Day 1 - My Fear of Bees

As I sit here writing, trying to think of fears that I have, the first thing that comes to mind almost immediately is my fear of bees. Although there are many other fears that I have, bees are something that I’ve been scared of my whole life. Even though bees are so small and somewhat harmless, panic always races through my mind whenever I see one.

When I was younger, my mom would always say to me that the bee was probably more scared of me than I was of it, but I never listened. Helen Keller once said, “Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.” My mom would have me pretend to be the bee and think in the perspective of the bee to help me understand it better. Although I realized they only stung people to protect themselves, it didn’t comfort me. I always believed, and still do, that the bee had its mind set to sting me. Whenever I see a bee, something like an alarm goes through me, seeming to put me in my own little world. I forget about everything else that’s going on around me and I’m forced to focus on the bee to make sure it doesn’t sting me.

Luckily, a bee has never stung me. I think if one had, my fear of bees would be even bigger. I’ve heard stories and have seen many of my friends being stung by a bee. Although there are some stories that the person is relaxed and not phased by the bee at all, there are many were this was not the case. There is one story that has always stuck with me; I was in 2nd grade during recess. It was a bright, sunny day and my friends and I were playing around in the fields. All of a sudden, we saw this boy in my class standing perfectly still, not moving an inch. Although none of us knew what had happened, we could tell it wasn’t good. When we asked him what was wrong, he simply answered, “There’s a bee up my shorts.” I’m still perplexed to how he could answer so calmly when his face spoke otherwise. I don’t remember whether the bee ended up stinging him, but the thing I do remember is the fear and helplessness on his face because he knew he couldn’t do anything about it. Maybe it's not actually the bee sting that scares me, but the idea of being helpless and that something so small could hurt me so much.

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