The Fear.

[Dirty Eddie]

Fouling myself and being done for a crime I didn't commit.Obviously both unpleasant things for any one but both seem to sit very heavy on my mind in unreasonable or unlikely situations and create more than a normal sense of concern, but not enough to be debilitating.

The second would blatantly lead straight to the first, which is doubly-dreadful.

[Devon Malcolm]

That must be a terrible condition to struggle with. I had a minor heart problem 4 years ago where I had a fast and irregular heartbeat that was eventually treated with an electric shock. The after effects of it hit me quite hard and I had convinced myself that I could die suddenly so struggled to sleep quite a bit during those days for fear of passing away whilst I was asleep. It was a very hard thing to have to deal with at the time but ultimately the battle was only with my own mind. My problem is my mind can be so fucking vivid and the power of which can really destroy a man!

I went through all these thoughts when I was younger and wondered if it was a worry about carking it as I slept, but I realised quickly it wasn't - a minor miracle, really, because I'm a bit George Costanza about the subject of dying when I'm awake!But it really isn't, and I think although there is actually very little literature out there about hypnophobia, I think I'm probably quite a trademark case as regards the control element. I can also relate this to a fear of heights. The difference is that I'm personally not afraid of falling, but I'm afraid for other people. If I see a loved one or a friend near, say, the edge of a sharp drop then I completely freak out. Again, I think it's a thing of not being in control.When it all blew up for me it was very much a stress thing - I'd failed my A levels (totally my fault) and had suck into a major depression which is I'm sure what sparked it all off. I was only shaken out of the first spell I had when I went away on holiday and felt a lot better about myself. Since then the 'attacks' have been quite arbitrary in when they strike, which is very frustrating at times as things can generally be good in my life and then I'll be struggling with the sleep again.

[Rey_Piste]

Heights is my big one, I'm fine high up a lot of the time it's more stupid things like being on an 8 foot stepladder and bricking it. Yet I can stand on a balcony 5 floors up because I know a balcony is safe.

[air_raid]

I used to be shit-scared of spiders. The sight of one would make me just freeze and rendered me incapable of much other than staying very still and hoping it just went away, realizing I was far too big to eat. I came some way to defeating this fear the first time my ex came with me to visit my ma, and a shriek came from the bathroom. I entered to find her reacting even worse than I would to an eight-legged lad on the carpet, about an inch in width. She was pale (well, paler) and shaking hysterically simply saying "getridofit getridofit getridofit getridofit" over and over again. She's one of those types that doesnt like killing small annoying insects or arachnids, so I had to do the old "paper under a pint glass" trick to scoop the little bastard out and throw him out the window. Incredibly this simple act of facing up to my fear (which she knew about in advance) made me temporarily "her hero" and I got big brownie points thus, and for the rest of our relationship was expected to perform the same duty whenever one of the little bastards showed his face. I tell thee, its a lot easier to face your fears when you know there's an enthusiastic shag coming your way almost immediately afterwards.

[Steve Justice]

Flying I'm OK with, but I hate taking off and landing. Landing more so. I wouldn't call it a fear as such because I still get on planes, but it does make me nervous. My biggest fear is actually Lions. Not Lionesses, just Lions. The roar has made me black out on two occasions (I'll expand on this more in a bit), I can't look at them and I shake to my very core when they look at me. It's a fear I cannot understand because Lionesses, Tigers, well all big cats are just as likely to tear me apart, but I'm OK with them.Now, I'm my own worst enemy here because I love going to Zoo's knowing full well that these mother fuckers are likely to be there. Worst one being Woburn Safari Park, where we were hoping to avoid the Lions den tour, not realising it followed on from the Wolf & Bear tour. So I'm sitting in the car, with my eye's closed shaking. I open my eyes once and as luck would have it, there's the Lion standing and staring right at me. My first instinct is to get out and run (mental) but sense took over and I just shut my eyes (close to tears) and waited it out, begging my wife to put her foot down.Now for the blacking out. I'll leave the funny one til last. Actually they're both amusing, but one more so than the other. Several years ago I took my lad to London Zoo. We approach the Lion cage and obviously the mother fucker is standing there looking at me. I start to shake and feel light headed. Then it roars, and I'm gone. Completely blacked out. I wake up further down path, flat on my back with some Yank trying to pour water down my throat. I instantly worry about the where abouts of my son (who was about 6 at the time) and I see him still looking at the Lions. He then comes running towards me, me thinking he's just realised what's happened. But he takes the camera from my pocket and says "I'll be back in a minute, I want to take a picture of the Lion". The second happened a few years before that, and it was at Drayton Manor Park & Zoo. To start this story off, I wear glasses. Unfortunately mine broke earlier on in the day so I had to make do without them. We went to the Zoo, and in the distance I can see what looks like a big cat, albeit blurry. Again I feel shaky and light headed, I hear a roar behind me and I'm gone. When I come round, my family are there fussing over me asking what happened. I said that the Lion roared and I blacked out. They told me that there aren't any Lions here (there used to be, but not anymore) and it was Tigers I could see in the distance. And it wasn't even the Tigers that roared, it was the sound effects from the Dinosaur Trail behind me.

