I fucking shit myself when seeig a feather duster

(__, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 2:05, Reply)

Little holes...
I don't know why, but for example, stones with a lot of little holes and a spongelike appearance make me want to die.

No but I'm serious. Lotus seed pods? Can't stand them. I'm okay with holey French cheese, but when blue cheese gets lots of tiny little holes around the mould, I can't even look at it.

Isn't that weird? I looked it up, it's apparently a real phobia, its name is trypophobia... so there you are. It's completely rational!!
(howcomehoney, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:54, 3 replies)

Dry Lips, or Being Without Petroleum Jelly
As soon as my lips aren't super smooth, I get the little tin of Vaso out. I'm at one application an hour at least. I put it on before my glasses when I wake up. I rate taking my Vaseline out the house with me much more than my phone, wallet, or even key to get in again, because being stuck anywhere without the stuff is horrible. I took to carrying round of those big tubs at one point because I kept going through so many tube lip balms.
Horrible.

Length? One tin lasts two or three weeks.
(The Disillusioned Starburst, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:45, 2 replies)

Am i Gay?
Lesbians
Ever since my girlfriend kissed my brothers girlfriend for "a little too long"
lesbians have terrified me ever since..
^^ im not with her anymore

Im also scared of interviews in coffee shops
but then again im allergic to coffee so that one makes more sense
(Fluffylegend, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:41, 1 reply)

My Boobs
Im terrified of my own boobs!
If you know me you have seen the size of them!
Seriously i look down and they scare the living crap out of me!
Plus they give me black eyes when i try and run and knock me out
But their great floatation devices!
(snugglesacks, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:34, 10 replies)

Wasps
I have an irrational fear of wasps (and hornets for that matter) used to lump Bee's in there too, but nowadays they don't bother me. I can actually stand to be in a room with a waps long enough to kill the bastid now too..Hornets I still run from.
It's stupid really, the few times I have been stung by a wasp it never hurts much, yet I still fear them.
I blame my mother, she was allergic to the stings so I guess it influenced me when i was little.
I'm 33 now and still can't stand 'em. Luckily not quite as bad as I was when I was a kid, but still not good. Why do the buggers always seem to chase me though? do they KNOW I fear them????
(Asharin Stabby stab stab, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:31, 3 replies)

Oranges
Ever had an Orange where theres another little orange growing inside? Or, even worse where theres a little hole with the smaller orange showing?

It makes me retch. I'm retching now just thinking about it.

And I stand by my earlier post. Penguins. Evil horrible satanic ice-nazi mercenaries of hell.
(Zapiola zip-zap-zop, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 1:27, 3 replies)

Moths, and Billywitches.
I love butterflies. I have no problms with catterpillars, I'm find with spiders, I have absolutely no fears of other insects. I don't know what it is - one time I was on holiday I nearly killed myself when I emptied an entire can of bug repellent onto a moth.

As a side note, I'm not sure if it's a phobia, but I actually get a shiver down my spine if I hear the noise of an alarm clock - it can be on a TV show or in real life, even thinking about it wierds me out.
(emcake putting a donk on it since, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:55, 1 reply)

Toilets
I used to be scared of getting my arse stuck in the toilet as a kid.

And of when the bog got blocked and the water would rise (not usually from my toddler-poos if I'm honest). The thought of the water overflowing, with bits of poo in it, on to the floor, was the ultimate heebiejeebies.
The thought of the water suddenly rising, while I'm sat crapping, and touching my bum, urrrrggggh. And getting stuck in the seat, while the water continues to rise.

I used to dread going to peoples houses who had those toilets with the high water level. Its hard to relax the ringpiece and let nature take its course when you're dealing with your irrational childish sphincter-constraining fears. I had bad dreams about toilets and everything (talking to me with their lid lifting up and down).

