DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... What freaks you out and your fears

Seeing Arch's post about the tribute his brother in law did going sky diving, I thought I would create fun post to see what everyone's fears are and what freaks them out.

For me it is definitely heights. My companies corporate office is on the 12th floor with all glass windows and I can not even look at as it freaks me out.

The other one for me is snakes. I know they have a purpose but they freak my out. Last summer I was grilling out on our patio and my wife looked at me and said whatever you do don't look down. Of course I did and there was a garter snake by my feet. I dropped the spatula and screamed like a little girl and ran inside like a little girl

Being stabbed. Every day common things like a lot of people have problems with really don't bother me. Heights, spiders, snakes or other things I really don't have much problem with.

And maybe it isn't actually being stabbed, but the knife itself. You see, a gun shot wound leaves a small scar. It's limited in size. But with a knife, you can be scarred up very quickly, very badly.

It may sound odd but that's it.

In general:

- Heights
- Possibility of rupturing my Achilles
- Calls in the middle of the night

Specifically:

- Mayfield getting injured

For me it's extreme claustrophobia. Regular tight spaces, like a crowded elevator, don't really bother me too much. But I'm talking about places where you're really pinched in there and have a chance of getting stuck. If I were to ever be thrown into the Shawshank prison and spend 10 years digging through a prison wall, only to find that a small pipe crawl was the only thing between life in prison and complete freedom ... I would hop back into my bed and have the wall filled with makeshift concrete by the next day.

After having seven surgeries in the last 5 years Knives don't bother me at all. Hell they cut me open once when I was wide awake and had no drugs at all. I had to wait till they were done cutting before I said to the surgeon. HEY dumbass I told you I was still awake. I swear to this day If I ever see him on the street I want to return the favor.

So you have a license to practice medicine?

Flying. I cant handle the thought of nothing under the plane for 30K feet.

I cannot fly without booze being involved.

I do fly, I just really hate it.

Obviously, for me, heights. In fact, just yesterday I explained to our pastor that, 'no, I can't help changing the light bulbs 35 feet in the air."

But, snakes. Don't like them, which is odd, cause as a kid I'd ride bike to several places where ditches went under the roads, and lift up the rocks looking for snakes. Pick them up, hold them.

Granted, they were Garter Snakes - not poisonous, but they still bit.

I will never hold another snake in my life though.

Heights.

I got vertigo climbing the "whispering staircase" to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral in London and when I looked down it started spinning and my heart started racing almost like a panic attack.

In 1992/93 I went to the top of the World Trade Center and when I looked down it was horrible. My wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) took a photo, which we still have and I look very green in the face. The problem with that building was it was a straight, vertical rectangular building and you could literally look straight down to the road and sidewalk. On the Empire St. Building I was fine because you can't see straight down due to its steeps and ledges. You look outwards and then down and I'm totally fine when I do that.

Being buried alive.

I hate spiders. They creep me out. I can kill them, and do, when they're found in he house. So how bad is my phobia?

More real. More likely.
A medical diagnosis that financially ruins me. Stealing away my life savings.
Or a diagnosis that robs me of my life. MS, ALS, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc. There are things much worse than death.

Yep got it from the School of Hard Knocks

I've been stabbed... I totally get it. It is a VERY personal and intimate attack that can really mess with any feelings of security.


Being overwhelmed by the little things in life. It can immobilize me.
The grand things... no problem. The routine? I can struggle.

Reminds me of a recurring nightmare I had as a kid. Running away from an avalanche of boulders. Sure, the big ones could squash me, but they didn't scare me. I could handle those, but the little ones terrified me. They could bury me and swallow me whole by their sheer number and I could only deal with so many at a time and they could come at me faster than I could handle.

Being forced to live the remainder of my life in unremitting pain.

Life is not sacred.

Happiness, joy of living is.

That is sacred.

I realize just how lucky I am that my phobias don't actually impede my every day life. I know people that aren't that lucky.

For me: I fear failure ... like letting people down (that are important to me)

I don’t like losing (how ironic as a browns fan)

I fear failure, everyday. Especially as a self employed person. I have no one to blame.

Heights (which is weird because they didn't start to bother me much when I was little)

Snakes (naw, man...just naw.)

Heights never bothered me at all either when I was little.

Maybe it's the dark imaginings creeping in over the years, a healthy sense of mortality, watching documentaries about those guys who put up the skyscrapers in NY way back when or seeing Stallone's "Cliffhanger".

Who knows?

Now I'm pretty pathetic when it comes to even modest heights.

Kill Bill just popped into my head.

Yeah, I can definitely understand!

After 30 years of Firefighting, I can't think of any fears I have.

I have already faced them and overcome them.

I have been lost in the dark, trapped, burned, nearly suffocated, climbed 100 ft ladders, gone down manholes, pushed my air pack ahead of me while slithering on my belly through a pipe, dived out of windows while on fire, head first down a ladder, seen horrible injuries and gut wrenching deaths.

Good stuff was helping people in need, turning the tide on the worst day of their lives and saving lives. Working with men and women who were doing the same as me was outstanding.

