March 01, 2008

• Dead animals/people. I can confront and face down other fears, but not that one.
• Great question! I feel when I stand at the top of a staircase that I am drawn to tumble to the bottom of it, landing in an insensate broken heap. Oh, and spiders. Ewwww.
• Oh, fish tick, that feeling must be a horrible and odd one! I've had a similar feeling while driving next to a concrete highway divider and marveling at how frighteningly easy it would be to just turn the steering wheel a fraction, smashing into the divider.
• And in keeping with path's comment, I find open coffins really unsettling; can't understand why the displaying of an insensate husk is appropriate in any circumstance.
• Walking around a jet airplane, and that unexpected exhaust will blow/melt my head off.
• Traffic lights (signals). They are too anthropomorphic for my tastes and yet they are bizarre and mechanical and eeeeech just freaky.
• Capt. Renault, when in your daily life do you walk around a jet airplane? Just curious!
• Airshows. Or landing at LaGuardia.
• Mine have to do with limitations of mobility: I fear spraining an ankle (which isn't so far-fetched), or that I'll be pinned by a car against a wall (a scenario that is possible at a corner I wait at daily, but really isn't all that probable).
• I get scared about chopping off fingers when cutting up pumpkin.
• I fear that bananas and grapes will miscegenate creating a hybrid grananape that could rise up & cause unforeseen political troubles in China and the Near-East. This is why I always keep them strictly separate in the crisper drawers in the fridge.
• I've got two: one is I am standing at the bus stop, or maybe just at a crosswalk, when a bus swings by and the mirror just barely clips my head, instantly erasing my brain but leaving no clear mark. two is I am driving with my elbow out the window and it it somehow gets sheared off by another car or a jersey barrier.
• Well, heights- pretty ordinary. What happens when I am in a situation that triggers my phobia is that I fear my legs are going to act by themselves and involuntarily jump over whatever precipice is nearby. I get the same feeling when in a skyscraper with glass walls- I feel as if my entire body will abandon my control and will hurl itself through the glass to a certain death below. I can be up high if there is a non-transparent railing/barrier that is at least chest high. Oddly enough, airplanes don't bother me a bit - the total enclosure makes it seem safe. The other weird manifestation of my height reaction is that often my testicles will tingle in a disturbing manner and the points behind my ears will feel as if someone is applying jujitsu nerve pressure to those points- painful! I trace my fear of heights to when I was 6 and vsiting Edinburgh Castle- I came running up a dark stairwell to suddenly find my self on the edge of a vertigo inducing sheer drop -there was no railing back in those days- I froze in absolute terror and had to physically to be carried off by my dad who had to take several minutes to talk me back to rationality.
• MonkeyFilter: often my testicles will tingle in a disturbing manner My biggest fear is that you people will quit posting this kind of stuff. That, and tape worms getting into my brain. Ick.
• I've had that one too, Kamus... well, um, except for the testicular tingling. That would be frightening too, but for a whole 'nother reason. I'm REALLY afraid of drains. Like I won't swim over one in the pool. Eccchhhh... they're just LURKING there in the water, waiting to SUCK ME DOWN into some netherworld of yuckiness. Or possibly hoover my intestines out. *shudder*
• But...how could testicle tingling EVER be disturbing?
• I'm afraid that I'll fall down the stairs, too! It got worse since babymeredithea was born. Now I'm afraid that I'll fall down the stairs while I'm carrying her.
• Not my irrational fear, but a friend of mine won't go for walks in his neighborhood because he's afraid he'll be accused of child molestation. There are no schools in his immediate neighborhood, and he is by no means inclined to molest children. He does watch one hell of a lot of TV, though.
• But...how could testicle tingling EVER be disturbing? During a physical?
• Well heights, mainly. But to a lesser extent, handling sick animals. I'm not afraid of the animals, but afraid that I'll hurt them more. Doesn't come up that often.
• I'm terrified that I'm actually completely insane and I don't know and - this is incredibly embarrassing - I'll be using the restroom in a public place - like at a restaurant, when suddenly *FLASH, SANITY RESTORED* I'm not actually in the bathroom stall at all. I'm in the middle of the restaurant, doing my business in total public. Horrible.
• how could testicle tingling EVER be disturbing? So... Ralph's a woman, it turns out.
• Everybody needs to say right now if they're serious or if they're joking.
• I was serious about the grananapes. So serious I added them to my Firefox dictionary.
• serious or if they're joking. smoking.
• Being homeless.
• I can totally relate with the heights thing. If it's a "safe" height, like at the top of a climb and I'm tied in, it's fine. But if theres any way that I could jump to my death, then I am terrified (internally) that I will lose it and jump. Also terrified of demonic posession. When I watched the excorsist I slpt with Rosaries for months. posting drunken
• I also have the steps thing. Every single time that I walk down the stairs, I imagine a new horrible way of slipping/tripping/falling and ending up incredibly injured/dead. Sometimes I will even physically wince at the thought of how terrible it was. The heights thing I might have a touch of as well. And it's usually only when there aren't barriers to prevent me from doing something. Like at the cathedral at Chartres. It was by far my favorite cathedral, but perhaps it was because it was unmarred by gates and fences and railings, and because it terrified/fascinated me. Like I said though, it's just a touch of fear on this one. Not even remotely approaching the insanity of the stairs thing.
