DVDizzy Forum

Has anyone got any "irrational" fears? I know I do. Too many to name, in fact.

I'm terrified of heights. And I'm a very tall person.

I also have a fear of large things in the sky. Like hot air balloons and balloons like the ones in the Macy Parade. Not so much planes. I think it's because they're big and we have so little, or at least seems to have, control.

Heights....in some situations, not all. Stairs...hate climbing them, to ease my fear when I HAVE to I look at the stairs the whole time, never over the side, and always hold the rail. If I can't hold the rail, I get scared. If the stairs are the grate ones, you can see through, I try looking ahead, but god I feel sick anyways. I am okay elevators, glass elevators, I tend to try to look at the horizon, rather than down. That helps. And I get so aggravated when people give me crap about taking the elevator instead of the stairs. I have total strangers tell me, "That's for the handicapped.", often making note I am young, can walk on both legs, etc. Depends on my mood, sometimes I am polite and sometimes not. Either way, I tell them I am very afraid of heights and stairs are one of my issues and if I am in a bad mood, I tell them to shove it up their arse.

I went on Tower of Terror once. Oddly, rides that are enclosed and high up, I can deal with. But open air roller coasters, like The Hulk....no...no way. I can ride The Mummy and Space Mountain....I can't see how high I am.

I have two major fears: heights and lizards. The heights fear is rather inconsistent. I hate going up stairs, escalators, and ladders, but have no problem going down stairs and escalators, riding rides that deal with height, or boarding planes. I also have no problem looking down glass elevators or high windows. Balconies are a mixed bag. I can look over them to a certain extent, but the thinner/shorter they are, the less I'm able to. I'm not sure where this fear came from. I guess my fear is more of falling than it is of heights considering how many scenarios there are where I can look down and be fine. Maybe watching so many Disney villains die from falling is what got me like this.

As for lizards, that's more consistent. Lizards in particular creep me out, which is ironic since I live in Florida. Because I encounter them so often, I can get fairly close without flipping out, but if they're closer than two feet from me, then I start shuddering. What I find eerie about them is how they can move like if there are missing film frames. You blink, and suddenly they've moved five feet. My mother says that when I was two, when we moved down here from New York, my cousin put a lizard down my shirt. I don't remember it, but she says I started panicking and hyper ventilating in a way she's never seen me act since. I'm assuming that was my first introduction to lizards, hence why I can't stand them.

Don't ever come over my house....I have a 2ft long bearded dragon. She lays on my bed all the time.

Heights in particular bother me...I realized this fear when I was walking to Balboa Park and one of the ways is across a bridge...which is extremely high above the freeway...wow it was very weak feeling in the knees and my little cousings kept leaning over the barrier. Just looking at them do that made me super paranoid I was like "oh my God, can you guys not do that anymore!?" Or if I'm on bleachers that get pretty high and I can see the floor beneath me...this gets even worse if the bleachers are kinda rickity. AND OMG! One time at SeaWorld they were rebuilding the Shamu stadium so the other bleachers they used seemed really cheap and loose. Well anyway I was with my Best Friend and his girlfriend...so my best friend has a fear of heights also, and hes all holding tight to his girfriend and feel all safe going up...while I slowly climbed up the bleachers with both hands tight to the wobbly railing! It was one of those "Gosh, it sure would be nice if I was in a relationship" moments! Anyways I don't really have like an extreme phobia of heights...I can stand heights if I'm strapped into a roller coaster or if I'm ever on an AirPlane(I've never been on an AirPlane before...but it seems like your secure inside away from falling out of it...) But if I'm on a high building enclosed or outside(especially outside) the fear kicks into high gear...and I tend to stay far away from the edge. Anyway...thats my irrational fear.

I don't know why those would be called irrational fears. They are legitimate dangers in many cases. Of course, they can be out of control.

Heights, spiders, and dirty public restrooms.

Would a fear of clowns be considered irrational? Not that I have a fear of them, mind you, but there are some people who do.

Looking up at high ceilings really affects me. I have this horrible feeling of falling over, or that the ceiling will cave in, or something. Whenever I go into a place which has a high ceiling, I'll get sweaty palms, start shaking and will have to walk with my head down. It was even worse when I was little.

I also get very nervous and anxious around strangers; sweating profusely and becoming very withdrawn. That's why I love performing in the theater, because it forces me to face my fears and deal with them on a regular basis (especially if the theater also has a high ceiling, which most do).

I'm rather Agoraphobic, aside from that Snakes, Drowning and Heights. For that it's mostly being up high, I'm fine with stairs, but not elevators since they're so enclosed feeling.

