Be Not Afraid

I took into clearing out the garage yesterday afternoon...it hadn't been sorted out since we first moved in, 2 years ago. Spiders and dead flies everywhere..yuk, even thinking about them makes me quiver. From as far back as I can remember I have had a fear of spiders and insects..anything with more legs than me is a no no.

I used to have a fear of needles but having had 4 children a little prick doesn't scare me no more (no offence hubby!). My other great fear is the dentist. Last time I went was over 2 years ago and that was out of necessity after 12 years. Promised myself I would go back every 6 months because it wasn't so bad..I got lots of reminders but never went back. It's embarrassing telling them you're afraid of them at 35+ yrs of age and insisting to know everything they are about to do before they do it. Bats and mice are up there too on my list of fears.

I made a conscious decision not to display any of these fears to my children as I don't want them going through life as I did - terrified going into bathroom if a spider in the bath or on the wall, and not going to the dentist. Their Dad took the girls to the dentist for their first visit and they were okay with it, so that has become his designated job for the foreseeable. When they come running to me all excited that there is a 'medium' sized spider on the wall/floor, instead of swatting or stepping on it as I would love to do, I find the biggest bit of cardboard and lift it and put it outside to 'find his family', breaking out in a cold sweat as I do so.

When I sit down and think about it I can find the root cause of all my fears. A neighbour of ours chased after me with a spider and threw it on me when I was a child..a bad experience at the dentist (butcher) when I was 10...bats can get caught in your hair, thoughts of that still freak me out, although now I realise it was a ploy to get us inside at night. So are all fears man-made or are there innate fears??

My eldest girl is afraid to talk in front of anyone outside the family. She went through her first year at school with no friends and having never spoken to anyone, including the teacher. I believed this was due to an incident on her first day when a classmate pushed her and said "You're not playing with us, you're not our friend". She is a very sensitive child at the best of times so I reckoned that knocked her for six. We had moved to the country for her second year at school and by Christmas that year she was whispering in the teacher's ear...progress. She has just finished first class and is talking (quietly) to a select few classmates and does her reading up beside teacher so no one else can hear her. Thankfully, in September, she has the same teacher again so fingers crossed we can convince her to talk out in class and conquer her self-confessed fear of people hearing her talk. Man-made or innate?

Babs has two fears that I am aware of..flies and the wind. The flies one I know he picked up from his cousin, she is terrified and lets everyone know. So from copying her reaction he has made himself believe he is terrified. The wind, dunno where that came from. If there is a breeze outside you won't get him out the door, or if he happens to be out when he feels a breeze, his hood goes up and he is legging it back in. This wasn't always the case. Is this a sensory thing? Can autistic kids have genuine fears or are they immitating? Can any of you source the root cause of all your fears?