Phone
Hate the bastards. All of them. I will avoid answering the phone at all costs, even if its ringing directly under my nose. Which tends to piss people at work off greatly. And eventually, when I absolutely HAVE to, I will check my voice mail...'You have 57 new messages. Message 1...*presses 3 to delete*....Message 2....*presses 3 to delete*..' And so on. Even the ones I do listen to, I instantly delete and rarely call back, I will usually ping an email off to someone else and make it sound like its their problem..
I have a mobile, but its usually off or set to silent so the extremely rare occasions someone calls, I miss it anyway. I do send SMS messages though.
(bluekawasaki, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 23:46, 2 replies)

I worry.....
.... that no one will ever love me :(
(UranusHertz is interested in astronomy and electronics, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 23:36, Reply)

you know how if you have a phobia
one way of dealing with it is to expose yourself to it as much as possible?

Don't do this if you're scared of old women.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 22:46, 1 reply)

Posting in this week's QOTW
After having read several answers, I realise people are afraid of all sorts of things. I understand that because each of our brains are wired differently, what seems irrational to one person is something that's deeply rooted in someone else. However, I'm now worried that anything I post could trigger off someone else's phobia.

Length ... Oops ... better not write anything here.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 22:39, Reply)

Chickens!
Aye aye I know, that's a pretty common one these days, however I have a reason.
When I was a wee tot (about 3) my folks used to keep twenty chickens in a pen in the garden. The poor bastards had all had their wings clipped of course so that they couldn't fly away. The result of this was that, when we let them out to have the run of the garden, they charged about like demented jet pilots with their wings in the air trying to take off. And if I happened to be in the garden at this point, for some reason they would always fucking well charge directly at me. All of them.
I think what probably got to me most was the look in their eyes..y'know..that weirdly intense chickeny stare. Easy for a 3 year old to misinterpret as cold hard malice...
(PhallicAlec, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 22:12, Reply)

pregnancy
the most absolutely horrifying thing i could ever conceive of. Just terrifying. Pregnant women freak the living shit out of me. I just don't know how they can go happily about their lives when there's ANOTHER LIVING CREATURE GROWING INSIDE THEM

gaaaah

i don't think i ever got over the shock of finding out where babies come from.

I won't have sex, because as i understand it that's how the whole horrific process begins. (I did it once, 'cause i wanted to lose my virginity. We used a condom and he withdrew before anything could happen AND i still panicked and took the morning-after pill and spent the next day throwing up)

related: any organism that develops inside another as a parasite gives me the utter fear. Like that thing someone posted about the wasps that lay their thingies inside the spiders that make them knit weird webs. horrors, horrors
(nck-nck, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 21:40, 8 replies)

Very many
As well as many of the "normal" phobias (Spiders, the dark) i also have a couple of strange ones.....

1. Donkeys: This stems from being chased up a mountain by one when i was 13. Since then i've realised that they all have an evil glint in their eye. Also more people are killed annually by donkeys than by plane crashes.... Scary stuff.

2. Touching other peoples feet: I've seen some horrendous feet in my training, mainly with bits hanging off.

3. Butterflies: No story behind this. Just thought of being fluttered on makes me gag. This phobia was aptly demonstrated when i was taken to a butterfly farm in malaysia. They were massive and all of them wanted to flutter on me. Thus, some poor muslim family left the park that day with video footage of a tiny british girl goinf apeshit in the middle of a cloud of the rarest butterflies in the world. I bet its on youtube some where, i haven't dared look.
(minsh, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 21:37, 5 replies)

Phobias part 2
Actually, now that I think about it I have realised I also have a deep set phobia of TV's Holly Willoby. I'm sure she is lovely. But she sets my fucking teeth on edge.
(Just a girl., Sun 13 Apr 2008, 21:26, Reply)

Cotton Wool
In your mouth. Or cloth. Or sponges.
Just ugh, the thought of it is disgusting.

That screeching noise which happens when your fork scratches against the plate. Going on to google earth and zooming in and out on various places. Big spaces. My own imagination. Making calls to home phones. Touching the inside of your wrist.

Being poked in the belly button *squirm*
(Ellytots Last thought of chocolate on, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 21:09, 1 reply)

Gaah
I used to be terrified of dogs. My mum was bitten by one when she was little and became subsequently shit-scared of them. She somehow transferred this fear onto me. Cheers Mum. I'm nearly not scared of them now, other than they make me a bit nervous and jumpy.

