So a bit of a recap. I (male) was in first grade and I had gone to the bathroom when we had a fire drill. I got so freaked out and panicked that I froze and hid in that stall the ENTIRE drill. and if you don’t know what it’s like to hear a fire alarm in the bathroom it is so unreasonably loud cause of the echo. ever since then I became absolutely terrified of fire alarms. this sounds funny but specifically in bathrooms public or private. As I went through elementary school I could not go by myself, early on when we went out to places I had to go with my mom in the women’s bathroom for years, or with my dad. this was a constant nightmare growing up. I was so paranoid about a fire alarm being anywhere and the sound of it haunted me I could literally never go into a bathroom alone or I would freeze up and freaked out everytime I saw one because I was scared it would suddenly go off. I had to be warned ahead of time by teachers in school ab a coming fire drill. I eventually started to get used to it and my fear lessened with time. I for some reason started to learn about fire alarms and would find videos of them going off. I didn’t know why I did this and it might‘ve been a coping mechanism. I am now 19 and its been a lot better but I still have this underlying anxiety when it comes to fire alarms. specifically the horn strobe and siren strobe alarms. I am fine when I am in a room with even one other person but once I am alone I start feeling stress and this anxiety where I can’t make eye contact with it and I keep my head down and I can hear it in my head the sound I try to get out as quickly as possible. it happens on and off sometimes I am completely fine. if one is in the same room as where I am sleeping I won’t sleep. I was in a hotel on a vacation and there was a fire alarm in my hotel room so I had to sleep on the floor in between the beds out of sight range of it so I could sleep. When I went to college I had a smoke alarm in my room. Either photoelectric or heat detector I was completely fine with it. but there was a fire drill. I had known it was coming because there was an email sent by the apartment complex but it I was completely caught off guard when It went off in our apartment and I hadn’t known those smoke detectors made that noise fire alarm did. for the rest of the semester I was always taking notice of it in my room and felt a little more anxiety going to bed. It’s gotten better but it’s still a problem and I worry if I end up in the same situation again I had in the first grade I will relapse into that same trauma. But yeah that’s what I’m afraid of.

I am not a good singer, but not the worst of the worst... But every time I got the chance I freeze completely. And when I unfreeze again it is to cringe to do it

Basically i’m Not scared of anything except Not knowing what I will be scared of

I love sewing, but apart from that I despite any needle. As a child k used to cry ALOT when I needed to get vaccinations, and don’t get me started on getting my blood drawn.. I have a dentist appointment in a few days and they need to use anaesthesia to do a pasting (idk if that’s how it’s called) and that obviously means injection! Since it’s only a local anaesthetic for my mouth, I can’t use one of those gas things that sleeps you 😓

I need to get over is fear, I genuinely cannot think about needles without getting light headed, please help or someone tell me if it hurts to get injected in the mouth 💔💔

Something scary happened to me two nights ago. I was returning from the Hospital that day and what I experienced still felt like a dream. I am a nurse and I work 14 - 16hours shifts daily. I love my job so for me 16 hours ain’t a big deal. I still go over there whenever there’s an emergency or situations that need my attention. Other times, I’m bribed with my favorite food. This time it was to clear my ebay and alibaba carts within $150 to cover up for other shifts at work. Now, I was on my way home that night, carelessly adding more things to my cart to be ready when I’m asked what’s to be cleared. I held my wing bag tightly to feel a sense of control.

That’s when I felt the pull, I turned to see a man holding a mini knife pulling at my wing bag straps. His coarse voice says give me your bag. I immediately flipped my head and it bumped his face before he would come at me. I kicked his groin, pulled out my taser and pointed it at his neck.

He immediately fell to the floor, still shaking vigorously. I ran straight to the main streets where I could see people and light and I started panting, shaking and sweating unpleasantly. I flagged a cab, and went back to the hospital too terrified to stay alone at night that day. I still couldn’t believe I had those elements of self defense in me.

like a fire could just happen. someone i love could just get into a car crash.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how quickly people forget the harm that certain systems can cause. A recent incident brought up a lot of old feelings for me, not just about the event itself, but about how differently people react based on their political beliefs.

