My Irrational Fears

Hey there! Welcome back to ‘The Confessions of a Random Blogger!’

We all have that one irrational fear that makes absolutely no sense, but still scares us anyway. Then there are those of us that can create an entire list of their stupid fears that don’t make any sense.

(P.S. it’s mee).

Today I’m going to be sharing some of my irrational fears with you, on the condition that you don’t: a) make fun of me; and b) use them against me.

Sit down funny guy.

Comment below if you share any of these irrational fears, or if you have any other interesting ones that you would like to share!

---

Snakes In The Toilet

I have done so much research on this, and almost every website says that while the chances of a snake entering your toilet through the pipes are extraordinarily unlikely, it is in fact possible.

For me specifically, this thought especially creeps up on me at night. The worst part is that a snake could probably bite you without you ever even seeing it- you know cause…you’re sort of in the middle of something?

Now, one of my friends tried to dismiss my fear by saying that most snakes are relatively harmless, and are probably just looking to escape the situation, just as you are.

However, I did some research, and historically ‘toilet snakes’ do in fact lash out since you’re blocking their preferred exit point. So if you’re ever sitting down on a toilet and a snake does manage to come through the pipes, it will almost always attack you due to fear.

Consider yourself lucky that I didn’t include pictures.

What I will do is share this news story of an Australian woman that got bitten while…you know.

---

Hidden Cameras

I don’t know why, but whenever I’m just living life, the thought of there being hidden cameras recording everything I do just creeps into my mind. You know, ‘The Truman Show,’ style?

Or even just the FBI agent watching through your camera.

However, what makes this fear so absolutely ridiculous is the fact that whenever this thought pops up in my head, I’m never actually doing anything particularly scandalous. I’m always just watching Netflix in a hoodie while stuffing my face with popcorn.

Maybe it’s just an extension of my inherent narcissism that I feel like everyone would absolutely love to watch me watch BoJack Horseman for a couple of hours?

This isn’t just a recent irrational fear. When I was younger, I always had the lingering thought that maybe my stuffed animals were watching me, or had hidden cameras embedded in their eyes or something.

The worst part about this particular fear is that it makes me extremely performative. If you have the idea that there are millions of people out there watching a reality show consisting of clips of you making coffee, you’re going to try your best to add some entertainment value to that scene.

From dialogue about the repetitive occurrences of my truly exceptionally interesting daily routine of online classes, to the futile shower thoughts occupying my mind; my imaginary reality show is always extremely entertaining.

No but seriously, with the amount of virtual meetings I have on a daily basis, I have to double, triple check that I’ve truly left the meeting- the pandemic certainly hasn’t made this fear any easier.

---

Closing My Eyes In The Shower

I saw an Instagram reel the other day about when you close your eyes in the shower, thoughts such as your family being murdered in the other room randomly pop into your head.

It unlocked a memory I didn’t know I had.

When I think about it, every time I close my eyes in the shower, I’m reminded of all the terrible things that could possibly happen to me. However, I’m not as considerate about my family in this situation as I am for myself.

I’m always convinced that a murderer is waiting for me to close my eyes to sneak attack me or whatever.

The fear has been so taxing, that when I was younger I would go to the extent of keeping my eyes open while shampooing my hair, with it consequently ending up in my eyes.

Yes- I have literally physically injured myself because I’m scared of an imaginary murderer that for some peculiar reason can’t murder me if I have my eyes open.

However, I actually have a theory about this. What if the fear we experience by closing our eyes isn’t because we are actually scared of what could be happening in the other room; but what we would be missing out on?

In our fast paced, technologically driven world (don’t I sound so incredibly old for just a teenager); what if we’re just experiencing a different form of FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) because we’ve been instinctively taught that missing out is bad?

Maybe it’s not so much that we want to save our families, but that we want to be right there with them when something bad happens.

Woah that got morbid really fast. Let’s move on to another dumb irrational fear!

---

Quicksand

I don’t even remember the last time I saw regular sand, much less a special hybrid of sand that literally swallows you.

I’m sure we’ve all seen those action sequences in bad adventure movies where the protagonist finds themselves stuck in quicksand, about to be completely submerged.

However, according to my research, it is actually physically impossible for a human to be completely submerged by quicksand because of something something colloid density, blah blah cubic centimetres.

Einstein and Newton would be sooo jealous of my deep knowledge about physics.

Yes, that’s right. A bad, physically impossible, fictional movie trope has rendered me incapable of venturing into the outdoors without being mentally prepared to be swallowed by literal liquid dirt.

This trope actually dates back to the 1960s, where it is estimated that approximately 3% of all movies produced during that decade used quicksand as a plot device in some way.

To read more about the use of quicksand in film, click here to check out this article by Slate.

---

Thank you for reading! Comment some of your irrational fears below!

You can check out my last few posts here:

• The Scariest Things That Actually Exist
• borrowed poems from an anonymous- ‘Expressions of Love’ and ‘Experience’
• The Horror of Surveillance
• Pet Peeves
• Happy Panda- Random Blogger Interviews

Until Next Time.