My Worst Fear

Howdy!

Today’s post is going to be a little interesting. For most people, talking about their worst fears would probably be a bad thing, because of the backlash that could come from family members and/or friends who love to tease them about it at different gatherings and holidays. Honestly, I don’t blame them for wanting to keep quiet about it.

People usually are afraid of “little” things like the ones I mentioned in my fetish and phobia post last month, but I actually have a fear of something that is slowly but surely becoming a “great engineering feat” in the world. Are you confused yet? Let me walk (or in this case, roll) you back to when I was in elementary school in the late 90’s!

I want to say I was probably in second grade when all of my classmates were made to sit out in the middle of the gym floor (except me) while we watched a little movie. Now it wasn’t a cheerful Disney film or anything, this was an educational movie for us kids. I vaguely remember it talking about different careers and what the world would look like with all of the advancing technology people were learning at the time. Surprisingly, this was a very stimulating film for all of us, even if the adults had 80’s styled, big rimmed glasses and denim jumpsuits with big hair to match!

One of the things I actually do remember very well, was the “possibility” of self-driven cars. Now to every single one of my classmates and even some of the teachers, this was pretty cool! There was a scene of a man, seemingly driving this crappy looking orange vehicle with his knees and eating cheese burger with his hands. The car just knew where he wanted to go and it took him there without him ever needing to control the steering wheel and feet controls, and it absolutely terrified me! Funnily enough though, the first thing that everybody says when this pops up on the screen, is “Wow!” Meghan, this is something you could look forward to in the future!” I was both amazed and insulted at that comment, because at the time I wanted to be like everybody else and obviously nobody believed that I could drive my own car without needing all of that!

Now looking back years later and seeing Ford create a self parking car. My worst fears were realized whenever I’d see those commercials on my television, and I have to say it absolutely made me feel like I could throw up everytime it came on my TV and on YouTube!

I should probably explain why I’m afraid of these self-driving cars.

It actually goes back a little bit further in my childhood. I was invited to a birthday party, and the girl’s family lived out in the country and that afternoon as we were leaving, it began to pour down rain–eventually it had turned into a medium size thunderstorm! My mom put me in the car and buckled me in. She went back into the house to call my friend’s mom about how to get there and as it continued to rain down overhead. I seriously thought the car was moving without my mom being in it and pressing on the gas pedal. It was the worst situation I had been in and unfortunately, ever since it happened, I’ve had nightmares of being trapped in an empty car and I am usually rolling down hills or just down the street. Every four months, I have a similar dream of being stuck in a beloved family car without a way of getting out!

I’m getting closer and closer to my thirties and it never fails to me that I can still have that fear. My mom probably doesn’t even remember the incident. and hardly anybody in my family actually knows about this either. I’ve always felt that it’s a stupid little thing that why should I share it? In a way, I’m still asking it as I write this post, but I might get lucky (sorry for your sake!) that other people have the same fear. They might’ve experienced a similar thing during their childhood and it’s played a bigger role in their adult lives. I’ve always wondered if that has something to do with the fact that I’ve never wanted my driver’s licences. I tell people all the time that I can’t be trusted with a car because of my speeding record in my power wheelchair, but maybe this is the real reason for it. I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth about that, but it is an interesting theory to make I think.

So do you have any “weird” phobias that you’d like to share with me? What have you done to try to face and get over them completely?

 

Feet | Fetish vs. Phobia

Hi 🙂

Before I start on this post, I’d like to point out to anyone reading this that I wasn’t trying to make anyone feel bad, I just felt the need to talk about a couple of experiences I had, that I thought went along with the article you’ll be hearing about in a second. It does lighten up with the second section but I wanted to give everybody a warning before you went on ahead, so with that being said, let’s get onto the post for Monday!

Last year, I read this very enlightening article on Push Living. It’s a digital magazine dedicated to people who use wheelchairs and they focus on various topics but mostly lifestyle and travel.

