Lastnight I was watching the 1st season of Smallville and in one of the episodes some guy asked another person what they feared most.
I started thinking about this and thought about posing the question to you. What do you fear most?
I guess about 2:30 a.m. this morning, after not being able to sleep, I started thinking about this and should have gotten up to write about it cuz I tend to have the most brilliant of thoughts at this hour (or so I think), but I didn't. So... in thinking about it today and examining myself, I would have to say that if I still lived in the States and in the big city (Dallas, Plano area), I would have to say that my biggest fear would be of getting raped.
While living alone in the city and as a woman, you tend to think about these things - rape, murder, sexual assault and the likes. Or maybe it's just Americans who think about this stuff - I'm not sure - I guess since we're raised on fear, it seems appropriate now in thinking about it that I would obsess about that in my life.
In saying this, I can remember living in some apartments near Plano and it wasn't but right down the street that a lady was raped right outside of her garage when she was bringing in groceries one evening - her husband was w/ her and he was held at gunpoint while she was raped in front of him, and then the husband was shot and killed.... after hearing about this I can remember being really afraid. Rape was something that you heard about all the time. It was on news reports, in the paper... I even worked w/ a girl that had been raped in her own neighborhood by a guy that lived on one street over from her. She lived in Plano.
She had gone out for her morning run and he had been watching her and the schedule she kept for weeks. Well, that particular morning, he grabbed her and took her into the woods not too far from her house, where he proceeded to rape her multiple times over the next few hours. He also made her take off all of her clothes and follow him from place to place inside the woods.
I remember when she was telling me about it, about how her husband had asked her not to go that morning and how she had had second thoughts but went anyway..... and how she had seen this guy many times before, and the eerie feeling she got when she saw him that morning. She even crossed the street to avoid him, only for him to cross over to the same side. He held a gun to her head, smoked crack and threatened her life while he was raping her. Her husband and two daughters went out that morning after she didn't come home looking for her, not knowing that she was in the woods not far from their house w/ this maniac of a rapist.
He finally left her, after blindfolding her and telling her not to move. She waited until she couldn't hear him any longer, took off the blindfold and ran for her life. When she got out to the street, some ppl spotted her and took her to the hospital where her husband was called, the police, she filed a complaint, etc. She later went to court to testify against this man and they put him away... not for life, but for several years. She told me that the fear and memories lived inside of her though and wondered if they always would.
I've had what I consider to be two close encounters w/ this myself... nothing like what she experienced but it scared me nonetheless. Rape is a terrible thing and no woman should ever have to go through that... and I am thankful that I live in a country where I'm not afraid of that, like I was in the States. Not that Bahrain doesn't have problems w/ sexual assault because it does happen, but I don't feel afraid here like I did living in Dallas.
I have a lot of things that I fear... I'm not sure if it's really healthy, but I find that it's better to be open to the idea rather than to live in a fog that nothing will ever happen to you... plus, I'm really pretty much a fatalist, I would say.
Anyway... I think that this rape fear is not as strong as it used to be cuz I now live in Bahrain and I'm thankful for that.
My next biggest fear would be dying of cancer. This is scary to me and I really fear it. Yeah, I know it's sorta morbid to think about death and/or extreme fear, but I do it. I sometimes even think about how I will die. I don't sit and worry about it or anything and I don't think about it daily, but it has crossed my mind in the past. And when I do think about it, I think about cancer. So... this will be another post at a later time... about death... and I'll talk about cancer then... until then... tell me about what you fear most.
And to wrap this post up in a sweet way cuz I don't wanna bring all of you down by talking about rape and cancer ;) ... I'll end it here w/.... Have a good day my friends.. and enjoy your weekend! Today is the last day of my weekend, so I'm really trying to make the best of it!!
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10 comments:
My biggest fear is to loose my parents. I am so afraid of that. When my mom was getting sick long time ago, that I had to run to the pharmacy late at night, I would pray to god so hard to take part of my life and donate her, I prayed her sicknesses come to me, instead of her and surely I prayed for her well being, what I do till now.
After a while I started to find the same problems in me, well whether it is genes, whether it is what I prayed for, I really don’t care. I even don’t care if I die soon, I just don’t want to loose my parents, I am not ready for it. I always felt that I have some kind of connection with God, and what I always wished happened, alhemdullah.
Today very nice thing happened, I will disclose on my blog about it later when I have time. And knowing that, made me feel so happy.
Other than that, I don’t think I am that much connected to anyone (not anymore) that it could cause me to have fear about it. I am like you, I am fatalist, what should happen will happen.
Have a nice weekend,
Puppy.
My biggest fear is not being able to answer a question someone asks me, e.g. "What do you fear most?"
After a bit of thought, I think perhaps my biggest fear is abandonment , i.e. being cast aside and forgotten by people close to me.
Anecdote alert:
Your post reminded me of something that happened early in my life in Japan. It was the last year of my first job here, which was as a teaching assistant at some public senior high schools in this area.
On entrance exam day that year I was assigned to be a "secure courier" (for lack of a better term), i.e. I had to collect the exam papers from one of the exam rooms, inspect them to make sure there were no unusual marks, deliver them to the checkers, collect and inspect them again, and sign them to verify there was no sign of foul play. There were five of us assigned to this duty, four men (including me) and one woman, and we were literally locked inside a waiting room during the entire period examinees were present in the building. It was a long wait in a small, cold room, so about all we could do was huddle around the stove, drink tea, eat snacks, and talk.
