Parenting

From The Confessional: Everyone Fears Something—Like Death, Or Farting During Your Brazilian

by Team Scary Mommy
Deagreez/Getty Images

Fear is powerful, and it’s not something we can escape. There are the standard fears most of us have—something happening to our kids, someone we love dying, our own deaths, losing our pets… And then then there are, well, more “unique” fears. Like ripping ass during sex, driving off a cliff, or fucking up a presentation at work and your boss thinking you’re an idiot.

The point is, we all have our “greatest fears” (my top two are related to my kids’ wellbeing and my own intense fear of failure; spiders come in closely at third) and then the regular day-to-day worries that dictate how we live our lives. Like the fear of unexpected guests ringing the doorbell when your kitchen smells like three-day-old dishes and the kids left a floater in the toilet.

Or your MIL. Like, just, her existence.

Here are some fears from our confessional that run the gamut from “I’m afraid of shitting during birth” to “OMG what if I screw up my kids so badly and they resent me later in life?” It’s all here.

My greatest fear is opening my eyes ans realizing I'm inside a casket. w/modern embalming techniques that is impossible,but I still wanna be cremated to ensure it doesn't happen. Must've happened 2 me in another life & am still traumatized. Cray, I know.

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Sometimes (like now) my anxiety gets so bad I picture morbid things, like how my husband would look at his funeral. I don't want him to die, it's my greatest fear. Love him too much. WTF is wrong with me?!

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My greatest fear (in fact the absolute terror) that keeps me up at night, is that I will die and both my cats will end end up in a kill shelter, because I am completely alone and have noone who would take them.

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It's embarrassing, but one of my greatest fears is dying before the entire series of Game of Thrones. I can't imagine not finding out what happens in the end.

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Death-related fears are super common, and living through a pandemic hasn’t helped. From fears about waking up in a casket to dying before the end of GOT, there’s a lot that falls under this category.

My greatest fear is farting at, or pissing on, the lady that gives me my Brazilian.....

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My greatest fear is taking a dump while giving birth. DH wants to video the whole thing and I'm too embarrassed to talk about it. Been married 7 months and have never farted around him, no open door dumps, either.

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I fart when I'm nervous and it's highly embarrassing. They arent always audible but they stink!

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That fateful moment when you have to cough and you have to pee and you know that doing the first will also result in doing the second...

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And then there are fears about… well, our bodily functions. A lot of women are afraid of the mid-birth shits, but if you ask any nurse or doctor, they’ll tell you it’s super common. Farting during a Brazilian? Yeah, that might make my cheeks get a little red too.

I always have to have the shower curtain open when I'm anywhere in the bathroom.  Otherwise, I can't shake the fear that there's a psycho or monster hiding behind it and waiting to lunge out and attack me.

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I was afraid to be in a dark room with a mirror when I was a kid, after learning about “Bloody Mary. I’m 33 now, and it still makes me uneasy.”

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I don't fear being killed by a disease or accident nearly so much as I do being left handicapped or invalid by one.

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We’re also afraid of being physically harmed—like maimed from an accident or someone stabbing us through the shower curtain. All the scary movies we watched as kids didn’t help either.

One of my greatest fears as a mother is that my children will grow up feeling about me the way I feel about my mother.

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My 3 year old started prek. They confirmed what i was fearing for the last months...he is delayed. And this momma s heart is broken for what the future holds for him.

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The worst part of parenting for me is living in constant fear that I’m not being a good enough mother, a good enough role model. I just want to lay in bed and watch tv because I’m in pain, but I feel so guilty that my kids will see me doing nothing.

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While they seem happy & fairly well-adjusted now, my biggest fear is that my kids will look back in 10, 20, 30 years, realize I wasn't that good of a mother, and end up hating me.

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And because our entire entire world is wrapped up in our kids, we fear that we’ll turn out to be shitty moms or we’ll fail them somehow. That’s the one that really keeps us up at night.

I’ve decided to divorce on the off chance I could maybe be a little happier I fear this means I will be struck by some horrible illness.

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My mother is my best friend and I would much rather co-parent with her than my man child of a husband. She is 73 and I'm afraid that when she dies I will be truly alone.

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I don't want to leave because I'm afraid I'd lose the great relationships I have with my inlaws.

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At the age of almost 55, and after a crappy relationship after my divorce, I don't want to compromise my life anymore for any man. But, at the same time, I am afraid that I will be alone forever, into my old age. That scares me.

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Another common fear is being alone. Whether it’s because of divorce or death or just getting older, the thought of being truly alone can be downright terrifying.

One of my greatest fears is that I will make a presentation to management and, when I'm done, the company president will say, "My God - I'd heard about you, but didn't believe it. You really ARE that stupid!"

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I ask so many questions out of a fear of being yelled at if I do something wrong, that everyone has labeled me as spineless and indecisive.

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In the pursuit of wanting to be an A+ parent/home schooler and an effective virtual leader at work, I fear I'm doing neither. It's only leading to more stress which is making me angrier as a parent and increasingly apprehensive to lead.

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Fear dominates my decision making.  I'm terrified to make any kind of long-term commitment, especially financial, because, even if I'm in a good spot NOW, I'm afraid things will go to shit and I'll be stuck with big obligations that I can't meet.

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And we fear failure. We worry that we’ll fuck up at work and our boss will think we’re stupid, and we worry that we’ll fuck up in life and be unable to pay the bills and properly function as adults. The fear of failing is real and heavy.

So whether it’s a common one like arachnophobia or something more unique like a fear of pitting out during a work presentation, chances are, someone in our confessional can definitely relate to whatever it is that you’re truly afraid of.

Especially if it’s spiders. Or MILs. They’re literally the worst.