Fear, and torture

I don't think I'd do well with being water boarded.


First off, I don't care for being upside down. I have low blood pressure, and when I'm upside down the blood pools in my head and makes my eyeballs hurt. I learned this in my early 20's when a fellow I was dating offered to let me see what his fall arrest harness felt like. He hung me from the garage roof ... and then he and his friends went for a beer. At some point of trying to get out, I flipped upside down. I couldn't get myself flipped back upright, so I hung there for a while. I was very upset when they came finally came back.


I am also disturbed by the thought of drowning. I do not say afraid because I enjoy water sports; fear of drowning while swimming, kayaking, or diving does not enter my head. I have always thought, however, that drowning would be one of the least pleasant ways to die.


When I was young, I almost drowned. I was doing underwater summersaults in water that was much too shallow, and got stuck. Upside down. With my head and shoulders wedged up against something. I was afraid, but it was a totally different kind of fear than the panicked terror I felt when I found the tarantula. Drowning was a calmer fear, if that makes sense, more of an "I am going to die, but I'm really not ready to; I really don't want to. Wonder what I can do about this?"  
Where as the tarantula fear was more of an "OHDEARGODTHAT'SABIGSPIDER.REALLYBIGSPIDERreallybigspider...ANDITSFRACKINGMOVING ...awesome ... whimper ...".
Drowning (almost) wasn't like that.  I was gasping and puking when I finally fought loose and got upright, but I never felt irrational, I never felt hysteria.


S and I had a conversation about the nature of fear.  (and may I add, props to the guy for taking it totally in stride when I come out with, apropos of nothing "I don't think I'd do well with being water boarded").  He likened the "rational" fear to going into shock when faced with a serious injury - your brain shuts down all but what it "has to" do to survive.  Where as he guesses that somewhere my brain "knew" that the odds of the tarantula being the deadly kind were slim (and it wasn't, it was a male desert blonde tarantula, about as dangerous as a wasp sting), so my survival instincts didn't kick in, and I was free to freak out.


So I am not sure which fear would kick in if I were being water boarded (not that its likely, but still ...) and I really don't care to find out.


Welcome to how my mind sometimes wanders ...