Irrational fears

[cjk374]

Anyone have a fear of being vomited on by someone else?

Yes, but my wife and I are having our first kid in July, so now it's just inevitable.

Congratulations on the upcoming birth! Your life is about to be turned upside down...but it ends up in a good way.

This brings me to one of my fears that has now been conquered: the fear of not being a good-enough parent. Well here it is just over 19 years later & I think I have done well...so far. Just because he has moved out doesn't mean parenting is over with. I feel as though the worst of parenting & the fear of not being good enough has passed.

Spiders & snakes....YES! I hate them. My motto: if the critter has less than 2 legs or more than 4 IT MUST DIE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Appropriate song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vudA72hibg

Not a fan of heights either. I can't watch, on TV, any video of flying over the top of skyscrapers. I get major vertigo in my own home sitting on my couch! Not cool!

[abefroman329]

Anyone have a fear of being vomited on by someone else?

Yes, but my wife and I are having our first kid in July, so now it's just inevitable.

Congratulations on the upcoming birth! Your life is about to be turned upside down...but it ends up in a good way.

This brings me to one of my fears that has now been conquered: the fear of not being a good-enough parent. Well here it is just over 19 years later & I think I have done well...so far. Just because he has moved out doesn't mean parenting is over with. I feel as though the worst of parenting & the fear of not being good enough has passed.

Spiders & snakes....YES! I hate them. My motto: if the critter has less than 2 legs or more than 4 IT MUST DIE IMMEDIATELY!!!!
Appropriate song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vudA72hibg

Not a fan of heights either. I can't watch, on TV, any video of flying over the top of skyscrapers. I get major vertigo in my own home sitting on my couch! Not cool!

Thanks!  Yes, I would say I'm far more worried about my parenting abilities further down the road than my ability to, say, feed an infant and change his diapers.

[webny99]

I know this is an old thread, but I remembered it pretty clearly, so it can't be that old...

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

[Scott5114]

I don't know if I would consider it an irrational fear, but I have the same sentiment. I avoid alcohol and drugs for this reason–I don't want to lose control and do or say something I wouldn't want to do or say while sober.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

[US 89]

I don't know if I would consider it an irrational fear, but I have the same sentiment. I avoid alcohol and drugs for this reason—I don't want to lose control and do or say something I wouldn't want to do or say while sober.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

I used to think that too. Turns out when you're hanging out with people, everything becomes a lot more fun after everyone's had a couple drinks.

[Max Rockatansky]

I don't know if I would consider it an irrational fear, but I have the same sentiment. I avoid alcohol and drugs for this reason–I don't want to lose control and do or say something I wouldn't want to do or say while sober.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

I used to think that too. Turns out when you're hanging out with people, everything becomes a lot more fun after everyone's had a couple drinks.

I have the opposite problem occur, I talk way less and get bored way faster with people when I'm drunk. 

[XamotCGC]

Panic Attack while driving on an open highway

[jgb191]

Everyone's going to laugh at me for this, but here goes:

I am absolutely deathly paranoid of structures collapsing due to weight/gravity.  I always try to lighten the load upstairs with as little weight as possible so the upstairs floor doesn't give out causing everything upstairs to come crashing down.  Maybe I underestimate the structural integrity/strength of buildings (I am no structural engineer by any means), but everytime I am inside a building or parking garage, I always wonder how much longer it can hold itself up before it eventually collapses due to gravity.

[1995hoo]

I know this is an old thread, but I remembered it pretty clearly, so it can't be that old...

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

I mentioned earlier in the thread how I hate it when a dog owner tries to laugh it off if you're uncomfortable with the dog jumping on you. They so often say things like, "Oh, it's ok, he's friendly." If the person saying that is female, it kind of makes me want to say, "Really? So if I reach out right now and fondle your tits, I can shrug off your objection because I'm friendly?" Of course I've never actually said that; I have a gut feeling even just saying it (without acting upon it) would cause far more trouble than it's worth.

I should add that if I'm visiting someone who has a big dog (like the relatives in Fort Myers we visited last weekend), I know I just have to suck it up and deal with it because I'm entering his territory by going to their house. My objection is when I'm out for a walk somewhere that is not the dog's home and the owner fails to keep the dog from approaching passers-by who may not like big dogs. I go around in the street when it's safe to do so, but you can't always do that depending on the type of road, etc.

[Max Rockatansky]

I have one regarding financial ruin.  A lot of the fear seems to stem from early adulthood when I had some serious actual personal financial struggles.  I don't know if I'm more worried irrationally of running out money or feeling absolutely miserable as I did at the time.  I recall getting stomach issues a lot from stress back in those days and just feeling hopeless.  I think that I kept up with running over the years because back then it was one of the few ways to find cheap stress relief.

[zachary_amaryllis]

Milk. My mother insists on keeping milk for 2-3 weeks past its expiration date. Sorry. At midnight on that date, it is automatically invalid milk and gets dumped in the river.

[Rothman]

Milk. My mother insists on keeping milk for 2-3 weeks past its expiration date. Sorry. At midnight on that date, it is automatically invalid milk and gets dumped in the river.

