I really hope this is a joke. Otherwise I'm going to hell.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

In fact, I might be going to hell anyway.

I was looking for something on YouTube, and after I watched it, this came up. A segment of Maury Povich, and as far as I can tell, it’s authentic, about a young woman who is phobic about pickles.

I was caught between bewilderment and amusement (no, that does not mean bemused) the first time I watched it. I wanted to laugh, but kept thinking, “Perhaps she was molested.” Then I felt it bore a second watching, so I played it again, and that time, the instant she sobbed, “Pickles are ruining my life,” in that runon Paris/Nicole/Britney/LiLo inflection, I lost it. And could not stop laughing throughout. Then I pulled up other segments from the same episode, and found the one where the guy’s phobic about peaches. I was laughing so hard my eyes watered, from the moment the guy leapt out of his chair and took off running*.

I know, deep down, that it’s not funny. If you’re phobic about something, then you just are. And I’m not sure Maury was entirely cool, making comments like, “But you’re a waitress…In a restaurant…What if the customer wants a pickle?..But you’re the waitress!” It’s just that it’s so hard to process. If someone’s afraid of something that really can be dangerous, like spiders or deep water, or something that looks odd, like owls or something, that’s understandable. But…peaches? It’s just hard to understand someone who finds them menacing. And then there’s the fact that “pickle” is a funny word.

Too bad I hadn’t seen this when I had that co-worker who claimed phobia as her excuse for never tidying the knife display. I did tell her that a phobia is not a matter of “I’d rather not,” as opposed to “OMG, I CAN’T!” but now I have proof of how a phobic person really reacts.

Unless this is a joke…

*I love peaches most out of all fruits, but even I could have done without the ECU of someone eating an overripe peach.

2

This would be my guess. Not to spoil the humor for you.

But hey, all the good musicians are in Hell. :slight_smile:

3

That could explain Pickle Girl, but what about Peach Guy?

I remember in one of Lawrence Sanders’ “Deadly Sins” novels, there was a woman who was getting psychiatric treatment in lieu of jail time, because she’d twice stabbed men, one almost fatally, for no reason except that they had beards. She had uncovered the source of the phobia: the guy who molested her…he had a beard, right? No, he had a portrait of Ulysses S. Grant on his wall. The person she told this too thought it sounded ridiculous, but my take on it was that she’d been looking at the portrait the whole time the incident was happening, in an attempt to put her mind somewhere else, and that’s how the association became embedded.

So that’s probably what happened. Not being molested with a pickle or a peach, but abuse or some other kind of trauma* somehow associated with those images (pantry?). Or it might not have a direct source at all. Can people get phobias that are not tied to an event?

*There was a RL case of a kid who witnessed a murder. The perp didn’t see him, so no “The Client” dilemma, but because this had taken place outside of a pizzeria, the smell of pizza prompted the same kind of reaction.

4

Ah, I didn’t watch the whole thing (and only skimmed the OP…)

Dunno. I suspect that someone with paranoia of some sort could pick up some odd phobias, but I don’t know how long those would last. And even then, I would tend to think that there was something which caused that particular item to be chosen as a focal point, even if it’s a rather lame one.

Obsessive compulsive disorder could probably also be viewed as someone having odd phobias.

5

Never heard of the pickle phobia, but I have heard of people who get that skeeved out feeling just thinking about peach fuzz. There is something weird about ingesting something that appears to have hair growing on it. I don’t get wigged out, but I also won’t just bite into a peach. I prefer them peeled.

6

Oh man. That talkshow host was just MEAN. Having an hysterical Pickle Girl chased through the studio by assitants carrying trays of pickles… If someone had done that to me with spiders, for national TV, I might, I might…

:: pant ::

Anyway, it was mean AND ineffective. Phobia’s are by definition irrational fears, and pickles are no more irrational objest of fear then spiders, aeroplanes or heights… Phobia’s can and should be treated by confrontation, but in controlled circumstances. There are two forms of treatment. One has the phobic relax as much as possible, so she takes baby steps. The other treatment is full confrontation, where for instance the person with fear of heights has to stand on a bungee-jump platform. The catch there is that she shouldn’t be able to run away from her fear, because the human organism can’t feel extreme fear when nothing happens for more then 20 minutes.

The producers of the show confronted her with pickles when she was as relaxed as you would be with a ridicilous phobia for an audience of millions, and they did nothing to stop her from fleeing the studio when the assistant came in with the tray of pickles.

So yes, another case of ignorance winning another battle " Just confront phobics with what they’re afraid of, that’ll help" and yes, the OP is going to hell.

