1. Bathroom Mystery
We all have stories from our lives that we, despite our best efforts, cannot seem to forget. We experience trauma in so many ways — some may want to bury themselves deep in the sand. However, sometimes, these experiences are what help us to define our characters.
Here are stories from Redditors who witnessed something so horrifying, they wished they could erase their memories.
When my parents split up (so hard to describe, they divorced and my dad remarried for 6 years and had a kid that lived with us, then mom and dad remarried) my dad was living in an apartment with his new pregnant wife.
They had 2 bathrooms: one that only they were allowed it and one that everyone else was allowed it. They kept it locked and kept a towel under the door. I snuck in once and the mirror was broken and the doorknob was hanging off (which made it easy to get in lol)
The walls had random watercolor paintings right on the wall. I don't remember an odd smell or anything, just the broken mirror, broken door knob, the paint, and the toilet wasn't screwed down. It was like, a foot away from where it was connected to the floor.
I still have no idea what the hell was going on but I got in trouble for going in there.
[deleted]
2. Haunting Photo
I was a high school student in the early 90s with a weekend job printing photos. Mostly boring but sometimes awesome, especially to a teenager in a quiet and uneventful town. This is pre-digital, so we would get all kinds of photos. Besides the standard house, car, boat or family vacation photos, we would get drunk people photos, aspiring model photos, risque girlfriend or wife photos, and sometimes even outright sex photos. I saw and learned a lot.
Most of the time, the owner of the store had reached a quiet arrangement with the people bringing in these rolls of film to be printed. They would be set aside to be developed and printed by him personally after closing and the people could stop by late that night to pick them up.
Every so often we would get someone who didn't know this and would ask a bunch of obvious questions, "How fast can you print these?", "Do you have restrictions on what can be printed?", "Do you look at them after you print them?", etc.. We had a pricing and rule sheet and we did not have to look at the prints but we will see the negatives during the printing process.
Most people were okay with that. Some people were not and only wanted us to develop the film but not print any photos.
One Saturday morning a middle-aged male and female couple walked in and watched me process film and prints for a while before approaching the counter. They quietly asked the questions and asked for developing the film only. I assumed they had some adult style photos and quickly loaded their film canister into the machine. The couple were obviously nervous while waiting for their negatives.
Now, our printing machine was completely visible from the front, but the film developer machine was only partially visible. The developed film exited in a corner and was partially blocked from view by a half-height wall. Also, the entrance to the back of the store was right there.
I printed photos while mentally tracking the time — I wanted to grab that film and sneak to the back real quick to get a good look (hey, I was a horny teenager). Around this time, a second employee returned from break and the store got a bit busy. Perfect, I was able to cover my actions by telling the other employee that I needed to get more print envelopes from the back. I snagged the film fresh out of the developer and stepped to the back.
One quick look holding the negatives up against the overhead light... shock, followed quickly by disgust and then anger. Adrenaline kicked in, heart raced so fast that all you can hear is your heartbeat surging through your ears. Then doubt and the sickening thought that I had to verify it. I placed the negatives on a light board and grabbed a magnifying loop. I looked at exactly one photo and then I called the police.
There is really no way to describe what I saw. The photos were definitely adult in nature, but the subjects... were not. I quickly told the police dispatcher and let her know that the customers were still here and seemed like they might run. The dispatcher was quiet for a moment before asking me how sure I was of what I saw. I told her that I was certain. Within minutes our store was filled with police. The couple had tried to step out of the store at some point but were blocked from doing so.
I have kids of my own now. Once in a while, as I drop them off at school or while playing in a crowded park, I will have a flashback of that single image. Instant fear, sweat, and worry about the people around my kids — are they kidnappers? Abusers?
Timetowatchthemfly
3. Broken Bond
So I have this one memory of my dad bringing me to the races and it gets really hazy after that but I have flash memories of my dad getting money from some guy and then being brought away by that guy.
My dad told me he was taking me to play while he stayed betting. I don't fully remember what happened after that, but I know I was very upset and very traumatized. I used to scream and cry whenever dad asked me if I wanted to come with him to the races again after that.
It took me about 22 years before that memory resurfaced, but once it did, I realized my dad basically accepted money from a guy for me.
Another time my older half-brother and I were play-fighting in our garden. I was screaming because he was tickling me. Dad came out without a word and started beating the crap out of my brother in front of me and my best friend.
This is especially bad because my dad isn't my brother's biological dad and this is definitely the moment my brother became emotionally detached from me - after that, he started telling me how "everything was better" before I was born and how I was mum and dad's favorite "now" and he was "forgotten". I freaking hate my dad for doing that to us.
SugarTits1
4. Horror on the Highway
My mom, great-grandmother, 2 sisters and I were on a road trip home from visiting NC. I remember it pretty vividly because I was leaning forward between the front seats showing my grandma something. I heard my mom gasp and looked up.
We were on a divided highway and in the oncoming lanes an SUV was flipping. It kept going. Across the divided grass section. Across our lanes of traffic and lodged in some trees on our side.
My mom pulled over. This was probably around 1994-95. And my mom had a cell phone which was still not crazy popular. She called the cops as other motorists swarmed the scene to try to help.
I was looking out the window. I remember all this luggage on the ground. Just strewn across the ground hanging in the trees. Fairly close to the car there was a squarish green case. As I was looking at it I realized it looked like a sweatshirt. Thought that was pretty weird. Looked closer and I realized it was a body. Folded in half.
At the time I just pointed it out to my grandma. We left the scene shortly after as we weren't really any help and were just going to be in the ambulance's way.
I can still vividly see that body. At the time I didn't associate it with death or even a real person.
Later I came to understand that there was no way that person lived. How horrific the accident really was. And how terrifying it must have been for my mom and all the other drivers to see a car flipping uncontrollably into your lane.
fatappolloissexy
5. Grandpa’s Adventure
My grandfather had a TIA (mini-stroke) while driving when I was 11. Thankfully we were just around the corner from his house. He got really drowsy, half his face was droopy and he was confused. He never went to the doctor. It could’ve been so much worse if it was a full-blown stroke. He made a full recovery within a day.
If it had happened now, I would’ve fallen an ambulance right away but 11-year-old me had no idea what was going on.
DiedOfStarve
6. Heart Breaking Diagnosis
When I was in primary school (I’m Australian), my first teacher, my prep teacher (I would’ve been 5 turning 6 that year, my first year of school) was this really nice lady in her 50s. After that year I moved schools, but I remember at the end of the year when my mum came to pick me up on the last day she went into the classroom after school and was talking to my teacher for a while. I remember seeing them come out into the corridor, both crying, and my mum gave my teacher a huge hug before she came over to me and we left.
I assumed my teacher was crying because I was leaving or something, and I didn’t want to upset my mum by asking what had upset her.
Several years later when I was around 9 or 10, mum and dad asked me if I remembered my prep teacher. I said of course, and they gently told me she had passed away and showed me a notice in the newspaper. I was of course saddened for a bit and Mum and Dad had told me she was sick with a disease (they told me the name but of course, I didn’t know what it was really).
Years later I found out that my mum was comforting my teacher that day because she had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease (MND) [also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS)]. Knowing now how awful and scary that disease is, it absolutely breaks my heart to think of how awful it must have been for my teacher to receive her diagnosis and for her life and body to have been slowly and debilitatingly taken by the disease.
Onionshavelayer
7. No More Free Sweets
When my cousin and I walked home from school (aged around 7 and 8) and guy who worked in our local supermarket who must’ve been around late 20s/early 30s would walk the entire way (around 30 minutes) with us, and buy us sweets... I was getting free sweets and didn’t understand why my mum didn’t want us talking to him.
He disappeared one day.. never seen him since.
lilopeach
8. Small Town Secret
The reverse actually happened to my sister once. We live in this small-ish village with a 10-15 minute walk from the elementary school to our house.
One day, it was raining and this older man who lived a street away from us saw her and offered her a ride home since we all kind of know each other briefly but she didn't recognize him so she refused.
He actually called our landline half an hour later and apologized for making her uncomfortable, he really just wanted to drive her home.
floweryroad
9. Why Mom?
My mom used to take me and my brother to visit my grandma in a different state every summer, my dad was in the army so he couldn't come due to work. We always hung out with my mom's friend Brian.
Turns out she was cheating on my dad with Brian, and when my dad confronted her about it she tried kidnapping me and my brother and tried leaving the state with us.
[deleted]
10. Meth Exposure
I used to play at the kid's house two doors down. I was there probably two or three days a week for a couple of years. His room was right next to his uncle's room, but we were told to never go in there under any circumstances. There were some weird smells that came from there and I only saw his uncle come and go probably less than five times. The dude looked like crap.