• Being homeless. I was homeless for about 5 years in the 80's. Homelessness is not about the bad things you've seen with other homeless in your area, rather, it is about how you relate to others and society while you are in the situation of being homeless. Some can pull it off more or less non-traumatically, others are not so equipped. Irrational fears are not helpful.
• Zombies. No shit.
• I have most of the above mentioned fears and don't consider ANY of them to be irrational. .
• Ooh, ladyknight -- me too! I can't bear the Exorcist. Did you ever see the episode of Friends where they're reading the Exorcist and they get so scared of it they have to store the book in the freezer? My mom actually did that when she read the book in the 70s
• Wasn't that the Shining? I shame myself for knowing.
• It was "The Shining," Capt. Renault, and now my shame can negate yours.
• Could you be any more ashamed?
• Yeah, it *was* the Shining, now that you mention it (which I didn't find all that scary when I finally read it), but I remember the episode being particularly funny because my mom told me about The Exorcist living in the freezer, too.
• Darkened mirrors. I have the irrational fear that I'll be in a darkened/very dimly lit room, look into a mirror in that room, and see something moving around behind me in the reflection that's not there when I turn around. It's never happened...yet...but I still get the heebie-jeebie testicular tingles when I find myself looking into a glass darkly.
• OK, this is either going to sound stupid or disingenuous, but one of my biggest fears is telling people what my fears are. For one thing, it just brings them to the forefront of my mind. But also, although I'm sure it's not the case in this group, there's always someone who takes a perverse delight in constantly bringing up a subject once they know it bothers you.
• A lot of people have mentioned heights, and it seems my fear is fairly common. I don't suffer from vertigo, but on a cliff side or at the top of a tall building, I worry that I will feel compelled to throw myself off and will be unable to resist. Also, I find it hard to look down from the top of a tall escalator; the parallel lines receding into infinity are too mesmerizing.
• You would have hated what happened to me this morning - I was on a long down escalator at London Bridge and it stopped for no apparent reason. I nearly fell over forwards, but for a moment I didn't realise what had happened: I thought it was me that had suddenly lost my sense of balance. I don't have any fear of the things normally, but it did make me want to get off fairly quickly, in case it started doing other unorthodox movements.
• At London Bridge Pleg's falling down? Sorry.
• roryk, maybe you're part chicken? You can hypnotise them with a pencil because their brain can't cope with straight lines. I have a mild phobia of Canadian geese, especially in large flocks. My sister got attacked by some when she was little.
• I tend the freak the hell right on out if I can't move my arms. Also heights, which send me into such an immediate and uncontrollable panic it's actually kind of funny. And mirrors in dark rooms (thanks, Bloody Mary!).
• Canadian Canada geese.
• Bah! Curse you, preview button! Let's try that again. Canadian Canada geese.
• > roryk, maybe you're part chicken? Emily Dickinson got it wrong, hope is not the thing with feathers. The thing with feathers is my nephew...
• I am petrified of taking the mail out of the mailbox, and my heart races whenever a phone rings. Years of having nothing but elderly relatives and not enough money are the causes, so perhaps they're not so irrational. Even now, though, there's always that moment before looking at the mailbox contents/picking up the phone that I fully expect something earth-shatteringly horrible to be the result. Can't shake the feeling.
• Kinnakeet: I know where you're coming from. Not afraid, but just HATE it when the phone rings. And 90% of the time the stuff in the mail is either bills or crap. MonkeyFilter: heebie-jeebie testicular tingles MonkeyFilter: they are bizarre and mechanical and eeeeech just freaky MonkeyFilter: there's always someone who takes a perverse delight in constantly bringing up a subject once they know it bothers you
• Being homeless. Fear of being homeless I count among my rational fears. The predatory shit of being on the street, the constant maneuvering to have friends protect you, all the shields one has to evoke to be safe (plus the effort to stay friends with those who can protect you) - that was more exhausting to me than any job ever. I prefer irrational fears. Bad dreams with stark lines and yowls, even.
• HBS, did you ever get through a session of Bloody Mary? Not me. Even now, knowing that it's bullshit and nothing will happen, you still couldn't PAY me to sit there are say it 3/5/100/whatever times. I. Just. Don't. Need. That. Shit.
• I realized today that in addition to my irrational fear that I will miss a step and fall down a flight of stairs, I also fear that I will grab the gun out of a passing cop's holster.
• They don't like it when you do that.
• Meanwhile....
• Probing Greys that sneak in the bedroom at night. Losing my mind.