Being Afraid, Very Afraid

I don't readily get truly scared.  While I admit to be a little fearful at times, I am rarely truly terrified.  In the most extreme of moments, I am usually quite calm and reserved.  For instance, I have driven over a curvy mountain road, covered with over an inch of ice and snow, at night, with a Chevy Impala, on two separate occasions. (Actually, the first time may have been in an  Olds Alero, but that is beside the point.)  I was collected enough to make it through, without much worry, even though I had never really had driven in such bad conditions before.  I have been truly terrified, at least once.  I was about four or five years old, and we had gone to a great-aunt's house on Sunday afternoon, like we regularly did most of the year.  We would pick up a Sunday newspaper, and sometimes I would get a little gift or two.  During the fall, these gifts were usually bags of pawpaws picked from the tree in her yard or in the surrounding hillsides.  This day, though, she wanted to meet me in one of her back rooms to give me something.  When I went in through the door, something jumped out from behind a wall and startled me.  I quickly ran to get my mother to ask for help.  She went in before me, and I followed a few seconds later.  As soon as I went through the door, two somethings jumped out from behind the wall, with my mother nowhere to be seen.  I started yelling at the top of my lungs, calling for my mother.  After a few seconds, she and my great-aunt pulled off the masks they were wearing.  For some reason, my great-aunt thought it would be fun to show off the Long John Silver's pirate masks she had gotten for me by scaring me, and my mother had gone along with it.  [As an aside, Long John Silver's was, and still is, my most favorite fast-food restaurant.  For over a decade, it would be about the only place I would eat out at.]  When they showed me that they were just masks, I tried to show that  I was okay with everything,  but I wasn't.  One of the masks had a tiny trickle of spit on it that somewhat disgusted me.  I was also still very scared about the whole event.  My mother should never had put on that mask.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I was changed.  I used to be so outgoing, I would walk right up to complete strangers and ask them about what was going on.  After that time, I found it hard to talk to even people I had known for long periods of time.  How could I trust someone, if my own mother tried to sow mistrust by scaring me?  I would need to be around someone for weeks, or longer, sometimes before I would feel  comfortable enough to open up.  For me, if I could talk to you about anything, especially if it was soon after meeting, it was a sign of greatest regard.  I used to be so outgoing, but it would only peek its head out occasionally, when I felt the safest.  I had harbored the idea of becoming an entertainer/performer; I knew that a had some talents for it.  I still have some of those ambitions, even though most time for that has passed,save in my ongoing fascination in becoming a professional writer.  Still, I wonder what would have happened if I had never gotten so afraid.