One day, we see cops dragging the uncle out in handcuffs. The uncle had been cooking meth right next to the room that we were playing in all those times. That smell was meth.
I was eight. I didn't understand what meth was. When I got older, I tended to forget about it since it was hush-hush around the neighborhood after long enough. It was a pretty nice neighborhood and this was abnormal, so 'what would people think?' was probably the rationale.
After I got out of high school, I saw what meth did to people. I randomly had someone bring up when I mentioned where I lived that they heard about a meth lab around there, and that's when the reality of the situation hit me.
I had some pretty serious psych issues crop up when I was a teenager, but that could have been completely unrelated for all I know.
empty-insight.
11. Tragic Car Accident
When my family was driving round some of the mountains in Mexico, we saw a car had toppled over against a rock with both legs of a little girl sticking out. I knew something was wrong as everyone driving past was stopping to help lift the car but I never truly understood what was happening since my mum made sure I had headphones in so I couldn't hear the screams and made me count the birds in the sky so I didn't see. I still remember my dad and brother coming back in the car with tears saying we should keep going until we get reception so we can notify services as there wasn't much else they could do.
It wasn't until years later that it briefly came up that I realized why there wasn't much we could've done. There were enough people to help lift the car enough to remove the pressure but there wasn't a rock or something big enough to hold it up and they couldn't hold it up forever. Eventually, they'd have to put the car back down on her legs because they couldn't hold it up any longer and she was stuck so couldn't be pulled out.
I don't know what happened to her but we had contacted the services as soon as we got reception and heard the services did get to her. But we don't know if she survived with her legs or at all.
Alasandtimberwolf
12. The Beach House Secret
My family owned a beach house when I was growing up, but for some reason one weekend when my brothers were with their father and I had no idea where my dad was my mom and I drove to the beach and stayed at a hotel instead of our beach house.
I remember thinking how strange it was that we weren’t at our place. She took me to do the touristy beach stuff like putt-putt golf and look around in the little shops.
So young that I shouldn’t even remember this all these years later, but I guess even at 3 I knew something was up. Found out later that my mom had issued an ultimatum: get sober or get out.
She wanted him out of the house by the time we got back.
shyreadergirl
13. Unlucky Ride
Watching a guy on a motorcycle get propelled into the side of a car or being in the passenger seat of a car that hit a 12-year-old girl was pretty horrifying.
I was sitting in my car in a parking lot near the head of a T-shaped intersection. A guy was driving pretty quickly across the top of the T in one of those crotch-rocket motorcycles. (A Honda I believe). A girl in a Hyundai didn't see him and made a left turn just as he was about to cross the intersection. He got launched head-first into the side of the car. I was about 150' away and could tell from where I was sitting that he was in really hard shape.
His bike was wrecked and he was in a really unnatural position and twitching. He was quickly swarmed by people trying to help him out so I drove away rather than watch the aftermath. I learned from my aunt who is a nurse at the local trauma center that his spine was severed and he died later that day.
A few years before that, I was in the passenger seat with a friend of mine at the wheel. We were on a 4-lane road in the middle lane. We crested a hill to see a guy in the outside lane with his brake lights on. Just as we were approaching him, we saw a girl's leg come out from in front of his car. He has apparently stopped to let her cross and thus blocked our ability to see her. My friend jumped on the brakes and tried to swerve but there wasn't any room.
We hit one girl and she came through the windshield and basically landed in my lap before being propelled off the front of the car when we finally stopped. The second girl got hit in the arm by the mirror of the car and was thrown back. (The mirror collapsed).
The happy ending was that she got away with a broken leg and arm and no lasting injuries. My friend was driving a lowered sports coupe and with the nose-ducking of a hard braking maneuver, she was picked up *on* the car instead of under it. The guy who stopped to let her pass was charged and sued.
My friend was credited with a very quick reaction that probably saved her life. (He wasn't speeding and situationally, there's very little he could have done to avoid the accident). The most horrific thing was that the car literally picked her up out of her sneakers and left them neatly on the road 20' behind the car.... I was in the process of getting my license at the time and I couldn't get back behind the wheel for 3 years.
tenkwart
14. Rescued Love
A few years back, my fiancé and I were hit by a drunk driver. Drunk dude was going 70mph in a 30mph zone. He hit my fiancé's side. I looked to my left and there was no fiancé in sight. No driver's side door, nothing. I had a pretty major concussion and started wigging out, trying to get out of the car to find him. I thought I was trapped in the car when in reality the only thing holding me back was a seat belt and locked door.
I began screaming his name.. I didn't even know if he was alive at this point. I was terrified. What felt like an eternity later, there he was trying to stand at the front of the car. He was bloody, limping, and out of it. His head was gashed open. I mean gashed open. There was blood all over his face and I could see his skull.
At this point, I figured out how to unbuckle and unlock the door. He reached his hand up and gave it a "WTF?" look. There was muscle and meat hanging from his hand. His shin was ripped open from knee to ankle. All of his front teeth were chipped and bleeding. This man, as mangled as he was, tried to come rescue me. It brings a tear to my eye just thinking about it, let alone typing it out. If anyone is wondering, he's fine now.
flynnfromgrace
15. Sleepy Toll Road
I was driving home from my job in Orlando very late one night and taking a newly built toll road that most people hadn't started using yet. These toll roads had automated toll booths if you drove straight ahead or manned booths if you veered off to the right again. Apparently the driver of an SUV fell asleep at the wheel because she slowly drifted into the point in the divider to the left of the automated lane (The one closest to oncoming traffic) and launched herself off of it, rolling the car as she did.
I jumped out as soon as I saw it and went running towards the car, cell phone in hand. I made it about a dozen steps before I noticed a car seat that had been ejected out the window and landed face forward on the street leaning against the railing.
Next thing I remember is being a half mile down the road crying on the phone with the 911 operator. I made it as far as the next exit before having to have someone pick me up.
Totalfusionone
16. Chilling Lab Discovery
I had to work in a cadaver lab several times during an internship where I was working with a product development team for medical devices and implants. I was with a bunch of people from my lab group and we were testing out this implant on a severed human leg.
Once the tests were done and it was time to go, my boss turned to me and told me to put the leg in this giant biohazard bag, wrap it up, and throw it in the freezer. I proceed to wrap this leg up (manhandling an old dude's hairy half-leg is not fun... believe me) and then carry it to the freezer. Once I slid open the door to the freezer, I saw what was literally the most horrifying sight I have ever seen.
It was this huge freezer room with dozens and dozens of body parts EVERYWHERE! Hanging off the walls, stacked in piles...arms, legs, torsos, hands..everything. It literally looked like a serial killer's storage compartment from a movie or something. The smell was so horrid, I would have passed out if I hadn't spent the last four hours working on a cadaver leg anyway. A significant number of these parts were in bags (thankfully) but the concept of so many dead bodies concentrated in front of me in that moment was the most horrifying thing ever in my mind. I literally threw in the bag I had in my hand as quickly as I could and slammed the door shut.
TaoAlpha
17. Family Man
My dad used to bring me home cool stuff like video game consoles and TVs and the like. I was really young but I knew we didn't have a lot of money.
When I asked my dad where they came from he always said they fell off the back of a truck. I thought it sounded weird but hey, brand new Sega Genesis!
I was well into my twenties before I put two and two together.
Sockbum
18. A Silent Abduction
Me and my brother were sitting looking out of my grandmother's window at some guy stumbling along.
Out of nowhere, this white van screeches up alongside him, two guys jump out, throw him in the back, and speed off.
Don't know if that guy owed them money or something, but he was definitely abducted for some messed up reason, and I don't know whether he survived. The worst part is that no one ever believed us!
Seraph1611
19. Split Second Horror
I must have been about 13 or 14 at the time. There were 3 of us who had gone up to the local grade school to smoke a bowl (it was August, hot as hell outside so there weren't any kids around). Anyhow, it was me, my girlfriend and our mutual friend Neekoh (a girl). We had all gotten nice and blazed, smoking out of an apple of all things, and were headed back to my place a few blocks away for some Super Mario Kart action.
As we got to the highway, one that we had crossed a million times before, we waited for the crosswalk sign and then started hoofing it. The highway had a few cars stopped at the light in both directions, as usual. When we got to the middle of the crosswalk out of nowhere a car swerves going about 50mph to avoid hitting the cars that were stopped at the light, crossing to the middle lane.
Our friend Neekoh was in front of my girlfriend and I, as we were holding hands. The car spun and hit Neekoh as the back end fishtailed when the idiot drunk tried to correct his hard swerve. When Neekoh got hit, she was looking over her left shoulder at my girlfriend and I and got hit from the right side. She cartwheeled on her face across the middle of the intersection and slammed into a car waiting at the light clear on the other side. Dude who hit her never even stopped, right after he hit her he corrected his steering in the middle of the intersection and kept going, turning down the first sidestreet.
