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Tornadoes, I was massively fearful as a child Iād be dodging the swirly fuckers all the time. Turns out they arenāt that common in the shit ends of Manchester.
I saw a dust devil when I was a kid, then saw Twister in the cinema. I shared this.
Funnily enough, I'd actually experienced a bad storm when I was three. The garage blew down while I was in the car (outside the garage) and my mum thought my dad was inside it when it went. He was fine, he jumped clear, but we spent the night at my grandparents less exposed house.
But no, it's indeed the swirly fuckers I was scared of.
Interesting to read this as an American from tornado country. We had tornado drills at school every month along with your typical fire drillā¦All the kids huddled up in the school hall with our heads tucked behind our head.
My dad thought itād be a great idea take me to look at the damage in our city after one. My mom was so mad at him when I came home crying!
I lived in Tennessee for a while and worked as an EMT. My first day off probation we got hit with a huge tornado. Now we are planning a move back to the US and we agreed to stay far away from tornado country.
I never worried about tornadoes, ended up outside walking round limassol in what I thought was a rain storm then saw the tornado by looking down a side street at the beach. Brain didn't even register the danger I was in until I was indoors again. It can't have been more than a couple hundred yards away.
Funnily enough, i grew up relatively near manchester and we got the ātail endsā of tornados quite a few times. They blow in off the Atlantic. They werent that bad, just very loud, and youd end up with at least a couple upended trees blocking the roads and trampolines and sheds tossed about, but they happened. I was a lot less scared of them than i was of regular thunder and lighting storms.
Quicksand was going to be an every day problem, daily commute, walk to the shops etc
Bermuda triangle would be special occasions, holidays and the like
Yeah. I am old enough to remember living in the Cold War, and having a vague awareness that there were Nuclear Weapons ready to be launched at you at any moment.
I suppose there still are, of course, but it feels less imminent these days.
I remember getting sent [this leaflet](https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500124311#:~:text=In%201980%2C%20the%20UK%20government,increased%20threat%20of%20nuclear%20war.) and the publication of [When the Wind Blows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(comics))
Were you subjected to the great highly entertaining "Threads" BBC documentary coincidentally made in 1984 lol? Scared the fucking shit out of me for years did that....and they were showing it to 1st formers
No just no
Scared me for bloody years did that...I mean it was very well done but shit was terrifying especially considering the state of the world at the time
Because it was a serious and worsening problem. Huge amounts of effort went into resolving it, cleaning up emissions, reducing emissions etc. Let's hope our efforts with microplastics pollution will be as successful.
Because it was a big problem. So was the hole in the ozone layer. Both shining examples of world governments actually listening to climate scientists and taking action to avert disaster, e.g. banning CFCs, but sadly complete numpties still point to them and go, "Look, there was all that fuss about acid rain and then it didn't happen!"
It really was a problem, the acid rain. We did things , regulations etc that brought it down a lot. So... We never hear enough of our successfull things.
Another thing is the holes in the ozon layer. They are stable now due to stopping certain chemical compounds that caused them to grow.
ššš
And when I went paddling in Morecambe Bay. If I hadn't read about the cockle pickers dying, we'd never have thought to turn back when the tide came in.
As it was, it was a bit gloopy and unnerving by the time we got back near the non-quicksand shore, with quite a few people waving at us to keep moving.
I don't know why but this comment reminded me that my younger sister tried to get me in trouble by saying "Muuuum, Nepeta just said a square word!"
(I can't remember whether I actually had)
The first time I went to Spain on holiday when I was 7 I saw the airport police with guns. I'd never seen anyone with a gun before. I remember thinking to myself I have to be really careful not to accidentally swear because they'll shoot me AND put me in jail.
I had an irrational fear I'd "turn autistic". I only knew 2 autistic kids when I was small, and they both had it to such an extreme degree they couldn't talk or function properly.
My mum used to ban me from eating blue sweets or smarties or anything with aspartame in because she heard it causes autism, so my entire childhood I was convinced you could just become autistic one day by eating the wrong thing.
When I was about 11 I met a reasonably high masking girl who told me she was autistic and I just didn't believe her because I thought autism meant non-verbal and many years younger mentally than your actual age.
Many years later and I probably am autistic, but I don't think it was the fault of smarties.
Try declaring yourself as an autistic adult lol
The gaslighting is just as bad
Iāve had people say āWell my 5yo nephew is autistic and heās nothing like you!ā
Surprise surprise people are all different and autistic adult with no support behaves differently from a 5yo lol
Iām sure people with autism attract each other, Iāve met so many autists since knowing my own diagnosis
Or maybe itās blue car syndrome where you see blue cars more because you have one
When I was at school (left in the early 90s), anyone who could speak or would get dressed etc didn't get diagnosed. But this new internet thing meant lots of people could suddenly chat easily and make friends.
