I’m always worrying about something. If the lid on a medicine bottle comes off too easily after just purchasing it, I’m convinced someone has tampered with it. If my shower curtain is slightly askew, there’s obviously a murderer behind it. Don’t get me started on how I panic after the lights go off during a blackout.
Some fears are normal. If you’re traveling at high speeds in a car, it’s reasonable to be afraid that you’ll spin out of control and injure yourself. It’s not reasonable to believe that the neighbor kid is actually a small Russian spy, and the laser pen he’s playing with is actually a high-tech death laser.
Here are my Top 5 most irrational fears as voted by me…and my therapist…and everyone else.
I’ll disappear, and someone I know will be wrongly accused.
I blame this on my telecommuting job, and how it allows me to keep crime shows playing in the background all day long. Do you have any idea how morbid the A&E network is? I DO. I think a lot about how my roommate would be the first suspect if I went missing because we live together, and he’s the person I spend the most time with him. I spend a lot of energy avoiding death when I think people I know, especially him, don’t have alibis.
Something will come crashing through my window and crush me to death.
Getting crushed to death seems like a pretty bogus way to die. You’re just sitting there watching a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills reunion special (god, I love those reunion specials) and suddenly a tree/car/meteor/Indiana Jones-type boulder will flatten you like a pancake. I don’t want the headline in a newspaper to read, “Police stumped and trying to get to the root of the problem after tree put the axe on girl’s life.”
If I kill a spider, other spiders will find out and stage an uprising.
Poisonous spiders are no joke. We have hobo spiders here in Oregon, and while I don’t believe they’ll kill you, their bites can leave you with such bad necrotic lesions that you wish you had died. When I see any kind of spider in my house, I get a cup and piece of paper, catch it, and release it back into the wild. While I’m walking it outside, I ask it to spread word of my benevolence to other spiders. I feel like I’ve set such a precedent that if I didn’t uphold my end of the deal, word would spread quickly, and I’d find myself on the receiving end of hobo spider wrath.
I’ll have a meltdown during a flight, and have to be sedated by the air marshal.
I am not afraid of flying in the traditional sense. I love takeoff, and I love guessing how good/bad the landing will be. I don’t worry about crashing, or potential terrorist plots. What I’m concerned about is myself. What if, for no reason whatsoever, I start sweating…and then crying…and then vomit everywhere…and then have a full blown freakout while I’m at cruising altitude? I’ve never come close to this happening, but the moment I buckle my seat belt, I can feel anxiety beginning to build over my nonexistent mental breakdown.
I’ll stumble upon a crime committed by the mob, and will be forced to go into Witness Protection.
One day I’ll get a hankering for Totino’s Pizza Rolls. On my way to the grocery store my car will break down, and I’ll be forced to pull over where I am. While calling a tow truck, I’ll witness two mobsters tie cement blocks to someone’s feet and throw them into the ocean. The police will tell me I’ll need to go into Witness Protection because someone named Johnny No Neck wants me dead. I don’t have an amazing life, but it’s my life, and I’d like to keep living it.
Please tell me I’m not some whack job alone on What-The-Hell-Is-Wrong-With-You Island. I can’t be the only one. What are some of your most irrational fears?
Sips of Jen and Tonic 
I am afraid of getting old. No…not getting old per say, but LOOKING old.
You are aging gracefully so no need to panic.
Haha oh man! Please tell me you’ve seen Bridesmaids!! The part about freaking out on the plane is one of my favorite parts and it’s played out perfectly in that movie 😛
I got sweaty watching that scene, and now, whenever I feel anxious, I think about poor Kristen Wiig getting carted off the plane and how it could be me.
HAHAHAHA! Oh no… Haha.
Hmmm … I don’t think I would mind going into WitSec. I’d appreciate a fresh start. I may be crazy though. 😛
I’ve also watched all of the seasons of “In Plain Sight”!
Anyway … what’s my fear? *thinking* I know it, it’s just too personal so share. Ha! Of yeah, I’m scared of people that are scared. That shit’s contagious!
“Dolls are innately creepy. Their dead looking eyes, the tight smile, strange curly hair. Don’t get me started on clown dolls.” … holy shit … that tooooo! Both of them!
You better stay away from me…and all of the readers on this blog. We all seem to have a ton of fears.
I like to face my fears with a bottle of wine so bring it!
Actually, I’m fucken scared of ghost! Probably because of the whole doll thing, too. My aunt scared the shit out of me telling me she had a doll that always appeared in her back yard.
That and other shit that has happened to me.
Ohhh, and glad to see that that giant satellite that was falling from space didn’t crush you! Woohoo!
