People are afraid of all kinds of things: spiders, the dark, or being enclosed in small spaces. Tell us about your greatest fear – rational or irrational.
Fear Factor
27 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted in Geen categorie
27 Thursday Nov 2014
Posted in Geen categorie
People are afraid of all kinds of things: spiders, the dark, or being enclosed in small spaces. Tell us about your greatest fear – rational or irrational.
Daily Writing Prompts 
My greatest fear is to lose my family.
You see, I am enormously attatched to them. I cannot stand the thought of losing them, especially if it ends up being unexpected. Naturally, even I understand that we must part ways from our beloved once,- and that it is okay. But the thought of not being able to talk to them, laugh and cheer for your favourite football team- to find support in the light they provide in times of darkness. It frightens me.
Stupid, isn’t it? I am the least to moan and groan about anything really. My life has gone swimmingly until now and yet I cannot keep myself from fearing. I can only understand that this sounds incredibly pretendious from another’s point of view.
Also, I am terrified of the thougjt that my brother were to die before I could express him how much I care for him. He hasn’t gotten the best grades until now and my parents are constantly mad for him not trying. I’ve offered my help several times, but he has always declined. I’ve decided not to tell openly of my grades in fear he might even feel worse about the whole situation. I can only hope that it doesn’t weigh too much on his shoulders.
I see me in him, a few years ago. I’m afraid he doesn’t realize that everything is going to be okay if he puts that little more effort into it instead of gaming, for example. Tat I’m not perfect and I made the exact same mistakes his age.
I also havr a fear of spiders. Creepy little spawns of the devil, I tell you.
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Thought*, that*.
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Hmm, I am dead-afraid o spiders. Wether they’re huge or litlle. On a day I have put my uggs on. The whole trip to school I felt a bump underneeth my foot. I kept be paisent and though If a arrive to school I would take my ugg off. But it really bothers my while I was cycling. So I stopped and thought to pick out that irritating stone out. So I threw it out mu ugg, but it began to explore and to move. It was a huge spider. Yak, it was a horrible feeling. I went to school with one ugg on. I couldn’t put it on my foot. So from that day on I have a weakness by seing spiders. And I tried to get over it but, it’s to hard. Even a snake I could pick it up.
Second thing that really frightens me is to her someone dies of my beloved ones. I am really close with my family but also with people I know very well since I was little. If I hear that someone is I know good is very ill, I get quickly watery eyes. I prefer to hear that everyone is ok. But I also learned that life is beautiftul, and you have to enjoy the little moments you share with others. And keep them in your memories.
Miro
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seeing* too hard*
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‘Do not be afraid, for I am with you’. That was the first thing that came to mind. My parents raised me with the Bible, and I am glad they did. When I was fifteen I made my own choice and confirmed it by means of baptism. Now, four years later, I am still happy I made that choice and thankful that I have the opportunity to express my religion in freedom.
A while ago I read somewhere that ‘Do not be afraid’ would be written in the Bible 365 times, one for every day. I’m really not sure of this, and it would be put in other words, like: ‘Do not let your heart be troubled’ or ‘You shall not fear’. Maybe I should try to find it out myself, but it would take quite some time. And besides, I don’t need another chapter, verse or author every day. I know the promise and I have the faith that I don’t need to fear anything.
It doesn’t mean that I am never afraid or worried or experience negativity, but for me it means that I know there is Someone bigger than my problems and fears. Someone whom I can trust and who will stand by my side, no matter what.
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Hieke, your faith always inspires me (:
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My greatest fear.
My greatest fear is to lose the people who are dear to me. my parents and sisters are everything to me. it’s the simple things that make our relationship so strong. I never come home in a dark and empty house. Usually my mother ‘s home. I open the door and enter the living room. The first thing my mother asks me is: ”Sweetie how was your day?” It is such a simple question but with a lot of meaning. There are enough people that come home while nobody is home. You miss the conversation with someone. For example a little chat with your mother about school or something else.
