My husband treats phobias as a part of his job. I’m always amused by his professional Amazon list: rubber snakes, fake vomit, pens that look like syringes, etc.
I do sympathize with anyone who has a phobia.
I’m afraid of heights personally and I once did exposure therapy for it just so I could get myself on an airplane. I still have some anxiety when I fly, but it’s not full-fledged panic, and most importantly, I’ve learned that I can feel anxious and still get on the plane.
I have an irrational fear of certain bugs, so I do understand. But, if it ever got to the point where it became unmanageable, I’d definitely seek professional help.
I wouldn’t make a post on Nextdoor, and lob insults at anyone who didn’t agree with my opinions.
FYI, several people (including me) asked if he was in therapy to overcome his fear. I never got an answer, but at least the guy didn’t call me any names.
Nextdoor is truly an amazing spectacle.
The real issue here, and it’s an idea growing in popularity, is that everyone should accommodate our personal problems at all times because we should never feel distressed by anything we hear or see. This has very real negative consequences for the people with those problems. Avoidance always reinforces and exacerbates anxiety. The more people accommodate your phobia, the worse off you’re going to be.
The other day there was a thread in my Nextdoor group titled “Is anyone else concerned that people no longer feel safe in [this town]?” I did not engage, but my first thought was “No, I don’t care that you don’t ‘feel’ safe. I’d only be concerned if it actually isn’t safe.” Honestly, I think the only reason these people feel unsafe is because they’re constantly exchanging stories about “suspicious” people on Nextdoor.
Yeah, I got downvoted to hell on Reddit for saying that young men who have trouble talking to women should just go, you know, talk to women and ask them out. My thinking was that if they can get to the point where initiating a conversation, asking a woman out for coffee, and getting rejected can be handled without trouble or self recrimination, then they can progress in their dating journey much more successfully.
I got lambasted because of something-trauma, something abuse, triggers, blah, blah. Despite the fact that all I said was that they should initiate conversations and ask the women out if things seem promising. No sexual harassment, no pushiness, nothing. Just starting up a conversation, and going from there.
I fail to see how those people’s problems have any bearing on the advice I was giving- it’s not the guys’ problem to accommodate random people who may or may not have had histories that aren’t conducive to that.
This was exactly how my first husband met me. He had therapy homework to meet like 10 women and ask them out. I was #7. (Can you tell he had issues? )
Aww.
My husband and I got together after he attended, for extra credit, a mental health activism event I was doing as a student. I talked on a panel about how crazy I was and he emailed the next day to chat me up! I’d like to think he found me generally fascinating, as opposed to say, clinically fascinating.
Here’s another thing about Nextdoor, although I might be the one making others tired.
Every now and then someone posts a picture of a bug or a bird and asks the name of the critter. A couple of dozen people will pipe up and identify it, and they’re ALWAYS WRONG. I like natural history, and can usually identify common animals, but if I don’t know, I resort to Google and the answer is easily found.
Today someone posted a video of a couple of dozen scurrying little red-and-black beetles. Fourteen people said “Ladybugs! They’re good for your garden!”. One or two said they were “berry bugs” or “June bugs”. I knew just from looking at them that they were some kind of juvenile beetle that were not good news, so I looked them up.
They’re box elder bug nymphs. The adults suck sap from trees and weaken them. I posted this fact and advised spraying for box elder bugs, and now we’ll see if I’m contradicted by Nextdoor dumbkopfs.
I should stay out of it, but sometimes I have to stick my oar in.
ETA: Oh, yeah, last week someone posted a pic of a huge gnarly elongated black beetle which was a pine borer, yet at least twenty people identified it as a cockroach.
I keep getting an invite from one of my neighbors (don’t know who) to join Nextdoor.
Not today Satan. Not EVER.
The great thing though is the vast relief I feel about never having lived in the adjoining Nextdoor community for which I once inexplicably signed up, and having moved far far away.
No mysterious young people, off-colored strangers or generally ill-dressed or otherwise suspicious individuals at my door or tramping through the yard, trying the doors on my locked car (or stealing stuff from the unlocked vehicle, garage or doorstep), no rampant door to door scams etc.
It’s heaven, relatively speaking.
Someone posted a picture of a COPPERHEAD SNAKE, PROTECT YOUR KIDS AND PETS!!!
I explained that the snake is actually a non venomous rat snake that is good to have around. I also explained that the snake in the picture looked nothing like a copperhead.
They replied, “better safe than sorry”.
Nextdoor (and/or people) just sucks. I occasionally idly think about canceling it, but then that one useful thing a quarter will pop up and I keep soldiering on. But so much of it is worthless.
I still check it now and again when something hits the news and I want to get a sense of the community. But I turned off all notifications, and was reminded of the delicious peace that descends when you stop hitting yourself on the head with a hammer.
Lately someone’s been posting long essays about the history of our town. Not ancient history, but things that happened within her memory, and other people are posting as well. Talking about restaurants or buildings that used to be here, concerts they saw, interesting events that took place, etc. It’s really fascinating, and nice to see someone putting something positive out there.
Oh yes, the tiresome ND “every snake is a Copperhead” nonsense. These people would probably come from 4 houses down to kill a 10 inch long length of rope “just to be safe”. The ignorance drives me up a wall. It’s beyond being ignorant: they’re willingly uninformed.
The Google Lens app is surprisingly accurate for that sort of thing. That’s what my wife and I use to identify garden pests and plant problems.
But you’re right- a lot of people are both shockingly uninformed and willfully ignorant about how to actually research things like this. You wouldn’t believe the level of nonsensical wives’ tales and superstitions that the old ladies at our community garden engage in as far as variety selection, pest management, watering, and general gardening know-how. My wife and I actually do research on various university sites and county extension service sites as to what our problems actually are, and how to combat them. We’ve gone so far as to have real soil testing done, and adjust our fertilizing accordingly. Everyone else just dumps whatever the hell organic fertilizer they can find at Home Depot on there, and calls it good, despite our soil being extremely high in phosphorus due to years of that same practice. And their idea of pest control is scattershot at best; apparently orange oil and diatomaceous earth will kill anything. 
My reply to that is always “Ignorance is never better”.
I rarely bother with NextDoor lately though I did recently use it to rehome an unneeded window AC unit to a grateful local citizen suffering last week’s heatwave. Lately it’s become a lot of Facebook-esque political bullshit and echo-chambering which isn’t even interesting. Maybe a debate or thought out (if erroneous) position might get my attention but not “OMG my property taxes went up!” “Politicians tax everything!” “Blame the governor!”, etc etc
People on NextDoor apparently learned their animals from neolithic cave drawings. I could post a photo of a housecat and say I saw it in my yard and the authoritative sounding responses would range from red fox to white-tail deer to puma. At least we don’t have any local venous fauna to flip out about and demand killing.
Recently someone posted a picture of what was (obviously) a partially uncoiled green hose with a sprayer attachment with the caption “I just saw this in my yard! What kind of snake is it!” It was amusing how people took it as the joke it was; one person identified it as a “green metal-nosed ratsnake” and cautioned that it will spit if provoked. Several others suggested striking it repeatedly with a shovel, “better safe than sorry” and one person offered to come and remove it to a safe haven, as it was a protected species.
It was a nice change from the posts with people panicking because their doorbell camera saw someone walking past their house and were convinced that their house was being cased by a burglar.
I’ve followed this thread from the git-go 5 months ago despite never having seen the website.
I think I can summarize the thread about like this. Paraphrasing good old Pogo from so many years ago:
We have met our neighbors. And they are complete morons.