(no subject)

[nny]

Today I am singing a song about smelly feet.


A question, if you're comfortable answering: What scares you? I ask because writing these drabbles has really made me think about what genuinely freaks me out, what gives me a quick shiver, what makes me laugh. I ended up terrified in bed last night because of thinking about drowning slowly, pressed against the upper surface of whatever you happened to be trapped in that was below water level. That's the thing that scares me most, and it'll probably appear sooner or later; it interests me that it involves water which feels so much like home to me, to the extent that I felt homesick for the sea while still in England, which is frankly entirely too small for such feelings. XD

I think it came from reading The Beach, a passage where he swims through an underwater passage but manages to leave the well-explored route, running out of air and knowing that he's passed the point where he can return the way he came...

*shudders*

So yeah, flist. What scares you?

(Promise not to write too many drabbles about your fears. *whistles innocently*)

Comments

[wrabbit]

Torture and, for some reason, certain sounds. The first time I listened to number stations on the Conet Project I went from 0 to absolutely irrationally frightened within seconds. Music played backwards and EVPs for no reason I can figure out. I think it has to do with the distorted voices? I'm always the person who covers their ears during surprise!torture scenes in movies before they close their eyes.

[la_rainette]

Becoming like my mum. Being a burden on other people.

Saying "I love you" to someone, and not even seeing that it makes them want to run away.

(I am having a really bad day, Nny. :( )

[la_rainette]

... oh... I did not realise this was potentially drabble-inducing...

What scares me the most is losing my family -- my little girls especially. That's the one thing that absolutely HAUNTS me.

Otherwise -- when I was four or five, my mum took me to see Sleeping Beauty, the Disney version, at a cinema in East Germany. Close to the end of the movie, Prince Charming walks into a room and the evil witch's demon jump him and tie him up.

I screamed so hard they had to carry me out of the cinema -- my grandma was mad at me, because there was only one cinema in her tiny East German town and we'd lined up for a long time to see the movie, and now we hadn't even seen the end!

About 5 years ago, the movie came out of the Disney Movie Vault again and we bought it on DVD. When we got to the scene that had scared me so much... I recognised it instantly. I hadn't forgotten ANYTHING. It was EXACTLY as I remembered from about 35 years ago).

My heart was pounding, and my hands felt all clammy, but I didn't close my eyes, and I didn't look away. And so I finally got to see the movie to the end, for the very first time. I was 40 years old.

[skygiants]

Small children who are mad; especially children that look like children, but are old and mad. That freaks me the hell out. There's a story by Stephen King about a small boy who opens his eyes on a light-year jump and comes out the other end having lived through a perceived thousands and thousands of years strapped into his seat, and it's still the only King story to ever scare me ona visceral level.

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

I read that story, it stayed with me for months, but I couldn't remember who'd written it, so thank you for that.

[skygiants]

I read it when I was fourteen or fifteen (in a classroom context, actually), and I had no idea who'd written it until a friend of mine who's a big King fan happened to quote it at me years later. "LONG JUMP, DAD! LONGER THAN YOU THINK!"

[manynames.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, I HATE that story. It scared the life out of me. I think it's called The Jaunt and it might be in Skeleton Crew. I still can't think of it without shuddering.

[skygiants]

IT IS THE CREEPIEST FREAKING THING.

[gramarye1971]

Drowning, absolutely. Having worked as a lifeguard made that fear worse, because now I know that look of sheer animal panic in someone's eyes when they realise that they are not going to survive without help.

I also do poorly in enclosed spaces with crowds if I do not have an immediate escape route -- as in, being stuck at the back of a very crowded train or elevator.

[ms-ntropy.livejournal.com]

"No win" situations. The kind where the bullies always have the upper-hand in keeping your back to the wall at all times. Where there's no escape what so ever.

That and worms.
Good glod, worms freak me right the hell out.

[entangled-now.livejournal.com]

Mirrors, stories and films with mirrors in them, or that use mirrors as a theme are guaranteed to creep me out more than others. Though I have no idea why

[icedmaple.livejournal.com]

Thomas the Tank Engine.

Seriously.

