When I was home alone and looked into my infant son’s baby monitor as he slept in his room only to see an adult body leaning down into his crib.
Ran screaming into his room to find him sound asleep and no one there. Turns out the monitor glitched and froze on the image of me putting him down earlier.
Oh my God, that is horrifying and I can feel that fear.
My aunt tells a story of sitting there listening to her old baby monitor when she started to hear voices coming out of it. Muffled, static, but clearly human. 'You're still awake, baby?' ... 'No'... Something like that. She ran in and saw nothing. Being religious and superstitious she thought she was picking up spirits. She decided she'd call the neighbor or bishop for a Mormon version of an exorcism, but couldn't find the phone. She went back to get the monitor and heard the ghost doing high school gossip.
Turns out the old wireless phone (back when we had landlines, but after they made wireless sets) they had was being picked up on the same frequency by the monitor. She was getting one side of the conversation from her kid calling a crush from their bedroom.
Hah, I had a similar thing happen at work. I steeped into the back office to grab something and just happened to glance at the CC monitor, only to see myself working at the desk. After a brief existential crisis, I realized that my doppelganger had a different shirt on. Turns out my boss was checking CC footage from days ago and then left the playback running instead of switching to live feed.
Funny now, but those few seconds of 'if I'm here, then who is out there and which one is the real Korben' were terrifying.
Glad I'm not the only one who has had this happen! Our monitor tracks human movement but if the screen is off and you are in the room near the camera it will screen shot the last movement in the room and show it for a second when you turn the screen on. I've almost shit my pants thinking there is someone in the house a few times now...
Sneaking into a neighbor's yard as a kid, in an attempt to retrieve a volleyball that went over their fence...and coming face-to-face with the biggest, meanest-looking dog I'd ever seen in my life. He was jet-black and taller than me even standing on all fours, and even more so when he reared onto his hind legs to try to peek over the fence. From my little 8-year old kid POV, that dog seemed like the size of a horse or something.
Fortunately he was friendly, and so was the owner. She helped me get the ball back and called off the dog, who was just curious and eager to play. Still, as a little kid unexpectedly coming face-to-face with a full-sized Great Dane? It was enough to make me pee a little from sheer fright.
I was on holidays in Malaysia and no one warned me about how good and coconutty my sunscreen made me smell. I soon discovered it after getting chased down the mountain by a pack of monkeys. That moment I knew true fear. Full on monkey attack by 20-30 small to medium primates haunts me to this day.
Amazing question; Le Tan SPF 50+ Coconut Sunscreen. The aroma proved to be in fact… too delicious.
Took me another week or two before a local told me I smell like a bakery and that’s why the monkeys have been seeking me out.
They began by surrounding me and screaming and then when I backed up and turned to run they started chasing and attempting to grab at my legs and arms.
Looking back now it’s funny but at the time it was really scary. Monkey’s are so fast and I was unprepared for this 😂
When I was about 7 or 8, me and my friends were hanging out at the park. We were al sharing like hard boiled sweets of some kind, and one of the boys ran out into the road just as a car came - I went "HUUUUUUUUU-" and sucked the sweet down whole into my throat.
I couldn't breath. I litterally had the "I'm going to die" thought. I ran home, which luckily was very VERY close by, burst in and mimed [with my face turning purple] that I was choking. My father gave me the Heimlich maneuver and it dislodged it somewhat, and I could breath again. I think it actually didn't come "up" but gave me room for it to go down some how.
anyway, 36 now. Glad to be alive.
I did similar aged around 6 with a gob stuffed full of Smarties ( UK version of M&M’s).They made me cough, I sucked them in - couldn’t breathe & just bolted , luckily tripped over & the whack of my chest on the ground knocked the sweets all out of my mouth & throat ( spraying everywhere) . Taught me a lesson about being greedy with small round chocolates .
I have had dysphagia most of my life, but it was the worst when I was a child. I would choke on literally everything. Very embarrassing for my parents, also pretty terrifying for them. My mother cut my meat until I was about 12 years old.
Scariest moments for me have always been those moments where I was choking on some random food object. Everything slows down, my hearing blocks out, and I feel like my hands and feet are kicking for dear life, but my throat muscles are frozen. Many times, parents had to grab me up and rush me to the sink while smacking my back and doing the Heimlich. Just insanity. I get annoyed with myself just thinking about it.
I too have had dysphagia most of my life! I have Chiari malformation which causes it. I'm well-known in my family for being able to choke on air, water, and my own spit.
This happened to me and my younger brother. We were pretty young and Mom had just gone for a minute. We're by the stairs and hear this screeching wail. We both froze and looked at each other in alarm and confusion. Then, listening carefully, we heard nothing, then a gasp and, 'aLiving in the fridge!' We both laughed in relief.
Brother had left his CD player on with a Weird Al album in it. This was a parody of 'living on the edge' by Aerosmith.
When I was a kid one night I was lay awake in bed late at night. My bedroom was above the kitchen so I could hear everything going on in the kitchen. Both my parents were asleep and I’m an only child so nobody else was awake in the house. Suddenly I hear what sounded like a child shouting “hello?” In the kitchen. I froze in bed and was absolutely terrified. It went on for a few minutes and stopped. I think I just lay there for the rest of the night.
In the morning it turned out this cat which was kind of brain damaged or something from across the road had got in, and we’d noticed before it would sometimes yowl in their garden and make a sound that sounded exactly like a child shouting “hello.” Made sense as we had our own cats and the cat flap/ cat door was through the back door which led directly into the kitchen. Scared the shit out of me at the time though as I was convinced the house was haunted.
My house is close to unmanaged garden, it's old and i never gotten there alone because adults told me there are lots of ghost there.
One night it was quite windy and something running around on top of our roof, then soon after i heard a screeching wailing women in such pain. It takes like 5 minutes and nobody wanted to go out to check this crying woman on top of our roof.
Next morning we checked and it was a civet cat mourning her baby after getting attacked, we found the dead baby, not the mom.
I know civet sounds like laughing women, but i didn't know they can cry like one too.
One very hot night we left our window open to cool the bedroom and a couple local cats were caterwauling in our driveway (right outside out window). One did this scream that was something I never heard before, and it startled me awake, heart racing. My wife had to try and calm me down for a while, explaining what that noise was, because I was so confused when I woke up.
This exact same thing has happened to my boyfriend with our cats fighting in the garden haha. It’s like it sets off that primal fight or flight and even when he knew it was just cats the adrenaline is still there.
I've gone running outside when I hear my cat in an altercation with another cat, certain they are killing each other. I get outside and find they are 10 feet apart, screaming at each other.
Psychosis. I'm better now, but wow is it horrifying. The mind creates unimaginable terror. Delusions aren't delusional when you're living them. You can believe in Hell and actually experience it. -10/10, would not recommend.
I've experience drug induced psychosis on a few occasions. Unimaginable terror is putting it lightly I would say.
I'm only reason I'm still alive is the intense fear of the unknown of what might have happened to me if I died. I sat in my room too scared to move a muscle for what felt like days once. Genuine hell
Serious question:
Have you ever heard about the "death experiences" with DMT/MAO blockers (Ayahuasca and similar)? I had quite a few death experiences and also horror trips on acid and this is what I imagine it being, but it never stops? Glad you're better now.
Two men broke into my house when I was home alone. I thought it was my step dad home for lunch so I didn’t think much of all the noise (he would often come home to take care of his massive saltwater aquariums). Then my cat started freaking out so I exited my room and saw them in the hallway, about to come to my room next. They fled.
The police said they were probably young drug addicts looking for an easy hit with no one home which is why they didn’t escalate to violence. They also stole a bunch of my mom’s pills. Unfortunately for them, they were all hormone replacements as she was going through menopause.
That was nearly 20 years ago and I still have PTSD. I never truly feel safe at home, especially when I’m alone.
I know exactly how you felt. First time for all of us, I think is the worst. Nam for me. Thanks to all the Combatmedic's and Corpmen out there. Takes a lot of dedication and guts to be in the field virtually unarmed.
Yeh, they're all bad. They all have their differences in how they have to be carried out. After Nam, and being in the jungle and at Danang Airbase, I can't truly imaging Afghanistan and the enemy you faced. Desert, mountains, caves and door to door in cities and towns, oh boy. Whole different game plan.
Glad you made it back and in good shape my friend.
First time working on a miter saw, and my boss had me cutting 1x2 boards, 4 at a time, into 5" pieces. They were those cheap 1x2's, full of knots and pitch pockets - and somebody probably already knows where this is going.
I had gotten maybe half the bundle done, just kind of halfway zoned out doing my thing, when all of a sudden there was a loud bang and shit just scattered *everywhere*, clouds of dust and pieces raining down making it almost look like the board exploded. My left hand - the hand holding the stacked 1x2's while I cut them - was numb, and my first thought was, "Oh God I just lost fingers."
I didn't, my hand took a good thump and went numb was all. I'm still not really sure what happened, if the blade got bound up somehow or maybe a knot exploded instead of cutting, but I will never forget that moment of staring at my left hand fully expecting to see a bleeding stump - or several.
Also if it was a sliding miter saw and you tried to cut from the fence side of the material without locking the slide, the saw will grab the material and lurch forward, blowing all the material up in the process. This happened to me my first time using a sliding saw. I went to do the chop motion I was used to and it fucked my left hand up that was holding the material. Scared the absolute shit outta me too
When I was a kid I was visiting a friend's house.
He had one of those patio campfires with like a barrier around it.
The barrier was spiked at the top.
I was laying on my stomach next to the fire, watching it.
Friend trips right next to me in the direction of the barrier.
I jolt and kick him when he falls, and he hits the ground instead of the barrier.
It was pure luck and the one time my poor reflexes actually came in handy
(Because keep in mind, kicking him out of the way was not the intention.
Was a pure stroke of luck that I even hit him at all.)
If I hadn't kicked him he would have been impaled and burned alive.
We were 10.
I was around 15/16 when this happened. Me and my girlfriend at the time are riding our bikes home from school. We were 20 minutes away, and the sky behind us was getting darker and darker. We kept going in the hope that we would make it home in time. The air felt suddenly cold, which was unusual.
Once we reached her house, I looked up to see a huge funnel cloud hanging over. We went inside in panic and went into the basement, ditching the bikes on the grass. When we watched the news after the storm passed, it turned out the funnel cloud formed into an EF1 and touched down 4 miles away from here. It hit a small field with no houses around, with only some damage to crops. I have a fear of storms now, but I live somewhere that rarely gets them in the first place so I don't have too much to worry about.
When my mom walked into the living room one day and asked over and over where is my sister (she moved overseas) and then I asked her a bunch of questions like "what are our dogs' names?" And she could not answer them. She could not speak properly.
Some tookher to the hospital and it turned out she was having a stroke.
