Are You Afraid of the Dark?

No? 

 Me either. 

 (but fun sidenote: my husband is sometimes.) 

 Don't tell him I told you that. 

 This week has me facing a lot of my fears. Some people think my fears are irrational, but I, of course, think they make perfect sense. 

1. Flying. 

Via

Yup. How stereotypical is that? I am afraid of flying. This particular fear didn't develop until I was about 13 years old. For our family vacation that summer, my grandparents were taking my sister and I to Hawaii for a couple weeks. We visited Maui, Kauai, and Oahu. Fun, right? Well... it was, except for the whole having to get on multiple planes flying over the ocean. On the flight from L.A. to Maui, I decided that I wanted to sit by myself (aka away from my family) because I was so grown up and too cool for them. Big mistake. I ended up being sat in the very back of the plane by some man who was deathly afraid of flying. He spent almost the entire flight jumping at every sound, grabbing the armrest, and informing me how we were probably not going to ever make it to the island. 

Gulp. 

Thus, the seed of fear was planted in my young, impressionable brain. How I managed to get on the island hoppers and a helicopter during that trip is beyond me. My fear got worse when I was in high school and two of my best friends (also fearful flyers) showed me a little website called www.planecrashinfo.com. It has black box recordings of flights that crashed as well as statistics and pictures. That pretty much cemented my fear. Then I started getting claustrophobic in planes and it just all went bad from there. I still get on planes and do so without drinking or taking meds, but it is not good for my anxiety at all. Tim is flying to NYC this weekend and it makes me even more nervous that he's going on his own (without me) because I'm pretty sure he doesn't pay attention to the safety packet or videos. 

2. Spiders 

Via

Ok, so I'm not afraid of spiders, generally. I have a surprise spider in my shower specific fear. Do you know what I'm talking about? It happens when you've just taken a long, hot, relaxing shower and then all of a sudden Mr. Eight Legs decides to run up the shower curtain right next to your arm or drop down from the ceiling onto your $18 bottle of conditioner. Then you're trapped. Let me tell you, I have dashed out of the shower numerous times in my life with all kinds of shampoo or conditioner or body wash still on me. Shower spider always wins. It's his domain and I just get to visit every once in a while. 

(This fear mentioned for no reason pertaining to this week.) 

3. Any sort of debilitating illness or anything of that sort. 

Via

I'm most scared of this. The thing you can't always control. I'm worried about cancer mostly, because it seems like almost everyone gets it at some point and a lot of times without any rhyme or reason. But, to be honest, I worry about anything that can't be solved with a good night's sleep that I can read about on Webmd or Mayo Clinic. Usually by the time I actually go to the doctor about something, I've researched for hours what it could be and just come out and ask him (or her) straight up. 

Case in point: I have a history of atypical skin issues. Precancerous lesions. Well, after having three removed in under two years, I needed to get my eyes checked because, guess what? You can get freckles on your eyes. Yup. I know, I wasn't really aware that was possible either. Well, in the time between making my optometrist appointment and actually going to my appointment, I decided that I definitely had ocular melanoma and so after the optometrist noted that I did indeed have freckles on my eyes, my next question was, "So the next step is enucleation, right?" (That's removal of the eye, F.Y.I.) She of course looked at me like the crazy person that I am and said, "No. You have freckles, not cancer."

See, my fear leads me to research jump to worst case scenarios. 

(This fear mentioned because I have to go back to the dermatologist tomorrow.)

My other fears are getting divorced (requires a whole 'nother post), car accidents (thank you Final Destination and a bad accident we were in once), dental work (but only a little bit), and falling from high places.  

What do you think?  Crazy?  Or run of the mill?  

What is your biggest fear?  

I promise it can't be any more ridiculous than spiders in your shower.