Fearful Things

MissTeja · Post by **MissTeja** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:32 am

So to make a long-story short, my older sis (the one who works in Hollywood) has been requested to do a script. (This is a HUGE step in her career.) In part for her mass amounts of research she'll be doing, she has asked if I could please poll some people I know, particularly those in the age range of 18-28 (approximately). There have been similar threads in the past examining fears, but I'm compiling this list new, since there's a couple other bits of information I need from those willing to answer my request.

Two things:

First - what is your greatest, most deep-seeded fear? Nuclear Holocaust? Death of a significant other, parent, sibling, self? Heights? Dark? Enclosed Spaces? Aliens coming to Earth hostile? Big bodies of water? Clowns? Losing limbs? Getting a terminal disease? (These are just examples. Please feel free to list anything.)
If you wish to give a brief explanation of what specific aspect of it makes you fear it, feel free. Please be honest. If it's something you are embarassed of, though, feel totally free to email me instead. (Link in profile)

Second - Names are not being recorded, but if you would be willing to add any of your demographic information, that is also appreciated. Sex, Age, Race, Career, Location, etc. Don't go hog-wild, but just a couple basics would be much appreciated.

For example:
Personally, as I've been slowly overcoming my fear of heights, the two following ones of a fear of swords or other sharp knife-like items, as well as fearing the loss of one of my siblings to whom I am very close to, are the two that top my list. I am a 24 year old, caucasian, female student from Michigan, USA.

Massive thanks to all who post.

Cash · Post by **Cash** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:44 am

Replied in your lj.

Oh, and congrats to your sis!

Brineshrimp · Post by **Brineshrimp** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 3:51 am

I have a fear of open water. Guess I've seen Jaws too many times. I'll still go in, but I've never been completely comfortable.

Asian male, 29 years of age. Cleveland, OH...teacher/bar manager.

Ancient History · Post by **Ancient History** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:35 am

Greatest Fear(s): Losing control of my faculties; followed by death of family members.

White male, 22, college student, Tampa, FLorida-da

Kudos to your sister.

Silent Sniper · Post by **Silent Sniper** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 4:37 am

Needles.

White male, college student, 19.

WillyGilligan · Post by **WillyGilligan** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 6:26 am

Brineshrimp wrote:I have a fear of open water. Guess I've seen Jaws too many times. I'll still go in, but I've never been completely comfortable.

Asian male, 29 years of age. Cleveland, OH...teacher/bar manager.

I'll agree to that one, but spiders are still number one for me in creepiness/fear. I still haven't bought Return of the King and I gotta say that Shelob is part of the reason. Jackson put all the wrongness of spiders in one package.

Caucasian male, 28 years old, raised in Virginia

Crazy Elf · Post by **Crazy Elf** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:31 am

Deep water that I can't see the bottom of while underneath it. I don't fear it, but it unsettles me. That's as close as I have to a fear.

BlackJack · Post by **BlackJack** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 7:59 am

#1) Spiders. I can't stand spiders, the bigger they are the worse it is. I have creepy nightmares of big ass spiders crawling all over me.

#2) This is going to take some effort to explain. When my sister started college I was worried something would happen to her. She was a wild child, and I figured some drunken jerkass would try something. I think for the most part she could take care of herself, but she's the type to make things escalate rather than walk away with some humiliation.

Now we get to the meat of the problem. I was afraid of what I would do if anything happened to her. When I was younger I bounced another kid's head off of a brick wall because he pushed my sister and she hurt her hand. I have a bad temper and a short fuse, I'm honestly afraid of what I would do to the guy. In general domestic violence is one of my hot buttons, it short circuits all my patience. If it was my little sister I have a bad feeling that my response would be swift, painful and terminal.

Male, caucasian, 27, graduate student, Florida

Bishop · Post by **Bishop** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:12 am

Biggest fear is losing somebody close to me. My son, my parents, siblings, close friends. I'm too darn mushy.

Only other fear is trees at high speeds.

