What's your biggest childhood myth you were afraid of?

SinglesRazor · 11 months

Fucking Bloody Mary. Say it three times into that mirror. I dare you.

SavannaBanana · 11 months

I cried when told that the black watermelon seed I had just accidentally swallowed would grow into a watermelon in my stomach. Dicks.

Fightforit24 · 11 months

That there was a skeleton in the toilet that would stick its bony finger in my butthole.

ITdoug · 11 months

Swallowing chewing-gum and having it stuck inside of me for 7 years

cocomc · 11 months

Black people. Don't judge i grew up in an all white neighborhood and school so i didn't know any. Before i was 16 i never had a full conversation with an african american. Now i can say i have a number of black friends.

cvasquez12 · 11 months

My father told my sisters and I that if we didn't eat our vegetables, we would turn into gollum, as a result I always ate my vegetables

phalseprofits · 11 months

Falling into the toilet. The seat seemed so cavernous. Now I'm a fatass, so I'm pretty sure there is no toilet seat too large for me.

kezzie87 · 11 months

That every time i blinked i was taking a mental photograph, and all these photographs would flash before me when i died....i used to blink loads when i saw things i liked so i wouldn't have horrible 'pictures' to look at when i died!

jivesukka · 11 months

AIDS.

The way my school communicated the disease was that mixing blood could lead to AIDS. They left out the important fact that one of the two people had to have it in order for it to be transferred. I was terrified constantly that someone else's blood would touch me and I would get AIDS because our blood mixed.

zarp86 · 11 months

Yellow 12,the chemical they put in lemonade.

For some reason, the myth was always Mountain Dew at my school.

LonesomeBoy · 11 months

My dad softly whispered into my ear one night "There's a monster under your bed." Laughed, and then went to bed. Fuck you, dad.

Phrea · 11 months

The goddamn guillotine.

When I was young, we used to vacation in the south of France, driving there from The Netherlands.
Every time we passed Paris [which takes like an hour or more], I'd almost piss my pants, because I knew the guillotine was in Paris, and I was scared they would maybe think that I'd earned to have my head chopped off...

Goddamn terrified.

The_Flabbergaster · 11 months

The Butterknife Doll. Just a doll with a butter knife, who fucked shit up.

0rangecake · 11 months

Fan death (yes, I'm Korean)

Whistling at night will cause snakes to come into your room.

bonersandcatsandshit · 11 months

I was told that we eat 4 spiders a year in our sleep. I used to try and prop my mouth closed when I slept.

sarahbobber · 11 months

My mom used to tell me that if I cut my fingernails/toenails at night that a ghost that looks like this would come and rip my nails out.

One of my phobias now that I'm older. Cutting my nails is one of the most terrifying things that I do. Doesn't help that when I was in 1^st grade my best friend at the time just picked her pinky toenail off. I'm cringing at the moment.

Gonna go check to see if my nails are still there now...

DontCallMeNeilSedaka · 11 months

I think it was those ice cream cones with the shells like this: http://img4-1.realsimple.timeinc.net/images/0808/ice-cream-pops-3_300.jpg

They had commercials where, in order to show how awesome they are, they'd show a boy taking a bite of it, and his head would turn into a part of the cone. Woo, cool, I want to buy some now, right? NO. I was mortified. My young self refused to allow either of my sisters or my parents to buy this wretched head-mutilating tool of the devil. I was afraid that they would take one bite and be gone forever.

VigilemusAgros · 11 months

Michael Jackson.

wintercast · 11 months

My sister convinced me i was hatched from an egg found on the beach and that i had a tail. The story fell apart a little when the type of tail i had changed. Sometimes she would say i had a bird tail, cat tail, fish tail...
I read zoo books as a kid, even before i could actually read, i would look at the photos and have an adult read them to me. I liked to pretend i was an animal as a kid, so i would run around on my hands and knees pretending to be a horse. One of the zoo books had a large centerfold type image that showed the evolution of horses. My sister read it to me, and basically added her own words, stating that if i ran around on my hands and knees too long, they would turn into hooves.

