harrowing experience

harrowing experience

An experience that is frightening, chilling, or disturbing, either due to an implied or actual element of danger, or from being physically or emotionally unpleasant. With so much traffic, cycling in this city can be a harrowing experience. Walking through that graveyard last night was quite the harrowing experience. The film is very good, but it's a bit of a harrowing experience; it doesn't shy away from intense subject matter.
See also: experience
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • hair-raising
  • detached from the (outside) world
  • screw up (one's) courage
  • screw up courage
  • screw up your courage
  • be not (oneself)
  • not oneself
  • emotional affair
  • not feeling (oneself)
  • summon up the courage to (do something)
References in classic literature
It was a trembling and ashen-hued Usanga who tumbled out of the fuselage, for his nerves were still on edge as a result of the harrowing experience of the loop, yet with terra firma once more under foot, he quickly regained his composure.
There should be no repetition of his harrowing experience with Naratu.
The details of his recent harrowing experience returned to him.
It was a harrowing experience, but soon over, and once again the captive was being carried swiftly toward the east and what fate he could not even guess.
Ruby Gillis wrote a gushing epistle deploring Anne's absence, assuring her she was horribly missed in everything, asking what the Redmond "fellows" were like, and filling the rest with accounts of her own harrowing experiences with her numerous admirers.
He said it had been a deeply harrowing experience for them and he would excuse them from jury service for the rest of their lives.
One very harrowing experience was to photograph a supposedly dead bull dragged from the bullring with bloody stumps for ears and tail, hoisted by a winch with a chain around his horns, grinding his teeth at me, rolling his eyes and moaning.
6 My morning confrontation with the bathroom mirror was a slightly less harrowing experience on Thursday when I heard on Radio 5 Live that there's been a major "turning point" in the search for a cure for Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other cruel neuro-degenerative diseases.
She has came out of her harrowing experience apparently unscathed and with no sign of self-pity or bitterness.
Maria has yet to decide if she is strong enough to face the harrowing experience.
Detective Constable Donna McKinlay, who is leading the hunt, said: "This was a harrowing experience for the victim."
``Faceup will offer support and encouragement to help them through what must inevitably be a harrowing experience.'' Faceup can be contacted via Bob Skinner on 029 2021 9524.
BROADCASTER Derek Davis has revealed his harrowing experience as a reporter on the Dublin-Monaghan bombings.
What follows is a harrowing experience for the mum-of-two, not least when she hears the tales of the inmates who gave birth while in jail, then had their babies whisked away.
'The song could apply to different situations in people's lives, but it is based on a harrowing experience of mine,' he said.