“Mommy, the monster’s hiding under my bed,” a phrase that is well known by mothers all around. We all have had fears from a young age, some go away and others remain throughout adulthood. Here is my life as told through those fears.

  Between  the ages of  3-7 I had a massive fear of the dark. For the first few years I had to sleep with all of the lights in my room on, later upgrading to a nightlight. However, one day my dad came up with an incentive, if I slept with absolutely no lights on in my room for 2 months I would get an iPod touch. I now can only sleep if the room is very dark, so I guess the incentive worked.

The next fear developed one day when my dad was watching The Mummy. In this movie there is a scene where Scarabs (small carnivorous insects) dig into a man’s skin and crawl while under it. I believe that this is enough to scar any eight-year-old. I would have nightmares of said movie scene and wake up screaming, ever since then I have hated bugs and insects. Now that I am older certain bugs don’t scare me, for example a stink bug, but if I see a spider bigger than a penny I will leave the room. My dad still doesn’t know that he is technically the reason I’m scared of bugs… 

The next fear has “died down” in a way, but it still remains, it began around age eleven. I feel like other teenagers can relate to this fear, the fear of growing up. The world is a big place, with endless possibilities and opportunities and adults who tell us that the “real world” is tough doesn’t help alleviate this fear either. The fact that one day most of us are going to be on our own figuring our way through life is scary. 

My final fear is the fear of me not being able to reach my full potential. This one is more a psychological fear and recent. My parents have always told me that if I applied myself and tried my hardest I could achieve anything. I honestly do try hard, however, I’m just like every other teenager and I am extremely lazy (I hope this goes away as I get older). 

Fears will always be apart of people. They develop at a young age and then one decides if they want to conquer it or not. I believe that I have conquered most of my major fears and if not conquered than definitely lowered the seriousness and size of them.