Phobias

[vdtitian]

Spiders...., i hate them.
Just thinking about them gives me the chills.....

[Balisong]

I have a fear of phone calls. Like if the phone rings, I hope beyond hope that it's not for me, and I have to control my breathing if I'm making a call. I don't know why I have this :\

[momoismyname]

i will sreaming when see a frog! snake? it was my friend!

[imadoofus]

Steak knives, that really sharp, really huge knife your mom always keeps in the kitchen... any sharp knives, really. Not butter knives, though. I'm also afraid of living forever (just give me 130 years and send me to heaven, that's my motto), eternal limbo (see previous phobia and note), finding a spider in my bathtub, in my food, or on my hand, vacuphobia (a phobia I invented myself, meaning to be afraid of being trapped in a vacuum), finding a daddy longlegs in or around my bed (that actually happened once)... I could go on, but sufficed to say, I am scared of a few things. I use the term "few" very loosely.

[Cave]

And my number one oh s*** phobia: tipulophobia. A fear of crane flies (called Daddy Long Legs in the UK). My fear of them is purely of the physical features of crane flies, not because they might bite or sting like a mosquito. We're talking a phobia so bad I run screaming like a little girl if I see one, even a dead one. I couldn't even defend myself by swatting them because I was so afraid they'd move or that I'd miss. I couldn't even feed their corpses to my Venus Fly Traps FFS. Also, Venus Fly Traps don't get triggered by the average crane fly... it's those creepily long skinny legs, they just don't brush up against the thing that triggers the fly trap to close. Damnit! That was why I bought the fly traps! Also, I really really despise the page I just found the scientific name of that phobia on. It just HAD to have a picture of the damned phobia object on it, didn't it? Insensitive jack-wagons, the people who made that page. I'm gonna be freaking the hell out all night now. I'm gonna go run screaming now because just thinking about them is freaking me out. Gahhh!

Wow, that is really terrible. Is there some sort of event that caused that phobia like your claustrophobia too?

Also, I've never heard them called "crane flies", just daddy long legs and I live in the US. o.O hm

I have a fear of phone calls. Like if the phone rings, I hope beyond hope that it's not for me, and I have to control my breathing if I'm making a call. I don't know why I have this :\

I used to be mildly afraid of the phone too. A friend in high school used to call me EVERYDAY and there'd be nothing to talk about (I just saw her at school after all). I don't know why she would call but eventually it stopped, we've had a lot of disagreements but we're still friends (mainly on FB since she moved several states away).

[mitchellbravo]

Ooh, ooh, here's a bad one for you: Moths and butterflies. Butterflies aren't AS bad, mostly because they barely come close enough to freak me out, and since they're active during the daytime I can maintain visual contact and "feel safer." But fucking moths, I had company over once and I turned on the ceiling light in my room and a moth went shooting over to it and I had to make my friend get rid of it for me. I hate the way they move and I hate the way they look when they're dead. There is no safe zone.

Uck, last summer there was a moth on the back of one of our living room armchairs. I figured, hey, I have cats, let me put the agile one near it and she'll take care of it. BIG MISTAKE. Her hunting ability wasn't really "efficient," let's say, and the damn thing was flopping all over the place, and then she finally ate the body but left the wings and legs on the carpet *shudder*. My mom yelled at me for not wanting to pick them up. I forget whether I out-stubborned her that time.

Spiders I am usually okay with, like I'm not going to keep a spider in my room and let it stay there or anything but I'm usually able enough to take a cup and paper and move the spider outside in a calm and gentle way. Unless the spider is beige. ??? Then it is horrible and scary looking and ew why is it so fucking creepy looking why can't it be a normal colored goddamn spider.

I also have somewhat of a problem with ants. It's not usually too bad, but we were getting some big ones in our hosue this past year and it was really unsettling.

[Moblin]

I'm actually okay with bugs, love them. As long as they aren't poisonous I don't really care if they crawl on me. My house gets a lot of spiders but usually they're only garden ones, though they can get pretty big.

