This might have been done before, but as I read the repulsive food thread it came to mind.
Sure, you can avoid black cats, or hide under a desk on Friday the 13th, but do you hold fears that you, and only you hold? Fears so obscure there isn’t a fancy word for them?
For me there are two. The first being stinging nettles. In fact, if you tell me you have stinging nettles near your house that can’t be traversed via footpath, I may never visit you. EVER. When I left the UK 20 years ago, that was the one thing I was happy to see the back of. Fast forward to 1998, when I moved to the Central Coast of California. Went on a hike with some friends and confronted a SIX-FOOT tall patch of Urtica dioicas! I literally freaked out, had to sit down and regain my composure. I actually walked within a foot or so of the patch and my “friend” jokingly nudged me closer… I was about to gouge his eyeballs out.
Second bizarre fear is that of large old coins. Yes, large old coins. I can handle an Eisenhower half-dollar but if we get older than that I’m a little freaked. I’ve seen old pennies and buffalo nickels… no biggie. I once found a “Walking Liberty” half-dollar and was simultaneously excited and scared at the same time (asked my dad to keep it in his room). I’ve seen old coins in museum - typically give them a wide berth. I have no idea why I have this phobia. I quite like new coins and cash!
I’m also a little scared of big statues but I don’t think that’s terribly uncommon. What freaky phobias do you have that make the unfeeling masses titter?
I’ve developed a fear of old people. I’m not afraid of growing old nor do old people themselves scare me. Specifically I’m scared that something bad is about to happen to them and I’ll end up taking care of them. If I see old people I’ll cross the block if I can. If I’m stuck near them I feel intensely nervous, that any second they’re about to fall and break something.
It developed when I took care of my elderly grandmother for the better part of a decade.
When I was a teenager, I used to spend my summers at military camp. Don’t ask. Anyhow, there was a girl in my division who had a paralysing fear of balloons. For a while, we thought she was just being a goof. She was pretty cool, and a few of us used to hang around together and cause what little trouble we could conceivably get away with when so strictly monitored.
Anyhow, at the end of the summer, we had a graduation party of a sort. The party room was filled with, you guessed it, hundreds of balloons. She walked in, looked around, screamed a little, and then promptly fainted.
I’m kind of scared of flushing the toilet at night. I used to be REALLY scared. If I took a dump I’d have to force myself to do it, but if I just peed then I’d often wait till morning.
Ehh, what the hell. When I was a kid, I was scared of stickers. Especially when they were partially torn, I would throw a fit and freak out until they were removed from my presence. Even today, they bother me a little, although the effect has greatly lessened. When I inherited my first car, it took me awhile to work up the nerve to remove the stickers originally placed on the backseat ashtray by my cousin.
I don’t know if it’s so bizarre there’s no term for it, and it’s not an inanimate object but…
Rabies.
The first ever panic attack I had (at about 15) I became convinced that I had rabies, and was going to die (knowing that once you exhibit any symptoms you’re pretty much dead). I had a slightly pinched nerve in one leg which was making my skin insensitive, and my mind went out of control.
Now, 15 years later, living in a city and away from most small mammals, and also knowing that mice are unlikely to transmit it…
Every time I feel anxious, I fear it’s rabies. Which of course bumps the anxiety up. Anxiety = hard to swallow = RABIES! and even though I haven’t been bitten by anything I get anxious.
I can’t sit in a bathtub, even my own, freshly cleaned. The thought of sitting my bare arse down onto a tub is enough to send my into a panic attack. I can’t even remember really taking a bath as a kid, I know I did, but I started taking showers very early…
I have always been afraid of spontaneous combustion, I wait for it to happen to me.
Degaussing monitors. I have to close my eyes and hold my breath everytime I turn on my computer monitor or television.
I just know it’s going to explode when I do it one day. I understand how stupid this fear is, but that still doesn’t help me from getting a little tense in the milliseconds before I hear the ‘thunk’.
This eight-foot head of Constantine freaks me out–the first time I saw it in art-history class, I think I actually screamed.
Other than that, you think I’m gonna tell you people? Bad enough I’m going to wake up with the eight-foot head of Constantine in bed with me, now . . .
. . . because I have that, too! If I have to flush in the middle of the night (for the reason you described, or because I’m a guest in the home of someone else besides my mother), I pretty much already have one foot out the bathroom door, and as soon as I’ve flushed, I hightail it outta there!
I just logged on to start a thread on this very topic, go figure.
My biggest irrational fear (which I figure is at least relatively unique) is a fear of email, thats right, email. I often have to spend upwards of five minutes stealing my courage after I see a new mail notification before I can bring myself to actually check the inbox. Sending email is just as bad, I will write a message and stare at it for several minutes before I can hit ‘send’. I am getting better about it as much of my job is handled through email, but I will still occationally walk halfway across the building to tell someone that I took care of their request rather than simply hitting the ‘reply’ button.
Fiddlehead ferns. Not when they’re mature, but when they do the fiddle thing. Like this.
I know where this phobia comes from. When I was a kid, they used to poke up through the sand in my sandbox, and they looked like big green worms. I don’t like worms - I guess that’s another phobia, albeit not all that bizarre (is it?). I’d scream and cry until my mother came and pulled them up.
Fast forward to adult hood, and they still look like big green worms to me. Don’t even get me started on people who eat the damn things. Yuk. Worms.
Snails. As in, the common garden snail. Also slugs and anything mollusk-like. Why? I was never chased or bitten by one . . . I cannot step on them, and I will not salt them if it is a place I have to walk past later. Snails on the windowpane are particularly gross, and when I was young my mother had to remove any on my bedroom window in order for me to go to sleep.
I grew up next to a small creek and before the local ecosystem got poisoned the backyard was full of them. Today, I live in the high desert, BUT next to a river, so I am in nearly the only part of town that has snails, yeesh.
I’ve made some progress, as my fear of the whole class of slimy shelled creatures once made it impossible to visit aquariums, tidal pools, or watch Jacques-Cousteau specials on TV. I can stand those now, but I still cannot abide snails.
As a child, I had a pathological fear of car tires, especially flat tires. It was so bad, I’d launch into a screaming fit any time I saw a car tire w/o hubcabs. I’m over it now, though I still check my tire pressure obsessively, and call AAA to change a flat when needed – though that’s basically because I’m lazy.
Funny thing is, I’ve always known where this comes from. When I was two years old, I was riding on the freeway when the car suddenly started screeching & skidding out of control. (I think we ran over something…certainly didn’t hit anything.) After pulling to the shoulder, my Dad picked me up and showed me how BOTH left side tires had gone flat. Gee…thanks a lot, Dad!
I am utterly afraid of using electrical outlets. If something is unplugged and I need to use it, I just wait until my husband comes home from work.
Sometimes that means that I wait for four days before I get to use the microwave again, or brew coffee.
I used to be terrified of taking a shower or running bathwater. I have no idea where that came from, but it lasted until I was 14 years old.
Until a couple of years ago, I was truly phobic of bananas. I couldn’t walk past them, nor could I sleep if they were in the house. Even the word “banana” would make me freeze like a deer caught in headlights.
When I was 16, I had a friend who was terrified of red jello. Someone left some red jello in her mini-fridge in her dorm once. I had to go in and remove it in a nonconspicous manner. She didn’t sleep in her room for three days after.
I’m scared of looking into mirrors in the dark. For my bedroom, I specifically bought a full length mirror that swivels so I can turn it to the wall before I turn out the lights. And if I have to use the bathrrom in the middle of the night, I either keep my eyes focused on the floor or painfully flip on the light. I’m not really scared of the mirror itself; I’m just convinced that one night I’ll see something horrible lurking behind me.