It was funny though.

7

Sweet Gerkens or Dill?

8

Do you part your hair behind?

9

Actually, the difference is that all the things you used as examples could be dangerous in some circumstances. Some species of spiders are poisonous or the bite could just hurt like the dickens, falling from heights or an airplane crash can also be dangerous/deadly. However, there is nothing frightening about a pickle or a peach which is what makes them hilariously irrational. I can imagine no situation where a pickle or a peach sitting on the counter could be dangerous and be able to induce that level of paranoria.

10

What if it’s a terrorist pickle?

11

I’m not sure if it was the same episode, but I saw one where a guy was afraid of mustard. Absolute abject terror, caused by the very sight of yellow mustard.

Weird.

I suppose it’s possible, since phobias are irrational by nature, but still, mustard? I can’t help but think that he was faking it for the show.

12

Maybe as a child his father forced him to play Clue every night, and ever night the killer turned out to be a certain military character. In the library. With a pickle.

13

PicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesPicklesvPicklesPickles

Say it over and over. You either go crazy and develop a phobia, or start giggling.

That’s how it starts, just like that.

14

No, silly, the buttcrack does that naturally!

15

I’m agoraphobic, and so far as I’ve been able to determine, there was no triggering event that caused it. It just sort of happened, sometime between my last year of high school and my first year of college. And it’s entirely irrational. There’s no specific event that I’m afraid is going to happen if I’m outside, it’s just an overwhelming feeling that something bad is going to happen at any minute. It’s a situation that’s every bit as harmless as a pickle, and it still used to scare the holy fuck out of me. I suspect for most people who have phobias about, say, spiders, it’s got nothing at all to do with wether the spider is dangerous, or wether other spiders are dangerous. It’s just the fact that it’s a fuckin’ spider, and that’s all there is to it.

16

Yeah, the word “pickles” just gets to me. As in a serious case of the chuckles.

If those pickle/peach/mustard phobias are real though, I feel sorry for the sufferers (I say “if” because it’s a talk-show, and they have a rep in some quarters for having folk just making this stuff up, this I know). Didn’t really find the vids a barrel of larfs.

17

And once again I find myself wondering why people agree to be guests on shows like this. He was absolutely torturing this poor woman.

18

It is probably real or at least it can be. I am embarrassed to admit this but I once had a phobia of standing in place. I had it for about 5 years and the thought of someone forcing me to stand in place even if it was being cornered for an casual conversation brought on full blown panic attacks. As long as I was free to move my feet or better yet, walk around, I was fine. That would took a lot of work to overcome and it is still there a little. People get a little confused when they see something is obviously wrong and you give standing in place as a reason.

19

People can be phobic of anything - the mustard guy probably wasn’t faking it. And it doesn’t have to come from past molestation or anything that traumatic, either - like others have said, they are IRRATIONAL fears. People with this tendency make a few faulty connections in their mind (like, last time I had a panic attack, I was eating a pickle; therefore, if I never have a pickle again, I will never have another panic attack; don’t bring that pickle near me - pickles = panic), and presto chango, a new phobia is born. Or maybe you choked while eating a peach; peaches now equal choking and almost dying.

We had a thread a while back about people who are phobic of cotton balls, and I believe we had a few Dopers who have this particular phobia. There are apparently many, many people in the world who are deathly phobic of birds, clowns; you name it, people fear it.

Shagnasty, standing in line (which is almost the same thing as standing in place) is a common phobia.

20

I’m on dial-up, so I’m not going to look at this clip. I can imagine that it’s hilarious, and I’d probably be laughing right with you all.

But I’ve got an irrational phobia, myself. I am absolutely terrified of anyone, or anything touching my belly button. There is no rational basis I can imagine for the terror I feel just considering that. Using a washcloth to clean myself is a pure horror. And it’s something I have to do, at least once a week. (It should be done daily, of course, but…)

Having said that I’m not really sure that the producer did the wrong thing in letting the pickle woman run away - immersion therapy can work with irrational phobias. However, if the victim gets too panicked, I can imagine it would produce a full-fledged psychotic episode: complete lack of rationality, and perhaps permanent mental health damage. You don’t cure someone by forcing them, from ambush, to sit in close proximity to the source of their phobia.

Though, why these people volunteered to be on the show if they knew what it was going to be about is completely beyond my ability to comprehend. I know about Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame, but I’d rather avoid it altogether, than to have my fifteen minutes be the kid who’s tongue was frozen to the flagpole.