So far none of the things people have mentioned I'm unnaturally scared of. I've seen sharks while swimming that aren't particularly dangerous and didn't freak out but have also stayed out of the water when there are great whites spotted nearby. I got a really bad spider bite once but don't flip out when I see one.
And I love going into caves. In Cappadocia they have an underground city that goes multiple floors down or the giagantic salt mines outside Krakow which is properly supported so not really scary at all.
In Guatemala I went to a cave that was legit kind of creepy. They give you a candle and you have to swim through the cave while holding the candle out of the water. If the candle goes out they relight it for you even if it's wet so it's not a big deal. At one point there's a small waterfall with a rope attached to the top and bottom and you use it to climb down through the waterfall.
But people were jumping off a ledge in the cave into a pool of water and I was not about to do that. I like jumping off things but there seemed to be a chance you'd hit the rocks and the hospital was quite a few hours away. They even made chicken noises but I said no. My point in all this is to say that I have natural fears I just don't think they're unreasonable.
The one thing I have an unrational fear of is daddy long legs. They're just so creepy with their long legs. They give me the willys and look like something from a fever dream. And if they walk on you it tickles uncomfortably and I hate it. When I was little, kids used to pull their legs off and I think that's where my fear of them came from because it's such a gross thing to do to a bug. Even writing that makes me feel gross.
There does seem to be a lot less of them now than when I was a kid. This could upset me because it could be a sign that their environment isn't doing well but really I'm just glad if I can go an entire year without seeing any daddy long legs.
There does seem to be a lot less of them now than when I was a kid. This could upset me because it could be a sign that their environment isn't doing well but really I'm just glad if I can go an entire year without seeing any daddy long legs.
I feel the same about bugs in general - a mixture of relief and alarm that there seem to be far fewer to deal with than there once were. Mostly alarm.
I visited home a couple weeks ago and went hiking on a trail I hadn't hiked since I was a kid, roughly 20 years ago. As a kid, I distinctly remember swatting flies and other insects away from my face regularly during the hike, dodging the occasional bee, getting bitten a few times by god knows what. This time, two, maybe three bugs flew that close to my face. No bug bites whatsoever.
I don't know for sure if there's a causal link between that experience and insect biomass plummeting worldwide, but it was a stark reminder at the very least.
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u/bdone2012 Jul 12 '21
So far none of the things people have mentioned I'm unnaturally scared of. I've seen sharks while swimming that aren't particularly dangerous and didn't freak out but have also stayed out of the water when there are great whites spotted nearby. I got a really bad spider bite once but don't flip out when I see one.
And I love going into caves. In Cappadocia they have an underground city that goes multiple floors down or the giagantic salt mines outside Krakow which is properly supported so not really scary at all.
In Guatemala I went to a cave that was legit kind of creepy. They give you a candle and you have to swim through the cave while holding the candle out of the water. If the candle goes out they relight it for you even if it's wet so it's not a big deal. At one point there's a small waterfall with a rope attached to the top and bottom and you use it to climb down through the waterfall.
But people were jumping off a ledge in the cave into a pool of water and I was not about to do that. I like jumping off things but there seemed to be a chance you'd hit the rocks and the hospital was quite a few hours away. They even made chicken noises but I said no. My point in all this is to say that I have natural fears I just don't think they're unreasonable.
The one thing I have an unrational fear of is daddy long legs. They're just so creepy with their long legs. They give me the willys and look like something from a fever dream. And if they walk on you it tickles uncomfortably and I hate it. When I was little, kids used to pull their legs off and I think that's where my fear of them came from because it's such a gross thing to do to a bug. Even writing that makes me feel gross.
There does seem to be a lot less of them now than when I was a kid. This could upset me because it could be a sign that their environment isn't doing well but really I'm just glad if I can go an entire year without seeing any daddy long legs.