Moths,Digestive Biscuits and Pumpkins...
those three things scare the bloody crap out of me...it also makes for a hard halloween
(Fluent In Bentish Living in Scatman's World, tis being fun!, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:27, 2 replies)

Heights.
Of all the things that scare me (and there are large number of badly-rationalised phobias in this head of mine, believe me!), heights are the worst. Though I'm slowly conquering them a foot or so at a time (up to 2 feet...).

On my first ever trip to blackpool with the family (mid-teens) we decided to go up Blackpool Tower. And this seemed entirely sensible as it was a good, solid structure that had lasted for ages. It'll probably last forever, thought I, so well built is it.

Oh my, no. We climbed into the lift- which for a height-scared claustrophobe isn't too nice anyway- and up we went. Through one of the rustiest, most un-cared-for structures I've ever seen that are still in public use. Two steps up to the viewing platformy bit and I stopped dead. Then apologied to everyone and took the lift back down again. And was nearly sick.

What a wuss, eh?
( uberdeity Wondered why Owen Lars knew of the term "hell" on, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:27, Reply)

Snakes, spiders, giant isopods

I'd have them all as pets given half the chance.

But the thought of biting velour/velvet cushions, especially having eaten an apple (for some reason, the coating it gives tour teeth makes it 1000x worse)

And, erm, the thought of finding a corpse. Skeletons, I'm fine with, freshly dead or plasticised, thats ok, but anything rotting...
(micromassive Saw the Fnord on, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:25, Reply)

Edges
Not heights, edges. I can climb happily, looking down while doing so is no problem, but once I get to the top, looking down puts me into a cold sweat. Halfway up fine, but once there eeek? Where is the logic?

Doing the zip-wire thing? No problem as you're going along-ish. Sorry, approximately horizontal for the pedantic.I quite happily lobbed myself out of working aircraft for a few years, with no problems. I can fly in anything without a tremor. Abseiling is just doable, albeit with extremely tightly clenched buttocks, but I cannot walk to the edge of a cliff and look down without going all wibbly.

Edge-o-phobic. Or big girly puff, as I have also been described?
(osok Rebel without a clue, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:17, 1 reply)

Anna V1.0
I had a girlfriend once with whom I lived.

She suffered from Aracnaphobia in a serious way, and when visiting my parents there were certain precautions that needed to be taken. The house-spiders needed to be taken care of.

Now... in Sweden It's rare to see one of the nice hairy house-spiders knocking around... usually the spiders we see are no bigger than a 1p coin. Anna wasn't used to them.

We were sat chilling with my folks and drinking a(nother) bottle of red when Anna disappears to go pee. A minute or so later she re-appeared, white as a sheet and hyperventilating.

To cut a long and ultimately boring story short, Anna had been enthroned and reached to get paper. My Dad's cunning towel-rail come Bog-roll holder meant that the bog-roll was at face-height. As Anna had pulled the paper, a big hairy house-spider had come surfing over the top a mere 6" from her face: Not the way an aracnaphobe wants to be introduced the UK's largest spider.

From that minute onwards, I had to check each room before she went in. Or relationship didn't last long.

A phobia - by definition - is an irrational fear.... big fuzzy UK house-spiders are not dangerous in any way... unless of course... unless they lead the Wombles to your bedroom while you sleep.... then they're just plain evil. I keep a small traffic cone next to my bed for the explicit purpose of muzzling a womble incase I'm attacked. Once muzzled I'll use the lump-hammer to good effect.

That day hasn't come yet... but I'm waiting..
( Humpty Dumpty was Pushed Is unaware of having any limits., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:17, 4 replies)

bin juice
What is it? Where does it come from? What does it want!?
( rofl harris, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:16, 5 replies)

without a doubt
this is the worst thing in the world.

Dont click on it, i'm fucking serious.

(it's a tumour with teeth and hair and it scares the living shit out of me)
( I have run out of coke is a little sweaty, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:16, 7 replies)

Heights
I didn't used to be but I am scared of heights and only in a certain way. I think I'm scared if I can't get down easily or if I feel movement.

So, tall buildings: great. London Eye: no problem. Smoothly flying planes: fine.