When I was about three, I saw an episode where Gordon derailed; I'd loved the show up until that point, but after that I started screaming when it came on and ran away crying. Twenty-five years later I still find myself clamping my hands over my ears and squeezing my eyes shut if I catch an unexpected glimpse of Thomas. I have actually been known to whimper and have minor panic attacks.

I'm also terrified of real trains and railway lines. I can travel on trains, but level crossings have a similar effect as seeing Thomas. I'm fairly convinced that this is actually because when I was little we lived in Sicily, and there was a railway crossing which had a ditch that our little Fiat used to get stuck in as we went across. The tracks were dead straight for several hundred yards, so you would be able to see trains coming in the distance. It was FUCKING TERRIFYING.

Also, my uncle's childhood friend - my babysitter when I was a really little tot - was killed by a train. That may have been intentional, though.

Other than that, heights. I actually freeze when I'm up high and have panic attacks. Even on balconies. The idea of walking across one of those glass floors at the Eiffel Tower or somewhere like that is pant-wettingly terrifying, to me.

I'm not at all afraid of dying, though, which is weird.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Seconded on the heights thing. (Though I'm usually OK if I know, "OK, it's high up, but it's nice and secure.") I think it's specifically the fear of falling without a safety-net.

The level-crossing thing does sound terrifying indeed, particularly as trains may be visible in the distance but don't stay distant for long.

[icedmaple.livejournal.com]

I was scared of a lot of things when I was a kid. We lived a few miles from the Fiat Factory (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=37.974244,13.760376&spn=0.015697,0.042272&t=h&z=15&lci=com.panoramio.all) in Termini Imerese, which was all smoking towers and red and white striped chimneys. I used to hide my face on my seat whenever we went past and because we used to have a tape in the car that we always played when we went out in the car, I will always associate Simply Red's 'Money's Too Tight to Mention' with that image.

I was the same with Etna. We went to visit some family friends there when I was about six and I had to hide from the volcano in the back of the car because I was so disturbed by it.

Stupid kid.

[inappropriately.livejournal.com]

I'd say "eyes", but that's too general. I can't stand close-ups of eyes, especially when unprepared for them. I can't stand the idea of eyes coming to any harm, which means I can't deal with dissections or even descriptions in books. Eyes that don't look "normal" make me shudder.

They're the one body part I'm squeamish about, I think.

[icedmaple.livejournal.com]

My friend calls it "eye-violence" and she feels exactly the same way. I once saw a film or show in which a guy's eyes were injured by thugs (I won't go into detail!) and it was really unsettling, definitely.

[inappropriately.livejournal.com]

That's a good term! And- ergh, yeah. I even just winced at reading this comment. NICE.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Ugh, there are two scenes in movies where I have to look away because of incipient violence to eyes:

Un Chien Andalou (even though I know the eye wasn't even human, they got it from the butcher's)

and Minority Report (the eye-surgery scene).

[batyatoon]

OH GOD THAT SCENE IN MINORITY REPORT. I can never watch that either.

[theninth.livejournal.com]

Clowns.

Absolutely, utterly, unconditionally afraid of clowns. ALL of them. Not just the intentionally scary ones, like in "It". All of them. Even when it's just some sweet girl who puts on a clown costume to sell balloons at the mall. Even if it's someone I know.

I will go out of my way to avoid someone dressed as a clown. I will refuse to enter a room if there's someone dressed as a clown.

Clowns are literally the only thing I'm afraid of. There are other things I don't really like, or might not want to look at, but nothing else terrifies me to the point of actually shaking.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Being unable to control my body -- so panic attacks are especially terrifying even beyond the initial terror.

I am also a claustrophobic.

Failure, academic or otherwise.

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

*promptly* Robbers in one's house during the middle of the night. Spiders, especially poisonous ones. Suffocation. Sharp implements stabbing into/through feet. Being stalked in the night by a creepy guy when there's no one around and nowhere safe to run to. Things jumping out from behind corners. I think that's about it for things that make me scream and cry, but I've also been pretty terrified by a dream about being crushed by falling blocks, and one about a wolf tearing out my throat. Also I don't really like zombies very much - aside from the bit where they're gross, the whole contagion, creeping zombie apocalypse thing freaks me out.

