What were you afraid of when you were young?

That bad boy would have freaked me out too.I was afraid of cartoon wolves. The ones that wore clothes and walked up right. That gave me nightmares for about 10 years. I finaly figured out it was from an episode of a 70s catonn called 'The Space Sentinels'. A normal wolf got hit by radiation and (naturaly) grew intelligent and walked up right.Scared the shit out of me.

Oh, and tidal waves.

Was that the one with George Pepard? You just reminded me of another one of my fears: post apocalyptical worlds where every one is dead.

"Anxiety is an undefineable fear" - PhatIt's mainly a physiological reaction, the fear is the cognitive labling we give it. When you threw out the lamp (which could have been the 'flag' for the physiologial reaction) you stopped it triggering adrenaline/noradrenaline (which is part of what makes you feel distressed).The lamp may have been the 'flag' for you to act that way. If you are interested in anxiety states a good laymans text is "Overcoming Anxiety" by Helen Kennerley (pub Robinson 1997). It is one of the texts used by the National Health Service (UK) to be prescribed to patients suffuring from mild to moderate anxiety.Sorry to get on my soap box and go off topic.

I and a simialr deal with books.Being afraid of humanoid wolves as I was I would have to 'pay homage' to any book like The Three Little Pigs or Little Red Ridinghood to make sure the Wolf would not come out at night to get me.Ironically I would always have had a copy of these books so I would know that I had payed the propper respects to it.Crazy.

I think that movie was called Cat's Eyes. the Gnome/Goblin gave me the creeps too. Glad the cat got him.

Mate, welcome to my world.My job is to work with people with cognitive distortions, OCD and other weird beliefs.

Yeah, it fascinated (still does too) me. I always wanted to understand why I was thinking the thoughts that I did (do). Many patients I have are motivated by negative predictions that they absolutely believe in (such as going out side will bring on a panic attack). This is identical to childhood fears in that logic takes a great deal of time (and evidence) to erode them away.As kids we are forced to face our fears through maturation and we learn to get over them. As adults however, we have more control over our lives and can avoid the the situations that generate these fears and so never have the opportunity to challenge them.I got into it by doing a psych degree and then doing a post grad in mental health in primary care for the NHS.Take a look at the NHS website if you are interested. Look for Graduate Menatal Health Worker or Priamry Care Menatal Health Advisor.

Will have to get back on you about the genetics of schizophrenia, but (from memory) it does have a genetic component. However, monozygote twins show at best 50% correlation of disorder. This indicates that it is NOT a given that it will transmit through generations.Genetics works hand in hand with the environment and cognition in these cases so to point to any one 'cause' is impossible.With OCD and cog distorts we all (i.e. every human being) have a genetic predisposition as a species to develope these behaviours (it's part of social learning of cause and effect) and cognitions. We are all very prepared to learn to be afraid of spiders for instance.Growing up in a house hold where every one uses phrases like "touch wood" to ward off ill luck or not opening an umbrella in the house (because it will bring bad luck) will transmit that behaviour across generations. We learn it. Thats what humans do. We are the best learners on the planet. Sometimes (often) we learn to believe the wrong things.Supperstitous behaviour is just like OCD. We try to control what we percieve we need to with some form of ritual that we have 'learned' will increase our control (washing germs away etc). Whether this actually works does not matter. We learn to believe it works. Like a magic spell, a ritual or a prayer. We can't prove it does not work and we fear to take a chance (by not performing the ritual) that it does not work.Here is something to think about. The prayer some people offer to they're gods could be seen in exactly the way I have described above.Ed: Checking profile updateThis message has been edited by Larni, 04-12-2006 05:21 AM