Seriously... what is your greatest

[jcrow]

Date: 11/3/2005 10:39:08 AM
Author: FireGoddess
I have several fears, some irrational, some not.

The big, huge, freaking bird-sized cockroaches in Texas that FLY....holy mother of God - after being in a room with one I never want to go back to that state, EVER.

Are they ALL over in texas?? i may have to reconsider my want to move to austin wish.... which leads me also to my cockroach fear! YUCK!! my grandma always made fun of me. she said at least be afraid of something that''ll hurt you... i also hate mice and such - anything NOT suppose to be in a house. rats, mice, cockroaches, snakes, possum, anything.... which makes me think i wouldn''t be a good canidate for living in the country (woods). i''ll take the city, thanks.

i also have fears like being abandon. i used to dream of that all the time. still do occasionally.

i also don''t care for heights. i also have slight panic attacks in airplanes. wouldn''t say that i have a Fear of them though... maybe it''s the can''t escape issue?? or the pressure on my too small ear canals- which hurts till i am in tears. anyway....

i think i have a hint of paranoid in me so i fear lots of things.

 

[Matata]

Heights. I can make it to the 2nd rung of a ladder without passing out but if I try to live large and get on the 3rd rung....whoooeeee....the world goes into a tailspin.

 

[MINE!!]

How about goin through underwater car tunnels... I want to hold my breath the whole time.. and I start thinking.. if it starts to flood.. how will I get my kids out alive.

 

[portoar]

style="WIDTH: 73.29%; HEIGHT: 148px">Date: 11/3/2005 10:53:49 AM
Author: kenny
I have a fear of being hurt when swimming under a boat or especially a large ship.
Either by the propeller or just the bottom of the boat.

I drive over a huge bridge in the Port of Los Angeles frequently.
Below I can see huge cruise ships.
At the bow, just under the waterline, I can see these huge bulbous parts of the ship that jut out in front.
Their function must be to reduce drag or for radar.

They just freak me out.
I can''t rationalize this.

O.k. Kenny, when I used to row, you can "catch a crab" (your oar gets stuck in the water). It can literally project you out of the boat and I''ve seen it happen. In that case you have to be ready to stay underwater while the 60'' boat passes over you, with all the oars (except yours) going in and out at a minimum of 32-34 strokes per minute. I used to be terrified of that happening to me (it never did). I also used to be frightened of finding a dead body in the water, as happened to a friend of mine when they ran into a submerged trunk in a lake, which turned out to contain a body. . . eew.

 

[cinnabar]

Lorelei and I are phobia twins. I would say moths and escalators too. I once found what I thought was a feather when I was hoovering under the bed, so I reached to pick it up and it disintegrated in my hand. You probably heard me screaming 5000 miles away.

I''m not so much scared of heights, as I am of edges. I can go up to the top of a building, but I can''t look over a balcony.

I don''t know if it''s a phobia, but I know I couldn''t go cave-diving. I would feel trapped undergound and it would be my worst nightmare to have to swim underwater and crawl through tiny narrow tunnels. People do that for FUN?!

 

[Lorelei]

Date: 11/3/2005 12:40:24 PM
Author: cinnabar
Lorelei and I are phobia twins. I would say moths and escalators too. I once found what I thought was a feather when I was hoovering under the bed, so I reached to pick it up and it disintegrated in my hand. You probably heard me screaming 5000 miles away.

ROFL!

That is hilarious that we both hate exactly the same things Cinnabar, maybe it''s the Britishness! I don''t blame you for freaking when you accidentally picked up that moth - DREADFUL

As for escalators........

 

[tawn]

I didn''t have any phobias until after I had my son, and I guess my sense of mortality really went wild because I have a bunch now!

Heights: I realized when I got up on the top of the house to paint the eaves and couldn''t move. My husband had to come get me down! In my defense, it''s a pretty high roof, but they still tease me about how I was completely paralyzed! Also goes for flying, and Zanax really helps with that! I''m going to the Dr. today for an RX because I have to fly twice before the end of the year!

Drowning/suffocating: I get a little freaked out with my head under the water, and I''m allergic to nuts and the *not being able to breathe* thing really freaks me out! Sometimes I think everything yummy has nuts in it too!

