Reply #18: I had an instant conversion. [View All]

[Elidor]

As a child, I wasn't at all squeamish, but when I was eleven, a film of open-heart surgery made me feel I was going to pass out. From that day on, I was exceptionally susceptible to squeamishness. I seem to be gradually getting over it now that I'm 40, but I still have my moments.

I think there are two kinds of squeamishness: 1)revulsion at gross stuff, and 2) extreme empathy for the pain of others. I'm losing the first, but I still have the second to an unpleasant degree. I cannot bear to see anything in pain, whether a person, an animal, even a bug. In fact, with the exception of horribly large and hairy spiders, I catch every bug that gets into my apartment and carry it outside.