To be completely honest I didn’t think I had fears until my journalism teacher asked me if I had any fears.
A few seconds later I thought of one of my top fear–spiders. I feel like spiders are a normal fear that lots of people have.
I love animals in general, but I can’t handle spiders. I don’t know if it is the thought of how some of them are hairy and venomous or the fact that their looks just give me chills. Whether they are small, large, hairy, brown or black, I can’t handle looking at them. As much as I would love to have one as a pet, I couldn’t bring myself to buy one and keep it near me. I’m pretty sure it’s the past experience I had with spiders as a kid.
I can still remember times when I was a kid and there were spiders, or when I had rashes due to spiders. When I was around 8 years old, I had a sleep over at my cousin’s house, and I woke up with a rash around my eye. My uncle and aunt knew it was from a spider because the night before, when I went to take a shower, they saw a spider, and unfortunately they weren’t able to kill it. I think I hate spiders due to trauma or something like that, but thank goodness I haven’t had much experience with spiders since I was younger.
To deal with this fear, I try to avoid spiders. If it comes to dealing with them I usually back off. When I see a spider, I get grossed out and start imagining all the scenarios that could happen right in that moment. Most of the time I get my mom or dad to kill it because when I do it, my whole family starts laughing. They laugh at me because when I “kill” a spider I aim for it, quickly throw a shoe and run away screaming. To be fair it is a funny thing to watch, but it isn’t my favorite thing to do. I can’t handle the fear I have for spiders.
My next fear is deep bodies of water. This phobia is known as thalassophobia. I think this fear came as I got a little older because when I was younger, I was all about oceans, lakes and seas. I’m not quite sure how I came to be scared of oceans, but I think it’s due to watching movies, documentaries and series about oceans that might have cause it. I’ve watched multiple documentaries, and I learned that we truly don’t know anything about the oceans. We only know about 5% of the oceans which creeps me out even if it is just a little.
I have loved the ocean since I first went to Mazatlan, Mexico when I was around 8 years old. Having this fear kind of makes me sad, so to avoid hating the ocean, I have to find ways to deal with it.
I found that if I avoid thinking about all the creepy things, it helps. If I ever go near a deep dark body of water I just try to enjoy myself and have fun before all my thoughts get to me.
Sometimes I find myself thinking about other people’s fears. Compared to most people’s fears, mine seem reasonable and relatable. Other people have some random fears that make me think, “How did they get the fear in the first place?”
Regardless of our fears, I think we should all have a way for facing them. Whether we need to confront what scares us or talk to someone to help us through, we should all face our fears and not let whatever scares us control us.