Snakes: I''m fine with most bugs, and even lizards, but there is something SO WRONG with not having arms and legs! Ick! They are so disgusting! I have frequent nightmares about them. I tried to overcome it by holding a 5'' Ball Python, and it wrapped itself around my leg and slithered down. I was freaking out, but I was in control, until it flicked it''s tongue out and touched my bare foot! I just about peed my pants!

On the Moth subject, I''m not really scared of them, but I had one of the gigantic ones divebomb me a few years ago. I swear it was possessed by something really evil! It just kept trying to get me and it would hit me and bounce off and I would scream.

 

[AChiOAlumna]

Date: 11/3/2005 6:54:08 AM
Author: Lorelei
This is another one - ESCALATORS, I hate them! It takes me a while to pluck up courage to step onto one, hate the ones in the London Underground most as they are so steep, but I think I have heard too many horror stories of accidents with escalators, I will avoid them where possible and use the stairs in preference anyday.

I don''t know the reason for this phobia, Achio''s needle one is easy to understand, I heard of an odd one where a gal couldn''t stand buttons, couldn''t have them on her clothes, would recoil in terror at buttons on other people, it made her life a misery.

Lorelei....I''ve also ridden the Tube escalators many a time and they are steep...but I found some that were even steeper and longer!!! In St. Petersburg, Russia!!! Their Metro escalators are much more steep and longer than the Tube''s...I didn''t think that was possible, but after riding them, I swear it''s true!!!

 

[bling*diva*]

~~I hate spiders (or anything with more legs than me except for dogs and cats), snakes, and heights!!

 

[SoonIHope]

I''ve got a couple!

Elevators: I ride in an elevator like ten times every day and 99% of the time I''m fine with them. But once every month or two the idea of being in a little tiny metal box traveling through the center of a building with no way out REEEALLY gets to me. That story about the delivery guy who got stuck in an elevator for 3 days a few months back did not help. Same thing with subways, airplanes, any other enclosed space with no way out...99% of the time I don''t even notice it...but then every so often I get really claustrophobic.

Slugs: I stepped on one barefoot as a child and OH MY GOD THAT IS THE GROSSEST SENSATION EVER. To this day I will not walk barefoot anywhere in the state of South Carolina (where my grandmother''s house is, which is where that happened.)

Pot Pies: Once when I was a kid I was cutting myself a bite of chicken pot pie and there was an ENTIRE CATERPILLAR inside. Like three inches long and FAT. EW EW EW. My stomach still churns when I think about it. And it just seems SO EVIL to put a crust on top of your food so you can''t see what nastiness they''re hiding inside. Because now I firmly believe all crusted foods have a crust for the sole purpose of hiding the gross things that should not be inside just so you don''t know what you''re eating. Does not apply to dessert pies for some reason, though, thank goodness!

Bats: At my family''s old summer home it is not so uncommon to see a bat. I have seen a lot of them and I know that they are scared of me and just want to get away. Yet I am 100% positive that they actually want to swoop at my face and attack me. No idea where this one came from.

Aaand my big one: That my boyfriend is going to die. I make us say I love you EVERY SINGLE TIME we are saying goodbye (even if I''m just going downstairs for lunch at work, we have to IM it to each other) because what if something happened to one of us and then we wouldn''t have said we love each other and we''d never get to hear it again. I think about this like all the time and it''s pretty irritatingly morbid. Like, what if he died RIGHT NOW...I would try to locate the jeweler where he bought my ring and get the ring for myself and still wear it so people would know that he wasn''t "just" my boyfriend. I don''t know why, but I really can''t help keeping tabs on exactly what the last thing we said was or what would happen now etc. He thinks I''m crazy of course.

Hehe looking back up at all of these, I''m more messed up than I realized!

 

[cinnabar]

Date: 11/3/2005 2:16:18 PM
Author: albicocca

Slugs: I stepped on one barefoot as a child and OH MY GOD THAT IS THE GROSSEST SENSATION EVER. To this day I will not walk barefoot anywhere in the state of South Carolina (where my grandmother''s house is, which is where that happened.)

