I suspect many of us are lucky to have survived childhood (and young adulthood). What was your scariest moment?

  • VelvetStorm@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    One time when I was like 15 I was up late at night watching scary movies. I got up to get something to drink and saw a person standing outside the large window in the living room. It felt like my soul was leaving my body and then I noticed it was my own fat ass reflection.

    That was legit pretty dam scary for maybe 2 seconds were I thought I was gonna die.

  • NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Last year I was hit by a pickup truck while riding my bicycle to work. My spouse is really hard to get ahold of when she is at work because she is a chef and keeps her phone off. The ambulance driver took my phone and called her work as they pulled me inside.

    They told me my hip, ribs and foot were broken and I was bleeding internally. The room got all white and fuzzy. I felt like I was floating above the bed. The whole thing was pretty terrifying but oddly calming at the same time? I can’t explain it.

    That’s when I saw her peek her head into the room. It instantly changed my entire mindset about the situation and I kept telling myself I can’t die in front of her.

    Not sure if it helped but here I am, almost a year later. I’ve ditched the wheelchair and I use a cane sometimes when I need to be on my feet for long periods, but I’m like 85% back to normal.

      • NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        As do I, my only regret was not getting to ride my ebike more before it got totaled. Now I’m not sure if I can ride one for awhile.

        • thesqueakywheel@lemmy.one
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          1 year ago

          I had a similar story though not quite as traumatic. I got hit while riding my motorcycle to work, the guy ran. Was in the hospital with excruciating pain and almost died to asphyxiation in front of my wife. Still recovering from my broken spine but PT is helping a ton.

          • NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            I’m still struggling too. A lot. I try to put on a strong face because I don’t want anyone to know how much I’ve had to struggle to regain the ability to walk. It’s been so much work and I’m honestly exhausted by the end of everyday but the process has been worth it.

            I’m extremely independent also so learning to accept care from others proved very difficult as well. The most upsetting part was having others help me manage my bathroom activities. The first time my spouse has to help clean me up I cried for an hour afterwards in my wheelchair from the shame of the moment.

            I hope yours didn’t include that, but if it did I know how shameful that feeling is.

            • thesqueakywheel@lemmy.one
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              1 year ago

              Thankfully mine didn’t come to that. She only had to help me get to and from. Had a full time brace except in the shower and slept on the couch for a year because the bed wasn’t comfortable. I was able to walk after a few months of intense PT but I keep doing it because I want to get back what I lost.

              • NumbersCanBeFun@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                That was my mindset also. No surrender until I’m as close to 100% as my body will allow 🍻

                I believe in you. You got this!

  • MoonshineBrew@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When I was in 3rd grade, I had a classmate that had really bad parents. Drugs, beating him and their dog up and so on. We only found out about this later though.

    One day after school, me and my best buddy met him on our way home, walking towards us with a glass bottle in his hand. When he was almost next to us, he smashed the bottle, grabbed a shard and stabbed my buddy. 3 stabs into his forehead, 5 in his chest, before running away.

    Thankfully he wasn’t very strong and we were only around 30 meters from our neighbors house, so my friend survived and doesn’t have any permanent damage beside the scars.

    Even now it’s still unreal to me, how an 8 year old boy can play with you in school and 30 minutes later stab you with glass shards.

    In case anyone is wondering, the last thing I know about that boy is that his parents beat their dog to death, got jail time for beating him and the youth welfare office took him away.

    And yes, simply writing about it still sends me on an emotional roller-coaster, even though it’s been almost 21 years since then.

  • MrBobDobalina@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Exploring an easy cave with a friend. Nothing tricky at all, just one way through, standing room all the way, about 1m wide, ankle deep water flowing through the whole way (walking against the flow).

    As we went, the water very slowly became harder to press forwards against. The change was so gradual we were second-guessing it the entire time until it got really strong. We figured it was better to walk against it than with it - at this point it was rushing against our legs, and the thought of slipping and being swept through, bouncing off of the walls, was not great. It felt much easier to keep our footing facing the flow, and also it seemed like we were much closer to the end than the beginning (the cave had an exit at both ends, it was basically a small fork of a river that cut through a hill).

    So we pressed on, until we got to a point that should have been a small scramble up a few bits of rock - except now there was a massive flow of water hitting us at chest level as we tried to climb it. We were both completely unable to push against it and get up. We were also now convinced that the cave was filling up with water so we had to get out - which now meant turning around and doing the whole length again but with the water hitting the back of our legs the whole way.

    Oh and the water was freezing, coming off of some snowy mountains. So for about an hour, we held onto the sides of the cave and slowly tried to move steadily through, while by this point I had almost no feeling in my frozen feet to help with keeping my footing. It was like guesswork every step.

    By the time we got out, the water had risen by almost a metre I’d say. Not much but the extra force was insane, and the feeling of a cave filling up with water behind you was not easily ignored. Anyway, turns out there was heavy rainfall way up river from us, always check the forecast and think beyond where you are when dealing with rivers and caves!

