You’re afraid of something. We know you are. It’s okay, you can admit it. Fear is part of the human condition, and unless you’ve got some rare and interesting anatomy in your brain’s amygdala, chances are good you’ve felt fear many times before. Some of us are bigger scaredy-cats than others (and if you are one such kitty, we meow in solidarity with you) but what if it’s not just all in your head? Join us as we destigmatize some commons fears and phobias and seek to understand why we feel fear; how to determine if we’re being irrational; and what to do about it when our fear gets the better of us. To see our resources for this and all our other episodes visit https://www.differentfunctional.com/podcast-resources If you’d like to support us on Patreon you can find us at www.patreon.com/differentfunctional And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and leave us a rating and review. Thanks for listening!

AUTUMN

0:00

Welcome to the Different Functional Podcast where we explore the triumphs and challenges of trauma recovery and being neurodivergent in a neurotypical world. In today's episode, we're going to be talking all about phobias and irrational fears.

I am Autumn, the older sister, and I have a needle phobia. And when I say I have a needle phobia, I mean that when somebody tries to take my blood or give me an injection of something, I will assume they're killing me, lose all ability to verbalize and start pretty much just screaming and thrashing and have to be held down. And I wish the medical community would listen to me when I tell them this because they never believe me. They're all like, oh, everybody doesn't like needles. And I'm like, bitches, it is way more than that.

IVY

0:51

I agree. They never take that shit seriously. They just are like, oh, yeah, everybody has an issue with needles. Nobody really likes them. When you never said I don't like needles, you said, I have a phobia of needles. I am terrified of them. I will die if a needle gets near me. And they are just like, oh, so you don't like needles. Thanks for downplaying what I just told you. This is going to be fun for all of us.

Now, I am Ivy, the younger sister. And while I also have some needle fears, that is not my biggest phobia. My biggest phobia is honestly a tie probably between spiders and dentists. Both of them are equally terrifying to me.

AUTUMN

1:35

What if there was a dentist that was a spider? Like, would that then be your biggest phobia? Like a dentist spider?

IVY

1:37

That would essentially be a horror movie that was custom made to me. I can think of nothing more terrifying than a spider dentist that would be . . .oh, God.

AUTUMN

1:40

And I won't underplay your fear of spiders or dentists either, because both of those can be terrifying, as can needles. And that's what we're talking all about today, is things that are terrifying to us. Hopefully, you'll be able to listen to the whole episode without running away in fear.

So, to start off, let's really talk about the difference between a fear and a phobia. Now, from the psychological world’s standpoint, they see fear as a sensible response to a situation. So, if somebody is threatening to stab you with a knife and you're afraid, they're like, okay, that's fear. That makes all sorts of sense.

But in the psychological world, a phobia is seen as an irrational fear. You're afraid of something that it doesn't make sense to be afraid of. So, to get a little bit better idea of how the psychological world looks at phobias, let's actually look at the diagnosis of phobia in the DSM V.

So, to start with, the very first bit of criteria is you have a lot of fear or anxiety about a specific object or situation, which makes sense, right? You're afraid of it. Then they say that the phobic object or situation almost always provokes immediate fear or anxiety. Again, you have something you're really, really terrified of when presented with it, you get really freaked out.

Now, this is where the irrational part starts coming in. So, the fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the threat. Or it's out of proportion to the sociocultural context. So, what this means is, for example, with my needle phobia, my extreme panic attack, trying to take people out and punch them down because I think I'm going to die reaction is kind of out of proportion to having your blood drawn because it's not really that threatening.

The thing I find most interesting about this specific criteria, though, is that it also says out of proportion to the sociocultural context. So that means if I lived in a geographical area or a country or was part of a religion that was terrified of needles, I might not have a phobia because everybody's scared, so therefore it's okay to be scared. I guess.

IVY

4:18

I really love that logic because to me it really is a perfect example of that old saying that adults used to use on you when you're younger and you wanted to do something that your peer group was doing. Well, if all your friends were jumping off a cliff, would you jump off of a cliff too? It's like equivalent to that. Well, if all of your friends are terrified of dogs, are you going to be terrified of dogs too? Yes, you are. Yes, you are.

I just find it interesting that as long as everybody else around you is terrified of the thing that you're afraid of, then it's okay. You are allowed to be terrified of it. You are allowed to have a panic attack. You are allowed to flip shit and think you're going to die. As long as everybody else has the same reaction to it, then it's cool. But if they don't have the same reaction to it, now you have a problem.

AUTUMN

5:10

I kind of feel like that's the quintessential definition of mental illness, though. As long as everybody else is doing it, it's fine, it's normal. But when you're the only one, well, obviously you're the problem. It also begs the question though, to me, what if everybody else is terrified and you're not? Does that then make you a sociopath because you're approaching a clown or a needle or a sexy lady with no fear?

IVY

5:35

I think that's the natural conclusion. I was almost an adult by the time I came to the conclusion that the mental health industry, for all the good it can do people, it was all about just conformity. So, I mean, that would be the natural conclusion that I would come to, is that if everybody else is afraid of it, and I'm not, apparently I have a problem, and I need to fix that. I need to make myself afraid of sexy ladies, if everybody is terrified of sexy ladies.

AUTUMN

6:06

I feel that's really unfair. But I also feel that is kind of hand in hand with mental illness definition in our society.

IVY

6:13

It's definitely unfair to the sexy ladies. I will say that it's most unfair to them if every everybody's just terrified whenever they encounter a sexy lady. Like it would suck to be a sexy lady. So I think it's most unfair to them.

AUTUMN

6:25

It probably is most unfair to them, especially if you're a sexy lady that's not afraid of sexy ladies, because then you're just all sorts of wrong.

IVY

6:34

Oh, God. But if you're a sexy lady who lives someplace where everybody's afraid of sexy ladies and you also have that fear, are you then afraid yourself? Because that would be a whole other level. I mean, probably not, because most people have body dysmorphia and they don't really see themselves as being sexy, I think. But that would be rough if you were a sexy lady. If you were supposed to be afraid of sexy ladies and you were afraid of them, you would be terrified of yourself. That sounds really unfair, the most unfair.

AUTUMN

7:04

Very unfair, but mentally healthy in some weird sort of twisty way.

All right, so to actually get back on track with the rest of these criteria from the DSM, the fear or anxiety or avoidance of that fear or anxiety causes clinically significant distress or impairment in your life. So, for example, the need phobia when I have a panic attack, when I have to be physically held down because somebody's coming at me with a needle, that is significant distress. Or with Ivy's fear of spiders. If that was so severe for her that she couldn't even enter a room if there was a spider and it interfered with her ability to hold a job or be in a relationship, that would be a definite problem which would result in the diagnosis of a phobia.

And then the other one in here is essentially that the phobic object or the situation is actively avoided or endured with intense fear of anxiety. Essentially, when you have a phobia, you do your best not to encounter it because you're fucking terrified of it. And if you are in the presence of it and you can't escape, well, you're fucking terrified. So there's a lot of intense fear.

So that's what it takes to be diagnosed with a phobia according to the DSM. But I say that a lot of us actually have phobias that aren't necessarily diagnosable and a lot of us also have irrational fears. But I also think a lot of us have rational fears the world paints as irrational. I feel like there's a lot of fears out there that actually have a good rationale behind them, but the rest of the world goes, oh, you're silly, you're the only one terrified of that. So obviously you're the issue.

IVY

8:46

I do think we should touch briefly on the idea of rational versus irrational fears because that can be pretty highly subjective, because what seems very rational to one person is going to seem irrational to another person. I think a perfect example of that, honestly, is how women are often treated when we are fearful of things like being kidnapped or being raped, and we talk about those kinds of fears and we kind of just get gaslit as though like, oh, that's not going to happen to you. That's not very likely. You're worried about nothing. You're too serious.

And that's really, really frustrating because to me, as a woman, that is a very rational fear. But to somebody who doesn't live with that fear, who doesn't live with that constant threat of danger, who's not had that be part of their life and part of their world and part of the messaging that they've gotten growing up, that would seem like a really irrational fear. Like, oh, it's very unlikely you would ever get kidnapped, it's very unlikely you would ever get raped. And yet there's tons of evidence to indicate that it actually happens quite a bit. And yet we still get treated as though it's an irrational fear a lot of times.

Or even in less overt example, my fear of spiders. Part of my fear of spiders, it's not the only thing, but part of my fear of spiders comes from the fact that we knew somebody when we were growing up who had been bitten by a brown recluse and lost her ear because of that bite from the brown recluse necrotizing her flesh. And so, the ear had to be removed. To me, that makes my fear of spiders seem pretty rational. I'm sure it looks crazy to people who see me around a spider because I do flip out when there's a spider around. But to me that fear is very rational. So, I think it's important to note that rationality when it comes to fear is a very subjective thing.

AUTUMN

I would definitely agree with that, that it is very, very subjective. And a lot of times the fears we have, while they may not make sense rationally on a societal or a larger global level, they do rationally make sense on a more personal level. Even some of the even more far fetching fears that I have, such as the needle could break off in my vein. Okay, that seems pretty ridiculous. The probability of that is extremely low. But it's possible. And this is where my mind and rationality start getting a little bit blurry for me. Because if something is possible, that means it's plausible.

And I know people argue with me all the time, but I look at it this way. Let's say lightning only strikes 1% of the population. Okay? It's not extremely likely I'm going to get struck, but somebody's got to get struck, so why not me? Because I don't feel that my luck or my karma or my whatever is so wonderful that I'm going to automatically be in the 99% of the population that never gets struck by lightning, because it's possible. Then in my mind, it's plausible.

Somebody has to win the lottery of horror for whatever these fears are. So, somebody out there probably has had a needle break off in their arm or has been attacked or murdered by a clown. So, if it's happened, well, that could happen to me. So, in my mind, possible equals plausible, because I don't think that I am so entitled, special, or different that I should automatically be protected from this happening.

IVY

I feel the same way about that. That's always been my thought process on it as well. Is it unlikely? Sure. But it is possible. And if it is possible, then by process of elimination, if it's got to happen to somebody, it could be me. And I would rather be aware of that danger and prepared for it if possible. I was never a Girl Scout, but I'm taking that part of things, so always be prepared. I feel like you should always be prepared for any possibility just in case.

I mean, unless it's something that if it does happen to you and there's no way to prepare for it. I'm not super afraid of meteorites hitting me because I feel like if a meteorite hits me, I'm probably going to be dead automatically. So, it's not much point in being afraid of it. But if there's any way to prepare for it, I think it's reasonable to be fearful of it to a certain degree.

AUTUMN

I totally agree that, yes, I think fears can be reasonable to some degree. And it's not necessarily the fear itself that is irrational because a lot of times those fears are born out of logic that makes sense based on your past experiences or based on experiences of people similar to you in society. But maybe it is the behavior that can be irrational when it comes to irrational fears and phobias.

Because, okay, let's say somebody's drawing my blood, and I’m having a panic attack. Well, that's kind of an irrational behavioral reaction because isn't that going to increase the likelihood that something bad happens if I'm thrashing and moving and jumping about? And so that kind of behavior is irrational. Or but let's say somebody's frightened of grizzly bears, right? But they live in the middle of, I don't know, Kansas City. How often are you going to encounter a grizzly bear in Kansas City? Probably not very often. So, if you have invested days of your life into grizzly bear defense and you never leave the house without grizzly bear spray and like a shotgun or whatever like that, that kind of behavior is probably irrational because the likelihood of you encountering a grizzly bear in Kansas City is relatively low. So, I would argue, and I don't know if you agree with me on this, Ivy, it's maybe not always the fear that's irrational, but perhaps our behavioral reaction to that fear.

IVY

Yeah, I would agree with that for sure. And yes, the likelihood of you're running into a bear in Kansas City is pretty low. But I will also say at the same time, if it makes you feel safer to carry around a can of bear spray, just go ahead and do it. That's a relatively benign thing. Is it maybe a little excessive, perhaps? But if it makes you feel better, just carry the can of bear spray. I think that is also acceptable.

I think we need to be careful too about not shaming people for their fears and shaming them about their responses to fears even if we think those responses are excessive. Definitely important to kind of mitigate some of that and not go completely overboard. But I also think there's something to be said for just the comfort of feeling like you are prepared for it in the super unlikely event that it could happen.

AUTUMN

I mean, ultimately it is our life after all. And if that's what we choose to invest our emotional wherewithal, our time, our money into it, then that is our choice. As long as we're not negatively impacting other people, I completely agree, just let people be them. Even if they're a little quirky. Even if they're wearing a hat made of aluminum foil. Okay, great. What if it does protect them? What if they're right and now their brains aren't getting read by the aliens? You're going to kick yourself in the butt when you realize that.

IVY

This is another reason why I never completely discounted discredit conspiracy theorists. I'm not going to agree with everything, but I'm also not going to treat them like they're crazy because you never know. Some conspiracy theories have proven to be true. Just because it seems insane doesn't necessarily really mean that it is.

