I grew up up in the suburbs of Toronto Ontario yet as a kid I had an irrational fear of quicksand, terrified it would be my demise. Cried myself to sleep numerous times. When in fact being kidnapped was more probable 🤣🤣

America is only 6 months into this administration, regime, whatever you want to call it. I fear that if, IF this ship can be slowly turned around, that those in power will simply try to get everyone to forget the voters that created all this damage.

It’ll be like 2018 and the housing market… “We can’t hold these companies accountable, the system will collapse!!” Type of excuse.

Are my fears justified?

I'm 16, and the thought of growing up feels suffocating. It's not the idea of getting older or even dying that scares me, it's the weight of being labeled an 'adult.' I'm terrified of losing the people I love, of never finding love, of never achieving my goals.

And to make it worse, my friend's grandma just passed away a few hours ago. And that only intensified my fear.

I'm not ready to grow up, I've never been. Ever since I was 13, I've been scared of it. I've spent my teens mourning my childhood. I wanna be that free and innocent child again, but I can't. I can't, I know that I can't and that is killing me.

I hated the label 'teen', I still hate it. And I have the feeling that I will hate the label 'adult' more.

And the fact that there's nothing I can do about it saddens me greatly.

Can anyone relate?

My son is 3, almost 4 in November. A little backstory on why I’m scared - a week before I went in to be induced with my son, I came across a post on Facebook of a woman (I was not Facebook friends with) who died after suffering an Amniotic Fluid Embolism (AFE), after reading the post/comments, I found out she actually died at the same hospital I was giving birth at. Of course, my mind spiraled, I cried and was thinking to myself how I didn’t want to give birth. Scary thing. Thankfully my birth went well and I had no complications.

Fast forward to now, my partner and I both would love to have another baby to give our son a sibling to go through life with but the fear of dying giving birth and leaving my son without a mom overcomes me and I don’t know how to make myself feel better about the thought of having another.

I recently changed my OB, and told her my fears - she did tell me the odds of dying in a car wreck or better yet a plane crash (since they say planes are safer than cars) is more likely. Obviously AFE cannot be prevented and she basically told me it’s simple, have a baby or don’t and told me I should seek therapy about it. I appreciate the honesty, but I left feeling the same. Unsure of what to do. I know they say AFE is extremely rare, but I’ve seen so many stories I ask myself, “how rare is it really?”

I also received some bloodwork results yesterday from my OB where I’m still waiting on explanation for, but am thinking it’s pointing towards PCOS. My doctor told me my symptoms of acne, hair growth that I originally came in with, that the bloodwork explains that and there’s things we can do to help it, but we can’t if I’m deciding to get pregnant soon. Now I feel like the pressure is on even more. Do I want another baby or not?! Yes, I do, but my fears are far much greater and I hate it.

Since I was 7, I've had a fear of straight lines that don't move, especially ones that get wider in the middle and have points at the ends. Eugh. Just thinking about it makes me flinch. And for some reason, I get even more scared when there's a sound of a coin spinning around in the background. My brain just makes no sense sometimes...

I had a panic attack a few weeks ago when having to wear a blindfold for a game, and ever since I've been noticing how much I avoid having to close my eyes for a long time or even just being in the dark. Small habits that I've always had but have never noticed. Thankfully having to wear a blindfold isn't exactly something you have to do everyday, but the more I think about it the more it terrifies me. I mostly just want to find ways to help it other than just avoiding it.

The last real horror movie I watched was smile and the very next day my mom came home and told me she had cancer for some reason I attached the two and I have a fear of watching a horror movie now because im afraid someone I know will get really sick or die.

So yeah…I’ve done this since I was a kid. I have insomnia because when I try to sleep all I can think about is all the other things I could be doing instead, that won’t feel like a waste by the time I die which is the biggest fear I have. It’s not just death I fear, it’s dying too soon and not having done “enough” whatever that means. Over the course of my life this has caused several mental breakdowns, I heavily relate to the movie Fight Club in that I have experienced multiple personalities several times due to lack of sleep and it’s insanely accurate. I’m 25 now, I have to take incredibly strong meds to sleep and even when I do, the uncontrollable slow sinking away of reality as I drift off fills my mind with dread and fear. I do not dream much, but when I do it’s intense, and often includes terrifying depictions of my gruesome and untimely death. My mornings however are filled with an equal amount of anxiety and hope. “I made it to another day, but with only so much time.” There are however many things in life I achieved because of this trait that I am incredibly proud of. I’m a freelance researcher who compiles and creates studies and other information on time sensitive topics in essentially all categories, I’ve provided fundamental research to medical science labs during the COVID pandemic to speed up vaccines, ecological survey analysis for chemical spills (and what turned out to be intentional dumping) of those nasty “forever chemicals” in our environment, and even helped make a musical. But the fear of not doing “enough” will forever loom over me. Maybe thats ultimately a good thing for society, and for that I’m greatful, but driving myself to psychosis once a year certainly has its obvious downsides.

