A lot of people seem to have phobias about at least one thing. I’m afraid of vomiting - I’ll do anything to prevent it. It’s so bad that it I had a choice between breaking my arm and vomiting, I’d go for the broken arm. If I see anyone with the stomach flu I avoid them like the plague.
My husband is afraid of toads. He knows the origin of this fear, too - when he was about 3 he was playing in the backyard shed, and a big granpa toad jumped on his foot. I guess at the angle he was looking at, it looked like the toad had swallowed his foot, and he screamed bloody murder. Today at 36 years old, if a balled-up leaf rolls across the sidewalk he jumps. I think this is a cute phobia - I mean, what can toads do to you? (coincidentally, I asked him this, and he said, “they can touch you”. )
I can’t touch raw meat. I won’t even put the package of chicken onto the converyor belt at the supermarket. My dad has to do it. There’s no real reason for this–I’m not scared of germs or anything. I can touch cooked poultry or bacon, but not beef, pork, or lunch meats. I don’t eat a lot of meat, either, just chicken and the occasional piece of bacon.
Heights; total darkness; hives, measles, mumps, bad acne, and other similarly disfiguring skin conditions; and hornet’s nests and large termite and ant mounds.
The disfigurements and insect lairs don’t scare me per se, but they do make me extremely nauseous and hivey though, so I count them.
Maggots. I’m perfectly ok with worms, caterpillars, any and all types of creepy-crawlies. But not maggots.
Once last month, I had left a trash bag full of garbage in the garage. I went out one morning to take it to the curb, and the bag was completely covered with thousands of maggots. After screaming, I hosed down the bag at full force, then hosed down the garage floor, then hosed down the driveway. Even now, it makes my skin crawl just thinking of those little bastards.
I feel exactly the way the OP does about vomiting. I am also afraid of arachnids, roaches (ever had a roach run across your bare foot? Aieeee!), heights, some snakes, and thunderstorms.
One of my co-workers is afraid of those little lizards that hide in bushes and hedges. She has no fear at all of spiders, which seems to me irrational.
Absolutely freakin’ terrified by spiders. Terrified!! Evil little devil’s minions, I swear the little bastards are out to kill me. And not just me. They’ll get you too. You just watch.
I’ll second that motion. I’m jumpy around other bugs as well, especially if they surprise me, but bees, wasps and hornets are the worst.
Not really a fear but an aversion, I don’t like making phone calls. Particularly to people I don’t know or rarely talk to (ordering food, fixing a screwup on my elections card, that sort of thing). I love getting calls, I just don’t like being the one to pick up the phone and dial.
Robots. Big, chunky, scary robots (think ED 209 from Robocop, and the Demobot from I, Robot) - I think its a certain way that they move, but they make me shaky and sweaty and I can’t bear to look.
And sloths… when I was younger I flicked channels on the TV and caught a glimpse of a sloth swimming underwater - it had an evil grin on its face and looked uncannily like Norman Bates from Psycho! They have given me nightmares ever since. Imagine my reaction when I turned a corner in the Natural History Museum to find a huge mock-up of a Giant Ground Sloth from the Ice Age - my kids were screeching with laughter going “hide Mummy hide - its coming to get you!” :eek:
Thankfully, living in a sleepy farming county in England means I am unlikely to ever really have to face either of these fears head on!
I’m afraid of maggots, definitely. Makes me scream. Also suffocating…and
empty swimming pools. Not empty of water, but empty of people. I never go swimming alone. But the ocean is not as scary, for some reason. Probably cause I can’t see the bottom.
I love canoeing, and we usually do a couple of wilderness trips a year, but when I was about 9, My dad was getting off the dock into the canoe I was in. He misjudged and tipped it, I went under and got stuck under the dock. It really really freak me out, and 20 years later, I still get a bit freaked out when the canoe starts rocking heavily.
SPIDERS! And, umm, tornadoes. Not neccesarily in that order and I am deathly afraid of both of them. An encounter (or a near encounter) with either will turn me into a quivering mass of freaked-out-ness.
Please say these are separate…
Dogs Big bitey ones or small nippy ones.
And I have a weird phobia.I’m terrified of having a baby son Just the thought of it is ulmp.Even watching on telly someone else having a baby boy doesn’t make me feel too good.I swear if we got to the hospital and they said it’s a boy,I’d be out those doors pronto
It hasn’t cropped up yet,but I’m not looking forward to when it does…
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Big bitey ones or small nippy ones.