Turbulence: grip the arms of the seat.

The Monument to the Great Fire of London where I had to climb a never-ending enclosed spiral staircase that made my brain go a bit funny and not quite work out how to put one foot in front of the other: nasty. I couldn't walk properly when I got to the top and so when I got out I had to cling to the wall.

King Kong. The latest film's sequence on the Empire State had me climbing onto my seat in terror because my head was tricked by the realism of the view from the top of the building.

Contrast all this to the time I went bungee-jumping in NZ. Throwing myself off a bridge was terrifying but so was the prospect of backing out. So I jumped.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:13, Reply)

Spiders don't worry me
neither do snakes. I'll fly anywhere in anything with an engine including Perspex bubble helicopters with no doors. It's great. But if you can get me on the roof of a house I won't go near the edge. I nearly fell off one once. Got a quarter of the way up Ayer's Rock (Uluru) and got the shudders and had to sit down. And I can't watch climbers on TV.
(Redemption blamed it on the Bossa Nova since, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:12, Reply)

pfff, spider phobias my arse!
Sounds like you guys just have a 'fear' of spiders. My spider phobia creates nose bleeds, vomitting and palpatations that have to be monitored. This can just be thinking of them rather than seeing them and has slightly improved after a year of hypnosis and NLP (neuro-linguistic programming). Scuse me, am off to get a bucket, some tissues and plug my pace-maker in.
(m1lf never says no to another glass of wine, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:07, 1 reply)

Bloody hell! how could I forget....
When I was younger and a bit more suseptable to silliness I was and to some extent still am frightened of becoming a born-again christian. It's the speed at which the transformation can happen. I had visions of a big finger pointing at me from the sky and ZAP! I'd be a God botherer. I'd even stay away from churches and other places of worship in case God got me.

I don't want the spirit of the Lord in me. There's enough going on in there without anyone else joining in.

I'm sorry but their just so happy all the time and that scares me.
( girlinthehole, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 11:07, 1 reply)

i'm a little bit claustrophobic...
don't like being in a little place for more than a few minutes, but my real phobia is moths. they're horrible little bastards. and i can definitely place the phobia on a particular incident. when i was 10, a moth flew into my mum's friend's ear, and just sat in there flapping about. my mum had to pull it out with a pair of tweezers and then it flew off, still alive and well. my mum's friend said she could feel it flapping about inside her ear, and that really, really freaked me out. can't stand the things.

although a decade on, the fear kind of turns into a retributive rage, and i just beat the shit out of them with the nearest newspaper.
(notjustahatrack peeling a sausage..., Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:48, 1 reply)

Bricks and Spiders and Water oh my!

As well as my Thomas the Tank Engine phobia on Page 4 and my Maths phobia on Page 5

I hate bricks
truly, I can't touch them without my teeth screaming.

when I was little, we made a little 'den' outside (really it was down the side of the house in the garden where there were things like poles, and fence panels and bamboo canes and plenty of bricks, a perfect place for young children to play.

anyway we used to sit on piles of bricks and one time when we had concluded the outside/den meeting for the day discussing whatever it is that 6 year olds discuss, I got up and saw that in the dimple of a brick I had been sitting on for about an hour there sat a massive hairy spider, easily took up the space in the brick. cue much screaming and never returning to that den. we climbed trees instead.

but I also hate the feel of them, if I catch my fingernails on a wall my teeth itch and I turn to cotton wool. not fun

Spiders
pretty obvious choice really, most are scared of them. I hate their stealthy little ways. you can be sitting watching TV perfectly happy before you notice the massive black fucker sitting on the floor in front of you. you've not noticed it get this far, how much further would it have got if you continued not to notice it and why did I notice it when it is so close?

also, one time I reached to get an apple from the fruit bowl when a very large spider curled its legs around it as if to say "My Apple, Mwahahahahaha" I prommptly dropped the apple and ran. unfortunately the falling apple did not kill the evil spider. and it had to be set free by my dad. (I don't like them killed, I just like them gone)

Water

ok, next to thomas the Tank engine and disabling emetophobia, this is my weirdest. I have a phobia of running water. I believe this stemmed from a trip to the beach when I was little.

