Thunder, Feel the Thunder, Lightning and the Thunder

It's a common theme for people on this site to post blogs describing tough times they are in, so I figured now'd be the time to get something off my chest.

Living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, I don't experience thunderstorms that often, but when they do strike, I find it a terrifying experience. As of me typing this, it's late March, about a month and a half away from the peak of our thunderstorm season.

I've had astraphobia (the fear of thunder/lightning/thunderstorms) my whole life, however, when I was still in high school in 2012, I had my astraphobia spike after I realized that my best shelter didn't completely drown out the noise. After we had several close (i.e. less than 1 mile or 1.6 km) away from my home (closest being about 0.3 miles / 0.5 km) away in 2017 and again on St. Patrick's Day 2018, I've had it recur again. I've been obsessing over it and other (often irrelevant) things.

My attitude has been,

"How much time is left until the next one? Can I get <insert unimportant task here> done before the next one? Will an unforecasted storm strike? Is 'unforecasted' even a word?"

It doesn't help that I can't drive, am currently unemployed, and that at least a couple of my family members may not have a lot of life left in them.

I know that there are others like me, and plenty of things to do in life, but I feel like I am trying to bite off more than I can chew, so-to-speak. Has anyone else tried to be too ambitious with life's goals and allowed their phobias to become involved? And what advice do you have, if any?

Yeah, I can definitely relate to not enjoying thunderstorms, I had a super intense fear of them for a fairly brief period around late 2015, when there was a strike that hit a tree right near my house at 2 AM and woke me up, which was pretty intense. I eventually got over that and realized that chances of being struck are super minimal, but if it's an actual condition for you it seems it may be hard to help. I've been to the Pacific Northwest a few times (going there again this summer), and if you constantly keep in mind that there are lots of trees there, it might help. There was a thunderstorm here in California last weekend, and I actually felt that it was exciting rather than scary.

As far as your life situation goes, I've actually struggled with being overambitious a lot in recent times. I've had time periods where I wanted to do something that will set me apart from everyone else and get my name remembered forever. That ended up putting a lot of extra pressure on my everyday mindset that I didn't need. So my advice is fairly simple: take things step by step. Plan out goals that will take you towards whatever you see as a successful life path. Even saying simple things like, for me: "I will learn to use Logic Pro this summer and create electronic music tracks and see if I really enjoy that." It doesn't have to be even concrete goals, sometimes just simple changes in your mindset you want to focus on. I often have trouble keeping to goals like that cause they get forgotten, so what I want to do at some point is write them down and post them on my wall in front of my bed so I think about them when I wake up every morning. Step by step and concrete planning is key here though.

I'm in high school right now and it seems you are past that, so maybe some of my advice will differ for your case. But best wishes for your future and hope this helps!

I not afraid of thunderstorms, its just annoying since my parents force me and the rest that's in the house to turn off everything apart from light switches. when I'm playing on my PC, even the slightest bit of thunder, my mum forces me to turn it off until the storm is completely gone, I don't really get why because if my PC breaks down due to this, its still under warranty.
But, the only time when to get afraid of thunderstorms is when I need to go to the bathroom alone in the dark, so I usually just hold it in. I also have blackout curtains which blocks lightning to come in and light up the whole room.