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Thu 23 Dec, 2004 04:36 am
writing in the cat threads about hoping the new kitten would give scaredy resident cat some courage reminded me of the situation when my elder daughter was young.
A was nearly 5 when C was born. She had always been nervous about going to bed alone and sometimes had nightmres. When staying the weekend at my parents (my dad was always very strict) she said to my mum 'there are no witches here are there?' and my mum said no way! my dad wouldn't let them - she went off to sleep contentedly.
When C moved into her bedroom with her (C was a very noisy sleeper as a baby, snuffling and waffling about in her cot) the fears and nightmares just stopped. I often wondered whether A thought the witches or ogres or whatever would get C first or whether it was just the reassurance of someone there?
I was also an overimaginative child - it was stuff I'd seen at the cinema that often triggered it - a silly science fiction film (the Blob??) with 'Blood Rust' some powder from outer space that scientists fed stuff to and it grew and grew - and of course eventually ate them! I imagined that was in my room waiting to get me, there might be moths ... all sorts of fears! Funnily enough once in bed, with the blankets over my head I was safe, it was the journey to and from the door that was dangerous!
What fears did other people have? or aren't you admitting to any?
When I was about 8 or so, I was scared to death of escalators. I thought that I would fall, or get caught up in the mechanism.
I remember one day when my parents and I were in the subway. To get to the street, you had to use this long escalator. I cried and screamed. Eventually, my father practically carried me on the escalator.
I finally got rid of the fear in a strange way. I was about 12, and was in a department store with my older cousin, and some of her friends. All of a sudden I realized that I could not find my cousin. The store had two floors connected by an escalator. I jumped on the escalator, and searched back and forth, a number of times.
My fear of being abandoned, was apparently stronger than my fear of the escalator. From that day on, I have been able to ride the escalator. I must admit though, that I still have a teensy bit of trepidation, every time that I get on one.
I can remember the usual fears of the monster under the bed - and a fear of the normal visual static that one can see when one has closed eyes in a dark room - mine took the form of flocks of odd shaped SOMETHINGS swooping around - and they would scare me if I could not sleep.
I can also recall a fear of falling through the cracks in jetties.
However, I ADORED thunder and lightning, all animals and stuff like that.
I was afraid of ventriloquist dolls like Howdy Doody and Charlie McCarthy.
I had a fear of waking up.
Lightening and thunder, Silly Putty, the Wicked Witch of the West.
dlowan wrote:I can remember the usual fears of the monster under the bed - and a fear of the normal visual static that one can see when one has closed eyes in a dark room - mine took the form of flocks of odd shaped SOMETHINGS swooping around - and they would scare me if I could not sleep.
I can also recall a fear of falling through the cracks in jetties.
However, I ADORED thunder and lightning, all animals and stuff like that.
I've always loved storms as well, they are really exhilarating
oh yes the shapes behind closed eyes in the dark <shudder> moths
I was always nervous of the city traffic when we visited my grandmother - not terrified, just amazed at the way she skipped across busy roads - to a country child the cars were much too near but to a city dweller nothing.
I was scared of falling down manholes. Not that there are lots of manholes with the covers off. I stepped on one when I was little and it wiggled. I, of course, thought I was going to fall in and developed this fear that is still sort of there today still. I have a hard time walking over anything like that.
I too was afraid of escallators (* waves to Phoenix *). They looked as if they might just swallow me up rather than let me off at the top or bottom. I got over it the same way I get over other such crappola: dove in over and over until I felt I had mastered the blasted thing.
I was afraid of ghosts. I would actually see shapes moving in my room. One time I saw a form in my window that actually cast a shadow on my wall. I screamed and cried and acreamed some more. When my mom came in the room of course, it was gone and she told me that all i had to do was turn the lights on and they would go away.
So.. for about a year, I slept with the lights on.
now that I am an adult I am facinated with this stuff and TRULY facinated with the shape that was on my wall.. I look like abag lady in the night trying to talk to anything I THINK i see now because my curiousity is so powerful. Now I am what kids are scared of... the lady who thinks she sees ghosts.
I used to be afraid of sharks in the swimming pool and some sort of free-form anxiety who lived under my bed.
Yes with the sharks in the pool. (You wonder how you could have EVER thought...)
The lizard-like, bony fingered thing under my bed--which led to a long-standing habit of taking a run and jump at my bed each night...
The shapes in my closet--which completely disappeared, once I mastered the art of closing my closet door. A triumph.
Demons. Evil spirits. Which wasn't helped by my Sunday School teacher reinforcing those fears weekly.
Closets. I had recurrent nightmares of people hiding in my closet whispering my name.
Also, sharks or other dangerous animals in the pool. We often found snakes and crabs in our pool, so that wasn't completely unfounded.
And alligators and dogs.
FreeDuck wrote:Closets. I had recurrent nightmares of people hiding in my closet whispering my name.
Sorry. That was me.
* we now return you to your regularly-scheduled thread *
My sisters used to terrify me with stories of The Shadow of Earth that crept through the house every night at midnight.
I don't recall if they suggested that the Shadow actually DID anything except creep but it was scary anyway!
I really had some fear when I had forgotten to get coal during daylight and had to do such in the dark:
we stored the coal outsite the house, in a former stable, without light.
ForeverYoung wrote:FreeDuck wrote:Closets. I had recurrent nightmares of people hiding in my closet whispering my name.
Sorry. That was me.
* we now return you to your regularly-scheduled thread *
Oh, then sorry about laying all those traps that were supposed to keep you out.
FreeDuck wrote:ForeverYoung, oh, then sorry about laying all those traps that were supposed to keep you out.
No problem. It was my first adventure in kinkiness. :wink:
I was afraid of other children, and the constant feeling that I would never reconcile my existential dilemma.
When I was but a small child I used to believe that there were THINGS living under my bed. My mohter used to tell me that there was no way that there could be anything living under there becasue of all the crap i pushed under there. But that just made me think that that gave the monsters more things to hide under. I used to awake with my arm hanging off the bed and that would cause my arm to fall asleep. i would get so scared when i tried to move it because i would feel the tinglling and thought that was the monsters magic trying to pull me into his lair. I would then yank my arm up and hide under my covers. I even once sacrificed my "My Buddy" to the creatures which lived under there. It spit him out (hit something and bounced back out) but I didnt know that and I knew for sure that the monsters wanted really boy meat and i was scared even more.
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