15 things that freak me out in a bad way

Posted on by Kylene
  1. Spiders.  (Though, really, that should be SPIDERS!!!!!!!!)
  2. Crowds in enclosed spaces.  I was at a restaurant about a month ago and freaked out so badly that I started to cry.  Usually it takes more than that, but not always.
  3. Falling from a great height – this includes roller coasters, elevators, and other “safe” methods of falling.  Sometimes, it includes looking over the railing at the top of the stairs in my house.
  4. Videos of sharp or living things going toward people’s eyes or other orifices or through skin, like in the Matrix and several Star Trek movies and many other films.
  5. When I wake up and Justin is really cold beside me because my first thought is always “Oh, please don’t be dead!”  I have in the past shaken him awake to make sure he was okay and then covered him in blankets so he could go back to sleep.  (He got grumpy when I did that, so now I try to see if he’s breathing first.)
  6. Jellyfish.  I have never been stung, but I’ve seen it happen to Justin and it didn’t look pleasant.  And they’re hard to see!  So I worry that I’m going to go face-first into one and get stung in my eyes.  I will not swim if there are jellyfish in the water.
  7. Being in the dark while outside somewhere I don’t know, like stopping on a dark road in the middle of nowhere or walking in the woods.  I’m irrationally afraid of urban legends coming true, spiders or other insects crawling all over me, and wild animals with sharp teeth and claws coming to tear me apart.
  8. Really big waves, which is mostly funny because I’ve never been close to one.  The ones we get here are tiny compared to the ones people go surfing on off other coasts.  But I have trouble with the ones here sometimes.  They knock me around and it makes me panic.
  9. That TV show about women who are pregnant and don’t know it, who even give birth and don’t realize what’s happening.  I mean, can they not tell the difference between their pooper and their hoo-ha?  Really?!
  10. People in mascot costumes or big furry animal/cartoon costumes where I can’t see the face of the person inside.  I am apparently not very trusting of people when I can’t see their face.
  11. Roaches.  They’re disgusting.  I hate having them in my house.  This is why we have dozens of roach traps scattered around the house.
  12. Getting lost at sea, which, again, is something I’ve never had reason to fear not ever having gone out past sight of the shore before.  But I start to worry when I can’t touch the bottom when swimming because I’m afraid of being swept out and unable to get back home again.  (I know that it makes no sense.  This isn’t at all a list that makes rational sense.)
  13. Changing plans at the last minute, especially if it involves more than two people and food.  I have gotten much better at this over the years, but it used to be really bad.  And sometimes, if I’m already stressing out about the situation, this can drive me to tears.
  14. Wind at night.  At its worst, I genuinely fear that the wind is going to sweep through my home taking everything important away from me, including Justin.  During the day, I can see things blowing in the wind and if I can “watch” the wind, then I can make sure nothing of mine is blowing away.  At night, wind is sneaky and I can’t see what it’s doing.
  15. Airports.  They combine my problems with crowds and my problems with changing plans and then add on the bonus of being scanned and analyzed and potentially losing luggage and the stress of making connecting flights with the delightful interlude of being crammed into a noisy flying sardine can for a couple hours.  The flying part doesn’t bother me.  It’s all the rest of it.

2 thoughts on “15 things that freak me out in a bad way”

  1. Okay, you might have picked up a couple of them from me. Not the spiders – they don’t bother me. But definitely the crowds of people – totally freaks me out to be at a concert or that sort of thing. But that is where I end up taking my sr. citizens, so I’m learning to try to relax and enjoy whatever it is. Still, what if there was a fire???Definitely the falling – remember I wouldn’t even go up in the Sears tower? But I did go up in the high restaurant at Niagara Falls and I was glad I did, because the views were really great. The jelly fish – yup. The really dark and unknown place and the wild beasts waiting to eat me – definitely. Definitely the wind at night, too. The others, not so much, but that was about all of them, wasn’t it? So, I guess we are pretty normal, right?

    1. I remember being terrified of the elevator up the Sears tower. I actually sat on the floor. It was too crowded and too fast. I don’t go on elevators much now — partially because I don’t like being in that small of a space with other people, partially because the movement sometimes makes me dizzy, partially because the size of the space makes me anxious. I am okay by myself usually, and, oddly, I do better in glass ones, probably because it doesn’t seem so small.

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