Monday, December 8, 2008

Leann

Alright here it goes:I'm claustrophobic, I think a lot of people are which may or may not make it less irrational. But mine tends to manifest in kind of weird ways. For example, I hate driving in tunnels that you cannot see the end of, the harbor tunnel in Maryland comes to mind. I'm not afraid the tunnel will collapse on me, although that would suck, I'm afraid of driving forever and never getting to the end.

I also hate driving on some bridges because I think I may, for whatever reason, drive over the side into the water and be trapped in my car. I would prefer the quicker death of hitting solid earth. In fact the idea of getting trapped in the car with the water rising around me is a big one, but I don't really see any other way that this is going to happen. I find myself clenching my teeth in these situations, giving myself a headache.

I also don't like crowds, usually they are just annoying and I avoid them whenever possible. But I've always been afraid of being caught in a situation like just happened on black Friday, a mob of people that carries you along with it, so tight you can't keep your footing. I imagine it's like being swept along in a really strong river current, a fate I would choose over the crowd any day. I think this fear comes from videos of celebrities being mobbed by hordes of fans each of them wanting a piece, reminds me of zombies. On the other hand, I have always been fine in elevators, even got stuck in one once for several hours. But since I saw that video of the guy stuck in an elevator for like 3 days, I'm afraid of getting stuck all alone in an elevator, I don't think it would be as bad as long as I wasn't alone, cause I'm not afraid of dying, the solitude and boredom would drive me insane.

On that note, I hate to be caught without something to do. Usually I'm doing 3 things at once but I need to be doing at least one thing, I cannot wait patiently. I don't know if I would call this a fear but I will go to great lengths to make sure I have something with me at all times, just in case, I never know when I may get caught in limbo.

Joe Spence

I'm terrified of Abraham Lincoln. Ever since I was in elementary school and read a book on ghosts of the white house, I have a reoccurring nightmare where Lincoln's Ghost is standing over me...watching me sleep...its disturbing

Erica Langen

1) I get panicky even thinking about dark water. It doesn't necessarily have to be deep (though that is indefinitely more frightening), but murky, dark, and cloudy. If the light doesn't reach the bottom, I don't want to go in there. This applies to the deep end of pools, rivers, lakes, large puddles, and of course, the ocean.

2) Chewing gum. I absolutely detest it. In my view, it is nothing more than a half-masticated, saliva-drenched food mass with the consistency of industrial rubber. My biggest concern is that I'll put my hand under a chair or under a table and there will be a huge, disease-ridden blob of old Big Red. I am significantly upset if I step in gum on the sidewalk--I feel like crying and my day is more or less ruined. I have to control my literal urge to gag when people stick their half-chewed gum on a plate to save for after a meal. I don't like seeing other people's gum, even if it's safely in their mouth. I do not chew gum myself, and use breathmints to maintain a minty-fresh breath.

Oprah apparently feels the same way about gum and bans chewing gum from her studio. I find this a perfectly acceptable practice, and I would advocate a nation-wide ban on chewing gum.

Chris Ritter

I have a tremendous aversion to Mannequinnes, humanoid puppets, like Marrionettes, lawn knomes or ventriliquests dummies, but there are specifics involved, The older they are, the grosser and freakier they become, especially if they have fake unkempt facial hair. shoddy make up,rosy cheeks, deteriorating, or are dressed in old antique clothing, thats the worst, They make me literally sick, I get very nausous and I avoid them at all costs so I dont dry heave or throw up, (I DO LOVE the Muppets however), Ive had episodes where Ive not been able to leave the area, like a carnival ride or a CPR training course involving a dummy, I had to put my mouth on this thing! and I got sick.
2 movies really bother me..Poltergeist, when the evil clown comes out from under the bed and a film called Magic, about a ventriliquist and his dummy, It freaks me out to think about those films even today.. and Im im my mid 40s! Modern dummies don't bother me as much like a naked chrome human "form" in a store, Im fine, its the fleshy, aged fake humaness of something that gets to Me, not sure why, Some clowns bother me but some don't, I think its the idea of someone WANTING to be a clown and do dumb, cheesy clown antics that just makes me very dissapointed and I feel sad and embarrassed for them, Clowns are depressing to me. Ill steer clear if possble.

I have a rational fear of NOT being armed at any given moment.

Someone mentioned being punched out of the blue, I can understand that one too, Ive seen It happen and have cold cocked someone my damn self. (but they deserved it!)

Im scared to go into a lake, the murkeier the freakier. who knows what lurks below the surface, and what might grab,sting or bite your legs or feet. Yikes!

