What's Your Phobia?

[martyb]

condoms..... the box says one size fits all and i always find them to big. i keep getting trauma ha ha ha

Actually, they can be ordered on-line in various sizes, including smaller. I only know that because someone told me!!! I swear!

 

[martyb]

Oh yeah....one of my phobias is SPIDERS!!!! Can't hang with some big 'ol hairy arachnids....ugh!

I guess I'm kinda skeered of dying, too.

 

[youbet]

When I lived in a remote cabin in Alaska, I discovered my unreasoning fear of bears. I made many solo hikes 1.5 miles down to the RR tracks and back, carrying my worldly goods through virgin forest, bells ringing on my pack in the hopes it would scare the bears away. The many piles of bear poop on the trail made me even more scared. At least none of them had bells mixed in.
Then we went into Anchorage and saw a movie. It had a cartoon first, of Bongo the Circus Bear. I nearly passed out when I realized that I remembered reading that Little Golden Book when I was a child, and feeling so sorry for Bongo when the wild bears made fun of him and hurt his feelings. Scenes from the book flashed in my memory that weren't even in the movie.
Two days later when we hiked back into the cabin I realized my phobia of bears was gone.
Years later when I was alone at the place watching a grizzly through the window, I was scared but in a reasonable way, not a phobia.
What a stupid way to get a phobia - a Little Golden Book!
Did you read Bongo as a child? Maybe that's your problem?!

I'd love to hear more about living in that remote Alaskan cabin!

No, didn't read Bongo as a child.....

My bear fear started years ago before a trip to the BWCA. DW mentioned hearing about a bear attack on the radio so I did a Google search to see if I could find some info. What I found were dozens and dozens of internet sites about bears/bear attacks, products to prevent bear attacks, info on avoiding bear attacks, sensationalistic stories about bear attacks, etc. And I read and read and read........ until I worked myself up into being worried about bears while camping in bear country!

I'm OK all day. But at night, laying there in the tent trying to go to sleep, I'm a neverous Nelly. I usually sleep on the left and have laid out by my left hip a canister of pepper spray, an air horn, firecrackers and a cig lighter.......just in case. We've had bears in camp at night but never actually had one touch the tent, at least that I'm aware of.

I think it's related to being inside the tent and not being able to see around me. You start to focus on sounds and become hyper-sensitive.

We follow all the rules for sleeping in areas where camp raiding bears are common. No food in the tent. No clothes you were wearing while cooking in the tent. Set up tent a good distance from where you cook and the tree you hang your food in.

The thing we usually don't do which would eliminate most concerns is travel in a large group. Frequently it's just DW and myself. And we like to split up and spend time alone. She might be sitting on a rock at water's edge sketching or updating her journal. I might be off somewhere fishing. And one or two people are much more prone to a bear attacks than a group.

But, I deal with it. And we're going back next summer!

 

[vinnieg24]

Not a big fan of heights or surgeries

 

[Martha]

Many in this thread mentioned fear of flying - I am surprised at the number, but not ridiculing anyone's fears.

Have any of those considered tackling it head-on and taking flying lessons? Not to get a pilot's license, which is a lot of work, (not to mention expense) but to get to the point where you understand why the machine flies and experience controlling and landing it? Even to the point of a solo flight?

Admittedly this is from someone who began flying lessons at age 15 with lawn-mowing money and has never experienced that phobia and therefore does not understand it.

I thought about doing that some years ago, about the time I started riding motorcycles. But I never followed through. I know the fear is not rational. I assume it has something to do with that feeling of lack of control. For example, I never liked being a passenger on a motorcycle but I don't have a problem with driving one myself.

 

[redduck]

This is not a phobia, but it is a fear: I remember in maybe about the 8th grade or so, guys had the fear of having a boner, er, erection and for some reason being called on to stand up in class (maybe to go to the blackboard). Now the fear is not getting a boner, er, erection--in class or anywhere else. Is this considered a cosmic joke?

 

[martyb]

 

[Outtahere]

I found another phobia this morning, returning to w#$k after two weeks away

 

[citrine]

1) Needles.....even though I have tattoos and piercings.....the really long ones at the doctor's office give me the chills.

2) Being high up on a ledge.....that will make me pass out....but I did go skydiving once and did a tandem jump with a really good looking instructor!

