"All the world's a stage, and the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts."

- William Shakespeare

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

fears and phobias

I haven't blogged in a while, eh? I've been feeling too narcissistic lately and I figured blogging would only feed my self-obsessed addictions so I stayed away from it, thinking the world really doesn't need to know about my life. But it's been two weeks and I was reading some other blogs and got inspired.

I read a pretty funny blog (this one to be precise) about childhood fears and I thought, what better way to return to the blogging world than by sharing with everyone what used to (and, in most cases, still does) scare me? 'Cause my imagination is... a little messed up. I think I actually shared all of the same fears as the woman whose blog I read, but here are a few that I came up with when reminiscing about my childhood (that may or may not include up to ten minutes ago)...

1. Going to the bathroom at night - specifically, flushing the toilet. My logic: loud noises make monsters come out.

1a. A closed shower curtain (only at night): a were-wolf could be hiding in the bathtub and I wouldn't know it. Solution: As soon as you walk into the bathroom, open the shower curtain quickly, in a ready-to-run stance.

1b. Turning off the bathroom light at night... because as soon as you turn it off, you're left in total darkness, ie. you're totally vulnerable to monster attacks. Solution: (well, first you have to wait a good two or three minutes after you've flushed the toilet so the monsters have gone back to sleep, and then, turn off the light and make a mad dash for your room.)

2. Sleeping without a blanket. My logic: Monsters can only pull you out of bed when they can see your feet.

3. People crawling at me... yeah, this one's weird... it might explain why I'm afraid of babies... My logic: dangerous animals walk on all fours - as soon as you are on all fours, my imagination will be triggered and I will think of you as a dangerous animal...

4. Getting my eyes poked out: When I was six or seven I watched The Phantom - starring Billy Zane - and there's a scene where someone has something awful happen to their eyes right after taking off their glasses... needless to say, it made me queezy about eyes and wishing for an excuse to wear glasses more often.


5. Swimming in the ocean: Sharks, eels, whales... minnows... knowing that there could be something swimming near me and possibly attacking me is enough to keep me close to shore.

5a. Swimming in lakes: I always imagine the Lock Ness monster swimming around near my feet as soon as I've gone more than ten feet away from the beach.

5b. Swimming in swimming pools: I used to think a shark would come in through that drain thing at the bottom of the deep end, so I'd always keep an eye on it.

5c. Walking near a creek. My logic: Yeah, we don't live in Florida, but I still think that a crocodile will come out and attack me... I've seen Crocodile Dundee too many times...


6. Walking from the car to the front door alone at night: Five feet is enough to get attacked by a crazy person...

6a. Walking from the front door to the car at night *different* - Once I get in the car, I'm afraid a bad guy has somehow gotten in the car and hidden in the back seat and he's just waiting to attack me... also, I lock the doors as soon as I get in, in case the bad guy is waiting to attack me from outside.

6b. The forest across the street from my house (this one is no longer valid because the forest has since been replaced by a giant house) - my older brother used to tell me that ghosts lived in it. I couldn't even look at it from the safety of my bedroom without the risk of having a nightmare or two. The fear later grew to include rapists living in the woods... (though my theories were never supported by facts)

7. Balloons: ...this one I can't explain. I think it's the fact that they can pop at any second and loud noises scare me.


8. Clowns: no explanation necessary, I'm sure.

9. Heights: anything higher than 2 stories and my legs turn to jello. And don't even get me started on staircases!

10. Flying (in airplanes). It may have something to do with heights...

I don't even want to admit to how many more there are... 10 is just scratching the surface. And they say having a wild imagination is a good thing. Ha!

Anyway, I'm going to return to my trying-not-to-be-narcissistic tendencies and end this post before I go on any more rants.

Keep it real!

No comments: