What Really Scares People: Top 10 Phobias

Originally posted by Lichter daraus
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]

Please elaborate on the feet phobia, I am also afraid of Clowns, maybe it's because something is hidden, I like everything up front and in the open..

Originally posted by andy1033

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

Other people feet or yours.

All feet, well not mine so much but i always keep mine coverd.

Originally posted by Aquarius1

Originally posted by Lichter daraus
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]

Please elaborate on the feet phobia, I am also afraid of Clowns, maybe it's because something is hidden, I like everything up front and in the open..

Don't know what else to say except that I'm deathly afraid of feet, my mom used to take advantage of that fear when i was young too. i literally freak out and will go hide if someone puts their feet anywhere near me. Stupid i know but, oh well thats me...

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

reply to post by Lichter daraus


That is interesting, I love going barefoot, maybe it's because I was brought up on the water, it was my backyard. If I have to wear shoes I prefer sandals.

reply to post by Voxel


Speaking od semis, I am Terrified of passing them on the freeway. One too many times I have had them come over not seeing me. Once I had to drive off the road to not get hit, so it scared me big time, rite up there with spiders, sun scorpions, and ear wigs!

reply to post by Aquarius1


I have shoes on 99% of the time, I have never owned a pair of sandals my entire life.



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

Don’t laugh but I have an overpowering fear of... Buttons!

The deadliest of those vile little culprits are shirt buttons and this is because I imagine shirt buttons to be greasy with bacteria. For me a button is a tiny infestation of filth as bad as a sewer. I can deal with metal buttons but I grimace during the touching and I still have to wash my hands afterwards.

If I suffer the terror of ever touching a non metal button – any button I ravage that area with soap and a nailbrush and such a horror can ruin my mind for hours.

It is an integral part of my obsessive compulsive disorder and it started when I was about four years of age when my mother told me that buttons came from cow’s teeth.

Originally posted by amatrine
reply to post by Voxel

 

One too many times I have had them come over not seeing me. Once I had to drive off the road to not get hit, so it scared me big time, rite up there with spiders, sun scorpions, and ear wigs!

I learned to drive with Semis early and now if I have the choice of a CAR ONLY side of a highway or the TRUCKS, BUSES, and CARS side I will generally choose trucks. Something about idiots in SUVs scare me more than a professional driver in a truck.

I think there is a certain unwritten "code" to driving around semis. Trucks have a blind spot that runs from about midway along the tucks' trailer until you can see the driver again in his side window. That is a nice 20 foot region in which they simply can not easily see you.

If I am behind a truck that I want to pass, I will change lanes first and stay back a couple of car-length behind him. This gives him the chance to spot me in that lane. Once I make sure I can see the driver in his side view mirror, I start to over take him fast. The key is to get into and out of his blind spot(s) quickly.

Never drive along-side of a truck for any distance. You should either get in front of him as quickly as possible if you intend to pass or stay behind his bumper if you aren't going to pass. You never want to spend more than 10-20 seconds in any place on the side of a semi.

Jon

I'm not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of ladders. If I can get up on something high, like a roof, I can handle that no problem; but things as low as a step ladder make my legs shake, even standing on a chair makes me nervous. I think the article was right though, when I'm on something like a chair, it does seem a lot higher than it probably should. I know in my mind if I fell I'd be fine, but it conflicts with my sensory information that's screaming it's higher than I think.

This reminds me of one time I scarred my girlfriend so bad, I felt terrible lol. I always knew she "didn't like" spiders, but didn't realize it was a legit phobia. I saw a fair sized spider crawling on the dining room floor and I pointed it out as it got close to her foot, thinking she'd shriek and stand on a chair or something... she totally panicked, screamed, ran into the other room in tears, yelling for me to kill it among other colourful phrases. I've never seen anyone so afraid of anything... now I just kill them without sharing

reply to post by SmokeJaguar67


That will be....

The fear of buttons on clothing, known as button phobia or koumpounophobia, is an irrational phobia which is, perhaps surprisingly, a fairly common fear.

There is another fear of buttons but it's the electrical sort that do things when you push them, I was once told that a pilot once spontaneously developed this mid flight!!! (although that could very likely be a kinda urban myth)

Originally posted by Voxel
I think there is a certain unwritten "code" to driving around semis. Trucks have a blind spot that runs from about midway along the tucks' trailer until you can see the driver again in his side window. That is a nice 20 foot region in which they simply can not easily see you.

If I am behind a truck that I want to pass, I will change lanes first and stay back a couple of car-length behind him. This gives him the chance to spot me in that lane. Once I make sure I can see the driver in his side view mirror, I start to over take him fast. The key is to get into and out of his blind spot(s) quickly.