AUTUMN

All right, so maybe you're thinking to yourself, but no, the fear is still irrational. It doesn't make sense. You're not really being threatened by a grizzly bear in Kansas City. You're not really being threatened by a needle or a spider or a clown or a sexy lady. So how could that possibly be a rational fear? Well, that's where you start getting into why do people develop these fears?

And I would say one of the biggest reasons that people develop fears, especially the reason they develop a phobia, like a full-blown diagnosable phobia, is because they had a negative experience with that particular item.

Like we've talked about before with trauma, part of the way our system is set up is that when something horribly frightening happens, it gets processed through the limbic system. And the limbic system does not fuck around. It doesn't take time to rationalize and decide if this is good or bad and thought. It just reacts and it has flashbulb learning.

So, if you get attacked by a dog and that processes through your limbic system, it's very possible that your brain might get wired to say, every dog has the potential to attack you because that's what your limbic system has wired your brain to believe. And so, if you have a negative experience with a dog, especially one that was traumatic or that led you to a significant injury and you weren't prepared to handle that or supported through the crisis of that, then there's a good chance that your mind's going to believe that.

And at least from my perspective, I can't argue that that's irrational. You got attacked by a dog. You're terrified of dogs. Now when you are around dogs, the dogs are going to sense that terror and there are animals that will react to that fear becoming more escalated and you almost create a self-fulfilling prophecy. And while, yes, you have the ability to step in and stop that, I would also say that that fear is rational because there is potential then for that to happen again and going right along with that idea of encountering a trauma and having that become that negative experience that then blows into a phobia.

I would also say that if you are under long term stress or you have a complex trauma history, you're probably also more likely to be phobic or to develop fears or to have more fears because you are stuck in survival mode. Your body is intent on observing threats from the environment. And so, if you go through a lot of trauma, especially in your developmental years, I'd argue that you're prone to be more afraid and you're prone to be more afraid because you're trying to survive.

And yes, that may seem irrational, but again, what about these kids that are getting beaten, that are getting starved, that have this invalidation, that are being emotionally abused? They are trying to survive. They're doing their best to try to figure out how to live. And so it makes all sorts of sense that their body and their mind is operating from this phobic threat assessment arena. And that doesn't just go away, especially if you have been under stress for a very long time, and especially if you were undergoing all of this during your developmental years. Your brain is going to be prone to identify these threats in the environment. And what's one of the best ways to protect yourself against a threat, genetically speaking, be afraid of it because it's going to prime you to avoid it. It's going to prime you to react to it when it happens, and therefore you're more likely to survive it.

IVY

All of the stuff that we're talking about right here. It is something that a lot of times, to an outside observer, is going to seem like it's very irrational. But if you are somebody who's been through a significant amount of trauma and those messages that what you're afraid of are genuinely a threat to you, if that message just keeps being reinforced time and time and time again, at that point, it becomes pretty rational to have a fear of those things.

You don't even have to have a direct contact with this thing that you are afraid of. If this thing that you were afraid of was even just consistently around you in your environment at the time that you were experiencing that trauma or abuse, you may develop a fear of something that would otherwise be benign.

So let's say that you were an abused child and part of the abuse that you endured was that when you misbehaved or did something that your abuser didn't like, they would lock you in a blue room for days and just leave you there. You might develop a fear of the color blue. Or even if the person that was abusive to you, if they were a chain smoker and they always had a cigarette in their mouth or in their hand when they were beating you, you might develop a fear of cigarettes. Let's say you grew up in an environment where you didn't have any direct negative experiences with a dog. Like, you didn't get attacked by a dog, but you grew up in a home where somebody that lived there was involved in dog fighting and you saw dogs being very aggressive towards each other and just aggressive in general. You'd probably still have a fear of dogs.

So even if you did not have a direct experience with the thing that you are afraid of, if it was there peripherally often enough, your brain will draw a correlation between the real trauma you experienced and this other thing that would be, in any other circumstance, be completely benign. That leads me to my next point, which is that you can also develop fears and phobias that are like body memories.

As somebody who has experienced sexual trauma, for instance, I do not like having my inner thighs touched. I've been able to get myself to a space where I can handle it in the context of a massage, if I go in and see a massage therapist. But that's because of just the exposure that I have to that field of work. But if a partner touches my inner thighs, if a friend touches my inner thighs, I have a very negative correlation between that and sexual abuse that I have experienced. And so there are certain areas of my body that I cannot handle having touched.

Does that seem rational to somebody on the outside who doesn't know my circumstances? No. It probably seems like a total overreaction to flip out if they touch my inner thigh by accident. But for me, that's coming from a very real visceral place that I can't completely control.

AUTUMN

And you may be thinking at this point, I thought we were going to be talking about irrational fears and phobias, but now you're talking about triggers. The thing is, though, that triggers can also be phobias or fears because they seem like irrational fears. So, one of the criteria we didn't get to in the DSM V was that none of those symptoms were better explained by another mental disorder. So, in the case of triggers, that falls under PTSD more often than not because you can tie it in with the trauma. But that is still a fear response. It is still also, from the world's point, the psychological point, a phobic response, because it does not seem rational to be terrified of somebody touching your thighs or to be terrified of somebody smoking.

Now, that's not to say that all fears and phobias come only from trauma or trauma triggers. Some fears are even considered genetic reactions. So, the idea of being afraid of heights, or being afraid of creepy crawlies, or our tendency to jump back or be afraid of or disturbed by snakes, it has been suggested that all of those may be in part, genetic. We have encountered snakes and creepy crawly things and tall places often enough, and they've been dangerous to us as a human race, that we almost have an internal switch to trigger the fear so that we avoid that idea.

Somewhat similarly related to the idea of genetic fear could also be the concept of childhood fears that we sometimes never get over or we bring into an adulthood. Many of us as children are afraid of monsters under the bed, or we're afraid of the dark. Essentially, we're afraid of the unknown. And that kind of makes sense genetically as does it make sense, genetically speaking, to want to ensure your sleeping environment is definitely safe so that you're not murdered in your sleep? That would make all sorts of sense.

And while many of us outgrow these, not all of us do. We can carry these fears into adulthood. And sometimes that can be because of trauma or we weren't supported enough. And sometimes it's just what happens with life. And we are always afraid of the dark, and we always have to have a nightlight on. And those childhood fears, more often than not, have nothing to do with trauma at all. They're just part of being little and unsure and a desire to be safe.

IVY

Another reason why people might also develop these fears is kind of inherited fears. Learning vicariously to be fearful of something. Usually learning from somebody who is like in a position of authority or a care provider for you. Fr example, nd this is a silly one, this is definitely more in the realm of fear and not so much in the realm of full on phobia, my mom, she had this thing where she would not use chili powder because she had it in her head that chili powder, if she used it, somebody close to her would die. I do not know why she had that belief, but she did.

She also had a similar belief that if you open a package of something, like if it's got a tear top and you're supposed to throw away that part that you tore off, she had it in her head that if you threw that away, somebody close to you would die. Those are not rational, at least not by my standards anyway. And I don't really know why she had those thought processes, but because she had those fears and those superstitions. I picked up a little bit of that. It was a really long time before I used chili powder. I would use things that were close-ish to it, like different types of pepper. But I wouldn't use chili powder for the longest time because I was afraid that if I used chili powder, somebody close to me would die.

I still have not broken the habit of holding onto the tear off parts of packaging because that is still in my head every time I go to throw it away. I think this is ridiculous, I need to throw it away. And sometimes I even do toss it in the recycling bin or something. But then I get so in my head about it half the time. I'll go and retrieve it and just leave it sitting around until I'm ready to throw away the entire package and I'll put it back in with the package and toss out the whole thing. That's ridiculous. I know.

But I ended up with this kind of inherited fear from my mom because that was something that was really important to her and she brought it up so many times that in my mind, something that was seemingly so irrational and that even now I look at and I think, this is completely irrational. This is stupid. Why are you holding on to this? I still do it because I was taught to be afraid that if I don't do it, somebody close to me will die. I know that's not rational, but it's a thing that I ended up with.

And a lot of people end up with those kind of inherited vicarious fears that come from their parents or their teachers, grandparents, just people around them that provided them care and taught them about the world and how things work. We do take those lessons, and not all of them are rational, and not all of them are very good lessons. But most of us will inherit some of those fears.

AUTUMN

Those specific examples that you provided about the fears that you inherited, Ivy, I think I know where mom got those from. She had a little bit of OCD tendencies, obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies, and part of that included intrusive thoughts. And that's actually something I struggle with, too, where you'll be doing something and this thought that you really don't want, and it's often a negative one, at least for me, just pops into your head and you can't do anything to get rid of that.

And so, for example, mine is often to do with some sort of bodily injury. So, I have an olive oil container that has one of the little oil spouts on it. Kind of looks like one of the spouts that you would pour liquor out of in a bar. So often when I walk by that I see it and the thought that pops into my head is I could trip and jab that into my eye. Every time I just consider myself jabbing that metal thing into my eye. And that's terrifying. I don't want the thought. That's never happened. I'm not necessarily afraid of it, but it's always there.

And those intrusive or irrational thoughts like that, that can come with OCD or OCD like behaviors, which our mom did have, some of them. Those can also lead to fears. And in this case, they led to a fear for our mother, which then she passed on to you.

IVY

That does make sense when you put it like that.

All right, so along those same lines of inheriting fears from the people that are closest to you, there's also, on a larger scale, things like socialized fears. So, these are things that you are taught to be fearful of, either because of the culture that you are part of or even because of religious reasons. A lot of people, when they leave a cult or they leave, like, a very fundamentalist religion. And they're deconstructing or they're deprogramming. They find that they have all of these fears that are coming from the things that they were taught by their religion.

I heard something recently, Ginger Duggar, she wrote a book recently, and she was doing an interview about it. And one of the things that she was sharing was how she felt that growing up in the IBLP, which is a fundamentalist Christian sect, was damaging and destructive to her in some ways because it made her very fearful of a lot of things. And one of the examples that she gave was that she was not supposed to listen to rock music or anything that had drums. And she was genuinely terrified that if she was in a car with people who happened to be listening to that music and they got into a car accident and they died, that she would go to hell. Because she had been in a car where they were playing rock music or they were playing something with drums. And she had been taught that that was basically an offense that was punishable by hell, by being set to hell.

So those sorts of fears, those get socialized into you often by the community that is around you or the culture that you grow up in.

AUTUMN

Those kind of socialized fears aren't just unique to religions, though. They can be part of the national creed, they can be part of your political leaning, they can be part of the area of the country you're in. I would argue that a lot of the racism and sexism that we do see is born from a lot of these fears that we are socially taught. For example, homophobia, right? We see this often as something that is taught, that is handed down. But that very word indicates that we are phobic of people in same sex relationships. That is a phobia that we are teaching and that we are socializing other people to have, which is terrifying to think.

Some of these social fears aren't necessarily that severe, though. Sometimes they can be lighter, more amusing things, such as a fear of sharks or a fear of clowns. And those can happen because of exposure to general media. I mean, how many people have seen It or have watched Kujo or read that book and are now terrified of clown or St. Bernard dogs? The same thing with Jaws. I believe there was a great increase in reported shark fears and shark phobias. Because of exposure to those types of movies.

The media plays up certain things because it does trigger our emotional reactions and thus becomes a blockbuster hit, but it can leave lingering effects in us where we now carry that fear with us out into the world

IVY

It's interesting that you mentioned that increase that spike in fears that people had of shark attacks after the movie Jaws came out because Steven Spielberg has actually come out and said that he kind of regrets in some ways directing that film because it did contribute to a lot of misconceptions about sharks and made people unnecessarily fearful of them and aggressive towards them. When shark attacks are actually quite rare and sharks are not particularly aggressive towards humans most of the time when they do bite human, it's because they're curious and they're trying to figure out what you are. So, it's interesting that you mentioned that because he actually does have regrets about how he handled that film because he does feel like it was detrimental to the public opinion of sharks and has done damage to sharks. As a result.

But movies do influence us, and stories do influence us, and there is sometimes crossover into the real world. I mean, you look at a story like It or any story that revolves around a killer clown, maybe that's not so irrational. When you look at the true crime world and you start learning about John Wayne Gacy.

Did he kill people while he was dressed as a clown? There's no evidence of that that I'm aware of. However, he was somebody who was very actively involved in the community, and one of the ways that he involved himself was by being a clown for events and children's parties and going to children's hospitals and things along those lines. But nobody really put two and two together there until everything came out about the murders that he committed. And even though he didn't commit those murders while dressed as a clown, he still kind of was known as being the killer clown. That became part of his moniker, and he kind of embraced that as almost an alter ego. So maybe when you look at things in that life, maybe it's not quite so crazy for people to have a fear of clowns.