I have a phobia of home intruders or being attacked, I had someone try and break in my house when I was alone a year ago and I'm still paranoid about it. But I think I've always been a little bit even when I was little. And I guess I'm going to include darkness in this as well. I'm not afraid of the dark I could sleep fine in a pitch black room but outside I'm always nervous when walking in a dark area.

I also am afraid of talking to people over the phone...or just having to go to talk to someone in general. Even if I'm ordering food. I guess if not on the phone its partially because I know at some point they're going to say they cant hear what I'm saying and ask me to speak up.

[mitchellbravo]

I guess if not on the phone its partially because I know at some point they're going to say they cant hear what I'm saying and ask me to speak up.

For what it's worth, I have the exact opposite problem, though i wouldn't say that it's a phobia necessarily. I always feel terrible when I talk to someone who either speaks quieter than I can comprehend or has an accent I can't quite understand. I sometimes have what I guess you could call "imaginative hearing," where someone might say something totally normal in context but my brain interprets it as something entirely irrelevant. And even if I ask them to repeat themselves, I usually still can't get it on the second try. So here's me, hounding this poor person who's making some simple comment or question, and I get so flustered that I can't understand them that it makes it even harder to understand, because my brain starts going "Come on just PAY ATTENTION to the person, look how rude you must seem, you're keeping them from going about their day, etc."

I will give you some of my ability to speak to others if you'll give me some of your ability to hear

[Moblin]

I guess if not on the phone its partially because I know at some point they're going to say they cant hear what I'm saying and ask me to speak up.

For what it's worth, I have the exact opposite problem, though i wouldn't say that it's a phobia necessarily. I always feel terrible when I talk to someone who either speaks quieter than I can comprehend or has an accent I can't quite understand. I sometimes have what I guess you could call "imaginative hearing," where someone might say something totally normal in context but my brain interprets it as something entirely irrelevant. And even if I ask them to repeat themselves, I usually still can't get it on the second try. So here's me, hounding this poor person who's making some simple comment or question, and I get so flustered that I can't understand them that it makes it even harder to understand, because my brain starts going "Come on just PAY ATTENTION to the person, look how rude you must seem, you're keeping them from going about their day, etc."

I will give you some of my ability to speak to others if you'll give me some of your ability to hear

Haha gladly.
I think I run into people who do that a lot. I don't mind to much though cause I've talked to people even quieter and softer spoken than me and even I have trouble sometimes.

[adrilahan]

And my number one oh s*** phobia: tipulophobia. A fear of crane flies (called Daddy Long Legs in the UK). My fear of them is purely of the physical features of crane flies, not because they might bite or sting like a mosquito. We're talking a phobia so bad I run screaming like a little girl if I see one, even a dead one. I couldn't even defend myself by swatting them because I was so afraid they'd move or that I'd miss. I couldn't even feed their corpses to my Venus Fly Traps FFS. Also, Venus Fly Traps don't get triggered by the average crane fly... it's those creepily long skinny legs, they just don't brush up against the thing that triggers the fly trap to close. Damnit! That was why I bought the fly traps! Also, I really really despise the page I just found the scientific name of that phobia on. It just HAD to have a picture of the damned phobia object on it, didn't it? Insensitive jack-wagons, the people who made that page. I'm gonna be freaking the hell out all night now. I'm gonna go run screaming now because just thinking about them is freaking me out. Gahhh!

Wow, that is really terrible. Is there some sort of event that caused that phobia like your claustrophobia too?

Also, I've never heard them called "crane flies", just daddy long legs and I live in the US. o.O hm

Actually, the cause of my crane fly phobia is related to a phobia mitchellbravo just wrote about: moths and butterflies. My mom is deathly afraid of them. Her phobia of them is because when she was a kid, one of her friends was hit and killed by a car... wearing her sunday best. The girl flew through the air, dress streaming out behind her, and moth wings look just like that to my mom. So, she's freaking out about moths and butterflies, and the occasional false identification happens in all the phobia happening up in her head. Ta-da! New phobia for her baby!

The problem with calling it a daddy long legs and not explaining what they are is that some people call harvest spiders "daddy long legs". I like harvest spiders, they're awesome. I like their long legs. But if they fly? Nuh-uh, not going near it! No way!