Mom hung a mass produced art print on my bedroom wall when I was about 8. It’s of a little girl holding her puppy.
Cute, right?
Thing is, this painting terrified me. And I was raised in the time where you just kind of swallowed any complaints and didn’t bother mom or dad with kid foolishness.
Here is a copy of the thing I actually had hanging on my wall. This same frame. Probably came from Service Merchandise or some such.
What in the everloving hell is lurking just over her shoulder?!?! To me it always looked like a skull wearing a hat on the side of his head, like a little old timey jaunty hat a clown would wear.
It’s a wonder I got any sleep. I was too afraid to tell mom I hated it. I never considered that I possessed the agency to take it off my wall and hide it at the bottom of the closet.
I think of this cursed painting still.
Did you ever have something in your childhood that unnecessarily scared the bejeezus out of you?
I was forced to go to a charismatic church as a kid. We’re talking speaking in tongues, cast out demons, and all that bullshit. As such, The Devil was present in a lot of my childhood fears.
I was convinced I could feel him breathing on my face at night in bed whenever I did something “wrong”.
I hated this Santa Clause decoration that my grandmother hung in my bedroom window every year (we lived in first floor apartment facing the street). When the streetlamp outside of my window hit it at night it looked the head of the Devil in silhouette.
I hated it when my family watched Unsolved Mysteries or things like that because there was always a chance they would do a segment on demonic hauntings or shit like that.
Religious trauma is a hell of a drug.
My mom always kept an old ceramic vase shaped like a little girl painted in a blue dress. It creeped and my sister out it gave off such weird vibes. Its still in moms room today and at this point I’ll probably inherit it and keep it just for memories even if its still a touch weird.
Plot twist, that’s how your mom got it. And how your daughter will get it. It’s just this creepy thing. Nobody knows where it came from, and the only reason anybody has it at any given time is because their mom had it while they were growing up.
Not really a thing a own, but definitely something I encounter a lot. It’s an instrument you often hear in classical music, and sometimes ballads, and even rock tracks. A lot of the ancient cartoons used it as well. It scared me as a kid, and I still feel physically uncomfortable every time I hear it.
It’s called a timpano, plural: timpani. It doesn’t really elevate a track at all for me, it just makes it more frightening.
I played brass but sat in front of the timpani in high school orchestra. I loved them! And I’m pretty sure they led to my interest in taiko drumming as well.
I can see how they may make a frightening sound for children though. And if you had an early asversion to them, why they still cause discomfort.
Good for you, but yeah… I need lots of adjustment to this instrument.
I used to own one of these SpongeBob lamps…
SLEEP.exe deleted by NIGHTMARE.trojan
And then THIS existed 10 years ago…
My dad had this segment of a tree trunk about three feet high with a large knot in the side. Inside the knot was carved a super-realistic human face. That thing creeped me the fuck out.
That wasn’t carved.
I was scared of real demons and spirit forces lurking in the dark until I was around 10 years old. Ghost stories were common and told by most people around me with my religious upbringing. Around 10 is when I realized I had never actually seen anything like the stories and first started saying I want to see them to prove my beliefs system real. Over the decades that evolved into god doesn’t have to be weird and can call me any time, my phone is on.
I was afraid of the world and realms around me, now I only ever fear the cruelty of humans and the monsters that hide within all of us, especially the battle within.
I’m a goddess and I’m not weird about it. I have a mortal body for an avatar so I can do stuff in the physical plane. Deus is supposed to have the Pope for a mouthpiece, but He doesn’t bother directly talking through the guy, and he really ought to have more than one with the size of His religion. People should stop worshipping Him to teach Him a lesson about being so distant.
And I’m a spaceman!
Pretending is fun!
Ew.
My aunt collected painted ceramic clown dolls. Her house was a fucking nightmare, like some shit out of a horror movie. They were in every room. I only stayed there once.
You know, when I hear about a person like that, I wonder their deal is. Are they just really into clowns? Or do they decorate their house like that specifically to freak people out when they come visit. Like trolling made physical, stretching over years.