I also have a rational fear of losing my job,house,cars (but not my wife)and being hungry and homeless and having to possibly depend on others. So I work alot, save alot, and keep large amounts of cash around to buy my way out of trouble if needed

Anonymous

When I was a kid I was absolutely terrrified that I was going to spontaneously combust. I think I read too many books in the big kid section of library and saw too many episodes of Ripleys, but I spent a great deal of every day worrying I was going to be burst into flames and be turned into ash in a matter or seconds.
Another paranoia that has carried over from my childhood is an irrational fear that I'm going to pick up some sort of incurable disease. I used to lie in bed at night not being able to sleep because I was absolutely convinced I had contracted aids at sometime during the day and didn't know how to tell my mum.
While I've recovered somewhat from the spontanous human combustion thing, I still have an irrational paranoia that I'm going to get really sick and die, which has turned me into a germ freak who avoids all unecessary contact with other humans.

Nadya

1.) I am terrified about driving or walking across bridges, particularly cable bridges. They make no sense to me. I am convinced that eventually, the bridge will collapse under the weight of so many heavy vehicles, and I'm going to be crushed and mangled and cut by concrete / cables / other vehicles, then plummet into a watery grave where, undoubtedly, even more cars and concrete will land on top of me.

2.) Every time I sit down on the toilet, I'm pretty sure that a large sewer rat will have somehow made its way through the pipes. This rat will emerge in my toilet bowl and attempt to climb out of it as I'm seated upon it.

3.) Whenever I'm walking down any set of stairs--but especially down to the subway--I'm convinced someone is going to push me. I will fall. I will tumble. I will break my neck and back and bust all of my teeth. This is why I always, always hold onto the railing.

4.) The times I actually get to drive (I don't own a car), and I find myself at a standstill while directly beneath an overpass, I panic. I am quite certain that this overpass will collapse and kill me.

5.) Pictures of whale's tails. It all began when I was a tot, and my brother showed me a giant two-page colour photograph of two kayakers being dwarfed by a whale's tail sticking out of the water. The thing was too...damn...big. The shape of it was intimidating and scary. Worse was, if this tail alone could make two kayakers look like grains of sand, how the hell big was the REST of the whale under the water?

6.) Living in a ground-floor flat. There is every probability that some guy is going to break open a window, come into my apartment, and kill me in a violent way.

Roni Size

One of my fears is that I am crazy. Sometimes I will be chatting with a friend in the middle of the city, a close friend from school or a girl that I'm seeing, and all of a sudden a wave of anxiety will sweep through me. I'll catch the eye of a stranger, feel a pang of fear, sense something..... My friend could still be chattering away in the background but I lose focus and feel my heart pump through the skin of my slightly sweaty palms as their voice is drowned by the blood rushing through my ears. The thing is; I wonder if my friend is real. Am I just standing here by myself, laughing and joking around in the thick of the CBD, sharing memories and playing games with a phantom? I notice people looking at me with a sheen of awkwardness, yet my friend keeps talking to me as though everything was completely normal. I kid you not, I often look into the nearest window or shiny metallic surface, telling myself that even my vivid imagination could not create the perfect reflection of a ghost. What do they see? What do they hear? These people we pass - swearing at shop fronts and arguing with the sky. Is that me, so deluded that I have created a fantasy to whisk myself away from the life of a transient? Am I locked in a perfect cage, the perfect prison? So perfect I really think I'm free. Please. Please be real

Alexandra

1. A few years ago, I was afraid that if I listened to my Daniel Bedingfield CD too much, the singer on the CD would get really angry with me and start shouting at me. I guess that's because the more I listened to him, the more exasperated/exhausted he sounded to me.

2. I'm afraid that if I don't leave my window open and let fresh air in for at least an hour before I go to sleep, I'll vomit during the night.

3. I'm afraid of fire escapes, because I'm afraid if I trip I'll fall through one of the gaps in between the steps.

Amy Strain

I have three main fears. They all stem from an experience I had when before we moved to our new house. Our attic was horribly creepy and my brother and I would always sleep in the same room in the same bed with the light on. One night I just could not sleep and I began to hear a rhythmic knocking noise coming from my room. It was dark in there and the door was open and after awhile a ghost appeared and walked past my bed. Ever since I am very uncomfortable if a door is left open in the room I'm in, if it has a door. I'm also afraid of the dark and my fear of rhythmic knocking noises at night has turned into a fear of any kind of knocking sound I wake up hearing or hear when I'm in bed. I also become afraid at times when I can't sleep for too long that, depending on the night, a ghost/a terrorist/jack the ripper/a random other serial killer that is dead or behind bars/ aliens/ a robber/ an insane person/ one of my ex boyfriends or someone I've slighted in some way will come through my window and try to kill me or abduct me. I live in the country and my dog freaks out at nothing all the time so this does not help. Also, no one will hear me scream, especially if they've gotten my relatives first. This fear also carries with me if I have to leave my bedroom that something is hiding in my house, under my bed or behind the kitchen counter perhaps, so if I leave my room I have to turn lights on, though I still run accross my floor quickly for fear of whatever is under the bed, and occasionally have to lock all the doors and windows and have a sword with me. My boyfriend sleep walks very rarely, and though he's never hurt me, I'm afraid that he will begin sleepwalking and try to kill me somehow. I am also afraid of snakes or spiders coming out of or hiding behind my toilet. It's not so bad anymore but I used to have to check everytime I went to the bathroom.

