I have to preface this thread by saying that I am not immune to phobias – for forty years I was too terrified of airplanes to fly. Three years ago, I talked myself out of it because I love to travel and I didn’t want to limit myself to the west coast of the U.S. for the rest of my life. I’m still shaky when I fly, though . . .
I once knew a woman who was absolutely PETRIFIED of the munchkins and flying monkeys in The Wizard of Oz. She couldn’t even think about them without getting into a cold sweat. Since I didn’t like her very much, I used to get a perverse pleasure about bringing up munchkins if she was in the room. Sing a few bars of “Lullaby League,” and she was history.
This was the weirdest one I’ve heard about. How about you?
I have a friend who is afraid of the night sky. She also freaks out if you try talking to her about outer space. Things like the Theory of Relativity scare her pretty badly too.
I have two run of the mill phobias: snakes and heights.
Now my two bizarre phobias: chickens and fish.
I am terrified of chickens, roosters in particular. I think it’s because when I lived in Utah we had chickens and the roosters attacked me regularly. And I’m not scared of water, but I am scared of what lurks beneath the waves.
The odd thing is that I scuba dive, and I have no problems under the water, but bobbing around on the surface with my feet dangling down into unseen depths… shudder :eek:
I’ve heard tell of a phobia caused by an irrational fear of the number 13. It’s got a name like “triskadelaphobia” or something like that.
My mother used to tease me about being scared shitless (no, she doesn’t use those words) of one of the regulars on the Electic Company or Sesame Street. Apparently I cried every time he came onscreen. I have no recollection of this whatsoever.
Water striders used to scare the shit out of me. When I was about 6, my brother told me they were poisonous. They are, but only if you’re a quarter of an inch long and look like food to them. It too me 25 years before I could stand to see them.
I also had a secretary who had this thing for rubber bands. I guess it’s not really a phobia, but whenever she’d see a rubber band, she’d get physically ill. She actually threw up once when some practical joker (not me!) left a pile of rubber bands on her chair. Yeah, she was an odd one.
Thanks. I wrote a brief article on phobias in that rag that was also known as our junior high school newsletter–this was back in the late 70s/early 80s. I was going by memory and am surprised I was actually that close to the correct name…
Don’t blame you on this one; Carol Channing is freaky-scary enough as it is without adding the weird costume and bizarre dialogue.
I also have the water thing (I have had to get out of a swimming pool in the middle of a swim class because I so vividly imagined a shark coming up underneath me in the deep end, and, yes, I know this is a completely irrational fear, there are no sharks in swimming pools), and though I am no longer scared of them, I too have been attacked by a rooster. My fear was somewhat allieviated when the same rooster tried to attack me again and I watched my mom punt it 25 feet across the yard.
I can relate. When I was little I was petrified of the big blue eagle, Sam, from the Muppets.
I am also afraid of cows and horses. Not when I see them from a distance, like driving down the road, but when I see them up close. They are huge!!!
Also, my feet cannot be touching the floor when the room gets dark. I will freak out if someone turns off the lights while I am standing on the floor. It really sucks to be walking around during a storm because at any time the power could go off and my feet would be touching the floor!
I used to be afraid of the spinning Earth thing that came on at the end of certain television shows. I also had a fear of some muppetesque grape-cluster shaped velvet head/thing that would spin in my mind before I would go to bed. It would usually laugh.
Clowns. Those things are scary still. I should have never been able to watch Poltergeist when I was that young, especially since my younger sister looked exactly like the little “they’re here” girl. She used to say that because she knew it would get a rise out of my older sisters and I.
I am really not scared of anything anymore. Up until about a year and a half ago I was thalasaphobic. It was pretty severe. I had trouble going over any bridges if they had water under them. The water actually had to be fairly large though. Usually my desire to swim over came my fear of the water; however, if anything would touch me in the water, real or imagined, I would turn into Jesus and run atop it until I reached the shore. To make things worse, I used to get the same irrational fear from simply watching nature shows. A good aquatic documentary was scarier than any horror film I have ever seen. I still get a little uneasy watching those, but they are so interesting. Overall now, I am able to swim without being frightened, bridges don’t bother me, and I can pretty much look at marine life in the water without freaking out. I still get slightly frightened/excited by watching the documentary things though but overall it is more entertaining.
My nephew had a fear of Santa Claus when he was three. If he even caught a glimpse of one at the other end of a mall he’d freak out. Now he’s five he’s outgrown that.
Keith
Odieman, I’m with your nephew. Santa Claus still makes me nervous. Especially bad are the guys in the big cartoon character costumes at Disneyland. I’d run screaming!
You’d think I’d have sympathy for other people’s phobias. Nuh-uh! At an office where I used to work, there was an annoying woman with a gibbering, screaming fear of crickets and grasshoppers. So what did I do when I saw at the toy store a realistic one-foot rubber grasshopper? Yup. Put it under her desk where she’d feel it with her feet before she saw it. Her reaction is still talked about at that office to this day. I’m so mean!