The whole situation was really surreal and out-of-body feeling as one of our best friends at the time, who was literally 4 feet in front of me was walking, then the next moment flying through the air to hit a stopped car over 25 feet away. My girlfriend fell to the ground crying and wouldn't move and it took me a moment to process what had happened.
I ran over to where Neekoh was laying, half on the hood of the car across the intersection. People were standing around in a circle and calling 911 on big brick cell phones. I got to where Neekoh was and saw what she looked like, I'll never forget that image.
Her entire right side was contorted at strange angles, her right arm and leg were broken in multiple places and she had her ribs on the right side crushed too. The worst was her face though, which was split wide open, her jaw broken and split wide and gushing blood. It reminded me of a bug and it's mandibles as her jaw was broke into 4 sections and wiggling around. She was still alive too, the one eye still in her head rolling around not comprehending what was going on. The gurgling/sucking sound she was making as she tried to bleed through the ruin of her face with at least one of her lungs collapsed was enough to make me wish at the time it was me instead of her, to save her from that.
She lived another 10 minutes, making that sucking sound every breath. She died shortly after the ambulance got there, as they moved her off the hood of the car she had landed on.
On a side note, it was the first time in my life I ever saw a cell phone.
Chaosshifter
20. A Disturbing Smile
I was working in the intake area for a psychiatric emergency department. A patient rolls in escorted by two EMTs, two police, and a case worker from child protective services. I go over and begin the physical part of the admission. It is policy not to ask what the reason is for the visit at this point, because talking about it usually gets the patient upset and raises the pulse and blood pressure. Just get a name, a baseline set of vital signs, and ask if they are in any physical pain.
The patient does not speak any English but seems pleasant and is giving me a huge smile throughout the whole exam, and the case worker is translating my questions and her answers. During the process, the EMT's and police are absolutely silent: no small talk, not offering her name, not one word. I finish up, get her changed out of her street clothes and into a hospital gown. That smile never leaves her lips. Just a quick and pleasant "Gracias, señor. Que son bendecidos por Dios", and she was on to see a psychiatrist to determine her mental state.
After she was gone, I turn to the police and ask what reason she was taken in for an evaluation. One cop, pale as a ghost, looks his partner in the eye, and says "You tell him all about that woman. I need a cigarette" and walks off. The remaining cop turns to the EMTs says "You guys were first on scene, you get to tell the story" and follows his partner.
At this point I know this is not going to be good, but I have to know. I look over at the senior EMT, and he looks at the new guy. (I guess crap rolls down hill in every profession.) Remember, these guy pick little bits of people out of car wrecks for a living. Unfortunately, I was not ready for what they told me.
The quick story: Mom had a long history of mental illness and went through a bad spell of postpartum depression with her first child two years earlier. She looked for help, and was given a caseworker to help her as needed and do weekly checks on her. About three months ago she had her second child. Unfortunately, this was the same time her case worker retired. She slipped through the cracks. Today was the day the mistake had been noticed, and a case worker was sent on an emergency wellness check. Too late.
The toddler was very malnourished, and the infant was near death. It looked like Mom had not been out of bed in days. As the caseworker tried to get the baby ready to go to the hospital and was calling for the ambulance, the mother picked up the infant and tossed it out a third-story window, yelling "My baby must go to God!" After that she was so happy with what she had done, she could not stop smiling.
Both children lived, but at that time those of us caring for her did not know this, and neither did she.
Did_i_say_that
21. Misdiagnosis
When I was 8 I had a lot of doctor visits. I remember getting my blood taken a lot and getting some scans at a hospital that gave me a Gameboy for free. But I didn't think it was a big deal. I remember my parents taking me to NYC (I grew up like 40 minutes from there so it wasn't a big deal to travel there) and me having to sit in an office for a while and then my parents taking me around the city for what was a fun trip. But all this while my parents seemed off. We were doing fun stuff, but they didn't seem to be having fun. Then all of a sudden I started getting gifts from relatives and the doctor visits stopped.
I asked my parents a couple years later what it was about. I had a negative reaction to my epilepsy medication and it made the iron in my blood drop to an alarming level, but it wasn't a reported side effect of the medication. So, the doctors told my parents it was cancer. That's why they took the blood. The hospital I went to was a juvenile cancer facility, that's why they gave out Gameboys.
The trip to NYC was to get a second opinion from a specialist. Right before they were gonna put me on chemo, my doctor told my parents to wait and take me off my medication (it stopped me from having seizures so they didn't want to take me off it initially). My iron count popped back up to normal and the gifts came in from my family. My parents kept what was really happening to me to keep me from being scared, which ended up being good because I didn't actually have cancer.
fallenangel113
22. Thanks, Dad!
My Dad had asked me to wait in the car while he went into the post office, I was about 12.
He was taking ages, so eventually, I got out of the car and went inside. He was writing a letter and got really angry at me for not staying in the car. I went back out to the car, not understanding.
Turns out that letter was to his mistress, and shortly after he left my Mom and us kids and went with her.
Thanks, Dad.
Esoteric_Erric.
23. Unfolding Real Drama
When I was in third or fourth grade(US), myself and two other friends were spending the night at a fourth friend’s house. When we were in the basement watching Dukes of Hazard and playing with toy cars there were sounds of yelling coming from upstairs.
Our friend told us his parents “wrestled” sometimes and that once his dad had even thrown his mom through a door. No one thought anything of it that I can remember. We took it at face value that his parents were doing what the wrestlers on TV were.
I wonder if somehow I knew something was wrong though because I vividly remember the next morning sitting at their table with Mom while my friends were playing football outside. She was so quiet and asked why I wasn’t out there with them and I said I was thirsty. She got me a glass of water and herself a cup of black coffee, and we sat there in silence for a little while before she asked me to go play outside. I remember the feeling in the room was what I now know is when someone is trying very hard to hold back from crying.
Clovergreenbush
24. Unforgettable Childhood Friendship
A kid transferred into my 2nd grade class. He had a hard time making friends, but I found him tolerable plus was a bit of an outsider myself, so he kind of latched on to me. Nice kid, very friendly and eager to please, always super excited to try anything new and fun, but also a bit overbearing and often very physical. He would tell stories of his parents drinking and fighting, but usually in a joking manner, like he was trying to make it into a funny anecdote.
Once he tried to give me $10 to buy him a birthday present. Said he'd never got a birthday present before and would really like to just once. I initially refused because I was weirded out, but told my mom about it later on, and she took me to the toy store and we bought him a set of Hot Wheels cars or something. When I gave it to him he completely lost it - started bawling from happiness and basically tackle-hugged me to the ground.
In third grade, he seemed really down one day. He said he might have to leave school and go live with his grandparents because his mom had hit his dad in the head with a frying pan and they couldn't live in their house anymore. Sure enough, a few days later he was gone and never came back.
Didn't really realize the significance of any of this at the time, but had a bit of an "oh crap" moment when I randomly remembered him 15 years later.
zaiueo
25. Awkward Basketball Encounter
When I was like eight or nine I won Kings tickets out here in a school raffle. Dad couldn't go for reasons I don't remember, and mom's about as anti-sports as you can get so I took my uncle who's a bit into sports but mostly wanted to be in a private suite and suck down stadium food (because there was a certain amount allotted to us and we both like stadium food.)
So he takes me to the box and there's this couple there who... were probably in their 20's ish? I've never been great at estimating ages — since the school couldn't afford the whole thing by itself. Whatever, no big deal. They're kinda quiet and make small talk with my uncle. Then he heads out to get some snacks.
The couple kinda slide over to me. Remember, I'm at that "blushy-shy-kid age," and the woman was rather attractive. Somehow — I swear I don't remember how — she asked what I would do if she kissed me, then bet me to let her. She kissed me, and I turned that kind of red you only see on stop signs. They had a huge laugh about that which of course only made me blush harder and get a lot more self-conscious. She started talking about doing it again, and I kinda did that little kid "Shake my head and crawl down into my seat" thing that kids do. She kept calling me cute and then they said something about me going somewhere else with them. And my uncle came back with the stadium food and they went back to their side of the box. I was too embarrassed to say anything and hey, stadium food, so I never gave it a second thought.
Until like, my 20's when somehow that memory surfaced and I went "wait what the heck”.
Captain_Shruge
26. When Safety Calls
One night my family was driving home from a vacation in Orlando. My mother and I both needed a pee break, so we stopped at the next rest area and went to the bathrooms. I was about 5 years old, so often my mom would take me into the ladies room with her. That night, a homeless man was sitting on the ground outside of the bathrooms. My mother was leading me into the ladies room when the man asked, "Are you taking him to the ladies room?"