Never drive along-side of a truck for any distance. You should either get in front of him as quickly as possible if you intend to pass or stay behind his bumper if you aren't going to pass. You never want to spend more than 10-20 seconds in any place on the side of a semi.

Jon

Oh man do I know this rule very well!

Been riding motorbikes since I was able to (legally of course ) - on the road everything bigger than me scares me!!! - so I'm a paranoid maniac (in a kinda healthy 'I'm not gonna become a red stain' way)... So I treat trucks with huge caution - you always need a bike that will go when you drop a cog and open up - that's what bikes do, hang back until you go and then get a wriggle on, truck drivers on the whole are good drivers - but it's the other idiots that seem to have no knowledge of momentum that cause the accidents - no way in hell will I tangle with a truck, I won't ride along side them and I would paint my toenails if it made me more visible to them!

I actually exceeded the speed limit on my bike test, it was a bit of an opportunistic move to put some space between me and the examiner (edit: forgot to add he was in a car that day - bike mest of been off the road) under the guise of needing to get past a line of trucks on a 2 lane A road before the waiting traffic started merging - it was wither that or be stuck at 56 on a 70 road with an examiner watching everything I did!

I passed with flying colours and a pat on the head BTW

[edit on 24/10/2009 by Now_Then]

1. The Dark.
Though it's not a "phobia". Interestingly, it only kicks in when I'm in the "wilderness" or any long expanses of emptiness and especially if I'm alone. It must have something to do with the sense of alone and/or lack of "perceived security" or something. I don't know, but it resonates in the gut.

2. Bridges over large bodies of water.
This isn't a "phobia" either, but it is highly anxiety inducing. The lower the bridge to water and the larger the body of water, the higher the anxiety.
Example





[edit on 24-10-2009 by LadySkadi]

reply to post by Voxel


I considerer semi's my friends, driving back forth from Michigan to the San Francisco Bay area four times and into the wee hours of the morning I was always glad there were there, most of the time it was trucks and me, I learned their signals and gave them a wide berth, if we were approaching a hill and I saw a semi in back of me I changed lanes and slowed down so the semi wouldn't have to...only once was I scared, there is huge curved bridge over the St. Lawrence Seaway, it was pouring rain and I was sandwiched between four semi's with no where to go...my daughters were scared and of course my son thought it cool.

For some reason I've gotten a little claustrophobic & uncomfortable with heights. Neither are very bad but then again, neither bothered me at all before.

Of course I used to be ten feet tall and bullet proof too. Now, not so much.

Originally posted by beezwaxes

For some reason I've gotten a little claustrophobic & uncomfortable with heights. Neither are very bad but then again, neither bothered me at all before.

Heights probably is one of the easier phobias to get over.

I'm terrified of spiders, and most insects, but i have that more or less under control...

I'm mildly claustrophobic, but what really freaks me out is not so much the fear of tight places as the fear of tight places underground. I freaked out badly a few times in caves, salt mines, catacombs and such places. Worst panic attack i ever had was in the catacombs under Paris.

Flying is something i absolutely hate, the thought of being locked in those death cans with no possibility to escape in case of danger is tough to take even when i think about it here, on my couch. I love being so high up, i love seeing the earth from up there and flying above the clouds and so on, its the planes themselves i hate!

Snakes, bees and wasps are my friends though

reply to post by LadySkadi

Bridges over large bodies of water.

LadySkad the San Mateo bridge is closer to the water than San Rafael Bridge, the one that always scared me was the Bay Bridge, I moved to Berkeley from Michigan less than a year before 89 Quake and after that I couldn't wait to get over that bridge, I spent most weekends in San Francisco at a friends home so used it frequently. Also never took BART to San Francisco, the idea of being underwater really freaked me out.

reply to post by Aquarius1


That's right! They are really bad...
BART underwater is a freaky idea too, but at least I don't have to see the vastness of the water!





[edit on 24-10-2009 by LadySkadi]

reply to post by Wallachian


Wow, don't blame you, I think it was called Ruby Mountain in Tn. I took an elevator down into the mountain and you walk on these catwalks under there, of course I should have know better and started to panic, they had to escort me out of there fast, don't like elevators either and refused to go to the top of the Needle in Toronto, forget what it's called offhand.

I am afraid of spiders to and many other things. I don't really know why.

Have a question for all of you, since this is a message board and we are pretty much anonymous, do you admit these fears and phobia's to family and friends, I do all the time, usually they tell you their fears at that point.