I definitely feel my fears tend to get repurposed in fantasies over time. As a kid I was always afraid to cut my fingernails because I was convinced I would damage the tissue beneath, very painfully... (I figure this must've happened to me sometime out of memory.) Years later I had a whole spree of fantasies over finger nail removal, inserting pins under the nail, crushing with pliers. Pliers in the hardware store still randomly turn me on sometimes.

I definitely know what you mean about the drop in blood pressure thing. When that happens I know for sure I won't be looking at any more guro for a bit; it's kind of like a super buzzkill. My fingers sometimes become so weak as all the blood rushes out that I can hardly move them.

And so my reaction to blood and violence is all or nothing—disgust or drool so to speak.

I've also experienced mild paranoia about exposed veins on wrists and neck at times, hunching my shoulders or pulling my wrists in, which later was repurposed into fetish material. Difference between powerful fear/pain/disgust and a delicious rush is just your attitude towards it. Easy to rationalize and enjoy if you're willing. Early fear of insects and now looking toward a career in entomology; what can I say.

In a way my whole interest in guro might be called a coping mechanism for the suicidal fantasies I developed in adolescence. When I realized the images I'd thought up weren't going to go away, I made friends with them. Unfortunately a little too friendly...this led to a degree of emotional disconnection, doubt of my own empathetic capacity, and the delusion that I needed to kill people, (and that voice in my head,) but as I grew and healed as a person these delusions became unsustainable and disappeared.

Nowadays I'm so stupidly human and morally engaged—even religious again; that one surprised even me—that I almost don't desire to kill people anymore. The closest I get to old times is speculation about kidnapping and dismembering the terminally comatose in order to do the least damage possible to family and friends... And of course looking forward to the day when I find a dom who's not afraid to shed a little of my blood as well ^///^ Ever since my belated coming out my fantasies go both ways...goodbye phobia of emasculation.

I say embrace your phobias—they can be your greatest assets. And it's fun. Worked well for batman, worked well for me.