3) Driving on the Garden State Parkway and the NJ Turnpike.....I feel like it is the Indy500 on those roads!

4) Getting Lost

5) Scary movies.....I have an over active imagination and can scare myself to death!

 

[My Dream]

Snakes, doesn't matter how small. I had a small one thrown on my head when I was about 13 and I flipped. Don't see the laughter in that.

Remember the movie Anaconda, or snakes on a plane, I thought about watching that movie to help with my phobia, thinking, hey it's only a movie and they're not real. Nope.............napa, no hope in hell I would ever watch them. I know it's all in the mind.

 

[toofrugalformycat]

I'd love to hear more about living in that remote Alaskan cabin!
No, didn't read Bongo as a child.....
My bear fear started years ago before a trip to the BWCA.
We follow all the rules for sleeping in areas where camp raiding bears are common. No food in the tent. No clothes you were wearing while cooking in the tent. Set up tent a good distance from where you cook and the tree you hang your food in.
The thing we usually don't do which would eliminate most concerns is travel in a large group. Frequently it's just DW and myself. And we like to split up and spend time alone.
But, I deal with it. And we're going back next summer!

DH and I haven't canoed the Boundary Waters, but we've canoed Atlin and Tagish and Tustumena Lakes, and the John River in the Brooks Range, always just us two. Seems like on those big lakes, every time we headed to the shore to camp, there'd be a bear there in the brush. One time it was a big grizzly on Tagish, and despite the fact I'd just told DH I was too tired to paddle another stroke, I swear I paddled so fast out to an island that our canoe made a roostertail!
In all those trips, no bear problems though. We're careful like you. I figure I'm much more likely be killed or maimed out on the road by some idiot driving an SUV and talking on a cellphone while sipping coffee and watching a DVD.
One time there was a loud rustle just outside the tent and I thought I was going to have a heart attack. It was a cute fuzzy bunny (hare).
We all have to go sometime, so let it be a good story. Murphys Law dictates for me it'll be something dull, boring and likely embarrassing.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

never got the raging fear gene. i handled snakes as easily as rabbits at summer camp. for a short while during childhood i simulated my mother's spider fear but shed that quickly enough. now i even name the huge spiders in my garden. (usually i call them gertrude or mildred; i'm not sure why.) some of them have amazing colors. when they spin their 4x4-foot webs on a foot path, i simply & carefully move them out of the way, elsewhere in the garden.

i love heights. one of my favorite memories was on top the world trade tower with my partner. two of my favorite trips in the last few years include mount wilson on my bud's harley and the blue ridge mountains in my convertible. the bike was more fun. i love to go right over to a ledge and take it all in. to be drawn into vast emptiness filled only with the rush of wind that reaches right inside you and pulls you into the vacuum of such great expanse.

i love swimming with the creatures in the ocean. though i've yet to swim with a shark, i've swam with dolphins and turtles and a manta ray-sized stingray one time. i'd love love love to swim with a whale shark or better yet, a whale. that must be amazing.

though i've learned to overcome most of any fear i might have had in life, i've developed a new one that i'm currently working on fixing. i'm a little afraid to let anyone too close to me because my three most intimate relationships ended by their death.

fear can be used to make yourself stronger especially when you overcome a phobia which didn't belong there in the first place while real fear can prevent you from hurting yourself. i just don't know if i'm protecting myself from the pain of losing yet another one or if i haven't developed a new kind of fear, altruistic fear. it is similar to the fear that a mother has for a child, only in this case i wonder if maybe getting close to me isn't such good luck for the other guy. anyone wanna take a chance?

 

[RetireeRobert]

Robert--If the tarantulas aren't wearing only their underwear your doing it wrong.

If I had to try public speaking again, I would try to imagine the audience in their underwear, but no doubt would end up imagining the tarantulas wearing *my* underwear. Yikes!!!

 

[Moemg]

though i've learned to overcome most of any fear i might have had in life, i've developed a new one that i'm currently working on fixing. i'm a little afraid to let anyone too close to me because my three most intimate relationships ended by their death.

fear can be used to make yourself stronger especially when you overcome a phobia which didn't belong there in the first place while real fear can prevent you from hurting yourself. i just don't know if i'm protecting myself from the pain of losing yet another one or if i haven't developed a new kind of fear, altruistic fear. it is similar to the fear that a mother has for a child, only in this case i wonder if maybe getting close to me isn't such good luck for the other guy. anyone wanna take a chance?

