The quote highlights the importance of anxiety asa warningduring a potentially dangerous situation. That trepidation likely triggered these people to act on theunpleasant feelingsthey felt in the pit of their stomachs as they shared theirpersonal storiesin thisReddit thread.
Having fear isn’t always a sign of weakness. As these commenters proved, it may also save your life.
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My ex-husband had a raging anger problem, and my last straw was during one of his daily rage sessions about eighteen months ago. He was yelling and screaming, huffing and puffing, and practically frothing at the mouth with hatred spewing from his mouth. He backed me into a corner of the kitchen, and I saw his hands fly towards my face and neck. This wasn’t his first time being aggressive or forceful, he had a history of throwing objects at walls or on floors, and sometimes he would throw objects at or near me, and I sustained several injuries over the years.But, this time was different. A cold feeling washed across my whole body, almost like when you get the chills when you have a fever or the flu. I remember trying to take a step backwards, but couldn’t, because a kitchen wall was directly behind me. I remember my hands gesturing in a “please stop” and “don’t come any closer” way in front of my chest, almost akin to a shield between him and I. And deep within me, a thought flashed across my mind:*Get out before you can’t.*Later that day, while he was out of the house, I found myself calling a domestic violence hotline. They basically slammed the door in my face, and told me I didnt qualify for help, since I apparently earned too much money to qualify for any support. I wasn’t even asking for money: I simply didn’t feel safe at home. To make matters worse, I didn’t grow up in the United States, because I was born and raised abroad, and so I don’t have any direct family here in the United States. I had another violently humbling and profoundly terrifying realization: I was going to be completely alone in escaping my marriage.Without even realizing what I was doing at the time, I found myself packing a small bag, getting in my car, driving to the airport, and getting on the first possible airplane bound for over 1,000+ miles away, not knowing if I’d ever return to the life I once knew. Within a few hours, I was sitting on a plane, and it wasn’t until I peeked out my window and felt the upward tilt of the aircraft that I felt like I could breathe again. Now, looking back about eighteen months later, I realize I was probably operating on sheer human instinct at the time.
Fifteen years or so years ago my friend’s parents were in Paris. They were in a central public place (not sure where) when they saw police start turning up and barricades being erected. My friend’s mother said she got a really bad feeling something was about to happen and told her husband they had to get out of there, stat.They later found out it was a Justin Bieber appearance.
It’s weird I’m seeing this post right now because I’ve been getting that exact terrifying feeling about America. I don’t know why but my instincts have been telling me for weeks to get my passport ready.
I was the only girl at a football team party. Got out of there so fast.
In the early nineties my mother would regularly take my younger brother and I along when we she needed to run errands. I was around 7 years old and my brother 6. On this particular day she needed to run into Walmart, this was the early days before super Walmarts, so the store was relatively small. My mom told me to lock the doors after she left and that she’d only be a minute, she then hurried inside. About 2 mins later this man with Dahmer vibes walks up to the rear passenger door. Looked to be mid to late 30’s, heavy set, serial k****r glasses, etc. It startles me but my little brother is unfazed, he was playing a game of some sort.As he says hello I can hear what sounds to be him checking the handle on the door. I’ll never forget the creepy smile he had on his face. He sees that the door is locked so he tells me to open it. I tell him no and that my mom would be back soon. He tells me that he just spoke with my mom and that she sent him out to get us. I don’t know what it was but it didn’t feel right. For the next minute, as I refuse to open the door as he’s still trying the handle, I can see him physically getting angry. This is when my brother starts to notice something going on.Then all of a sudden he looks past me, looks at me, and takes off. 20 seconds later my mom arrives, apologizing about how long it took, which was common, and I ask her if she sent some weird man to come get us. Immediately she says no! Why? I tell her and she freaks out. She drives around the parking lot a few times in hopes of me pointing the man out but I never saw him again. To this day I still wonder what could have happened if I opened that door.
When I was a teenager (14-15ish) I was sitting outside my sisters work. She worked at a building near a park with a track around it. I was sitting kinda away from the building and more towards the park. It was night and super dark in the park. I got a weird feeling and saw a man walking towards me quickly. I got up on instinct and ran into the building. As soon as he saw me stand up he started SPRINTING towards me. I can’t say for sure he was going to take me, but a part of me FELT his intentions before I even saw him.
