What are you afraid of? Do you fear the dark? Spiders? Enclosed spaces? Being alone?

I used to be terribly afraid of scorpions, as well, and I would wake up imagining that I was covered in them. But I got over that one about ten years ago, and it's never come back.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Answers

i'm afraid of fish with teeth. :/

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

I've been afraid of spiders ever since I was about 10 years old. Two separate occasions have instilled this fear in me. The first was the time I was cleaning out our large garage. We lived in the country and creepy crawlers were everywhere, but as I threw something over my shoulder a large hairy spider fell into my hair. I didn't realize this until my hair fell forward over my face. I wasn't able to go back to the garage that day.

A couple of years later, Dad asked me to get something out of the shed. What he wanted was in a large wooden case, about the twice the size of a footlocker, and when opened all I could see were the little spiderlings that covered nearly every inch. Needless to say, Dad had to get what he wanted himself.

The weird thing is, I'm not afraid of all spiders. I think that some of the orb weavers, such as garden spiders, can be quite beautiful. And jumping spiders are just cute. But I still wouldn't want one crawling on me!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

"The Exorcist". Head spinning. Green vomit. Weird and scary voices. My bed floating up while I'm sleeping. Things moving.

Also: bees. I scream and run like a girl.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Sleeping in a house or apartment by myself absolutely terrifies me. It's nothing to do with actual safety - none of my family would be any good at defending themselves against an intruder - but more to do with safety in numbers.

Until I turned 18, I had a pathological fear of contracting Reye's Syndrome, so I never took aspirin when I had a fever.

And I have a major fascination-terror thing going on with sharks. Just thinking about all those teeth makes me not want to go anywhere near the deep-end of the swimming pool (where, my 5 year-old brain surmised, they lived and would want to chomp on me if given half a chance. I'm 24 now, but I like to stay in the lap lanes, thank you.). On the other hand, I can be counted on to always tune into Shark Week on the Discovery Channel. Go figure.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

I too am afraid of the dark. However I know where that comes from so it's not entirely irrational. Beth, I don't want to freak you out so you may not want to read on, sometimes there are things lurking in the dark! About four years ago when I was living by myself I woke in the middle of the night to find a man crouched in the corner of my bedroom. I froze completely then I realised how angry I was that a complete stranger had violated my home. I pulled myself together enough to ask him very politely to please leave, I asked him twice and when he didn't move, I figured I had to so I ran out and called the police on a pay phone (only one of my neighbours answered the door to see me crying hysterically, shook their head and then shut the door in my face, gee people are helpful) Anyway they never caught him and I still don't know who he was or what he looked like because it was so dark but I did hear that there were many other similar incidents in my area where the women had actually been attacked. So someone was definitely watching over me. I was a mess for a while after that. It also didn't help that when I moved out of that home because of the incident to another place my new neighbour told me he had seen someone looking in my bedroom window in the middle of the night. I've come to the conclusion that maybe I was being stalked and just didn't know it! Anyway it did stop and I have calmed down a lot since but I'm not always comfortable being alone.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Getting lost while driving.

Driving in the rain.

Driving at night.

And worse yet: Getting lost while driving in the rain at night.

After slamming into an apartment wall due to wet roads and after nearly driving off a cliff because I took a wrong turn at night in the rain, I'm a pretty freaked out one to drive with anymore.

I am constantly pressing on the non-existant brake, grabbing the dashboard and clutching the seatbelt.

I'm sure I'm hilarious to watch, riding with someone in rush hour, seeing the brake lights come on ahead of us and not feeling my driver put on their brakes as soon as I would. I clutch the seatbelt tightly, turn my head and squeeze my eyes shut, preparing for impact.

Every time.

It's horrible.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Snipers.

Seriously though, I HATE being near ground floor windows at night because I always think that the "snipers" will get me, or at the very least, I'll look over to see someone looking back at me. Heavy curtains help. I'll be glad to be living in a second-floor apartment though. My snipers and peeping toms wouldn't be the sort to go through the trouble to climb ladders.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Flying.

I've read all the statistics saying flying is the safest way to travel, but I am still paralyzed by fear every time I am on a plane. The slightest turbulence causes me to panic.

I have a number of superstitions that I follow when I fly....I only drink orange juice, my seat is a window seat on the left side of the plane, etc..., because I have always done those things and the planes have always not crashed. Intellectually, I know those things are irrational, but it makes me feel somewhat better.