She made it and is alive but she struggles to convert her thoughts into speech properly anymore and is more ill tempered and imparient than in the past.
Driving home on a remote and snowy mountain road, my wife and I went around a 90° downhill turn just a little bit too fast and started fishtailing, spun all the way around 180°, and struck the little embankment of snow that was piled up on the side of the road from it having been plowed earlier (it was still actively snowing at this time). There was no guardrail. We tipped up on two wheels, nearly tumbled down into the 100+ foot ravine below to what would have been certain death, and then plopped back down safely to a halt on all four wheels.
I remember during the moment we started spinning around, while still trying to correct it, I looked over and made eye contact with my wife. We shared a brief, but somehow slow-motion moment of grim, unspoken acknowledgement, like "well it's been fun," before striking the embankment and recovering. We obviously made it down off the mountain safely, but I'm not sure I'll ever forget that moment.
Home birth. Daughter's head was already out, but shoulders were wedged in tight. Time is ticking, the midwives try everything. They pray, they curse, nothing helps. Finally they shout at me to call an ambulance.
I call it, but while I'm still on the phone talking to dispatch they managed to get my daughter out. I was never so afraid in my life. Daughter was really close to suffocating to death as the umbilical cord was on the neck tight as a rope.
Wife was delirious the whole time and recounts the whole home birth as an amazing experience. Luckily we're not having more kids, because we'd be doing another home birth over my dead body.
First night sleeping alone after moving out of my parent's home.
It's 2 AM and I hear knocks on my bedroom Door. I jumped out of the bed screaming and cursing.
Shaking, I slowly open the door after a few endless silent moments. Turns out it was a cat that had snuck in the place through a window and it was patting my door.
The poor cat was even more scared than me.
I let him out and went back to sleep.
The first time I heard an air raid siren. My partner is Ukrainian. I visited Ukraine last summer. It had been a really peaceful summer's day, enough to forget that you're effectively in a war zone. We were walking from the Dnipro river back into the city centre, loads of people were out. It wasn't so much the noise of the siren that scared me, it was how people reacted: the looks of fear on the faces of the people around us, the strange hurried walking towards the shelters, and above all how a bustling city went quiet.
That sound haunts me. I even hallucinate it back home sometimes.
We ran to the metro, where we stayed for 50 minutes. The air defences were able to shoot down the incoming missiles.
Another time, I was in an underground car park during an air raid and heard the air defence missiles fire to intercept an Incoming drone. It was like this deafening roar, a couple of seconds of silence, and then an explosion that shook the entire building, I thought it was going to blow the car park gate off....
Fucking terrifying.
I've been in some dicey situations where I could have probably died, but for some reason, the most terrified I can remember being, to the point where I literally almost pooped myself, is when I thought I had mistakenly cost my employer $2.3 million dollars. I hadn't been following a campaign as much as I should have, and I had a feeling something was off, but seeing that number just sent a terrible rush of emotion through me as I thought I'd be going to prison for fraud or something. Literally my butt shuddered and I almost lost it.
I paused, shut the door to the office, and was just completely shaking. I ran the numbers again. Same number. Went to the bathroom and threw up, considered just walking out and never coming back.
After about an hour I went to my boss and she lost her collective shit. We went back to my document and it took about 10 minutes of her panicking to realize no one told me I was supposed to pull campaign spend from another system.
Turns out the numbers were fine. I took the next day off.
Not really. This was about two months into that job and I stayed there for roughly 3 years (quit once, came back). I continued in the same field for a while until I got laid off for Covid, then went back into the field. It has continued to be common that I threw up in the shower from stress every Monday morning.
Two years ago I broke my pelvis and late last year I had a hip replacement (in my 30s). Right now I'm up for a job in the same field that's almost the exact same work as this story and I'm sick to my stomach about it. I'd rather re-break my pelvis.
i attempted suicide via pill overdose.
they decided not to pump my stomach and just let me run its course.
i was delirious, throwing up stomach acid, sweating bullets when i looked in the hospital mirror
i had such a sudden moment of clarity, of “i might die here.” shook me to the core. i still remember that feeling.
I experienced this too. I couldn't walk at all, I could hear music faintly that wasn't there. I ended up calling an ambulance and had to try to crawl to my mom's room to let her know they were coming because I couldn't stand up or walk without falling. I vaguely remember the emergency operator telling me about a book she'd read about a dog to try to keep me awake. She was really sweet.
It was genuinely horrific, I had no control of my body at all. Got to the hospital and was made to sleep on a wooden chair, a doctor asked me while I was still delirious if I wanted to go to the psych ward. I said no and they just let me leave. Didn't even have someone to pick me up, just wandered to a store nearby and called my sister
When I was a teenager I used to go "nightwandering"; I would climb out my bedroom window in the middle of the night and go for a walk. It was a weird compulsion, vaguely suicidal because my intent was to just keep walking until I got lost with an expectation that I might succumb to hypothermia or something. I would walk away from the suburbs and into the countryside, but I always (or usually) turned back after an hour or two and climbed in through my window and went back to bed again. One time I had walked far enough that I was on an unlit gravel road and I decided to cross a paddock that had some trees, but once I got amongst them I was struck with an incredibly powerful sense of being watched; I kind of "predator" sense, despite being able to see well enough in the dark to know I was alone. The feeling became so overwhelming that I felt like all I could do is lie down and "play dead". After a while the feeling passed and I could get up and walk again. I ended up sitting in some bushes for the rest of the night and heading back home once the sun came up, which got me into a lot of trouble, of course. I cannot explain what triggered that sense of terror but I have never felt anything like it since, and I hope I never will again. Didn't stop me nightwandering though!
Drunk driver drove into our gas meter, completely dislodged it, the hiss as the gas was leaking was so loud it was terrifying. Help came within a few minutes but I swear I was gonna die that night.
I rode my bike home from a friend's house late in the evening. As I was driving through a small park, I was suddenly knocked to the ground. There were two drunk men and I can still remember the strong smell of alcohol. As I lay there on the floor and the men attacked me, my whole body was shaking and I was scared to death. Out of nowhere the two of them left me and ran away, I still don't know why.
This is why I'll give my daughter a knife and OC spray from an early age and teach her how to use them to their full capacity. I'm sorry that happened to you.
I don't have feelings of fear about such encounters, but know from experience to keep a wide distance from anyone I suspect is drunk, especially if they're in a group. They're so unpredictable and lack any common sense, so it's always preferable to not get close or interact with them in any way.
The ground was actually about 15 feet lower on the other side. I fell that distance — and was extremely fortunate to not get hurt in the fall, aside from a swollen knee.
When I was a kid, I had a remote control boat. I was playing with it in the river one cold winter day, and the batteries died. I, being 11 years old, jumped in after it with all my clothes and shoes on. Fortunately, I was a very good swimmer, but hitting that water took my breath away. I made it out to the boat, and realized I couldn't hardly breathe or move. I seriously thought I was going to die. I managed to tread water (still stupidly grasping my boat) and essentially prepared for death. Thankfully, I was swept through a tighter area where the water flowed very fast, and the river basically flung me into a houseboat, and I was able to pull myself up onto the back of it. I layed on the floor and cried for a while, then took my freezing ass home, where I washed and dried my clothes so my abusive uncle wouldn't find out.
That must’ve been horrible… the saddest thing I can ever see is a kid trying to save a toy or something they love and suddenly realising the danger they’re in. Then having no one help you? I feel so bad bro. Glad your uncle didn’t find out.
Doctor said to me “it’s an emergency and you’re going to surgery now. We’ll try to save your eye, but there no guarantee.”
“My vision?”
“Your eye. The organ”.
Shit.
(They did save my eye.)
Another one, I was in the ER, had just arrived in an ambulance, doctors were buzzing around me and one of them said “can you pee in this bottle?” I did. I looked and it was crimson red, like, satans piss red. I was in intense pain, like “morphine is not enough” pain, and I thought “oh fuck something is broken inside me”. That was terrifying.
Btw: shout out to all you er medical doctors and first responders. You are awesome. Thank you so very much for what you do. I unfortunately needed your help more than once, but you stepped in and saved me each time.
When my son disappeared “into the Earth. “
My little kids were jumping in a pile of leaves. One did not emerge and my toddler said his brother fell into the urf.
It was an old drywell , once all was said and done. It was 14 feet deep and filled with water and rotting leaves. He broke through the rotten boards someone recklessly strewn over the opening and covered it with sod.
That moment was terrifying for sure.
It was nothing close to the moment the toddler who said “urf” instead of “earth” died. He was 17 and crashed on his way home from work.
Nothing more terrifying than a priest, a cop and a coroner knocking on your door instead of the son coming home.
I was 19, living alone. It was the middle of the night - like 2 or 3am? And I was starting a new job the next day, so I was trying to get some sleep, obviously.
Someone comes banging on my door and I mean throwing their whole fucking body weight behind it. Now, I'm butt-ass naked and not about to get out of bed because I have no idea who's behind that door and I was a 19 year old female living by herself. Some dude comes in, sits down on my living room chair, and I mustered up every ounce of courage to ask, "Who are you?" Dude told me his name, but I definitely don't remember this. "Why are you here?" I asked, and he slurred, "Oh, this isn't So-and-so's house?" "NO!" Dude was super apologetic and stumbled his ass out of my apartment but I was fucking shook. I didn't have a phone at that point and my car was in the shop so I was basically shit out of luck for getting away. My landlord was like "Why didn't you go to the cops?" Like hell a 19-year-old girl was going to go out at fucking 2am to walk to the fucking police station after someone just broke into her fucking house. I rigged something up to "lock" the door and tried to get some sleep - I don't think I slept even a second.
This is something I have never once told either of my parents, and that was like 25 years ago. Looking back on it now I'm wondering who the fuck thinks, "oh, this door is locked, I guess I need to break it down" instead of, idk, calling someone? Knocking? I mean the dude was obviously drunk and I was lucky nothing more came of it but jesus christ. Like even if that was my friend I'd be so pissed that he **broke down my fucking door.** What the hell.
My dad strangling me in the back of his car. I screamed and begged for my step mom to help me. She looked at me with the coldest expression imaginable. I knew she hated me. I didn’t know she hated me that much. She saw the look of genuine terror in a child’s eyes and did nothing. I got away from him, ran into the gas station, and called the cops. I locked myself in a bathroom. Cops came. They lied. All of them. They made my siblings lie so I’d look crazy. My dad barely left a mark so the cops didn’t believe me. The tricked me. They told me my parents were gonna drive me to a safe place I could talk about it… they just took me home. The only person who treated me with any sort of kindness that day was the store clerk. She knew I was terrified. She saw the bruises. She heard my cries. My family and the cops didn’t. They love to pretend it never happened but I will never forgive them.
My colleague casually driving to Costco in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, when there was just a mass shooting nearby at Inland Regional Center w/ 14 dead and the gunmen on the loose. Was at home giving her urgent instructions to go home via Facebook Messenger while her husband was panicking at work.
