Spiders.
Needles.
Being in the ocean. I love lakes, but salt water and what lives in there creep me out.
Bees. Not wasps, bees. I cannot be near bees. I cannot touch or look at pictures of bees. I cannot even touch the word “bee” when it is written on a page. And yet, I can type it. But I wouldn’t be able to touch where it says “bee” on the screen.
Mirrors. I’m scared I’ll look at them and see something wrong with my reflection and then it will come out of the mirror and kill me.
For the love of Og, never tickle me. Don’t even wriggle your fingers at me as if you’re going to tickle me.
Family and a couple girlfriends have thought my intense squirming and laughter while wriggling their fingers at me before being tickled is cute, but I’m not laughing because it’s fun for me: it’s a panic laugh. If I’m accidentally tickled by someone, I’ll tense up and have to get at least an arm’s length away from everyone for a minute or two until I can relax again.
If you purposely tickle me, I will not be held responsible for any bloody noses as a result of my lashing out.
I can’t stand roller coasters (or any other ride that goes upside down) because I’m afraid that I’m so skinny that I’ll slide out of the restraints somehow and fall to my death. It’s never happened to me ever, nor has it ever started to happen. But it’s always a fear.
I also have an intense phobia of fire.
Jarbaby, were you a Brady Bunch fan as a kid?
Band name!
Now I feel bad because I’ve gotten amusement out of people’s personal phobias. I apologize. I don’t have one, I’m afraid, beyond things like “Looking Like a Total Idiot in Public,” which is probably too much of a human-condition thing to count.
My beloved friend KF has a total thing about wet paper, though. Can’t touch it, will cross the street to avoid stepping on soggy cardboard, that sort if thing. I think it has something to do with paper straws, spoiled milk, and her Catholic school upbringing.
I’m afraid I’ll accidently eat bugs.
If I cook for myself, I know I’m ok, because whatever isn’t in the fridge is safely sealed in a Ziplock bag or in a secure container. I never even see any bugs in my house, but you can never be Too Careful. It’s not like I can even remember any childhood traumas involving bugs in my food, I just hate the idea.
Prepared foods like frozen dinners or hot dogs are ok, because even though I know for a fact that they’re allowed to have a certain amount of insect matter in them, I can’t SEE the bugs. It’s the idea of seeing a big, fat, glistening roach hanging out on my plate, or a bunch of little ants trudging through my dinner.
If I eat out, I carefully inspect the food on my plate to make sure I don’t see any bugs. If I do see an insect in my food, I’ll never go there again. I also know that there are bugs in most restaurants no matter how fancy, but I DON’T WANT TO SEE THEM.
I have to roll down my window before I drive over a body of water… Lake Marion on I-95 is the most terrifying of all.
I have an absolute dread of public speaking. Its so bad that when we have an all hands meeting at work, and I think that I may be given an award or called to speak, I’ll usually call in sick.
I’m afraid of everything. Welll, not everything, but a large number of things.
Well, let’s see. Insects, spiders of all kinds, you name it. If they’re really small pathetic insects, sure, not so bad, but the other kind make me horrified. And Wicked Blue, your post scared the hell out of me…I have something new to fear! j/k.
Also, I freak out if anyone goes too near my eyes, or neck. I was once looking at this cartoon of a frog strangling a large bird (yes, okay, bizarre, I know), and I had to look away, it was freaking me out. I’d hate to die by strangulation. And eyes…well, anything to do with them gets to me.
Public speaking. Ugh. I hate it.
Oh, and I also have a phobia of diseases. Getting one and not knowing until it’s too late, much like in The Stand. I don’t think I could ever be a med student- every time I’d read about a new kind of illness, I’m sure I’d think I was getting it.
Hm. Well, among the things i’m NOT scared of are dogs, heights, water, and open spaces. I’m not a total wimp, I’m not! 
slow, painful death. I can’t believe no one’s said that yet.
Water that anything is living in, so I guess it’s not the water, but aquatic animals that I’m scared to death of. Pools and bath tubs are it for me. I worry when flying over water, I’d much rather crash on land than have to worry about being eaten by sharks. You’ll never get me on a boat, even though the idea of sailing really appeals to me.
And car batteries, which is extra unfortunate because I could leave my headlights on professionally if I could find someone to pay me! When ever I need a jump, someone else has to do it and I’m at least 50 feet away when they do.
Oh, and Em, I’m with you on the cricket thing. I can’t even get near them when they’re dead!
I am scared to extreme, arm-flailing paroxysms of spiders. Small ones don’t excite anything beyond ‘I need to clean my closet’ from me. But if a hairy, poison-spitting spider the size of my hand’s running after me, you can guarantee I’m running faster. I’m afraid of almost all arachnids - scorpions are even scarier, and I’m afraid of all sizes of them. Even seeing a realistic drawing of one of these creatures will cause me to shiver a bit. I’ll freak completely if one starts crawling on me, no matter what size.
