When I was about 5, I was certain (for no particular reason) that someday my parents would abandon my brother and me during the night. Every night for quite some time I would wake up of my own accord, go down the hall, and peek into my parents' bedroom, and every night they would be there sound asleep. I would go back to bed and sleep soundly for the rest of the night.
Then one night I went and looked, and sure enough, they had done it. The bed was made and they were gone. Oddly, I wasn't afraid, because I had been expecting it. However, I had been told that if ever anything went wrong and my parents weren't around to help, I was to go to the neighbors' flat upstairs and ask them for help. So I did this, in my PJs (I was used to going up and down the stairs by myself) and told the lady that my parents had left us. But they hadn't. They were with her -- they had put us to bed and gone to the neighbor's for all of ten minutes for a drink.
Somehow finding them there left me permanently reassured, and I never "checked on them" again.
A childhood belief about family
others believed things like this
- My parents always told me at night the sticks we had played with throughout the day turned into snakes.. — Sarahb
- When I was a child I used to believe that my parents WERE superheroes at night.
Anon - My mother didn't want me outside at night so she told me i had to come in or else 'the night air would get me'— Dan
- The sea was there because I left a tap dripping all night.— wolfie
- When I was about 6 or 7, I had an imaginary friend, who left for ice-cream one night. He never returned.— His name was Jimmy
- i used 2 believe when i left my closet door open at
night a skelleton would pop out and wave at me— bex