Near pathological fear of being homeless.
I have more than one year’s living expenses saved up at any one time. I am constantly doing and re-doing my budget. Makes it very difficult to take risks and keeps me in a job I dislike solely because of the salary.
Fear of rejection. I often wonder how many good relationships I passed up just for lack of trying.
It bothers me less day-to-day, but another fear is that I would get jailed or put in a mental institution and no one would believe I didn’t belong there.
You say you’re innocent/not crazy? So does everyone else here! :eek:
I’m with **WOOKIN ** and Stainz…deathly afraid of looking stupid. I can’t attempt something new with people watching me because I might fuck up. It’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since I’ve had this fear for a long long time, there are plenty of things I never tried, and plenty of questions I never asked, so there are lots of things I don’t know and consequently will fuck up.
I know it’s a huge cliche to blame Mom, but she was awful damn critical.
I have a true needle phobia. It used to involve all sharp objects or anything that might even become sharp, like (drinking) glasses and safety pins but I’ve gotten to the point…harhar…that just needles get to me.
When I say true phobia it’s not just about getting shots, I mean I avoid places where they might be found. This has caused a cluster of other anxieties like having to visit loved ones in hospitals and getting sick myself.
Interesting that this one seems to come up a lot. I have no problem with being in airplanes or tall buildings; I love the restaurant/coctail lounge at the top of the Hancock Center, but I do not like ladders or high, narrow ledges or perches. I was once in Germany with a large group of students touring a late Medieval era church, and we all got to go up in the tower. Only, we came to a point where it was necessary to climb up an ordinary ladder that was about 15 feet high to get to to the next level. The third or fourth rung slid out when the first or second person stepped on it, and that was enough of the ladder for me, and a few others–only about five of us refused to go any higher, out of all thirty-five or so.
I can raise my hand for most things suggested so far…I fear loneliness, rejection, being trodden on, being revealed as a fraud somehow, being thought of as stupid, ugly, crazy, vindictive, etc., or just having anyone think something untrue and the slightest bit negative about me for an instant, even if it doesn’t matter or I’ll never see them again. I suppose I have a particular fear of embarrassment or awkward situations (the Japanese in me?) that used to give me physical stomach twinges when I was younger, though I’ve kind of trained my body out of that. All those things interconnect to give me an excessive compulsion to put my best foot foward, to not present myself or any of my accomplishments to anyone unless they’re perfect and polished (meaning I end up not presenting much to anyone much of the time), and to avoid awkwardness at all costs, which of course makes me self conscious enough that awkwardness still often ensues. Yay! That also manifests in lesser ways…I’d much rather write than call (though my job is helping me get over that), though I’ll talk readily when addressed and initiate just fine when I’m forced to, I don’t want to do it otherwise.
I’m also acutely aware (also stomach-hurtingly) of my impending death and have been since I was about 4 or 5. Because of that I get really anxious about not wasting time, really down on myself if I end up wasting time anyway, and really disappointed with everything I do because no matter how much I accomplish, there’s still too much more to take care of before the other shoe drops and so much I could have done earlier/faster/better. My expectations for myself are sky high and as a result I’m always depressed.
In the past few years, probably because I and some loved ones have gone through a number of frightening muggings/holdups, I’ve developed this new idea that I’m going to die violently at the hands of just some person who wants something stupid like my watch and doesn’t conceive that I have a life that I cherish. Not a happy feeling and because of it I can’t happily walk the streets and quietly relish the outdoors without apprehension; I miss that.
