Malevolence Antithesisa Fear Factory Production

   How do fears morph into phobias and when do phobias become paranoia? Through my lifetime, I have been known and mocked for my vast and perpetually fluctuating terrors. I even recall a time in High School when we had an open discussion on personal fears in one of my classes and my teacher facetiously told me I suffered from Panophobia. Although, I did not nor do I have Panophobia, which is a distinct fear of everything. My catalogs of lifelong interminably altering array of alarms are ludicrously long and incongruous in and of themselves. There is an outnumbered magnitude of things I do not fear, but my list is more extensive than the average person, which has landed me the target of countless shenanigans on more than one occasion. Mercifully, they have all been lightheartedly done and that I am a practical joker as well so no harm no foul. Where exactly my distress and fears stems from and the vacillation range baffles me. Things that may fear some, utterly petrifies me. Through my explorations, I have found some astonishing hypotheses. I even went on a mission to banish my fears in my late teens to early twenties to liberate myself, but at no avail. The inexplicable part of it all is the gradation of discrepancy and variation of my fears. The echelon of impact incessantly shifts and I could be terrified of something one day, not the next, and then the fear reemerges.




Here is my list (or what I can think of right now):

• Clowns, scary looking people, scary/creepy pictures
• Having an illness without my knowledge
• Decaying teeth
• Balloons popping
• Broken glass
• Feet
• Tornadoes, sink holes, tidal waves/tsunamis
• Being embarrassed, falling, tripping
• Admitting weakness, failure, being alone, not being loved
• Large bodies of water
• The ocean, Bora Bora, Antarctica
• Deep water and the things in it that can harm me like sharks, jellyfish, whales, stingrays, alligators etc
• Large dogs, spiders, insects/bugs, parasites, centipedes, furry caterpillars, rabid animals
• Needles, scissors, guns, knives- Pretty much anything that could potentially harm me in anyway
• Darkness
• Funeral homes, cemeteries
• Zombies
• Going to hell, the Devil, God, ghosts, aliens and anything else that can or does exist without my visible knowledge
• Death, being killed, dying in my sleep, drowning, being stabbed, suffocating, inhaling toxicants, choking
• Being abandoned, stranded, being lost
• Chipping my teeth, biting my tongue
• Government cover-ups
• Germs, bacteria, mold, mildew, people who are not sanitary, unclean/rotten food or drink, inhaling people's breath or flatulence
• Car breaking down while I am in it
• The end of the world
• Contracting a deadly illness or STD
• Heights, ladders, stairs
• Not being able to close my eyes and cover my ears when I am scared
• Injuring myself, breaking a bone
• Physically hurting others
• Q-tips
• Not knowing things
• Certain noises
• Being locked up
• Comforting people, showing affection or endearment
• Touching people especially ones I do not know
• Dirt, sweat, being dirty
• Paper cuts
• Being surprised, false/ill intentions, people invading my privacy, watching me, going through my things or garbage, spying/stalking me, being lied to, hidden cameras
• High heels
• Medication
• Losing my intelligence, ignorance, Alzheimer’s, Dementia
• Large crowds, being in public, malls
• Things that are supposed to taste like something they are not
• Dolls coming to life
• Things hiding in my closet or under my bed
• Gnomes, midgets, leprechauns
• Evil fairies or supernatural/mythical beings sucking my soul out while I sleep, bugs crawling in my orifices while I sleep

A number of my fears are childlike and humorous to some, but true to the fact.
     Of all these water has been my greatest terror. My entire life I have been traumatized by it, under no circumstance could I put my head under the water in the bathtub, swimming pool, at the beach, etc. I kept my eyes open in the shower and I would distance myself from others while swimming, so there was no chance they could push me under the water. I have always over-analyzed why I am so much more afraid of water than the other fears. Studies show that fears derive from life-threatening experiences we have had. Now I know when I was a very young child, once while in my Grandparents pool my Aunt thought it would be funny to play around submerging me under water repeatedly. I can recollect the entire incident, but it does not scare me to think back on it. When I was a toddler, apparently I had this infatuation with walking into the pool and scaring the daylights out of everyone as I floated to the bottom of the pool, seeing, as I could not swim. I would do this repeatedly therefore, obviously, it did not frighten me, but I do not remember any of that and I have no other horrifying experiences with water so I have no conclusion to draw from. Where exactly all my fears come from I have no idea, but I know they exist since merely looking at a picture of a large open body of water nearly causes me to literally faint.
    There are heterogeneous suppositions to why people have fears and all are inconclusive. Some denunciate genetics, culture factors, life experiences as previously mentioned, a symptom of mental illness, and others see phobias as a learnt behavior. One of the utmost peculiar research studies I have found based a theory on inner ear trauma and how it can incorporate sensory and emotional health there by engendering fears. Whatever the cause may be, I endure fear all to often.

By the way, this picture scared the bejesus outta me!

Chasity