As a child, I had a number of fears, some of them logical, and some of them... not so much. Today's blog post is about the rational and irrational fears from when I was younger.
 |
| The horror!!! |
Dropping Meow Into the Toilet
Logically, there was absolutely no reason to have this fear. I mean, how often did I bring my favorite stuffed animal into the bathroom for any reason? Nevertheless, this weird paranoia remained in my head. I would walk into the bathroom carrying the beloved toy, accidentally drop him while standing near the toilet, and...
The Nonexistent Thief
So for no apparent reason, I was lying in bed late one night, after everyone had gone to bed, and had a thought. What if a thief broke into the house? I mean, someone could come in while we're sleeping, prowl around the house, steal our belongings. And this thought evolved into "There could be a bad guy in the house now. Someone could be inside right this second."
For what seemed like an eternity, I lay there in fear. Logically, the chance that someone was in the house was rather slim. Yet this irrational fear remained. I finally steeled myself, got up, and grabbed my flashlight. I then proceeded to walk through the house, shining my flashlight around, to convince the less rational part of my brain that no one was inside. That done, my fear subsided, and I was able to sleep.
Falling Into the Outhouse
During a camping trip, there was an outhouse which I did not want to use. It was gross and filled with about a million billion spiders. But most of all, the toilet itself was just... no.
It's an outhouse, right? So it's basically a toilet seat over a big hole dug into the ground. The seat seemed huge, a gaping pit of doom, and I was terrified to sit upon it lest I fall in and meet my demise. We ended up driving somewhere that had a proper bathroom so I could use it.
Rattlesnake Biting My Butt
Once we were driving, and I had to use the bathroom. We were in the middle of nowhere, and my parents didn't know of anywhere nearby that had a restroom. They suggested pulling over and having me go outside, but that option wasn't going to work for me. It was a rural area, and I was certain there would be a rattlesnake nearby and it would bite me on the rear. Luckily, we located a place that had a restroom, so my butt was saved from venomous reptiles.
Horrible Stairs
My class went on a field trip to some caverns, and the tour involved going down 144 stairs (I looked it up). First, there were some uneven stairs, seemingly carved from the ground itself. Then there was... the spiral staircase. Narrow steps, with spaces between them, and there were so many of them. It took plenty of coaxing from the adults to get me down the stairs, during which time I cried because those stairs were scary.
Then there was a Halloween party I went to. At one point, I went upstairs to use the bathroom. After that, I was stuck upstairs. Now, I'd gone up and down staircases in houses and such before, but something about the stairs in this house made my brain go, "Nope." When it was time to go home, my brother had to walk down the stairs with me.
I promise I was a functional human being. It was just the occasional instance...
Slides, Swings
So, as a kid, I didn't want to go on the swings because I was certain I would fall off. My friends decided one time that they were going to convince me to sit on the swings if it killed them. With some effort, they finally persuaded me to do so. I started slow, but eventually was swinging. This was followed by a brief period of me actually usually the swings on the playground. Until I fell off one day. And then I didn't go on the swings again.
But the one that really takes the cake is the slide. For a while, there was a woman who worked with me because they felt I was behind on motor skills, or something. (Imagine telling a kid to catch the ball, and having them automatically flinch, shut their eyes, and duck from the flying projectile. Every time.)
Anyway, moving on from sounding like a dysfunctional child, the story of how I was a dysfunctional child. I didn't like the idea of going down the slide, and one miserable day, she decided that we were going to conquer this fear.
Cue an unfortunate adult on the playground, waiting for a very reluctant child to go down the slide. Forever. And ever. And ever and ever. I sat on the platform for ages. The big kids went to recess, and I was still there. One of the older girls demonstrated going down the slide. "Look, she's not afraid of sliding down." the poor woman said. Still I remained sitting there.
Ages passed. A new millennium arrived. The robot uprising occurred. The rapture happened, and she had to tell the Son of Man, "Sorry, we have to wait for Meowmocha to go down the slide before we can ascend to Heaven."
I kept hoping she would have mercy on me and let me go back to class. No such luck. After perhaps an hour, I finally caved and went down the slide.
But you want to know the best part of this story? You thought I finally got over my feelings towards slides? HA! No such thing. For a brief time, I would go down the slide. But then one day, someone gave a push as I was getting ready to go down, causing me to hurt my tailbone as I slid down. And then I... didn't use the slide any more.
Drowning
Admittedly, this fear was a tad more rational. Because I couldn't swim. If I was in a pool with a deep end, I was always careful to stay in the shallow end. I recall one instance where I was at a birthday party, and some of the girls were linking hands to form a circle and sort of rotating in the water. At one point, I was inside this circle, and the kids moved a little too deep into the pool. As the water came over my head, I panicked and ended up clinging desperately to my friend.
This concludes the gallery of fears from my childhood days. So, what fears did you have as a kid? Let me know in the comments.
No comments:
Post a Comment