Myself, I’m not frightened by anything in particular. I just get slightly-more-than-normal scared of most everything. Except animals- growing up on a farm in the country does that to you.

Btw, lmao @ “caveat: lions.”

I read your Giant Spider post and looked at the wiki article on huntsmen. That’s, uh. That’s pretty intense. Stay safe out there, Jo. O_o

My answer to your question will sound an awful lot like male bravado. When it comes to myself, there is very little in the physical world that scares me. That’s not to say I don’t flinch when a baseball bat appears to be coming at my head, but beyond momentary reactions I don’t live in fear of anything physical (caveat: lions… I don’t think I want to meet a lion outside of a cage… or a jaguar…).

There are two things that I do fear, to the point that they can be paralyzing (and self fulfilling because of it). Failing to protect the people I feel responsible for and failure in general. I don’t handle failure well, if at all.

I used to be arachnophobic, but got over that when I had to deal with huntsmen (large, hairy, fast spiders) in the house all the time while my son was a baby. There’s nothing like maternal instinct for overcoming phobias. It was essentially a VERY rapid desensitization process, aided by the whole mother thing, which resulted in me being able to deal with things like this.

When I was younger, I had a severe fear of stepping on manhole covers. Odd, but true.