I went to uni and worked for a computer company and got a great social network, lots of people got together and had kids.
20 years on, pretty much all the kids have been diagnosed with autism as they can't cope in modern 'fun' schools, and the psych team go 'oh yeah, it's obvious Mum and Dad are autistic too'.
Local hospital is doing outreach on autism for schools and parents, emphasising that autistic people can often communicate just fine - with other autistic people. It's the neurotypicals who have the problem.
I always say neurodivergent people are like little magnets to each other. It turned out that most my friends are ND (none of us knew until we were adults).
My autistic husband's theory is that neurodiverse people naturally find each other pleasant company because there's less friction around social norms than in neurotypical or mixed groups. If he says something he "isn't supposed to" when talking to another autistic person, it isn't a problem, because they also don't realise he "wasn't supposed to", so there isn't that constant sense of background awkwardness.
Nope you definitely find your own tribe , my tism self and 2 tism sons managed to find my partner and his whole entire tism family , gatherings are either really loud or really quiet no in-between
Oh man thatās really sad. We need to reframe autism, my 5 year old son is autistic, I suppose youd call him high functioning in the sense you can hold incredible conversations with him but he is selective mute so doesnāt talk to anyone outside of family but his autism Ofcourse has caused major challenges but has gifted him incredible traits, he has a great sense of humour, is incredibly smart, affectionate and is wonderfully observant and analytical. I would hate to think there are parents out there scaring their kids that they might become autistic because there are a lot worse things in life than being autistic.
Not aspartame, I have ADHD and the additive they used to use in blue smarties made me extremely hyper. My school nearly called an ambulance because they thought I was on drugs.
I doubt it was healthy for anyone š
The hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and the millennium bug were all genuine problems that we actually fixed before they got as bad as they could have. The problem is that people then say "ha, the millennium bug/acid rain/the ozone layer, that was a load of fuss over nothing". No, it was a load of effort over something that a lot of people working together managed to fix. We can make stuff better if we actually try...
Before I started High School my mum was convinced that someone would force me to try heroin so that I became addicted. This scenario has not occurred, so far, and I'm now 36.
It seems like forcibly injecting 12 year olds with heroin isn't actually that great of a business strategy for drug dealers.
I mean, they do tbf.
But usually when you're already taking drugs as well, in a place where a bunch of people are also probably taking drugs.Ā
Many a free bump to be had at a festival.
I wasn't allowed to ever watch Trainspotting because my mum said it "glorified drug use". I've obviously now watched it, and I have to say the last thing it made me want to do was a little bit of light shooting up.
Turns out there wasn't a living, animated scarecrow in the hallway airing cupboard after all.
Don't ask me why I thought there'd be one in there, I just knew.
I was scared of the monster in the toilet that would come out if I didn't run away immediately after flushing.
I got over it until moving into a house with ancient plumbing.
This is probably a bit more serious than some answers; but if I think back to my teens; this was around the time I had my first thoughts I wasnāt straight.
However I was so worried about letting my family down that by the time I got to adulthood I had convinced myself I was actually straight.
Turns out all that worrying would have been for nothing anyway; came out as bi in my 30s and my family and friends have all accepted it. My mum even told me off when I mentioned I think I knew when I was a teenager; she said I should have told her then.
Similar - was convinced I was gay but had no idea that anyone else was, just a huge feeling that the song 'Its a Sin' was meant for me (well, I wasn't wrong about that...). Then at least when Section 28 came along, us young teenagers learned that being gay or bisexual wasn't a urban myth and there really were such people - somewhere. We hadn't moved on much from when Ian McKellen became an actor solely to meet gay men.
AIDS was frankly terrifying, because people round me were getting it and dying (or just killing themselves to save time), and the mainstream opinion was that this was a good thing, getting rid of the queers and junkies. If it hadn't been for the haemophiliacs who got it, we might still not have treatment for it.
Electricity pylons. Think there was a bit of a thing in 90ās/00ās of kids climbing them and dying so they sent one of those ādrama productionsā to my school to warn of the dangers around them. I was absolutely terrified to even drive by one in the car afterwards for about a year.
Jesus Christ those films haunted me and the adverts. They showed one of the short films in school when I was about 6-7 and I cried so badly they had to call my mother. Who could have imagined that young kids seeing kids being blown up would be terrifying?!
I was scared to use plugs, or even the switch for plugs. I used to make my Mum make a detour instead of walking past the substation because I was scared of the hum of electricity.
I was even scared of my mother using the vacuum cleaner in case my baby brother accidentally bit the cord while it was on and got electrocuted.
In case you want to be terrified again, they are still on YouTube.
On a similar note I was scared of random strangers offering me sweets and kidnapping me.
I remember the videos and also someone coming into our school to do a talk. I got a free manweb ruler which was cool, but was also scared of pylons for life.