What movies were you in again?

Backdraft. I love a good hero.

I don't like not being able to move.

There was a movie with Sandra Bullock, she was buried alive. I was very uncomfortable with that scene....so I suppose claustrophobia would apply, but getting on a crowed elevator doesn't bother me.....unless it stopped between floors and we were stuck there a while.

I'd have to do some deep breathing.

Snakes to a degree. I am not afraid of them but feel a deep need to chop them in half with a shovel.


A reoccurring dream I don't like is being on a elevator that starts shaking wildly from side to side as we are going down, yet again, no fear of getting on a elevator.

I won't share the dreams that I like.

Another one for me is cotton balls. I can not touch them at all. It's weird as my sister is the same way.

I am glad to see this post being fun as it seems like these days everyone is ready for the season to start which will only be a few more weeks.

Not cool on your part. You may dislike 40, and that's fine.

I can't stand the sound of Styrofoam breaking or rubbing together.....

Maybe you picked cotton? I have this belief that us souls recycle until we get it right or screw up bad enough we are sent away forever. Those plants don't grow very high. Unless you are very short, it is a hunched over job in a hot climate. Cotton picking season starts in July in the South. July, August, September are hot months down here. Not Northern hot, Southern hot. There is a 15° or so difference at the least as a norm.

Don't be 'fraid.

I don't have many, but ...

--I fear outliving my children. It scares me if we get a call late at night.

--Being dependent on others. For example, it would be horrific if I had a stroke and had to have my family take care of me. I'd rather be dead.

--When I was young, we played this stupid game and there was this huge pile-up of bodies. I freaked out. I hit, kicked, clawed, bit, etc to get the hell out of that mess. Don't restrict my freedom, bro!

Sorry but I have to add another one. Going to the dentist.

Being in that chair when they are getting to start working on me freaks me out and I hate it.

The dentist is easy, just make them tell you stories. Explain to them, that while you aren’t able to verbally respond, they are responsible to carry the conversation. It’s up to them to tell you a story while they work on you. It’s only fair.

So, once upon a time...

Even though it can be beautiful, lightning.

I just keep putting up my index finger (the universal signal to dentists that something hurts) to let him know that I need more Novacaine. One time he asked what my pain level was on a scale of 1 to 10 and I said "MURR!" because my lips were numb.

Oh, I forgot about tsunamis. Those scare the crud out of me. I've always had reoccurring dreams of tsunamis hitting me while at the beach. Then that big tsunami hit the Indian Ocean area back in 2004 and made things worse.

I've done a lot of research about them though, so I know it takes a significant earthquake to get a really bad tsunami, and California fault lines aren't likely to generate big tsunamis. So my fears probably aren't as bad as it used to be. Still have to worry about sea swells and rogue waves though.

One day, a middle-aged woman goes to a new dentist, after her original dentist retired. It was her first time in the new dentist's chair, so they had a short 'getting to know you' session beforehand. She explained to the new dentist that he had some big shoes to fill; that her previous dentist was deft, gentle and careful to a fault. "We had an understanding," she said.

New dentist reclines the chair, pops on the overhead light and picks up his first tool. Just then, the patient reaches out, cups his genitals in her hand and says:

"I'm pretty sure you and I will have the same understanding my old doc and I had- won't we?"

Love it Clem that was good!

I always hate when the official, doctor, maybe not, asks me what is my pain level on a scale of 1-10, because,
Near the first time I ever heard of this idea, I heard them say "10 being the worst pain you ever had in your life and 1 being no pain"

Well, some things in the past have made it so I'm pretty "forced" to attempt to answer this question honestly, and 2nd, I don't know (usually) how to answer it, and
3, if honest, it would be quite apparent if you were in massive pain,

Then, it just makes me think of the most painful times I can remember,
so , really, it is a really, really hard question to answer correctly.

I don't communicate well,

probably because my inside mind is usually doing 2 or 3 or 4 more things and my outside mind (which is what I have to communicate with the world with), is just getting in the way.

And that doesn't mean I'm smart, just distracted, very much and unorganized.

organization, sometimes learning the rules of education can feel like it's destroying my ability to think and my identity as a person. OR maybe not.

If you took a symphony, Clem would understand this, better than me, I don't understand music too much,

If you took an orchestra, with all it's many parts and forced it to learn to compose itself within the rules of

recognized, melodic, structured, one line-edness of a journey from basic to complex,

you'd never get a, good , I think you'd miss out on so much.

Take mathematics, after so many years looking back, I think the best way I should have gone through it is to take, maybe at least 3 different courses at the same time.

2 I'm smarter than, One I should be learning, and another way beyond level, just to introduce ideas.

Science is the same way, Sports are too.

I don't even like climbing a stepladder. When I was a teenager I painted a two-storey farmhouse, ladder with no safety line. I was careful but thought nothing of it really.

No way in hell would I do that now.

Falling to my death is a real fear. I sometime dream I'm sitting on a little platform, high above a skyscraper with no hope for safety.

Luckily I wake up, relieved.