Fear can be based on real dangers or past experiences, but what happens when it isn't?
What happens when fear goes beyond "healthy level of caution" to "abject terror"?
Sometimes labeled as phobias, those irrational fears can still be crippling.
Redditor An_Anxious_Mess_Idk asked:
"What is one fear you have that would be considered stupid by most people?"
Never See It Coming
"I’m scared that when I’m driving anywhere late at night and the roads are clear I’ll be struck by one of those land speed record vehicles."
"I’d be afraid it would come out of nowhere and I wouldn’t see it coming."
- gameofthrones_addict
"I always had this fear (a vehicle coming out of nowhere) when crossing streets as a kid. Suburban streets, mind you..."
- unknown-permutation
"Yeah pretty much, just middle of nowhere you don’t always see everything…"
"I know it wouldn’t happen. So I know it’s an irrational fear."
- gameofthrones_addict
Detached
"Becoming detached on a space walk and drifting off into the void."
"I am not an astronaut, for clarity."
- LoneKharnivore
GiphyWooly Bully
"Cotton balls."
- DatDude999
"I can't touch cotton wool or anything of that texture. It gives me the chills and the jitters."
"My wife thinks I'm an idiot."
- cloudstrifeuk
"Me too. Everyone always tries messing with me by showing me them or chasing me because I actually run as soon as I see them!"
- AdministrativeCap998
"It's called Sidonglobophobia. The sounds and the static they make when you touch them makes me shake."
- DatDude999
Hiisssss
"Toilet snakes. Thanks, Stephen King."
- Beesareourcousins
"Wife found a 5 foot long black snake in her mom’s washer. She thought it was some sort of gasket that fell in the tub at first….reached for it and it moved."
"Our house is 500 feet away, heard her scream from the front porch."
"Mother-in-law’s house was built 1890 or so. Not very well sealed up anymore."
- tatpig
"Omg. I found a 3-4 foot snake in my hamper once."
"I heard what I THOUGHT was like, a soda bottle slowly letting out fizz, and when I went to investigate, it was A F'KING SNAKE hissing."
"Carried the whole thing, dirty clothes and all, out to the driveway and kicked it over so the snake would slither away."
"I had bombed for spiders the day before. I had opened all the windows and doors for several hours to air the house out. I’m guessing he snuck in then."
"I was ready to burn the place to the ground after that. 😳"
- SamSepiol-ER28_0652
GiphyTake A Seat
"I can't sleep with my desk chair facing my bed."
"I have to get up, turn on a light, face it away from me, and then I can go back to bed."
"I get irrationally afraid that I'm going to turn over or blink and look at it and someone is going to be sitting in it watching me sleep."
"No idea where that fear came from."
- lockehearte
Deep Blue
"Swimming in a lake, or in the ocean without being able to see the bottom."
"I was bit/cut by something once and since then it's a fear I just can't control.
"I will still go and do it though because I hate it when people tell me what to do. Even when that's myself."
- Personality4Hire
"Thank god water shoes were invented or I’d never go in the ocean or lake again."
"I stepped on a horseshoe crab and it freaked me out so bad I can’t go into those bodies of water unless I have shoes on."
- JRich61
"We had a little sand shark swimming by us one trip to the ocean."
"Haven’t been able to get past ankle deep since. It’s been probably closer to 14 years ago now."
- Negative_Shake1478
GiphyReflection
"Fear of mirrors."
"Creepy things they are."
- The_dead_are_rising
"I'm specifically scared of mirrors in the dark, or any reflective surface."
"I'm convinced that if I look at it, I'm gonna see something horrible standing behind me."
- Kotori425
"Same but I’m not scared of seeing something behind me."
"I’m scared of seeing something in it that could possibly reach or step out."
"Mirrors in the dark feel like a door to another dimension to me and I have no idea why."
- christopharo
"My worst nightmare is getting up at night to go to the bathroom, going past my mirror and I'll see myself in the mirror but the me in the mirror does something different than me..."
"It's that bad that I'll walk past my mirror with my eyes closed at night."
- JenJMLC
Unblinking Eyes
"DEAD FISH."
"UGLY MOTHERF'KERS."
