Fears plague all of us, from the young child afraid of the dark to the adult who still takes the stairs every time due to a fear of elevators.
Fears are an ever present reminder that we all have a chink in our armor. The question is, is it possible to find the steel to fill that chink, or must we struggle all our lives with this fault?
"I would say that I am probably most afraid of roller coasters and heights in general because the whole looking down part makes me dizzy. It is pretty much terrifying! I feel like I'm going to die," said Ashley Perczak, a sophomore from Syracuse High.
She added, "I think people can overcome their fears. I think conquering a fear is all mental. You have to have a strong determination that you can do it. Logic and moral support help too."
Other teens like Beatriz Avilla, a senior at Roy High, suggested that fear could be conquered by using willpower.
"I was afraid of heights, but I like amusement parks way too much for my own good," Avilla said. "So one day I just said ... 'I am getting on those rides!' "
Mercedes Brown says her top two fears are heights and deep water.
"But if it came down to the wire, it would be deep water," the junior at Christian Heritage High School said. "It's always dark and you never know what's hiding in there. Heights, at least you can see what's around, but deep water is dark."
Yet Brown still expressed a want to overcome her fears: "I want to conquer my fear of deep water; I guess my main thing would be to learn how to swim. It would at least give me some peace of mind that I would know what to do out in water."
Face it head on
Some teens' fears involve what could happen to those they care about.
Syracuse High sophomore Nick Bybee admitted, "I started being afraid of my parents getting hurt when I was baby sitting when I called both of their phones and they never answered."
He added, "I am willing to conquer my fear. I just need to be less paranoid and realize that they are OK."
"I'm afraid of getting caught doing something I'm not supposed to," said Ken Burton, an Ogden High freshman. "When I get caught, like when we doorbell ditched someone's house and they caught us, I froze up and didn't show my face so they wouldn't know it was me. I just kept my hood down and laid down on the grass."
Burton added that he thinks a person can overcome a fear by facing it more than once and getting used to it.
"I'm pretty sure fears can be conquered when you just work hard enough. It is possible to come over a fear," Christian Heritage High junior Tim Doerks said. "You just have to jump over your own shadow and look the fear in the eye."
A foreign exchange student from Germany, Doerks had to overcome his fear of the unknown.
"I just closed my eyes and said (to) myself, 'You go on an exchange year and it's gonna be great.' It was not easy, and the first two weeks I just wanted to go home, but finally I made it."
Drowning, dying
Being kidnapped is Kimberly Brosius' worst fear. The Weber High junior says it's scary "because it is so unknown and I don't know if it would happen or how it would happen."
She tries to fight this fear by sleeping with a night light, a blanket -- even her parents, she jokes -- and locking the doors.
Spencer Browning, a junior at Ogden High, said he has always had a fear of drowning.
"When I was learning how to swim when I was 6 years old, I was always afraid that if I went into the deep end I wouldn't be able to touch and would drown," said Browning -- now a member of his school's swim team.
Drowning also scares Alex Anglesey, a Weber High junior, and so does suffocating.
"I like air -- if I can't have it, it scares me," said Anglesey.
To deal with his fear of drowning, he said he avoids water: "I hate swimming. I'm just not a water kid."
Billie Shaw, a Weber High junior, said her fear is death, because "I want to know where you go after you go -- like disappearing -- to where?"
To conquer her fear, Shaw said, "I think about how lucky I am to still be here. I also study and see what I believe in, what seems right to me."
Fears may be large or small, some are psychological, some are physical and very real. Fears may hide in a Halloween corn maze or intrude on the safe zone of your own bedroom.
When it comes to facing fear, Matthew Clough, a Syracuse High senior, said, "Just do it, get it over with, and take care of the problems."
TX. correspondents Charlie Anderson, Christian Heritage High; Sarah Bingham, Weber High; Alexandra Burton, Ogden High; Lindsey Larson, Roy High, and Michelle Thurgood, Syracuse High, contributed to this story.
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Megan Stoker is a senior at Syracuse High School. She is intoxicated with the written word and craves challenge. E-mail her at jstoker.1@netzero.com.
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