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Childish Terrors

Childhood Fears ...

Strange Childhoods? - no contest!

I was standing at the kitchen sink one day, helping my mum wash the dishes. She dreamily stared out of the window at the line of shirts she'd hung on the washing line earlier, which were dancing and cavorting in the stiff breeze.

'Wouldn't it be frightening' she murmered, without taking her eyes from the shirts, 'If all the shirts sort of
detached themselves from the line and all came flying up to the window, still hand in hand like that, as if they wanted to get in ....all making a flapping, slithery noise against the glass...'

It's no wonder I'm not fond of housework!
 
At my parent's cottage in Northern Ontario, from the late 70's to the mid 80's, they used to have particular curtains in every bedroom with a strange print. They were kind of a burnt orange colour with black and brown roses on them. This "interesting" colour sceme created an optical illusion. The black bits inside of the roses looked like screaming mouthes, with sharp teeth. They looked like eyeless blobs screaming in agony. To me at least. :)
 
(Where in northern Ontario? I'm from North Bay originally)

I swear, I've seen that very fabric, and yes, it is sinister. It sounds very like something I used to have hanging in my childhood bedroom.
 
Watching VH1's 40 Greatest Xmas Songs I remembered that as a tot I was terrified by the bald guy in the shades from out of the Flying Pickets.

Don't know why, he was just creepy and scary.
 
I remember when I was pretty young, maybe about 8 or 10, I saw a show on tv (I think it may have been "In Search of...") about Bigfoot, and one scene shows this family sitting in their dimly lit living room watching tv. The wife hears a noise on the porch, and pulls the curtain aside, and there in the darkness outside, standing in front of the window and illuminated by the porchlight is a Bigfoot staring right at the woman, who I think started to scream. After seeing that, I was afraid for a while afterward to A) look out the window at night time and B) have the curtains even slightly open in my bedroom at night for fear that something could peek in from outside (even though I was on the second floor back then!)
 
James Whitehead said:
There is a 1947 movie called the Red House, an
Edward G. Robinson picture that scared me senseless as a sprog.
Reading accounts elsewhere I have seen it had that effect on others
too. It seems not to have been shown for years on UK telly. It can now be
seen for free online as a streaming video, but it won't run on my system:(
Click to expand...

http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/p ... u=102032++

Sounds pretty creepy from all reviews. I'd like to see it.
 
once when i was five i wet myself at school because my friend told me that the toilets were haunted by "the ghost of john". she did not explain who john was, but it was enough to put me off going in there. *after* i wet my pants she admitted that she had made it up to scare me. bitch.

at home i was scared by the scuttling, rustling noises i heard coming from the walls and ceiling. i would bang on the wall and the noises would stop, so i was certain that the noisemakers were alive - probably vampires or ghosts. it was only recently that i thought back to those times and realised that it was probably mice.
 
I had a few terrors in my childhood. I clearly remember sobbing my heart out in bed to my dad, because I didn't know how to cook and therefore I would never be married. I was about six. :roll:

My other fear was my built in cupboard. It was an odd shape, and built about a foot and a half off the ground. I never seemed to be able to see into the corners and I fully believed that all sorts of things lurked in there. And I knew that it was in there that everything that I'd ever lost lived. Under the bed held no fear for me- all the beasties were in the cupboard! :twisted: I still dream of that cupboard to this day........

On a more lighthearted note, I was even more scared of spiders then than I am now. My brother hated me (As all brothers hate little sisters!) and my father and grandmother are both blind so there was no-one to get rid of them for me. (I lived with them until I was eight.) This meant that if the bathroom had spiders in it I wouldn't be able to use it and so I would go outside behind the raspberry canes. Then I'd have to pretend that the dog had done a "whoopsie" as my gran used to call it, and clean it up. I've always led a glamourous life! :lol:
 
My best girlfriends little brother was convinced that Jaws the shark lived in his closet for awhile.
I was pretty sure Jaws could manifest in swimming pools and bathtubs.

:nooo:
 
Vitrius said:
James Whitehead said:
There is a 1947 movie called the Red House, an
Edward G. Robinson picture that scared me senseless as a sprog.
Reading accounts elsewhere I have seen it had that effect on others
too. It seems not to have been shown for years on UK telly. It can now be
seen for free online as a streaming video, but it won't run on my system:(
Click to expand...

http://www.moviesunlimited.com/musite/p ... u=102032++

Sounds pretty creepy from all reviews. I'd like to see it.
Click to expand...

