Interestingly enough, I had a big fear of dogs. I don’t really know why because I’ve never had a traumatic experience with them (thank God I never got bitten).
I also feared being alone, darkness (but not much) and heights. Woah, I was a fearful kid.
Today, well, I only fear those big, aggressive dogs like kangals and rottweilers. As for darkness and loneliness, nah.
Yeah, the dog thing for me too. I got bit by a dog like once and now even the smallest dogs really scare me. I actually feared cats too but I have one now and the fear is totally gone. I still have this crippling fear of social interactions. Face to face, yeah, but especially phone calls. I got over the darkness thing when I got my own room. Now I can’t sleep with lights on. Still got the fear of heights I also had a fear of insects and rodents like say cockroaches or rats. Mostly OK now. I also got a fear of basketballs for a while because some kid hit my face with one in 5th grade. I was really a scaredy kid lol.
Mine was the inevitability of getting looked at by a dinosaur through un-curtained windows at night, thanks to watching Jurassic Park at far too young of an age.
I can safely say that I am no longer worried about getting looked at by a dinosaur, through a window or otherwise, although if it did actually happen it probably would be pretty scary.
As an adult that’s honestly funny, but I could see myself also having the same fear.
yeah, there was a clerestory in my childhood home that had windows just the perfect height in my child-brain for a T-Rex to look though; unaccompanied nighttime journeys through those lofty halls were very harrowing.
My older siblings orchestrated a fake haunting in our house for a month that absolutely terrified me.
The plus side is now I know ghosts and spirits aren’t real, and also that it’s pretty silly to believe in supernatural entities in general.
How can one be afraid of something and still enjoy doing it? I like snorkeling and have done it many times, love the feeling of weightlessnes and how quiet it all is, I plan vacations around the whole thing BUT everytime I am about to do it all of my body starts shaking like crazy, blood pumping, ears ringing, the works. Nothing has ever happened to me while doing it and I have never witnessed like an accident or something traumatic like that.
Oh! Also, not a fan of black dark places in water, like you go on by yourself and explore that place where a gigantic eel probably lives I’m gonna stay put right here.
Abandonment. Which happened several times throughout both my youth and adult life, so yeah…
As a small child, I feared that humanity would go extinct. I knew the following:
- Species can go extinct, like the dinosaurs
- In many million years, the sun will expand to encompass the Earth
- If we do not invent interstellar travel before then, say goodbye to humanity like the dinosaurs.
I stayed up at night worrying about this. I was precocious in this very difficult way, and it was hard for my parents.
As a teen, this fear was somewhat replaced by an increased understanding of entropy and a fear of the eventual end of the universe.
As an adult, that fear has been somewhat replaced by an increased understanding of human nature and a fear that we will ruin ourselves before either other fear can come to pass.
Looking to the future, I see that my oldest wants to be an engineer for NASA and has the chops to pull that off of his interest maintains. My youngest compulsively helps people. Maybe there are enough people like the two I was blessed with. Maybe one day we can get off this rock and scatter like seeds on the wind. Maybe raising them right will be my small contribution to the continued success of humanity.
I just learned about five years ago that my fear is called thalassophobia, but specifically dark water. Its strength has waxed and waned, but it’s never gone away. I even know what event made it happen and realize it’s irrational, but it doesn’t make a difference.
I guess I have this too but only when I’m swimming. I don’t mind when I’m in a ship.
Also doesn’t have to be deep, kicks in as soon as I can’t see or touch the bottom.
Once me and my wife went down to the ocean at night and I went in. After a few minutes I came out and told her that I fully understand the fear of the ocean at night now.
Yeah, it’s a hard phobia to fight because the ocean is dangerous and full of monsters.
Please tell us more about the event! This is the internet, should be mostly anonymous…
When I was less than five years old, my dad would direct my attention to the outlines of the trees in the dark night sky to scare me into putting the covers over my head, so I’d fall asleep.
I used to frequent a subreddit for this, as I have it too. Even when people read the description of what it is, they think you’re just afraid of water. It’s the unknown of what might be down in the dark that terrifies.
Nuclear war. 80s kid here, so past the nuclear close calls and “duck and cover” of the 60s but the Cold War and nuclear arms race were pretty scary to me.
It’s never gone away and Putin’s current saber-rattling have not helped, but it calmed down in the 1990s and 2000s.
Crippling fear of social interactions with strangers. Especially making phone calls.
I’m not afraid of it anymore but still don’t like it either. Turns out that exposing yourself to your fears helps you get over them. Who would’ve thought?
Flying, stinging insects. I hate it when I suddenly hear the buzzing next to my ear. They can move faster than me and there is nothing I can do against them other than try to dodge them.
I also have an issue with dogs, I grew up in a neighbourhood that had a handful of aggressive dogs. Biggest thing for me was walking by tall fences in my neighbourhood and getting jumpsscared by dogs banging on them. Didn’t help that I got chased down/bit by my next door neighbor’s dog as a teen.
I enjoy being around dogs of friends and family, but if it is unknown and unleashed I am very guarded and will plan out a fight. I still flinch if a friendly dog barks unexpectedly but I work hard to keep it under control.
water thats to deep for me to stand (pool vents and grates and such stuff as a bonus)
i still have it, and for the longest time i didnt know why.
i fell into a pool as a little kid,
and had forgotten that incident.Oh god the grates in pools! A local rec centre has a wave pool and there’s this wall long grate protecting swimmers from the wave machine. The grate is tall as I am and is in deep water, it honestly still scares me.
Aliens abducting me. Not even in my top 10 as an adult.
The fear of open water such as lakes, beaches, and rivers. I’ve always had a fear but would some times just suck it up. Hell a family friend once dragged me by my foot against my will into a lake where it was bitch black and even then I still had times where I’d swim around that area willingly. Not sure when it started but late into my adulthood I began being truly afraid of it so I keep my distance.
a lake where it was bitch black
lmao