Very recently, though, I was reminded of my great visceral fear of COCKROACHES. I know they’ve been around forever, they’re not out to kill me (probably), they’re fellow living creatures, etc. I’m not scared of seeing big hissing ones at the zoo or anything, but the thought of being “infested” with them makes my blood run cold. This stems back to “The Night of One Million Cockroaches” when I lived in Hawaii as a little girl. I was alone with my older brother one night and they’d always been around because it was a small rickety house with termites, but that night they just SWARMED. out of nowhere, hundreds of them, coming out of the drains, everywhere! My brother and I ran from room to room screaming and finally ran to our neighbors’ until my mom came home from work. I still don’t know what made them do it, but since then I’m deathly afraid of having roaches in my living space. I saw one a few weeks ago in my new place that was most likely a stray from outside spraying or something, as we live cleanly and the landlord assures they’ve never had a problem, but ever since then, though we’ve cleaned madly and found no trace since, I’m the slightest bit scared of our apartment. But all the time. 
I’m an anxious person. 
First, I’d like to say that I’d love to swat the mean parents referenced by some of the previous posts. Fer chrissake, the world is hard enough without treating your child like some … tossed off piece of junk. :mad:
I myself have a fear of Messing Up. Especially in my professional life, I review calculations over and over again. Once it’s constructed, I can’t go back.
And also, I still have those stupid dreams about running all over campus trying to find the place for the final exam, butt ass nekkid and two hours late. Oh well. 
I’m dead scared of my big sister…even now I’m 46, the thought of being in her presence makes me want to pee my pants. :eek:
Luckily for my sanitary health , I haven’t had an encounter with her in nigh on 10 years now. And I’ll just have to wear Depends when we attend the Olds funerals in the future.
My arachnophobia involved paralysing night terrors making my life very difficult - waking the family with screaming in the night and a fear of going to sleep because they would probably come - very big, vivid spiders across the bedspread. I couldn’t touch a picture of one and depended on others to deal with them in the house.
So I decided something had to be done about it. I started studying them. I began by observing the little ones on the OTHER side of the window and learning to classify them. After about six months of serious study, with some help from a spider expert, the fear had gone. Then I kept going. I am now obsessed by spiders. Adore them. I wear spider jewellery, look for them everywhere I go, and encourage them - even the big ones we have here in Australia - in the house. My next book will be on spiders!
Lynne
I’m a sociophobe, and I am convinced beyond hope that I an ugly, hideous beast not fit to be seen in public. Oddly, you won’t see me in the “do you really have no friends” thread, because somehow, I’ve managed to make a few. I’m not really sure how, to be quite honest. My husband (how the hell I managed to land someone as good as him is a mystery) is helping me a lot these days, but I would still say my fear of getting out and meeting people is probably the thing that affects my life the most. It really is a problem. I meet the nicest people and have a completely irrational fear of messing something up somehow. Not only do I feel hideous; often I feel like a common fool. I’m not fond of myself. I’m working on getting that fixed. I’ve got a bad screw loose somewhere.
My distant second is thunderstorms. Particularly loud booms make me whimper. My father tried to help me out when I was younger by giving me the encyclopedias and ordering me to learn everything I possibly could about lightning, then showed me educational films about it. It was all very, very fascinating, but didn’t quell my fear; now I know exactly what it can do. Now I unplug everything, stay away from outlets, water, metal… I have a nice safe corner I can go and cover my ears and ride it out, usually moaning “noooonononoooo!” at every thunderclap. And sometimes “just go awaaaaaay!”
Distant, distant third is balloons. Balloons freak me right the fuck out. I hate people squishing them, and squeezing them. Balloons are only nice when they float nicely, on a string. People are so destructive and want to make them pop. I can’t stand it.
The last two affect my life in more minor ways, since they are not ubiquitous. The sociophobia, on the other hand… every damn day. I’m doing better, but I need to do more.
I don’t know how you’d classify it - fear of failure? fear of criticism? fear of not being good enough? That last one comes closest. That’s what I have.
I’m an intelligent person, and my mother looks up to me as one of the two utterly self-confident people she knows (the other’s my dad). I am accomplished. But I wonder how many people know that all of it is due to my fear of failure. How many people know that I wear a thin veneer, and how much slight setbacks affect me?
When I was a kid and the parents would yell at me (for valid reasons and screw ups, mostly, tho’ Mom sometimes had a hair trigger), I’d cry. Always. Regardless of the infraction; even for just little “you know you should be more careful” statements. Sometimes for hours. I’d cry because I let them down, again, because I wasn’t good enough.
