Don’t you just hate it that just as you’re about to go to the toilet a queue forms. And it's the same when you're in the toilet. Just as you sit down, and start to doze off someone knocks really loudly or shouts at you from the outside. Whoever invented the toilet seat was a right legend, but I'll not go into that for now. Anyway, so there I was just getting out of my room heading towards the toilet when my brother ran in, turned on the light, SCREAMED so loud and high pitched-ly and ran out faster than he ran in (except this time he was half naked). Normally he likes to annoy me and goes to the toilet when he sees I’m about to answer nature’s call. But today it was different. It’s very rare for him to spend less than 5 minutes in there when he knows I want to go in.
“What happened to you?” I asked quite amused by the whole thing.
“There’s a HUGE spider in there,” he replied in between his constant screaming.
I rolled my eyes and laughed. Out of the four of us, I’m the only one who’s not afraid of spiders or any other insect for that matter. If a fly, moth, spider, or anything which doesn’t resemble a human or anything that is not big and furry enough to be a domestic pet enters the house, the other 3 tear the whole house down with their screams.
Personally I quite like spiders. A teeny weeny one helped me get an A* in my biology GCSE exam. It’s another story which I think I’ll leave for now. (If you remember, feel free to remind me and I’ll tell you that too!).
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Everyone has their own fears and phobias. There’s more phobias then you could possibly imagine. Just think of it this way, there’s a phobia for pretty much anything and everything. For example there’s bogyphobia (no that’s not a fear of bogey’s but it’s close) which when coupled with achluophobia may lead to fromclinophobia. There are some phobias which can seriously affect a person’s day to day life. For example some people suffer from withchronophobia or hypnophobia or logophobia or hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia. The list is endless. (No I’m not going to explain what each one means. justgoogleit.com).
I remember just before we started 6th form, we were all taken out on an activity day to help us get to know our form members better and partake in various team activities. For each activity points were awarded for how well we completed it and how much time we used. There was one challenge that involved climbing up a ladder to a small platform approximately 10 metres up a tree from which we had to jump and touch a ball that was suspended some distance away in the middle. No-one was volunteering to do it. So I mustered up some courage and decided I’d give it a go. What’s the worst that could happen? Let me tell you something here, I’m shit scared of heights. But I still love to stand on high places and look down just so I can have that weird feeling in my stomach. Just as I reached the top and stood on the platform did I realise just how high off the ground I was. It was then that my fear kicked in and I questioned why the hell my balls had grown suddenly for me to volunteer. The fastening heart-beat, the sweating, you know the classical symptoms all followed.
Whenever fear tries to over take me or helplessness tries to stop me from doing anything I have a certain ‘ritual’ to focus and overcome those feelings. I close my eyes and give fear 5 seconds to do what it wants. That’s all. Then I recite durood-shareef and think of someone close like a family member or a dear friend and dedicate what I am about to do to them. It melts away the darkest of my fears. After that nothing can stop me…
How do you deal with your fears and what do you do when you are in a situation where quick action is needed but your body just freezes?
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