Catherine Austen's Blog, page 20

Who’s Afraid of Germs? (Fearless February Day 11)

Mysophobia. The fear of being contaminated by germs.

It’s what Howard Hughes, Howie Mandell, Saddam Hussein and Joan Crawford had in common. (And probably the only thing they had in common.)

Ever since Louis Pasteur discovered the germ theory of disease, humans have cleaned up and lengthened our life spans. Doctors no longer go digging around in dead bodies and then head to the operating room to work on a live one. (It took an awfully long time to apply that theory to the use and re-use of needles, but we’re getting there.)

Pretty as a milkmaid. (Dairy maids caught cow pox and built up immunity to small pox, which left other maids scarred.) Some germs are good for us.

It is wise to be afraid of germs. They are far more harmful than sharks, dogs, heights, spiders, darkness, or any other feared thing you can think of. Germs kill millions.

But phobias are not wise fears. They are fears that take control of your mind and induce panic even when there is absolutely no danger.

If you happen to be in a Kenyan village when Ebola breaks out, or you fall into a crevasse in Kitum Cave, or you’re handling the virus in a Biosecurity Level 4 storage area and your space suit gets a tear, you have good reason to fear. (Not to panic, but to take prompt action to protect yourself and others.) But mysophobics are not anywhere near Ebola. They’re probably not even near the common cold. They’re just alive in a germ-filled world, and they can’t stop worrying about the possibility of being contaminated.

A cold virus. A drag, but you can handle it.

Mysophobia tends to worsen over time, because there is nowhere to escape from anxiety. Germs are not like spiders, which you can see and squash. They’re not like confined spaces, which you can just avoid. They’re everywhere. And, most importantly, they’re all over other people.

Mysophobics may isolate themselves to avoid the people and places harbouring germs. And they may develop an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – with frequent hand-washing, bleach spritzing, and outfit changes – to calm their intrusive thoughts and fears and give a temporary sense of control. But isolation and compulsive behaviours just strengthen the neural pathways connecting thoughts of people/germs/the-world-at-large with terror.

So basically you’re a mess. All because of some primitive sort-of-life-form that you can’t even see.

An ebola virus – with a 90% kill rate, you’d be insane not to fear it.

So what do you do? Get therapy. Seriously, this is a phobia that ruins lives and you may need help to beat it. Your treatment will likely include some cognitive behaviour therapy to calm yourself, expose yourself to safe places and people, and delay your rituals.

I’m not sure if reading about germs will help – I just read The Hot Zone and I wanted to get rid of all my pets, cancel my travel plans, scour the house and never let visitors in again – and I’m rather comfy around germs and disorder. So you should probably skip the library.

Wash with regular soap and water. (Anti-bacterial soap may kill 99.9% of germs but it’s  the 0.1% that you need to worry about.)

Don’t worry – you’re not training to embrace contamination. You’ll always want to be cautious. Don’t sweep up a shed full of mouse poop without a mask. (I did that once and got sick immediately – it hit me like a baseball bat while I was still sweeping, it was so fast.) You’ll never have to eat off the floor of a monkey cage. You just have to get used to moving through a germ-ridden world without panicking.

You can beat this fear. Our species evolved eating roots right out of the dirt and swallowing other animals and all their germy bits whenever we could catch them. We are equipped for life amid germs. (So long as Ebola never hops on a plane, that is – in which case, keep all your mysophobic strategies handy because you’re going to need them.)

In 28 Tricks for Surviving Grade 6, Eric tries to get food poisoning to get out of the school dance and Andrew tries to get laryngitis to skip the public speaking competition. This is completely logical for those of us who are 11 and not mysophobic. Germs are no biggie compared to the social experiences we dread. (“Oh no, I have the flu, guess I can’t go to that family thing at the in-laws, darn it.”)

Leave a comment about your fears during February and you could win a copy of this March 2014 release.

(Photos: the milkmaid is by Marin from Free DigitalPhotos.com; the hand-washing poster is from the New Mexico Health Department – thanks.)