Chris Storey

I have an insanely irrational fear of butterflies or really anything flying around my head. I found I had this fear when I went to a butterfly conservatory (big green house where you walk through and there are butterflies freely flying around). I was walking through and all of a sudden this paralyzing fear came over me that a butterfly would stupidly fly into my face and get stuck there and just keep fluttering its wings all around my face. It was about 85 degrees in the green house but I put on my winter jacket and zipped it all the way up and put the hood on. I then ran all the way through the place. There were little kids all happy with butterflies landing on their heads and I was about 12 at the time freaking out. If a butterfly had come near my I wouldn't have hesitated to punch it out of the air. I talked to my mom about this and apparently she has the exact same fear. I hate butterflies....so much

Alison Copely

1) Whenever I walk up to a closed door, I become inexplicably afraidthat someone is going to open it from the other side, slamming it intomy face. For some reason, it is my teeth that I most fear gettingsmashed. Because of this, I always try to stay to the side of thedoor, reaching out to open it, so that only my hand would be hit byits opening.

2) As I lie in bed, trying to go to sleep, I will occasionallyexperience an overwhelming fear of opening my eyes. I'm afraid that ifI do, I will see these creepy, luminous white eyes staring straight atme. It's not that I'm afraid of someone trying to murder me in mysleep or anything, but just the thought of eyes staring motionlesslyat me...I have to pull the covers over my head to quell these fearsand be able to sleep.

Ryan Lazenbi

Hi I'm Ryan, and I'm afraid of bathtub sharks. I actually have this totally dumb fear that underneath my bathtub is a shark waiting for me to fall through the bottom and eat me. I don't know where this came from, only that it is. For a while I went through a period where I was more afraid of bathtub alligators, and once for a while with snakes, but mostly its the sharks. Now, I've been to construction sites and seen that there is no way for a shark to fit in between the first and second floor of my house, let alone room for it to mantain the constant motion necessary for a shark to survive, yet the fear persists.

Linda Cai

Ever since I read about subliminal messaging, I can't watch commercials, television or anything in an ad that seems flashy, for fear of there being a small image or detail that will control my needs/wants, at best, I watch with my mind focusing on something totally unrelated, like the color of my remote. It makes me feel like at any minute, I'm going to become a robot whose mind is in complete control of the ad, and will buy their products and do their bidding.

Deborah

Most of my fears are pretty common, like spiders and falling from heights, but I'm also completely freaked out by mermaids. I know they're fictional, but I can barely stand to watch any movies or TV shows that feature them. Animated mermaids are better, but still not great. And those 'real-life' mermaids at places like Weeki Wachee in Florida? Even the brochures for that place freak me out. I guess the most irrational part of my fear of mermaids isn't that they'll come after me, it's that I'll turn into one. For the next couple of nights after I see a movie with a mermaid, I have to sleep with my legs bent at completely different angles to remind me that I'm okay.

C.R Gates

1) Bordering between irrational fears and hatreds are mirrors. I hate mirrors. If I'm in the bathroom combing my hair or brushing my teeth or whatever, that's one thing. But any unnecessary exposure to mirrors freaks me out. Even better, the house I moved into last year belonged to a dancer previously and is chock fulla mirrors. I think it's a combination of me not liking how I look, and a hatred of stuff looking at me (I'm an amature photographer, and hate taking pictures of people because they look at the camera. I have a movie poster a friend gave me that I will never be able to hang up because it has one of the characters looking RIGHT AT YOU). Besides, mirrors are where dopplegangers live, and I don't want my evil double to jump out of a friggin' piece of glass and kill me. That's just not cool.

2) The dark. Here's the thing: I like the dark. I like low lighting in the rooms I'm in, I'm a night owl, I love going places at night. But I still am freaked out by the dark. The dark has to be either well lit, or so pitch black that I can't see much of anything. If I can sort of see things, that's the worst. I think that is left over from when I was a kid and our basement was always semi-dark, and full of weird shadowy crap that every assortment of monster imaginable could live under. So when I've turned off the lights at night and the street lamp is shining through the window, I kind of giddily spaz (???) up the stairs to my room. Oh, and I turn the light on before I shut the door. You know, in case I have to escape real fast. And I DO NOT, under any circumstances, look out the window. I sometimes glance out the front window on my way up the stairs to see if it's raining or something, and still half panic that a monster/murderer/murdering monster is in the street, idly passing through quiet suburbia.

3) Aliens. Oh holy crap, aliens. I've made the mistake of watching "UFO Hunters" at about 2AM more than once, and am scarred for life now. I think the idea of aliens is fine, I even think it'd be cool to meet an alien, as long as it's during the day and they don't want to abduct me or anyhing horrible like that. I suppose we can add to this one most other paranormal stuff, like vampires (a bad dream, coupled with a teacher once telling me of her fear of the bloodsuckers lead me to sleep with the covers up to my ears 90% of the time), and Bigfoot (curse you, "Monsterquest"! You'd think by this point, I'd stop watching History Channel after midnight). Ghosts, curiously, I'm fine with. Most of the time.