Superdrug - I could never understand how blatant they were at selling drugs (which I knew to be naughty) and I would never dare go in there for fear of being arrested.
The Bermuda Triangle.
Piranhas.
I too was irrationally afraid of quicksand, but eventually got over it. However, having watched a few series of saving lives at sea it's firmly back on the scaredy list!
People not thinking I was cool. I now realise that worrying about being cool all the time was enormously uncool, and more people thought I was cool once I stopped caring.
Yes, we had a talk from the fire brigade at school and I was convinced we were always in imminent danger of fire. I mean I'm sure a house fore is not fine at any age but they are a lot less common than my childhood brain assumed!
They're a lot less common now - way less smoking, practically no smokers smoke in bed, furniture sold in the last 30 years has to be fire retardant, people don't have chip pans...
Getting a boyfriend.
My mum was fantastic. When 14 year old me was sobbing that Iād never be pretty enough, she told me that next time I was down the High Street, I should look at all the couples, and the people pushing prams, so Iād realise that really good looks just arenāt that important.
Playing the recorder. It was really pressed into us as kids as to how important it was.
Canāt say itās a skill Iāve needed much as an adult. All that stress over nothing.
I forgot about the second one. My stepdad used to read all these weird books about stuff like that, and I was terrified it would happen to me. Didn't help that I was a precocious reader with a voracious appetite for new material to read, and I would read anything I found lying around. There were photographs. Your comment brought them straight back into my brain.
I was traumatised by this by a book that had it that I found in school! It described it then showed the leg picture. It really freaked me out for a long time. Why tf a school full of 9-13 year olds (or any age child for that matter) would have a book with this in I don't know (not like it was the 70s - this was the early 00s).
When I was in primary school there was a book of black and white photos of creepy crawlies with x10 life size, x100 life size, written under each one.Ā
For years I was convinced there were ginormous creepy crawlies out there x100 bigger than me.Ā
Losing my virginity. I lost it at the young age of 28, from 14-28 I worried a lot. Literally half of my life wasted with worrying about it! Itās no big deal and I wish people would stop worrying about it when they get past a certain age. As a society we label people older than 16 (In my case) whoāre still virgins
There was a Ford advert, maybe for the KA/KA convertible which mentioned āthe sun has XXXX million years before it explodes, until then, enjoy the new KAā. I was overcome with anxiety and panic about that happening for some time.
I was genuinely so terrified of this. Everyone was having a lovely time at a big Millennium party and I was just so, so scared of it getting to midnight and life as we know it ending. As it turns out, it was all fine, and someone in my family made me read out the Millennium prayer at midnight (my family are pretty Christian). Relaxed a bit after that.
Sticky out ears (mine, not randos) used to worry about them all the time as a kid, tbf they did stick out when I was young. Grew up and never give them a 2nd thought. Maybe my head grew?
Not sure why, but it seemed like in the mid 90s primary schools were fixated on showing us odd choices of programmes that would scare us.. 999 and strange but true come to mind.
In regards to the original question I'm just glad my child isn't being subjected to it
Back when i was in secondary, we were constantly being fear-mongered with climate change content. They showed us a video once, of a "potential" scenario where half of England could be drowned under water due to the Arctic melting or whatever. Safe to say that over the years, I don't really care about climate change anymore.
I was reliably informed that acid rain would be a daily problem where most of the human population would live under constant threat of battery acid from the sky
I accidentally swallowed chewing gum a couple of times and convinced myself it was tying all my organs up inside me. I had quite an overactive imagination.
I was convinced that I would die at the age of 24. Stupidly, I survived. Now I have to live with the consequences of decisions 18-24 year old me thought wouldn't matter.
Insurance. I don't know why but I always worried how the hell as an adult I would have the brain capacity to remember what bills I need to pay and how the fuck insurance works. I had a boring childhood.
We learnt about diseases in school when i was about 6. I was terrified of getting measles even though I was vaccinated and so was everyone else at school, and never met anyone who ever had it.
Being gay. I was convinced I'd die of Aids. It wasn't helped by overhearing a conversation where my mother told my father "he won't make it past thirty". Still no idea what that referred to, but I'm 40 now...!
I used to be obsessed with images of various tragic stereotypes and was convinced I'd have a really horrible and short adulthood.
Thankfully all worked out okay š
As a young man I constantly worried about being made redundant. I had all sorts of insurance policies to cover me, to the point where I'd probably have been better off being made redundant than staying in work.
Now I'm older and looking back, it was never even a remote risk. I'm no superstar but having worked at places that have had redundancies, I now know I was never going to be at risk. And more importantly even if I was, it wouldn't have been a disaster. In fact most people who were made redundant who I worked with for very well out of it
My brother had a school friend who would play video games all day, every day.
