Is there any point to facing your fears? Examples?

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Hi all!

I´m new here, and new to writing in forums in general. I sometimes find a forum that I find interesting but I almost never posted on any. I get so nervous and scared just thinking about posting. So this is a difficult thing for me to do, just writing something and posting it. But I wanted to introduce myself and maybe get some reflections about the use of facing your fears.

I´m a 29 years old swedish girl currently living in Spain. I´ve been diagnosed with Asperger´s Syndrome 1,5 years ago. Ok, that´s all that I can manage to write right now. I hope someone can share a story about facing their fear.

Hi Irene,

Welcome to the forums. I was nervous about joining in the posting myself, and it takes time to get used to how people treat it, but there is nothing to be stressed over. This is probably the least judgmental place on the internet.

I've wondered about the use of facing fears many times. I have a pretty silly phobia, and nearly every time I tell someone, the conversation turns to how I could get over it. Of course, the thought of trying to get over it is terrible enough by itself because that usually means "exposure therapy." If I fear/hate something, I find it hard to realistically imagine a reality where I wouldn't fear/hate it.

I think the worth of trying to face a fear could be summed up by measuring the consequences of trying to get over it versus the consequences of not getting over it. Say there are two different scenarios:

1. The fear is something that you rarely encounter and/or having that fear doesn't really impede your usual functioning + the effort to get over the fear would be very stressful = why bother?
2. The fear is of something that you have to face very often and/or is something that prevents you from what is considered "normal functioning" + the effort to get over the fear would be very stressful, but the result of getting over it would greatly improve your quality of life = you should try.

So basically, you have to weigh the cost of facing the fear against the cost of not facing it.

You wanted people to share a story about facing a fear. I suppose that "facing" a fear doesn't mean getting rid of it, so this isn't going to be a "success story," really:

My fear is cobwebs. I am not scared of spiders or insects at all - in fact, I was always the one to pick them up and I'm the one people rely on to get insects of the house and stuff. But if one strand of a web gets on me or near me I freak out. I had the fear since I was a toddler (I think it might have something to do with how sudden and unexpected webs are when they get on you.. just walking along and all of a sudden there's this streak of shiny light and something touching you... and then there's the messy illogical webs that look all dirty, and then there's the sticky ones that don't break.... oh my goodness!). The fear was so bad that if I touched a web I would uncontrollably jerk away, freeze up (or roll around on the ground if it was still touching me), huddle in a safe place for a while to calm down, etc. I had to face the fear more often when I was a kid because I was outside a lot more often then, but it didn't really improve over time. When I was around 14 or 15, my younger brother got into Lord of the Rings. Every time there was the scene with Frodo going into the spider's lair I had to cover my eyes. However, my brother was obsessed with Lord of the Rings and he watched the movie so often, and I would often join him. I eventually opened my fingers a bit to see that scene, and after a while I could watch it without looking away. After seeing it so many times, when I was faced with cobwebs in real life, I still freaked out but it was a little better: I pictured that movie scene and told myself that Frodo could do it in an extremely worse case. If he could go through a whole cave, I could touch a strand. It wasn't much of an improvement, to this day I can't touch a web without an involuntary reaction, but I now have a thought-process that I can use to calm myself down faster.

Also, I've been in a dangerous situation a couple times where there was something greater to worry about, and in those times I touched some cobwebs and didn't care in those moments. I now know that if I had to face a horrible amount of them to save someone or to get away from danger or something, I could and I would. But since it's not something that normally gets in the way of my life, I don't bother trying to force myself to face it. If I have to, I use my feet to break webs (only if I'm wearing shoes), and I refuse to do any tasks that might involve touching them. I guess it affects me in that I wouldn't get a job that would require not caring about webs (such as any kind of home-renovation or cleaning jobs, or I guess anything outdoors) so it does restrict me. I tell myself I wouldn't want those jobs anyway.

Shimmers, I too have a fear of spider webs because I have a fear of spiders. Some spiders can be very poisonous, such as the brown recluse and black widow. Sounds like a healthy fear to me.

The problem is that I don't have a fear of spiders or any other creature that would be seen as a typically healthy fear. As a kid I was obsessed with insects of all kinds and I didn't care whether they were potentially dangerous or not. Luckily, where I lived there were very few, if any, poisonous bugs. I remember picking up huge pine beetles and termites and laughing as they hissed wildly and bit my fingers. I chased any wild animal I saw with the intent of grabbing them with my bare hands.. mice, snakes.. I caught a lot of snakes with little thought, much to the dismay of other people around. I learned which spiders didn't make webs, like rock spiders and "daddy-long-legs" and I loved those kinds the most, but I still occasionally picked up other spiders (especially to rescue them from being killed by other people) and I freaked out when they strung a strand to get down from my hands - but it seemed a bit better if they did it after I picked them up and while I was trying to free them.

Yeah, a healthy fear of these creatures is good to have. Now that I'm older I appreciate the risk more. Seeing pictures of people's flesh dying after poisonous bites is something you don't easily forget. I should really learn which insects and snakes to watch out for. I do know about the Black Widow and the Brown Recluse, which we have here - I have a decent idea of what they look like and I think I would know enough to stay clear. We don't have scorpions in Canada as far as I know, but if I ever travel somewhere else, like the southern states or Australia, I will have to be extra careful.

Thank you for that snake fact. I'll make note of that.

Black Widows and Brown Recluses scare me the most now. I hate the idea of them hiding in places around my house. As ever, the worst of the fear is the thought of putting my arm through a tangled mess of web inside the arm of my favourite jacket (oh horror!), or, as I saw on a TV show once, inside a shoe. Black widows are notoriously bad for being in hidden among common things, making it difficult to avoid them while doing everyday tasks, just like you describe!

I make sure to clean in all the corners at least once a year, it's best to go in with a vacuum with a long handle into the corners of closets and anywhere else that isn't touched very often. I'm also interested in natural deterrents, things like dried lavender and such, that you can put around and which discourage insects. I once heard putting chestnuts around repelled spiders, so I put a bunch in closets and stuff. However, I saw some cobweb on them later... so I guess it didn't work so well.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hello there I'm a fellow Swede
I would say that facing your fears mostly gives you the opportunity to deal with, and eventually over come the fear, and thus grow as a person.
I have found that the more fears I have worked to overcome (and there has been a lot of them, since big portions of my life was based on fear... mostly fear of fear) the less hard it had become to deal with stuff, both issues from the past, but also things that might occur in everyday life maybe I have grown a confidence in the end? So my answer, based on personal experiences is "yes, If you think the benefits of overcoming overweights the negatives of not overcoming".. like for instance, I had always had a phobia of dentist.. and thou this is not a fear I intend on facing and dealing with alot, I have worked up the courage to actually go there from time too time, and now, even thou I still "fear" it, I'm not consumed with it.. so it is not a source of phobia that I use as a definition of who I am.. it is just something that I don't like... Hope this makes any sence