My irrational fear is also of elevators/lifts, but only because I had recurring dreams for many years of them malfunctioning. Never in my life have I had a REAL dodgy lift.
Still though, whenever I go to get in a lift, I have flashbacks of my dreams which is enough to send the cold shivers and the dread of anticipation rattling through my psyche. Scares the bejesus outta me acksherly.
[lemming mode on]
a
a
a
a
g
g
h
:splort:
[/lemming mode]
Me too.
Tall buildings.
I don’t have a problem going up them, and I don’t have a problem looking out the windows; I fear the buildings themselves. They loom. I drove through Kansas City on Saturday and the buildings made me want to curl up and whimper. It felt like all that glass and concrete and hugeness was sucking the lifeforce right out of me.
I could never visit New York City. My head would asplode.
I am terrified of things that are in water. Buoys, bridges, even boats. And bugs.
I love swimming but as soon as I get near anything that’s not H2O (excluding humans and other non-scary mammals) I can barely keep my heart beating.
Did I mention bugs? Yeah. I am also terrified of anything with over 4 legs. Although lately this one seems to be going away - as long as the bug is not hairy (EEK!).
Very minor, very irrational.
I live on the top floor of my apartment complex, the third. My bed is right next to my window. I have an irrational fear that I’m going to kick the screen out by accident while I’m tossing and turning in my sleep. About half the time when I wake up, the first thing I do is touch the screen to make sure it’s still there. Never mind that I’ve never done it before and that it wouldn’t be much of a problem to fix…
When I go to the YMCA, I always get the fear that I forgot to put the padlock on my locker. I haven’t missed doing it yet.
This is more anxiety than fear, though I do have dreams about these two things when I’m upset:
Newspaper thingys on corners and at stores: I get really anxious that after I put in my 50 cents the newspaper jail won’t open up (what are those things called?)
Pay telephones: high anxiety that the coins won’t cause the dial tone to come on, then fears that I’ll make mistakes punching in the number. When I’m especially stressed I have prolonged nightmares that I’m at a pay phone for hours or even days, trying to call someone about a desperate matter. Anyway, thank goodness for cell phones, which give me no anxiety.
I hate screwing in light bulbs. I am SURE that one of them is going to explode when I’m doing it, blinding me and lacerating my face and arms. Once, I was screwing a new one in and it piffed and blacked out (don’t know the technical term) and I think it took 10 minutes for my breathing to return to normal. This was much more of a problem when I lived alone, but now there’s rarely a light that can’t be out until the longsuffering Mr. Stuff gets home to fix it. 
Oh, and I fear semi trailers. I know I’m going to die by being smashed between a semi and one of those concrete barriers. Mr. Stuff has explained that all I need to do is accelerate, since the semi can’t speed up as fast as I can. And that the force of a semi coming from the side would be unfortunate, but unlikely to kill me the way a semi coming head-on would. I don’t care. I still white-knuckle it until I am past the trailer. Just thinking about it makes me edgy.
That I will suddenly and for no good reason go blind. I blame too many childhood viewings of Little House on the Prairie when Mary goes blind almost overnight. Experiencing bad migraines that make my vision go all wonky does NOT help to alleviate this irrational fear, let me tell you.
I used to have a fear of tripping and falling while carrying my son in my arms but that went away after I actually did fall while carrying him. I slipped on some wet grass in the yard and down we both went. He bonked his head quite hard and was lying there without moving or crying and just as I was grabbing him up and thinking “Oh God, I’ve broken his neck/gave him a concussion/scarred him for life”, he started laughing. Whew.
I have something slightly like this too. I can never dare myself to walk down a flight of stairs without watching the steps. It’s fine I wasn’t thinking about it, but once the steps have been brought to my attention, I have to keep looking down at where I am going.
I live in New Jersey and take the Lincoln Tunnel into NYC. Even pre-9/11, I was scared that the tunnel would burst when I was in it. I’ve been on a bus that got stuck in the tunnel for over an hour due to traffic, and I totally freaked.
Post-9/11 it’s even worst. What if they bomb the tunnel when I’m in there?
I’m afraid of stairs. I’m afraid I will fall down them and break my neck. Every time I need to walk down stairs my hands ball up and I clutch the railing like a little old lady. If they are the open stairs you can see through I’m sure they will break and I will fall through.
I’m afraid of intersections. At every intersection I imagine someone will blindside me. I actually picture myself in an accident at every intersection. No, I don’t really like to drive.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Ditto.
Here’s a fun one! In November I had just purchased my new home and I was moving in the next day. I went to bed that night and was up half the night worrying (and almost hyperventilating) that my toddler would be able to climb up on the half wall by the stairs and fall over to his death. I could picture the whole scene, he was wearing a white shirt with denim overalls and little sneakers and I was just coming around the corner to see him climb up and fall.
This all may have possibly been rational if I had a toddler. Or even been pregnant. Or even been thinking about having kids in the next five years. I’m never even going to have a baby in this house, much less a toddler, but yet there I was, freaking out, considering not buying the house, just because of that stupid half wall.
I’m not so much afraid of, more freaked out by something touching my neck. It’s the trach place, the veins and ligiments. I can’t wear most necklaces and shirts because they touch my neck. When I’m anxious (which, in case you haven’t gleened this piece of knowladge from my post, is most of the time) I am always stroking my neck as if to say “Calm down, there’s nothing wrong here.” This also extends to other veiny or ligamenty areas such as my wrists and the backs of my knees.
I’m also always afraid that no one really likes me. I have very few actual friends that I will call up to hang out with, I’m usually afraid that whoever I want to be friends with is just putting up with me because they are too nice to tell me to fuck off. Bird Man has to arrange most of our social arrangements because I am too afraid to call people.