The bond between me and my sisters is also very strong. Ofcourse we argue and ofcourse we get anoyed to each other. But do not really hate each other . No..
I cannot imagine my life without the people who are dear to me. Fortunately we are all healthy, so the fear of losing each other is not really there But sometimes
Sometimes you realize that everything could have been different.
I just do not like to say goodbye. You say goodbye to someone who is very dear to you. You say goodbye and than you realize that you can never talk to that person again, you never see him again and never be able to hug him again. That is just sad.
But you never really say goodbye. You will always carry them in your heart.
Annelotte Meijer
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I don’t think I’m afraid of many things but I read an earlier post about someone losing her family, when I started to think about it I got a weird feeling and this is off course something anyone is afraid of.
My family is my everything, they love me and of course I love them back. I still got both my parents and I’ve a sister who’s 26 years old. You can talk to your family whenever you want, you can even tell talk about the little things that bother you and you probably won’t talk about with anyone else. Sometimes I have these little fights with them especially with my sister but these mean nothing really. After such a fight you know you can’t stay mad at them.
The day that I would lose one of them would really brake me I think. I don’t know what I would do without them but of course anyone will have to deal with this several times in their lives. This does not only go for my parents and sister, but for my grandparents and my other relatives as well. I never had to burry anyone in my life yet and I’m really happy about it but it will come one day. These are the hard things in live but it can’t all be good so we just have to live with that.
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Fear ha. The emotion that causes people to act so foolish it’s so funny. Although fear causes people to act foolish, It also allows us to achieve things that we could never imagine doing.
My greatest fear was height because I had a bad fall when I was child. My friends found out about this fear and surprised me with a trip to Walibi to get over it. This helped me quite a bit, but now I’m afraid of falling because my protective gear had torn when I was on the slingshot ride. So parachuting or bungee jumping are now on my to do list.
All in all fear is just a response that the body has to danger. It can be used to achieve great things like superhuman strength, speed and endurance. However it could also be detrimental to our well being, because it also causes us to act irrational, it makes us stressed and can cause psychosis, depression and sleeplessness.
Many people try to repress and run from their fear. Eventually it usually catches up with you. How do they react then is very irrational and they usually end up doing something extreme and regrettable.
My advice on how to deal with fear is not to run from it but embrace it. This usually gives a feeling of freedom, relief and courage.
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Good advice! If you’re going through hell, keep going.
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My greatest fear is spiders and clowns. I really don’t like spiders, actually I really hate spiders! I scream when I see one, run off and won’t come into that room until someone killed it or get it outside.
Last summer I was staying up late with my roommate and we were about to go to bed, when the cat we have, was playing in the kitchen. When I walked into the kitchen I saw something black and big and I ran off to the couch. I was looking at my roommate and before I realised it, she was standing on the chair screaming for the top of her lungs. It was a very big spider and I didn’t see it, but I just screamed. When I think of it, I don’t even know why.
But after half an hour or something we said that we had to get it out, or kill it, because I wouldn’t go to sleep if it was still alive! And my lovely roommate got the spider out and promised me that it was gone. She is really my hero, when it comes to spiders, because I really won’t get near to them.
And the second fear is clowns. I just don’t get it how something can smile like that all day! It’s just scary and if a clown comes near to me I run away as fast as I can and I won’t look back. I am afraid of spiders since I can remember. My mom told me, as a joke, that I’m afraid of clown, because she watched to movie IT the day before I was born. IT is about a clown who kills people.
Manon Kweekel.
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Fear. I am very lucky to call myself one of the people who does not have a very big sense of fear. I used to be afraid of many things, especially being alone in the dark. Fortunately, as the years progressed, these fears were swept away. The moments where I’m alone in the dark are now actually moments I strongly cherish.
Still there has been one fear that still haunts me quite a bit. A fear that most people don’t notice that often, but since it’s probably one of the very few fears I have, I am quite aware of it. The one thing I fear most is: myself. Now before you start wondering why or start speculating about me hating myself or being an insecure little twat, this is not the case. Let me explain why.