I have a fear of escalators- I take the stairs and elevator whenever possible. It's worse for me going down, though- especially if I have Bobby with me, holding my hand or something, then I'm better at getting on the escalator; there have been times where I've had to let the people behind me get on the escalator first- I just really have a problem with them.

Dead animals creep me out to no end, but I don't know if that's an irrational fear.

I have a "fear" (I don't know if it's a fear or not...) of birds pooping on me. It hasn't happened to me- I've had this "fear" for a while, and a year or two ago, Bobby & I were at Epcot, watching Mo'Rockin', and a bird pooped on him. I laughed, but I was so glad that it wasn't me!

I just remembered another fear of mine. Bleachers. I guess this goes with the heights, but of all the things I could fear because they're high up, bleachers terrify me. Silly, but ugh... When I have to sit in the bleachers, I aim for the first row!

UmbrellaFish wrote:I also have a fear of large things in the sky. Like hot air balloons and balloons like the ones in the Macy Parade.

That's fantastic. I have a fear of things flying up into the sky. I think it qualifies as being completely irrational. Especially balloons. I remember when I was a kid, watching balloons that I had with helium going up into the sky and knowing I couldn't get them back down. But I wanted them to come back down. Call it "separation anxiety." Or, call it some kind of vertigo. Because one of the personally scariest moments I have ever encountered in any movie I've ever seen was the scene in Tim Burton's Batman where (and these were scary enough on their own) the giant cartoon character balloons where snatched by Batman's flying vehicle and released up into the sky. He let those things go, up, real high. It was scary. But the thing about my balloons as a kid was that I would remember them floating in my dreams. And in those dreams, I would feel like I was following them. Like I was trapped, floating, up into the sky. But I was still connected to the ground, somehow. Which makes you feel like you're sort of going to fall. And the falling part is scary.

Anyway, for the first time in many years, about 4 or 5 days ago, I had a dream about balloons tied to a very, very, very tall tree. A tree so tall that there were no buildings or other trees anywhere near it's height. And they were being tied up to the tree by someone who managed to sort of climb up there. And I remember being terrified for that person but they were very confidant and they didn't think about climbing the tree. And there were little children there too. I felt like I was the only one who was being smart about the danger of heights. So, maybe the kids were going to climb the tree to go and get the balloons. It felt very unsafe and unsecure for some reason. People climbing a huge tree just to have a place to keep and get balloons... is strange enough to be weird.

Disneykid wrote:I have two major fears: heights and lizards.

What if one with a ladder should come to your house?

I often fear about someone breaking into our house for some reason. Not all the time but when i can't sleep at night and there are noises outside...

I have two.

Heights and reptiles..ugh.

A lot of people here are afraid of heights. Hardly irrational.

Maybe other people wouldn't be so afraid of heights if they would stop kicking the stepping stool out from beneath their feet.

I totally forgot to mention the story behind my fear of escalators:

When I was a little girl, my mom and I were at the mall. We were on the escalator. She told me the story of a lady who got killed by getting crushed under the escalator (like the part where you step off onto) [or maybe her clothing got stuck...I don't remember]. I always have to jump off, because I don't want to get crushed.

So, maybe it's not an irrational fear...?

When I was very young, I was afraid of elevators and sliding doors in general. My worry was that they would close on me, thus squishing me to death or at least rendering me unconscious. I was also afraid of large dogs, as I was a noodle of a little girl and large dogs were these gross, drooling things that leaped out of nowhere to topple me to the ground.

As I grew a bit older, I actually wanted to be afraid of more things because my best (male) friend was and I wanted to sympathize with him better -- so I pretended I was afraid of things.
Around him, I faked:

- Fear of heights
- Fear of water
- Fear of dogs (I had grown out of that fear)
- Fear of skating
- Fear of thunderstorms
- Fear of doctor's shots

I shouldn't have done that. All I am afraid of now is either very rational or at least too personal to count as irrational. Ah, well. I was a ridiculous kid, faking all those things just to make my friend feel better about himself. It didn't occur to me that my attempts at sympathy only made me a liar.
:: rolls eyes at self ::

Flanger-Hanger wrote:

Disneykid wrote:I have two major fears: heights and lizards.

What if one with a ladder should come to your house?

That was so brilliant that you get a cookie for the day. I suppose if he talked (and with a Cockney accent, no less) I'd be all right so long as I don't have to climb that ladder. Then again, Bill had fluid motion, unlike real lizards. There were no creepy missing film frames in his case...