8 anxiety creating scenarios that made me the way I am today

When I was little, I liked to read. A lot. I read about Helen Keller, Count Dracula (the abridged version for 5th graders, but still), going to Hell, Head n Shoulders dandruff controlling shampoo (on the toilet when I was going poop) and Unexplained Mysteries. And? I had an extremely vivid imagination. Extremely. Vivid. Also? I was a very anxious child. VERY. (This condition has only gotten worse with age. Thank you, Xanax).

1. So, in a nutshell, I was prepared to suddenly go blind, deaf, lame or retarded, causing me to invite one of the walking dead (possibly posing as a Jehovah's Witness, or my friend Tammy's psycho-religious nutball parents), into our trailer one evening while my mom was at the laundromat. Being blind, deaf and/or lame, I would make an easy target:

2. And once I was bitten, I would go to Hell one day because, hello? Vampires can't get into Heaven. Everyone knows that. I happen to know this fact because I had a babysitter who kept religious tracts around her trailer. Being the avid reader that I was, I found myself perusing through them one morning. It was about a girl named Sandy who does LSD and dies. Then she goes to Hell. Because of free love and drugs. Satan was wearing a red mumu and had on a peace sign necklace. But then it turns out it was just a hallucination caused by a bad dose, so Susan accepted Jesus and the end.

Don't even get me started on how suspicous I was of anyone wearing a peace sign in the 1970's:

ELEVEN. THE ANSWER IS ELEVEN.

3. And about the unexplained mysteries?

THIS. THIS BOOK F*CKED ME UP. BIG TIME. THANKS, GREGORY.

4. Well, let's just say I was convinced I had telepathic powers, so the possibility of a doppelganger was not outside the realm of possibility:

5. Neither was spontaneous combustion:

This would totally happen to me. TOTALLY.

6.Or disappearing into the Bermuda Triangle. This especially terrified me, and whenever we traveled by plane I enquired as to the pilot's understanding of geography and the importance of avoiding the Bermuda Triangle at all costs, even if it was a shortcut. My curiosity eventually became an annoyance to the employees of American Airlines.

7. Being hijacked on a plane going from Illinois to Wyoming (true story) or;

8. Watching my grandfather walking out into the sheep pasture and suddenly disappearing into thin air, as he walked through the pastures, passing through a patch of fog/mist (that's how it happens. Unexplained Mysteries said so).

Fin.