Filed under: fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, Contests, fear, germophobia, germs, mysophobia

Who’s Afraid of Spiders? (Fearless February Day 10)

Even people who like spiders don’t like them on their heads.

Arachnophobia. The fear of spiders.

This is the most common animal phobia – which goes to show how irrational phobias are, since dogs and horses kill way more people each year than spiders.

Spiders are creepy, I’ll admit. Those fangs, those eyes, the clicking of their little clawed feet, the way they drop from a web so suddenly, the speed with which they wrap up dinner. Ew. Giant spiders scuttle through centuries of human storytelling because we’ve seen what they do to their captives, and we can’t help imagining the horror.

Not-so-Scary Spider Fact #1: Almost no one dies from spider bites (especially since those Australians developed anti-venom for theirs). Most spiders can’t bite humans – their little fangs can’t pierce our skin.  The spiders that can bite us do so surprisingly often but we usually don’t  know it – their venom doesn’t hurt us.  Even the notoriously deadly species have 99% survival rates. 

I am always happy to see palm-sized dock spiders when I go to my cabin. (One stood guard over her hatchlings for almost two weeks, protecting them from other spiders.) They are terrified of humans. And of fish. But they’re not phobic – their fear of us is completely rational. Our fear of them is not so rational. (Which is odd, since we’re the ones with the big reasoning brains.)

Rumour has it that you’re always within a few feet of a spider – you just don’t know it. They live all over the world in every habitat – on the ground, in trees, on the water, under rocks, and most certainly in the dark corners of your basement.

Scary Spider Fact #1: Some spiders inject digestive enzymes into their live prey to soften it up before they tear at it and slurp it up.

If spiders were this big, our fears would not be irrational.

But don’t be scared. As Charlotte told Wilbur, spiders help control insect populations. (Also, though Charlotte didn’t mention it, if you squish a spider you’ll make it rain.) So leave them be. Get therapy.

Scary Spider Fact #2: There are no vegetarian spiders. None. Not even one experimental black sheep trying out a cruelty-free lifestyle. Nope. Every spider you see is a killer.

Because spiders are not as cute as dogs or as photogenic as horses, exposure therapy won’t be fun. But you can do it. You are a strong human being.  You don’t have to live in fear, freaking out every time an arachnid crosses your path. You’re bigger, smarter and you can run faster. The odds are in your favour.

Not-so-scary Spider Fact #2: The average black widow spider weighs one gram. Seriously, you could eat 40 of them and still not get your recommended daily protein. Maybe you shouldn’t be scared since you’re 50,000 times bigger. 

Not a good movie to watch for exposure therapy.

Start your exposure therapy by looking at photographs. (Maybe not close-ups.) Read about spiders and how very few species are a threat to humans. Find out which species live in habitats near you. Get a realistic view of the danger, or lack of it.

With a friend to help keep you calm, watch a nature show about spiders. Eventually, maybe one day you can pop into an insectarium. (Or just go into the garden because, seriously, spiders are everywhere. You don’t need to buy a ticket to see one. Just look under a rock.) Good luck.

Feel free to share your eight-legged fears on this blog during February and maybe you’ll win a copy of the middle-grade comedy, 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6.

(Spider close-up photo credits: the spider on green and the one on blue are both by foto76, from FreeDigitalPhotos.net. Thanks.)

Filed under: contests, fearless february, phobias, writing Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, arachnophobia, children's books, fear, spider bites, spiders

Who’s Afraid of Confined Spaces? (Fearless February Day 9)

Claustrophobia. The fear of being in a confined space.

Most statistics claim that upwards of 10% of people are claustrophobic. If you’re not one of them, you might think this is a fear of small spaces. But it’s more complicated. It’s an irrational fear of being somewhere you can’t escape from.

These dudes were not claustrophobic.

Often the places that trigger claustrophobia are tiny ones: tunnels and caves, elevators and graves (nobody feels good in a grave). But the place could be as large as a plane or a subway tunnel. For some, the feeling is sparked by a turtleneck sweater. (If that’s you, just stop wearing turtlenecks – they’re not attractive, anyway.) For others, it’s an automatic car wash. (My dog has that one.)

