Near misses. Have you had an experience where as a child or adult you felt decidedly unsafe?

Question

Maybe an attempted abduction, or something pecular happened to you or someone you know. When I was 12 I would go to the milk bar for milk and bread for my mum. Next door was a petrol station and this man started off by saying hello and being polite I said hello. the next day was "whats your name" and by the end of the week he was smiling and waving and being quite chatty. Anyway I was walking down the street with mum and he ignored me. Next day he said 'I wont talk to you when your mum is there - our friendship will be our secret.................

So I told mum and she went a yelled at him and that was that. i never saw him after that. Any experiences out there that you feel ok to talk about now? The reason I am asking is that a lot of things go unreported and I am writing a paper with this theme. I have other similar questions posted as well. Thanks

Answer 1

One time I had just moved and was walking home from school, my parents had told me the way back (it wasn't very long) but I still forgot. I was pretty little, maybe 2nd grade or something. These two guys in a truck picked me up and said they'd bring me back to the school. They just asked me weird questions like if I had ever jacked off before or seen another guy's penis. They even offered to drive me home but I knew the situation wasn't right so I lied and said my dad's a police officer, after that they looked at each other weird and just dropped me off at school. My parents were so furious that I had gotten a ride with strangers, but I never told them what those guys said.

Answer 2

My best friend and I went to a party in Chicago. There was a tv tray in the middle of the hotel room it was piled about 10 inches high with cocaine. I was afraid to stay there because I thought someone was going to end up dead around me. It was pretty scary for me considering I never did any drugs like that and it was my first non cake and ice cream type party. I was 15 at the time. (No, I didn't do any coke). I was too petrified to do anything but watch people come and go and act crazy. We left as soon as we could which was about 5:00 the next morning!

Answer 3

I was once held up, at knifepoint, by a kid in the vestibule of my Chicago apartment building. And, let's see...when I was 16 I'd gotten stupidly involved with a much older guy, a psycho, really, who eventually threatened to not let me leave his house. Fortunately I chose, for some reason, not to argue or beg, but to just pick up a chair and throw it through his plate-glass front window. He backed down. I walked out. Also when I was 16, my car broke down in Arkansas on the way home to Indiana from Dallas, and the mechanic at the gas station said he'd cut us (my best friend and me) a really good deal if we "came with him to his place and let him work on the car there." Fortunately again (man, was I lucky at age 16), I called my grandfather and ask his opinion, and he was level-headed enough to not start panicking and scare me to death, but to simply say, "Honey, I don't think that's a good idea, and if you don't have enough money to get the car fixed at the gas station use my credit card" (when I made it home the next day I discovered that my grandmother, his wife, had died only hours before I called him--but he still managed to be completely calm and reassuring!).

Answer 4

When i was about 6 or 7, there was an older retired couple that lived close to my grandparents. The woman was very sweet and always had cookies and stuff for the kids. Me and my friend were there one day, while the lady was out of the room, her husband wanted my friend to sit in his lap. She did and he grabbed her between the legs. He also lifted her shirt all the way up because he wanted to see her "belly" He lifted my shirt too. We never went back there. We would throw rocks at the house and yell "dirty old man" and run a way. I don't think either of us ever told our parents, I don't know why. I wish we did.

Answer 5

A few years ago, I went night diving (sub aqua) on my own, in the sea at Plymouth in Devon England.I know it was stupid, but my friend didn`t turn up, so I still went. It was the night when we had very bad storms, which the weather department had not told us about. When I returned to the surface of the sea, the waves were enormous, I had never seen such waves. I was half a mile from the shore, I managed to get to the esplanade only to find I couldn`t reach the top bars to enable me to get out of the sea. The waves were dashing me against the concrete. Quite literally a man appeared from `nowhere` and managed to pull me out of the sea.It was 11.30pm. and pitch dark. Wasn`t I just the luckiest girl to be alive?

Answer 6

8 years old , sneaked out of school with a friend also 8, went to the dentist with her and her father someone I'd never met before. Worried all the way through as I knew I had broken the rules, went with friend back to her home had lunch with her parents and her went back to school and the teachers hadn't noticed that we had been missing for 3 hours, went home and didn't tell anyone, had a stomach upset and still kept silent, anything could have happened to me that day.

Answer 7

About 11 years ago, I was recovering from surgery and was on crutches, and someone tried to push me in front of an oncoming subway train. A couple of weeks later, the newspaper reported that someone had "fallen" in front of a subway train either at that Baltimore station or near there. When I worked in Baltimore, at the Univ of Md, someone would try to mug or hurt me about twice a year. I was fortunate to have escaped harm during those 19 years while working there. On several occasions I had to come to the assistance of students who were in danger of harm from either the city's inhabitants, or from the city's ice slicked walkways.

Answer 8

How about having a knife held to your throat by a junkie while her partner went through the apartment for anything he could steal? Would that qualify as feeling decidedly unsafe?

I've had others, but that was the worst. I think. Well, there's been some bad times, you know?

Answer 9

when iwas about 13 my friend had a cb radio we used to speak to people and arrange an" eyeball" which was going to meet the person to see what they looked like.there was this one guy who said he,d be at a certain point at a certain time we went and he didnt show up.she went home and so did i.about 2 days later i left to go to school and a car pulled up asking if i wanted a lift i said no and carried on walking he suddenly said it,ok im so and so off radio .i remember turning and going home again telling my dad who went crazy when i told him id been doing this "eyeball " thing he went out but guy was gone.he must have been there that night and followed me home to know where i lived it freaks me out to this day.funnily enough we never heard from him on radio again.

Answer 10

well, this happened to me when i was about 4-5, i know it might be strange to suddenly remember these facts after like 15 years but yeah ,, i suddenly remembered it an with a little though , i could realize what happened to me that day !
we had guests coming for holiday and they were going to stay for one bloody day , my mum's friend and mum went shopping and i stayed at home with this guy ( her husband or her son no idea!!!) he was watching TV and i was sitting beside him trying to talk the way kids do usually talk!! and suddenly he took his pants of and showed me his "thing"! me as an innocent kid asked : what it this?!! and he was like : something Delicious , try to eat it!!! first i was disgusted and i was like :Errrrr but it can be dirty ! after all he forced me to try it!!! and i did , Thank god that my mum rang the bell and they came , i still remember that he asked me to not tell anybody!!! and i didn't! ( unfortunately )