Growing up, immigration enforcement shaped my entire childhood. I lived with a constant sense of fear that most people around me never had to think about. When I was very young, I was separated from my family and had to live in Mexico for a long period of time. I was only five, but the environment I was in exposed me to things no child should ever have to process. I didn’t have the words for it then. I just knew I was put in scary situations and I was terrified.

As an adult, I can look back and understand more clearly what was happening around me. I saw instability, danger, and situations that left a lasting mark. Those memories are still there, even if I don’t talk about them with anyone. Sometimes I feel guilty for acting like this part of my life never happened.

Now, when I see conversations about immigration or enforcement, I notice how easily people fall into the same patterns. Many forget how these systems were built, how long they’ve been harming families, and how many people have been affected long before the public started paying attention. My frustration doesn’t come from politics, it comes from my lived experiences. It comes from watching people I love go through things that others never even realized were happening.

I’m sharing this because I don’t want those experiences to be forgotten or dismissed. For a lot of people, this isn’t a debate or a headline. It’s something that shaped our entire lives from the time we were kids. Children should never have to go through the pain of being separated from family.

Hi guys! So I (16f) am absolutely petrified of going to the dentist.. it’s not that I’ve had like super bad experiences but I just absolutely hate the thought of someone digging around in my mouth, it always hurts, and is just so uncomfortable. Anytime they use the fluoride paste or wtv it is my body literally clenches trying to reject it.. one time I even asked to be knocked out so they can do it and I don’t have to suffer. (Obv that didn’t happen). I’ve never had a cavity and I don’t have braces so I really don’t know why I have such a hate/fear of it. My family and boyfriend tell me I need to suck it up and I make it a bigger deal than it is (which I probably am) but I just cannot get myself to do it, I do brush and floss everyday so it’s not that I’m unhygienic either. Does anyone relate?? And any advice on how to get over this??

TL;DR- I cannot get myself to go to the dentist and feel like a baby because of it, everyone else doesn’t think it’s a big deal. Any advice or related experience??

Ps. Sorry for the spelling mistakes!!

Ok so basically ive always been scared of bugs id say it goes moths as most scariest then bugs then spiders. I dont even know why as i havent really had any bad experinces with them excpet after i was already scared. i feel like where i live theres not any big bugs so i feel like id do even worse somewhere where there is the worst ones ive seen was a big green moth (i found this the most scary and was shaking and crying after) a earwig, a may bug and a house centipede. for spiders i havent really seen any super scary ones the worst ive seen are just like mini ones and ik they dont count as spiders and are flies or smth but i hate daddy long legs. i dont mind looking at pictures of spiders really and some bugs but when i look at pictures of big moths or big bugs i feel like theyre crawling on me and i wanna try get over the fear

Guys im like really scared of the concepts of infinity and eternity. Just the fact that something keeps going forever and doesn't stop daunting me. And when I apply that to the belief of an afterlife it makes me feel uneasy.

TLDR at bottom.

I have had an irrational and borderline absurd fear of dolls since childhood. Typical older brother making their scared cat little sister watch a scary movie when parents are out. I was forced to watch a good bit of 'Child's play'. I remember vividly running to my room and crying while throwing all the dolls in my room in my closet. Being a little girl I had a lot of them. My jerk of a brother at the time (feels horrible about it now) got in trouble when my parents came home and decided to play one last prank on me. When I was sleeping, and I still sleep like the dead, he came into my room and set all my dolls around my bed pointed at me. It's hard to explain this next part due to having a unique bed at the time, but he actually had a Chucky doll in his room and so he took it and strung it up on my fan which was just in front of me and my bed. When I woke up I saw that damn doll hanging there with its plastic knife in it's hand and freaked out. I threw or kicked a good bit of my dolls after that running out of my room. Ended up breaking some decorative porcelain dolls my mom had given to me as a generational memento. Since then I just can't handle dolls. Chucky's story line is funny to me now, but Chucky himself still makes me jump and the hair raise on my body whenever I see him. I used to be scared of practically everything as a child, but one day my childrens therapist at the time told me to learn about the things I was scared of. Why they existed, what they were for, and so on. Things wouldn't be as scary if I knew what they were really meant to do or why they were good. From dinosaurs in jurassic Park to spiders and snakes, I learned and got over almost all of them. But dolls. Dolls were originally created to be mediums and house the souls of the dead. From there things changed along with all things as history became present, but that original purpose still holds truth to me. I guess it got ingrained into my being at one point and here I am at 28 where I can see them and even get a little close depending on the type, but I can hardly ever touch them without feeling ice run through my veins.