Could have been worse, I could have been born French and have to use a bidet.
(maggotriddendirtbox fast, feral and sharp as a tack since, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:25, 1 reply)

Egg white - hate it.
So, imagine my eww when one day I've decided to fry an egg for brekkie, and I have this feeling it feels weird in my hand. Which is stupid, so I ignore it.
Heat the oil, crack the egg, expecting the usual *gloop* as it forms the standard egg-look.
No.

Cocking *GUSH*.

To my total horror, NO YOLK.

The damn albumen poured out like water, which is entirely how eggs are not meant to behave, and it was so wrong I actually screamed and ran into the other room. It may as well have been an abortion in my frying pan, though it sort of was if you think about it.

I had to wait for it to burn into a solid mass before I could go near it. Though I was quietly impressed at myself for noticing the subtlety of the weight not shifting within the egg caused by the yolk, which would have happened had it not been a FREAK.

I also have a massive problem with the sound of ice and snow. And clowns, but I think that's prerequisite for a normal existence.

Oh and SLUGS. But I put them under the same banner as egg white, for some reason.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:22, Reply)

Velcro
The "rough" side.

Drives me mental. I'm shivering just typing this and thinking about it.

I probably won't be able to stop for about 20 minutes.

Damn you, vile fastening device of the devil!

Length... not really important (as the ladies say) but if it was a really long strip of velcro and I had to run crawl along it or be shot, i'd take that bullet with a loving warmth...
(SlamDunc loves orange soda..., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:18, Reply)

Schnitzels
Well, sort of. Perhaps just evil frying things in hot fat - let me explain.

I do a lot of cooking. This is partly because I'm a good little new wifey, but really it's because I love cooking and making stuff I can then eat, plus Mr Squared's cooking is...shit, really. So a couple of weeks ago I was shallow frying some schnitzels in a pan - we were having a couple of people round, they're easy to cook and keep well, people like them, and students can get meat-starved. All well and good. Unfortunately, one of the schnitzels was obviously a little wetter than the rest. Some of the batter underneath the ever-crisping breadcrumbs had become exposed, and hot oil and watery things do not get on very well. They get on very badly indeed.

Most people who've fried things know that you usually get tiny spats of oil which hit you on your hands, possibly your arms if you haven't worn long sleeves - the most any of these cause is a slight flinch if anything. However, liquid and boiling oil was welling up under the schnitzel and suddenly

SPLUT!

A large spurt of oil explodes out and hits me directly in the face. My instinctive reaction is to put my arms up to my face and ball up.

"Argh! I've been burnt with boiling oil in my face! Wow, this really hurts - um, what to do, quick - burns, uh, run under cold water for 10 minutes."

a few seconds pass

"Ah...I can't stick my whole head under running water...oil...still...burning...get oil off face and gah! The hot fat's still on the cooker! I can't leave it or it could catch fire and burn the house down. Must...finish cooking..."

So I grabbed a jay cloth, shoved some frozen peas in it and dabbed. Now, the problem with things being on your face is you can't see where they are. I knew that there had been individual drops of oil that landed on my face - I'd briefly seen them before my eyes automatically closed - and thank goodness nothing went in my eyes, but where were the oil burns? I hopefully dabbed with one hand at the parts of my face that hurt the most, and with the other hand completed the cooking, then turned the gas off. Time to go upstairs and assess the damage.

As I'd known, it had missed my eyes - by about half a centimetre on each side. What I had instead was a line of...well...burns and now becoming shallow holes going in a neat diagonal from my chin, over the bridge of my nose and ending at the top of the forehead. The realisation that 'Oh...I have holes in my face" finally kicked in, and combined with the pain I started crying gently. I then realised this was very stupid and desperately tried to stop the salty salty tears getting into my wounds! At this point, Mr Squared got home. And asked if everything was ok. I told him to come upstairs. He panicked a little but then went and got some burn cream from a neighbor.

Over the past few weeks I've gone from looking like a smallpox victim to looking like I have bad acne to looking like I have less bad acne to looking almost completely normal again - I have a slight welt on my left cheek but it's fading fast. How? I went onto teh internets and looked up how to reduce scarring, and found that the people who seem to know the most about this are self-harmers! It's all so logical. Look kids, vitamin E cream really does work, and take some vitamins too. Saved from losing face by Emo kids, who'd have thunk?