Iwan Pitts

I am terrified of bees, wasps and hornets. But I don't consider this irrational. I mean, I know they're tiny compared to me and I'm not allergic. But we had a wasp nest in our loft when I was young and they kept coming into the house and you'd hear them buzzing all the time. It really, really freaked me out. But I'm sure this is completely common. I'm 22, and my fiance makes fun of me when I run away when a wasp comes close. She didn't watch Candyman when she was 10, and she didn't have a wasp infestation when she was 8, so she doesn't understand, and it bugs me when people make fun of this. She did watch Jurassic Park however, and she is easily wound up by me telling her there are dinosaurs behind every tree or building, especially raptors.

However, my mother tops all of this. She has a completely irrational phobia and I've never heard of anyone else suffering from it.

She is absolutely terrified of windmills.

She can't drive past them in the car, she has a panic attack if she sees one and she'll even freak out if she sees one on TV. She also can't explain why she's scared of them. It's the weirdest fear I've heard of hands down.

Emily G

I'm afraid of rainbows. The larger and more vibrant they are, themore horrible in my opinion. Sometimes I scream when a rainbowcatches me off-guard, and once I know a rainbow is present, it is notenough simply to close my eyes. If I close my eyes, I cannot see therainbow... but it can see me. I know for a fact that rainbows causeno harm (I'm not stupid!) but when I know there is a rainbow on theloose, I must reluctantly keep tabs on it until I'm sure it's gone.(Like if a wasp flies into your room; you wouldn't turn your back onit, would you?) I don't like rainbows sneaking up on me, which alsomade it difficult to play in the sprinkler on a sunny day as a child.Even as a young teenager, I used to close my eyes in the shower forfear that light would strike the spray of water just right to create arainbow near me. A rainbow itself cannot hurt me, but my sudden panicmight cause me to slip in the tub. (I no longer shower with my eyesclosed because I grew up and realised that my household light bulbsdid not emit full-spectrum light. Though I am wary about visitingwaterfalls on sunny days.)In case you're wondering, I do in fact have nightmares about rainbows.I get goosebumps recalling details of these nightmares, but the basicpremise of most of my rainbow nightmares is that there is a rainbowwherever I turn. The scariest thing I've ever seen (for real, not adream) was a very rare and elaborate sun halo that most people wouldpay handsomely to witness. I screamed and covered my headinstinctively. When I realised that someone may see me acting likethis, I tried to act normal, but I was crying and sometimes could notkeep my arms from jerking up and covering my head. Being indoorshelps, if I am away from large windows.No, I am not a homophobe. My fear of rainbows has absolutely nothingto do with homosexuals using the rainbow as a symbol. In fact,cartoonish illustrations of rainbows do not trigger any reaction inme. Only real rainbows, or very realistic representations (i.e.photos) of rainbows will do it.The fear applies to northern lights (aurora borealis) too, for theyare like moving rainbows that glow in the dark. The brighter theauroral display and the faster they move, the more terrifying theyare. I had the misfortune of being outside during one of the mostviolent solar storms of recent decades, which caused a massive displayof northern lights overhead. I was walking all alone at night andsuddenly a spiral of ghostly green flames lit up the sky. I almostfell to the ground. I covered my head the same way I did when I sawthe sun halos, and unfortunately I had a long walk home under thisburning green vortex in the sky. I cannot find a word for the fear of rainbows, and I haven't heard ofanyone else who is afraid of them. But I would like to know what thisfear is called, and if anyone else is specifically afraid of rainbowsand/or aurora (borealis or australis).

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Hannah

I have a complete and irrational fear of mugs, I cannot drink out of them. Firstly they are too dark you can't actually see out of them when you drink which leaves you completely open to all kinds of attack. Secondly (which happened when I was a child) you dont know what could be IN your drink, for all you know it could be a freaking huge hairy evil spider. Yes. Yes it damn well could.

Anonymous

I have a long list of irrational fears because I let my imagination get me really riled up, but off the top of my head, Irecall one irrational fear and one decent fear with horribly irrational beginnings. Any time I'm drinking out of a normal cup with no lid and leave the drink sitting in another room, I imagine a snake coming along and dripping deadly poison into my drink. Then he presumably slithers over to some nearby nook to watch me drink my death. So I usually end up drinking out of a travel mug with a lid or leaving the room to test whether my drink has been envenomed or not in private, away from the amusement of that bastard asp.

