[Closed] Fear.......

Well...I like watching good scary films - one's about hauntings rather than gory horrors (which aren't scary at all, just gross and sometimes a little disturbing!).

Is Insidious considered scary? I watched it on Friday night with the lights off in the house on my own. I did the same with the Paranormal Activity films...I enjoyed those films more than Insidious.

But moths...I flipping hate moths. Why to they insist on flying into my face?...if one is in the room I have to get rid of it which usually involves my wife laughing and me flapping about swearing at the moth as it dive bombs my face.

Part of the attraction of climbing though was learning to control the fear and the mental aspect of it. There's nothing like an unprotected crux move to either cause sheer panic or zen-like calm and concentration.

A few years back, I was a long way up the Penon near Calpe in Spain, clipped to a startlingly flimsy bolt (certainly how it felt at the time) on a 'ledge' that was more like a slight change in the gradiant of the face. Half of my brain was screaming while the other half was telling me how amazing the view was. The second half won fortunately...

Completely get the deep water thing too - that whole sense of the enormous depth and what might be lurking in it.

Climbing, yeah. Getting a bit lost and stretched in the hills. Riding bikes down tricky stuff a bit too fast. And off piste skiing. Adventure becomes a slightly unhealthy addiction. Not sure I could live entirely without it though. You feel alive.

Heights.

Generally not the steep ski slope kind but the type where a fall is very serious injury or death (although hiking along ridge lines isn't a great experience). It becomes self-fulfilling in that the more frightened I am the more wobbly I get and more likely to fall. Got up to Striding Edge in Lakes last year, had a look, turned round. I have to lie on my stomach to look over the steep side of Pen-y-Fan for example. Anything with a rope/chain in the Alps is generally a no-no. A bit of problem as a lot of the best Alpine riding and walking involves certain degrees of "Exposure".

Oh yeah, dark shapes in the deep water while swimming in the sea freak me out. I blame Jaws.

Ladders - had a couple slip when I've been up them.
And I taught myself a fear of needles - very embarrassing getting my travel jabs done when I keep fainting.

heights .... went to a climbing wall and lost my nerve about 5 feet up. Once tried abseiling, never again and remember having a most unnerving 30 minutes climbing up and being on top of a large tower in central prague.

Also flying.....will only do it for a holiday, never for work.

And blood....I have to leave the room if I see blood.

I have a similar fear/loathing of moths as mchamish, something about there evil fury faces freaks me out.

Bit different to those who fear not being able to see the bottom in water, I was swimming in an absolutely crystal clear alpine lake once, and could see the lake bed so clearly that my mind got a bit freaked out that I should have been plummeting downwards, my brain just stopped been able to comprehend that something so clear, and not solid, could be supporting me 10m or so above the solid ground I could so clearly see.

Stuff like this...[img] [/img]

Vertiginous drops without a doubt.

mountain slopes and flying no problem but I am not fond of exposed drops where one mistake = certain death

Guns scare me. Not irrational of course, but I hate any sort of gun being pointed at me.

I stayed up all night...... I couldn't pinpoint what I was scared of.

So, any thoughts???

Remote cottage, candles, burglary.......

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I'd be scared too!

Ah yes, I'm very familiar with that. I'd spend what seemed like hours cramming loads of gear in and getting knackered, then have it all fall out anyway leaving me with no protection and no strength left. The worst one I was facing certain death after about 45 mins, and I kept getting these urges to let go, .....

We must have been separated at birth, every lead climb I ever did was like that for a good few years. Eventually I calmed down, but it took 100s of climbs to do so..

Heights, which is pretty rational. Moths, and any sort of cheese with holes or mould in, less rational.

(FFS, I got goosebumps just typing about the cheese!)

I get the zen thing too. Done several very scary lines on skis. I scout them, photograph them, get it all planned and the fear builds. I get to the point I can't sleep, because I know I'm going to try it. Then stand at the top, looking down, gripped. As soon as that moment of calm descends I drop in...

Had it looking at big jumps before too, but usually because I know that even calm, I'm going to crash them.

Irrational fear - water, even though I'm a good swimmer. Can't catch a ferry without fighting the urge to jump in! Horrible.

I grew up on a cattle ranch in SW Nebraska not far from your location and we saw the occasional mountain lion--fish & wildlife people had the same "there aren't any around here" line.

Nice to know that it wasn't *that* irrational, especially after reading that as a cyclist if you cross paths with one, there's a good chance your speed and size will put it into 'fight mode'

We must have been separated at birth, every lead climb I ever did was like that for a good few years. Eventually I calmed down, but it took 100s of climbs to do so

Lol 🙂 The only time it ever got better was when I got to climb regularly, and was able to work up to things in a progressive way. However I never really managed to keep up the regular climbing - lack of partner really.

