Phobias

[Plaidman]

I do that all the time Ravenstarr. All it really happens is your eyes are adjusting to the sudden lack of light, and slowly seeing yourself in the mirror. But it takes a few seconds, (The time it takes to say bloody mary) before it sticks to you. It still you, but it looks like its appearing out of nowhere. Thus Bloody Mary.


That being said, sure is fun to do for a quick heart attack.

[TOLady]

I also have a fear of breaking teeth. Like, I dunno, ramming my face into a pole and having them break, or maybe the orthodontist pulling my brackets and chipping a tooth instead.

Oh, yes. Me too!

My most common dream is about my teeth breaking or falling out. I wake up in a cold sweat and I often do the "10 second fantasy/nightmare" when I'm walking down the street and I see myself falling on my face and snapping them all off.

My front teeth aren't in great shape (they look great, but an eating disorder when I was younger left them very weak) and chip very easily (last time was a Toblerone). I panic every time I have to have a cleaning because they usually go at it with such vigour and I'm always imagining them breaking all my front teeth (they're built up and there's almost nothing left to attach to if they break at this point).

Thank goodness my favourite pub is almost right beside my dentist and I can have a few shots of tequila or a vodka soda before I go in. Not recommended for root canals, though. Kinda hard to stop in the middle to go to the bathroom .

[telecom_goddess]

OK here we go...

Deathly afraid of heights, especially if I don't feel secure. But glassed in elevators can make me nervous.

Tight spaces to a point, like elevators, but only if other people are really crowding into my personal space. I HATE people I don't know touching me anywhere.

I too am afraid of bees and will RUN if one comes near me. I have never been stung and don't even know if I'm allergic but because I don't know I don't want to take the chance

Driving. Just won't do it.

dogs I don't know....especially if they even LOOK like they might bite me. I got bitten as a kid and do NOT want it repeated.

slippery surfaces or anything that could make me fall. It got worse when I fell and broke my arm two years ago and crippled myself for a good long time.

[Lace Neil Singer]

However it wasn't until I was an adult, that I learned about *Bloody Mary*. Ther are many versions of this. Supposedly you go into a room that is completely dark, and light a candle. You say the name "Bloody Mary" 3 times and she appears in the mirror. There are people that swear this has really happened. I know most likely this is probably not true, but I sure don't plan on trying it.

When I was at school it was "Mary Roth". The story went that Mary Roth was a beautiful girl, who had her face destroyed in an accident. If you stood in front of a mirror and said "Mary Roth" three times, she'd appear and scratch your face off. There were girls who swore that it had happened to their friend's sister or their cousin's friend. O_o

[Shalom]

1. Heights. Not so much the high-ness of them, as I can drive over (most) bridges and fly on airplanes with no problem, but I can't get more than three or four rungs up on a ladder, nor do I like to look down through what I'm walking on (like open grid deck bridges, metal stairs, railroad trestles etc.). Just the other day I was an an amusement pier, and they had one of these slides that stand maybe 3 stories tall, with steps alongside it to the top. I wanted to go up and take pictures from the top, so I waited in line for too damn long, finally got there, went up with my 3-year-old son to about five feet above the ground, and said Who am I kidding, I know damn well I'm not going up there. Turned around and headed back for the ground, my boy looking at me like I was nuts.

Then there was the time, back in '96 after I graduated, when I drove out to Colorado and bummed around the mountains for a couple weeks in my 4x4. I discovered that I do not like shelf roads. I did make it up to the top of the Alpine Tunnel, but I think I still have dents in my steering wheel... I also got to the top of Cottonwood Pass. Beautiful views, and the top of the mountain pass is as flat and wide as a football field, but when I got out of the car I just couldn't let go of the door handle, because I was convinced that I'd slip and fall over the edge of the cliff, a hundred feet or so to the left...

(Note that being at the bottom of a great height will sometimes freak me out as well; there's the vertiginous sensation that this huge cliff (or whatever) is gonna turn sideways and fall on me.)