My mom said yes. The homeless man offered to take me to the men's room and "help him out". Obviously, I didn't know about the things that bad men sometimes do to little boys and girls, but I did know that I wanted nothing to do with this man. I squeezed my mom's hand very tightly. My mom said no thanks, turned around and walked me quickly back to the car, where I ended up peeing into an empty Gatorade bottle.
We arrived home and went to bed. The next day she explained to me about men who do bad things to children. We set up a code word, and she told me to never, ever be alone with an adult unless they knew the code word.
beast-nuts
27. Tragic Family Secrets
When I was younger, my parents would hire my aunt’s best friend Priscilla to stay with my brother and me when they went away for a while. Priscilla’s grandson Jon lived with her, and my brother and I couldn’t stand him. He was my brother’s age but would poop his pants and refuse to be changed; he always got his way with Priscilla; and he’d tell us weird stories, like one where his father was an angel who hunted bad people.
Years later I learned that Jon’s mom, Priscilla’s daughter, was murdered by Jon’s father. Jon’s father also killed his wife’s twin sister, Priscilla’s other child. Jon was present and about eighteen months old. Allegedly his aunt told him to hide; Jon’s dad found him and carried him around the home for a bit after the murders.
Jon’s dad ran away after committing the murders, and they found Jon in a dog house the next morning. He slept with the neighbor’s dog. A while later they found the dad’s body but for a while there was trouble determining the identity, so Priscilla thought he might still be out there.
Some people don’t get a fair start in life. My aunt reckons that Jon should have gone to live with his father’s parents. Priscilla had a disgusting pig of a boyfriend while Jon was growing up, and she’d also take him to psychics, who said Jon’s dad was burning in hell. I don’t think he received the help and the support he needed.
Pandas-r-falsepanda
28. Creepy Relative Exposed
This creepy relative (my mom's cousin's husband and they live pretty far away, so thankfully between distance and not being that closely related we don't see him much) used to try to force the young girls in the extended family to sit on his lap when we were little, even when we were pulling away. He never tried anything beyond that (at least to me or my sister, idk about my cousin) and I hated it as a kid just because I wanted to go play with my cousins and not sit on some dude's lap doing nothing, especially when I got to be like, 6 and older and was too old for lap sitting anyway, I didn't realize there was anything weird about it beyond that.
Only found out a few years ago (I'm 23 now) that my mom and her siblings got major creep vibes from him, never let us be unsupervised with him or stay overnight in any house that he was staying in, and started intentionally not inviting that cousin and her husband to stuff after he made some creepy comments about my sister when she was 8 (something in the vein of how she was "growing into a beautiful woman" and how she was "a real looker").
The last I saw him was at a funeral three years ago, and he definitely spent a lot of time looking at my younger cousin, who was 10 at the time and was thankfully born after my mom and her siblings started keeping a distance from him. He tried to sit next to me, my sister, and the younger cousin at the service (which was weird, since the funeral was for his wife's father) but thankfully his wife was like "No immediate family is all sitting up front," and then I stuck close to my cousin for the reception afterward and kept an eye on him.
on-yo-clarinets
29. Family Feud
My dad hunted to keep us fed, thankfully we lived in the boonies. Doves and quail, sometimes rabbit if we were lucky, and we'd get 10 lb bags of pinto beans from my grandfather.
Once, my dad brought home frog legs he'd caught, my mom friend 'em up and told us kids they were chicken.
As a teenager, I remember complaining nonstop that all we ever had to eat was chicken breast. Every night was another version of chicken. I vowed I'd never make my family eat so much chicken in the future.
Now, as an adult, we eat chicken 4x a week, and I realized we ate chicken so much growing up because a lb of frozen chicken is so damn cheap. Sorry mom.
thewinterofmylife
30. Neighbors From Hell
I lived in a more run-down neighborhood when I was around 9-10. Shopping carts from the nearby Public in one neighbor's driveway, a giant Confederate flag in the other neighbor's lawn, empty syringes lying around, that sort of thing.
Anyways, my little sister and I shared one room and my mom had the other bedroom down the hall. My sister and I were trying to get some sleep since it was a school night when we heard a string of loud banging noises coming from the next-door neighbor's house. Like, really loud. Of course, this scared the heck out of us since we had no idea what this noise was, but my mom rushed over to our room and assured us that they were fireworks, but I remember that she was very nervous when she said this. Being a naive kid I took my mom's word and completely forgot about the event.
About two years ago my mom revealed that they weren't fireworks, but gunshots. Turns out our neighbor was a drug dealer and one of his buyers shot him dead in his own house. I guess the police also came and questioned my mom about it that night but my sister and I were already asleep.
crowssaint
31. A Slumber Party
I grew up in Los Angeles. When I was five I remember both my parents with my older brother and sister picking me up from daycare. It was very unusual but I was excited as only one parent normally picked me up. My siblings were only one and two years older than me. When we got home Dad made dinner and Mom told all of us to get our sleeping bags, pillows, and blankets as we were going to have a slumber party in the living room and watch movies all night.
I remember my parents had the TV on in their room and would drop in to watch it every so often. I didn't pay much attention to them as I thought it was so cool all of us were watching movies and going to sleep on the floor in the living room.
It wasn't until years later that my mom told me the day everyone picked me up from daycare and we had the "slumber party" in the living room was because the LA riots started. She said both her and my dad left work early, picked up all of us kids and had us watch movies on the floor because they didn't want us to be frightened and laying low on the ground was the best way of making sure if a bullet came through the windows no one would get hurt. My parents had the news on in their bedroom so they could keep tabs on the progression of the riots.
observantsquirrel
32. Abduction Reverted
I went to the local shop with my mum when I was about 4 or 5. I must have wandered off (I don't remember how we got separated), but a man took me by the hand and took me to the chocolate aisle. He offered to buy me an Easter Egg. That's when my mum appeared and snatched my hand away from him.
As we were leaving, the same man started shouting that he caught me trying to steal a packet of biscuits and he was apprehending me. I was a really quiet, shy kid — I've never stolen a thing in my life. I also wasn't near the biscuits.
At the time, I remember being scared and feeling like I'd done something wrong. In hindsight, I'm pretty sure he was trying to abduct me, then lying to cover up his actions when he was caught.
Never let your young kids out of your sight.
soldierwinter
33. When The Smile Fades
My dad took me to see a friend of his back in 2005 when I was 13. The guy had become a paraplegic 20 years earlier in a motorcycle accident but had always been pretty happy. Except for this time.
This time, he was clearly aggravated, had vomit on his shirt, and smelled of alcohol. I didn’t care, everyone has days they just want to check out. I just stayed in the living room while he and my dad talked.
Ten minutes after arriving, my dad says we’re leaving. Turns out they’d had an argument in the other room where he drunkenly accused my dad of only visiting out of guilt, and my dad — insulted and frustrated with his attitude — decided I shouldn’t be around for the argument.
That was one of the last times anyone ever saw him
aideyfarman
34. Shock And Silence
In third grade, a girl’s mom or grandma or aunt came into the classroom. This girl was always quiet, but very nice. I remember she had epilepsy, but those were the only times she made a disturbance. Anyways, this woman marched into the class, made this young girl stand up, stick out her hand, and beat her hand with a belt for every letter of her name.
Her last name was Washington, I remember so clearly. Her first name was very long as well.
Can you imagine being such a cold-hearted witch that you do this in front of a classroom full of third graders? We were all scared out of our minds listening to her scream. When it was done, the girl sat down back across from me and our teacher just said, “Don’t tell anyone about this.”
Now that I’m a mandated reporter, I know now that was definitely abuse and my teacher should have reported it or called the police or something. Back in those days, my mother had CPS called in her because my brother said we didn’t have any fruit in our house. I wonder what ever happened to that woman. The girl is still alive today, obviously a woman now. But how friging crazy.
moonchild2996
35. A Lesson In Inequality
This teacher liked my work, and a number of other kids. We were almost always right, and if we were wrong it was no big deal. She was kind to us. We did good. She must be a really nice teacher!
What I didn't fully know is that this teacher did not like some of my friends' work. They were consistently wrong, and clearly weren't paying attention or even trying. She would be frustrated with my friends, though she kept it fairly quiet (from us good kids). I knew they didn't like her as a teacher, but she was nice to us. Maybe my friends were just causing hassle?
Oh hang on, my work was marked right, but my friend got a bad score. We worked together on this. I know this is right. Maybe the teacher made a mistake? She was probably tired. My friend said not to bring it up, so we moved on. They were all probably tired.
Fast forward 12 years, far past those formative years, past separation and reconnection with one of these friends, and talking about our first teachers. I bring up this nice teacher and my friend practically flips out. I explain how I saw things back then, and my friend connects the dots for me.