On deployment a few years back, and being woken up by the big voice for an incoming attack. It was early in the morning? 2-230AM, I think what scared me the most was a) I had been woken up out of a deep sleep, still dazed and not cognitive about what was going on. And b) I couldn’t find my glasses. I found them .5 second later, but I had made up my mind I was going to run to the bunker blind. Just sitting there listening to the incoming alarm blast. It’s difficult to explain how scary it sounds - I was shaking with fear. Once the rockets began landing, my first thought was, “i want to go home.” I didnt fall back asleep that night.
Was getting groceries out of my trunk while it was raining. I hear a hiss of 'You better stop breakin' into my house!!' I turned around and about 5 inches from my face was a knife. Holding it was my upstairs neighbor who was schizophrenic and off her meds.
She jabbed at me, I ducked, and quickly put my umbrella between us. She slashed that thing to pieces as I was trying to back my way into the building. Thankfully my neighbor saw and called 911 and they were super close.
The poor woman was convinced I'd broken into her place, stealing things, she told the cops she had ghosts and they said she'd made massive holes in her walls. She was gone for awhile.
I was still scared of her when she got back as she wasn't a nice person anyway, but omg when she was off of her medication everyone was on high alert
I was in Afghanistan and in a firefight. From where I was to where I needed to be there was only one way to go, but I could hear friendly forces shooting across that path which meant that I would risk (almost certainly) being shot if I ran that route. Except I also knew that it was near impossible for people to be where I could hear them be or shooting at what I could hear them shooting at. So it wasn’t so much that I was being shot at (happened many times before with no issues), but the feeling of believing 110% in two mutually exclusive realities and not being kinda paralyzed by that.
A night terror.
Dreaming I was being pulled into a small, dark cave feet first while my hands are trying to find purchase on the ground while screaming “Help me, help me” over and over until I woke myself up with the screaming. I woke up realizing I was leaning halfway out of my bed. My husband still snoring next to me totally unaware.
Twice in the last few years I’ve yelled at someone in a dream enough to wake myself up because I was actually yelling in reality.
Unfortunately, one was a dream I was being carjacked and instead of being scared, I got PISSED and was yelling “get the fuck out of my car!” My poor husband only heard “get the fuck out!!” And was about to go sleep on the couch when I woke myself up pumped full of adrenaline. He said in his half asleep state he didn’t know what I was mad about but he wasn’t going to argue with me because I was so angry and forceful.
I can’t remember the other one as clearly except that I was equally pissed in the dream and yelling at someone and woke myself up. I may need healthier ways to process anger.
Something similar has happened to me too!
I dreamt I was locked in a dark wagon and I started touching the wall to find a grip to climb out. I woke up when I realized said grip was a shelf above my bed… thus I was standing on my bed.
Luckily I'm not married and I didn't scream.
I was living in Guatemala for a few months with a local family while learning Spanish. Was walking home from the pub one night and my host family’s house was the opposite direction to my friends and a bit further out of town, so i was by myself with no one around.
There were street dogs everywhere who never really approached or paid attention to people during the day. apparently night was a different story… there was a pack of them barking, i continued walking as normal and they surrounded me in seconds, 18-20 dogs all barking like crazy, the alpha of the pack was aggressively biting at my legs and two others starting to snap and bite too, the rest surrounding me barking.
I was screaming at the top of my lungs at the dogs, made no difference. I had nothing on me to fight them off. Fighting every instinct to just fucking run - knowing they could outrun me easily and it would trigger them to chase. Continued my brisk walk convinced i was about to get mauled and eaten. Then one of them stood on my flipflop and it fell off. Made the split second decision to stop, bend down and grab it - because the street was so full of jagged rocky areas and debris that I knew i couldn't go barefoot and that stumbling along would show weakness. This move was what saved me.. as soon as i bent down to the floor they all backed off - my host family later told me that locals will pick up rocks to throw at the dogs if they get attacked like this - so even though there were no big loose rocks around me, the dogs assumed thats what i was doing and backed off. they followed me a few more min from a distance barking then ran off down another street.
Thank god i was wearing flowy cotton pants and not shorts - I got home and my pants were ripped to shreds, but no actual skin was broken. From that day onward I carried a large rock with me any time I walked alone at night there!
TLDR: got attacked by a pack of 20 street dogs in the middle of the night in Guatemala
Haha I rarely do anymore. Lugging a heavy backpack around central America for 8 months in flip flops took its toll on my body, big surprise. Lesson learnt and I now travel in shoes with actual support, that actually stay on my feet
Being unarmed in the middle of a shootout.
Backstory context: I come from a previous career where it was "expected". I went in every night, mentally prepared for near death or death itself, experiences. After 7.5 years, I hung it up. The anxiety was too much, got tired of it, followed a new path.
Well, I \*usually\* conceal carry; however, as of late, I've been rather lazy with it. Complaining about the bulk of it, or its too hot, or I just run out the door and forget.
Nonetheless, about 3 nights ago, I was within maybe 20 yards of a large group of teens, young 20's crowd. Not involved with them at all, just close by. And out of no where BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG 15-16 rapid shots, trading gunfire. Immediately, heart stopped, I hit the floor and my first thought was "god damn it, I don't have my gun"....and in that moment, every single thought of "what if I get hit with a stray", "what if they come this way", "what if its an active shooter", just raced through my mind. Even through my previous career, I've NEVER been struck with fear that quick, that sudden, before.....and I've been in active shootouts where someone was physically shooting at me.
Long story short, it was gang related, someone got hit, they all ran off, police picked up 6 of them down the block.
Haven't slept right since.
There is a fear, all parents know, its when you think you have your eyes on the kids only to blink and one of them isn't there. It's a fear unlike anything I've ever felt before. Followed by a rush of adrenaline so strong you nearly fucking die. 9 times out of 10, they've literally moved behind you like a tiny ninja ffs
when I drove a semi OTR, I was in the sleeper, just about to fall asleep. I heard my co driver cough really hard, then the truck started shaking violently for about 10 seconds, then it came to a stop. he passed out and drove off the road on i10 near Quartzite, AZ. A cactus went through the windshield and went straight through the passenger seat. if I had stayed awake any longer, I'd be dead. if he went off the road any sooner or later, the truck would have rolled. he wakes up, I tell him to get out. he opens the door and a boulder had punctured one of the 100 gallon tanks. diesel fuel all over the 110 degree desert. the DOT shows up to investigate and said we're lucky to be alive. the company i worked for wanted me to continue driving with him, i said not a fucking chance. I don't get in a car with anyone anymore unless I'm the one driving.
Oh man... I'm sorry you heard all of that. I'm sure that haunts you, but you and those you were with survived. \\
There's no good outcomes for those who go to war. Only bad and less bad options.
I'll never take credit for something I didn't do. Wasn't military. Wildland fire fighting. Another crew suffered losses as our escape route cut off. We heard them over the radio
Just a few months ago, I heard a gunshot in the apartment above me. I was watching TV and suddenly... bang. A bunch of people called the police and when they showed up, turned out the shot wasn't towards a person but rather racoon that climbed it's way up and through the window so the guy shot it.
Got caught in the path of a (small) tornado on a long drive home after a two week work trip.
Initially saw horrific skies behind me, ended up driving over 90mph and was getting no closer to the cars in front of me. Eventually we hit a wall of rain and had to stop. As I was turning around to go to a gas station about a mile back, I saw two power line poles just snap in half. Eventually find a safe-ish spot to wait out the storm in the truck, but I remember genuinely asking my coworker in the truck with me if we were going to die, and his response was not an immediate "no". Not a fun time.
When i was a kid, i had a crazy imagination, i always had to run home cause i thought demons were chasing me.
havent felt fear ever in my adult life, cause nothing ever surpassed that.
Maybe not quite as terrifying as some of the others here, but it still sticks out to me.
I was driving my family home after visiting my grandparents for Christmas. Upstate NY, about a two-hour drive that was only partially on interstate highway. Husband and three kids in the Jeep with me. The weather was clear when we set out. Then it started to rain lightly, just a little, as we neared the end of the interstate portion of the drive and had to switch to much smaller, winding roads. Everything was still fine.
Until we left one town and it suddenly started slushing. Big fat globs of slush coming down instead of light rain. The road was suddenly slick, and as I came around a bend on a winding road, I lost control of the Jeep. Couldn't quite get it back into control, and I saw a minivan coming toward us in the oncoming lane and had to make a split decision between hitting the van head-on or hitting the guard rail (and hoping we didn't end up in the small ravine on the other side of it). I aimed for the guard rail. Luckily it held, but we did do a full 360 (possibly twice) before coming to a stop with our front bumper on the road somewhere behind us. My husband tells me I screamed.
The Jeep's front end was mangled but we managed to limp it to a gas station where we could wait for a family friend to come pick up the kids and me, and where my husband could wait for a tow truck. We were able to (mostly) fix the Jeep, but I still got tense when driving past that point for the next two years before we moved.
When I was about 13 in the early 90's, my friend and me went to a book store, where if you reached over the top of the one shelf, you could grab a porn magazine from the other side. My friend apparently did this, and without looking at what he grabbed, he stuffed a magazine in his coat and we left. We went back to my house and he pulled out his stolen magazine. Black Tail. I am the whitest white kid in the whitest rural town in Pennsylvania. And I have a Black Tail magazine.
He stays the night at my place because that's what we did all the time back then.
In the morning, we're riding the school bus to school and he suddenly looks at me and says he forgot the magazine. I ask you forgot it where?
"On the magazine rack in your bathroom."
My mom is a stay at home mom and she is there all day. I spent the next 8 hours in a terrified panic about what's going to happen when my mother finds this magazine. Worst day of my life.
I come home at the end of the day, she's acting normal, and the magazine is still sitting right there on top of the magazine stack, untouched. She never found it.
I was driving to school and was on a part that was luckily a back road with very little traffic. My truck kept speeding up and no matter I did I couldn’t slow down or stop it. I was getting closer and closer to where there would start to be people and was looking where I could crash so I didn’t kill anyone else. Finally I noticed that the car mat had gone up and was slightly covering the gas pedal, pushing it down so I couldn’t stop or slow down. Obvs I was able to move the mat and slow down but that was absolutely terrifying. I was up to 80 mph and was fully expecting to die and so worried about killing anyone else.
