Phobias @ MindSay

While tidying up around the apartment I turned on the TV and came across Oprah doing a show on past-life regression. Eric makes fun of me whenever I confess to watching Oprah because I'm always complaining about how she drives me crazy; my defense is that if the current show's topic is interesting enough, I can put aside my dislike for the host and watch it anyway (the same applies to Dr. Phil).

Anyway, the topic of today's show, as I mentioned, was past-life regression. A therapist was leading patients with unusual phobias into what he claimed were past lives to help uncover the supposed source of said phobias. For instance, a woman with a lifelong fear of sharp corners and having her neck touched discovered that in a former life she had been slain by an Indian warrior with a spear to the throat.

The skeptic in me finds it very interesting that what seems to be 98% of patients who undergo past-life regression therapy report having been something akin to a member of royalty or a Babylonian high priest in a previous life. Remarkable, given the percentage that people of such status would have occupied in the general population. Why is it that no one seems to regress themselves into unglamorous identities, like chief stall-mucker or lonely Victorian widow? One of the patients did suggest that the therapy has a "fantasy" element, which lends even less credibility to the whole past-lives thing. I also found that the questions the therapist was asking had a definite "leading" quality.

Maybe it doesn't matter if the therapy is reality-based or total hocus-pocus -- if it helps the patient, maybe that's all that really matters. No doubt past-life regression therapists will have to break out the waiting lists now that they've received Oprah's coveted stamp of approval.

A survey lists Public speaking to be the number one phobia in America....even over death.  I don't feel alone anymore, althought its my number 2, but gee they don't even mention death....which in my opinion is about right, well at least personally. I was just really surprised to see my number one phobia, of insects and bugs to be such a common one.  I'm actually allergic to the lil buggers :@

Oh joy! To all phobaholics(?): Lets unite!!! :D

 

The CMT Newsletter (http://www.odyssey.on.ca/~tompatcrocker/article1.htm)
includes a survey of 3,000 Americans:

1. Public speaking (41%)
2. Heights (32%)
3. Insects and bugs (22%)
4. Financial problems (22%)
5. Deep water (22%)...

I really want a nap, maybe I'll take one after I finish writing about nothing.  I also feel like I've forgotten to do something, and the only thing I can think of that it might be, would be exercising...isn't that ridiculous, but I've either worked out at the gym, or hiked everyday this past week, so today I feel out of whack for not doing anything.  I didn't even have to run after any kids at the party.  I did nearly cause myself bodily harm this morning, over something incredibly silly.  I was frightened by a fake bug that Sarah had stuck on the patio door.  I was outside weeding, and so I was already on high alert for bugs, and I had to walk in the house for something, and as I opened the glass door I saw out of the corner of my eye, this gigantic bug (and this is Phoenix so we can get some big spiders around here) and I nearly tripped over myself because I wanted to get away from it so quickly.  Thankfully, I looked back at it again (you know to make sure it wouldn't jump on me) and that's when I realized it was fake.  Now, I don't think I have a real phobia about bugs, but I do not like them...especially spiders.  I just can't contain myself if I see a spider...I turn into a total freak.  I nearly got myself and my friends killed once because of my reaction to spiders.  It was back in high school, day after prom, and we were out in the forest preserves for a picnic.  We got rained out and piled back into the car to go home.  My girlfriend was driving, her boyfriend was next to her, and I was in the backseat in the middle, my boyfriend next to me and his friend on the other side.  We were stopped for a stoplight when I saw this huge spider crawl up and over the driver's headrest.  I was instantly paralyzed and speechless.  Then the damn spider started crawling down the seat toward my leg.  That's all I needed and I literally jumped up and onto the lap of my boyfriend's friend (he was the farthest person away from the spider).  He was completely stunned.  I still couldn't speak, and I just kept trying to get as much of myself onto his lap as I could.  I think I finally pointed at the spider, and my boyfriend figured out what was going on, and he just started laughing.  His friend, meanwhile, just kept yelling, "Get her off of me, get her off of me!"  My girlfriend turned around to see what all the commotion was about, saw the spider and freaked out herself.  She freaked out so much so that she took her foot off the break and the car started rolling into traffic.  By this time I had found my voice, and I was screaming, she started screaming, my boyfriend was still laughing, his friend was still yelling and my girlfriend's boyfriend was yelling for everyone to shut up and calm down while he was trying to get his foot on the brake.  All this because I was afraid of a spider :)  It's never a dull moment when I'm around...and oh, my girlfriend managed to stop the car before it got hit.  Her boyfriend was an ass about the whole thing, and they broke up shortly after that day...I too, broke up with my boyfriend shortly after that day (there were other reasons for the breakup, not because he laughed at my reaction to the spider) and my girlfriend and the guy whose lap I ended up in actually started dating later that summer, but every time he saw me he would get very quiet and blush.  He was very shy and I think I was the first girl he ever had on his lap, LOL!

