irrational fears?

[anotheranon]

Damn, but this was a story out of my own childhood! Like the author, I had a fear of getting Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever as a kid, and for a similar reason (a distant cousin got it and I was told that it was "bad"). Totally ridiculous, since we were nowhere near the Rocky Mountains (hey, I was a very literal child), but I had sleepless nights worrying that some tick was going to travel cross country and climb into my sheets at night :P

Such was the first of many consuming irrational fears that I wasted many brain cycles on :P To this day I have spells where I can't even look at pictures of spiders (though the Podcast I heard about a woman who overcame her arachnophobia so fully that she now keeps the things as pets was.. er... inspiring[?] - I'd link but I can't find it), and let's face it, I'm unlikely to ever be trolling around in the Amazon where the really scary bastards live.

So - what's your favorite [snerk!] phobia, or phobia story?

Comments

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Ah ... like the day I learned I REALLY didn't like heights? Or, at least, insecure heights? (with a railing, I'm fine)

I was about twelve and my dad & uncle had just had a 250-foot silo built (the old one, still standing and in use, was about 100 feet tall) by the barn. All finished, shiny clean, and with a very tempting climb tunnel on one side. For you non-farmer types, a silo has a vertical row of little doors down the side and these have to be opened sequentially from top to bottom as the silage level drops ... each door has two horizontal handles which are spaced to serve as ladder rungs (the climb tunnel also serves as the chute for dropping removed silage into a cart).

Being done with the chores I was over at the barn to do, I decided to climb the thing. All okay inside the tunnel ... there were frosted windows set into it at intervals to supply light ... and the view from the top was quite spectacular. And muscle-freezing. Inside I hadn't grasped just how high I was going ... now I had a pretty good idea of just how big a splat I would make if I fell (and my muscles were pretty shaky ... tree climbing doesn't prepare you for a vertical haul like that). I was up there for what seemed like quite a while until I heard my Dad yelling for me ... he was furious when I answered from the sky (and, looking back on it, he was likely scared shitless since he too knew exactly what kind of splat, etc. ... and if he came up after me there was good chance of a double splat if I lost my grip and fell on him). Happily, parental pissed-offedness is a powerful incentive and I did get myself down (unpunished ... I know I'd scared myself enough that I'd never do THAT again and I'm sure Dad was just relieved).

Creeping, crawling, slithering, and skittering things, OTOH, don't bother me one teensy bit. :-)

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

That sounds totally heart stopping (not in a good way)!

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

'twas. But at least I got the sight and memory of the fantastic view out of it. :p