"It scares me to know that that guy is still out there free."

I'm an Associate Editor on BuzzFeed's Pop Culture team who spends my days fangirling over all my favorite TV shows and movies.

Some stories deal with topics like sexual abuse and drug use.ย 

"Things took a turn when mid-sentence his eyes flare open, and he stares at me, making me stop what I'm saying. My heart dropped into my ass when he looked at me because it was pure hatred in his eyes. As soon as we made eye contact, he bolted upright from his bed and wrapped his hands around my neck and started throttling me as hard as he could. I barely even remember what happened, but my mom was screaming for a nurse. And grandpa kept yelling at me while shaking my neck violently, "FUCKING BETRAYAL YOU BETRAY ME."

And then he died. Almost as fast as it began, it was over. His grip loosened, and he flatlined. My mother was inconsolable, and I was extremely confused and crying out of sheer trauma at the situation.

Later, after we managed to calm down, a nurse explained to my mother that his severe dementia had left him barely coherent, and it was likely he had thought I was someone else. I didn't learn this until several years later, but my mother suspected my grandfather saw my father in me.

I guess I look a little too much like my dad."

"A few minutes after lying down, I realize I have to pee. I get out and stumble into a spot between a guard gate and a building for a little privacy. I'm about 25 feet away from the club's entrance and just off an alleyway.

While I'm relieving myself, a dude runs right past in front of me, around the guard booth to my rear, and unloads a 9mm (recovered rounds from backseat/trunk/roof/bumper) into the backseat of the car I'd just crawled out of.

'bam bam bam bam...' Unloading into the car.

He then turns, runs right back past me, and down the alley into the night. Don't think he saw me at all.

Nothing really came of it. Except my partner was convinced I was a 'marked man' and refused to be near me for a year or so."

"He came to my office one day and asked for me, but I was in court. My secretary said he was perfectly civil. He then went to his divorce lawyer's office and shot him to death. He was stopped by the police a short distance away and was wounded in a shootout. He would later tell the cops that he had come to my office to shoot me that day, and also planned to shoot his civil attorney."

"I remember fighting, but not being strong enough to get him off of me. Then, I remember my mom's face. She had a clear look of both terror and fury. I remember looking over and seeing Peter, sitting with his arms around his knees, rocking back and forth as his mother tried to calm him. Then, I remember my mom absolutely losing it on the lifeguards who had missed everything and were clueless as to why this tiny woman was screaming at them that her daughter had almost drowned on their watch.

To this day, I have a fear of swimming and absolutely do not like having water on my face, even when I'm showering."

"The hill leads to a cliffside where rapes and murders have happened before. I had the pointy stick of my umbrella pointed at him, ready to jab if he tried anything, which he did when he reached for me. I jumped and ran straight to the highway, where another commuter bus stopped, surprised to see a girl coming out of the tall grasses.

I saw the driver of my previous ride speeding away. Nothing was wrong with his tires."

"We pass by some train tracks, and I'm thinking this is it, this is where I will be murdered. He asks me what I'm studying in school, and I tell him Biochemistry. 'I believe in jet propulsion and all that shit. WE ARE NOT ALONE ALIENS ARE AMONG US.' He then makes me pull over at a gas station, and he tells me, "Drive away, Sweetheart." I called the cops, had to do a line-up, apparently this dude had done this to a ton of other women, and some were less unscathed than I was..."

"I was very confused as to wtf was happening. Then the blood started pouring. I didn't want to get blood everywhere, so I went to the kitchen. Dude is pacing back and forth, saying weird shit. I thought about my gun (which was close by), but I wasn't thinking quite straight. He left. I had a huge concussion and still suffer side effects from it.

My number 2 goal in life is to live longer than that asshat just so I can shit on his grave."

"We were wrestling until I fell on the ground. He was sitting on top of me, strangling me. I tried to claw my nails into his eyes as deeply as I could, but I started to black out. Suddenly, there was this thought in my head, Wake up, or you will die. .. Well, the adrenaline kicked in again, and I opened my eyes and screamed from the top of my lungs, attacking him again.

That helped. He stood up and began to run. I lay there for a few seconds, then I started to run home, still screaming.

My mom was already at our door, opening it for me because my screams woke her up. She immediately called the cops, and they arrested him that night.

It turned out that he actually shot me in my head from behind. They assume that the gun didn't work properly, the bullet didn't penetrate my skull and got stuck in there, but as far as I know, they never found out why the gun misfired. I'm glad, though. He told the cops that he had already followed me a few times in the past, but never had the guts to 'do it.' He wanted to kill me and rape my dead body."

"I turn around for a second and start to hear people screaming... I turned around, and a minivan was heading for us, the few people around this woman. They had already started running, but I was too late...

He hit me as I was trying to flee... put the car in reverse, ran over me again, and then went forward and ran over me a third time.

Turns out the guy was high and drunk and got into a fight with the woman's boyfriend, whom I bore a strong resemblance to. He thought I was him. Not to throw a pity party for myself, but nine years later, I have a ton of medical issues, and my life pretty much started on a downward spiral since then... but sure, I guess I've 'survived.'"

"We made a few jokes between ourselves about it, as we both noticed it almost immediately and were fairly uncomfortable being around him. This lasted for probably the first two hours of the four-hour class. At that point, we were asked to switch from pool instruction to a classroom, and we had about 20 minutes to change and get there.

As we are all changing, this guy kept looking over at my friend and me. We tried not to make eye contact with him and just ignored him, but we were getting extremely uncomfortable with how intensely the guy was staring. We were the only ones in the changeroom and were intent on leaving as fast as possible. Eventually, my friend makes eye contact with the guy, who screams something along the lines of 'STOP LOOKING AT ME,' pulling a switchblade out of his swim bag and lunging at my friend. I stood there, somewhat frozen as this was happening, and didn't really know what to do โ€” whether to try and help or run. My friend ended up blocking the initial lunge with the locker door, and he sprinted towards the front exit of the changeroom, with this enraged knife-wielding teenager chasing him. When my friend had made it out of the changeroom, the maniac turned around and started chasing me down. Pool deck floors are extremely slippery and almost impossible to run on, but 12-year-old me wasn't exactly worried about that at this point.

I had to run from the changeroom/locker area, through the bathrooms, through a shower room, and then onto the pool deck (the only other exit). I remember turning around once I made it on the pool deck, and the guy was gone. I was half-dressed and basically still sprinting towards the lifeguard office.

Once there, I found our instructor and told him what happened, but he didn't believe me. He said I was lying and was just picking on the kid; nothing happened. So I told him to try and find my friend with me (I was panicking, hyperventilating, but apparently not believable). My friend was still out in the lobby now, with a ton of concerned parents around, trying to figure out what was going on. Turns out, when he blocked the knife with the locker door, the knife got his forearm, and he was bleeding pretty badly. My instructor immediately ushered us away and called the police. The building went into lockdown.

To this day, I have no idea what happened to that kid โ€” he never came back to the class, and the police didn't find him that night. I'm assuming he got arrested, but I never heard about it."

"When he was caught, they found an industrial-sized pipe wrench wrapped tightly in his fist, so that he could get a stronger grip when swinging. I'm so glad that cart was there. Once a year or so, I would look him up in the parish prison roster to see if he was still in jail. One year, he suddenly wasn't. I later found him named in a lawsuit as having stabbed his cellmate a half dozen times while the guy was asleep. Definitely doesn't seem like the nicest of people. Nine years later, I'm still unpacking this incident in therapy โ€” it's why I don't like walking around cities at night or sitting where I can't see the door."

Responses have been edited for length and clarity.