GodBeard · 11 months

I had crazy religious grandparents, so I imagined satan was scraping my windows at night with his long fingernails. they are long because satan abhors any kind of personal hygiene.

bibdrums · 11 months

Six words - Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary

unhidingtoseek · 11 months

combination of Zeek the Plumber and Large Marge

andynation · 11 months

I was convinced that all those TV reports people were being raked, and not raped.

I had it in my head for many years that lots of people ran around attacking people with rakes.

ISBN0916291456 · 11 months

As an adult, I am relieved to say that I am not blind, nor do I have hair growing from my palms. No more said lest this go into NSFW.

Obieousmaximus · 11 months

My neighbor told me not to go rooting around his property cause there was a giant spider. I dreaded walking by his house cause I imagined a car sized spider lurking about.

Valcana · 11 months

My dad welded once in a while in his shop. Sometimes I'd be there to be supervised and he told me I'd go permanently blind if I looked at the light. You know what your cats or dogs do when you start a vacuum? Yeah, that was me when that welder turned on.

SnarkyChief · 11 months

I was very talkative as a child, and apparently this one summer day I wouldn't shut the fuck up. My mom told me if I didn't keep quiet, a dragonfly would come up and sew my lips together forever. I pictured a dragonfly sewing my lips together with its sharp needle butt using indestructible thread. That's enough to keep me fucking quiet. Needless to say, I still have problems with dragonflys and she denies she ever said it.

jekrump · 11 months

My brothers and sisters always said that the rubber door stops that sit on the wall and hit the door handle were buttons that blew up the whole world. Needless to say I never pressed one until I was about 12. I was so freaking scarred, I hid in my room for hours afterwards.

Optimus_Klein · 11 months

I don't know who widespread this myth is, but around here we had the myth that if you pick dandelions you'll wet yourself. Terrified.

GreenStrong · 11 months

Jesus. No one told me Jesus was supposed to be a good guy, scared the shit out of me.

CassidyPhaedrus · 11 months

Remember flipping your eyelids inside out as a kid? I used to do that to annoy my older sister, well one day my mom told me that if somebody were to hit the back of my head while I was doing that my face would stick that way. I didn't believe her but my sister smacked me in the back of the head the next time I did it and I swear my eyelids stuck like that for a second. Never did it again.

African_Ginger · 11 months

that i was an orangutan when I was born and my family cut my tail off. I have red hair, this made perfect sense to me when I was little girl.

potentpotables · 11 months

Hell. I was terrified of going to hell.

Evil_K · 11 months

This isn't mine, but my husband's grandma had him convinced that if he put his finger up his nose he would release poison into his brain. She also told him that if he played outside barefoot, worms would crawl into the soles of his feet.

metheviewer · 11 months

If you swallow gum your intestines will all tangle into a big knot, and you'll die.

repulsethemonkey · 11 months

Until I was twelve or so I thought the Devil was going to steal my soul and that I would be punished with eternal suffering because I wasn't able to prevent myself from having sinful thoughts. Pretty glad I got over that one. Also, scary clowns.

mockduckcompanion · 11 months

When I was a kid the concept of head lice was described as such: If you share hats with another person, you will get head lice. My childish mind figured that it had something to do with the mixing of oils creating them like life out of primordial soup. This belief lasted a lot longer than I care to admit.

Golanthanatos · 11 months

Do those fucking things from the dark crystal count?... fuck those things......

McBurger · 11 months

My uncle had a mannequin of a hipster looking girl up at his cabin. ...creepy, now that I type that out. Anyways...

She was pure pale white, had deep red gems for eyes which caught light, was generally spooky as fuck to a small child.

He used to hide her around the area, in different locations miles apart whenever I'd visit. She always be in scary poses, such as peeking out from behind bushes, spying from around a tree, watching me.

I would point her out, terrified, and scream. No one believed me that I saw her. I'd see her from the car window as we drive by some intersection, miles from the cabin, screaming that I saw her. The grown-ups wouldn't believe me.

I'd see her in different locations all the time. This continued for years, every time we visited the cabin for a couple weeks. My uncle finally broke the news to me that she was fake once when I couldn't sleep, terrified she was coming for me (I was the only one that could see her!).

He went and retrieved her. I had never been more terrified in my life. I was entirely convinced that she was moving and alive when no one was looking. I don't know what ever happened with that doll, he does not have it anymore.