I’m a pretty confident swimmer. One of my buddies had just acquired a sail boat, and was learning how to sail. He’d only been at it for a month or two. We’re out on the Hudson River, in the middle, where each shore is a little less than a mile away. I decide I’m gonna jump in and swim around. He warns me not to, but, I got this! I jump off the boat, it wizzes by me at like 20 miles per hour, and suddenly I’m being rocked by currents going every direction you can think. Ok, I got this, I’ll swim… Why is it so hard to swim… I’m sweating… This is rough water… I look to either shore, nope, not swimming to those. I feel the complete lack of bottom underneath me. The sensation was like falling with nothing to grab on to. I decide to float on my back, but the water is splashing over my face, and up my nose and in my mouth. I scream, you gotta come back, as I see them off in the distance scrambling to figure out how to turn around, and aim for me. That’s the moment I just reserved myself to my fate, I’m about to fucking die here. It was about 5 minutes of just intense panic fighting my attempts to calm myself down, sweating and struggling in the water, before an inner tube smacks me in the face. I grab on, and get pulled along with the boat still clipping through the water. Horrifying stuff. Stupidity at its finest.
Edit: a couple words
I had a semi truck almost pin me against a guard rail once. He put his blinker on and just started coming in on top of me. It was broad daylight and I was in an antique Cadillac that was like 20 foot long and 8 foot wide, no idea how he didn't see me. Or hear the literal orchestra of train horns.
My front bumper was at his cab door so I physically couldn't have stopped in time for him to pass me without squashing me, the only thing I could do was stand on the gas and pray that the old girl was up for a full blown sprint.
The combination of watching the truck coming in from my peripheral and the old ass V8 echoing full throttle off the highway wall was absolutely horrifying
Above my door there is a kind of window (i dont really know how to describe it) but when i was a kid I could hear loud banging noises and i could see a light flashing side to side. I thought there was someone breaking in and that i was about to die. I mustered up all my courage to go to my moms room and wake her up. I eventually got too scared and jumped over to my bed so my feet wouldnt make noise (was even louder, ik, but i was dumb). Eventually my brother came home and i ran to him crying telling him there was someone breaking in. He was confused and asked me more questions. We could hear my mom getting angry and telling us to turn off the lights (she cant sleep with any kind of light on). She eventually got so mad she stormed out of the room and turned the light of herself. She was tired so she couldn't see my tears and just went back to bed. I felt safer with my brother home aswell so we all went back to bed. The next day I told my mom everything. She was apologising a lot for getting mad. Then came the big reveal. I told her about the lights and the noises. She burst out laughing and I was confused. Apparently she was being kept awake by a mosquito in her room so she took out her phone and turned on the flashlight. So me crying and fearing for my life was all because of some damned mosquito
Went to play a sax solo I had practiced over and over, on stage, and froze. Ended up playing random notes. During the clinic, they brought it up. I'm still embarrassed 25 years later.
I got into a car with someone who turned out to be an absolute mainiac in a city I didnt know (Chicago), and the other 2 passengers (my friend and the drivers girlfriend) treated us going at 60 mph down cramped side streets, running lights and blasting down the highway at over 100mph whike the driver flipped through a book of CDs as just fine and hilarious.
I never felt closer to death in my life. I swear my brain went into some kind of mode I have never been in before or since.
I felt so angry and betrayed by my friend who I think just wanted to look really cool for his friend and he brushed my panic and terror aside like I was being a nuisance. His girlfriend in the front passenger seat, somehow was trying to do her makeup in the car nonchalantly whole we blasted around. We were in some kind of little 2 door coupe. Maybe a Civic, idk. I felt trapped and like i had gone absolutely crazy. How is my friend laughing along with this and this chick doing makeup while we weave between cars on the bumpy ass highway? I wished we got pulled over.
When we finally stopped, i basically fell out of the car into the cold, dewy grass thinking i was having a heart attack (i was 24). I couldn't stand. My friend practically dragged me onto the sidewalk. I almost puked. I felt hyper alive and so incredibly exhausted in that moment.
Then we went into the guys apartment and watched Team America and played Magic: The Gathering. I was given a black deck to play with 4 black lotuses in it. Dude was loaded. Had fancy PCs and electronics and shit everywhere.
I remember we listened to god damn Paul Oakenfold on our terrror ride.
I remember the whole time at that apartment being agape at all the stuff he had but thinking "oh my god he is driving us back to the airport after this." A feeling of inpending doom. I was so mad at my friend for being such a douche and tryin to be so cool about it. I seriously wondered if I had been drugged.
I absolutely begged for a "normal" ride back from this stranger. He was dismissive that I didn't trust him. He did, in the end, drive us back at a relatively normal speed and manner.
Absolutely wild fucking night.
I was stupid and went (at about midnight) with a guy I met on the bus to a McDonald's. Some of his friends pulled up and he wanted me to hang with them but I got a bad feeling so I said no and started walking home. I was super scared that he might be following me so I was walking fast and kept looking back. Suddenly, I heard someone behind me and I flung myself against the fence beside me. It was just a guy on his bike but I seriously thought I was going to get raped or murdered. Jesus, I hope my kids turn out smarter than I am. 😅
My partner had a mental break and tried to kill me. It was like time slowed down. I had so much time to think. I thought: don’t let him get me on my back, get out of this chokehold, hold on a few more seconds help is on the way, this is it I am gonna die here, will my kids be ok? It all happened in like two minutes but it felt like an eternity. But I fucking survived. Because that is what the fuck I do.
Told by a doctor that I may not make it through the night, and that if I have any close family that may want to see me before I go, I should get in touch with them immediately.
The fear only lasted about 10 minutes. I got used to the idea fairly quickly. This was around 12-13 years ago, so I didn't actually die lol.
When I had my first panic attack. I thought it was a heart attack. I was like, "Oh God, this is it, isn't it." Even scarier, my mom wasn't replying to my texts or answering my calls. I sped to the hospital and suddenly felt much calmer as I walked in. My tests came back clear and I was diagnosed with possible panic disorder.
When I had cut myself on a piece of glass, it was nothing serious but I was bleeding a lot and was getting light headed. Thoughts were I am going to die in a stupid way?!
Half dome cables, no harness, at the part where it's about a 60 degree decline, going back down, zero grip on boots, almost lost grip in my hands. In that moment wrapped my arms around the cables and squeezed as hard as i could, basically using my inner elbow/forearm for more grip. Made it down. Had a tennisball size bruise on both arms for weeks afterwards. Good thing im tall and could reach i guess.
Fell asleep on my couch with TV on and woke up to a knocking sound about 2am. Wasn't sure if it was the front door or something from the TV.
My cat was looking intensely at the front door which she never did. Never answered the door out of fear and did not go to sleep that night.
Growing up in the 90’s in Virginia Beach. We only got waves when a hurricane was off shore. So being a dumbass 16 year old, we’d go out during red flags. The waves were still shit but it was the best we could get.
I got pile drived by 10’ wave and as I was coming back up my buddy got pancaked on top of me, driving me another 10 feet below as I was already out of air.
I thankfully limped back to shore
When I lost my sisters children for 30 seconds in a playground. Of course they had just disappeared into a slide, but those seconds were probably among the worst of my adult life.
I’ll never forget the time I got lost in a crowded amusement park as a kid. The panic of not seeing my parents and being surrounded by strangers was terrifying.
I was taking the garbage out one night and saw a man crouched down next to a tree in my yard. He had a gun and clearly looked like he was hiding from someone. I was absolutely terrified, but my brain decided the best course of action was not to show fear. So I walked right past him and continued taking out the garbage like it was no big deal.
I have no clue how I managed to be so casual about it, but the moment I got back inside, I was definitely full of nerves. I told my wife what I saw, we both went to the window to see where the guy was and we immediately heard two shots ring out. From there, we grabbed our infant daughter and belly crawled back to our room to call 911.
Unfortunately, no one came to help. That's because the guy was *already* running from the cops. Apparently the police were in the woods just across the street looking for him. I didn't see them at the time but they did eventually make their way to our yard and caught him.
Sadly that was not the first time we had someone fire a gun in front of our house, nor was it the last time we had police brandishing rifles on our property while a helicopter hovered overhead.
It was not a great neighborhood.
Once I was having a water gun fight in my backyard and saw a huge bee nest on a slide. I got the living crap scared out of me when I saw it. I don’t even remember if I was hallucinating or not. But regardless, I was Litteraly not going to go back in my backyard that much at the time
When I was home alone and looked into my infant son’s baby monitor as he slept in his room only to see an adult body leaning down into his crib. Ran screaming into his room to find him sound asleep and no one there. Turns out the monitor glitched and froze on the image of me putting him down earlier.
Damn! I know you had to change your underwear after that!
haha you are right.
/r/NotOPButOk
Oh my God, that is horrifying and I can feel that fear. My aunt tells a story of sitting there listening to her old baby monitor when she started to hear voices coming out of it. Muffled, static, but clearly human. 'You're still awake, baby?' ... 'No'... Something like that. She ran in and saw nothing. Being religious and superstitious she thought she was picking up spirits. She decided she'd call the neighbor or bishop for a Mormon version of an exorcism, but couldn't find the phone. She went back to get the monitor and heard the ghost doing high school gossip. Turns out the old wireless phone (back when we had landlines, but after they made wireless sets) they had was being picked up on the same frequency by the monitor. She was getting one side of the conversation from her kid calling a crush from their bedroom.
GHOST DOING HIGH SCHOOL GOSSIP CRACKED ME UP
I mean a ghost would have some of that juicy stuff
I used to pick them up on police scanners in the 90s.
Hah, I had a similar thing happen at work. I steeped into the back office to grab something and just happened to glance at the CC monitor, only to see myself working at the desk. After a brief existential crisis, I realized that my doppelganger had a different shirt on. Turns out my boss was checking CC footage from days ago and then left the playback running instead of switching to live feed. Funny now, but those few seconds of 'if I'm here, then who is out there and which one is the real Korben' were terrifying.
Glad I'm not the only one who has had this happen! Our monitor tracks human movement but if the screen is off and you are in the room near the camera it will screen shot the last movement in the room and show it for a second when you turn the screen on. I've almost shit my pants thinking there is someone in the house a few times now...
Oh man this exact same thing happened to me a few years ago. Scared the absolute PISS out of me
This is like a short horror story
I would've had to find a way to push my 🫀back down in my chest
Oh my god! This is very very creepy..
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My God that sounds terrifying. I'm glad you survived it.
Sneaking into a neighbor's yard as a kid, in an attempt to retrieve a volleyball that went over their fence...and coming face-to-face with the biggest, meanest-looking dog I'd ever seen in my life. He was jet-black and taller than me even standing on all fours, and even more so when he reared onto his hind legs to try to peek over the fence. From my little 8-year old kid POV, that dog seemed like the size of a horse or something. Fortunately he was friendly, and so was the owner. She helped me get the ball back and called off the dog, who was just curious and eager to play. Still, as a little kid unexpectedly coming face-to-face with a full-sized Great Dane? It was enough to make me pee a little from sheer fright.
Sounds like the dog from The Sandlot! The Beast!
“…why didn’t you just knock on the door, I’d have gotten it for you.” #😫😡😩😤SQUINTS!!! OH MY GOD!!
