What Do You Fear? *Insert Sinister Laugh*

[RJ 17]

Well we've entered the Final Countdown


before Arkham Knight comes out, and as you've probably learned Scarecrow is going to be the big-bad for the game...or at least one of the central figures. So in celebration of this game, I ask you: what is it that you fear? What creeps you right the fuck out? Sends you into a panic? Paralyzes you with dread?

To start us off, I've got two standards...one a bit more rational than the other.

First off, I've got a pretty serious case of arachnophobia. Spiders just aren't my thing, and I've got a kill-on-sight policy if I see one in my house (insert your SpiderBro memes if you must ). Funny thing is, I'm pretty sure it was watching Arachnophobia the movie when I was about 7 that game me arachnophobia in the first place.

The other one is ghosts. Can't really explain it, but when it's late at night and I'm walking through the darkness of my house, I'm convinced that I'll turn a corner and see some creepy specter just standing there staring at me, waiting to scare the crap out of me. That, and every time I have a nightmare, it almost always deals with being in a house or something that's completely infested with evil spirits.

So, my fellow Escapists...what is it that you fear?

 

[Zhukov]

a) Spiders.

If there's one sitting on the wall then I won't freak out, but I'll be really, really aware of its presence. If I get one on me, then I go really calm in that brittle no-I'm-not-about-to-panic-shut-up kind of way, flick it off, then freak the fuck out.

I still try to avoid killing them though. It's not their fault that they're the miniaturized, many-legged spawn of Satan's nightmares.

b) Deep water.

If can't see the bottom of a body of water, then I don't really want to be anywhere near it. I mean, I'll swim in it, but there'll always be that nasty little thought that there could be anything down there, lurking in those blue-green depths.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Heights. Moreso the feeling of standing right next to a huge vertical drop than being at a high elevation in general. Like vertigo, I suppose. Doesn't apply to stuff like rollercoasters. quick edit: or planes. At all.

Firearms. Not a crippling fear by any means, but I'm just not comfortable with them.

Many forms of social interaction. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't bode well for me accomplishing much of anything in my daily life.

 

[Dalek Caan]

Heights, the higher the worst. Just the thought of standing on the edge of a high place freaks me out. A sub-set of that is planes. Bad enough it's really high up, but I'm also putting my life in the hands of two complete strangers in what is essentially a giant bullet with wings filled with people.

After that I kinda have a distrust of the dark more than fear. It used to be bad when I was a kid, I would hide underneath my blanket all night until I fell asleep. Now I can sleep fine unless there is some noise I can't identify, then I freak out a little till I find out what it was.

 

[KyuubiNoKitsune-Hime]

My big fears?
-Selective Arachnophobia: I'm afraid of every kind of spider except tarantulas. I like tarantulas a lot. It's the poisonous ones that scare the crap out of me.
-Entomophobia: Flying bugs scare me because I've been the victim of too many hornet and wasp stings, and too many bites from terrifyingly large mosquitoes.
-Achraphobia/Vertigo: I can handle high places, so long as there is a rail.
-Photophobia: Bright days and bright lights piss me off, I'm not afraid of them strictly speaking, but they blind me. The flip side of that is I can see the maximum of colors visible to humans, and I have killer night vision.

 

[sageoftruth]

Probably change more than anything else. I tend to have a very negative disposition towards breaking away from the rut I've worked myself into.

 

[Silence]

I had a fear of snails and all kinds of frutti di mare.

It changed after I ate really good mussels in france.


Aside from that, fear? Maybe death, but I think nothing in a "phobia" kind of way.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Nuclear weapons. You might laugh, but have you ever looked up the effects of being caught in a nuclear blast? It is not fun. And the effects of radiation are nothing to laugh at. Plus all the political ramifications if even one is launched at a city...

I think I'm pretty damned justified in my fears, thank you very much.

 

[Rabbitboy]

The monster under my bed

Okay seriously now, I am scared of highs a bit. I can handle flying or when there is something preventing me from falling of but otherwise I try to stay away from the edge.

Also dogshit. Ever since I once stepped into one when I was 5 I am often worried I will step into one again. The fact that the way from the busstop to the where I am doing my internship is used by asshole(s) to let out their dog(s) who then don't clean that shit up doesn't help.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Interacting with other people, I guess.

