Maybe what I have could be called a “semi-rational phobia”. I can deal with snakes so long as I do not perceive a threat. I love the reptile house at the zoo. I have no fear that a snake will get somehow get loose (my wife won’t even go inside). I was raking my yard a few weeks ago when I uncovered a baby snake (6", size does matter). No effect, I just went on raking. But let me see a “mature” snake within 10 feet or so and the adreneline rush makes it feel as though my scalp has blown off. All rationality exits, stage left. Run away! Run away! Far, far away! Yech.
The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. – E. Grebenik
Ukulele Ike
Shadowfox and El Mariachi Loco: Have you ever read the classic short story “The Thing in the Cellar,” by David H. Keller? First published in WEIRD TALES magazine in the early 1930s, it’s available in dozens of horror fiction anthologies, as well as in collections of Keller’s contes cruels. Read it, and NO ONE will ever get you to go downstairs again. You might move to the roof.
Is this about a mummified thing found at an Indian gravesite, and the kids put it in the basement to hide it? I won’t discribe the story anymore less I ruin it for someone else. I had bad dreams for years because of this story, if this is the same story. I read this in middle grade school.
Phobia,
No, it’s about a little boy who is mortally frightened of the cellar in his house. And what his parents do to him to change his outlook.
Keller was a psychiatrist…I hope a better one than he was a writer, 'cause his tales are not all that well-crafted from a literary POV…and he was quite clever at weaving psychological terror into his stories.
“The Thing in the Cellar” is his best-known story; while the payoff will obvious to any reader over the age of nine (luckily for me, I was about 9 when I first read it!), the objective description of the tiny boy’s fears of the cellar, and its huge, heavy, wooden door, is nightmare stuff.
I am not afraid of blood in general, but I am extremely afraid of veins. I hate having them touched, touching other people’s, when they stick out, having things stuck into them, having them accidentally crushed…ooh, I can’t stand it. I’ve only had blood taken once in my life, and I cried for an hour AFTER it was over. Yeesh. Also, I can stand blood anywhere on a person’s body…except their toes and fingers. I don’t know why, but if your arm is bleeding it doesn’t phase me, but if your finger were bleeding, I’d run off and curl up in the corner. I remember seeing Schindler’s List, and I could watch them shoot people in the head, but when the women started sticking their fingers with pins, I had to leave the room.
GuanoLad, you have the cow fear? Me too…when I was little, I was afraid there were cows in the pantry. We have a farm, and I don’t like to go because I’m always afraid I’ll have to be in the same field as the cows. Don’t get me started on the bulls…!
Last, but not least, I am getting better about calling people, but I can’t answer the phone unless it is an immediate family member or very close friend. I had a job last summer where I was supposed to answer the phone…I always got in trouble because I would just ignore it and pretend I couldn’t hear it (yeah, that was smart…). Wonder what these phobias are called? Never known anyone with the vein/finger blood phobia before. I wonder why I’m so specific…
“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.” --1984
No, but seriously, folks…except for public speaking (terrifies me), I really don’t have what you would call a phobia. Bad drivers scare me, but I think that is reasonable. I have an interesting love/hate thing about heights. It’s like a fear/fascination. I enjoy bluffs, bridges, tall buildings, etc…
I find myself drawn to the edge, as if daring myself to get too close. But then I get this really panicky feeling: heart racing, dizziness, picturing myself falling off, etc. Then I back away. But I always go right to the edge again next time.
I guess I dig the rush.
When my high school biology class started dissections, the teacher announced that he respected everyone’s beliefs, but that he was tired of having students make a huge scene in class about frog’s rights and cruelty, then pull on leather jackets, climb into pollutionary cars, and head over to McDonald’s. His policy was that anyone who wanted to be excused from dissection had to join Greenpeace. Some did; some retreated, grumbling, to the dissection tables. It was an effective way to weed out the grandstanders.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
Clothing shops. I really really really really really don’t like looking at, trying on, or buying, clothes from clothing shops. Especially jeans, but really any kind.
