What helped you get over a childhood fear?

[Biancadelrioisback]

I used to be really, really scared of horror movies. To the point where I'd sleep with all the lights on and often cry. My parents loved them and kept trying to ease me in with the old, obviously fake ones or funny type ones.
I was really, really put off until I was about 13 or so and watched my dad's DVD of 13 Ghosts. I decided to watch all the "making of..." bits and once I saw how horror movies were made, they weren't scary to me anymore.
Now I love them and watch them all the time and actually enjoy them.
What used to scare you as a child and what helped you stop being scared?

Teaching cured my fear of spiders. Having to be the calm, sensible grown up in the room. Just getting on with catching and removing them meant I discovered they weren't scary after all.

I was hugely afraid of spiders until I had my own dc and was forced to grit my teeth and act like I wasn't (as I was afraid I would pass my phobia on otherwise).

Basically, I was forced into graded exposure when gently moving spiders out if our way and I suspect that the positive way I talked to the dc about the spiders probably helped on some level too.

Small spiders don't worry me at all now. I don't love big spiders, but I can deal with them.

I was terrified of making phone calls as a teenager (and this was before you could do most things online) because I was afraid of not being able to think on my feet, getting it wrong, and the person at the other end laughing at me, even if that would happen after they had put the phone down. I eventually got over it as a young adult out of necessity, and planning in writing what I was going to say.