I always think what people are afraid of is pretty revealing. I mean like paralyzing fears, not "Oh, I'm afraid of public speaking but I can power through it if I have to" fears. Focus: What are your biggest fears and why? Do you have any clue about where those fears originated? Mine are: 1. My loved ones dying: I've had a lot of loved ones die, so I'm pretty scared of it happening again. If I can't get a hold of someone for a while, my mind always starts filling in the blanks with worst-case scenarios. 2. Bugs crawling in my ear: Bugs generally give me the creeps like all good red-blooded Amuricans, and there are a few that actually scare me (like moths and how they collapse into a pile of dust if you touch a dead one, or millipedes and their ilk and how they have all those fucking legs) but my specific fear when it comes to bugs that actually gets me all panicky is the possibility of one crawling in my ear and either dying in there or eating my ear drum or brain. IT HAPPENS. When I first started reading teen magazines, I read like 4 or 5 stories in the Real Life slot about this happening and it's freaked me out ever since. This has expanded into not liking anything near my ears. Don't put your finger in there. Don't lick it. It's gross and weird and upsetting. 3. Falling down stairs: I have no idea why I'm so afraid of this, but I panic just a little every time I'm going up or down stairs. I've only fallen down the stairs once and that was just last year and except for a bruised back/ego I emerged relatively unscathed. I haven't known anyone who's seriously injured themselves while falling down stairs either. But the idea terrifies me. And I will absolutely not go on ladders for this same reason. 4. Being a victim of random violence: This mostly translates to being mugged, my apartment getting broken into while I'm there, or getting shot in a hold-up/shoot-out thing, but occasionally I'll get freaked out by a serial killer deciding i'm dressed too skanky or whatever or terrorist attacks. I have the worst luck in the world, so I do not doubt at all that there will be some point in my life where I'm at the wrong place at the wrong time. Living in a sketchy neighborhood hasn't helped this. I was trying to go for 5, but that's all I got.
I know all TiBbers are invulnerable and fearless, and only worry about how much damage they will do to the other guy in their upcoming MMA match, but let's see how this goes. The thread title also fits the ongoing theme...
These are easy enough for me: Heights. Dear sweet fucking Christ, do I ever hate heights. Anything that involves me being even somewhat far off the ground, without any sort of safety system to prevent me from falling, turns my nerves to absolute shit. Airplanes don't bother me - in fact, I'll go for the window seat any chance I get for the view. Same goes for roller coasters: I know I'm locked in, and trust the mechanics of the machine not to give out in some Final Destination 3 shit. Life's too short to be that paranoid. But put me at the top of a water tower or 3-story roof, or on the observation deck of a skyscraper, and I'll begin to look something like this. My own version of Hell would be to get put inside one of those glass balconies in the Sears Tower's Skydeck. Intravenous anesthetics. When I was 11, I broke my left middle finger during baseball practice, after I dove headfirst into 1st base to avoid a pickoff, and failed miserably. Fast forward a few hours later in the ER, when the kind Navy doc goes to set my finger for the cast. He tells me, "This might sting a little," and I think, "Cool. No big deal, right?" Right? Fucking wrong! For the next 60 seconds (or years - my memory's a little hazy), I was writhing in pain like Ed Norton in Fight Club, trying not to think of the burning sensation. The fact that the pain was originating from inside my hand, not on it, only added to my misery. I can handle needles and have no problem watching. Anesthetics, if applied topically, don't faze me at all. But if you combine the two, I'll tell you where Grandma hides her money. Loneliness. Not to sound like a punk, but I dread being alone. I don't mean 'alone' in the sense that I'm uncomfortable being by myself - far from it. I mean it in the "long-term" sense: I hate the prospect of winding up alone in the world, at any point in my life. When I hear of old people who aren't survived by any children, parents, spouses, siblings, friends - anybody - it really unnerves me. I vaguely recall reading on a blog a few years back (it might have been on Scott Adams', but I can't say for sure) which speculated that people are addicted to, more than anything else in the world, other people. I'm inclined to agree with that. Humans are social creatures, and being cut off by virtually all means of social interaction would probably affect most people more than they'd care to admit. Oh, and red dots. I live in perpetual fear of them...
Airplanes Not really in general, but take off and landings freak my shit out. I think Ive read somewhere that these are statistically the most likely times for an airplane crash (though your odds of surviving are much higher due to decreased speed). But the fear of tires blowing out or engine failure and the next think you know you're rolling over in a lake of fire. Landings the worst because of the scraping bumpiness of it. I guess midflight crashes/explosions would be terrifying, mostly I think people losing their shit (like in that Louie episode) would freak me out the most. But you'd probably black out pretty fast and then plummet silently to your doom, sure you could wake up but who'd have the energy to freak out after that? Random acts of violence- I went to The University of Cincinnati, if you didn't catch Police Women of Cincinnati let me fill you in. Fifteen gun point robberies in fifteen days my freshman year (culminating when a thief died after his victim took his knife and stabbed him in the throat), sleepwalking student raped by HIV + homeless man, male rapist strikes one street over from mine sophomore year, and so on and so on. Somehow I managed to avoid and violence myself. But every shady looking motherfucker passing me after I left the library at 3am Id be freaking out in my head thinking this was the time it was going to happen. I don't miss that shit.