I had the same fear after my husband died .Any time I felt myself getting happy I'd back away . It's the fear of having something you love snatched away from you .When my son died we had just returned from a week's vacation to Arizona so for the longest time I could not go on week long vacations maybe five days no more .Slowly ,real slowly these fears start to go away but it takes a long time .

 

[youbet]

In all those trips, no bear problems though.

We've never actually had an issue while camping either.

I worry more when we're camped in the BWCA, than in more remote areas. The BWCA requires the use of designated campsites so that every boy scout troop that comes through doesn't clear their own camp, quickly spoiling the area. Since the same sites are used repeatedly over a season, untidy campers eventually attrack scavenger black bears who learn to tear apart tents, climb trees to get to hanging food packs and all that.

When we're up in Quetico, they allow far fewer parties in per entrance point (we hardly ever see another group, even off in the distance) and there are no designated campsites. Scavenger bears don't seem to be a problem.

Funny story from the last trip I made with a buddy from northern Wisconsin....... I drove from Chicago to his place north of Greenbay in the Nicolet National Forest, picked him up and headed to a BWCA outfitter up the north shore of Lake Superior. The outfitter took us and our canoe by power boat into Canada. There we met a float plane that flew us to a lake just outside Quetico (planes aren't allowed to land in Quetico). We entered Quetico via a creek running from that lake.

By flying in, we got to start in a fairly remote area right from the get-go. Had a great time. Good fishing. Fabulous weather for early June. Little rain. No bear incidents although I spent my usual time each evening worrying that every little sound outside the tent was a nuisance bear. As usual, I carried all my bear deterent do-dads at all times.

No bears. Didn't even see one in the distance. Did see wolves, moose and, of course, the usual deer, loons, etc.

When we got back to my buddy's place north of Greenbay, his DW was waiting for us with stories of her big bear adventure. Their golden lab stood up and started growling one evening and went to the door to the attached garage. She let him out thinking there would be a possum or racoon for him to chase. Wrong! The dog found a medium sized black bear that had entered the garage through the main door she'd left open and was tearing apart their garbage cans. Apparently, there was then a lot of barking, growling and scrambling around.

Moral of the story....... Want to avoid bears? Fly in to some remote area and camp. Want to deal with bears? Stay home!

Question..... have you guys used one of those bear proof food containers? They look like a small beer keg. Instead of hanging your canvas food pack in a tree, which can be a real pita to get done, you just tie this food container to a tree and sit it on the ground. The bear supposedly can't get into it and can't carry it away.

 

[MooreBonds]

or snakes on a plane, I thought about watching that movie to help with my phobia, thinking, hey it's only a movie and they're not real. Nope.............napa, no hope in hell I would ever watch them. I know it's all in the mind.

Good thing you didn't watch that. I saw it.

Not the best of movies (from a cinematic or plot perspective)...and some of the shots were pretty damn gory. I'm sure you would have had a difficult time.

 

[martyb]

Good thing you didn't watch that. I saw it.

Not the best of movies (from a cinematic or plot perspective)...and some of the shots were pretty damn gory. I'm sure you would have had a difficult time.

Yeah, but what about that chick early on in the movie.....yeah, you know which one I'm talkin' about !!!

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

I had the same fear after my husband died .Any time I felt myself getting happy I'd back away . It's the fear of having something you love snatched away from you .When my son died we had just returned from a week's vacation to Arizona so for the longest time I could not go on week long vacations maybe five days no more .Slowly ,real slowly these fears start to go away but it takes a long time .

ya, i'm aware of what the fear really is. it's just more fun to think i'm being altruistic instead of paranoid. it is tough especially when multiple times reinforce that fear. i can see it finally starting to subside but it has taken a lot of time and effort.

my dead partner's mother also lost her husband and then, of course, her son. she and my mom had tried to push me & her son to be friends for years before we finally met and became such fast friends on our first day together that my head is still spinning all these years later. i had been friends with his mom for about five years before meeting him. but after he died, she became afraid to be around me. him & i were so alike that it was weird, even our all too frequent laughter sounded the same.

i think i remind her of him too much. heck, often i synch into his character even now and spook myself a little. so i feel bad that when i lost him i lost her too but i understand that she needed to distance herself from me. there is only so much pain people can take. so sometimes fear protects us.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Okay, so I was thinking I was managing to be pretty much "phobia-less" as LG4N put it, but after reading this thread yesterday, I had a nightmare last night about just one of these phobias!

