What is the scariest childhood memory, which still sticks with you today?

1. 71

   backporchstoriesposted 12 years ago

   What is the scariest childhood memory, which still sticks with you today?
   
   I was about four or five years old when a lightening storm woke me up and my brother took me to a rocking chair in the living room, near the front door.  As he was attempting to rock me back to sleep, the wind busted open the front door and thunder and lightening screamed in through the screen door!  It terrified me!  What are your early memories of scary times?

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2. 59

   dreidanposted 12 years ago

   Seeing a fight between family members and worrying that it may escalate into violence.

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      backporchstoriesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      That can be very tramatic for any young child.  I feel for you!

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   jose7polancoposted 12 years ago

   Walking alone on nights, they told me when i was little that a serial killer that the police lost track of was at large and preying on alone walkers on my city. The true is that he was hiding and was not killing no more but i grew with that in my mind and still im afraid of. My nightmares when i have them are always me at risk walking alone.

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   lrc7815posted 12 years ago

   I was about nine years old and my brother was six.  Our family spent the day at the local public lake.  My mother made us take a nap in the shade after lunch and while she napped with us, my brother disappeared.  We were frantic and had everyone searching the water and the beach and, the nearby woods.  We searched for over an hour and were all in tears, afraid that he had drowned.  Just as the lifeguard was getting ready to call the EMS dive team in, a stranger came walking down to the concession stand holding my brother's hand.  He had found my brother in the parking lot playing with gravel.  I have never forgotten the fear I felt of losing him.

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5. 79

   Mr. Happyposted 12 years ago

   I was afraid of the Dark when I was a kid. I shed that Fear by spending Time in the Dark. I know the Dark and I know Light. I live without Fear now.

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   j w adamsposted 12 years ago

   Born in 1940, my father was in the war and so my earliest recollections all centre round my mother who was effectively a single parent. As we did not have a radio in those days, my mother would go next door to listen to the news. I would go with her, daytime of course. However, one night I woke up in bed and called to my mother and to my utter fear, discovered she was not there. I felt abandoned and remember the feeling of being completely distraught at being totally alone. Of course my mother soon returned and smoothed away the tears. Much later, when I told her as a teenager that that memory still haunted me, she explained that she had gone to listen to Mr Churchill telling the nation of the success of the battle of El Alamein in North Africa where my father was stationed. Now 72, I can still remember the feelings of fear I felt that night though.

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      backporchstoriesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Wow!  Thank you for your comment.

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7. 57

   medicinefutureposted 12 years ago

   I have forgotten all childhood memories.Perhaps,I have none scary type memory; as scariest childhood memories leave indelible impressions on the psyche.

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   darrensurreyposted 12 years ago

   My dad biting the ears off my chocolate Easter rabbit. :-(

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9. 66

   Lauryallanposted 12 years ago

   When I was about four, I had to get my tonsils removed (I didn't understand that this is what was happening at the time and my parents explained it to me when I told them how scary this memory is for me years later).
   My parents had to leave me in the hospital overnight and I didn't understand why they'd left me alone. The next morning, about 10 kids were taken into a room and an old lady read us a book. The door at the back of the room would open every so often and a man in a green outfit would take a child away. This was all done in silence and the lady would continue to read the whole time.
   Eventually, all the other children had been taken and I was the last child listening to the story. My anxiety had already been building at this point and I thought my parents had abandoned me. When the "man in green" came for me I struggled and fought to escape. He then picked me up while I was crying and screaming and took me like the other children. We went past other beds with children that looked like they were dead, but were actually asleep. No-one was waking up with my screaming. This made me fight even more. The man in green never once talked to me.
   I was then put on a table and held down with a mask over my face.
   I woke up the next morning with a killer throat and my parents beside my bed.
   As you can probably figure out, the "man in green" was a surgeon. For years I had nightmares of those beds with the dead kids and being held down with a mask on my face. The surgeons must have thought I was a crazy kid...

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10. 90

    Blond Logicposted 12 years ago

    I was probably 7 or 8 years old. We lived in the country and I was a tomboy. I would spend most of my time outside playing. One day, I took the dog out into a neighbour's field of maize. We were running through the high stalks and I heard a harvester coming. I thought I would be chopped into a million pieces, I ran but didn't know which way was out and the sound kept getting louder.
    I finally managed to make it to the edge and felt safe. After that I stuck to climbing trees where I could see everything.

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    1. 71

       backporchstoriesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       That would be terrifying!

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11. 34

    edhanposted 12 years ago

    I had an accident at a young age when a car hit me.
    
