I have a ragtag host of fears... spiders, being a passenger in a car, heights, caves, the dark, deep water, flying, riding my horse.
I've overcome my crippling fear of spiders and have figured many ways to escort them away from my house. It is only afterwards that I shudder and wonder if I should have a drink.
I'm also afraid to be a passenger in a car with someone who doesn't drive the way I like... not necessarily slowly but they must be in control. I can tell if they are or aren't. Unfortunately, I've spent the last month teaching my son to drive. I've been in a state of near horror, especially the first few times he went on the freeway.
I'm also afraid of heights, which truly can't be overcome. I will go to high places, but there MUST be some sort of railing or wall. I drove up to the top of "A" Mountain in Tucson once in absolute terror -- then went back to face my fears and found that they'd greatly improved the road and I was hardly afraid at all.
I'm afraid of being in caves and particularly a cave so deep that when a flashlight goes out there is no light at all. I don't care much for the dark, but I freak when there is absolute darkness.
I'm also afraid of swimming in deep water... I'm not a strong swimmer and I like to be able to reach down and touch the bottom with my toes. If not, I start to scramble about and head for a shallower place. It didn't help that I used to swim in deep water and was frightened by a shark scare. Otherwise, I love the water, though I don't like to look down and see kelp trailing down into nothingness. I'd just rather not see that.
I'm also not thrilled about the taking off and landing parts of flying but it is the only convenient way to get to interesting places. My MD prescribes for me a valium-type drug and then I just don't care.
I have been in an awful state of not being able to ride my horse. I had a horrible fall and couldn't ride for a month until my concussion had healed... after that, it just wasn't the same. My horse is supposed to be easy-going and calm, but she doesn't like to be ridden. A friend who tried to ride her last summer cracked her breastbone when Pearl did a little maneuver. Now everyone feels a little leery. On the ground she is a pussycat, but when someone gets on top, she sometimes goes nuts.
Quote:My husband and I were swimming in a pool in Death Valley (hah) one night and bats made repeated dives over the pool
Mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide and the two of you were expelling a lot. Possible that the bats were diving at the mosquitoes you were attracting
That was one lonely pool. It was in summer, when Death Valley is not highly populated. There are, or were, two places to stay, which are associated. We stayed at the associated motel, and then there was the bigger nicely rustic Furnace Creek Inn, or some such name. Those who stayed in the motelly place could walk up and use the pool in the Lodge, and so we did. We were the only people we saw that night... On the bats, my feeling was that they probably were by that pool every evening, but then I have no scientific reason for thinking that on my own. I guess the mosquitoes or CO2 make sense. My own way of relaxing was that they weren't after me personally. Nehmind that I or we might have been wrong.
One of the nice things about my ex is that he did (and does) tend to take an optimistic view of things. The sky can be falling in and he will say, "it went very well." That is not a dig, just an observation on personality. I tended to worry first, so nothing bad would happen, and he tended to say everything was fine, so nothing bad would happen.
Piffka, was your fall recent? Poor baby!!! Take care of yourself, eh what?
No. Not a recent fall. Happened about five years ago, sigh.
I think the bats were probably trying to get a drink of water -- you were sitting in their pond!
It's funny how the more we talk about fears, the more fears I think I have. Not really, but I find myself saying, "Yea, I have that fear, too." I'm really not that much of a fraidy cat, just sometimes.
It's been five days since we came back home and I still feel uneasy about going upstairs. Last night was the first night I spent in the house alone since the invasion. I was pretty "creeped out" but I finally got to sleep.
Oh yeah, bats are icky when they're right there. I'm fine with bats as a concept, love seeing them at night, love seeing them in the zoo, but in our house... (We had a coupla invasions in our house in Madison, and once we saw the bat but couldn't get it despite many hours of attempts, and ended up just going to sleep knowing it was around somewhere. We examined every square inch of the bedroom and then sealed off the door -- towel underneath, etc.
Got 'im the next day, poor little scared guy. [Once he was safely captured, I could feel sympathy.])
When they were separated from me and just living in the attic, I kind of felt like I got to know them. I would hear the mom'sd coming in at 2 a. m. to nurse. The babies would scurry around with excitement. But that's as far as I could go. When they invade my space I just freak out...I mean
F R E A K!
Oh, I know. The way they swoop! Goes right past the logic part of the brain and fully engages the fear processors. Swooping bat! Flee!
heehee...Monday was SOs birthday. I had a cake made with a bat on it.
I think most bats are prolly sweeties, but I am in my Weird Behavior when I can't see. Dial Therapist 1-800- I no longer quail at their batwings, as such, although I suppose I would with big ones. I am just more quail-y at night in general because of my extreme night blindness. I go from moderately ballsy broad, though sensitive and caring, of course, at pretwilight, to being the person who needs to ascertain that she can step right in front of where her feet are now. Requires quick daily personality shift. Luckily, I am used to it, and try to act my normal self when others are around. But others are just too fast in space for me at night. On my own, I stand and wait for my eyes to adjust, and they may take a half hour to your thirty seconds. But ordinarily, perhaps five minutes to your thirty seconds. So I can get there, in a dark bar, just not right away.
All this description of what happens for me as dark comes on, is a prelude to what happens to any of us, I think. I am sort of pre-wary. Let me just say I would much rather see a bunny hop past my feet than a big bat whoosh near the ceiling. Or hear about it whooshing from others.
I am a foxy older woman now, but this was all true when I was nineteen too. So, I have fallen in the NicteJa, or some such name, a bar in Tijuana, where I missed the chair before having a drink. I have fallen all dressed up on a tree root going from the parking lot to the entrance of the Greek Theater in LA for what concert, don't remember now. I have met a friend in the dining room of a fine hotel by walking though the bar entrance, and I guarantee all the bar folk thought I was a drunken slut, perhaps okay but I hadn't earned it yet.
Even now, if I am out with my business partner and her husband at night, I hang, usually on his arm, but sometimes hers...for example, when they drop me off after an event.
All of which reminds me of when my italian teacher. a woman, came to visit me, in the daytime, and we walked over to a neighborhood bakery. She wanted to clasp arms, and I did, but gradually described how that is perceived in LA, and she was finally understanding the subtext in the difference in behavior between here and there. Which is neither here nor there, but I remember this when I clasp friends' arms at night.
