Porcelain dolls. They creep me the fuck out. There's actually a reason for this. Spoiler When I was younger, about 4, my mother took me with her to visit my aunt. On the ay there I was nodding off but managed to stay awake, but as they were talking sure enough I passed out in my mother's arms. So my aunt tells her to put me down in her room. Now this was about 4 or 5 pm so it was still light out. So my mom takes my conked out ass and put me in my aunt's room. Now my aunt was a widow and as a hobby she collected those creepy porcelain dolls. She kept them in her room and they were EVERYWHERE. Although I had been to her house before, I had no idea about this since I'd never been in her room (in Peru, well Latin America in general, you simply didn't go into an adult's bedroom even if an axe murderer was chasing you. It just wasn't done.) When I came to it was dusk, so there was enough light for me to see all around me, even though I had no idea where I was. All I could see were those horrible soulless eyes staring, waiting for me to make a move so they could drag me into their hell. I basically stayed there, with the blankets frantically gathered around me, frozen in fear for maybe an hour until my mother came and got me, at which time I ran to her screaming in horror. Fuck them. They want my soul. BUT THEY CAN'T HAVE IT.
I'll second Noland on the missing children. My heart wrenches at the thought of them disappearing. I have issues with not being in control. Not that I must have everything MY way, I just need to be driving, have my money, and a plan. I always need to be able to escape is probably the best way to explain it. I always know where the exits are when I enter a building, I tend to have to keep my back to the wall, don't like to be too crowded, etc. Being powerless is what it boils down to. Fuck that noise, it sucked when I was six and I'll never, ever forget it. edited to add: Damn porcelain dolls. The eyes are scary.
Tarantulas. I'm OK with spiders, I just HATE tarantulas. I saw Arachnophobia at too young an age and for some reason only saw the part where the guy gets bit in the jungle and the part where they come out of the shower drain. I don't know the plot of the movie, I just know those two parts. Also, I'm not exactly scared of them, but clowns make me uncomfortable. I don't run and scream from them, but I would prefer clowns leave me alone.
I'll second clowns. Those creepy fuckers are not funny. Clowns remind me of serial killers and child molesters. I also can't stand needles. They make me pass out. I've given myself two black eyes over it. The grasshoppers that grow up to the size of your hand creep me the fuck out. I had one fly through the air vents on my truck, and start crawling up my leg. Yeah, I went off the road over that one. I ended up jumping out of my truck while it was still moving. Yes, I have a mega fear of them. I can catch alligators, snakes, spiders, frogs, but put me in a room with a giant grasshopper, and we are going to have problems.
Weirdly, this exactly describes me. What the fuck, man. But yeah, I've taught climbing and rappelling courses, I'm perfectly okay being really high off the ground, but I'm a little bitch going up a 10 foot ladder. I think it's more of a "things breaking" phobia than an actual fear of heights. Being on the bottom of some of the multi-level subway stops freaks me out sometimes and I start inspecting the steel beams that have held them up for decades, afraid that THIS is the time I become a story on the news.
I also have the heights one, and for me it's intrinsically tied in with awareness of my own clumsiness. Given that I trip over my own feet all the time, this seems like a recipe for disaster.
I get freaked out by spiders, bugs, and especially wasps. I also hate elevators. I take the stairs whenever I can.
I'm terrified of little dots, little clusters of things...ugh, just typing the word 'cluster' makes me want to vomit. I am apparently not alone in this, although my friends are just absolute dickheads about it. And no, I have no idea what freaks me out about it, other than occasionally I will catch sight of little clusters of things and be struck by the horrible wrongness of it to the point that it feels like the bottom drops out of the world and your skin crawls and you want to look away but it's just so awful that your eyes are glued to it and then you're crying and everyone is making fun of you for being a weirdo.
Heights. I can fly, stand on top of tall buildings, bridges anything where I feel steady and supported, I'm fine. But if it one of those situations where there is a legitimate chance of falling, or I seem like I am unsupported I definitely get very uneasy. I once went on one of the mega swings at six flags, and thank god I went with a good friend, and my girlfriend because other wise I would have got hoisted in the air, and immediately put back down. Hell even in front of my girl I was asking to be put back on Terra Firma, in a far less than manly fashion. The fact that the release mechanism got stuck, and my buddy had to pull on it quite a few times, did not help. Also being out to sea and taking a swim. (Fuck you people, the second you set foot in the ocean, you are no longer even close to the top of the food chain. And you can't move as effectively.) I'm always worried that I am going to wind up in a Man o' War's tentacles. I can however swim, and am not afraid of drowning.
I hate needles. I have no problems when it comes to knives, open wounds, blood or anything like that. But show me a needle, and I tense up really quick. I don't screaming or anything, but man do i ever tense up bad. I really have no idea where this comes from at all. And funny thing is, I date a insulin dependent diabetic for 5.5 years, and for about 2 of those i was giving her, her twice daily injections, yea that was fun.
