Reader Question Two! Fear and Loathing... Inside My Head

This one will be in response to a reader question about my fears... Which kind of creeps me out on some level cause it was an anonymous person and what the fuck is this person going to do with the information once he or she has it and...

Okay, let's go ahead right now and add “paranoid” to the list of things wrong with me.

As for stupid habits that were originally based in fear, you can add:

Peaking behind the shower curtain, just to “check”

This is from a few random bad experiences and bad people doing stupid pranks (*cough*HIGHSCHOOL*cough*EXBOYFRIEND*cough*ANDMYSISTER*cough*) smooshed with nightmares and the fact that my trauma addled brain couldn't tell the difference after a while.

and...

Skipping the last step on a staircase

The stair thing is because of getting hurt a very long time ago. “Very long” being like twenty freaking years ago.

Though, that one is now limited to the main staircase in my parent's house, and I do the shower thing less these days. It's really all just habit now, with much less serious concern behind the acts.

Next on the list of things I avoid as much as I can: Dogs.

 

My issue with dogs is that if I don't know the personality of the dog, I don't know what the dog will do. Since I'm small, if a big dog jumps, that means I will go down and get hurt. If a little dog bites, that means I can't outrun it and I will get hurt.

I'm also allergic to dogs, so it's unfortunate that they are playful things that like to get REALLY CLOSE TO YOUR FACE.

I'm allergic to cats, but they mostly care less and we can leave each other alone.

Dogs are invasive and overly friendly, or overly invasive and aggressive. Very rarely have I come across a dog that would just leave me the fuck alone. Either way, they remind me of the traits I also don't like in human beings.

Dogs are man's best friend and I'm not particularly fond of either one.

Other allergy fears are more things I can't always avoid, like grass.

This isn't just a “oh no, my nose is running and my eyes are watering because someone just mowed the lawn” allergy.

To give you an idea, I was once laying on the grass (like normal children do) and looking at clouds with friends. I started feeling really nauseous.

I got up, and my entire back and arms and anything that was anywhere near the grass was covered in a giant, itching, fiery red rash.

A shower fixed it, but oh my dear fuck.

I'm not even going to draw that because of how sad and horrible it is.

It's the reason I went off to the other side of the country, and why it was incredibly heart breaking to learn that I still had bad (even worse) allergies out where there is no grass.

Well, no grass that grows naturally on lawns, anyway.

Now we get to the real meat of this answer.

I have a few fairly reasonable fears, or at least fears that were reasonable until I blew them out of proportion.

But! The two things that are completely irrational fears that actually have caused me extreme distress in my life for NO FLIPPING REASON are these:

Zombies

and worms

As you can see, they are kind of related in my head.

I have a problem with amputation. This is not to say that I can't talk to someone who has had something amputated, and the average limb removal in a movie just irks me a little. When there is torture involved, I will get sick.

But, my issue with amputation is a fear of losing my own limbs. Luckily, my arms have not so far gone the way they could have. I even gained back the feeling in my ring fingers after not having that for many years. Still, I'm deeply afraid of this.

It's also a matter of pride. There is something to be said about the fact that without an x-ray, the average person would not notice my bones. Even at my thinnest, I'm just skinny, rather than obviously deformed in some way. To remove a limb would be noticeable. I would be noticeably differently-abled, and the way I am, I would most likely not take it very well.

Zombies get limbs blasted off all the time and rip off the limbs of the living with ease.

...and it's the turning into a zombie that scares me. It's the being chased, and watching your friends die, and knowing you've been bitten and hoping you are immune and knowing you will turn and OH GOD what if you can still THINK? What if you are still aware, but can't do anything to stop yourself??

Worms are creepy to me because there are other kinds of worms that can get into your body, your brain and eyes and such... and do things. Bad things.

Earth worms are limbless things.

Faceless and limbless, they writhe around and look as though they are in agony. When cut in half, both ends still wriggle about and flail, searching for a way out.

...And they eat corpses.

Maybe that boils down to a fear of being dead. Not dying, but dead. Like the fear of having it all be a dream or some vivid hallucination and I've been in a hospital all along. That idea isn't so bad but for the fact that I would think, “It was all in my head. I had all that power and I could have done ANYTHING in my dream world, and I wasted it.”

My head isn't normal.

The worm issue is slowly going away. They just depress me these days.

But the zombie thing? FOO. You should have heard what I said to myself in my head after the “bath salts” stuff. I was honestly afraid.

This is so very stupid.

I was a key member of the ZDC (Zombie Defense Corps) at my old college, you know. Did important things. Mmyep. *Puts thumbs behind suspenders proudly*

But, I still absolutely fear zombies.

I don't even like normal, living zombies. People who are willing to just be so cut throat or people who are yes men and don't even care to strive for anything greater. These are both types of zombies to me.

