Random Most Disturbing Childhood Experiences (16 items)

• (#1) Her Mum Chased Her Into The Bathroom

  From Redditor /u/angelarosewood:

  I was annoying my mother when I was around seven, kept pestering her for something which I can't remember now, probably something stupid. Then her demeanor changed. Her expression was of a different [person], and she became very still.

  I asked her what was wrong, and she replied 'You have ten seconds to run. You've made me very, very angry.' Of course... I was like, 'Mummy, what?' and at first she started counting down [...] very slowly, then she whispered [...] 'Run...' That's when I started pegging it up the stairs, crying my lungs out, and she started running after me [...] trying to grab onto my ankles.

  I managed to run into the toilet and lock it, while she was banging and screaming outside of the door. I have never been more frightened in my life. I stayed locked inside there for what felt like hours, until my dad came back home from work and softly told me to come out and comforted me.
• (#2) Her Mother Couldn't Recognize Her

  From Redditor /u/stygeanhugh:

  My mother is seriously mentally ill, but in a way that she has hid from most people beyond close family. My father worked nights and my grandma, who lived in the same apartment complex, babysat me during the day while Mom worked and Dad slept. One night after walking home from Grandma's, I came in to find my bedroom spotless. My mom had made my bed and turned down the blanket, having tucked my pajamas underneath as if someone were lying there. She'd even wrapped the arm of my [pajamas] around my bear. She sat completely still and quiet next to my bed, holding one of the pajama sleeves.

  When she saw me, [it seemed] like she didn't recognize me. She said, 'Who are you?' Playing along, I replied, 'It's me" [...] I should add that my mother was very [cruel] both physically and mentally. She often gets this look on her face that is hard to describe except to say she is not there at all. My therapist calls it disassociating. This was the look she had that night and being familiar with her pre-abuse behavior, I turned on my [heels] telling her I was going back to my grandma's.

  She beat me to the door, blocking it and proceeded to tell me she didn't know me, but I couldn't leave because she wanted to tell me about her daughter. She then went in to detail about how much I looked like her daughter and how I was about the same age as [her daughter] before she [passed] [...] I was and am thoroughly convinced that she intended to [end my life] that night.
• (#3) This Father Left His Child As Collateral At A Gas Station

  From Redditor /u/PumpkinStem:

  When I was about 6, my dad offered me as collateral to a gas station owner about 30 minutes away from my house. He said he'd come back and pay, which surprisingly he did, but for an hour I was stuck alone with a man I didn't know, in a place I didn't know, in the middle of nowhere. I'll never forget the eternity I spent staring at the tiled floor, waiting for my father to come back.
• (#4) One Child Found A Pile Of Animals In A Neighbor's Yard

  From Redditor /u/0w1:

  There was this old man that lived a couple houses down from my childhood home. He and his wife seemed like perfectly normal people, and they were pretty sociable with the rest of the neighbors, and some of the neighborhood kids even called him 'uncle'.

  So for whatever reason, the girl who lived next door to me invites me over to 'uncle's place', where her parents were sitting in his garage with him drinking beer and BSing.

  I start wandering around his backyard, unsupervised, when I had the misfortune of looking behind his shed.

  In the little nook between his shed and his back fence was a pile of dead small animals.

  Squirrels, chipmunks, and little songbirds like bluejays were piled up almost a foot tall. Little kid me, I wasn't sure what to do about it, so I told my parents. They didn't believe me, so I dropped the issue.

  As an adult though, sometimes I wonder what the heck was up with that guy?
• (#5) Two Young Children Encountered An Unsavory Older Male

  From Redditor /u/pettysnowman:

  It was the summer before I started school, and I was 5-years-old. My friends and I in the neighborhood spent a lot of time outdoors running around and playing.

  One day, we were in the pool swimming and it felt like someone was watching us but we didn't pay much attention. My mom noticed too but the person she thought she saw was only there a brief moment. This continued a few other times where we felt someone was watching us.