"UNBLINKING EYES ALWAYS STARING"
- Flat_Bodybuilder_175
"Hate to break it to you, but fish don’t blink when they’re alive either."
- Itsafinelife
"You're... not wrong. By the law of my own phobia, I now have a fear of living fish too."
- Flat_Bodybuilder_175
"The sharks got your back bro, they wink."
- salinase
discovery eye roll GIF by Shark WeekGiphyMothra Is A Monster
"Moths."
"I get teased all the times about it and my reasons and people try to trick me in to liking them or admitting it's fake.
"Apparently being scared of spiders is ok (I like spiders) but terrified of moths is weird because I like butterflies and 'they are the same thing'."
- kyaria17
That Moth Fear Is Justified
"May 2020, my husband and I took off on a road trip. Everything was mostly shut down but that’s fine, what we like to see and do are outdoor, nature things. We stopped at a state park in Oklahoma that had only partially opened that very day."
"We walked around for a bit, let the dog run around as we were the only ones there. Then I had to pee. Now I’m a chick and 'I’ve got to find somewhere to pee' is pretty much always happening or going to within half an hour."
"The usual state park bathroom places were one hole situations but in little concrete buildings….nice enough, I’ve used way worse."
"When we first opened the door a LOT of moths flew out. I’m not scared of moths but it was a LOT. So we let them fly away and I went in. I’m sitting there beside one of those large toilet roll things….the one foot diameter ones with the black cover and you pull the paper from under."
"Even as I gave the toilet paper a yank, a tiny part of my brain knew what would happen. A truly biblical number of moths burst out from the bottom of the paper roll when I pulled."
"I ran/hobbled with shorts pulled down and toilet paper in hand just screaming out of the bathroom. My husband all but dropped he was laughing so hard. My poor dog was sure I was being attacked and ran into the bathroom barking and growling."
"It was all hilarious in hindsight. But trying to explain to anyone how moths could make me run screaming is difficult to say the least."
- rebel1031
GiphyFor me?
June bugs.
June bugs crawl out of the ground in the summer because they're mini demons emerging from Hell. I cannot be convinced otherwise.
So what's your irrational fear?
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“'Never argue with an idiot. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience'.” What's your best real life example of this?"
They Literally Won't be "Shut Down"
"When I tell people to just reboot your computer and it will fix all their problems and yet they won't because they said if you wait long enough it will shut down, when in reality it only goes to sleep."
"Then when I tell them they have to completely shut it down they look at me like I'm an idiot and say they did."
"I tell them it seems like it but it only went to sleep."
"They argue back."- niallaa
Some People Just Don't Get It...
"I used to argue a lot with my sister when we were kids."
"She would do this thing where she would say something, and then I would reference back to it literally a minute or two later to prove a point and she would say 'I never said that' or 'that’s not what I said'."
"Absolutely impossible to argue with someone who will just deny having said things that could hurt their argument."
"Also, trying to change the course of an argument if they feel like they are 'losing'."
"A coworker once called me an idiot for doing something 'incorrectly' when I was actually doing it the right way."
"When I politely explained to them that the way they suggested doing the task didn’t actually work, they started asking 'why are you getting so angry?? I was just trying to help' etc."
"So now we’re arguing about whether I’m angry or not instead of the right way to complete the task."- themightypianocat
Facts Are Facts...
"Arguing is pointless if you do not agree on a set of facts."- niallaa
Facts GIF by Judge JerryGiphyYou Can't Have It Both Ways...
"For a short while, I worked as a line cook at a Cracker Barrel, and there was a little saloon style door that led to the staff section (kitchen, bathroom, etc)."
"There was a staff only sign on the door, above the doors, and on the wall behind the doors at eye level."
"Usually if someone from the customer side comes in, they said, 'Coming in' before opening the door, so they didn't hit anyone, but of course customers didn't know that."
"So when this dude opened the door and hit a waitress carrying a ton of drinks, we were reasonably upset with him."
"He said, ;You should really put a sign up'."
"We showed him all the signs, and he goes, 'That seems a bit excessive'."- GreyFoxHound1
So Wrong.
"Had an employee sign an NDA about an upcoming art installation that had investors."
"He told everyone."
"He argued with me the NDA only meant he couldn’t disclose anything with the people in the company."- BosskHogg
He Knew What He Was Talking About
This was best said:
“'Never wrestle with pigs'."
