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If you made it through your childhood without anything sketchy happening to you, you’re definitely the exception rather than the rule. Kids are kids, but they’re also human and life happens – which means no matter how hard the adults in their lives try to keep them sheltered, it can’t last forever.
These 16 people have some seriously disturbing childhood memories that they’ll probably never forget.
16. Dangers are everywhere.
Friendly stranger stopped me at Disneyland and followed my family around for a while. Asked where we were staying, and I don’t know any better as a kid, so I told them.
Dude showed up with a friend at the hotel pool waiting for me. I thought to call out to the guy, but my instincts made me hold back. Still don’t know if that was a child trafficker to this day.
15. That is one brave 13-year-old.
Getting up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water to find my 13 year old big brother with his back pressed to the door, holding a knife.
He told me to get down, and the handle started jiggling, and the door shaking. We spent the next 20-30 minutes watching shapes in the dark creep around the yard.
I don’t really know what bothers me the most – people trying to get into our house, my brother ready to kill someone if they tried, or the fact that we were alone and I never knew where my mom was at 2 am while it was happening.
14. I would have peed myself.
My mom was dating this dude and we were living with him, one morning I hear super loud bangs on the door and I run out with my blanket and I hear my mom screaming “Don’t shoot my dogs, they are friendly” as I walked from the hallway to where the front door is.
So I’m standing there with my blanket around me and she opens the door and theres a swat team pointing their guns at me yelling for me to drop my blanket on the ground. Then they proceeded to tear the house apart including my room.
Scared the shit out of me, I don’t remember the exact details but my mom said he was an ex biker gang or something and they were hitting a bunch of members.
The dogs (& everyone else) came out fine. Thanks for the concern 🙂
13. Some people should not be teachers.
Having to crawl out my bedroom window and run to a neighbor o e night to call an ambulance for my mother, who had tried to kill herself because she couldn’t handle staying with her abusive ex anymore. I was 10.
Even better, my bitch of a teacher treating my like shit for missing a bit of school the next day to go see her in the hospital (and yes, the teacher knew the reason).
12. I can’t believe this happened at school.
My 7th grade teacher was raped and stabbed in her classroom early morning while getting ready for the school day to begin. The rapist ended up being my best friends next door neighbor.
He had borrowed his PlayStation controller before the incident, so he never got it back.
11. This is entirely horrifying.
When I was six, my neighbor’s daughter would babysit me. She was around nineteen or twenty. She wasn’t particularly nice to me. Sometimes I had to go over there very very early and would sleep. I was a bed wetter and she refused to get up to help clean me off and would get furious if I tried myself so I would just lay on the floor in my own pee until she woke up. She would also tell me we were going to play hide and seek and then I’d hide and wait and wait and wait, and then, thinking I’d really bested her, I’d come out from my hiding spot and she’d be painting her nails or some such.
Her mother’s boyfriend also held me over a toilet by one leg with a lit Bic [edit: lighter] in front of my face. Told me he’d kill me and my mom and dad if I ever said anything.
My babysitter’s boyfriend would also be around sometimes. One day, I was coloring on the bed with the two of them, when she got up and left to use the bathroom.
Her driver’s license was lying on the bed, and he picked it up and chewed it. When she came back, he told her I did it, and I got in trouble. It really unsettled me because it was so bizarre, and I knew it even then. He did other weird things that I can no longer remember. I knew grown ups were not supposed to act like him, and I tried my best to stay away from him after that.
Not two weeks after that, he smothered my babysitter, killing her and her unborn child. I was not there, but I could have been. And I wonder what would have happened to me if I had been.
10. I’m old enough to feel sorry for the parents.
I was at a friend’s house and we went to a deep creek to catch frogs and turtles. From the top of the bank we spotted a swollen dead deer covered in maggots. My friend’s little brother pushed me off of the bank and I landed on the deer.
It burst and kind of deflated under me, and I just laid there crying and throwing up until my friend’s parents came and got me. They hosed me down in the driveway and tossed me in their pool that they had just chlorinated. Super great.
9. So glad this came out ok.
I lived in an apartment in a real bad neighborhood growing up, but one of the worst is when I was about 11 years old and a drunk neighbor tried to flirt with me and asked me to take my clothes off when I was playing on my scooter.
Then chased my mom up the stairs with a massive knife when she came out and yelled at him to leave me alone.
8. What on earth is wrong with people?
I was 7. My family took me to the circus. A man sitting behind me stuck his finger down my pant and forced his finger down my crack. I don’t know what to do, I was never prepared for this, I didn’t even know what this meant. So I just froze and let him.
