Scardy Cat

My friends and I were attempting to sort out housing for next year last night, as college students are wont to do, when [Keeper of All Knowledge] ran across a listing for a house with a fireplace, a possibility which immediately had everyone talking about curling up in front of a fire on a cold winter night (I'd make a joke about there being no other type of winter night, but this year seem to be proving otherwise). But for me, this idea immediately brought back a vivid memory of a nightmare I had as a child of a column of fire shooting out at me from my family's fireplace. I'm not sure if I had that particular dream more than once or if it was just particularly vivid, but it was one of those nightmares that, as a child, I had a hard time distinguishing from reality (or maybe I was just bad at telling if things were real as a child, because another dream that I was convinced was real had to do with zoo animals escaping and a gorilla entering my room through my ceiling fan).

All this got me thinking about fear, and all of the seemingly random things I have been afraid of at one point or another (which is quite a few, because I was a very anxious child). As an exercise in my neuroses, I though I would outline some of the one's I was most affected by (read: can remember) here, because I don't have homework yet and am bored, also personal growth through dealing with my fears or something. They are sorted into various categories, because they are not all on the same level of importance, and I'm not including things that are either relatively universal (e.g. my fear of rejection) or things that are somewhat existential, by which I mean things that are nearly impossible to have nightmares about (e.g. my fear of my feelings). Note: I am not actually afraid of teeth; they just gross me out and I don't want to look at them for too long.

Phobias:
These are the things that I have always been irrationally afraid of, to the point of affecting my life, and still have an irrational, over the top fear of. These are the things that I have nightmares about and make me want to hide/cry in a corner.

Fire: As mentioned above, I am a pyrophobe. There is no specific reason for this that I am aware of; no traumatizing incident that put me off of it, but as a child I had recurring nightmares about my house burning down, to the point where for several years in grade school I couldn't have the candles on my birthday cake lit. It's not quite so bad anymore, as I can use lighters and matches and be at bonfires, I am just hyper-aware around fire, and I really hate it when people play with lighters because it makes me really anxious.

Tornadoes: This one is a little more specific, and it tends to manifest itself as a fear of any bad thunderstorm/severe weather. Again, I don't know why I'm afraid of bad storms, but I did have some nightmares about tornadoes as a child, although it wasn't as common a theme as house burning. The one time I went to summer camp, there was a day with really bad weather, and I remember having to be taken out of first aid class (it was school patrol camp because I'm a nerd) because I couldn't stop crying while attempting to learn how to tie a tourniquet. There is a direct correlation between the severity of the weather and the amount of anxiety I have. Storms make me want to go hide in a basement while jumping up and down in a circle so as to not be sitting still, which is really just how anxiety makes me feel.

I don't mind having phobias, because everyone does to one extent or another, but I don't like that the things I am most afraid of, while not completely crazy, are things that many people love. It makes me feel stupid to have to admit that I don't like fire or storms when people start talking about how awesome they think they are. Everyone wants to go outside and watch the funnel cloud form, while I want to go find the basementyest place available and go hide there until the the severe weather warning has expired. People's reaction to this is usually to explain to me about how you can tell if it's tornado weather and this isn't it, which usually makes me feel worse, because I don't like being patronized, and also because I know all of the indicators and how completely unlikely it is to be injured/killed by a storm, because I thought that would help, but phobias are inherently irrational, and calmly explaining why I shouldn't be afraid doesn't do anything, because if it did, I wouldn't have phobias.

Assorted Childhood Fears:
These are the things that scared me as a child, but I have since outgrown. Now they mostly serve to illustrate how anxiety filled my childhood was. There are probably more that I can't remember anymore because they were so specifically random.

Chickenpox: I have no idea why I was so specifically afraid of the chickenpox as a child, particularly since I was vaccinated against it as a baby, but I was afraid of getting it. It was probably an early manifestation of my slight hypochondria, but all through grade school, every time I had a slightly itchy spot, I was convinced that it meant I was coming down with the chickenpox. Yes, I was afraid of a completely innocuous childhood disease. I am just that cool.

Gorillas: This one has a halfway decent reason: when I was a baby, [MaternalUnit] took me to the Como zoo, and while we were there, Casey, the largest Gorilla the zoo has ever had, escaped, and, according to [MaternalUnit], came up to the glass door we were on the other side of, and pounded on it until tranquilized by zookeepers. I have no memory of this, but, growing up, I heard the story so many times that I convinced myself I could remember it. This lead to a fear of gorillas which manifested as an avoidance of the ape enclosures at zoos and later a general distaste for zoos (which may also have to do with sad animals in cages).


Things I Have a Healthy Respect For:
I am not actually afraid of these things per se, but I make it a policy to generally avoid them for the sake of my health. Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Things That Can Kill Me: By this I mean thinks like venomous snakes, spiders, and insects, decrepit building, and hospitals. I'll kill a spider with the best of them and feed your snake while you're out of town, but I'm not going anywhere near a snake or spider I know to be venomous, such as a rattlesnake or a camel spider. Also, Africanized honey bees and giant Japanese hornets. As for hospitals, they are the best place to contract antibiotic resistant diseases, so I am not going to voluntarily spend any more time in one than I have to.

Australia: This is the place with the largest concentration of things that can kill me. They have a huge percentage of the world's deadliest snakes/spiders/insects, including spiders that are common in the cities and can hide in swimming pools, and even the fish are deadly (see: the lionfish and the blue ringed octopus). Also, there's a hole in the ozone layer over it during the summer and skin cancer qualifies as a thing that can kill me. I would go to New Zealand (because sheep! and it's where Xena was filmed) but I am not planning on ever going to Australia.

There you have it: a not so comprehensive list of things that scare me/have scared me and a little bit of a glimpse into the tangled mess of my subconscious. Make of this what you will.