I haven't made schnitzels since, and when I lightly fried some fish in practically no oil I still held the lid of the pan in front of my face (it's glass) just in case.
( Hampster Squared has stuff at www.tilla.co.uk, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:03, 4 replies)

FFS people...
A phobia is an IRRATIONAL fear of something.

Things that can hurt or kill you: dentists, spiders, falling, paralysis, sharks, hedge trimmers, etc etc.

None of these are phobias!

anyway... my phobia is that people will reply to this and slag me off for being such a fucking pedant.
( calibrax loves teh hamsters (not in that way), Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:02, 6 replies)

Stairs with those little open spaces...


...the ones that look like this. I've been a bit scared of them ever since I was a kid. I think it's because I keep thinking "what if I lose my footing and my foot/leg gets caught between one of those spaces?"
( svnynne damn near forgot she was here on, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:01, 9 replies)

hoovers
I'm scared of the hoover. It makes a really loud noise, and when I turn it on I have to creep up behind it, press the button, and run a little way away until I get used to the noise. Then I can use it. If something gets stuck in it and the noise starts getting louder I have to run away.

A couple of weeks ago this resulted in the inside of the hoover catching on fire.
(mrmistoffeles, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 0:00, 3 replies)

Spiders, looking up, foam,
My mum is so scared of spiders she can't touch a magazine if there's a picture in it. She has to wait until I rip the page out. And then she'll leave it for a few days just to make sure it's safe and she won't suffer a spider induced injury.
Once, in the insect house in Bristol Zoo she curled in a ball on the floor and cried.

I don't like looking up at high ceilings. Makes me feel like I'm going to die.

And foam material URGH it makes me shiver and my teeth go strange and my nails go all funny.

Also, perhaps most illogically, sometimes I also fear being wrong about my atheism, even though I know I'm right. I'm so adamant that god is fiction, and I despise the idea of worshiping anyone blindly so much, if he is there, there's a high ceilinged, foamy place in hell reserved for me.
(reducedfatLOLcat, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:44, 1 reply)

Hedge trimmers
The backstory is that a few years ago I was cordially invited to spend some time in a quiet place at the expense of the NHS. It was one of those invitations you can't really decline.

Anyway, I was discharged a few weeks later and toddled off to live with my mum for a while, on account of needing to be watched for Signs of The Crazy. Most of the time I was just wandering around like a zombie and occasionally refusing to eat or speak. Harmless stuff for the most part. But then there were the other bits.

The other bits when I was convinced that the furniture was watching me, that the food in the supermarket was all poisoned. That small boys passing by on those bloody skate-shoes were actually flying, due to being inhabited by demons. The times when dead people came and talked to me. Yeah, that was fun.

I hasten to add that eighteen months and a barrelful of antipsychotics later, I am a reasonably happy and productive member of society. I no longer hear voices, see things, or wish to top myself. Apart from a large and eclectic medical history, the only real remnant is a lingering phobia. Of hedge trimmers.

Even typing it makes me feel ill. Now, as a rational human being, I am aware that some might consider this an unreasonable fear. They're just large gardening shears, inanimate objects after all. What could possibly be frightening about that?

And to those people I respectfully say... fuck you. Don't come crying to me when the evil spirit that inhabits the hedge trimmers infects your loved ones.

They'll pick them up, maybe just to look at them, put them on the other shelf in the shed, maybe prune back the leylandii... and that's it. That isn't your dad anymore. It's hedge clippers given control of a human body. There's nothing there in his eyes anymore, just the soulless reflection of those shiny metal blades. He'll start opening and closing the shears, almost aimlessly, without any real direction, but still somehow closing in on you. You'll laugh nervously and jokingly wave him off.
"Watch out, Dad," you'll say, pretending it's funny even though somehow it's really not. "You could have someone's eye out."
But he won't answer, and deep down you didn't expect him to, because you know your dad, you love your dad, and you somehow know that the thing behind those fucking shears isn't him. No, Dad's gone, dead, worse than dead, and the thing that has him is coming closer, jerkily stepping towards you with the shears swinging open and closed, the metal sliding sound speeding up. And you look around for a way out, a weapon, anything, but not openly, no, you have to be casual, not let on that you suspect because if it sees you know it'll be on before you can even scream.