    Still remember it till this day and I am lucky to be alive at that moment as I was wearing my Thai amulet. Glad that it had averted my danger.

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    Seeker7posted 12 years ago

    I was about five years old and Mum and Dad were given this ugly old wardrobe with a mirror on the front, from a house where some relative had died. I hated that wardrobe as did my sister! It honestly gave me the creeps.
    
    It was put into a spare room but anytime I was asked to go and get something from this room, I would leave the door wide open so I could get out quick. I was always felt that the wardrobe was watching me!
    
    One time though while the bedrooms were being decorated we had to sleep in that room with the wardrobe. It was about the second night that I woke up to find the room absolutely freezing cold - it was summer and even in Scotland the temperature should have been higher. The as I looked around the room, I thought I saw the shadow of a woman in a long skirt and dark blouse standing by the mirror of the wardrobe. I was petrified and felt like crying! But I shut my eyes very tight and pretended I was asleep hoping the dark woman would go away. I then heard a rustling as if someone was moving, I looked at my sister who was in the bed next to me, but she was sleeping. I didn't want to open my eyes but I did and there was nothing there. Of course everyone said it was just the dark, it was my imagination etc. But even after all these years I can still see that dark figure in my mind's eye just as clearly. It was the happiest day of my life when Mum and Dad got rid of the old wardrobe about 2 years later.

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       backporchstoriesposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Funny how those vivid memories can stay along time!

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13. 84

    My Esotericposted 12 years ago

    I had forgotten about my tonsil episode.  Although I wasn't subjected to the "man in green" terror, I still remember the "Mask"; it the Dr, and nurse (I got to learn about women''s boobs that day, to bad I couldn't appreciate it and I am sure the nurse wished I hadn't found them ... yes, I remember that, I am a guy, after all), and my parents to hold me down until the ether did its job.  BTW, ice cream doesn't help.
    
    Anyway, the first thought in my head upon reading the question isn't nearly as traumatic as most who have written so far are, but it comes quickly to mind nevertheless.  It was a movie I watched with my parents at a drive-in theater (how many of you remember those?), I don't remember how old I was.  It was a Titantic knock-off, but I didn't know it then, about a passenger ship in the Pacific which mananged to get a hole in it and start sinking.  The story, of coarse, was about two lovers as they work their way to the top to jump overboard into much warmer waters.  As I remember, the movie ended with them going overboard, there were no mention of sharks in the water.
    
    It is the sense of hopelessness and helplessness that haunts me to this day.  The fear that invoked kept me out of the Navy and off boats which went further out than I could swim back for a very long time.  I got over it though and cruise quite a bit.

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       Lauryallanposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Yeah the scariest movie I watched was at seven years old. My aunt let us watch Critters. I didn't sleep for a week and for years later I used to have to jump from my bed to the door to avoid the imaginary grabby things under the bed in the dark....

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    JThomp42posted 12 years ago

    Seeing my best friend hit and killed by a car is by far my worst memory of childhood.

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       duffsmomposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       Oh JThomp42, I am so sorry you witnessed that.  A sad horrifying memory.

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15. 60

    duffsmomposted 12 years ago

    When I was 8 my dad dropped dead right in front of me and my mom went to pick up the phone and I asked her who she was calling and she was so freaked out, she said "I'm calling Daddy."  I was confused, still remember it like it was yesterday and it was 52 yeas ago.

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       JThomp42posted 12 years agoin reply to this

       I'm SO sorry for you as well. God bless you!!

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    safiq ali patelposted 12 years ago

    Dad was a shop keeper. I was sitting in the van while dad was delivering some groceries. My sister was acting the goat and decided to take the handbreak off. The van went freewheeling down a railway banking of some 25 feet. It was scary though thankfully no-one was injured.

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    bozo047posted 12 years ago

    I still remember the day when i was chased by a big dog and i had 10 years.
    
    And today i am still afraid of dogs!

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18. 62

    dianetrotterposted 12 years ago

    I was sleeping on the top bunk bed.  I saw a man in a white painter's trousers and hat climb through the dining room window and walk over to my bunk bed.  Of course this was impossible.  The dining room was on the other side of the house and not visible from our bedroom.

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    Beata Stasakposted 12 years ago

    Visiting the grave of my granny's sister in the middle of the night every year on the 1st of November (the night of dead), who was killed during the war (the factory she worked was bombed). She was just seventeen years old but the most horrifing memory for me was the knowledge that the only thing of hers they found after the bombing was the part of her finger with the ring attached that her family recognized.  That was the only thing burried in the grave and I have had many nightmares seeing that finger in the grave.

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