It’s not being squished that’s scary. It’s the terror of what could happen to you if you couldn’t get out. (“Oh my god, I can’t get out! I’ll be wearing this ugly turtleneck sweater till I die!”)

There’s even a board game about this fear.

Some people feel claustrophobic in crowds. Some feel claustrophobic in rooms without windows. Some people feel claustrophobic in relationships – but usually that’s just a metaphor.

I saw a very cool exhibit at the National Gallery of Canada, Martin Creed’s Work No. 202, that was a room full of black balloons, from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall. Patrons went inside and pushed their way through the balloon-filled space. You couldn’t see anything, you quickly lost all sense of direction, and the idea, “What if I never get out of here?” did come calling. It was totally cool. Claustrophobics wouldn’t like that exhibit.

These ladies weren’t claustrophobic before they got stuck in this cave.

For claustrophobics, the fear  is the same, no matter what the trigger. Some common symptoms are: accelerated heart rate, sweating, dizziness, dry mouth, increased blood pressure, trouble breathing, and general panic. These people do not want to be trapped in a confined space. And since another common symptom is the urge to go to the toilet, you don’t want to be trapped in that confined space with them. 

Claustrophobics may end up organizing their lives around their fear – checking for escape routes in every room they enter, hanging out by the door at every party, avoiding public toilets and elevators and traffic jams, not going to that MRI appointment. 

Another movie to avoid if you’re claustrophobic.

Exposure therapy for claustrophobia can begin the same way as exposure therapy for animal phobias: by looking at pictures. (But not pictures of animals – that won’t help.) Movies where people take an elevator or climb through a tunnel and nothing scary happens are a good start. DO NOT watch any of the kazillion scary movies about people trapped in scary places. “Don’t go in there” is not a message you want reinforced.

If you can’t find “The Happy Elevator Ride” on Netflix, it’s easy to find the live version. Watch people go in and  out of elevators – see how they are smiling and still in one piece?

Get yourself one of these therapy tools.

Eventually it’s time to participate. With positive affirmations, rational reminders and a trustworthy friend at your side, expose yourself to the thing you fear. Start with brief exposures and work up to longer periods of time. (That might work with relationships, too.)

If you’re claustrophobic, or you’ve conquered this fear, leave a message on this blog during Fearless February and you could win a copy of 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6, a middle-grade comedy in which no one is buried alive, trapped in a cave with mutants, or stuck in an ugly turtleneck sweater.

Filed under: authors, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, claustrophobia, fear

Who’s Afraid of Horses? (Fearless February Day 8)

Disney does good horses.

Equinophobia. AKA Hippophobia. The fear of horses.

Okay, so maybe the answer to the question, “Who’s afraid of horses?” is “Almost nobody.” But if horses were as commonly kept as dogs, this phobia would skyrocket. Horses are big scary herbivores. And they bite.

I know this because once I was at a petting zoo and a little wide-eyed kid standing beside me asked, “Do they bite?” at which I laughed and said, “No, no, they don’t bite. You can pet them.” Well, turns out they bite. Sorry, kid. What did I know? I was just a random animal lover at a petting zoo. It’s not like asking an expert. Sheesh.

I’m sure that kid became equinophobic.

Hop on, sucka!

When I was a teenager I went to a shoddy stable for the one and only riding experience of my life. My horse threw me off in half a minute flat, which would have been upsetting enough but, since my foot was caught in the stirrup, it also dragged me around for a few dozen metres. My sister’s horse rode into the trees — literally, it kept smashing her legs into the trees. Like take a hint, human.

They are awfully beautiful animals, but let’s be honest: they throw people to their deaths. People ought not to ride them or touch them or even approach them. The cure for equinophobia is to move the horses to the other side of the farm fence.

I wept during this movie.

No. Really, the cure is exposure therapy. But why bother? It’s not like we’re in 1870. You can avoid horses for your entire life without the slightest compromise. Seriously, pick your battles, people.