There are probably other things, but those are the first to mind.

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, seconding academic failure and claustrophobia. Linked to that, being slowly crushed. Also, I have a love/hate relationship with heights but the idea of falling to my death is rather horrifying. Car going over a cliff, relatedly. Even just losing control of a car is pretty fucking terrifying, especially if it crashes badly.

OH! And creepy talking dolls, FUCK. Especially homicidal ones. Especially sneaky homicidal ones. Ever since this one episode of the X-files when I was a small child I have been traumatised for life.

Basically I am a gigantic wimp.

[villainny.livejournal.com]

The one written by Stephen King? Where it was like I WANT TO PLAY?

XD

[tammaiya.livejournal.com]

That is probably the one. It's abeen about 15 years, but I vividly recall the doll would give people promintions of horrible deaths which would then occur. At the end of the episode they sank it in the ocean because you couldn't kill the thing, but then someone else fished it up. :(

Speaking of Stephen King, Pet Semetary has also instilled a respectable fear of Came Back Wrong in me, too. (Seriously, I can keep coming up with these. I am like the biggest wimp ever. XD And yet I live. In Australia, country of spiders! There are something like 4 deadly spiders and 8 more dangerous ones in my region. I looked this up last night after trapping a new variety of spider in my bathroom and being a-feared of its potential poisonousness. It wasn't, but it still looked nasty. D: And I am ever suspicious, ever since we had an enormous super-deadly die-in-minutes red-back in our pool when I was a child. Another horrible incident involving spiders when I was a kid was when dad swatted a pregnant spider and hundreds of tiny little horrors burst out and ran across the floor. Ugh. Stuff of nightmares.

... Why do I live in this country, again?)

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

I ended up terrified in bed last night because of thinking about drowning slowly, pressed against the upper surface of whatever you happened to be trapped in that was below water level.

Well, that's one of the things, yup. Body horror stuff really freaks me out, which is why I keep writing it - bodily invasion, etc. Pregnancy. Viruses. Unavertable catastrophe. Boyfriend dying.

[strangecreature.livejournal.com]

Caves too narrow to stand upright in, especially if there's water in 'em. Snakes. Falling into the Grand Canyon. XD (Nope, not heights, *just* the Grand Canyon. My brain is ridiculous.)

[klatubarada.livejournal.com]

A Stephen King story called 'I am the Doorway' still lives with me everyday.
No spoils -its a short story about an ex-astronauts account of slowly going out of control once back on Earth.
It totally freaked the hell out of me and if i get a prickling sensation (like the character does) I really get very,very panicky and twitchy.I get nauseous thinking about it.

Knocked myself unconscious on the bottom of a swimming pool aged 13 (and for extra goodies had the whole 'outta body experience' cliche! ) No one saw it happen and I was lucky i came to with just with a belly of water.
Its left me not scared of drowning weirdly enough,its left me with being totally terrified of choking on drinks /being force fed a drink and being ignored when desperately needing help.
Jeez that freaks me out so badly :(

[renshai.livejournal.com]

I didn't even realize that I had a fear of being trapped underwater until I took a kayaking class a couple weeks ago - even though I'm a prairie girl, I've been swimming like a fish since I was little, and lifeguarding and instructing since I was old enough to take the courses. And then I climbed into this kayak, which was decently tight-fitting, and the instructor was like "alright, and now you're going to flip the kayak upside down, and release your spray-skirt, and slip out", and I genuinely almost had a panic attack at the thought of being upside down in the kayak and unable to get out. I did it eventually, but I have a feeling that's going to feature in in my nightmares from now on, along with being trapped under ice.

Also, being unable to control my body (or being unable to move) - at one point in my teens, some mystery illness (briefly) made me gradually lose feeling in my body and control of my voluntary nervous system. It was the most terrifying thing that has ever happened to me; it's also why I never drink to excess, and occasionally wiggle my toes just to ensure they're still working. It's probably a good thing I was unaware of "Anesthesia Awareness" when I had my gallbladder out.

[silveraspen]

Dying alone, knowing that I'm dying. More so in pain, but it's the death alone that causes me the greatest fear.

(Perhaps especially in the choking dark.