I could go on, but I don’t want to bore you all.
I hate having to idle under a tunnel over which traffic is passing. The sonorous echoing of the overhead traffic keeps me constantly aware of how utterly dead I would be if the tunnel simply collapsed onto me. Pictures of the Northridge earthquake showing at least one collapsed bridge/tunnel of that nature didn’t help a whole lot. On the other hand, I live in NJ, where earthquakes of that magnitude are not exactly common.
I also have a mild fear of driving over high bridges, especially if they are narrow. I’m afraid I’m going to lose control and drive over the side. The odd thing about this is that it began on a very specific day some thirty years back, when I left to drive to North Carolina after a night of fairly abbreviated sleep. For some reason, the idea of driving over the Delaware Memorial Bridge absolutely petrified me; I actively considered stopping at the toll booth and asking one of the passengers in another car to drive my car across for me. I made it over somehow, and certainly the fear has lessened over time, but it’s still just a little bit there to this day. And to this day, I still don’t have any idea why it developed so suddenly; certainly there was no event that prompted it.
Car windows. I can’t ride with the car windows all the way down. Because I’ll fall out. (Keep in mind that, with my hips, there’s no way I’m going to go through said window without a knife, shoe horn, or a really hard push.) This also goes for anyone else in the car.
I’m freaked by all bugs except fireflies, butterflies, and moths, and by rodents.
Chalk up another one for the fear of throwing myself off a height if there isn’t a high enough railing.
I’m afraid of driving on the lower level of a double-decker bridge, like the Bay Bridge. I’m afraid another earthquake will happen like in 1989, and the top level will pancake down onto the lower level where I’m driving.
I have that one too, for the same reason.
I have that one, too, but more about leaving the stove or oven on than anything else. It does not help that Mr. Neville often leaves the stove or oven on by mistake…
You screw in the light bulb while the lamp is on? :eek: I’m so scared of that happening that I have to make sure the lamp is off before I can screw in a light bulb. I will unplug it as well as turning it off if that’s not too inconvenient.
I have that one, too, in response to any unusual noise I hear while driving. Almost every time Mr. Neville and I go anywhere in the car, I will ask him, “Is that you?” in response to some noise or other. He likes to play with the coins in the little coin tray…
And anytime I leave my car parked somewhere for more than a day or so, I’m afraid it might get stolen.
I have the same fear with my credit card. I also have the fear that, when I log into my online banking to pay bills, something bad will have happened and I’ll have much, much less money in the account than I think I have.
I share alot of these.
Balconys–the rail must be high, and I’d prefer a solid brick wall, thankyouverymuch. I used to fear that I would not overcome the impulse to jump–but now that is mixed with a sceptism as to the safety of the balcony itself.
As I get older, I dislike flying more and more. Yeah, cars are dangerous, but falling 45,000 feet in a burning aluminum sealed container does not have a good ending.
Rollercoasters–I truly do not see the appeal in being whacked out of your mind with fear. Ditto horror movies (but I’m not afraid of those, just disgusted).
Snakes–by all means, eat all the vermin you want. Yes, our eco-cycle needs you. I just don’t want to see you, live with you, touch you, ever.
Having my kids fly w/o me or my husband. Once two of my three kids flew to California w/o us–I was a wreck the whole time they were in the air.
If I have to retrieve a spoon from the garbage disposal opening, I am always afraid that somehow the thing will turn on and turn my arm into hamburger.
I fear losing my eyesight.
And I have a low lying chronic fear that someday a police officer of FBI person will knock on my door and ask me to explain myself and I will have no idea what they are talking about and they will not believe me and take me away.
:going over to hide under the covers now:
Crickets. It’s not just an irrational fear, it’s a phobia!
Me, too. I remember being up in the Peace Tower as a young kid and holding my glasses on with one hand while I leaned out to look down. (This was before the powers that be put up the netting in response to their irrational fear that someone would jump off and squish a passing MP at the bottom - not that anyone had actually tried, or that squishing an MP wouldn’t generally be seen as a good thing by most Canadians :rolleyes: .) Nowadays, I mostly can restrain myself to a quick check for solid fit before leaning over a railing.
Just thinking about this gives me the shivers. Oddly, on occasions when this has actually happened, it hasn’t really bothered me. I recall cutting rather deeply into my arm as a teenager and my reaction was amazement that I could actually see and recognize the layers of skin, small blood vessels, etc. that my biology text illustrated.
This is truly irrational, but I’m afraid of zombies. I love zombie movies, and I’m not afraid of people dressed up as zombies, I’m just afraid of hoards of zombies. I don’t like the house I’m living in right now because there is no real way to secure it from zombies. I bought a gun (after much safety training) for no other reason than zombies. I actually feel better having a gun in the house. I like the room I work in because it’s safe from any kind of zombie (shambling or quick).
It’s a completely irrational fear. I know that zombie hoards have never happened and there is no mechanism for it to occur in the future, but it doesn’t stop me from fearing it. The thought of zombies doesn’t affect my life much. It doesn’t keep me from living in the house I do, but if I had the money and the opportunity, it would be a factor in a house that I would have built.
I have found a way to conquer my irrational fear of dropping/losing my keys. (My fear is more about losing them, I would compulsively check my bag dozens of times per day to make sure they were there. But this of course stemmed from the fear that they had fallen down a sewer without me noticing.) It also helps with my perfectly rational annoyance at my habit of regularly losing my keys in my house.
The solution: I have them on a lanyard that is firmly attached to the strap of my bag. It is long enough that I have full use of them, and the only time it is not attached is when I’m switching bags.
Also, when on subway platforms, I sometimes fear that I will not be able to stop myself from shoving someone off.