Actually, I like horses. But they make me terribly sad. I was deeply affected by the book Animal Farm. I can’t look at a horse without thinking of Boxer and imagining betrayal and doom. Even just typing his name makes me sad. It’s going to take a few episodes of My Little Pony to cheer me up. I’d better get watching.

Me and my bronies are in for some cheering up.

BTW, there are no horses or equinophobics in 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6. But you could win a copy if you leave a comment on this blog during Fearless February.

(Thanks to FreeDigitalPhotos.net for Tina Philips’s photo of the yawning horse.)

Filed under: authors, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, equinophobia, fear, horses, petting zoos

Who’s Afraid of Blood? (Fearless February Day 7)

Hemophobia. Fear of blood.

Hemophobics are easy to spot in grade school: they’re the ones screaming and crying when the nurse comes around.

They simply cannot stand the sight of blood — their own or anyone else’s. Like most phobics, they experience anxiety, dread and panic at the thought of what they fear. Even worse, hemophobics often faint when they’re face to face with that fear, making them vulnerable to injury, mockery, and – here’s that vicious circle again – bleeding.

This is not an effective hemophobia therapy technique.

If you have an uneasy feeling at the sight of blood, no worries. Just stay away from horror movies – your life will probably be better for it.

But if you run away screaming when your little sister steps on a nail, or you sneak out of the hospital upon hearing the words “blood test,” you have a phobia with potentially dangerous consequences. Unless you want to be known as an unreliable wuss all your life, you should get help in facing this fear.

I suspect that hemophobia is a modern mental illness, flourishing in our lives of comfort. Back in great-great-great-great-grandmother’s time, hemophobics wouldn’t last a day. Life is bloody, from birth to death, and you gotta deal with it. Even in our sanitized industrialized society, blood seeps in every now and then. (Every 28 days or so for half of us.) This is a fear worth slaying.

Up close it looks just like candy.

To overcome your fear of blood, once again it’s exposure therapy to the rescue. Begin with photographs: look at them, then touch them (no, you don’t ever have to taste them). Then expose yourself to a drop of your own blood. (Stay away from other people’s blood. It’s germy.) When you’re okay with that, it’s time to book that backlog of blood tests. Go slow, take a deep breath, and remind yourself of all the awesome things blood does for you – like keep you alive. That’s pretty important stuff.

Don’t get too fond of blood.

Don’t take the therapy too far, though. You don’t want to develop a fondness for blood. If you can get to the point of sitting still to donate a pint, you’re a hero compared to most of us. (That’ll take a long time, lots of positive affirmations, and an empathetic nurse.)

If you’re afraid of blood and not afraid to admit it, leave a comment on this blog during Fearless February and maybe you’ll win a copy of 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6.

(Thanks again to FreeDigitalPhotos.net for the free images: the blood cells are by Victor Habbick, and the bloody hand is by Salvatore Vuono.)

Filed under: authors, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, blood, children's books, fear, hemophobia

Who’s Afraid of Being Alone (Fearless February Day 6)

Autophobia. AKA Monophobia. The fear of being alone.

Table for one?

Few of us relish the idea of going out to eat alone. You need a book or a tablet to keep you company.

Going to bars alone? Ew. 

Being home alone? Bring it on. Please. I need to be alone to work. I get mean if I don’t get my alone time. You don’t want to see me at the end of the Christmas holidays.

I like going away alone, too: driving away cranking the tunes, heading off to some adventure, solo. 

But I have a full house to leave and return to. (And I was raised in a full house, the youngest of five.) Alone time  is a treat for me. I’d feel differently if I were always alone. I wouldn’t like that at all. It would be lonely.

(Or not – maybe it would be awesome. I might be like the guy at the end of that Twilight Zone episode who finally had time to read all the books he wanted – only I don’t wear glasses, so my ending would be happier than his. Still, after a month or so, it would start to feel pointless. Humans – you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.)

If you have a yearning for company and a discomfort at being alone in strange territory, you are a normal human. But if you break into a cold sweat upon saying goodbye, if you follow people from room to room, if you try to be late so that you don’t have to wait one minute on your own, you might have autophobia.

