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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

What is your most irrational fear?

183 replies

Frosty66612 · 12/05/2018 09:23

And could you deal with it if you absolutely had to? Mine is spiders and I have had full blown panic attacks over them before. There was a huge wolf spider in my living room earlier and I had to deal with it as my young niece was terrified and crying. Psyching myself up to put a bowl over it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Haha reading that back sounds barmy but it’s amazing how much a true phobia can affect you. My OH’s is heights and he said if it was a life or death situation and he had to jump out of a plane or do a bungee jump he’d rather just die

OP posts:
AlmostAJillSandwich · 14/05/2018 03:36

Incontinence.
i have severe OCD and have done since i was 5, about toilets, and the germs in bodily waste.
It's also the humiliation factor too.
Sadly, i have an over sensitive bladder nerve and get severe sudden urges to go, and i can only use my own bathroom at home due to the OCD.
I have avoided an accident so far but only just, theres been a few touch and go moments.
It has rendered me currently completely housebound since January with no end in sight.
Mental health services are so stretched they're useless, been trying to get help for over 13 years, currently between services, just discharged from primary, and had referral accepted to community mental health team.
So scary, knowing how prevalent even mild incontinence is. I don't smoke, dont drink alcohol, seriously need to get my weight under control, and am resigned to never being a mum since the stresses of pregnancy and childbirth would be a major risk factor. Even so, just being female is against me as i age since the vagina offers less support than the male anatomy.

Knowing its a 50-50 chance, a coin toss, of your biggest fear happening, and that it wouldn't just be a one off but could be short term, or even permanent, over and over every day, it's terrifying. If it ever actually happens i honestly think i'd become suicidal. Recurrent UTI's and nightmares every night i need a wee and am looking for a loo or start using one and wake with a start, i cant even escape when im sleeping. Anyone can wee in their sleep any time, its terrifying.

WalkingOnAFlashlightBeam · 14/05/2018 07:52

Anyone can wee in their sleep any time, its terrifying.

That sounds absolutely horrible and so immobilising :( I hope you get the help you need.

I'm just wondering, what for you would be so bad about weeing in your sleep? Is it just the fact of the weeing and how it'd make you feel, or is it something more than that?

WilyMinx · 14/05/2018 08:39

Certain types of trees (cedar, some pine). They just look freaky looking to me with their dark bark and creepy needle-like leaves.

Also, house spiders but I think that's rational.

lanbury · 14/05/2018 08:44

Irrationally, I have a fear of wrongful arrest, being locked up and charged and nobody believing me. (I'm a law abiding citizen so it is a weird one! Confused) probably more of a rational fear is snakes. They freak me out! Actually reptiles and amphibians generally are pretty creepy (apart from tortoises- they're quite cute)

bunce · 14/05/2018 09:40

Wasps. Summer is stressful. Irrational i know.

WalkingOnAFlashlightBeam · 14/05/2018 10:46

Also, house spiders but I think that's rational

Why is that rational?

I'm a fellow spider phobic but I can see it's totally irrational given that they can't harm you!

squashyhat · 14/05/2018 10:53

In hotels, particularly with many floors, I lie in bed thinking of all the rooms above and below me and how they might collapse like a pack of cards and squash eveyone Grin

squashyhat · 14/05/2018 10:54

And wind farms. Creepy fuckers

MyMarmitePurrs · 14/05/2018 11:02

Wasps - I once dislocated my knee trying to escape from one - and I missed my daughters school play as there was one in the kitchen so I couldn't get to the door to get out of the house !!! I swear they have a personal vendetta against me !!!

moreofaslummythanyummy · 14/05/2018 13:56

Snakes and feet !

SaucyJack · 14/05/2018 14:09

All the usual ones on here- spiders, heights, being followed, break-ins. Coming home from holiday to find the flat has burnt down.

Also a particular fear that when I'm getting out of the car on the road side, that a car coming the opposite way (during the 2.7 second window of opportunity) will crash into the car door and slam it onto my legs, cutting my feet off.

Topseyt · 14/05/2018 14:13

Spiders for me. They are just so horrid.

Birds too. Not outside, I love them there, but if they get into the house and start dive bombing around as they panic. Scares me shitless. We have occasionally had one fall down the chimney and I really have to steel myself to just open the patio doors to let it fly out. Once my DDs had to do that for me because the arsehole bird freaked me out when it wouldn't stop flapping around my head. They were really laughing.BlushGrin

Goldmonday · 14/05/2018 14:14

Unannounced guests!!!!!!!!!

