Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Ever since the 5th grade I have had this fear of balls, playground balls,dodge balls, volley balls (which HURT), Any type of ball that is bigger than a fist I'm afraid of... Afraid of getting hurt by one or even hit- even if it doesn't hurt. I realized this today. The way I truly found this out is when I was looking up the phobia word for 'fear of balls' all I found was pretty much about cotton balls. Well after a bout of searching I ran into a few people talking about it that had the same problem. I am not short and not slow, I am pretty good with physical activities such as dodge ball. I think I started to gain this fear when I was in the 5th grade my class went out to play kickball and after. We used a basketball to play that day because that's all we could find. I was on 2nd base. So I was standing there ready to catch the ball at any second- then I got distracted by watching the runner when SUDDENLY I get smacked RIGHT in the jaw with the hard ball. It felt like the Grim Reaper hit my jaw with a frying pan! It hurt. A lot. Unfortunately, I'm unable to faint so I wasn't able to become unconscious. It stung for about a week, why?:
Usually at recess I would play volley ball with my friends, and I decided to the next day; but I got hit in the face right where the basket ball hit me before. That's when I decided not to play from then on...I was never any good at volley ball anyway. From then on I'd flinch when a ball came towards me, rolling or flying. In 6th grade,I nearly failed gym because of this. 7th same thing. 8th...Oh, this year... Today February 06, 2008 I realized I am afraid. Today we were playing this game called 'pin ball' in Gym class... 2 hour...long- NO- dragging long... gym class.
There is half of us on the left side of the court, that's 20, then 20 on the other,the right. Unfortunately all my friends were on the right side. It was RUBBISH.
So, I was in the center of our side and I was doing fine, dodging every ball that came my way until about the middle of the first game. I was being hit every where, but finally realizing it. Thing is during the 2nd game- I was doing fine and having fun until I started to watch the balls fly by me and hit me a few times...I started getting scared just by seeing people trowing them or them rolling them in my direction. I was scared.So; My leg is bruised from hitting the table in art; I was hit directly in that bruise with a brand-new, green, hard, rubber, playground ball.
When I cringed in to grab my leg other balls kept hitting me, left, right, front, and behind. I could barely see with the tears brimming my eyes. I tried to limp quickly over to the wall to take a break. I nearly started to cry.... Until the pain went away. I got back in the game so I wouldn't get in trouble and fail AGAIN. I limped to the closest in-game side, about 1 yard away from the wall I was leaning on for support. And guess what? I was struck right in the jaw by one of the boys... A basketball player at that. I glared at him and screamed,'JESUS CHRIST!' in pain. He KNEW I was in pain and he knew that he hit me. He gave me an evil glare before I even screamed. He did it on purpose. Let's just put it that I only have 3 friends in gym class and I'm hated by the 'higher social status girls' aka the Hollister Addicts. The boy that hit me, Rufus, is one of the 'guy shares' in their group. They dislike me because I'm 'weird'. What I noticed afterwards is that the guys from that status were hitting me and not aiming for the pins that they were supposed to be hitting. I am very shy so I didn't want to tell the coaches. When I went back to hiding in the corner I was hit a few times on purpose and accident. I freaked out each time. Back in the locker room I heard the girls making fun of me about it- I started crying. After I finished dressing I left quickly with my boyfriend and told him I realized I am afraid of gym balls. He said he was too and I asked 'Do you want to cry when one even rolls toward you?' he said 'no...'
By the time I got to science I thought of reasons why balls scared me. And they were all true.