Childhood Fears

[cacophonesque]

This is something that I've been wanting to mention, and perhaps in the future I'll even elaborate to turn it into a full length post. For tonight, though, I just want to share.

My three biggest irrational fears as a child were: zombies, bog monsters*, and cannibals.

*When I was a kid I thought that the "boogey man" was a monster that lived in

Comments

[cacophonesque]

I'm not even sure that at the time I was plagued by recurring nightmares about cannibals that I knew the term cannibal. But, I was definitely terrified of tribes of people who wanted to roast me over a fire and eat me--and I had many elaborate plans in place for how I would run away and hide from them.

[astraevirgo]

I was deathly afraid of my house burning down (usually around Christmas time, due to those horrible local newscasts warning about overly dry trees), and aliens abducting me (I blame the Simpson's Halloween Special).

[cacophonesque]

See, I was also deathly afraid of my house burning down. However, I don't consider this one an irrational fear. When I was 5 years old, I watched as my neighbors' home burned to the ground in a grease fire. Adam was the same age as me, and I remember that I gave him one of my stuffed bears, because my mom told me that he didn't have anything left. Throughout the years, I've considered making my cats sleep in carriers at night, just so I'd be ready to grab them and go in case of an emergency (but then I feel great anxiety when I wonder about how I'd get them during the day or whatnot).

[astraevirgo]

I hadn't considered it that way... that it wasn't irrational in the sense that it could actually happen. I think my mom still describes my fear as ridiculous, however, when it comes up that I sobbed thinking about it, instead of sleeping. (My mom wasn't often the most supportive.)

[cacophonesque]

Yeah, I think that there is a level of irrationality within my fear--since it's something that I still carry and the whole cat carriers thing comes up a lot. Still, it seems a lot less ridiculous to me than most phobias do.

[risingtofall]

Two of my biggest irrational fears are STILL zombies and cannibals.

[cacophonesque]

I still find zombies to be a frightening and disturbing concept--but I longer have trouble sleeping at night out of fear that they are coming for me. But cannibals don't really scare me that much anymore at all.

[skirmish_of_wit]

I was CONVINCED that ravening wolves lived in the basement and would come out when the lights were off.