I have never not travelled someplace because of my fear of flying, but it is definetly an irrational fear that I will probably never get over!

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

My worst fear is that something really bad could happen to my daughter. I don't know if it's irrational or not. All other fears pale next to that one. I assume the others here with kids understand this one, and maybe those without kids can imagine it.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

irrational fear ? that i will see my children dead and buried befor i pass on. another one, when driving in assume that every car on the street, moving or non moving will either broadside me or hit me head on and kill not me but my wife. both fears are irrational - we are both good drivers and cautious too. and our kids i think, will outlast us. nightmare stuff.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Fear of inprisonment. I'm terrified of going to jail, even though I am law-abiding to the point of being boring. When I was in the service I dreaded the possiblity of becoming a POW.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

I can't be relaxed on the bed if any part of me is extended beyond the edge of the mattress. Apparently the Monster Under the Bed can't reach up over the mattress to grab me. This is not just when I'm sleeping, but when I sprawl out or flop on it. The only exception seems to be if I'm sitting on the edge with my feet on the floor.

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Oh Pamela.... Me too! Me too!!! When I was younger I wouldn't even get out of bed until my parents were up and about so "the man under the bed" couldn't grab me. Now I have a waterbed (there is no under the bed therefore no man under the bed) and sleep with 2-4 Rotweilers in my bedroom so all is well.

The other things that bother me are clown faces, vampires and werewolves. Go figure! :-)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Crossing the street. This became a fear after a visit to London involving more than one near-miss with a big red bus, and a childhood sledding incident that had me bouncing off the tires of an enormous suv.

I'm afraid to drive, namely because I've been involved in many car accidents in which I was not the driver. And I'm somewhat afraid of the dark, but only when it involves all the lights being off in my bedroom. For some reason, if I go in my room to shut the light off, I have to run out and slam the door quickly behind me. But I can walk throughout the rest of the house in the dead of night and not feel the slightest twinge.

I try not to think too much about my various idiosyncracies. :)

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Judy; I'm with on the "things that could happnes to my kids" fears. i constantly think they're going to be hit by a transport. We live on a secondary highway.

I also have a fear of swimming out over my head in the ocean. There's things in that water down there...

bbbrrrrrrr.....

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

When I was a teen, I was deathly afraid of spiders. Once, I found a big, hairy spider in my room, and didn't dare to get close enough to kill. My sister was also a big wimp and wouldn't kill it, either, so we stood five feet away from it and sprayed it with furniture polish until it stopped moving. Which wasn't until I had about a solid two inches of furniture polish covering it.

After I had a kid and had to be the adult (ha!) I got used to killing the spiders whenever I had to, with only the slightest urge to scream and run around in circles.

Wasps, however, are the scariest freakin' things in the world to me. Once, there was a wasp in my daughter's room flying madly around, and I would run into, spray bug spray wildly in it's direction, then run back out and slam the door. This went on for about half an hour before my next-door neighbor tired of hearing me stomp around like an elephant, and sent her husband over to kill the wasp.

Wasps are just the most evil-looking things in the world, although since I've moved to the South, Black Widow spiders are a very close second.

http://www.bitchypoo.com/bitchypoo.html

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

Spiders freak me out completely. They never used to bother me until around 1985/86, when I was ten/eleven, I first saw one in close-up and I realised just what they actually look like. (I'm actually getting a bit of a cold shiver just writing this.) Anything which has more eyes than me eeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggghh. If they're really, really small I can usually handle them, but if they're much bigger than, say, a five cent coin, I let someone else kill it. I have various other minor irrational fears but spiders are the big one.

And my Mum has had an occasional but utterly irrational fear of scissors since she was young. Still persists occasionally. One day a few years ago she just hid all the scissors she could find at work. And just a few weeks ago we were watching "Blood and Black Lace" on TV and she was freaking out in case the murderer in that should use a pair of scissors at any point. She didn't seem so much troubled by the methods the murderer did use, ugly as they were (if anyone here's seen the film they'll know what I mean), as by the idea that he might whip out a pair of scissors at some point. Weird

Tonight We Sleep In Separate Ditcheswhere neither arachnids nor scissor-wielding freaks may enter

