9 People Recount Their Most Brutal Childhood Memories

Childhood memories stay with us for a long time, often bringing back a longing for a time when our imaginations were boundless and life was simple. Yet, some memories are better left in the past. Here, we have compiled 9 of the most heart-wrenching stories people have shared from their youth.

• As a kid, I used to brag to friends and teachers that I was able to sleep for 24+ hours... straight! Years later, as I was a freshman in college, my world utterly shattered when I suddenly realized that my divorced father had been giving preschool me cold meds, so I’d sleep through his weekends of custody. It really messed up my sense of reality for a while. © klentz9210 / Reddit
  

• One day, when I was around 6, I went to a coffee shop with my parents to get some breakfast. After we ordered at the counter and got our food, we went and sat down at a table and started to eat. At one point, I needed to throw something away, so I got up and walked over to the trash can.
  In a stroke of horrible luck, just as I was throwing my trash away, someone who was standing directly above me was putting the insulating cardboard sleeve on their paper coffee cup. As they were putting it on, though, it broke, and a whole cup of steaming hot coffee fell out of their hand... and landed directly on top of my head. As you can probably imagine, a large cup of scalding liquid doesn’t feel very nice when it’s spilled all over you. I still have the scars on the top of my head. © Julian Frank / Quora

• When I was 5, I had a big bay window that faced our backyard. One night, while alone in my room, I heard a loud thump. I looked up and saw a scary face pressed against my window staring at me while slowly sliding down until it vanished. (I was the kid who never had nightmares, wasn’t afraid of the dark, and KNEW monsters weren’t real.)
  Screaming, I ran out of the room gibbering in fear to my grandparents. Once they finally calmed me down and got me to talk, they took me outside and showed me nothing was there. The next day, I woke up to a greasy smear and ’pieces of flesh’ on the glass.
  For years and years after this, I was terrified of the dark, had to have nightlights everywhere and even wet my bed a couple times, because the hallway was too dark to get to the restroom. I also started having really bad nightmares because of it.
  20 years later, at a family reunion, we’re sharing random weird things we’ve been through. As I tell
  my story, my uncle reveals, with tears of laughter in his eyes, the backstory behind my spooky experience. Turned out, at the time, he was living in the house next door to us, and had a friend who worked in special effects for movies. The friend had asked my uncle to let her refine the makeup look she was working on for a floating corpse.
  And that night, my uncle was coming home from that makeup session, and still had the makeup on because he wanted his wife to see it. He noticed me in bed in my room when he cut through our backyard as a shortcut. Thinking it would be hilarious, he slammed against my window to scare me, then went home and promptly forgot about it for years, leaving me traumatized and mentally scarred. © jstenoien / Reddit

• My dad left me in a child-safety-locked pickup truck when I was about 6 or 7. It was parked in the sun in our own driveway. He had run back in to get something before leaving and then forgotten about me and the errands, and started watching TV.
  First I cried, because I thought I was going to be dehydrated and die, then I figured out a plan; the drivers’ side window was slightly cracked, and I somehow managed to open the door from the outside using some gardening tool that had been by his feet. I had to slam myself against the door though and ate dirt on the gravel when I got out.
  I ran inside to tell my dad what happened, and he basically responded that he would’ve remembered I was there, and I would’ve been fine, and my scrapes were my own fault for being so impatient. Today, I don’t talk to my dad anymore. © viridian152 / Reddit

• When I was young, I once woke up paralyzed. Started screaming and freaking out, got taken to ER. The doctors put me in the psych ward, saying that there was no physical reason I couldn’t move, but they could tell I believed I can’t move, because they were stabbing me with things, and I wasn’t reacting etc.
  After lots of arguing from my parents, eventually I got an MRI. Turns out I have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy, and it was a type of seizure called Todd’s Paralysis, where you have a seizure in your sleep, and your brain and body temporarily lose connection after. © SunnyLego / Reddit

• When I was about 6, my dad offered my as collateral to a gas station owner about 30 minutes away from my house. He said he’d come back and pay, which he did, but for an hour, I was stuck alone with a man I didn’t know, in a place I didn’t know, in the middle of nowhere. I’ll never forget the eternity I spent staring at the tiled floor, waiting for my father to come back. © andrewalgerion / Reddit

• When I was young, I was leaving a friend’s apartment across town pretty early in the morning. I was sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus when this guy in his late 20s or early 30s stopped and asked if I would like a ride, as the busses didn’t start running for a couple more hours. He seemed totally normal, and the car looked expensive, so I said sure (creepy people don’t drive nice cars, right?)
  The car ride should have been about 10 minutes, so we made small talk, and as we came up to my street, I gave him plenty of warning to turn right... he drove right by it. He apologized and said he’d turn on the next one... he didn’t. I started getting nervous and said something to the effect of, “Where are you taking me?!”
  At this point, he said, “I have to confess, I picked you up because I thought you were cute.” I responded with “Well I’m only 11 and not gay, so let me out!” He profusely apologized and swore he would take me straight home. He started driving in the right direction, and I directed him to the closest public area I saw, and got out. © sheepofwallstreet86 / Reddit

• When I was like 5 or 6, I was at a family dinner at my grandparents’ house. I went to their back bathroom to pee. As I was zipping up my tiny pants, the shower curtain started moving. I looked at it and, I swear, it jumped at me. I screamed!
  It looked like the shape of a person. I cried and ran away, telling my family about what happened, but I don’t remember anything after that. However, I still remember that feeling of fear. © Nofreeupvotes / Reddit

• When I was about 2 or 3, I got bitten by fire ants on both of my legs. No one knew (obviously) that I was severely allergic to them, and my airway started to close up. They put me in a bathtub with cold water and tried to put lime on my legs (I have no idea why) before my uncle arrived and called an ambulance. The last thing I remember was me laying on the stretcher and then getting into the ambulance. I later on woke up in hospital with my parents and brother next to me.
  The crazy part about this whole experience was that as a kid, I grew up thinking it was all a dream because of how young I was. I was highly convinced that it was just an awful nightmare, and it had never happened to me, until one day I told my mom about it, and she told me that it had actually happened to me. © ayyo_emmyyo / Reddit

In this article, 8 more adults are transported back to their childhoods, reminiscing about the most cruel experiences they ever had as kids.