You should know that people who can’t be alone are incredibly annoying. Conquer your phobia for the sake of the loved one whose leg you are clinging to.

This is actually a multiplicity of phobias:

Fear of being alone in a house – or even just alone in a room. Most of us outgrow this common childhood fear by suffering through it and pretending we’re fine. But you can beat this fear at any age, with the help of a friend. Start with  your friend hanging out in the next room, then on another floor, then out in the garden, then down the street, then just on the phone. See how well you’re doing? (NB, this therapy is not recommended for those with stalkers.)

Fear of being alone in public. You know you have this phobia if you have two tickets to Cirque du Soleil and your friend cancels at the last minute, and you just stay home. OMG, you have to cure yourself of this! (Or just give your tickets to me.) Work with a friend in a restaurant. Have them leave you alone at the table for a bit, eventually working up to you arriving ten minutes early and enjoying a glass of wine all on your own. (That’ll take a while.)

Possible exposure therapy roadblock: If you’re autophobic, you might not have a friend to do these therapies with, since you probably drove all your friends away with your insatiable clinginess. But they might come back to help you face your fear. Worth asking, anyway.

Fear of being alone forever. This is actually a somewhat rational fear for people who are always alone, because people who spend too much time alone get weird (and not in a good way), which increases your chances of being alone forever. It’s another vicious circle. If you have this fear, you should rush out right now and join a club or make a friend or visit your ailing aunt. Attend to someone else’s needs for a bit and you’ll either (a) avoid the fate of being alone forever or (b) embrace it. Either way, the fear is gone.

We are alone, each of us muddling through our tiny lives, hurtling through a vast and indifferent universe, knowing it will all end in death, and that is terrifying. It helps to have a hand to hold onto. But let go every once in a while or it’ll get way too sweaty.

No one is ever alone in 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6, because hanging out alone is not comedy gold. Leave a comment on this blog during Fearless February and you could win a copy and spend some time alone reading it. 

(The woman on the road photo is by nuttakit and the man alone is by Vlado, both from FreeDigitalPhotos.net; the not-welcome mat is from canadamats.ca. Thanks.)

 

Filed under: authors, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, autophobia, being alone, fear

Who’s Afraid of Vomiting? (Fearless February Day 5)

Emetophobia. Fear of Vomit.

I’ll spare you the photos and make it brief.

There are some people so afraid of vomit that they won’t eat out in case of food poisoning. If there’s a flu going round, these folks are calling in sick. Some emetophobics can’t even be around children (or bush parties). No school janitor jobs for these fraidycats. No burping the baby. And no watching The Exorcist – devil shmevil, it’s the projectile vomiting that’s really scary.

Even just the idea of vomit makes emetophobics… well, vomit — thus creating a vicious (and viscous) circle of panic and terror, with a wicked bad smell.

Personally, I’d rather live with this phobia than go through exposure therapy. Bad luck, emetophobics. (Or not – it’s the emetophiliacs who have the real problem).

In 28 Tricks for Surviving Grade 6, no one admits to an obsessive fear of vomiting. (Andrew is afraid he might vomit during the public speaking competition, but that’s a whole different thing.) And that’s for the best. I prefer my comedy nausea-free.

Enough said about today’s fear. Everyone go wash your hands now.

(“No Vomiting” sign thanks to David Castil Dominici from FreeDigitalPhotos.net.)

And if you have emetophobia, leave a comment and maybe you will win a book.

Filed under: authors, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, emetophobia, fear, vomit

Who’s Afraid of the Dark? (Fearless February Day 4)

Everyone’s a little afraid of the dark, because that’s where the monsters are.

Scotophobia. Fear of the dark.

Raised in the age of the electric bulb, we modern folk have little inkling of just how scary the darkness is. Scotophobics know. When night falls, anything could be there — ANYTHING — just inches away from your face, savouring the moment before it gets you.