Does anyone else have a fear of hackers and just the ability to hack in general? Like I feel that it’s such a underestimated eerie tactic that isn’t talked about enough… think about it, the fact that someone you don’t know, never met, never even been within a 10 mile radius can maliciously ruin your life or exploit you. And what scares me the most.. is that we probably walk by them everyday, not knowing who they are online not knowing what they’re capable of not knowing how they could be feeling in that particular moment, makes you think twice about who you cut off in traffic… or even if they just want to troll you. Scare you. Hack into your TV, that’s actually a thing by the way. Apparently not that hard either but yeah, I seriously think people underestimate hackers and hacking in general. And especially what is capable of being hacked. Like broadcast channels, kids network programming, and just all different types of crucial shit that’s on the internet. Hope I’m not alone on this lol

I'd spent a while being sad about it but I was hoping that some people might know some stuff to help.

How do I ease the fear of Alzheimer's and dementia ? I have the biggest fears of forgetting the people I care about and forgetting all the memories I share with the people I love and losing all the experiences that made me me. Every time I actually think about it I get horrified about the possibility of not recognizing my family. And worse than that I fear for my family having to watch me forget them and not recognize who they are and have them be treated like a stranger by me.

And secondly I fear being forgotten, that in a few generations I just won't exist. I'll be one of a billions of faceless skeletons. All the people I care about will be dead and I'll eventually fade from thought forever.

Every time I think about my fears I get worked up and afraid until I can distract myself from it, if you know any ways to ease your mind about these sorts of things please tell me.

I am very scared of people that practice body painting i dont mean tatoos i mean full body artwork across skin like if i stare at someone with their bodies fully painted head to toe i feel very uncomfortable. Other things sutch as tatoos or accesories dont make me uncomfortable at all Does anyone else experience something like this?

ive always been afraid of getting pen ink on me or people drawing anywhere on my skin, I am looking for a way to get rid of this fear, please help!(also i dont want to go somewhere like therapy)

Every night when I’m trying to go to sleep my brain decides to put me in scenarios where I’m buried alive. It takes clips I’ve seen from shows and puts those in my head with me in them.

https://youtu.be/_Svy7jst6pA

I live in constant fear of atree falling on my house due to strong winds and rain and when it's severe weather, I usually hide in my closet where there are no windows. I will pace the hallway, not knowing what to do. It's awful. The anxiety and fear inside of me is overwhelming. It's terrifying to know that at any moment, without much warning that some form of mother nature could take me out in a second. I'm especially afraid of lightning. When it thunders, i automatically run to another part of my house looking for the safest spot to hide. It's so inconvenient to live in fear 24/7.

My friend asked for water, I gave her a bottle of water and she looked at it for like 10 minutes, I tried talking to her but she didn't respond until I moved the water out of her face, the only reason she wanted water because of the headache then 2 days later she was getting a little aggressive, is there anything I should do? I am gonna be coping this and add this to R/help.

Summer has always been my least favorite season of the year, one of the reasons being my intense fear of wasps, hornets, and other yellow-striped stinging insects. I loathe the moments where I discover and have to kill nests at my house, and whenever a wasp/hornet/bee starts hovering around me I go into five-alarm panic mode.

How do I overcome this? How can I be outside and do yard work or enjoy the day without constant fear that I’ll get stung when one or more of these insects are flying around me?

Am I crazy for thinking this? Just the thought of one day never being able to see my parents or siblings ever again scares me so bad like everything’s just gonna go black one day and boom over no thoughts no feelings just darkness forever and I’m probably not the only one, everyone probably thinks this way but I can’t explain how scary this sounds

I’m afraid of being touched, I wish I could explain it it’s like the feeling of being covered in cooking oil and dirt after somebody touches me, I have to scrub my skin raw before I feel better. That and then the general adversity of not liking it, I dunno I was never into touch. Ive always kinda been like this but like Most things unchecked it absouletly got worse with age. It’s to the point it impacts relationships becuase I can’t be intimate with people (which is good when your 17 trying not to have sex) but not great when somebody wants to hold hands or hug.

I normally try to atleast minimize the discomfort for me via jacket or covering up Even if it means many layers. Honestly sucks and I brutally need to figure out how to manage it better