One night I was vacuuming out my car at one of those self service car washes. The whole time I notice there’s another car in the corner but I didn’t see anyone inside of it. All the sudden, I look up as a van with the windows covered pulled in. I made eye contact with the driver and something in me said “get the F**K out NOW” so I jumped in the car and drove off with my trunk still open. I had to pull through the actual car wash part and barely made it out as the other car was attempting to block me in. Drove back around 3 minutes later to see if they were still there… and they weren’t. I’ll never forget the feeling i had when we made eye contact. I’ve never moved that fast without thought in my life. His eyes were jet black and his face was skinny like a skeleton. I am a 125lb very young looking woman so I’m vulnerable.
I was 16, waiting in the baggage claim for my dad, who I was picking up from the Detroit airport. A middle aged man started chatting with me. I was conditioned to be polite so I talked to him. He was asking a lot of personal questions (who am I with, do I live close). We start talking about running after I told him I liked to run. He says he has something in his car I have to see, a medal from a recent race. He gets insistent I follow him out to the parking garage so he can show me. Even grabs my arm at one point. I start to follow him. Get out the door. Freeze. Get a really creeped out feeling. And make up an excuse as to why I can’t go and run back inside. He never came back inside. I felt rude at the time, but in retrospect I’m convinced I saved myself from getting kidnapped.
Tubbs Fire in Santa Rosa, CA. Woke up at 1am to smell of smoke. Went to the bathroom and was hit with a feeling of dread. Went out into living room and peeked through blinds, saw our neighbor running to her car with her cat in one arm and duffle bag in the other. Saw the glow of fire in the distance. Opened front door to ash falling. Woke up my spouse, told her we had 5 mins to get dressed and pack a bag. Started getting our wallets phones passports laptop and clothes into a backpack. She stood there for a minute confused and I had to yell at her to put on her shoes, there was a fire, and I wasn’t joking. Fire came within 2 blocks of our apartment. Completely leveled the neighborhood north of us.
I was about 13. My mom, at the time, didn’t have her driver’s license because she was undocumented, so we were already really nervous about driving around - but to add to that we were in a bad neighborhood, in a section of PCH with actual street hookers and pimps, and it was about 10PM. I was really unwell and having a lot of trouble breathing, and my inhaler wasn’t helping, so we went to the ER.On the way back from the ER (turns out I was having an allergic reaction to something), we were driving back on PCH and cop lights go on, pulling my mom over. We were already really nervous and she was hoping he would be kind enough to just let us go and have the car impounded.The stop is normal at first, she explains why she doesn’t have a driver’s license and tells the cop I’m sick and showed the ER paperwork, tells him we were just going back home. He starts looking around, making us wait in the car, walking back and forth a few times. We start getting a really bad feeling about this cop. I start wondering if running is even an option and tell my mom we have to go - that we should just abandon the car.Finally, he comes back and shines the flashlight in our faces again, looks around, and tells her that if she “cooperates” we can keep the car and go home. My heart drops. She’s confused, but I know she understands what’s about to happen. She says, “My daughter is in the car. I can’t leave her alone here.” They go back and forth, and she just keeps saying things like “My daughter is sick, I need to take her home.” He starts threatening to deport her and that he’ll make sure I end up with one of the pimps if she doesn’t cooperate.As they’re arguing, several blocks down, it sounds like a shooting takes place, and he goes back to his car and just speeds away.
I was in Miami with friends for a wedding. My friend is a bartender at a bar in south Beach and so we’re at the reception at the bar. This girl starts chatting with me and being super over friendly. Complementing everything I’m wearing, hair, you name it. I don’t think anything of it and keep hanging with her and some of my other friends but she’s alone. Should have been my first red flag, all girls know not to travel alone in Miami. She’s chatting up my other friends the same way and then says that she loves ds (ds, not a specific one, just any) I tell her that she’s in the right place, Miami is full of whatever you’re lookin to find. But I’m not interested. She mentions going to her place and I’m trying to get her social media to connect later but she keeps dodging my questions. We go outside to smoke and I let her know that I have lots of friends with me and point out about half the crowd outside. She glances at some man and then quickly says she has to leave. Again, try to get social media but she said her Uber had arrived. She didn’t have a phone. She got into a car parked suspiciously in the road. One man got on the other side of the vehicle while another followed behind her, getting her to the middle seat in the back. The three of them plus the driver drove off in that SUV with tinted windows and at that moment, I realized I was almost trafficked. I’ll never forget that poor girl because she was a victim too.
I was running late at night in a not so good neighbourhood in my home town in Finland (ie. Still relatively safe) when a car drove past me reeeeaally slowly. It drove on behind a bend in the road. I then noticed from the movement of the headlights that the car made an U-turn and started speeding towards me. I quickly hopped a fence onto someone’s yard and looked through the cracks in the fence as the 2 guys in the car got out of the car and scanned the area for a while supposedly trying to find me.