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

I've got a whole medley. I'm petrified of the dark -- always have been. So's my brother. He can' sleep without a light on. I'm usually okay without a light on once I'm actually in bed, but I sprint from the bathroom to the bedroom, heart pounding, unable to breathe -- see, I watch scary movies, and read lots of very scary ghost-type stories, and then I'm petrified whan the lights go out. I also stay up later than Barry, so I have to get from the bathroom to the bedroom in the dark. Hate it. And I can't sleep unless the covers are over my ears -- I am, for some reason, afraid that someone (something?) will whisper in my ear. (Had a nightmare where that happened when I was a kid.) I can't sleep well with any part of me uncovered, or with an arm or leg hanging over the side of the bed. Covers are still magical protection from the boogeyman, I guess. And I'm afraid of spiders and terrified of June bugs (I got one caught in my hair once, and had hysterics.) And I'm irrationally afraid that our house will burn down while

-- Anonymous, February 27, 2000

I can't believe there are posts following Sarah's that aren't about Sarah's post. That's the scariest fucking thing I've ever read in my life. It was terrifying when it happened in Gerald's Game and it's a thousandfold worse as a true story. I'm glad I have a houseguest tonight.

A couple of months ago I arose in the middle of the night after being awakened by house-settling noises that should have been routine by then but instead always seemed to presage a visit from a Mansonesque band of roving thrill-killers. I glanced over at the door to the bedroom and there was a human outline silhouetted in the doorframe. I screamed in a way that I never have before. There's no way I could replicate it on command. There were several distinct tones in the scream, like certain birdsongs that simultaneously use both the upper and lower portions of the singer's throat to produce chords.

As it turned out, it was my shadow cast from the neighbor's porch lamp onto the hallway wall. My cat, who had never heard me make such a noise before, emerged from under the bed only after about ten minutes, her fur still stuck in punk-rock spikes. I cried hysterically and eventually had an ex-boyfriend come over and sleep with me, for non-biblical values of the phrase "sleep with".

I hadn't been fearful of spending the night alone in my current crash pad before that, but the fact that none of the neighbors did anything -- either because they were unable to hear me, or simply didn't care whether my body was violently subdivided with an axe -- cemented my feelings of isolation and vulnerability.

Now that I've got a rifle under my bed, I feel so much better. I can't say enough good things about that Winchester 30-06.

............................................

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I'm terrified of being raped. I've been there and done it and dealt with it, but I'm still terrified of it.

-Meghan

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Yikes! Meghan, I'm glad you've recovered, but jeez, my fears can't compare to that. (And I wouldn't call it irrational, exactly.)

One of my biggest irrational fears is being buried alive. Yes, it'll never happen, but my mild claustrophobia gets the best of me when I hear about things like that, or see the nifty avalanche survival kit (an ingenious rebreather device with which I would /still/ suffocate due to freaking out over being surrounded by so much snow.. so.. dark..), or hear about how Houdini died because he got stuck under a sheet of ice .

And to think I nearly had a career as an Air Force Missileer! (They spend 48-72 consecutive hours a week in a very small hole deep deep underground with another missileer with hands on keys to nuclear weapons. Say it with me, "Would you like to play a game?") Related to 'buried alive' is 'drowning.' This one might not be as irrational, as I am a rotten swimmer and have nearly drowned in some very exotic places. My stepdad saved my life once when I was thrashing about and drowning in Cape Cod, and some years later a few friends hauled my carcass ashore off the coast of Greece. Do not fuck with the ocean, friends, for she will take your ass in a heartbeat and no one will notice. Gad. I'll never forget the salt water burning in my nose and eyes, or my lungs afire from trying to hold in that last breath, or my arms and legs heavy and hot and flailing around uselessly.

