19. A rapist used to work on our playground

“I feel like this will get buried but when I was in primary school this old man used to work on the play ground. He’d just monitor the children and make sure everything was okay. He’d always invite me over for dinner and used to talk about his wife who was at home waiting for him to get back. He used to tell me about his dogs and say that I could feed them treats if I met them. I used to beg my mum to let me go to his house and she would always outright refuse. I was bummed because his house sounded fun and I wanted to meet his dogs but my mum’s word was the law so I got over it. He somehow found out my address and sent me a Christmas card one year. Fast forward to when I’m in secondary school and his name is all over the paper. Sentenced for raping a six year old girl. It also turned out that his wife had died years ago. I was only eight when I knew him but I still remember what he looked like and I’ll always be glad that my mum was so protective.” — qvickslvr

20. We escaped from a car we shouldn’t have gotten into

“I was in Vegas last year with my brother, we both like to party hard, still in our 20’s. Walking down the strip, I see two black guys with backpacks on, I know what that means, I say “Damn, wish we had some weed.” They immediately turn around, and offer us other things as well, and we took down his number to get other things later in the night.

Hours later, after tons and tons of booze and stuff, we call this guy up for more. When we met these two guys, they were on foot, the second time though we had to meet them in front of a hotel because they were driving, so he tells us to hop in for a few so we can get what we need without people watching.

Now at this point, my brother and I are fucked up, and don’t realize what’s happening until it starts to get dark, we had only been driving for 10 minutes but we were obviously off the strip, away from the lights, people, anything. This guy is driving like a goddamn maniac, with music blasting so it was a bit distracting. My brother finally asks them where we’re going, they say we’re heading to a liquor store real quick and then they’ll drop us back off, but it seems like we’re in the middle of nowhere.

Finally realizing the situation we’re in, we open the doors while we’re stopped at a light and run to the only thing we see, a gas station. We flag down a cab that drove by a few minutes later, which he says is illegal but we were obviously in need of help. After we told him what happened, he calmly tells us, ‘There is no liquor store over here…’

It was the worst and best feeling ever, we narrowly escaped god knows what, and stayed silent for the rest of the night.” — DeerLicksBadger

21. My mother had a violent stalker

“My mom had a stalker for years. She was maybe in her early 30’s, I was about 3 and my brother was around 1 when this started. My dad would leave for work in the morning, and as soon as he was gone, the calls would start coming in. She’d answer the phone and some guy would be saying all this horribly sadistic and sexual things about what he wanted to do to my mom. She was beyond frightened and didn’t know what to do. Sometimes the caller would describe what she was wearing at that very minute or describe what she was doing. My parents were struggling financially so they couldn’t just up and move but my mom started spending more and more time at my dad’s mother’s house when he was away. The cops got involved but they couldn’t trace the call.

Finally, they were able to save up enough money to move (I was about 6 by this time.) The phone number was changed and unlisted in the phone book (this was around 1988 when everyone still used landlines.) My mom never got another scary phone call but she had nightmares about it for years. When I was little, I remember going into her bedroom in the morning and she would be sobbing into her pillow. I didn’t understand it at that point but she explained later in life that she’d wake up from a nightmare and just shake and cry.

A couple months after we had moved, the cops informed us that they finally caught the guy. It was our next door neighbor’s 19 year old son. He had been in the military but was discharged due to severe mental illness. I guess he was put into some sort of special security home that specializes in mental health. The lead investigator said that the son was obsessed with my mother and they found a box in his room full of a bunch of photographs candidly taken of her when she was out in the garden or playing with us kids in the yard.

It chills me to the bone when I think about it now. Anything could’ve happened to my mother when my dad was at work and Id be too young to help her.” — buttononmyback