The good kids, the kids the teacher was nice too, all had one thing in common.
The problem kids, the kids the teacher was (I thought) frustrated with, also all had one thing in common.
Race.
My friend's work wasn't marked down by mistake or anything. My friend's work was belittled, and my friend was routinely mistreated in other ways I never even saw, because this teacher's care and attention for children was literally skin deep.
We were five at the time. No wonder some of my friends fell behind with a year of unfairness like that.
Racolm_meynalds
36. Friend In Disguise
When I was 13, I got mad at my mom while eating dinner at a pizza place. Headed out to the parking lot to sulk. A middle-aged man driving a big old red and white convertible drove by, saw me, and stopped to talk. He had 5 or 6 kids with him in the car, ranging in age from maybe ten to fifteen or sixteen. The weird thing is none of them looked related, and some appeared to be basically the same age.
Guy tells me they're going to the laundromat, and asks me if I want to go with them. So...I jump in and go hang out while they do laundry. Guy tells me they're just passing through, and asks me if I want to leave town with them. Luckily, I was starting to feel a little weird about the whole thing and declined the offer. They drove me back to the pizza place and dropped me off.
Maybe not "horrible" exactly, but in retrospect, I think I avoided becoming the newest member of this man's personal child molestation/prostitution ring. At the time I mostly just thought he was a friendly guy.
Alexandianvagabond
37. Close Call
When I was around 13, I would get the public bus to and from school with friends. It was public knowledge among the kids on the bus that girls wouldn't get off at one of the stops because of a creepy guy who would "get them". He would always be standing in his front garden a few steps away from the bus stop looking into the bus and looking generally creepy/sinister.
We would make sure our female friends and other girls wouldn't get off at that stop like it was just a normal thing we had to do each day. People would either get off at the stop before or the stop after. There were known stories from girls I knew about how he grabbed someone and tried to touch them etc. or how he tried to coax them into his house. Like many, many first and second-hand stories.
Thinking back on it now, obviously, we should have told someone or phoned the police but it was only something we'd think about for 5 minutes each day and then forget it even happened as soon as we went past that stop.
MarcDiakeses
38. Risky Ride With Drunk Aunt
I was at the local high school's football game, cheering for my cousin who was on the team, and his sister, a cheerleader, was also there. It was a weekend.
Our mother's other sister showed up and she was very drunk, in the middle of the day.
She had driven there. She asked if I wanted a ride home. I said "Sure".
As she's driving, the car keeps listing over to either side of the line due to my aunt's severe drunkenness. I try to politely bring it to her attention. "Um, Aunt XXXXX, you're going into the other lane."
We got home OK but when my parents found out, they were LIVID! Not at me. I was a kid and didn't know better. But at her..for having me in the car while she was shitfaced.
Years later, I feel lucky that there wasn't an accident.
She eventually got clean and sober at nearly 60 and a year or two later was found dead of a heart attack. All of those years of coke and booze took a toll on her health that sobriety could not erase.
Sacredblasphemies
39. Childhood Shocker
I’ve seen my father get arrested so many times in my home. There were times the police busted through my door with guns drawn, times where my house was raided; everything flipped upside down and turned to a mess. I never understood it.
Until I was about 13 when I had my best friend over for a sleepover and he found my father's stash in the rafters of the basement (where my room was). It may not seem too horrible, but the amount of transients and just overall sketchy people my father had over our house and even lived with us at times is something I would never do with my own family. To me, that’s horrible to put your kids in predicaments such as those, and this went on my entire childhood. I mean, he had addicts with kids living in our house at times. It’s surreal to think about as an adult.
That being said, I never looked at my childhood as a horrible one. It was all I knew. But once I became an adult, found out this wasn’t necessarily normal, and all secrets started coming out, it wasn’t as innocent as maybe I thought it was.
B-u-f-u
40. Carpool Chaos
In 2nd and 3rd grade, my family and I used to carpool with another family since we went to a school that was a little bit of a drive away. Let's call them the Johnsons.
It would usually alternate weekly between my mom and their mom for who drives in the morning and who picks up after school. Every now and then during Mrs. Johnson-Mornings week, Mr. Johnson would pull up to our house instead and drive us to school. It did not happen too often but it happened. Also, there was one particular morning that Mrs. Johnson booked it the whole way in while singing to us whatever came on the radio. Just definitely much more of a morning person than she usually is.
I never had any major moment of realization on my own but years later after we moved states away, my Mom told me that the Johnson's were getting a divorce because Mrs. Johnson had been caught in an affair. Mom claimed she was not surprised it happened because of the wife's drinking problem. Apparently every time Mr. Johnson showed in the morning it was because Mrs. Johnson was passed out wrecked from the night before and could not take her turn to drive. Other times, I guess she might not even come home at all.
I did not tell my mom but I'm 99% sure during our sing-a-long ride, we were all being driven to school by someone who had just finished a major binge. A 1st grader, two third graders, and two fifth graders all along for the 35 minute ride... Not sure how she got by the other adults with that one but that definitely could have gone sideways.
societyEff
41. In the Face of Death
I watched my mother die. She went into the hospital on Wednesday morning and the doctor told us she was going to die. So the family set up camp in the room and for 3 days I watched her deteriorate. From being unable to stand, to being unable to talk, to being unconscious, to breathing erratically to literally gasping for every breath. It was agonizing for her and for me.
For 3 days I begged God to take her. For 3 days all I wanted to do was run out of that room but I couldn't leave her. And then when she finally, finally died instead of the relief I had been expecting suddenly I couldn't breathe. I "dry cried" because the tears had long since been used up and made donkey sounds as I tried to swallow some air. Later when I got home I realized that in those 3 days I had somehow lost 20 pounds. I had grieved it away.
But the truly horrifying part was during the brief window after Mom could no longer speak but before she lost consciousness. I saw her wide, scared eyes searching around the room; wild with terror, pleading for help. Then I realized that it was more than death that scared her. She suddenly realized she couldn't speak and would never get to say those things we would all want to say to the people closest to us if death was imminent.
We always think there will be more time but for her time had run out, still in possession of her faculties but completely unable to communicate the most important message in the world. So I leaned in close and said the most comforting thing I could think of "I know you love me Mom, I know you love me, I know"
Now I'm crying at work, time for a break. Call your mom today.
selfhelpforbastards
42. Injured Man
I was getting a fountain drink at a convenience store and on the way out heard a thud along with screeching tires. Looked in the middle of the road and saw an object that looked like a cardboard box. Looked to my right and saw that an SUV had it's hazard lights on and was *slowly* pulling into the store's parking lot.
I slowly realized that the "cardboard box" was a person and I ran out to see if the person was alive or dead. I was the first one to reach the guy and, like an idiot, I asked him "Hey, man, are you okay?"
He was convulsing, blood coming from his mouth, both shoes had been thrown from his body, and his arm was twisted in a way that I knew it was dislocated. I'm positive he was in shock.
Thank God someone showed up and "relieved" me of my duty and started waving at traffic so no one hit him because I was far too jolted to do anything other than ask that asinine question.
tridentgum
43. Campus Assault
I was at my friend's apartment on the UMN-Twin Cities campus around 3 am. We were getting ready to leave so I stepped outside. I hear shouts and about nine people come spilling out of the house next door, where there's a party going on.
At first, it looks like a fairly typical fight and I'm pissed off, but then I realized that it's actually eight people all beating on one guy. He falls to the ground and they start kicking him while he's on the ground.
At that point I got out my phone and started running at them, yelling at them to stop and that I was calling the police (which I did). As I was running over to them, the guy on the ground tried to get up and someone kicked him hard in the chin and his head flew backward.
One of them saw me running and he grabbed all his friends and they left. I debated chasing them down but decided to check out the guy who was on the ground. He was lying in the middle of the road, in a pool of blood, with his head at kind of a weird angle (picture lying flat on your stomach but your head is sideways). We were still breathing, but each breath had a rattle and a rasp to it. I don't think I'm ever going to forget that sound.
I don't know what happened to him, I don't know if he lived or died - I stayed until the cops came, and then they loaded him into the ambulance and drove away.
ltArson
44. A Silent Struggle
There are a few that are close, but probably the freshest in my mind is my dad, who's suffering from dementia.
He had a really bad few months because he had a UTI, but couldn't describe what was wrong. The VA didn't catch it in a urine sample. He was so out of touch at the height of it, he had to be put in a civilian mental unit for evaluation (not enough beds at the VA). They didn't do a blood/urine screening either. They said he was dying, so the best thing would be to make him comfortable, and let him go. Eventually, they got him into the VA, and they found the UTI. After that, he was better, but the pain really reduced him.
