What was your most irrational fear as a child?
 

Mine was that I would never learn how to tie a neck-tie before I left home. Therefore, I'd need to buy every tie I'd ever own before I left home so they'd all be knotted.....smh :rolleyes:

That Bigfoot was real and would try to break into our house (my sister and I saw a TV special about Bigfoot and this was long before the current preponderance of pseudo-science "reality" shows, so we were pretty freaked out).

Clowns, and anything that wears a costume (basically if I can't see your face I freak out)
But I never exactly grew out of this fear...

Clowns.
Swallowing my tongue.
And at age 12, going blind. :D

Being trapped in a car and going backwards down the hill on the main road by my house. I still get a little nervous if I have to back down a hill.

And when I was 8 we had this book in our class reading corner that had a picture of a troll/zombie monster in a graveyard. It totally freaked me out. I was convinced it was going to sneak into my room at night between the drapes and get me if there was any light shining through the 2 panels. I still make sure the drapes are completely shut.

And I'm not sure if this qualifies as a childhood fear, but as a teenager, I was terribly afraid The Bomb would drop and I'd die a virgin.

Being buried alive (when would that EVER happen?)

As a kid, I had muscle spasms in my fingers and toes as I fell asleep. After seeing Leprechaun and having the bejeezus scared out of me, I was convinced there was a leprechaun living under my pillow and the tugging feeling was him trying to eat my thumbs when I fell asleep. For weeks, I slept with no pillow or covers so that all my appendages would be where I could see them.

I would not step over even the simplest of grates because there was this cartoon back then that featured Andy Panda. He walked on one in a factory and it collapsed, pretty much sending him to hell.

My sixth grade teacher showed the class a movie about a girl who was horribly burned and disfigured in an electrical fire. (I have no idea what the curriculum connection was there....) I then developed a terrible fear of electrical outlets and fires. I would religiously check all of the outlets in my room every night before I went to bed. Thanks, Mrs. Crandall.

I saw a show on tv with a woman in the "push" part of labor. After that, I was diligent about checking the toilet before flushing. I was terrified that I might inadvertently poop out a baby and then carelessly flush it away.

I saw a show on tv with a woman in the "push" part of labor. After that, I was diligent about checking the toilet before flushing. I was terrified that I might inadvertently poop out a baby and then carelessly flush it away.

As crazy as this is going to sound/read, I was afraid of wood ticks and parasitic worms when I was a kid. As I got older, I started to have a love/fascination for them. They're so amazing. I was also afraid of black holes and I thought Earth was going to get eaten by one. The things I was once afraid of, I am now fascinated by.

As I kid, I was deathly afraid of flushing the toilet. I was sure, very sure, that a monster was going to come out of the commode and grab me. So, I would flush and make a mad dash for the door.

When looking at large blue bodies of water on maps I would get a suffocating feeling as if I were drowning. Perhaps subconsciously I remembered being born; sometimes that feeling still occurs all these (mumble) years later.

I believed that the lane lines painted in the bottom of the pool were hammerhead sharks.

Lol!