RedPanda2 · 14/05/2018 20:14

Road sweepers. They freak me out so badly

QuackPorridgeBacon · 14/05/2018 21:38

Barbaro I have the same fear with vomiting. Any time I feel it coming on I start panicking because the not being able to breathe and the violent sounds terrifies me. It doesn’t help that I catch bugs a lot and when pregnant with my first I was sick about 6/7 times a day maybe more or less, it varied, until I was 24 weeks or thereabouts then just felt queasy instead. I also suffered migraines as a child and threw up every time. So scared of vomiting and when others are. I’m also terrified of balloons. They cannot hurt me but I can’t have them around me, I get panicky and breathe fast until it’s away. One popped on a crowded bus once and I was so scared that I screamed and punched myself in the face... people laughed. I looked a right dick lol

NotAnotherNoughtiesTune · 14/05/2018 21:59

Too many things! I can tell you what I'm not afraid of 😊

Snakes (unless venomous)
Spiders (unless venomous)
Confined Spaces
Flying
Yup that's about it :D

OyO · 14/05/2018 22:04

Mine is wet plates and cutlery. I can’t touch them with my bare hands so will wear gloves when handling them at home. Even a little bit of water will unnerve me.

If I touch it, I then have to moisturise a few times and can still feel it throughout the day.

ChestOfFields · 14/05/2018 22:05

I just searched YouTube for
'People being awake when the anaesthetic hasn't worked'

So I now know it's called anaesthesia awareness, and its a thing!

I have only had GA 5 times in my life I think, and always threw up as I came round, so that's why I've had a CS, a hysterectomy and a couple of other operations by epidural/ spinal. But the real reason I didn't want to be knocked out is I am totally petrified of waking up during the op and feeling everything, and also being unable to move. Am getting palpitations just thinking about it!

LanaKanesTerfyVagina · 14/05/2018 22:26

Haven't RTFT...but feel this is the perfect place to tell my tale of shame from yesterday....

In London....HAD to cross that horrible footbridge (Millenium Bridge?) over the river.

I have a pathetic fear of heights, I mean just stupid.

I nearly had a full blown panic attack on the escalator in the NHM.

It's especially bad on bridges with open type railings, in my old town there was a footbridge across a dual carriageway, and it made me feel sick and v dizzy everytime I had to use it.

Anyway...in order to get across the bridge yesterday, I had to take my glasses off, put my scarf over my head, and do a sort of half jog thing across. Firmly in the middle, not looking at anything, hard breathing, with one eye poking out of my scarf.
Barging through everyone taking a photo like an escaped bull.

Must have looked like a complete and utter loon.

So to anyone who saw a complete weirdo scuttling across a bridge in central London yesterday, looking like a complete freak...that was me. Blush

Also sorry if I ruined your selfies!

I know it's irrational, I literally can't help it.

LanaKanesTerfyVagina · 14/05/2018 22:28

Oh and it was so bad...when I got to the middle of the bridge, I really, seriously thought I was just going to have to throw myself to the floor.

My irrational fear is so bad, I'd rather crawl along on my stomach in central London than ya know, just walk along a bridge millions of people use every week. Confused

Original poster
Frosty66612 · 14/05/2018 22:32

@Lana haha I shouldn’t laugh but the image of you running like that with the scarf wrapped round your head made me LOL

OP posts:
BananasAreTheSourceOfEvil · 14/05/2018 22:33

Tin foil.

Took me years to be able to touch the stuff. Every time I see it I imagine biting a kit-kat with the wrapper on and that feeling on my teeth...

Synecdoche · 14/05/2018 22:39

I have a horror of being accused/put on trial and found guilty/imprisoned of a crime I never committed.

I also have a fear of being diagnosed and treated as mentally ill and no one believing me.

Or that, indeed, my whole life/all of my experiences are symptoms of psychosis and it will turn out that everything I think has happened to me or everyone I know aren't real.

Gives me the shudders....

ChestOfFields · 14/05/2018 22:49

I also overcame my fear of spiders years ago by holding a tarantula, so am now ok with big spiders and I can capture a spider then put it in the spare room, without wanting to vomit!

I never got the hang of treading water until about 15 years ago when a friend of my ds ducked me under in the deep end and I had what I now know was a panic attack.!

UpstartCrow · 14/05/2018 22:56

Its interesting how many people have said wind turbines and fir trees, mine is pylons. Especially in groups. I think its something about the shape. They look sinister and like they're up to no good.