When I was in my early twenties, I lived with my brothers in my oldest brother’s house. It was a new construction home in a fairly ritzy suburb of a large city in the US.

During this time, I was attending college and working part time at Gamestop. One of my brothers was working at Chipotle at the time, so there were some afternoons that we’d both have off and we’d be chillin at the house together. One afternoon while my oldest brother and his wife were at work, my brother and I were in the living room playing Diablo 3. All of the sudden I hear this weird old song playing from the loft and I instantly whipped my head around towards the loft, trying to figure out what tf it was. It wasn’t a song or a tune I’ve ever heard in my life before. The thing is, my brother whipped his heads towards the loft the exact second I did because he heard it too. We looked at each other for a second, and decided to investigate. Everything in the upstairs area was ours, too - we moved in right when my oldest brother and his wife bought the house, and they left that whole area for us. We both knew we didn’t own anything that could’ve played the little song we heard. Haven’t heard it since.

Not too long afterwards, while i was still living with my brothers in the same house, another incident occurred. I was upstairs in my room, and it was probably around midnight. I had turned off my Xbox and TV, and was just laying in bed on my phone in the dark, when my pup started lightly growling. My dog is pretty smart, friendly, and really perceptive. He doesn’t growl at anything unless he perceives a threat. He is always chill and silent throughout the night. But that night, he went from chillin’ in bed with me with his head on my chest, to instantly sitting upright, intently staring and growling at a spot on the wall to my right. I didn’t think much of it right away, and just tried to calm him down, but he just got more rigid and starting growling a little louder, still stating at the one spot. I sat upright, turned on my lamp, and looked around the wall to see if I saw a bug or a small critter, but there was nothing. He suddenly starts darting his eyes around that same wall as if he was following something that was moving quickly. All of the sudden, he whips his head and darts his eyes to a spot maybe 5 ft above my head. I look immediately above me, and see nothing at all. I felt an insane feeling of dread, grabbed my dog and ran to my brothers room across the hall, and asked if I could spend the night with him. I was way too fucking scared to go back to my room that night. Nothing like that ever happened again.

Not sure what either of those, and things like that don’t normally happen to me. Which is probably why it’s so scary to me. I don’t think I believe in ghosts or demons or anything like that, but idk what to think of these instances. Could’ve been nothing, or could’ve been something I can’t see/perceive. The thought of the latter scares me.

Being on the receiving end of mortar fire.

Took too many mushrooms one night and I have tripped a couple hundred times. But these were particularly strong bois and I started to believe I was having a heart attack, it was only a panic attack, but I seriously thought I was dying from a heart attack. I was begging my wife who had taken two times as many as I had to call 911. She did her best to stay calm and remind me that I was just tripping on mushrooms and I told her I knew that I was tripping on mushrooms but something was wrong with my heart because I was freaking out and I could tell my heart was beating too fast. At one point she even stuck a Fitbit on my wrist and told me to look at my heart rate, and when I looked at it of course I couldn’t read it because everything was just pixelated and swirling fractals. But somehow she was able to read it and said your heart rate is only 118 which I was able to confirm the next day from the data on my phone. I was crying and holding my chest and I kept throwing myself in a cold shower trying to calm myself down but time was all fucked up and moments were happening out of order and all I could think about was how my daughter was going to wake up in the morning without her father. I kept running through the house completely naked and freezing wet. Trying desperately to grasp onto something to send me back to reality. But everywhere I went it didn’t matter because I knew I was dying from a heart attack and my wife who I couldn’t believe at the time refuse to call 911 and save me. In retrospect, I’m so glad she did not lol. I haven’t taken mushroom since. I’m too scared. They are not to be fucked with if you’re not in the right state of mind. I really appreciate that trip though, it really made me appreciate life a whole lot more when I woke up the next day. I’ve never been more scared my entire life and I’m pretty sure I know exactly what it’s going to be like when I actually do die. It was somewhat peaceful but it was taking too long in the moment and especially because time was not flowing correctly and everything was happening out of order It made me really panic. It just seemed like it was taking way too long. I suppose when I actually die time won’t do that because presumably I won’t be tripping when it happens lol.

Not so much scared but really freaked out to a point were we just said “fuck it, let’s get out of here and never talk about it again”.

It was a really warm and nice summer day some years back. I was out with my brother strolling through the countryside with my brother. In just a t-shirt, shorts and barefoot. We took some LSD and really just enjoyed having a very scenic and relaxing walk.

So we were just strolling along, walking between some fields and the edge of a small forest, when it started to smell quite badly. That’s not that unsual near fields, so we walked on. There was a small clearing in the forest and there was a hunting stand. We continued to walk across the clearing and the smell got worse. Then one of us discovered something on the ground. It was a patch of bloody fur.

Now we’re both expirenced with LSD and hadn’t taken that much, but we still confirmed with each other that we’re both looking a bit of bloody fur and made sure we saw and smelled all the same things. We did. After some more walking we discovered more and more bloody bits of fur, flesh and even some bones. They were sprinkeld all over the place. It looked like some animal literally exploded. Though there was no main body, just the bits and pieces everywhere.

At this point we again confirmed with each other that what we saw and that we’re both in control and not tripping.

We then decided that this all was a bit too much and we should head home and not worrie about it right now. On the way home we confirmed with each other again that this actually just happened. But I’ve rarley thought or talked about it since then.

