Fear.

Found a decent prompt website today and the one I randomly clicked on asked me to 'describe a big phobia' So I got to thinking about my own fears and the effect they have. I am petrified of drowning. While I was on holiday in the U.S. with my family, my sister and I would play 'who could touch the bottom of the pool.' A simple game that I think all youngsters play while clowning about in a pool. This one time, my sister held me under, helping me to try and touch the bottom. I panicked when I couldn't surface and since then I have had this fear. I am also asthmatic so the thought of being unable to get my breath is a bit scary.

It is not an irrational fear and it has several different effects on me when I am faced with the thought of drowning. My throat tends to close up and become tight and I feel apprehensive. I am nervous around boats and the idea of going on a cruise holiday sends chills through me. Large expanses of water make me nervous, despite the fact that I am a good swimmer. I am not scared to go swimming and will even venture into the ocean on a hot day when holidaying abroad. Doing so in the UK just seems silly to me! I don't like watching people drown on TV and often have to remind myself that it's not me stuck under the water and that I can breathe and not feel water flooding into my mouth. I found the scene at the end of the film 2012 most disturbing to watch!

So, after thinking about how I react to the thought of drowning. I began to wander how other people react to their fears, most particularly the characters I write about. I realised that they don't have any specific phobia's. I took one of the female characters, Talindra, and began thinking what would she be frightened of.

She was brought up in a rich privileged environment, not dissimilar to the renaissance courts of England. She's a bit spoilt and rather frivolous, she buzzes about not doing much during the day and doing even less in the evenings. She is good at heart but need a little guidance. She's pretty and seems disinterested in finding someone to settle down with. She's spent most of her life inside in comfort so apart from the anxiety of becoming poor I think it would be most fitting if she reacted negatively in some way to spiders.

I can imagine her leaping onto nearby footstools and calling for her maid to take them away. She isn't brave enough to squash them herself, preferring to get as far away from them as she possibly can. It is not enough for her to not want to go out of doors, unlike a friend of mine but is enough to cause her distinct distress when faced with the fear itself, much like how I am with drowning.