You shouldn't be afraid

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

I'm scared of death but more of the people I love dying than dying myself.

I have a lot of fears surrounding water and the ocean. So many dreams end in me running from giant waves. xD I'm not really sure why as I've never had a bad experience really, except for when I was little and flipped over my floating ring thing in the pool. I was rescued pretty quick though and I don't remember a lot about it. xD I generally don't like being in water though, especially if I can't see the bottom.

I also have phobias of blood and needles that makes me faint. But I'm not really scared of them. :( They do make me greatly fear ever having to go to hospital or *gasp* have surgery though. I got over my fear a little while my dad was sick in the last few months as I spent whole days at the hospital where I wasn't even sure I could actually walk into one. But I still get a bit freaked out sometimes.

[Elbub]

Phobia of wasps, but that's got so much better in recent years that I'm not even sure I should mention it anymore.

Rational ones... I have a mix of respect and fear of the Ocean. Although my memory of this is probably worse than the reality, I nearly drowned as a three year old in the sea. I've no problem with swimming pools or water parks though; love 'em in fact. I am however a terrible swimmer, which contributes to the fear/respect.

I also have a fear of being depressed again. For all the nostalgia I have of my first year of university, I spent a significant part of it in a bad place mentally. This is unlikely to reoccur I think/hope, as I believe that the fact that I was barely sleeping, malnourished, and frighteningly often drunk probably contributed big time. I have none of those issues anymore.

[Wookie Mistake]

Death doesn't really scare me, it's more how I die, specifically drowning, or suffocation. I almost drowned when I was maybe six or seven at a hotel near Cedar Point (an awesome amusement park), and my Uncle saved me.

Needles scare the bejeezus out of me, or really anything that breaks the skin, I stepped on a rusty nail last summer while working and had to go and get a tetanus shot, which was bad enough, but the doc wanted to make sure that I didn't have any pieces of sock or shoe sole in my foot, I won't go into the details but I was cringing and not so much from the pain.

I also hate large crowds, I wouldn't categorize it as agoraphobia, but it's pretty close, I almost had a panic attack at the Minnesota state fair waiting in line for these amazing cookies, and I had to just give my money to my cousin and get out of there. The size of the crowd was crazy.

Oh and I have slight vertigo, and I hate heights, I've been to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in Vancouver when I was 10 or so and had a death grip on my dad's arm the whole way across.

All I can say is that facing my fears just reinforced my desire to avoid them XD.

[ant2011]

Rejection and failure. The inevitable truth that I'll never be good enough to do what I want to do.