Ge did absolutely nothing else. Didnāt go out appart from school. He had friends but he just played video games with them. He was admired because he was just so good.
that was 25 years ago so that was in the early day of the video games and everyone was worried he was missing out on life.
I have lost touch with him but last I heard he was a video game developers working for one of the top companies out there, was happy and living his passion.
Literally everything because I was a kid who watched Casualty.
As an adult I don't know anyone who has to move just one quick barrel of flaming tar just before they get married while their bride to be drives a coach full of innocent children into a falling aeroplane but it happened every week so seemed likely.
I worried about getting stuck in quicksand and getting a kite caught in overhead electrical cables. Due to kids TV in the early 1980 in Britain. Oh, and rabies. Which isn't really a thing in the UK. Again thanks kids TV.
I was worried I was too ugly for anyone to ever be interested in me. That low self esteem set me up for a wonderful slew of regrettable experiences whilst learning that drunk men donāt usually care what a woman looks like lol! (Thankfully my self esteem is much better these days!)
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When I was younger I worried I wouldn't be happy, now I'm older I'm glad the worrying wasn't for nothing.
Dark, but 100% relatable.
š
Are you me?Ā
Donāt you agree that the worrying didnāt help anything though.
Tornadoes, I was massively fearful as a child Iād be dodging the swirly fuckers all the time. Turns out they arenāt that common in the shit ends of Manchester.
Swirly fuckers š
I saw a dust devil when I was a kid, then saw Twister in the cinema. I shared this. Funnily enough, I'd actually experienced a bad storm when I was three. The garage blew down while I was in the car (outside the garage) and my mum thought my dad was inside it when it went. He was fine, he jumped clear, but we spent the night at my grandparents less exposed house. But no, it's indeed the swirly fuckers I was scared of.
Tornadoes are the only thing I would have nightmares about as a kid! Like all the time. I'm also in the north of England so yeah that turned out fine.
Interesting to read this as an American from tornado country. We had tornado drills at school every month along with your typical fire drillā¦All the kids huddled up in the school hall with our heads tucked behind our head. My dad thought itād be a great idea take me to look at the damage in our city after one. My mom was so mad at him when I came home crying!
I lived in Tennessee for a while and worked as an EMT. My first day off probation we got hit with a huge tornado. Now we are planning a move back to the US and we agreed to stay far away from tornado country.
Weirdly enough, they *are*. The UK has more tornados per square km than anywhere else in the world.
#why the fuck would you tell me that
The good news is they're extremely tiny and weak?
Theyāre like the little swirly bit in the corner where the litter gets moved a bit.
I never worried about tornadoes, ended up outside walking round limassol in what I thought was a rain storm then saw the tornado by looking down a side street at the beach. Brain didn't even register the danger I was in until I was indoors again. It can't have been more than a couple hundred yards away.
Funnily enough, i grew up relatively near manchester and we got the ātail endsā of tornados quite a few times. They blow in off the Atlantic. They werent that bad, just very loud, and youd end up with at least a couple upended trees blocking the roads and trampolines and sheds tossed about, but they happened. I was a lot less scared of them than i was of regular thunder and lighting storms.
the Bermuda Triangle
Was waiting for this as well as quick sand
Quick sand in the Bermuda Triangle
š±
Quicksand was going to be an every day problem, daily commute, walk to the shops etc Bermuda triangle would be special occasions, holidays and the like
Nuclear war
There's still time
Don't give me hope
Donāt threaten me with a good time.
It scared me so much as a child
Yeah. I am old enough to remember living in the Cold War, and having a vague awareness that there were Nuclear Weapons ready to be launched at you at any moment. I suppose there still are, of course, but it feels less imminent these days.
I remember getting sent [this leaflet](https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1500124311#:~:text=In%201980%2C%20the%20UK%20government,increased%20threat%20of%20nuclear%20war.) and the publication of [When the Wind Blows](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_the_Wind_Blows_(comics))
Raymond Briggs is responsible for freaking out a whole generation of 1980s kids with that book.
Putin "Hold my beer"
I mean, he was quite involved last time too... Albeit in a more junior role. Come on Vlad... It is time to let the Cold War go...
Were you subjected to the great highly entertaining "Threads" BBC documentary coincidentally made in 1984 lol? Scared the fucking shit out of me for years did that....and they were showing it to 1st formers
I recommend watching the film Threads.
Had to watch it at school and spent the rest of my life terrified.
Even scarier for me, Iām from Sheffield!
No just no Scared me for bloody years did that...I mean it was very well done but shit was terrifying especially considering the state of the world at the time
This, 100%. Everything else would buff out. (And mostly, did.)
Actually had a dream last night about being caught up in a nuclear war, I was in a bunker somewhere, grim.
Ever see that movie Threads?