When I was working the graveyard shift at a service station and a junkie put a knife to my throat and suggested that the money in the register should really be in his pocket.

I was a severe insomniac at the time, and this event lead to a diagnosis of Bipolar disorder. It happened a few times, but this was the worst. Got on meds and have been fine since. Enough prefacing.

I was at, for lack of a more specialized term, my cousins house. The oldest one of them was right around my age, but she was out of town for a competition, so I crashed in her room. At some point in the night, I’m full on hallucinating after not sleeping much in a while.

Dark, cloaked figures, in the corner of the room, chanting in some language I didn’t recognize. I don’t mean I didn’t understand it, it sounded difficult to pronounce with a human mouth. This went on until the sun rose. I’d check the corners, and nothing, get back in bed and there they go again.

For people wondering, yes, manic episodes along with their common presentations, can also present as hallucinations. It took 20 years, from a diagnosis and depression as a child, to bipolar diagnosis, to fine tuning meds, to stable.

I’m dealing with a person resistant to any kind of therapy right now and I just want to scream at them that if their docs aren’t helping, try a different one, don’t give up. 20 fucking years. Over half my life struggling for a solution. It takes time and work, both.

If you need mental health assistance, or even if you’ve just had a really tough patch, find the appropriate professional for you. It doesn’t mean you’re crazy, it just means you’re struggling. They help with tools to help stop struggling. Sometimes yeah, its pills. Other times its adapting your behavior and expectations to produce better more satisfying results.

Mine were a bit less acute than most cases here. It doesn’t rank up to the kind of emotional trauma other people ITT have been through (though I’m not a complete stranger to that, either) but mine was when I realized my health is going to prevent me from ever doing what I want to and getting my shot at a reasonably happy life.

The slow dread of realizing decades of miserable, exhausting, bitter, mostly hopeless, unappreciated effort is void, and has been a complete waste - realizing that things “working out” is not really on the table anymore, and neither’s anything else, much: all you can do is keep existing. That is easily #1.

Or realizing friends and family didn’t have my back the way I thought and might actually join my list of a zillion problems. That was pretty scary.

Distant third, near misses in traffic - but frankly, I’ve had a stronger reaction from losing my fucking house keys. Almost got hit by a tram. Meh. Would’ve lost my appointment, I’m sure. Some shitheel trash in a BMW (because of course it was) tried scaring me by pretending to hit me while out for a walk, I’m like “😐 … yeah? Make my day - in fact, throw it in reverse and get a proper run-up, you little bitch”.

Getting beat up by a group of Nazis. When they started kicking my head I thought I was going to die.

Nothing as scary as some of the people have mentioned.
The moment of terror I remember most vividly is when I helped my mom reverse park the car in our garage. I was about… 13 I think. The car didn’t have any parking sensors, so it was my job get out and stand behind the car to make sure it wouldn’t hit the work desk at the end of the garage (it was a narrow garage, I couldn’t stand to the side of it without getting my toes run over). I’d shout stop when the car was in far enough and that would be it, nothing special.
I don’t know what happened that day, maybe she was distracted or something, but the car didn’t stop. It just kept going further back, pushing me against that desk and squeezing my organs. At first I shouted louder, thinking she didn’t hear me, but the car kept coming and by then it was too late to get out of the way. I ended up frantically hitting the rear window, shouting as loud as I could. In my mind the car was broken and would crush me against the edge of that desk. I thought I was going to die right there, getting killed by some freak accident. With just almost no room to spare the car finally stopped and drove forward.
Afterwards my mother said something along the line of “I thought you were joking”. I was furious, but when I think back to it now, I suppose she was just as shocked and just didn’t know what to say at the time.

24 February 2022.

Watching a tech nearly blow up half the building using unapproved equipment in an area full of volatile liquids and fumes.

Either hearing cougars screaming near my tent, or — in the same place — getting lost in the woods and hearing tree-shaking sounds that were probably bears.

Inside a tall building in Tokyo on 3/11. Feeling that building sway back and forth was the definition of NOT FUCKING FUN

I have long covid and during the initial stages I had some really bad tachycardia (unknown to me yet) that caused breathing issues. It hadn’t been too bad until one day I was lying in bed unable to sleep, and suddenly I feel like every breath is getting me less and less air, even though I’m breathing normally.

I woke up my mom at ~4:30 AM (home because of long covid) and said I feel like I can’t breathe. She asks if it’s bad enough to go to the ER, and I say it might be. I decided to wait 15 minutes, my heartrate was going crazy and I must just be panicked, and that’s why my heart rate is high and why it’s hard to breathe.

Over those 15 minutes my heart rate climbs higher and I’m getting dizzy and hyperventilating and still breathless, and say I need to go now, I think I’m at the edge of where I could actually die.

We drive to a hospital and my heart rate slows down a little bit, and I figure I’m not gonna die in the next hour so I end up waiting, struggling to breathe, until 6AM when my primary care opens his office. They do some tests and say everything looks normal, but later a heart monitor would show my heartrate sometimes get to ~120, even while I’m lying in bed trying to sleep. I eventually learned that is what causes the breathlessness.

I’ve had that happen a couple times since, less frequently it seems, but when it does happen I’m always afraid that this is the time my heart finally gives out. Fortunately it’s very rare and I’ve been able to do some cardio to hopefully help it be even more rare.

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