YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I am afraid one day that everyone will find out that I am not a good teacher, coach, person, etc., and will end up hating me.

I am afraid that I will never find the perfect job. (Make that ANY job at this point. Target won’t even hire me.)

I am afraid that I will be doubled over in pain and living in agony when I am older.

I am afraid of the sound of really, really loud motorcycles when they accelerate. My fear response when I hear them starts in my stomach and radiates out through my body, and I feel like running away as fast as I can.

I am afraid of ghosts. When my relatives have died, I have begged them not to come visit me.

I am afraid of going through a tollbooth and having no money.

I am afraid of getting old and peeing on myself all the time and constantly smelling of urine.

I am afraid that when I die, it will be just like I was never here in the first place and no one will even know that I died.

I am afraid that the puppy's head and neck will continue to grow more slowly than the rest of her and she will look like a pinhead the rest of her life.

I am terrorized by the little girl in the movie The Ring.

I am afraid of getting cancer.

I am afraid of Vladimir Putin.

I am afraid of getting pregnant because I will absolutely have an abortion, but then I’ll have to live with the emotional aftermath of having an abortion.

I am afraid that my husband will become a hoarder.

I am afraid that I should have never married anyone and I am causing irreversible pain, trouble, and chaos in my marriage.

I am afraid I will relapse. A big part of this is the fear that I won’t have the strength to go through what it takes to get out of that dark place again, and that this time I will kill myself.

I am afraid of missing out on something great.

I am afraid of not learning everything I want to learn.

I am afraid of strangers when they are in my personal space. Let’s talk panic!

I am afraid of ticks.

Those are all great fears!

There are soem that I share with you, like not finding the perfect job, missing out on something great, and not learning enough. I have a ton of books on my list to read, but never get to them due to time and/or laziness.

The toll booth fear is good, and that actually happened to me a few weeks ago.It was late on a Saturday night on a stretch of road where I couldn't figure out why a toll booth would be loacted there. There were no ticket takers, and the machine only accpected $1 or $5 bills. All I had were large bills. After stopping the car and getting out looking for all types of change to average a dollar. I said to myself "fuck it" and just drove on. As I went down on another road a few minutes later I came to another empty toll booth and just drove on. It felt good.

I know I'll probably get two tickets in the mail, but I don't care. Why the fuck would they put a toll booth in the middle of nowhere? Incompetent government at work.