Is it likely that you're going to be killed by a clown? No. But is there a correlation now in our minds because of movies and stories like it and then also these elements from true crime as well? It doesn't seem quite so irrational now.

AUTUMN

I would say it doesn't seem as irrational either. And one more reason that we might develop fears that I want to touch on before we move on is the idea of just basic physiological reactions. Under this umbrella, I would put sensory reactions.

I am hypersensitive to a lot of things. One of those, for example, is water. I detest having water on my face. I really don't like it if it stays on my face. I start freaking out and hyperventilating because of that hypersensitivity because of that sensory reaction. I've often avoided anything that requires me to swim or be water. It's only well into my adulthood that I've begun trying to confront that, partially because I realized, oh, this is a sensory response. But that sensory response can send me into a panic. And so it feels like a fear. It feels like a fear of drowning, it feels like a fear of water. But really what it is is it's honestly just an overwhelmingly anxious response to having liquid on my face.

So now that we've talked about some of the reasons people might be afraid and really explored that concept of how it could potentially be rational that we have some of these fears, let's get into some more specifics.

Let's talk about some common fears we encounter on a regular basis. Let's start with my favorite go to fear: needles. Like I said at the beginning, I don't like them. And honestly, I don't have a specific memory at all of having a bad experience with needles, per se. All I remember is having an IV when I was younger and just being really, really scared. And I remember getting a blood draw when I was sick and I ended up vomiting. Those are the only memories I have. Don't really seem all that traumatic, but for whatever reason, that has morphed into a full-blown diagnosable phobia in my adulthood. And I've been this way probably since late teens, early 20s.

They terrify me and I honestly don't know exactly why. Some of my therapist friends have suggested that it may be that I feel out of control or that my body is being invaded, or maybe it's a sensory thing. I don't know. What I do know is they're fucking terrifying.

IVY

I think I would be more of the camp for you that it might be a sensory thing because I have very distinct memories when we were young of you being super freaked out by just body things. You would get freaked out if you noticed the veins in your hand, because you can see your veins underneath your skin sometimes. And you would get super freaked out if you noticed it, because then you couldn't stop thinking about it and it freaked you out. Like body stuff has always freaked you out. So I could see it being a sensory thing and then tacking on the invasive nature of having something be being in your body, a foreign object being inserted into your body. I could see where that would come from. That would be my thought on it.

I also have a fear of needles. It is not quite to the same level as yours, but I do have a fear of them in a specific context. Because I have piercings. I have tattoos. The piercings freaked me out a little bit. The tattoos did not. It was painful, but I didn't think of it in the context of needles. Even watching my tattoo artist tattoo the area and I can see the little needle, but my brain doesn't register that as something to be afraid of. Even though it causes far more pain for longer than getting shot per se. But I hate any needle that's attached to a syringe. Don't come near me with that shit. I don't like having my blood drawn. I don't like getting shots that will make me panic. I won't start flailing around and stuff, but I will have a difficult time breathing. I'll get really stressed out. I have to have whoever it is that's giving me the shot or taking my blood, they have to talk me through it to keep me calm or at least distract me.

Why I have that, not entirely sure. The first couple of times that I got a shot when I was little that I can remember, went off without a hitch, no problem. I didn't cry, I didn't make a fuss, I had no fear of it. I even got a reward afterward, both times for being such a good girl. But then the third time that I went back for a shot, I threw a shit fit. I was crying, I was sobbing, I was trying to get away. I don't know what changed between that second and third time, but to this day I still do not like any needle that is attached to a syringe or as part of medical equipment.

I will get tattoos. I will sit for a tattoo for hours, even though it hurts so much more than just getting a shot or having my blood drawn, which is over pretty quick. And it's ultimately, in most situations, not that painful. But good luck getting me to sit for having my blood drawn for ten minutes. Good luck with that. I'll sit for a tattoo for 4 hours, that's fine. But if it's a needle attached to a syringe, I am out.

AUTUMN

Okay, so here then is the question do we think that needle phobia is irrational or rational? Personally, I think it could be a little bit of both. So in my case, specifically, I think I would agree with you. Because when you talk about needles and then you specifically were talking about the veins under my hands, which, by the way, creeped me out and made me cringe. It is kind of still disturbing me a little bit that I have veins and they're there, and I'm trying really hard not to look at them. I also thought about the fact that I do not like the idea of eye contacts and that I really dislike tampons. Anything that goes in me is just cringe. Totally.

And so in my case, I might almost argue that irrational or rational, in the case of this fear is a moot point. This may be a straight up physiological reaction, because if it's coming in as a sensory perception of a sensory overload on my part, it may be my brain just automatically noting that just like, nope, that's not okay, this is a threat. And it really completely bypasses any sense of rational or irrational in my mind.

And honestly, though, I could see how this could be a rational fear for some people. So, for example, if you worked in the medical industry, well, there's dirty needles. There's a whole bloodborne pathogens program that you have to worry about so that you don't get contaminated with something. So, I would say if you worked in the medical industry or around needles a lot, being afraid of them would be a pretty good idea.

On the same end, though, I could see how it could be irrational because, well, how often do people die from, like, a blood draw or getting a tiny shot? I imagine that's got to be pretty low to never happen.

IVY

When you're talking about the sensory overload aspect of needles for you, it does seem like in your situation, it could very much be more tied into your neurodivergence than it is to any particular experience that might have caused a fear. And at that point, I don't know that I would classify that as something that is irrational because it does have a very visceral and real influence on you having things of that invasive nature because of the sensory issues that you have that are related to your neurodivergence. Is it still phobic? Maybe. But I think to call it irrational, though, is probably not entirely fair, because I think a lot of people who are neurodivergent, they do have extreme responses to sensory overload.

On the note of generally whether a fear of needles is rational or irrational. Like you, I would say that anybody who's worked in the medical fields even though you probably get kind of numbed out from just exposure, to needles all of the time, I would think it would still be rational to be fearful of potentially getting a disease from being accidentally pricked by a needle. Or when I worked at the jail, I was somewhat fearful of needles because I would have to do pat down searches on people when they first came in. And you don't know what people have on them. So, you could very easily get pricked by a dirty needle that they might have in their possession. Maybe you won't die from it, but you could potentially end up with a very serious disease as a result of it. So, in situations like that, no, I don't think it's irrational to have those fears of needles.

If you work in the medical field, if you work in corrections, if you work in law enforcement or any sort of first responder, maybe even like cleanup crews that go in to clean up hazmat situations. In that context, I don't think it's necessarily irrational to have that kind of fear.

I mean, even here in the Seattle area where we have a lot of homeless encampments, unfortunately, a lot of the homeless encampments also have dirty needles laying around. And there was an issue a while back where these homeless encampments had been set up on a school property, I think it was like an elementary school and people were worried about children being potentially exposed to disease because of the very real danger of needles being left around on the ground and stuff. Is it rational in every situation to be fearful of needles? Maybe not, but I do think it is rational to be concerned about disease when you're talking about a needle that you don't know where it's been and you don't know who has been in contact with it and what they may be able to pass along disease-wise through a needle.

AUTUMN

Okay, so let's talk about another common fear closely related with needles, medical procedures. And I have to say this is one probably again, now that I've discovered this is sensory, I'm like, oh, that makes so much sense. You think I would have figured this out earlier, but we're all in our own journey, right? So medical procedures also really horrifying to me. One time I had dropped this giant sheet of wood, so it's a four foot by six foot sheet of OSB, dropped it on my toe, like, the six foot length of it went straight down onto my toe from a height of about 6ft. So obviously, very lucky my big toe didn't break, but it did bruise and swell up like a motherfucker. In order to not lose the nail or have my toe explode, I had to go in and they had to drill a hole in the top of my toenail. And even just talking about this, I am getting so, like, cringey. It was horrifying. It was so not okay.

And don't even get me started on PAP smears or anything like that. I don't like any sort of medical procedure. I don't care how noninvasive it is.

IVY

I definitely have some of that fear around medical procedures to not necessarily for quite the same reasons or in quite the same ways. I really hate being touched. I don't like being touched. I especially don't like being touched by strangers. And when you're getting a medical procedure, you are giving damn near full rein to that medical practitioner to touch you. Which feels very invasive to me. Even if it's not an invasive procedure. The fact that I am being touched makes it feel invasive.

What does make me more fearful is anything where they would have to cut me open. I am terrified of having surgery. I have not had one yet. I am sure at some point in my life I will have to have one. Just because you live long enough. I feel like most people end up having to have a surgery of some kind. I have so much compassion and admiration for people who have had to withstand multiple surgeries because that sounds fucking terrifying to me. They're cutting you open; they're moving things around. Even just going under anesthesia terrifies me because there are people that die under anesthesia from the process of being anesthetized. Is it likely that's going to happen to me? Probably not. Even if I don't, they're still going to cut me open and move things around and then I'm going to be in pain afterward and have the whole recovery process. Part of me is fascinated by the anatomy aspect of it, but I don't want to be the one that has to go through it.

So that's where my fear of medical procedures comes in. Don't put me under, I'll die. And don't cut me open and move things around because that's just rude.

AUTUMN

As I hear you talking, I am realizing more and more this is definitely a sensory thing because I've had a couple of surgeries and minus the absolute horror of the IV that happens beforehand, I don't mind the surgery at all. And I kind of actually enjoy anesthesia because you're alert and then you're not. And it's kind of fun losing consciousness, at least from my perspective.

So, I feel like though, when it comes to medical procedures, I don't necessarily feel that this is irrational a lot of times. I mean, unfortunately, it's something that we have to endure and we have to deal with, but medical shit is scary for so many reasons. It is invasive, it is sensorily overwhelming. There are potentials that you could die depending on the procedure. And I mean, hell, let's be honest here in America, the cost of whatever the fuck that medical procedure is, that's really frightening, at least to me as well. So, all in all, I would say if you're terrified of medical procedures, I don't know that's honestly, that irrational.

IVY

I don't find this one to be irrational either, because there are so many things that go into it. Not only the things that you mentioned, but also a lot of times when you're going through a medical procedure, especially if it's something more significant, there's a lot of unknowns involved in it. And the unknown is pretty scary for a lot of people. Like, if you have to go through a surgery for cancer or something along those lines, you don't know what the future holds for you. And that entire process is scary. And there's a lot of medical procedures that go along with that. Or a woman who's having a high-risk pregnancy. That's pretty fucking terrifying, because, again, you don't know what the future holds for you. And there's a lot of medical procedures that are involved in that.

And also, while it may not be as common, or at least I would hope not, but I don't know the statistics on this, there are so situations of medical malpractice where a doctor really messes up a medical procedure like a surgery, or where an unethical doctor may sexually abuse their patients. Those sorts of things have happened as well. So, I don't think it's irrational to be fearful of medical procedures, because you are making yourself very, very vulnerable. You're handing over power to another person and expecting them to treat you respectfully and ethically and also provide you with really good care. That's a huge responsibility to just offer to another person, who often you don't really know all that well either. So, I think it's very reasonable to be fearful of having medical procedure.

AUTUMN

If you were hoping today's episode would all be, oh, it's all in your head, it's totally okay, that's not what you're going to get, just so you know, because there are a lot of rational reasons to be afraid of the things we're afraid of.

All right, so let's go ahead and go on to one of, I would say one of the most common phobias out there, and I could be wrong, I don't have the statistics in front of me, and this is Ivy's favorite go to phobia, which is dental phobia. I'll let you start this one out, Ivy.

IVY

I love how you called it my favorite go to, as though it's something I'm excited about.

I have done everything in my power to avoid going to a dentist. When I was little, what it was that happened was I ended up, because nobody taught me to brush my teeth and take care of my oral hygiene, hat was not a concept anybody did anything with with me, so I ended up with eight of my baby teeth, abscessing. And so, it was a pretty significant procedure. They had to put me out for it, and then they had to put stainless steel caps on all of those teeth.

So, it was terrifying for me because leading up to it, I was in a lot of pain. And then the first couple of times that I went to the dentist, everything seemed fine and they seemed nice and everything was good. And my parents and the medical providers, I'm sure they thought they were doing something good, but they lied. They lied to me. They told me it wouldn't be scary. They told me it wasn't going to hurt. They told me it was just going to be basically not a big deal. It was going to be nothing. It was going to be fine. You'll go to sleep for a little while and you'll wake up, and then everything will be hunky dory and wonderful.

They lied. It was very traumatic for me because my parents were not even in the room. I remember having all of these different people around me, nurses and the dentist and the anesthesiologist, they were all around me and there were these bright lights behind them. And then they put the IV in my hand. I remember panicking because it hurt and because I didn't know really what was going on. And all the bright lights were scaring me and all of the people hovering around me whose faces I couldn't see because they were covered. That was terrifying to me. And then I started to fall asleep and I was like fighting it because I didn't know what was going to happen to me because nobody actually properly prepared me for it. And so, after that experience, I had been fucking terrified of dentists.

