hello leah, when I was your age I had a huge number of fears too. I was terrified of killer deseases too, there were different ones then, and I couldn't sleep alone unless I had a knife under my bed as well as many more fears. First you need to know that the news always reports the absolute worst of things, I guess they get better ratings that way, so staying away from it is probably a good idea until you get this under control. The second thing to remember is that the fear of something is always far worse than the thing itself. For example the swine flu, it doesn't feel any worse than the regular flu, and in most parts of the world for someone your age it is easily treatable with anti viral medications. The news prefers to scare the crap out of people over it to get us to all "tune in" to get the latest information, that is how they make thier money. I believe the suggestion to know more about the things that scare you is a very good one, that is what worked for me. Be sure to make an effort to fill your mind with more posative things to think about too. For everything bad we hear about there are usually at least ten good things that we don't hear about, we need to LOOK for them ourselves. Instead of being afraid of getting sick, allow yourself to be very happy that today you are healthy. Be extremely happy and grateful for the days when the sun is shining. Storms can be very scary because we can't control them, so try to think about all the things you love that need the rain to grow, a favorite flower maybe or a food you really love. Even if it is a mc donalds hamburger, it still takes rain to grow the grain to feed the cows to make the hamburger. If you are able to talk to your parents about this, you probably should and see if they can get you in to a counselor who can help you a lot more than we can here. If you aren't comfortable with that maybe you could try your guidance counselor or school nurse, they may have suggestions of where you can get more help in dealing with your fears.