Fear's an odd thing. Rational fear is obviously very valuable, it prevents us putting ourselves in harms way, or if we do, provides us the focus to deal with it. Just like in several of the climbing anecdotes above, but for me (and prescient given the Ashes / Mitchell Johnson currently) - when I played decent cricket I used to get genuinely scared of playing against a fast bowler, to the point when I'd not sleep well in the run up to the weekend knowing they had a genuine quickie who had the potential to hit you and hurt you. Yet when it came to it, I'd face up, take the blows, collect a few 'medals' on the ribs, never back away, and actually relish it.

Irrational fear on the other hand..... there's no easy answer to that. For me it's heights, but not heights themselves (which actually is pretty rational) but the irrational fear that i might just suddenly swing a leg over and jump off. It doesn't have to be heights either - last time I had the fear was walking back from central london to waterloo a few weeks back over the pedestrian bridge, i got the fear that i might just jump into the thames. There have been times in my life where I have considered ending it, but this is different, an unconsidered moment when you might just do it for no good reason. Why's that then, o wise STW shrinks?

will put it into 'fight mode'

Or "there goes lunch mode"

Solo night riding. But you knew that...

I once tried to sell a sleeping bag to a lady who had a fear of nylon. She ran out of the shop very quickly after touching it.

I find agricultural machinery, ie anything from tractors to ploughs to combines etc, a bit eerie. Even now if I pootle down a country lane and there's a tractor going about its business I can't help but feel it could do an about-turn and come hurtling after me 😯

Totally irrational as I've grown up in the sticks, always played in the fields/woods/farmyards and live surrounded by farmland even now.

I don't mind heights per se, it's exposure I really get a bit freaked by, ie I don't mind the idea of standing atop the a cliff or a Munro, but when their is 360 exposure all round, like that video of the dude climbing the transmitter tower, ooft, I don't like that!.

Wouldn't cal it irrational or gripping though.

Teethgrinder. We must have died at sea as I hate big props.
My mate was showing me pictures of him diving a wreck and pics of the props.
Icy walking over my grave feeling.

I'm fine with heights, but not with swaying motion. I did the Via Ferrata at honister, no problem with the heights, but the Burma bridge..... I was first on, went about 12ft and didn't like it at all. Came back off, went back on, but one of the lads in front of me thought it was funny to bounce it 👿 I apologise to anyone in the Honister valley that day, all they probably heard was me swearing loudly about my colleagues impending death when I got off the damn thing 😆
Cable cars are a similar thing, fine for the most of until it runs over the towers and starts swaying...

globalti - Member

Only one occasion I can remember - I was sleeping in Ben Alder bothy one very dark night and I awoke with a strong feeling that someone was looking in the window at me. It took me a long time to rationalise that one away and get back to sleep.

Nothing to fear in a Scottish bothy

Work. Or should I say 'my workplace'.
Pretty scared of going to work & having say, a TV thrown at me,(or a bag of crap or a bucket/jug of urine,) any other assault, A needlestick injury containing god knows what virus, finding someone hanging/dead, having to tell a prisoner some really bad news, being bollocked by a manager for a 'misjudgement' when all I'm trying to do is my job. The list is endless!

Not really scared of anything that's already been mentioned!

Globalti, took me a few minutes. But this really will put your bothying at ease.

http://ukbothies.freeforums.org/essan-t451-30.html

Post by the bothy ghost a scroll or so down the page.

[quote=core said]what makes you genuinely scared?
I'm talking totally irrational, crippling fear?

Is totally rational fear allowed? The last time I remember being really scared was when solo paddling a fairly tippy kayak round Caldey Island in a F5 with unpredictable large waves coming at me from various directions. If I'd gone in I'd have had a couple of minutes to get back on before being swept into some nasty looking rocks, and I wasn't at all sure I could get back on at all in those conditions. I thought about turning around when I realised what I was getting into, but reckoned I was more likely to fall in trying that.

Oh and in case anybody's wondering I did make it, and the last bit when I got the sea behind me and could ride the waves was brilliant!

Big victorian engineering gives me the heebie jeebies, things like big dams, water works, the water wheel at styal, that massive plug hole thing at ladybower 😯

Black water that you can't see into scares the life out of me too

Flying scares me shitless too these days. I always get splitting headaches or feel like I can't breathe and get off balance on planes

Heights I am not too bad with, I get more scared with confined spaces

How my dad ever went potholing is beyond me

that massive plug hole thing at ladybower

Me too! And Malham Cove!

I work with a guy who is scared of bananas.......I shit you not

earwigs.
I blame my Grandad for this one as he claimed when I was a child that they climbed in your ears and ate your brains.

My mum told me this, and further that the only way to get them out was to shine a torch down each ear when you got up. I don't know if she realised that I did that till I was 16.

Given that I've suffered from panic disorder for 12 years, there are a lot of run-of-the-mill things that have shat me up over that period.

However, some longer-standing fears would include being in deep water (swimming, canoeing) and one that I've had for as long as I can remember is being terrified of falling into the water between a ship and its dock.

