# Things that petrify you **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 12, 2003, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599 "2003-05-12T02:30:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/41 "2003-05-13T04:51:22Z")
I greatly fear going blind. As an avid reader, I tremble at the thought of not having my sight. ---
**Author:** ![drm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@drm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drm)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/42 "2003-05-13T05:22:42Z")
hmmm -the thought of being famous scares me -anything living that flies that isn’t a bird -large insects -large spiders -thunder and lightening ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/43 "2003-05-13T06:33:53Z")
Death, or being responsible for someone else’s death. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/44 "2003-05-13T10:32:48Z")
Wasps, bloody stripey little bastards gerroff! gerritoffameee! Hornets too (stripey, not so little, but twice as bastard). ---
**Author:** ![elfje](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19b73/32.png) [@elfje](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfje)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/45 "2003-05-13T12:30:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tony Montana \* > \*\*Sooo… > > The dates off then? \*\* ehh… date? ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/46 "2003-05-13T14:23:30Z")
Bees, wasps, hornets and yellow jackets. If I see one come within ten feet of me I get up and run away. The thought of having one land on me just give me the shivers. I don’t see them often, but I freak out whenever I see a snake. Rattlesnakes are common around here, but I have never had the misfortune of seeing one cross my path. Spiders are creepy, too, but they’re usually not threatening me when I see them. Still, I am very uncomfortable around them. ---
**Author:** ![sajwalke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/edb3f5/32.png) [@sajwalke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sajwalke)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/47 "2003-05-13T14:46:52Z")
Cockroaches freak me out. To kill them I have to either dump a magaton of bug spray on them or squash them with a dictionary. If I spray them I have to run away so I don’t hear them dying _shudder_ and if I squash them with a dictionary I have to leave the dictionary in place with a note nearby (I can’t even touch the dictionary) saying that someone needs to clean up the mess. I don’t know why, but they really freak me out. ---
**Author:** ![MrMyth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MrMyth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrMyth)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/48 "2003-05-13T15:20:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TJay \* > \*\*OK, this is kind of hard to explain, but the way certain animated things move on films, like ED209 in Robocop, and a stained glass knight that came to life in a film I once saw (I think it was Young Sherlock Holmes or something like that). The whole of The Mummy returns was terrifying purely because of those freaky dog soldier things that came out of the sand! > > Their movements are sort of jerky, and something about them just really creeps me out. > > \*\* Right there with ya. Except I play videogames, so certain enemies in certain games freak me out. Something about the fact that they move like they’re alive, but you know they’re not. It just ain’t right. Another thing that bothers me is living things that get bigger than they are supposed to. Be they massive real-life specimens of rats or special effects menaces, the thought of a spider with a basketball-sized body loosens my bowels. Fantasy animals, like dragon or Cerebus - that’s fine. But even the RoUS from the Princess Bride make my skin crawl. I once started to read a book where a guy having a bad acid trip hallucinated a mammoth cockroach peeking out from under his stove. I never finished that book. ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Venom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9fc348/32.png) [@Lady\_Venom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Venom)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/49 "2003-05-13T16:32:45Z")
I’m 30 years old and I have a nightlight in my hall and bathroom. I am VERY afraid of the dark, but I need it to be dark to sleep. 😕 I am also claustrophobic. I had to be knocked out to have an MRI a few years ago. I tried it sans drugs and almost hyperventilated. I was fine with my eyes closed, but the tech said to keep my eyes open. Yea, right!! I am so claustrophobic the bathroom door has to be left open (only when I don’t have company over) You should see me when I have to go into a public washroom :eek: Maybe TMI, but one time the s/o and I were getting frisky in the bedroom, it was VERY dark and he was over me. I FLIPPED out. I couldn’t breathe. I was yelling at him to get off me. What a night LOL ---
**Author:** ![Padeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@Padeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Padeye)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/50 "2003-05-13T17:08:54Z")
Calcium carbonate. For a straight answer I’d say being trapped in a tunnel. If I were to picture myself trrapped head down, wedged in a tunnel with my arms pinned… I get freaked the hell out. ---
**Author:** ![big\_alex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e56c9b/32.png) [@big\_alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/big_alex)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2003, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/51 "2003-05-13T19:16:18Z")
TJay, sloths realy scare me too. It’s their long arms and legs and neck, but a tiny squashed up face that frightened me about them. I am also afraid of any situation where I feel trapped and unable to run away should I want to. So I try not to go in lifts if possible, and don’t like being right in the middle of tightly packed crowds. ---
