I was thinking of what it is that scares me, and I think most of it ties in to what sort of things terrified me as a child, so I'm curious- what sort of things were DDers afraid of in their youth?

Were they logical or completely bizarre? Are any of you still afraid now?

For me, it was Grey Aliens thanks to South Park and a short on abductions. They terrified me for years.

Also, the Groke from the Moomins, which has left me with a terrible aversion to hill-shaped objects.

Oh, and creepy doorways/cupboards that you just know somethings behind.

I remember seeing a newspaper article, admittedly in a trashy newspaper, about green apelike aliens being seen in the mist at a golf course around here somewhere... Freaked me out for WEEKS!

I used to be scared of the floor polisher.

I also used to be afraid of Black dogs... because one of the neighbourhood kids (When I was REAL little) told me that ALL black dogs had Rabies! I didn't even know what rabies was and my neighbour had a psychotic Doberman... so yeah

As boring as it sounds, I used to be afraid of the Wicked Witch of the West from Wizard of Oz. =/ To make things worse I had a Kindergarten teacher that looked just like her. XD

Also Meg Mucklebones from Legend...but she STILL scares me.

I was afraid of the dark. I was also afraid of the dark space under my bed at night...I was afraid a hand would come out, grab me, and drag me under (specifically Bobcat Goldthwait...no thanks to 'Are you Afraid of the Dark'.)

I was also afraid of leaving my room early in the morning when my parents were asleep, so I'd put on a sheet and pretend I was a ghost so I could scare any other ghosts away...yeah, I don't know how I came to that conclusion...

Deep water, at least the idea of swimming in it. Didn't help that I nearly drowned in a public pool at day camp once and NO ONE helped despite being maybe 5 feet from me. (I got shoved in too far by a bully.) I didn't learn to swim until a couple years later, on my own terms. I'm like a fish now. Or a sexy octopus, whichever.

I guess ticks would be the other one. And was with good reason, I'd later find! Got infected with Lymes in my 19th year. Its ruined me ever since.

I'm very afraid of snakes. As a child there used to be this thing in the bushes that looked like a giant of a snake. Years later they cleared the area and I found out it was just a bunch of tires... >_<

Big waves. They still scare me.
There's so much power in them, they're so high that they tower over your head and block the sun... they're very hard to escape from too, when you're in the water- which is when I'm afraid of them. They travel faster than you can swim, the water makes it too hard to run. If you swim into them you don't know for sure where they will break- sometimes it's far out, sometimes close. If you're lucky you can usually ride over them or swim under...
But if you get caught it's like a washing machine. You get pushed to the bottom into the sand and rocks and twisted about with no air to breathe.

I hate that. So I'm afraid of big waves.
Have been since I first got caught.
----------------------

Big dogs used to scare me as a child, because I was attacked once but then I got bigger myself.

Dogs, the dark, the witch from Snow White, and that guy on the flour bags.

I was such a pansy as a kid.

1. Deep water - almost drowned as a kid right behind thethe swimming instructor's back, basically I slipped in the pool, went under, got scared, opened my mouth...
this leads to number two..

2. Chlorine smell - it makes me think of drowning...

3. Fear of falling I guess (not of heights by themselves) - since I had to jump off a garage once (these are luckily much lower over here so I was less than 2 meters above the ground) and ALMOST broke my foot... No permanent damage, but it did get swollen a bit and was hurting me until the end of summer... yay, ruined summer... since then I'm not going to climb a ladder unless I can hold onto something at all times and won't come near a barrier that's shorter than my waist...

4. gas explosions - as in explosions of bathrooom water boilers... I was almost wounded or even killed in one. Light up the flame in it, turn the hot water, the flame will get big, right? and when you turn it off it should go off and return to the small flame, right? Well, it didn't...
Bathroom and kitchen are at the opposite ends of our flat so you can see one form the other. I turn off the water, flame remains big so I shout to her "mom? It's still burning".. this very moment she drops everything she's doing, shouting to me to get out of there and runs in, pulls me out... and a second later BAM!
One of the pipes got torn and the steel plate that was covering it flew right through the spot I was standing at just a second before.

So yeah, that's the four I remember...

Haha....My fears as a kid were definitely in no way logical.:|

The only one I can really remember right now though, I remember at some point I thought there was a monster living behind the toilet. I don't know where I got this idea. Later on I even had a dream he looked like the guy from beetlejuice who smoked himself to death. I thought he would eat us all, so to stop that from happening I started shoving toilet paper behind the toilet because I thought that was his favorite snack.

