What Really Scares You?

[neufox47]

Big predators. My instinct kicks in and I hate that feeling.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[riser4]

My wife and I went to a restaurant, she got chowder. They gave her a bag of oyster crackers, she dumped them on the chowder, ground some pepper on it, and started eating. I'm sitting across from her, we're talking, and I blurt out, "Your pepper is moving." I had seriously considered that I might be having a flashback or breakdown of some sort, but no, the pepper was moving, so I blurted it out.

Turns out the crackers were absolutely infested with ants. And she had eaten a bunch of them, They were living in their little cracker dreamworld and all off a sudden their cracker houses were cracker boats on a boiling hot sea so they had climbed up on top of their crackers and they were madly waving for help.

It didn't turn out well for them. And my wife has never eaten another oyster cracker. But that's fine, more for me. I mean, what are the odds it'll happen again?

OMG. Not sure whether to laugh or barf. Or both.

[dan_pdx]

Confined spaces. Somehow in my 30s I became claustrophobic. Everyday stuff like elevators are fine, but one time I was in a middle seat in economy on a plane that was stuck on the tarmac with no cooling for 30 minutes or so and that was really no bueno. Lots of deep breathing and telling myself that everything was okay to avert a panic attack

[ötzi]

I used to get that bad especially on small planes but really any plane where I couldn't sit on the aisle wasn't good. Freaked the fuck out on a plane from Denver to Aspen and tried to get off before they closed the door but didn't make it in time.

Fortunately a guy on the aisle gave me his seat and I pulled it together. I never had that until sometime when I was in my 30s, and now it's gone away again. Wish I could tell you how I conquered it but I don't know.

[dan_pdx]

I used to get that bad especially on small planes but really any plane where I couldn't sit on the aisle wasn't good. Freaked the fuck out on a plane from Denver to Aspen and tried to get off before they closed the door but didn't make it in time.

Fortunately a guy on the aisle gave me his seat and I pulled it together. I never had that until sometime when I was in my 30s, and now it's gone away again. Wish I could tell you how I conquered it but I don't know.

Nice to know that developing claustrophobia in mid life is not totally unheard of. Fingers crossed it spontaneously goes away just like it came

[fastfred]

death
don't ever want to get that talk again in a doctors office
but it'll happen again

[Self Jupiter]

Severe nerve pain

[teleee]

Snakes. Snakes scare the fuck out of me. I’ve tried to be reasonable about the fuckers but I can’t. Near-panic mode cuts in.

You and me both! they scare the fuck out of me, gives me nightmares just talking about them.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[riser4]

I was 30 when I narrowly avoided a panic attack on some 12 seat commuter plane sitting on the tarmac in Boston for a flight to Burlington. Buried my face in a magazine as a distraction, which worked. Distraction is key. I'm not aware of having claustrophobia. But I don't like small airplanes.

[fomofo]

I was a road warrior for the better part of the 90's, traveling for work and on planes a few days most weeks. Domestic/international flights, I got used to turbulence and it rarely bothered me, but once after visiting a customer site in the middle of winter deep into Bumfuck New England somewhere I had a 12 seat puddle jumper on a flight back into civilization, during a bad, bad storm! That was the worst, white-knuckle, sustained banging around with horrifying unexpected drops that I ever went through. There was nothing to do but buckle up tight and hang on. And pray. Yes, 'tis true. No atheists at 40,000 feet. Or 10,000.

As frightening as that was what scares me more is the feeling we're being boiled alive here in the good, old USA, and that this time next year we may be living in a totally different reality, longing for the before times. Time to hang on and pray again, I guess.

And vote, of course.

[old goat]

I was on a little turbo prop from Denver to C Springs, flying through thunderheads with the sun breaking through between them and lots of turbulence. I couldn't figure out whether to be terrified or awed, so I did both.

The thought of being restrained in a space too small to move in terrifies me although I've never had it IRL. There's a reason that that was one of the favorite techniques they used at Abu Graib.

[Buzzworthy]

Talk to me about pushing through the fear of heights. Or maybe exposure as well. Gondolas aren’t too bad. Those new super high fast lifts. I gotta work through those.

Any tips y’all got? What do you do with irrational fear?

[Danno]

I always put the bar down, that alleviates a lot of my fear. Always sling an around the back of the chair if there's no bar.

[Buzzworthy]

I’m definitely a bar fan. I guess I’m more looking for mental gymnastics advice of the sort as this community certainly deals with the risk management while climbing or skiing exposure.
What are the coping mechanisms you use to focus on the objective over the risk your mind is presenting you?

[Mudfoot]

Evolution is a relentless process, yet despite tens of thousands of years it seems humans' propensity for extreme cruelty has not abatted in the least. Apprently all, or at least a very high percentage of us possess a dark side which is not getting better. Many things will change in the future but the prevalance of evil assholes is not one of them.

[old goat]

Before my heart surgery I was really afraid of waking up without a brain. The thought of being in a shut in state where you can't move or communicate but are still awake is terrifying. Heart attacks don't scare me, strokes do.

The thought of having to have hemorrhoids treated scares the shit out of me, because I know every Kaiser surgeon in the Sacramento area, half of them were residents of mine that would just love to stick a scope up my ass. So I make sure and get my roughage.

[Thaleia]

You should probably not watch this film https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Got_His_Gun_(film)

[~mikey b]

I always put the bar down, that alleviates a lot of my fear. Always sling an around the back of the chair if there's no bar.

fkn pussy

[liv2ski]

Dementia. That weights on my mind for sure.

[Thaleia]

fkn pussy

Cool. Can we do seatbelts next?

[~mikey b]

ya see now, driving and riding in a car is actually dangerous but people aren’t scared usually

riding a chairlift isn’t all that dangerous or scary - occasionally it is but not usually - I’ve had a couple rides where we were being blown sideways and were hanging on for dear life - that’s fkn scary

[Toadman]

That my wife's disease will come out of remission.

[~mikey b]

now that’s scary

[fomofo]

Before my heart surgery I was really afraid of waking up without a brain. The thought of being in a shut in state where you can't move or communicate but are still awake is terrifying. Heart attacks don't scare me, strokes do.

I was thinking it might be a good idea to put a couple of aspirin in a mini-ziplock (like we sometimes used to get drugs in) and keep that handy in the little (coin/watch?) pocket in jeans, just so if things started going sideways I could pop em under the tongue and start thinning the blood ahead of other intervention. Comments?

The thought of having to have hemorrhoids treated scares the shit out of me, because I know every Kaiser surgeon in the Sacramento area, half of them were residents of mine that would just love to stick a scope up my ass. So I make sure and get my roughage.

As that wisest of sages Ben Franklin advised...

An apple a day keeps the doctor away from ye olde arsehole

Back in college days I developed something uncomfortably protruding from the aforementioned and thus made a trip to the student infirmary to have it examined. The Doc on staff that day was a very affable thirty-something Indian woman with child who took a look, laughed, and said "pregnant women get those all the time", snapped a tiny rubber band tightly around the offending 'rhoid, and sent me on my way with a smile.
I don't recall much after that other than it "went away" shortly thereafter without incident.

Of course this could all be, as much of life from that time now seems, just a dream.

[tang]

I'm sure it's been covered somewhere in this thread, but... claustrophobia. Which doesn't align well with my love of backcountry skiing. Number one rule if you get avy'd and buried is of course staying calm - yeah right, I only imagine shear panic. Like if I was being avalanched and was wearing a suicide vest, I might just pull the cord.