So, pick up the spade and beat your father to death with it, or resign yourself to a bloody and painful death followed by a speedy induction into the undead hedgetrimmer army. There's no real winning solution here.

Fucking hedge trimmers.
(yes_slash_no, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:44, 1 reply)

Dentists
I have a all-encompassing fear of dentists. And have 4 wisdom teeth that needs removing. I've haid to make arrangements with a dentist that does full anasthesia to have any chance of enduring it, since I'll run screaming from the office if not out cold. The last time I went to the dentists for anything but a checkup was something like 6 years ago now.
The dentist I've got now is great, to be honest, but that doesn't ease me one bit. Even the examination he had to do to judge the amount of work/price (18k DKR, about £1800) had me in cold sweats.
I've now got the operation (that's what they're calling it) scheduled for 02/05/08...wish me luck. I know I'll need it just to make it to the office on the day
(Jindrak, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:34, 1 reply)

Clowns and ventriloquist dummies.
No story.

Just clowns and ventriloquist dummies.
( finnbar has officially retired, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:29, 2 replies)

Joe Brown
- the cheeky cockney singer- is my strangest phobia. I had a dream as child that we were in car that stuck on a level-crossing, he was decapitated and his head carried on talking to me. (I have very odd dreams.) His face makes me feel ill to this day.

The idea of cockroaches terrify me. I've only ever seen one in Texas and it was big enough to saddle. I broke out in a cold sweat and made inarticulate noises until I got away. I spent the rest of the day obsessively shaking my trousers in case one was hiding in there.

People chewing on wool sends me running - my teeth are on edge thinking about it.

A fear of things crawling into my ears means I have to sleep with blankets over my head, no matter how hot it is.

Being at sea freaks me out too. I may have watched Clash of the Titans too many times but all I can think about is an enormous monster rising out of the water to grab the boat. I'm OK as long as I don't go out on deck, that's when the fear gets me.

And whoever said they have the urge to jump when they are up high, I get that too. I have no desire to die but there's a part of me that thinks it would be a good idea.

Length - not as long as Joe Brown can talk for.
(Innogen, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:16, 3 replies)

My
main phobia in life aside from the usual arachnids is the bloody weird puppets of the dolmio adverts (uk) i just see them hanging somewhere those lifeless eyes watching.

My other phobia (and hence why i gave up television) is t.v adverts in general, i actually
feel physically sick when i am around a friends house
and they start blaring out. If i am ever make dark lord of this planet i shall ban them.

/rant
( Trollman, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:14, Reply)

My own little fear
Imagine, if you will, waking up, and all you can see are tones. No colour. And then suddenly realising that you're actually seeing the insides of your eyelids, and you can't even open them. And then, I realised that I couldn't move. Not one bit, at all. I couldn't even twitch a toe. Normally, I would have been fine with this, but for one small, very insignificant problem. I felt there was a presence in the room with me. And I don't mean a ghost, or a spirit (they're not spirits per se, they're more like a recording, repeating over and over). This was... something else. And it was coming towards me. This, for those who haven't made the mental leap yet, is something you DO NOT WANT when you're paralysed. My fight or flight response was going completely batshit insane, only I was unable to either of these things. I was pinned there, like a chair glued to a wall with no more nails. And then, I had a sense of what this thing was. Utterly evil. Positively demonic, in fact. All I could "see" were the hands. Grey, wizened hands, cracked with age, or evil, I didn't know which. There weren't any nails either. There were claws, filed to rough points. And this pair of hands was coming towards me, pinned on the bed. They may have been connected to something else, or not. My mind wasn't exactly up to thinking about this at the time. So, to sum up, I was pinned on the bed with some kind of grey demon hands coming at me. Slowly. As though they were enjoying the complete and utter fear and terror I was experiencing at the time. And then it occurred to me to mentally shout for help. And then I saw, felt, and became aware of a light- the brightest I have ever seen, or will ever see. Brighter than the Sun. It was like the primordial light of the universe, come to my aid to burn whatever this... thing was that was coming towards me to ashes. My bonds were loosed, my muscles started working, and my eyes shot open, and thank fuck, it was over.

