There are many things I am afraid of. Many of which, such as public speaking, I kick myself for being afraid of. I’m not sure why, but I can’t seem to give a speech without sweating a puddle into my carefully crafted script, without my voice wavering, my hands shaking, and my heart pounding. My other fears aren’t any less embarrassing. Sure, serial killers, wolves, axe murderers; scary enough. But my garage at night, my house when I’m alone, the faces I momentarily glimpse in the dark corners of my room? Don’t even get me started. I envy those who seem to be unfazed by things that would scare me. Public speakers for one, but skydivers, bungee jumpers, horror movie fanatics, and all thrill seekers alike. How is it they can conquer so easily what limits me so much? To better understand how I can conquer my fears, I first need to understand why I fear these things.

I figured my first step should be to try to categorize my fear. Researching and cataloguing common phobias feels like getting sucked into an endless whirlpool, which I’m sure is another phobia in the infinite list. The first common fear that came to mind was arachnophobia, the fear of spiders (Arachnophobia.) Many of my friends are deathly afraid of these hairy, beady-eyed creatures, and I’ll admit, I flinch when one of these creepy-crawlies darts across my bathroom floor. “Where the hell did he go?” I whisper to myself. Eventually, I adopt the notion that if I can’t see it, it isn’t there. Thalassophobia is another common fear, which is described as the fear of the dark depths of oceans and of large bodies of water (Cherry.) Another frequent one is xylophobia; the fear of densely wooded forests (Fritscher), often the setting of campfire ghost and ghoul stories. Many are afraid of death, particularly, not knowing what lies ahead after it. While I wouldn’t necessarily attribute my various embarrassing fears to arachnophobia, thalassophobia, or xylophobia, I can certainly see the similarities between them all. In each of these fears, the thing that is scary is what is unknown or unfamiliar. For instance; arachnophobia. While nearly all spiders are venomous, hardly any common house spiders release enough venom in a bite to be dangerous to a human (Enzor.) And that’s if they bite you. Generally, spiders are docile, and they are more afraid of you than you are of them. Furthermore, they’re hardly an inch tall and can be turned to pulp with the drop of a boot. Most arachnophobics know all this, but that doesn’t stop them from being deathly afraid of that which is inferior to them. What is unsettling about spiders is their uncanny and alien-like appearance; the mysteries that surround them. The same goes for the other common phobias.

Thalassophobics aren’t afraid of water, they’re afraid of what could be hiding in its depths. Xylophobics aren’t afraid of trees alone, they are afraid of the eerie silence, only broken by the unexplainable rustled leaves and snapped twigs. With public speaking, I’m not afraid of talking, quite the opposite in fact. I get nervous because I can’t know what is said in hushed tones, I can’t know what everyone is thinking. Are they laughing at me? Do they even care about what I’m saying? Alike with my fear of my eerie basement and haunted garage, and all that hides amongst the shadows. I can’t know what I can’t see. Each of these phobias allow imagination to do some heavy lifting to fill in the blanks of what is not familiar. The commonality I find between my fears and these common phobias is what I would describe as a fear of the unknown, unfamiliar, or uncertain.

But what is it about the unknown that makes it universally scary? Shouldn’t a deathly ghoul or a furry beast be sufficient enough to frighten us? But as I’m sure you know, it isn’t. It is the hollow depths that make our palms sweat, the unsettling quiet that makes our skin crawl, the distorted form, or the unseen ghost that makes our hearts race. The difference, simply put, is anticipation. Anticipation of danger can be just as or even more scary than actually being in danger. Anticipation makes your heart race, but also your mind. What is veiled by the dark?  What hides underneath the false silence? Only your imagination can answer those questions, and imagination is one powerful thing. Horror filmmakers are masters of it. They can make your heart pound, they can make your hands desperately grip the armrests, they can paralyze you where you sit. They can do all of this, and they don’t even have to reveal the ghost, the grotesque monster, or the wicked sorceress. When filmmakers do this, they put you in the chair. You get to take artistic liberties and decide for yourself what the beast looks like. I’ll offer the example of The Boggart, a mystical creature from Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. In Harry’s “defense against the dark arts” class, he and his classmates are challenged to face their greatest fear. An ominous dresser that towers over the students shakes and rattles in a dark corner of the room. The students wonder, could it be a corpselike monster, a giant spider, a mummy? It was in fact, any one of those things. Once the Boggart had emerged from the dresser, it changed its form to be whatever the students were most frightened of. The idea of the unknown or the ambiguous works in a similar fashion. Fear of an ambiguous thing can oftentimes be the most scary of all. This is because our imagination is able to tailor itself to what we fear most. When the beast is finally revealed, it will always fall short of our expectations.

So, now that I understand what I am afraid of and why I am afraid of it, what can I do to overcome it? Let’s first tackle my fear of my haunted garage at night (which is 100% rational). I’m not afraid of the cobwebs, because I can see them, I know them. They’ve been there night and day for as long as I can remember, along with the rest of the junk that’s collecting dust in that old concrete shed. The reality is, I am afraid of what I don’t know. The dark corners, the inexplicable feeling of being watched, the wind passing through the cracks that seem to whisper in my ear, that is what plagues my mind with worry. In Understanding and Overcoming the Fear of the Unknown, Rebecca Joy Stanborough suggests that the simple reason you are afraid of the unknown is because you lack information. Overcoming it means confronting your anxiety directly. Whether through research, exposure, or talking to someone you trust, there are many simple ways you can re-evaluate and rationalize your beliefs (Stanborough.) While I was hesitant at first, this is great advice. The funny thing is, when I shine a light on those dark corners in my garage, there is nothing there. All of a sudden, the once cold, dark, cramped room feels a little bigger; a little safer. Just like any other fear, it is possible to overcome fear of the unknown. With enough time and practice, you can reframe your thinking. After all, what is fear but another thing to conquer?