I had been to a dentist three other times since then, twice when I was 16 and I was living with our Aunt Writa because she forced me to go to a dentist. And they did have to fill a couple of cavities, which was horrifying. I don't like having drills and stuff in my mouth. Then the second time I went, I was also forced, which thankfully in that situation, there was nothing wrong except that they said, at some point, you might want to get your wisdom teeth out, which I said okay. And then I walked out and thought to myself, I'm never fucking doing that. So, I have done everything in my power to never have to go to a dentist. And nothing terrifies me more than the idea that as I get older, I will eventually need dentures. And the idea of going through whatever ordeal leads to that absolutely terrifying to me.

AUTUMN

I'm not personally phobic of dentists. They make me uncomfortable. And honestly, I can tell you exactly why. Because I was totally fine with dentists. I didn't get to go to dentist that often as a child either, because yay neglect. But most of my adult life didn't have any issues with them. But I had a front tooth knocked out, which horrifying because a tooth fell out, which that's a whole body thing right there. And they ended up having to do a root canal because of the trauma caused because I got hit in that tooth. The anesthetic agent that they used hadn’t kicked in when they started drilling and that drill hit the nerve. And I still remember that feeling. And it was not pleasant, to say the absolute least. And ever since then, dentists have made me very nervous because my mind that's that limbic flashbulb learning I was talking about, my mind goes, holy fuck, these people cause intense nerve pain. Don't trust that. Luckily, I have not built that yet up into a full panic attack. But yeah, very young, comfortable around dentists.

IVY

You just further terrified me. Fun fact. Or at least I think it's a fact. I've seen this in multiple places. I don't really know if it's true, if it's really backed up by science, but statistically speaking, supposedly redheads tend to be more fearful of dentists than the average person. Again, I don't know if that's actually true, but I've seen it in multiple places, and I'm like, well, I must be afraid of dentists, in part because I'm a ginger. That explains everything. That's how I deal with it now. I'm just like, no, it's not because of that significant trauma that I went through where all of the adults around me lied. It's just because I'm a redhead and redheads are afraid of dentists.

AUTUMN

You know what? Maybe it's a little bit of both. You don't just have to have one reason to be afraid. And when it comes to dental phobia, I think there are so many reasons you could be afraid. Not necessarily you should, but you could.

And I did a quick Google search, and it says that about 36% of people in the US have a fear of dental treatment. So, I think that we should just get a few more people in our population. To be afraid of dentists and then everybody in our culture will pretty much be afraid of dentists. And it's those people that aren't afraid that will then be mentally ill, not the rest of us. Because I feel like there's quite a few reasons here to have a fear of the dentist. Sorry to any dentists out there. And the general dental practitioner. Please don't come after us ADA.

IVY

Okay, I also just looked up something on the redhead note. And yes, according to the National Institute of Health, there is a higher number of redheads that have anxiety about seeing the dentist because people with naturally red hair are resistant to subcutaneous local anesthetics. Which makes me even more fearful of the story Autumn just told, because she's not even a natural redhead and that shit did not kick in for her.

AUTUMN

So, if more redheads are frightened of the dentist and we're already at 36% fear in the US of dentist. It's possible that we have over 51% of redheads in America fearful of the dentist. If that is the case, if we could find some statistics to back this, you don't have a phobia, Ivy. You have a completely socioculturally appropriate fear that is not irrational, because the sociocultural context supports it as a redhead in the US. I'm just saying, I feel like we could find some statistics to support this for you, Ivy.

IVY

Either that or I just move to a country that is more densely populated with redheads, So, I move back to our family's homeland, and then it's fine, because if they're all afraid of dentists and there's a lot of redheads there, then we will be the majority, and therefore I will not be crazy anymore.

AUTUMN

Exactly. That's all you need to do is just find other people also afraid, create your own little group, and then you'll have a sociocultural output to be like, no, not me. It's the context.

IVY

Yeah. And then we'll all just have a prejudice against dentists. I want to say, Sorry, dentist, but I'm not. At the same time, I know you provide a valuable service. It doesn't mean I have to like you.

AUTUMN

Okay. All right, so let's go to the next one. And that is germs. Okay, so I have to say, honestly, I don't have much experience with a germ fear. The closest I have is a vicarious experience, which my boyfriend has kind of a germ thing going on. I don't laugh at him, but I'm a little bit amused by it because it's not consistent. Like, he'll be very terrified of germs in a very certain area, but then other times, he just digs his hand into lake mud or something, and I'm like, you know, that's pretty much filthy and disgusting, too, even though there's germs there. So, I don't know. I guess phobias don't necessarily have to be consistent. Do you have any personal experience with germ fear, Ivy?

IVY

No, not really. I've never really considered myself to be a germaphobe. I've always been more like, those people are that are like, it's got some dirt on it, it's good for your microbiome to be exposed to a few more things. It's good for you build your immunity, and it builds character. I feel like I've always been more one of those people.

I mean, obviously there are some things I don't want to touch, but I feel like those are things most people don't want to touch. Like, I don't want to touch other people's poop. I don't want to touch moldy food. There are definitely things I don't want to touch. I don't want to touch loogies. I don't think that's beyond what's average, I guess, for people. I think most people don't really want to touch those things.

AUTUMN

I think that's a perfect example of that sociocultural context in play though, because I think a lot of us do have a little bit of a fear of just grabbing a handful of human shit and having that on our hands because that's really disgusting, right? But then if you look at it because I've seen this on Facebook and I was like, what, for real? I was in Europe, I didn't notice that. Apparently, there's a lot of toilets in Europe that have a little shelf that you can poop on the shelf so that you can inspect that poop and maybe poke it around a little bit before flushing it, which makes sense for health reasons. But also, I think a lot of us in America are cringing a little bit at that. So, I would say that there's a lot of germ fear in us, but it's really guarded by that sociocultural context that the DSM talked about. And so it doesn't come across as a phobia. It comes across as a socially appropriate fear of not grabbing a handful of human poop.

IVY

When we're talking about the average amount of fear that people have around gross substances, I would not say particularly irrational because I think most of the reason why we are reluctant to touch those things is not only because they look gross and often smell gross, but because they are also harbingers of disease. So, I don't think that's an irrational thing. If you don't want to get sick, if you don't want to get a disease, you're probably going to try to avoid things that will give them to you.

And even in a situation where maybe somebody is above average fearfulness, I guess, of germs, depending on the context for that person, it may still not be irrational. People who are immunocompromised, man, you're a lot more sensitive to a whole lot of things. There's a lot more things that could make you gravely ill by being exposed to them. I don't know. I don't find that particularly irrational. Like, if you are somebody who deals with chronic illness and your immunocompromise, it's really a lot of things that you would want to avoid. You probably use an extra hand sanitizer and wearing more masks because there are more things in the world that could legitimately kill you

AUTUMN

That's actually a really good point that I hadn't thought about on that idea, though, with that rational versus irrational. I do feel the germ one, though, is one where you have to question the rational versus irrational of that behavior, because this is one that can get out of hand, where people are washing their hands all the time to the point that the skin is raw and tender and flaking off. And if you don't have a real good rational reason to support that amount of behavioral fear, that might be a time to address that. So, I do feel this germ one is one where that irrational behavior could come into play, and you'd have to start questioning that a little bit.

IVY

I would agree with that. I think also another thing that kind of goes along with washing your hands until they're literally bleeding. There are people that get so fearful of germs or things that might carry sickness or disease that they expose themselves regularly to harsh chemicals that could do them serious damage. I don't know how much I really trust in the validity of shows like My Strange Addiction, but I do remember one episode of My Strange Addiction.

There was a woman on there who was obsessed with bleach. Bleach everywhere. She cleaned her house multiple times a day with bleach. She would bathe in bleach. That is a very caustic chemical. You do not want that on your skin. You do not want to be breathing that all of the time. And so if it does get taken to a level that's like that, you probably do want to try working on scaling back those behaviors. Because now in your pursuit of trying to stay healthy, you have actually made yourself much more vulnerable to getting sick.

While a lot of people's fears around substances that could carry disease are pretty legitimate and rational, those behaviors can be taken too far if you are now self-sabotaging by doing literal damage to your body in an attempt to be as clean and sanitary as possible.

AUTUMN

Most definitely. And I would say that's with all of these fears, though, and that is part of what you have to consider, is that behavioral piece. It's not just is this particular fear rational or rational? Is it okay that I'm scared of it? It's what is my behavior doing and what is the cost of that behavior that's driven by that fear?

Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to animal fear. And this is just animals in general. So, we're not talking the tiny creepy crawlies. We're talking bigger things. We're talking well, relatively bigger because I guess a Chihuahua is actually a dog. But we are talking like dogs, lions, tigers, bears, wolves, crocodiles, sharks, all these sorts of animal fears.

Again, this is when I'm fairly lucky that I don't have a lot of fear over any of these. I probably should. We have grizzly bears around here. We have wolves, we have coyotes. For me, again, this is a healthy, respect sort of thing. I know that they can cause me harm, and so I take certain precautions to ensure that I don't attract them here. And I know how to defend myself, and I have the means necessary if they do show up on my property to defend myself and my animals. But these things can be killers.

I do think though that this has been really multiplied and multiplied unfairly by the media because they do take something like a lion or a tiger or a crocodile or bear that honestly would just rather be left the fuck alone more than anything and they make these horror movies about them that then terrify everybody. And I do get why we're scared of them but I also feel like a lot of this can be blown out of proportion by popular media to some degree.

IVY

I also agree that a lot of it can get blown out of proportion by media. I have a fear of sharks and crocodiles and alligators. Now I've never been around those things, have no specific reason to be fearful of them know that it's pretty unlikely that I will ever be attacked by one but I have a fear of them because of the movie Deep Blue Sea and the movie Lake Placid. And then those movies have caused me to have, for whatever reason, recurrent nightmares about being eaten the live by a shark or a crocodile or an alligator but not one of a regular size one that's gigantic because that's what Deep Blue Sea and Lake Placid did. They took those animals that can already be kind of scary and intimidating and made them. Way bigger than they would actually be. So, my fear of them really does trace back to those movies and not to the animals themselves.

Granted, if I lived someplace where there was a high population of animals that could eat me, I would probably be a little bit more afraid of animals for the most part. I have, like Autumn said, a healthy respect for them. But if I lived someplace where there were a lot of lions and maybe hyenas or even hippos, I might be a little bit more fearful. Because all of those animals are higher up on the food chain than I am, I would still have a lot of respect for them. I would try to keep my distance, but I would probably be a little bit more fearful. Even though it's still probably unlikely I would get attacked by them. I would probably still be more fearful if I lived someplace where there were more animals that could realistically kill me and eat me.

AUTUMN

You know, oddly, for me, it's the opposite, because I do live in Eastern Montana, where there are potentially animals that can eat me, such as wolves and grizzly bears, like I said, or you know just fuck me up like badgers. And I am less afraid of those than I am of animals that there's no way of encountering, like crocodiles. Like, I went kayaking this weekend. It was a big lake. It was pretty deep. I had this definitely irrational fear that there might be a crocodile in this lake in Eastern Montana. I highly doubt that's a thing, but I was more afraid of that than I would be of encountering a grizzly bear or a wolf.

And I think part of that is, like I said that media piece because in my mind, a woof is a real. Thing that can then be dealt with. As is a bear, as is a badger, as are all of these things. But a crocodile? Well, that's a boogeyman. I've never seen one. I've never encountered one in the wild. All I know is from media. And so, because I don't know anything about it, it is the boogeyman, it is the monster under the bed. And it's so much more terrifying to me than the actual murderous or potentially murdering, because they're not murderous, they just want to be left fuck alone, but the potentially harmful animals that actually are outside my door.

IVY

I get that because I also have a little bit of that. There's lots of lakes and beautiful scenery here in this part of Washington. And whenever we go camping, Kelvin loves to find any spot that is near a lake or a river, any body of water. I'm honestly afraid of water in general, but anytime that we are camping near a lake and Kelvin wants to go down to the shore of the lake, there is a part of me, again, because of that stupid movie Lake Placid, which I have watched entirely too many times. (I don't know. Reasons I don't completely understand. I don't know if I'm trying to face my fear or desensitize myself to it or scare myself more. I don't know.) But because of that movie, anytime we go to the edge of a lake, I have it in my head that I need to be ready to turn tail and run just in case I see a monstrously huge, unrealistically huge crocodile or alligator coming out of that water to kill me. So, I get that. I have a little bit of that as well. The idea of kayaking, even on a small pond, honestly terrifies me because of that stupid fucking movie that I won't stop watching.

AUTUMN

It was a little bit terrifying, especially because there was a sign that said there were at least 40-inch musky fish. And of course, I've never seen a musky fish, so I'm like, maybe that's like a crocodile. And now this four-foot fish is going to eat me. So, I was a little scared. Again, not very likely to kill you. I know there are some aggressive animals out there, but for the most part, like I said, most of them want to be left alone, just stop invading their territory and poking them and trying to pet them like a crazy person.