I'm also prone to bad fear when in a situation over which I have no influence or one where I'm completely reliant on something else. So, flying is bad because, short of committing an arrestable offence, I'm stuck on the plane until the time when it's scheduled to land. The prospect of fiery plummeting death doesn't bother me, it's being unable to get out that I don't like. If I decide I don't like it halfway through the flight, that's tough. Bus or train? Fine. If a freakdown is approaching, I can just hop off at the next stop.

A good example of this was taking the cable car to the top of the Aiguille Du Midi in 2001. Within seconds of getting out the cable car, I watched a tandem parapont go wrong when the canopy didn't open on takeoff, and the two guys started sliding down a convex slope which ultimately became a couple of thousand foot drop. I seemed to be the only person that noticed this whilst it was happening. They did manage to stop themselves, although beyond the point where they could walk back to safety, and they were eventually choppered off. However, the fear kicked in at the notion that I was really rather high up, walking off the hill wasn't a realistic option, and getting down depended entirely on the cable car. Poo was almost flowing freely from me by that point.

So glad to find that others share my fear of large boats, specifically the hull and the docks. Well not "glad" but it some kind of comfort that I'm not a totally mental...or maybe just not alone. 😀

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=plug+hole+ladybower&espv=210&es_sm=122&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=K-amUqLBDOnb7AabvoCwDA&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=898#imgdii=_

That plughole? You think they'd stick a bit of guarding around it?

what makes you genuinely scared?

I'm talking totally irrational, crippling fear?

I have the totally rational crippling fear of ending up in a care home

I also have a massively irrational fear of my glasses falling off - especially when looking over a cliff. I must look down a hundred times a day and then never come off but put me atop a cliff and I'll be clutching them to my face like grim death.

lemonysam - Member
I also have a massively irrational fear of my glasses falling off - especially when looking over a cliff. I must look down a hundred times a day and then never come off but put me atop a cliff and I'll be clutching them to my face like grim death.

I'm scared of any water I can't see the bottom of and being gagged (I can't breathe trough my nose).

That plughole? You think they'd stick a bit of guarding around it?

That's the one. There are boats on the res too - I guess it's no boating when it's in full flow but all there seems to be is a line of buoys!

I have recurring dreams about getting swept down it.

Freaks me out riding past on a night ride, mid winter when it's in full flow!

Another for heights

When I was younger I had to sit down to go down really steep, high steps. I ****ing hate looking down the middle of spiral / office type stairs.

The only time I have successfully climbed is in Vietnam in Halong Bay, I was as drunk as a skunk and climbed successfully to the top of one of the tall limestone stacks, god bless the lack of any type of health and safety in Vietnam.

I was walking my dog about 15 years ago at about 9 at night, the path I was walking on runs parallel to the road up to the car par at Cwmcarn, suddenly on the other side of the valley above Abercarn a fire started, it was a stolen car being torched I guess but it sparked a real primal fear. Pitch black then these flames just appearing on the mountain. I hurried home and locked the doors. Made me really uneasy.

Malham Cove

I was never bothered by Malham Cove until I started climbing and learned that there were routes on it. Simply thinking about what it must be like climbing it really shits me up.

In some ways it's a rational fear, because it's pretty damn difficult and exposed (huge overhanging cliff if you don't know) but it's really quite irrational since there's no chance I'll ever attempt it!

Big victorian engineering gives me the heebie jeebies, things like big dams, water works, the water wheel at styal, that massive plug hole thing at ladybower

I do my weekly lunchtime run in London with two mates who work on the other side of the river. I cross at Tower Bridge because I think it's cool.. I guess you'd take a different route 🙂

I have that one too, same with things I'm holding like cameras or phones.

I have a rule that any expensive piece of kit MUST be secured by strap or lanyard at all times. So if anyone borrows my camera they must use the security provided.

I see tourists all over London holding their expensive SLRs in their hands, which irritates me. My mate removed the lanyard on his first expensive SLR because he thought it made him look like a tourist. He then dropped it in a stream....

I used to be an Aircarft Engineer and had to do a fair amount of work in the fuel tanks, not the most popular place amongst the other guys didn't bother me at first. Had guys turn the lights off on me whilst I was in there, no worries I just went to sleep! One day I'm deep inside a 747 wing tank, scraping sealant off some bolts that hold the engine pylons on so the NDT guys could come and check them for cracks (before they break and the engine falls off!) - I must have been contorted in this tiny space for about an hour or so, getting cramped up every now and then, shifting positon to try and get comfortable. Time for tea break - I couldn't get out! Tried everything I could think of but I couldn't get myself through the access hole in the tank baffle - I was really losing it by this stage. Had to shut my eyes and try to chill out, eventually worked out how I'd got myself in there. I remember dropping out of the access hatch and seeing some of the guys I worked with, had this strange feeling because they'd had no idea what I'd been going through in there.
Someone else on another shift lost the plot while he was in one - they had to get a nurse from medical to stab him in the leg with a sedative to calm him down, still don't know how they managed to get him out!