Would you share the moment of your life when you felt most fear than ever?

First time I fell in love.
And one time I was snowboarding and found myself half-way down an exposed ice-cliff w/ no way to go up or down, and a 100 ft. drop below me on to exposed rocks. (I eventually had to breathe on the ice enough ‘til it it warmed up enough that I could punch a hole in it and slowly, hole by hole, move horizontally ‘til i reached the snow line and I could ride out. The whole process took me about 4 hours).
And I guess when I was little and learned that my parents were divorcing I was petrified.

Going into labor the first time;

A middle of the night phone call when my Mom said “I can’t breathe” and dropped the phone;

Driving to the hospital after my Dad had been taken in;

Waiting for some (medical) test results.

A nightmare I had that to this day I still remember in detail and freaks me out.
I was about six or so. I was just about to fall asleep. Then i saw this figure in my room. It looked like a human form rocking back and forth in a rocking chair. There was no noise. Slowly I saw that it was a skeleton and it was smoking a cigarette. I pulled my covers up closer and wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. Slowly it stopped rocking and started to reach out to me. I got more and more terrified every inch closer that that hand came to me, but I still couldn’t scream. Finally, it was about to touch me and I yelled “MMMMMOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM!!!!” She came running from her room and I looked at her, then looked back to where the skeleton was and it was gone.

@Allie : are you a Van Gogh fan by chance??

My boys were preemies which was scary enough but then when they were nine years old we got a letter from the hospital where they had been cared for and they explained they were testing all patients for HIV from that period of time due to the possibility of tainted blood. After all we’d been through, I could not bear the thought that one of my boys may have gotten tainted blood.

Turned out ok in the end.

When I was home alone and someone was trying to break into my house and he looked right at me through the window.

Ummm. I was at home and it was just another night of my parents fighting. Dad was drunk and I was 10. They were fighting and I hid in a laundry basket holding my stuffed polar bear. More Fighting. Gunshot.. My mom runs out and takes me and my sister to a hotel.

Yeah, mom killed dad. That was pretty fucked up.

On March 17, 2006, I went to the E.R. after having felt horrible for the previous 3 days and it was time to get a diagnosis. I wasn’t getting better. After several hours and several tests, a doctor finally told me I had contracted Type II Diabetes. I’d never had a major illness in my life and this was very scary for me because I knew nothing about it and I had some serious changes to make in my life and I was totally unprepared.

I don’t recall if this was the time when I felt the most fear ever, in my life, but it was certainly a very scary and sobering day for me and one that I will never forget.

Me: What’s up doc, why’d you call me in so late, couldn’t we meet tomorrow?
Doc: I’m sorry about the time. Have a seat.
Your lab results have come back. You have to go immediately for further treatment and an operation. You have (C-word).
Me: ......................

Needless to say I did not sleep very well that night.

When I found out my mother had cancer. Plus the subsequent turning upside down of the world.

(when I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia) When I found out 2 people I know don’t exist, they live in my head, I’ve known them for 8–10yrs,also you don’t know if what you did in your past really happened,
and the Delusions I have are terrifying.

@tb1570 Not really. Why? I think my dream had more to do with how I felt about my father than van Gogh. My dad was also a smoker.

@johnpowell, that is terrifyingly tragic.
My scariest time was when my then 4-year-old son fell about 12 feet from the inventory loft of an automotive repair shop. He was seriously hurt, suffered a traumatic brain injury and a broken wrist. He came out of the whole thing just fine, though. The really scary part wasn’t so much his getting hurt, but the absolute certainty I held that if there was any permanent damage to his brain or body I would kill my husband. My husband was there when it happened, and I knew it was an accident, but I would’ve killed him. I actually got thrown out of the ER by police because I attacked my husband when I met them at the hospital.

From here.

I have two. One was when my mom was going into surgery to get a liver transplant but at some point I felt a sense of peace and knew everything was going to be okay and the other was when my boyfriend almost drowned trying to get our run away sailboat out of the channel. Fortunately, there was a guy on a jet ski nearby that went out and got him.

@Allie : a lesser known Van Gogh:

http://www3.vangoghmuseum.nl/vgm/index.jsp?page=1628&lang=en

@tb1570 Creepy. If it were in a rocking chair that would be even more unsettling.