I think he was trying to find my hole and stick his finger in it because he kept pushing deeper and deeper down my pants. This was about 30 mins. People would pass by and he pulls his hand out, but when the close was clear, he would slowly try to do it again. It was 30 minutes of hell.
Finally mu mom got up and asked to come with her to the concession stand to help her carry drinks. I was so relieved. When we came back I begged my mom to switch seats. That’s all I remember.
I barely recall the visual parts of that night but I still vividly remember how it felt and the sound of his voice.
7. Even kids get gut feelings.
I’m pretty sure I was almost sexually assaulted by a family member when I was a really young kid. I just remember him locking the door and saying “lie here with me” (in a weirdly kind voice) while tapping the bed and for some reason (very obvious now).
I didn’t like the situation and started crying so damn loud that he had to open the door. From time to time I remember that, but never said anything about it to anyone ever, feels good saying for the first time.
6. Talk about not being able to look away.
Watched a guy bleed out in front of me while hanging from a nail that caught him while he was falling.
I don’t know what haunts me more, the sound of his screams turning to crying, and then silence, or the sight of the blood pooling up at my feet.
I was 8 and I can still see it, and hear it, like it was yesterday.
Basically I grew up going to a farm with my father where he worked and one of the farmer’s older sons was up on top of their new chicken coop tending to the mesh wiring and fell through the mesh, catching on a nail on the way down.
He hung there for a while. I just stood there in shock. Didn’t really have a clue what was happening really. He passed before they were able to get him down.
5. I guess they should have made an exception.
In the middle of the night I woke up to seeing shadows from the window of people trying to break in, I was scared and tried to go to my parents room. My mom was making weird noises and I thought maybe she was having asthma attack.
My parents wouldn’t let me in their room (they were doing the deed). I couldn’t sleep hearing all the weird noises. The people never made it to the house but they robbed gym clothes from my dad’s car parked outside.
4. It’s almost like her parents planned it.
I once got into a huge argument with my parents and decided to run away from home. Before I even reached the end of the street, some weird van started following me.
I initially thought it had stopped because it was going to be turning into one of the driveways in the street. When it didn’t turn in, I kept walking, it started following me again. I was eventually so creeped out by the van’s behaviour that I turned around and sprinted back to the house.
3. Believe the kids.
Going over to a friends house when I was maybe 10 and I caught him and his dad having a loud argument at the garage. I hid behind a nearby trash can and saw the dad pull out a gun and actually shoot his son in the leg.
I freaked out and ran home to tell my parents but nobody believed me until the police and ambulance showed up. It’s hard to explain but I saw the bullet penetrate his leg in what felt like slow motion. It still comes to mind every now and then.
2. I have everything about this.
The strange man in my house in the middle of the night. I woke up to pee — something I rarely ever do — and went into the hallway, where I saw a the silhouette of a man I did not recognize standing at the top of the steps staring back at me. I’d like to say I screamed, but I just stood there. Thankfully, my father has also woken up, came out, and yelled at me to go back in my room and lock the door.
The fact that someone we didn’t know could just walk into our house in the middle of the night terrified me. It would be years before I realized if he was just burgling us, he would’ve stayed downstairs. I hate to think about why he broke in that night.
The “official” story was, the guy was “lost,” so he took him downstairs and called the police to “help him get home.” But multiple cruisers showed up, so he was probably arrested. I also vividly remember hearing a gunshot, but he swears he never fired a weapon.
I was young and not privy to the full story, and the last time I asked I was again given the “it was some dude who entered the wrong house.” My theory is that we knew him somehow.
1. Sometimes you can’t make exceptions for family.
When I was about 5, my older cousin’s best friend killed someone. My cousin helped him hide for a couple days. Cops got tipped off, warrant was issued, and with my cousin being a multiple time felon himself, decided to run as well.
At one point, he came to my parents house to try talking with my dad. My dad didn’t want to hear it, and threatened to call the cops. Cousin took off, got into a police chase, drove on the wrong side of one of our main roads, hit a car, then flipped his car over a guard rail into the river. I was completely oblivious to everything.
I just remember my dad screaming at my cousin. Found out all this stuff later, and it was a huge what the fuck moment. My cousin did like 15 years in prison.
I’m not saying I had a completely idyllic childhood, but so glad nothing like these happened to me.
If you’ve got a story to rival these, freak us out in the comments!
