What is your irrational fear?

Post Reply New Topic

I thought of this thread purely because sometime this afternoon I was confronted with an irrational fear of mine- there was an enormous spider in the bathroom. I hate these things so much. What makes you this frightened?

Being the center of attention would have to be mine. I do everything I can to avoid being noticed and blend in to the background.

Me, too. And it's usually coupled with this paranoia of me believing anyone questioning me is there to make me look stupid and/or make fun of me.

I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

I agree with dexkaden and vae I have an irrational fear of being questioned by people - The other day I returned something I didn't want to a shop under there no questions asked 16 day return policy, and guess...Yes they wanted to know my postcode!

I've had necrophobia since I was a child: i.e., fear of death, dying, and corpses.

For me, it was always the "corpses" bit that frightened me most. Thankfully, I can talk about it now without freezing; I put myself through a sort of "progressive desensitization" during my teen years. I even wrote mystery stories with descriptions of corpses; and fantasy stories that included the walking dead (zombies, mummies, etc.).

I don't know what caused it; I didn't see a monster movie involving undead until about a year ago; and that was to prove to myself that I could sit through it and not have a panic attack (I could, and did--twice.) It's quite possible that the first time I saw a picture of a dead body--an Egyptian mummy in a book about them--was somehow "traumatic" enough to start off the whole thing. I'll admit I'd had a fascination about death since about age 2 or so, which is when I discovered it existed.

However, my progressive-desensitization scheme still hasn't been good enough for me not to make an excuse that the biology floor's smell sickened me, so I wouldn't have to go there and do housekeeping while I was on the custodial crew. It doesn't sicken me as badly as I claimed; it's just the thought of all those dead things--including a human cadaver--preserved there that scares me.

Frog dissection, incidentally, was fascinating; I think that's far enough away from a human corpse that I didn't have much of a problem.

All right, I'll admit it: I do have a bit of an adrenaline rush just from talking about it. But that's better than two hours frozen under my bedcovers, afraid to even think the word "mummy".

Driving

Fear of Commited Relationships

needles. and crowds.

...actually just people in general.

me too and crowds

Spiders (or anything with more than four legs- no, removing four legs from a spider does NOT render it non-scary), being homeless, dying and going to hell, going insane, gaining weight (or not losing any more), and abandonment. Note: Some of these are not "unreasoable" in form but merely in intensity/the pace at which they "drive" me.

Huh. Yeah, I have a fear of needles, too... even today I have to lie down when I get my blood drawn, or I'll pass out or start shaking too hard so the nurse can't properly find a vein. It used to be worse--when I was twelve, they had to chase me around the doctor's office, then hold me down.

It's kind of funny when I think about it today.

What's even weirder is that I have a nervous habit of cutting or scratching myself to release tension. I don't do it all that often (once a month, maybe) but I'm not at all afraid of that--it's just when somebody else comes at me with a needle that I'm terrified!

Now, if that's not strange, I don't know what is.

The irrational one is high places, unless I'm behind a solid wall or locked tightly in or something.

The irrational one is that Homeland Security might start acting the way the drug police do and start targeting anyone that triggers their "oddball" radar. However, in that it really helps to be 67, female, (Call YOU spell "Li'l Ol' Lady", Ossisfer Krupke?) and visibly middle class and (shamefully) mainstream white.

Ex-cutter needlephobe here! ((Like I should be proud of that, but I did say EX, and it's relevant to the topic))

Actually, what I fear is VEINS. I hate them. I don't even like to look at wrists. ((One of the easiets ways to freak me out is to put pressure on the inside of one of my wrists. I've gone from major "touchaphobia" to beign kind of impervious to most "normal" annoyances but that enevr went away.)) So, I can handle intramuscular shots but getting my blood drawn or getting something injected into a vein creeps the f--- out of me. Though I've gotten better about it, I do still kind of need someone there holding my hand when I get blood drawn. Last time I was having that done my dad was trying to make me laugh so he kept saying, "That's a biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig needle!" I'm grinning thinking about it- that was pretty smart of him, though admittedly mean.

Fire makes me very nervious

Spiders I have a real bad phobia.