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/52 "2003-05-15T02:38:12Z")
Losing my sight. The dark. Lobotomies. Brain damage. Mind control. Not being able to move. Cockroaches. Confined spaces. Lying on my back. People in my room when I’m trying to sleep. Or things. Anything that isn’t my dog or someone I know well personally and I know is there. Getting jumped again. Getting another one of those ‘scars’. Not being able to speak. Losing a limb. I don’t fear heights. I fear knowing I’m going to fall from them. The falling part’s not so bad until you get to the ground. Ghosts. They’re not real, but if I met one it’d sure freak the crap outta me. Hanging out at **Anal Scurvy** ’s place. Being watched. Lying on the ground in the woods. Abandonment. Being perpetually lost. Becoming feeble. The freezing, barren cold. Drowning. Drowning itself isn’t so bad; it’s what leads up to it what gets ya. In a lake/ocean/river and stepping on _things_. In the same area and having something brush up against me or touch me in any way. Losing all my possession. Most things I can live without because it’s just stuff, but you never know the real important stuff; like my blanky I still have from childhood. Burying another friend. Having my reputation trashed. Losing my integrity or my reputation for integrity. Something horrible happening to my brothers and sister. Losing my parents. Being on a sinking ship. Being on a crashing plane. For what it’s worth, I’d still get on damn boat and plane. Walking blindfolded. Walking through a shooting range. Going sixty miles per hour down a lane with objects behind, in front, and to my right going sixty miles as well (more or less) in the same direction while to my left are two rows of objects traveling sixty miles or more _towards_ me. And the only thing separating us is a concrete barrier. Scylla. Parasailing or ballooning and just going higher, and higher, and higher. Leeches. Smallpox. I ain’t afraid of it _now_, but if it becomes a serious problem I just want to have my bases cover. The smallpox vaccine. That scares me now. Any computer chip implanted into me. AIDS. When I was a boy of around 15 I concluded that’s how I’d die. It was a cosmic fate thing, like how all Irish people die of alcohol-related diseases. Finding out my entire experience in life wasn’t real. Schizophrenia scares the piss outta me. A hacking cough. Horrible way to die of suffocation. ---
**Author:** ![Eternal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecb155/32.png) [@Eternal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eternal)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/53 "2003-05-15T07:06:02Z")
I’m one of those who would have a shorter list if the subjet were “things that DON’T petrify you”. I find that almost everything has a vaguely terrifying nature to it. ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 8:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/54 "2003-05-15T08:28:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Blackeyes \* > \*\*Finding out my entire experience in life wasn’t real. Schizophrenia scares the piss outta me. \*\* Oh holy shit. I never even thought of that one, but from now on I’m gonna be paranoid that my whole life is just the pathetic delusion of some drooling vegetable in an asylum. Damn you, damn you. .:Nichol:. ---
**Author:** ![Tony\_Montana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/278dde/32.png) [@Tony\_Montana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tony_Montana)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/55 "2003-05-15T19:40:23Z")
swallow the red pill… ---
**Author:** ![Tony\_Montana](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/278dde/32.png) [@Tony\_Montana](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tony_Montana)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2003, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/56 "2003-05-15T21:06:41Z")
> [@](#): > > Finding out my entire experience in life wasn’t real. Schizophrenia scares the piss outta me. Actually, that raises many questions one of which is : Do extremely dumb people _know_ they’re dumb? I mean, what if you woke up one day with the sudden realization: “darn I’m stoopid” ---
**Author:** ![Delly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Delly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delly)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/57 "2003-05-16T00:02:13Z")
**Death** … the whole not knowing it whats going to happen **Buried Alive** … eeeek **Being Alone** , not in the sence of right now I’m sat alone at my p.c., but when I’m older and such, I dont like the idea of living my life alone, scary. **The Dark, or things that can happen in the Dark** I dont know why this one bothers me, I’ve never had anything happen to me when its dark, I guess it just comes from the fact that most horror scenes happen in the dark. ---
**Author:** ![Delly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Delly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delly)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/58 "2003-05-16T00:07:40Z")
oh and i forgot… \*\* Getting Old\*\* not so much getting old, just that some, and not all I will say, some older people lose all control over there lives, I would hate for that to happen ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@Mirror\_Image\_egamI\_rorriM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mirror_Image_egamI_rorriM)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2003, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599/59 "2003-05-16T00:23:25Z")
I have a petrifying fear of being forced to join the army. I don’t know why, but I would die of fright if I was drafted. It’s not about fighting, no, it’s the actual army experience that scares me, especially boot camp. It just sounds like hell to me. A lot of my friends are going to join the armed services after they leave high school, and I cannot imagine what is wrong with them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/things-that-petrify-you/174599.md?page=2)