I also hate everything about lychees. They are actually eyeballs, fruit my arse. The thought of them makes me retch.

People chewing. The sound makes me want to rip my own face off.

My weird phobia is having anything put in or near my ears. I worked out that the origin of this phobia, appropriately enough, came about when I was about 6 or 7 and watching Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan on the telly. You know that bit where they put the brain slugs in their ears? GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Anyhoo, the worst instances of this phobia was one time a few years ago when I was sat next my brother on a plane and he kept poking his finger in my ear until I cried and he stopped because I was being weird. The other time was when one of my ears got all clogged with wax (which they are prone to do) and I made the mistake of letting my bf try and clean some of the wax out. I screamed the place down and we never spoke of it again.

*Lies down in a darkened room with earmuffs on*
(claireyfairy There's a smell in here that will outlast religion, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 21:07, 2 replies)

Bananas.
The cartoon Bananaman. I was terrified of him as a kid. I would run out of the room screaming as soon as he came on TV. As a result, I used to avoid eating bananas in case they made me, like that poor Eric, turn into the yellow-and-blue suited monster. I can only just about handle them now... Hm.
(dogman, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 20:38, 2 replies)

Moths...
It's not so much that im scared of them, i just fucking hate them. My room is the hottest in the house in the summer so the window is basically always open otherwise i can't sleep/breathe.
This results in about 5 of them big feckin moths flying around my room making loads of noise, and i near enough crap my pants when one flies past my ear in the dark. One somehow got under my duvet when i was trying to get to sleep once, so so horrible...
(jangaaaal shes lost control..., Sun 13 Apr 2008, 20:12, 1 reply)

Poly-fuckin-styrene
It's like bastard kyrptonite to superman.

The sound (that hellish squeeeeek) and the way it looks heavy but is in fact fairly light (deception: another sign of the devil), the fact that in the 80's, every Christmas present (Scalextric etc) came with poly-fuckin-styrene innards.

I once took a bite out a polystyrene slab (for a fiver) and... it was hideous, squeeky, screeching, teeth tingling hell.

I still have nightmares.

Oh(!) and hyperactive, sugar-fuelled kids with squeeky balloons.

I pop them. Bastards.*


*The balloons, not the kids.
(mr-lizard Hell's teeth man!, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 19:53, 2 replies)

My dad had a phobia
of us kids, we used to take his false teeth out of the glass and stand them, balanced on the molars, he said it set his teeth on edge
(lordy lordy, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 18:25, 1 reply)

Drawing what you fear
I once heard that one way of dealing with irrational phobias is to draw the things you fear. Has anyone tried this? What were the results?
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 18:24, Reply)

Scary insects - The 5 Most Horrifying Bugs in the World
Just in case this hasn't been posted yet, if you have even the slightest phobia of insects, DO NOT FOLLOW THIS LINK. The last one is especially disturbing. You have been warned! To quote from the article: "Nature is fucking hardcore".

Length? As far away as possible, please!
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 18:22, 3 replies)

FROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOGGGG BASEBAAAAAAAALLLL! (Sort of)
During my secondary school years, when I wasn't being bullied at school, underlining my role as class geek or running round the local park playing 30-a-side football, I was at home combining my two favourite pastimes of slobbing on the couch and watching TV.

My stepdad hated this - "why can't you get off your arse" was a common request of his when I was sprawled on the sofa, drooling, in front of Byker Grove, Grange Hill or Neighbours. After a few years of this, my stepdad (who was nothing but innovative) decided to make a special effort to co-erce me to be liberated from the living room furniture and out into the big wide world.

Now, I am a bit of a wuss when it comes to a lot of things but most of all I hate anything amphibian, reptilian or bug-like. Just the thought of being in the presence of such animals makes my stomach turn and I often get the shivers whenever I'm forced to watch nature programs on the lives of the Botswanan fighting slug, or whatever.

Unsurprisingly my stepdad knew this, and on this very occasion he decided to exploit it. We had a pond in our garden, and it was a regular haunt for that ubiquitous amphibian, the frog.

Frogs, and their slimy, squishy nature, are no.1 on my phobic list. Even typing this is making me nauseous. Anyway...

I'm slobbing on the sofa watching Newsround, unaware of the surroundings in a semi-comatose state, when my stepdad sneaks up along side and places a frog, freshly plucked from the pond, on my hand.

My response, as you might expect, was one of adrenaline-fuelled horror - to this day I've never moved so fast.