Oooh not again! Not again! NOT AGAIN!!!

Only me... Only Amanda could have such evil luck...

Today at work I got a call that a childhood friend of mine is in the hospital. Apparently she's been having some sort of stomach or digestive problem. Probably too much beer. (Ok. That was uncalled for.) Another friend and I agreed to meet after work to pay her a short visit.

First of all, I hate hospitals. With a passion. An intense,overwhelming, incurable passion. I hate the smell. I hate the fluorescent lighting. I hate the two-month old magazines. I hate the waiting and the waiting and the waiting. They reek of illness and death. They suck the cheer out of me. Any happiness found in a hospital is confined to a small corner of a single floor where babies and new life are kept hidden away from the general public. Instead visitors are welcomed by the overwhelming stench of end-of-life services and dying flowers, sadness, and stale coffee. No one ever leaves a hospital looking happy.

I hate hospitals. Did I mention that?

I hate elevators even more.

When I'm in a hospital elevator I become -well- a mess. The tow together do not bode well with me. I have (Or had, rather. But I'm getting to that...) an ever so slight fear of elevators. I wouldn't even classify it as a fear, really. I'm not scared of heights. (Hell I'm 5'11") I'm VERY SLIGHTLY claustrophobic but that is not at all the problem with me. It's the swaying of the lift... the thought of cables breaking... Eek!!

This little "fear" of mine is not without good reason. To begin with I'm a HUMAN. My feet belong on something solid like -oh let's say- the stairs!!! A good ole fashion fear or phobia is usually the result of -well- something happening to you. Repetitively. (Not always...) Well... Something did happen to me. Repetitively...

Since the age of eight I've been stuck in an elevators a grand total of three times in my life. Three!! Over the last year or so I've had to kind of get over it. My grandpa has been in and out of hospitals and -well- I really had no choice. Anyway...

I agreed to get in the elevator with my friend as long as we were the only two people. The same elevator that trapped me in it's jaws last fall. So we got in the germ-ridden thing. Yipee. Several seconds passed and wow!! I thought we were going to get lucky. Umm... WRONG!!! Just as the door was about to shut a man in a business suit stuck his arm in to stop the door. Damn. The lift swayed. I automatically calculated his weight. We were obviously well below the 2,000 lbs. limit.

And to think... we could've made it...

But in waddled (sorry they did) two people who put us right at the weight limit. This time the lift not only swayed. It shook.

I suppressed every instinct I had to keep from bolting. I gripped the railing, attempted to breath a little deeper, and I let the double doors shut with a soft ding! I was doing well... Until the elevator lurked and came to a grinding (and I do mean grinding) halt maybe eight feet up.

So, yes. I was stuck for the fourth time in my life in an elevator. I imagine this is punishment for splurging at lunch today. I could've worked off one calorie by climbing the stairs. Bus still, I don’t think it was really necessary to be stuck there with one guy who thought he was really funny (he wasn’t, not even to my quirky sense of humor), a guy who snorted constantly, pulled out a cigarette and a Slim Jim (even I knew we wouldn't be there long enough to starve)  and a woman who laughed incessantly and also made jokes (she wasn’t funny, either).

[I'll take this opportunity to give a message to everyone stuck in a small space with people you don’t know:  You aren’t funny.  I don’t care if you are a professional comedian doing very well for yourself.  If you are stuck in an elevator with me, do me a favor and keep your wit to yourself. And don't smoke!! Thanks!!]

We were in there for maybe forty-five minutes. I never thought I'd be happy the inhale the ammonia-reeking corridors of a hospital. But I was!!!!! Oh yes I was!!!

I've made a pact with myself to never get on an elevator again. I don't care if I have no legs. (I can't see where this would ever be a problem. I don't plan on going into war, developing diabetes, or getting ran over by a train) I don't care if I have someone to grab me and hold me tight every time the doors shut like Josh did in Savannah. Sorry!!! I. Don't. Give. A. Shit.

No more elevators!!!