Overcomming a fear and changing your life

By Stoffel
in Member Milestones

 Share

Recommended Posts

Grand Master

Stoffel

Posted
Posted

Has anybody here on Neowin had a (irrational) fear they overcame that changed there life?

For the longest time I was afraid of the ocean.

I was born in 1977 so i consider myself a kid from the Jaws generation.

So for the longest time I had an irrational fear of getting attacked in the ocean.

In 2003 a friend of mine convinced me to go and dive while on a holiday.

It wasn't a natural thing for me but i did overcome my fear of the ocean.

I liked it so much that I gave up my day job as a computer consultant in Belgium and moved to a tropical Island on the coast of Honduras

I've been living here for 6 years now and teach people how to dive on a daily basis

Does anybody else here have a similar story they would like to share?

Grand Master

Stoffel

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I was afraid of lizards, and still am. :(

Don't want a life-changing experience with them. :D

Where I live now we have huge iguanas running around :)

I don't mind those, but I'm still not cool with the scorpions, even now that i know that a sting from those is the same as a bee sting.

Mentor

Gladiatorus

Posted
Posted

I was afraid of dogs. I've never been much of a dog person myself, I like cats so much more, but when I was about 8 y/o I was attacked by a dog, nothing serious, in fact I hardly think it was an attack; I was just in front of it leanning down to scratch it's head and it pulled a front paw hitting my upper lip. The dog's nails made two very deep cuts splitting my lip in three almost from the nose down. I had to be vaccinated against rabies (those mother effers hurt like hell) and had 10 or 12 stitches. I then became VERY afraid. As years went by, the fear went away. I still treat dogs with lots of respect but I just don't walk across the street to the other sidewalk whenever I see someone walking his/her dog anymore. I can even pet them if they come close in peace sniffing to get to know me.

I still like cats so much more though.

I don't know if this is a life-changing achievement but I certainly live with more peace of mind. Hell, my brother in law has two large retrievers and I play with them like ragged dolls, I can pull their food out of their mouths, pull their ears, poke their eyes, carry them up and all sorts of stuff and they keep moving their tails and asking for more. It's almost the same with my dad's dog, a mini schnauzer. But I wouldn't do all these things to a dog that I don't know and doesn't know me enough.

Grand Master

Stoffel

Posted
  • Author
Posted

I was afraid of dogs. I've never been much of a dog person myself, I like cats so much more, but when I was about 8 y/o I was attacked by a dog, nothing serious, in fact I hardly think it was an attack; I was just in front of it leanning down to scratch it's head and it pulled a front paw hitting my upper lip. The dog's nails made two very deep cuts dividing my lip in three almost from the nose down. I had to be vaccinated against rabies (those mother effers hurt like hell) and had 10 or 12 stitches. I then became VERY afraid. As years went by, the fear went away. I still treat dogs with lots of respect but I just don't walk across the street to the other sidewalk whenever I see someone walking his/her dog anymore. I can even pet them if they come close in peace sniffing to get to know me.

I still like cats so much more though.

I don't know if this is a life-changing achievement but I certainly live with more peace of mind. Hell, my brother in law has two large retrievers and I play with them like ragged dolls, I can pull their food out of their mouths, pull their ears, poke their eyes, carry them up and all sorts of stuff and they keep moving their tails and asking for more. It's almost the same with my dad's dog, a mini schnauzer. But I wouldn't do all these things to a dog that I don't know and doesn't know me enough.

Maybe not life changing like you say, but never the less you did overcome a very real fear, So good on you.

I love dogs, but just like you i will not just start playing with any strange dog. I need to get to know them and feel comfortable around them before i will play with them

And thanks for sharing

I didn't really think about it when i posted it, but sharing a fear might not be as easy for everybody

Grand Master

FMH

Posted
Posted

...

I'm afraid of dogs too. But now it has improved a lot. Had some bad experiences around 5 years ago.

Once I got chased, other time it just sort of pounced at my feet. I had 3~4 bad experiences around a month's time span. No wonder, I developed a phobia of some kind.

But it has improved a lot. I learned that dogs can sense fear, and you need to be confident around them, if you don't want him to attack you or bark at you.

Veteran

Alwaysonacoffebreak

Posted
Posted

I've been afraid of heights since I can remember. Once had to work on construction on a TV tower, that made me almost crap my pants. Over a week or two it slightly passed but lets be honest, I won't be running up to any hights still.

This is probably the most common fear? :)

Veteran

Alwaysonacoffebreak

Posted
Posted

Without a doubt. Most people are afraid of dying. ;)

Well yeah I got one more thing, guess it ain't actually a fear to be exact but I have hard time eating infront of other people, don't know why but it feels uncomfortable lol and seems I can't overcome that. Took me 2 months to actually eat infront of my girlfriend lmao.

Grand Master

FMH

Posted
Posted

Well yeah I got one more thing, guess it ain't actually a fear to be exact but I have hard time eating infront of other people, don't know why but it feels uncomfortable lol and seems I can't overcome that. Took me 2 months to actually eat infront of my girlfriend lmao.

Yeah, it is awkward for me too if I'm the only one eating. Though if everybody is eating, it isn't a problem for me.

Grand Master

Stoffel

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Without a doubt. Most people are afraid of dying. ;)

See that's where my fear of the ocean came from too i think

It wasn't the ocean per se, but the fact that you could get attacked by a shark and die

Mentor

MidnightDevil

Posted
Posted

I always had fear of becoming a dad.... when at 2007 my ex gf gave birth to the most beautifull baby I ever seen....