In my life I have been blessed with a powerful mind, but this mind comes with a risk. Especially in this society, where everything goes fast and I have to take in more than I possibly should or could, my mind gets blocked from time to time. This results in weird situations where I get confused and I’ve experienced that confusion might be the worst part of me being my own enemy. Every day I fight a fierce battle against confusion and I am happy to say I usually win. However, I have known times in which this was not the case. Times in which the people around me had to pay the price. Times in which I have sometimes broken people mentally. Times in which some of them didn’t even dare to look into my eyes.
Therefore I am afraid of myself. Not that I don’t love myself, because I do so very much. I love who I am, what I look like and what I’m capable of. People who know this about me have often told me that they could never imagine me doing terrible things. They tell me I’m too kind and loving to do so, or that they believe I could never go that far again. On some level I believe them and as time passes by I believe them more and more. Nevertheless, what I’m capable of still drives me towards doubts occasionally.
To conclude, it is not as melodramatic as it sounds. It’s probably me writing this that let’s me bring out the deepest thoughts behind this. I enjoy life and I try hard to enjoy it even moreso each day. It is just that I know I could not live with the fact that I intentionally hurt the people I hold dear. That is why my greatest fear is the fear of myself.
Justin Knol
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Fear factor – I decided to make this one post extra personal. My greatest fear is being left alone. It may sound silly but after a certain situation that happened four years ago I’m afraid of letting people in, afraid of them hurting me just like what happened four years ago.
Four years ago I lost all of my friends because a new person decided to join my circle of friends. She saw me as her mortal enemy. She liked my best friend. I was the one who accepted her and that means I also started the destruction of myself. She had used her weakness, her ‘trauma’, against me. My friends all started to take her side, burying me in the hard ground, tramping all over me. It was a complete and utter nightmare, and to top it off; just when I thought the worst had happened, my mom told me my parents were in a divorce. My world shattered completely at that point.
The only person I gained from that situation is my current best friend, she is my support in moving on and making this fear a bit smaller. She was there for me and she still is, despite the fact that I might annoy the shit out of her for being an introvert now. But she is helping me back on my feet on becoming that ball of energy again. And for that I want to thank you Manon, if you weren’t there I don’t know what I would’ve done. 🙂
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you’re welcome
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Yeah that was a nasty bit of work, I remember when that happened.
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Brave of you to share!
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There are so many things to be afraid of. I’m afraid of death, of religions, of cars moving towards me, of losing possessions and loved ones, of dogs (though exceptions have been made.) I don’t think there is really a greatest among them.
I fear for our country, for the world in general, as we slowly wintess their degradation.
I’m afraid of poverty, violence and diseases, though I know none of these are going to be in my future for a good amount of time. I dread never to be able to become anything. I’m afraid I won’t be able to respond too well to people’s feelings.
That’s about all there is to say about my fears and worries at the time of writing.
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I am afraid of fish. I’m not afraid of a lot of things, spiders of height don’t matter for me for instance, but fish are just the worst. I really don’t know where it came from, but the thought of swimming and all of the sudden feeling something slide against my legs gives me the chills. I don’t want to swim in oceans, seas, lakes or even small creeks, unless the water is so clear that I can see everything. And even then I won’t go diving but I will stay at the surface.
No, diving would be my absolute nightmare. I haven’t tried it yet, but I do want to sometime, to overcome my fear. I don’t know if I will ever be able to because even swimming pools can freak me out when I can’t open my eyes under water, but maybe I’ll just have to dive in head first, both literally and figuratively speaking.
I’ve been thinking about this fear some time when I went to Spain and my friends were making fun of me when I wouldn’t go into the ocean. And I came to the conclusion that maybe the fish are only part of my real fear. The worst part about the fish is simply the fact that I cannot see them coming and when they are there, I can’t escape that easily because fish will always be quicker in the water than humans. So that explains it a bit.
