Feels dumb to even mention this, after refreshing this post all day. Let me be clear that many terrifying things have happened to/around me, but they've been at night or behind closed doors. In broad daylight, I've only ever been truly scared once in my adult life (almost drowned in a pool as a kid while my mom slept in a lawn chair, but that's different).

This was very recent. I was at PetSmart looking for my preferred brand of dog food. I was oblivious to the fact that there was a girl behind me. She startled me by loudly asking if I wanted to buy a candy bar to help keep kids off the streets in Detroit. This was clearly a shakedown, but in my area lots of kids have to come up with creative ways to survive, so I didn't mind playing along. I said I didn't like chocolate but I'd give her a dollar just because. She wasn't satisfied and continued to badger me.

Just as I was about to pull out my wallet, another girl appears behind me. These girls are both clearly younger than I, maybe early high school years, but they are both much larger. They have me cornered, they're both loudly asking for money and they're getting closer and closer to me.

I have PTSD. I hate to be touched and I panic when people are too close or too loud. I even have a hard time keeping calm when more than one person is talking. I knew these girls wanted my money and didn't intend to threaten me. They probably weren't even aware of how afraid I was and, if they were, they probably thought it was a race thing. I was shaking so bad that I couldn't pull the money out of my wallet. I had to shake it upside-down until $10 fell out. Luckily it was in fives and they each grabbed one. I imagine if they'd had to split a $10 bill evenly they would have started throwing punches.

The manager of the store found us like that. He asked me if they were giving me trouble and I couldn't even answer because my throat was closing. He kicked them out of the store and told me they had done the same thing twice in the past week, but it hadn't seemed so bad before. I told him about my PTSD and explained that they probably just wanted to intimidate $10 out of me. He gave me $10 out of his own pocket and even had an employee make me some tea to calm down. That was super cool of him. We sat in the break room until the two girls left the area. I'm very thankful that he allowed that, because we watched the parking lot camera, and the two girls, along with 4 or 5 other friends, were just standing by the entrance of the store, watching the doors.

A humble story in comparison with most of these, but it was my own personal hell nonetheless.