So, let's go ahead and move on to fears of an animal that is more likely to murder you, and that would be humans. So, the next fear on our list is that of being murdered, kidnapped, raped. This fear, honestly, as a woman in America, this is just part of my life. I feel like I have to have this fear, this threat assessment, this survival sort of mentality at all times, to a little degree, just to be safe. I do feel like we live in a rape society and people do get murdered, and people do get kidnapped and people do get raped. And statistically speaking, a lot of times it is women that a lot of these violent crimes happen to.

And so, for me, yeah, I'm a little bit not extremely phobic. And part of that is because I do live in a more rural area, but even in a rural area, I'm scared at night. You know who lives around my house is mostly Huterites and Amish people. And yet there's still part of my mind that would think, like, if an Amish person came knocking on my door, I would probably have a gun ready. Because what if it's an Amish rapist? I'm not going to profile that they're safe based on religion and hat wear. Hell no.

IVY

This is one that I also find to be a very rational fear. It is well founded. To me, it's not just a fear that I have as a woman in America. It's a fear that I have as a woman, period. Because I feel like there are very few, if any, places in the world that it is actually safe to be a woman. And as much as people hate to think about it, instances of kidnappings and rapes and murders and just sexual assaults in general, even if it's not like a full-on rape, those things are incredibly common. These are not really rare incidents that happen. These are very common things that happen to people every day. Even if you just look at the cases that we know of, like there's entire channels dedicated to true crime and a lot of those victims are women. Not to mention all of the missing people that there are that we don't know what happened to them, they're just missing. So to me, this is a very real, very rational fear.

And I hate to be this way because I would love it if women were able to feel safe. And I don't want to rain on any woman's parade who just wants to enjoy her life and not think about it, but I get so worried for any woman that I meet who does not seem to be aware of the ever present danger posed to her just because she is a woman existing in the world. I am very worried for those people. I also hate too, that sometimes I see a woman who is, she's scantily dressed. Which in my mind I think great for you, that you have the confidence that you feel comfortable enough in your own skin to wear whatever you want, whatever you feel attractive and appealing in. But there is also that voice in the back of my head that just thinks, oh, I'm so worried for you. I'm so worried for you because we do live in a society that says if you are a woman and you get sexually assaulted, well, it's your fault. And certain things make it even more your fault. So, if you are dressed immodestly, well you were asking for it, it was your fault that you got raped. It was your fault that you got sexually assaulted. What were you thinking wearing that? And it sucks because I really want to just be able to support women in doing whatever it is that they fucking want to do.

But I can't not be afraid for them and afraid for myself because it seems like just being a woman is enough grounds for you to deserve to be sexually assaulted. Because even women that are in some of these very restrictive religions, and they're following all the rules. They get raped or sexually assaulted by men in power, and somehow, it's still their fault, even though they were following all the rules. Because men, I guess, are not supposed to have to be responsible for themselves, for their actions, for their sexual urges. So, anything that happens to a woman where she gets sexually assaulted, it's totally her fault. She brought it on herself. She must have been doing something to deserve it. This is a rational fear that women have to live with every fucking day of our lives. We are, unfortunately, walking targets. Whether we want to be or not.

AUTUMN

We are walking targets, which is completely mind boggling that that's something we still have to deal with in this day and age. But it is. And it is a fear that, unfortunately, other women in society have to teach and have to let other women know about and we have to raise our daughters up with this knowledge so that they can assess threats correctly and protect themselves. So, again, I'm completely on board with Ivy. I don't necessarily think this one is irrational, especially if you're a female. I think it's almost a necessary survival trait to have this in the back of your head.

IVY

And just to extend that out a little bit further, we do understand that it's not just women that experience these things. We do want to include and be aware of the fact that violent crimes and also sexual assaults are also more prevalent among people in the LGBTQIA community and among people of color. So, we do want to include that in here. It's not just women and it's not just sexual violence.

AUTUMN

That's true. And even when you expand that out, I still think this is a very much a rational fear. And I can't speak to other countries, but especially in the United States, there are such differences in the violent statistics that we see perpetrated dependent on your sex, dependent on your race, dependent on your national origin. And so, I do feel like this is a fear that you've got to look at yourself and your place in society and really assess what your risk is. This is one that you can honestly assess by looking at the statistics and seeing, okay, what am I? Am I black? Am I Hispanic? Am I Native American? Am I white? Am I woman? Am I male? What do the statistics say for my area is? How likely I am to be murdered or mugged or kidnapped?

Okay, so let's go ahead and move off that soapbox and move to a little bit lighter territory of other fears associated with our fellow humans. And a very common fear out there is a social fear. Often this is called social anxiety because being around others, socializing with others, makes us fearful, makes us anxious for a whole variety of reasons.

I have a lot of social anxiety. I mean, partially because I was very isolated as a kid and didn't learn how to interact, partially because I'm autistic and I know I don't fucking know how to interact with neurotypicals, and so I'm masking all the time, which I know takes my resources, which then causes mental health issues for me. So, I mean, I have a whole gamut of reasons to be socially anxious, and most of them, honestly, they don't even have to do with the other humans so much as they have to do with me. I don't know if that's common with social anxiety. Social fear. It's not like I'm afraid of you. I'm just afraid of me with you.

IVY

I think that's actually what's most normal with social anxiety. I also have social anxiety and I have a lot of friends that have social anxiety, and that seems to be the common thread. But for the most part in just normal social interactions, we are more fearful that we are going to do something stupid or embarrassing or hurtful without meaning to. So yes, lot of the social anxiety, social fear is internal your internal monologue that's fucking you up and making things worse than they need to be and making you act awkward and weird because you're all up in your head and worried about what stupid thing you're going to do. I think that's pretty normal for people with social anxiety.

AUTUMN

It is very much in your head, and some of it is just like the ridiculous, like, oh my God, I'm embarrassed myself. I'm going to make this so awkward. But I do feel like part of my social anxiety and part of my social fear is what if there are real significant consequences to me not understanding the social interaction? What if I say the wrong thing and I get fired? What if I don't give the appropriate interaction or I make an inappropriate statement that's misinterpreted by a neurotypical and then I get lynch mobbed? There is part of me in the back of my head that is honestly scared that I am going to do something considered so inappropriate or so wrong that people will retaliate against me. Maybe not march on my house with pitchforks, but slash my tires, make it impossible for me to get a job in this town, things like that. That's also part of my social fear.

And I don't necessarily think that's fully irrational, honestly, because as an autistic person, look at the employment statistics out there for people with autism. They're not very great. And yeah, there's a lot of our own issues in there, but I feel like a lot of that is our inability to interact with the neurotypicals in a way that they consider acceptable enough to be employed and to maintain employment. And so, I don't necessarily think that social anxiety or social fear is always irrational. I think this is something many of us that are neurodivergent have to be aware of because our different interactional strategies and our different interactional behaviors do have consequences for us in reality.

IVY

I do think that people who are neurodivergent do have more significant consequences from social interactions going awry because we do struggle with social interactions a lot. We don't always understand the rules or we don't necessarily play by them. We are a little bit nonconformist, we are a little bit odd and there are real consequences for us.

I do get a little bit of that same fear that you have, though not as much. What I more have is this intense fear that I am going to hurt somebody without trying to. And other people, they like flip out about PC culture is all bullshit and all that stuff sometimes. I do think it can go a little bit too far, like the cancel culture aspect. I think there can be some mob mentality that comes in with that. But I am not necessarily against being politically correct to a certain degree at least, because ideally what you're attempting to do with that political correctness, if you want to call it that, is be sensitive to other people and their needs and their feelings and their experiences and that I am totally on board with.

That being said, my fear comes in because I am very out of touch with the rest of the world and I am very out of touch with other people. And most of the time I don't know anymore what is socially acceptable and what terminology is safe to be used, what's preferred, what's insulting. I am not up to date on things and I feel very out of the loop and out of touch and very isolated a lot of the time. Which I know is partially on me, that I choose to isolate myself. But I still get nervous talking to people because I don't want to accidentally hurt them or cause them harm or make them think that I don't care or gaslight them or anything along those lines. I don't want to do that unintentionally because I would never intentionally hurt somebody.

But I am always fearful that I will unintentionally hurt somebody and that I may not even know that I fucking did it either because they may not feel safe to say something to me about it because maybe they've had a lot of bad experiences with people in the past and they don't feel safe as a result to say something to me about. Hey, I really am offended by that term. Or, I don't think you understand what I was saying. Or I feel like you're discriminating against me. I would never intentionally do those things. But I am always fearful that I come off that way without meaning to, especially because I get so awkward that I shut down and I get really quiet, and I don't know if that will be taken as, oh, she's a bitch, or oh, she's prejudiced against me or whatever, because it's never that. I am just a really socially awkward person with a lot of crippling social anxiety who is constantly afraid that I'm going to do harm to other people without meaning to.

AUTUMN

I have that fear, too, that I am going to hurt people or offend people unintentionally. I also, like, a little more comically, have a fear that I am going to be a cult leader on accident. Maybe not that blown out, but I do speak with a lot of authority and confidence, even when I don't intend to. It's just how I speak, and I end up saying things, and then people take it as gospel. And I'm like, Wait, I didn't have the 43 resources necessary to actually back that statistic. Please don't make life decisions based on the shit that just came out of my mouth. So, there's also a little bit of fear of that as well.

IVY

I think that's a reasonable fear considering the fact that our father basically was a cult leader in a way. I also have that fear anytime that I feel like somebody is too dependent on my advice or my opinion, I'm like, okay, I'm going to back away slowly now. Don't listen to me. Listen to yourself. Listen to your heart. Don't listen to me. I don't know what I'm talking about.

AUTUMN

I would say this is one of the fears that is very, very complex, though, because there are so many reasons behind it, there are so many levels to it. And so, with this one, I do want to say, though, that I do feel if we give into this fear, this social anxiety that we experience and we fully give into that and we start avoiding humanity completely and not interacting and refusing to be authentic or never taking our mask off here or there with people we love, I do think that is one that can be detrimental and can really end up having some severe negative impacts on our life. So, yeah, I do believe there are a lot of rational reasons, and it makes a lot of sense that so many of us have social anxiety. But this is one that I would and again, I'm not a cult leader, like Ivy said, follow your heart, do what you want, but it is one that I would generally encourage people to try to push up against. I mean, you don't have to go out and be the life of the party, but open yourself up a little bit here and there as you can to protect your mental health and to look out for the mental health of others so you can make those authentic connections and help out people who feel exactly like you in their heads, thinking that they're the one that's the idiot in this situation.

Now, all of these fears we talked about, especially with the other humans, can lead to another common fear, which is agoraphobia. Literally translated I believe it's the fear of wide-open spaces. But more realistically speaking, it's the fear of leaving your house. And honestly, I don't know if it's a fear. I think it's just a strong predilection. Like, I just don't want to leave my house. I mean, I don't necessarily have to mask here. I've got food, my animals are here, my stuff's here. I just don't want to leave. That's what I tell myself, though. Honestly, I think I'm a little bit afraid. Okay. A lot of bit afraid. All right. Because if I have to go to Billings, which is the biggest city near us, which okay, look up the population of Billings compared to any other city, and you will get an idea how ridiculous it is to call the city. I have to make Jacob go with me because it terrifies me.

I don't like going out of my house. I don't know why. Probably the social anxiety and the discomfort and the sensory overload and the lack of control and the fact I have to mask. Okay, maybe there's a lot of reasons to be agoraphobic.

IVY

I don't really feel like this is one that affects me. I definitely spend a lot of time at home. It's more for recharging purposes, though. I actually like to be out and about. I don't like being in cities, I will say that. But that's because I don't generally like being around people. It is stressful to be around people. I like going out to the wilderness. I even like going to the park. If don't have to interact with people, it's great. I even like going to the gym. There's other people around. But it is socially acceptable to shut yourself off for the most part by wearing headphones. So that is also fine.

As long as I don't have to interact with people very much, I'm good. I actually like to go out. But I do spend a fair amount of time alone at home for the purposes of recharging, because my little neurodivergent brain drains itself pretty quickly of all motivation and energy if I don't have regular alone me time in my own safe little sanctuary space.

AUTUMN

I feel like though, that's kind of the difference, though, between just wanting to stay at home and agoraphobia or being fearful of going out, because there are places that I would like to go that I don't go because it makes me uncomfortable to leave the house. Like I said, I went kayaking last weekend. It took me about a month to build up to do that, to prep for that, to establish some parameters around that so that I could do it.

And I honestly think the real core of it for me too, which I wouldn't be surprised if this is for a lot of autistic and possibly other neurodivergent people, is it's not part of my routine. And as soon as something deviates from my routine, well, I have no idea what's going to happen. And now all the anxiety sets in. So if I have to go to work and that's on a regular schedule, I'm okay with that. I prefer not to because, well, who wants to really go to work, right? But I can do that. But as soon as something breaks from my routine, all of the factors in the world, all of the anxieties, all of the fears, any of this could happen. Now it's completely unknown because there's no parameters and no routine. And I think that's what gets scary. I think agoraphobia is a lot of that unknown. I know what's in my house. I step outside of my house. Good Lord, now I have to be aware of and deal with everything.