The movie The English Patient -- there was one scene that had me in a sobbing fit because I could not BREATHE for sympathetic terror.)

[fer-de-lance.livejournal.com]

Hmm...

Mostly, I am afraid of failure. On a more instinctual level...?

Well, of the recurring nightmares that I have, I note they tend to fall into certain categories. One set involves "people conspiring to deny my perception of reality" -- being sent to some juvie/mental institution where the staff deliberately, repeatedly deny something I can see plainly. Which I guess really works out to "mental torture" and/or "powerlessness".

Being in some kind of dire threat (rape, about to be executed, etc) and asking for help but being ignored. (Why, yes, the "bystander effect" traumatised me, back in my Intro to Psych class.)

I have a serious squick when it comes to "eye violence" (which I note a couple other commenters noticed) -- a Japanese mobster-movie is forever branded on my brain after one character made, uh, creative use of a chopstick. I have the same aversion to any kind of spinal thing -- I sleep with my back to a wall so that no one can get to my back while I'm unconscious.

Pregnancy is one huge pile of OH NO for me, too. I can't even touch a pregnant woman's belly -- the feel of the skin is horrifying. (Come to that, I have had at least two forced-pregnancy dreams, too. In one of them I handled it a lot better, honestly, than I think I would in real life!) The entire process disturbs and disgusts me. No doubt a fear affected by my childfree state combined with my reluctance toward abortion -- should I be raped, I'd be pretty much coerced by my own values into carrying the thing, though you can BET I'd be demanding a C-section at the very moment the fetus was viable enough.) Then again, since I was somewhat queasy about pregnancy before I ever realised such a thing as childfreedom existed, maybe I have that the other way round?

Fetuses in jars don't bother me at all, as I learnt when my Embryology course had an optional "human specimens" lab day.

...You know, I have a really odd collection of fears. :D

[kassie-opia.livejournal.com]

Body horror stuff, mostly. But I also find it unspeakably fascinating, so!

Claustrophobia is a big one too - also, being stuck in the water and being unable to swim away from jellyfish or what have you. Anything involving being unable to move.

(basically, The Enigma Of Amigara Fault (http://brasscockroach.com/h4ll0w33n2007/manga/Amigara-Full/Amigara-1.html) covers all the bases for me.)

[genarti]

Falling; relatedly, heights. It's not all heights, because I (mostly) trust my own balance, so high rocks and solid-seeming structures are fine, and I will cheerfully clamber about like a mountain goat. Especially if I'm barefoot. But fire escapes, stairways where you can see through the stairs or through the backs of the stairs (oh my god those), high balconies (especially with railings that are low or wrought-iron or otherwise not solid stone), anything like that gets my heart beating fast and makes me move slowly and carefully and try not to white-knuckle on handholds.

Sharks. Being in deep water. Feeling anything brush against me underwater, if I can't see it and know exactly what it is. This is a mixed bag because I actually also adore sharks, and find them fascinating creatures, and could tell you all sorts of things about them, and I don't actually find them scary at all in pictures or film, and even in an aquarium it's only a mild frisson -- and yet some childhood movies really hit the irrational terror spot for me. (Of all things, it's that bit in The Little Mermaid where the sharks are chasing her.) In swimming pools, in freshwater lakes, in all these places where rationally I know there will be nothing remotely dangerous, I get that phobic dread of large dangerous things lurking just out of sight.

Grasshoppers. Crickets. I used to be terrified of bugs in general, and honestly I still am down deep in a way I've mostly quashed; do not ask me to eat lobster, because the idea of all those jointed legs and antennae and spinnerets really does not make me hungry, and I do not want to cut through the carapace to get to whatever deliciousness might be inside. Mostly, though, I'm totally fine with bugs on a daily basis! Grasshoppers and crickets are the exception, even if I hide it generally; they move in erratic jumps, and I can't keep track of where they are to remind myself that the bug is right there and it's fine. I always get visions of them leaping into my hair and getting tangled and coming apart in my hair and ugh ugh ugh.

[kenovay.livejournal.com]

Prosaic, but I seriously fear my parents dying. I don't like to think about it for very long. (I know nobody does!)