If we're talking fears I'm likely to encounter on a daily basis then, yes, other people. Even worse if it's kids.

I can't read others very well, I can't make proper split decisions during a conversation, I'm too busy freaking out about myself while talking to someone, and I have very little to show for myself. Just too much shame. It permeates my entire being (Yes, I like saying that word).

 

[Tiger King]

Zhukov already mentioned it but deep water/the ocean.
Just the thought of some giant squid lurking in the depths, waiting to pull me down to a watery grave...scary.

 

[deleted+75193]

DELETED

 

[Johnny Impact]

Interacting with other people, I guess.

If we're talking fears I'm likely to encounter on a daily basis then, yes, other people. Even worse if it's kids.

I can't read others very well, I can't make proper split decisions during a conversation, I'm too busy freaking out about myself while talking to someone, and I have very little to show for myself. Just too much shame. It permeates my entire being (Yes, I like saying that word).

That about sums it up. For me it's women, not kids, but same idea. I'm acutely aware of all the differences between myself and others. This awareness magnifies the anxiety, which in turn magnifies the awareness. It's a wonderful cycle.

My Scarecrow vision would probably involve the woman of my dreams either making fun of me or being hurt with me unable to save her. Maybe my family being killed. This would seem to suggest I fear shame, humiliation, and impotence most of all. Not that uncommon, I suppose.

I don't have a problem with heights but I do fear unstable support. I get seriously nervy on a ten foot stepladder but can lean over the edge of a precipice just fine. As long as there's ground under my feet, I'm okay.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

b) Deep water.

If can't see the bottom of a body of water, then I don't really want to be anywhere near it. I mean, I'll swim in it, but there'll always be that nasty little thought that there could be anything down there, lurking in those blue-green depths.

I also feel unsettled by deep water, but it's not for the same reason. Sure, I worry sometimes about a scaly something wrapping around my leg. But what really bothers me when I'm in a deep body of water is just that I don't know how far down it is. It's possibly related to my other fear of heights, but it's creepy when I realize that I am hanging above a lightless gulf with only water between me and a drop to the crushing depths. It almost triggers a vertiginous response.

 

[Fappy]

Heights. Moreso the feeling of standing right next to a huge vertical drop than being at a high elevation in general. Like vertigo, I suppose. Doesn't apply to stuff like rollercoasters. quick edit: or planes. At all.

Firearms. Not a crippling fear by any means, but I'm just not comfortable with them.

Many forms of social interaction. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't bode well for me accomplishing much of anything in my daily life.

Same here. I have no issue with planes or rollarcoasters (with the exception of "drop" rides, though I brave those all the same), but standing near any kind tall drop gives me crazy vertigo. Do you also get that weird primal need to "jump"? I know a lot of other people who fear heights get that feeling. Jumping off of high stuff into water satisfies a weird desire in me, can't really explain it.

 

[Sleepy Sol]

Same here. I have no issue with planes or rollarcoasters (with the exception of "drop" rides, though I brave those all the same), but standing near any kind tall drop gives me crazy vertigo. Do you also get that weird primal need to "jump"? I know a lot of other people who fear heights get that feeling. Jumping off of high stuff into water satisfies a weird desire in me, can't really explain it.

I'm weird in that I can't do most "drop" rides at all, but I can do the Tower of Terror just fine and it's fun as hell. I don't get any feeling that I need to jump, just weird and extremely uncomfortable feelings in my stomach and in some other places around my body.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Heights freak me out but I've done a lot of combating that fear by strapping myself into rollercoasters and dealing with it. It isn't easy, especially if I'm inebriated in any way, but overcoming the fear is a lot of fun. Also have been skydiving which if it doesn't cure acrophobia, it may mitigate the fear after being able to say "well I've jumped out of a perfectly good airplane with a device designed to keep you from splattering on the ground that may or may not function properly" and any other height-related encounter may not compare to that. I like the adrenaline rush though.

Sharks are something that I'm not too keen about. I'm more afraid of barracudas though, since they're more unpredictable than sharks.