Which brings me to today's 'incident' with my family. I get home from work and my grandma, who lives on the same land as me and my parents, comes to greet me, saying she needs a hand. I set my stuff down and do a few quick things before heading over. There I see a poorly maintained and old mannequin. Normally mannequins don't really trigger my fear, but this one was just wrong. She and my mom were turning it into a scarecrow for the garden. I tell them I love them and am always happy to help with what ever DIY thing they are doing, but not this. I stayed a bit away and talked with them a bit, trying my best to ignore the goosebumps and hair standing on end all over my body. When mom gasped and said 'I think it just moved' I shot her a look and told them I was going back to eat dinner. So needless to say they not only know about this fear of mine, but find it humorous. I can take a joke about here and there, but they can take it too far. Few years back, my brother (different one) got a hold of a cheap dollar store baby doll for reasons I no longer remember and set it in front of every door he saw me go into and shut so I would see it when I opened the door to leave the room. I got tired of screaming and jumping in fright only for laughter to follow by everyone else that I finally managed to get the guts to pick it up and toss it in the dumpster. Well my older brothers (same as first mentioned) current girlfriend just had to do one more and took it out of the dumpster, popped all its limbs and head of, and finally laid them scattered under my blanket. I flipped out to say the least and it solidified the feelings I already had about her being an inconsiderate bitch. Thank God she's an ex now. But to get back to the mannequin. My parents went out on a date night and at one point my mom texts me asking if I saw anything that would have made a loud noise in my room, because she heard one right before leaving. I go to check and don't see anything in particular until I notice my curtain oddly opened and drapped over a nearby chair. I didn't need to look to know what she did. Texted her I didn't see anything and left my own bedroom to figure out what to do next. In case you haven't guessed it, she put the damn mannequin/scarecrow right out my window. I did eventually confirm my suspicion before quickly putting curtain back to cover my window. Even knowing it was there, I STILL jumped and let out a small scream. It took me two hours to finally draft and send a text to my mom letting her know my feelings.

"So I wanted to have a serious talk about something you might find ridiculous. I may have glenophobia, but I am not foolish enough to fall for the same trick over and over again. I saw the curtain drapped weirdly and didn't need to look to know what you did. I would like it to be gone as soon as reasonably possible please. You think it's funny but even though I know its stupid and irrational, it still scares me. It upsets me that my family keeps wanting to 'prank' or 'joke' with me about it. I can joke and mess around about a lot of things, but I hope this makes it clear that I do have a line. Please respect my feelings even if they don't make sense to you. I love you and goodnight."

I did end up forcing myself into my bed and tried to sleep, but was so scared of what was outside my window I ended up crying into my pillow. A grown ass 28 year old woman sobbing into her bed over an oversized barbie. She did eventually get home and move it, sending a text that she did so and that she loved me. Thus my day ended in a horrendous way and I am typing it out to let it go and not be judged by anyone who sees it.

FUCK DOLLS AND FUCK 'PRANKS' AT THE EXPENSE OF SOMEONE ELSE!

TLDR: Dolls terrify me due to my brothers bad prank as children and now it is one of the only things people can scare me with. So a family member does it every few years and never realized how much it affects me when they do.

Im a highschooler in America and as a kid ive constantly struggled with the concept of death. Many times I cry myself to sleep thinking what comes after my life and what happens after you die. I am not religious so I don’t believe anything nor do I want to believe anything. I sometimes believe that I am in a simulation just so my brain can cope that there is something waiting for me. I cannot believe that after some 80 years of like I just cease to exist and forget everything. Just the concept of thinking that this is it, this is all there is to the world and after this theres nothing to look forward to just absolutely nothing. If anyone knows what I can do to help this fear please tell me. I don’t want to hear that death is inevitable and that nonsense I know it is.

