The Humour Club discussion

I have this fear whenever I wear a barrette in my hair that I'll be in a car accident and my head will fly forward, then, when my head snaps back again, the barrette will pop open and drill into my brain when it hits the back of the seat.

Can anyone top that one for things-to-fear-that-will-probably-never-happen?

Weird, Melki - I have the same fear!

Joel wrote: "Weird, Melki - I have the same fear!"

ROFL!

Great. Now I'll be adding that to my list of things to imagine going wrong. Though I seldom wear a barrette.

My biggest fears aren't weird or even all that unreasonable: I'm terrified of white water (big ocean waves or fast streams/rivers) and of long drops (not to be confused with the long drop out back of the cabin, which is merely a convenience).

This doesn't top it, but I fear I'm going to scrape just the barrette and it will rip out the chunk of my hair that it was holding up.

Kind of related -- my daughter was a born worrier. I, on the other hand, don't worry. It's weird, as a mom, I know I'm supposed to worry, but I never remember to do it. Anyway, whenever she'd tell me one of her too-numerous-to-mention fears, I'd tell her not to worry about it because worrying was a waste of time and energy and besides, "whatever goes wrong is never what you were worrying about, so why bother when no good comes from it?"

Well, when she was 11, her pancreas "just quit" one day (that's how the doc explained it). She passed out one morning and woke up 5 days later in the ICU unit of a hospital completely clueless as to why she was there. I explained as best I could to which she answered: "OH GOD! You were right! I never worried about this! How many more things like this can happen? Do I have another pancreas?"

In the past three years in the interim, she's continued to find more and more to worry about. And I think that's my fault, but I'm not worried about that. I'll get her a good therapist if I think it gets out of hand.

Actually, I just realized I've been lying to myself. I always say I don't worry, but after reading through the politically incorrect topic, I realized I do have quite the record of worrying about potential candidates getting elected -- I did, after all have a panic attack watching a Bush-Kerry debate (which, in the end, was the correct subject to worry about because that election did go wrong for me).

Lisa wrote: "Actually, I just realized I've been lying to myself. I always say I don't worry, but after reading through the politically incorrect topic, I realized I do have quite the record of worrying about p..."

You are right to be concerned about this. No matter what happens, one of those idiots will be representing a major political party next year.

Shudder!

Lisa wrote: "... when she was 11, her pancreas "just quit" one day (that's how the doc explained it). She passed out one morning and woke up 5 days later in the ICU unit of a hospital completely clueless as to why she was there."

This is horrifying. Who knew a pancreas could just go on strike one day?

I have an over-active imagination (do I even have to say that? I write fiction!). I can, and do, visualize what it will be like when I take a corner too fast on my bike and fly off the cliff, or when I trip on the narrow trail above the river and fall in, or...and yeah, I visualize it even worse for my loved ones. Apparently not everyone does this?

Rebecca - yes, I do that too. I'm okay with heights, but I can't help wondering what would happen if I jumped. I know I am not going to jump. I know it wouldn't be a good idea. But I still can't stop myself from thinking about it.

Apparently, it has some grounding in science:

http://bodyodd.nbcnews.com/_news/2012...

The TL;DR version: the suggestion is that our bodies might be misinterpreting our survival instincts to flinch away from danger. A flinch away from the edge is reinterpreted as a flinch towards it.

My (homegrown) explanation: we are hardwired with millennia of survival instincts to avoid things that might harm us - dangerous animals, poisonous plants, falling from heights, etc. These instincts manifest themselves in subconscious pattern recognition. So when kids won't eat their greens, that is apparently a survival instinct to avoid eating something which might be poisonous:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/artic...

Ditto a fear of spiders or heights or barrettes in car crashes. And I have to admit that I had to google barrettes!