I didn't want to go to the sea because I was scared of sharks. so I sat waaaay up the beach from my parents. eventually my mum decided that now is the time for me to stop being scared and comes to take me paddling with my sister, while I held her hand. we walked down to the sea and I went in the shallows. not 3 steps into the sea when a massive and I mean tital wave style wave covers me and knocks me over, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see, I was so scared I was going to die. my mum takes me back to the beach, screaming. (when I say tidal wave it was enough to cover a 4 year old me)

since that day, I would have nightmares about the bath overflowing when my parents had a bath at night, I was convinced they would al die and I'd be alone in the flooded house. I went through a rather disgusting phase of not flushing the toilet as I thought it would overflow and kill everybody or that monsters would come out. needless to say I got over that one, still, I hate the noise it makes and sometimes I can be seen running away from the toilet once I've flushed it.


Apologies for length, but my god, there's something wrong with me!
(Katzilla Follow Me! @Kat_Zilla (I don't promise funnehs), Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:45, 5 replies)

Deep Sea Isopods
I know I'm not too likely to come across these on my way to work in the centre of Edinburgh, but that doesn't mean they haven't sussed out a plan to get me at some point.

bioephemera.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/380353_028542ead3.jpg

Also his friend the Horseshoe Crab. The scene where David Attenborough is standing on a beach with a few thousand of the fuckers makes me want shrivel up and die.

kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/16cm05/1116/33-28-HorseshoeCrabs.jpg


and finally this little shit.

The fact that someone found this cunt behind their new TV, makes me want to burn whichever country is responsible to the ground. Never mind the fact it's poisonous. Utter disdain.

newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40748000/jpg/_40748100_centipede203pa.jpg
(poofly, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:45, 9 replies)

Leopards
Scare the shit out of me...




....irrational? I think not
(penrose your dog's got tits, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:39, 9 replies)

Yellow, Sweetcorn, being sick and Gin
Right, this will be the first of several ramblings by me on the subject of my phobias.

Without going into it too much, I'm a bit special in the head, a few bits and bobs wrong with me. I'm ok at the moment, but it's normally a matter of time before I get something pop up and mess me around.

So...

Yellow things, for no particular reason, bring me out in a cold sweat.
Certain shades are worse than others, and generally speaking, the more yellow there is, the worse I feel.

I remember going for an interview for a University, and not getting it, because I must have looked like some crack-head by the time I went in, I was sweating and shaking so much.
That was due to sitting in a waiting room that was painted the wrong yellow.
It also gives me a terrible headache.
I can eat cheese, butter, bananas, and drink orange juice and fanta.
I can't eat sweetcorn. Or drink gin.

This ties into my terrible fear of being sick. The thought of being sick makes me feel like I'm going to throw up, usefully...
As other people here have described, being sick fills me with a deep terror, and turns me ice-cold.

I'm allergic to eating fish, it makes me throw up, impressively and more or less instantly. I found this out after eating a tuna and sweetcorn sandwich.
So sweetcorn has a close link to vomiting, and it's the wrong yellow.
Thus sweetcorn is a bad, bad thing.

Now gin... That's down to me being silly, and drinking too much of it once, getting The Fear, throwing up, tasting the gin again, linking it to being sick, forever more in the world of Kaol.

Well done if you got to the end of that semi-cathartic rambling.
( Cawl, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:34, 3 replies)

buttons
Don't ask me why, I have no idea, but they give me the creeps. I thought I was utterly mad until one day at work I confessed to a colleague who I noticed never wore cardigans. She said yes, she was also button-averse.

I post this simply to see if we're alone in the universe.
( expf, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:26, 8 replies)

Invertigo
Looking up at tall things (skyscrapers, the ceilings of cathedrals) gives me severe attacks of vertigo - I feel dizzy, the world seems to spin, and I have to hold on to something and try not to be sick. Anywhere with tall buildings or vaulted ceilings I have to stare at the floor and try to ignore the cold sweat...

Odd thing is, I *don't* get it when looking down from great heights. I've looked down from the Eiffel tower, the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's, and Beachy Head, no problem at all.

