Personal Questions

[indianasmith]

Then you're all  lucky. I've been afraid many times and sometimes for a long time. Always with reason though, and I always kept going.

You're a courageous person.

[Alex]

I've been afraid many times. Fear is something that has evolved to help us survive. I think the most I've ever been afraid was the night we lost Lilly-Beth and Kristi was having a bad reaction to the medication she'd been given. Nothing life-threatening, but that isn't how it felt. I really thought I was going to lose both of them. When my mind was playing tricks on me and I couldn't trust my own senses or memory, I was definitely afraid that I'd never be able to trust it again. That would be the longest I've been afraid of. I can't remember exactly how long that went on, but I'd estimate a couple of months before I got it under control. I suspect I was very afraid when I was being shot at or stabbed, but I was too busy dealing with the situation to really take notice of it. I remember being scared when I was on a lift that suddenly broke and plunged down, but I managed to keep myself calm and deal with it without panicking. Every time I get on an airplane, during take-off and landing I have an unreasonable fear that one of the wings will fall off, but I don't let it stop me from flying.

For anyone who has never felt afraid, I'd suggest going for therapy. You are missing a vital part of your psychological makeup that prevents you from doing stupid things. Not feeling it is not a good thing, quite the opposite. As long as you can deal with feeling it, it is a normal, healthy reaction.

[Allhallowsday]

...For anyone who has never felt afraid, I'd suggest going for therapy. You are missing a vital part of your psychological makeup that prevents you from doing stupid things. Not feeling it is not a good thing, quite the opposite. As long as you can deal with feeling it, it is a normal, healthy reaction.

I haven't spent much time considering fear, but I have experienced it.  Going to a new school is frightening when you're young.  Work problems like Am I going to be fired...?  Rough plane rides are scary.  Death beds are the worst, fear and sorrow. 

[Alex]

Kristi is watching Eurovision and I am afraid she is going to expect me to pay attention.  I am watching The Doom That Came To Gotham instead.

[Allhallowsday]

Considering fear, I forgot two TERRIFYING car rides I've been in with 2 different reckless drivers.  I haven't driven with either of them behind the wheel since.

[ER]

All right, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

I once had to get close to a genuine psychopath, someone I later associated with the concept of yandere. He could go from kind and generous and quiet to explosively violent and suspicious in an instant. Terrifying human being, and out of everything I ever did, being around him was the thing I was sure was most likely to get me killed in the long or short term. He later got murdered in prison.

On the lighter side, when I was a teenager Brian used to like to be up on tall places like hilltops and the roofs of buildings, and one night he started walking on the ledge of a building about sixty or seventy feet up and finally sat down with his feet hanging over the side and said come sit with me. I decided I'd rather fall to my death than let him know how terrified I was, so I went and sat beside him, and it was pretty cool being up there unseen above people, our legs dangling in open space, but I was scared the whole time, trying to hide it, which questionable judgment aside, was probably the bravest thing I'd done to that point in my life. Crazy time....

[Alex]

I guess it would have been when I was 11. I was out for Samhain taking two younger kids out. We were crossing an open park when a guy attacked the younger pair with a knife. I jumped between them and shouted to the pair to go get help while I tried to fight off an older attacker. Got my first knife wound that night when my left eyelid was slashed open, but luckily for me it didn't go any deeper and cut the eyeball itself.

[Trevor]

All right, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

Probably not killing myself after being horribly abused in my teens, facing up to the abuse and trying to move on with my life ☹️

[RCMerchant]

Lived on the streets of NYC in the 80's.
Never had any real problems, except for finding food. You would be surprised what you would do. Eat garbage. And I do mean garbage. Not brave. Not afraid. Just going on survival mode.

[ER]

I guess it would have been when I was 11. I was out for Samhain taking two younger kids out. We were crossing an open park when a guy attacked the younger pair with a knife. I jumped between them and shouted to the pair to go get help while I tried to fight off an older attacker. Got my first knife wound that night when my left eyelid was slashed open, but luckily for me it didn't go any deeper and cut the eyeball itself.

America's gun culture is horrifying, no denying, but that knife s**t you guys got going on over there is twelve kinds of awful. That'd spook the hell out of me.

[Alex]

I'll take facing down someone with a knife over a gun any day of the week myself.

[ER]

^ Imagine if people were just nice to each other.

[indianasmith]

In 2002, as my wife and I were in the process of moving to our current abode, I saw a home next to the highway we took that was on fire.  No one had arrived on the scene yet, so we pulled into the driveway.  My wife called the local fire department, and I kicked in the back door of the house to see if anyone was trapped inside.  You couldn't see the ceiling of the room due to the dense cloud of smoke filling the air, but I crawled on my hands and knees into the house, calling out to see if anyone was home.  No one was, and I backed out pretty quickly - but later on I realized that I had just kicked down a door and gone into a blazing home with zero protective gear or experience!
Firefighters appeared moments later and got the fire under control before it broke through the roof, and the owners were able to repair the house.  Then, two years later, it caught fire again and burned to the ground.  Weird.

[chefzombie]

What is the longest time in your life you've spend afraid?

3 months. my husband's old heart doctor convinced us that curtis would die without a new pacemaker battery, it too me 3 months to get together the money to pay for 1/2 of the operation. 6 months later, his new doctor told us he has never been pacemaker dependent at all. we could easily have waited for his medicare to start and the whole thing would have been free. yes, i'm in a class action suit to sue the old doctor.

[chefzombie]

All right, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

I once had to get close to a genuine psychopath, someone I later associated with the concept of yandere. He could go from kind and generous and quiet to explosively violent and suspicious in an instant. Terrifying human being, and out of everything I ever did, being around him was the thing I was sure was most likely to get me killed in the long or short term. He later got murdered in prison.

On the lighter side, when I was a teenager Brian used to like to be up on tall places like hilltops and the roofs of buildings, and one night he started walking on the ledge of a building about sixty or seventy feet up and finally sat down with his feet hanging over the side and said come sit with me. I decided I'd rather fall to my death than let him know how terrified I was, so I went and sat beside him, and it was pretty cool being up there unseen above people, our legs dangling in open space, but I was scared the whole time, trying to hide it, which questionable judgment aside, was probably the bravest thing I'd done to that point in my life. Crazy time....

hhhmmm.... does it count if i didn't know it was " brave' at the time?