27 year old male, Caucasian, Michigan U.S.A.

Twisted Sister · Post by **Twisted Sister** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 10:28 am

Malicious ghosts raise the hair of my arms. Evil spirits. Etheral half rotten corpses risen from the dead to haunt my dark hours...that sort of thing.

The thought of losing my family is the stuff that feels my stomach with lead.

28, whiter than Adam, in the Netherlands.

Way to go your sis!

DV8 · Post by **DV8** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:28 pm

1) Going crazy without realising it.
2) Male, 26, Caucasian, Software Engineer, The Netherlands

Cash · Post by **Cash** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:06 pm

Bishop wrote:Only other fear is trees at high speeds.

Shouldn't the trees be afraid of *you*?

Twisted Sister · Post by **Twisted Sister** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 1:14 pm

DV8 wrote:Going crazy without realising it.

Got any banaarnaars?

Lord Death Hand · Post by **Lord Death Hand** » Wed Mar 02, 2005 11:26 pm

Fears eh?

1) Airplanes. They combine my next two fears in once evil package.

2) Heights. Me and heights have never, ever been friends. Probably due to all the falling off of high things as a little kid and the whole being pushed off of a 50 ft. cliff when I wasn't ready during a repelling expidition with my school when I was in 6th or 7th grade.

3) Tiny, tiny spaces. I hates them. Being trapped in some tiny llttle box scares the crap out of me. I don't know why.

4) Snakes off and on. I say off and on because most of the time I actually like snakes and I will handle/play with them. Every once and a while though I'm gripped by an uncomprehensible fear of them.

21 year old male, White because I don't like the word Caucasian

, Iowa City, Iowa. Part-time Librarian and full-time Student.

Hope that'll help. And no using my fears against me in the plotting of my demise. That's just not fair.

BlackJack · Post by **BlackJack** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 6:28 am

I forgot one, a big one. I'm scared out of my mind that I might have or might at somepoint in the future make a seemingly small mistake that has huge consequences. I'm sitting here watching engineering disasters on the History Channel, and see another engineer (whom I've met) who was held responsible for the KC Hyatt walkway failure. He lost his PE license.

I haven't done anything on that scale, but there are aircraft out there with parts made on my say so, and based on my designs. In the back of my mind is the fear that one day an aircraft will crash and it will be because some small tie rod or door locking bar failed. And because it was a small part it was assumed to be designed right, but wasn't, and it's one of my designs.

male, 27, caucasian, grad student, Florida

Eva · Post by **Eva** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:40 am

Wow, that's a good one.

Szechuan · Post by **Szechuan** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 12:50 pm

Mediocrity.
edit: Discovered this today. Being sucked out of a plane at altitude.
Male, age 20, undergrad student, NB Canada.

Coasini · Post by **Coasini** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 6:56 pm

Greatest Fear: Not meeting a deadline. (No, I'm serious. I will stay up for nights on end, freaking out in order to meet even an impossible deadline.)

22, Male, Orlando FL. Programmer.

UncleJoseph · Post by **UncleJoseph** » Fri Mar 04, 2005 8:00 pm

My biggest fear is not being able to do something about a violent situation or disaster. Usually, this fear represents me being held against my will and forced to watch something terrible happen (violent situation), or by the nature of what's happening, I am unable to help (disaster, people trapped in a burning car, etc). This is about the only thing I fear.

White male, age 30, police officer, Lansing, MI.

Bethyaga · Post by **Bethyaga** » Sun Mar 06, 2005 2:46 am

Heights make me horribly queasy, but I can handle them. What makes me go irrational is small children (especially my own) combined with heights. We were at a campground and climbed to the top of the observation tower (probably about 60 feet up), and all that kept you safe at the top was a waist-high railing running around the perimeter. My two older boys were up there with me, and while I was nervous, I was not worried. But then my brother-in-law carries his two-year-old to the rail and leans over to look down. I fuckin' flipped. I all I could see were horrible visions of Caleb choosing that moment to twist around or panic or something and go slipping over the rail to the rocks and river below.