Also, years ago, I liked playing this old shitty Captain America and the Avengers game. It was a shoddy side scrolling brawler with ridiculous digitized voices and made me laugh a lot. Whenever one of the Avengers would get taken out though, they'd shout, 'I cannot move!' and blink away in death. This always creeped me out as I took it to mean that they had actually died and their soul was trapped, conscience within their inert corpse, left to wonder, in horror, why they can no longer move until the realization of their death dawns on them. Since then, I have a fear of remaining conscience within my corpse after I die. Now that I think of it though, the game was probably trying to represent the Avengers receiving spinal damage that would leave them as quadriplegics.

Anonymous

1. I have an irrational fear of large creatures in the sea -- to the point where my stomach turns and I begin to feel panicky just thinking about them! I say it's irrational because I'm not talking sharks or groups of jellyfish or anything else that could harm me. I find whales to be the worst offenders, especially in pictures or videos where you can see how large they are in comparison to divers, submarines or ships. There was actually a video game I used to own that involved deep sea diving for treasure and one level involved exploring this HUGE expanse of open water and, sure enough, a blue whale would come swimming by at one point. Just thinking about it makes my stomach flip. And to be honest, the same goes for ships at the bottom of the ocean. That could maybe be considered rational because of the tragedy associated with most sunken ships... except I don't find their history/decomposition to be creepy, it's that they're SO BIG!
2. To this day, I cannot microwave something without curling in on myself and turning my back to the microwave. Or I may even leave the room. I am absolutely convinced that it is going to blow up one day and I'm going to be blinded by shards of glass.
3. If I am alone in my house and it is dark, I have to run up the steps and wave my arms behind me to make sure that no one grabs me -- and if they try to, I'm going to try to knock them down, first.
4. Maggots/worms hatching inside of me. The picture of maggots being removed from that woman's breast was fake but that image continues to haunt me all the same!

Mandy Moore

1. Eyes. When I was a baby, my mother hung a tapestry with a giraffe on it. I cried and cried, until she replaced it with one that had a train on it. As a teenager, I couldn't have posters because they were looking at me. Even now, I have some figurines that I must turn around to face the wall before I go to sleep because they are looking at me.
2. Stuffed animals, especially ones that talk and/or move. Teddy Ruxpin terrified me as a child. When Furbys came out, that terror was compounded.
3. Being stuck in traffic under an overpass. I just know it is going to collapse right on top of me. Even if I am stuck just before, or just after the overpass, I will imagine a vehicle flying over the side and landing on the passenger compartment of my vehicle.
4. I fear, every day, that my daughters will not make it home from school. Any time they leave my sight, I fear the worst.

Emily Cowan

I can't walk upstairs at night - in my house, my friends' houses...whatever. Daytime is fine, but at nighttime I'm scared there's something or somebody invisible and horrifying who's gonna grab me by the ankles and yank me back down the stairs. In my house, this thing lives in my mom's computer room. In other people's homes, he could come form anywhere! The only escape is to run upstairs as fast as you can and stumble into a room, (usually the kitchen as these are often right at the top of stairs) which my brain has designated as the safety room.

Alicia Doan

My fears:
1. Spiders and their sticky webs. Gross, big, fuzzy spiders. I'm am afraid they will jump on me, bite my face, sink their fangs into me and kill me. I'm generally okay if I'm outside and I come across one. But if it's inside my house... that's MY territory. And I'll scream if I see one.
2. Alligators under my bed. I used to turn off my bedroom lights and then do a long jump onto my bed when it was bedtime, so that they wouldn't snap at my feet and drag me under.
3. Someone hiding underneath the couch or bed, who will then reach out and grab my feet/cut my achilles' tendon. I think I saw it happen to a guy in a horror movie once, and to this day I prefer to sit on a couch with my feet way out in front of me.
4. Bugs in berry yogurt. I'm okay with something like peach yogurt, but I hate eating blueberry yogurt because I'm afraid instead of a berry, it'll be a bug. There's a scene in the movie The Whole 9 Yards where a woman eats a bug in her yogurt, that's what started it.
5. That scene in Rocky 4 where Clubber Lange dies. I know, seriously ridiculous. I remember seeing it when I was a little kid, and it just scarred me for life. I have to leave the room or cover my eyes if that scene comes on. I get very anxious and feel like crying.
6. Vampires biting my neck when I sleep. So I always pull my cover up high to protect me. Actually, anything to do with getting a throat hurt. I hate watching scary movies where someone get's a throat slit, it makes me feel like my neck has pressure on it.

Sean McLoughlin

My family and I went to the ocean a lot when I was a kid. One time when I was around 5, I was playing in the water and an undercurrent got a hold of me. It sucked me in quick, so quick that my mom and dad didn't even see it happen. Luckily some college age kids were walking buy and one dived in and grabbed me and pulled me out. Ever since I've had a paralyzing fear of oceans. I still love to visit them but I don't bother bringing a bathing suit because I won't be swimming.

I also have an irrational fear of mirrors when the lights are out. I'm afraid I'm going to see my dead grandmother or Jesus or something. If I'm entering a dark room with a mirror, I turn a light on and I do not allow mirrors in the room I sleep in.