Most people are uneasy in the darkness, and I figure that’s because all the early humans who were totally relaxed in darkness walked off a cliff one night. Or maybe they stepped into a viper’s den or ran into an enemy’s camp or charged into trees at full speed, or some other idiotic thing you’re likely to do when you can’t see where you’re going. One way or another, the darkness picked them off one by one, and all the fearless genes vanished from the pool, leaving Homo sapiens fraidycattus to huddle around fires whispering, “What was that? Did you hear that? I’m sure I heard something.”

Our fragile lives flicker in a vast darkness.

I kind of like the dark. I have lain in dark fields on August nights and watched the Perseids. I have walked my dog on the beach at night, staring out on black water. And, less poetically, I wear an eye-mask to sleep when my husband’s up reading. 

But I don’t like it that dark. Dim is nice. Pitch black is unnerving. In a cave without a flashlight, I’m on the verge of panic in two minutes – and that was true even before I saw

Bad bad bad things live in the dark.

The Descent (which you should not watch the Netflix version of because they wrecked the ending, and which you shouldn’t watch at all if you’re a kid because it’ll scare you for life.)

At my cabin, which is off the grid and an hour and a half from the city, on a moonless night it is pitch black once you’re a few steps from the cabin door. Can’t see your hand in front of your face black. There’s no way I’ll walk to the outhouse by myself in that darkness, not even with a flashlight. No way. Uh uh.

The Prince of Darkness aint around in daylight.

Bad things hide in the dark. Just waiting with baited breath.

There’s a natural “creeped out in the pitch black” feeling, like I have. And then there’s Scotophobia (also called Nyctophobia, Achluophobia, and Lygophobia) which is more of a panic attack.

The ocean wouldn’t be so scary if it was well lit.

If you have an obsessive fear of darkness, you can’t sleep without a nightlight. If your grandmother comes to visit at 10:00 p.m. and she needs help with her bags, you’ll peer into the twenty feet of darkness between the porch and the driveway and you’ll say, “Sorry Grandma, come back tomorrow.” If someone turns out the lights, you don’t just fret a little; you scream and cry and wet your pants.

You should really do something about that.

In times past, darkness was hard to avoid come sundown, and Scotophobics had many a sweaty sleepless night. These days, nightlights and flashlights help sufferers stay sane. And Scotophobia can be cured with gentle desensitization therapy.

Don’t wait until dark. Start facing your fears right now.

Get a dimmer switch and turn it down a little more each night until you’re able to bear the blackness for a few seconds, then increase the time you keep it dark. Think positive thoughts and have a soothing friend with you (yes, that’s still your friend’s hand you’re holding; she hasn’t transformed into a demon). Eventually you will be able to handle the darkness.

And that’s a good thing, because you need to keep your wits about you when the lights go out, or you’ll be the first to go when whatever’s hiding in the darkness comes a’hunting. (Just kidding. Sort of. You really don’t know what’s out there.)

I’m pretty sure all the kids in 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6 sleep with a nightlight on.

Drop a comment about your fears and maybe you’ll win a copy.

Filed under: authors, darkness, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, book promotion, fear, nyctophobia, Pitch black, scotophobia

Who’s Afraid of Cats? (Fearless February Day 3)

Ailurophobia. The fear of cats.

Far less common than the fear of dogs, and far more difficult to comprehend. Because, seriously, most cats sleep all day and run away when you come near them. Plus they’re only a foot high. How scary is that?

Scary Cat Fact #1:  Cat scratch fever isn’t just a bad song. It’s a disease transmitted by cat spit to almost 25,000 people a year in the US and Canada, typically via a cat bite or scratch. It is not usually serious (unless it spreads to the brain or bones or eyes, in which case it’s really serious.) 

Where there’s a witch, there’s a cat.

Cats chill the blood of a few phobics. Phobias are irrational fears, remember. And Ailurophobia is especially irrational, running deeper than most animal fears. Ailurophics are not afraid of having their ankles scratched. They’re afraid of something a little more supernatural.

Most people afraid of cats believe that cats are evil. Not “dangerous.” Evil. Witches and demons and ghosts kind of evil. It’s not the body that’s at risk around felines; it’s the soul.

Scary Cat Fact #2: “All cats are demons,” according to 16th century demonologist Nicholas Remy. So there you have it.

