Day 25: Fears - What are you afraid of?

My Project: 365 Creative Writing Prompts

Day 25: Fears

Everyone is afraid of something. Fear of heights, fear of enclosed spaces, death, illness, public speaking, water, fire, the list goes on and on.

Ask 99% of women what they are afraid of and among other things they might mention spiders. I happen to be one of them.

I’ve read up on the subject and some say that the fear of spiders is hereditary. Which is interesting really. So does that mean that our parents are responsible for our fears? If they had given us a spider as a pet, instead of a kitten, a puppy or a bunny, would we have grown to love spiders?

Personally, I can’t imagine such thing. Can you? Can you imagine sitting with a spider on your lap and cuddling it? Curling up with it in bed? Proudly sharing pictures of it on Facebook ... I didn’t think so.

I often wondered why spiders were created in the first place. Some might say that they play a valuable role in nature and I understand that, they probably do some good. What I don’t understand is why they have to be so ugly.

When spiders were created, why couldn’t they be made to look like hamsters, koala bears, pandas or even squirrels. I can’t think of a single person who is afraid of these creatures. For one reason or another they might not be fond of them because they are dangerous or carry diseases, but nobody goes running, screaming, when they see one.

And believe me, I’ve done my fair share of screaming. As afraid as I am of spiders, they seem to be very fond of me. My mom, dad, or brother never came across a spider, but if there was one in the house, I would be the one to find it.

When I was growing up, I regularly saw them. I saw them in the basement, in the hallway, in the bathroom, or their personal favorite, in my bedroom.

Every night when I went to bed, I switched on the light of my bedroom and did a thorough inspection of the ceiling, walls and floor. If my folks heard a scream, mam would instruct dad to go upstairs, armed with a shoe.

The worst case ever was when I literally came face to face with a huge spider who was sitting next to the light switch on the wall. She had one of her eight legs on the light switch and another on the doorframe. As I flipped on the light my nose was literally less than an inch away from the monster and in addition to an ear- piercing scream, I stopped breathing. 

As I was told later, by the time my dad and brother came upstairs and found me on the landing, I was turning blue. My brother had to slap me out of it.

Since that time, I’ve encountered a number of family members of the spider, from babies to grandfathers, and they all give me the creeps.

Two years ago, I thought there was hope for me yet when I met Karen. She told me that she too had suffered from a severe case of arachnophobia until she decided to do something about it.

“And what did you do?” I asked her.

“Hypnosis or something?”

“I adopted a spider,” Karen said. “I bought a tarantula, I placed it in a glass case in the living room, and I observed it every day.”

Was the woman out of her mind! She was afraid of spiders and she invited a spider to live with her! A tarantula no less! Never, not even in my wildest dreams would I even consider living with a spider under one roof. No, no way, absolutely not!!!

Karen invited me for a visit, so I could observe the spider, how it ate, drank, washed itself and slept. I politely declined. Not a hair on my head even considered this.

When she offered to bring the spider to work, so we could all have a look, Brian strongly advised her not to do this.

“Why not?” Karen asked.

“Because I say so,” Brian told her. “If you do, I go straight to personnel and file a complaint against you. I’m not kidding. Don’t you dare bring that thing in here.”

Hmm, it would appear women are not the only ones who are squeamish about spides, some men are too.

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Hanging on or letting go

I watched a presentation the other day entitled ‘How heavy is your glass of water?’ The presentation went as follows:

A psychologist hosted a well-attended workshop about stress management. At one point, she raised a glass of water. The audience assumed that she would ask them the well-known question: ‘Is the glass half full or half empty?’ Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired ‘How heavy is this glass of water?’ The audience called out a range of numbers from 8 ounces to 20 ounces. They were eager to discover why they were asked this question. But to their surprise, the psychologist responded ‘The weight of the glass does not matter. What does, however, is how long you hold it. If I hold the glass for one minute, it’s not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, my arm will ache. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. Your stresses and worries in life are like this glass of water. If you think about them for a while, nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer, and they begin to hurt. But if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed and incapable of doing anything. It’s important to let go of your stresses, your fears, and worries. Early in the evening, put all your burdens down. Don’t carry them into the night. Always remember to put that glass down and give yourself a rest.’