Anyway, the topic came up of a recent incident in which three Japanese junior high girls on a school trip to Italy were confined and raped repeatedly by a Japanese-speaking Iranian man while his accomplice held them at bay with a Japanese sword. It turned out that, in the beginning, the man had met the three girls in the street and invited them to visit his home. They did so of their own free will, saying afterword they went because he was "handsome".
One of the male teachers in the room said, "You know, it would be so easy for any of us to do that with our girl students here." The other two Japanese men agreed, and they then began talking eagerly about which particular students they wanted to rape.
Meanwhile, the one female teacher locked in the room with us (who was also the youngest person there) sat quietly in the corner with a very displeased look on her face. The men ignored her completely, and I felt very sorry for her.
Finally, the men turned to me and started asking me which girl students I wanted to rape. I replied by turning to the female teacher and asking, "How does listening to this conversation make you feel?"
The woman looked up with surprise and said, "Oh, I'm not paying any attention. Don't worry about me!"
The men promptly shut up and remained silent for the remaining hour until they let us out. After that, the female teacher took me aside and thanked me profusely.
Just because I'm a heterosexual male doesn't mean I have to be an ass.
puppy, i fear losing my mother too. i try not to think about it tho because it brings sadness to my heart... for i know that one day, it will happen, and that will be a very difficult time in my life.
moody, this story really gets to me! i can hardly get over that these guys were discussing which students they wanted to rape. sorta reminds me of the way some american men sum up women in their office and talk about which they'd like to get w/ etc., altho... rape is considerably a lot worse. were they talking about the kind of rape this iranian man did?? it amazes me really how some men are and the things they say w/out any respect to the women. i feel sorry for these girls. did they ever catch the men who did this? i can only imagine how the girls felt after that! rape is such a terrible thing.
You make me feel so old! I have lost both parents but they did live to be 87 and 93 and had clear minds until their time was up.
There are many frightening things in the world but we just have to take it and move on - don't dwell on them, but just take precautions to not be in bad situations.
My fear though is that our world is sick is many ways and that the people with the power to make a difference just do not.
W.
In light of all the things happening in the world today, I am ashamed to say I am afraid of just about everything...cancer, rape, terrorist attacks, plane crashes, etc. It's pretty inhealthy. But, you just have to move along, take precautions but not dwell, and get on with.
i agree w/ both you W and reem, you have to just keep moving and not dwell. i think sometimes ppl don't understand how a person keeps moving in spite of all that's happening in the world today or certain circumstances in their lives, but i know that in the U.S. a person has to do this in order to survive... i would say that that's the case most everywhere. in reading this back, not sure it makes sense... but i hope it does.
Wow, what happened to your friend must have been terrible. If you still keep in contact with her, I hope she has been able to move on from the situation as much as possible. Yet it says a lot about the judical system here when a person who does that to another only gets a few years in prison.
We have been spending a bit of time in my course work looking at rape and sexual assualt cases in the US in relation to laws and administration. It startles me how people accused of such vile and violent crimes are subject to slaps on the wrist and set free in a few years while other less serious offenders get put in for the same amount of time or greater.
There was that one case for example in New York, where a woman was raped violently outside several apartment complexes. Though her screams woke up most of the neighboring buildings, and people could watch, they allowed it to happen and nobody called the police. I belive that man came back a few minutes after raping her and shot her dead.
I sort of fear those long or painful deaths maybe is my biggest concern... I don't dwell on it too much yet though... maybe some bigger fear will come up and bite me in the ass later when I least expect it!
Tooners, I don't know what kind of rape they were talking about, but they all said that they envied the Iranian guy that raped those three schoolgirls.
As for the Iranian guy himself, yes, they did catch him. However, the girls had to return to Japan and couldn't go back to Italy to testify against him, so they had to let him go. I don't know what has happened to him since then.
What was really funny was that that guy appeared on a popular Japanese quiz/documentary show via satellite TV from Italy soon after his case was dismissed. He said very cheerfully, "I just want the Japanese public to see me and understand that I have been found innocent. I'm not a bad person, and I've done nothing wrong." The members of the celebrity panel immediately tore into him like a bunch of sharks in a feeding frenzy. After taking a thorough flaming, he said pompously, "I didn't think Japanese people could be so rude. Those girls were very nice, but you are rude. I don't talk to rude people." Then he broke the connection.
It was both pathetic and funny at the same time...
moclippa, this girl was a coworker and after i left there, i moved to bahrain and haven't kept in contact. i hope it doesn't scar her forever... that is my hope. i've heard about the case in new york.. it's a pretty famous one and, sadly, this kind of stuff happens all the time w/ ppl not wanting to get involved. can you imagine.. here the guy came back and killed her and no one called the police to help her... no one went there to help her... they all watched and did nothing. the class you're taking sounds very interesting.
moody, i can't get over that this guy was on a show in japan! truly amazing! and to beat all, he went on to say how rude the ppl were to him and then broke the connection. oh, and let's not forget that the japanese girls were so nice and friendly to him... to me, he sounds like the kind of person that takes advantage of women and thinks nothing of it!
odd, i thought i left a comment here last night. I am going to have to spend a bit of time on your last two posts at home later.
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