IVY

To me, this is one of those things that is kind of a blend of rational and irrational, because is it blowing things out of proportion to assume that if you take a step outside your door, you absolutely will die? Yes, that is a bit extreme. However, like you just said, as soon as you step outside the door, there are a lot of unknowns, a lot of things could happen to you.

That's not to say that being in your house is automatically going to be safe. There could be an earthquake, there could be a home invasion, there could be a drive by shooting. Being in your house is not a guarantee that you'll be fine. I mean, hell, you could choke on your food. And if there's nobody around to do the Heimlich maneuver, you may die.

So, there's some unknowns at home, but you can control the circumstances a little bit better. As soon as you step outside, you don't have as much control. And I could understand why that would be incredibly scary for lot of people, because literally anything can happen to you out there. You don't know. And you can't control it all because there's environmental factors and other humans that you have to deal with who are making decisions that could affect you or natural disasters that could affect you. And now you're exposed to these things. You could get into a car accident. Like, there's all of this stuff that is unknown.

I could see how somebody would be very fearful of leaving their house, but that doesn't mean it's a great idea to just spend all of your life closed up inside your house, because you also miss out on a lot of things as well. And like I said, just because you're in your house, that does not automatically guarantee your safety and survival. It may increase your odds, but it does not automatically guarantee it. And you have to weigh out. Is it worth it to miss out on all of the experiences that you could have if you were able to face that fear and leave your house?

AUTUMN

And I would say, just like the social anxiety, this one, if left unchecked, if you don't face this, it is going to lead to detrimental consequences for you, for your mental health, possibly even for your physical health. And as you were talking about all the things that could happen in home and out of home, I was laughing a little bit because I feel like we should have put a disclaimer at the beginning. Like, if you were hoping this episode was going to soothe and ease your fears, don't listen further because I feel like this is kind of turning into, like, Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events. You're safe nowhere. Leave the house, not safe. Stay at home, not safe.

IVY

Okay, to be fair, I feel like if you've been listening to our podcast for a while, you know that we are more about destigmatizing and mitigating than we are overtly offering you comfort.

AUTUMN

All right, that's fair. Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to the next on our list, which is heights. The fear of being up somewhere super high. Okay, so I will admit I used to have a distinct fear of this. Not necessarily because I was afraid of falling, but because I was afraid that I would choose to jump. I was afraid that I could not trust myself to not just self-sabotage to that degree and decide randomly, on impulse, to leap off of a tall space. Luckily for me, this is one I actually confronted. I went bungee jumping off of a really tall area. And I know this is stupid, but I'm like, okay, I'm doing this. I don't know why, but I confronted it, and I got to the edge, and I was ready to bungee jump. And you know what happened? I fucking froze. I froze like I have never froze before. My body was just like, Nope. The genetic impulse to not leap from high places is very strong in me. And so, I am no longer as fearful of that as I used to be because I came to the edge of the precipice, and I was like, oh, my God, I can't trust myself. And myself said, oh, yeah, you can. We ain't doing that shit.

IVY

That was actually a pretty good way to confront that. Nothing will prove to you more whether you can trust your self-preservation. I have a somewhat conflicted relationship with heights. I am not particularly afraid of them. In fact, part of me likes them because you get the, or at least I do, I don't know if everybody does, but I get the little butterflies in my stomach kind of feeling when I'm up somewhere high and looking down, which is kind of cool. I kind of like that feeling, so I enjoy that.

However, I, like Autumn, have issues trusting myself to not jump off. I have some faith in myself not to do that. But I do have thoughts like that on a regular basis, and almost all of them are things that would be life ending for me. So, I don't entirely trust my self-preservation, which does make me a little bit nervous in those situations. Also, since my car accident and the concussion, my balance is shit. So, I think if I was somewhere high with no guardrails or harness at this particular point in my life, I'd be pretty fucking terrified.

AUTUMN

Okay, I will agree with that caveat right there because I am not a graceful person. I am very clumsy. So, if I'm actually having to move around a lot at heights, yes, that's not a good mix. And I do say out there, if you decide to confront this fear of heights, don't just go to a top high building and stand there. Like have safety harnesses, have bungee cords, something. I'm just going to put that out there.

As far as rational versus irrational, I don't necessarily think it's a very irrational fear. If it impedes your life, definitely try to do something about that. If you've got to work on the 30th story and you can't get up the elevator and you're constantly losing jobs because everything's in a very tall building, which I don't know why you can't get a job on a first story, but whatever, maybe you can't, then, yes, do something about it. But there are lots of reasons to be afraid of heights. Those intrusive thoughts, that worry that you're just not going to be able to trust yourself, or just that you're kind of clumsy and you're going to trip over your own feet and fall. I feel like this is rational.

IVY

There is something in humanity that's wired into us to be concerned about being up in high places without protection. I think some people can take it to a level where it makes their life unnecessarily difficult, especially depending on what their perspective of high places is. Because to some people, 30 stories up may be pretty high up there. To some people, being two stories up might be pretty terrifying. So, I think some of it is based on your perspective of what a high place actually means. Because if your standard what a high place is, is lower, you might end up having more difficulties because there's a lot of places that have at least one set of stairs. Like, if I was somebody who perceived three stories to be too high up and I was really fearful of heights, I probably would not be able to go out on my own balcony in my current apartment. Because that would scare me too much. So, I think it's a matter of perspective as well.

AUTUMN

I could definitely see that. And I feel like this is one of those fears that it's really about how it's impacting your life as to whether or not you need to address it. Because I think a little bit of fear of heights isn't a bad thing. It's something that should be respected.

All right, so going on to the next fear on our list, drowning. This is a very, very common one. I am not as bad about this as I used to be. I thought I had a fear of drowning, but I realized it was more of a sensory thing. I did not like water on my face. I don't really know how to swim, though, and knowing that I do have a fear, like, if I were to just be thrust into an area where I have no life vest and there was potentially deep water, yeah, I'd be fucking terrified. But rationally so, because I don't know that I could survive that, especially not for very long.

IVY

I am absolutely terrified of drowning because I also did not ever learn how to swim, and I have almost drowned twice. So having direct experience with nearly dying by getting a bunch of water in my lungs, that taught me to be pretty fearful of it. I have a lot of fear around being in water that's higher than my waist when I'm standing. That is very scary to me. Someday I do want to conquer that fear because I think that swimming is a very important life skill to have. I am not yet ready to tackle that one.

I find, like Autumn, this is a pretty rational fear if you don't have the skill set to deal with being in water that is very deep. And I think it's even a rational fear for somebody who's an experienced swimmer if shit goes wrong. So, I don't find this to be a completely irrational fear. I think it can be irrational in some situations.

I will admit that my fear of water has been so significant that there have been times in my life where I filled a bathtub up too much and had to let some of the water out because when I got into the bathtub, it felt too deep and I panicked a little bit. That probably irrational because unless I fall asleep or I pass out in that water, I'm probably going to be fine. When taken to that extent, I think it’s kind of irrational. But there are definitely situations where it's very appropriate to be fearful of drowning.

AUTUMN

Most definitely. And I would say this is one that's a very lack of skill driven fear. Surviving in water requires skills, and if you don't have those skills, it's a rational assessment to be fearful of that.

The next fear on our list is the fear of fire, and I feel the rationality of this is very dependent on your life experiences and geographical location, et cetera, et cetera. I was never really afraid of fire. Wasn't a big thing I worried about, until I moved to Montana, where they have lots of forest fires. And now for, I don't know, three to four months out of every single year, I get to be terrified my house is going to burn down and possibly me and my animals along with it.

Because all it takes is one lightning strike, one idiot throwing a cigarette out the window, and all of a sudden you have acres upon acres upon acres of fire. And with the winds we get out here, it spreads insanely fast. And so, for me, this is now an extremely real fear and one that just eats my guts out. I would honestly prefer the Midwest tornadoes to fire because they just happen. It's not like three months of waiting to see if the fire finally reaches my property or not. It happens or it doesn't.

IVY

I would not say that I am particularly afraid of fire. I certainly wouldn't want to be on fire, but I think most people would not want to be on fire. I think that's pretty reasonable as well. But I've never really been particularly fearful of fire, I think, because to me, it's like I've not had negative connotations with fire. Knock on wood, cross my fingers, all that kind of stuff.

At this point in my life, my experiences with fire have been good, like a relaxing fireplace or having a bonfire outside, or a camp fire, or having candles. Those are things that are positive to me. And so, the idea of fire becoming something negative is a foreign concept to me. I understand logically that fire can be terrifying. It can be very destructive. It can kill you and it can kill you painfully. But that seems so far out of my reality in a lot of ways that it does not really occur to me to be fearful of it.

AUTUMN

I used to be like you, Ivy, where, you know, so far out of my reality, it really wasn't an issue. Like I said, until I really got into Eastern Montana. And I also owned my own home and had a lot on the line to lose. If you live in Eastern Montana, it's not only rational, you need to be afraid of fire. And if you live anywhere near me where whatever fire you set could reach me, you need to be fucking terrified of it and super responsible. Okay? That's all I'm going to say on that. Be responsible with your fire in Eastern Montana around where Autumn lives.

IVY

Be responsible with fire anyway. You should always be responsible with fire regardless of where you're at.

AUTUMN

Okay, so let's go ahead and move on to the next one on our list. And this is thunderstorms. And I would say also with this, like the just scary weather depending on where you live, hurricanes or tornadoes, some of the mainline winds that get crazy bad.

Thunderstorms specifically, though I know a lot of people are terrified of the thunder itself. I'm not a big fan of them, but I grew up in the Midwest, in the tornado belt. And so, like I said, I honestly prefer tornadoes to fire because tornadoes, there's less worry in my mind about it because it just appears out of nowhere, takes out your house and nobody else is on the block and then goes away and there's nothing you can do about it. And it's like, bam, you're done in 30 minutes. Whereas like a fire lasts for like, I don't know, three months that you got to be fucking concerned about it.

I could get why people are terrified. I mean, the idea of something just reaching down from the sky like the hand of God and destroying only your dog house and nothing else, it's really fucking frightening. And I could also see how thunder could be terrifying. I know it terrifies my dogs, or at least my one dog a lot.

IVY

Natural disasters overall that I totally get. I'm not really fearful of tornadoes because when you grow up in Tornado Alley, I think unless you've had a direct trauma related to it, you just become desensitized to it because they just happen every year. So, it's just a thing that's part of your life every year.

What I am fearful of, as far as natural disasters go, are earthquakes, which are more likely to happen here on the West Coast. And my biggest thing with earthquakes, the reason why I'm fearful of them is you get no warning at all. Because to me, at least with tornadoes, they kind of know what's coming. Like, they give you warnings and stuff that you hear about it on the news. An earthquake, it just fucking happens. There's not enough warning for them to warn anybody. It's basically just the scientists that know what's happening a few seconds before it happens. And that, to me, for some reason, is way more scary because you have no warning at all. It's just going to happen wherever you're at is where you're at. You can't prepare for it at all. You can't escape it at all. You're just stuck. I'm also fearful of hurricanes because a lot of times hurricanes also come with tsunamis and I'm fucking terrified of drowning. So that's scary to me.

Natural disasters overall, I totally can understand the fear of, especially if you're somebody who has been significantly impacted by them and the long-term consequences that they often bring. As far as thunderstorms go, this is one that I don't judge it, but I have a difficult time understanding it because I love thunderstorms, after growing up where we did. There are almost never thunderstorms here. It's very rare to get thunder here, so when it does happen, I get super excited because I love thunderstorms. I love the sounds of it. I like the rain that comes with it. I don't want to be outside in it because of lightning, but from a controlled environment, the lightning is really pretty too. Like, I love the entire thing.

So, this is one that I would never judge somebody for it or mock them or shame them for it. I just have a really hard time grasping the fear of. Thunder, especially if it's just the thunder itself. I could understand more being fearful of lightning, but the thunder in and of itself, I have a somewhat harder time being able to relate to that because it's literally the opposite of how I view thunder. But again, no judgment if you're afraid of thunder. It's just very difficult for me to wrap my head around.

AUTUMN

I don't quite get that one specifically either. And I know there are people that are just the thunder, the noise affects them, impacts them. I assume it's some sort of kind of like the sensory thing with me, with my face or invasive procedures, that their mind is interpreting that sound as some sort of sensory overload or cue to terror for whatever reason.

I do think thunderstorms can be frightening for a lot of people that are afraid of natural disasters, because I never used to be frightened of thunderstorms until I moved to Eastern Montana, because you know what starts a lot of forest fires, lightning does. And so, while I used to love thunderstorms in the Midwest, when we get them here now, they make me a little trepidacious. I'm like, oh, God, please let it rain also. Because if it doesn't, what's going to happen?