Was at a bar with friends, and some dude kept staring at our table all night. Like, not just glancing, but full-on staring. After about an hour, I told my friends we needed to leave ASAP. They thought I was being paranoid but agreed. Found out later that same guy pulled a knife on someone else that night. Trust your gut when something feels off.
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A long long time ago, I worked evening shift. I came home late at night and saw a random guy walking around our parking lot. My gut told me he was up to no good. So I stayed in my car until he was gone. When the coast “was clear,” I walked to my apt and noticed he was across the street. He was startled to see me and came towards me. I ran in my apt. You know how in the movies, they fumble with their keys? Well that was me. But I was able to get in quickly. Later that week, I found out that a guy was walking around the complex breaking into apartments..
My dad had abused me all my life until he was arrested for sexual harrassment of a lady at church, trying to run over the Deacun and abusing me in front of the church then speeding off with me in the car. The court threw everything out but the child abuse and the reckless driving. They said that a son needed a father in the court so they sent me to therapy to build my relationship with my father. If my mother did not take me she would see problems so I had to go. What I did is I has a review system and I never left alone with him and give him 1 and 2 out of 10 every time. Eventually the therapist changed his review system to out of 5 but it still never passed 1 or 2 where a 3 out of 5 would be considered average. I just ran him down for a year where my father and the therapist realized they were not making any progress and tried to have a meeting with me where I just bashed him telling everything he did wrong with the abuse. He called me a liar and he never wanted to see me again. Only times I heard from him after was 2 crazy notes trying to reconnect and from the coroner after he hung himself because he was being convicted of attempting to b**b the sheriff office. Uh clearly I was in the right to play it out. It was a situation I could not just leave though because that would have put us in a worse situation.
When I used to live in New Orleans, I went out with a friend to watch a Saints game. We went to a bar after and this guy started talking to my friend really aggressively and my friend was trying to talk him down. I could instantly tell that something was off, paid for our beers and convinced him to go outside for a cig. We’re out there maybe 3 minutes and the other guy shoved someone through the window while screaming “I just got out of OPP (Orleans Parish prison) mother f****r!” But yeah the energy in the room was HEAVY right before it happened. I think anyone that has been in a fight or grew up with abusive parents can be attuned to the energy shift of a room and more easily say “let’s get tf out of here”.
My husband and I live at the base of Runyon Canyon. We ditched when the Sunset Fire broke out because it was at the end of our street.
We were in LA and went for a ride through The Los Angeles Mountains. It was beautiful and we were taking pictures at one spot when this guy pulls up on a motorcycle and stops next to us. I could feel the unease start when he got off the bike and as he started walking towards us.He struck up a bizarre conversation with us. Asked what we were doing, where else are we going, is there anyone else with us. But this time I was in going into full panic mood and my sensors were going off and telling me to get away from this man. Quickly try to get out and away. I whispered to my clueless husband that I was getting bad vibes about the whole experience.Our daughter was 7 and I just didn’t feel safe at all and felt very uneasy. I’ve never felt so relieved getting anywhere. When I got back to our home, I read about all of bodies buried in there and how there is still stuff going on in the park. I just knew something bad was going to happen. I kept getting flashes of bad stuff appearing in my head. I almost didn’t think he was going to follow us. He really didn’t want us to leave. His demeanor was so odd and freaky. I’ve never been so scared. I was truly terrified about that whole incident.
Just happened last week. Friend and I were in a Lyft. Driver literally didn’t know how to drive. I don’t know how he even got to us from wherever he started from. Didn’t understand the GPS or how to follow it. Barely managed to get out of parking lot. After barely getting onto highway (and then just driving into the breakdown lane going 25) we told him to pull over at nearest bar. He almost didn’t but we near screamed. Got out quickly and the driver wouldn’t leave the bar parking lot. We hid in the bar until he finally drove away.
When I was involved in a large criminal organisation back in the mid 80’s I met a guy who wanted a large amount of the stuff we sold. I arranged a pick up and went with my driver to the address and he’s inside the property. Waving us inside I stopped got back in the car and drove away. I knew if we went in that house we wasn’t coming out.
I had stayed overnight in Oregon in September 2020 and the morning of the almeda fire it was so windy that it knocked over a gallon of water I had on the ground while loading my car up, and the grass was so dry it shattered under your feet. Then the smell of smoke, and seeing hundreds of birds flying out of it in the opposite direction of where I was. I drove south on I5 all the way to Southern California only stopping for gas because there were fires on both sides of I5 down the entire west coast. It was honestly terrifying.
Understanding how people react to fear in everyday situations can provide insights into instinctual behaviors.
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