I’m terrified of not being good enough. There’s times I drive my husband crazy with the not making decisions or not standing up for myself. I don’t know if he realizes that sometimes I do this because I don’t want people to judge me negatively based on a choice, or that it’s more important to me that he be happy or that we’re doing something he wants to do rather than me getting my way.
The times I fail (and who hasn’t?) hit me hard. When I withdrew from nursing school last year I felt like a failure, even though I withdrew because the time constraints of juggling full-time employment with getting to classes and still studying was wearing me down too much, not because I couldn’t hack it academically. Right now I’m depressed because I don’t think I got the job I interviewed for, even though my second interview was just last Friday and it’s probably still too soon to expect a response. I’m obsessing over analyzing my every response and where I should have said something else or did something differently to have done better.
Ironically, I can divorce this from my professional life - I’m a technical writer, and handle criticism of my documentation just fine, mostly. Perhaps it’s because the goal of my docs is to help people, and if something’s not coming across or is hard to understand, then it’s broken and not helping. I view the criticism I get as a breakdown in the process rather than criticism of myself, I guess. I’m glad of it, however - I’d be in a fine fix if I couldn’t handle reviews in my career.
Every setback reinforces that I’m not good enough, that I’m worthless, even though I know that’s not true. And it’s really hard to shoulder that burden, but I try to get better, to let go.
The fear of killing someone, intentionally or non-intentionally. It’s the reason I can’t drive, because I would have these fantasies and nightmares about either striking someone on purpose because of a sudden homicidal impulse, or hitting someone without knowing about it and leaving them to die in the street. Hence, the reason I have to live in the city. It doesn’t affect me much outside of driving, although it does sometimes, like I’ll just be sitting around talking to someone and there’s something that seems to say (not a voice, but it comes close) “you want to hurt them, don’t you?” This is especially unsettling when I am at work.
The thing is, I’m not really violent. Actually, I abhor it. And part of me thinks that if I were to get over this fear I would become violent since I would not be in “check” 24/7. I am also worried that I am a sociopath, even though apparently a real sociopath would not worry about that.
I’m like this, too. I usually describe it as “fear of criticism” The main reason I’m terrified of going to the doctor is that they might criticize me for being overweight, not exercising enough, etc.
I’m also afraid they would tell me that I have to totally change my lifestyle, or that something else would happen that would force me to do that. I think my cats like change more than I do. The fear of criticism plays into this- I can’t read nonverbal signals, so it usually hits me blindside when someone criticizes me.
Fear of airplanes. I’m so afraid of flying that I even got to the point where I was afraid of the plane itself, where it was difficult to go to the airport and see planes even if I was only picking someone up and not actually getting on a plane. I couldn’t watch movies or TV if they were set in an airplane – not just airplane crash movies, which seem obvious, but also sitcoms that were laughing at the cramped leg room in coach – I’d have to turn it off before it was a full blown panic attack.
I used to fly fairly often for work, and it was quite miserable and it also ruined vacations, because I would be ill with anxiety before, and then ill with motion sickness after, the flights on both sides of the trip. A few years ago I put my foot down and decided I’m not flying anymore, ever, and that was oddly liberating in a way. I have great vacations now because I don’t have the worry about whether or not to fly, that’s already decided. I can go to the airport to pick people up because, hey, what do I care, I don’t get on planes! I like to watch Lost, because that sure as heck is never going to happen to me.
Hmm, I have something of the opposite of what the OP describes: a fear of-- or maybe more accurately, a discomfort with– being seen as overly smart or precocious. I think this stems from when I was a young kid, being the ‘smart one’, having to deal with both the pressure of living up to that expectation and the social pressure directed towards people who stick out. I’d like to be seen as competently smart but not outstandingly smart. Actually, the realization that I’m not even secretly particularly smart has been kind of disappointing. Heh.