When I was younger, my sister had a problem with flooding the toilet a lot. I was always scared that I would flood it, so I always shut the lid, washed my hands, and then flushed as I ran out of the bathroom - thinking that shutting the lid made it not flood. Even today I can't shake the habit of shutting the lid.

Courtney

I don't quite know when it started, but I was scared that lobsters would bite my butt. I'm 23 now, and sometimes, if I'm using the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I'm half-asleep, I'll get really nervous and scared and think that lobsters are in the toilet bowl, and they're going to bite my butt.

Cheryl

When I was in first grade we watched a movie at school about volcanoes. For some reason, for about a month after seeing that movie I was absolutely convinced that lava would come up through the toilet if I took too long. I tried to go to the bathroom as quickly as possible & flush as quickly as possible to avoid the lava.

lil_amsterdam

I had a friend who's older brother and sister told him that they use to have another brother named Mike but mommy and daddy didn't like and flushed him down the toilet and then up popped shawn!! Of course this little boy was scared everytime his older sibling would say "lets see if we can get Mike back!" as they grabbed him and headed for the bathroom.

Anon

When i was little my dad would tell me that if i flushed the toilet i would kill all the fish in our fishtank, because the two were connected. I beleived this for a longt ime until my mom made my father tell me he was joking, i was still scared to flush so everytime i did i got a package of M&M's

Whitney

I used to be afraid to go in the public bathrooms with the automatic flushers because I thaught they would suddenly flush and suck me in, too!

Zoe

When I was very little I watched an episode of those funny video shows where they pulled a snake out of a toilet... this combined with my belief that all of the plumbing in the house and city and world was connected led me to believe that at any time, most likely when you're sitting on it, a snake or alligator of some sort could come up out of the toilet and bite your butt. And to think I made fun of my brother for thinking he'd get sucked down the drain in the tub.

Angry Sar

I used to believe that if I was chewing gum while using the toilet, it would be magically sucked out of my mouth, down my throat, through my body, and into the toilet. Nothing too scary, but I would ALWAYS spit out my gum before using the toilet, until one day I didn't and nothing happened.

Anonymous B. Contributor

When I was in Kindergarten I never ever went to the bathroom. For some reason I thought that the door to the bathroom would open up to some huge place where everyone in the world needed to go to the bathroom. Needless to say I was very afraid that would get lost or run over or something!

Imagine my surprise when I couldn't hold it anymore one day and all that was there was a little room with 1 toilet!

Anon

When I was little I saw "looks who's talking" and there was a scene where the toilet turned evil and looked at the little boy and said "give me your peepee" that was around the time I was potty trained and i believed thats what toilets did. it scared the crap out of me so bad that my parents had to put the baby potty in the kitchen.

beanie

I used to believe that snakes could climb out of the toilet and bite you. So every time I had to go I would pre-flush the toilet no less than 3 times before I would even sit on it. Just in case a snake was crawing up the pipes he would be dissoriented him long enough for me to pee in peace!

Sandra

When I was little my sister told me that if you sit in the toilet at midnight a hand would come up and grab your butt and pull you down the s bend. Needless to say I always waited until morning to pee.

J. W.

After seeing JAWS the film on TV when I was very young I was scared of visiting the toilet.

There is a young woman who gets killed at the start and I believed I'd see her arm in the toilet bowl.

Max

I used to think that snakes lived in the sewer and hung around in toilets, and that one day when I least expected it one would bite me on the butt. I was about 20 at the time. I have a horrible horrible fear of snakes and still look into the toilet before every sitting!

PR

I used to believe that Gremlins lived in the toilet, and when you flushed they'd try to reach up and grab your ass, so I used to jump off the toilet as fast as I could up until I was about 6.

Jen

when i was young, i used to believe that straight after i flushed the toilet snakes would come out of the wall, and attack and eat me. therefore i used to sprint out of the toilet as fast as i could.

milz

I heard a story about a snake getting into the plumbing of some house so every time I sat down I spread my legs and looked down the whole time so a snake wouldn't pop up and bite me!

strange little girl

When I was very young, I saw the cover of a movie at a video renatl store. It had a toilet on it with a little green-skinned creature wearing strange clothing sticking out of it. After seeing that, I always thought he'd be in what ever toilet I was using, and was waiting until it stopped flushing before he crawled out to come after me. So, I always rushed myself to get out of the bathroom before the flush finished and he could come after me. I'm 17 and I still get a creepy feeling if I'm not out of the bathroom when the toilet's done flushing...

Bonnie Pea

As a kid I use to think that when I would sit on the toilet a witch's hand would come up and grab my bum. It was pretty frightening.

Krispy

I used to belive that scary muppets where coming up from the toilets when the lid was closed(!).. therefore I refused to enter a bathroom if the lid wasn't open.

David