What Scares You?

With Halloween fast approaching, I figured it would be a good day to talk about what scares us.

Personally, I'm totally freaked out by the thought of suffocation.  I'm not claustrophobic.  If I was, I'd never take a shower in that tiny bathroom I have.  No, I'm talking about having something over my face for any length of time.  When I'm in bed, the blankets can't come up any higher than my chin, or I hyperventilate.

I used to have an overwhelming moth phobia.  Butterflies are fine.  Moths?  They're creepy and hairy and... :shudder:  It took me years to get to the point where I didn't run screaming if one was in the same room.  Now I'm proud to say, I can stay in the room long enough to smush their little heads.  But I still don't want them touching me.

I have the same feeling about grasshoppers.  Big eyed nasty critters.  Thank goodness my husband is nice enough to put them outside for me. 

But the worst fear I have - worse than anything I can think of - is being trapped inside myself.

Back in therapy, I was sitting at the lunch room table one afternoon when they rolled a woman up next to me.  She was one of the bad head injury cases.  She wasn't paralyzed or anything, she just didn't have control over her muscles anymore.  So she just sat there in her wheelchair while someone spoon fed her.  No biggie.  Happens all the time in TBI therapy.  Except she wasn't typical of someone who'd had their brain damaged enough to be in that position.  Her eyes were still alive.  When you looked in them, you could tell every bit of her intellect was still intact, - and she couldn't communicate any of it to anyone.  The horror I saw in those eyes will haunt me 'til the day I die.  It was like her eyes were screaming 'help me'.

:shudder:  I saw her years later being wheeled through the mall.  Her husband pushed her along like it was nothing while her children trailed alongside.  And her eyes?  The horror was gone, but so was the light. 

That?  Now that scares the hell out of me.

What scares you?