Can anyone guess why I live in Colorado? Fewer opportunities to drown, and I don't ski, so no getting buried in avalanches. Now if I can just avoid driving through the Eisenhower tunnel /ever/, thing's'll be fine.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Aha, other grownup who are afraid of the dark. I thought I was the only one! I've always slept with the closet light one. If I get up during the night, I turn the hall light on. Lately, I've been turning the tv on too, and leaving it on for background noise while I sleep. (Even if it means that old Starsky & Hutch and Charlie's Angels reruns seep into my subconscious.) I've got too much stuff stored under my bed to worry about things hiding under there, but I do occasionally worry about Things Hiding Behind Doors (prompted by a 70s tv movie). I don't like walking around outside after dark. Or maybe I would like it, if I could do it. It's difficult after hearing my mother warn me time after time, from my child years to recent years, not to go out along after dark because something bad might happen. It could, this is not an entirely irrational fear, but ours is probably one of the safest neighborhoods in the city. Then there's my occasional "bridgeophobia", fear that I'll have an accident on a bridge, or that my car will just go sailing off the bridge for no good reason. Maybe gravity will shift and the car will fall over. That doesn't happen too often, or on all bridges, or even on the same bridges every time. The Delaware Memorial Bridge used to scare me, and there are a couple bridges in the Albany area that make me tense. It's worse when someone else is driving; I've become a terrible backseat driver in recent years.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I am afraid of the dark, afraid of driving, afraid of getting in an accident, afraid of watching water drain out of a tub (because bugs might come up out of the drain,) afraid to let my kid play anywhere but directly behind the house (because otherwise he will turn into Gage from Pet Semetery and run out in front of an Orinco truck-- despite the fact that we live in suburbia and an Orinco truck couldn't fit down the streets) but number one on the chart for irrational fears is. . . clowns.

Oh god, I hate clowns, their real evil faces hidden by all that make-up, those ostensibly funny noses and wigs. What horrors lurk behind those eyes painted to approximate joy?? How am I supposed to trust a monstrous creature which has but one expression?? *shudder*

Literature and real life are on my side on this one, too. "It" didn't help at all, John Wayne Gacy proved me right, and Patrick reminded me just the other day of the horror that was the walking Clown marionnette in "Poltergeist."

No! I would not like a balloon animal!!!!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

It's so cool that other people are frightened of the same things as me. I spook myself all the time when i'm home and my other half is working late. My big fears are things lurking in cupboards and looking in the mirror late at night ( i always think i'm going to see someone else / the devils face in place of mine.. brrrrr - crazy huh?)

I also have a huge road crossing phobia - The crossing near work takes ages to go green and in the interim everyone else crosses by their own judgement leaving me standing there feeling foolish. I always feel so embarrassed - as if everyone is thinking - Gee she's got such a hang up !!!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

After all these very rational fears about physical violence from strangers, I feel a little silly admitting to a pretty irrational fear: traffic accidents. Every time I pull through an intersection, even when I'm the driver, part of me braces for impact and in my head I hear the grinding crunch of metal. It's pretty unpleasant. I think it comes from living on a corner with a hidden stop sign -- I have heard three (real) crashes at my corner since September (no serious injuries). Uggh.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Put me down for spiders, too. This at least has a couple of causes. 1) when I was 4 or 5 we were visiting my grandparents in Amarillo and went to Palo Duro canyon for a picnic--very desert-y. A very large tarantula JUMPED at me (about 10-12 in. across--plus I wasn't very big). I remember just freezing and whimpering and not much else. 2) Going to see Raiders of the Lost Ark at about 9. That beginning scene with the large spiders crawling over both of them frightened me more than skeletons popping out or the ending. Once that was over I loved the movie, but I still close my eyes then when I watch it now.

Over time I have been able to adjust to a live and let live policy regarding spiders. But I still find them extremely creepy and freak if I see one on the ceiling over the bed or if one surprises me in some fashion.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Alright, Saundra. Another person who understands just how totally evil clowns are. It is not an irrational fear.

I am also afraid of those big characters they have running around amusement parks. Not the ones that are actually people, like Cinderella, but the ones that have really big heads. Mickey Mouse, for example.

It probably has to do with the idea that you can't really tell who/what is under the makeup/mask.

Ever since I saw "Carrie," I've been afraid of hands reaching up out of the dirt. This is only a problem when I'm working in the garden, but I think about it every single time.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I used to be deathly afraid of barking dogs--any size, any breed. Once I was riding my bike down a hill and a dog came barking out into the street and I jumped off my bike to run away from it. It never occurred to me to just pedal faster. I never knew why, until I began shaving and discovered a scar on my chin. My mother said that I had been bitten on the face by our neighbor's dog when I was a toddler.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I've always been afraid that something will crawl out of the toilet while I'm sitting on it and bite me!

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I didn't realize how easily I'd gotten off in the phobia department until now. Spiders and bees used to scare me, but no longer; I'm a very calm driver; I actually find airplane turbulence kind of soothing, like being rocked to sleep.