My stomach is doing serious flips just having to type this out.

34 year old white male. Married, 3 kids. Nebraska, USA.

sinsual · Post by **sinsual** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 4:22 am

I have a deep seated fear of being atop of water, bridges, docks, boats, all bring out this fear. I try my damndest to beat this fear but have found that even walking the deck of the QEII left me with bleeding palms and white knuckles. Put me in a diving mask, and let me get below the surface of the water and all fear disipates in a wash of wonder. I was told it has to do with being tossed out of a boat and nearly drowning at about the age of 3. My stepfather who dove in after me spent something like 5 mins trying to find me. Though that was never actually confirmed. He said that he found me by the lit flashlight tied around my waist as I lay on the bottom of the lake. We had been night fishing when a cabin cruiser went by too close tipping the boat way up onto its side in the wake. My life preserver which was ill fitting had slipped up over my head and off. It wasn't until I got into my 20's before I would even get into another boat. And that took ALOT of vodka before I even tried it.

Male, middle 30's very mixed nationality.

Vralkie · Post by **Vralkie** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 5:45 am

not coming down...

I've had some of the WORST trips that I've ever heard of.

One time the universe turned into a monolithic segmented serated "popcan". This thing then proceeded to slowly (painfully) grind me into 2 dimentionalness (sp?) Following that I spent an undetermined length of time viewing "everything" from the pov of the skin of a giant rotating "everything".

Another time I got stuck in a localized time dialation. The same ten minutes repeating over and over again for 6 hours or so. Problem was that I couldn't remember the previous ten minutes that came before it. The time dialation didn't end until I forced myself to throw up. I had eaten some tai food earlier, and washed it down with entirely too many vampires.... Throwing up red/chunky shit while tripping "somehow" got interpreted by my subcontious (sp?) as blood and innards, but was still preferable to the time dialation....

For some reason I wasn't able to sleep for 2 1/2 days after watching season 6 episode 9/10 (can't remember the number exactly, the one where her life [for the past 7 years] was a delusion and she's actually in an asylum)

I still sometimes wake up in a cold sweat convinced that the orange-peel and toothpaste combo in juvie' never wore off....

Age: 21
Gender: Male
Occupation: GIS Technician, Cosmetology student in a month or two
Decent: Sweed (white)

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Van Der Litreb · Post by **Van Der Litreb** » Wed Mar 09, 2005 11:44 pm

I don't really have any fears that I am aware of. The closest thing would probably be the brief panic attacks I get when I dive in water, even if it's just a few meters down. Something about not being able to just open my mouth and breathe just doesn't seem right. I love swimming and I'm a decent swimmer, so it's pretty silly, really.

And, honestly, the first time I saw Michael Jackson's video for Thriller I was scared shitless.

Very white male, 29 years old, Denmark, lazy student.

Nigga JP · Post by **Nigga JP** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 2:33 am

Fear: Drug addiction or codependency. I also have this really weird phobia of crabs, especially these fucking huge Japanese ones in Chicago.

Male, 23, blacker than midnight on Broadway and Myrtle, Q.A. Engineer, couple doors down from you

WillyGilligan · Post by **WillyGilligan** » Thu Mar 10, 2005 7:48 am

Van Der Litreb wrote:And, honestly, the first time I saw Michael Jackson's video for Thriller I was scared shitless.

So was I, but I was a child at the time....

ok, that joke sucks, but it had to be made.[/i]

Cash · Post by **Cash** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 12:24 am

WillyGilligan wrote:
Van Der Litreb wrote:And, honestly, the first time I saw Michael Jackson's video for Thriller I was scared shitless.
So was I, but I was a child at the time.....

Have you seen Veed now? Shortest motherfucker I know. He is the size of a small child.

Van Der Litreb · Post by **Van Der Litreb** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:20 pm

Yeah, I'm eagerly awaiting a growth spurt before I hit 30.