Ghosts may also be a not-normal reason. I have no issue with the idea that part of us may wander about after death. If there are ghosts, I don't think most of them would be harmful to the living, and even those that are seem to be stories about an encased emotion, more than the whole person.

I think ghosts are just pieces of people that chipped off along the way.

But, if there are ghosts and if I could one day be one, I would hate to be able to see people and hear them and have them not see me. It would be like being deaf again.

Not being heard or noticed when you so desperately wish to be is like screaming inside a clear box.

So, again, ghosts are just depressing to me. Not particularly scary.

Cannibals?

I have no issue with cannibals.

Showers, Baths, and Referring to Poop Too Many Times

Showers and I have a strictly business relationship. 

I get in, I do my business, I get out.  While some have a more loving relationship with both the shower and the toilet, I treat both with some amount of disdain. 

"You, Mr. Shower, are here to get me clean.  The end.  No funny business."

"You, Ms. Toilette, are here to catch whatever happens to come out of me.  Good luck."  *shakes toilet-hand*

EDIT: A friend/apartment mate of mine, Dustin (at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wiserobot) took this picture:

 
He had asked me to give the toilet eyes and arms.  Without question, I said "HELL YES" and did it.  So, now I can actually shake it's toilet hand.  Our apartment mate says it makes him feel like he is now one step closer to golden showers, having now peed in something that has eyes.   There are actually some pictures of me directly up on his site too...  Just sayin'.

In general, I'm just very uncomfortable while taking a shower.  I like feeling clean, but it's the standing up to do it that bothers me. 

Maybe it's my heritage and I have a strange association between showers and Nazis? 
More likely though, I've just watched Psycho too many times.

Fun fact, until a surgery leading to where she had to take showers instead, the star of Psycho took baths, often with someone in the room, due to the film. 

I love baths.  I could easily say to my apartment mates "Hey, I'm going to be in the bathroom for at least ever, so I need you guys to use it while you can." 
These are the guys who have had no issues peeing outside when the bathroom was taken, so they would be all, "Sure!" "No problem." *salutes* "Have fun in your bath, Princess!" 

But I don't ask.  Living with three to four people in an apartment with one bathroom makes me needlessly nervous and ultra aware of my bathroom time. 

Even having to take a crap becomes a stressful endeavor, once I feel I'm taking too long. 
I start thinking progressively more irrational things like, "Oh god.  Oh god.  What if someone needs this?  What if someone is really sick?  What if a cute little girl just came to visit and she needs to poo and I'm in here and so she has to go outside like an animal??"

I'm even the kind of person who turns the fan on, in hopes no one will hear me do what is meant to be done in the room with the toilet. 

Like I'm pretending to be some magical creature that excretes gummy bears instead.

Again, I know my roommates would be more than happy to ignore me while I crap.  This has nothing to do with reality or how people actually work.  This has to do with my screwed up brain. 

But baths... Man.  Baths are awesome. 

When I was a kid, I would make a fuss about getting into the bath, and then once there... I was sooooo freaking happy! 
And then I'd make a fuss about getting out.



I'm still like that, to a certain extent.  

And then I get in and it's, "Oh.  Right.  I like this.  This is awesome.  I forgot."

My mom would put this metal...plastic... who knows what it was made of...  It was white and it was a grid type thing that went across the bath tub.  Then, I had a series of cups and toys and even Little Mermaid figures.

Sometimes, Ursula would sing songs.  Sometimes, I was a mad scientist. 

I was awesome.

As a grown up who's too weird to ask to take a bath, I either take baths when no one is home, like some secret guilty pleasure, or I take showers begrudgingly. 

It helps to shower with someone, but even then, it's strictly business for me.  I have to be convinced to do otherwise. 
My boyfriend is there to wash my back if I ask for that.  ...He puts up with a lot from me, actually.  The whole typically-endlessly-patient thing is rather nice.

He doesn't wear glasses in the shower.  Just so we're clear. 

I will admit, there is a kind of comfort to showering with my boyfriend.  I figure, with him there, I won't get stabbed.  If I slip, he'll catch me.  Things like that. 
And washing my back if I ask.

He and I both have an issue with one sensitive eye.  ...Meaning that we each have one sensitive eye... Not that we share one.

His reacts to light.  Mine, as sucky as it is, reacts really poorly to water and sometimes to wind. 
...I wish I was kidding. 
It's from an old dog-stepping-in-my-eye-while-I-was-on-the-ground-after-falling-down-a-flight-of-stairs related injury. 

Therefore, washing my face is done very carefully, and often outside of the shower. 

The only other issue is that Boyfriend likes his showers boiling hot.

Oh well.


Also, I drew this a while ago.  It always bothered me that Flounder was not... a flounder... so I fixed it.