Biggest fears of people in England:
“Losing my mind and knowing I’ve lost it.”
“Centipedes that are bigger than me.”
“Never finding love again.”
“I fear illness quite a lot. Cancer and that.”
“Losing the ones I love.”
“Being alone.”
"Being a mad old man who’s just totally mad, unable to look after myself with no-one in the world."
"Being homeless."
"Having another breakdown."
"Something happening to the kids, them going missing, or anything like that or them being really ill."
"Getting to 80 years old and be on my own never having children or a husband."
"Being in some kind of global apocalypse, nuclear war."
"Pain, I’m really scared of pain, physical pain, not mental pain, I can handle that."
"Losing people that I love."
"Have some accident that make you paralysed in a way that you could only move your eyes."
Biggest fears of people in Sweden:
"I mostly fear death actually, but it's not really logic, I can't quite explain. I think it feels quite unpleasant to die, once I dreamed that I died."
"To be and to feel lonely I think."
"Loneliness perhaps."
"That something would happen to my child."
"Sick people that would hurt me or people I love."
"I'm a bit scared of heights."
"That something terrible would happen to my family and friends, that they would feel unwell."
"Apart from something happening to my kids, it's probably not to leave something behind, to not leave something of me in the world."
"That something would happen to my dear and near ones, then I think of family and friends like."
"That something would happen to someone in the family, especially to the kids, them getting hit by a deadly disease. Sometimes you take everything for granted."
"That someone in the family would die, but I'm not thinking of that every day ... I don't really know ... that I wouldn't be able to handle it."
"That's tough. A sign that I'm not scared of that much. But sometimes I make decisions against people's will at work and I'm afraid that they'll think I've got something against them personally and that they will hunt me down, wanting to hurt me."
"That something would happen to my child. To fall ill."
"To be let down and fooled and abused and hit by a car."
"That something would happen to my family, that they wouldn't have a good life."
This study is by no means scientific, the answers are based on interviewing 15 people in England and 15 people in Sweden, aged 22-59. Look out for the next question: What's your biggest dream?
