Fears and Phobias

[Gr8FuL]

So i'm 24 years old..and for as long as i can remember i have been soo afraid of Bees and hornets(flying stinging things that buzz) its absolutley crazy!! I'm no small fella either let me tell ya..and to see a 6'5'' 270 lb Guy starting flailing his arms and jumping around all of a sudden is a pretty amusing thing..so i'm told! Honestly though its crazy...i dont even gotta see it.. just hear the buzzin and i'm off...spinnin around trying to find where it is so i can avoid it at al costs.. Its a crazy Fear. I try to tell myself they wontbother me if i stay still and i'm more likely to get stung by jumping around and going all crazy when they are around but its an involuntary reaction. The thing is i'm not allergic to their stings i've been stung many times..i just dont get why i am soo scared of these little bugs...hahaha and nothing else not scared of spiders or snakes or mice or small enclosed areas or anything else i know of!! Anyone else have any crazy fears or phbias they wanna share..or advice on how to overcome such seemingly ridiculous fears like mine!!

Cheerz

Josh

[bradm]

How are you with other bugs, like gnats, mosquitos, dragonflies, ladybugs, etc.?

Aloha,

Brad

[StoneMtn]

It might sound ridiculous, but I can't stand the idea of getting a sliver. If I get a sliver under my skin, I am prepared to cut out that whole area of skin if necessary to get it out.

I don't know if that's exactly a phobia, but it's sure not rational.

[Gr8FuL]

Bradm...totally fine with all other bugs...They dont bother me one bit...just bees,waps, and hornets...its insane how crazy i get..man if one comes in my car..i'm all over the place.

[phorbesie]

i dunno...maybe try meditating? then once you can focus your mind and not let anything distract you, try meditating somewhere where there are bees and hornets?

lol

4beesie

[ReDD]

Heights and ghosts. When i'm up high my legs start shaking, my stomach drops and I feel queasy. The ghost thing is just an irratinal silly fear but I honestly get super freaked out.

[Gr8FuL]

its crazy....fear is sucha intense emotion for sure...heights get me too red..i forgot that....even if i fly a kite looking up at it makes me feel right queezy...but nothing compared to Bees n hornets hahaha....

[SmoothedShredder]

Heights and loud noises... also fast speeds and corners... espcially in the rain and ice.

I like Bee's , And Ghosts, well pretty much any demon which inhabits this world. Especially the devil , he's a friend of a friend of mine.

~W

[Guest Low Roller]

I have a huge fear of heights, but just in open spaces. If I'm in an elevator or a plane, I'm fine. If I'm climbing a tree, scafolding, rock climbing or anything 'exposed' then I get crazy vertigo, my knees buckle, I break out into a cold sweat; basically start feeling like death is lurking behind me throwing banana peels under my feet.

To combat this fear I decided to climb the Eiffel f'n Tower one step at a time. To climb the Eiffel Tower, you can either take the elevator one floor at a time, or essentially attempt to climb what amounts to an endless stairwell heading towards the heavens.

I was doing fine for the first 150 steps, it was really no different than climbing up to the Booche and Douglas' 9th floor apartment. Then I made the critical mistake of looking down. Fear gripped me. I felt a weakness in my knees, but I was determined not to succumb to fear. I persevered. I kept repeating to myself that thousands of people walk these stairs, why would I be the one to plunge to a messy death? I kept going... 200 steps... 250 steps... 300 steps... and that's when I felt the most horrible feeling ever for a person of my condition: swaying and vibration. I felt the entire Eiffel Tower oscillating under my feet, and I saw the ground far below from the gap in between the stairs. The horror.

Luckily I made it to the 1st floor without further incident. Definitely shooken, slightly pale, yet content that I have made it to the platform of the Eiffel Tower. The 1st floor stands at 57.63m, which by no means is comparable to the Tower of Babel, yet the climb felt quite monumental. I celebrated my victorious acension by writing my name in the South (?) corner of the Tower (LJFH & Graham! Look out for my name!)

Then my girlfriend Andrea spoke out: "This is fun! Let's climb to the second floor!"

