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Phobophobia

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Phobophobia - The fear of fear

I did a search hoping to find a thread about member phobias and couldn't find one. I thought that was odd, because I think it would make for a cool conversation.

I have a pretty common phobia. Arachnophobia (The fear of arachnids)

But I am not afraid of all arachnids. Ticks and scorpions don't bother me at all. Domesticated tarantulas don't even bother me, I can actually handle my buddy's pet tarantula with no problem. I'll let that eight legged freak chill on my shoulder for as long as it wants to.

But for any other spider that isn't a tarantula...your orb weavers, funnel weavers, garden spiders, house spiders, wolf spiders...it doesn't matter what kind it is. It puts me in immediate danger mode. If I see one, I freeze up, my heartrate rises, I begin to sweat, I might start pacing, but my view is stuck on the spider. Most peoples' immediate thought is either "squish it" or "ignore it". Me? I sit there and contemplate how to tactically take it out. I consider every angle and whether or not a given action can give the spider a chance to flee possibly in my direction. I usually go the chemical route if possible. Hairspray works great because it immobilizes them, allowing me to deliver the coup de grâce to my eight legged foe.

I believe that phobias stem from a single traumatizing event. In my case, I think it was when I was three. I would regularly get up to go take a piss in the middle of the night. My dad knew this of course, and strung up a black toy spider with red eyes and large fangs from the ceiling, letting it hang at eye level with me. I didn't notice it was there until I bumped into it and I saw it swinging. This horrified little me. I guess the irrational fear never wore off.

The only way that I think I will ever overcome this irrational fear is to gather my balls up and just pick one up...but in my mind, if I do that it will quickly start crawling up my arm, into my shirt, up my neck, and into my hair or something where it will repeatedly bite me or crawl into my ear. See what I mean by irrational? That's why I am pretty sure this fear will simply never go away.

So what is your greatest phobia and to what event do you credit it's formation?

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I'm afraid of heights. Being up in a plane or in a very tall building gives me anxiety. Same with being near high ledges.

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I am afraid of myself, whenever i look at a mirror, there's something that creeps me, looking at my reflex, as if it's staring at me, like it's alive.
Autophobia it is.

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I have a weird one - negative images. Which is one of the reasons why I refuse to use HD texture packs in Doom.

And also why the Nightmare Spectre in PSX Doom almost made me shit when I first saw it back in the day.

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FUCK BEES AND HORNETS AND YELLOWJACKETS AND WASPS AND WHATEVER THE FUCK ELSE HOLY SHIT

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Guest

Claustrophobia. Being buried alive would probably be my worst nightmare.

Also, giant centipedes. I can handle spiders, but these fuckers make my skin crawl:

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Isn't phobophobia kind of an oxymoron? Whatever.

I have agoraphobia, fear of crowded places.

A social phobia as well, and a fear the paranormal.

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Thalassophobia (fear of the sea)
Bonus points for Megalohydrothalassophobia (fear of large objects in water)

Large bodies of water make me feel very uneasy, but I dare going swimming sometimes.
However, if the water is too murky to see the ground, I won't even dip a toe.
I'll just imagine some giant sea monster waiting beneath the surface, even if it's just a small pont.

Also, some degree of social phobia.
I'm not scared of crowded places, but I mostly avoid talking. Even when it comes to friends and family.

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Imagine if FDR had said "the only thing we have to fear is phobophobia!"

Anyway, yeah insects and arachnids vary anywhere from annoying to terrifying, especially those that are poisonous/flying, but I don't necessarily think it's a phobia since the fear is quite rational - getting a poison sting does not sound fun.

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It's normal for everyone to have some sort of phobia yeah? Although I can't quite say I go to extreme levels. I guess the closest would be dangerous or scary looking spiders. But it could just be a general amount of fear. I also don't want to touch slugs as they look and must feel disgusting. In high places I feel concerned but again, possibly a healthy amount of fear. I'm a bad swimmer so the thought of any small boat sinking crosses my mind.

I'm completely comfortable around snakes, possibly too complication where I may get myself bit some day.

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Feirup said:

Claustrophobia. Being buried alive would probably be my worst nightmare.

Also, giant centipedes. I can handle spiders, but these fuckers make my skin crawl:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf8pAwGsuF4


So the idea of being buried in a box ten feet under ground and your only way out is digging your way through giant centipedes is probably a bad one for you, right?

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I don't actually have fears that I would consider to be irrational. I've had some when I was younger, though.

At a young age, I was relying on my parents to have an eye on me, at any given point in time. However, as I was passing through the "teenage", I sort of wanted to not have them around all the time for understandable reasons. But even then I always had to have the impression that I could call them when I needed to. So, I conditioned myself into believing that I couldn't really make it on my own, and be on my own "successfully". It went as far as being afraid of losing eye-contact with the house I lived in, and a bit later the street that would take me back home. I had a really hard time exploring the city, and would constantly look back to make sure I still had an idea as to how I could get home if I wanted.

The idea of not knowing where I was, and where to go made me weep. The impression of being lost somewhere, where I did not know anybody else, was terrifying, almost paralizing in fact.

When I started to develop a certain determination that would require me to travel the world, it was still there. At 19 years of age, travelling through Russia on my way to India via train, on my own, was a scary thought before the whole thing even got started. I remember my legs were shaking when I took the few steps into the train that would take me on the journey that I had planned for months. Once I got seated, I started contemplating. "Should I get out? Should I just stay inside? I can still get out if I want to, and not be scared anymore." And then it started moving. My heart was beating so fast, I thought it would burst. However, after a few minutes, I found solace in the fact that there was no going back, and everything proceeded the way it should.