Terrorism Laugh all you want, it's a very legitimate fear. Having a handful of people from my town killed on 9/11 scared the b'jesus out of me and I'm weary of big crowds to this day. Settling Not settling down relationship wise, but career and life wise. I don't want to be 60 years old and not have done anything worthwhile. I also don't want to sit in a cubicle for 40 years dreaming of other things I could be doing. I think one of the biggest things that resonated with my fear was Philalawyer's article on Middle Management. If you haven't read it, it's spot on.
I used to be TERRIFIED of spiders. Now I just dislike them. A lot. When I was 9 or 10, I went to a friend's house while my mother ran some errands. It was about a 20-minute walk to his house and being a kid, I took every little shortcut that I knew. Crawled through some bushes. Squeezed between 2 houses. It was almost expected that I'd come out of it covered in bugs and dirt, but it went off without a hitch. When I got to my friend's house, he wasn't home. I turned back and walked the REGULAR way home. No shortcuts. No bushes. No tight spaces. I was simply walking down a dirt road between someone's house and someone else's garage. It was at LEAST 20 feet across, but I managed to walk through a spiderweb. I brushed the web off of my face and when I looked down, there was a spider on my leg. It was just a harmless orb-weaver, but I didn't know that. I proceeded to lose my fucking mind. I swatted it off and ran home sobbing. When I got there, I was positive that there were spiders crawling over absolutely everything. It took me about an hour to calm down.
My fear: Working my ass off for most of my life and not even making it to middle management. At my last job there were a shit load of people who had been with the company for 20+ years and never made it past an entry level job because the time was just never right. Now kids are being hired off the street for more than they make since the starting pay increases faster than the COLA for current employees. I like to think I'm smart and foresighted enough to know how to recognize and take advantage of opportunities, but fuck me if working not for, but with a bunch of people in their late 40's early 50's with college degrees that are now worthless didn't scare the hell out of me. Similarly- Pursuing a line of work that will be irrelevant before I retire. Luckily, due to licencing they can't outsource my career for the time being, but if they ever can, you know they fucking will.
I used to be afraid of spiders, but I got myself over that. I also used to be afraid of bees because I'm allergic, but this has calmed down into a healthy wariness. Now I only have two things that I would say I'm afraid of: - Failing my son. I tend to take responsibilities very seriously and firmly believe that if you're going to take something on, you follow it through and own your success or failure. Being a parent is one of the biggest responsibilities you can take on. When it happened, I didn't think I was ready for it so I've been playing emotional catchup ever since. I don't think it's a particularly rational fear, as I appear to be doing okay at things, but it definitely weighs on my mind a lot. I feel that my dad failed me (and still continues to do so) and I'm worried that because I didn't have a good role model in that department then I may unwittingly perpetuate the situation. So, I constantly second guess my actions and cover my self doubt so that he doesn't get wind of them. - Living in more pain. It's a fine point, but this isn't a "I'm afraid of pain" thing. I've got no more problem with that than the average person. What I'm referring to specifically is the chronic, debilitating, constant pain that I'm already getting. My fear is that it's going to get worse as I get older. It's already to the point where it's severely affecting my ability to function. I subconsciously avoid going to sleep at night until I can't possibly put it off any further, because I know that I will wake up to the worst pain period of the day - and there hasn't been a day in living memory that that hasn't happened. This fear is getting slowly worse as time passes because the pain is increasing and none of the doctors or treatments have had any measurable effect. It further doesn't help that this fear dovetails into the above fear because as my son's becoming more active and wanting to do things outside I'm becoming less able.
Right now, my biggest fear is that I have health issues I don't know about. While it is exceptionally dumb, I haven't had a physical in--jesus, I don't know--maybe 6 years or more. However, I know my blood pressure is ok because I was just at the doctor for a sinus infection and they check that anyway, and recently when I had to be tested for lyme disease, I told the doctor to order a cholesterol test as well, since they were taking blood anyway and I wanted to know. Everything came back fine. Despite that, I know that good health isn't just having decent blood pressure and cholesterol numbers, and I'm afraid that when I do finally get a GP and see them, that I'll find out something else--perhaps serious--is wrong.
The idea of being either buried alive or having Locked In Syndrome. Fuck those. Also, a big fuck you to cancer of any type, but especially to pancreatic cancer, which is fucking rough.
Spiders: I can't even look at pictures of spiders. It started when I was about 9 or 10 and saw the movie Arachnophobia. I've been told that the movie gets funny at a certain point, but I have never gotten past the beginning where the guy in the tent gets bit. On another occasion, I accidentally walked into the room during the scene where the spiders come up the drain in the shower. After that, I took whore's baths for two months. It's a legitimate phobia. And speaking of showers, another reason I took whore's baths for two months is due to the shower scene in Psycho. So for two months when I was 9 or 10, I was scared of showers.