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I only have 2 things in life I really am scared of. The number one is ostriches, the most terrifying bird in the animal kingdom next to cassowaries. If a bird can’t fly or play a nice little tune and kicks its prey to death, I’m not going to be cool with it.
When I was roughly 3 – 4 years old I was sitting in my stroller, while we were at the zoo. I was just minding my own business when suddenly I made eye-contact with an ostrich. This wouldn’t have been scary for a child in itself, but it started to creep towards me with really big cartoonesque steps……I didn’t know there was a window between me and the malevocent, badwilling, bloodthirsty, feathered death machine. So that kind of left its mark I suppose.
The next thing is locked-in syndrome. A syndrome that can be caused by brain damage, where the patient can’t do anything anymore. The only thing they can do is sometimes move their eyes and learn to communicate with a board that has letters on it. This can take years and is absolutely exhausting.
Not being able to move, speak, eat, go to the bathroom, breath on your own and only being able to move when you’re overcome with emotions (the body will go into muscle spasms / tremors when introduced to too many hormones). Basically just becoming a vegetable, an awake, mentally capable vegetable. All you can do is wait for death.
Terrifying.
…but not as terrifying as ostriches and casowaries.
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I really had to think of this for a while. My greatest fear? It took me some time before I could think of something concrete. Seriously, my mind blocked. But if I do have to choose something, it’s probably something bad happening to my mom, my sisters or my friends. They mean the world to me, and I just don’t want to see them hurt.
But I don’t think I really fear this. I’m not a person who thinks that way. I mean, you don’t have everything that happens in your own hands. Is fearing something a sensible thing to do then? I don’t think so. Fear doesn’t help. That’s why I choose to spend as much time as I can with the people I love, while it’s still possible.
That’s why I’m not living my life on a tight schedule. When a friend calls me on a thursday night and asks me if I want to hang out even tough I need to be at work eight the next morning, I don’t think: “I need my 7 hours of sleep.” I think:”Let’s hang out.”
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My greatest fear is ending alone. To lose all people who are dear to me. I always had the fear of being alone ever since I was a child. I would have nightmares of my parents and siblings dying in a gruesome way. Or that I would be taken away by a strange person. It’s kind of weird to have this fear though because I’ve been alone almost my entire life.
When I was a kid I always played by myself and didn’t have much interaction with my parents. They were only there to scold me if I did something wrong. Nowadays I get along with them very well, thus the chance of losing them frightens me. Same goes for my siblings.
But my greatest fear is to live without a spouse. A woman whom I can devote myself to, get children with and grow old with. To love unconditionally and share experiences with. I often wonder if there is a woman out there with whom I can share my life with.
So yeah.. the fear of being alone and ending up alone really frightens me. Of course I have many other fears like: Burning alive, choking, drowning, spiders, clowns, red ants and other insects etc.
P.S.
I guess this was the last time I had to write for this assignment and I would like to thank you Edith, for picking my brain with these random questions. I had a lot of fun writing and I think I made some progress as well.
Yours sincerely,
Simon Korporaal
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I read some other comments, and I saw that my biggest fear is the same as the one for many others, losing the people around my that I love.
I always thought that I coulnd’t live with the fact that if someone would pass away from my nearrest friends or family members. But unfortunately this already happend when I was really young. I spend weeks crying with no stop and couldn’t handle the fact that someone I loved really was gone, and never came back.
When I became older, so did my family and more people started to disappear out of my life. Being older (and a little wizer) I realised that there was no stopping this process. I dealt with certain situations less emotional, and from time to time sometimes I showed or hardly felt no emotions at all in any situation.
Of course this also isn’nt a good way to handle, but it build up inside me like a sort of self-protecting system. It all may sound a little dramatic, but I can’t help it, it’s something I still struggle with these days,
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Fear – to feel afraid or worried that something bad may happen’, according to the Longman Dictionairy. Well, in my case it is mortal fear. And it is about water, frozen water to be exact.
