Writing 101 staff is getting Freudian. They want us to psychoanalyse ourselves by writing out our greatest fear. As Dr Freud enlightened me, my greatest fear already materialised itself when I was born a girl. In his apparent ignorance concerning women, Freud believed that girls were nothing but castrated boys. Every woman then suffers from castration complex, desires to have a penis and also plots to marry her father.
I’d hate to disappoint anyone, but I feel the need to ensure my male readers that Freud’s hypotheses about women are fabrications. I wonder if Freud was more successful in defining the fears and desires of men. I very much hope he was wrong here too. I don’t like the thought that I was my husband’s second choice because what he wanted in the first place was to kill his father and marry his mother. If any man reads this, is that what you want?
My greatest fear is actually the fear that I’ll murder myself. Not by the way of suicide, that would be at least deliberate. I fear that I’ll murder myself accidentally and involuntarily. I fear that I’ll go to sleep and won’t wake up anymore. My fears are based on mysterious things happening to me while asleep. In the last few days, I woke up successively with a sharp stabbing pain in my eye, an irritated purple patch on my leg and a bloody scratch on my nose.
Daytime is not too easy on me either. I’m the kind of person who moves like she’s constantly drunk and wearing high heels, though I’m neither. No door is wide enough for me to pass through it smoothly. Normal doors tend to hit me in my face. Automatic doors won’t open for me. I keep on hitting walls and furniture like a malfunctioning Roomba. I think I’m conspiring to kill myself without my own knowledge. That’s my greatest fear.
Mara Eastern 
Freud is awesome. I disagree with everything he’s ever said, but you’ve got to admire his guts!
And have you tied strapping yourself up while you sleep? I’m sure a straitjacket wouldn’t go amiss. 😉 But I do know what you mean with the weird scratches and bruises… who knows what we get up to when we’re asleep. Sometimes I’m genuinely scared I’m going to wake up suffocating because I’ve buried myself under my blankets!
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Exactly what you said about Freud! I love him though I disagree with him in almost everything! No, I surely haven’t tried sleeping in a straitjacket yet. Wouldn’t that be mad? Just asking 😀
I’m relieved to hear that I’m not the only one who mutilates herself in sleep! I think I can dispel your fears from suffocating — my husband reports I always sleep with my head completely covered, but I don’t feel like I’m lacking air. (That is, until I die there… :-o)
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well I am going to write a serious comment for a change as i am concerned with what you said and i always turn in to mother hen in these situations, but you can of course ignore me, tell me I am teaching you to suck eggs, but I need to say, firstly if you are bumping in to things did you get your ears checked as that effects balance or maybe you suffer from dyspraxia, my son has it and it really messed up your concept of placement of things? As for night time, the pain in the eye, cranial sacral therapy ‘might’ help, it did for me i used to feel like someone was sometimes stabbing a knife in my left eye went on for years but they got rid of it. As for what you are doing in your sleep, why not record yourself? At least it will givey ou an idea what you are doing. Oddly i am wearing a fitbit band and it records my sleep, not video, but it tells me my good sleep my awake times and fidgetting times, omg my son has one too first night last night and he woke up 3 times and fidgetted 27 times compared to my 3 times and he slept walked so we are going to get some idea now of what is going on with him x
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Ha! Thank you a lot for your serious comment. I read it very carefully and there is a number of good points that I was unaware of. I do need to see my doctor for a regular check, no matter how I hate it 😦 You shouldn’t worry about me though, the post is obviously slightly exaggerated — poetic licence!
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yes well you are my fiance of course i worry about you! x
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That’s sweet, so OK, do worry, but not too much!
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hehe, winks x
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Ima rather glad you have no penis, and I don’t think less of you for not. My mother was a horrible cook, why would I wanna marry her? Plus, she’s dead, so that would be a whole nutha’ can ‘o worms😉
Freud and the rest of his lot were crazier than the people he studied!
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Ha! Thanks for validating me 🙂 It’s reassuring to know that you have no desire to marry your mother. That’s what I was hoping! Freud is in any case a great fun 😀
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I was thinking something similar last night. I was in bed trying to fall asleep when I remembered something I’d read a long time ago, where it said that it was (or might) be possible to will yourself to death. You know how you read about the mourning husband/wife who dies of a broken heart? Then I remembered that my aunt thought that my grandmother had willed herself to death. THEN I began thinking, if it’s possible, could I will myself to death right now? Then I tried to stop thinking about willing myself to death just in case I accidentally willed myself to death by trying not to will myself to death because I was thinking about willing myself to death. Luckily that confused me so much I think I fell asleep because I can’t remember anything else afterwards… until I woke up.
Unless I’m dead.
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Oh my, this is actually very serious but you made it sound hilarious — that’s what I love about you! I’m sure you can really will yourself to death, but I’m not going to prove it. I assure you that you haven’t willed yourself to death yet and that you’re alive, unless I’ve succeeded in accidentally killing myself and am dead too. 😮
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I noticed this post in another one written more recently.
I really admire Freud and am rather thankful for all he’s done for psychology and thus,for the world as a whole.(Freudian lessons are heavily used in diverse departments.)
However I don’t think he is right all the time nor do I opine that his theses,proven valid in some cases,are all-encompassing.For instance I’ve often stumbled upon the Oedipus Complex theory while looking for interpretations of some classics.While this may apply for certain people,it doesn’t hold true for some.
I don’t particularly like my mother; we have barely anything in common.As odd as this may sound,I often reflect on how my future life will include another woman,a woman of my choice this time!
I don’t like my father either.He is devoid of any aesthetic sensitivity and has many flaws,among which are his dictatorial and paranoid tendencies.I’m really looking forward to the day I will leave his house for some far-away apartment!
If Freud and his disciples knew only about my disdain for my father,they might conclude that I’m one of the ‘many’ guys seized by the Oedipus Complex,when they are actually far from the actual truth.
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You put it very well. I too value highly Freud’s contribution to psychology in general, but I do think that some of his thoughts are simply exaggerations.
I’m surprised to hear that you’re not on so great terms with your parents. I thought it was me who doesn’t like her parents! Well, so that makes two of us at the end.
I must admit that there might be something about Freudian claim that daughters tend to marry men similar to their fathers. No matter how I may dislike my father, I’m increasingly surprised to discover how similar my husband to my father actually is. The fact that my father likes my husband very much and is more often in contact with him than with me is only further evidence. So, in some things, Freud was probably right…
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