Sometimes I say that I am not scared of hardly anything but that’s not true. I am scared of almost everything. It is more accurate to say that I don’t care if I am scared. I dislike fear stopping me from doing something so I will try to push through it. I think most of my fears are healthy, self-preservation type fears.
One of my deep seated fears is crowds of people. It is a two fold fear. I get really anxious if it starts feeling like I won’t be able to get out. I call it claustrophobia because I am not sure if there is a different word that is more accurate. If I am in the middle of a very crowded room, or in a grocery store in a narrow checkout lane with people both in front and in back of me, I start getting very anxious. It is the thought that I can not get out if I need to. I also have a fear of crowds that turn into mobs. Just thinking about it sitting here in my recliner makes my chest tighten.
A mob can be just a few people, it’s more about mentality and actions than size. It’s the mob mentality when people start losing the boundaries that society has imposed on them and their worst impulses are allowed free reign. A word everyone on the news is throwing around this morning is opportunistic and that is what really makes the cold pit in my stomach. The people who walk through their daily lives doing mostly what they are supposed to but have that edge, the little glimmer of darkness that shows through in times when they don’t get what they want. You know they are just lacking the opportunity to be truly horrible people.
A mob situation gives them the cover they need to be anonymously brutal.
That’s what scares me.
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