As I turned round ready to face my soon to be assailant, he moved with me, insisting on staying in my peripheral vision. It was at this time that I realised that I had literally been running away from my own shadow (Or that I was such a badass that I made my future attack so scared that they disappeared into thin air).
Any time I'm walking anywhere, if there is a man behind me, I am certain that he is stalking me and waiting for the right time to pounce. Equally, any man wearing a long coat is a flasher.
If someone comes onto a bus or a train with an unusually large rucksack and makes eye contact with me, I convince myself that they are a suicide bomber. Let me make it clear, this applies to everyone. My irrationality does not discriminate between gender or race.
I do my best to avoid sitting on the top deck of buses because I always convince myself that I will be mugged or punched.
I'm scared of heights if I can see down. I was screaming like a little baby when standing on the glass floor in the Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth. But I'm fine with amusement park rides and flying. I hate walking in Nike Town in Oxford Circus. If I can see what's below me, I can't help but feel certain that the structure will give way and I will fall to my death. Which isn't helped by the fact that I had a recurrent dream about falling as a child, and I always woke up before I hit the bottom. That being said, I want to bungee jump and go sky diving one day. Even my fears are confused!
Last year, I made the silly decision to watch a film called Insidious. I never watch horror movies but they usually don't affect me. However, films about possession scare the crap out of me and play on my mind for ages. As a child, I watched the Omen films and was terrified of most things for years. I never got into lifts because someone died in one and I was scared to walk near a church because someone got killed by a falling church steeple. For years I would check my scalp and subtly check my brothers' to make sure that the triple 6 did not suddenly appear. I can't even bring myself to type it in case Damien comes out of my computer! I also remember standing with my brother as we dared each other to say the 'Candyman' 5 times into a mirror. One of us would usually get to the fourth repetition before running away.
Anyway, after watching insidious, I could not sleep. I lived in a three storey house at the time (my bedroom on the top floor) and refused to go downstairs unless someone else was there. Annoyingly, the kitchen was on the ground floor and I couldn't go in there after dark on my own. As I usually didn't get back from the gym until 9pm, I went most nights without dinner. There was an overgrown tree in our garden that could be seen through the kitchen window. But for some reason at night, it morphed into a man with a knife. Logic should dictate that it was the same tree that would be back there in the morning, but I still manage to scare myself. Probably not helped by the fact that Lynette (my then house mate) was worst than me and prepared herself for death every time she went to make a meal. She was convinced that someone would break into our house, and would enter each downstairs room ready to confront the attacker. She never bothered to arm herself with a weapon when she did this, she just wanted her murderer to see her face before he went in for the kill. Now I think back, its a miracle that we got anything done.
- Any time I pass a police officer/car, I am sure I'm about to be arrested. Even when I know I have committed absolutely no crime...that anyone could have found out about.
- Thinking that the lift/elevator will break down any time I am in one.
- That my shoe laces (most of my shoes don't even have laces) will get stuck when riding an escalator and I'll get sucked in.
- Thinking someone is going to stab me as I take a shower.
- That I will fall down the gap at the train station (even after they tell me to mind it).
- That I will trip and fall down the stairs, either dying or ending up paralysed/paraplegic.
- Falling asleep when chewing gum and then it will choke me to death.
- That the wind will change as I am screw facing someone and my face really will get stuck that way.
- Using an umbrella that will become the conductor for the lightening that will end my life.
- That blue eyed children really are evil.
- Walking over a bridge and thinking it will suddenly give way.
- That I will see Donatella Versace and won't be able to hide the horror in my face.
- That my car will get stuck driving up that annoying spiral that leads to the Centrale shopping centre car park in Croydon.
- Dropping my keys down a drain.
- That there is someone hiding in the back of my car.
- That I''ve had a stroke when really I just slept on my arm and it went numb.
- That a baby tarantula is hiding in my shoe ready to bite me as I slip it on.
- Getting my earrings caught in hair or clothing and ripping my ear lobes.
- Leaving my hair straighteners on and coming home to a burned down house.
- That the technology and machines we rely so heavily upon really will turn on us some day.
I've realised that I do have one very valid fear however.