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The original was posted on /r/truescarystories by /u/Theunhappywife20 on 2025-06-26 22:10:58+00:00.

I’ve never shared this before publicly, but I need to. Because even as an adult, I still carry fear—not of all white people, but especially ones who act like a man I knew as a child. My godfather, Lee.

I was born in Georgia. My mother was 16, my father 36. Legal, but not right. She left him when I was one because he was abusive. He never hit me, but he was emotionally cold and dishonest. He never told me he loved me. But he did love telling stories.

One story he repeated often was how he met my godfather, Lee, at a gas station in the early 1980s. Lee, a white man, called him a racial slur. Later that night, my dad saved him from being robbed at gunpoint. From that moment on, Lee said my dad was “different” and became his friend. Eventually, business partner. My dad even asked Lee to be my godfather.

When I was 12, I finally got to visit my dad for the summer. One night, Lee offered me cash to clean his basement. I said yes.

But the moment I walked down there, I knew something was wrong. My skin prickled. The air felt thick. At the bottom of the stairs was a mannequin in full KKK robes. The walls were covered in Confederate flags, nooses, lynching memorabilia, and “white power” signs. I froze.

Lee appeared out of nowhere and said, smiling: “That room’s off limits. Don’t tell your daddy. He knows, but it don’t need to be remembered.”

I left immediately. Told my dad I was sick and wanted to go home early. He didn’t ask questions. Just drove me back.

Years later, I brought it up. My dad just said: “Sometimes a man’s got ghosts. As long as they don’t haunt you, you let ’em be.”

But they do haunt me.

I still get nervous around certain white men. The ones who smile too fast. Who say things like “You’re not like the others.” Who carry themselves the way Lee did—fake calm, polite… but full of something darker.

And I’ll be honest: this experience damaged my trust in men overall—including Black men. Because my own father handed me to a man he knew kept hate in his basement, then told me to be quiet about it.

I don’t hate all white people. And I don’t hate all men. But fear? It learned its shape early. And it hasn’t left me.

It has affected my everyday life and how I view white people in general. How do I reverse this? I’m 36 and terrified of white people. I can’t get those images out my head.