The only things left are nighttime intruders [as mentioned above, but I'll cure that shortly when I move into an apartment], earthquakes, and cancer. Every time I go to the movies I walk out thinking I have cancer. This is because I unconsciously eat too much popcorn while distracted by the flick, and since I usually eat low-salt/low-fat foods my body is completely unable to handle the sudden influx of coconut oil, sodium, and "golden topping" butter substitute, and I end up with terrible stomach cramps. Of course, any bodily malfunction can ONLY be an indication of cancer, right?

It doesn't help that all of my relatives who have died during my lifetime were taken down by cancer. Or that I have fibrocystic breast disease and find horror-inducing lumps once a month.

By the way, here's my recipe for recovering from arachnophobia: one Halloween, we had plastic spider rings as party favors. I wore some home, and the cat liked knocking them around, so I never threw them out. I would routinely walk into a room and find large black spiders [indistinguishable from live arachnids at a distance] on the floor. At first I would always feel the rising gorge of panic, but then I'd remember that they were harmless and walk on by. The cat kept moving them around the apartment, so they were always turning up in unexpected places, and eventually they didn't bother me at all. Since then, neither have real spiders.

Later I discovered that this is a common desensitization technique used by therapists. For example, if someone has a fear of snakes, the therapist will begin by showing her pictures of snakes, then perhaps taking her to a reptile-centric pet store and look at snakes through glass, and eventually advance to handling harmless species such as corn snakes.

..........................................

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

It's so interesting to see what people are afraid of. I was never afraid of spiders, I kind of like them, I pick them up and put them outside if I find them. I am afraid of strange things like buses. Yes, buses. I am always afraid that I am going to get sick and won't be able to get off the bus because I'll be in a bad neighborhood or a highway or something. I can only take a bus with a bathroom on it. Keep in mind I've never gotten sick on a bus, so the whole thing is ridiculous. I am also afraid of accidents on the highway. I drive terribly because I am always imagining the car in the other lane is going to swerve into me and forget to even check to see if I'm there. I shouldn't be out on the roads. I am terrified of driving in rain, snow, sleet, mist even. Basically all weather except 75 degrees and sunny. It is a full time job being me.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

well, I see that alot of you are afraid of the dark. I'm afraid of what's in the dark, and that is, The Big Bad Wolf. I am forty eight years old and still scared to go outside at night by myself. I will go outside to get something out of the car if I can't talk one of my children or husband in to doing it.But, I run like my feet are on fire.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

This has been quite the day..

1st I read about some urban legend involving macdonald's and fluid filled absecesses. And then another about shrimps and a woman's need to pee.

And now irrational fears.

I jsut have one and it is TOTALLY irrational. Don't read if you get disgusted/freaked or are scared of insects to begin with.

Based on a movie and a book.. in the movie, the woman gets a spot on her face and she keeps using powder to try and cover it up but some evil person had but spider's eggs in it and they eventually hatched out of her face. And in the book , a plane crashes in the jungle and bugs lay eggs in some girl's arm and the rest of the book there are intermittent paragraphs of de-egging her arm.

Im getting better. I can write it now. But still brings bile to my throat. As did the McD's thing. But Im over it now. I think.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I'm kind of afraid of hte dark, but it's getting better for me.

I am afraid of bees and of getting cancer - the kind where the person feels a little sick and it turns out they have pancreatic cancer or something and they're dead in a month. I mean, I don't smoke and do other healthful things, but there are still forms of cancer that so called healthy people get.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Ah, yes, the clown thing. I don't fear clowns, I'm just not fond of them, but I do think Steven King was on to something when he wrote IT.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

For years I dreamt that I was in a bed. Everything around me was cold, metallic, and green. Then I would realize that next to me was some kind of small monster. It was slowly dying and filled with worms. It wanted to steal the life from me.

When I was 16 I told my mom about this dream. She instantly knew what I was talking about... When I was 8 months old, I was kept overnight in the hospital because my parents were worried about my asthma. In the room I was put in there was one cot. I was put in it with another baby for company during the night. Next morning, my parents picked me up. The parents of the other baby were crying. Apparently the baby had died next to me.

Somehow I knew the baby was dying, and that it was jealous of my life. Since mom told me about this dream, I haven't dreamt of it again.

======

Another fear I had as a kid was that everyone except me was a monster. When I looked at people they kept their masks on, but if I turned my back they would take their masks off and slowly creep towards me. I believed that if I kept my back to them long enough, they would jump on me and eat me.

