How can you tell whether it's fear or intuition?

I have a Moon, Mercury, Venus in Cancer stellium so I do have some intuition (opposition Neptune).  As a young lady (until right before college) I was able to tap into others and they were able to drain me.  Now that my energy is so dirtied (let me clarify, energy that is dirtied is not a bad thing, it happens when you get fat, smoke too much weed, get bogged down in your rational thoughts, etc. aka college, it's like a ball of lint, I don't smoke weed), my intuition is dirtied too. 

A lot of times I get an intuition and it turns out true, but I'm so wrapped up in my OCD that it triggers sometimes when I say if I go around that column this way and talk to this woman, she is going to be rude to me.  The thing is, she usually is.  Or at the interview that you are going to go to, the interviewer will not like you for no reason.  Or keep waiting by the salad bar and a surprise will happen and sure enough he the hot coworker turns around to talk to me.  And suddenly it's like if I tap this window three times my parents will get cancer.  Or don't write yet, your writing will be bad.  That's not quite it either.  Or some small, but negative intuition that turns out true.  

I think intuition is a feeling that is without judgment, it is just there and you can react to it with fear or disgust, but there's nothing you can do about it.  I have these grating feelings that I am mediocre, that I am not going to understand this or that book, that try as I might, I will never be able to dress or appoint my room with taste, that I will never learn or perfect my French (my pride and joy is that I learned French without any formal training).  Then again, I am easy assurance about some things like me finding a job (Grand Trine in the Midheaven).  Also I have delusions of grandeur that are underneath an inferiority complex.  I want to be great and don't try for fear of messing up.  My chart: http://i780.photobucket.com/albums/yy83/lachauvesouris1/d.gif

Anyway, what is intuition?  What is the difference in fear and intuition?

In my experience, when I am mentally freaked out, my intuition is on the fritz. I can't really trust anything I think, and odds are the "intuition" isn't right because I'm immediately going to the worst-case scenario, or jumping to conclusions even more than usual.

I would agree with you that intuition is a neutral feeling, not a panicked one. 

Although I can't say for sure if I've got 'intuition' like women do, I do get gut instincts that I often follow.  Sometimes, when it's something I know deep down I'm dreading beforehand, I'll get the "dark" gut feelings, but it's just because my worries have sunken into my subconscious with all the "what if" scenarios.  I do believe that fear taints intuition and gut-instincts, the brain is a very powerful reactor, and it can do good or bad regarding on how you regard the goal or situation in question.  

It's all how you channel it and how much you can convince yourself of the positive, healthy way to handle something.  I can't say I've always done the right thing, but I find (more often than not) that if I second-guess my gut instinct or try to ignore it, I end up in a worse mound of shit than I was in before.

As I'm typing this I'm listening to Katharine McPhee's beautiful version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" through my headphones at work, and it's songs like that which seem to inspire me to keep marching ahead.  Her voice on that song is enchanting and inspiring, I've got to say.

Dina,

I don't know if I'd call this intuition. I would call it passive thinking... going around waiting for life to happen to you, instead of making your move and making things happen.

Who cares who's going to pop around the corner at the salad bar? Maybe YOU should be the one to pop around the corner and do whatever it is that you're fixing to do.

What do you want to do? Stop thinking, "Oh no... maybe this will happen..." and instead think, "Okay, now I'm going to MAKE THIS happen... and this is how I'm gonna do it."

Start kicking some ass, is what I'm saying.