Tag: phobias

On the complete irrationality of phobias

Posted on By admin 2 Comments on On the complete irrationality of phobias

I told myself today that I would walk to work with my arms bare and my head held high. I told myself that I would not fear the flying insects from hell.

So just to spite me, the universe had a laugh and I got buzzed at the back gate of the EBI and let out a little girl squeek.

I don't know why I'm so scared of flying insects, or where it came from. From my sessions with a phobia therapist, I've kind of come to the conclusion that part of my fear is because my allergies have gone rather haywire in recent years, and I don't know if I'll die if I get stung. I'm starting to wonder if that's all of it though. Rationally, the fear of pain can't be the reason I'm afraid of flying insects because, I'm not afraid of needles and, well, I've literally had my skin pierced a gajillion times in the course of getting my tattoos. Furthermore, I always carry enough allergy medication that I could probably swim in garlic and poison ivy and be ok.

I've also come to the conclusion that the trigger is the high-pitched buzzing noise. I'm forcing myself to go out more. When I'm cutting the grass, apparently I'm surrounded by bees and I don't flinch (mostly because I don't see them and can't hear them, so that may not count).

I don't know.

I just want to be able to enjoy summer like normal people.

uncategorized

weekend update

Posted on By admin 3 Comments on weekend update

This weekend, I mowed the grass.

Simple sentence, 6 little words, but I'm damned proud of them. For a few reasons, really. The major one is that I have a rather huge phobia of flying/stinging insects, so spending 2 hours behind a lawnmower is a big achievement for me. Second reason is that the “grass” we needed to mow could better be classified as “hay” at the very least and “a fucking wild mess” with little effort.

When clover is a foot tall, it doesn't really qualify as grass anymore.

It's a damned good thing we bought a petrol lawnmower because no electric one could have been able to deal with that lot. Even then, we abused the shit out of the poor thing. The engine kept cutting off because the grass was too dense, we had to empty the grass catcher every 20 feet (at the end, I just left it off and left the clippings where they fell) and at one point, the drive belt fell off because the axle was too clogged with tangled weeds. Even then, we didn't even attempt to clear out the last 30 feet of the garden because we didn't feel like fighting 2-foot tall stinging nettles. We'll need to hire a petrol strimmer (i.e. a gas-powered weed-wacker for you North Americans) to clear out that jungle, but that can wait for another weekend.

uncategorized