If it would make you feel better, you could sell all those mid-life toys and stuff the money in the bank. Just a thought. 
I’ll probably become a recluse, but it’s not a “fear” - I’ll second AnArky, what’s wrong with that?
The only scary path for my life would be that my son would never move out. And that’s not really so scary (he’s a very pleasant person).
Me ‘n’ Mr. K are the Crazy Cat Couple. We put up with lots of stares and whispers from my son. And we don’t care. Cuz we’re crazy.
You have an actual pie on the floor? Like, in a pie tin or what?
I’m not judging—if you could see my bedroom you would know that. I have books all over the place. I’m just confused about the pie.
Anyhow, to answer the OP:
Becoming like my mother, whose children can’t stand her and talk about her in derisive ways.
Developing an eating disorder again. I’d never become obese, but I could see myself becoming anorexic or bulimic again, if the tide turned in a bad way.
Chronic health condition/pain complaining person. This year has been Teh Suck and I am so afraid it will never get better.
My sympathies. My mother has narcissistic personality disorder. I’ve been told by my sister, the psychologist, that if you have enough insight/concern for others to even ask the question "might I have narcissistic personality disorder and how might it affect my family?’ it pretty much rules out the disorder.(YMMV on this but I have been comforted by this thought 
) You could still be self-centered, sure, but probably not to the degree required to have the disorder.
Mmmmmmm…floor pie
Actually, that is a comforting thought. Thanks.
Crazy hoarder lady (I have piles of books and magazines. This thread is prompting me to go clean already.)
Alcoholic
The kind of self-involved mom who is off “doing her own thing” while her kid is off roaming the neighborhood, shoplifting, and, later, getting very very friendly with the local boys behind the 7-11.
Grossly obese. I’m already fat, but I’m trying to eat better and bought an exercise video which I mean to use, now that I heard about the lady who got so fat her skin fused with the upholstery of her chair.
I’m also worried about becoming the other extreme once I lose all the weight - the kind of appearance-obsessed middle-aged woman you see all the time on reality shows.
Basically, staying in this comfortable but pointless job for the rest of my life, doing forever what was going to be a temporary thing. It was going to be temporary nine years ago, and it was going to be temporary two and a half years ago when I came back to it from school, but I’m still here and no close to doing anything else. I have gifts lots of people would kill for, and I’m doing nothing with them, and I’m too chickenshit to get off my arse and change it. So I guess that’s my fear: keep doing exactly what I’m doing.
Then again, I didn’t use to feel like this. This job gets me enough money and loads of free time. I cannot rationally see a reason to give it up. There’s just some vague, ethereal, nebulous feeling that I’m wasting my life, that I’m missing out on something. I don’t know why it started, because I used to feel perfectly happy. I also used to be perfectly happy about being single, but I’m desperately unhappy about it now. If I could only stop thinking about these dumb fucking things I’d be happy again, as nothing has changed but my attitude. But no.
On a different note, I’ve been hospitalized six times in two years but I still don’t think of myself as a person who’s sometimes in the hospital; I just have had to go there often lately. So I fear thinking of myself differently, and letting my health problems limit my life and options more than absolutely necessary.
I could definitely be a hoarder/live in squalor or be depressed enough to kill myself. Neither of those haunt me, though.
What I spend a not inconsiderable amount of time worrying about is obesity. You look at those people who are so huge and think that you’d never let yourself get there. Well, when was 19 I weighed myself and saw I was 160. I freaked out, realizing how much higher than it should have been, and lost 15 pounds. Then, I hit 175. Lost some more again. Hit 190. Back down to 170-whatever, trying to lose more. And day to day, I feel fat but whatever, and then I realize that I’m DOWN to 20 pounds above my first absolutely-way-too-much-freak-out point.
I am absolutely terrified of becoming one of those people and I can see the exact mechanism working in my life now.
I thought I had posted here, but I don’t see it.
I can easily see myself becoming “strange old woman who is too much alone.” Hell, I’m that now, except for old. I doubt I’ll collect cats (or anything else) but I either shut people out of my life somehow or I have the worst judgement when it comes to “friends” possible–I mean people who don’t return phone calls, stand me up etc. I don’t put up with that anymore, but it’s left me essentially alone. I have come to realize that whatever it is that makes people want to be with someone (as friends), I don’t have it.
And then I think–that’s crazy. I have friends in grad school that I see and enjoy etc. But how long will that last? a little voice whispers to me–afterall, I graduate in May. It doesn’t help that I avoid people, more so now than ever. I don’t fit anywhere, really. I am about to take that huge leap into Divorceland, which will at least define me better to my social peers. In the suburbs, it’s all about couples and families… Frankly, places like Facebook and here don’t help, because I get enough “socializing” from here most days–I have no incentive to work on RL relationships.
I say all this, not for pity etc, but to share that it might just be easier for me to NOT try to make friends, to not extend myself, to keep my own company. I really don’t know if that would be a minor tragedy or a good thing. I know I like being alone. But at times, loneliness does intrude. Christ-I’ll probably have a funeral and no one will come, just like the song. 
