abeja Spanish
On a show not long ago, Dr. Phil said that such phobias are one of the easiest psych issues to cure - that it can often be done in one day.
I guess it’s lucky that you are not called upon to touch the word bee very often - I mean, it’s not like it’s part of your job description.
I’ll bet you love to read - the word BEE doesn’t look anything like the critter, so if your mind links that collection of letters with the critter itself so strongly that it makes you fearful, you must have a very vivid imagination in other ways too.
I have mild issues with heights and elevators, but I’ve never had anything that strong.
Francesca: Does the word “bee” literally feel fuzzy? If so, I think it’s about the oddest case of synaesthesia I’ve ever heard of. Do any other words trigger unusual tactile sensations? Have you tried groping a dictionary? And can you touch a picture of a bee?
I can’t touch pictures of bees/wasps/etc. I really can’t. Which is unfortunate, 'cause I love reading field guides. It’s difficult to turn the pages when they’re covered in full-color closeups of nasty swarming stinging things. But I’m okay with the words (although professor folk’s contribution made me cringe violently). So if you’re crazy, you’re not much crazier than I am.
I love this hive employ-ee-ee
Bissected accidentally
One summer afternoon by me
I love him, carnally!
I had a wonderful nature book as a child. It had pictures of hundreds of animals in it, and descriptions about how they lived. But there were a few pages which were very securely taped together. I decided to peel the tape off to see what was inside…
SPIDERS!!! Giant furry crawly fangy buggy-eyed SPIDERS!
A book can go a surprisingly long way when thrown by a terrified 6-year-old.
See, my dad was also terrified of spiders, so he had my mom tape those pages together so we’d never accidentally open the book there and freak him out.
That sort of thing happens all the time with me. Spider sneak-attacks on TV and in books. Just flipping channels… fall upon Discovery documentary about some rainforest people. “Ah, he’s a medicine man, cool. With a pointy stick, Hmmm, what’s he going to do with it? Hm, ok, poking in a hole. What’s he looking for? EEEEEEEEEEEKKKK TARANTULA!! And of course then my eyes are closed and I’m jamming at the remote for the off button but with eyes closed I can’t see if there’s a tarantula on me so I have to open them to check but then I can’t see the buttons and the TV’s still on and is the spider still there AAAUGGH YES IT IS!!!”
They should have warnings like they do about sex and violence in a show. Warning, this show contains scenes of spiders which may freak out some viewers…
I had a fear of snakes. When younger (about 9, I guess), I could not walk past a dead one on the road because I couldn’t be sure it was dead, even though it was in the same spot as when I’d driven past it a half-hour earlier (and then had to walk home because the truck broke down). I’m completely over that fear now, and in my defense, it was a copperhead snake - deadly poisonous.
I also had a phobia about wasps, but that was because I was stung about 25 times (or so it seemed - definitely more than a dozen) when I was 4 or 5. My older brother and cousins dared me to go into the windmill house (literally the pumphouse at the base of a windmill) where my grandmother hung her onions from the garden. There were approximately a million wasp, hornet and yellowjacket nests in there and I didn’t get 3 feet in the door before they swarmed me. I still startle pretty violently when a wasp comes near me, but I no longer fear them. In fact, I rather like the satisfyingly squishy crunch they make under my shoe after I bat them to the ground.
Nyah!
Mozilla doesn’t read it so I’m safe at the house from your evil fonts.
It doesn’t help that Ripley’s Believe It or Not had to put out this little bit of info. : shiver :
The next time you run across the word “soap,” rub it on your skin. Are you any cleaner?
The next time you see the word “money,” carefully clip it and give it to the cashier the next time you go to the store. Note the reaction.
The next time you have a headache, instead of taking aspirin, ingest the label off the bottle instead. See if your headache responds.
Every time you see the words “pie,” “meat,” “vegetables,” “cheese,” etc., tear off the page, chew it up and swallow it. Does this match your experiences of eating the objects named?
Keep this up for a month, and your fear of touching the word “bee” will fade deep into the background of your revulsion toward all printed matter everywhere.
Nope. In fact, that’s mildly worse. Hornets are GIANT BEES*.
Violet9 - I can touch them all except “ape”. Because I know that “ape” is “bee” in Italian. The other words have no meaning for me. But ape is BEE.
Tentacle Monster
It does and it doesn’t. I don’t actually get a sensation of fuzziness from touching the word “bee”. But after I’ve touched it, it feels like I’ve been touching something fuzzy and I have to rub my finger on something to get rid of the sensation. No other words do this to me. I R only mental of bees.
I would prefer not to touch a picture of a bee. But I can. Because I can see it is only a picture. It doesn’t produce AHHHHH TOUCHING A BEE reactions quite so much. I guess maybe because a pictoral representation dilutes the Idea Of Bee. If you get what I mean.
Ultrafilter
I used to be scared of all things Bee. To the point where I didn’t like going outside in the summertime. I couldn’t be near bees, I couldn’t hear bee sounds, I couldn’t look at pictures of bees, and I couldn’t touch the word “bee”. But I got better. A bee can come within five feet of me now and I don’t run screaming. Bees will never be my bestest buddies and I never want to physically touch them, but I’m willing to co-exist with them.
The AAAHHHHH TOUCHING A BEE reaction from touching the word “bee” is a hangover from the phobia. I have absolutely no idea why I should get over it in all respects except that one.
I have to go now. I feel weird from having typed the word “bee” so many times.
*[sub]I know they’re not actually giant bees. But they might as well be.[/sub]
