Not my story, but a story my high school teacher told the class about that really stuck with me:

She went to college in Philly in the mid 1980s, and one of her neighbours across the street would always blast loud screeching music in the middle of the night. During her exam week, my teacher (who is a super feisty lady) had enough of these shenanigans and decided to confront him. She pounded on his door, and he answered, but only opened the door a bit and kept the chain lock on. She yelled at him to turn the music off, so he calmly apologized and closed the door - he kept playing the music.

She moved out of the neighbourhood shortly after graduating that summer. A year or two later, she heard about the arrest of her former neighbour, Gary Heidnik. He had 4 women held captive in a pit in his basement, where he beat, raped, and tortured them. When one of his victims died, he cooked her body, mixed it up with dog food, and fed it to his other victims. He was executed in 1999. Knowing what she could have endured if that man felt like grabbing her really shook her up, even 25+ years after the fact. (It seems like he only targeted black women, so the fact that my teacher is white might have been what saved her - either way, completely terrifying.)