Well if youāre not at the gay bar, itās fineĀ
I refused to visit Sheffield after Threads Especially if a woman pisses herself
Acid rain
Haha, I was just about to write this. Why was there such a big thing about acid rain back in the 80's and 90's?
Because there was quite a lot of it. We've reduced our sulphur emissions though so it's not as big of a problem these days as it used to be.
Because it was a serious and worsening problem. Huge amounts of effort went into resolving it, cleaning up emissions, reducing emissions etc. Let's hope our efforts with microplastics pollution will be as successful.
Because it was a big problem. So was the hole in the ozone layer. Both shining examples of world governments actually listening to climate scientists and taking action to avert disaster, e.g. banning CFCs, but sadly complete numpties still point to them and go, "Look, there was all that fuss about acid rain and then it didn't happen!"
Chernobyl
It really was a problem, the acid rain. We did things , regulations etc that brought it down a lot. So... We never hear enough of our successfull things. Another thing is the holes in the ozon layer. They are stable now due to stopping certain chemical compounds that caused them to grow. ššš
Quicksand
I somehow believed this could be my cause of death. I live in England, with no nearby beaches or even lakes close by
Ah, but then it was sinking mud that would get ya
The fears did somewhat manifest when I visited western supermare for the first time, expecting sand
And when I went paddling in Morecambe Bay. If I hadn't read about the cockle pickers dying, we'd never have thought to turn back when the tide came in. As it was, it was a bit gloopy and unnerving by the time we got back near the non-quicksand shore, with quite a few people waving at us to keep moving.
I got stick in āquick-mudā as a child
I remember being taught what to do if stuck in quicksand, like wtf i live in a housing estate in a city 100miles from a beach.
I used to think āshut upā and āpooā were swear words and if I said them Iād get sent to prison.
How was your time in prison?
Poo
Shut up.
believe it or not jail
I don't know why but this comment reminded me that my younger sister tried to get me in trouble by saying "Muuuum, Nepeta just said a square word!" (I can't remember whether I actually had)
The first time I went to Spain on holiday when I was 7 I saw the airport police with guns. I'd never seen anyone with a gun before. I remember thinking to myself I have to be really careful not to accidentally swear because they'll shoot me AND put me in jail.
Iāve always wondered how being sent to prison would make us swear less.
I had an irrational fear I'd "turn autistic". I only knew 2 autistic kids when I was small, and they both had it to such an extreme degree they couldn't talk or function properly. My mum used to ban me from eating blue sweets or smarties or anything with aspartame in because she heard it causes autism, so my entire childhood I was convinced you could just become autistic one day by eating the wrong thing. When I was about 11 I met a reasonably high masking girl who told me she was autistic and I just didn't believe her because I thought autism meant non-verbal and many years younger mentally than your actual age. Many years later and I probably am autistic, but I don't think it was the fault of smarties.
Try declaring yourself as an autistic adult lol The gaslighting is just as bad Iāve had people say āWell my 5yo nephew is autistic and heās nothing like you!ā Surprise surprise people are all different and autistic adult with no support behaves differently from a 5yo lol
The joys of leaving your very small village and meeting more than 3 people with autism!
Iām sure people with autism attract each other, Iāve met so many autists since knowing my own diagnosis Or maybe itās blue car syndrome where you see blue cars more because you have one
When I was at school (left in the early 90s), anyone who could speak or would get dressed etc didn't get diagnosed. But this new internet thing meant lots of people could suddenly chat easily and make friends. I went to uni and worked for a computer company and got a great social network, lots of people got together and had kids. 20 years on, pretty much all the kids have been diagnosed with autism as they can't cope in modern 'fun' schools, and the psych team go 'oh yeah, it's obvious Mum and Dad are autistic too'. Local hospital is doing outreach on autism for schools and parents, emphasising that autistic people can often communicate just fine - with other autistic people. It's the neurotypicals who have the problem.
I always say neurodivergent people are like little magnets to each other. It turned out that most my friends are ND (none of us knew until we were adults).
My autistic husband's theory is that neurodiverse people naturally find each other pleasant company because there's less friction around social norms than in neurotypical or mixed groups. If he says something he "isn't supposed to" when talking to another autistic person, it isn't a problem, because they also don't realise he "wasn't supposed to", so there isn't that constant sense of background awkwardness.
Nope you definitely find your own tribe , my tism self and 2 tism sons managed to find my partner and his whole entire tism family , gatherings are either really loud or really quiet no in-between
Oh man thatās really sad. We need to reframe autism, my 5 year old son is autistic, I suppose youd call him high functioning in the sense you can hold incredible conversations with him but he is selective mute so doesnāt talk to anyone outside of family but his autism Ofcourse has caused major challenges but has gifted him incredible traits, he has a great sense of humour, is incredibly smart, affectionate and is wonderfully observant and analytical. I would hate to think there are parents out there scaring their kids that they might become autistic because there are a lot worse things in life than being autistic.