So it's no real surprise I have a real fear of sleep paralysis.
( jim_bob can herd cats., Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:12, Reply)

It's strange world, full of strange people.
I've been run over, had my nose broken several times and had a few broken limbs here and there. Still the most painful injury I can receive is a trapped finger or toe.

Just the sights of a blackened nail, or a nail hanging loose makes me shudder with horror. Vomitting just because your fingernail is the wrong colour is not cool.
( Stoopiduk is the waterboatman., Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:03, Reply)

three-fold fear
Revolving doors

Floors I can see through (you know, rope bridges or glass bricks or cattle grid type things...)

and the final image from the end credits of the original Star Trek - the still of that 'Munch -alike' alien chappy that turned out to be a dummy with a wee midget behind it. Effing terrifing!
(eclecticmayhem, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 23:00, 1 reply)

freezers
the sound they make when you open them and pull the draws out. the ice freezer plastic sound. just the thought of it makes me shudder
(imallamallama looking forward to llamageddon on, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 22:55, 1 reply)

Ughhh
I'm scared of sleep paralysis. I've never had it and i DON'T WANT IT AT ALL!

I'm scared of spiders too. I suppose most people are but yeah.

Ghosts. Although, i don't know if they exist... but i've had some OO-ER EERIE experiences. Either that or i am crazy.

Oh and stairs. I cannot walk down stairs or walk up them whilst people are talking to me. I actually dread walking near them. Hopefully there won't be litter on the steps but if there is, i have to stop still and move diagonally, very slowly.

I also have a fear of slipping. Yes, sounds odd. Maybe i'm just a bit weird... no, but i hate icy pavements as i might slip. As well as wet pavements as i might slip.

I'm also scared of the future. Are ETs already on our planet? Is there a god? Are we the only ones alive? Is the solar system a fake idea made up by our world leaders? Yes, I KNOW. SAVE ME!

But these questions plague my mind every second of the day.

Tell me, do i have any mental problems? :[
(I've got the clap has some cool sentence here, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 22:41, 7 replies)

I had forgotten about this one
Until it was featured last week in the Newsletter. Noseybonk from early 1980s kids TV show Jigsaw used to scare the crap out of me.

Thanks for reminding me b3ta. It makes this seem a whole lot more relevant.
( Lord Gnome, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 22:38, 1 reply)

Baked Beans.
I've never liked them. For some reason, I now get a bit shaky around them (even if the tin's unopened), and cannot really look at the....product.... at all. That advert on telly for the microwaveable ones is awful.

If I see someone eat them I feel extremely sick.

Heinz ones (in that blue tin) are the worst, because all I really need to see is the tin before I feel really sick.

I know, it's not funny, really.
( Captain Wow currently being a cunt in Infamous, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 22:36, 3 replies)

Balloons
It's not so bad now, but as a kid, I was always extremely paranoid about balloons popping. Birthday parties were a misery if balloons were present, since other kids thought it was great fun to pop them

Now that I'm 37, I'm only afraid of being around while they're being filled (by lung or by helium machine-- either way my heart starts racing.) I had to inflate balloons for a party recently using a helium thingummy, and I would only inflate them part-way, so all over the room, there were these small pitiful little balloons hovering in the air.

And please don't write or draw on balloons! Those pens can be sharp! *sweatdrop*
(vkacademy has made a kitten tank, Thu 10 Apr 2008, 22:31, Reply)