My heart sunk into the pit of my stomach, and my courage felt like retreating with its tail between its legs. But who wants to show weakness in front of the woman they are trying to court?? It's a complete faux-pas that may forever stain the relationship. I accepted her request.

Having left the safety of the 1st floor platform, we returned to the stairwell, and with it we returned to the gaps between the stairs and, worst of all, the oscillating... the horrible, horrible oscillating.

350 steps... 400 steps... 450 steps!! It's never-ending!!!

My grip on the railing had now become as determined as that of a vice grip. I made sure to at all times have at the very least three points of contact with some surface of the Tower.

500 steps... 550 steps... My God, the swaying...

At this point my girlfriend notices my peril. "Are you alright?"

"I'm afraid of heights"

"I can tell. You're as pale as a ghost, and you should see the look on your face... it's priceless!"

600 steps... 650 steps... I feel like saving fate the trouble and letting gravity take care of the job on its own. 704 steps... I made it! I spilled out onto the platform on the 2nd floor, standing 115.75m in the air.

The scenery was absolutely breathtaking. I have never seen as beautiful a sight as I did on that 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower. We watched the sun set on the Seine river, as Paris was being plunged in darkness from the east. The views and the sights were magical.

No words could do real justice for that moment, but my girlfriend tried: "Let's climb up to the top!"

"NO FUCKING WAY!!!"

and that's how I confronted my fear. What were we talking about?

[Booche]

I'm afraid of reading Roller's elongated post.

[Guest Low Roller]

I'm also afraid of caffeine, but I'm confronting that fear as we speak...

[bokonon]

i used to be incredibly afraid of dogs because i got bit on the throat when i was around nine or so. i couldn't go near any dogs for years without having panic attacks. then i started reading a little about them, both fiction and non-fiction, and i'm alright with them now. some dogs i actually really like and i never get panic attacks anymore. mind you, reading is my solution to all life's problems, that and beer.

[bouche]

704 steps... I made it! I spilled out onto the platform on the 2nd floor, standing 115.75m in the air.

atta boy!

I have the spiders thing. On the weekend, ms.hux put a dried up dead dandylion on my leg and I freaked out slightly. It doesn't matter how small or harmless these little friggers are, they always seem to get me.

[timouse]

like low roller i'm also terribly afraid of heights in open spaces. (planes, elevators, no biggie. eiffel tower stairs, no thanks )

re-shingling my front porch a couple years ago was a start to confronting this fear, after 3 days on a ladder i was no longer as freaked out.

still not happy about heights. i saw a documentary on construction ironworkers, they claim that you get totally accustomed to being up in the air. bull puckey!

[Gr8FuL]

Yeah no doubt..i wouldnt get used to it..Iron workers are crazy...thats wayyyy too high

[Ms.Huxtable]

When I was 16 years old and in my very first apartment, I bought an old, used, electric kettle from a garage sale. When I plugged it in, it sparked and zapped me and then the kitchen curtains caught on fire. I was able to extinguish the flames before anything got too far out of hand, but it took me a good 45 minutes to muster up the courage to unplug the kettle. (Do I wear rubber soles? Do I not wear rubber soles? Would an oven mitt help or make it worse? Am I going to get electricuted again? etc.) I was absolutely terrified of electricity from that moment on.

Every time I had to vacuum my apartment I would wait for a friend to come over to plug it in and unplug it for me. I didn't use any electrical appliances unless someone was present. I tried to plug things in, but I would just sit there forever with a plug in my hand about two or three inches away from the outlet.

I got over the fear after a few years by reading about basic electricity and forcing myself to plug things in.

I was also afraid of heights and then I jumped out of a plane a few times. That helped.

[Kaidy Mae]

I have this crazy, overwhelming fear of time. The concept of it really. That, and the dark. There is nothing more torturous to me than to be kept in a dark room with nothing but the sound of a ticking clock. I stopped playing piano as a kid because the metronome freaked me right out. I'd have anxiety attacks, but the teacher insisted that I could not learn without it. I eventually couldn't handle it and quit taking lessons with her. To this day, I still suck at playing the piano.

