Not Afraid to be Afraid

         “There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.”  Well, thank you very much, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt but I beg to differ.  There is plenty out there to fear, fear being one of the smallest players in that cast.  I have a lot of fears.  Some are silly, uncomfortable fears while a few are knee-buckling , paralyzing, crippling terrors that make certain things in life veritable nightmares for me.  No, I don’t suffer from some fancy anxiety disorder or take designer pharmaceuticals that I can’t even pronounce much less understand.  Besides, all that stuff seems to have lovely side effects like loss of bladder control or sudden death.  No, thank you.  When I was working towards my bachelor’s degree I minored in Psychology and do not believe that God, Mother Nature, or the deity of your choosing, equipped us with the “fight or flight” impulses for nothing.  Besides that, Mr. President, if there is nothing to fear then why are there scientific names for a multitude of different fears? 

         When talking about fear as a reaction, the scientific term is “phobia”.  There are many phobias that an individual can struggle with.  Everyone is different: while you may have some of the same phobias that I have, you may react to them differently and most likely have some phobias that do not trigger a reaction for me at all.  Some people refer to certain phobias as “common” and some as “weird”.  A few “common” fears are of insects, heights, and flying.  Some that I have heard referred to as “weird” would be a fear of clowns, large things, and walking.  Yes, walking.  I have some phobias that would fall under normal and some that are definitely weird.  However, I have a reason for each of my fears and can explain each one.  I’ll start with a small phobia for me, automatonophobia.

         Automatonophobia is the fear of anything that falsely represents a living human being.  Examples include, ventriloquist's dummies, wax statues, and some dolls.  This is a fear that makes me quite uncomfortable but I can handle it as long as I am not left alone in a room with one of these items.  The ones that have creepy features, such as eyes that move or eyelids that blink, up the ante a bit for me.  I do not like anything that represents something human when it is not. Dolls and dummies make me think of humans without souls.  As I write these words I am feeling a bit of tightening in my chest.  This need to know “What is it?” spills over into another phobia of mine that causes me a little more anxiety, coulrophobia.

         Over time, I have discovered that coulrophobia is a fairly common phobia to have.  That doesn’t make it easier to cope with, however.  In general, you will never catch me anywhere near a clown of any kind.  Clowns are disturbing for me for many reasons.  As with automatonophobia, I don’t like something that acts like something it’s not.  There have been times when someone I knew was dressed as a clown using face paint and I did not recognize them.  Coating one’s face with oily paint in vibrant colors is an amazing distraction from basic human features.  There could be a sketch composite of a serial killer all over the news and he may be unrecognizable as a clown.  Who is the real person behind the paint?  With horrible clowns like the character of Pennywise in Stephen King’s novel, IT and child murderer, John Wayne Gacy, we may not want to know who is under that paint.

         Two of my worst phobias have nothing to do with souls, dolls, and the great unknown.  Instead, they are centered on travel and engineering failure.  My two biggest phobias, aviatophobia and gephydrophobia deal with things that many people use every single day, bridges and airplanes.  My fear of flying is the only fear that I can’t exactly pinpoint the source of.  The obvious reason is why it is so common among other people, crashing.  No one wants to be in an airplane that crashes.  That is because when they do, there are usually no survivors.  I don’t believe that to be a valid reason, however, because I don’t fear driving my car and the chances of me crashing my car are much higher.  I think the most valid explanation for my fear of flight is the loss of control.  Once you are buckled in that seat and thirty-two thousand feet above planet Earth, you are at the mercy of the pilot, the airplane, and gravity.  If you go down there is nothing you can do about it except pray for the world’s largest feather bed and a soft landing.  I once read an article that said most airplane crashes occur within the first minute of takeoff.  As soon as I feel the wheels leave that tarmac, I am counting.  Counting to sixty with eyes closed and fingers clenched onto both arm rests.  I literally breathe out and relax the moment my count arrives at sixty.  I am still afraid, but I am able to unclench my teeth and death grip.  I really hate flying but I have resigned myself to knowing that it is a necessary evil.  I have even travelled on flights that were in air for eight to ten hours at a time.  I hate it but I have found ways to cope.

         My biggest fear of all is one many find strange.  Gephydrophobia is the fear of crossing bridges over water.  There are other terms for crossing bridges in general and crossing bridges over land but I strictly fear crossing water.  When I was younger, any bridge over water was a nightmare for me but as I get older that has begun to change.  The bridges in this area are flat and even with the road.  The do not rise and usually cross creeks and low lying farm land.  AS a child, even these flat bridges terrified me.  As I have grown older and crossed bridges like these daily, they do not bother me that much anymore.  The only time that I get really nervous is when the flood levels raise the water under them.  The bridges that really cause me stress are the huge ones. especially the ones with the massive cage-like structures on top.  Some examples are the ones outside Dyersburg and near Clarksville, Tennessee.  I even have a “most hated” bridge, the Sunshine Skyway in Tampa, Florida.  In order for cruise ships to enter Tampa Bay, this bridge has a clearance of almost two hundred feet.  But why am I afraid of bridges?  Well, I can pinpoint the exact day that I developed this nightmarish phobia.

         On April 1, 1989, a bridge that crossed the Hatchie River in Covington, Tennessee collapsed killing seven people.  Of course, living in Union City, Tennessee, this was big news and with all the press coverage, even a nine year-old girl heard about it.  I actually remember thinking, “What?!?!?!  Bridges can really fall down?  That’s not just a stupid song!?!?!?!”  This event has scarred me for life; however, there were other circumstances that most likely aggravated the situation for me.  On a trip to Memphis with my mother and her best friend, we drove over the bridge only a few days after the collapse.  The Hatchie River Bridge was actually two separate bridges.  One two-lane bridge for southbound traffic and one two-lane bridge for northbound traffic.  The bridge that collapsed was the one bearing the northbound vehicles.  To accommodate travelers, the southbound bridge was converted to a two-lane bridge with one lane for southbound vehicles and the other for northbound vehicles.  Anyone crossing the bridge was able to look over and see the collapsed portion of the bridge and the massive hole it produced.  I was truly horrified when I looked over and saw the mess of concrete, rebar, and mud.  This event has had a similar effect on my brother, even inspiring him to write a letter to the then-governor of Tennessee, Ned McWherter.  In his letter, my brother suggested that bridges be outfitted with better lighting.  He also has a paralyzing fear of bridges that cross water. 

         Many people have told me that I am afraid of my own shadow.  Okay, I admit that I am afraid of a lot of things but that is just who I am.  We all have fears; it’s just that some people can hide their fears better than I can.  I guess you could say that I am not afraid to be afraid.  Some people believe that showing fear is a sign of weakness and that some animals can sense fear in a human being.  I don’t know if the animal kingdom has a secret sense but I do know that my fears do not make me weak.  I feel that they make me cautious.  I like to be aware of my surroundings and in control of what happens to my body.  I don’t think that is weak nor is it anything to be ashamed of.  With this attitude, I most likely will never win a medal for courage but that’s okay.  As long as I do not let fear influence my lifestyle, I’m okay with it.  All though I don’t think I will ever drive over a bridge to catch a flight with my trusty clown friend and blinking baby doll.