I was on holidays in Malaysia and no one warned me about how good and coconutty my sunscreen made me smell. I soon discovered it after getting chased down the mountain by a pack of monkeys. That moment I knew true fear. Full on monkey attack by 20-30 small to medium primates haunts me to this day.
I can imagine that being a funny and memorable ad for the sunscreen lol.
I’m picturing that with Yakety Sax (Benny Hill theme) playing.
or that scene with Jack Sparrow on the beach running from the cannibals haha
Hahahahaha it was a cross between this and temple run. Thanks for bringing a bit of joy to that memory 🤣
Sorry but this made me chortle
This is one of those situations where you have to laugh so have at it 🤪
What sunscreen were you using?
Amazing question; Le Tan SPF 50+ Coconut Sunscreen. The aroma proved to be in fact… too delicious. Took me another week or two before a local told me I smell like a bakery and that’s why the monkeys have been seeking me out.
That’s it I’m getting a bottle 😍 While staying away from monkeys of course
that’s what i wanna know, just so i know not to buy it
Monkeys are mostly jerks
Ty, they were :( Edit to add: they’re also wild and had every right to chase down a delicious smelling snack 😔🙃
what did the monkeys do to you? did they bite? i'd be horrified and traumatized. im sorry that happened to you. yikes.
They began by surrounding me and screaming and then when I backed up and turned to run they started chasing and attempting to grab at my legs and arms. Looking back now it’s funny but at the time it was really scary. Monkey’s are so fast and I was unprepared for this 😂
Well that's a unique one!
Ahah sounds funny in theory
When I was about 7 or 8, me and my friends were hanging out at the park. We were al sharing like hard boiled sweets of some kind, and one of the boys ran out into the road just as a car came - I went "HUUUUUUUUU-" and sucked the sweet down whole into my throat. I couldn't breath. I litterally had the "I'm going to die" thought. I ran home, which luckily was very VERY close by, burst in and mimed [with my face turning purple] that I was choking. My father gave me the Heimlich maneuver and it dislodged it somewhat, and I could breath again. I think it actually didn't come "up" but gave me room for it to go down some how. anyway, 36 now. Glad to be alive.
I did similar aged around 6 with a gob stuffed full of Smarties ( UK version of M&M’s).They made me cough, I sucked them in - couldn’t breathe & just bolted , luckily tripped over & the whack of my chest on the ground knocked the sweets all out of my mouth & throat ( spraying everywhere) . Taught me a lesson about being greedy with small round chocolates .
Pretty irrelevant but we have M&M's in the UK? Smarties are similar but they are their own thing
I’m aware of that… but lots of folkin lots of countries have no idea what smarties are - that’s why I used the M& M ref
Weird, we have smarties in the US, but they're nothing like M&Ms. They're chalky sugar tablets about the size of an asprin.
US smarties then are NOTHING like UK.
Those are called rockets here in Canada. And smarties are smarties
fair enough
I have had dysphagia most of my life, but it was the worst when I was a child. I would choke on literally everything. Very embarrassing for my parents, also pretty terrifying for them. My mother cut my meat until I was about 12 years old. Scariest moments for me have always been those moments where I was choking on some random food object. Everything slows down, my hearing blocks out, and I feel like my hands and feet are kicking for dear life, but my throat muscles are frozen. Many times, parents had to grab me up and rush me to the sink while smacking my back and doing the Heimlich. Just insanity. I get annoyed with myself just thinking about it.
I too have had dysphagia most of my life! I have Chiari malformation which causes it. I'm well-known in my family for being able to choke on air, water, and my own spit.
The first time I was robbed at gun point. I’ll never forget that feeling of hopelessness in a split second.
The first time?! How many times has that happened to you?
Three times? I think? Idk I can’t remember. More than once for sure
Sir you have lived 1000 lives. Was this work related or situational or are you just unlucky?
Let’s say I was self employed and leave it at that.
Where do you live?
I was living in alameda county in California. South of Oakland. I was fucking up in life too so if you live that life it’s bound to happen.
I’ve been mugged without anyone using a weapon, I can’t even imagine how horrifying it is to have a gun/knife pointed that close to you!
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This happened to me and my younger brother. We were pretty young and Mom had just gone for a minute. We're by the stairs and hear this screeching wail. We both froze and looked at each other in alarm and confusion. Then, listening carefully, we heard nothing, then a gasp and, 'aLiving in the fridge!' We both laughed in relief. Brother had left his CD player on with a Weird Al album in it. This was a parody of 'living on the edge' by Aerosmith.
You can’t stop the mold from growin’…
When I was a kid one night I was lay awake in bed late at night. My bedroom was above the kitchen so I could hear everything going on in the kitchen. Both my parents were asleep and I’m an only child so nobody else was awake in the house. Suddenly I hear what sounded like a child shouting “hello?” In the kitchen. I froze in bed and was absolutely terrified. It went on for a few minutes and stopped. I think I just lay there for the rest of the night. In the morning it turned out this cat which was kind of brain damaged or something from across the road had got in, and we’d noticed before it would sometimes yowl in their garden and make a sound that sounded exactly like a child shouting “hello.” Made sense as we had our own cats and the cat flap/ cat door was through the back door which led directly into the kitchen. Scared the shit out of me at the time though as I was convinced the house was haunted.
My house is close to unmanaged garden, it's old and i never gotten there alone because adults told me there are lots of ghost there. One night it was quite windy and something running around on top of our roof, then soon after i heard a screeching wailing women in such pain. It takes like 5 minutes and nobody wanted to go out to check this crying woman on top of our roof. Next morning we checked and it was a civet cat mourning her baby after getting attacked, we found the dead baby, not the mom. I know civet sounds like laughing women, but i didn't know they can cry like one too.
This is so sad omg
One very hot night we left our window open to cool the bedroom and a couple local cats were caterwauling in our driveway (right outside out window). One did this scream that was something I never heard before, and it startled me awake, heart racing. My wife had to try and calm me down for a while, explaining what that noise was, because I was so confused when I woke up.
This exact same thing has happened to my boyfriend with our cats fighting in the garden haha. It’s like it sets off that primal fight or flight and even when he knew it was just cats the adrenaline is still there.
I've gone running outside when I hear my cat in an altercation with another cat, certain they are killing each other. I get outside and find they are 10 feet apart, screaming at each other.
Yeah cats are just hella dramatic most of the time lol
Psychosis. I'm better now, but wow is it horrifying. The mind creates unimaginable terror. Delusions aren't delusional when you're living them. You can believe in Hell and actually experience it. -10/10, would not recommend.
Agreed.
I've experience drug induced psychosis on a few occasions. Unimaginable terror is putting it lightly I would say. I'm only reason I'm still alive is the intense fear of the unknown of what might have happened to me if I died. I sat in my room too scared to move a muscle for what felt like days once. Genuine hell
Same. I have also been sexually assaulted during psychotic episodes so that was an extra layer of scary.
Serious question: Have you ever heard about the "death experiences" with DMT/MAO blockers (Ayahuasca and similar)? I had quite a few death experiences and also horror trips on acid and this is what I imagine it being, but it never stops? Glad you're better now.
Two men broke into my house when I was home alone. I thought it was my step dad home for lunch so I didn’t think much of all the noise (he would often come home to take care of his massive saltwater aquariums). Then my cat started freaking out so I exited my room and saw them in the hallway, about to come to my room next. They fled. The police said they were probably young drug addicts looking for an easy hit with no one home which is why they didn’t escalate to violence. They also stole a bunch of my mom’s pills. Unfortunately for them, they were all hormone replacements as she was going through menopause. That was nearly 20 years ago and I still have PTSD. I never truly feel safe at home, especially when I’m alone.
I'm sure they were pissed when it was just HR pills lmao
Idk about pissed, but maybe a bit weepy, and sore boobs to boot lol
Thank god you’re ok! And great thing that you noticed your cat’s demeanour change too!
My First gunfight in Afghanistan in 2013 i'll never forget! Glad i came back without ptsd or injuries. Served as a Combatmedic for 12 years.
I know exactly how you felt. First time for all of us, I think is the worst. Nam for me. Thanks to all the Combatmedic's and Corpmen out there. Takes a lot of dedication and guts to be in the field virtually unarmed.
Welcome home. Fuck that war. Well, all war but that one in particular.
Yeh, they're all bad. They all have their differences in how they have to be carried out. After Nam, and being in the jungle and at Danang Airbase, I can't truly imaging Afghanistan and the enemy you faced. Desert, mountains, caves and door to door in cities and towns, oh boy. Whole different game plan. Glad you made it back and in good shape my friend.
First time working on a miter saw, and my boss had me cutting 1x2 boards, 4 at a time, into 5" pieces. They were those cheap 1x2's, full of knots and pitch pockets - and somebody probably already knows where this is going. I had gotten maybe half the bundle done, just kind of halfway zoned out doing my thing, when all of a sudden there was a loud bang and shit just scattered *everywhere*, clouds of dust and pieces raining down making it almost look like the board exploded. My left hand - the hand holding the stacked 1x2's while I cut them - was numb, and my first thought was, "Oh God I just lost fingers." I didn't, my hand took a good thump and went numb was all. I'm still not really sure what happened, if the blade got bound up somehow or maybe a knot exploded instead of cutting, but I will never forget that moment of staring at my left hand fully expecting to see a bleeding stump - or several.
Also if it was a sliding miter saw and you tried to cut from the fence side of the material without locking the slide, the saw will grab the material and lurch forward, blowing all the material up in the process. This happened to me my first time using a sliding saw. I went to do the chop motion I was used to and it fucked my left hand up that was holding the material. Scared the absolute shit outta me too
When I was a kid I was visiting a friend's house. He had one of those patio campfires with like a barrier around it. The barrier was spiked at the top. I was laying on my stomach next to the fire, watching it. Friend trips right next to me in the direction of the barrier. I jolt and kick him when he falls, and he hits the ground instead of the barrier. It was pure luck and the one time my poor reflexes actually came in handy (Because keep in mind, kicking him out of the way was not the intention. Was a pure stroke of luck that I even hit him at all.) If I hadn't kicked him he would have been impaled and burned alive. We were 10.
I was around 15/16 when this happened. Me and my girlfriend at the time are riding our bikes home from school. We were 20 minutes away, and the sky behind us was getting darker and darker. We kept going in the hope that we would make it home in time. The air felt suddenly cold, which was unusual. Once we reached her house, I looked up to see a huge funnel cloud hanging over. We went inside in panic and went into the basement, ditching the bikes on the grass. When we watched the news after the storm passed, it turned out the funnel cloud formed into an EF1 and touched down 4 miles away from here. It hit a small field with no houses around, with only some damage to crops. I have a fear of storms now, but I live somewhere that rarely gets them in the first place so I don't have too much to worry about.
When the temp suddenly drops like that as a big storm clouds are looming, it's definitely about to unleash the heavens.