I'm weird.
(Axeman Jim, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:17, 2 replies)

<Shudder>
I think everyone has fears and phobias. It shows us we're human. However, I have so many that it's quite scary in it's own right.

Spiders Number 1 on my list. They have 4 times as many legs as me and that's not natural. Especially the ones with hair or ones which aren't black. Makes them look freakier.

Snakes I never thought I had a problem with snakes. I mean, I can't look at a spider but I could always look at a snake...until at comprehensive school someone visited the school with exotic pets and asked me if I wanted to have it around my neck. I ran. And screamed.

Earwigs Thanks to the b3ta user who pointed out that they can fly. And one crawled in my ear when I was about 7.

Moths They look strange, they divebomb at your face and they makes that flapping noise whenever the hit a light. Again, and again and again.

Butterfly's They are just colourful moths aren't they?

Bees Fat little fuckers that can sting

Wasps Thin little fuckers that can sting repeatedly

Heights Why would anyone love skydiving? 10000 feet in the air with the possibility of whatever support you are given not working!

Walking over bridges Sort of ties in with the heights thing, but with the fear that the solid concrete bridge will crumble under my feet

Cockroaches They are bloody fast and if you do manage to catch one they make that 'crunch' noise under your shoe

Electric Shocks Ever since I switched on a light in my dads shed and got a shock. And those little electric shock pens and lighters. Make me wriggle and spaz out

In fact, I think I hate anything which has no purpose in life...what do spiders do? Eat flies? Well what the fuck do flys do then? Buzz past your head and shit and vomit on their food. Oh, and spread germs. And don't get me started on germs...
( sausagesucker just paid £5.00 for a cup of Tea!, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:16, 5 replies)

High school cliques
Seeing and hearing one of those elitist, cruel, misguided sociological aberrations is enough to make me reach for the acid jug. So I can melt their faces.

Also, I am terrified of drinking milk. Don't know why. Cheese is great, I live for some of that rotted cow-product. Milk, on the other hand, is enough to make me yak. I consulted the Emacs Psychotherapist about this (see this post) and he said "Is it because of the people you hang around with that you say your testicles are swinging?" Not much help, that.
(Tiktock Beating off flamers with a shitty stick, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 10:10, Reply)

Crumbs
Eating toast whilst wearing a jumper. Especially if it's baguette-type bread.
The thought of it falling and sticking to my chest is too much to bear.....
(The Apeface Cherub is not a cunty-uber-cunt, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:58, Reply)

Death
This isn't so much of a phobia, but I am about to reveal to you all just how much of a coward I am.
I was about 17, I had dozens of female friends, and one of them, Ange, was a legend. Sure, she wasn't pretty, but talk about free-spirited! She was obsessed with South Park (which had only just come out), and would regularly burst into a rendition of 'shut your fucking face uncle fucker' at any given opportunity. She was silly to the point of making entire pubs curl up with laughter, as she would recount the tales of the times when her boyfriend would wake her up by 'wapping' her in the face with a semi.
She worked in a card shop, and at the end of every shift she would perform a victory lap, before bouncing up and down like a demented Lynford Christie.

One night, after a bad day at work, we'd met up in the pub, she'd been as silly as ever adn somehow we got to arguing over the spelling of the word 'bigot'. I'd insisted that it only has one g, while the whole pub argued back that there were two. This somehow lead to quite a big bust up between me, Ange's boyfriend, and my other friend's boyfriend. Culminating in me storming out of the pub in typical teenager style.

That night when I got home, I tore the dictionary definition (and spelling, obviously) out of my Collins Gem dictionary, determined to thrust it into their stupid little faces and prove them all wrong.

Except, that's not what happened, I bumped into Ange's best friend, Shelley, she told me that Ange had died the following day. Unbeknown to me, and most of her friends, Ange had fought off skin cancer a couple of years previously, it'd come back and she decided not to fight it this time (she was 22). She'd chosen to enjoy what little time she had left with her friends.
Shelley asked me whether I wanted to go to the Ange's cremation, I said that I would, but when the day came around I just couldn't face it. I've never dealt with death before in my life, I'm too much of a coward.
But I carry the dictionary definition of 'bigot' in my wallet with me, everywhere I go, as a reminder of my slightly crazy, extremely funny, entertaining, and brave friend, Ange.