I’m guessing cats got their bad rep because they run around at night making terrifying noises and appearing to shoot lasers out of their eyes.

They move so silently, like smoke, disappearing in a flash, and they stay so still that you don’t see them sitting there staring at you until you almost trip over them. It feels like they appear out of nowhere. Add to that the way they look at you like they couldn’t care less if you lived or died (because they couldn’t care less) plus their sharp little fangs and creepy hisses, and the way they torture mice for twenty minutes before they kill them, and sheesh, cats really do seem evil.

Scary Cat Fact #3: Cats like to kill. They like it a lot. Cats kill billions of songbirds a year in the US alone (that’s billions, not just millions).

Cats want only world domination.

But cats are just critters. They’re not evil. They’re mostly adorable (if you’re not a songbird or mouse or rabbit or chipmunk or squirrel or fish…..) Except there’s the odd cat that rubs up against your leg asking for a pet and then when you bend down to pet it, it bites your hand. God, I hate those cats.

I knew a cat like that when I was a kid, and it was the only cat I knew. (It roamed the neighbourhood rubbing into legs and I’d be fooled every time. “Maybe it wants to be friends,” I’d think. Hiss. Scratch. Nope.) My mother hated cats, and in between her lesson of “all cats are demons” and that one nasty cat, I grew up ailurophobic. But then I saw a sad little kitten in a pet shop window when I was 15, and I embraced exposure therapy.

Scary Cat Fact #4: If you and your cat were abandoned in an isolated forest and had to survive all on your own, your cat would outlast you. (And when you died, it would probably eat you.)

If your hair stands on end when you see a cat, if you won’t visit your friend’s house since she got a cat, if you plan your trip around the mall so as to avoid passing the pet shop, then you’re ailurophobic, and you need to conquer this phobia.

Fear of cats never held back this dude.

Or not. Maybe you can live with it just fine. Napoleon Bonaparte was afraid of cats, and it never stopped him from going out conquering.

But if you want to embrace cats – and they are supercute and cuddly and purring is such a happy sound – then get to it. Slowly.

First, look at pictures of cute little kittens. They don’t want to steal your soul, do they? Next work up to adult cats. (But skip sphinxes or you’ll be two steps forward, three steps back because those things are freaky.) Find a friend with a gentle loving cat to sit in a room with. Once you’re feeling okay with that, sit closer and closer to the cat until you can pet it without freaking out. It won’t turn into a witch, you’ll see.

Eventually, one day when you’re hanging out at your cat-friend’s place, you’ll open a book and the cat will walk over and lay on it, right at the spot where you were reading. So you’ll get up to make a cup of tea and the cat will race in front of your feet, right in the spot where you’re walking. Then you’ll pour milk in your tea and the cat will stick its face right in your cup. And you’ll come to see that cats are not evil, just annoying. And that’s progress.

Scary Cat Fact #5:

Please don’t hurt me.

Over 60,000 shelter cats are put to sleep each year in Canada. In the US, the number is in the millions: a cat or dog is put to sleep every 11 seconds in the US alone. That’s a lot creepier than 16th century notions of witches and demons. 

There’s no character afraid of cats in 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6. But if you’re afraid of cats, or anything else, leave a comment on this blog during Fearless February, and maybe you’ll win a copy of my newest book.

These are not my pets. (My cats and dog love each other.) I found this one online and would credit the photographer if I could find out her name.

Filed under: authors, cats, fearless february, phobias Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, ailurophobia, book promotion, cat phobia, children's books, fear

Who’s Afraid of Public Speaking? (Fearless February Day 2)

#1 Fear in North America

Glossophobia. The fear of speaking in public.

Also called “speech anxiety,” this is the most common phobia in North America. Three out of four people suffer from it — and we suspect there’s something wrong with that fourth guy. I mean, honestly, what kind of person isn’t afraid to stand up and deliver a speech? to lay bare his intelligence or lack of it? to stand there while people stare and listen and judge? to risk ridicule and exclusion from the all-important social ties that bind us???