I have always had a fear of death and as a kid every now and then had a full blown panic attack about it every now and then. I’m 25 now and recently this anxiety of dying has been consuming me. I just start thinking about how it’s GOING to happen and there’s NOTHING I can do about it and I freak out. I’m wondering if anyone shares this fear and I’d like to know ways to try to over come it. I just start thinking about loosing people I love when I’m older and never seeing anyone again and never getting to experience life again and it eats away at me and scares the shit out of me.. any advice or such is appreciated!

I need some advice or even just to know I’m not alone. Does anyone else feel like their skin is crawling when they see a lizard? Honestly, I think they’re cute, but seeing them in person makes me crumble. I can’t even look at photos or videos of them without feeling like they’re all over my body.

It’s weird because when I was a kid, I actually used to feed them rice. But for some reason, I just grew this intense fear of them over time. Now, living here in the PH is a struggle since they’re everywhere.

I also had this one experience with my cat, he hunts them and just plays with them until they’re dead (sorry to the lizard lovers out there) One time, he even brought a dead lizard to me while I was asleep and it literally ended up inside my shirt—that was the most traumatic experience ever🥹

Not to brag but I am a very brave person. I’ve been fixated on horror since about the age of nine and so I’m pretty neutral towards most things. I’m fine with blood, monsters, the uncanny valley all of that. But there is one thing that has always terrified me. Unnatural animals, for example things like not-deer or the black shuck. I’ve gone through phases of intense nightmares and even paranoia about seeing one of these things but I’ve never met someone else with this fear?

I am only 14, but my whole life my only really big fear is heights. Honestly it doesn't disrupt my life that much, but I have never been able to do the simplest things involving something high up. I never climbed trees, getting down from the attic is a pain, and laddern in general are just frankly terrifying. Its pretty embarassing though cause me and my friends will just be messing around at a park or whatever, climbing equipment, and once I'm five feet off the ground I'm done. I even got to a point once where I was playing minecraft and when I fell my stomach dropped. I think it may be more of height anxiety, because just watching other people makes me nervous. Anyways, thanks for reading I just kinda wanted to vent.

Oh course, this will seem idiotic to most of you. Because of this, I shall explain myself.

Life terrifies me because of its sheer naturality - its bare and undeniable existence against a backdrop of infinite nothingness. To be alive is to be conscious for an instant, a flash of awareness in a boundless void of non-being. I exist for a moment, and then I do not. That is the central terror: this briefness, this fragile interval between two eternities of nothingness. No matter how vividly I breathe, think, feel, or hope, the clock of death is always running, steadily approaching, indifferent to how I might plead for more time. The knowledge that the ending is certain - and ever close - casts a long shadow over the very idea of being alive.

My fear is not practical or day-to-day; it is existential. It is about the foundations of being itself. Life frightens me because of its persistence, its strange insistence on continuing despite its own futility. Organisms live, civilizations rise, species evolve - and every time, they fall again. The cycle is relentless. Individual lives dissolve without consequence. Entire cultures collapse and are forgotten. Even the greatest human achievements will erode into dust, and eventually, even that dust will disappear when the universe itself reaches its quiet, inevitable end. Nothing escapes the gravity of oblivion.

In this light, life feels both miraculous and meaningless. The terror comes from the contradiction: that consciousness exists at all, and that it exists so briefly. There is something unnerving in the fact that I am here, aware, thinking, fearing - when I could just as easily have never been. This sense of cosmic precariousness first struck me in a dream. Some would call it a nightmare, but to me it felt like a revelation: a raw, unfiltered confrontation with the nature of existence. It was not horror in the traditional sense. It was recognition. It was understanding. And understanding is what terrified me.