Neither spiders nor scorpions look alive to me - they’re like daemonic automatons from beyond the grave. They have more legs than should be allowed on an organism and a sort of restless evil about them - the way they just sit there, twitching their pedipalps or holding their tails above their cephalothoraxes, waiting to stab something. I’m always afraid they’ll latch onto me and just keep stinging/biting me until I collapse in a trembling pile of liquified guts.
Colourful spiders scare me twice as much - they’re probably colourful for a reason. And seeing a picture of a scorpion glowing in ultraviolet light - eeehhhehehhe. I have dreams of large packs of spiders running after me and the part in The Hobbit with the giant spiders and Bilbo… Eek.
So, why do I wander over to the scary-bug section of every petshop I visit?
I am scared to extreme, arm-flailing paroxysms of spiders. Small ones don’t excite anything beyond ‘I need to clean my closet’ from me. But if a hairy, poison-spitting spider the size of my hand’s running after me, you can guarantee I’m running faster. I’m afraid of almost all arachnids - scorpions are even scarier, and I’m afraid of all sizes of them. Even seeing a realistic drawing of one of these creatures will cause me to shiver a bit. I’ll freak completely if one starts crawling on me, no matter what size.
Neither spiders nor scorpions look alive to me - they’re like daemonic automatons from beyond the grave. They have more legs than should be allowed on an organism and a sort of restless evil about them - the way they just sit there, twitching their pedipalps or holding their tails above their cephalothoraxes, waiting to stab something. I’m always afraid they’ll latch onto me and just keep stinging/biting me until I collapse in a trembling pile of liquified guts.
Colourful spiders scare me twice as much - they’re probably colourful for a reason. And seeing a picture of a scorpion glowing in ultraviolet light - eeehhhehehhe. I have dreams of large packs of spiders running after me and the part in The Hobbit with the giant spiders and Bilbo… Eek.
So, why do I wander over to the scary-bug section of every petshop I visit?
Spiders… I’m freaked out by spiders.
Any insect thats black I automatically assume is a spider… I can kill them, or get them away from me but they creep me out.
Everything else I’m cool with…
Anyone wanna go graveyarding with me next full moon?
But after rereading all of these posts, I think I’m just normal;)
Do not read this article on camel spiders:
I think it’s too bad that so many people are frightened of spiders. True, most of them do have the ability to bite you, but they eliminate so many other insects that are much more offensive. Roughly the same theory applies to snakes, although I don’t think anyone has mentioned my favorite reptile.
I have a fear of camel crickets. Not just regular crickets, which are fine, but CAMEL crickets. I know it’s completely irrational, but they just creep me out.
If you don’t know what they are, there’s a chance you’ll run across them in your basement . . . they’re brown/gray, 1-3 in. long, and have HUGE back legs in relation to the rest of their body. As a result of the latter, they can practically jump across an average room in a single leap. <cringe>
I think it goes back to my days as a child, when I would walk down into my parents’ dimly lit basement, terrified that one of these creatures would jump onto me out of the darkness. I’m actually fine with most other insects, though.
Dead snails outside of their shells. This is a very specific fear. I don’t mind slugs, which are kind of like live snails outside of shells. I love my water snail, Rufus, who is obviously alive and in a shell. Dead snails inside shells don’t bother me. But I am majorly freaked out by dead snails outside of their shells. My boyfriend loves to tease me by telling me how good escargot is. ::shudder::
I am also very aware of things that can impale me, such as sharp-tipped fences and poles sticking up out of the ground. This is very strange, as I don’t mind other sharp things like needles.
I think that’s one of the strangest looking creatures I’ve ever seen. It reminds me of one of the aliens from Starship Troopers.
I used to be deathly scared of scorpions, even though I live in a region where they’re inhabitants. I got over this phobia a few years ago, when I visited some friends in New Mexico and squashed a whole bunch of them. They’re very slow, and smaller than I’d thought they’d be.
One morning, I got up and put on the jeans I had worn the day before, since they weren’t dirty. As I was buttoning, I felt something skittering up my leg. I tore the jeans off as fast as I could, and a cricket fell out of one of the leg holes. Ugh.
I’m also afraid of:
Bees (attacked by a swarm six years ago)
Heights (or rather, falling from them)
I’m claustrophobic. My ex-husband used to think it was hilarious to cover my head with the covers and not let me out.
Public speaking. I had to do a reading at a con last summer and spent the entire day sweating bullets and drinking beer.
Getting caught in random violence (some maniac opens fire in McDonald’s). I’m always looking for alternate exits when I’m in a public place.
Sheri