[M]

MICE! I hate the little fuckers. And they like to terrorize me.

Our old apartment, one ran right at me and I ran upstairs, packed my bags standing on my bed while my friend laughed at me the whole time. I called Mike and Jer (who were playing on the east coast) SCREAMING. (Like they could help from out there!!!) I then moved into my friend’s place until the boys got back from the east coast and an exterminator was called. I needed to drink whiskey for 4 hours before I stopped shaking.

Then, at our latest apartment, I saw one in the kitchen once. Again, boys out on tour. I ran up to my room and sat on my bed in a corner facing the wall & crying until Derrick could came over to calm me down. This happened in February, we got an exterminator very soon after and haven’t seen once since… but ONLY THIS WEEK have I been able to go into the kitchen. The poor boys have been very nice about getting things from there for me up until now.

The other week I was in the Boston airport having a pint when a little fucker ran at me. I let out a blood curdling scream and jumped on my chair and continued to scream. Of course noone else in the bar saw the mouse b/c my high pitched wail had frightened it away so I was just the crazy girl screaming on a chair in a bar.

Ugh, I hate those fuckers. I think that’s my only phobia but it’s a big one!!!

[fluffhead77]

ah that sucks M...I know a few people that have mice on the #1 hitlist of critters they's like to see permantely exterminated from the earth...

moths. I hate them. I cower in corners and hope that their ugly, furry little bodies get burned by the heat of the light bulb...I grew up in very VERY old place in England, and one day whilst playing with my neighbour in the cobblestone courtyard we happend upon a HUGE furry moth folded up on the coal shed door. I'm talking like MONSTER! (I'm sure it was the same size as the one that AL is talking about in the song Moth)

Well, never in my life had I seen such an insect and wanted to take a closer look, so we leaned in closer for a better look...it SPIT AT US! A long thin stream of what I can only guess was spit, or something like it because we were invading it's space, was hurled in our direction. We ran, screaming, from the door to the other side of the yard terrified that it was going to chase us down and eat us alive, or at least try and spit at us again.

From that day on, I knew how Godzilla must have felt battling Mothra...scared shitless! From there the phobia grew...i wore a lot of wool sweaters as a child b/c of the dampness of the british isles. In noticing some holes in the shoulders of a sweater one day, I asked my mother " Why are there holes in my sweater?"

"Well Brian, moths like to eat wool...."

LOST IT!

FREAKED OUT!

to this day I still hate moths...

[PhishyK]

For me, it's gotta be heights, spiders, and NEEDLES. Ack! I am terrified of syringes and the ensuing insertion of them in to my body. Yuck!

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

I'm with you on the needles. And Spaulding Gray's got a great movie called Gray's Anatomy, the beginning of which is ten or so minutes of people talking about objects they'd had embedded in their eyes - long bits of flying metal, fish hooks, and so on... that kind of gets to me too.

[gentlemonkey]

1- being hit by a car (from behind), getting knocked forward, and one of the front tires stopping between my legs directly on my testicles.

2- scenario - bear fight in a public forum.. like gladiator style, but no weapons or armour, and in a mall food court, with families running around freaking out. usually i am devoured, but I have conquered a few.

3- most of my co-workers

Edited June 7, 2005 by Guest

[Jaimoe]

I have this fear that one day Diana Krall and The Tea Party may one day decide to collaborate.

[Gr8FuL]

BAhahahahahahaha....thats very scary indeed!!

[Esau]

Truthfully I don't have alot of fears or phobias..at least that I am aware of anyway.

I work on those big electrical towers ya'll see in fields,alot of stacks in industrial settings(usually changing the flashing warning lights) and occasionally on those narrow red & white communication towers so heights is not a problem.No insect,animal,water,dark,quiet,solitude and for those who know me know needles aren't an issue (having as many tattoos as I have).

But....ask me to get up & say a few words in front of a crowd of people...even people I know and I almost can't or won't do it.This has been a problem all my life,at least as long as I can remember anyway & I was the best man at my brothers & then two other friends weddings.Crazy.