When it comes to natural disasters and the fear thereof, I would say that's not just a rational fear, but one that's very good to have that kind of fear so that you can have that respect and that preparation. If that natural disaster is likely to happen in your area, if there are likely to be earthquakes, tornadoes, forest fires, et cetera, be a little bit of afraid so that you can have the correct preparation, so that you have meetup plans, so that you have a go bag, so that you have whatever you need to survive that. Because in certain areas, natural disasters are a reality that you need to accept and accommodate for, not just some boogeyman in the dark that doesn't exist.

Speaking of the dark, that is the next fear on our list. This is a really, really common fear. This is one that a lot of us carry from childhood on. The dark can be terrifying because you don't know what's in it. Are there monsters? Are there rapists? Am I going to step on a Lego? Like, there's a lot of things to be afraid of with the dark.

IVY

I think most parents out there are probably terrified of the Lego in the dark.

AUTUMN

To add on to that, one of the other things I'm terrified of the dark is my cat. Because he's a black cat. He's very kittenish and he likes to leap from the dark and attack me when I get up to go to the bathroom at night. So, I'm also terrified of cats in the dark.

IVY

That's fair. I am also fearful of the dark. I have been fearful of the dark since I was a small child, although my reasons for it have changed somewhat. As a kid, I was just fearful of everything, and in my imagination, everything existed in the dark. As soon as you turn off the lights, every terrifying thing exists in the dark. The light switch magically makes everything go away. You turn on the light, you're safe. You turn off the light, every terrifying thing that has ever existed is now surrounding you and ready to pounce on you. That is not the fear that I have now.

The fear that I have now as an adult in the darkness is that I am very clumsy and I am very concerned that in the dark, I will trip over something and then I will hit my head on the counter going down, and then I will die because of my own clumsiness. Those are the things I'm more concerned about in the dark now. The only other thing that I'm concerned about is just the potential that there will be humans, dangerous humans, hiding in the dark. Which I think is maybe not the most rational thing in the world, but definitely plausible. I'm a little bit concerned about that. But most of my fear in the dark now has to do with my own clumsiness being afraid I'm going to injure or kill myself or somebody else by being clumsy. Because I can't see.

AUTUMN

That is a very valid reason for being scared of the dark. I honestly am still scared of the dark for the reason you mentioned as a child, because once the light turns out anything can exist in the dark. Because I don't really have a core sense of safety, I am constantly and consistently assessing my environment for threats. And once darkness comes, I no longer have the ability to assess my environment for threats visually. And that is very, very troubling to me. I am okay with the dark if I have a source of light with which to illuminate it. But if I am stuck in the dark with no control over making light, I will get pretty scared of that. I will admit that. And I feel like there are reasons to be terrified. I mean, real reasons and childhood reasons and trauma reasons to be afraid of the dark.

IVY

One other thing that I will say as far as that fear of the dark, and this one, I think, is actually quite a rational fear in my opinion. Anytime that Kelvin and I go out camping, I will not be wandering away from the campfire by myself in the darkness with no light source. That is not going to happen because a number of different reasons. One, the clumsiness. I'm not super familiar with those surroundings. I don't know if there's a hole in the ground that I'm going to step in or some angry animal I'm going to step on. Or, in the woods around here, there are cougars out here. So that's something that I also am very aware of when we go out into the wilderness.

So, in that situation, I feel like that is a very rational fear to have. And it drives me crazy that Calvin will just wander into the woods without a light on. I get that he's been in the military and that is not scary or weird to him. In fact, he would rather not have a light source because he wants his night vision to be good. It irritates the crap out of me because can't see him. So, then I'm fearful that something will happen to him and I won't know about it until it's too late. So, in that situation I am more fearful of the dark. And I think that's relatively rational because in a situation like that there's a lot of things that could go wrong and you probably want to be able to see what's going on.

AUTUMN

There are so many reasons to be terrified of the dark. The next fear on our list is the unknown, which is very closely tied to the dark because I feel like that's the reason many of us are afraid of the dark because it is unknown. We don't know what's there. And unfortunately, if you are an anxious person or a phobic person or someone who has gone through trauma, then your mind is more than ready to fill the void of the unknown with all the potential possibles. And I would say, especially if you've been through trauma and you've been in survival mode, that unknown is extremely terrifying because one) you have all sorts of horrors, known, real, true horrors to populate into that void. And two) you're often going to be in threat assessment mode where your mind is looking for threats in the environment so that you can keep yourself safe. And so, when you don't have any data and you do have a lot of horrors that could be real, I would say the unknown can be absolutely terrifying for those of us that have been through trauma or for those of us that have just extreme anxiety.

IVY

I can definitely see what you're saying on that one. I have a somewhat more conflicted relationship with the unknown as a general concept. I think I am less fearful of the unknown than I am of the known, which seems to be kind of the opposite of most people. Because the unknown to me, when I think of that, to me, it's easier for me to imagine, okay, well, yes, there could be all these bad things, but there could also be a lot of these good things.

For some reason, I have a harder time in the known seeing the really positive things. It's easier for me to see the negative things and the things to be afraid of in the known, in my current reality that I am living. But the unknown I could fill with fears, and sometimes I do. But a lot of times I fill the unknown with possibilities and opportunities. And then the only thing that I'm really fearful of is that there will be too many paths that I could take and I will take one and miss out on the opportunities that might have been on another path that I did not take.

The relationship that I have with the unknown is, I guess, somewhat more complicated and more positive, I think, than a lot of people have because I often tend to fill the unknown with positive things that I like the sound of. Yeah, there are anxieties and fears that end up in there too. But for the most part, I think it traces back to my tendency towards escapism. When I was a child, I escaped the horrors of my present life by exploring these fantasy worlds and to me, that is what the unknown is and that is what the void is. And so to me, the unknown it times is more comforting than what I do know, because what I do know is harder for me to put a positive spin on, a lot of times .

AUTUMN

I would like to hope that I am not the only person out there that as I heard Ivy talk about, that the unknown could be filled with positives. I hope I'm not the only one that was thinking, wait, there could be positive things that happen. That's what I was thinking. I was like, oh, wait, the darkness could hold positivity? What!? And then she's like, yeah, I mean, I could choose to fill this with fear or I could choose to fill it with positive. And I'm all like, I could choose to fill it with positive. You know, I'm going to start trying that. I feel a little bit like an idiot being 41 years old and not having considered that before. But in my mind, it was just like, well, it's unknown, obviously it's going to be fucking shitty. But now I'm like, hey, maybe it won't be. I'm going to try that. I'm going to see if that helps with that. I'll report back later on this.

IVY

To be clear, I don't always have a choice because sometimes my brain will fill that space with the anxious thoughts and horrible things and all of that, and that sucks. But for the most part, my way of dealing with my current reality, my present reality, anytime I'm frustrated with my present reality, I'm like, okay, I'm going to exist somewhere else right now, and I'm going to exist in the unknown. I'm going to exist in the void, and I'm going to fill it with whatever things I want, because since it's unknown, I can paint it however the fuck I want. Nobody tells me I can't, which is different from my present reality, which is always that, well, I have some control over this, but there's also a lot of environmental factors that have a ton of control over my present reality, too. The void and the unknown, that is completely my playground. That's my canvas to paint.

AUTUMN

That is so awesome. And I don't even know if I have a choice, because I've never tried before. I just assumed everything was negative. I feel like that says a lot about me and my perspective on life. So maybe I need to find a little joy, and perhaps I could find some joy in the last fear on our list, and that would be clowns.

I'm not really scared of clowns. They baffle me. I don't understand the concept of clowns. That's all that happens, I get socially awkward around clowns because I don't understand what's happening with clowns. Like, if they're funny, if they're not, if they're scary, why you have makeup on like that? Why are your shoes so big? I do appreciate that the nose goes boop boop because I like squeaky, things like that. But beyond that, I'm just kind of, like, socially anxious with them. But I guess some people are super terrified of them.

IVY

Mom was afraid of clowns. I never knew why. She mentioned it a few times, and she was afraid of clowns. She never gave me an explanation, and I don't think it ever occurred to me to ask, which says something about me.

I am not afraid of clowns, but like you, they are a weird entity to me. I don't really understand the appeal. I don't understand why you would want to be a clown either. I'm also very socially awkward around them. Most of my experiences, which have been quite limited, but most of my experience around clowns has been them wandering around the crowd and me just in my head, repeating over and over, please don't come talk to me. Please don't interact with me. Please don't interact with me. Because they want to do funny, interactive things with you, and I'm like, I don't want to be your volunteer. I really don't. As much as balloon animals are cool, don't give one to me, because I'm sure something will be expected of me, and it's supposed to be funny, and I'm very uncomfortable with that. And I don't want other people looking at me because they're looking at you. And now I'm standing next to you, and you're interacting with me, which also makes me part of the show, and I don't want to be part of the show.

That is the only fear that I have around clowns is: please don't interact with me. I don't know what's expected of me in the social interaction. I don't understand the rules of how to interact with people normally and now you've got somebody that's dressed in this super colorful garb that is very visually distracting and often, to me, visually abrasive because it's too many different bright colors all at once. And then now I'm supposed to interact. And a lot of times the clowns that I've interacted with didn't talk either. They were, like, doing mime type stuff. And now I really don't know what's expected of me. I don't play charades. What do you want from me? That's the only fear that I have around clows, just like, don't make me more socially uncomfortable than I already am

AUTUMN

I don't know. Maybe some neurotypicals will be offended by this, but with your description, it kind of feels like clowns are extreme neurotypicals, and we just totally don't understand, and they won't give us clear directives, and they all dress weird.

I've read that some of the reasons that people don't like clowns can go to the makeup because it's like an exaggeration of human features, which can be very frightening, especially for small children. And I would imagine some of it might also come from that sensory overload. Like, there's too much data. There's too much going on visually there. And because they are moving and frolicking and making noise, I could see how that could be sensorially, overwhelming, as well as that exaggeration of face could be frightening for people if you had personal trauma.

Yeah, I totally get it. I mean, if a clown smacked you upside the head, I'd be kind of terrified of clowns because I don't know what to expect from them. And maybe they all do that. I don't know. And so, I do get that maybe it's a little bit of the unknown too. Maybe all of us are a little bit like, I don't know what to do with you clown, and now I'm a little afraid of you because of that. Maybe that's just part of it. So, I don't really know if it's rational or irrational because clowns are just this big question mark. I don't know if I would classify it as a rational or irrational fear either.

IVY

The thing that you were talking about with the exaggeration of facial features, it's that whole uncanny valley thing, which is one of those things that, again, I think is kind of wired into us to find off putting, to be concerned about, to be put on alert by. So, from that sense, I think it's fairly rational because it's something that is wired into us, that exists there for a reason. Because if it seems human, but it might not be, I don't know what this is now and should I be fearful of it? So, I can kind of get that.

I could also see how it could be a potentially rational fear. One of the things that being a clown allows you to do is to mask your true identity. So technically somebody could do some pretty fucked up and terrifying things and you wouldn't be able to clearly identify who the fuck it was. So, I could see why somebody would develop a fear of clowns because again, being a clown allows you to completely mask your identity. And if your identity is masked and nobody can get a clear sense of who you are, you could get away with a lot of shit. And I could see how that would be scary to somebody.

AUTUMN

That could definitely be frightening. And I think it does go a little bit to the unknown, but then also the realistic consequences of that as well.

So, we've not talked about all the possible fears out there, but we've talked about quite a few of them. And then we could just end the episode and be like and figure it out. Have fun being terrified of everything now. But instead of doing that, let's hit really quickly on how to mitigate the consequences of fears. Because we have them and sometimes they're rational, sometimes they're irrational, but either way, they can definitely impact our lives in big ways. So how do we handle and deal with these fears?

Well, it starts with being aware of what your fears even are. And I would say this speaks not just to, oh, I'm afraid of the dentist, but also those fears that are considered socioculturally appropriate. Those fears that you have in you that were taught by your mother or by your religion or by your political leaning or by your geographical location. Whatever it happens to be, I would encourage you to tap into those fears as well.

Hand in hand with that, you also want to be aware of how you react to your fears. Do you react with anger? Do you react with running away? Do you react with avoidance? Do you react with a panic attack? That's all important information to have. I would say that pretty much dealing with anything in life starts with awareness. So, when it comes to fears, start at that point of being aware of what your fears are. Not just the common known ones that could be diagnosable or make you different, but the common ones that everybody has that are considered normal. And also, be aware of how you react to them.

