Monday, September 08, 2003
my fears
while watching "fear factor" last night with my cousins, one of them, gezzel, asked me what is it i fear most. i came up with a list, and the history behind them as well. i know this isn't my usual "rant and rave" kind of entry, but i'm home, life's good (kinda), and there isn't anything to rant and rave about.anyway...enjoy your peek into the darkest corners of my mind...
fear of knives
there isn't a proper phobia term for this. there isn't even a term that comes close. that made me wonder, am i the only one who's got a phobia of knives?
i'm not really sure as to what triggered my fear of knives. according to my "kai kor", i showed this fear from a very young age. i would whimper and look scared whenever anyone draws a knife, even if it's just to cut up a watermelon. nowadays, i always tell li li to point that knife elsewhere whenever she's cutting up fruit. i would panic when cutting fruit myself.
several theories as to why i react this way to anything with a blade and handle include me being cut badly when i was still young (no scars as evidence though), saw someone get cut badly, or, this is morbid, witnessed a murder where someone was slit in the throat or something.
yikes.
fear of papercuts
once more, there isn't a proper medical term for this condition, making me feel that maybe it's something unique to me. the likeliest reason i'm so afraid of papercuts is prob cuz i got alot of papercuts. i scares me to see a deep, thin, cut with blood oozing out of it, but not actually seeing the wound itself. maybe it's the fear of things that i can only see partially. i'm a very visual person (like 99.9% of the world's population), so naturally i am scared of things i can't see totally.
some really morbid thoughts i have related to papercuts is slitting my throat or wrists with papercuts and bleeding to death.
it's making me squirm just to write about it.
fear of heights
acrophobia, altophobia, batophobia, hypsiphobia or hyposophobia. this phobia is so common it even has 5 names! for different situations, no doubt, but it shows exactly how un-unique this fear is.
my fear of heights is somewhat choosy when it comes to "expressing itself" (what a way to put it...my gp tutor would definitely slap a red "WC" for word choice on that phrase). there are times when walking across a pedestrian bridge is no problem for me, and at other times, that simple act can reduce me to a green-faced, nauseous mess.
but i guess it boils down to not looking down.
as to how i got this fear...i have no idea. i can't pinpoint exactly when i started becoming dizzy every time i look down from a height of 2 stories and above, but i do remember a time when height did not bother me at all. it's odd, i know, but i guess things just happen.
fear of being alone
autophobia, eremophobia, eremiphobia or isolophobia.
i remember as a child being absolutely terrified if i found myself alone in the house. i would then call out to my grandmother loudly, shouting "ah ma! ah ma!" until she gives me a reassuring "oi!" in return. nowadays, although i enjoy my solitude, i still feel a bit more comfy in the company of others, even if it means being in a crowd of strangers.
i also have this chronic fear of all my family members dying before my eyes, and me being left all alone. or my friends, slowly drifting further away from me and eventually leaving me as a lone figure with myself as company. i have a fear of living alone, dying alone, with the priest as the only person at my funeral. morbid thoughts, but very real fears.
maybe that's why i crave for the friendship of people and become bitterly disappointed when my feelings for people are not recipocrated. i'm just a social creature of the highest degree.
having all these fears just reinstates the fact that i am but human and somehow they keep me grounded. i have other fears that are not quite so physical, and those fears are far too intense to be shared.
quite alot goes on in the darker corners of lishun's mind, and most of it is not meant to be shared.
(comments welcome on the tagboard. it's two entries before this. tag away!)
lishun at 9:49 PM