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What fears do you have?



1. Introduction



I've got a long list of fears, one of which I've had for a decade and a half and has been practically unchanged since. That is, it has neither gotten better nor worse. Others have resulted from school and my bullies I've had, especially teachers in the case for my fears. Learn about them including an interactive one with the fear of mirrors.

2. The fear of mirrors



This fear, the fear of mirrors, has been with me for nearly a decade and a half, since about 1988 or 1989. This fear prevents me from getting too much in the direct path of a mirror. I've got one major example of a case in which I didn't have this fear. Let's say that I needed to go to a department store. Let's call this department store "The Mirror Maze Department Store". I need to get a few items for myself as well and need to follow my parents. Here's an overlay of this imaginary department store:

This image here has many colors and is color-coded. Here's what each color represents:

black - building borderlines and road; also the textual descriptions of the departments
red - flat mirror - cannot cross in front of one where the yellow areas are - these can only face one direction
yellow - the bad zone - an area in which you cannot go due to a flat mirror
cyan - the bad zone - an area in which you cannot go due to a ceiling mirror
green - special areas or a wall
dark green - key items you need on this run
blue - ceiling mirror - the worst of them all, these block much access to areas and are spherical; their "bad area" range, fortunately, is limited due to their design
light-gray - counters and shelves
dark cyan - dressing rooms
magenta - hall way boundaries - an open path to get between departments easier; may go off of if no mirrors are in the way

This map has a scale of 1 pixel is 6 inches making the store about 10,000 square feet. On this run, you need to buy these items [department is noted in brackets and where the items are located is marked in dark green]: ink for a printer [electronics]
a pack of pencils [general supplies]
three shirts of nearly any kind [men's clothing]
get a replacement oil filter [mechanical]
four quarts of oil [mechanical]
look for a gift for someone who likes to read [book zone]
get about 15 to 20 packets of seeds [gardening]
buy a purse with at least 2 zipper side pockets and of medium size [women's clothing]

3. An interactive example



Now, go through this department store as you normally would. Seems easy and quick, doesn't it? Now, because of my fear of mirrors, my "accessibility" is far limited. Now try going through this same department store, but avoid the areas marked in yellow. This is much harder than it seems and I need to go through nearly 4 times the distance to accomplish the same task taking about 3 times longer. It turns just about any store into a maze where you can't see many of the walls of the maze. Here'd be a typical path I'd take through this same store. Compare it to what you may normally do [in the same order for the items]:

  1. ink - Start at the very bottom and go north to the other end of the store, head east to the next intersection, then head south to the next intersection then back east just to get to the electronics.
  2. pencils - from the electronics department, head south, to the hallway then east to the wall and south to the department.
  3. three shirts - head east again to the wall, north to the wall, west past the two intersections, then south to reach the department. Here, I'd start with the top area and head south looking at the items. When the mirror blocks the path, I go out to the hallway, around the merchandise bench [usually ducking if the wall mirrors were high and the merchandise bench was low] then back into the department to get the other stuff. To get that final item, I'd have to go around the merchandise bench to reach it
  4. Oil filter and oil - exit the men's department to the east taking the "detour", head north to the wall, east to the next intersection, south to the next intersection, then finally west to pick up the items
  5. book - From the mechanical area, I'd head east to exit the department, then head south. From this area, none of the books were of interest to the one who wanted the gift. The topic of interest, mystery, was on the other side but is "blocked" by the mirror. Just to get to that other side, I have to go east, then north to the wall, west to the next intersection, then south to the main intersection, a walk about a tenth of a mile! I get to the "other side" and find the perfect book. To get that book, I'd have to "hug" the merchandise shelves to "avoid" the mirror.
  6. seeds - to get the seeds, I'd then go west to exit the department, head all the way north to the wall, head to the east, then south and finally east again into the department. Because no mirrors are close by, getting these items is easy and quick.
  7. purse - from the gardening department, head west to the intersection, north all the way to the wall, west again to the next intersection, then south to the women's clothing department. In this store, all purses are found on the southernmost shelf in this department. To find the purses, I check all shelves from top to bottom. The southern shelf had the purses. Here, I searched the perfect one with little worries of mirrors.
  8. checkout - in order to pay for the items, I'd have to head to the checkouts. My local Wal-mart store has lots of those ceiling mirrors making only 2 of 20 checkout lanes "accessible" This imaginary store only has 14, but with 4 accessible and "hard to get to". Getting near the checkouts in this store is much tougher than any of my local stores. From the women's department store, I'd head south to the hallway, east to the intersection, south to the area where the carts are, then, hugging the northern part of this hallway "lane", I'd slip "past" the ceiling mirrors to right where the shelves are. Once I pass the first big ceiling mirror significantly, I'd then be able to get into the checkouts area and unload the cart.
  9. exit "Mirror Maze Department Store" - Now, most bizzarre about the next part is, something I "have" to do in many stores, is back out of the checkout area, hug the shelves again going west, and exit out of the store. What a big walk that's needed!


