my BIG phobia fear.

I remember watching a programme on TV some years ago; it was about people who had strange phobias. Some were SO funny but to them it was real, some were frightened of buttons, the one that stands out in my mind was the one was afraid of baked beans! I couldn’t understand that at all. But I suppose with a phobia there sometimes is NO logic. I watched this programme with my Daughter Meghan and my phobia wasn’t included, maybe no one on Earth has the same as me anywhere. So here is a little insight into something that really frightens me, something I would like to overcome, none of my family or friends know about it, just Meghan and Paul my Husband.  

When I was young I always went to stay one week in the year at my Aunties home. I had lots of fears when I was younger one of them was a mirror she had in her bathroom. It is one of those mirrors where one side is normal and when you flip it over the other side is magnified. When I was young there was no such mirror in my home and I only found out later it is called a make-up mirror. I clearly remember seeing this and not knowing why it was blurred then as I got closer and closer out of the blue a HUGE face of me appeared! It really frightened me. I didn’t like it as it wasn’t natural. It wasn’t a normal size. Over the years at my Aunts I always made sure I went in the bathroom that I checked from a distance which side the mirror was at. If it was possible I would have got rid of it! It was silly really, something SO ...... silly really affected me. Sometimes I got it wrong and forgot and looked at the wrong side. I tried over the years to overcome it even when I was up town with friends or by myself. I even told my Daughter Meghan about it, I showed her one up town and asked her to take a look at it and to tell me what she thought. She looked at it and loved it! Not that I wanted to pass on my fear to her, but I wanted to know if it made her feel OK or did she see it as unnatural as I did, but she didn’t.

I never did get over the huge magnifying mirror. So I just avoided them which was easy to do, as my Auntie passed away I no longer have to worry about that mirror in her bathroom.

A month ago, while I was at work, I went as usual to the shop to get milk and sugar for us all and as I was near the local shop something caught my eye, I stop and looked at it, as I tried to work out what I thought I was seeing, I didn’t like what I saw, for from where I was standing it wasn’t natural or normal it freaked me out, I tried to not look at it but I kept taking a glance again and again and yes, what I was seeing, it was a large woman, too large from where she was inside of the beauty shop, next door to the paper shop where I was going. I felt afraid because that was not there yesterday. It appeared she was sitting down and looking at me from over her shoulder! But how did she know I would notice her and she would bring such fear into my heart! Did anyone else notice she was there? Why was she there? How was I going to cope now going to the shop for milk? It would be strange for me to say to another worker you go, as I can’t! When it is all our responsibility to make sure there is milk and sugar. I had to get this silly nonsense nipped in the bud! But how? I was petrified to look at it, maybe if I went to the paper shop and stand outside the beauty shop and just look into the shop, but how BIG would she look, if I was standing even closer to her? For when I had first seen her looking at me I was about 25 feet away my mind would not be able to cope, if I went even closer, so all my troubles and stresses would be concentrated into going to the shop to buy milk!

I did have other phobias when I was younger, one that I hated! I didn’t like the look of shattered glass! The only way I could described how it make me feel was, it made my blood run cold, it made me shuddered, like something was crawling up my face, something bad, covering my face. I forced myself to not let it get to me, by looking at the shattered glass and, it took some doing and I managed to beat it age around 30! Now I can look at shattered glass and it has no affect on me at all.

Another phobia I had was looking into those books where you have to concentrate on the middle and bring your face towards the page until the picture that is hidden appears, ugh the unknown I hate it! So even though they were on the book shelf I would never look at them. But one day while I was with the children in the opticians, there on the stand was free magazines and inside was a page with one of those eye things where you slowly put your face towards the page until the picture suddenly appears, of course the kids did it first, and loved it and asked me to look, I assumed it must be not frightening if they can look at it and so carefully I took the magazine and slowly I put my face towards the page, the picture suddenly came to life and I wasn’t afraid. We took it home, and I showed the children the books we had on the bookshelf and they looked at them for the first time. Now something strange happened, Meghan was able to see the pictures and Nathan wasn’t! I looked at them too and I was able to see the pictures and Paul couldn’t!

But now at my old age it seems something has caught up with me. Three days after I had seen the BIG lady I planned to meet Meghan after school to buy new school shoes, I’d told her about the large face woman I’d seen in the beauty shop, she said she wanted to see it too, I had wanted a solution quick to this problem but I didn’t expect it to be this quick. Was I ready to confront my fears? I don’t know. Meghan said, “On our way back home, lets park the car and go look inside the window,” I said, “OK” for I would rather go with her, not that she would understand, but it would be good to go and for someone to be with me, so that I wouldn’t be alone, although it is my mind that would be affected by what I was going to see and not hers.

So after we had got the shoes, I drove near to the shop and parked the car, my heart was pounding fast in my chest, even my breathing had changed. I thought, it’s now or never! I said to Meghan, “Let us approach the shop from when I first saw her,” so we went to the place I was when I first saw her and yes she was still there, larger than life! I don’t know how you spell it, when you feel like someone has just walked over your grave, but that’s how I felt! I was scared. I mean the large posters that we all see on the massive bill boards they are OK, none of those bother me, I think it’s when I see it and don’t expect to SEE it ..... there, like it’s hidden and jumps out at me, it’s madness, just silly!

We approached the shop, I saw her, she saw me, I didn’t like it and we crossed over the road towards the shop window, surprisingly she didn’t get bigger, she stayed the same. I looked at her with Meghan beside me, she was very pretty with long blond hair parted down the middle she was smiling, and not menacing at all, she was on the beach, and she wasn’t even looking at me, she was looking at something else. She was only a poster on the door of the tanning room. The photo of her was warm and relaxing, and the fears I had .... went as I look at her, we looked at her for about two minutes, chatting casually, Meghan asked me, “How do you feel about her now?” I said, “I feel OK,” then we went home. Of course I wondered how I would feel when I saw her again, had I been programmed to always feel afraid of her?

The following day, I went to the shop knowing I would see her but now I knew, she was only a poster on the door, yes my heart did beat fast, yes I wasn’t keen to see her BIG face and it was OK for she wasn’t looking at me. I saw her and it was alright, I had won this battle, and quicker than I had thought. The next time I went to the shop she was gone! And she hasn’t been back. So my phobia fear about her was sorted.

How about you, do you have any phobias that you have overcome? Or are you still struggling?