Hive animals’ habitats give me the creeps. Not hive animals themselves, mind you, but their habitats. While a termite, a wasp, and an ant individually have no debilitating affects on me, if I happen to see their nests, I have an overwhelming urge to destroy them out of pure unadultered revulsion. I cannot rest until they are completely destroyed and all traces of their existance is wiped off the face of the earth. If I know one of their nests is anywhere in the vicinity, I will hunt them down, no matter the work involved.
I just can’t function right knowing they’re around me.
Similarly, any human disease whose symptoms include numerous discolored bumps on the skin (mumps, chicken pox, hives, shingles, measles, severe cases of acne, etc) and all over the body make me break out myself. I can’t so much as hear of a case (or worse yet, see one) without suddenly itching all over my body and feeling wave after wave of nausea. If I were ever faced with someone that had a severe case of any of the diseases mentioned, I honestly believe I would either pass out, lose all contents of my stomach, or both. Simultaneously.
I have no idea why any of these have this effect on me. Does anyone else have any odd and irrational phobias they’d like to share?
I’m OK with most creepy-crawlies. Spiders, worms, cockroaches - not a problem. But for some reason, snails freak me out, and have done so for as long as I can remember.
So, if you were strolling in the woods along a stream and happened upon a scabrous looking leper covered with sores and oozing blisters, ripping open a rotten log and pawing through the ant tunnels for juicy larvae to use as fishing bait, that would pretty much be the ultimate terror for you, huh?
As for me, it’s yellow tomatoes. I can’t bite into one, can’t chew one, definitely can’t swallow even the tiniest piece. I hate even touching them. I swear they’re poison.
My irrational phobia is walking up stairs from darkness into light; I’m not afraid of the dark - I can walk about quite happily in any shade of darkness indoors or out - there’s just something about going upstairs with the darkness behind me that makes me want to run and scream like a little girl.
At all:
A curious combination of static eletrical fields caused an empty water bottle to skitter across the conference table at me once … I think the whole building heard me scream.
When I can’t see what/where it is:
I was lying in the grass, glasses off, holding the baby, and a spider scuttled across the pillow I had my head on and I screamed loudly enough to freak everyone out but couldn’t say anything other than “We’re fine, waitaminute” for a few minutes. (He bit me, too, which I didn’t notice till later).
That’s funny. When I was a kid, I would SPRINT up the stairs from the basement to the ground floor.
Now I’m 32. I have my own house. I still get that feeling up my back when I’m coming up the basement stairs when the basement is dark. I always think something’s going to grab the back of my heel.
This has GOT to be some kind of remnant instinct from days when man was stalked by beast.
I’ve always loved those things. Somehow the taste of the wood mixes with the ice cream taste to make it even more delicious. Different people…
One thing that creeps me out is swimming underwater at night, especially in a swimming pool. All that moving light and shadow. And if there’s a drop-off, whoa! But it’s kind of a cool fear.
Driving behind a loaded car-carrier. I know that the cars are attached somehow and aren’t going to fall off, but at the same time, I just know that the last car on the top is going to fall off and land on my car and kill me.
I don’t have any irrational fears of my own to contribute, but I remember reading that the scientist/inventor Nikola Tesla was afraid of round objects. I could understand fearing sharp objects, but… round ones?!
Covered holes, like man holes and water drains on the side of the road. I can’t walk on them. I know they’re sturdy, but I still get the feeling that they’re gonna cave in as soon as I step on one.
When I was younger I was afraid to cut the nail on my pinky toes. I thought if I did it would fall off. I had no problem with the rest of the toe nails though.
Point of order: That’s redundant. Phobias are irrational fears, so nyah.
Second: It’s not an irrational fear to be afraid of something that can hurt you. Freaking out when a spider walks onto your pillow does not signify a phobia. Now, if it were a green dayglo Koosh spider that a little kid tossed at you and you screamed like a girl, that’d be a phobia, yep.
I am afraid of being stuck in traffic under an overpass. I’m afraid an earthquake will happen and I won’t be able to get out from under it and it will collapse onto my car, either killing me or trapping me in the front seat until I die from suffocation or starvation or dehydration or something.
I actually avoid sitting in traffic under them if I can, or I’ll leave enough space so that I can swerve around to the side and drive out if an earthquake starts. I even get sweaty and my heart pounds and the whole nine yards. I think this is because of the Loma-Prieta quake collapsing the Cypress Structure in San Francisco. I just hate it.
I won’t go out on the ocean, or in the ocean, or very close to the ocean, because somewhere, at some time, I’ve become convinced there’s a monster out there, waiting to eat me. Not a shark. Not like Jaws. But an honest-to-god sea monster.
I know it’s irrational and stupid. I know there’s no monster. I fucking know it. And yet, this fear/phobia/insanity is still strong enough to keep me away from the water.
Phoning people I’ve never spoken to before. It’s fine if they phone me but I cannot bring myself to phone someone else unless I’ve spoken with them previously. Yes, this does interfere with my working life but luckily only rarely.
I am afraid of driving with any of my older teenage friends. I become more afraid when they’re going 100 mph down the freeway at 2 AM with me in their car.
I am afraid that aliens will suck up the Earth’s atmosphere and everyone will die of oxygen deprivation and exposure to vaccum.