As a kid I was afraid of towers and other tall objects around me. They gave me a strong sense of vertigo and I thought they were going to fall on me. I've since grown out of this fear although I still get vertigo around tall buildings or if I look into the sky while on top of a tall building.

My last irrational fear occurs only when driving (for obvious reasons). I'm perpetually afraid that my airbag is going to go off accidentally and cause me to crash. I've had lots of crazy things happen while driving (like having the hood fly up and take out my windshield) and I've gotten out ok and without further accident. But somehow I'm convinced that if the airbag goes off while I'm driving it will be the end of me. I'm considering installing a steering wheel without an airbag. My current steering wheel feels like a loaded gun pointed at my face the entire time I'm driving.

Anonymous

A good friend of mine, who's a sweet girl, but not the most socially adept of cats, has an Irrational fear of Phantom Pregnancy/ Immaculate Conception. I lived with her for a while and every week she'd take a pregnancy test. Knowing that she dosn't go out much, that she was between boyfriends and not the type to have casual sex i asked her what the deal was with this, because invariably they'd end up in the wastebasket next to the toilet.She said ever since she was in a catholic elementary school and learned the story of the immaculate conception. she was concerned that the holy spirit would impregnate her. as she grew older and heard the old wives tales about semen on toilet seats or people having been raped in her sleep. Pretty much since she got her period she has taken a weekly pregnancy test.

Anonymous

my fears are that I will be walking down the street one day and someone will shot me in the head with a high-powerd rifle from a rooftop nearby and my other fear is that I will be sleeping and one night the zombies come and I will be completley unprepared so thus I will join the leagions of undead that and having my fingers being broken by being bent in half backwards.

Annalee Biemiller

When I hear music played backwards, it wakes up a nameless, primal, and overwhelming fear. It doesn't really have a cause. It doesn't stir up any mental images. There is no convoluted stream of events I associate with it. It's just there. I can't listen to Revolution 9 by the Beatles without crying. Or the Fairly Oddparents theme backwards, for that matter.

Scotty

My irrational fear started when I started school. The kids in grade three thought it would be hillarious to tell all the new male students that there was a giant worm in the boys toilets that would come out of the toilet, urinal or sink, and eat your penis. Of course, no wants to have their penis eaten, so my entire year level never went to the toilet at school. This resulted in numerous pant wettings (proud to say I was not one of them) and the teachers found out what was happening, and proceeded to tell us that it was all nonsense. I know that there is no giant worm in the toilets, but it conditioned me to never use public toilets. I will hold it until I get home, or I will not need to go until I get home. If it is a matter of go or crap your pants, I will of course use public toilets, but I will try my hardest not to. So I do not have a fear of giant penis eating worms, but more of toilets

Bonnie Phillips

When I was little the beep beep beeping sound trucks made when backing up used to scare the bejesus out of me and I would start hysterically crying. Even now I am leery of them and will walk away quickly.

I also can not look out a dark window because I know a monster with red eyes will be staring back at me, and I can not stick my hand in the mail box unless I can see all the way to the back so I know nothing will grab me.

Rachel

I'm scared of stinging things. Jellyfish, wasps, bees, ants, anything like that. When I'm at the beach I will NOT go into the water if I see a jellyfish, even the little ones that don't sting. I have literally run out of the ocean Baywatch-style to avoid them. Also, I don't like to be outside in summer because there are ALWAYS bees or yellowjackets around, and whenever one gets near me I start freaking out. I have no idea where this comes from because I can deal with any other type of pain...just not stinging.

Cassady

These are my irrational fears:

1> belly buttons. I can not look at them, touch them, see others touching them, etc... including my own. My husband had to all the cleansing of my daughter's cord stump/belly button after she was born. I wasn't always this way. It all started when I was 5 years old and I was playing with my own belly button. My father told me to stop, and when I continued playing with it he said that I had better watch out, or else I'll deflate. Lovely images came to mind of my floating up into the sky like a balloon that someone let the air out of. I freaked out and haven't been able to deal with them ever since.

2> home invasion. It has never happened to me or anyone that I know, and the fear only overtakes my mind when I am alone, but it is crippling. I will triple lock every entry door and window. I have every possible escape scenario in mind for whatever room I am in. I have items that can be used as weapons in every room, and I will not be in a room with a closed door for fear if someone does come in that it will give them the upper hand- including bathroom.

El

Fingers wiggling at me. I don't mind them unless they're wiggling and look like they're about to touch me while they're doing so. Just thinking about it makes my stomach turn, and I've been driven to hysterics more than once by people who can't keep their hands out of my face once they find out.

Michelle Dunn

Okay so I have three that I can think of -

1. When I go to bed, I have to have my door where the thingy that sticks out touches the other thingy, but doesn't actually go into it. I get all paranoid that something bad will happen if I don't.

2. Like someone else already said, I can't look in the mirror when the lights are off.

3. After having read The Shining (Stephen King), it always freaks me out to look in my bathtub.

Benjamin Burnette

1. When i was younger i feared that some creature in the ocean would grab me and drag me way out to sea and abandon me there to drown.

