Arkoudaphobia: Where It All Began

As defined by Wikipedia (a most reliable source), arkoudaphobia is "the fear of bears." Profound, I know.

If you've frequented this blog for any length of time, you're well aware that I have arkoudaphobic tendencies. I have a great deal of trouble enjoying the wilderness in any capacity for fear that a large and angry bear is lurking ahead, just waiting to devour me. This is especially troublesome the one time a year that we go camping as a family. In the past, I have avoided camping like the plague. But the older my kids get, the more enjoyment they find in it, and the more I'm forced outside of my comfort zone . . . straight into bear zone. Let me be clear. We are not camping in the wilds of Montana or Alaska. We are camping in a modern campground on the busiest camping weekend of the year in lower Michigan where bears, while not unheard of, are largely uncommon. Objectively, I realize that my fear of bears is irrational. And I can laugh at myself most of the year. But on Labor Day weekend, while I'm lying on my air mattress on the floor of a flimsy tent, I can't help but let my imagination run wild. Oddly enough, it hasn't always been this way. I went camping one time a year as a kid and I don't think the thought of bears ever entered my mind. So what changed? Don't most kids grow out of their fears instead of growing into new (irrational) ones? I'm glad you asked . . .

It was a dark night, as most nights are. It was not particularly stormy. In fact, the weather was quite nice. I was a sophomore in college, nearing my 19th birthday, and on a camping trip with some girls from my dorm room floor. It was a small group, only 8 or so of us, all crammed into one tent. Fortunately, it was a large tent with an adjacent screened in "porch" where we left our bags, so we wouldn't have to share sleeping space with our luggage. We had spent a hot, sunny day biking around Mackinac Island, eating s'mores over a fire, and staying up giggling and talking. It was late when everyone started to wind down, and I settled into my sleeping bag aware that it would be some time before I actually fell asleep. I've always dealt with anxiety, and sleeping in a new place has never been easy for me. So it came as no surprise that silence slowly descended over our tent as all of my friends dropped off to sleep and I lay there wide awake.

Unfortunately, it wasn't silent for long. At first, it was just scratching noises. I assured myself it was just squirrels, or maybe a dog from a nearby campsite. But it got louder and closer and my heart started to pound a bit. It soon became apparent that something was rummaging through our luggage just behind the nylon tent wall in front of me. And it was something big. I couldn't see it - not even a shadow, because of the aforementioned dark night, but I could hear it. It was munching and snorting and even emitting a few growls here and there. And that's when terror seized me. I quickly started shaking the girls nearest me and hissing, "There's something right outside our tent. Do you hear that? What is it?!" As the girls stirred to life, panic started to set in. "Is that a bear?! What is it? Oh my gosh! Is it trying to get in here! It's going to eat us!"

The tent had exactly one door and the fearsome animal was situated directly outside of it. We were trapped. Doomed. Left to die at the hands (and claws and teeth) of a vicious bear in a grisly and gruesome death. (Pun intended.) With no other options, we eventually started yelling, "Neighbors? Hey! Someone help!" [Looking back, this is horribly embarrassing. Lol.] Blissfully, the people at the campsites near us started to pore out of their tents and RVs to shoo away the nefarious monster at our door. Finally, someone shouted, "Wow! Those are some big raccoons! You girls ok in there?"

Raccoons. We were afraid for lives because 2 raccoons were fighting over the Mackinac Island fudge that someone had in their backpack.

We all laughed about it, thanked our neighbors profusely, apologized for waking them up over a couple of raccoons, and went back to sleep. And by "all" I mean "everyone but me." I didn't sleep the rest of the night and was more than relieved to go home the next day.

To this day, despite maturity, rational thinking, and a healthy dose of anti-anxiety medication, I still get a pit in my gut when I think about lying helplessly on the floor of a tent. Every noise puts my senses on high alert. When I got married the year after that fateful camping trip, my darling husband informed me that his family always goes camping on Labor Day weekend, and we'd have so much fun tenting it on a campsite near his parents and siblings. He was wrong. I had my first full-fledged panic attack in the tent that night while he slept obliviously beside me.

I tried to tell myself that there were no bears at our campsite. That even if a bear was nearby, the odds were slim it would choose our tent out of all the others in the campground. That bears are more scared of me than I am of them. But nothing helped. I lay there certain that even if death-by-mauling was not imminent, death by heart-attack was also quite likely. I'd never had a panic attack of that magnitude before. And to be honest, part of my bear-phobia is a fear of panic attacks. Yes. It is possible to be afraid of fear.

The good news is, the icy tentacles of arkoudaphobia have loosened somewhat over the past few years. I've learned to bring sleeping pills and take them an hour before I even intend to climb into my sleeping bag. That way, I'm powerless to resist the pull of sleep and don't have time to lie there and worry. The even better news is that the past few years we've stayed at a campground just down the road from Justin's cousins' house and they kindly let me sleep in a guest room in their basement! Haha. Every year, I say I'm going to try sleeping in the tent with my family like a big girl, and every year I only last one night. We'll see what this year brings!