing a pretty major one when I was at school (1st grade),I had quite a fear for years. Also,war. A friend told me,at about age six,that the Russians were going to bomb us and that they would start with San Francisco airport. We lived on a hill overlooking the airport. Add to that,this was about the same time that commercial airlines started flying jets instead of propeller planes and our whole house would rattle when they took off. The entire back of our house was floor to ceiling plate glass windows-in order to take advantage of the gorgeous views of the airport and San Francisco Bay. Nice,but not very comforting when the rattling started.
 
The only thing I can think of is deep water, over your head. Still a little uneasy in a small boat.

My father saw someone drown once when he was a teenager, and I think he succeeded in scaring me, with constant lectures and safety precautions. I didn't come into contact with it much as a kid.
 
I was around 6 and feared the Nazi's. For some reason I was not afraid of the Japanese. Mom & dad had a Japanese gardener and when he left for interment camp he said to my mom, "you wait Missy, someday you work on MY lawn."
 
I was afraid of the little square attic hatchway in the corner of my bedroom ceiling. My older brothers used to make up stories about what might be lurking up in the attic and I was pretty sure that they were onto something, LOL!!!

An old rooster in my grandmother's chicken coop.

Escalators, I got my snow boot caught in one when I was little and it ate the boot right off of my foot! I still do not like them but they seem to have lost interest in my footwear.
 
I was âfraid of our cellar and the stairs that went down,there was a large opening between them and I was terrified of falling through.
My parents took me to see 101 Dalmations,I hid our dog in the closet because of Cruella DeVille.
Was also afraid of the nuns at our Catholic school,they were mean and dressed weird,LOL
 
Clowns for one thing. Still am. There is another thing that use to scare the heck out of me when I was a kid. Going to sound stupid but it was a song by Burl Ives. I wish I could remember the name of it but my parents use to play it all the time and I always found it haunting. I've tried to search for the name of the song online and haven't had success finding it.
 
Teachers, like my 8th grade math teacher. She would come up behind students and slam a long ruler down on their desk with a super loud crack for little reason. One girl had a special condition prone to fainting spells. This happened a few times during that year and she would have her head down on the desk when the teacher would slam the ruler down...until she found out about the diagnosis for her. She did it to me once for daydreaming (not paying attention).

Markin, was it Burl Ives singing "Ghost Riders in The Sky"? That sounds haunting to me too.
 
Spiders. Deathly frightened of spiders back then.

Also, the dark at the top of the stairs. There were narrow steep stairs that went up to the bedrooms on the second floor. You could not cut the light on from the bottom of the steps and there was no way my dad was going to agree to have a light on ALL.THE.TIME. So, if I had to go upstairs, I started creeping up those steps slowly, very slowly, saying a bible verse all the way. The further I got up, the darker it got. That bible verse was the only thing that saved me from whatever it was that I.WAS.PRETTY.SURE was lurking at the top. I still don't like dark stairs. I don't like spiders, either.
 
Lara said:
Teachers, like my 8th grade math teacher. She would come up behind students and slam a long ruler down on their desk with a super loud crack for little reason. One girl had a special condition prone to fainting spells. This happened a few times during that year and she would have her head down on the desk when the teacher would slam the ruler down...until she found out about the diagnosis for her. She did it to me once for daydreaming (not paying attention).

Markin, was it Burl Ives singing "Ghost Riders in The Sky"? That sounds haunting to me too.
Click to expand...

No, it wasn't that and I just found it. It was "The Riddle Song". Can't believe I couldn't find it in earlier attempts. I've heard that song thousands of time since but his version use to scare me for some reason.
 
I was afraid of the dark - deathly afraid! And I used to make my dad shine a flashlight under my bed every night before I'd get in because I was sure there was a monster or a tiger lurking under there. :sentimental:
 
When was in the first grade, and walked to school there was a grove of trees you could walk through and cut the walk in half, but all the little kids like me were convinced there was a panther (??!) in there that would tear little girls apart and leave only their shoes. I don't remember where we got that idea, but we'd all walk around the long way so that panther wouldn't get us.

I was, like Jujube, also deathly afraid of spiders, and I still HATE them to this day, especially big fuzzy ones. I have been known to vault over furniture to get away from fuzzy spiders.
 
I was afraid of the dark and It still makes me feel uncomfortable. When I was about 10 years old my Mom would let me go to the roller rink by bus in the next town. In winter it was pretty dark by the time I got off the bus. I had to walk pass a cemetery to get home. I started out ok but picked up speed as I was walking. By the time I was completely passed the cemetery I was on a dead run. Not easy because back then the skate case was made of metal and the skates weighed a ton also. I always walked in the back door breathless.
 
i was so afraid at night and would stay awake all night---we lived in a old house and about 30 minutes after you got in bed the stairs would creak like someone was coming up the stairs---and i have always been afraid of bugs and worms --my sister threw a worm down my neck and i invented a dance thats never been done before
 
Ghost Riders in the Sky was recorded by Vaughn Monroe and Johnny Cash.

I remember being petrified by a movie called White Cargo. Something about people poisoning each other. It was probably the "B" movie in a double feature, and they didn't have a movie rating system yet. I don't remember much about the movie, but I still remember the name, so it must have really made an impression.

I used to enjoy radio and TV shows like Suspense, Twilight Zone, and Inner Sanctum, but by then I had toughened up enough to enjoy being mildly scared.

But the scariest movie I ever saw was a French film called Diabolique, and I was a married woman by then.
 

You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top