- That I will be washing a baby, and I will be so focused on washing the baby’s bottom half, I will not notice that the baby’s top half is under water.
- That I will be walking down the stairs carrying a baby, and I will trip, and I will save myself and not the baby.
- That the house will be on fire, and that after I get the children out I will have to decide if I want to risk going back in for the irreplaceable photo albums and baby journals, and that either way I will make the wrong choice.
- Things I don’t even want to type, involving the children being hurt or killed or in danger.
- Running into a guy who used to think I was hot stuff, and having him think “Oh my god, that was a lucky miss.”
- An emergency, and I don’t have my glasses. I feel so disoriented without my glasses on.
- Or not having my shoes. I wouldn’t feel right, running around frantically but with no shoes on.
- Dying while my children are still little.
- Wind storms.
- An emergency happening when we’re snowed in and can’t get help.
- Hearing emergency vehicles; seeing them all pulling in to the school parking lot.
- Any emergency where I can’t think fast enough of what to do, and I spend the entire rest of my life thinking, “If only I’d just…”
- When someone has started a fall from a tall place, and they’re still alive but they can’t be saved. They’re still alive, but they’re also already dead.
- The dark, especially if it’s cold.
- Spiders. Snakes. A dog suddenly going for my throat.
- Sociopaths. Knowing they’re all over the place, and they don’t care if they hurt us, and we can’t tell who they are.
- That I’ll completely by accident kill or permanently hurt someone else.
- I’ll be badly hurt, unconscious, in front of my children, and they’ll have to figure out by themselves how to deal with it.
- Carjackers who don’t care that there are children in the car.
- Being separated from my children in an emergency.
- Any noise at all coming from the basement. Having to figure out what to do if I hear one.
What are you scared of?
Oh, Swistle, am I really not alone? I think it’s pathetic that I’m still so scared of the dark – and it really is, I guess, but I canNOT help it!!
Especially if it’s COLD!!!!
Giving birth. I’m getting married soon and I know he wants at least one kid, I am absolutely beside myself with anxiety about the very idea pregnancy, and -gulp-giving birth. You have my respect for doing it multiple times. When I see women with more than one kid, I imagine that 1)they’re entirely insane, and gluttons for punishment, or 2) it must be totally worth it.
Anon- A little from column 1, a little from column 2.
Things that go bump in the night. Trouble is, I live in a multiplex, and I can never tell. Is it the next door neighbor making ordinary next door neighbor sounds, or a murderous psychopath who has somehow chosen MY door to jimmy open? I am frozen there in bed, eyes searching the dark, barely breathing, listening, waiting. Finally I just can’t take it any more, anything is better than this panic, so I get up. Me and my big wood-handled walking stick, we go around turning on the lights and checking the doors. There’s no one there. I’m safe once again.
Well, not really, but at least until the next night that an unidentifiable noise wakes me!
My List is essentially Your List with the following edits:
– remove: wind storms
– add: moths; my parents dying
Terrified of:
-not being able to have children
-having children and then dying while they’re young
-my fiance dying of anything besides old age
-my fiance accidentally killing someone in a car accident while texting or talking on the phone, which could put him in prison for years and years (not to mention feeling bad for the poor innocent person who died). I’ve talked to Fiance about not texting while driving, and he doesn’t while I’m in the car but I’m scared he might when I’m not there.
-my parents dying of anything besides old age
-my parents getting dementia or alzheimers (they are both perfectly fine right now in their 50s)
These are the things that keep me up at night.