[Azrall]

Spiders get me every time, the thought of them makes my skin crawl and waking up next to one on your pillow doesn't make it any easier.That and I'm petrified of the thought of being put under general anaesthetic. Purely because it's the fact some person gets to put you to sleep when they see fit and could do all manner of shit to you before you wake up.....IF you wake up that is =/

[LaGoosh]

ColeslawSadly, I'm not even joking.

[IANdrewDiceClay]

When I was younger I saw one of those Cannibal movies, and ever since stuffing from the Butchers (in the carton) reminds me of eating brains or something. Its this greeny shit, that looks absolutely rotten. My Dad's a butcher, so we regularly got this stuffing at ours, and it turns my stomach just to look at it. Its only stuffing from the butchers as well. Supermarket stuffing, like Paxo, I'm perfectly fine with and love on my Christmas dinner. But not the shite my Dad used to bring home. I suppose I'm not scared of it (unless I was kidnapped and force fed it), but it does turn me sick just looking at it.Spiders used to really shit me up as well. When I worked at B&Q, we found a massive spider in a fluorescent light tube box. I dont think it was an exotic spider, but we weren't taking any chances with it. I had to put a box over it and some other lad stamped on the box. Because us were both terrified of the little twat, we were debating whether to lift the box up just in case he survived. And neither of us were really up for round two. When I lifted the box back up all I imagined was the spider jumping at me like Peter Schmeichel, all wide legged, like in the film Arachnophobia. Luckily, he was dead.1-0.

[NEWM]

Dogs, as it probably emerged to some that may have read my little period about it in another thread. A dog off a lead might as well be somebody pointing a gun in my face I'm that scared. I've crossed roads, gone alternative routes and flat out avoided going to people's houses where dogs will jump up and be "affectionate".

 

You get judged a lot for having a fear of dogs. If you told somebody you were scared of spiders and they had a pet one, would they take it out and put it on your face? Of course not, even though they love their pet. Dog owners are mostly not so courteous.

 

I absolutely hate Vinegar and I need to be as far away from the smell as I possibly can, but I've never considered it a fear. I think it's because it doesn't have a life of its own to get me, I'm always (or nearly always) in control of the situation. The inanimate object stuff fascinates me, because short of a hilarious jape as RoFun outlined above with the buttons, it's only you that would put yourself in any threat of whatever it is you're afraid of.

[Philo_Vance]

I'm pretty courteous with my dog, I've got a couple of friends who are scared of them, and knowing that my dog's 5 stone and slightly mental and boisterous, I try my best to keep him away from them. I used to be absolutely terrified of spiders, I think mostly become my mum was when I was growing up so I'd witness her properly freaking out every time she saw one and it rubbed off on me. I'd say I'm about 60% over it now. I don't freak out, and I can take small spiders outside in my hands rather than just belting them with a shoe, but I still get a physical jolt of fear when I spot a big one suddenly, and the girlfriend has to deal with real big ones. The other one's AIDS, for me. Even when I've been for a check up and it's come back negative so I KNOW I'm fine, I still get all paranoid that they've made a mistake and I'm riddled with it, despite always being careful. I guess growing up in the 80s with them terrifying TV spots about AIDS really got into my head.

[Dead Mike]

Snails & slugs, I'll close my eyes if a snail comes on TV. I've got better recently to the point where I wont run away if I see one but I couldn't touch one & those giant African snails are vile! My now father-in-law found out that I didn't like them a few years ago, got a model snail from a garden centre and put it on my front lawn after he visited one evening. I left for work the following morning & immediately spotted this beast, seemingly covered in slime (morning dew). I ran across the neighbours lawn as I couldn't bear to be that close to it, told all my workmates how traumatised I was by it & stopped at ASDA on the way home to buy a big bag of salt. I got home & immediately got a big stick from the back garden. At this point it dawned on me that the snail hadn't moved in the 9 hours I'd been out? I gave it a poke from a safe distance & it tipped over to reveal the barcode on the underside. Cunt.

[Magnum]

I'm not much of a drinker these days (2 pints on an average night out, 4-5 on a bigger one) and I don't touch drugs, however I've been having recurring nightmares about waking up on a morning with absolutely no idea what I did the previous night. It scares the shit out of me, and the feeling of confusion and dread is about a hundred times more intense than the times I've woken up in the past in that actual scenario after a heavy night. The idea of losing control of my senses (either my mind or my memory) terrifies me.

[Foale]

Driving on a motorway unsettles me. The thought of one quick jerk of the steering wheel and I could create utter chaos and very likely kill myself and others freaks me out. I'm not saying I ever would, but it's the fact that I could.