When I was 4, AIDS was the cultural zeitgeist, propagated by fear especially from the Reagan administration. Fueled by this, alongside the "stranger danger" cultural provocation of the time, my mother had been fairly stern in her warnings of an imperceptible risk of a stranger kidnapping me, molesting me and giving me AIDS. When asked, her response was that AIDS could come from anywhere. At some point in pre-school I had something on the tip of my tongue which I attempted to wipe off using the hand-roll dryer and for several weeks I lived in near constant fear that I had perhaps contracted AIDS from the towel dispenser - for surely, a molester would also lurk in the restroom.
A childhood belief about fear of
others believed things like this
- I used to believe that you could catch AIDS from just looking at a nud girl. Good thing I was WRONG— Mbm4615
- I used to believe that a stranger was a man with an X on his coat— Gabe
- I thought the lyrics to "Don't fear the reaper" were "Don't fear the reefer"— who new?
- that if you stuck out your tongue at your mother, your hand would stick up out of the grave when you died.— Elaine. London
- I had a fear of seeing a person in the corner of the mirror(most of the time a morlock)— Shane
- My brother (who was 6 at the time) would never flush the toilet in fear of our new house being blown up! Anon