What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias

October 23, 2009
Whether you jump at the sight of a spider or work up a sweat at the mere mention of getting on an airplane, fears and phobias abound. About 19.2 million American adults ages 18 and over, or some 8.7 percent of people in this age group in a given year, have some type of specific phobia, or extreme fear. Here are some of the worst.

-- Jeanna Bryner





What scares me the most is flying, I don't like take offs, landings and am not too crazy about being in the air, think it may be a control thing, if I were flying the plane it would alright, not!!! It doesn't keep me from flying, when I was traveling to Europe frequently what choice did I have.

I'm afraid of spiders. Yet, knowing this...my wife, who "Isn't" afraid of them always calls me to kill them.

Worse yet, she hands me ONE square of toilet paper. Yeah, that's gonna protect me.

Also flying. Never been on a plane, never will. You'd have to "MR.T" me with a 2X4 and pray I don't wake up mid flight. haha.

Cool stuff here.

reply to post by Demoncreeper

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I am with you on the Spider thing, one square of tissue. I think what scares me more than anything is the graphic I posted above, can you imagine being at the beach and seeing that coming out of the water, omg.

reply to post by Aquarius1

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I feel exactly the same about flying.
It's mainly taking off and landing.... but mid-air is no picnic either.

And yes... i always say if i was in control then it would be ok.
It's just the putting my life in the hands of some guy controlling a flying tin-can that gets to me...


It's really annoying too.


Snakes being number one is a surprise..

[edit on 24/10/09 by blupblup]

For me it has to be wasps, not bees but wasps, unlike spiders they can chase you a 100 yds or more and hit you 10-20 more times.

I will never fly, although my fear comes from being part of a team that built engines for GE/Boeing, I know what some of the guys did at lunch and it wasn't eating!

reply to post by Doc Holiday

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Me too.... HATE wasps.... eeewwwww...

Bees are ok, but yeah wasps

I could beat an olympic sprinter if being chased by a wasp.

reply to post by blupblup

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I do not think wasps chase people.

But for me, heights is bad, but you get used to it. Spiders and snakes we do not have in uk, for the most part.

When you spray a wasp nest in your garden shed, they chase you. haha.
They don't frighten me, but yeah...been chased. Darn glad spiders don't fly. haha.


*heebie jeebies settin in now...*

Large crowds scare me big time, cannot stand being shoulder to shoulder, In 1984 I happened to be at Tiger Stadium in Detroit the night they took the division (they did win the 1984 World Series that year) leaving the stadium was a nightmare and people were jammed against each other and I panicked, I still remember Marty, may he rest in peace, grabbed my hand and kept telling me it would be alright to just hang on. It was a fluke that we were at that game as my Real Estate Company got those tickets two months before, who knew it would such an exciting night.

I have a phobia about eyeballs. Can't stand anything getting near my eyes....going to see the eye doctor is a traumatic experience, to say the least. They have to sedate me with Valium just to get me through the door. Which is really sad, considering I have terrible eyesight and visits to the eye doctor are a regular occurrence.

It's so bad I can't even put eyedrops in my eyes. I have to squeeze the drop onto my nose and let it roll into my eye. Which, of course, contaminates the eye drop and diminishes its effect.

Just typing this has given me the willies.

Phobias are funny because they are irrational. We know we aren't supposed to have such a strong reaction to something but we can't help it. I was once afraid of spiders. They made my heart race just thinking about them and I would freeze in fear if I felt myself walking into just a thread of silk.

I found out how to beat the phobia.

I was driving to some show or bar or club or something on a Saturday night. It had just finished raining and the roads were damp but not wet to the point where cars in front of my are spraying water at my car. I was on a major highway doing standard "New Jersey" speed (that is about 15% over the speed limit or about 75mph on the highways) and the traffic was fairly dense. To my right was a big semi that I was passing by slowly and to my left were cars going the same speed (or maybe a hair faster.)

Anyway, I am driving down the road trying to decide if I can pass the next semi before my exit comes and I see this thing dropping down from the ceiling of my car. Right before my eyes, I watched a white spider go straight down and land on the top of my steering wheel. He stood there in the center of my steering wheel just staring at me.

I immediately had this fight somewhere deep inside my brain. I felt a twinge of fear that I instantly suppressed. I remember thinking to myself, "If I freak out because of a stupid spider, I am going to get really hurt or dead." I felt this voice in my head rationalize away the threat, "It is just a spider, open the window and let him get sucked out." So I opened the window and the spider started to walk away from the wind and toward my steering hand. Instead of pulling my hand back, I just left it there and let him walk on to my hand and flicked him out the window.

Problem solved. Phobia defeated. Spiders have never bothered me since.

Jon

reply to post by Voxel

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You are soooo right. I wonder if I could keep my freakout to myself in that situation. haha. Just reading the story gave me the willies. However, I really hope I could put that fear aside, to save myself from killing my family and potentially someone elses, because of a phobia freak out.

I read somewhere, THe "popcorn" spiders are a high cause of heart attacks in middle aged men. They walk through an unseen web, and here is this god awful giant spider on their face.....*shivers*.

I'm scared of heights. scared to death. I was in the Sears tower once and that did it. were homophobia or xenophobia on that list? seems like tons of people fall under those in america even though I dont think of them as "phobias", ie "scared"

(from the link)

Yep defiantly 'evolutionarily imprinted' - I had a parrot once, cheeky chappy that he was would roam around the house exploring, climbing and just other parrot things - it was always funny when a cable surprised him he knew what they were and that he shouldn't play with them, he was always suspicious of them, every so often he'd walk past one, turn to go the other way and flip out he'd flap away in alarm and start screaming at the cable!!!

Parrots hate snakes, being up in the trees all their lives snakes are like No.1 way to die before your time - of course my little fella had never seen a snake, or his parents or his parents parents... Only way would be for that information to be 'evolutionarily imprinted'.

The number 1 phobia that I think most people have is,
Fear of the Dark

Fear of the Dark- Iron Maiden
"Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a constant fear that someones always near
Fear of the dark, fear of the dark
I have a phobia that someones allways there"

Just decided to added that cause I think if you have a fear of the dark, is mainly because of this.

reply to post by Geolion1

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Think you are right about fear of the dark, another thing that creeps me out is open closet doors in my bedroom, I always make sure they are closed before I go to bed, also use night lights everywhere, don't mind being outside in the dark as long as I am not alone.

I have a phobia of feet, clowns, and I'm claustrophobic. The foot phobia is a hell of a lot worse though.

[edit on 07/16/2009 by Lichter daraus]

reply to post by Geolion1

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I´m also scared of the dark, and i haven´t always been afraid of it. I remember i woke up in the middle of the night (i was 4 years old) and saw my nanny watchin Chucky, even though i know he doesn´t exist he gives me the creeps when i think of him at night.

Other people feet or yours.

Most of these used to be something I feared, but slowly started to get over them. Spiders I can manage if I'm out in the public, but for some reason I can't in my own home .

Also fear of people, I don't know if that would be applied to me. I just like being secluded majority of the time so no clue if that would be fear or just personal preference perhaps mixed with a bit of fear .

Anyway off to work.

*Puts on a full coat of arms and brandish a tower shield.*