Are your fears reasonable?

[DDNatureLover]

I have some fears that are reasonable, and others that are not. I've been in several accidents since moving to the state where I now live. The traffic is horrendous up in the city, and some drivers are inattentive, while others are blatantly aggressive. I was glad to move away from that, although the issues still exist down here, but at a lower level. I tend to ruminate on things that I can't control, and for the most part, the things I concern myself with don't come to fruition. I can often calm down by reminding myself of that when I start to catastrophize, but it's more difficult when the situation is not only more likely, but has occurred in the past, such as with the car accidents.


Are your fears reasonable? If not, how do you manage your anxiety? If so, are there still things you do that work to alleviate your stress?

 

[NormaD]

Fears are never reasonable in my opinion. We usuallyl fear what we don't know or what we don't understand. Also often times we fear what we imagine is going to happen, even if it never comes to fruition. Our imagination can fuel our fears, and so learning to use our imagination to our advantage in those situations is of the utmost importance. A little technique that I use is to ask myself, what is the best thing that can come from this situation? ANd I choose to focus on that instead of the worst case scenario.

 

[kelden]

I thing the fear of losing your loved ones someday is somewhat reasonable for a while. Until you really have to face it you can't do anything about human mortality, unless you are a genius geneticist that discover a way to arrange human cells in such a way they can never age or die from diseases. I will fear for my life if I'm assaulted at gun point, that's reasonable. In the end, the only moment you can show you're brave is when facing your worst fears.

 

[amy88]

Well, one of my biggest fears is mice and rodents. My husband doesn't get it (he had pet rats before we began dating!!) but to me they make me petrified - like almost to the verge of tears if I was to see one!


So that one to me is a highly irrational one. I cant even say that I know exactly how it developed, apart from the fact my mom was scared of them. So it could very well have been a learned thing.

 

[MVLaHearse]

Fear can be productive when you're truly in danger. It helps you to fight or run when you need to get away and/or stay away from situations that can hurt or kill you and others. It's not always bad. When you are afraid of things consistently or you're afraid of things that won't hurt you and it affects your life negatively and stands in the way of being productive then there's a problem. I don't like to say it's irrational because it makes sense to the people experiencing it. People rationalize fear all the time. You're example of driving is perfect. You rationalize it by thinking about avoiding accidents. Then you re-rationalize it by understanding it won't always happen and being afraid all the time isn't helpful. I don't like driving either and get panicky. I go through the same process. I also have a fear of being locked in a confined space I can't escape. I rationalize it by knowing where it came from and then I have to see how it more than likely won't happen.

 

[MissTea]

From my experience fears are hardly ever reasonable. Some fears, for instance when you are faced with a dangerous situation, might serve to help you, but even then if you let fear take over then you might not react in the best possible way for that situation. I think that fear will always be a part of our lives, and it serves its purpose, but we must take care never to let it control our lives. Well being is the basis of the lives that we live, for every one thing you can think of that can go wrong, there are a hundred or even a thousand possible outcomes that can go right. Focus on that instead.

 

[Alex]

Each of us has fears that may or may not be reasonable to the masses, but in life i have learned it is reasonable to have fears that only you understand. I do feel some may stem from childhood experiences or even a past life (as I am spiritually inclined). I feel we ought to respect others fears rather than blow them off, and these days I can face most of them.


I do have friends with strange fears, but I am understanding of them because often they don't know why they are afraid and they can't explain it either. When you don't know how to solve something then it's much harder to deal with. I have a friend afraid of spiders even tiny ones, and she freaks out, and while I don't like them, I'm not afraid of them but she has panic attacks if she sees them.

 

[Roscas]

All of us fear something one way or the other. How do we determine if or when fears are reasonable? Is it determined by how we cope and what coping mechanisms we develop?

 

[Sarah8924]

Before I became a mother I had so many unreasonable fears; heights, large bodies of water, spiders, snakes, fires, you name it I was most likely afraid of it. Now my only two fears are loosing my son or me not being here for him until he is able to care from himself. I believe those are very reasonable fears. Our support system isn't the best. We literally have no one. And while his father is in our lives, he isn't mentally able to care for him alone at the time. He as a lot of damage that has really done work on him and he doesn't seem to be willing to over come his past anytime soon.

 

[Panic57]

I think that some fears are natural and even reasonable. I'm afraid to walk around at night alone because I might get attacked by the pack of coyotes or wild dogs, I'm not sure, but I will if I need to pick something up from the grocery store. I'm also afraid of falling from heights because I don't want to be physically hurt or impaired. I even hate spiders because they've put my mom in the hospital so many times. I don't think fearing things are a problem if you don't let that fear excessively hinder you. Fear of danger is logical as long as you don't let it control your life.

 

[hades_leae]

I have had many encounters with people who always talked about conquering your fears. I always feared heights, spiders, walking in front of large crowds, conversing with new people, etc. I feel like you can beat your fears by trying to understand why you have them in the first place.


I watched a story about a guy who was afraid of the dark, and he then learned exactly what the dark was by speaking with a physicist, and literally had no fear of the dark after that meeting. I think that's all that any of us needs to do which is understand it.

 

[simonsaysdifferent]

I have really similar anxiety with driving. Between aggressive drivers and my car being old enough to have a lot of problems, driving puts me in an anxiety loop. If a fear is irrational then I can more easily avoid the unwanted thoughts. But if I feel like thinking about what is making me nervous is preparing me for if things do go down hill, then I can't help my just fall into my anxieties.


I just take a deep breath and try to convince myself that thinking about what might go wrong won't prepare me for it, it only puts me more on edge. Results vary.