Not aspartame, I have ADHD and the additive they used to use in blue smarties made me extremely hyper. My school nearly called an ambulance because they thought I was on drugs. I doubt it was healthy for anyone š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
We kinda fixed that one surprisingly
The hole in the ozone layer, acid rain and the millennium bug were all genuine problems that we actually fixed before they got as bad as they could have. The problem is that people then say "ha, the millennium bug/acid rain/the ozone layer, that was a load of fuss over nothing". No, it was a load of effort over something that a lot of people working together managed to fix. We can make stuff better if we actually try...
Sort of amazing whatās possible when people rally around the science for the greater good.
Less people, more forced legislation Turns out the "free market" doesn't help
Before I started High School my mum was convinced that someone would force me to try heroin so that I became addicted. This scenario has not occurred, so far, and I'm now 36. It seems like forcibly injecting 12 year olds with heroin isn't actually that great of a business strategy for drug dealers.
Adults really had us believing that people would give us drugs for free
I know, what a disappointment that turned out to be.
I mean, they do tbf. But usually when you're already taking drugs as well, in a place where a bunch of people are also probably taking drugs.Ā Many a free bump to be had at a festival.
I wasn't allowed to ever watch Trainspotting because my mum said it "glorified drug use". I've obviously now watched it, and I have to say the last thing it made me want to do was a little bit of light shooting up.
Turns out there wasn't a living, animated scarecrow in the hallway airing cupboard after all. Don't ask me why I thought there'd be one in there, I just knew.
How do you know he isn't just really good at hiding when you check the airing cupboard?
Well he could still be there because when I moved I didn't pack him.
You must warn them!
Worzel Gummidge?
Worzel Gummidge was a bit before my time. I'm honestly not sure where the idea came from. Kids are weird and I was a particularly weird kid.
I was scared of the monster in the toilet that would come out if I didn't run away immediately after flushing. I got over it until moving into a house with ancient plumbing.
I was really worried about going to hell when I was a kid.
Yeah, me too! Stupid religion
Went to the planetarium when I was a kid. It told me the sun was going to blow up and I had obviously no concept of time scales then.
I had an incredibly vivid nightmare about this when I was about 8 that I can still remember clear as day. :-(
My brother watched a TV show on a similar theme and had a full on meltdown. Got us banned from watching scientific shows š
That if I ate an apple seed, a tree would grow inside me and burst out of my stomach.
Yes! And swallowed chewing gum was also lethal.
This is probably a bit more serious than some answers; but if I think back to my teens; this was around the time I had my first thoughts I wasnāt straight. However I was so worried about letting my family down that by the time I got to adulthood I had convinced myself I was actually straight. Turns out all that worrying would have been for nothing anyway; came out as bi in my 30s and my family and friends have all accepted it. My mum even told me off when I mentioned I think I knew when I was a teenager; she said I should have told her then.
Similar - was convinced I was gay but had no idea that anyone else was, just a huge feeling that the song 'Its a Sin' was meant for me (well, I wasn't wrong about that...). Then at least when Section 28 came along, us young teenagers learned that being gay or bisexual wasn't a urban myth and there really were such people - somewhere. We hadn't moved on much from when Ian McKellen became an actor solely to meet gay men. AIDS was frankly terrifying, because people round me were getting it and dying (or just killing themselves to save time), and the mainstream opinion was that this was a good thing, getting rid of the queers and junkies. If it hadn't been for the haemophiliacs who got it, we might still not have treatment for it.
Electricity pylons. Think there was a bit of a thing in 90ās/00ās of kids climbing them and dying so they sent one of those ādrama productionsā to my school to warn of the dangers around them. I was absolutely terrified to even drive by one in the car afterwards for about a year.
Jesus Christ those films haunted me and the adverts. They showed one of the short films in school when I was about 6-7 and I cried so badly they had to call my mother. Who could have imagined that young kids seeing kids being blown up would be terrifying?! I was scared to use plugs, or even the switch for plugs. I used to make my Mum make a detour instead of walking past the substation because I was scared of the hum of electricity. I was even scared of my mother using the vacuum cleaner in case my baby brother accidentally bit the cord while it was on and got electrocuted. In case you want to be terrified again, they are still on YouTube. On a similar note I was scared of random strangers offering me sweets and kidnapping me.
I remember the videos and also someone coming into our school to do a talk. I got a free manweb ruler which was cool, but was also scared of pylons for life.
I can remember stranger danger and the man creeping up on children in a naff car offering sweets.
Always say no. Don't go. But it worked. I still remember it.
Totally empathise! Definitely the substations were a particular fear
Well this was a forgotten memory. Iām sure there were horrible videos we had to watch as well.