IVY

The next step here can be a little bit more complicated because the next step is being able to make an accurate assessment of the rationality of your fears and your phobias in these specific situations. In context, that can be pretty difficult. There's a lot of things that Autumn and I were looking at that it's like, well, yeah, under this context it's pretty irrational, but if you look at it this way, it's actually very rational. So, this one can be a kind of difficult one to assess. There's probably not a right or wrong answer per se, but you want to be looking at realistically in your situation in this context, what is the likelihood of a bad outcome and what's the worst-case scenario?

Like using the example that Autumn's way earlier in the episode, if you are terrified of grizzly bears and you live in Kansas City, you are very unlikely to run across a grizzly bear in Kansas City. Can you still be fearful of it? Yeah, you can still be fearful of it. Should you let it control your life? No, you probably shouldn't, especially because it is very unlikely that that fear will become actualized and have a direct, significant impact on your life.

Trying to make a realistic and accurate assessment of whether or not you are being rational in the moment is very helpful in being able to mitigate the consequences of that fear. Because as soon as you can figure out, okay, is this actually rational, you can at least gauge where to go next from that.

And we do want to say that not every fear is wise to try to confront. There are some where it is reasonable to have that fear, and confronting it may not be the best thing. So especially if you are a woman, walking down a dark alley may be terrifying to you, that may not be a good one to confront. You may not want to face that fear and walk down that dark alley alone because there is a chance, a pretty good chance, that this will not be a safe thing for you to do. It is unfortunate that it is not a safe thing for you to do, but it is one of those things where it's like, as much as I would love to confront my fears, there could be real significant consequences for me trying to confront this fear. And maybe it's best to leave well enough alone with certain things.

So be aware of that too, that not every fear that you have is one that is actually safe for you to try to confront. Some fears are wired into us, or we have them for a real, legitimate reason. And even if they don't seem particularly rational to you or to other people in that moment, it's still better to err on the side of caution when looking at a rational versus rational.

AUTUMN

It's also very good to look at your behavior and the amount of resources you're inputting and how that fear and your behavior around it is affecting your life. I feel like that's a really good thing, and one of the great things about looking at the rational and irrationality of fears, if you've been through trauma and you start going down that rabbit hole, you might find some of your triggers that way. Might be like, hey, it doesn't make sense that I'm horribly terrified of cigarette smoke. Oh hey, look at that trauma attached to cigarette smoke in my childhood. Guess that's a trigger. So, bonus there on that one.

Another way you can mitigate the consequences of fear is arm yourself against the fear with knowledge and skills. So, let's say you are terrified of grizzly bears. Let's say you also live somewhere like Montana where grizzly bears actually could potentially come up on you. Know how to defend yourself against a grizzly bear. Know what grizzly bear scat looks like. Know how to avoid grizzly bears. Know how to manage your property so that you won't attract the bears to your property. Knowledge and skills can help a lot to overcome these fears.

If you are terrified of being out alone at night, consider self-defense classes. It may not save you, but it can give you a little bit more confidence and a little bit of an edge against that thing you're afraid of. Dive into that fear to some degree and learn about it. Learn how to defend yourself against it. Learn also about the likelihood of its occurrence in your area to you given who you are.

Now, I will say with this though, knowledge is a double-edged sword. Because I do not like snails or slugs. They creep me the fuck out. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to confront this. I'm going to learn about snails because I love animals and the more I learn, the better. Did not help. Snails are some fucked up little things that have creepy sexual habits and now I am twice as horrified. So just be aware of that when jumping into a fear. The more you learn may not actually help you be less afraid.

IVY

Maybe we should put something about that on our resources page because that's probably making a lot of people real curious about what weird sexual habits nails could possibly have.

All right, so the next step here that we want to talk about is be willing to share your fears with the people around you that you trust to help mitigate the reactions, build expectations and recruit their help even in being able to cope with these fears or potentially confront them if necessary.

Communication is super important in so many ways and settings and we've done episodes that focus on communication. But this is something that's a little bit different because you are finding people that you trust and specifically communicating to them, expressing to them what your fears are so that they understand that they are aware of what is going on with you and what things you're afraid of, how you're likely to react to it. Telling the people that you trust about your fears gives them the opportunity to understand you better, to be aware, to have good expectations about what might happen if you are presented with the thing that you are afraid of. It also allows them the opportunity to support you as well. And if you want help to be able to confront those fears in a safe environment, they can also help you with that.

Kelvin's been slowly helping me over the time that we've been together to be less fearful of water. He was on swim team when he was in high school. He's very comfortable in water. He's a very strong swimmer. And so, he's been trying over time to help me be less afraid of water, which is not something that I would have felt comfortable doing myself and honestly, not something that I would feel comfortable doing with a stranger. But because I trust him and I know I can be safe and vulnerable with him, and I can trust him to protect me if something goes wrong, I'm much more willing to try to confront some of the fears that I have.

And even if they don't know how to support you or they're not able to help you, even just them knowing what to expect can go a very long way because otherwise they may be taken by surprise and they may respond poorly to the situation because they don't know any better. And this is very confusing for them.

AUTUMN

And if you have fears that are around things like medical procedures or needles where somebody's going to be doing something to you, I would also say it's vital to share that fear there as well, because it can complicate medical procedures if you start having extreme anxiety. And it's also important to let them know because otherwise when you have an extremely strong reaction, they may not know what's going on. And now when you tell people, because, like, it often happens with me, they may not listen and they may not hear you. So, try to be as clear and direct as possible.

When I go in and somebody says, well, we're going to have to draw your blood, I tell them I have a needle phobia, I will likely have a full-blown panic attack. It is possible I may need to be held down. I will likely scream. I don't just say I have a thing with needles or I have a needle phobia. I give them exactly what's going to happen so they know what to expect and they still don't listen to me. But I do get the satisfaction of afterwards being like, I told you, fucking bitches, and you didn't listen. And there's a little bit of satisfaction in that.

And with that, though, don't let other people shame you about your fears. So, if you share them either with the medical professional or somebody close to you and they're trying to shame you, like, oh, that's nothing to be scared of, that's stupid, that's irrational, fuck them. Like we said, there is a reason for that fear to be there. Most of us don't go out looking for things to be afraid of and choosing to have an automatic reaction to something. That's what fear is. It's an automatic reaction that we do not have control over. Fear is what keeps us alive.

So maybe somewhere along the way, our survival instinct got miswired a little bit and we decided clowns were a threat to our survival. Is that a miswiring? Possibly. But does that give anybody the right to make fun of you or to fuck with you about it? No, it doesn't. It is okay to set boundaries around that. So, if people are like, I'm going to put a spider on you, you're not the ass to be like, I have a spider phobia, this is not acceptable, and to set that boundary. Or if it's something that's happening at work to take it to HR. Fears and phobias are part of your mental health and it is more than acceptable, it is necessary for you to protect your mental health and to preserve your mental health and to respect yourself enough to ensure that other people respect you as well.

IVY

Always remember that you deserve to feel safe and that is something that on that hierarchy of needs. Ppeople, in order to do well, need to be able to have a sense of safety along with setting boundaries with other people. When it comes to your fears and your phobias, I would honestly also say it's kind of important to maybe set some boundaries with yourself as well. When it comes to that, you don't have to necessarily confront every fear that you have.

You can still decide whether you want to or not. It is entirely up to you. So, you may choose not to confront every fear that you have and that is fine. There's a few things to maybe look at when you're making that decision. One of those is the severity of the reaction that you have and how much that actually is impacting your life. Because if it is significantly impacting your life and it's causing you a lot of trouble and heartache and all of these issues, that's something that you want to consider about, okay, maybe trying to do something, develop coping skills to help you deal with that fear. So that's one thing to take a look at is the severity of the reaction you're having to and how much it's impacting your life.

The next one is how likely is it that you are going to encounter the thing that you are afraid of? Because if the thing that you're afraid of is not something that you're ever likely to encounter, is it really necessary for you to go through a whole lot of work to confront that fear? I'm somewhat afraid of hippos. I'm not absolutely terrified of them, but I know they can kill you. So, if I was confronted with a hippo, I might be a little bit freaked out by that. But the chances that I'm ever going to be face to face with a hippo are pretty slim. So that's not really a fear that I'm going to focus on tackling and confronting because it's not really worth my time investment.

The other thing that you want to look at is the usefulness of the fear that you have. Some of these fears are very useful to us. Being afraid of heights can be very useful to us because these things keep us cautious, they keep us aware, and they encourage us to be prepared. So be mindful of that too. Not every fear that you have is one that you need to try to get rid of or try to confront. Some of these fears actually serve a valuable purpose and you can use them to your advantage. Instead of feeling like you have to eradicate them.

If you choose not to confront one of your fears, it does not make you a coward. This is your choice. You choose whether or not this is worth time and energy to invest in it, and potentially money, too. Because it's very difficult with an actual phobia to confront that yourself. Sometimes you actually need a professional who is trained to help you overcome those phobias. So, you have to be able to weigh out, is this worth you spending the time, the money, the energy to overcome? You don't have to tackle and confront every fear that you have.

If you want to confront it., if this is something that's negatively impacting you in a significant way and you're tired of feeling bound by it, by all means work on starting to confront it. Work on starting to overcome it, or at least being able to desensitize yourself to it. That is totally acceptable, and that is a wonderful, good, courageous thing to do.

But if you choose not to confront some of these fears, that does not make you a coward. It doesn't make you weak, it doesn't make you stupid, it doesn't make you unworthy or a bad person. This is still ultimately your choice.

AUTUMN

If you choose not to tackle or confront your fears, like Ivy said, that's totally okay. It's your choice. But you still have to worry about mitigating some of them. The big thing you're doing here is you're going to look at prevention and accommodation.

One) you want to prevent any time you can encounter that fear. So, if you have an extreme fear of the dentist and you don't want to tackle that dental phobia, you better be taking really good care of your teeth: daily, brushings mouthwash, flossing. You want to be doing everything you can to prevent having to go to the dentist.

The other piece of this is accommodating for the fear. Because you're not tackling it, it means it's not going to go away. And if this is a fear that you are likely potentially going to encounter out in the world, it's not a hippo in Seattle or a grizzly bear in Kansas City. If it's a real thing you're going to encounter, you're going to need to be prepared for and accommodate for that.

So, if you are likely to encounter it surprisingly in the world, what's your game plan? How are you going to deal with that? How are you going to escape? If you go somewhere that you know it's likely going to be encountered, definitely create a plan for that. If you're scared of clowns and you're going to a carnival or a circus or something along those lines, figure out ahead of time, okay, what am I going to do if I am confronted with the clown? How am I going to react? What am I going to do to make myself feel safe? How am I going to keep this fear from overwhelming me and destroying the situation for the other people around me, essentially?

And then with that, also work with your friends or loved ones so that you can accommodate these fears. Talk with your loved ones and make plans to address these when it arises. Because if you don't tackle or confront it, when you encounter that fear, you're still going to have that fear reaction. So how are you going to handle that reaction?

Now, if you do want to tackle or confront your fears, a lot of times what that means is exposure therapy. It is desensitization. Now, there might be with this, depending on where this fear is coming from, trauma work, anxiety medication, a whole slew of other things.

So, if this is a significant enough fear, you're definitely going to want to seek a therapist, even if it's just a phobia. Like, it's not trauma, it's not anxiety. I just have a phobia. If you actually have a diagnosable phobia that is so significantly impacting you that it could be called a phobia, it's going to be very hard for you to do this on your own. Part of a phobia, part of having this fear, is wanting to avoid interacting with it. And it's very hard to push ourselves to confront something we are actively avoiding.

Now, it's not to say you can't do it. It's not to say that you can't build up tiny exposures with something. So, if you are scared of spiders, maybe you start by looking at a cartoon about a friendly spider or a coloring book about spiders and then maybe build up to a photo. You can do these tiny little micro dosing things. But again, if this fear or phobia, whether it's straight up phobia or whether it's connected with trauma or anxiety, is really super significant, I would encourage you to seek some form of help. Because if you just go straight into, well, I'm going to confront this thing, and you had a buttload of trauma tied to it, you're going to open a Pandora's box of fun. So, you kind of want to know what you're doing before you confront something super significant on your own.

Fear is ultimately an automatic reaction and it is part of our survival mechanism and we don't want that to disappear. Being fearless sounds amazing. Being fearless often leads to sociopathy or a very short lifespan or both. So, fears are there for a reason. But if they're causing you significant issues in your life, then maybe it's time to start tackling them or at least finding ways to mitigate the fear response when it happens.

All right, so for today, we're going to go ahead and wrap up Ivy. Do you want to go ahead and throw them all our connecty bits?

IVY

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AUTUMN

Now, we didn't talk about every conceivable fear out there today. Some of them we actually did talk about, but you didn't hear about them in this episode because we had to cut them out for length and put them on our Patreon page. So definitely do support us on Patreon and gain access to bonus content such as extra fears we discussed today. And if we didn't discuss your fear either in this episode or on our Patreon content, reach out to us and let us know what you're afraid and let us know also if you plan on tackling it and if you do, how.

As always, we thank you for listening. And remember that different does not mean defective.