I'm not sure if he recognizes people or not. Sometimes there seems to be a glimmer like he knows that person. Then it goes away. He doesn't know where he is anymore. He'll howl for hours that he wants to go home. It usually coincides with sundowning. He can't walk more than a few steps anymore. And that's only after a good night of sleep. If he doesn't sleep well, he can't get up at all.
He doesn't make much sense. Mostly mumbles. Occasionally his words make sense. He said "water" pretty clearly a few days ago. He's kind of self-aware, but can't articulate what's wrong. He's in diapers. He can't handle the bathroom. He has trouble with sandwiches, and can't figure out how to eat them. Everything has to be mashed, and spoon-fed.
He's gaunt now. I hardly recognize his face. He didn't look this bad before the butchers at the civilian hospital nearly killed him. He wasn't this bad before that happened.
It's hard to watch an intelligent, vital 58 year old reduced back to infancy. It's horrifying to know that he'll be like this (potentially) for years to come. And, to be honest, it's frightening to think that this could happen to me.
That's what's horrifying.
Imcledamar
45. Creepy Hospital Bunker
My father used to work for Charity Hospital, a publicly-funded hospital in New Orleans. Many decades ago they bought some bunkers out in the middle of nowhere in Louisiana for the purposes of storage. These bunkers were basically built for the processing of potentially volatile chemicals, so, you know, door on one side, earth piled up on the other. Basically scary looking hobbit holes.
Anyway they were storing a lot of old furniture in there, lots of shelving and cabinets and the like that they'd replaced but never gotten around to destroying. Dad got permission one day to go there and dig around and take out any he liked. We were going to take them home and use them in the house.
The light from the sun outside didn't get much farther than ten feet in from the door so after that you were on your own, weaving your way through a maze of old furniture and hospital equipment. I remember the whole place was covered in a thick coat of dust and it smelled like hospital chemistry and old wood; a nauseating combination.
My dad had warned me: "be careful, RD, there's probably a lot of spiders in here, so don't touch any cobwebs or open anything. Just yell out when you find something we can use." But everything was covered in cobwebs and while I didn't want to be complain, I was only maybe ten years old, and the place was terrifying to me.
Then my flashlight reflected off something made of glass. I took a second look, and there they were: glass cylinders filled with pale white arms and legs.
I totally lost my mind. I must've screamed or at least yelled and my heart jumped into my throat and I ran back wide-eyed and shaking. I told them what I saw and then I started crying.
I don't remember if my Dad went and looked or not, but I do know that we called it a day right then and there. In retrospect I think it was probably just a bunch of mannequin limbs; there's no way those things could've been preserved tissue or anything, just lying out there in the open.
But in my memory, from all those years ago, I swear to God those arms and legs were moving.
Rottendeadites
46. Power’s Out
I was woken up by my mom screaming for help, dad rushing in and grabbing my youngest bother at the time and giving CPR, trying his hardest to revive him.
I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time; I didn't know what to do, and no one was explaining to me what was happening. It was only when the Ambulance came that I was sent to a neighbor.
My brother was born with a lung problem (It's been 18 years now; I can't remember ATM), and he was hooked up to a machine that helped him breathe at night.
Well, they failed to let us know that they were going to do maintenance on a transformer outside and cut the power, and because of that, he suffocated overnight.
I didn't know what was happening at the time, and it did not really come up until one night I was in the car with my parents. Then the song Dreaming of You by Selena came up.
At that moment, I just cried so much; I remember asking my parents why they had to take him and how much I missed him. To this day, I still can not hear that song. RIP, Baby David. Some day, I’ll see you again.
gabrielr7637
47. Worst Show
I was with my dad at an airshow in Toronto back in the 90s. We watched this big plane go up and do a maneuver and then go into a dive, going nose-first into the lake with a massive splash.
My dad was a photographer and had managed to capture the seconds before and after impact, and he told me we had to go right away (he booked it to the newspaper with the film roll to get it developed).
I said I wanted to watch the rest of the show because I thought it had just dropped a bomb and flown off. Didn't realize that I had just witnessed seven people die.
JackRusselTerrorist
48. Sudden Realizations
When I was 11, my mom and I left my dad and were homeless. I did not realize we were homeless till I was 20. I just thought we were on some kinda excursion.
We were just kinda sleeping in the car and at friends' houses for a while. I had so much trust in my mother that I was never once startled by the situation.
My mother is also very creative. "Wow, I found these flavored tuna pouches. Wouldn't it be cool if we acted like cats?" "I bet you can't brush your teeth with only a water bottle.”
And other classics like "I'm gonna leave you at the library for a while." About two years later, we found a house. I was so glad.
handzies
49. Cool Dad
My dad and I were in a plane accident (it wasn't quite a crash) where the front of the plane caught fire somehow. The whole cabin lost pressure, and we plummeted from cruising altitude to around 1000 feet at a 45-degree angle.
The plane was going from Florida to Connecticut, but we instead had an emergency landing in Savannah, Georgia. One of the flight attendants said to tell your friends and family you loved them while sobbing over the intercom.
It was pretty serious, and the veteran pilots we had absolutely saved our lives. I didn't think it was bad because my dad played it like an absolute pro.
I remember asking him why there was smoke coming from the front of the plane, to which he told me that the pilots were having a barbecue.
When we were plummeting, I asked him why, and he just said, "Sometimes you have to do that when flying." It could have been a very traumatic memory for me, but my dad was awesome.
To this day, my dad can never get on a plane without being heavily medicated. My parents also recently told me (around 13 years later) that after we got home and I went to bed, my parents sat in the kitchen and cried for a solid hour.
[deleted]
50. Dodged Danger
My dad was driving us to school and stopped at the mechanic's shop on the way to check on my stepmom's car. He parked parallel to the front of the garage so he could easily go straight back onto our route.
As he expected to be in and out, and it being 1988, he left the car running. After about 30 seconds, a man walked up to the car, got in, and tried to put it in gear.
To my sister and me (4 at the time) and me (6), we assumed he was a worker trying to move us out of the way of the garage. He said, "Buckle up," in a way that still gives me chills to this day. The car stalled as he put it into gear (manual, tricky clutch).
My dad sprinted out of the shop with a couple of other men, opened the door of the car, hauled the guy out, and wrestled him to the ground. I went to school that day and didn't really think about it until years later. I was about to face danger.
BoomChocolateLatkes
51. Sleeping Friend
When I was little (I guess like 6 or something), a friend and I found a man sleeping in the bushes at our sports field. We thought it was some homeless guy sleeping there, and we thought it was hilarious.
We told everyone on the field and showed some of them the sleeping man. My uncle, who works for the police, also came with us when we asked him to come see our sleeping friend.
A few minutes later, the game that was playing on the field was canceled, and the place where the man was was swamped with police. I thought they came to wake the man up.
Turned out that a few years later, he was dead. I believe he died in the park that is connected to our sports field. Yeah, so I guess I found a dead man when I was 6.
paltypus
52. Fire Of Death
I was maybe 3. I can't really remember. We were awakened by the siren of the fire truck. We ran to our lawn to see the neighbor's house engulfed in flames.
As we're watching, they bring something out and let it on the grass but 20 feet from me. It's small and blackened. It was my best friend's charred body.
I remember staring at it until my mom finally realized what it was and took us all back into the house. It didn't really register for a long time.
For a couple of weeks, I kept asking if my friend was going to come back so we could play. Finally, I stopped asking, and I guess I eventually forgot about him and what had happened. It all came flooding back to me one day when I was in my forties, and I confirmed my memories with my mom.
jcpmojo
53. Lucky Day
When I was about nine, I was playing outside at a friend’s house. There was a row of shops further down her street, and we would play ball games behind them when the shops closed because there was a large wall we could bounce our balls off.
One evening, we went down to play ball and found some money on the ground. We happily ran to her house, excited about our luck. On our way back up the street, we found some more coins and a few notes, then some more further up.
By the time we got to her door, our pockets were full of coins and notes. We ran in to tell her parents about our treasure, only to find more money on the floor in the hall inside the house.
We lifted it as well and excitedly told her father everything and showed him all the money. He took it from us and said he would give it to the police and I shouldn’t tell my parents as we could get into trouble.
When I got home, I told my parents everything because I was worried the police would come to my door asking about the money.
My parents told me to never mention it again but wouldn’t let me play with my friend again. I often wonder what really happened that day.
smokencold59
54. Burning Meat
I grew up in a small town in MI, where the population was less than 5,000. Down the street from my childhood home was an airstrip that was only used by crop dusters and skydivers.
When I was maybe 8 years old, I remember the whole area being full of law enforcement one day. My dad was a cop and was curious about what was going on, so he drove us out into the back roads, flashing his badge to get through the shut-down roads.