I work at a wildlife rescue center, where we currently have a salamander who is regrowing a leg that he lost. His diet consists of earthworms and slugs (and the odd millipede) which we volunteers have to collect from the grounds. Yesterday I had to turn over dozens of rocks and dead logs and pick the slugs from the underside where they cling in damp weather. EWWWWWWW.


Bats: At my family''s old summer home it is not so uncommon to see a bat. I have seen a lot of them and I know that they are scared of me and just want to get away. Yet I am 100% positive that they actually want to swoop at my face and attack me. No idea where this one came from.

It''s all true. Bats totally want to swoop at your face and attack you. Add bats to "moths and escalators". I forgot how much I hate bats.


A
Hehe looking back up at all of these, I''m more messed up than I realized!

 

[SoonIHope]

Date: 11/3/2005 2:25:21 PM
Author: cinnabar

Date: 11/3/2005 2:16:18 PM

Author: albicocca


Slugs: I stepped on one barefoot as a child and OH MY GOD THAT IS THE GROSSEST SENSATION EVER. To this day I will not walk barefoot anywhere in the state of South Carolina (where my grandmother''s house is, which is where that happened.)


I work at a wildlife rescue center, where we currently have a salamander who is regrowing a leg that he lost. His diet consists of earthworms and slugs (and the odd millipede) which we volunteers have to collect from the grounds. Yesterday I had to turn over dozens of rocks and dead logs and pick the slugs from the underside where they cling in damp weather. EWWWWWWW.

BUT have you ever felt the sensation of the slimeyness squishing up in between your toes??????

 

[FireGoddess]

Date: 11/3/2005 11:03:21 AM
Author: jcrow

Date: 11/3/2005 10:39:08 AM
Author: FireGoddess
I have several fears, some irrational, some not.

The big, huge, freaking bird-sized cockroaches in Texas that FLY....holy mother of God - after being in a room with one I never want to go back to that state, EVER.

Are they ALL over in texas?? i may have to reconsider my want to move to austin wish.... which leads me also to my cockroach fear! YUCK!! my grandma always made fun of me. she said at least be afraid of something that'll hurt you... i also hate mice and such - anything NOT suppose to be in a house. rats, mice, cockroaches, snakes, possum, anything.... which makes me think i wouldn't be a good canidate for living in the country (woods). i'll take the city, thanks.

I saw pretty honkin huge ones in Houston and Galveston (the site of the infamous bird-cockroach incident) but not in Dallas or Austin (of course, I never lived in Dallas or Austin so I can't quite say for those places...having not spent nearly as much time there as the other two places!) YUCK.

ETA: I do also want to mention that Texas was the worst place ever for seeing gigantic bugs...for me, that place was akin to bug hell, where as here in California, it's the opposite...there are hardly ANY. Heaven.

 

[jcrow]

cinnabar= see austin has bats. i didn''t know they ATTACK! eek! i really don''t want to scratch austin of my to-live-in list.

firegoddess= yeh i have heard about the galveston roaches! i am getting chills thinking about them. yuck!

 

[glaucomflecken]

OOOOH I am afraid of bats too!

When I was young we would go to Girl Scout Camp and one time we all brought our stuffed animals so we could sit around the campfire and sing with them (i know..) I had asked my mom if I could bring her stuffed shark with me to camp (yep my mom had a shark stuffed animal) and she said no, but I snuck it anyway.

We were sitting around the fire and a swarm of bats came overhead and we all started to scream. The counselors told us that if we didnt stop screaming, the bats would come into our tents and night and fly away with our stuffed animals!!! So I surely stopped screaming...what if they took my mom''s shark? Id be in so much trouble!

I cuddled up with the shark that night, and in the morning IT WAS GONE!!! I FLIPPED!!! I was CONVINCED the bats came and took him away! It had just fallen to the bottom of my sleeping bag during the night...

moral of the story:
1- Bats are yucky!
2- Never steal stuffed animals. Too stressful! LOL

 

[Kaleigh]

Elevators. Scared to get stuck in one. Heard a terrible story from a friend that is a lawyer and his firm was representing a guy who had a horrible experience in one. The guy was in the elevator when it was going up to the top floor, it suddenly without warning fell (Freefall) to the bottom floor. Stopped for a bit, then did it over and over again and it wasn''t like 6 floors more like 30. It happened in Boston in a high rise. The poor guy survived and sued the building as the elevator wasn''t properly maintained or inspected.