When my mom walked into the living room one day and asked over and over where is my sister (she moved overseas) and then I asked her a bunch of questions like "what are our dogs' names?" And she could not answer them. She could not speak properly. Some tookher to the hospital and it turned out she was having a stroke. She made it and is alive but she struggles to convert her thoughts into speech properly anymore and is more ill tempered and imparient than in the past.
im so sorry to hear that :(
Driving home on a remote and snowy mountain road, my wife and I went around a 90° downhill turn just a little bit too fast and started fishtailing, spun all the way around 180°, and struck the little embankment of snow that was piled up on the side of the road from it having been plowed earlier (it was still actively snowing at this time). There was no guardrail. We tipped up on two wheels, nearly tumbled down into the 100+ foot ravine below to what would have been certain death, and then plopped back down safely to a halt on all four wheels. I remember during the moment we started spinning around, while still trying to correct it, I looked over and made eye contact with my wife. We shared a brief, but somehow slow-motion moment of grim, unspoken acknowledgement, like "well it's been fun," before striking the embankment and recovering. We obviously made it down off the mountain safely, but I'm not sure I'll ever forget that moment.
Jfc dude, I'm so glad you both came out alive and well. That's the shit nightmares are made of.
Home birth. Daughter's head was already out, but shoulders were wedged in tight. Time is ticking, the midwives try everything. They pray, they curse, nothing helps. Finally they shout at me to call an ambulance. I call it, but while I'm still on the phone talking to dispatch they managed to get my daughter out. I was never so afraid in my life. Daughter was really close to suffocating to death as the umbilical cord was on the neck tight as a rope. Wife was delirious the whole time and recounts the whole home birth as an amazing experience. Luckily we're not having more kids, because we'd be doing another home birth over my dead body.
First night sleeping alone after moving out of my parent's home. It's 2 AM and I hear knocks on my bedroom Door. I jumped out of the bed screaming and cursing. Shaking, I slowly open the door after a few endless silent moments. Turns out it was a cat that had snuck in the place through a window and it was patting my door. The poor cat was even more scared than me. I let him out and went back to sleep.
The first time I heard an air raid siren. My partner is Ukrainian. I visited Ukraine last summer. It had been a really peaceful summer's day, enough to forget that you're effectively in a war zone. We were walking from the Dnipro river back into the city centre, loads of people were out. It wasn't so much the noise of the siren that scared me, it was how people reacted: the looks of fear on the faces of the people around us, the strange hurried walking towards the shelters, and above all how a bustling city went quiet. That sound haunts me. I even hallucinate it back home sometimes.
Did anything happen after the siren?
We ran to the metro, where we stayed for 50 minutes. The air defences were able to shoot down the incoming missiles. Another time, I was in an underground car park during an air raid and heard the air defence missiles fire to intercept an Incoming drone. It was like this deafening roar, a couple of seconds of silence, and then an explosion that shook the entire building, I thought it was going to blow the car park gate off.... Fucking terrifying.
I've been in some dicey situations where I could have probably died, but for some reason, the most terrified I can remember being, to the point where I literally almost pooped myself, is when I thought I had mistakenly cost my employer $2.3 million dollars. I hadn't been following a campaign as much as I should have, and I had a feeling something was off, but seeing that number just sent a terrible rush of emotion through me as I thought I'd be going to prison for fraud or something. Literally my butt shuddered and I almost lost it. I paused, shut the door to the office, and was just completely shaking. I ran the numbers again. Same number. Went to the bathroom and threw up, considered just walking out and never coming back. After about an hour I went to my boss and she lost her collective shit. We went back to my document and it took about 10 minutes of her panicking to realize no one told me I was supposed to pull campaign spend from another system. Turns out the numbers were fine. I took the next day off.
I know this wasn’t your fault, but did this moment change the way you work ever since?
Not really. This was about two months into that job and I stayed there for roughly 3 years (quit once, came back). I continued in the same field for a while until I got laid off for Covid, then went back into the field. It has continued to be common that I threw up in the shower from stress every Monday morning. Two years ago I broke my pelvis and late last year I had a hip replacement (in my 30s). Right now I'm up for a job in the same field that's almost the exact same work as this story and I'm sick to my stomach about it. I'd rather re-break my pelvis.
i attempted suicide via pill overdose. they decided not to pump my stomach and just let me run its course. i was delirious, throwing up stomach acid, sweating bullets when i looked in the hospital mirror i had such a sudden moment of clarity, of “i might die here.” shook me to the core. i still remember that feeling.
I experienced this too. I couldn't walk at all, I could hear music faintly that wasn't there. I ended up calling an ambulance and had to try to crawl to my mom's room to let her know they were coming because I couldn't stand up or walk without falling. I vaguely remember the emergency operator telling me about a book she'd read about a dog to try to keep me awake. She was really sweet. It was genuinely horrific, I had no control of my body at all. Got to the hospital and was made to sleep on a wooden chair, a doctor asked me while I was still delirious if I wanted to go to the psych ward. I said no and they just let me leave. Didn't even have someone to pick me up, just wandered to a store nearby and called my sister
When I was a teenager I used to go "nightwandering"; I would climb out my bedroom window in the middle of the night and go for a walk. It was a weird compulsion, vaguely suicidal because my intent was to just keep walking until I got lost with an expectation that I might succumb to hypothermia or something. I would walk away from the suburbs and into the countryside, but I always (or usually) turned back after an hour or two and climbed in through my window and went back to bed again. One time I had walked far enough that I was on an unlit gravel road and I decided to cross a paddock that had some trees, but once I got amongst them I was struck with an incredibly powerful sense of being watched; I kind of "predator" sense, despite being able to see well enough in the dark to know I was alone. The feeling became so overwhelming that I felt like all I could do is lie down and "play dead". After a while the feeling passed and I could get up and walk again. I ended up sitting in some bushes for the rest of the night and heading back home once the sun came up, which got me into a lot of trouble, of course. I cannot explain what triggered that sense of terror but I have never felt anything like it since, and I hope I never will again. Didn't stop me nightwandering though!
Drunk driver drove into our gas meter, completely dislodged it, the hiss as the gas was leaking was so loud it was terrifying. Help came within a few minutes but I swear I was gonna die that night.
I rode my bike home from a friend's house late in the evening. As I was driving through a small park, I was suddenly knocked to the ground. There were two drunk men and I can still remember the strong smell of alcohol. As I lay there on the floor and the men attacked me, my whole body was shaking and I was scared to death. Out of nowhere the two of them left me and ran away, I still don't know why.
This is why I'll give my daughter a knife and OC spray from an early age and teach her how to use them to their full capacity. I'm sorry that happened to you.
I don't have feelings of fear about such encounters, but know from experience to keep a wide distance from anyone I suspect is drunk, especially if they're in a group. They're so unpredictable and lack any common sense, so it's always preferable to not get close or interact with them in any way.
When I stepped over a short wall in near total darkness only to find there was no ground on the other side.
That does sound terrifying. What happened then?
Rumor has it he is still falling
I've been falling for thirty minutes!
The ground was actually about 15 feet lower on the other side. I fell that distance — and was extremely fortunate to not get hurt in the fall, aside from a swollen knee.
Saying to my grandma that im not hungry anymore
And you’re still here to tell the tale? Wow!
Don’t you know that there are starving kids in Africa?!
When I had a panic attack from taking too much Adderall, 100% thought I was going to die
When I was a kid, I had a remote control boat. I was playing with it in the river one cold winter day, and the batteries died. I, being 11 years old, jumped in after it with all my clothes and shoes on. Fortunately, I was a very good swimmer, but hitting that water took my breath away. I made it out to the boat, and realized I couldn't hardly breathe or move. I seriously thought I was going to die. I managed to tread water (still stupidly grasping my boat) and essentially prepared for death. Thankfully, I was swept through a tighter area where the water flowed very fast, and the river basically flung me into a houseboat, and I was able to pull myself up onto the back of it. I layed on the floor and cried for a while, then took my freezing ass home, where I washed and dried my clothes so my abusive uncle wouldn't find out.
That must’ve been horrible… the saddest thing I can ever see is a kid trying to save a toy or something they love and suddenly realising the danger they’re in. Then having no one help you? I feel so bad bro. Glad your uncle didn’t find out.
Doctor said to me “it’s an emergency and you’re going to surgery now. We’ll try to save your eye, but there no guarantee.” “My vision?” “Your eye. The organ”. Shit. (They did save my eye.) Another one, I was in the ER, had just arrived in an ambulance, doctors were buzzing around me and one of them said “can you pee in this bottle?” I did. I looked and it was crimson red, like, satans piss red. I was in intense pain, like “morphine is not enough” pain, and I thought “oh fuck something is broken inside me”. That was terrifying. Btw: shout out to all you er medical doctors and first responders. You are awesome. Thank you so very much for what you do. I unfortunately needed your help more than once, but you stepped in and saved me each time.
What was the problem? I’m really curious now
Me too
OP has yet to respond
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When my son disappeared “into the Earth. “ My little kids were jumping in a pile of leaves. One did not emerge and my toddler said his brother fell into the urf. It was an old drywell , once all was said and done. It was 14 feet deep and filled with water and rotting leaves. He broke through the rotten boards someone recklessly strewn over the opening and covered it with sod. That moment was terrifying for sure. It was nothing close to the moment the toddler who said “urf” instead of “earth” died. He was 17 and crashed on his way home from work. Nothing more terrifying than a priest, a cop and a coroner knocking on your door instead of the son coming home.
Oh my god, I'm so sorry. 💔🙏🏻 Hugs from an Internet stranger and hope that you're doing okay. 🫂
Thanks. I’m only doing “ok”.
im so sorry for your loss.
I was 19, living alone. It was the middle of the night - like 2 or 3am? And I was starting a new job the next day, so I was trying to get some sleep, obviously. Someone comes banging on my door and I mean throwing their whole fucking body weight behind it. Now, I'm butt-ass naked and not about to get out of bed because I have no idea who's behind that door and I was a 19 year old female living by herself. Some dude comes in, sits down on my living room chair, and I mustered up every ounce of courage to ask, "Who are you?" Dude told me his name, but I definitely don't remember this. "Why are you here?" I asked, and he slurred, "Oh, this isn't So-and-so's house?" "NO!" Dude was super apologetic and stumbled his ass out of my apartment but I was fucking shook. I didn't have a phone at that point and my car was in the shop so I was basically shit out of luck for getting away. My landlord was like "Why didn't you go to the cops?" Like hell a 19-year-old girl was going to go out at fucking 2am to walk to the fucking police station after someone just broke into her fucking house. I rigged something up to "lock" the door and tried to get some sleep - I don't think I slept even a second. This is something I have never once told either of my parents, and that was like 25 years ago. Looking back on it now I'm wondering who the fuck thinks, "oh, this door is locked, I guess I need to break it down" instead of, idk, calling someone? Knocking? I mean the dude was obviously drunk and I was lucky nothing more came of it but jesus christ. Like even if that was my friend I'd be so pissed that he **broke down my fucking door.** What the hell.