"'You both get dirty and the pig likes it'.― George Bernard Shaw"- Zerowantuthri·
pigs GIFGiphySome Outdated Inventions Are Definitely Not Missed...
"I’m showing my age here but I used to work for an estate agency, and we had sales offices set up at the site of large new housing developments."
"Our primary method of communication was fax."
"One of the sales associates telephoned our office to say that the fax machine had run out of paper."
"No problem, I said, one of the guys is coming your way later for a house tour, I’ll give him a box of paper to give to you."
"We then had an almost 20 minute long argument when they kept insisting 'NO, YOU JUST SEND ME A BLANK FAX BECAUSE I NEED THE PAPER, IT WILL JUST COME OUT OF MY FAX MACHINE'.”
"It was like trying to nail jelly to a tree."
"Difficult, irritating, and it achieved nothing."- BettieKat
Very Few Hills Are Worth Dying On...
"I had a friend in university who was a world-class high school debater."
"Over meals, she liked to pick a ridiculous proposition and then talk circles around people until they had to concede to her point, no matter how absurd."
"When she tried it with me, I just stonewalled her."
"Met every point with a solid 'I don't think that's true'." or 'That doesn't make sense'."
"Eventually she gave up and never tried it with me again."
"It was the only time I've ever used the tactics of the stupid to win an argument."
"But, to be fair, if you're not arguing with me in good faith, I feel no obligation to respond in good faith."- kitskill
IS The Customer Always Right?...
"Working retail."
"Especially when I worked in the tech shop or a computer store."
" Trying to convince someone their $500 laptop is never going to be a gaming system no matter how many of the very few replaceable parts we throw at it can be exhausting."- MOS95B
happy episode 7 GIFGiphyEducation Only Matters If You Learned Something....
"Was arguing with this dude about something math-related."
"He didn’t know how to read a study that involved statistics. claimed he was in multiple AP math classes."
"Tried saying that I 'probably don’t even know basic integration'."
"Gave me a common integration problem."
"He wrote it but forgot the minus sign, making it unsolvable."
"I pointed it out and he edited the comment to make it correct."
"Told him that some people can see when you edit comments."
"He claimed that he just capitalized a letter. on and on and on."- SaturdayNightCity
Good Legal Counsel Might Be Worth The Splurge...
"I asked a representative from the Friend of the Court to explain something she said and she told me that I understood what she was saying."
"I replied that I wouldn't have asked her to explain if I had understood."
"She said if I was going to be difficult, she would hold me in contempt."
"My X chimed in that she didn't quite understand what she had said and was greeted with a smile and an explanation."
"From that point on I always disagreed with the Friend of the Court on EVERYTHING, so that I could be seen by the 'Actual Court' and a Judge."- PURPLEPEE
Season 4 Episode 21 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphySore Winners Are No More Attractive Than Sore Losers...
"Once worked with a guy who, by his own admission, got his rocks off by picking fights."
"He'd start an argument over the smallest thing."
"If you said it was white, he'd say it was black, just to try to start something."
"The one that always stood out for me was the weather app competition."
"One day he asked me what temperature it was, so I read it off my weather app."
"He got all offended, because his weather app said it was a couple degrees warmer."
"So he decides we're going to have a weather app competition."
"He was going to chart what our apps said the temperature was, and at the end of the week, whichever one was closest to that day's high would be the winner."
"And the loser would have to start using the winner's app."
"To which I said, "What is your f*cking problem?'"
"So, yeah."
"For the first few days, he'd make a big performance about marching into my office, recording the temperature off my app, jotting down some notes, and walking off."
"This started on a Monday."
"He gave up after Wednesday."
"Either because I was winning, or he was disappointed because, despite his best efforts, I just did not give a f*ck about weather apps."
"Or maybe the boss told him to stop because I filed a complaint that this was bordering on harassment."- originalchaosinabox
Im Always Right GIF by ZionGiphyIt should perhaps be said calling someone an idiot, or even thinking it, is not a particularly nice thing to do.
Even so, if you're tempted to do so when you're in the presence of a particular individual, probably best not to provoke them.
After all, if you're so determined to "win," does it really make you any better than them?