I tried to live with it naturally, putting her to sleep... playing with her... but right in the first days you'll realize there's nothing to be afraid off... there's nothing better in the world then putting your own baby to sleep and just stay there watching :)

.... Now I fear the day she has her 16 birthday... lol

Grand Master

Axel

Posted
Posted

I've been afraid of heights since I can remember. Once had to work on construction on a TV tower, that made me almost crap my pants. Over a week or two it slightly passed but lets be honest, I won't be running up to any hights still.

This is probably the most common fear? :)

You shouldn't be afraid of heights. You should be a afraid of FALLING from them, which is entirely rational :p

I have yet to discover an irrational fear, I don't think I have any.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Posts

    • Ford execs say they made a mistake when they replaced human engineers with AI

      By TsarNikky · Posted

      How many other companies will follow Ford's lead? Or, have they already gotten lazy and become enslaved to AI--and now can't figure out how to get out of that mess.
    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval

      By TsarNikky · Posted

      Why would any self-respecting intelligent person follow any recommendation by Donald's GOP administration? With almost two years of fabrications, deceit, and blatantly illegal behavior, why believe them now? They had best be gone after the November 2026 election, so we'll wait and see.
    • AltSendme 0.4.1

      By Copernic · Posted

      AltSendme 0.4.1 by Razvan Serea AltSendme is a minimal, cross-platform application designed for fast, secure, and private peer-to-peer file transfers. It allows users to send files or entire directories directly between devices without relying on cloud servers, accounts, or any personal information. Everything is encrypted end-to-end using modern protocols like QUIC and TLS 1.3, ensuring both strong security and low-latency performance. Transfers are verified with BLAKE3 for data integrity, and interrupted downloads automatically resume, making the experience reliable even on unstable connections. You can transfer anything—images, videos, documents, and more. Integrity checks are performed on both ends, so your files are automatically verified for correctness during both sending and receiving. AltSendme works seamlessly across local networks or long-distance links, capable of saturating multi-gigabit connections for extremely fast delivery. With built-in NAT traversal and encrypted relay fallback, it connects devices almost anywhere. The app integrates with the Sendme CLI and will soon support mobile and web platforms. Fully free and open-source, AltSendme offers a lightweight, privacy-first alternative to traditional cloud-based services, removing size limits, upload costs, and unnecessary data exposure. AltSendme 0.4.1 changelog: Release Highlights Self-hosted relays: Run your own iroh relay so transfers don't rely on public infrastructure. Includes a full deployment template in deploy/relay/ with Docker Compose for a VPS and configuration examples for production use. Fly.io support: One-click deploy template for Fly.io, including a quick-start config (fly.dev.toml) for testing without a custom domain, plus production setup with Let's Encrypt and your own hostname. Relay settings UI: New Settings → Network panel to choose how AltSendme connects: automatic public relays, custom self-hosted URLs (with optional auth token), or disabled. Test connections, verify latency, and see live relay status in the footer. Disable relays: Turn off relay servers entirely when you only need same-network transfers (e.g. LAN). Direct connections only. No relay hop required when devices can reach each other. Android graduates from beta: Android is now part of the regular release cycle alongside desktop. APKs ship with each version (universal, arm64, and armv7). Other improvements Private relay access control via shared auth token Relay fallback notifications when a custom relay is unreachable Broadcast mode toggle in sharing settings Android release build fixes (split-per-ABI APKs, universal APK preservation) UI polish: mobile safe-area insets, dropzone layout, transfer progress animation Bug fixes for minification-related serialization issues and system tray icon loading What's Changed feat(relay): add relay status functionality and settings UI (a120cdf) feat(relay): implement custom relay server configuration and verification (51276c7) feat(relay): add configuration for private relay access and enhance observability features (48fbabf) feat(relay): enhance relay URL validation, display connection status (d4fffa0) feat(relay): add RelayChangeGuard component and enhance relay-related translations (16ba514) feat(broadcast): add toggle setting for broadcast mode in sharing UI (ca6d977) fix(relay): correct QUIC discovery port, pin image, templatize fly.dev (52a2ba5) fix: More broken serialization due to minification (67491a9) fix(android): preserve true universal APK across per-ABI builds (e9f256f) fix(ui): conditional safe-area insets padding on mobile (1182f0e) refactor(transfer): CircularRing component animation fix (944572b) chore(android): drop x86 and x86_64 release APKs, keep universal+arm64+armv7 (34ada0b) Download: AltSendme 0.4.1 | ARM64 | ~9.0 MB (Open Source) Download: AltSendme for MacOS | Android Links: AltSendme Home Page | GitHub | Screenshot Get alerted to all of our Software updates on Twitter at @NeowinSoftware
    • Why Delta Chat is the best decentralized messenger you have probably never tried

      By zikalify · Posted

      You are mostly right about the ephemeral nature of it. As I mention in the article, if you dont add a second device or take a backup of your account before uninstalling it, then yes you will lose access to your account. That said, in terms of actual user experience when you sync multiple devices your message history carries across and there's also a Saved Messages chat like there is on Telegram to send messages and attachments between your installs. But yh, what you point out are correct and its not trying to emulate Messenger or Telegram.
    • You've tried DuckDuckGo and Brave Search, now get serious with SearXNG

      By zikalify · Posted

      OK so SearXNG is a meta search engine that you can install locally or use via a public instance. It scrapes other search engines which you choose and then sorts the results. Not as complicated as multiple relays

  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      flexorcist earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Woland13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Woland13 earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done

  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      495
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      225
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      150
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
    Show More

  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!