What Induces Fear?

LuciaDisturbed said:
My dad and his wife. They physically and mentally abused me after my own mother died up until his wife made my dad give me away to the state and I ended up in foster care.

People causing me to lose the ability to breathe (choking, suffocating, sitting on top of me, etc). Loss of ability to breathe freely causes me to panic automatically no matter what. Same goes for when an allergic reaction occurs causing my throat to swell up, that would scare the hell out of me. I am allergic to the contrast dye that they use in CT Scans, and if I have to have a CT Scan, I have to take two different medicines for it (Prednisone and Benadryl), and I have to take 3 doses before the CT Scan, I have to take each dose 13 hrs, 7 hrs, and then 1 hr before I am to have the CT Scan. Even with those medications, I ALWAYS make sure that the radiologist and other people in the room with me during the CT Scan has ALL the equipment required to save my life in the event of an allergic reaction (anti-dotes, tubes to open my airway, and everything else) be all in the CT Scan room even though the CT Scan/MRI Imaging Center is just down the hallway from the ER in front of the hospital. The ER would make me wait 6 hours anyway even if I was suffocating. And no, I'm not lying or kidding or exaggerating or even playing.

Large cockroaches the size of a full-sized human spoon that you use to eat your cereal with. They terrify me. (Remember, this is Texas and it is warm for most of the year giving cockroaches more time to grow before they die). Thankfully, ever since I have moved downstairs to this apartment back in October, I have only seen dime-sized cockroaches, and they are so much less terrifying because they are easy to kill with roach spray.

Scorpions. We have them in Texas, too, but thankfully since we live in the city we do not see them here at all...they mostly occur in the outlying areas of San Antonio, so I have not seen one yet.

I am scared of the dawn in the early hours of the morning. It has a lot to do with what happened to me back in St. Cloud, Minnesota and that I became homeless early in the morning. So, if I am still up, and I see light outside, I lose all sleep for that day. To combat this, if I get to bed too late, I put on a blindfold quickly and it does seem to help most of the time. But actually, I must discipline myself to get myself to bed before 4 am to ensure that I fall asleep before it becomes light outside.

I am afraid of all spiders of all sizes, shapes, and colors, except for Daddy Long Legs. I do not know why.

I am also afraid of all bees and wasps. When I lived in the upstairs apartment, I had a big problem with wasps nests outside my front door. But ever since I moved downstairs to this apartment, I have not had a problem with wasps nest because my front door is now in a busier area, so wasps do not tend to nest there.

I have a lot of fears and I could go on all night.
Click to expand...

I have much empathy, and i am sorry.
 
I am terrified of nightfall. Once it's been night for awhile I'm fine but it's those one to two hours where it just starts to get dark and then gets completely dark.
 
Nika said:
For me tenseness in a voice is enough to make me flashback no matter what. Especially if it's from an authority figure, then I am basically X years old again.
Click to expand...

you don't have to answer this question if you don't want to (or you could answer it in a pm), but given how stressful and angry the world is around us, do you take any meds for your flashbacks? i'm thinking about it since i have flashbacks several times a day. my psychiatrist and i have discussed it and he has a med in mind that he wants to give me, but we'll see. i'm already on 7 different meds as it is (soon to be 8), so i really don't want to be on 8 meds if i don't have to. i'll make up my mind when i see him in another week.
 
Yes, I do. In fact I didn't take medication ever for my whole life and this was the first time I made an exception. I actually just got an increase in dosage a few days ago as well.
 
Jiro said:
oh. then my assumption's back in. typeingtornado19, nika, and hear again are blind and do experience anxiety/PTSD/panic attacks in public/crowdy place. any other blind ADer who experiences the same?
Click to expand...

I do but I've also experienced domestic violence. That has more to do with my fear of people then my deafblindness I think.
 
Nika said:
Yes, I do. In fact I didn't take medication ever for my whole life and this was the first time I made an exception. I actually just got an increase in dosage a few days ago as well.
Click to expand...

how well does the med work for you? the reason i ask is because i'm curious to know if it has the potential to work for me. is the severity of your flashbacks reduced at all or are they the same?
 
I'm surprised no one said clowns yet!

Didn't anyone see Stephen King's IT? Saw it when I was 9. I'll NEVER forget. Coincidently, Hurricane Andrew came to Miami a few days after seeing IT. I spent a lot of time awake at night because its too hot to sleep and it's too dark to do anything else (no electricity/AC for weeks), so imagine being terrified of a clown that likes to kill kids during this time!
 
Hear Again said:
how well does the med work for you? the reason i ask is because i'm curious to know if it has the potential to work for me. is the severity of your flashbacks reduced at all or are they the same?
Click to expand...

It decreased both the severity and the frequency. I used to have them during most waking hours. Now I just have a few a day. I also used to have them almost the whole night through (usually only one to two hours of actual sleep) but now I am able to sleep through most of the night.
 
Nika said:
It decreased both the severity and the frequency. I used to have them during most waking hours. Now I just have a few a day. I also used to have them almost the whole night through (usually only one to two hours of actual sleep) but now I am able to sleep through most of the night.
Click to expand...

my flashbacks occur during the day and night -- although they are worse in the daytime when i hear other people's voices. i also can't stand the sound of a child or infant crying. that instantly sets me off into flashback mode as well.
 
nika,

what med do you take for your flashbacks? i'd like to know if it's the same med my psychiatrist recommended.
 
this may sound strange, but i also can't stand the sound of people coughing (especially constant, repetitive coughing) as this reminds me of an auditory hallucination and delusion i had when experiencing a severe manic/psychotic episode. the voices i heard told me that the hospital staff was trying to poison me and if i didn't eat the food they gave me, they would shove it down my throat causing me to choke to death. all the while i heard these voices i could hear myself coughing in the background. i know. it sounds weird, but that's what happens when someone experiences an auditory hallucination and/or delusion. they don't make any sense.
 
Hear Again said:
i hate them both. i have very small eyes that i can't open by myself. whenever my opthalmologist inserts eye drops into my eyes, she literally has to pry my eyes open to get them in.
Click to expand...

So your eyes are always closed at all times? Or just during the exam?
 
Hear Again said:
this may sound strange, but i also can't stand the sound of people coughing (especially constant, repetitive coughing) as this reminds me of an auditory hallucination and delusion i had when experiencing a severe manic/psychotic episode. the voices i heard told me that the hospital staff was trying to poison me and if i didn't eat the food they gave me, they would shove it down my throat causing me to choke to death. all the while i heard these voices i could hear myself coughing in the background. i know. it sounds weird, but that's what happens when someone experiences an auditory hallucination and/or delusion. they don't make any sense.
Click to expand...

That really stinks, i'm sorry.
 
LuciaDisturbed said:
So your eyes are always closed at all times? Or just during the exam?
Click to expand...

no, my eyes aren't completely closed all the time. they're open a tiny bit, but not enough that you can tell. when you look at me, it looks like my eyes are closed.
 
Back
Top