I went to the dreaded mall yesterday. Even now, at age 27, I still have to completely stop before getting on the escalator, line up my feet and then step onto it when the next escalator step has fully emergered from the floor. I can execute this careful process very quickly now, but when I was a kid, hoo boy. I had to hold the hand of a parent, stop, line myself up, do a couple of false starts, and then finally, holding my breath, I’d step on. Stepping back off again was always a terror-- there’s no time to really get ready. I’d usually just fling myself off in one huge jump.
Yup. Escalators: the freak me out. Always have, always will.
What ridiculous, irrational fear have you carried into adulthood? (In other words, tell me I’m not alone!)
You are not alone. While I loved escalators as a oung child something changed and in my adolescence I began to fear them. I still have to hold my husband’s hand to get on one! I do the whole false start routine and everything.
I’m also quite skittish about the sound of air brakes. That always meant my father was home ‘unexpectedly’ midday and that I was in for a heaping of child abuse. I will probably never hear that noise and not think of him
I’m also scared of water. Even standing in my bathroom with a sink full of water I can’t splash a handful into my face. I feel like I am drowning when I do. Blame my wonderful parents who tried to teach me to swim. I sank like a stone and when I got to the top sputtering and crying and scared they humiliated me and sent me to our tent (we were camping) all alone.
The basement of my parents’ house. There is no reason for this at all. It’s a typical unfinished basement - kind of dark, has that basement smell to it…it’s where the washer and dryer are at their house. At nearly 30, if I have to go down there to do laundry, I get down there and back out as quickly as possible. I think that’s why I always make sure I arrive at my parents’ house with enough clean clothes to get through the visit without doing laundry.
I am not a big fan of thunderstorms. If I am asleep when they start, I usually sleep right through them, but if I am awake I tend to freak out a little. Don’t know why, either, but I never liked them.
I also spaz out if I am the passenger in a car and all of the sudden I notice break lights. I suck in my breath in a hiss and brace myself. I can’t help it. If I am driving I am fine, but I panic when I am the passenger. I was in a semi-serious accident in college and I think it started there. Usually when we go on trips of 30 minutes or more I bring a book in the car with me so I don’t drive my husband nuts.
Also bats in the house. I know they’re out there, outside, but if I even get the inkling of the beginning of the hint of a thought that there might be a bat in the house, I look for a blanket to hide under. That one I can’t explain. I just panic for no reason.
When I was a child I was told by somebody or other that if you get raw egg-white on your hands you will get warts on your fingers. Now many , many years later I am still wary handling the stuff and wash my hands straight away.
I. Do. Not. Like. Centipedes. I haven’t liked them since the day an older kid saw me playing with one that I found in the sandbox and told me they were poisonous. It’s been twenty-four years and I still shudder when I look at them.
I would like to go to Southeast Asia next year, so I am trying very, very hard to get over this.
My fear is along the lines as some of the other posts.
When I was a kid, I was always afraid that, at any moment, everyone around me would suddenly have red eyes. Evil red eyes like folks have in the movies.
Also, I’ve never quite outgrown my fear of the twins from The Shining. Several weeks ago I had to go downstairs to do some laundry. I told my girlfriend to come with as I had a suprise for her. We both went down, I did my laundry and kept saying, “Wait…you’re gonna love this!”. Then, when I finished I fessed up. I didn’t want to go down alone.
Burglars. Was terrified as a child that burglars would break into the house at night. Still am. Anytime I hear a bump or other unexplained noise in the night, I make my husband get up and tour the house with a baseball bat. I also have recurring nightmares where I see or hear burglars breaking in and I try to scream or warn my husband and my voice doesn’t work at all. Very unpleasant.
I have lots of stupid fears, but the childish one I guess is my fear of the dark.
I have to have my husband watch me if I go out to the car after dark.
I’m okay if I’m outside with a friend or something, but NO WAY can I stand outside in the dark by myself.
I used to have to have my mom sleep in my bed until I fell asleep. Now I have trouble getting to sleep if my husband falls asleep before I do. I’m afraid somebody is lurking the dark shadows.
Oh man, I just thought of the other big one: Bloody Mary. You know that stupid tale that gets told at any slumber party, about how if you look into a mirror in the dark and say, “Bloody Mary” three times (or whatever), you’ll see her face in the mirror? That story really took root in my imagination and to this day, I cannot go into a dark bathroom or any other room where I know there’s a mirror without the lights blazing.
And I have never, ever tried saying Bloody Mary. Because what if it’s true? Gah!
P.S. I found this funny coming from maskedman:
GAH! indeed. ::shudder:: I read this on Snopes one night (late at night) and could barely brush my teeth before bed.
My fears, other than Bloody Mary:
-the dark
-silence (I can’t be in a room without at least a little background noise. I set my TV sleep timer when I go to bed.)
-bees/spiders that are particularly large/bugs in general, really.
-heights (Can’t really stand on a chair some days. Depends on my mood, I suppose.)
-death
-being on or near water at night, when it’s dark and you can’t see the bottom. (Even in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean ride I get a little freaked; I know there’s only a few inches of water there, but I can’t see the bottom, and what if it’s not really water? You can’t tell in the dark!)
-people. (Not in such a way that I can’t leave my house or go to work, but if I have to make a conscious effort to talk to people (IE order a pizza, get someone’s attention in a store) I get very nervous. Used to be to the point of tears, but I’ve gotten better since I started working.)
All fears since childhood, though some less potent now than others.
When I was young I would watch “IN SEARCH OF” And they had an episode about Bigfoot and it scared the shit out of me. Now just seeing a picture of that, that…THING, will still give me the heebees
And before you make fun of me, I KNOW its not real…but ya never know.
Oh yea… snakes also
Oh I definately hate mirrors in the dark. I’ve never willingly had a mirror in my bedroom.
I’m also a little flipped out about dark closets in a dark room… hehe I’ve got a pretty active imagination and it’s easy to imagine someone or something behind a door or in a partially open closet… <shudder>
I think both of them come from the same place because it involves thinking you might see something that your rational mind says isn’t there. ie you basically know nothing is going to show up in the mirror, but what if it did??
You know, like that giant Columbia lady or the Earth in the Universal Logo (Not sure either of those are still in use, but there are some in use that scare me). The worst one is that old (always black and white) one with two radios transmitting to each other, I just can’t stand to watch it.
In any way shape or form. Until I was 7 my parents lived in Nigeria and I faced off scorpions and snakes with no problems at all. But when we moved back to Australia and I got my first look at a huntsman spider - that was it, sheer terror, then, now and forever more.
The first time I proposed to Leechboy was when there was a spider in my bedroom, I rang him up and asked him to come over and deal with it. He was a little reluctant (living three states away and all), so I asked him to marry me and be my official spider remover for the rest of his life. Took me another couple of years to convince him.
