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30 Apr 2012, 7:23 pm

Does anyone else show the "classic" lack of fear thing... Like jumping down flights of stairs or running out toward cars or what not, but then have a seemingly reasonless over exaggerated fear of things like elevators or stairs with holes in them (the ones that are supposed to be there, not ones that are because of poor maintenance) or something? Do you ever get weird looks for not being afraid of normal things but afraid of not normal things?



064RadicalPractice
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30 Apr 2012, 7:46 pm

Yeah I show the "lack of fear" all the time!

I constantly walk out in front of cars, while my friends scream at me to stop.
One time I opened and jumped on successfully onto a moving bus, a particular favorite of mine!
Also I enjoy jumping down stairs, especially the ones in the resident block at my college :)

But I do tend to show fear at the oddest things, like I'm more scared of being bitten by a hamster at college, than the caiman, which i consider strange as it really should be the caiman who I don't want to bite me!

(edit: and yes, I always get weird looks, probably because I'm not paying attention to the person with me whos screaming)



IdahoRose
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01 May 2012, 12:57 am

That describes me pretty well. I don't think I lack fear, but I do lack common sense when it comes to some things. For just a couple of examples, I once got mildly electrocuted by sticking a lamp into a socket when the switch was flipped on, and I used to retrieve food out of the toaster with a butter knife until my mom caught me doing it and told me that it was dangerous.

On the other hand, I worry all the time about things that most other people don't give a second thought about. I'm kind of a hypochondriac, and I always worry about what other people think of me. Another thing I worry about is causing people to think I'm rude, or somehow accidentally hurting their feelings. I'm also paranoid about things like getting in trouble with the law, people laughing at me behind my back, and men kidnapping and/or trying to rape me.



Peter_L
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01 May 2012, 2:59 pm

IdahoRose wrote:
That describes me pretty well. I don't think I lack fear, but I do lack common sense when it comes to some things. For just a couple of examples, I once got mildly electrocuted by sticking a lamp into a socket when the switch was flipped on, and I used to retrieve food out of the toaster with a butter knife until my mom caught me doing it and told me that it was dangerous.

On the other hand, I worry all the time about things that most other people don't give a second thought about. I'm kind of a hypochondriac, and I always worry about what other people think of me. Another thing I worry about is causing people to think I'm rude, or somehow accidentally hurting their feelings. I'm also paranoid about things like getting in trouble with the law, people laughing at me behind my back, and men kidnapping and/or trying to rape me.


In my view you get scared when you don't know what to do. A fellow who I once worked with was ex military, and had received several medals for valour in face of the enemy, plus courage or heroism, whatever you feel like calling it. Yet, facing an recruitment board doing an intensive cross examination covering topics he knew well he admitted he was more scared than he had ever been. He came back from that physically sweating and he spent some while after that meeting listing crazy situations he hadn't been slightly scared in, and most of them involved quite high chances of death.

I have also caught people at work trying to electocute themselves with metal knives in a toaster, some people simply don't understand they are in a very, very dangerous situation and don't know they should be scared.



jagatai
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01 May 2012, 3:16 pm

Quote:
In my view you get scared when you don't know what to do.


I really agree with this assessment. I have little fear of "bad neighborhoods" when I know what I am likely to encounter, (I know I might need to defend myself physically) but I also can get very anxious in good neighborhoods because I find it hard to guess how the average person will react to me where the attacks are likely to be more subtle and hard to recognize.


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01 May 2012, 3:22 pm

yes
when i was in my twenties, i lived in a horrible neighborhood in chicago, and came home after midnight from my fast food jobs, carrying a folded knife in my pocket. i enjoyed the danger. when gangsters threatened me, and once circled me, i touched the knife to their throat. i thought it was fun to scare away several men twice my size. it gave me a rush of adrenaline.
i'm scared to death of winged cockroaches, scream and run for my life when i see one. i worry about things very unlikely to happen. i worry about getting multiple slerosis, although i have no family history of it. i have a mild car phobia and used to be afraid of airplanes and elevators. that was replaced by car phobia. i'm always afraid of something.


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MiatheMutant
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01 May 2012, 3:36 pm

Yep, I can relate to this. When I living in the Midwest I used to be fascinated with tornadoes and actually got the chance to see a couple of funnels touch down. I would be laughing my head off like a maniac in the face of true danger, but I have a panic attack and nightmares from the airplanes and helicopters that fly over our house. Ambulance sirens (ironically tornado warning sirens) scare the h*ll out of me but real danger is nothing. :lol:


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01 May 2012, 3:45 pm

As a kid, I had no fear of things I was supposedly supposed to be afraid of and had no sense of danger. I thought nothing about running into the street into the path of a speeding car. There was a rumor circulating for a while about someone's pet mountain lion escaping and I told my mom that if I saw it, I was going to play with it. I think I was really just trying to get a rise out of her more than anything. But even today, if a mountain lion or some other big cat appeared, I wouldn't be afraid of it. I wouldn't run up to it expecting it to let me pet it, but I wouldn't freak out over it either. I think that's why there were so many mountain lion attacks one year. People probably saw one, freaked out, screamed and tried to run, triggering the mountain lion's predator instincts. When dealing with any large, wild animal (and in some cases, even small, supposed domesticated ones), it's always advised you stand your ground. Still, I bet the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place if these people didn't freak out in the first place. I've never had any kind of fear of any animal, even though I was told I was supposed too. From my experience of 25 years, I always had more to fear from other people, and unlike animals, there's no telling what will set them off. I also had some pretty weird phobias as a kid. Certain TV shows or video games would say something that freaked me out, or someone would make a remark that freaked me out and as a result, I would develop a phobia of that TV show or game. The panic attacks were so bad that my mom thought I was having a heart attack. They would often come out of nowhere.


