I’m afraid of becoming prescription pain reliever dependent and my psych drugs not working any longer so all the crap I had to live thru for most of my life coming back in spades.
Not as scary as some of the responses here, but I can see myself becoming a bitchy, nagging wife. I love my husband very much, but some of his habits drive me insane. I really have to bite my tounge sometimes. I really don’t want to turn into a shrew.
I’m also terrified that I’ll never finish school and will be stuck in the soul-sucking job that I have now until I die.
I’m not scared of what I myself might become, but I do fear having to live/raise my family in a post-apocalyptic world, ala Mad Max or something, because I’m just not mean enough to pull it off.
Because people aren’t supposed to be alone and isolated all the time. It can lead to depression and other health issues. It can make you weird and out of touch and even more isolated. Internet time doesn’t count either. You’ll just wind up reinforcing every bizzare idea that pops into your head because there’s always someone at least as strange as you online.
The biggest thing I’m worried about is becoming like Jim from The Office where he’s basically in a boring job he hates, but he keeps getting promoted and sticks around because it’s comfortible. Then again, it’s just work. As long as it’s stable and pays the bils who gives a shit.
I am a little concerned about my girlfriends clutter, since I find clutter personally offensive. A house or appartment should have a “clean state” where everything can be put into its proper place. I don’t need it to be clean all the time, but I need to know that magazine is out because I’m reading it or those clothes are out because I haven’t had a chance to put them away. Not because there’s no fucking place to put them.
You’re singing my tune here, Joey P. On the one hand, I possess average academic achievements; nothing to crow about, at all. In fact, I wouldn’t hire someone with my limited credentials. On the other hand, for the past 12 years or so, my personal and financial success has been insane, at least from my perspective.
I’m in my mid forties now. I make more money than I ever thought I would, significantly more than my circle of friends, and have just about every material representation of wealth I’ve ever wanted (e.g.: a house built to my specifcations, a midlife crisis sportscar, a midlife crisis yacht, etc…). I pay someone to clean my house, do my shopping and laundry. I don’t own my own company, but I get perqs because of the position I hold (e.g.: company Amex for expenses, company car, year-end profit sharing distribution, etc…). Yet, in the back of my mind, always lurking, is the, probably irrational, fear that when (in my self-induced nightmare it’s when, not if) it all goes away I’ll be renting a run-down hovel within a year, deemed unqualified for an executive position in any company because of my limited education. I, like you, have money in the bank, but it’s not like I can retire on it. I, too, have been talking about going back to school for-like-ever, but it’s 20 years later and that PhD is just as far away as it’s ever been.
A related fear is once I’ve lost it all I’ll spend the rest of my life wallowing in despair; another poster-boy for meteoric rises and falls, held out for derision and pity, as an example for kids who don’t take higher education as seriously as they should. Yep, I can definitely see it.
I am also really, really afraid of being one of those people who hates their job and spends every working minute counting down until it is time to go home. I am there right now and I am trying to get out of it but I can see myself sticking around for the incredible paycheck and just becoming an angry, miserable person who won’t be happy until they retire. I am trying to find something that would make me truly happy before I switch jobs so that I am not just hopping from miserable job to miserable job but it is a slow process.
As Greg Brown puts it, we’re at pink slip’s mercy in a paper universe.
I guess I could easily head down the “hermit discovered dead after two weeks and subsequently snacked on by cats” route.
It’s the tools’ revenge on the rest of us. You didn’t follow life’s master plan? Followed your bliss while the smart ones were knuckling under? Great, let’s see how you like it on the outside. Our world, our rules.
I could have written this. My husband has a learning disability which affects organizational skills, and there are piles of things around which he just doesn’t see. Leaves dishes wherever he’s eaten, that sort of thing, because it doesn’t register that they need to be put in the dishwasher. He’s gotten leaps and bounds better since we met, but it still drives me batshit.
Real fear - becoming my MIL, whose adult children dislike her.
Fantasy - being a true starving artist. I’ve always wanted to cut all ties with reality, let go of obligations to the here and now, follow only creative urges without any accountability.
There’ve been times when I could’ve disconnected, but I chose to take on new responsibilities instead. I’ve been too fearful.
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40-year-old (or older) stripper–this would be the main one I fear, I’m already 33. I’m trying to go back to school, but sometimes I’m just overwhelmed with depression and I can’t see myself doing anything else.
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addict
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agoraphobic
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hoarder
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And unrelatable enough that no one will want to be my friend.
Morbidly obese.
The crazy dog-lady.
Alcoholic.
Drug addict.
It’s all paranoia though - I have plenty to keep me happy and from going down those paths.
Very few real stage parents match the awful stereotype. The business (at least in New York) is set up to prevent it.
As for me, I could see myself working in crap jobs all my life because of lack of people skills. Luckily I’m smart enough to be considered eccentric, not unemployable. I could also see myself being single forever - finding the right woman was an incredible stroke of luck.
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That I will always be alone in some form.
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Never good enough for someone that I find attractive, to stay with me without “strings” (Meaning I find the man of my dreams, but it only last 2 or 3 months until he realizes he could have someone better looking and smarter…)
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Ending up in a dead end job because I can’t for the life of me figure out what I want to do with my life. Every time I think I have it figured out, I get bored of it.
I’m afraid of turning into those old creepy guys who hang out in public restrooms in the hopes of having sex with young men. I used to make use of those guys when I was younger, and I seem to be getting gayer the older I get.
I can also see myself being single forever, but by choice. Or rather, dating a string of women until such a time as I get sick of their shit and break up with them (or the other way around).
I’m terrified that this whole edumacation thing isn’t going to work out; I’ll be forced to drop out for some reason (I’ve already come damn close to it a few times) and never finish my degree, or I will finish but won’t be able to find a job and I’ll end up where everyone else in my family is, working shitty, low-paying retail or blue-collar jobs for the rest of my life.
I’m also afraid of being alone forever - I’m just way too comfortable with it already. As I told one of my friends a while back, “I’m scared to death that I’m going to end up being that professor who is way too friendly with her students because she doesn’t have any sort of social life or interpersonal interactions outside of the classroom.”
I’ve been an alcoholic. I spent four years waking up every morning trying to decide if this was the day I was going to kill myself. I’ve spent so much of my life depressed and miserable that I worry that my happiness and stability now is just a short plateau before the inevitable plummet.
I’m terrified of turning into my mom. I’m pretty sure she has Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I’d love to get her diagnosed, but she would never agree to go to a doctor because, if you ask her, there’s nothing wrong with her. There are nine behaivors listed in the DSM-IV. She meets all 9. But these two paragraphs from the Wiki article describes my mother perfectly
I don’t want to be that person. And what the article doesn’t mention is that it is entirely impossible to ascertain what the parent’s “needs” are. So there’s no way to correctly predict the “wrong” sort of behavior and avoid it. Ever.
I don’t know if NPD is genetic. I don’t know if I’m at risk of developing it, or if I already have it, or what. I don’t know if she’ll ever be treated. But I do know I catch myself doing or certain things that I know she would do. If I do turn into my mother, I’m sure my husband will leave me. And I won’t blame him, because god knows, I couldn’t stand growing up with it, I wouldn’t want to subject him to that sort of insanity.
Currently, I’m afraid that my state of unemployment will send me onto a depression, I’ll lose my fiancee because of money issues, and end up a bum.
Hey, Contrary, I think you’re okay. I’m pretty sure that if you’re married, you can’t be a Crazy Cat Lady.
BTW, there are Crazy Cat men - there was a guy that lived in my home-town who was single, had 20 cats and never cut his lawn…