Childhood misconceptions you can't shake
 

So what I mean is, when I was really little, my family went to a Ripley's Believe It Or Not museum, and one of the first things you're encouraged to do when you start out is to make funny faces into this mirror. And then, later on, you find yourself on the other side of the mirror, now revealed to be two-way, and you get to laugh at everyone making damn fools of themselves, and maybe, just maybe, laugh a little at yourself, too.

My problem is that ever since then, I've been suspicious of mirrors and very reluctant to make faces or be naked or anything potentially embarrassing in front of them. I know my bathroom mirror is not two-way. I know no one is behind it watching me. But my habit now is to look serious and respectable as long as I'm looking into one.

Please share your stories.

Hoping to God no one posts something incredibly depressing like "I thought my parents loved me and I can't let go of that hope," but who am I kidding in this place

my mother always instilled in me the difference between things i want and i things i need and now i don't know the difference because she made those decisions for me as a kid. she was so proud of me upon hearing a story about going to Pier 1 with my aunt when i was 9 and looking at a brush; my aunt asked me if she wanted me to buy it and i said, "well, i want it, but i don't need it,"' and i got nothing.

these days, i basically deprive myself of frivolous things and i give myself a hard time when i go against the idea of living frugally. for recent example, it's wild to me to hear women talking about getting manicures and whatnot as some idea of self-care; one doesn't NEED manicures or to be a part of cheapened or exploited labor. i'm embarrassed by moments and thoughts of materialism i have when they arise.

The internet is a good substitute for social interaction

I thought adultery meant becoming an adult.

I thought the number of kids represented the number of times a couple had had sex.

:}

the conceptions they couldn't shake

I have a similar mirror thing after watching Candyman as a child. Not always but when I’m really tired and it’s dark, I can’t even look in the mirror in case even having the thought of the name Candyman will summon him

I retained some Candyman damage for a while, too, after seeing it at nine.

There was also an episode of one of those anthology-type horror shows in which a masked figure with a blade of some description would gradually creep towards the protagonist with implicitly murderous intent every time he looked at a mirror.

Corn is a vegetable

Good things happen to good people

Rat tails are cool

Ooph. Yeah.

I think my generation is starting to age poorly as it slowly comes to this realization.

I used to think Freddy Krueger would come and get me if I slept with the lights off.
Now I don't believe Freddy is real anymore, but I still don't turn off all the lights.

Most likely "Mirror, Mirror," from Spielberg's Amazing Stories

Directed, seriously, by Martin Scorcese!

it doesn't???

And is this something that you, in the back of your mind, still believe? Otherwise,

I always think of it when I hear or see the word.

Status: Approved

I remember that! He was, like, only visible through the mirror, and was going to strangle him with razor wire, I think?

IIRC, it ended with the guy getting done in by the monster, and it would cut between the mirror shot of the monster strangling him, and the non-mirror shot of the guy being strangled by an invisible assailant.

I think one that fucked me up was this movie I had on VHS simply title Ghost Story (I think there is an unrelated newer movie of the same name that is much more popular). The beginning had some guy wake up to see an attractive naked woman lying down on his bed, and when he approaches her and she turns over, her face is actually a gooey, rotting corpse. The guy is so frightened that we staggers backward and falls through his (obviously insufficiently sturdy to meet any residential building codes) window to his death.

I also remember that his had Fred Astaire in it.

If only there were a way, ideally in this thread (obviously not possible), for you to confirm IYRC*











*You

Always wanted to watch Ghost Story; I read and very much enjoyed the book it's based on, long ago and far away

McDonald's meat is made of worms.

That's stupid.

Everyone knows it's kangaroo meat.

I'll make a note for the next time they wipe and reprogram my memory.

Better hop to it

I had your dad hopping to it last night.

Hoping seems inefficient in this situation.

Here's one: that my body and mind would feel the same no matter how old I got

none. always knew it'd be misery.

Speaking of things that traumatized us as kids, yikes

I never even saw the movie, but the commercial strongly implied she was about to fuck the guy up with a sledgehammer, and I kept pestering my mom (who had read the book) to tell me exactly what the bad lady was doing, because I believed that whatever I was imagining had to be worse than what it actually was

Great thread idea, as always

Sadly i can’t think of anything. All my childhood illusions have been thorough/brutally shattered by this point. Sorry :(

getting drunk every day is normal and if you dont drink you will be in a bad mood

I think you have "childhood misconceptions" confused with "everlasting truths."

Yeah, I can't think of anything either.

Tangentially, I am currently recovering from a serious ass-kicking courtesy of influenza. I'm sure that at some point in my life I've probably been as sick as I was last week, but it's been decades. This week I'm back on my feet and back at work and such, though there is considerable residual fatigue and weariness.

Oddly, one of the lingering symptoms is a seeming ability to access (though not willfully or "on demand") an acute emotional "sense" of what life was like at numerous points along the timeline of my existence.

For example, if, in a non-sick scenario, you asked me to recollect what life "felt" like when I was, say, 16, I could take into consideration a handful of memories, along with the contextual circumstances of my life at that age, and come up with some generalized reconstruction of my emotional world that would lack in nuance and probably bear little similarity to the actual experience. But that's the best I'd be able to do.

In the wake of this flu, though, I have been dropping into these fleeting moments where I seem to feel the "real" feeling of certain moments in time — as though I'm being fed the pure stored data of those moments without the sullying effects of the act of remembering and without the filtering influence of any life experiences since. It's highly bizarre and a bit incredible, and I'm bummed that it will likely fade as the sickness continues to diminish. I am not able to trigger these moments, nor have I noticed any environmental triggers, nor are these relived moments traumatic or otherwise consequential.

The closest I've experienced to this is the more common sudden resurfacing of a buried memory triggered by a passing scent. It's similar in that it's frustratingly ephemeral and momentarily astonishing, but there's something more substantial (at least in terms of how it feels) with what's happening now than the normal stuff of memory.

it is probably a brain tumor

I don't think you can use nor in a series. I think it's only for two things?

Hold on let me google this hella quicklike.

Sounds like a high fever

Or a total fucking nightmare

the thought crossed my addled mind, but i pressed on, praying that meaning might still be delivered despite the crudely constructed vessel in which it was so tenuously perched