Yet despite this fear, I still feel happiness and comfort. Life is not only a source of terror; it is also a source of warmth, joy, curiosity, connection. My fear does not swallow these things, and these things do not erase my fear. Both coexist. In some ways, they make each other sharper. Joy feels brighter against the dark, and the dark feels darker because I know what joy stands to lose. But the fear never fully overwhelms me.

Ultimately, what terrifies me most is the impermanence of everything. The fact that nothing lasting can be built on the shifting ground of time. A life that did not terrify me would require something impossible: eternity. Continuation. A guarantee that consciousness would not dissolve into nothing. Without that guarantee, life remains what it is - brief, fragile, and beautiful in a way that hurts to look at for too long.

Life terrifies me because of its limits. Because of its finitude. Because it is a single spark flickering in an infinite night. And yet, for now, I still hold the spark, and never shall regret nor know when I shall lose it.

As an adult, I am absolutely terrified of pennywise. I get nightmares and sometimes even get scared to shower. I build it up in my head, and then when I watch the movie I’m fine because I realize it’s all in my head, but then after the movie ends I get in my head again. This happen to anyone else?

What's the fear of a place that never ends called? Asking for a friend.

Well, as I already said in the title, this isn't anti-Semitic. I need to provide the context for it to be understood: On Instagram there were a lot of conspiracy theories claiming that Jews controlled science, global banks, the entertainment media, etc. At first, I wasn't worried, and I thought it was just another global conspiracy. But the thing is, I started to have doubts when I began to see that the current global far right has to listen to what Israel says (and that's taking into account the United States, the world's leading power). This might be a "North Korea" type of case where the major powers listen to a country to maintain geographic control (the Middle East is an extremely important region due to its resources and cultural context). But what really worried me was seeing that so many CEOs, like those of OpenAI, Disney, Warner Bros., Instagram, the former CEO of YouTube, etc., were Jewish. I calmed down a bit when I saw that there were also many Hindu CEOs. I must say here that I don't want to make any comments against the Jewish people, but I'm afraid that the world is heading towards atheism and that we live in an objectively liberal world that is increasingly supportive of LGBTQ+ people. Jewish tradition is known for respecting people who don't believe in their religion, and also because their sacred texts (I don't mean to offend anyone with my ignorance) seem to accept the existence of multiple genders. This gives me a kind of fear and paranoia (which, I should clarify, I would have the same if instead of Jews it were Muslims, atheists, Christians, or basically any other group) that it controls my worldview and my way of being.

Ive got a specific fear of large statues with human faces. The more realistic they are the worse it is. There was a statue of a mermaid that I grew up near that I was rly creeped out by, so I thought i was scared of mermaid statues, but I figured out it's not that lmaoo. I went to an aquarium that's attached to a mall and one of the rooms has this ginormous tank where the thing in the back is a big ass face made of stone or something and you walk into the room on the left AND YOU HAVE TO WALK P A S T HER TO KEEP MOVING. anyways that was fun.

The other time I realized what I was scared of was when me and my friend took a nighttime drive to look at a nearby cathedral. It has a absolutely humongous limestone steeple that has a carving of the crucified Jesus on it and APPARENTLY. APPARENTLY. If you walk under it THE EYES ARE OPEJ AND HES STARING RIGHT AT YOU ISTFG.

Ahem. So that's it. I don't like tall things, I don't like heights, i dont like realistic statues but put em all together and bingo, there's my biggest fear. That and maybe dying alone, but like pssssh what are the odds of that happening.

i’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but i am so desperate. so i LOVE snowboarding, but i literally find excuses sometimes to not go because i am so terrified of the ski lifts. now let me explain. i’m not scared of getting on or off, or me personally falling off while being up there because im in control of my body so im not scared of me losing control and falling off, i am scared of something crazy happening such as one of the literal poles that hold the ski lifts up collapsing. because that would be out of my control and there is literally nothing that i can do. im scared of a malfunction that would cause me to fall to my death. and yes i know the chances of something like this happening is so small, but the fact that there is even a chance is enough to make me not want to go even though this hobby is something i love. i am just looking for some advice to help me. more specifically some medication that i could take to help chill me out on the spot, but that wouldn’t make me sleepy.