The "Steal Your Face" skull from Grateful Deal.
Love the band, skull gives me chills for the weirdest reason.
So, when I was little, my uncle had the "steal your face" skull as his computer screen saver. I asked about it and he said told me what it was but I was too young to understand so I thought he'd meant it STOLE FACES and I got it in my head that if stared at it for too long it would would like... Body snatch me or something.
I ended up having the same nightmare for weeks of the skull coming to life and telling me it had already begun stealing all my family and I was the last one left and it would start laughing like crazy and begun sucking things into the screen and trying to drag me in. And just as I'd think I was safe, my possed dad or cousin or sister or someone would come in and grab me. And then I'd wake up.
Looking at that skull has always put me on edge ever since. It's such a stupid thing to creeped out by but... Lol

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Final score:

4points

Hannah

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Doctors.

When I was 18, I was diagnosed with social anxiety and was given medication for it; I forget what kind. Shortly after that I was switched to a new medicine that was supposed to be great for patients with anxiety. The only issue with it is that some of the side effects were that it could cause a person to develop depression yet that was something that was supposed to be rare. Guess what I developed? Depression, and pretty severe depression too. About 2 to 3 weeks after being put on the new medication, I overdosed on that new medication because I was convinced everyone would be better off if I died. I survived and ended up in the hospital and guess what those doctors try to give me? The same exact medicine that caused me to end up in the hospital.

Ten years later, I'm having heart issues so I got to hospital where a doctor says she'll refer me to this place to be fitted with a heart monitor and gives me the number to call. I call the next day and they have absolutely no referral for me.

So, yeah, I don't trust doctors now and a lot of them scare me.

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Final score:

4points

Mary Bricklin

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Grasshoppers!
Background: when I was 11 years old I was lying in my bed and my window was open some and then I suddenly felt something crawling on my arm, I slowly light the light and there it was, a big f*****g grasshopper!

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Final score:

3points

Duckbadger

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Ants. When I was a kid I was in a bad living situation. An ant crawled into my ear and started eating and scratching in there. 4 hours of that and the adults never thought to pour water in and make it float out. I hate bugs. So so much.

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Final score:

3points

Kyndal T

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Bridges
Background: when I was little, we lived around a town that we had to cross a lot of bridges to get to town. One day, we were driving over the bridge when I heard creaking noises. I asked what it was. My older brother said it was the bridge falling. I started screaming in fear. My brother just laughed. To this day, I am paranoid of crossing or being under a bridge.

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Final score:

3points

Giovanni Potage

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Needles. Its weird because its not the pain aspect, my pain tolerance is crazy. But the thought of putting metal into my body makes me shudder

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Final score:

3points

Has sold soul for corn chip

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Not mine, but my mum's.

She has a terrible phobia of hospitals, doctors and anything medical. She won't even go for a check-up. Even through Covid, she has resolutely refused to even take a telephone consultation. To say she is terrified is an understatement.

Why?
When she was a little girl, her mum and dad had an open coal fire, as did most people of that generation. This one day, she was playing in front of the fire when a red hot piece of coal flew out and landed on her arm. It was so hot that it melted her skin and effectively 'glued' itself to her. Ouch.

They went to the hospital and were seen by a doctor. As the doctor went to remove the coal he told my mum that 'this won't hurt a bit'. He was wrong. Apparently, it hurt an awful lot. Because of that one doctor, my mum has harbored a deep-seated fear of all things medical for approximately 60 years.

I can totally understand that, what do you think?

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Final score:

3points

$cagsy

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I’ll go first: Kangaroos

I was in Virginia visiting family and we went to a safari park where they had a kangaroo walkabout exhibit. One of the kangaroos had just had baby and it was lying right near the entrance. You could tell it was huge. I stopped there for a second and then walked ahead of my fam which was normal for me. Then, halfway through, a smaller kanagroo (compared to the one that had the Joey) about my height (5 foot maybe) backed me up against the fence and started attacking me. This was maybe sixth grade and I’m going into my senior year. To this day I am scared of kangaroos. Luckily my Grandfather came over (6 foot and huge) and the kangaroo backed off before I was injured.

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Final score:

2points

St34mpunk_Pirate

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My own disembodied voice. The story is long so I’ll shorten it and if you want to whole story go to my profile and click on my word dreams submission. Basically I had a terrifying dream twice with my own voice yelling at me so now it’s scary.

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Final score:

2points

I’m A Pan-Duh (They/Them)

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forced smiles. . .

I've gotten a little better with handling the fear but it used to/does send me spiraling into a panic attack.

long story but my dad used it to terrorize me a few times :(

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Final score:

2points

teddy bear

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Fear of praying mantises...
When I was little, my parents bought a container full of ladybug eggs to put in the yard to keep the pests away.
Inside that container was a mantis egg.
Eventually, the eggs hatched and my parents set them out in the yard to eat.
The praying mantis hung out on a leaf next to our door.
My parents were watching it, and it acted as if they weren't there, it didn't even bat an eye when they came outside in the first place.
Then, little toddler me quietly opened the door and stepped outside to look at the mantis.
It head snapped around, I swear it was almost completely backwards facing. It's small pupiled eerie eyes burned into my soul. It would not move.
It would not stop staring at me with all the hate a bug could express.
My parents rushed me back inside.
I still don't like praying mantises to this day.

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Final score:

2points

ABallOfPureAnxiety (She/They)

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Going down stairs.

I have issues with balance, with my knees and with my hips and it's been like that for years. I have also fallen down stairs 3 times by now resulting one time in concussion (took me months to stop sleeping over 12 hours a day after that) and permanent damage to my dominant hand.

Btw. thanks to the random Vietnamese guy who saved me from stair faceplant number 4 in Da Nang a few years back. He saw me lose balance and dragged me back. Might have gotten quite gnarly as the stairs were crowded at the time.

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Final score:

1point

Remi (He/Him)

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I am afraid of bumblebees and wasps and basically anything that has a stinger. We were going home from school one afternoon when I was in 3rd grade and still had long blonde hair. A bumblebee that flew in the window got tangled up in my hair and stung me on my top lip. I was totally swollen by the time we got home and had to take Benadryl to sleep. I left awful the rest of the week.

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Final score:

1point

Mrs.King0315

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Semi trucks.

My sister and I go to school outside of my town. In our way back we tried passing this semi truck. I remember what it looks like despite it being like 3-4 months ago. A dark shade of green, like dark jade green. It might’ve been transporting oil because it wasn’t a normal semi truck.

So as we’re passing… he starts switching to our lane. My sister is like “HOLY-“ (then stops there because she does not swear) and LAYS ON THE HORN LIKE OUR LIFE IS ON THE LINE AND IT MIGHT BE! Thankfully the semi realized we were there and moved back to the original lane before we got run off.

I have a subtle but permanent fear of both semi trucks and dumb drivers. I get tense to brace for a crash when near semis or if I see a driver being stupid JUST. IN. CASE.

Also wasps. Hate the bastards. But my mom berates me for it…

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Final score:

0points

Mysteria

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I have emetophobia, the fear of vomit. I also have germophobia. These are both fears that seem stupid to a lot of people.

When I was 2-3, my baby sister had a major heart defect. Her heart only had two chambers instead of four. Before she had heart surgery, she would retch and turn blue. It was always a very stressful situation and my parents always freaked out. I don’t remember it now but the trauma is still there.

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Final score:

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Louieeeeee

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