  On the first day of school my sister who was a few years older than me walked with me to school just down the street. [...] On the way home there was a man crouching on the side of the path, [pleasuring himself]. He motioned to my sister and I and told us to come to him. My sister grabbed my hand and we ran all the way home, shaking.

  We made it home and told my mom what had happened, and she called [the] police who then came by and asked us questions. However, the man got away. Months later my sister (9 years old) identified the man at the grocery store one day. Turns out he was only 18 years old.

  My sister and I had a hard time feeling safe in our neighborhood after that even though we had a restraining order.
• (#6) This Mom Didn't Want To 'Deal With' Her Teenager

  From Redditor /u/broccolimac:

  When I was 13, spending Mother's Day with my mom, she got drunk and told me all of the reasons she left me and my dad (my dad had full custody of me, I just saw my mom every now and then). She told me she was cheating on my dad, doing drugs with her new guy, and that she didn't want to "deal with me" as a teenager. That one really paved the path to our relationship (or lack of one).
• (#7) She Saw Her Father Overdose

  From Redditor /u/Kristaboo14:

  Watching my father OD on heroin when I was 4 years old. Convulsing, shaking and sweating, telling me goodbye and that he loved me. He lived, thankfully. But now I have a four-year-old. And I couldn't imagine having her see something like that.
• (#8) A Man Stared At Him Through The Window

  From Redditor /u/vacationbeard:

  Until the age of 4, I lived in an old, lower income neighborhood that was in slow decline. The small house we lived in sat on a corner and had a rear detached garage. The side street was more of an alley and was mainly used for kids going back and forth between two streets. My bedroom window faced the side street and there were vines that covered more than half my window, but I could see through to the side yard and street.

  One night my mom must have forgotten to pull my shade and I laid in my bed across the room looking out the window. It bothered me that the shade was up and throughout the night I would wake up and look. Each time it was the same: vines, branches, and faint light from the corner streetlight illuminating the neighbor’s fence across the street.

  At one point, I woke and stared at the window for a long time. My brain finally sensed something wrong and my vision clicked into focus at one part of the vine-covered portion of the window. There were eyes staring at me through a gap in the vines! My 4-year-old self suffered a silent heart attack as I clenched my eyes shut and moved under the blankets.

  I don’t know how long I stayed like that but sometime later that night (morning actually) our doorbell rang. I heard it and jumped from bed and moved down the hall. I have an image of my dad standing by the door, pistol in hand, saying, "Who is it?" At that point I told my mom about the face in the window. The police investigated and they discovered that somebody had also attempted to light our garage on fire. As far as I know they never caught the person and my parents had no known enemies. So apparently some random, creepy stranger decided to peep in my window before ringing our doorbell at 4 AM. and attempting to light our garage on fire.
• (#9) This Child Was Forced To Look At Self-Harm

  From Redditor /u/verycoolwow:

  My mother's (now ex) boyfriend, totally hammered at 7 AM, pulling me aside while I am getting ready for school and making me look at his slit wrists that he had cut a few hours earlier, and saying, "This is what your mother makes me do. She just gets me so worked up." Great way to start the school day.
• (#10) One Teen Gave CPR To A Dying Woman

  From Redditor /u/kostykilla24:

  This was a little more recent but by technically it's still my childhood. I was 17 at the time and I was at the local beach with my family for the weekend, all was going great. We were just sitting on the porch of the cottage we rented and all of a sudden we hear a lot of screaming. We thought at first maybe it's just people screaming because the waters cold or the waves or something. [But then] my dad came running back from the beach and I'll never forget the way he looked at me.

  [H]e said, "I need you to come to the beach now. Get your shoes on and f*cking run." I, of course, was in shock and threw on my shoes and ran to the beach. I then saw a woman laying on the beach, completely unconscious surrounded by people attempting to do CPR, as I was a lifeguard I ran in and offered my help with the resuscitating. There was no defibrillator, and the closest hospital was 20 minutes away, I performed CPR for 45 minutes until the paramedics slowly made [their] way over.