I also am scared of spiders. Got a bad bite once and have been scared of them ever since.

 

[tawn]

Date: 11/3/2005 5:39:55 PM
Author: kaleigh
Elevators. Scared to get stuck in one. Heard a terrible story from a friend that is a lawyer and his firm was representing a guy who had a horrible experience in one. The guy was in the elevator when it was going up to the top floor, it suddenly without warning fell (Freefall) to the bottom floor. Stopped for a bit, then did it over and over again and it wasn''t like 6 floors more like 30. It happened in Boston in a high rise. The poor guy survived and sued the building as the elevator wasn''t properly maintained or inspected.

I also am scared of spiders. Got a bad bite once and have been scared of them ever since.

I had a bad bite on my neck, and I spent 2 days in bed! It was huge and so disgusting, and I had a purple mark for about 3-4 months after that looked like a hickey!

I''m still not really scared of them though!

Do you always take the stairs, or just force yourself to go on the elevator?

 

[portoar]

Date: 11/3/2005 12:40:24 PM
Author: cinnabar
Lorelei and I are phobia twins. I would say moths and escalators too. I once found what I thought was a feather when I was hoovering under the bed, so I reached to pick it up and it disintegrated in my hand. You probably heard me screaming 5000 miles away.

I''m not so much scared of heights, as I am of edges. I can go up to the top of a building, but I can''t look over a balcony.

I don''t know if it''s a phobia, but I know I couldn''t go cave-diving. I would feel trapped undergound and it would be my worst nightmare to have to swim underwater and crawl through tiny narrow tunnels. People do that for FUN?!

Oh, yes, I went spelunking once, and it was WAY fun. And yes, there was a stretch where we crawled through a tunnel only 14" high, propelling ourselves with toes and elbows. Also there was a tunnel we had to go down head first. And a part going through water. I would never do it again, but I impressed myself, family and friends for doing it once . . .

 

[IrishEyes]

albicocca - I have the same fear about my husband!! I fear so deeply that something, some freak accident or whatever, will take him from me. I guess I just feel that he is too good to be true and that I will lose him. But I''m the same way - I make sure no matter how mad I am at him, that I say "i love you" before we go to bed, or before either of us leaves the house, etc. Strange, but I guess it makes me appreciate him all the more....

others: the cockroach thing for sure!!

Ack, they are so freakin'' nasty!!!! We have them every so often in our apartment and when I called the exterminator to get rid of them, he laughed at me (when I showed him the one my neighbor had caught for me) and told me that it was just a "water bug". I told him water bug, my a**, it''s still a damn cockroach - GET RID OF THEM!!! He rolled his eyes and sprayed, but we still get a couple once and awhile and I scream every time I see them.

Grasshoppers and crickets. EWWWWW. I don''t know what it is, but I hate them and I fear they will jump all over me while I sleep!!! and that damn noise that the crickets make - ugh...

SPIDERS!! I have the BIGGEST arachnophobia! It doesn''t matter how small - they freak me out!!! Especially since last year when I was bitten in my upper, inner thigh by a brown recluse spider and developed cellulitus that was severe enough to cause a raging infection and send me to the emergency room. Apparently one had gotten in my bed while I was sleeping (ugh, just the thought of that makes me shiver) and bit me. a couple days later I had a VERY painful bite mark that was rapidly growing and swelling, a 104 degree fever, the chills and chest pains. I had to go to the hospital because I was sobbing from the pain in my leg. I had to take alot of painkillers and medication and I couldn''t walk for a week. All because of a little tiny spider. the worst part is that I still have the scar on my thigh. I don''t know if it will ever go away. But I loathe spiders of all kinds and sizes. I think they should all be removed from the planet!! The grossest thing is when they are coming down from the ceiling, dangling from their little string-web thingy.... EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!! it''s so freakin'' gross, their little legs moving as they descend from above - it''s just so wrong!!!!!! makes me feel like they are crawling on my head or something..........

ick, now I have the creeps...................

 

[perry]

Have you ever noticed that the pricescope symbol is a diamond caught in a spider web...

Off hand it appears that spiders have good taste...

So, if you are afraid of spiders?.... Are you afraid of the pricescope spider? (there must be one or their would be no spider web to catch that diamond).

Perry

ps. Or, how many legs does Leonid have?

 

[aljdewey]

Absolutely without question......afraid of losing my husband.

When we were engaged and i was flying to Florida to spend the weekend with my MOH, I almost canceled the trip....didn''t want to fly without him. And I''m not afraid of flying at ALL....I love flying.

I had irrational fears about a car accident or something tragic in the weeks leading up to our wedding. It just seems you always read those stories about people who are on the cusp of realizing their dreams or having the happiest days of their lives, and something happens right before. And it happens....someone posted here a few weeks ago about a groom being struck and killled the evening before his wedding.

Right after I married Rich, there was a story of a woman in California who had just returned from her honeymoon. (Her wedding was 3 weeks after mine). She and her new husband went to parents house to bring gifts home; she was driving behind him on the way home and he fell asleep and crashed off the highway. He died instantly.

It quieted down for me a bit after we married.......but it''s still there from time to time. We bought our house almost a year ago, and we''re both the happiest we''ve ever been. I worry that some random thing will take him from me.

Maybe it''s because it took me so many years to find him.

 

[Mara]

spiders spider and spiders.

detest them, can't stand them...in the house or near me or in a car or anything.

garden spiders or spiders outside are okay...so i leave those alone but if a spider is found in the house, it gets it and that's that!

i get alot of bites from bugs and spiders as well...they always come for ME in a room of people. i hate the idea of them crawling on me while i sleep. if there's a spider in the house, i can't rest until it's been killed or taken away. if it gets away, i totally freak out about where it's going, etc. and if it is in the bedroom or near the bed, and it gets away, i will NOT sleep there (that's why Greg has gotten VERY good at spider catching and killing)...because i am sure it will come for me.

i have seen many a freaky looking spider in my lifetime...especially in HAWAII. they had these really creepy looking lime green/yellow and black striped ones that would build nests and webs in the eaves of the porches out there. they'd come sweep them down every few months or so i guess. well not before our wedding unfortunately, i was totally paranoid sitting outside sure one of them would drop down into my hair. i made sure to position myself away from them. i am sure some would find them beautiful, but they just really creep me out and uniquely colored ones seem even more scary somehow.

when we were moving into the big house a few days before the wedding, i was walking around with my girlfriend to show her the house and rooms. we walked into our 'master bedroom' and into the bathroom and we're looking around and i'm standing in the bathroom and she is near the door. suddenly she says, mara don't move, look at that. i look and there is a huge friggin spider, what looks like a MONSTER tarantula on the wall right under the vanity sink. instantly i am frozen and all i can think of is OMG how are we going to get that out of here, there is NO WAY i am sleeping in this room if that thing gets away. so we were talking about how to get rid of it this and that. the photographer and his gf had just arrived from SF and were walking around so they find us in the bathroom and are like...omg look at that great spider, im going to take a picture of it. I freaked out and was like NO you will scare it, don't make it move...so he takes some pictures of it..then my friend had called the maintenance guy who comes with a big rag and goes in and scoops it up into the towel. he said it was a cane spider and there are tons of them out there.

apparently very harmless but OMG it looked terrifying. after that for the next 5 days while we were in the house, every time i went into the bathroom, esp at night i would do a quick once over of all the walls to ensure that nothing was hanging out waiting for me!!

here's another freaky spider story. once we were getting into greg's old dodge power wagon that he restored and it hadn't been driven in a while since he used to store it at his dad's house in maryland...we were visiting, so he had revved it up and had it running for about 15 minutes and we were going for a ride. i get in and we go down the driveway, to the end of the road and turn onto the main road (which is not heavily populated)...and then i look up and right in my line of vision on the close roof is a big ugly old hairy spider like i'd never seen before. i screamed and opened the door and jumped out of the truck onto the running board..thank goodness greg had stopped right away and he killed it and i got back in but was NEVER the same again. each subsequent visit i would sit in a small ball looking around all the time...but now that it is in california and is run regularly, i am not as paranoid. (of course now that i said that, next time i get into it there will be some new spider waiting for me!)

