Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I feared and dreaded my parents, and specifically my mother, dying. I also fretted and worried every time she left the house. I believe this stemmed from being left for a week at nine months of age -- the height of the separation anxiety period, according to Freud...
So was I. I had a cousin the same age who died of leukemia when we were six. I became obsessed with dying. I thought this Dark Thing, like a black ghost, was following me to catch and kill me. Then one day a thought came into my head, "If you make sure you take exactly eighteen steps down the hall, it can't follow you into your bedroom".
I also wouldn't eat sometimes because I feared there was something wrong with my food; for example, after I learned about botulism, I was afraid to eat anything that came from a can.
After that I found other numbers to count to or things to say inside my head to prevent bad things from happening.
It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I started thinking how strange it was to wake up each day thinking, "will THIS be the day of my death?" as I'd done since I was 6.
I am 65 and still count and do mental rituals when I am anxious, but at least I know what it is now. And I lost my fear of death after coming close to it.
So was I. I had a cousin the same age who died of leukemia when we were six. I became obsessed with dying. I thought this Dark Thing, like a black ghost, was following me to catch and kill me. Then one day a thought came into my head, "If you make sure you take exactly eighteen steps down the hall, it can't follow you into your bedroom".
I also wouldn't eat sometimes because I feared there was something wrong with my food; for example, after I learned about botulism, I was afraid to eat anything that came from a can.
After that I found other numbers to count to or things to say inside my head to prevent bad things from happening.
It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I started thinking how strange it was to wake up each day thinking, "will THIS be the day of my death?" as I'd done since I was 6.
I am 65 and still count and do mental rituals when I am anxious, but at least I know what it is now. And I lost my fear of death after coming close to it.
this reminded me of something that happened when I was little. I can picture it, as if it were yesterday....don't remember how old I was, but very young, (in those days, in a small town, our parents left us roam from morning to night)
Anyway, I was walking down the sidewalk along side of my foster parents home, and a cat was laying on the other side of the metal gate on the pavement on it's side. It startled me at first, and as I slowly walked up to it, I realized it was sleeping, but very very sick. I knelt down beside it, and started to pet it from hind quarters to neck....it was foaming from the mouth and I didn't know what to do? "should I pick it up" I wondered?
After a while I ran into the back door of the house, and frantically told my foster mother. She made me stay in the house while she called someone. I felt so badly, that poor cat out there all by itself, sick and afraid.
Soon a man came in the house, and told my mother he thought the cat had rabies? I asked mom, what that was....they proceeded to tell me, and then asked me if I had touched the cat....I said, "no", b/c logically I didn't think patting it the way I did mattered.
So I went home later to my maternal mothers home, and tried to go to sleep but was scared, and so feared getting lock jaw, as they described....(silly I know) but I was terrified. I thought twice about petting the cat and if it was wrong to do so? Or maybe I should have told them I pet the cat? "Was that the same as touching it," I pondered? I was only trying to help it feel better? And I don't believe I ever told anyone about it until now, not even my sisters.
Finally I fell asleep, only to wake up and feel perfectly fine....and a sigh of relief, in my own little mind, as long as I woke up, I was fine.
I still think of that day and wonder if that cat really did have rabies...not because I didn't get sick but b/c it suffered so.
I'm thinking the man put it to sleep. But still...
My biggest obsession was and will always be horses though, just something about them, so beautifully powerful...
Yesterday I watched "Harry and The Snowman" which I had seen growing up, but had forgotten about it...
Great docu movie, heartwarming story.
Last edited by cremebrulee; 05-01-2024 at 07:01 AM..
Baseball statistics. I would buy baseball magazines, in particular Baseball Digest, and pore over the stats. Strikeout leaders since 1900, home run and RBI leaders, you name it. I'd tally up which team had the most leaders in each category, which team had the longest drought between leaders, etc.
I guess an obsession with data was a precursor to my becoming a professional computer programmer and amateur stock trader.
So was I. I had a cousin the same age who died of leukemia when we were six. I became obsessed with dying. I thought this Dark Thing, like a black ghost, was following me to catch and kill me. Then one day a thought came into my head, "If you make sure you take exactly eighteen steps down the hall, it can't follow you into your bedroom".
I also wouldn't eat sometimes because I feared there was something wrong with my food; for example, after I learned about botulism, I was afraid to eat anything that came from a can.
After that I found other numbers to count to or things to say inside my head to prevent bad things from happening.
It wasn't until I was in my 40s that I started thinking how strange it was to wake up each day thinking, "will THIS be the day of my death?" as I'd done since I was 6.
I am 65 and still count and do mental rituals when I am anxious, but at least I know what it is now. And I lost my fear of death after coming close to it.
I would watch medical dramas on television and be certain I had the disease of the week, every week. Or hear or read about some disease and know for sure I was dying of it. I remember at 5 or 6 years old trying to get my mother to listen, that I was sure I had cancer and was going to die soon. It was (still is to some extent) a kind of hypochondria, I guess, but not so much that I felt sick but just being sure that I had some as-yet-undetected fatal disease.
I'm not sure why. Unlike you, I didn't have anyone close to me die when I was a child. No one in my family even had any serious medical issues. It's more like just the form that existential dread takes for me. Something about extinction. I can't stop staring at it. Thing is, now though, I'm old enough that I don't feel like I am going to be untimely ripped from life. If I die now I will have lived a full life so it's not scary exactly, just fascinating.
As a nine year old boy I remember staying awake at night obsessing over the poor health of my father. I had 7 siblings and I worried that when he died we'd starve.
I can remember wondering how I could earn enough money to support my mother.
So I started working then as a paperboy and saving every penny.
Although I've tried to repress those early memories of a miserable childhood, they stay with me to this day. I'm now 73.
I suppose you could say I became "obsessed" with saving money as a young adult -- not a child -- after deciding I wanted to buy a house. I made a practice and even an art of it; it became almost a game I enjoyed, and I lived a life of frugality and thrift for most of my adult life, buying not only my first house but others subsequently with cash, as well as my cars. I spent very little on anything else, finding ways around that.
I guess it depends how you define "obsession." It was a lifestyle and how I chose to live and enjoyed living, but some thought I "obsessed" over finding the lowest price or doing without.
Now that I'm retired, I find I'm able to enjoy spending my money, sometimes frivolously, so maybe it doesn't meet the definition of "obsession." I continue to live frugally in many ways so I can "save it here to spend it there," and some people do still look askance at that.
As for childhood, what many of us are describing here I would call normal childhood fears or perhaps phobias.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
