Contrary to a common misconception, fear isn't something we're born with, it's something we develop over time. In fact, babies don't exhibit it for the first time until they're around 8 to 12 months of age.

That means that most of our fears are learned at some point in our lives, and they're not all learned in the same way. Some fears, as psychologist Dr. Vanessa LoBue points out, can be learned by conditioning, or by having a negative experience with something. For instance, you might learn to be afraid of dogs if you’ve been bitten by a dog, or you might learn to be afraid of bees after getting stung. But we can also develop the jitters to things by watching someone else's fearful reaction. For example, instead of growing to be afraid of dogs by being bitten, we can also develop a fear of dogs by watching a friend freak out at the sight of a snarling Chihuahua. Likewise, we can learn to be afraid of dogs by hearing negative information as well, like hearing from your mom that little dogs bite.

So Reddit user Mahouswen decided to investigate this further and asked people on the platform to share what they find horrific in adulthood that didn't even bother them in childhood.

#1

How expensive grocery shopping is.

Image credits: CaptainAwesome0912

#2

The extreme stupidity of the vast majority of humans.

Image credits: Earthling1a

#3

Life is short.

Image credits: Confident-Shelter-70

#4

Thunderstorms became scary once I owned a home near trees. Loved them as a kid.

Image credits: ServantofProcess

#5

Ain't nobody actually in charge. Everyone is faking it in front of the kids. Should've been much more of a little s**t as a kid. Those adults knew nothing.

Image credits: topherysu27

#6

The ATM doesn’t just give you money.

Image credits: Aggravating-Fee-1615

#7

The age of my parents.

Image credits: w_ff

#8

How my mom treated me, and my entire childhood in general.

Image credits: WeirdConnections

#9

That everything poses a risk of death or injury. Driving. Running down the stairs. Weather.

Image credits: Round_Trainer_7498

#10

How easy it is to die young. Lost a few peers right out of high school in automotive accidents - no d***s involved, just 'freak accidents'. Its terrifying out here.

Image credits: voidybug

#11

Aging: I have severe back and shoulder joint problems.

Image credits: Illustrious-Host6853

#12

How unfair the life actually is.

Image credits: DavidRoyran

#13

The fact that it doesn't take as long to get old as you think it does when you're a kid.

Or that you have less freedom as an adult than you do as a child (as you wish to be grown so you can do whatever you want whenever you want).

Image credits: AnonRedditGuy81

#14

*I'm* the adult now. There isn't anyone responsible for me. I need to be the responsible one. And I have to be the adult responsible for my kid. Who thought it was a good idea to put me in charge?!

Image credits: ninjaneeress

#15

Life expectancy.

When you're a kid, everyone is old. I never thought much about the ages my grandparents were when they died. It's frightening to think about now as I get older.

They were 59, 62, 65, and 69 when they passed.

Image credits: Gold_Cover2256

#16

What to eat for diner. Especially with kids now, where i want them to have a balanced diet. We tend to stick around chicken and pasta.. I'm running low on imagination.

Image credits: CyrilleMiller

#17

That your parents don't know everything and were making up it as they went because now I have kids and I don't know s**t and am making it up as I go.

#18

Once your parents die, you’re next.

#19

Capitalism is by far the most evil and psychopathic system in human history.

The rabbit hole never ends.

#20

As a kid, I didn’t realize you could seriously injure your back by simply sneezing.

#21

None. I was very terrified of my mortality as a child. .

#22

How many people die when you reach 30, and that includes childhood pets. 30 is supposed to be the time of the milestone where you lived 3 generations, but no, it’s the time where people around you die.

#23

Something leaking. I just discovered one shower has been leaking and the damage to the over 100 year old hardwood floor could have been more disastrous than it was.

Image credits: YourMothersButtox

#24

The fact that monsters do exist, they are people.

#25

Certainty doesn't really exist.

Science gets things wrong.
Doctors will be stumped and leave you hanging.
No one knows the best way to do this task.
People you thought you knew can betray you.

Ultimately you're going to have to run on faith and good thoughts, cause you won't ever be sure of the path forward.

Image credits: me1112

#26

How a lot of money is really only a little money.

#27

You never really know someone and their true intentions. The friendly neighbor Gary could actually have a couple bodies in his basement or is a pedophile. Or your co-worker or friend that seems to like you actually hates your guts and is jealous.

Image credits: InsightJ15

#28

Snakes and how well they are hidden.

I live in the south with lots of different venomous snakes and I used to just Trump through the woods and in creeks and not think a second thing about it.

In my mid 20s I remember playing in the woods with my kids and dogs and jumping over this log when I suddenly smelled this foul odor, so I turned to see what it was.. turned around and there was 5ft rat snake on the side if the log where I landed. Rat snakes arent venomous, but emit a foul odor when they feel threatened, so that's what the smell was.
It was enough to wake me up to the reality of snakes..

Now my oldest son has a job that requires him to tromp through woods and creeks, so I send him social media videos of people finding snakes hiding, just so he knows and understands MY fear ?.

Image credits: 5thCap

#29

Adults don't know what they're doing either.

#30

That we ll die someday, and there is nothing afterwards, never ending sleep, never ending unconsciousness.

