Rational fears

Deep water

This tops my list of fears. Nothing freaks me out more. I’m fine when I’m looking at the water and I want to swim in it but when I’m in there, no deal. I don’t like the fact that anything could be swimming around me and licking their lips at the thought of having me for their next meal. I went swimming with dolphins last year and absolutely shat myself. If I was a shark, I would definitely pretend I was a dolphin so I could feast on all the delicious humans I wanted. I also had my first panic attack when I was in Greece recently, where there are apparently no sharks. The water was amazingly clear and beautiful from above but I couldn’t see that when I was in there. I was about 3 metres from the cliffs (hence the water was about 3 metres deep) when I started freaking out. I started hyperventilating and almost crying because I wanted to go back. I reached a whole new level of pathetic damsel in distress. Needless to say, I got laughed at by the locals who clearly hadn’t seen Jaws. I’m also terrified of murky water, like the water in the Murray River. Have you seen some of those crazy arse fish on National Geographic that they find in water like that? I’ve seen way too many scary movies and I feel at any moment my life could turn into one. Same goes for pools at night. Never will I ever swim in one of those by myself. I must admit though, if you pee your pants from being scared in the water, no one will ever know.

Butterflies

As Bart Simpson says, “no one suspects the butterfly”. I do. They are so icky! The butterfly house at the zoo makes me want to cry. They have the creepiest butterflies with the chunkiest bodies with their little that there are way too many of. Half the time the butterflies are on top of each other mating but the other half of the time, they’re all over people! They’re meant to be scared of people but they’re not, their arrogance really irks me. I’m not a fan of things with wings, they kind of give me the heeby jeebies. That goes for moths as well. I can’t even be in the same room as a moth or a butterfly, a little feeble I realise. I like butterflies from a distance, the colours are pretty but close up they’re scary as hell! People try to tell me they can’t hurt me but what if one flies into my mouth and I choke on it because it’s so big? Yeah, argument won me thinks.

Birds

I was never really afraid of birds until Spring of last year. It was a lovely day and I was innocently on my way to catch the train. I was walking up the ramp to the platform when I heard a loud squawk before getting smacked in the side of my head by something. Dazed and confused, I looked around only to be hit again in a fury of feathers and claws. I made a run for cover, getting shrieked at angrily all the while. I’d heard of this happening to people during nesting season but it had never happened to me. The same thing happened a week later after I’d built up the courage to take the train again but this time people saw and laughed. I hope they get shat on by a million pigeons. After those two incidents, I couldn’t walk outside by myself for about two months. To this day, I still duck if a bird flies past me or if I hear them squawking.

Things I’m not afraid of that most people are:

• Snakes: I absolutely love snakes. I’ve always wanted one; I love the way they feel, move, look, everything.
• Heights: Already have bungy jumping and sky diving on my list of things to do.
• Small spaces: They don’t really bother me unless I’m surrounded by a lot of people, then I get flustered.
• Spiders: No biggy, they can only crawl and they probably won’t bite me. Only bad experience I’ve had with them was when one crawled out of the handbag I’d been using all day and into my car where I couldn’t find him. That was a tad scary.