It’s a tough fear to figure. Heights? Sure, that fear makes sense – you walk too close to the edge of a cliff, you fall off, you die. After hundreds of generations of natural selection, all the people with no fear of heights went over the edge and took their fearless genes with them, leaving us scaredy-cats alive and thriving.

But speech phobia? Why did we inherit that?

It doesn’t matter if it’s an idiot who’s laughing at us; we still don’t want to be laughed at.

I’m guessing it was because most of the fearless blabbermouths in days of old stood up and said something stupid (or maybe just subversive) and got themselves killed for it. Or exiled, which amounted to the same thing. Or shunned or made a laughing stock, which aren’t good for finding mates and passing on your fearless genes. That left a lot of quiet scaredy-cats, plus a few folk who weren’t afraid to speak up but happened to have either (1) something worth listening to or (2) a  bunch of friends who had their backs.

Scary Public Speaking Fact #1: William Henry Harrison, a former US President, delivered a long inaugural speech in the cold without a hat, caught pneumonia, and died. (This is as scary as it gets – public speaking will not rip you to pieces.)

It’s perfectly normal to get nervous before speaking in public. But if you rearrange your life to avoid it, you have a phobia. Here are some signs:

You’d rather fail a subject than do an oral report;
You decline to go to your own award ceremony because you’re afraid to stand up and say thank you;
You’re kept awake at night dreading next week’s public speaking competition;
Visions of yourself vomiting, collapsing or piddling your pants at a podium flash through your mind.

Fear is the path to the dark side.

Once again, the cure is exposure therapy. Start slowly. Say “here” instead of just raising your hand during attendance. Walk in front of the class to get to your seat instead of sneaking behind all the desks. When that feels okay, try to say one thing out loud in class every day, then speak more and more until you’re okay with it. Finally, take the stage. Slowly. Read a story to first-graders before tackling older audiences. Recite your speech in front of one kind person before trying a group. Visualize yourself doing a good job. Take a few deep breaths and find an encouraging audience member. And when you’re done, give yourself a hand. 

Scary Public Speaking Fact #2: Speech anxiety may increase your odds of having a heart attack during a speech. So chillax.

Most of us have good reason to relax: no one’s paying much attention. But some of us are up against the devil. If you’re in a class with a mean horrible kid (or teacher) who will never in a million years let your speech be a good experience, or if you live in a family where a parent or sibling always mocks or stomps on everything you say, or if your circle of friends includes some snotty kid who always makes you feel stupid, you need to find a different public to speak in front of – a library, an aunt’s house, a club, one friend. Every bad experience will entrench your fear, so find somebody who wants to hear what you have to say – even if it’s your dog (see Fearless February Day 1).

Scary Public Speaking Fact #3: In this day of iPods and smart phones, there’s a fair chance that someone will record your speech and publish it online.

Me In the audience at my own book launch – phobic much?

I came across a recording of myself posted online, reading a scene from 26 Tips for Surviving Grade 6 at my book launch a couple of years ago. It was a shock to discover – terror immediately set in – but it wasn’t half bad. I didn’t appear nervous at all. You could be lucky like that, and appear calm while inwardly in a tizzy. (Or you could be like a guy named Steve from my university days who turned beet red and stammered through his presentations. It was painful to watch — but he was really cute so it was kind of endearing. Even if people always remember how nervous you were during your speech, they may remember it fondly. You never know.)

Scary Public Speaking Fact #4: A few leaders (of countries and protest movements) have been assassinated during speeches. But thousands of people have stood by quietly while millions of others were murdered – and that’s much scarier. 

Having something to say is risky. But not saying what’s on your mind is riskier. This is a fear worth slaying.

In 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6, Andrew is so terrified of public speaking that he lies, cheats and fakes sick to avoid it. But you can’t get through school without speaking. So Dave Davidson and his friends use their fear-slaying techniques – plus cue cards, affirmations, and distractions – to get Andrew through his three-minute speech (not quite fearlessly but at least without falling to pieces).

You can do it, too.

Filed under: books, phobias, phobic february, public speaking Tagged: 28 tricks for a fearless grade 6, fear, glossophobia, speeches