Haha, I'm not afraid of that now, of course.:D

Spiders, Basketballs, getting locked in a room and having no way out, and Amnesia.

Wait- wait I'm still afraid of all of those things.

Oh no.

Oh yeah, and some others... dogs (I tent to get out of their way), spiders, crawling insects and FLYING insects (especially bees, wasps hornets and such)...

So if I clubbed you from behind with the right amount of force, then locked you inside an old gym and threw away the key then...

waitaminute... you'd forget that you had those fears in the first place. O_O

Oh, yeah. I used to have dreams that I'd fallen under the bed and was looking out, and it would just fade to black like I was suffocating. I still don't like going under the bed, but its probably because its like a spider cemetry under there. I should hoover more.

Spiders used to scare me SO much. I still don't like them, but at least I don't start screaming anymore whenever I see one. XD Actually, there are usually at least two or three spiders in my room, it's pretty common here. In fact I can see one right now and it doesn't bother me at all. Though when I was younger, seeing a spider always resulted in me telling my parents to kill the poor thing.

Same with insects, especially bees. I reeeally dislike them, but I'm not exactly scared of them anymore.

Tall buildings. They're going to fall on meeeeee!

I still don't like tall buildings >_>

The attic. I don't know why, but it was the attic.

Whenever I was misbehaving my parents would say "stop it or we'll lock you in the attic!" and I'd stop immediately. Pretty convenient.

My greatest fear was that one day I would be too successful.

My fears have been realized. The world is such a cold cold place.

For some reason, I was terrified of this tiny toy statue of Rutherford B. Hayes (the 19th US president) that my parents had gotten for free in like, a bucket of chicken or somethin'.

That's a super random thing to have in the house... I don't even know what Rutherford B. Hayes looks like...

interestingly enough..... one of my childhood fears inspired this habit I still have to this day.

every time I turn off the light at night, I tend to run towards the bed and then leap into it before my feet get too close to the sides of the bed or something.

this was due to that classic "spooky dark place under the bed" that seems to disturb all kids at one point.

I was creeped out at the thought that anything could be under there that I couldn't see at all at night, etc. so I'd think that something from under there would crawl out to touch my feet and stuff if I just simply walked to my bed and climbed into there the normal way.

hence, the mad dash/jump towards my bed soon as I turn off the lights. I don't believe in that sort of thing anymore, of course... but I still do that anyway because I've gotten so used to doing it.

I saw an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark when I was 6 and visions of red skeletons freaked me out for years. I still often sleep under the covers just out of habit.

-The Darrel

That doll from child's play. I saw the movie when I was way too young...

I had a lot of illogical fears as a kid, but the most comically pathetic one I can remember is when I was afraid of toilets because of that scene in Look Who's Talking 2 where the toilet tells the kid it's going to eat him.

Also, I was convinced that there were little monsters that would attack me in my sleep (specifically, an army of half-melted "Stripe"s from the end of the original Gremlins), unless I was completely covered by my blanket (head and all. I started building little pillow forts for maximum protection while not suffocating myself). I faced many a dilemma on nights where my feet would start to get hot, and I would debate for what seemed like hours as to whether or not I should pull the blanket off them and risk melty-gremlin assaults, or simply wait to adjust to the heat.

...

I usually just adjusted to the heat.

I kind of do that still. But I usually have my TV or my desk lamp on, so it varies between shuffling along the floor to making a mad dash.

Which brings me to my own childhood fear that turned itself into a habit of mine. As a kid, I was afraid of toilet demons. They'd only come out when I flushed the toilet, so I'd always wash my hands first, then I'd flush after which I'd run out of the bathroom as fast as I can and out of the sights of the doorway.
So now I wash my hands before flushing the toilet, I just don't make a terror-fueled sprint when I'm done.

Funny thing is though, I made up the toilet demons and at some point, I convinced myself that they were real. Which is probably why I was wary of the stair well as a child since me and my siblings played a game called 'Sandmonster'.

My imagination was a little overactive as a child.

Oh jeez, I forgot about Chucky, I was really scared of him too. It made me afraid of all toys I had in my room. =/

oh god, I feel embarrassed saying this, but when I saw the Pinocchio movie (it was live-action i think) I always thought the giant fish at the end would come outta the toilet and bite my willy off. I was always cautious when I pissed in those days. But that was only for like a month.

in fact, I googled it, and I don't think Pinocchio is what I am thinking of. Just some movie with a giant ugly fish at the end, and it's probably that movie.

Truth be told... I think my greatest childhood fear was of bitingf into what I thought was a marmite and cheese sandwich... only tyo discover it was really vegemite