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Please Help with Irrational Fears
I am a 26 year old woman and I get so frustrated with myself because I have quite a few irrational fears. What doesn't make sense is that I KNOW they're irrational and I'm still afraid of them anyway.
My sister's getting married Saturday and insisted that I get a tan for the wedding. My choices were to get a spray tan or get a real one. Since spray tans aren't really my jam, I chose to get a real one with the use of a tanning bed. Today was about my fifth day to do so and its so hard for me to relax in those beds. I keep thinking about getting overheated, getting burned, getting skin cancer, damaging my eyes and most ridiculously, the plastic over the bulbs breaking or melting or one of the bulbs exposing or something.
My biggest problem with spray tans is that I wouldn't be able to shower, wash my hands, or use hand sanitizer for a certain amount of time and I'm WAY too germphobic for that.
I'm afraid of all kinds of things. Food poisoning, riding on an airplane, going outside alone after dark, anesthesia wearing off at the dentist's office, bugs crawling on me while I'm asleep and all kinds of other things.
I know I probably need counseling, but please give me some other advice as well. Also, are any of these fears as irrational as I think they are?
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Maybe give some free advice about: Mental health?
Some of these fears are not irrational as such. But a proper analysis of risk starts with the severity of the problem multipied by the probabilty of it happening. Thus on a scale of zero to 100 an aicraft crash could well rate a severity of 100, the probabilty of a particular aircraft actually crashing is much less than one. If we put it a 100,000 to 1 against the risk becomes 100 x 0.00001 = 0.001. That's 0.001 on a scale of 0 to 100. Not a high risk then, eh? Strong irrational fears are usually termed phobia. We cannot readily be talked or reasoned out of them as they reside in a part of our mind which we cannot talk directly to or reason with. A less direct approach is needed which will require face to face consultation with a psychiatrist if the fears are impacting significantly on your quality of life.,
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Some of your fears are not all that irrational. The fear of going out alone at night is unfortunately a justified fear for any woman. It is an unfortunate sign of our time that a woman is not safe alone on the street in her own community or town. Your fears concerning the Tanning bed, many of them are things to be concerned over.
Being a germ phobic, riding on planes anesthesia wearing off and food poisoning are irrational to different degrees. Germ phobic is greatly irrational. Food poisoning does happen if you do not cook certain foods properly or wash vegetables properly. When eating out choose restaurants carefully and you can even check their ratings with your health department.
Your fear of planes is actually not a fear of flying it is the fear of crashing. Given the safety record of todays passenger airlines and the planes being built today this is too becoming an irrational fear. You are much safer traveling by air than by Rail, bus or by car. I don't have the actual statistic or I would give it to you but it is multi-million times safer to travel by air than any other mode of transportation.
Yes you do need counseling and I would advice you seek out a good psychologist to work with to control these fears. For if you let these fears control you, you will have a very fearful and dull life stuck behind closed doors.
As for getting a Tan for your sisters wedding. If you can do so without getting a sunburn fine. If not don't do it. The last thing you want is to be standing there either all red or peeling.
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