2. Needles. I will seriously freak out if someone comes at me with a needle. Even at the dentist, I'd rather sit there and let them drill on me without anaesthesia rather than get that needle stuck in my mouth. Funny thing is, I'm a pharmacist, I work with needles in the IV room, suck water out of vials and inject into other vials, then suck back out and inject into bags. This doesn't pose any problem to me, but just don't point it in my direction, TYVM. I couldn't even take a splinter out of my finger with a damn sewing needle until I was over 20. I daily give thanks to my Maker that I haven't got some condition that needs frequent injections, e.g. type I diabetes, because I wouldn't last two weeks.

(My grandfather, whom I loved dearly but who just Didn't Get It at times, used to tell me I just had to "put my mind to it" and I'd be able to take shots. I felt like telling him, "Zaidy, when your Parkinson's starts acting up and your hands start shaking uncontrollably, why don't you "put your mind to it" and make them stop?" but I never did.)

Fortunately I've found that Valium helps. Lots and lots of Valium. As much as seven times the normal anxiolytic dose. The knowledge that this does work seems to help prevent secondary anxieties, such as the fear of getting into a situation where I'll need to get an injection.

3. Wasps/yellowjackets/hornets etc. I'm not sure that qualifies as a true phobia, but I do hate them with a deep visceral hatred. (Bees, not so much.) I'm the kind of guy who will break step to avoid walking on an ant, but I will gladly spray the hell out of any wasps I see and laugh demonically while so doing. I'm pretty sure that this is related to my fear of sharp pointy things; see item #2 above.

I remember when I was a kid, there was one record that scared the literal shit out of me the one and only time I listened to it. It was the Columbia recording of Pinocchio with Mickey Rooney: as I vaguely remember, there was a musical passage near the beginning of side 2 which had the whole orchestra doing a glissando upwards, culminating in an explosion, and the narrator saying that the boiler had exploded or something. That bit gave me not only nightmares, but heart palpitations. I don't think I ever listened to that LP again, even though I knew how to work the record player myself when I was four or so. I probably still have it in the collection, though. My older brother had one record that scared him, one of the Synthetic Plastics Co. no-name label records of Peter and the Wolf; it wasn't the recording itself, but the cover painting of the wolf in a nightgown and a granny nightcap that scared him. I'd sometimes deliberately leave that record at the front of the rack just to bug him. What can I say, we were five and seven at the time. Sorry, bro.

There's one other phobia (which I've thank God mostly gotten over) that I won't discuss in public. If anyone really wants to know the gory details, PM me, but you'll wish you hadn't.

Note for those who know ahead of time that they'll need to deal with such a situation: Pre-treatment with benzodiazepines an hour or so pre-exposure helps immeasurably. I see this all the time as a pharmacist. Valium (as mentioned above) is one possibility; Xanax or Ativan are more commonly prescribed for this as they clear out of the body much faster. Talk to your doctor.

[Summerfly413]

I really don't like being crowded. I can deal with it in places where I expect it, like at a sporting event or a concert. If I'm just being randomly crowded and people are in my bubble and trying to meld their bodies into mine I freak out.
I realized this for the first time at a football game at my old high school. Walking through the crowds and everything was fine. Then we stood in line for the concession stand, and the person in front of me and behind me were squishing me and giving me no room and I started to feel dizzy and sweaty and shaky. I switched spots with my friend so I could just stand next to the line.

Another time at work we were having contractors work on our counters in electronics where the register was. We had to take the cameras out of one case and move them to another. Apparently this meant that: The manager had to stand on the outside of the case telling people where to put stuff. The HR woman stood next to her. Behind the counter was me, a stock guy, the construction guy, and the guy from home appliances kept walking behind the counter and back around for no reason. It's maybe a 5'x5' or 6'x6' square with one tiny exit. I kept feeling crowded and I was hot and sweaty and I kept feeling like I was in the way, so I just ran out from behind the counter and walked around the department.

My other fear is crossing the street. I've never been hit by a car or anything close. I just don't like doing it. I triple check before I walk across. I hate when I'm with friends or something and they just saunter across the road like it's no big deal. I walk pretty quickly across streets and the road part of parking lots.