The piece Gina wrote was about devotees. I’ve known about the term a long time and but she explained about the different types of devotees, as she put it “the creeps and awkward turtles”. I’m glad she went on to discuss both sides because if anybody has ever had to deal with a devotee in their lifetime, you just think they’re all sickos, but no, they’re not!

So what is a devotee?

A devotee is somebody attracted to a person with a disability, mostly who use braces and wheelchairs. This is actually a real fetish. In her article she talks about how devotees, the ones that see it purely for their sexual desires and the “admirers” who are basically perfect gentlemen and ladies as they’re a little more shy but want to actually establish a good friendship with you whether than creep you out with weird questions and pictures. This was the best example I could give you to help show you the differences between them. If you want to read the rest of Gina’s article, go here!

I think I’ve had an experience with a devotee before, the reason why I say “I think” is because back in the day I didn’t know what the term actually meant, but the more I think about it and remember how many other women he had as friends on his profiles is still shocking! I met this guy on MySpace (I know, that probably should have been my warning right there!) and he was very nice. The guy was the reason why I basically looked forward to going home after school! I had issues talking to guys my own age and the fact that he was cool with my disability and let me talk about my day I grew to really like him and I generally wanted to know how his day went as well! It was a nice friendship while it lasted!

By the time I went on Facebook, I basically lost contact with him. Two years ago, I actually found him on there but instead of having a totally different picture of himself, he used the exact same one he had on MySpace. Now I don’t know about you guys, but in the years that passed I would change my profile picture a few dozen times! Why did he keep this one? And then to top it all off, he was apart of multiple disability groups and pages and at that time, I actually figured out the definition for “devotee” and I began to feel really cautious. I literally wanted to smack myself up the head because there were signs that something wasn’t right when I was talking to him on MySpace years ago!

Nevertheless, I was really sad to have to give up on that friendship. I just thought it all looked too fishy to continue on with it. No, I didn’t confront him because I still had all of the messages we passed back and forth to each other running around in my head. I just unfriended him, and I had even debated if I should have blocked him but I couldn’t get myself to do it. The one time you start to not only feel beautiful in your skin but you feel like you could’ve been catfished at the same time!

As far this next part, we switch topics completely and talk about how feet can make people really uncomfortable. Apparently, there’s no in between, you either love feet so much that you end up having a fetish for them or you actually despise them.

When I was in middle school, I had a boy in my science class basically come clean about one of his dislikes. Apparently he was afraid of feet. He said it out loud to two other of our classmates and I was in front of him with a very confused look on my face I guess. I knew people have different phobias, some can be afraid of spiders, clowns, heights and even goats! It just puzzled me to think he was scared of feet! For a person who does everything with my feet, this kind of felt like an insult in a way! I can’t explain it any better for you!

What makes it even worse for me though, is that I dared to ask what he thought about mine. I think he was a bit hesitant with his answer. I don’t think he ever gave me a straight answer, you could tell on his face he was conflicted about it. I mean, he was asking a girl that drove an electric wheelchair and had a knack of running over innocent feet throughout her life, he had every right to be scared! I’m just kidding. I’m not that big of a bitch. I would never run over somebody’s feet for a reason like that.

I could understand the reason why he or anyone else would have a phobia of feet. I have my days where I see my dad’s feet and they instantly make my stomach upset. Sorry dad! And honestly, that just made be a guy thing! They have no problem of itching and picking all areas of their feet anyways, so I actually stay away from men’s feet in general. So if somebody came up to me and said they didn’t like feet, I wouldn’t pay them any mind about it.

The older I get, the less chances of my feet going back to their former glory. It’s bad enough that my footwriting has gotten worse! The only thing I have left to do to make my feet seem prettified is to paint my nails different colors. We’ve learned not to use the straight clear glitter because for one you need like four coats for it to show up at all and then scrub until you basically take the nail off to remove it. You guys seem to like my nails paint, don’t ya? I actually need a fresh coat on them. I still have the pink and silver that mom put on for Blondie’s wedding chipping away.

So what are your thoughts about devotees and their fetishes? Are you afraid of feet? If so, how did it come about in your life?

