Things you feared as a child

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It's hard for me to imagine why or how or where it may have come from. But I had a strange fear of witches, like the wicked witch of the west type.
My other more justified fear was of all poisonous snakes/lizards/other amphibians and slimy whatnots (due to all too early viewings of Jurassic park), whom I was frightened of do to there inhuman nature and fangs/poison.

As a child I had strong fear of people (mainly my peers) and dogs.

I'm not afraid of people anymore,but I still have strong discomfort in the presence of dogs.
In my childhood this fear of dogs was almost close to phobia.

I used to fear the sail at the end of my Chinese wind chimes. I used to think it would cut me up. They hung at my window at the foot of my bed. I was sort of worried that it would fall and cut me, and it was so ugly; it was supposed to be a butterfly but it was this rusting metal and had rounded edges, so it looked like this ghoulish decapitated body of a monster. I had nightmares about getting tangled in strings with a bunch of them and them cutting me up! It was odd! I couldn't even look at it sometimes!

for as far back as I can remember, loud noisy screaming unruly children upset and mortify me

they still do

needles absolutly...they have to tie me in chair or someting to get blood sample

Bees (or any flying, stinging insect). Just today I moved my studies indoors after one buzzed near me. I can't deal with one. Once I see one, I run indoors or far away from it.

Things under dark water. Like I can't go to the lake and swim in it if I can't see the bottom. I am TERRIFIED of stepping on something painful and not expecting it. I even wear sandals in the water when I do go in, which is rare.

I had and still have MAJOR issues with my routine being interrupted. I always thought it was because my mother showed up to get me from school whenever she got to it (sometimes hours late) and things like holidays were a shot in the dark - maybe the Easter Bunny came and maybe he didn't. She overslept through these things. And try to call when she failed to pick me up from school, but sometimes the phone would be disconnected because she didn't care to pay the bill on time (we didn't lack for money). I realize now that my problems were probably there anyhow, but amplified by things like that.

I had developed a fear of seeing ghosts at the age of 7 when I saw ghostbusters and hid under my covers every night until about 9

I was actually afraid at one time being alone in the woods, like some animal will come and eat me, now I LOVE being in the middle of the deep woods alone.

I was terrified of this doll my grandmother gave me, to this day I swear the thing ate a peice of plastic, to this day I still wonder what exactly happened, mom had to throw it out, heh.

Hmmm...scared of vomiting? Wow! I thought I was the only one...it wasn't until I became pregnant that it seemed to go away...

Also, someone mentioned white spaces...me too...but mine is like scared of white snow or a wide open outside space that's white...I actually went skiing once in the hopes that fear would go away...Not sure it did completely, but somewhat...

thats insane... the vomit thing I never thought was a childhood fear because my whole life I could not stand being sick and lucky that it rairly occured but when it did I always feared it much, I was not going to even meansion that, as I did not assume that was a 'childhood fear' but rather a personal one, but many of us seem to shair that fear so ill add that to my list.

Apparently "emetophobia" or fear of vomiting is one of the most common phobias!

I was scared of:

* authority figures
* my teddies when it was dark (I thought they were alive)
* the dark (or, I suppose, the unknown of what might be lurking in the dark)
* the troll under my bed (I can still picture him now, but I don't have space under my bed for a troll anymore, thankfully )
* spiders and scorpians (which I thought would crawl up on my bed from under my bed)
* moths or any fluttery insects that might get on me and be all horrible and tickly
* strangers (including unfamiliar family members, or people my parents knew that I did not)
* my hallucinations (often that my mum or dads facial features would change, like their noses would grow - I often had hallucinations when I wasn't well even when it was only a mild illness)

I can't think of any other things...

dogs. I had a particularly harrowing experience with one when I was little that left a lasting impression on me to this day. I guess there is just something about the teeth and the barking and the big eyes and the growling that leaves me frozen on the spot or running 100 mph in the other direction.

When I was a kid, we had a smoke detector that wouldn't shut up so my mother taped a plastic hairbrush onto it to press the little button. Well, she left that hairbrush there for about 3 years...it scared the crap out of me! Just the prongs pointing down and like it was going to fall on my head freaked me out. I'd have a meltdown every time I had to go through the hallway!

--Aspiegirl89

That if my cuddle toys were not arranged in the right way around my bed in the evening, a monster would come to kill and eat me.

Also, I hated pictures and paintings of people as well as my puppets. I'd put them upside down into some hole so that they wouldn't come after me when I was alone.

Once during a holiday when I was four my grandmother told me a story about an old elevator she once was stuck in after the lights suddenly went out. Coincidentally, we had to use an elevator where we had rented a flat and of course, the light went out and we were stuck for a few seconds. I was horrified.
I never go inside with the same feeling since that day.

My mother told me that when I was really little, perhaps one year, I'd always cry and scream whenever people looked at me.

There was this cardboard cutout of a cartoon of a creepy man in a trench coat in the ladie's bathroom of the office where my dad worked as a draftsman. It said "the bad guys are coming"

I was terrified of it. Had to have someone come into the bathroom and turn it around before I could go.

Also....being left alone by my parents...(i'd had some really bad babysitters)..so even when I had a good babysitter, i was prone to complete meltdowns until I fell asleep..or my parents returned.

GHOSTS....
Most particularly, the haunted bathroom at this really elaborate old chinese resturaunt....the whole bathroom was this deep eerie blue color.
I swore I'd seen the toilet paper rolls spinning by themselves on their holders.

Other kids
going to school
more ghosts

the mechanical monkey with the cymbals and the bulging eyes...this made me scared of all monkeys for a little while when I was very young....including sock monkeys.

Oh yeah, I also didn't like slugs. In the evening my father would sometimes walk round the off-license and rent a film and buy some essentials, or a pack of cigarettes. It would be dark, and slugs would be all over the path. For some reason I used to see them as much longer than they really were, and he'd have to carry me over them because I'd have a meltdown at the prospect of stepping over them/being anywhere near them.

I also didn't like clowns because when watching a parade, a clown kissed a little girl on the cheek, so I got very distressed thinking he might try to kiss me. I had to hide my face until he went past and my mum had to tell me when I could 'come out'.

I just remembered one that terrified me. Loud thumping, especially (but not exclusively) rhythmic thumping. For example, we had "enter phones" in our apartment building. It operated on a buzzer type system and there was a unit on the back wall of the laundry room in each building that operated it. When a visitor came for one of the 11-15 apartments per building, and they pressed one of the apartment numbers, it would go "thump-thump thump-thump". I remember running screaming from the laundry room on many occasions, terrified and shaking. My dad would be so pissed at me, but my mom tried to understand. They'd say, "But honey you know what it is, and it isn't scary, why do you act like this?" I just said it's scary! Similarly we had large fans in the lobby which vented heat from the lobby and attic in the summer. They opened based on heat at any given time. I never knew when this was. I was terrified of it though - the noise and the appearance of it. Heck, even now thinking of these things makes me tense up!

Thank you for this thread. I had forgotten these things and now when my daughter freaks out over sounds that seem so benign, I'll be a little more understanding.