I am afraid terribly of being alone. Not forever, and not for an afternoon, but I don’t like staying home by myself for very long amounts of time. I also have to do something every night. Strange I know. My second phobia would have to be my wrists. I have never cut them, but I am terrified of having them cut. I can’t even touch them myself. hmmmmmmm…
I do not like dogs. I abominate huge loud dogs. I am absolutely terrified of them. I will curve far away from any dog I should chance to encounter in the street.
I do not like small children. Let them be removed from my presence.
I absolutely cannot tolerate at all participating in any form of sport in which a ball or in fact any hard object is thrown. It’s probably because I wear glasses.
I’m afraid of going deaf and/or blind. I was extremely worried when I noticed that my hearing seemed to be worse. The audiologist tells me that I have a dip in my right ear’s capacity to hear high sounds.
I hate living where I do (with my parents in a very wealthy area of town) and I am very shy about admitting it. I want to move ASAP. If someone asks where I live, I usually just tell them what metro station I live near. Or if pressed, I say, I live with my parents and they live in Westmount. This is all probably because I am a socialist.
I am terrified of being caught in an inconsistency or hypocrisy that I can’t explain. I am also terrified of being insulted and not being able to think of a good comeback.
Strangely, I am not afraid of being gaybashed. I mean, if someone was trying to gaybash me, I’d run, but the idea doesn’t scare me for some reason. I have this weird feeling like I would have gotten over it.
I do not like dogs. I abominate huge loud dogs. I am absolutely terrified of them. I will curve far away from any dog I should chance to encounter in the street.
I do not like small children. Let them be removed from my presence.
I absolutely cannot tolerate at all participating in any form of sport in which a ball or in fact any hard object is thrown. It’s probably because I wear glasses.
I’m afraid of going deaf and/or blind. I was extremely worried when I noticed that my hearing seemed to be worse. The audiologist tells me that I have a dip in my right ear’s capacity to hear high sounds.
I hate living where I do (with my parents in a very wealthy area of town) and I am very shy about admitting it. I want to move ASAP. If someone asks where I live, I usually just tell them what metro station I live near. Or if pressed, I say, I live with my parents and they live in Westmount. This is all probably because I am a socialist.
I am terrified of being caught in an inconsistency or hypocrisy that I can’t explain. I am also terrified of being insulted and not being able to think of a good comeback.
Strangely, I am not afraid of being gaybashed. I mean, if someone was trying to gaybash me, I’d run, but the idea doesn’t scare me for some reason. I have this weird feeling like I would have gotten over with it.
Roaches - I have no idea why, but I can’t even get up the guts to get near enough to kill them, and don’t DARE kill it with MY shoe!
Knives - never when I’m sitting, but setting the table, washing dishes, I just KNOW I’m gonna drop one on my foot. Even if I’m wearing shoes and it’s just a butter knife, I have to curl up my toes.
Not 13 - I guess I’m a little obsesive-compulsive, even though it’s not an official medical diagnosis, but, I count alot. # of steps I take, stairs I climb, books in my backpack, Items of clothes I put on in the morning. And if I stop for any reason, I have to start back at 1. But the weird thing is that 13 always has to be in there. If there’s 4 things, I count the first one as 1, and the next three as 1, 2, 3 to get the 1 and 3 in there. When walking, I count steps in intervals of 13, and if I get to where I’ve got to be before I finish, I do little side steps to finish off the count. Weird, huh? I also sometimes do this in 8s, but I think that’s because I’m a dancer.
White Wolf
“Honesty is the best policy, but insanity is a better defense.”
“Half the world is composed of idiots, the other half of people clever enough to take indecent advantage of them.”
I forgot to add: needles - absolutely no problem as long as I can watch. I MUST see what’s happening. I get scared to the point of shaking if I can’t see.
I have strange fears as well as the mundane ones. I’m so terrified of flying that I’m trying to limit my future job search to within an area that I could drive to the interview. But that’s pretty boring. Every now and then, when something itches, especially in my hair, I’m afraid that there are bugs on me or bugs in my hair. The other day, I must have been messing with my hair every five minutes because I could have sworn I was feeling something crawling in it. Luckily, I was at home and didn’t look like a complete loon. That’s a little more strange. Also, I’m afraid that every shooting pain in my body is a blood clot coming free, and that I’ll drop dead a few minutes after I feel it. I think that’s probably the weirdest one of all, because there’s absolutely no reason for it.