RIP Ange, I hope Terence and Philip are giving you the best spitroast ever down there.

*shutyourfuckingfaceunclefuckers*

PS there was a suffix to this story, as my sister-in-law's (my brother's wife) Dad passed away last night, but this story is long enough already.
( Bert Monkeysex is waiting for the mods to delete him, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:57, Reply)

yuck
i have a fear of armpits.. they just gross me out.. hairy, shaved, big, small.. they just creep me out. I have never seen an attractive armpit in my life and I don't think I ever will. It must be the smell they emit.. *shudder*
(brotagaia, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:44, Reply)

Lifts
or elevators, whatever you want to call them.

I can't stand them. Problem is, I'm not in the best of shapes, so I'm faced with the choice of either standing in a metal coffin of ending up in an exhausted heap at the top of the stairs.

Gah!

*pop*

EDIT: Fixed spelling mistake.
(lionelthefox is sleeping on, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:39, 1 reply)

Chavs
Every time I see a group of societies dregs standing around on a street corner or wherever and realise I might need to walk past them I get a shiver.

Not sure I have a phobia about it.... i just don't like mouthy twats who feel the need to verbally abuse/threaten/assault people for no reason. Plus I have a track record of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time when I'm not in good situations. So I can well imagine one bad word from a chav as I walk past would end up in the kind of outcome that appears on the evening news.

Reminds me of another situation where for reasons I now questions I was in a truck and the driver asked what I thought about gypsies, I unleashed a torrent of potty mouth which was dying down just as we turned into the gypsie camp.... but that's a story for another week.
(golddust QOTW now revolves around being a cunt, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:38, Reply)

<shudder>
Identical twins.
( paulieg La, la, la, not listening, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:37, 1 reply)

The sea
I've done various ferries on/off of the British mainland and been thrown around on vessels awash with spew, but despite the obvious reason to be scared of the sea (it's cold, it's rough, if you fall in you will drown) it gives me a phobia because you can't see what's in it.

Effectively what we see is the roof. The top. The bit where nothing ventures apart from the odd cetacean and maybe a basking shark or two. Underneath is a three dimensional cornucopia filled with water-adapted creatures any one of which can silently swim (or bobble) up behind you and figuratively go, "Boo!".

The first time I was aware of this problem was way back in the late 1980s. I was on Raasay (an island between Applecross and Skye) and it was a warm, sparkling day. I went for a swim in the pellucid water and dived under to see how far I could see. I had no goggles and visibility was relatively good but it suddenly occurred to me, "What if a thing came swimming towards me? Out of the depths?"

"Oh fuck," I thought.

Since then I have been fishing off the coast of Donegal, have seen jellyfish the size of small hatchbacks around the Hebrides, and watched dolphins fart about in Aberdeen harbour. But always with the notion that they stick to their element, I'll stick to mine...

PS: Everyone's scared of something. Rather than walk around in a state of constant anxiety, it's easier to focus on one subject (dentists, jam, HTML) and load everything on to that...
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:29, 5 replies)

Raisins
WTF are they about? Spiders with no legs is what they are - and you want to put them in my food and eat them? I'm gagging now. I hate them. The look of them, the feel of them - I imagine them to taste/have the consistency of boogies (boogers to our american friends!) AArrRRggGGHHhhHH just imagining 1 stuck to my teeth makes me freak out.......

actually, i may have mentioned this before
(TheManofScience, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:28, Reply)

Jelly
One of mates used to tell stories about how his step dad Ken had a phobia of jelly. He was quite a big chap, and sometimes worked as a bouncer, which made the story even more humourous. He warned us that we couldn't even say the word infront of him, as it made him feel physically ill. I was pretty sceptical about all this until i saw it with my own eyes. Whilst round his house, the dreaded "J" word was uttered by someone in his presense. Sure enough, Ken turned white and ran out of the room dry retching. Christ knows what he'd be like at a childrens party.
(Kammy, Fri 11 Apr 2008, 9:25, Reply)