What is fear?

Fear is uncontrollable – to me, it always comes with panic and anxiety, irrational. When I am rational, the only thing I’m afraid of is losing my family. Everything else I can overcome, I generally face my fears head on and win. I do usually always know why I feel a certain way, yes, same goes for fear.

Fear is an adaptive mechanism which prepares your body for “fight or flight”. Since we don’t face the same kind of predators we did when we lived on the African savannah, we sometimes have the fear response when it is not really indicated by circumstance.

Fear is walking alone in a dark hallway and thinking you may hear or see things when it’s just your mind and the effect fear has on it. Fear is what makes people believe in god by scaring a child into believing in god by telling him he/she will go to a place called hell.

I’m afraid of pain, because it hurts, and I’m afraid of dying, because I won’t live anymore. I’m also afraid of being poor, because not having needs met sucks. I’ve overcome some fears, like letting people scare me into manipulation, but I have still have a lot of fears to overcome.

Fear, to me, is the unknown in the darkness. My imagination twists and contorts it into deadly creatures. They lurk in the shadows ready and waiting to swallow my sanity and trap me in my own mind.

I have control, I have tricks and tactics to overcome these “creatures”. My fear is that one day I might lose control….

Deeper explanation here

It’s an emotional response to a perceived threat or impending danger.

It’s a 1996 film starring Mark Wahlberg.

It’s an acronym for First Encounter Assault Recon.

It’s a cape and a factor.

Me with a pair of clippers in my hand and Milo staring at me malevolently.

Fear is spiders. Size or shape does not matter. Just the image of a spider triggers my flight response.

Fear is an amorphous, generalized anxiety that something somewhere is wrong. That is an old feeling that I can usually handle.

Spiders? Naw. I love those eight-legged critters. Snakes on the other hand…
I’m especially afraid of cobras!

Some guy once said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” How true!

You asked several questions within a question.

Fear is being afraid of the unknown. Most everyone deals with the fear of death! Of all the fears, this is the one most people think about on a regular basis. Don’t think anyone can overcome this fear. You have your faith, but we fear that day when the doctor says, “you have only 6 months to live.” You fear that day when you arrive at the hospice house and it is your time to go! Personally, people without faith have more problems with this reality than others. Without my faith, this would be very difficult to handle.

@AstroChuck : Awh! But I was going to bring my Ball Python, Bob, for show and tell :(

I am very afraid of losing my family and closest friends. I also sometimes think the things I stress about come from fear. Like I fear not paying our bills and getting ourselves caught up on everything, and that fear creates the things I stress about

@Cotton101 That was Franklin Delano Roosevelt during the Great Depression in the 1930s.

Fear is a dark, dark, cove, that looks creepily forbidding, with animals jumping at you at any moment. Panicked, you begin to run, and will always be running, and always this close to death, until you finally reach the end, at which your eyes will focus to the light, and never need to go back again.

@Pseudonym loll…just keeping everyone on their toes my friend!

Fear is also punctuation run amok.

@Pseudonym don’t know why you said that…but, it was not appreciated!

@Pseudonym have found that people that attack others have some kind of inferiority complex…were you mistreated as a child? That was a stupid answer!

@Cotton101 Look at the small print. I wasn’t serious.

regardless of the small print, that was very immature! Flagged you!

And hard to see the small print because of all the SHRIEKING!!!!)

@gailcalled old folks need glasses…

@Cotton101: Speaking of of maturity and flagging, lots of people need glasses. My sister got hers in first grade. And no, menopause does not change the ability to smell. That is often the result of sniffing too much cocaine.

I can smell a rat at 200 paces.

@gailcalled- Big deal. I bet Milo can smell one from 400 paces.

I am very sorry to anybody who I offended. I was in an immature mood, and was only looking to cheer myself up with a cheap laugh. I would delete it if I could, but Fluther wasn’t letting me edit.

your apology is accepted Pseudonym….

You are lot more mature and sensitive than the other jerks that jumped into our misunderstanding. It was that…just a misunderstanding. Know you are a young person having your fun here…and i did not understand where you were coming from..It is shameful that these other two that added fuel to the fire or not as mature as you are…

Also, you asked Fluther to delete the comment and they refused. Just confirms what I thought all along. The stutus quo members get different treatment.

Thank you for the apology and apologize for my comments also!

Aw crap! I’m too late here.

@gailcalled And hard to see the small print because of all the SHRIEKING!!!!)

Seems to me that you need glasses..but, we know the intent of this tacky comment!

[Mod Says:] Flame off folks. Please stick to the topic which is:“What is Fear?”

Further off- topic quips will be removed.

I fear the Mod.

I’d like to help, but I don’t know the meaning of the word “fear.”

It’s my middle name.
No, wait. That’s Danger.

Nevermind.

It’s an automatic response in your brain. And adrenaline causes significant physical changes to your whole body. But your rational mind can then take a few seconds to figure out whether your fear was really justified. Oh, that rattle stake is just an odd piece of a twig.