#31

The fact that being in love at one point does not mean it will be forever.

#32

Everyone is a human that makes mistakes, and some of those humans are in very important fields like healthcare and creation of safety devices, and it freaks me out so much that I haven’t died or been severely injured yet.

#33

This one is pretty specific to my life, but when I was a preteen, there was an industrial accident (preventable-many lawsuits) at my dad’s work that resulted in the deaths of dozens of workers. My dad was on his way to work that morning when it happened, and, due to the nature of his job, could have caused the accident himself.

At the time, I knew it was really sad, but I was a kid and I moved on with my life. My dad was safe.

30+ years later, even the thought of what happened is enough to set me off. What if my dad had gotten to work a bit earlier? My life would have been completely different. Not to mention the overwhelming sympathy I have for those who lost family members. It’s so tragic.

#34

Most people are one paycheck away from becoming homeless.

#35

Everything involving adults. For example, as a kid I thought rollar coasters and bungie jumping, etc was the best thing ever and I knew the adults would never let anything bad happen to us.

As an adult, I'm acutely aware of how little most adults use their brains (and care even less), thus putting my life in their hands is a much scarier prospect. Nearly anything that relies on the diligence of other adults gives me pause.

#36

Everything is really happening. As a kid, I dunno -- everything not in your backyard isn't really happening because you can't imagine it with the grainy, realness of experience. And now no one is coming to save you. People really do starve to death. People really do die. No reprise. No camera shots.

EDIT: changed reprisal to reprise ; used the wrong word.

#37

Just how cutthroat things tend to be in college and in the adult “at-will employment” world. I’m suspicious that this is a contributing factor to the mental health crisis.

#38

Getting bullied and excluded for being weird was fine as a kid, I just ignored those kids or played along and told them I believed all kinds of insane things just to see if I could get them to believe I was crazy. Everyone told me when I was an adult it wouldn't matter. Then it turned out the meanest kid at your school is nothing compared to the person who makes the schedule at the average hourly wage job, and three of them equals one girl from HR. I don't really think people go into middle management for any reason than a desire to sadistically torture other people while wearing a big fake condescending smile.

#39

As a kid, you always feel like there's a safety net: no matter what happens, someone will pull you out of trouble and take care of problems.

When you hit your 20's and slowly realize that's not true, it's a bit panic inducing. People will literally allow you to collapse in the street and let you die if they see helping as too big of a hassle. You can become homeless, starve, get sick...and after a certain age there is nobody there to pull you out.

#40

When you think about that one guy who was really nice but a little strange as a kid and then as an adult you realize holy s**t he molested me.

#41

As a kid, i thought taxes were just something adults complained about for fun. then i grew up and realized they're like a reverse lottery where you can never actually win. oh, and that whole "rent/mortgage is due every single month" thing hit me like a ton of bricks too.

#42

When visiting a reserve in Montana as a preteen, Sunny the charming toothless vagrant thought it would be cool if i went through the bushes to the river to swim with him. my dad was like 'hell nah' and i was so mad at him for interfering.

#43

As I get older, one thing that terrifies me more and more, the more I think about it is...

HOW EXPENSIVE EVERYTHING IS.

You could BURN through $100, $200 in the blink of an eye, and all you've done is bought groceries and household stuff. You haven't even bought clothes yet, or paid electricity, internet, phone bills, you haven't added anything to savings...and then you think of stuff like credit-card bills...

How fast you could absolutely ANNIHILATE $1,000 just by trying to STAY ALIVE is truly horrifying to me.

I don't care WHO you are - $25.00 an hour is NOT a living wage ANYWHERE anymore.

#44

Very few of us leave this world fully intact. I had a horrific wisdom tooth removal just as covid hit. It was extremely deep rooted, and the dentist was kind of a butcher (I did NOT have insurance so the job went to the lowest bidder). Took about an hour for the extraction; he had to break it into several pieces, and had to go back in AFTER sewing me up because he left some behind.

I do NOT do well with change, particularly changes to my body. It took me a few years to psychologically recover from the experience (a global pandemic and my overuse of cannabis at the time really didn't help any). I still have anxiety episodes every once in a while thinking about what part of me will fail or have to be removed next.

Also, American healthcare is a joke and a scam. That's pretty damn terrifying.

#45

What an ants face looks like.

#46

Just how common SA is. I was not at all prepared for how inevitable it was that I would be SA/harassed as a woman.

#47

That my parents were as much a pair of adults as Teletubbies back then.

#48

They give nearly everyone a car license. We all just trust that everyone else sort of knows what they are doing on the roads and won't plow into you and kill you.

#49

My parents and every adult from my childhood had no idea what they were doing. And neither do I 

It’s all guessing .

#50

How easy it is to die.

It’s terrifying to see just how suddenly and unexpectedly things will just simply take you out.

I can recall when I was in high school and junior high school, etc. I used to love movies like Transformers and war films and stuff like that. It didn’t really impact me when I saw somebody ripped in half or shredded by a machine or cut down by bullets in the middle of a field .

But now, as an adult with some legs under me, I can’t even watch movies like that because all I can think about is the mass loss of human life that had no involvement in the original issues. (Looking at you, Transformers and Marvel).