=======

My biggest fear as a kid was Hare Krishnas. I'm not kidding. One day at the market I went off by myself, while mom was buying fruit. I saw these people dancing in colorful clothes, singing, and looking very happy. I thought they were very beautiful. One of them gave me a pamphlet and told me I could have a vegetarian dinner at their house. I ran to mom to see if I could. She told me that I should throw the pamphlet in the garbage. They were a cult and if I spent any time around them I would be brainwashed and turned into a robot. Mom failed to tell me what brainwashed meant, so I blew it up into a huge, terrifying thing. I remember drawing dozens of pictures of people being brainwashed during Grade 2 art class. The art teacher got scared and called my mom... To this day, when I see Hare Krishnas dance downtown, I get scared.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Gah, Laura, I forgot about the Character Head People. They creep me out nearly as much as clowns do. They come near me and I just want to whack the heads off like pinatas.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

I find myself being tortured by visions of my wife and my newborn baby suffering some horrible car crash. If we're in two cars and I'm following them, every rtuck on the road is barrelling towards them at dangerous speeds, and every car changing lanes is going to smash into them and send them into a bridge support.

And on Thursday we're moving to Connecticut, so I'll have about fifteen hours to entertain these horrible fantasies. It eats me alive.

-- Anonymous, February 28, 2000

Escalators make me ridiculously nervous. I've been certain, since I was very small, that an escalator would eat me alive. I do this ridiculous little dance when I'm about to put my foot on the first step of one, and I clutch the railing the whole way up. I've been known to leap very long distances to keep my feet away from the point where the stairs go under the floor at the top or bottom of one, as well.

What's worse is that I saw an episode of Rescue 911 where a little boy actually got caught in an escalator and an ambulance had to be called. I felt vindicated. This probably wasn't a good thing.

-- Shelly

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000

I'm positively terrified of water I can't see the bottom of, particularly ocean water. If you want to see me dissolve into a puddle of terror, try to get me to swim in the ocean.

The furthest I'll go into ocean water is wave jumping. I think it comes from clamming in Connecticut as a small girl with my mom in tidal pools and having her tell me not to step on the jellyfish, stingrays, horseshoe crabs, etc. And the final straw was the time my brother got pretty sick from being stung from a sea urchin in the Carribean when I was 12.

I'm a seawater spazz.

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000

In the last few years, I've developed a new irrational fear, and that's that when Dale and I are ready, I'll find out I'm unable to have children. I think this started during an annual exam when the doctor informed me that I have a tipped uterus. (Instead of pointing towards the navel, it's tipped back towards my spine.) That meant nothing to me until she told me that in old times, it was believed that women with tipped uteruses couldn't have children. It's actually not true, but the fear has lingered. (Apparently, it does make pregancy more difficult, but labor itself easier.)

Also, when I was 14, I ended up in the hospital for a night due to extreme lower abdominal pain. Tons of tests were done, including an ultrasound, but nothing was found. The doctors believed I had an ovarian cyst that ruptured. Since then, I've learned that can cause scarring in the fallopian tube (where it would have occured), which can cause fertility problems. I often get a pinching feeling in that spot. I later asked another doctor about scarring, and she wasn't concerned.

I suppose I'll find out in a few years.

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000

Although I am also afraid of the dark, my most irrational fear is having any part of my body extending out over the bed. If I have to, I will make sure I am wrapped up completely, so if I do stray, I'm still covered up. I *know* that no one is under the bed to grab me, but I just can't help it.

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000

My biggest irrational fear is that I'll be cooking something on the stove and turn to carry it across the kitchen and my two year old will come running in, making me spill hot water all over her. If I have to do anything like that I check obsessively that she is nowhere nearby.

My other fear is of wasps. I don't mind bees, they are fairly harmless as far as I am concerned, but wasps are just plain mean. Wasps will sting you out of pure evilness. I hate them.

-- Anonymous, February 29, 2000

My irrational fear is of driving through tunnels. I don't know why ia m always so certain that an earthquake will strike at *precisely* the moment I drive through one, but I'm always sure nonetheless, and I drive through or worse, ride through in a terrible silent panic.

I remember loving tunnels as a kid, and early teen, but I have no idea why or when tunnels turned from just being there to coffins waiting to happen.

-- Anonymous, March 04, 2000