I started laughing a bit at myself and the situation I found myself in, looking forward to what was waiting for me in the countries I was going to visit. And at that point in time, the fear of not making it on my own has been overridden, or rather overwritten by curiousity, for lack of a better term. I started seeing things differently from one moment to the other, eventhough the situation didn't really change in and off itself. Looking back, it seems to me that I had pushed myself over a point of no-return, and from there I simply enjoyed everything that I was to experience. I started to anticipate things that I felt positive about, rather than fearing things that I didn't want to happen.

So this is how I overcame my fear of being entirely on my own. A bit of a long read, maybe, but these memories sure are something I am fond of.

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Not my phobias per se, but:



Apparently people have phobias of holes. In this case this image is commonly transposed onto a humans hand and such.

Also:

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TraceOfSpades said:

So the idea of being buried in a box ten feet under ground and your only way out is digging your way through giant centipedes is probably a bad one for you, right?


Thanks, I wasn't planning on sleeping tonight anyway.

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I have an enduring fear of insects. Though I'm okay with bees if there's not a lot of them and bumblebees are usually alone anyway. Bumblebees are so docile they'll even let you pet them, which I have done.

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^While I have never been stung by a bumblebee...their buzzing is the fucking Apache Chopper of the insect world. You can feel their presence.

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Doomkid said:

Imagine if FDR had said "the only thing we have to fear is phobophobia!"

Anyway, yeah insects and arachnids vary anywhere from annoying to terrifying, especially those that are poisonous/flying, but I don't necessarily think it's a phobia since the fear is quite rational - getting a poison sting does not sound fun.


Hah! It's funny you say that, as I was just contemplating on a fear of mine that is irrational in nature.

That is to say I am afraid of deep murky bodies of water. I've not had big issues with it - as said above I also get uneasy around large bodies of water (if I'm in them/on them) but never to a point where I would freak out. My 3rd year of college I had to go on a trip (South Florida Ecology ftw!) to visit a coral reef that required us go out out into the water about an hour away. For our research we had to swim over and observe the coral so we could write our reports and I literally spent 20-30 minutes amping myself up go jump in and remind myself that it was perfectly safe. Dove in and came out alive, so it certainly helped to break me of some of that fear.

[note]This fear may be due to a ridiculously irrational fear of giant underwater sea snakes that don't exist. Just sayin[/note]

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Hights and the dark, other then that I'v many anxieties but none I would consider phobias.

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I am very Katsaridaphobic. I have the courage to kill one, which is really terrible for me. But if I saw a swarm, I would literally run out of the building. There's something I find particularly disgusting and disturbing about the way they look. I don't feel like that with any other insect really. I don't mind centipede, ants, bees, or beetles; I think most insects look really interesting and cool. I am facinated by ants, and the way other insects behave. Its an exclusive fear I have for cockroaches.











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Ever heard of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia? Ironically, it is the fear of big words. I don't actually have this, but I just wanted to share because it's funny.

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When i was younger i was really afraid of this plant..

In Wikipedia it's called Jerusalem artichoke. I was so afraid of these plants, i refused to come closer than 20 metres to them. Even nowadays every time i look at it, i shudder. I don't know how and why i became afraid of it, but to me it's just looks.. menacing. I mean they can grow 2 metres and higher, which is not ok for any plants other than trees, and there's just something creepy about how it looks..

I'm also probably a single person on Earth who was afraid of this plant, because many people couldn't even believe me i was afraid of it, thinking that i was just kidding..

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I have any phobia's that I'm aware of. There's nothing that would make me completely freeze and shut down or anything like that. Sure, there's things that I don't like, but I'm not terrified of it.

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ChekaAgent said:

I refused to come closer than 20 metres to them. Even nowadays every time i look at it, i shudder. I don't know how and why i became afraid of it, but to me it's just looks.. menacing. I mean they can grow 2 metres and higher, which is not ok for any plants other than trees, and there's just something creepy about how it looks..


Kid you would have fucking taco belled your pants if you saw a wild coffee plant. That plant grows up to >30 feet high.

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Kontra Kommando said:

cockroaches

Ugh, I'm almost on your level of roach hate - Despite the fact that I obviously don't like spiders, my wife is absolutely terrified of them, but unlike me she really isn't bothered by roaches. We have a mutual agreement that she'll kill any roaches we find a long as I kill the spiders. The way I feel about roaches would definitely fall under 'phobia' since it's not really based on anything logical, but holy shit they disgust me.

I grew up on the beach so I don't really have a fear of large bodies of water, though that fear is actually relatively justified, certainly more rational than my extreme hatred of roaches, anyway.

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Saturn said:

Kid you would have fucking taco belled your pants if you saw a wild coffee plant. That plant grows up to >30 feet high.

Waht? Who you called a kid? I'm 18, get it? Eight-teen years old, you dumbass! That's as adult as you can get! How fucking dare you calling me, a respectable community member, a kid, you asshole? You on other hand, judging by your stupid posts, seems to be a fucking 13 year old. Go fuck yourself!!

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ChekaAgent said:

Waht? Who you called a kid? I'm 18, get it? Eight-teen years old, you dumbass! That's as adult as you can get! How fucking dare you calling me, a respectable community member, a kid, you asshole? You on other hand, judging by your stupid posts, seems to be a fucking 13 year old. Go fuck yourself!!


..I meant as in when you were a kid.. Chucklefuck..

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Saturn said:

..I meant as in when you were a kid.. Chucklefuck..

Oh sorry, there was a misunderstanding..

Waitaminute, did you just call me a chucklefuck? You motherfucker..

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