“My dad left me in a car in flood waters.
I remember tippy tapping my feet in the water as it slowly filled the car.
She ended up moving pretty close by us after breaking up with her boyfriend.
Unsplash / Aaron Burden
Anyway, cut to Halloween and we go around my very small neighborhood to trick or treat.
After we finish up, my dad decides to take me to more houses.
We end up driving to his girls house.
Unsplash / Aaron Burden
She gave me a full size Snickers and then she disappeared with my dad for a while.
I still remember the blue light flickering from the TV as I sat alone in her living room.
I never said anything to my mom until much later.
I kind of knew what was going on and didnt want to hurt her.
My dad has been married to this girl for almost 20 years now, shes my stepmom.
My mom was 6 months pregnant when this was all happening.
When I was around 6, my family rented a smaller house on a farm.
The farm was way out of the way and had a long road that led to the main street.
The owner of the land had averysmart and large German Shepherd named Lady.
I would hang out with her a lot.
One day Lady took off running all the way down the road and I ran after her.
The entire time Lady stayed right in front of me, staring the woman down and not moving.
The lady took a step forward, Lady just growled at her and stayed her ground.
Eventually the woman gave up trying to coerce me and left.
That night, I mentioned it to my brother, saying that I had met Ladys previous owner.
Because at 6, I had no fucking idea.
He said, Uhm, you know she was probably trying to kidnap you, right?
Mrs. Anderson has had Lady since a young puppy.
It didnt really hit me until I thought about it a few years ago.
But for her to protect me the way she did… it didnt even cross my mind.
Scary to think back on it.
Sasshea
When i was 3 or 4 my dads coworker tried to kidnap me.
5 year old me is looking out the window.
Spot a guy in convertible alongside the bus and we lock eyes for a second.
The man is now holding a sausage in his lap and wiggling it at me.
whered he get that from?
And proceed to smile and wave like 5 year olds do.
About 3 houses down from mine was a great big house that had been turned into a few apartments.
I remember thinking that it looked like blood but just didnt really believe it could be.
My moms friend looked over the fence and said My god, it IS blood!
It turned out he had been stabbed multiple times by another resident.
Had to pee really bad,but my mom was in the bathroom.
After waiting and knocking (and complaining) i just went in without waiting for a response.
Found my mom sitting on the toilet and slumped over pale as hell.
As calm as i can be i call my aunt over who freaks and calls ambulance.
My mom was gone for over a couple of months.
Family just told me she was traveling whenever i asked about her.
I found an unloaded (real) revolver in the street behind our apartment when I was about 5-6.
Put it with my other (toy) cowboy guns (that was a thing).
Played with it, didnt like it much.
The real gun was heavy, and too hard for me to pull the trigger.
The plastic ones were much more fun.
Eventually my mom found it and (in retrospective surprise) didnt freak out, just made it disappear.
So we would load into the Jeep drive to some house I didnt recognize and turn the Jeep off.
Than he would disappear for 30 minutes to an hour.
My dad left me in a car in flood waters.
I remember tippy tapping my feet in the water as it slowly filled the car.
The kids did all of the chores around the house and got chore points to spend.
They spent them on a list of rewards.
Pretty normal stuff right?
Except the one that said alone time with Daddy.
My Dad has real life spidey-senses.
When I was around 9 I went snow sledding with family and friends.
It was a popular sledding area with a few different hills and some woods.
This older guy in his 40s had an awesome toboggan with a flashlight rigged up on the front.
He was flying down hills 10x faster than anyone.
He was there by himself and it was getting dark out.
He came up to me and started telling me about this secret hill in the woods that was huge.
He told me I could use his sled.
I followed him for about 2 minutes until I realized I couldnt see my family or friends anymore.
I was maybe 20 feet into the woods before I was overcome with a horrible gutwrenching feeling.
I dropped my sled and ran like hell back toward my family.
I remember hearing his footsteps behind me moving as quickly as I was.
By the time I got to my family and told them, he had disappeared.
I am 100% certain I would have been molested and/or murdered in those woods.
I was 10 and my brother was 9.
My next door neighbors were the same age as us.
We were swimming in a state park.
We went in to the bathroom and found a gay porn magazine in a stall.