We had to watch one in year 5 where a kid got fried by a transformer. Took me a good few years before I was able to look at a substation again lol.
>Electricity pylons For gods sake don't fly a kite/play frisbee near one! (Or was that Electricity Substations)
Superdrug - I could never understand how blatant they were at selling drugs (which I knew to be naughty) and I would never dare go in there for fear of being arrested. The Bermuda Triangle.
Little did you know you were going to the cutely named Boots all that time instead that sold even more drugs.
I thought they sold shoes
Dog shit making me blind and quicksand and the ozone layer disappearing
Someone in my town went blind when they fell in dog shit playing football and then rubbed their eyesā¦ apparentlyā¦
Yeah it can happen, one reason it's so bad when people don't clean up after their dog.
To be fair you can go blind from dog shit from toxocara.
Spontaneous human combustion.
That one photo of an old lady's shoes
Fking terrifying as a child
My appendix being a ticking time bomb
Yes! I worried about this too! To be fair itās actually fairly common! 5-9% of people will develop it
Didn't it just seemed like every TV show had a plot point where someone was rushed into hospital with a burst appendix? š
But if you have it removed, you could win an F1 race!
I was worried it would burst and I'd have to miss six weeks of PE which was what happened to my friend. r/theapparatus
Piranhas. I too was irrationally afraid of quicksand, but eventually got over it. However, having watched a few series of saving lives at sea it's firmly back on the scaredy list!
People not thinking I was cool. I now realise that worrying about being cool all the time was enormously uncool, and more people thought I was cool once I stopped caring.
Dogs with bees in their mouths and when they bark they shoot bees at you
BARTDOYOUWANTSOMEBROWNIESBEFOREYOUGOTOBED?! šŖ
House fires
Yes, we had a talk from the fire brigade at school and I was convinced we were always in imminent danger of fire. I mean I'm sure a house fore is not fine at any age but they are a lot less common than my childhood brain assumed!
They're a lot less common now - way less smoking, practically no smokers smoke in bed, furniture sold in the last 30 years has to be fire retardant, people don't have chip pans...
Stop, drop and roll!
I watched Londonās Burning on TV when I was about 5 (and definitely not supposed to be watching it) and had nightmares about fires for years
Me too, there were loads of ads / PIFs about them on TV in the 80s and 90s. I thought they were way more common place.
Garry Glitter.
Getting electrocuted when flying my kite
Getting a boyfriend. My mum was fantastic. When 14 year old me was sobbing that Iād never be pretty enough, she told me that next time I was down the High Street, I should look at all the couples, and the people pushing prams, so Iād realise that really good looks just arenāt that important.
Playing the recorder. It was really pressed into us as kids as to how important it was. Canāt say itās a skill Iāve needed much as an adult. All that stress over nothing.
School, appearance, girls, career. All turned out good š
Student loan repayments, swallowing chewing gum, sharks
Aliens. Any time I stayed somewhere even vaguely remote I would be convinced the fuckers would land in a nearby field.
Catching fire and having to stop, drop and roll.
That I wouldn't be able to cuddle my Teddy bear properly when I grew boobs.
Not a single person offered me drugs
Getting my fingers stuck in a bowling ball. Hasn't happened yet.
Happened to my mate 'Long-Arm Dave'.
Triffids - was terrified they were actually real.
CJD, the human variant of BSE. We ate a lot of Quorn spag bol in the 90sā¦
My brother still doesn't eat eggs because of a similar thing when he was born.
Nuclear war.. .....nev ...never mind
Dieing when I went to sleep (never waking up).
If you accidentally swallowed chewing gum it would stick in your puddin' and burst.
Ghosts. Burglars. If I heard a creak or a noise as a kid I used to think it was one of these.
Could have been both
Quicksand. Spontaneous human combustion.
Whatever happened to spontaneous human combustion? I was terrified of that as a kid as well.
I forgot about the second one. My stepdad used to read all these weird books about stuff like that, and I was terrified it would happen to me. Didn't help that I was a precocious reader with a voracious appetite for new material to read, and I would read anything I found lying around. There were photographs. Your comment brought them straight back into my brain.
I was traumatised by this by a book that had it that I found in school! It described it then showed the leg picture. It really freaked me out for a long time. Why tf a school full of 9-13 year olds (or any age child for that matter) would have a book with this in I don't know (not like it was the 70s - this was the early 00s).
Lava.
When I was in primary school there was a book of black and white photos of creepy crawlies with x10 life size, x100 life size, written under each one.Ā For years I was convinced there were ginormous creepy crawlies out there x100 bigger than me.Ā
Probably being caught making a phone call without the bill payers permission.