Failure- This covers parenting, work, school, life. I overthink things and waste a lot of time in doing so. It's silly, because at the end of the day, the only person who sees failure is me. I worry that some small interaction is going to shape my kids forever, that I ruined their chances to be successful at relationships or increased the odds that they'd grow up to be raging alcoholics. I worry and worry is a waste of time and energy. Health Issues- I am beginning to face my own mortality after years of defying it. I am not afraid of dying, I am afraid of suffering or being unable to help myself. There is so much that doctors still don't understand about the human body, they're still guessing about it's function.
Heights/falling. I'm fine if I'm high up but there's no danger of falling (like being in an office on the 99th floor), but an open roof top or even a small stepstool are challenging. Snakes. Freak me the fuck out. Riding shotgun with my daughter driving. I'd rather hug a cobra.
Snakes. Generic, I know, but I am completely terrified of snakes. I even have to look away from the TV if there is a snake on screen. Last year my friends and I went to an arts festival here in town and were sitting around in one of the beer gardens having some beers. When they found a table and all sat down, I had to stand on the other side of the patio area and wait because there was a man holding a big ass snake standing at the table next to them and I couldn't bring myself to get that close to it. Ugh...I've gotten the shivers 2-3 times while typing this out just thinking about the damn things.
Health: Right now I feel great, fucking 5 stars, A+, etc... but every time I see some 70+ year old being loaded into a handicap van or hobbling along in the grocery store my brain creates a story for them. It use to be that I think they were just lazy. Hadn't taken care of themselves as they got older and their age caught up with them. Now I wonder what tragedy may have befallen them. Did they suffer and injury? Did a loved one fall on ill health and in an effort to care for them they themselves sacrificed their own health. I could go on and on about the crazy shit I think. It all terrifies me. Never finding "It": I haven't found a job that I could call a career. I've been doing my day job for 10 years now and every day I think about getting out. Trouble is the money is too good and too easy. Until it isn't I'll probably keep doing it. I have a few side businesses that add to the slush fund and contribute to my lifestyle but I'm largely bored with them already and I'm (always?) looking for something new. Plenty of ideas of things that "might" fit the bill... but nothing that leaps out, grabs me by the balls and screams DO THIS NOW. I fear I might never find that something.
Every time I go to a baseball game, which is often, I refuse to sit too close behind the third or first base line. I'm terrified of a foul line drive smacking me in the face. I vastly prefer the upper decks or the outfield for this reason. Also, it's cheaper and I'm poor as hell. Hi, ladies.
I've never been a worrier, so many things that can and are going to happen to me in the future (health, loved ones dying) have never really given me much cause for concern. I can put it out of my mind until it actually happens. Needles, or Satan's tiny penis as I lovingly refer to them, are fucking terrifying. I don't know why I have this fear, but I do remember about 5 years ago when my younger sister (who was 9 at the time, I was 15) went to get flu shots. When the nurse came in the room, she asked who wanted to go first. My little sister was concerned about the shot, so reluctantly I gave in to being the first ("Your the older one, you can set the example" blah blah blah...fuck you.). I was feeling queasy before she had even brought out the needle, but when I saw it a pang of fear struck my tiny little heart. The nurse rubbed down my arm with the antiseptic and I looked into her eyes...and fainted. The only time in my life this has ever happened. I woke up like 2 minutes later and saw that after I had fainted, they gave the shot to my sister and she didn't even flinch. I eventually got the shot after another bout with the needle. I still hear this story at family get-togethers and holiday meals...and it is often met with death stares and threats. Also, fuck snakes and scary animals that I can't tell what they are thinking. Everything else with I'm fairly cool with.
Just thought of another one: Unexpected, premarital pregnancy. The Girlfriend and I are pretty careful, but the chance of that still happening freaks the fuck out of me. I can barely take care of myself, I don't need that kind of responsibility.
I'm scared of heights, but consider it perfectly rational. Why? Because I'm not scared of heights per se. I just recognize how mind-blowingly klutzy I am. I want to limit the potential injuries that my ineptitude can cause. I'm right on board with needles. I'll add on to that cutting, as in surgery. Anything puncturing the skin GIVES ME THE FUCKIN' WILLIES. Don't want a needle in me, don't want to see someone else get injected, and hell, I don't even want to see a needle. Literally, the image of a needle sitting on a table is enough to make me shudder. This, but extend it from your job to your whole life. It's not quite the fear of settling, or or failure. It's not that I am afraid of being unable to do things, or not having the balls for it. I'm afraid of never figuring out what it is that I want to strive for. I'm afraid of drifting. What I am afraid of is that I'll never identify something truly worth striving for. That I'll never find something I'm truly passionate about, and that I'll either be mired in mediocrity or that what success I do have just won't matter to me. I'm extremely jealous when I hear people who are passionate about their jobs, music, etc., because I just don't know what it feels like to be that intensely dedicated and interested in something. I don't want to look back forty years from now, and register little more than a shoulder shrug.
Finding out I have MS, having a stoke, or having some kind of accident that turns me into a para or quadriplegic. I would become a burden to my family and all of my personal and career dreams would be shattered. It happens all the time to all types of people. I'm also scared of flying roaches. Ugh...just the thought of one landing in my hair makes me shudder.