There are all sorts of hilarious levels of insanity in this short post.

[SectorZ]

I know this is an old thread, but I remembered it pretty clearly, so it can't be that old...

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

I mentioned earlier in the thread how I hate it when a dog owner tries to laugh it off if you're uncomfortable with the dog jumping on you. They so often say things like, "Oh, it's ok, he's friendly." If the person saying that is female, it kind of makes me want to say, "Really? So if I reach out right now and fondle your tits, I can shrug off your objection because I'm friendly?" Of course I've never actually said that; I have a gut feeling even just saying it (without acting upon it) would cause far more trouble than it's worth.

I should add that if I'm visiting someone who has a big dog (like the relatives in Fort Myers we visited last weekend), I know I just have to suck it up and deal with it because I'm entering his territory by going to their house. My objection is when I'm out for a walk somewhere that is not the dog's home and the owner fails to keep the dog from approaching passers-by who may not like big dogs. I go around in the street when it's safe to do so, but you can't always do that depending on the type of road, etc.

I concur on this. I was attacked at 9 years old by two dogs that chased me down, one of which biting me on the leg. The entitlement of people thinking they're dog can invade my space when I have that history gets on my nerves.

[JoePCool14]

Everyone's going to laugh at me for this, but here goes:

I am absolutely deathly paranoid of structures collapsing due to weight/gravity.  I always try to lighten the load upstairs with as little weight as possible so the upstairs floor doesn't give out causing everything upstairs to come crashing down.  Maybe I underestimate the structural integrity/strength of buildings (I am no structural engineer by any means), but everytime I am inside a building or parking garage, I always wonder how much longer it can hold itself up before it eventually collapses due to gravity.

As long as the structural engineers were better than me when I took that class, you should be good.

[jlam]

The Vespidae family. Whenever I see one of those guys I back away like 20 feet. For whatever reason, bees don't bother me as much. It's probably just the stinging for no reason thing.

[bm7]

I know this is an old thread, but I remembered it pretty clearly, so it can't be that old...

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

I don't have a fear of dogs, but I really dislike invisible fences. Nothing like walking past an open yard next to a house and having a large dog running towards you and you have no idea if it's going to stop or not, because you don't know if they actually have an invisible fence or not.

[zachary_amaryllis]

The Vespidae family. Whenever I see one of those guys I back away like 20 feet. For whatever reason, bees don't bother me as much. It's probably just the stinging for no reason thing.

I can't deal with bugs in general, even the seemingly harmless ones. We've all heard that there's always a spider within 3 feet of you, and that creeps me right out.

[paulthemapguy]

I don't know if I would consider it an irrational fear, but I have the same sentiment. I avoid alcohol and drugs for this reason–I don't want to lose control and do or say something I wouldn't want to do or say while sober.

Oh, you sweet summer child.

I used to think that too. Turns out when you're hanging out with people, everything becomes a lot more fun after everyone's had a couple drinks.

Emphasis on "a couple", though.  I open up and get chatty after about two drinks.  Anything beyond that and I just crash into a groggy, sleepy zombie.

In general, though, I avoid all drugs and alcohol beyond that, because I hate to lose control, too.  I had a health scare in fall 2020 (nothing to do with Covid), and it made me a bit of a paranoid hypochondriac. Any unexpected alteration to how I'm thinking or feeling would make me start to panic, so drugs and alcohol have been a very bad idea for me.  I've gotten mostly better in the last year and a half, though.

[MCRoads]

Needles. Gotten better, I can handle IMs, but IVs are and tats are a no-no. At least my parents know I won't be doing drugs...

And doing this (video). Expensive, too.

[TheHighwayMan3561]

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

About 10 years ago I suffered cuts on my leg from a couple dogs that got loose from a nearby house I was walking toward. One of them had razor sharp claws, sharper than any I've ever encountered on a dog. They were probably just trying to play and be friendly. He jumped on me and cut on the lower back part of my leg as I turned my back to brace for the dog jumping on me. The owners were apologetic  and helped treat my wounds at least. I never thought to report the incident to the city because my injuries were superficial.

[Scott5114]

I have an irrational fear of dogs. Even just thinking about approaching an unleashed dog makes me start to panic. I'll sometimes even turn around if I see one in the distance, especially if it has a known history of approaching me and/or the owner not caring about it being unleashed.

About 10 years ago I suffered cuts on my leg from a couple dogs that got loose from a nearby house I was walking toward. One of them had razor sharp claws, sharper than any I've ever encountered on a dog. They were probably just trying to play and be friendly. He jumped on me and cut on the lower back part of my leg as I turned my back to brace for the dog jumping on me. The owners were apologetic  and helped treat my wounds at least. I never thought to report the incident to the city because my injuries were superficial.

Generally, reporting such things to the city is a bad idea 99 times out of 100, since it can result in the dogs being killed. That's a wholly disproportionate response for anything other than, say, an owner who has intentionally trained the dog to attack passing schoolchildren or something like that.