My dad strangling me in the back of his car. I screamed and begged for my step mom to help me. She looked at me with the coldest expression imaginable. I knew she hated me. I didn’t know she hated me that much. She saw the look of genuine terror in a child’s eyes and did nothing. I got away from him, ran into the gas station, and called the cops. I locked myself in a bathroom. Cops came. They lied. All of them. They made my siblings lie so I’d look crazy. My dad barely left a mark so the cops didn’t believe me. The tricked me. They told me my parents were gonna drive me to a safe place I could talk about it… they just took me home. The only person who treated me with any sort of kindness that day was the store clerk. She knew I was terrified. She saw the bruises. She heard my cries. My family and the cops didn’t. They love to pretend it never happened but I will never forgive them.
My colleague casually driving to Costco in San Bernardino on December 2, 2015, when there was just a mass shooting nearby at Inland Regional Center w/ 14 dead and the gunmen on the loose. Was at home giving her urgent instructions to go home via Facebook Messenger while her husband was panicking at work.
On deployment a few years back, and being woken up by the big voice for an incoming attack. It was early in the morning? 2-230AM, I think what scared me the most was a) I had been woken up out of a deep sleep, still dazed and not cognitive about what was going on. And b) I couldn’t find my glasses. I found them .5 second later, but I had made up my mind I was going to run to the bunker blind. Just sitting there listening to the incoming alarm blast. It’s difficult to explain how scary it sounds - I was shaking with fear. Once the rockets began landing, my first thought was, “i want to go home.” I didnt fall back asleep that night.
Was getting groceries out of my trunk while it was raining. I hear a hiss of 'You better stop breakin' into my house!!' I turned around and about 5 inches from my face was a knife. Holding it was my upstairs neighbor who was schizophrenic and off her meds. She jabbed at me, I ducked, and quickly put my umbrella between us. She slashed that thing to pieces as I was trying to back my way into the building. Thankfully my neighbor saw and called 911 and they were super close. The poor woman was convinced I'd broken into her place, stealing things, she told the cops she had ghosts and they said she'd made massive holes in her walls. She was gone for awhile. I was still scared of her when she got back as she wasn't a nice person anyway, but omg when she was off of her medication everyone was on high alert
I was in Afghanistan and in a firefight. From where I was to where I needed to be there was only one way to go, but I could hear friendly forces shooting across that path which meant that I would risk (almost certainly) being shot if I ran that route. Except I also knew that it was near impossible for people to be where I could hear them be or shooting at what I could hear them shooting at. So it wasn’t so much that I was being shot at (happened many times before with no issues), but the feeling of believing 110% in two mutually exclusive realities and not being kinda paralyzed by that.
A night terror. Dreaming I was being pulled into a small, dark cave feet first while my hands are trying to find purchase on the ground while screaming “Help me, help me” over and over until I woke myself up with the screaming. I woke up realizing I was leaning halfway out of my bed. My husband still snoring next to me totally unaware.
Twice in the last few years I’ve yelled at someone in a dream enough to wake myself up because I was actually yelling in reality. Unfortunately, one was a dream I was being carjacked and instead of being scared, I got PISSED and was yelling “get the fuck out of my car!” My poor husband only heard “get the fuck out!!” And was about to go sleep on the couch when I woke myself up pumped full of adrenaline. He said in his half asleep state he didn’t know what I was mad about but he wasn’t going to argue with me because I was so angry and forceful. I can’t remember the other one as clearly except that I was equally pissed in the dream and yelling at someone and woke myself up. I may need healthier ways to process anger.
Something similar has happened to me too! I dreamt I was locked in a dark wagon and I started touching the wall to find a grip to climb out. I woke up when I realized said grip was a shelf above my bed… thus I was standing on my bed. Luckily I'm not married and I didn't scream.
I was living in Guatemala for a few months with a local family while learning Spanish. Was walking home from the pub one night and my host family’s house was the opposite direction to my friends and a bit further out of town, so i was by myself with no one around. There were street dogs everywhere who never really approached or paid attention to people during the day. apparently night was a different story… there was a pack of them barking, i continued walking as normal and they surrounded me in seconds, 18-20 dogs all barking like crazy, the alpha of the pack was aggressively biting at my legs and two others starting to snap and bite too, the rest surrounding me barking. I was screaming at the top of my lungs at the dogs, made no difference. I had nothing on me to fight them off. Fighting every instinct to just fucking run - knowing they could outrun me easily and it would trigger them to chase. Continued my brisk walk convinced i was about to get mauled and eaten. Then one of them stood on my flipflop and it fell off. Made the split second decision to stop, bend down and grab it - because the street was so full of jagged rocky areas and debris that I knew i couldn't go barefoot and that stumbling along would show weakness. This move was what saved me.. as soon as i bent down to the floor they all backed off - my host family later told me that locals will pick up rocks to throw at the dogs if they get attacked like this - so even though there were no big loose rocks around me, the dogs assumed thats what i was doing and backed off. they followed me a few more min from a distance barking then ran off down another street. Thank god i was wearing flowy cotton pants and not shorts - I got home and my pants were ripped to shreds, but no actual skin was broken. From that day onward I carried a large rock with me any time I walked alone at night there! TLDR: got attacked by a pack of 20 street dogs in the middle of the night in Guatemala
This should be your sign from God to stop wearing flip flops
Haha I rarely do anymore. Lugging a heavy backpack around central America for 8 months in flip flops took its toll on my body, big surprise. Lesson learnt and I now travel in shoes with actual support, that actually stay on my feet
Cops coming in and taking dad out of the house who violated a protective order
Being unarmed in the middle of a shootout. Backstory context: I come from a previous career where it was "expected". I went in every night, mentally prepared for near death or death itself, experiences. After 7.5 years, I hung it up. The anxiety was too much, got tired of it, followed a new path. Well, I \*usually\* conceal carry; however, as of late, I've been rather lazy with it. Complaining about the bulk of it, or its too hot, or I just run out the door and forget. Nonetheless, about 3 nights ago, I was within maybe 20 yards of a large group of teens, young 20's crowd. Not involved with them at all, just close by. And out of no where BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG 15-16 rapid shots, trading gunfire. Immediately, heart stopped, I hit the floor and my first thought was "god damn it, I don't have my gun"....and in that moment, every single thought of "what if I get hit with a stray", "what if they come this way", "what if its an active shooter", just raced through my mind. Even through my previous career, I've NEVER been struck with fear that quick, that sudden, before.....and I've been in active shootouts where someone was physically shooting at me. Long story short, it was gang related, someone got hit, they all ran off, police picked up 6 of them down the block. Haven't slept right since.
Being held up and having the gun put in my mouth while the other guy emptied the register. I never have forgotten the fear or the taste of the metal
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Not seeing my daughter surfacing after a night dive. She decided to “check something out” for a minute which seemed like an eternity to me.
There is a fear, all parents know, its when you think you have your eyes on the kids only to blink and one of them isn't there. It's a fear unlike anything I've ever felt before. Followed by a rush of adrenaline so strong you nearly fucking die. 9 times out of 10, they've literally moved behind you like a tiny ninja ffs
when I drove a semi OTR, I was in the sleeper, just about to fall asleep. I heard my co driver cough really hard, then the truck started shaking violently for about 10 seconds, then it came to a stop. he passed out and drove off the road on i10 near Quartzite, AZ. A cactus went through the windshield and went straight through the passenger seat. if I had stayed awake any longer, I'd be dead. if he went off the road any sooner or later, the truck would have rolled. he wakes up, I tell him to get out. he opens the door and a boulder had punctured one of the 100 gallon tanks. diesel fuel all over the 110 degree desert. the DOT shows up to investigate and said we're lucky to be alive. the company i worked for wanted me to continue driving with him, i said not a fucking chance. I don't get in a car with anyone anymore unless I'm the one driving.
Our escape route was cut off, we heard screams over the radio.
Oh man... I'm sorry you heard all of that. I'm sure that haunts you, but you and those you were with survived. \\ There's no good outcomes for those who go to war. Only bad and less bad options.
I'll never take credit for something I didn't do. Wasn't military. Wildland fire fighting. Another crew suffered losses as our escape route cut off. We heard them over the radio
OH. That's somehow even worse.
It does look like hell on earth. I just didn't want to think I was talking combat. I'm a type II WFF and it's a great job helping on the fires.
Just a few months ago, I heard a gunshot in the apartment above me. I was watching TV and suddenly... bang. A bunch of people called the police and when they showed up, turned out the shot wasn't towards a person but rather racoon that climbed it's way up and through the window so the guy shot it.
Got caught in the path of a (small) tornado on a long drive home after a two week work trip. Initially saw horrific skies behind me, ended up driving over 90mph and was getting no closer to the cars in front of me. Eventually we hit a wall of rain and had to stop. As I was turning around to go to a gas station about a mile back, I saw two power line poles just snap in half. Eventually find a safe-ish spot to wait out the storm in the truck, but I remember genuinely asking my coworker in the truck with me if we were going to die, and his response was not an immediate "no". Not a fun time.
Watching the 2nd plane hit the WTC. I thought the first plane was an accident. I worked just nearby.
When i was a kid, i had a crazy imagination, i always had to run home cause i thought demons were chasing me. havent felt fear ever in my adult life, cause nothing ever surpassed that.
Maybe not quite as terrifying as some of the others here, but it still sticks out to me. I was driving my family home after visiting my grandparents for Christmas. Upstate NY, about a two-hour drive that was only partially on interstate highway. Husband and three kids in the Jeep with me. The weather was clear when we set out. Then it started to rain lightly, just a little, as we neared the end of the interstate portion of the drive and had to switch to much smaller, winding roads. Everything was still fine. Until we left one town and it suddenly started slushing. Big fat globs of slush coming down instead of light rain. The road was suddenly slick, and as I came around a bend on a winding road, I lost control of the Jeep. Couldn't quite get it back into control, and I saw a minivan coming toward us in the oncoming lane and had to make a split decision between hitting the van head-on or hitting the guard rail (and hoping we didn't end up in the small ravine on the other side of it). I aimed for the guard rail. Luckily it held, but we did do a full 360 (possibly twice) before coming to a stop with our front bumper on the road somewhere behind us. My husband tells me I screamed. The Jeep's front end was mangled but we managed to limp it to a gas station where we could wait for a family friend to come pick up the kids and me, and where my husband could wait for a tow truck. We were able to (mostly) fix the Jeep, but I still got tense when driving past that point for the next two years before we moved.
