A totally illogical fear you had as a child

recode the site

It commenced when I started playing with my aunt’s ornaments. On a 1950s sea voyage via Africa to India she had gathered quite a lot of carvings, including a “negro lady” with nipples.

As a two year old I thought nothing about playing with said figure until I started becoming maybe a bit too rough, whereupon my cousin declared “if you don’t stop that lady might bite”. Well that stopped me truly in my tracks and set a minor phobia for next several years.

from the head of the elegant African carving I took it that every single detached head thingy could have the tendency to bite. Bear in mind this was 1960s where corpseless heads were in great demand to display hats.

Then my mother & her sisters decided to open a small hat company, so I was to be exposed to any number of corpseless heads.

i swear to heaven I saw such a head go like an automaton from pursed closed lips to open toothed smile in an instant right in front of me.

igCorcaigh

I... had to read that OP more than once.

johndaman66

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120154100#Comment_120154100

Same here and still unsure if I understand it.

For me it was the boogie man. Not sure if that's actually a logical fear for a child to have though.

EmmetSpiceland

Quicksand.

Graces7

"Creepie crawlies" as we called .. Far from a fan even now. I mean they are tiny

Ush1

Had a stairs with gaps in it and was convinced a hand would come out one day and grab my leg so I would boot it up and down the stairs like a mad thing.

Say Your Number

Seeing Earthquakes on telly scared the sh1te out of me, if only I knew there's virtually zero chance of a big one hitting here.

Gregor Samsa

As a corpseless-head negro lady carving with nipples, my main fear was children playing with me roughly. I would react by biting.

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120154121#Comment_120154121

This, the Bermuda triangle and being kidnapped by some weirdo in a van!

Dial Hard

Spontaneous Human Combustion.

I was also beyond terrified of Godzilla. Yes, the cartoon.

Leg End Reject

Monsters under the bed and the dark, but I knew I was safe as long as I was fully covered, I still sleep with the duvet pulled right up and don't like dangling a foot over the edge of the bed.

Schnooks

Circus clowns and the dark. I remember being at the circus aged 3 - 4 I think, and the clowns were going along shaking hands with everyone at the edge of the ring. Jesus I was terrified as they came towards me. Can't remember how I handled it, but i know I was crying and terrified!

Tabnabs

Something about a mirror, a dark room and "bloody Mary"?

NoviGlitzko

The dark. Mostly the fear of the unknown in the dark. Scarred the **** outta me.

Death, or more specifically corpses in coffins used to jilt me when I was younger.

I used to think giant sunflowers were freaky, funnily enough.

Ladybird25

Ants, I was convinced they would come over night and cover me up and giving me thousands of tiny bites that I could not do anything about. Really don't know where it came from but it tormented me for years.

Dslatt

Paintings of old ships

Loveinapril

Getting my feet measured for shoes. I thought they would chop my feet off. The Clarkes ad with the girl in the forest in the late 80's or early 90's freaked me out!

Gregor Samsa

I remember when I was about 7, firing a Matchbox car down our kitchen floor, and it went in under the stairs, were we hung coats, kept the ironing board, hoover, etc. I expected to just put my hand in and find it, but I didn't, so I started emptying stuff out. Eventually. I had the whole space emptied, and still no sign of my toy car. I said it to my mother, and she very casually said "Sometimes things just disappear" and told me the story of the Mary Celest . This whole explanation absolutely terrified me, until I was old enough to realise that things don't just disappear spontaneously.

Dial Hard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120156075#Comment_120156075

I still really dislike clowns and I'm 40. And mimes. And the fcukers can 100% smell fear.

Padre_Pio

I had a fear that someone would jump through my bedroom window and get me. A ninja or a burglar.

Baybay

The house I grew up in had a T shaped hallway with the front door at the bottom of the T, my bedroom to the right of the T & the kitchen, living room etc to the left.

After dark, I galloped from my room to the kitchen in case God knows what might be at the front door, coming through the front door or already in the hall. It probably didn’t really help that the only light on was in the porch at the front door though there was a switch right outside my bedroom door that would have turned on big ceiling lights in all arms of the T!

Although as an adult I didn’t run past the door at night, I had to make myself walk normally so I guess my irrational childhood fear stayed with me & I just controlled it a bit more!

House is sold now & I don’t feel the same way about other doors, halls or porches but I can’t check if I’d still feel the same way.

Graces7

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120156170#Comment_120156170

In the light of that your username is briiliant....

Demonique

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120154766#Comment_120154766

One of our neighbours had staird with gaps, I used to go through one of the gaps halfway up legs first and dropped to the ground

When I was 13 the 1980s version of The Blob with Kevin Dillon and Dale from The Walking Dead was shown on either RTE 1 or RTE 2 (then network 2), I watched until the attack on the boyfriend in the hospital office, got freaked out and then spent the next few nights with the cover over my head to protect me, this was 1991/1992

I saw it in full about 5 years ago and the effects in the rest of the film are really ropey, hospital scene doesnt freak me out now but its still pretty gruesome

hullaballoo

I had a strange one that haunted me for years - being surrounded by rotisserie racks that they used to cook rotisserie chickens on in the supermarket (Quinsworth).

This kinda crack here:

JupiterKid

The dark at night - my room had a corner in it that I couldn't see fully around from my bed so my vivid and very active imagination would populate it with evil rotting corpses and monsters out to get me! Requests for a night light were ignored... (this was the 1980s and little boys were supposed to "man up" about these things).

Also car washes - the claustraphobic feeling as a small child aged 5 or 6 of being trapped in the car inside the car wash as the brushes came down would have me crying.

I also hated/feared circus clowns.

paddydriver

That Jaws was gonna come up out of my toilet and get me.. lots of the above too. If we ever got to go on a foreign holiday (which was probably only about twice for Malta 1980 and France 1983, with the caravan in tow..) I needed to know there was no risk from Volcano's, Earthquakes or Tidal Waves (Tsunami wasn't a word back then..). Quicksand was scary too

Pictures of old ships too.. used to go into Xtra-vision on way home from school to look at the covers.. was a movie called Death Ship in 1980 (I just Googled it) and that freaked me out.. along with the Cannibal movies too... not forgetting too that Xtra-vision always had hot girls behind the counter and they all got to drive nice jeeps.. I was barely 10 years old but knew what I was looking at!

ZX7R

Terrified of the noise from a flush toilet as a child.

Also was Terrified of a picture of the vergin Mary it was on the wall of my bedroom as a young child she always appeared to move her hand.

hullaballoo

Naturally enough my worst recurring nightmare has come true and I'm now surrounded by commercial rotisserie racks

Hellrazer

This is a weird one but mine was (still is) cheese.

To this day I wont eat cheese or even let it near my plate. I have been known to have a bit of a meltdown if I get a burger with cheese or am even asked to put it on one of the kids sandwiches / burgers.

It stems from a program I remember seeing as a young kid - I think it was Tomorrows world or something where they had this Italian cheese with like flies or maggots jumping out of it and crawling through it and as clear as day I can still see the maggots in this blokes moustache as he was eating this stuff. I know its not every cheese but that stayed with me for close to 40 years and I still wont touch the stuff or anything thats even touched the cheese has to be literally boiled before Ill use it again.

So you could say I have fromageaphobia.

bmc58

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120154100#Comment_120154100

I read it once and I thought what the fu€k.Skipped quickly to another thread.

victor8600

Quicksand.

Also death from a nuclear blast, totally irrational, I should have feared that I would survive but then die within weeks from the radiation poisoning.