  I just remember how blue her skin was [as] the life was sucked out of her. I screamed at the EMS people to come quicker because they were walking over instead of running. When we finally had her in the ambulance, I looked over and saw her grandson on his knees crying his soul out. It was one of the most haunting images I've ever seen.
• (#11) Three Dentists Strapped Down A Preschooler

  From Redditor /u/PAKMan1988:

  One I've been thinking about lately is an awful dental experience I had as a preschooler. I was only about 5 years old when I went to the dentist because I had a cavity in a baby tooth. The dentist decided I needed a crown, and when it came time to put it on, it was awful.

  First, they wouldn't let my mom stay in the room with me, which made me scared. Then, I got so scared I started fighting with them. They held me down in the dentist's chair to stop me from moving, and eventually strapped me down so I could only move my head, and even then it was just barely. I still remember all three people in the room with me. It was my regular dentist, the dental assistant, and the other dentist who worked in the practice. They were so mean and had no bedside manner to speak of.

  I only recently got over my dental anxiety because I had to have a root canal. I told them all about what happened and they gave me nitrous oxide, which, as far as I'm concerned, is a godsend.
• (#12) This Girl Was Almost Taken From Her Home

  From Redditor /u/whiten0iz:

  I was about 10-years-old and living with my mom in a [crummy] low-income motel-turned-apartment. Lots of unsavory types to begin with. One night, this dude shows up and starts trying to physically force his way into the house, literally screaming his intent to kidnap me. Something along the lines of, "Is there a little girl here who needs a ride home?"

  My mom struggled to force the door closed and screamed at me to lock myself in the bedroom. Thank[fully] she managed to get the deadbolt locked and called the landlord. Dude took off, though, no police involved.
• (#13) The Babysitter Taped The Children's Mouths Shut

  From former Redditor [deleted]:

  I used to be babysat often by my mother's friend who had multiple children (I was an only child at the time). The two of [her] kids kept fighting and jumping around so my mother's friend got duct tape and taped their mouths and hands and made them sit on the floor for a couple hours. [My mother and the babysitter] aren't friends anymore, not for that reason though.
• (#14) A Teacher Threatened To Break A Child's Finger

  From Redditor /u/b*tchywhenhungry:

  I grew up in a small town and [...] and went to a private kindergarten/nursery run by a single teacher. I never really liked going to the school, physical punishment was legal and [the teacher] used to get mad a lot. Anyway, she caught me talking during class one day and she grabbed my thumb and physically threatened to break it (motioning to break it with her hands but not putting pressure on it) while my classmates looked on with shock. I obviously burst into tears out of fear. I don't think I ever told my parents.

  A few years ago I heard through the grapevine that she shut down her school long ago and became a nun.
• (#15) She Was Choking But Couldn't Get Her Parents' Attention

  From Redditor /u/ayriana:

  I started to choke on a piece of steak or something when I was around 5 [or] 6. I couldn't get my parents attention so I went to the bathroom and managed to dislodge it myself, and threw up a bunch. Ended up developing a rumination disorder after, which is pretty nasty but I mostly have under control now.

  I was terrified for that short time I couldn't breathe. It felt like 10 minutes, but I'm sure it was less than a minute.
• (#16) This Child Read Her Mom's Final Note

  From Redditor /u/FanWh0re:

  Finding my mom's [...] note.

  I was around 7 at the time, maybe a bit older. My mom was sleeping and I found the note on her bedside table. I only remember the first line and I don't think I read more than that either. I was so young that I didn't realize what it was, I was just really confused. She was fine after that. I don't really remember much of what happened after. She didn't end up in the hospital. I'm thinking she either tried overdosing or was going to overdose and decided not to. I've never talked to her about it.

  I've also seen her after she stabbed herself in the stomach.... Again I was so young and she was playing it off so well that I thought everything was fine. She was fine after that, just needed stitches.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking