(And yes, you may choose more than one). This is a public poll, because I want to know whom I should text pictures of spiders to. If you have a phobia, is there a specific reason behind it? Childhood trauma? Your parents having that phobia and socially passing it on? These aren't all just ingrained, genetically induced disorders. Some can be, but a lot of them are socially or experientially acquired. I know by definition phobias are irrational, but they still baffle me. It seems like every roommate I've ever had is deathly afraid of spiders, leaving me to remove or kill any such offending tiny little creatures that absolutely can't hurt people. And I just don't get it. I don't have any phobias. Probably because I don't have a soul. If I really had to push to understand phobias, I think the closest I get to a phobia is maybe galeophobia (fear of sharks). Mostly I just imagine how awful it would be to have your body ripped apart by an ancient killing machine. But it's not something that's actually kept me from going in the ocean, so I don't think it really counts. I think I'm more just fascinated by sharks. EDIT: The one I really don't get, and which I couldn't fit on the poll, is fear of birds. Seriously, what?
I had a severe phobia of bees and bee-looking insects, because of some awful childhood incident (I witnessed a friend of mine being attacked by what looked like one hundred bees after accidentally knocking a beehive and go into shock). I eventually managed to get it under control, but I still feel uncomfortable around buzzing insects.
See, I can understand someone having a phobia if they had such a legit traumatizing experience. My grandmother's deathly afraid of snakes, but then her brothers used to pick up garter snakes and drop them down the back of her dress when they were kids. So that seems somewhat valid. What I can't understand is, for instance, my roommate not being able to look at a snake at all. What's wrong with snakes? I was once on a location scout at this wilderness park, and we were talking to a ranger at this little welcome center. When I came out of the bathroom, my producer had a snake from one of the displays wound around his arm. He held it out to me, all, "Want to see a snake?" and clearly thinking I was going to freak out. But I love snakes, so I took it happily and ruined his sexist expectations.
I think that would give a phobia to anyone JTS, yikes. I guess I don't really have one unless you count the fear of having to work into old agedom.
How is fear of sharks a phobia? If you have the urge to pet one one on one in the ocean I would ask you to seek help.
Heights. I don't know the origin, but I remember the worst incident. When I was a kid (two weeks ago), my parents took me up in the Statosphere tower in Las Vegas. On top of the fact that it was at the time the highest I've been other than on an airplane (which strangely never bothered me), the roller coaster continually shook the building. When I saw a helicopter fly well below me, I really, really wanted to go down. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't like the roller coaster shaking the building either, but my parents didn't understand why I was quite so desperate to get out of there. It's usually not bad. I can keep my composure most of the time. I wasn't freaked out by places like the Grand Canyon, and I've stayed in rooms that were pretty high (would never want to live in a tall building, though).
I don't like heights but it's not quite a phobia, I'm ok with rollercoaster rides and such. A few years ago I was terribly afraid of cockroaches, like I would become a nervous wreck around them, but that was caused by the damn roaches tendency to fly towards my face or get tangled in my hair. In recent years I've gotten better and smash them into a pulp if they dare come near me.
I was stung by a bee when I was a toddler and was pretty scared of them growing up, but I've since got over it. I hate mosquitoes but wouldn't say that's a fear as such, they just annoy me because of the sound and the bites. It's hard to judge what's rational/irrational about yourself.
I suspect I have a phobia of people who aren't caucasian since I do not vote strictly Democrat across the board. The only reasonable explaination for that is racism. Time to leave my wife...
I have a bit of acrophobia. Usually I can manage it, but if I get high enough I want to crawl out of my own skin to escape. Planes never bother me though. I used to have a massive phobia of hypodermic needles. However, a health incident that required me to undergo a huge battery of blood tests sorted that out and now I have no problem with needles whatsoever.
Glossaphobia. That and whatever-phobia would describe weird, unexplainable (supernatural, to put it like that) **** happening.
I've got no issue with heights. My greatest fear is being trapped underneath (for an extended period of time) rubble after an insanely bad earthquake, especially if it's underneath a freeway or down in the L.A. subway.
My only problem on roller coasters is that first steep climb. Once things start going downhill and pick up speed I'm fine. But I pretty much crap myself on that first climb. Church steeples are particularly bad, I've been to the cathedral in Ulm (world's highest) twice and not made it past half way.
Like @DarthLowBudget I used to have a great fear of needles (probably wasn't helped by the nurses basically holding me down to sedate me when I was six for a toncilectomy), then I started working in my field and I just had to basically classify getting various shots (such as Flu and Hep B vaccine shots) as part of the job and to just suck it up and deal with it. Oddly enough that helped a great deal. Still not a fan of getting blood drawn (it hurts like hell), and will avoid that if I can.
I have a phobia of personality tests. My mother has an old friend who was attacked by a bird when she was very little. The bird was in her hair and apparently couldn't get out. Meanwhile, she's just running around, screaming, making it worse for both human and bird. The case of this particular phobia can easily be chalked up to childhood trauma, however.