When I read stuff like this, I can help but roll my eyes and wonder what people who have lost a parent, a spouse, a child or a pet would say to this psychologist. My guess is that they would say her theory is beautiful but naïve.

I’m sure that a great number of people would like nothing better than to put their burdens down, but it’s not that easy. Any kind of burden is not like a glass of water that you can put down, you carry it with you all the time. Work, sports, and entertainment might give you a break from time to time, but eventually, the burdens come back.

The same for people who have medical problems and had tests done. You tell those people to stop worrying and they might sneer and say ‘That’s easier said than done.’

And what about people who have experienced trauma. I’ll bet it’s not as easy to just forget what they have seen, heard, and experienced. During the day they might find distractions, but the nights … the nights are the worst.

If just forgetting was this easy, people would not be on a variety of medications, wouldn’t be in therapy or wouldn’t seek the company of a self-help group.

Psychologists … most of them don’t have a clue about real life. They don’t seem to know that experiences lead to memories and we might not be able to ever escape from them.

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Dealing with anxiety

My blog updates have been on hold for a while. I was in the middle of a freelance writing project and other than writing for that project there was no time to do anything else. In fact, I had to call on a friend in Australia to help me out to make my deadline. (Many thanks to LH).

It was a good thing that the work was finished because yesterday I had to attend an anxiety class. The class ran for 8 weeks and today was our second gathering.

It didn’t go too well for me. In fact, I got kicked out of the class.

A bit of background first.

A few months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with palpitations. My heart was pounding; I couldn’t breathe and I was shaking like a leaf. Not trembling, but violently shaking. It took over half an hour but finally, I was able to go back to sleep.

When I mentioned this to my doctor a few weeks later, she believed I should attend an anxiety class, also known as ’Face your Fears’.

Initially, I thought that we (the attendees) would be confronted with spiders (as lots of people fear spiders) but that was not the case. The fear we would be dealing with were fears that influence our lives.

I had high hopes, but already from the first session, I had my doubts if this class would be beneficial for me. One person feared going outside, another feared inadequacy, another yet feared performance issues.

So yesterday was our second session and the instructor gave as an example a woman who had been robbed and as a result didn’t dare to go outside anymore. She asked the group for our reaction.

Most of the people sympathized and felt sorry for her. I didn’t. For a while, I managed to keep my mouth shut, but when the instructor asked me directly what I thought, I gave her my opinion with no holding back.

I told her that sympathizing with the woman and pitying her didn’t help. What she needed was some tough love. She was robbed … she wasn’t beaten, she wasn’t raped, she wasn’t murdered.

As an example I told the group that I had been robbed too (at an ATM machine), my house was burgled a year later (they stole everything they could carry), and I had witnessed the aftermath of a bomb explosion. That was far worse than being robbed. So, she was lifted of twenty or forty dollars, big deal, she should just get over it.

Well, that did it. I got kicked out. At break time the instructor told me that this group wasn’t for me. I can’t say that I disagreed. I thought the group a bunch of whiners.

When a woman said that she felt perfectly fine until she became a mother and now fears that she’s going to make mistakes, I had the urge to roll my eyes. I wanted to tell her … "You’re gonna make mistakes. I did, my friends did, everybody does."

Another complained that his friends bring him down. That sometimes he feels good about himself, but then someone will say something and he will feel inadequate. More baloney. If someone was to say something hurtful to me I would respond with … "Who are you to judge me? Are you perfect, no? … well neither am I."

A third one felt too stressed at work and is now on long-term disability. There’s a simple solution for that … take away his disability money and he’ll be back at work in no time. So, he felt stressed, who doesn’t at times? But we go home, we get a good night sleep and the next day we show up at work again.

I was stressed at my writing job too. I had so much work that I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope. So, I contacted LH in Australia with the faint hope that she would agree to help. I feared the worst but hoped for the best. And guess what … she agreed.

I dare say that my Australian friend and I are similar creatures. We both faced difficult situations in the past, but we dealt with them and it turned us into strong women. 

Instead of attending an anxiety class, we could lead a class and you’d better believe that we could teach those whiners a thing or two.  

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