I don't like working off ladders. Heights are fine, I can climb to the top of a 200' tower, I can look down through the glass floor at the CN Tower or stand on a roof or piece of machinery but working anything past the 9th step on a 12' ladder, 7th step on a 10' ladder 6th step on a 8' ladder and 4th step on a 6' ladder I can't do safely. My legs start shanking like crazy, and I get this feeling in my chest like on on a roller coaster. It makes me wonder how old tradesmen can stand on the top step of a 14' three legged wooden ladder hoisting up 4" ridgd pipe. Extension ladders can suck my dick. Flimsy fuckers of death they are.
I used to say I was afraid of heights, but I can go up in a tall building, walk up to the window and I'm fine. I don't have an irrational fear of heights... I just can't climb. Ladders, or anything steeper than a 45 degree angle, forget it, I'm not going up. I chalk it up to my complete lack of motor skills. My true phobia is simple life forms: Worms, slugs... Jesus Christ, it's hard just to type. Yes, I am a fucking pussy.
My biggest fear is my loved ones dying. I am a million times more scared of my dad dying than my own death, which is awesome because he is most likely going to die before I am. My second worst fear - and I think what classifies as my only phobia, if we want to get all technical about it - is bugs crawling in my ears. Pretty sure I've talked about this before, but nothing makes me more terrified than the thought of that happening. With the exception of house centipedes (and, actually, probably many more things) I'm actually less scared of bugs the larger they get, because then they won't be able to crawl into my ears undetected. Earwigs, beetles, moths, and cockroaches are the worst because those are the specific bugs I've heard about this happening with. The only times I've hit people are the couple of times someone found this fear funny, and tried to stick their finger in my ear as a joke. I hit them, and then I started crying. It's no fucking joke. A couple other fears can be lumped into the umbrella fear of falling. I'm not scared of heights, though. I'll be up high as long as I'm not at the edge of whatever it is I'm up on. It's funny to see how many people are afraid of ladders here, because I don't like them because I'm afraid of falling off them. I'm really scared of falling down stairs. And I'm a little scared of walking across bridges (but not driving across them for whatever reason) because they might collapse, and I used to have a recurring nightmare about that. When I'm in control of the falling, though, I don't mind. I like cliff diving, and I would go skydiving and bungee jumping. Just not when it's an accident. I'm scared of being a victim of random violence - just a freak accident of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have the worst luck, it's bound to happen at some point. I'm terrified of crazy people. I hate the idea of never being able to understand them or reason with them or predict what they could do. The fact that they're casually walking around New York and fairly easy to come across is not fun for me.
The black people drowning thing cracks me up, I've almost drowned twice, once at the Great Barrier Reef when I was six and my dad thought he was being funny by throwing me off the boat and into the water only to be swept away by the current and needing a lifeguard (or Australian equivalent) to save me. The other time was this past summer when I went out on the lake by myself bombed out of my mind (definitely not playing that game again) when everyone else was passed out and almost went down for the count. And I'm STILL not afraid of drowning.
My "fear" of heights is a strange thing. Cause I absolutely LOVE heights. One of my good friends used to live in the Hancock building 70 stories up and I loved being up there. Love going to the top of tall buildings. I enjoy rock climbing. However, in all of these situations, my body isn't on the same page as my mind. Go up to the window of a tall building and look down...my mind is thinking "Damn this is cool, look at how high we are". Meanwhile, my body is feeling "WHOA, here comes some vertigo, lets make it feel like the floor is tipping you forward to your death!" Same with when I'm climbing. I'm focused and looking for my next move yet my body is tensing up and getting tingly even though i could sit back and not fall. Its annoying. That being said, after a beer or two, that vertigo goes away and I don't feel too weird gazing out over a tall balcony. I definitely have minor claustrophobia. It doesn't flare up all that often, but the thought of being trapped in a small area, buried alive, etc freaks me out to no end mentally. For example, I remember reading about a cave outside Austin where to get to the "goal", a small geode filled chamber in the center, there is a good 6-7 hours of spelunking. Much of it in areas where you have no more than a few inches on each side. That shit gives me anxiety just thinking about it. I just think of getting well in there and freaking out knowing that the only way to go out would be to crawl through hell for 5 fucking hours. Good god. I blame it on getting locked in a closet for an hour when I was younger by a sadistic neighbor I played hide and seek with.
Heights, with a twist. I don't mind heights as long as there's a railing or at least something to hold onto. The ATC tower I work on is about 120 feet high; I'll sit on the catwalk all day long and enjoy myself. The second I have to climb on TOP of the thing and do maintenance? I start murmuring "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" and getting the sweats. Sure, there's a little railing to hold onto... but when your hands have tools in them, and the wind is blasting sand and shit into your face, it's terrifying. Women. Put me in an all-male environment? I'm a confident motherfucker. I'll walk into pretty much any situation and do what I have to do. Tell me to give a class in front of five hundred people? No problem. Tell me that I have twenty minutes to fix the runway lights or else all air traffic in the airport is about to be grounded? I'm on it. Stick me in a restaurant and tell me to get the cute waitress's number? I'm right back to the "Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" and the sweats.