day 10

Day 10: Something you're afraid of

My immediate reaction to this is spiders!! I hate, hate HATE those stupid little crawly things. Well, I hate really anything that belongs to the bug species. I don't understand why spiders make me so ridiculously scared, but they do. I physically tense up when I'm around them or if I see one by accident, I freak out and run away. Funny story: Just last night, I came back from a shopping trip at the mall to find a (we'll say, medium-sized so I don't sound too dramatic) black spider in my bathroom. Now, for whatever reason, Hillview has had a lot of black widows. Usually I'll just leave the spider alone and tip-toe around it, hoping it'll go away, but last night I decided to kill it. A big step for me. So, I get a broom from the kitchen and make sure it's sturdy enough to kill the spider with a few whacks. I get back to my bathroom and hold the broom over the spider for a few seconds before I lose my courage. So (and this part is kind of embarassing because it's really ridiculous), I decide to take out my contacts so I can't see the actual spider anymore, just the blur of it. Not seeing the spider helps to alleviate my fear, even though I know it's still there. So with my courage gathered up again, I squash the spider a couple times. When I raise the broom again, it tries to crawl away (BLAAAH, just writing this is making me feel gross), but I smash it again! The stupid nasty black spider finally dies and I am proud to say that I am the one who killed it.

Another fear of mine that is a little more serious (and perhaps, a little less common) is being afraid that I will stop breathing. It's not a fear of having something happen that would cause breathing to cease, but just a fear that I might randomly stop breathing one day. It's weird and often, when I start to become anxious about not being able to breathe, I work myself up into a frenzy and have to run outside to get some cool air or turn on the air conditioning in my car. Heat is not good because it makes me feel like I'm suffocating. I don't really know when/how/why this fear started, but it is getting better.

[this is me being brave]