I remember eventually driving by this field with a crashed plane in it and the ground was torn up, and it smelled kind of like burnt meat.
At the time, my dad had just told me to look away, and he drove out of there really quickly. He told me that one of the skydiving planes had crashed, but everyone was fine.
I googled it years later, and it turns out everyone was not fine. 10 people lost their lives.
[deleted]
55. The Dent
I watched an old lady get hit by a minibus. I'd just gotten off the school bus. The light was green, and I was just about to cross when the minibus came hurtling through out of nowhere, and the old lady ahead went flying.
I remember wincing and then going into the supermarket to get a snack. It came out a while later, and the road was shut down with cops everywhere. There was a body on the ground, covered in a cloth.
I went home, messed around, and promptly forgot about it. Not until a few weeks later my mum saw the minibus back in service.
The dent where it'd hit the old lady was still intact. I don't think the full impact of watching someone die has hit me yet, and it's been more than ten years.
weeabootears
56. The Campers
I helped and watched my best friend's dad pack out the house. I was maybe six or seven at the time and had no idea he was ditching wife, kids, job, or any other adult responsibility.
He made the task into a game for his son and me; we were taking things to go "camping". After we packed up, he told us boys to head back to town, where there was a local parade going on, and not tell the wife / Mom because it was a surprise.
As young as I was, I had no idea of the magnitude of what he was doing. Apparently, he cleaned out their bank accounts, money, and valuables.
We were just excited to go camping. An hour later, my buddy's life was in ruins, and they had to leave the house they were renting and move away.
To this day, I have no idea what happened to my childhood friend, his Mom, or his Dad. That guy did a pretty despicable thing.
GreenSalsa96
57. Short Hair
When I was a young teenager, I walked back into my parent's room to find my mom (who was the most beautiful woman, a model pretty) cutting off her own hair.
When I asked what she was doing, she said, “Making myself uglier. That way, your dad cheated because I’m ugly and not because of who I am.”
I knew back then it was horrible, but twenty years later, it hit me like a ton of bricks and broke my heart. My mom is still the kindest woman I know.
Nowell17
58. Eye Witness
I still swear that I saw someone burying a body in the woods when I was like 14 years old. I was riding my bike on this gravel roadway back behind a cemetery in NJ.
There was this POS of an old van, a hole with a shovel, and a dude moving this body-shaped thing covered in black garbage back from the van to the hole.
Very stereotypical - exactly what you would see in an old mob movie or something. He saw me and froze, and I just biked home as fast as I could.
This was maybe 15 years ago. I remember thinking at the time that it looked like a body, but telling myself that I was just a kid and it must be a mistake.
Looking back on it now as an adult, replaying everything over in my head, I still think it could have been a body. Freaking weird, man.
upnflames
59. Tragic Event
I watched a car go way too fast on the highway and basically do a barrel roll before landing on its roof, that is if it had a roof. It was a roofless sports car.
My brother didn't see it, and my mom refused to acknowledge that anything happened, so I assumed that I had daydreamed about it.
Ten years later, I asked my mom again, and she admitted denying it to shelter me from seeing someone die. Oh gosh, when I found out.
AltruisticCanary
60. Candy Game
I don't know if this counts, but my cousin and I were the dumbest freaking children when we were younger. We had a game we played when no one was around.
It didn't have a name, and it could have gotten us killed on a couple of occasions. Basically, we would get lollipops and push them down each other's throats. I would actually hold the lollipop stuck and slowly slide the candy down.
When I got anatomy in school, it dawned on me how absolutely idiotic we acted as children. I hope the dumb part of DNA doesn't run in the family.
littleredladybird
61. Not A Barbie Doll
I used to have dreams of being in our old van and seeing a Barbie fly out of a car, with its legs spinning and coming off. I told my mom about it, and she said, “I can’t believe you remember that.”
Apparently, when I was little and still in a car seat, my mom pulled our van over on the side of the highway because a wreck was blocking the interstate.
A car behind us didn’t see it, was going too fast, and hit the wreck head-on. The driver was a pregnant woman, and she was not wearing a seatbelt.
As my mother describes it, “She burst through the windshield and landed on the road in two pieces.” when the EMT people arrived, they had to cover her with two blankets. Anyway, I was too young to process it, I guess, so in my mind, when I picture it, I just see a Barbie doll 🤷🏻♀️
cadmiumred
62. Separate Rooms
When my parents bought a house because my mom was pregnant with my younger sister, my parents slept in separate rooms; they didn’t do that in our previous one-bedroom apartment.
It never occurred to me that they hated each other. They would eventually separate and then divorce. I also had my paternal grandparents for 28 years before they passed away.
They slept in separate bedrooms for longer than I had them in my life. Always thought it was because they had separate schedules (grandpa was up around 9 am and went to bed around 10 pm while my grandma would go to bed around 3 am and wake up at 3 pm).
Apparently, they had a marriage of convenience in the 1940s. They and my parents are why marriage makes me nervous. Gosh.
degrassibabetjk
63. Slippery Stairs
An old guy fell down the stone steps outside our local library when I was five or six. I didn't think it was a big deal -- hell, I was clumsy as fudge.
I used to fall down the stairs in my house twice a week, it felt like -- but it didn't occur to me that the steps were stone and slippery, and the old guy probably wasn't as bouncy as I was.
I ended up getting hurried away, but I think my mother or some other adult I was with called the ambulance. I asked about this a few years ago, and she didn't remember any of it, but I can remember it vividly. That old dude probably got really messed up on that fall, but I didn't think anything of it.
Portarossa
64. For Rent
I grew up super poor. My late mother was a single parent, trying to keep two boys fed and sheltered. We bounced from place to place all the time when we were kids.
My brother and I counted it up one time, and we had moved over 20 times by the time I was in middle school. My mom was pretty, but she was a middle school dropout in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, so she didn't have a lot of options.
At one point, we had this skeezy old landlord named Leland for this place we were renting when I was like 8 or 9. My mom was frequently out of money, and occasionally, we would make trips to Leland's house.
I did not like to go to his house, but I was too young to leave by myself. My mom and Leland would go into another room, and I would sit in his living room and play Super Punch-Out on a Super Nintendo he had.
It wasn't until years later that I realized that my mom was sleeping with that old man when she couldn't make rent in order to make sure that we didn't get kicked out of our home.
To this day, I can't see or play Punch-Out without associating it with those bad memories. Thank you, Mom. I could never repay you for all the things you gave me.
[deleted]
65. Messed Up Memory
My mom and I came up to an intersection where a bad car accident had just happened. We see someone pull a limp body out of a car and start to try to do CPR.
The body starts to have convulsions and shake uncontrollably. The intersection ends up being closed off, and we see paramedics arrive and put a blanket over the body.
I watched a man die at about ten years old. It was weird at that time, but looking back on it, it's pretty messed up. Gosh, it still haunts me.
jonker5101
66. Bad Grandma
My grandmother tried to run my dad over with the family car because we were late to an event, and he refused to get on the highway without pumping air in the tires.
I remember her sliding over from the passenger seat to the driver's seat and putting the car in drive. The engine was running because it was winter, and my Mom, Grandma, and I were trying to stay warm. My Grandma was livid because we were so late, and his safety concerns seemed dumb to her.
I remember the car lurching forward and my father jumping back with a terrified look on his face. My grandmother denies it to this day, but Mom and I remember.
millennialmania
67. The Good Teacher
I was probably six or seven. I was walking with my mom in the city, and we were about to cross the road. There was a woman talking on the phone in front of us, and she was walking with her daughter.
A cement truck (the kind with the big rotating barrels) was turning at the same time and didn't see them. The woman must've seen the truck at the last minute cause she was able to push her daughter out of the way, but the truck hit her, and her head got crushed by the wheel.
Everyone was screaming and in panic. My mom pushed me into the nearest corner store and ran to help the daughter since she was an officer. All I could think of was how it sounded like a balloon bursting.
MaxyScab
68. The Step
When I was a kid, I always got in trouble for "being in the way." I'd be clogging up the hallway, lollygagging, stopping foot traffic, blocking the doorway, or leaning too far into the pathway.
So one Saturday morning, when I was around 7 or so, I was sitting on the top step of our house, leaning back on my hands on the floor behind me.
My dad came out of his room and stood on my hand, sipping his coffee and chit-chatting about our weekend plans: what chores I'd done, which I had to do, and what he was planning on doing.
And I knew if I complained, I'd have to hear again how I was stupid and worthless and always in the way, so I just smiled through the pain as he shifted his weight around, ground his boot into my hand, and answered with all my "yes sirs" as polite as can be.