I upgraded my equipment and got to see it in October but streaming video via dial-up is a murky little thing. The comments on imdb suggest that the public domain prints are not too wonderful.

I think I can see why the film works so well as the sense of dread is allowed to build up around this abandoned old house in the woods. The scene which haunted my nightmares was the last one. I had supposed it was set in a boathouse but it turns out to be an old ice-house - basically a shed filled with deep water.

Seeing the movie in murky streaming-vision has allowed it to retain much of the horror it always held! :eek:
 
I was pretty sure Jaws could manifest in swimming pools and bathtubs.
Click to expand...

I always used to be afraid that Jaws would show up in my aunt's swimming pool. I also used to be afraid of those huge koi fish as I was afraid they would swim up the drain while I was in the bathtub.
 
Toiletphobia and other childhood fears

When I was little, I was afraid that Freddy Kreuger's razor-fingers would come out of the toilet and stab me in the butt. I used to go the bathroom as quickly as possible, then flush to make sure Freddy couldn't get too far up the drain. It makes perfect sense, though, in retrospect: toilets eventually lead to the sewer, which is the darkest, most sinister and mysterious place on earth for a child. What can be scarier than having your private parts in full view of whatever lurks in the pipes? These are the most vulnerable parts of our bodies... I still cringe when I think about it!

Anyway, I was afraid of everything when I was younger. Even now, I scare the hell out of myself when I walk up the stairs in my basement.... I always imagine aliens or a monster chasing me. Its weird, though, because I have no problem walking down dark alleys or anything that would warrant fear.

Haha, just to share this with all of you:
When I was a kid, I had a really overactive imagination. I thought sharks lived in water towers, chicken nuggets were made of baby chicks, and that caterpillars were little dragons. I was (am?) one weird girl...
 
Anyway, I was afraid of everything when I was younger. Even now, I scare the hell out of myself when I walk up the stairs in my basement.... I always imagine aliens or a monster chasing me. Its weird, though, because I have no problem walking down dark alleys or anything that would warrant fear.
Click to expand...

Wow. You sound exactly like me. I'm always nervous walking up the basement steps, or lying in bed before falling asleep, but walking around late at night on a campus with a rape problem, just not scary.
 
Wow. You sound exactly like me.
Click to expand...

Sometimes it's very nice to realise that one is not different, special or a freak. That one is in fact just one version of normal.

M
 
Borubryan said:
I remember when I was pretty young, maybe about 8 or 10, I saw a show on tv (I think it may have been "In Search of...") about Bigfoot, and one scene shows this family sitting in their dimly lit living room watching tv. The wife hears a noise on the porch, and pulls the curtain aside, and there in the darkness outside, standing in front of the window and illuminated by the porchlight is a Bigfoot staring right at the woman, who I think started to scream. After seeing that, I was afraid for a while afterward to A) look out the window at night time and B) have the curtains even slightly open in my bedroom at night for fear that something could peek in from outside (even though I was on the second floor back then!)
Click to expand...

If I remember it too, it was called something like:

The Legend/Story of Thorney Nook????
 
Roachford, the movie is called "The Legend of Boggy Creek", but I'm not sure if that's what I saw on tv.
 
I used to be afraid of finding a severed head in the toilet. It would be still alive and try to bite me. Not something that scared me every time I needed to go, but still.... I hate to think what a Freudian would say about that......

Another childhood fear was started by a movie I saw called Murder He Said, starring Fred McMurray, of My Three Sons fame. I have seen it since, and realize that it is actually a comedy, but when I saw it as a child, it really scared me. It involved a creepy family living in the woods, with someone poisoning other family members one by one. The poison caused one to glow right before they died. Fred played some insurance man who was somehow trapped there, on some insurance business. The granny was poisoned, and was talking to Fred as she lay in bed (at night) just prior to her death. She told him to look out the window, which he did, and he saw a glowing dog run by. That was the messenger of death. So not only did you glow, but a glowing dog ran by. You would think one message of death would be enough. Then, at dinner one night, eaten at a huge round table, the news got out that one of the plates was poisoned. It was set in front of Fred. But cleverly, he made the round table rotate, like a giant lazy susan, and the plate ended up somewhere else. This resulted in more spinning of the table, and no one ate anything at all that night. It actually is a pretty stupid movie.