Khan--I have you to blame--my nightmare was about children!
I dreamed that people brought great big crowds of children to my St. Patricks Party and they were running around screaming and wanting to use the bathroom and such! It was truly terrible and I was glad to wake up this morning and just see the dogs and cats. Whew! So thanks, Khan, for unveiling one of my hidden phobias! I knew I didn't like children so much, but never had an actual nightmare about them until now!

Otherwise, I love public speaking, have done tons of it, can clamber up a ladder pretty good, but HATE roller coasters, like Nords. On the sailboat I had a fear of running aground while we were sleeping, but that was a reasonable fear, not a phobia.

 

[kaudrey]

I don't really have any phobias. I definitely don't like snakes or big spiders, but they won't freak me out.

I have a friend who hates flying - but only the take-off and landing part. He's a wreck in the airport, and once in the air, he is fine until about 20 minutes until landing. He says it is a control thing (i.e., that's when most accidents happen and he has no control over it) - he'd love to take flying lessons.

Another good friend can't drive over bridges. If she is driving, we switch when we get to a bridge, and she closes her eyes.

My dad almost faints at the sight of needles, and gets queasy if other people bleed in front of him (but if he injures himself and is bleeding, that doesn't bother him).

 

[summer2007]

I'm surprised at some of the fears.

Here are mine...

Anything dental

Anything medical

Surprised that more people are not afraid of these two.

Going to prison is another one....even though I have never been in trouble with the law.

Getting old.

Getting some horrible disease.

Loosing someone I love.

And you know what I think I'm afraid of just about everything on some days!

Jim

 

[Khan]

Okay, so I was thinking I was managing to be pretty much "phobia-less" as LG4N put it, but after reading this thread yesterday, I had a nightmare last night about just one of these phobias!

Khan--I have you to blame--my nightmare was about children!
I dreamed that people brought great big crowds of children to my St. Patricks Party and they were running around screaming and wanting to use the bathroom and such! It was truly terrible and I was glad to wake up this morning and just see the dogs and cats. Whew! So thanks, Khan, for unveiling one of my hidden phobias! I knew I didn't like children so much, but never had an actual nightmare about them until now!

I didn't like children when I was one.

Haven't had any nightmares about them for a while; a recurring one was trying to prevent them from coming into the house through the doors and windows and chimney.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Haven't had any nightmares about them for a while; a recurring one was trying to prevent them from coming into the house through the doors and windows and chimney.

We tried childproofing, but it didnt work. One got in.

 

[W2R]

Since we're on the topic of phobias coming out in recurring nightmares, there's one related to fear of heights that I was loathe to mention in the dream thread.

I dream that I am driving down a dirt road, which turns sharply and around the bend is.... nothing! A huge cliff that I barrel over. I fall out of the car and find myself falling, and looking down I realize that I am in the upper atmosphere and the earth is far, far below. I think and think, and finally realize that there is absolutely nothing I can do so I might as well accept the fact that I only have a few minutes left to live. I regret so much that I was so stupid as to get myself in that situation. Then I wake up, absolutely terrified.

It first happened actually during the time when the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster was occurring, which made it even creepier when I awakened and found out what happened.

Even though I am a lucid dreamer, I can't seem to figure out how to change the dream for the better (growing wings seems pretty silly, especially in a rarified atmosphere), and I am too freaked out to think straight, so usually I just intentionally wake up when I realize what is going on. Sometimes it just starts with me standing too close to a cliff and tripping. I know - - whoever heard of a cliff 20 miles high. But in dreamland it happens.

 

[Sarah in SC]

Want2, I have had a recurring one where the car I'm in goes off an old bridge into the water, but my frugal self has manual windows that I can roll down to escape, unlike those unfortunate souls with power windows! I had this dream a lot before our new Ravenel Bridge was built in Charleston--the old bridge was built in 1929 and was legitimately terrifying!
I wish you luck in reframing it into a soaring, flying, astral projection sort of thing instead--worth a try!