Fears and Phobias

Aisha Trew 10B

Fears and Phobias

Everybody has experienced fear in their lives at one time or another and many people have irrational fears, for example people are scared of spiders even though human are bigger than them and they are unlikely to hurt them. But are fears useful and why do people have phobias, which can affect their day-to-day lives. In this piece I’ll be talking about everything to do with fear and phobias.

Phobias are totally irrational things that human beings experience they don’t have any cause behind them and they can effect people way of living for example a claustrophobic person can’t go into a room to see an exhibition because the room is either too small or too crowded this hinders the enjoyment of life. People often classify slight irrational fears they have like a slight nervousness of heights as a phobia although it doesn’t really affect your life and the fear is not as serious to class as a phobia.

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Some fears we have are instilled in us in childhood by what people say or do and this could affect us in later life. Or a fear we have like not being able to go in deep water could be from a past experience (when you were younger you nearly drowned). Superstition is a cause of fear as they are lead to believe if they do certain thing(s) something horrible will happen One fear that everyone seems to have is a fear of the unfamiliar to a certain extent that why some people are very uncomfortable with people or things which they think are somehow are different to them or different to what they’re used to. People are also afraid of the unknown, which I think is a human instinct, as you don’t know everything so can’t really prepare your self for it another human instinct is a fear of no control in a particular situation as we feel powerless this naturally brings fear which make us panic.

Fears can be useful as they can prevent you from hurting yourself or make you cautious in certain situations for example you wouldn’t run into the middle of a busy road because we know its dangerous but how do you know or develop this sense of fear. These fears are probably genetic and come from our ancestors far back as the Stone Ages where they had to look out for wild animals, which could be dangerous. But people have lots of fears, which serve useful purpose for example we get scared of characters in horror films even though we know that the can’t harm us. Horror books can also scare us as they can use the power of language very effectively and leave some aspects of the story left to your imagination, which could be scarier than what the author could of written. There is a certain feeling of contentment when you realise you’re all right after being scared.

People feel fear for lots of different reasons it could be a natural or a past experience it several other reasons like superstition. Some fears which we have have a cause behind them like a past experience which sometimes can be useful because it can make you more cautious in a particular situation. Fear can protect and give you a sense of danger. But fear can also very often be irrational and obsessive (phobias) and serve no purpose and can even affect your live.