Scared of weird things when a kid

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Between the ages of 5 - 10 I was terrified of dead trees and would throw hysterical tantrums whenever I saw one ( in reality or on TV/In a book etc). There was a big old stump of an oak tree near where we lived at the time and whenever I was forced to walk past it I would 'freeze', close my eyes and scream. My parents would have to pick me up and carry me past and tell me when it was out of sight and safe to open my eyes again. I only stopped screaming until I was sure I was 'safe'. I would also get extremely agitated just at the thought of knowing we were going out somewhere which would take us past the tree. I've never been able to explain this but now that I'm beginning to learn about AS I can only assume that this was some kind of autistic reaction bought on by fear of what the dead trees may have represented to me at the time (death I suppose)

Any other members recall something similar to this when they were young
Am I right to think this can be linked to autism, or was I just a bit weird?

i have but i dont whanna tell them and there realy wierd whenever i whas close to that sertent object i started freaking out it whas like seeing a nucliar bomb explode

I was afraid of holes. I had the worst nightmares about scary stuff coming out of small dark holes...especially the one in my bedroom ceiling.

I was afraid of electric plugs

Mummies. This might seem normal to you, but I had never seen a mummy movie--nor any sort of thriller at all. My fear came from a magazine article about ancient Egypt. It was a true phobia--even the word could cause me to freeze in terror. Starting when I was about twelve, I deliberately exposed myself, gradually, to the images and words which I feared. By fourteen, I could tolerate words and paragraphs; by sixteen, whole books, if they had no pictures. At twenty, I wasn't afraid of pictures anymore; and today, I can watch TV shows that include mummies (both real-world and scary-movie types). Point being: Progressive desensitization works, and you don't need a shrink to do it. Just start really, really slowly.

Currently, degenerate conics freak me out. I have no idea why. I think maybe it's the idea of information being lost. Black holes have a similar effect. But neither of those are phobias; I can read and work with both things without trouble. Maybe it was the fear that started getting me fascinated.

when young, i was worried about clowns.
they have dirty looking teeth against their white face makeup.
their smiles seem sinister.

they seem (to me) to be the embodiment of fraudulence.

i do not like things i can not see as genuine.

I was terrified of heating vents. They smelled weird. They blew horrible hot, dry air at me. They always came on suddenly. If anything has the capacity to scare an autistic child to death, it's a heating vent.

Drains, especially unfamiliar ones. I still have no idea why.
If we were in a hotel, I'd practically wash my hair in a back bend to stay as far from the tub drain as possible. I'd freak out if I got near a swimming pool drain.

As a toddler, I was terrified of a washing machine (the old type with the mangle attached) at my mother's friend's house. Weirder still was that it was the same make as the one we had at home, yet that one never bothered me. Perhaps it was because our laundry had much more light coming into it, or our washing machine showed less wear and tear.

At about seven, I feared the bathtub being overfilled, and would panic when it reached more than a few inches of water. At the same time, toilets other than ours filled me with dread. I hated many of them sounding too loud to flush, either due to tank design or room acoustics. In mid-1981, my parents had me put in Auckland Hospital for a week so they could find out what made me tick. It ended up being three weeks, although I came home for the weekends. The hospital staff never did find out what was what. Hopefully they came to discover that ears of corn don't really belong with oatmeal, but that's another story.

For some reason, seeing a chimney cowl move (with changes of wind direction, although I had no idea that was why then) freaked me out as a young child.

I'm still nervous about holes for this reason. Holes and cracks. I just think of all these bugs crawling out...

I was also terrified of the color purple. Now it is my favorite color, a good friend, but for years I wouldn't let it touch me.

I also have an immense fear of sociopaths.

People dressed in animal costumes (ex. disney characters, mascots, etc.). When I was a kid I refused to go anywhere near them and did NOT want them touching me. Still don't like them today.


Oh and I have friend who is AS who was terrified of giant fans.

I was afraid of toilets and had this fear something would come up out of the toilet while I wasn't looking. I was afraid of the dark, wanted to always sleep with the light on.

This:

I was terrified that it would come alive and kill me.

A sign of a plumber company that was installed on my grandparents' estate intimidated me because I thought it was God.

For a few weeks, I was extremely worried about suddenly burning to death after I having heard of the phenomenon of spontaneous human combustion.

LOL @ Bull's Eye. I was afraid of the Elmer's glue guy. And the devil on devilled ham. Now I'm just afraid of the ham.

Other things that freaked me out:

claymation
talking inanimate objects (like "Veggie tales" or "The Brave Little Toaster")
Bathtub drain
Vacuum cleaner
Garbage disposal

man hole covers, any type of grate covers, crevices in glaciers, anything that you can fall down into