i could go on for DAYS about spiders. i even have dreams where i'm staying in a room that has a spider web and nest in the ceiling or in the bed and they are all hanging down trying to get me. OH and recently in the last few months, we have been finding baby spiders in our master bathroom, i think they are blowing in from the window or something....which totally freaked me out. i found 2 tiny ones in our bed and then a bunch in the tub by the window and the bathroom area etc. also we found some down near our front door which shares the same windows/wall with our master. so they may be in the garden and blowing in through windows when they are super tiny. all i could think of were them growing up to be LARGE spiders and then calling our house home. esp since i know that when a nest/egg sac hatches there are tons of the babies in there. so where are they all going.

YIKES. windows have been CLOSED recently.

oh and a slightly less psycho fear than my spider one is fear of deep waters and drowning, aka in oceans and things where i cannot see the bottom. swimming in tahiti was perfect for us because it was inside the reef so we could walk and see all the fish at our feet and stuff...worked great for me and my phobia of 'what is swirling around my feet' or where does the shallow part end...i took years of swimming but don't know if i could recall any of it in a panic mode.

 

[valeria101]

Date: 11/5/2005 2:01:11 PM
Author: Mara


he said it was a cane spider and there are tons of them out there.

Oh boy! THIS !!! (OK, don't click). That thing does not look harmless to me at all - I'd freeze dead long before the thing would get anywhere within biting range.

 

[Kaleigh]

Oh Ana, you bad girl!!!

 

[Mara]

Ours was BIGGER Ana..the photographer put a shot of it up on his website, I will have to see if I can get it later and post it..tee hee. It was the size of a mega tarantula!

 

[Demelza]

Okay, this is a weird one. One of my greatest fears (bordering on phobia) is hair in the shower (particularly around the drain, ugh!). I don''t like loose strands of hair anywhere in the bathroom (or anyhwere for that matter), but the shower is the worst place to find them. I have fairly long hair and I don''t quite know how I manage it, but I rarely find a loose hair of mine in the shower. If I do feel one come off on my hand, I will put it back on my head and hope it doesn''t fall off again. My husband is under strict instructions not to leave his hair anywhere in the shower. Strang, eh? All my friends (most of whom are therapists because we met in grad school) have tried to figure this one out, but to no avail. I''m much better than I used to be, but it still irks me and I sometimes have nightmares about it. Anyone else?

 

[Lynn B]

Number #1 is... egg "snots". (Or WHATEVER that creepy looking little white wiggly goober is that's in every egg!) It totally grosses me out!!! Whenever I am cooking or baking ANYTHING w/ eggs, I METICULOUSLY pick out every last bit of it. If I didn't, I just KNOW that it would cook up hard and gross and gristly and I would be the one to get THAT VERY BITE!!! And when I am out and see some wonderful, tempting gotta-have-it chocolate dessert, I can even talk myself OUT of it (sometimes!) by thinking, "Ewwwww, it's probably IN there!!!"

#2. I MUST have FRESH AIR in my bedroom at night! I am absolutely PHOBIC about this! If it is even reasonably warm out, then my window MUST be at least cracked (fully open is best!) And if it is positively TOO COLD out for that (which is often the case in NW PA!), then my bedroom door MUST be OPEN! I just cannot stand the thoughts of NO FRESH AIR in my bedroom... all night long... the same air... in and out...

 

[cinnabar]

Date: 11/5/2005 3:54:10 PM
Author: Lynn B

#2. I MUST have FRESH AIR in my bedroom at night! I am absolutely PHOBIC about this! If it is even reasonably warm out, then my window MUST be at least cracked (fully open is best!) And if it is positively TOO COLD out for that (which is often the case in NW PA!), then my bedroom door MUST be OPEN! I just cannot stand the thoughts of NO FRESH AIR in my bedroom... all night long... the same air... in and out...