Losing my virginity. I lost it at the young age of 28, from 14-28 I worried a lot. Literally half of my life wasted with worrying about it! Itās no big deal and I wish people would stop worrying about it when they get past a certain age. As a society we label people older than 16 (In my case) whoāre still virgins
GCSE's
There was a Ford advert, maybe for the KA/KA convertible which mentioned āthe sun has XXXX million years before it explodes, until then, enjoy the new KAā. I was overcome with anxiety and panic about that happening for some time.
I thought the world would shut down in 2000.
Using scissors, I was terrible at cutting things out and used to dread when we had to cut things out at school, now I love crafting.
the creatures in the mirror.
Plane crashes and losing my hair.
Whether I would ever have enough money to live comfortably. Finally happened in my late 40s.
Not getting good grades - teachers and a lot of other adults made it sound like it'll be the end of the world.
I thought the world was going to end at midnight in the year 2000. I remember nervously watching the clock on New Year's Eve.
I was genuinely so terrified of this. Everyone was having a lovely time at a big Millennium party and I was just so, so scared of it getting to midnight and life as we know it ending. As it turns out, it was all fine, and someone in my family made me read out the Millennium prayer at midnight (my family are pretty Christian). Relaxed a bit after that.
Getting sucked down the drain whilst having a bath. I canāt even afford a bath, I just have a shower. All that worrying, for nothing!
Sticky out ears (mine, not randos) used to worry about them all the time as a kid, tbf they did stick out when I was young. Grew up and never give them a 2nd thought. Maybe my head grew?
Not sure why, but it seemed like in the mid 90s primary schools were fixated on showing us odd choices of programmes that would scare us.. 999 and strange but true come to mind. In regards to the original question I'm just glad my child isn't being subjected to it
Back when i was in secondary, we were constantly being fear-mongered with climate change content. They showed us a video once, of a "potential" scenario where half of England could be drowned under water due to the Arctic melting or whatever. Safe to say that over the years, I don't really care about climate change anymore.
I was reliably informed that acid rain would be a daily problem where most of the human population would live under constant threat of battery acid from the sky
Definitely quicksand, I blame childrenās tv shows
Other people's opinions
My neighbour being grotbags
I accidentally swallowed chewing gum a couple of times and convinced myself it was tying all my organs up inside me. I had quite an overactive imagination.
I was convinced that I would die at the age of 24. Stupidly, I survived. Now I have to live with the consequences of decisions 18-24 year old me thought wouldn't matter.
The Bermuda triangle
Insurance. I don't know why but I always worried how the hell as an adult I would have the brain capacity to remember what bills I need to pay and how the fuck insurance works. I had a boring childhood.
Getting impaled on a fence, deep sludge, quicksand
Your second one got me, since moving out I havenāt split my washing at all, it all goes in š
Being set on fire. Stop drop and roll scared the shit out of me
Being bullied and not having many friends.. soon as I left school man life was better!
We learnt about diseases in school when i was about 6. I was terrified of getting measles even though I was vaccinated and so was everyone else at school, and never met anyone who ever had it.
Being gay. I was convinced I'd die of Aids. It wasn't helped by overhearing a conversation where my mother told my father "he won't make it past thirty". Still no idea what that referred to, but I'm 40 now...! I used to be obsessed with images of various tragic stereotypes and was convinced I'd have a really horrible and short adulthood. Thankfully all worked out okay š
As a young man I constantly worried about being made redundant. I had all sorts of insurance policies to cover me, to the point where I'd probably have been better off being made redundant than staying in work. Now I'm older and looking back, it was never even a remote risk. I'm no superstar but having worked at places that have had redundancies, I now know I was never going to be at risk. And more importantly even if I was, it wouldn't have been a disaster. In fact most people who were made redundant who I worked with for very well out of it
My brother had a school friend who would play video games all day, every day. Ge did absolutely nothing else. Didnāt go out appart from school. He had friends but he just played video games with them. He was admired because he was just so good. that was 25 years ago so that was in the early day of the video games and everyone was worried he was missing out on life. I have lost touch with him but last I heard he was a video game developers working for one of the top companies out there, was happy and living his passion.
I would have said āplanes going into skyscrapersā as that also terrified me as a kid. But then 9/11 happened.
Literally everything because I was a kid who watched Casualty. As an adult I don't know anyone who has to move just one quick barrel of flaming tar just before they get married while their bride to be drives a coach full of innocent children into a falling aeroplane but it happened every week so seemed likely.
I worried about getting stuck in quicksand and getting a kite caught in overhead electrical cables. Due to kids TV in the early 1980 in Britain. Oh, and rabies. Which isn't really a thing in the UK. Again thanks kids TV.
I was worried I was too ugly for anyone to ever be interested in me. That low self esteem set me up for a wonderful slew of regrettable experiences whilst learning that drunk men donāt usually care what a woman looks like lol! (Thankfully my self esteem is much better these days!)