"fear"

[jazzfish]

(Yes, I'm deliberately talking about this in a metaphor because I don't want to get distracted by context.)

I don't like cold showers. It's painful to stand under a blast of cold water and it keeps on being painful even after the water stops. It's sufficiently painful that I find it mentally difficult to move enough to wash or rinse. I see no upside to subjecting myself to an ice-cold shower. When that's the only option I will go to great lengths (sponge-bath, say) to avoid it.

Is it at all useful to talk about being "afraid" of cold showers? I'm reluctant to describe it that way even though it's probably accurate. I think that's because we talk of fears in terms of things that one "ought" to face down, as opposed to reasonable responses?

Comments

[firecat]

FWIW, I freely admit to having a phobia of being too hot (that causes me to lug an air conditioner wherever I move, including San Francisco).

[jazzfish]

Speaking as someone whose brain shuts down if left at 80 Fahrenheit for more than a couple of hours, that seems entirely too rational to me to be a phobia.

[firecat]

Being afraid of something painful also seems rational.

[jazzfish]

*halfsmile* Thank you. I'm still unsure why I'm so reluctant to think of it as "afraid of."

[firecat]

If "fear" language brings up a lot of Bene-Gesserit-from-Dune nonsense about how all fear is to be faced and conquered, and therefore suggests that you should "get over" your hatred of cold showers by taking more cold showers, then I can see the reluctance.

I don't think of fear that way because I have an anxiety disorder, which means I have enough fear in my life that I have to push through, and refuse to go around subjecting myself to more of it on purpose.

[jazzfish]

... that seems to me to be an eminently good way of looking at it. Thank you!

I think I'm now in the position of needing to work out what to do when I have no choice but to take a metaphorical cold shower. At which point the metaphor has reached the end of its usefulness.

[carbonel]

I think there is a difference between fear and distaste.

I don't like baked beans. I really don't like them, and the sauce alone is nasty enough that it can contaminate other food on the plate that touches it. I have no fear of baked beans (they don't make me want to vomit, for example), but I strongly prefer to avoid them. That sounds like your reaction to cold showers, though of course I can't tell if it also applies to the real item you're not talking about.

When I was young, I might have been embarrassed about my food tastes and perhaps someone could have got a rise out of me by taunting me about them. But I'm old enough at this point (over 60) that I'd just shrug and know that my tastes are mostly fixed, though I still like trying new things.

[jazzfish]

How interesting: there are things I distinctly don't like the taste of (such as cruciferous veggies, which my taste buds are convinced are poison) but I don't think of that as "fear" at all. I might if I thought harder about it? But that suggests to me that there's something else, something plausibly fear-based, going on with cold showers, and also with (may as well say it) loneliness.

In which case I suspect fear is a response to pain, which isn't the same as a deeply unpleasant bitter taste. And fear is in fact what's happening, regardless of what I think I "ought" to do about it.

Hrm.

(thank you!)