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Fears: Another "Dark Corner"

Sunday, August 3, 2008


My brother wrote a fascinating post on his blog exploring all of my siblings' past fears/phobias, then analyzing them and ranking them. It was entertaining, insightful, and really amusing at times...
If my family and childhood fears sound at ALL interesting to you, click:
What Are You Afraid Of?

but even if you DON'T read his, ask yourself-- what were YOUR big childhood fears, rational or irrational? How do you feel about them now?

Mine was fires and tornadoes. I was terrified of house fires all through the autumn and winter, and as soon as March would hit, it would switch completely over to tornadoes. I blame the elementary school and it's endless fire and tornado drills, along with VIDEO and FILM of how to stay safe. It all just provided fuel to my fear. I was DEADLY afraid. I would even cry on the school bus trip home, because halfway home it would hit me-- "I'm almost home and my house could catch on FIRE and we'd all lose our stuff and maybe even die and I don't want to climb out of a second-story window and......" on and on. Like I said, it was heart-grippingly bad. And it felt never-ending.

But then I remember being a young teenager, several years later, and one day thinking, "I used to be so afraid. I'm not anymore. When did that happen?" I remember that epiphany and feeling deeply grateful that the fear was finally gone.

Anyway... random little post... but post a comment: What was YOUR fear? How do you feel now?

14 comments:

  1. I am afraid of crickets. Growing up (in Malibu, CA) I had my bed in the corner, like most kids do. In the summer I would be haunted by their "singing" and one day I could hear it getting louder and louder (think the Raven by EA Poe) anyway, I woke up screaming as a 9 year old and my dad came in and ripped my bed apart and there it was in the corner on the floor. I had so many nightmares I moved my bed to the middle of the room and to that day I will never have my bed or any of my kids beds in the corner, forget that I now live in Denver and there are no crickets here, it doesn't matter...I am still afraid! LOL

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  2. I was always afraid to take the garbage out to the curb after dark. My sisters didn't like it either so we would take turns running the trash out to the curb the night before the trash pick-up and the other one would watch at the front door to make sure we got back safe. I'm not afraid anymore but I understand why it was scary. Who knows who is out there lurking in the dark!!!

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  3. I was afraid my sister would get sucked into the side of a swimming pool. I know, not rational. But I had a nightmare about it once and it stayed with me for a while. I think it originated when my cousins let us watch The Poltergeist...

    And fires. Yes. And kidnappers. And earth quakes. And ALL of those came from videos they showed us at school!

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  4. You know, I forgot until now just HOW MANY drills we had. I think I even cried at one or two of them when I was in 11th grad...um, kindergarten. Awesome memeory!

    And I almost want to do a post on your friends'/blog followers' awesome fears.!

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  5. When I was little I had a recurring nightmare about our house catching on fire and in the dream my family all got in the fridge to save themselves but there was no room for me so I got in the bathtub. i GUESS I thought cold/water saved you from fire. So in second grade we moved houses and I got to chose which bedroom upstairs I wanted since I was the oldest kid. I chose the one next to the bathroom so I was safe from fires...years later I realized that my sister was safest b/c her room was next to the stairs! :)

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  6. As a little girl living in El Paso, I was afraid of the street light that shined through my bedroom window. As a teenager living in La Habra, I was afraid of windows that had the curtains open at night.

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  7. I don't even know where to begin on all my fears. My childhood fears were so vivid and diminished as I became older, but now I have a whole new set of fears and paranoias as a mother.
    Growing up in California, earthquakes was always the big thing and I lived through a few of them. But I think a fear I have always carried and to which many of my other fears stem from is....heights. I'll never get over it.

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  8. You know, it's funny- as a kid, I don't really remember being really afraid of much except Poltergeist III and The Lady in White (the only two movies that gave me nightmares)- even in 6th grade when we had to deal with a real tornado, I wasn't really scared...
    As an adult, two irrational fears that I have are 1) I will get the irresistible urge to open the car door while the car is moving and 2) when I am driving over a bridge -any bridge- I will have some kind of muscle spasm that will cause me to jerk the steering wheel and drive over the edge.
    Weird, I know (though I think Beckie shares at least one of those irrational fears... maybe not...)

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  9. I can't even begin to make a list. My fears have changed over the years. I had an intense fear of the wind as a kid... the noise it made in our swamp cooler was SO creepy. I totally get the tornado thing. As I got older, though, I think they actually got less rational.

    I think it's part of being prone to anxiety.

    Right now, my short list is:
    --Enclosed spaces
    --clowns
    --"little people" (I KNOW, totally un-PC of me)
    --bridges (mostly because drowning in a car would be my least favorite way to die)
    --heights in general
    --people having seizures.

    I told you. TOTALLY irrational, for the most part.

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  10. Steven went over my Body Snatchers fear and I commented that I was afraid of the theme to Jaws and the cracks under closed doors. All of these are pretty silly and none of them are problems now thank goodness.

    I suppose that I never really had any rational fears. I think that like most children in Missouri I was pretty scared when the tornado sirens went off. And like many children in the world, thunderstorms made me uneasy.

    Now, I love storm! I think some of my fears include walking in the dark not knowing where I am or where I am going, deep fathomless water...I'm not sure what else.

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  11. I too, was TERRIFIED of house fires, and I even remember not wanting that fire ladder we had to be stored in my room b/c there was a picture of a lady using it and it would scare me so badly. I still get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when thinking of a fire plan for the family.
    My current fears are rational, in my humble opinion, but I do have a morbid obsession with dying in a way no one expects. For instance, I'm here in Iraq and people would be worried about bombs and such, but I'm worried about choking on a carrot or tripping really badly, because wouldn't that be ironic? Don't ya think?

    Elise, I share both of those.

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  12. I have a lot of fears, but some of the more strange/irrational ones are:

    - those silverfish bugs that have like a gazillion legs. When you squish them, all their little legs keeping moving. I get the shivers even thinking about them

    - swimming in lakes -- if I can't see the bottom clearly, I ain't going in

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  13. I used to be afraid of bad storms - tornadoes and the like. Once while running cross country practice after school the sky turned an eerie green. We weren't at the school (as we had to run far away from school) and so we took shelter at a random house until things cleared up. Bad weather still makes me a bit anxious, but thankfully I gave cross country a while ago!

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  14. Anonymous12:34 AM

    I was always afraid of what was under my bed. I remember getting a running jump from the hallway and trying to clear the floor to get onto my bed. I'm not really sure what I thought was under there, but it definitely motivated me enough not to let my feet dangle...

    Rochelle

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