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Are You Afraid Of The Dark?
We're all scared of something. Myself? Like Indian Jones, I'm petrified of snakes! I had one start chewing on my arm when I was about 13 and after that, never been the same. A call with snakes is the one thing that would DEFINITELY freeze me in my tracks. How about you? What call would/has stop(ped) you in your tracks? What scares you in the fire service?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John on
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Recently believe that I may be claustrophobic, The wierd thing is that when it hit me it was during our SCBA challenge, I entered and crawled about 10 feet and felt like I couldn't breath and started to panic so I had to retreat from the course. Of course now I am totally ticked off at myself, and trying to fight thru this demon. The bad thing is it is a mandatory training that I need to do, just do not believe I can do it. When I think to myself I can do this, I feel myself becoming more tense. I just want to get thru this because I love this job, well to me its not a job, just love the work, and am afraid this will cause me to have to resign, which I don't want to do.
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Permalink Reply by Brian Dumser on
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Oh c'mon Heather, at least let me treat you to breakfast.
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Permalink Reply by Brad MacMillan on
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Well, you can always focus on your goal and not on the closed space, you can also think that you KNOW you can do this, not just think you can. Positive reinforcement and practice, practice, practice. The more you do it, the more comfortable you are doing it. Try working yourself through it. So you went about 10 feet last time, try going about 15-20 feet the next time. Maybe have a partner with you to help you get through it until you feel comfortable enough to do it on your own. This is going to take some time and dedication to try to overcome this, but I believe you can do it John
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Permalink Reply by Fabulous Heather Days of Summer on
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Practice Practice Practice
Hang out at the station in a pack - hose unplugged - but everything else on - and crawl around in the dark. My dept. even wraps black plastic trash bags around your face shields so it is 100% dark to get you to calm your breathing and your heart race and practice self-talk to soothe yourself and take control over your physiological responses.
You can also practice at home - sit yourself in a dark closet (super confined space - which you can safely escape if need be) for hours over and over and learn to intellectually control your body.
Claustrophobia is commonly generated from a prior memory / experience in which you were not in control of a situation - feeling helpless - or were trapped. If you recall an incident that may have caused your body physiologically to create a bad memory. It is essential to keep intellectually reminding yourself that you are not in that anymore - you made it out of that situation - and you are learning and practicing now so that you will never be in a trapped situation again.
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Alright - just this once - but lice don't look like your picture - they seem to have mis-labeled their box - or it is past its prime... though gross and funny... i prefer mine fresher
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EEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWWWWW Derek, you are quickly moving up to the #1 spot, about to knock Brian out of the #1 "thing I am most afraid of"...
Since no one still has told me how to kill them - away from my human body - I have invested the help of my little steam roller friend
MJ has a real one of these, but he seems to be absent from this conversation... so I will have to make do... SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH
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Permalink Reply by Russ Marks on
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1.Going underground in small spaces. 2. MVA's just after school lets out, it is a small town and also being a youth sports coach means I know alot of the kids, hard to stay calm sometimes
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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on
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Hey John.
Checked out your profile page and it says you've been with the dept. for over 4 years and you have your FF1. What suddenly changed that brought this on? Were you working a scene that was uncomfortable for you?
If you don't mind, I'm gonna give you another thing to think about. Are you sure it's claustrophobia that you are experiencing? Not saying that you don't know what it is, maybe just that it's something similar.
I know of a fella who experienced the same thing. Went in like any other time, then had the feeling that he couldn't breathe or catch his breath. Had to come back out and was breathing real hard. He's good to go now. All he did was change his diet and start an exercise program. It turns out that it wasn't a phobia, it was his body talking to him. I'm not saying that this is you, just something to concider if you have any similarities.
you may have to start from scratch again bro. I wish you the best in getting back in there. I know you can do it. All it takes is time. Just don't give in, or give up.
KSHF
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here ya go Heather. A tool just for you to accomodate your desire for dead wigglies. This should do the trick.
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Oh..and I found this for ya. It was in a story about a guy who was afraid of maggots but had to get rid of them. From his trials, he came up with this list of things that do work and do not work.
1. DO NOT just dump water or bleach on them...even if it's strictly hot water from the tap... This will NOT kill them... It will only make them more aggressive!
2. Boiling water is decent to stagger them, and if that's all you have may be effective after many, many gallons...
3. The lice shampoo stopped them in their tracks and stunned them beyond recovery, but didn't kill them on contact... and was the most expensive item in my arsenal. ($8)
4. RAID wasp killer has GREAT range so you don't have to get too close and worry about any flying off and on to your person, and seemed to do a decent job of killing them. ($4)
5. The carburetor cleaner lacked the range of the RAID, however it was instantaneously deadly to the maggots... It was also the cheapest! ($1.50)
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Yes, because lucky for me - I just so happen to have a flame thrower which I keep on hand... Very practical... especially for BBQ
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Thanks Derek... i won't be eating rice for years...
now see here - i had a recent maggot encounter - thus my trauma responses...
I used 20 different chemical substances on them and the nasty little rice like critters jsut did the back stroke in each of the chemicals - despite the chemicals being so strong, even I had to retreat...
I did not try to carburetor cleaner - but next time - that goes to the top of my list. (o god, there better not be a next time - YUK)
I found squishing them and boiling water and then baking them in a trapped black container in the sun cooking them worked best... but i NEVER NEVER NEVER want to have to squish maggots again in my entire life... and therefore I will never be a contestant on Fear Factor or Survivor.
And in sharing my maggot adventure with my friends, one RN friend had me beat by telling me during her work as an OR nurse during surgery one day maggots were crawling out of a patients abdomen... freaking her out... the doctor doing the surgery calmly said, yes, we see those alot during surgeries... as he proceeded to burn them out of the patients abdomen... other staff near by tried other substances like iodine and alcohol and peroxide... and the maggots just happily swam around in it... GROSS GROSS GROSS... insert vomit experience here
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