Is there anything that you're paranoid about?

I’m afraid of the chemicals in toothpaste. I floss and wipe with a bit of toilet paper or a bathroom towel.

The possibility of a painful, drawn out death.

Why? What have you heard about me?

Fire for me too. It is one of the few things I am OCD about checking. I make sure my curling iron is unpluged before I leave the house and make sure the stove is off. I unplug the toaster oven when I leave town. I almost never use candles, except for Chanukah and I have aluminum foil below the menorah and I don’t leave the room. I know people who leave a candle lit in the bathroom, I would never do that.

I am paranoid about throwing up. When I first learned about bulimia as a teen I could not believe anyone chooses to throw upI I will go to lengths to guard against getting a stomach flu or food poisoning. This also extends into worrying about cancer treatment if I had to go through drugs that cause stomach upset and even any general surgery, because the drugs can cause nausea. This fear is actually milder now than when I was younger, but still fairly present for me.

Paranoid about writing I am Jewish on a form. I don’t write it on hospital forms or most any form. When I got married and took my husband’s very Jewish surname my first thought was if I am on a hijacked plane I will be a big target, and probably one of the first dead.

Paranoid about advertising I am Jewish in some situations, like wearing a Jewish symbol or putting a symbol on my house. Also, preforming for Jewish events and going into synagogues. I do perform for events though, and I go to weddings and bar mitzvahs, and just hope nothing bad happens.

All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy. Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify.

@JLeslie When I use the oven, I always put the oven timer on so when the timer goes off, the oven goes off. It seems to work as far as eliminating any doubt that I tunred the oven off. I agree with you about candles. I don’t leave them in a room, unattended. I remember about 10 years ago, I had a cleaning lady and she left a candle burning on the table near the front door. I was so annoyed because I have cats, and they could have jumped up on the table and knocked the candle over, and it would be all over. I get what she was trying to achieve, she wanted to make it like a welcoming, warm feeling when I walked in the door, but she wasn’t thinking, doing that.

I am somewhat paranoid about litter. Seeing litter reminds me of everything that is wrong in man’s relationship with the natural world. I pick up my litter and sometimes that of strangers but it is hopeless it is the attitude of those dropping litter that is the problem and it isn’t easy to change that.

Litter means endless convoys of vehicles carrying waste to landfill. It means industrial pollution that kills wildlife and ultimately ourselves. When I see a gaudily coloured discarded crisp packet glowing among the honest weeds I feel a sense of despair because I know it cannot be picked up.

Who told you to ask me that?

IDK. Flesh eating bacteria?

I’m not that crazy about fire myself. I think it’s because when we were kids our mom didn’t let us play with sparklers or anything of that kind. She told us a story about a girl who, when she was young, had caught her hair on fire by accident by playing with a sparkler. Since then, I have not been comfortable with fire. I’ve had candles in the past although now I use a scented wax melter which is far superior! But even back then I used one of those long devices to light the candle as opposed to a match. It’s just not my thing.

I think I probably overly worry about my cats getting out by accident, but I don’t know that that would be classified as paranoia. I just know that sometimes I worry a little too much about that, like if somebody holds the door to the outside open too long. Part of that is because cats are known to be fast, and I also know that, due to my cats’ particular nature, if they got outside, they would be so traumatized that I would probably never be able to find them because they would go hide someplace. Yesterday was a nightmare for me because they were replacing all the windows in our apartment building. I did finally manage to get my one cat in the walk-in closet and the other in the bathroom, but then, even after all the people had left, I couldn’t find my one cat for hours and I was frantic that she had somehow gotten outside. She did finally make an appearance about 6 hours later but she was hiding in such a really good spot that I could not find her at all.

Train tracks.

I haven’t used my oven timer. I didn’t know it shuts off the oven. Does it work with stove top too?

My realtor in NC kind of made fun of me when I told her I don’t use candles. Several months later she told me a candle tipped over (tall candle) that was set on her dining room table for Thanksgiving dinner. She had a centerpiece of dried something or other that was autumn themed. The whole thing caught on fire. She made it in on time from the kitchen to stop it from going beyond the dining room, but her heirloom dining table was ruined by the fire and part of the wall and curtains.

@JLeslie that would have freaked me out! Yeah, I think once I started having cats, I became a lot more cautious around candles in general because you can have the cats running around like crazy and they might knock it over by accident. And then when I started renting, there were all these things in the lease about not leaving lit candles unattended and such. At that point I used to extinguish the candle every time I left the room. But now I prefer my wax warmer anyway.

Being very cautious about fire has been handed down at least two generations on my mom’s side. I don’t remember ever seeing candles in my grandparents’ houses or any aunts either. I remember my mom saying her dad was always very cautious about anything that could catch fire.

My husband thinks I’m not romantic because I don’t like candles.

@JLeslie my mom did birthday candles and occasionally would have a candle or two in the middle of the table for a special dinner, like Thanksgiving or something. When we were young, my dad used to cook burgers on the grill in the backyard, but we eventually stopped doing that. That apparently was more because my dad didn’t like to have to clean the grill afterwards. But I still think that the way my mom presented fire to us, especially with that sparkler story, kind of put me off of it. I remember being at a friend’s house on the 4th of July years ago, and a couple people had sparklers they were playing around with, and I just kind of distanced myself a bit. When my one friend noticed my reaction, I told him the story and how I had never felt comfortable after that around fire in general. He was very understanding.