Yep, this is about a very typical journey I'd take though a department store. I have to deal with this in almost any store, grocery stores [especially where the fruits and vegetables are], department stores [especially around jewelery, and clothing areas], and even the schools were "bad" with the mirrors. Because of a large mirror in Central Campus, the school I most hated, I couldn't even get to the attendance office or the office in general. Someone normal would only go the 10 or so feet to cross by it. Instead, I have to walk nearly a tenth to an eighth of a mile just to get there alone, not including getting back!

4. The semi-fear of stairs



The fear of stairs started sometime around 7th or 8th grade, most likely 8th grade, or the year 1999. It's not really a fear, it's that, just when I'm about to go up stairs [or down them], I get a strange feeling that prevents me from going up them normally. It's uncontrollable. the only way to do so is to actually crawl up them, just like a dog might [that is, on all fours].

5. Two certain six-letter p-words



I seem to have a problem with two certain six-letter p-words. I cannot write these words "too directly", nor even say them too directly. If you want to know what the words are, I have to give you some hints, very easy hints:

1. A single human, starts with per. - often related to my replacement, a "puh".
2. Multiple humans in a group, starts with peo.

On school papers starting around the 9th or 10th grade, I scratch out that "bad" word. Consider this example. Both below are the exact same question, except, the one on the left is the original and the one on the right is what I'd do to it.

The original way [with the endings of the p-words blanked out]:

28. On one day, a baseball stadium had 31,988 peo___. Four peo___ was going to win an all-exclusive seat in the front row near their favorite team. What are the chances that one per___ of the group was a winner?		The editted way [with p-words crossed out nearly invisible]:

28. On one day, a baseball stadium had 31,988 peo___. Four peo___ was going to win an all-exclusive seat in the front row near their favorite team. What are the chances that one per___ of the group was a winner?


You'll have to look closely to catch the p-word scratchouts. The colors are quite accurate to what normal paper, ink and pencil are. Also, not shown on the editted version, at the top of the page [or where there is a large space of white], I write a bunch of numbers at the top, mostly 1's and 3's. In this case, you'll see two 3's and one 1. Here's how the number system worked, exactly the way it was.



Examples:

1. The example in the table shown would yield 2 3's and a one, totalling 7 points. If the second p-word was in bold and hyphenated, that word would be worth 7 points, making the grand total 11 points instead of 7.

2. To get the highest possible score, the word would have to be peo___, bold, italic, underline, font size 36, and hyphenated. This single word would be worth 800 points [3 for the base word ×2 for bold ×2 for italics ×2 for underline ×32 for maximum font size +32 for hyphenation, and 3×2×2×2×32+32=768+32=800]!

Timeline: [note: Although they may be out of order, the first 4 are basically school-related. The last ones that follow is an entire year's [or 2 year's] worth in events.]

My basic information
My favorites
My mysterious dreams
My mud dreams
Other dreams
My major fears
Jan 1984 - May 1996
Mar 1996 - Oct 1997
Oct 1997 - Nov 1997
Jun 1996 - Jul 1997
Jul 1998 - Jan 2001
Jan 2001 - Dec 2001
Jan 2002 - Dec 2003
Jan 2004 - Dec 2005

Footnotes:
There are no footnotes for this page.