Also deep ocean is ok with me, but get me near a mirror-topped lake and I'll be just fine never in my life entering those waters. My overactive imagination places untold horrors just beneath that mirror surface... At least in deep ocean I'm fairly aware that I'm pretty well fucked if I'm out there anyway and some mega-creature decides to make me its meal, seeing it coming won't help at all. It might be because I grew up on the Atlantic as a kid, so generally ocean water doesn't bother me, just sharks and barracudas.

I've had to deal with those phobias too, and it wasn't a fun experience, especially encountering a hammerhead at 50ft under and 500 yards away from the dive boat, and its showing signs of stalking you. Or diving on a reef and having the boat improperly tied snap the mooring and drift into open ocean. Swimming even 100ft in open ocean is not a fun day, especially when you encounter a school of barracuda (a fish that is more teeth than fish and bites at random) and that school comprising about 1000 fish, between you and the boat. Yeah that wasn't fun.

 

[Hero of Lime]

Cancer is easily my biggest fear as of right now. It's scary to think that it can just appear out of nowhere and either kill you, or make life extremely tough by getting treatment. That's another thing, the treatment is usually almost as bad as the disease, making fighting the disease not worth it. To put it plainly, I would probably rather die instantaneously than get diagnosed with some form of cancer.

Another is dark, or deep water, the ocean in particular. It would take a lot for me to go on a boat out on the sea. I could probably deal with a cruise, but I still would not be completely comfortable.

Spiders too. Everything about them is so...ugh.

Going blind is something I don't think I could live with either. I'm still hoping there will one day be some kind of technology/medicine to make blind people see, just in case I were to go blind myself. I don't know if that is even possible, but I have my fingers crossed.

 

[Kolby Jack]

Heights. Cockroaches, I guess ( I mainly just get really queasy when I squish them visibly, but I certainly don't like them to touch me either). Death.

Heights I think might be a subconcious reaction to having fallen off the top of a see-saw my brother put me on when I was about 1 or 2 years old. According to my dad ( he was there but wasn't paying attention until it was too late) I was unconscious for a good few seconds. I dunno, hard to say, but I can't do roller coasters, rock walls, or high-diving boards at all.

Cockroaches... I still don't know what I'm afraid of with them. I've been in a hallway FULL of them with just some rubber gloves and a facemask and was on edge but pretty much okay with it (I still consider that the worst day I've ever had in the military, but the roaches weren't the big problem with it). Meanwhile a big one crawled on my naked foot once and I full-on flipped out for a good few minutes before I finally cornered and killed it. Eugh.

Death... I mean, it's not uncommon. I vividly remember the first time I ever really thought about it. I was maybe 14 years old, just lying in bed and then I starting imagining what slipping into nonexistance would feel like, which of course rattled me to the core and left me sobbing to myself or SOMEONE "I don't wanna die" over and over. To this day I still can't think about it too hard without feeling utterly cold inside, but at least I don't sob anymore. I hope one day when I'm old I'll accept and be over it, but who knows? I certainly see the appeal in believing in an afterlife of some kind.

 

[Michel Henzel]

Trampolines.

Unless that thing is the size of a olympic sized swimming pool with no means of falling off and has soft walls covering it on all sides and you get me some soft protective gear, then I ain't getting on that. Just standing one it terrifies me. When I was much younger I was one a large trampoline with some friends, one of my friends jumps made me bounce back and a landed on the edge on my back, then slammed head first into the ground. Had a nice concussion and my back hurt so much I could not move an inch without being in a lot of pain.

Fever dreams?

I type it with a question mark as I don't really know how else to describe it. I've had these weird moments of lying in bed and just not knowing whether I'm asleep or awake, with feeling of absolute fear and paranoia. Too afraid to close your eyes as you feel that if you do you will never wake up again, or the opposite, opening your eyes will be the death of you, like someone is standing over you, watching you, and if you noticed "it" you are dead. I even felt like my soul (for lack of a better word) was falling out of my body and downwards into a deep dark void that just kept going and going, and no matter how you struggled, you got not get back into your body. I woke up sweating with my heart racing that time.

It's bloody terrifying though thankfully I've not had it such moments that often.