Our Christmas Tree Is Up!

Hey guys!

Well, Christmas is next Friday and our tree is finally up! Blondie and Brandon came down for the occasion. My sister is not in the Christmas spirit like I am, which is weird because it’s usually the other way around! From what Brandon said, he was the one who mainly put up the tree in their apartment. They said it wasn’t that difficult to put up, all they had to was hook up each section and the branches just unfolded themselves! I’m still waiting for that text from one of them saying the cats broke it or something like that.

This year was actually really different from our past Christmases. We’ve never had an outsider help decorate our tree before, but Brandon got to do a lot more than he probably wanted to! My dad was too busy making us breakfast for supper! We had bacon and pancakes! Sorry for the food moment. I think he got to put on the angel on top of the tree. Oh, do you remember in the post about my nana’s tree, that unfolding the branches didn’t really hurt my toes? Yeah, it must have been something about the aging in ours. It’s like 25 years old and it pricked all around my toes. I only opened like four or five branches because that’s all I could take.

After that, two out of four of us took a break. I saw this an opportunity to grab my camera, but there was a small difference with doing nana’s tree. I was sitting on the floor for this one! I had trouble at holding myself up on my own to get a good picture of our tree as each step was completed. At one point I had to borrow Brandon’s leg so I could use it prop myself up to lean back and raise my feet up with the camera between them, it still didn’t work! So when Blondie decided to get started on putting the lights on I handed my camera to Brandon and he gladly took pictures for me of both the tree and my sister trying to use the tree to shield herself from it. And I got the five pictures to prove it too!! I was extremely short! I had to scoot back towards my electric wheelchair on the other side of the room to get a good picture of the whole thing, but between the bad, bad lighting and I guess everybody going around it, I got some cool shots of it and the lights, one looks like hearts/birds and I still don’t know how that happen!

My sister and I took a few minutes out of watching mom and Brandon build the tree to look at some our old Christmas cards that my mom used to hang around the doorway of the kitchen. That’s when we found Blondie’s cute, embarrassing little letters from when she was like six or a little bit older, Brandon got a kick out of them! After that, it was the time for the ornaments. However, if it was up to my mom and sister the tree would only be decorated with lights and tinsel. I love our ornaments and hardly of them have hooks on them so I can hold onto them with my toes without stabbing myself. However, I’m usually in my wheelchair(s) for this part so I had to make do with the one row and one branch from the second section. Once everything was finished, I finally gave up on trying to get pictures on my own, so this time I gave my mom the camera and she just went inside. She took pictures of almost EVERYTHING on the tree. I, of course didn’t happen, I basically directed her to each section of the tree and she thought it was too dark on the screen without the flash, so she put it back on. In this process, she accidentally took a picture of her foot! Ha ha! I have to give her credit on some of them though, I doubt the picture of the angel on would have been so pretty without the flash, so she’s forgiven!

I was sad when Blondie and Brandon left, but I wasn’t upset because they left, no…. I had a dentist appointment the next morning. I wasn’t too excited about it and if you follow me on Twitter you probably read all about it. Somehow I got sleep that night after having a full-blown meltdown with my mom just before she went to bed. I always do them at the wrong times! Anyways, I had medicine before we left and I felt out of it, but not as bad as I thought I would which was a bummer I have to say! At first, we didn’t know if I’d get anything done, but the longer they looked and left, and I think my mom jinxed me too. She told me they took us the bad news that I might get to have the milkshake after all since my parents technically still owe me. I got my cleaning, but they still had to use the shots, I got 7 in total and I just completely broke down because I hate those damn things! My poor dad came in after that and held my foot to help keep me calm. I felt bad for him because he usually doesn’t go to appointments with mom and I. After, the cleanings she (and she had to go deep) was done, I was done! I only got my right side done because I was already feeling anxious, exhausted and stressed to the max! I wasn’t originally going to share that much of the appointment in this post, but I felt I needed to!

What are your phobias? What makes you very anxious? And on a happy note, what do you think of our tree?