I love to swim. Diving, doing tricks, it doesn’t matter. I can spend hours in a pool or in the sea. But, as soon as you put me on natural ice I freak out. Worst case scenario; I scream and panic.
Now, you’ll think ‘why’. Right?
When I was younger, about 8 years, we were ice skating on the ice in the ditch close to our home. There was a hill and as soon as there was snow and ice in the ditch, children took their sleds and sled from the hill on to the ice. A lot of fun, I did it many times myself. Anyway, I was skating when a boy from the neighbourhood took his sled and sled down the hill. He didn’t land on the ice, he went right through the ice.
He wore a red winter jacket. We saw him go under the ice. We followed his jacket. There was a lot of panic and we didn’t knew what to do. We screamed and screamed. There were 3 adults passing by and the saw what happened. They jumped on the ice, ran to the place where we saw the jacket of the boy and broke the ice. One man went into the water and reached for the boy.
They saved the boy. At that moment everybody in the neighbourhood knew what had happened, there were two ambulances and parents came to gather their kids. My mother found me and took me home. Later, I heared, that they had to perform CPR on the boy, but he survived.
That night I didn’t sleep. To traumatic what I had seen that day. The next day my mom took me and my sister skating. As soon as I touched the ice I freaked out and started screaming and crying. I never went on natural ice again. I’m afraid I will get under the ice and drown.
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When I was eleven years young my brother told me a story about a clown called the pennywise. This clown appeared in a movie called ´it´. The movie was produced by Stephen King who is a brilliant producer, especially when it involved horror. So one day my brother told me, while we were having dinner, about this movie and why he found it so scary. I was pretty impressed and my brother thought this was his change to creep the living shit out of me.
The next week was not so very pleasant. Every time when my brother came back from work he would make a kind of laughter noise, which apparently the clown made too, he would follow me up the stairs when I wanted to go to bed and he did a lot of other things. At one particular moment I was so scared that I wanted to sleep in my parent’s bedroom. My brother made me completely paranoid and while I was lying in my parent´s bedroom, I started hearing sounds. I cried like a little baby who hasn´t gotten any milk for two days. My parents got extremely mad at my brother and ever since he stopped scaring me with the clown. Nowadays, I still get Goosebumps when I see a clown or when someone tells me a scary story which involves a clown. Thanks bro!
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Oh! Brothers!
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My biggest fear..
Galeophobia.. Fear of sharks..
I am frightened to death by sharks..
I have been for a very long time.
I am not sure when it started but it became worse and worse, untill I would not swim in open water at all and I imagined sharks everywhere.. They were in the bathtub, out of the showerhead and even in my glass of milk in the morning..
I am not sure how this happened but after it became worse and worse I made myself less afraid. But still I won’t swim in open water or in the sea.
I swam in the sea last summer, it was the first time in 11 years.. So I am proud of myself. But I am still afraid and I don’t want it.. But it is hard if you even visualise sharks everywhere..
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My greatest fear were snakes, I think. When I was little and I just learned to read, I read something scared in the newspaper. I’ve only read the title of the article, because the letters of the article were too small. The title of the article was : A snake out of the loo.
You’ll understand that I was a little scared, but a few months later there was another article with a snake out of the loo. Then I was real scared, that I only went to the loo when it was real necessary.
Also the mean characters in Disney and other children movies were mostly snakes. And what I saw in the zoo and in nature documentaries snakes are looking scared. So my opinion about snakes, wasn’t real positive.
In 2008 I went to a special night in the Zoo, you could see and do things, you couldn’t do at a normal day in the zoo. I had see night quarters and you could hold of stroke some animals. That night I hold a snake, I thought I have to do this it’s only a snake.
It was only a snake, but it felt awkward. It wasn’t warm or cold, it moves quick and it is a block of muscles. My snake fear is gone, but it would never be my favourite animal.
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