Reddhat · 11 months

That I would grow up and be a boring adult!

Wait... damnit!

Robborob · 11 months

That if I spent to much time sitting at the computer or TV screen I would get my eyes shaped like squares for the rest of my life. I did check in the mirror after many of the long sittings...

[deleted] · 11 months

My sister told me there was an alien in the toilet and it came out whenever I flushed. Didn't flush the toilet for a while.

thoughtofficer · 11 months

When I went to sailing camp, we were warned of land sharks by the older kids (I was in 2nd grade). Needless to say, I didn't want to go out onto the lake after that.

koalala12 · 11 months

My mom used to tell me that if I fell asleep with my hair wet, I'd wake up blind.

thiazzi · 11 months

Alien abduction.

zmeace · 11 months

a tree growing in my stomach if i eat a seed

Vegetablez · 11 months

It seems like Dad's are just total trolls to their children. Mine told me there was a crocodile in our dam to stop me going near it as an infant. I still thought there was one up until i was 15 or so. I was gullible.

iseyhuh · 11 months

that my family would get raptured and I would be left alone..

Mushrom · 11 months

I was terrified that there was some sort of monster lurking in the toilet that would eat me. I got really good at peeing and pooping super fast so I spent as little time on the toilet seat as possible. I frequently wished I was male so that wouldn't have to sit down to pee. It was a cause of anxiety until I was about 10.

[deleted] · 11 months

When I was a little kid, my friend told me that she had a ghost living upstairs in her house, now me being the most gullible child you ever would've met, believed this instantly. One day I went round to her house after school, I suddenly felt the need for a crap, but the "ghost" lurking upstairs terrified me enough to not use the only bathroom in their house (upstairs). This resulted in my pissing myself and crapping myself on their sofa, in my school tights any movement by me ended up smearing shit all over my wonderfully innocent bum. My mum came over early to wash my shitty butt in their bathtub, whilst everyone watched. Which is one of the most degrading thing ever :(. My friend never lets me forget this incident now: "remember the time you crapped yourself at my house :P", yet I still have that thought in the back of my head, about said ghost lurking, and I still feel slightly uneasy in their bathroom. To this day I have no shat in their bathroom since, or in the house anywhere else, in case you were wondering ;)

StockAL3Xj · 11 months

If i made i weird face for too long it would be stuck like that forever.

Silvercumulus · 11 months

Since monsters in the toilet is already taken, I guess I'll mention that when I was little, I thought that Hell and the devil was underneath the black plastic that people use outside in flowerbeds.

debug_dave · 11 months

No-one else has said it? Spontaneous Human Combustion. It's odd, I know. I loved paranormal shit when I was a kid but this scared me to death. I remember feeling literally sick with fear about it.

LovingLutzy · 11 months

From my brother: "Don't pet the dog backwards, it will die." and the most believable, "All the food in the house is poisonous, so I can't make you food." Thanks, Big Bro.

somewhat_useful · 11 months

My grandfather lived in a small back-water town in Louisiana. He had me convinced that a loup-garou (werewolf) would come and eat me if I didn't make my bed, or eat my peas, made annoying sounds, etc.

At first I believed it because I was really young, like 3 or 4. But then, as I got older and more skeptical, he had his friends get in on the joke. One friend had lost his leg in WWII and told me the the loup-garou ate it. It took me until about 12 to call total bullshit.

tl;dr I believed the cajun version of a werewolf would eat me if I sneezed wrong.

WAKACHEWBACCA · 11 months

Mothman. Omfg. Mothman.

schematicboy · 11 months

God.

andrewsmith1986 · 11 months

Hell.

My mom is a super religious person. ( we totally have a virgin mary shrine)

namiHADOKEN · 11 months

I was afraid of Santa when I was little because I thought he was a big black man who owned small white elves and raped a white lady and gave everyone around the world gifts and I was afraid one day he would take all of my gifts back and make me into a midget slave. I thought this until I was 9.

pissoutofmyass · 11 months

God.

RichieRich0545 · 11 months

God.

