How fearful were you as a child?

heh -- shots?!?!? K and I were both kids who crawled under the bed screaming at the first mention of a Dr.

To the question of sensitivity to tactile changes. Again, I don't recall having those sensitivities as a child but K was very much a seams in the socks puller, crisp cottons were irritating (yes, you CAN find Christmas dresses made of of jersey knit if you look hard enough), turtle necks tops were left in the drawer.

I once remember telling her that I'd bought her a new dress. She cried. In first grade the teacher said they were going to leave the building by a new route. She cried then too. She was/is highly anxious when exposed to anything new. She does open up to me but she has mastered the silent hanging back in the corner routine around others.

The other thing that I may add to this discussion is that M, while fearful of small insects, is extremely independent and never had any of the sensitivities/anxieties that her sister has. I wasn't very familiar with babies until I had one and didn't know that all kids weren't overly sensitive until M was born.

I know that clothes stuff - my older daughter hates anything the least bit tight or not completely soft.

She hates jeans - what kid hates jeans? She would live in material made from sweats if we let her.

I was an only child and hardly ever around other children until, of course, school, and even then didn't have playmates after school until I was eight.
I was quite a shy little girl, and didn't really work around that until I worked after school once I turned sixteen and the shyness started to turn around. Memories of cold fear about giving speeches in high school... I did like playing after school and in the summers with neighborhood children in the midwest of the early fifties, and to a large extent that experience kept me from being even weirder. And reading and tv gave me some view of the world. Never underestimate the power of I Love Lucy on an isolated only child. Anyway, my mother was also shy, and she might have been trying to help me all along, but in my memory it was myself who worked my way out of it, myself and experience and reading.

But fears, I don't remember myself being particularly fearful other than socially.
I was afraid of spiders and still have some of that. I wasn't afraid of ghosts or monsters, but then I never heard much about them to be afraid of them. When I did later hear about monsters and ghosts, I didn't believe in them as real.

As I neared eleven, twelve, real life concerns having to do with financial stability, dad out of work, entered the scenario, and years of not having money or much food in the house came and went with occasional respites of work for my dad. That wasn't so much worry as such on my part, but a whole scene of family strain, tenseness. But, as you said in your starter post, dlowan, that's not the kind of fear you are talking about. I suppose I could have developed fearfulness as some kind of company to all that, but no...
just the ever present shyness.

The 'nature' element to anxiety makes sense to me, although I figure 'nurture' or failure to have nurture could play a part for some, or perhaps heighten any natural anxiety tendencies.

I forgot to mention religion. I did believe rather intensely, but I don't remember any real fears with all that. Martyrdom seemed quite horrible but it also seemed not usual in my neighborhood. (Later I could see it as a personality trait, but that was later.)

I had a strong motivation to be a good obedient girl and a lot of that came from the nuns' instruction and clear expectations from my mother. Part of growing up had to do with working out my own view of any need for obedience. So.. fears there re being good.. all normal anxiety, I think.

A lot when I had time to think about it. Most of it had to do with people breaking in and hurting/killing us, being kidnapped, that kind of thing. I loved thunderstorms, oddly, so I didn't worry about those kinds of things. I don't think my parents knew or could have done anything about it.

My son is a worrier. I talk to him about it, but it doesn't seem to help.

I used to have a recurring nightmare that a witch would enter the front door of our tenement apartment and walk slowly through the railroad flat to get to me. I had to wake up before she did. I always woke up screaming.

Otherwise, I had no major worries or worries that were not founded in some kind of reality.

I should note that when I was awake, I didn't worry about witches. It was only when I was sleeping that this came up.

I was one neurotically worried kid...atom bombs, hell and damnation, car crashes, breakins, monsters. I was an even more worried adolescent. Turned out I had Obsessive Compulsive disorder. Was treated as an adult and still take medication for it, but function just fine today.

hellllllll no

After I won the .38 and started working out with it out on the desert
(ammunition was plentifully available in hardware stores),
I became non-fearful and serene; (except as to the communists).





