We all have things that keep us up at night. Some of these things are rooted in fears from our childhoods or from trauma we have suffered. I grew up terrified of clowns. My dad thought it would be funny to get a clown to shadow me and then convince me I wasn’t being followed so for the next years clowns made my skin crawl and my heart race. It’s weird though I sat through the new IT film (first chapter) with a tight chest and felt uncomfortable the whole film. After the film I talked about my fears and how they had pretty much always left me uncomfortable in my skin because I had an irrational fear from childhood that they were bad. Then one day I just wasn’t scared anymore. I don’t know if it was years of all that stress I put on my body at carnivals and haunted houses. If it was because I still watched horror movies and movies with clowns in them. Even though I was scared I never stopped immersing myself in places where they would be. We even went to the I Like Scary Movies Event and took photos in the IT area. I have my Pennywise coin to prove it.
I think this led me to wonder how long do we hold on to fears from our childhood and what does it take to get rid of them. I know that there are still things that make me scared. I still have an irrational fear of needles. Shots makes me hysterical, yet at the same time I have 8 tattoos and counting and plan more everyday and the needle in the tattoo gun doesn’t bother me. Neither did the poke stick tattoo I got while in Thailand. I don’t like spiders and I’m not sure I am as scared of them as I just don’t want to get bit.Do spiders still make my skin crawl. Absolutely. I am putting off beautifying our patio because of the number of spider webs I can see from my window. Yep. But I no longer cower in fear when I see a clown. I don’t feel that stress anymore. So why did my fear response turn off for clowns but not other things that make me uncomfortable.
Can we outgrew fear? Do you have a childhood fear that you have outgrown?