I’m becoming much more of a social hermit, cutting back on friends and social events over the years, to the point where I can barely even say that I have friends at all. Part of that is that I’m very happily married and just want to spend time with my wife, but I really have to force myself to socialize.
I am not a physical hermit though, I love travel and adventure, I just don’t want to have to talk to…you know, people…while I’m adventuring.
I’ve thought of another one. I’m afraid of being that estranged sister/daughter/aunt of the family who stops showing up at Christmas and doesn’t answer the phone when anyone calls and just stops being a part of the family.
I don’t want to be like that. There’s no good reason I would be like that, because I love my family and they love me. But I can see it happening way too easily.
Up until the point where I met my last girlfriend, I always had the fear of dying alone. Since we broke up, the fear threatens to come back, but the rational half of my mind always beats it into submission (especially since I’ve really become a better man in so many ways since we broke up). Still, late at night, I still wonder if I’m wrong (not so much these days), and will never find someone else…
I mean, I could see myself going down that road until I met her, and in some alternate universe where I didn’t have the counsel of wiser people than myself to guide me along the road to getting over heartbreak, well, I could see myself going down that road again.
I also could see myself becoming trapped in some unhappy milieu because I let myself get complacent and settle for what’s easiest. Like, working in some pointless job because the money’s okay and the hours work for me, and going home to the wife I’ve been married to all these years because I just don’t have a reason to divorce her. I’ve lived my life settling for mediocrity, and dammit, I’m tired of it. But I could see myself backsliding and going down that road again, and it terrifies me.
If I could afford to, I most certainly would become a hermit. I quit my job over six months ago, and have been living off my savings since then. I’ve barely depleted them at all; I had quite a lot saved and had no plans to use it otherwise, so I have no concern about using it up this way now. But it can’t last forever.
The scary part is I really wish it could last forever, I love living this way, but I fear I may start to make excuses so that I can live like this longer than is fiscally responsible.
Hoarder, definitely. I can keep kitchens and bathrooms clean, but beyond that, if there’s not someone forcing me to through out or donate unnecessary clothing, paperwork, magazines, newspapers, etc, I’ll keep it. I’ll wash my laundry when it needs to be washed, but putting it away is another story entirely. I’m trying to get better about it- I don’t want to end up like my paternal grandfather, whose house was horrible when he died. I think I’ll be okay, though, especially if I don’t get my own apartment until I’ve graduated.
Crazy cat lady- The sort whose cats have meaningful names and backstories worthy of soap operas. I already narrate my family and friends’ cats and dogs; it would be even worse if I had my own. Luckily, my distaste for dealing with litter boxes pretty much guarantees that I won’t have a pet unless I have a roommate or SO to help take care of them.
-I’m already on the way to Krazy Kat and Dog Lady; I can only see accumulating more lovely beasties as I grow older.
-Going back for another Ph.D.; I think I’m addicted to school!
-Without my S.O. to push me out the door, I would rarely venture out of the house except to teach. I LOVE to be at home doing projects and I don’t like people to come over, to chat on the phone, etc. Leave me alone! Maybe I’ll be the KKDL Karpenter and Gardening Lady.
-Alzheimers: both sets of grandparents and a number of older relatives have/had AD. I freak out at every little memory/aphasic glitch I have (I’m 40).
-I’m more than a bit OCD and I can only see it becoming worse as I age.
-My immediate and extended family has addiction and alcohol issues. I hate alcohol and hardly ever drink, but I’m scared that I’ll “accidentally” become a drinker.
I’m scared that everything will be boring to me. The logic goes something like this: There are a million things I could do today. All except five or ten would be completely boring. Oh well, I’ll just choose from what I have and carry on. But what if tomorrow those five or ten things are also boring? :eek:
OTOH I have a streak of at least 10,000 days with no significant boredom problems, so I guess I’ll keep coping OK.
Best Case Scenario; the well-loved rich and generous uncle of a large family. A well-attended funeral.
Worst Case Scenario; the rarely thought-of unlce whose death would simply be a sudden windfall to a widely scattered family. A small funeral that most treat as a burden and obligation.
This is my fear but in my case it was my mom who died of the disease (though she got it in her late 60s). I’m 44 and whenever I have a stupid memory lapse (like this morning, putting on my rings, I couldn’t figure out why the one on my right hand ring finger felt weird. I’d put on my wedding set on the wrong hand and I didn’t even figure it out until I was halfway to the grocery store…), I get this nagging fear in the back of my mind.
As many others have said, I could become a hermit very easily. My husband also has that tendency and sometimes I wish we were more outgoing but it’s just easier to remain a home body.
ugh.
Ok… this is definately a scary road because it’s been somewhat PLANNED.
When I get old(er):
This should all take place sometime in my late 70’s or early 80’s.
Otherwise, more realistic: