I’m not normally claustrophobic, but if I have to drive between a large truck and some sort of barrier - a tunnel wall or even a guard rail - I can feel my heart pounding until I’m out of that situation. If I’m beside open ground, or if there’s a good shoulder between my car and any barrier, I’m fine.
I’m another person who is not normally claustrophobic, and I don’t know if this would even be considered a form of claustrophobia or not. What freaks me out is when I’m trying to fall asleep, and I want to stretch or move or something, and I can’t because someone else is in the way. This used to happen to me at sleepover parties as a kid, and it was awful. I would think “this is uncomfortable, I can’t move, I can’t sleep, I’m never going to be able to sleep ever again, all I want in the whole world is to just go to SLEEP and OH MY GOD GET ME OUT OF HERE!!!”
there was also one time I was in a cave and had to crawl through a tunnel to get out. I went in feet-first instead of headfirst and tried to switch. I’m short enough that it was reasonable to think I could have done it, but somehow I got stuck in a weird position and started to panic.
I’m not normally afraid of bugs. In fact, I tend to sneer at people who are. It’s a bug! You’re a thousand times bigger than it!
Except…in the shower. One time I undressed and stepped inside the shower, only to find a huge muthafuckin’ grasshopper on the glass door! It wasn’t a total meltdown on my part, but I did scream and dash out to put some clothes on. Something about being naked in the presence of bugs triggers my disgust/fear mechanism.
I’ve been caving many times and that would freak me out too! Headfirst, on your belly, that’s the way to go.
Ack. It’s like you were tapped into everything that freaks me out and put it all into one post. ACK ACK ACK.
I am not normally afraid of spiders, but when a big hairy thing scuttled out from the grass next to our patio I freaked out a tiny bit. The body was about an inch and half long, and the diameter of the whole thing (including legs) was a good two inches. P6067826 s | avarie537 | Flickr
Ornithophobic…
Birds are fine outside, but when I am in an enclosed space with them I just know they are coming for my head. I had an ex who liked to let his parakeets fly around the house. I had to leave until he put them back in their cage. Even then I wasn’t entirely comfortable in the house.
I am not usually afraid of cockroaches but once I was standing on the footpath (sidewalk that is) waiting for a taxi. It was raining so hard that the drains were filling up and there was minor flooding on the road - a few inches of water. I felt something in my hair and thought water was dripping on me. No, I had an umbrella. I feel it again and go to brush it off. It was a huge adult cockroach. That is when I realize I was covered with them, crawling up my pants, on my shirt, in my hair. Big motherfuckers.
I go completely insane, drop my umbrella and start brushing myself all over madly. People standing around look at me weirdly because they aren’t close enough to see what is going on. To make it worse, I was wearing a shirt with a brown pattern, so I kept seeing “cockroaches” on me for hours afterwards. Finally a taxi comes - I didn’t tell my story to the people I was meeting for dinner…
I am now very careful about not standing on or near drains when it is raining heavily.
Oh, once I was eating a bowl of noodle soup. When I got to the bottom, I saw a dead cockroach hiding under a noodle. Mmm cockroach soup.
Okay, I AM afraid of spiders, and even seeing that picture made me brush my fingers through my hair to make it go away.