  • nivenkos@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Posing as a buyer to recover my ex-gf’s stolen laptop from when our flat was burgled. The sellers were a family and one of them was a clear drug addict, and they kept a huge dog in a cage in the middle of their apartment.

    Fortunately they were stupid and I got all the evidence needed, and the police did raid them and recover our stuff (and many other peoples’ from other burglaries, and also tens of thousands of pounds worth of drugs).

    But that feeling of being scared they’d recognise me somehow once i was inside their flat, and looking at the laptop trying to get the serial number, etc. and hiding my shaking hands - all with a huge dog in a cage a few feet away - was crazy.

  • charlytune@mander.xyz
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    1 year ago

    Scariest moment for myself was many years ago hiding curled into a tiny ball behind my sofa while my (then) boyfriend stood just inches from me muttering “kill the bitch, kill the bitch”. Still not sure how he didn’t see me as I wasn’t really hidden from view at all, the sofa was in the middle of a large room and I was just huddling under a towel that was hanging over the back. I think it’s just possible that fear can make you invisible (I know rationally that’s not the case, I think it’s more of a comforting pseudo-belief). I’ve felt greater fear since then, but that was for someone else’s life, not mine.

      • charlytune@mander.xyz
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        1 year ago

        Well you know that saying, what doesn’t kill you gives you unhealthy coping mechanisms and a lifetime of material for therapy…

        I mostly joke, I’m mostly fine. Funnily enough the last time I saw him he was driving an ambulance I was in, but that’s a whole nother story for another time!

  • Xariphon@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    After a weekend of basically no sleep, I straight up passed out at the wheel and ran a red light. Somebody honked their horn and the shock of that woke me up. That person will never know but I honestly believe they saved my life.

  • 001100 010010@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    Edit: Sorry I’m not from lemmy.world, but still wanted to answer, hope you don’t mind.

    When I was in China, my older brother was mad at me about something and was chasing me throughout the apartment so I got scared and I ran away from home to find my mother at her workplace. I sneaked on a bus (bus drivers didn’t really care, probably though I was the kid of whoever was in front of me) and went to my mother’s workplace. When I got there, I couldn’t find her, so after just waited for like half an hour before catching another bus back home. When I got off the bus I saw bunch of cops looking for me at a plaza near my home and my mom saw me and so the missing person search was concluded. My grandmother who was at home had called my mom and told her I ran out of the house so thats why the cops were there and it’s why she left early from work. So after that my mom took me to a restaurant to calm me down and I had some dumplings there. But my mom still said if I were not found, she wouldn’t blame my brother, which just made me feel so worthless. That’s probably one of the major events that cause me to be depressed af today.

    • ruckblack@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      I’m not from lemmy.world either but the whole idea of federation is to bring everyone together! I liked your story!

  • KᑌᔕᕼIᗩ@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    All the shit that caused my PTSD.

    Aside from that, the one time I complained about a nurse and later she took me to a room under false pretences for “treatment” only to pull out a large kitchen knife and try to convince me to use it on myself. I’m not that kind of nuts though fortunately.

    The hospital “investigated” and found nothing wrong of cause.

  • DessertStorms@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    What we thought at the time was a terrorist attack but turned out later to be an unfortunate accident involving a truck carrying something explosive, missed me and my family by literal seconds (as in it happened where we were just sitting and if we hadn’t moved, would have hit us directly). The driver sadly didn’t make it, but somehow no one else was killed or too badly hurt. But the noise, not just the explosion, but the kind of screaming you hear right after, and the people covered in blood and in shock, those things never leave you.

  • seppoenarvi@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    One time we arrived at a train station drunk, and decided to cross the train tracks, instead of walking through the underpass tunnel. Just when I was jumping to the tracks, my friend stopped me and a train that I hadn’t noticed passed the station full speed.

    We crossed the tracks anyway. Between the tracks there’s a fence and I cut my pants from the crotch when I climbed over it. Later my mom noticed the cut and said: “I hope you haven’t been crossing railway tracks”. “Of course not”, I replied. To this day I wonder how the fuck she knew!! We didn’t even live close to any railway tracks.

    • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      I was living next to a sea most of my childhood, and we called this “Wednesday”

      Seriously though it’s impressive the only person I knew drowning during my childhood in our little town was some guy who fell in water piss drunk and got stuck under dock.

      • crossfadedragon@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        in my situation i was trying to cross a lake. tried to stay calm and just tread water, but i was too exhausted and kept going under. luckily a lady in a small boat threw a couple fun noodles to me and that was enough to help me back to shore.

        its hazy now but i think i tried floating on my back and doing butterfly strokes at some point but i think i just panicked when i started feeling tired.

        • hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          1 year ago

          I had several nearby situations during early autumn storms, the waves and the stream gets crazy strong but it’s fun to swim there on the base rock beach. Sometimes it’s just crazy difficult to get out of the water. You can be swimming with all your power 1 meter off the safe