2. I fear being myself will give my parents and grandparents heart attacks

3. I am terrified of not being prepared for a zombie apocalypse or something of the sort (no joke)

Jon-Marc Elliot

I have a fear of Hawaii, though I dont know how irrational it actually is. It is actually a grouping of rational fears, or at least I consider them rational.

Hawaii is located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean 2 thousand miles away from any land mass larger than a football field. It is prone to hurricanes and tsunamis. It is also surrounded by sharks and other sea creatures that can kill with out effort. Plus you have to fly to get there. Since I come from Irish ancestry I dont sun tan,. I spontaneously combust at the first site of direct sun and I refuse to swim in the giant death pool known as the ocean.

In my opinion Hawaii is hell on earth.

E. Stephen Frederick

I fear that if i pick my nose while driving, a car accident will occur & the impact (or the airbag hitting my elbow) will drive my finger bone straight up into my brain.

This fear has not stopped me from picking my nose while i drive.

Sarah Patrick

I have quite a few irrational fears, but the three worst are:

1) Swing sets. I am absolutly terrified that one day I will be swinging on a swing set and it will break in half causing me to catapult to my death. I can't even look at swing sets without getting freaked out!

2) Trees. I honestly believe that someday all the trees near my house will fall down or blow over and smash my house or kill my family. My neighbors have quite a few precarious trees growing in their yard, it really freakis me out to look at them!

3) Light posts with street signs on them like this one: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/22/36002114_c03abb6b55.jpg?v=0
I always see them bouncing in the wind and im afraid that they will tip over and crush my car!

L. Morgenstern

First of all: Birds. Specifically, seagulls and pidgeons.
I cannot stand them.It doesn't matter where I am, if there's a seagull or pidgeon flying around, I am absolutely certain that if I'm not under some form of shelter, I will get shat on. I can be on the street with heaps of people, but I know that if even one of them does it, it will hit me. If a seagull flies overhead, I will leap and twist and bail at full speed until I'm standing under a ledge or a shop sign or SOMETHING. I have to, or I will get shat on and become a figure for public ridicule and always be known as "that guy that got shat on that time."

Depths. Not heights, or deep water, or anything of the sort. I can't handle being on a ledge. I can stand on the 100th floor of a building and look over the edge and be fine, because the structure of the building is underneath me. But even on the second floor of a building, if I'm on a balcony that sticks out from the main structure, I freak out. I'm sure that the balcony will collapse and I will plummet to my death. Even though a second storey fall wouldn't kill me.

Spiders. And not just in the "ew, crawly things" kind of way. I have to check the ceiling corners of every room I enter, for spiders. Because there's some sort of war of attrition going against me, that any spider who sees me will know that I have killed it's arachnid bretheren and immediately try to take vengance. Work is especially bad, given that I work in a factory, and we sometimes have red back spiders, white tail spiders and huntsmans there (I live in Australia, by the way). I have freaked out so badly at work that I threw a container of hydrochloric acid away from myself because a spider was on it, spilling 10 litres of 80% hydrochloric acid all over the floor. Even when I was wearing hazchem gear, because they will find a way through it.

Unlocked doors. I can't sleep in a room if the door is openable. The only ways I can, is if it's during the day, or, if I am really, really drunk. I'm fine with being in an unlocked room. I can accidentally fall asleep on busses or trains. But if I'm in a room, with a bed, and it's dark, the door must not be openable from the outside. Or I just won't sleep.But surprisingly, I live a normal life, and manage to keep from looking like a total nutbar when spiders/seagulls/pidgeons appear.

Stephanie Shamp

1. I cannot walk down the stairs at night because there is a mirror at the bottom of the steps and I'm afraid thatif I look at it while I'm walking I will see another person in the mirror.

2. I'm terrified that if I think about Satan too much he will rise from hell and force me to bring the apocalypse.

3. I'm afraid that my dog is my grandfather reincarnated and that the reason my dog doesn't like me is because my grandfather doesn't approve of my lifestyle.

Ben Cho

My irrational fear prevents me from looking at a microwave while it's on. For some reason, I always believe that while I'm peering through the microwave door, there will be some kind of radioactive microwave blast that blinds me instantly (like looking directly at a nuclear explosion or a solar eclipse) and/or blows up the microwave itself and sends the door flying at my face, killing me instantly

Ben Ellingsworth

I am terrified of those fuel tanker trucks. I heard a story a long time ago of one of them stopping on some rail road tracks and getting hit by a train, blowing up and killing everyone in the cars surrounding it. I have no idea if that story is true or not but it must have traumatized me because I can't stand driving near those things. No lie, I have actually sped up to get away from them directly in the site of cops because I would rather get a speeding ticket then drive next to one of them.

Anne Schons

I have two fears that I consider irrational

1. I am terrified that when I look out a window there will be a face staring back. It's worse when its dark out. This also applies when I'm driving.