Nothing graphic, just naked gay dudes.
We were going through the pages and laughing our asses off.
When we walked out of the stall there was a naked man standing there looking at us.
All four of us started laughing hysterically and ran out of there.
About 25 years later I remembered it.
I realized that naked man planted that magazine and was waiting for us.
Still gives me the creeps.
Super fucked up now that Im a grown adult in social work thinking back.
Adults driving drunk with us in the car.
Just thought they were having a good time/acting funny/it was cool.
When I was in 7th grade or so, I had a best friend Sammy.
Her father was pretty funny and liked to joke around.
One particular day, Sammy and I were in her room.
She had one of those folding room dividers between the door of her room and her bed.
Her father came in and demanded that she change her underwear.
Right at that time, when I was also there.
And while she was changing her underwear, he was popping up and peeking over the divider.
I thought it was funny at the time and that he was joking around.
Now, Im not so sure.
Next door neighbor kid tried to drop a hammer on my head from a tree.
It hit my shoulder, fortunately.
I had no idea I was almost killed.
The kid went to juvenile after trying to set our other neighbors house on fire.
I was jealous because girls never got to win.
Years later I realized it was really sketchy.
Older female Cousin asking me to suck her fingers over and over in private.
I was playing at a friends house in grade school.
I went looking for the bathroom, but opened the door to the laundry room instead.
My friends mom was sitting on top of the dryer and completely freaked out when she saw me.
It didnt occur to me until about 20 years later that she was probably masturbating.
Every corner I turned it seemed like one of them was there.
I followed my gut and ran to my mom.
She thought I was being dramatic but it was fine after that.
My mom didnt tell me that part until about 18 years later.
Thank god I followed my gut even as a kid.
Then when she did he would stroke her hair and tell her what beautiful blonde hair she had.
Years later I feel really quite disturbed by it.
I also had reoccurring, intense nightmares about being kidnapped.
After that, I started having severe episodes/fits that required sedatives to calm me down.
They stopped with time because I think I repressed the incident.
I still dont know what happened while I was missing but the nightmares now make sense.
I was maybe 8?
I found a Friendlys employee overdosing in the mens room…of a Friendlys.
The rest is history I suppose.
I had a childhood friend for about a year or so who lived just down the street from me.
He was a pretty normal kid from what I can recall.
I remember him getting really excited one day about an upcoming visit from his uncle.
He told me about a game that he and his uncle would always play together called toiletee.
Thank Christ no one was allowed to play except my friend and his uncle.
I moved away a short time later and never saw the kid ever again.
We got a little lost, but nothing too serious.
I remember mud and my sister crying but I figured it was because her pants were dirty.
each and mom sat with us at the table while we ate them.
Ultimately: a pretty decent day.
He had just stabbed his wife and her sancho (other boyfriend).
He caught them in bed.
I was closest to the road and had my back to it.
I remember thinking, Oh, he checked for cars first.
So I ran out without looking, completely trusting him.
He did a lot of creepy sociopath kind of stuff like that growing up.
Now he has a wife and two kids so I hope he grew out of it.
Lady-Charb
When I was about five, my family went to a new park to play baseball.
There was a huge swing set that was still within view of the field.
showed up, start screwing around on the slide, then asked me what Im doing.
I say dancing, and they say ohhh us too!
Yeah, Mark loves watching us dance!
In my naivete I say my dad loves coming to my dance recitals too.
Well I like to travel, I say.
Come meet Mark, they say, we think youd really like him.
Hes nice to us, he would love to have a friend thats younger to spoil.
He gives them lots of presents they say, especially when they have fun with his friends.
I want to, Mark sounds like a cool dude, theyre really nice girls, non threatening.
Never talk to strange adults, right?
but these girls arent adults and they vouch for Mark.
However, that morning, the discovery of Alie Berrelezs body had been in the local paper.
I hope they were either 100% full of shit or turned out alright.
He would sometimes go into his older sisters dirty laundry and sniff/lick his sisters panties.
I was mostly preoccupied with Battlefront 2 (the real one) so I never really thought about it.
It wasnt until a few years back when I was daydreaming and that memory came back.
I verbally said What the fuck out loud in the Arbys I was eating in