I agree totally about the egg snots, but I''m the complete opposite when it comes to fresh air. I hate open windows. It drove me absolutely mental when we went to Las Vegas and the maid opened the room window every day while we were out, so the room was full of moths when we got back in the evening

Open windows = bedroom full of bats, moths, ghoulies, ghosties and burglars. In my imagination at least.

I could sleep in a locked cupboard, as long as it had a comfy bed.

But egg snots, ewwwww. My mother is even more phobic about them than I am, she also picks them off every raw egg she cracks.

 

[nytemist]

I don''t mind insects outside... but hate the idea of something being in house, especially while sleeping. Once at girl scout camp when I was about 12, gypsy moth catepillars got through my mosquito netting and were in my hair. I leave them alone outside, but indoors I kill everything.

I loves bats, snakes, lizards- I like some creepy things. Always have. Love heights. I miss the twin towers in NY for that reason. Felt like you were looking across the whole country. Mice I don''t mind if they are clean pets! Otherwise I''m nervous about them carrying a disease or suddenly running out of closet or something. Other things make me a but leery but I can deal.

My only huge fear is flying. I was first on a plane at about 8 years old, I was hysterical from the time the plane took off until landing. Then I hid in my gradparents closet, scared that we had to get on another plane. Same way going home. I wasn''t on a plane again until 17 for a class exchange trip to Italy. I started to panic on our way to the airport and when it came time to board, the idea of walking through that little tunnel thing, I had a complete breakdown and ran through the airport. I don''t even remember this. The med staff at the airport and security had to catch me and give me a tranquilizer. I was out cold until waking up in the hotel room. One of my friends at this time had a pic of me in the steward''s arms while he carried me to my seat. Didn''t fly again after that until 25, going to Florida with a friend. I took Lorazepam, but it wasn''t strong enough. The staff had to give me oxygen and monitor my BP since I was having a serious anxiety attack and my BP went sky high. Last year, at 32, BF and I went to San Francisco and he had to give me my meds, much stronger dose this time, in the car while his sister drove us to the airport. Apparently, I passed out in the security check line and poor BF had to explain over and over that it wasn''t a ruse, I was really afraid and medicated for it. I can''t explain it, but planes scare the *^&$*(^%$ crap out of me. I can''t even watch movies or shows that have a lot of plane visuals. The only way I can watch the crazy movie Airplane! is because it''s so funny.

If I''m going to an airport to pick someone up or drop them off, I''m sort of ok as long as I''m not there for too long and don''t see the planes. Hearing them is bad enough. If I go knowing I have to get on the plane. I''m irrationally panicked.

 

[monarch64]

This thread is hilarious... so many funny stories! I think my only fears (irrational ones, that is) in life are bees and flying. I grew up on a farm, so the everyday bugs, vermin, and snakes don''t really bother me. I have been known to carry live spiders out of the house on a newspaper or something to set them free because I can''t stand to kill them. I have also rescued a few mice from my parents'' cat...

My dad used to take my older brother and I into old abandoned houses ("haunted houses," he liked to call them) in the country when we were little and make us walk through them with him, then he would say, "see, we aren''t scared of anything, are we!" Like it was a big joke! He wanted to desensitize us I guess, and it worked. To this day I can''t walk through a haunted house during Halloween season without laughing because people act so ridiculously scared! I secretly wouldn''t go through one by myself though! LOL

My fear of flying is basically just that I feel so out of control...I also hate being a passenger in a car with someone, I''m always gripping the door handle like we''re going to crash and burn, even when my husband''s driving! Not that people I''m riding with are bad drivers, it''s just that I''m not in control. The first time I flew I was 24 and dating my husband, who was taking me to Mexico for christmas...it was right after 9-11 so we got there super early in the a.m. (like 4 a.m). He had the brilliant idea of staying at a bar until it closed down (Sat. night) and then the bartender he had known forever took us to the airport on his way home. i was already pretty drunk from staying out so late, which my husband though would help matters, but it just made them worse! He travels all the time and fell asleep as soon as we boarded the plane...I sat there crying because I was so freaked out and didn''t have a clue what to expect! I look back on it and laugh, but even to this day I have to really concentrate on remaining calm when flying, and I never drink before I get on a plane!