Fearful Friday - Inherited or Not

A few days ago my daughter mentioned that while on a routine biking around the city, she was confronted with crossing a bridge where one of the wooden plank was missing.  When I read this, I mean just reading it, my feet and my hands became sweaty/clamy.  I felt the fear.  My daughter did not like that experience.  I told her immediately that she got that fear from me.  At my age I still have so many fears that for some reason I cannot just conquer.  I thought I was getting better with some of them but I don't think I can really get rid of them.

While researching about these fears if they are inherited or not, I found some interesting info that I would like to share.  Apparently there are three types of fears: 

• Situational ( fear of closed space, flying, the dark)
• Animal ( rat, dog, snakes )
• Blood/Injury ( fear of dentist, dentist, injections and blood)

Now I will try to break down the list of my fears into these above categories and share what I have tried in the past to conquer some of them.

• Situational ( height, water, bridges, dark country roads)
• Animal ( rat, snakes, mouse, spiders and other insects)
• Blood/injury (gory scenes, weird looking alien/characters)

As I continue to read more articles, I found the following phobias that are applicable to my fears.

• Acrophobia - fear of heights
• Aquaphobia - abnormal and persistent fear of water
• Chiroptophobia - fear of bats
• Entomophobia - fear of insects
• Gephyrophobia - fear of bridges
• Herpetophobia - fear of reptiles
• Musophobia - fear of mice and/or rats
• Nyctophobia - fear of darkness

Through the years I have done some things that I can say I've faced my fears but will never do it again.  Most of my friends know most of these fears and they have helped me try to get over it. Some success but a lot are failures.

• 1993 - a very dear friend gave me a gift of Champagne Hot Air Balloon Ride
• 1998 - Drove over bridge from Ontario to USA and back. Sweating all the way
• 2002 - chair lift at the Great Wall of Mutianyu, China
• 2006 - parasailing with Jeff in Punta Cana, DR - no one saw us but I have proof
• 2007 - rode the Banff Gondola with Jeff 
• 2009 - killed a mouse using two very sticky paper from the dollar store
• 2010 - drove late at night on a country road w/o looking at my rearview mirror
• 2014 - bought an electronic bug zapper - non messy way to get rid of bugs at home

 

This was the part where they let you down easy just to get wet and pull you back up.

Believe it or not, that is me in the front and Jeff is behind with his open arms.

Do you have a lot of fears or are you one of those fearless type?  Did you inherit a fear or phobia of some sort?  Did you have some experience that resulted in your fear?  I did.