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01 May 2012, 4:57 pm

I don't know about "lack of fear," but I seem to function better than most in crises or emergencies. Like, when others are still trying to register what's happening, I'm acting. On the other hand, I have a litany of seemingly irrational phobias.



y-pod
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23 Aug 2012, 8:03 pm

When I was a child they all say I was fearless for a wimpy little girl. I would say I was reasonably fearless. I definitely wouldn't do very dangerous things, but I definitely wasn't afraid of the typical things children were afraid of. Like darkness, strangers, monsters, thunder and lightning or dead people. I think I always had enough sense to be cautious and avoid danger, though I didn't really feel the fear, just did what I was supposed to do. Perhaps because of my reactions are rational instead of fear-based, my reflex is always slow. Whenever anything happens my response is "Oh gee, what am I supposed to DO?" :)


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LtlPinkCoupe
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23 Aug 2012, 9:16 pm

Well, my dad remembers that when I was really little and had just learned how to walk (and later run) that I would run around recklessly in supermarkets and most worrying of all, out into parking lots and into busy streets where Cars were zooming around....I guess that could either be interpreted as my Car - furry nature starting to make its way to the fore, whereby I didn't regard moving vehicles as potential threats to my well - being, but as living, breathing benevolent creatures who wouldn't intentionally/unintentionally harm me in any way, or as just typical childish carelessness. It was most likely the latter, since I don't think I went careening into Car - filled parking lots with much forethought, lol. And besides, I only fully realized that I'm a full - blown Carfur a couple years ago when I was 18 or 19.

On the other hand, I was terrified of seemingly innocuous things like thunderstorms, spiders, and being alone in the dark basement we had at the time. Then again, I think lots of little kids are scared of stuff like that; I just took it to an extreme.


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Last edited by LtlPinkCoupe on 23 Aug 2012, 9:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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23 Aug 2012, 9:20 pm

I think everyone has that.

I'm training to run into burning buildings. Sounds exciting.

Tell me I gotta go get blood work, I'm a baby.



LtlPinkCoupe
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23 Aug 2012, 9:32 pm

MagicMeerkat wrote:
As a kid, I had no fear of things I was supposedly supposed to be afraid of and had no sense of danger. I thought nothing about running into the street into the path of a speeding car. There was a rumor circulating for a while about someone's pet mountain lion escaping and I told my mom that if I saw it, I was going to play with it. I think I was really just trying to get a rise out of her more than anything. But even today, if a mountain lion or some other big cat appeared, I wouldn't be afraid of it. I wouldn't run up to it expecting it to let me pet it, but I wouldn't freak out over it either. I think that's why there were so many mountain lion attacks one year. People probably saw one, freaked out, screamed and tried to run, triggering the mountain lion's predator instincts. When dealing with any large, wild animal (and in some cases, even small, supposed domesticated ones), it's always advised you stand your ground. Still, I bet the whole situation could have been avoided in the first place if these people didn't freak out in the first place. I've never had any kind of fear of any animal, even though I was told I was supposed too. From my experience of 25 years, I always had more to fear from other people, and unlike animals, there's no telling what will set them off. I also had some pretty weird phobias as a kid. Certain TV shows or video games would say something that freaked me out, or someone would make a remark that freaked me out and as a result, I would develop a phobia of that TV show or game. The panic attacks were so bad that my mom thought I was having a heart attack. They would often come out of nowhere.


I think I was the same way when it came to Cars...in fact, if I hadn't been so disoriented all those times when I was jolted out of my "runs" by my father catching up to me, holding and shaking me slightly while telling me sternly, "LtlPinkCoupe, don't DO that!" I very probably would have tried to reassure him with, "The Cars won't hurt me, dad."

*Sigh* My poor dad....I think I must have given him a real run for his money when I was little. :lol:


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Last edited by LtlPinkCoupe on 23 Aug 2012, 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

chris5000
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23 Aug 2012, 9:37 pm

I dont really have fear but im smart enough not to put my self into danger intentionally. one thing I was taught at a young age when around vehicle and machinery is to assume the operator does not know you are even there.



Danimal
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23 Aug 2012, 10:27 pm

I'm really not afraid of things. Nearly everyone I know is afraid of spiders and snakes. I think that is completely irrational. However, I have learned what is dangerous and harmful. I don't handle snakes because they are wild animals and will bite. I don't like heights because my depth perception is poor, but I will climb ladders when necessary. I'm more concerned with keeping lotion from touching my hands than anything else.



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24 Aug 2012, 9:12 am

Hmm, not sure if this counts but I get really Agoraphobic when having to walk to the local town half a mile up the road, but when it comes to getting the bus and going to a bigger town with more people, I don't feel fear so much. But the reason behind that is probably because this particular bus is my obsession. Oh, and by the way, I seem to clam up getting the bus on Saturdays for some reason.

Otherwise, no I don't think I have lack of fear thing whatever it is. I fear spiders but not daddy longlegs, even though daddy longlegs can have the big wirey legs like spiders do, but maybe it's because daddy longlegs have wings and so are not so much ''creepy crawlies''.


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