David

I was a pretty plucky kid. Did not worry much. I had this one phobia about escalators. I was afraid that I would get caught in it. I remember one time when my father had to practically carry me up the escalator. I was screaming and yelling. I finally conquered the worry, but to this day, I still get a bit anxious when I step onto an escalator.

I worried about money, I worried that we would be eaten by sharks when we went to the beach - to the point of having an upset stomach before we left every time. My parents never knew. Never asked me...didn't know how to tell them. They probably could have assured me had I let them know somehow...I grew out of it for the most part...I still worry over money.

I told my Mom about the shark thing and she said she never had a clue.

A monster is a product of genetic distortion.
I wonder Y monsters and ghosts are believed to be predatory or malevolent ?





David

As a pre-schooler, I was terrified of airplanes falling out of the sky and crashing on me - or dropping bombs on me. I would run and hide if one flew over. Both I attribute to watching newsreels in the movies during wartime. Once the war ended, I don't recall being afraid any more.

My daughter was absolutely fearless as a child. When a toddler, my son was spooked seeing the moon through his bedroom window at night--I checked for hairy toes when the moon was full and nothing so no explanation for that whatsoever. And he was spooked by the rapidly turning vent in the ceiling of the men's room at the church. No explanation for that either.

Other than a few days of fretting after watching a movie or two that I probably shouldn't have watched at my age at the time, I don't really recall any. BPB mentioned vampires and that was one that I recall that was movie-inspired. After a week or two of checking the closets and under the bed each night it just went away.

no big fears or phobias here. i was a sheltered secure kid, did my own things very early on, since i was always a bit of a loner. it wasn't unusual for me to get home at 10-ish pm when i was 11 or 12 already, usually from horseback riding.

but kids love fear, they seek it. so of course with a friend who used to sleep over, we would imagine scenarios of someone breaking in, and build an obstacle course, sleep with "dull heavy objects" under our pillows, etc.
And the Americans... the Pershing. We were told it would take 17 seconds for pershings to fly over and destroy us all....so we role played that scenario again and again. the 17 Seconds Scenario.

But both of these were more sought out thrills than real fears.

Wow...lots of different experiences!


My MOTHER used to worry I would be eaten by sharks. I was fearless. NOW I worry I will be eaten by sharks.

growing up near the US border (Detroit), the bomb was a big thing for me in the mid seventies, before that i can remember that the american tv stations played emergency broadcast signals just about every day (this is a test of the emergency broadcast system, this is only a test, in the event of a real emergency you would be given instructions on where to turn for more information, i can remember being very anxious when these alerts would come on tv)

Something about the Conalrad system, however you spell that. Yuck.

I wonder whether hypnosis (conditioning the subconscious mind)
woud be helpful in relieving kids' fears (if giving them handguns does not work).

In the absence of hypnosis, maybe repeated, direct statements
of serene assurance to the subconscious mind might be effective.

About 25 years ago, in California, we had a horrible case of attempted murder
in which one Charles Rothenberg tried to assassinate his son, 6 year old David Rothenberg.
His father tried to burn him to death.

For years thereafter, he slept with a gun on the endtable by his bed,
afraid that his father might return to finish the job.





David

I used to leap into bed so the bogey underneath it wouldn't grab my ankles. I always thought something was lurking in the dark. I convinced myself that once I was in bed, I'd be ok. Then I convinced myself that if the bogey had a sword I'd still be toast. So, I put my mattress on the floor. I also though people were watching me through the windows (second story).

It wasn't until I had people and pets who I was responsible for that I started having scary, irrational flashes of nightmare scenarios where they'd be run over or mauled by a dog.

Wheee! I am a nutter!

Didn't mean to imply that. I had scads of social anxiety -- especially before the growth spurt and early puberty that made me immune to physical attack, but left to my own devices I didn't worry about too much. And I'd flip out from time to time if I was concentrating fiercely on something and someone would interrupt me. But I don't recall being preoccupied with WORRY at all...