Anyway----the result was that I was terrified that I would glow when I went to bed, and I would check my hands every night for months to see if they glowed in the dark. The relief when I didn't was enormous.

My sister now has a huge round dinner table that she uses when she has the family over for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, etc. But it doesn't spin, thank goodness!
 
I used to think the lunch ladies would catch children and bake them in a huge oven

XD
 
crouton said:
I used to be afraid of finding a severed head in the toilet. It would be still alive and try to bite me. Not something that scared me every time I needed to go, but still.... I hate to think what a Freudian would say about that......
Click to expand...

Came up with the same idea without media influence!
The only difference was it wasn't trying to bite me, it was laughing in the toilet and doing 'somersaults'.

The head belonged to someone I knew. :eek!!!!:
 
I used to be scared of our backyard at night. There is a car dealer place behind our house, but you can't actually see it from our yard. I used to hear someone over there talking through a speaker and I was convinced it was a ghost. I was also afraid to walk down the street at night because thre was a tree that was covered in ivy that looked just like a big green hand. Come to think of it, I was also afraid of going outside at night for fear of being abducted by aliens.

I was a real scaredy cat when I was little. :D
 
I'm still insanely scared when I take a shower - I have this weird feeling a decaying head is going to push away one side of the curtain and stare at me.
 
*shudder*

I used to be SO scared when I went into the bathroom that the doll from Child's Play was going to pop out from behind the shower curtain.
 
I still don't like being alone in a basement at night, which causes me some consternation when I visit my sister, as that's where their new guest room is. It's very comfortable and warm, and I feel very secure and loved in that house but still...I'm in the damn basement alone! (I usually leave a light on when I go to sleep there. This is so embarrassing)
 
I once read about the ancient belief that at night some trees will uproot themselves and walk around following people. (I don't know where that came from), but when I was walking at night I would be terrified that the trees were following me.
 
I was frightened of my painted ceiling when I was a kid. It was of the kind that had paint drips and edgings, not a smooth ceiling, but a textured one, I guess is the best way to describe it.

I was, and still am I guess, an insomniac, so my mom would put me to bed around 9 or so, but it was not uncommon for me to lie there awake until the early morning hours. I can only guess that the lack of sleep made me hallucinate things, because I can vividly remember watching the paint on the ceiling (by the closet light, of course ;)) move and form into people and shapes and whatnot and put on something like a play or a show or something. But then I also watched a lot of things I ought not to have, so I had demon faces sometimes or monsters, etc.

The scariest bit is, of course, that you lie on your back, you can only really look up, but if you lie on your side or stomach, all that is still going on above you, and maybe they can come down and get you if you're not looking. :shock:

All this stopped when my mom put a television in my room. I could then focus my attention on whatever crap tv was on late at night and the ceiling would stay put.

Since there's a lot of toiletmonster talk...
I used to hide out in the bathroom as a way to stay inside and read instead of going out and playing in the yard, or instead of going out to learn to ride my bike (I broke three bones on separate occasions learning to ride). My mom got so exasperated that she told me a monster would get me if I stayed in too long, but being far too clever for my age, I reasoned I could simply put my legs up and it wouldn't be able to pull me down. :lol:
 
I was terrified of a hand coming up the loo to grab me and pulling me in. This was from a ridiculous spoof horror movie of the early 80s starring Kenny Everett called something like "bloodbath in the house of death". :roll:

I used to get my older brother to carry me to my bed every night cos i was so scared of going alone, and of something grabbing me from underneath the bed, which they couldn't do if he placed me in it.

I went through a brief phase of wearing a scarf all the time cos I couldn't bear to have my neck bared in case a vampire got me. How a scarf would stop them I don't know.

I'm still scared of the dark. What is it about the night time that makes ordinary things so scary?
 
As human beings, we are hugely dependent on sight. At night, our major sense doesn't work as well. I doubt dogs, for instance, are bothered by the lack of light because they depend far more on their excellent smell and hearing. I'm very nearsighted and have been all my life; when I was a kid, this added an extra element of unease when I was lying in bed at night. What a normally-sighted person might easily recognize as a garment hanging on the wall or a book on the floor became all sorts of amorphous and terrifying things. Also, at least for me, it seems harder to determine where sounds are coming from at night.
 
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