2. I always feel like I'm going to fall when I'm descending stairs. I have to place each foot very deliberately and even then I think I'll fall because I'm concentrating too much.

Hallie

1. I am completely terrified of closet doors being open. At any time. Because I know E.T. is sitting in there, watching me.

2. I believe that if I stay in the shower for more than five minutes, a demon will appear and murder me for using too much water. I time myself and start hyperventilating when I get close to that five-minute mark.

3. I can't sleep without my back to a wall, because I think someone will crawl in bed with me when I'm not looking.

Nulian VanThock

1. Sometimes I get kinda nervous that someone is gonna up and punch me for no reason. I'll be standing, talking to someone, and I'll get that feeling, so I start watching them really closely to make sure they don't make any sudden moves toward me. Even if it's someone I know, like a friend or a coworker, if I get the feeling, I start to get wary.

2. I always thought that if there was ever a time when someone was in trouble, and I could help them, I'd be afraid that if I stepped in to help, someone would yell out of nowhere, "Cut! What the hell is that idiot doing in the scene?!"

3. I've always kind of been afraid of the concept of time travel. I honestly don't believe it's possible, but I'm afraid I could be wrong, and that one day someone will discover it somehow, and then all hell will break loose.

4. I'm afraid of spiders, but it's not just that. When I'm lying in bed at night, sometimes I think a huge tarantula will crawl up the edge of my bed and start making it's way toward me. I live in Canada in the suburbs, so I highly doubt it will happen, but I still roll myself up tightly in my blanket so it can't sneak under the covers and get me.

Mandi Brehm

1) I am deathly, deathly, deathly afraid of mirrors in dark rooms. I'm always afraid that my reflection will change into something evil. I have a mirror on the back of my door that I can see myself in when I'm laying in bed. It practically gives me heart attacks every night. I do everything I can to avoid looking in it. Ever.

2) In the morning before school, I'm usually alone in the house by the time I'm blow drying my hair. If my stepmom is home, I will turn the hairdryer on high. If she's not and I'm alone, I won't turn it on high even if I'm running late and it takes twice as long to dry (I walk to school and it's 16 degrees- my hair MUST be dry or my ears will freeze) because when it's on low I can still hear around me in case something creaks and one of the grotesque, horrifying monsters from my early childhood slithers around the corner to strangle me. I've been trying to wean myself of this one, but this morning I turned the hairdryer on high while I was alone and couldn't even look in the mirror for fear of something appearing behind me to kill me.

3) Being hit by a car. This one may not be so irrational because I walk a fairly busy road coming home from school crowded with high school aged drivers and I did get hit by a car three days ago, but since then it's been a complete paranoia. Every time I step into the road my heart thumps hard and I have fleeting visualizations of my body lying broken in front of a piece of shit car while pot-smoking seventeen year olds wander foggily out to see if I'm okay.

Justin Grubbs

I have the odd fear of calling people on the phone. Not all people, mind you. It would seem that total strangers I will never ever meet, and those who are extremely close friends or family to me, I have no problem calling. The rest of the world, however, I can't do it. Acquaintances, coworkers, even dates. It scares the hell out of me. I have to have others call, text them, or meet them face to face. It's a bit of a problem.

Miranda Dickson

I am afraid of mushrooms and ocean trenches. Also, I hate when birds fly over me because I am afraid they will poop on me.

Antonine

Maybe it started with those Unsolved Mysteries episodes or the random "Searching for Sasquatch" specials the Discovery channel loves so much. Maybe it was "Harry and the Hendersons". Either way I am terrified of an enormous man-ape beast. Smart enough to open doors and climb stairs but without the morals that come with being human. This irrational fear was only made worse when we moved out to a wooded area where my dogs get randomly spooked and we've seen the weirdest prints in the snow. I have fairly large feet but the tracks we found were at least 3 times larger than my bare foot and they led in the direction where the dogs would always get skittish.
As nice as it feels to get this off my chest, it's pretty terrible to think about it. *Shudder* Just waking up to a horrible hairy face and soulless eyes.

Sual Dolem

1. Things hanging over me where I swim. When I was little I used to take swimming lessons in this pool with a water-slide suspended over the deep end with cables. I was convinced that anytime I swam under it that the whole thing would detach and slowly push me into the deep dark water. That and I just don't like dark water.

2. I find it really hard to sleep with my eyes exposed. I get this weird sensation that someone or something is standing over me while I sleep and waiting to attack me or prank me or something. I think it stems from seeing too many monters rise up from the space between the bed and the wall and just wait there until the victim woke up and began screaming in terror. So I try and tuck my head into the covers or under my arm, or sleep on my stomach or if I want to sleep on my back I put a pillow just over my eyes but not over my mouth.

Stephen

my fear is driving over bridges. i have this belief that as soon as i am on the highest point the bridge is going to collapse plunging me to my death. or a car will cut me off causing me to swerve and drive off the side of the bridge.