BerryBadrenath · 11 months

When I was young my two older brothers and myself had our rooms in the same hallway. At the end of this hallway was a staircase that led down to our garage. Nobody ever used this passage and it was always locked at the bottom. My brothers told me that the Cryptkeeper lived at the bottom of the "back" stairs. This caused me to sprint down the hallway every time as the Cryptkeeper was one creepy motherfucker and I didn't want him catching me. Whenever I ran past their rooms they would just laugh. My brothers were assholes.

omaknight · 11 months

I used to cross my eyes a lot as a child. I did it enough to where my parents told me that people can get their eyes stuck that way and it would only be reversible through extensive eye surgery. Well, I stopped immediately after hearing that. 17 year old me finally found out that this doesn't happen. I'm honestly surprised I believed it for that long.

Herecomethedrums · 11 months

That if you flushed all the toilets in the house At the same time, your house would explode. Needless to say, I didn't test that til I was 12.

[deleted] · 11 months

One of my bunkmates from Girl Scout summer camp told me sex happens when the guy pees in you. I was so grossed out by that and thought I'd never want to get intimate with guys when I grew up.

The_Bard · 11 months

After seeing Labyrinth at a young age I thought there was monsters between my bed and the wall and I refused to put my arm or hand near that side of the bed.

MIDItheKID · 11 months

The myth is Yellow 5, not Yellow 12.

nucksfan89 · 11 months

Believed if my feet were uncovered while I slept, monsters would be able to see me (was particularly scared of aliens after watching Unsolved Mysteries one day lol..). However I could be completely uncovered, as long as my feet were covered I was somehow "invisible" to them. Ha ha!

cookiewalla · 11 months

I once inhaled a small bug, my best friends older brother convinced me that it would nest inside me and that i would explode in a blaze of mosquitoes and other nasty airborn buggers. Mind you i had recently seen the alien movies and as a nine year old boy i was fucking terrified for a long time.

My cousin convinced me that if you didnt blow on a certain kind of liquorice in a mixed candy bag it was poisonous and could kill you, i blew on fucking everyhing in that candy bag for good measure.

This might be off topic, but i was also terrified of a monster under my bed, for far longer then im proud to admit, if my feet or hands where outside the bed at night i was sure that something would grab them.

Wonderturkey · 11 months

I was a big klutz, I scraped my knees all the time and since my tolerance for pain was practically nonexistent, I'd start crying like crazy. My parents and grandparents' way of shutting me up was telling me that if I don't stop, priests and cars and all kinds of crap would come out of my wound. A tiny little priest coming out of my cut? That scared the shit out of me.

And apparently, my friends' parents and grandparents told them the same thing.

Makes no sense to us now.

moukou9 · 11 months

I thought my grandma was a witch and that when I least suspected it, she would grab me and throw me in the oven for dinner. She always joked about it, and my parents joined in on it. This led me to also believe that they were raising me to eat me if I got fat enough. I didn't eat much as a kid.

Izawwlgood · 11 months

Growing up there was a video rental store that we used to go to all the time to get our movies. When you opened the front door, you had to walk down a hallway of movie shelves, and some genius clerk decided to make that hallway the Horror movie section. For my young mind, all those box covers were terrifying. However, the one that really stood out, was 'The People Under the Stairs'. To this day, I still run up stairs waiting for someone to grab me from between the floorboards.

leddible · 11 months

I was told by my best friend's sister that drinking milk while standing in front of the microwave made it radioactive and that it could kill me if I drank it, or if it was already in my stomach. Went on for years avoiding this situation and then eventually it became a habit. Wasn't until my late teens that I finally stopped to think really think about it and realize how silly it was.

PlayfulPunches · 11 months

The Devil

Lindsay1987 · 11 months

I was on swim team for most of my life, and when I was little my brother told me thy if I stepped on the black lane lines on the bottom of the pool a shark would come out and eat me. Also, my mom told me that everybody who is in jail started out by lying, so I thought if I ever got caught lying that I would have to go to jail. Which was made even worse when my grandma told me that all you get to eat in jail is oatmeal and toothpicks.

orionshmorion · 11 months

Out of purple mist, the boogie man would come and kidnap me on his ghost train if I stayed up passed my bedtime.

orionshmorion · 11 months

Also, snakes that would come out of toilets, or even the miniature ones that could swim up a piss-stream.

doublestack · 11 months

Hell.

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