The things we find scary differ from person to person. For some, it might be an image of a spider crawling nearby, others are spooked out by ghost stories (let’s be honest, they often sound as scary at 30 as they did at 13). Let’s not forget the variety of creatures under the bed that are waiting for you to throw that leg over the edge.
Sadly, some everyday occurrences can be as spine-chilling as The Shining itself. The online community on r/AskReddit discussed what facts scare them the most. The answers are unsurprisingly grim, but they might be worth pondering over. Warning: some might unlock a new fear.
If these scary facts weren’t horrifying enough, browse Bored Panda’s list of haunting real-life facts you might have not heard before.
#1
The most well-educated and intelligent people are also those most afflicted with issues like despair, depression, and existential crises. Reality is a nightmare of horrors lying just beneath the surface, and the more aware of how things really work you are the more truly miserable you are, generally.
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347points
#2
I logically know I am fine, but my anxiety won’t let me accept that.
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337points
#3
That my parents and grandparents are slowly getting older and it's just a matter of time before I start losing them all one by one and there's nothing I can do about it.
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333points
Fear might evoke various negative responses, from a weird feeling in the pit of the stomach to complete panic. Yet this emotion developed as a reflex crucial for humans to survive. It’s a natural reaction warning of a possible danger and the need to protect oneself.
Fear is responsible for the fight or flight instinct that arises when we’re in danger. But it's not only physical threats that can cause fear. Our thoughts might do that as well.
Take this list as an example. Reading the scary facts does not put you in actual danger, however, some of the posts are definitely enough to give you goosebumps. A survey from America’s top fears in 2020/2021 found that the death or illness of a loved one—a fear shared by numerous members of the online community—is in the top ten.
#5
The amount of women and children murder every year in first world countries at the hands of their current or ex spouses. One every 11 minutes.
314points
#6
That since I was born the human population has doubled and the animal population has been cut in half.
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304points
#7
That the insect biomass is rapidly decreasing. This is the foundation of the food chain.
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302points
#8
Melting permafrost is releasing potentially life threatening microorganisms that humans have no immunity to.
268points
#9
It's likely that my chronic pain is uncurable and I'll have to live with it forever. It's cost me most of my hobbies and taken a huge toll on my mental health and it seems to be steadily getting worse too. That scares me a lot. I don't want this to be my life.
258points
#11
There's an illness called fatal insomnia.
You stay awake until you die, There's literally no cure and can't be predicted, you lose your mind slowly and you can't do anything about it.
My grandpa died slowly from it.
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241points
#12
That outside of our planet, zero of our achievements/history/language/currency matters. It can all be erased in a second and there would be no knowledge of us ever existing in the first place to anyone else in the universe. We are meaningless outside of this sphere.
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238points
#14
That Dopplegangers exist. They say that there are at least a couple people in the world that look exactly like you without being blood related and I met mine.
He was a f*****g criminal and got into trouble so many times with the law that I myself had been mistaken for him three times. The only difference was me having sleeves. My tattoos saved me from being mistaken for him who sexually assaulted a woman. I was brought in and put in a line up and she said herself, “that looks like him but he doesn’t have a single tattoo”. 4 hours later they found him and the sheriff’s department was dumbfounded that we weren’t twins. Like looking in a mirror. I was released and a more than needed apology was given by the chief of police and arresting officer.
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223points
#15
Any day, you could have a stroke and lose all your autonomy and become as dependant as a baby.
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218points
#17
That one day will be the last of something and you have no idea until that day is over. It's surreal to me that their was a day in my life when my group of friends all hung out together having fun and then never again. There will be a last time I will see the ones I love and not even know. It's painful.
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203points
#18
After 4 years of Donald Trump as President, half the country wanted more.
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202points
#19
That poverty, homelessness, orphans exist, yet people continue to reproduce at an alarming rate and this will only get worse and worse and worse…
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191points
#20
The fact that the past 10 years of my life have flown by, and it means I got about a decade before I become the same age as my parents when I was born. Meaning that I’m just slowly going to age till it’s time for me to pass. And I still don’t even know why I’m living or what I want to do, or even feel like I’m happy.
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179points