Irrational Fears
Lots of people have them. Some people outgrow them long before adulthood, some hang on to them. There are some that are only realized well into our adult lives due to emotional distress or actual incidents. I have several fairly common childhood fears.
One of my own fears from my youth was that I was horribly afraid there was something under my bed. If I awoke from a nightmare I would lie in bed and scream for my parents rather than get up and run to their room. I was afraid that when I swung my legs over the side of the bed, something terrible would grab a hold of my ankles as my feet hit the floor. I hoped that my screaming would deter it from coming to get me since help would be arriving soon in the form of my rudely awakened and sleep deprived father.
In an attempt to prevent under the bed monster infestations I would store so many things under the bed that I hoped there wouldn’t be room for any baddies. I couldn’t be certain that that prevented them, however. If I needed something that was under my bed, I would wait til it was daylight because I didn’t want to risk sticking my hand or arm under there after dark.
I really wasn’t too fond of the closet either and to this day will not go to bed with the door to the closet open. For some reason it just freaks me out to have that door open. It’s like the closet is an unknown portal to the world of unfriendly creatures. If some uglies are coming through this mystery portal after I have gone to sleep I don’t want to be able to open my eyes and see it without effort. I agree that it is completely irrational and now-a-days I don’t believe in the possibilities of the afore mentioned mystery portal, but old habits die hard.
Ferris wheels. Combined, two very bad words. I just don’t like them. I had a nightmare about them as a kid where I was on one and it rolled right off its arms and I was taken along for the ride. All I can recall from that dream is groaning metal, screaming and fear. I won’t get on one for anything. Nope. Next ride.
Escalators sucking me up in their treads, slipping and falling through the stairs on open staircases, elevator doors closing and crushing me to death… These are all things I think about when approaching those circumstances. I am not panic filled or frozen in terror, just more imaging the worst possible case that could occur. I have some normal “fears” too such as looking like an idiot in front of my peers at work and being afraid that I will forget what I am going to say before a presentation.
Do you have any fears, irrational or not? What are they?