I can't deal with having blood taken. I can deal with shots. I've had shots in my mouth(mostly just an annoying pinch), and shots in my arm(I almost passed out from two in the same day, different arms, but that was because I barely ate that day). But I went to the health department for the first time to get birth control pills, and they ended up taking a tiny vial of my blood. I had NO idea they were going to do that. I got all clammy and shivery and light headed. I generally don't like the idea of anything that's supposed to stay inside my body on the outside.

[Chrismor]

I'm not 100%, but I don't think the Cardinals play at Busch Stadium anymore, so new visitors wouldn't be able to. My group was actually rushed along pretty quickly. :/ Barely had anytime to take pictures.

Wait... they've moved since yesterday? I need to pay more attention.

They still play at Busch Stadium, and I say that as someone who is the most knowledgeable about baseball in my family. (Not that it is difficult. I am the only person in my family who follows baseball)

I was up in the Arch late in the evening, so we were in no rush to be moved. Lovely to look at the city as it gets dark.

C.

[crashhelmet]

When I was at school it was "Mary Roth". The story went that Mary Roth was a beautiful girl, who had her face destroyed in an accident. If you stood in front of a mirror and said "Mary Roth" three times, she'd appear and scratch your face off. There were girls who swore that it had happened to their friend's sister or their cousin's friend. O_o

We knew her as "Bloody Mary."

CH

[Lace Neil Singer]

I believe it's a regional thing.

http://www.snopes.com/horrors/ghosts/bloodymary.asp

Snopes lists several names for the mirror ghost: Bloody Mary, Bloody Bones, Hell Mary, Mary Worth, Mary Worthington, Mary Whales, Mary Johnson, Mary Lou, Sally, Kathy, Agnes, Black Agnes, Aggie, Svart Madame. But where I come from, it was always Mary Roth. XD

[AdminAssistant]

Wait... they've moved since yesterday? I need to pay more attention.

They still play at Busch Stadium, and I say that as someone who is the most knowledgeable about baseball in my family. (Not that it is difficult. I am the only person in my family who follows baseball)

Ah, okay. Obviously I was mistaken.

[blas]

This may seem stupid, but I enjoy scaring myself. Zombie movies, ghost movies, slasher movies, all of them. But the ones involving ghosts are the worst.

Anyway, it would be also silly to say that I'm scared of the dark, because I work night shift, but I AM. I wake up at a certain time every afternoon during the week to turn the lamp in the livingroom on. If I'm alone on the weekends and trying to sleep at night, I need a small light.

I can't do it. There have been days I've been over-tired and over-slept, and woke up to a pitch black room at 8:30 at night.

The winter time is the worst, because I have to turn the lights on at 4:30.

[dendawg]

Like a lot of the people that have replied so far, I'm deathly afraid of bees, or any other insect that flies and stings. If it's only one I could probably swat it away, but anymore than that, fuhgeddabout it.

My other big fear is that of being trapped in a crowd, to the extent that being in one can easily give me panic attacks. Not fun.

[csquared]

I'm also terrified of looking at the mirror in the dark.

I'm afraid of looking in the mirror in the morning... But that is another story.

I am not afraid of heights as such. I have no problems with airplanes or tall buildings. I can walk up to the glass on the observation deck of the Sears Tower. I can climb a 40' ladder to the roof of my house.

Edges scare me. I can stand on the ladder, but once I am on the roof, I do not like being near the edge. I guess it is more a fear of "falling off." It made climbing the Sydney Harbour bridge rather interesting.

[Ree]

My phobias:

heights
the dark
being in crowds and tight spaces where I can't move my arms or my head is covered
snakes
sleeping without something over me

[RecoveringKinkoid]

1. Roaches.
2. Roaches.
3. Roaches.
4. Roaches.
5. Have a bit of claustrophobia. Came on after a bad bout of the haint (sleep paralysis). Never used to be claustophobic before that.

I can handle spiders, bugs, all manner of creepy crawlies. I can handle snakes, frogs, and rats.

A freaking snake FELL ON MY HEAD AND DRAPED MY NECK and I freaked out...until I realized that it was not a roach. It touched me and my first thought was "OOOOHFUCKFUCKFUCKIT"SA ROACH!!!!!!!!!" The snake fell off and slithered away and I thought "oh, thank God and Jesus, it's not a roach."

True freaking story.