I have to admit I have a fair amount of fears. I think a lot of that is due to a fear of the unknown which I’m sure links back to a control issue and…well there’s a shrink somewhere needing a beach house just waiting for me to walk through the door.
So when it came to picking my biggest fear it came down to two. I’m going to call one a physical fear and one a mental fear.
I have a horrible fear of not being able to breathe; whether it’s due to drowning, suffocating or even strenuous activity like intense cardio. Even writing this is causing me to have to stop and take deep breaths and catch my breath. I’ve had to avoid movies and tv shows that may have scenes where characters can’t breathe and I am shocked I made it through Titanic 4 times. I blame that on youth and now I don’t think I could handle the last hour.
However, my absolute biggest fear is more of a mental one. I have this fear of not being able to get home and being separated from my family. I blame the Wizard of Oz. I have always disliked this move and as a child my parents chalked it up to the witch. Yeah, she was screechy and not nice looking, but witches aren’t real and I understood this very early. What really unnerved me about this movie was that Dorothy just wanted to go home and she couldn’t get there. She wanted her family and she couldn’t see them. I did not like this. Same with An American Tail and Land Before Time. While giant cats and Tyrannosaurs Rexes can’t hurt me, I could in theory get lost or lose my family.
When I was a kid and wouldn’t leave someplace my mom would do the typical “okay, I’m leaving, guess you’re not coming” and walk slowly to the car. My younger sister would barely look up and keep doing whatever she was doing but I was on my feet in a second begging her not to leave me. Really, I knew she wouldn’t leave me, but I couldn’t get that fear out of my head so just in case I’d follow immediately dramatically wailing for her to wait for me.
I think this is why I don’t handle car issues well because the thought of being broken down somewhere and not being able to get home terrifies me. I’ve called my husband in a panic with a dead battery demanding he be where I am within 5 minutes. I’m at near panic attack level until I see my out, my way home. When we got new car insurance I refused to agree to the new policy until I sure there was roadside assistance. I have to know I have a way home.
I actually thought I’d left much of this behind as I’d gotten older and (as horrible as this sounds) I no longer feared losing my parents as I was on my own. Then Isaac and I went to see the movie District 9. In the movie the main character gets touched or bit…can’t remember by an alien and slowly begins transforming into one himself. He is obviously distressed and the government is after him and through it all he is desperate to call his wife and to go home. I was hysterical. Isaac actually asked if I needed to leave at one point. I even remember quietly sobbing at one point “he just wants his wife”. I kid you not, I am tearing up just typing this. Isaac’s shoulder and shirt sleeve were soaked through by the time the movie was over. So now my fear is not being able to get home and losing my husband. I think I hold his hand tighter than Carolina does when we’re out in large crowds.
You would think I had been abandoned on roadside somewhere as baby, but no, I was very much loved adn taken care of, maybe I'm just more of a homebody than I think! :)
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