Lizards. I’m terrified of lizards. Even the teeny-tiny geckos. I’ve had nightmares about them crawling on me.
I am also afraid that dolls will come to life when I’m not looking and plot my demise.
You are not alone, my friend.
Dolls are innately creepy. Their dead looking eyes, the tight smile, strange curly hair. Don’t get me started on clown dolls.
Oh god, CLOWNS! I almost forgot about clowns. Thanks for the reminder. :-p
Loved this! Especially about the spiders–no matter how small, they are still creepy. And your fear of being crushed by a meteor may not be so irrational after all. Check out this story in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/hazardous-asteroids-may-be-more-numerous-than-previously-thought-scientists-say/2013/11/06/c022a022-46f2-11e3-bf0c-cebf37c6f484_story.html?tid=auto_complete.
See? Menacing. Maybe it’s not the spiders who are starting an uprising…
I’m right with you on the shower curtain thing. I’m always prepared to mace a wanna-be murdered in the face with Glade.
I also have to unplug the toaster immediately after using it so it doesn’t start a fire.
Toasters look like evil dickheads who want to set things ablaze. I totally get it.
btw that was murderer. But you know how I feel…
Hi, I’m Becca, and I am irrationally afraid of choking to death on my own spit while asleep. We can help each other through these fears. Maybe. Unless group therapy is your #6.
I don’t mind group therapy as long as someone with sweaty palms isn’t holding my hands. I feel like they may be transferring disease to me…
Also, how much spit are you producing at night?!
Eww sweaty hands. Good one.
I think I have over productive saliva glands. Or something.
Well you read about how Jimmy calls me “Deep End Diver” so…yeah, you’re not alone. at. all.
We need to form a support group.
Eeek, spiders!
They seem to be a common enemy.
Very creative fears. I’m impressed.
The mind is a beautiful (and twisted) thing.
You are not alone. Whenever I’m in a space with lots of other people, I fear a massive fire will break out.
If that happens, you must do as the Dalai Lama would do…push everyone to the ground and trample them as you run to the exit.
I suppose my fear of accidentally creating a chemical vapor that kills me immediately would be one. And the one about the phantom cats finding me and eating me in my sleep. And the one about falling into a snake pit. And I share the being-crushed phobia. But irrational? I don’t know. They seem plausible to me. 🙂
I don’t know how you have any extra time to go around creating anything! Between your job and your blog and being a dinosaur, you CAN’T have much free time left over.
Ha! Well, I make my own cleaning supplies… and every so often I get “creative”… of course, it’s only after I mix substances together that I start to worry that I’ve made something toxic.
“Honey, I’m seeing if this mixture will clean our table better…*BOOM*”
In Deliverance, three corporate dudes and their guide canoeing down a back-water river in Georgia stumbled across a moonshine still. Things didn’t work out so good for them. So maybe that last one isn’t so nuts after all.
See? It’s possible. I will never drive to the store for junk food again! (Who am I kidding?)
I have the irrational fear that I will be baking something in the oven and just freak out and stick my tongue on a hot oven rack thus searing a black line across my tongue.
Wish I were kidding.
Or on the edge of a cliff and jump off? Or when a fire is going sticking my hand in it? WHY DO WE DO THAT?
I have no idea. My sister told me years ago when she was having dinner with my parents at the Space Needle that she would freak out, run and jump through the window and plunge to her death.
I told her the glass wouldn’t break so she’d make a scene and probably just get a bloody nose.
I worry that someone will realize I put the milk back in the fridge with just an ounce so I won’t have to buy a new one.
My wife doesn’t read this blog, does she?
How do you know I’m not your wife posing as someone else?
My wife sounds shorter when she writes.
How did you know I was writing this on stilts?
It was the wobbliness of your letter D as you sought your balance.
I hope one day to be subdued by a Marshall. I worry that ANY bridge will suddenly collapse when I’m on it and/or that the sun will suddenly SUPERNOVA and we’re history or what if the earth’s gravitational pull that the sun has on us suddenly disappears and we zoom into space then explode? What if I can’t find left handed scissors?
There is a bridge here in Oregon that has the worst rating a bridge can get, it’s in such terrible condition. When I go over it I unbuckle my seat belt in case I fall into the water.
So funny! Loved: If I kill a spider, other spiders will find out and stage an uprising. (uprising is underused). Good stuff! And here is my take on irrational fears … http://annaleawest.com/2013/04/09/against-all-odds/
I totally forgot about the Virgin Mary fear. That haunted me for years.
Me, too. And I’ve found we’re not alone! Another blogging friend wrote this and I FELL OUT. http://areyoufinishedyet.com/2013/10/10/being-afraid-of-the-dark-is-for-amateurs/