Believe it or not, I was in Girl Scouts, and I loved to go camping. I cooked my meals over the fire like everybody else, but somehow that didn’t seem as scary. For three years I rented a duplex that had a wood stove, and even then I kind of liked that, but I was always super cautious. And it had doors that you closed after you tended the fire so I think for that reason it seemed a lot safer too.

I won’t go to buffets / cafeterias because I think the food will be contaminated from all the people reaching in and breathing on the good.

It may be irrational.

@LifeQuestioner My mom did birthday candles. What freaks me out the most about birthday candles is a kid blowing all over my piece of cake.

@JLeslie is that a more recent view, given COVID, or have you always felt that way? I will say that, after the past couple years I’m kind of freaked out about anybody blowing out birthday candles and then us all having a piece of cake.

^^As a little kid I didn’t think about it, but once I hit my late teens I was already pretty careful about sharing germs. Since a very young age my mom told me to not touch my face, not to share make-up, not to drink out of someone else’s glass, don’t share a hair brush, etc. Birthday candles she made an exception, but she probably hated it like me. It’s like you just decide to take a risk that day. I hope with covid the tradition of blowing out the candles has died. Has it?

We didn’t obsessively wash pir hands though or anything very compulsive regarding germs.

I have always been pissed off if someone sick came near me or worse tried to hug or kiss me. My mom used to try to keep the sick person in the house separate from everyone else once we were old enough to be sick “alone.” My husband thought I was terrible at the beginning of our marriage that I would move to the guest room if one of us was sick, but he fairly quickly saw the logic in it.

Maybe girls get told more than boys these sorts of things. Although, I had girlfriends who would kiss almost anyone and that totally skeeved me out. Germs! Even boys I liked I couldn’t understand the expectation of a kiss on a first date. Second date fine, but first date I would rather not.

I’m in my 50’s, I was a young kid in the ‘70’s and dating in the ‘80’s and early ‘90’s.

Hey @RedDeerGuy1….I got braces in the 70s. The orthodontist told my folks all I needed was a water pic and a toothbrush. No toothpaste. He said toothpaste was frivolous, like perfume. Useless.

I was probably a lot more lax than you although some of those things I wouldn’t have done either. And now that we’ve been through COVID, I have definitely become more cautious. Even then, though, I wasn’t one of these people who used hand sanitizer every 5 minutes. In fact, I think using hand sanitizer that much can be kind of harmful because it kills the good bacteria on your skin too. I wash my hands before preparing food and after using the bathroom of course, and also if somebody handed me something and they looked like they had something going on health wise, but otherwise I didn’t take it to the extreme.

Since covid I have become compulsive about washing my hands or sanitizing them when I am outside of my house touching things that other people might have touched.

@LifeQuestioner I never used hand sanitizer unless I was made to do so by where ever I was visiting (like when I voted, they provided it and made everyone use it). I never was into antibacterial soaps, either. I use regular liquid hand soap and have a big thing of it in the bathroom and by the kitchen sink, but it’s not antibacterial.

@JLeslie the oven timer doesn’t shut off the oven. It’s a habit for me, when the timer goes off, I shut off the timer and then I shut off the oven (wall oven).

@jca2 Ok thanks.

I don’t use antibacterial soap at home either, I never did, it doesn’t make sense. The soap itself is already antibacterial. In fact, in the last 4 years or so I have become very sensitive to chemicals and maybe fragrance too, it seems to be mostly cleaning chemicals though. On my counters I often only use soap and water. I do use chemicals in the bathrooms still. Bleach doesn’t bother me much, it’s chemicals like Mr. Clean that want to kill me.

I am paranoid about bugs and other vermin getting into the house. If left unchecked they reproduce faster than a conspiracy theory on Twitter.
If I see one, I figure there are 10 more and go out of my way to kill it, its relatives and anything else in the area even thinking about a visit.

@jca2 and @JLeslie. I use fire a lot: 2 wood burning stoves, 4 fire pits, bonfires. But, I always, always have at least 2 extinguishing methods at hand before I light them.
I just bought another fire extinguisher for the kitchen. It is a new model designed specifically for kitchen fires. It is white, not the usual red.for type A, B, C. fires.
Made by Kidde. It has a different spray nozzle (conical), propellant, and chemical so it doesn’t spread a kitchen oil fire.
It is well worth the ~$25. Kidde Kitchen Fire Extinguisher
This brings my total to 11 fire extinguishers all around my property in cars, garage, barn, basement, and house. I don’t think I’m paranoid – just careful.

I’m not paranoid, but at the same time I’m very vigilant about certain vermin (bedbugs, pantry moths, rats, mice, cockroaches). I know that once established, how extremely difficult and expensive they are to eliminate.

It pays to take precautions.

Also fire. Most are caused by electrical statistically, and an old fan burned my hrandparenrs house down when I was 12 years old. I turn off ceiling fans and everything when I leave home.

Also scared of heights and being in the ocean. On vacations I hug the beach. :(

Elaborating on my post above.
A standard extinguisher has a small tube nozzle that shoots the agent in a narrow, high pressure pattern. If you have a pan of cooking oil on fire it can spread the oil out of the pan.
This new design for kitchens has a high volume, low pressure nozzle with a wide pattern. It will shoot for 8–12 seconds and completely cover the flames with reduced risk of spreading cooking oil out of the pan.
I see that WalMart has them for $22.47.