Nutty Putty. That’s a nightmarish story.
I remember reading about that.
I also read some Poe (The Premature Burial) and saw The Longest Night, with a kidnapped girl being ransomed, buried with enough oxygen etc. for awhile.
Claustrophia is a biggie with me.
Our house is on pier and beam. Awhile back, we needed to see if any water was leaking from pipes under the house. I got down there and…it’s maybe 24" of clearance and no. Just no. I couldn’t. We called a plumber although I floated the idea of putting an Arlo camera on a remote controlled car.
I go back to my college days when I avoided a lot of frat parties etc. because I just don’t like being crowded that much. I understand how that crush happened when the Who played Cincinnati—communication breaks down as numbers increase. Being stuck in a traffic jam? Not a fan, but I’ll survive. But what I really hated was flying. I’m not worried about falling out of the air etc. I really detest the idea of some idiot not getting the fuck out of my way, operating the emergency exit, etc.
I don’t like crowds, especially indoors. I’m always wondering what would happen if everyone suddenly panicked, then start feeling anxious and trapped and have to find an open area. But planes don’t bother me, nor do smaller gatherings.
As others have mentioned, feeling unable to make a mad dash for an exit and escape is what scares me. It never used to scare me until one day, maybe ten years ago, when I was on a high floor in a government building and the fire alarm went off. We piled into the stairwell and then probably waited for a good twenty minutes as everyone in all the floors below us piled into the stairwell and exited in front of us. Interestingly, when I mentioned this incident years later to another coworker who had been standing in the stairwell behind me, he didn’t even remember it. So it clearly didn’t bother him at all.
I had to have an MRI a couple of years ago looking for prostate cancer. I was assured that the machine in question was the newer “wide bore”. I researched and found that the wide bore was 27 inches in diameter. The original size? 24 inches. I mean, I’m glad it was bigger, but it wasn’t THAT much bigger.
I’m claustrophobic and the only thing that got me through it was the fact that my head was almost sticking out the other end. I had been told (incorrectly) that only my abdomen and legs would be in the machine. That was a LONG 50 minutes in that machine.
It’s been interesting reading this thread and the things that others avoid. I have a fear of elevators breaking down while I’m in them, but I still ride them if necessary. I don’t like to sit in the back seat of a two door car. I haven’t flown in years because I’m afraid I’ll have an attack but trains and buses don’t bother me. i don’t like to be in a crowded room with only one exit, unless I’m near it. And I am bothered by viewing or reading (real or fictional) accounts of people trapped in mines or caves and the like.