I feel I’ve accomplished for myself what I intended to with this essay. I’ve figured out what I’m afraid of, why I’m afraid of it, and how I can overcome it. But perhaps for a moment we should consider, maybe it isn’t all about conquering fear. Like all other physiological responses, fear has a function and a purpose. Howard E. LeWine, the Chief Medical Editor at Harvard Health Publishing, explains that what we experience as fear is the release of a series of stress hormones that can lead to what is known as “the fight or flight response.” While I’d like nothing more than to let LeWine take it away, he’d probably talk your ear off with studies and data and complicated science jargon. If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you a story. Put yourself in my 3rd grade spiderman themed shoes. You’re trotting your way to school, in a time when school was full of times tables, juice boxes, and four square. You left earlier than usual today, and the morning sunlight seems to be congratulating you for it, so you decide to take a more scenic route. As you walk, you distract yourself by jumping between cracks in the sidewalk and watching birds land on the trees that accompany your path. You had become so distracted, that you didn’t notice the “beware of dog” sign in blood red letters hung on the fence to your left. All of a sudden, with a horrifying clang resonating through the chainlink fence, a Doberman snaps its razor sharp teeth at you, inches away from your face. Instinctively, you jump back and hold your hands up in defense. Your eyes are wide like someone just doused you in ice cold water, your whole body is shaking with energy and adrenaline, and you feel like your heart might beat out of your chest. Despite that, you survived. The drooling guard dog snarls and barks at you in angry defeat, confined by its burdensome chain staked to the ground. I had never faced danger like that before, but I seemed to have an acute and intrinsic ability to ensure my safety when confronted with it. However, this ability to evade danger wasn’t always as refined as it is now. Dean Mobbs from The National Library of Medicine explains that this is actually an evolved survival response. Through hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection, fear responses have become refined and widespread among humans. Today, when your brain senses life-threatening danger, adrenaline is released throughout your body. Your heart pumps blood at a faster rate, sending oxygen to your brain and muscles, airways in your lungs open wide, and your liver releases glucose and nutrients into your blood stream. While you might sometimes think of fear as an inconvenience, it’s really a carefully orchestrated survival mechanism. These internal adaptations allow your sight and hearing to be sharper and more perceptive, as well as supplying a boost of energy to your muscles (Mobbs.) If that won’t help you fight off or run away from a Doberman, I’m not quite sure what will. In short, fear is not made to limit you. It isn’t a test of your courage or something you’re meant to fully overcome. Rather, the primary purpose of your fear is to keep you alive.

After all this, I’ll forgive myself for being afraid of some things. The human spirit is a powerful thing, and important too. Without our incredible ability to persevere and overcome, we wouldn’t be where we are today. We must listen to this unyielding voice in our heads. We must strive to inform ourselves about what we don’t know. We must endeavor to overcome our fears, because the irrational ones (like public speaking) do limit us. The unfortunate side effect to this headstrong disposition is stubbornness. It is the stubbornness which comes with the human spirit that will not be our savior, but ultimately our doom. This stubbornness is what allows us to ignore the phobias that are engrained deep in our nervous systems through generations upon generations of survival. It is this foolish stubbornness that allows us to take fear for granted, something that is only meant to protect us. It is a virtuous but naïve belief, that we can understand and conquer all, even the gifts of our ancestors. In the end, some things should remain unknown.

Works Cited

“Arachnophobia (Fear of Spiders): Overview & Treatment.” Cleveland Clinic, 12 Sept. 2025, my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/21852-arachnophobia-fear-of-spiders.

Cherry, Kendra. “Thalassophobia (Fear of the Ocean) Symptoms and Ways to Cope.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 6 Mar. 2025, www.verywellmind.com/thalassophobia-fear-of-the-ocean-4692301.

Enzor, Courtney. “Threatening or Harmless? A Look at Common Household Spiders: Moxie Pest Control.” Moxie Pest Control, Termite Control & Local Pest Experts, 1 July 2025, moxieservices.com/blog/threatening-or-harmless-a-look-at-common-household-spiders/. 

Fritscher, Lisa. “What Is Xylophobia?” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 16 Nov. 2023, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-fear-of-the-woods-2671899.

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Warner Bros., 2004.

LeWine, Howard E. “Understanding the Stress Response.” Harvard Health, 3 Apr. 2024, www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding-the-stress-response.

Mobbs, Dean. “The Ecology of Human Fear: Survival Optimization and the Nervous System.” Edited by Cindy C Hagan et al., Frontiers in Neuroscience, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 18 Mar. 2015, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4364301/.

Stanborough, Rebecca Joy. “Fear of the Unknown: Causes, Symptoms, Risk Factors, & Treatment.” Healthline, Healthline Media, 23 July 2020, www.healthline.com/health/understanding-and-overcoming-fear-of-the-unknown#overcoming-fear.