And I was more careful not to be so in the way as I had been. Years later, I stepped on a bug, and I felt it wriggle beneath my foot, even through my shoe, and it just hit me.
He had to know he was standing on my hand. And he just stood there, smiling, sipping his coffee, making pleasant conversation as he willfully hurt a child.
sohowlongcanmynamebe
69. Flying Shoe
I was playing with my friends in recess. I was maybe 7 or 8 at the time, and suddenly, we heard a huge bang outside the school walls.
As we hear it, we see this shoe fly maybe 40ft in the air and land next to us. Stupid as we were, we started playing with it and laughing, and it took me a few years to realize what happened.
A kid got hit by a car and died in front of our school, and we were playing with his shoes. Makes me sick thinking about it now.
Zermat146
70. Bloody Mouth
I was about 8, and my sister was 3. She walked into the bathroom where I was brushing my teeth, and she threw up several pints of blood, and then her eyes rolled back, and she passed out.
I was nervous and scared, but I had no idea how close to death my sister was that night because she needed a blood transfusion, obviously, and you can’t eat or drink for several hours before a blood transfusion, so that alone nearly killed her.
Turned out that when she had gotten her tonsils out a few days earlier, the surgeon left an extra cut at the back of her throat. My sister has a blood clotting disorder, so all of the blood pooled into her stomach.
Our next-door neighbor was a retired ER nurse and helped clean up the blood while my parents were at the hospital. She said she’d never seen that much blood in her life.
pmmeyourdogs1
71. Group Plan
This happened when I was about 7 or 8. I was waiting outside to be picked up from karate class one night, and a group of young people in their 20s pulled up in a van and tried to get me to come over to them.
I just sorta stayed where I was sitting and looked at them, confused. Then, luckily, a family friend happened to be pulling up to go into the building I was outside of.
He chased them off and stayed with me until my dad got there. I had no idea of the potential danger I was in. I was just really confused.
etc_etcmashedpotatos
72. The Janitor
When I was in first or second grade, I was waiting outside our school with my friends waiting for the doors to open. It was snowing, so the janitor was using a snow blower to clear the walkways.
From the corner of my eye, I watched the janitor collapse to his knees, and he was breathing very heavy. I watched him for a moment, thinking he was tired, but soon felt like maybe something was wrong with him.
The bell rang, and I rushed into class. I remember looking back again, and he was still on his knees. I never told anyone because I wasn't sure what was happening.
It was then later announced that the janitor had a heart attack. He survived and returned to work, but I still feel like a jerk for not saying anything 20+ years later.
_curiouser_
73. A Pathological Liar
My dad, who I had never seen, had invited my big sister and me to the capital in order to go to an amusement park. My sister was skeptical because she thought, "Why would he do that?"
But I convinced her because I had not seen him in like 2 years. When we got there and were waiting outside the amusement park, my sister got a call from him to come to the other side of the city. She said something like, "Here we go."
I started crying because I wanted to go in, but eventually, we got on the bus. It turned out he wanted my sister to witness his and his new girlfriend's wedding (whom none of us have met). Afterward, they said we could do "whatever we wanted."
They had no intentions of going to the amusement park. But my sister took me there anyway and paid from her pocket. I did not really understand why Dad did not show up and thought it was sad.
But I remember my sister said, "Screw that lying jerk" or something. Have never seen him after that. This had been going on for a long time, and only now is when I understand he did not care about us.
[deleted]
74. Deep Secret
During a family gathering, I found my aunt covered with only a towel in a dark room in an unused part of the house.
She was nowhere to be found, and my uncle and others were looking for her. I was helping them and went into this dark room and turned the light on, and there she was.
She was terrified. I was embarrassed, so I quickly turned the light off and left. I didn't see if anyone else was in there, but later, I realized she must have been cheating on my uncle while he was in the other part of the house, which wasn't even a very big house.
I told everyone she was changing because I thought she was doing that. Didn't know what happened afterward. They are still together after 10 years or so. But they do not have a happy marriage.
wingedbuttcrack
75. A Wanderer Baby
My siblings told me a story about when I was a little toddler. I left the house alone and made it through the woods at the edge of my neighborhood to the highway.
A trucker saw me (a baby in only a diaper) and picked me up. He drove to the nearest neighborhood and started knocking on doors to find my parents. Neighbors directed him to my house, where no one realized I was missing.
My best friend lived down the street, and when I was 10ish, her Mom told me about how I used to regularly show up at her house after dark, wearing nothing but a diaper and asking to play.
As a kid, I thought these stories were hilarious. As an adult mother with two small children, it's horrifying to think what could have happened.
mlibee
76. Forbidden Room
Not me, but my dad. He grew up in a small town in Canada. When he was around 10-11 years old, he was working at this old guy’s farm. The old guy made it very clear that my dad could roam wherever on the farm except this one specific room.
So one afternoon, my dad went wandering "looking for something" and stumbled into the room he wasn't allowed in. The old farmer had pelts of lions and tigers and all of these rare species pelts hanging with price tags on them.
The old farmer found him and hurried him out, telling him not to return. My dad never thought much of it until years later, and it was too late, but he still feels shameful he didn't tell his father about what he saw.
I just called my father to see if there was more to the story. I guess years after the incident with my dad, the farmer was caught illegally selling the pelts.
I guess he had a shady connection that got them for him. so the farmer wasn't killing the animals himself, but he was profiting off of someone else doing it.
elizastin
77. The Alarm
I couldn't have been more than 7 or 8. I was visiting my father's office in a not-so-nice part of a major city. He was locking up, and that meant setting the alarm at the top of the stairs.
You have 30 seconds to run down the stairs and get out the door. As a small child, it was always better for me to wait for him outside (it never took more than a minute).
While I waited outside this door, a car pulled up to the lights. The male driver saw me and enthusiastically motioned in a "come here" with his fingers.
I just stared at him, shook my head, and looked the other way. The light turned green about 10 seconds later, and he drove off.
Auto_one_up
78. Excruciating Pain
When I was eight, I watched my mom have a stroke in her room. My aunt was there but refused to take her to the ER. No cellphone days, too.
I was a kid and didn’t know my address anyway since we moved often. I thought she was fine and just sick or talking weirdly. My aunt just told us to go to bed, so we did.
Three days later, she was taken off life support. She was 30. To this day, it sickens me to think that she could’ve gotten help, but nobody took her to the hospital.
DOGLOVER666_AMA
79. Mysterious Car
When I was about eight, on a very snowy day, my mother sent me to the local convenience store for a couple of packs of menthol. The subdivisions was brand new and scarcely developed.
So imagine my surprise when, at the base of a steep hill, I came across a car in a field about a thousand feet from the road. Two elderly people were inside, either unconscious or dead.
Around the car, in a tight circle, ran these two Pomeranians covered in blood, leaving a red trail behind them. So I went to get the cigarettes and mentioned what I'd seen to the clerk before I walked home.
[deleted]
80. Mum’s Saddest Story
When I was about 6 or 7, my brother (then around 4 or 5) asked our mom out of the blue what the saddest day of her life was.
She sat us down and told us that before we were born, she had another baby that died in a car accident. She didn’t really elaborate, and we just took it at face value because we were kids.
When I got older, I got the whole story: my parents were hit in a car accident by a drunk driver when my mom was two weeks from her due date; this was the first baby she carried to term after three previous miscarriages.
My mom was knocked out, and the baby didn’t make it, but my dad was fully conscious through the whole thing, and I know he dealt with some pretty serious PTSD after the whole thing.
abandonedvan
81. Edible Paper
I have a memory of myself as a child hiding under the stairs at my babysitter, eating paper. It looked like a thing that a dumb kid could possibly do, right?
Well, I’ve always had this memory and thought it was hilarious because, geez, who is dumb enough to eat paper? Me, apparently.
Turns out the babysitter wasn’t feeding the kids she was watching. I was eating paper because we didn’t have anything else. Great.
[deleted]
82. Cold Cat
When I was a young kid, my elementary school had a big sledding hill nearby, and there was an area at the bottom of it where water would sometimes pool into a pond and freeze into a little makeshift ice rink.
They didn't let kids sled on it unless it was entirely frozen over (not that it was super deep or anything, but you would get covered in freezing cold water).
One time, I went out there and saw a cat frozen under the ice. I think it was someone's outdoor cat, and it slipped down the hill or something and then died in the water and froze.
caninehere
83. Candy Bait
I don’t remember how old I was, but I was young. I was at the park with some family. I went up into this castle with a rope floor and walked along the sides.
Suddenly, a strange man stretched his hand out to me and asked me to come with him. He literally had candy in his hand. It was to make me come to him.
I remember being scared and running to tell my parents, and I was so confused at that time. But I have no memory of what else happened. Now, I’m glad I did not follow him.
[deleted]