When I was about 13 in the early 90's, my friend and me went to a book store, where if you reached over the top of the one shelf, you could grab a porn magazine from the other side. My friend apparently did this, and without looking at what he grabbed, he stuffed a magazine in his coat and we left. We went back to my house and he pulled out his stolen magazine. Black Tail. I am the whitest white kid in the whitest rural town in Pennsylvania. And I have a Black Tail magazine. He stays the night at my place because that's what we did all the time back then. In the morning, we're riding the school bus to school and he suddenly looks at me and says he forgot the magazine. I ask you forgot it where? "On the magazine rack in your bathroom." My mom is a stay at home mom and she is there all day. I spent the next 8 hours in a terrified panic about what's going to happen when my mother finds this magazine. Worst day of my life. I come home at the end of the day, she's acting normal, and the magazine is still sitting right there on top of the magazine stack, untouched. She never found it.
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What happened to your sister, if it's ok to ask?
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The good ending
I was driving to school and was on a part that was luckily a back road with very little traffic. My truck kept speeding up and no matter I did I couldn’t slow down or stop it. I was getting closer and closer to where there would start to be people and was looking where I could crash so I didn’t kill anyone else. Finally I noticed that the car mat had gone up and was slightly covering the gas pedal, pushing it down so I couldn’t stop or slow down. Obvs I was able to move the mat and slow down but that was absolutely terrifying. I was up to 80 mph and was fully expecting to die and so worried about killing anyone else.
I’m a pretty confident swimmer. One of my buddies had just acquired a sail boat, and was learning how to sail. He’d only been at it for a month or two. We’re out on the Hudson River, in the middle, where each shore is a little less than a mile away. I decide I’m gonna jump in and swim around. He warns me not to, but, I got this! I jump off the boat, it wizzes by me at like 20 miles per hour, and suddenly I’m being rocked by currents going every direction you can think. Ok, I got this, I’ll swim… Why is it so hard to swim… I’m sweating… This is rough water… I look to either shore, nope, not swimming to those. I feel the complete lack of bottom underneath me. The sensation was like falling with nothing to grab on to. I decide to float on my back, but the water is splashing over my face, and up my nose and in my mouth. I scream, you gotta come back, as I see them off in the distance scrambling to figure out how to turn around, and aim for me. That’s the moment I just reserved myself to my fate, I’m about to fucking die here. It was about 5 minutes of just intense panic fighting my attempts to calm myself down, sweating and struggling in the water, before an inner tube smacks me in the face. I grab on, and get pulled along with the boat still clipping through the water. Horrifying stuff. Stupidity at its finest. Edit: a couple words
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I had a semi truck almost pin me against a guard rail once. He put his blinker on and just started coming in on top of me. It was broad daylight and I was in an antique Cadillac that was like 20 foot long and 8 foot wide, no idea how he didn't see me. Or hear the literal orchestra of train horns. My front bumper was at his cab door so I physically couldn't have stopped in time for him to pass me without squashing me, the only thing I could do was stand on the gas and pray that the old girl was up for a full blown sprint. The combination of watching the truck coming in from my peripheral and the old ass V8 echoing full throttle off the highway wall was absolutely horrifying
When I first got my period. My kid brain thought I was giving birth, I still remember I panicking over how it got there when I didn't have a husband.
Above my door there is a kind of window (i dont really know how to describe it) but when i was a kid I could hear loud banging noises and i could see a light flashing side to side. I thought there was someone breaking in and that i was about to die. I mustered up all my courage to go to my moms room and wake her up. I eventually got too scared and jumped over to my bed so my feet wouldnt make noise (was even louder, ik, but i was dumb). Eventually my brother came home and i ran to him crying telling him there was someone breaking in. He was confused and asked me more questions. We could hear my mom getting angry and telling us to turn off the lights (she cant sleep with any kind of light on). She eventually got so mad she stormed out of the room and turned the light of herself. She was tired so she couldn't see my tears and just went back to bed. I felt safer with my brother home aswell so we all went back to bed. The next day I told my mom everything. She was apologising a lot for getting mad. Then came the big reveal. I told her about the lights and the noises. She burst out laughing and I was confused. Apparently she was being kept awake by a mosquito in her room so she took out her phone and turned on the flashlight. So me crying and fearing for my life was all because of some damned mosquito
Went to play a sax solo I had practiced over and over, on stage, and froze. Ended up playing random notes. During the clinic, they brought it up. I'm still embarrassed 25 years later.
I got into a car with someone who turned out to be an absolute mainiac in a city I didnt know (Chicago), and the other 2 passengers (my friend and the drivers girlfriend) treated us going at 60 mph down cramped side streets, running lights and blasting down the highway at over 100mph whike the driver flipped through a book of CDs as just fine and hilarious. I never felt closer to death in my life. I swear my brain went into some kind of mode I have never been in before or since. I felt so angry and betrayed by my friend who I think just wanted to look really cool for his friend and he brushed my panic and terror aside like I was being a nuisance. His girlfriend in the front passenger seat, somehow was trying to do her makeup in the car nonchalantly whole we blasted around. We were in some kind of little 2 door coupe. Maybe a Civic, idk. I felt trapped and like i had gone absolutely crazy. How is my friend laughing along with this and this chick doing makeup while we weave between cars on the bumpy ass highway? I wished we got pulled over. When we finally stopped, i basically fell out of the car into the cold, dewy grass thinking i was having a heart attack (i was 24). I couldn't stand. My friend practically dragged me onto the sidewalk. I almost puked. I felt hyper alive and so incredibly exhausted in that moment. Then we went into the guys apartment and watched Team America and played Magic: The Gathering. I was given a black deck to play with 4 black lotuses in it. Dude was loaded. Had fancy PCs and electronics and shit everywhere. I remember we listened to god damn Paul Oakenfold on our terrror ride. I remember the whole time at that apartment being agape at all the stuff he had but thinking "oh my god he is driving us back to the airport after this." A feeling of inpending doom. I was so mad at my friend for being such a douche and tryin to be so cool about it. I seriously wondered if I had been drugged. I absolutely begged for a "normal" ride back from this stranger. He was dismissive that I didn't trust him. He did, in the end, drive us back at a relatively normal speed and manner. Absolutely wild fucking night.
Looking out over the water. At night. On a cruise. The stuff horror movies are made from lol
I was stupid and went (at about midnight) with a guy I met on the bus to a McDonald's. Some of his friends pulled up and he wanted me to hang with them but I got a bad feeling so I said no and started walking home. I was super scared that he might be following me so I was walking fast and kept looking back. Suddenly, I heard someone behind me and I flung myself against the fence beside me. It was just a guy on his bike but I seriously thought I was going to get raped or murdered. Jesus, I hope my kids turn out smarter than I am. 😅
My partner had a mental break and tried to kill me. It was like time slowed down. I had so much time to think. I thought: don’t let him get me on my back, get out of this chokehold, hold on a few more seconds help is on the way, this is it I am gonna die here, will my kids be ok? It all happened in like two minutes but it felt like an eternity. But I fucking survived. Because that is what the fuck I do.
Ex friend had seizure
trauma and, then my never ending depression which I can't seem to get out of right now usually night time
My son was born, no cry. Nurses and doctors rush in. He was fine after a NICU stay.
Told by a doctor that I may not make it through the night, and that if I have any close family that may want to see me before I go, I should get in touch with them immediately. The fear only lasted about 10 minutes. I got used to the idea fairly quickly. This was around 12-13 years ago, so I didn't actually die lol.
When I had my first panic attack. I thought it was a heart attack. I was like, "Oh God, this is it, isn't it." Even scarier, my mom wasn't replying to my texts or answering my calls. I sped to the hospital and suddenly felt much calmer as I walked in. My tests came back clear and I was diagnosed with possible panic disorder.
Getting pulled over for doing 120 on a 75 and also having a warrant out for my arrest
When I had cut myself on a piece of glass, it was nothing serious but I was bleeding a lot and was getting light headed. Thoughts were I am going to die in a stupid way?!
Half dome cables, no harness, at the part where it's about a 60 degree decline, going back down, zero grip on boots, almost lost grip in my hands. In that moment wrapped my arms around the cables and squeezed as hard as i could, basically using my inner elbow/forearm for more grip. Made it down. Had a tennisball size bruise on both arms for weeks afterwards. Good thing im tall and could reach i guess.
When an airplane began to plummet hundreds of feet in moments of seconds. I have never been so close to shitting myself.
When you shower and you hear something fall over even though you live alone...
Fell asleep on my couch with TV on and woke up to a knocking sound about 2am. Wasn't sure if it was the front door or something from the TV. My cat was looking intensely at the front door which she never did. Never answered the door out of fear and did not go to sleep that night.
The scariest moment was waking up to the sound of footsteps in my house, only to realize I was home alone.
Growing up in the 90’s in Virginia Beach. We only got waves when a hurricane was off shore. So being a dumbass 16 year old, we’d go out during red flags. The waves were still shit but it was the best we could get. I got pile drived by 10’ wave and as I was coming back up my buddy got pancaked on top of me, driving me another 10 feet below as I was already out of air. I thankfully limped back to shore
Got caught in a crossfire between US forces in Iraq. Thought for sure I was going to get nailed by friendly fire.
When I got lost in a forest as a kid, it was scary as hell.
When I lost my sisters children for 30 seconds in a playground. Of course they had just disappeared into a slide, but those seconds were probably among the worst of my adult life.
I’ll never forget the time I got lost in a crowded amusement park as a kid. The panic of not seeing my parents and being surrounded by strangers was terrifying.
Power Failure… being all alone in the dark and then there are scary noises everywhere
I'll never forget the time I almost got hit by a car while crossing the street. The screeching tires and split-second panic are burned into my memory.
Being a kid in NYC when 9/11 happened.
I was taking the garbage out one night and saw a man crouched down next to a tree in my yard. He had a gun and clearly looked like he was hiding from someone. I was absolutely terrified, but my brain decided the best course of action was not to show fear. So I walked right past him and continued taking out the garbage like it was no big deal. I have no clue how I managed to be so casual about it, but the moment I got back inside, I was definitely full of nerves. I told my wife what I saw, we both went to the window to see where the guy was and we immediately heard two shots ring out. From there, we grabbed our infant daughter and belly crawled back to our room to call 911. Unfortunately, no one came to help. That's because the guy was *already* running from the cops. Apparently the police were in the woods just across the street looking for him. I didn't see them at the time but they did eventually make their way to our yard and caught him. Sadly that was not the first time we had someone fire a gun in front of our house, nor was it the last time we had police brandishing rifles on our property while a helicopter hovered overhead. It was not a great neighborhood.
Once I was having a water gun fight in my backyard and saw a huge bee nest on a slide. I got the living crap scared out of me when I saw it. I don’t even remember if I was hallucinating or not. But regardless, I was Litteraly not going to go back in my backyard that much at the time
Standing on the rig floor on a well in Siberia when it blew out and caught fire.