I jumped up with this fucking thing on my hand, and snapped my hand back to get the slimy bastard as far as possible away from me.

Once freed from this torment, I moved to settle back down in front of the telly when I hear my stepdad roaring 'you little shit!', my mum in stitches laughing and my bro running down the stairs to see what was going on.

In my bluster, I'd launched the frog so hard, it'd headed back towards my stepdad with such force that it'd exploded on contact on my stepdad's face, covering his rugged visage in frog guts.

Oh yes. My stepdad had just been the recipient of an amphibious face-pack. Talk about grim. To save getting a hiding I bolted out of the house and off to my mate Paul's to recount and embellish the now legendary event.

Of course, we look back on the whole situation and laugh about it. But only after his tears and me shuddering from the memory of frog bits in the front room.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 18:22, Reply)

i'm at work
right now. i am the only person in the (enormous) building, i think. apart from the dopey security guards 10 floors below, but they are less use than anything, ever.

it creaks.

it groans.

it's dark everywhere except my office.

it overlooks the marathon and there are still hundreds of people running/walking/limping by wrapped in silver bacofoil.

the hangoverbusting diet coke is about 11 floors down.

but this isn't really a phobia, it's more of a whinge. so i'll agree with someone (bertmonkeysex?) that one of the worst most terrifying things in the world is when your nails are too short and you touch velvet/corduroy/a towel/anything... it's making my hands curl up into claws just picturing it, ew, ew, ew, ew, eeeeeeeeeeeeeew.

EDIT: i just heard a baby crying. wtf is a baby doing in a city office at 6pm on a sunday? oh god i'm turning into ally mcbeal with the dancing baby visions...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 17:39, 2 replies)

i know a few people who do this
more of a reflex action though
(The Ear-Trumpet Addicting is NOT a word., Sun 13 Apr 2008, 17:33, Reply)

Octopus beaks
I can handle the slimy suckery many-tentacledness of these hideous aquatic weirdos, it's just the fact they have BEAKS that freaks me out. Beaks belong on birds so they can catch worms and carry bit of their nest about - NOT on octopi!! Why do they need them?

It's just that if you were being eaten by a giant squid or something and at the end of the horrible journey where you know they're enveloping you with their tentacles, you reach a hard snapping beak in the middle of the squidgy death-hell. ARRRGGGHHHH!

NOT RIGHT. THEY ARE WRONG!!!!


I need a lie down.
(badfox1 wonders who he's played by this episode on, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 17:18, Reply)

Mushrooms...
...not me, but a friend: has a phobia of mushrooms - any kind, not just the evil looking toadstools.

So, when I used to work as a chef at a tea rooms in the New Forest, I prepared a special treat for him when he arrived for afternoon tea with friends: a cream tea with scones, jam, clotted cream - and a mushroom hidden at the bottom of that cream.

I don't talk to him much any more: I'd hate to think it was because of how ill he was when he was nearly finished eating his cream tea and found the uninvited guest at the bottom of the cream pot...
(paulplex erm, hi..., Sun 13 Apr 2008, 17:10, Reply)

Venomous Dragonflies
No such thing, but I've had nightmares about swarms of deadly venomous dragonflies (y'know the ones about the length of a tv remote)

I'm not scared of dragonflies or wasps, but it's just a nightmareish combination
( Extinct Jesus Dossier "...I think it counteracts Hitler's magic...", Sun 13 Apr 2008, 16:55, Reply)

Don't know if this is weird, but....
the sea on Google Earth really gives me the screaming abdabs. No idea why, I don't have any deep hidden drowning experiences from my childhood but when it zooms in to that deep blue it really makes me uncomfortable.

It's probably some Freudian "insignificance in the face of the hugeness" thing but it really is scary to look at.
(tinypod will never learn. Ever., Sun 13 Apr 2008, 16:46, 3 replies)

Weevils and staring cockroaches
1. Weevils. Yes, the little crawly moth larvae. I went into the kitchen one morning to find a whole bunch had hatched overnight and were now crawling over every centimeter of the ceiling and walls. Lets just say it was a little too much to handle first thing in the morning, and I was overcome by disgust. From that point on the sight or even the thought of them made me feel sick and my skin crawl. I have had to work really hard to desensitise myself to them, because I was getting so grossed out it was getting ridiculous.
2. Cockroaches. I am not afraid of the ones that you spot crawling up the wall, I will grab a shoe and whack them without hesitation. However, there is one incident that freaked me out and left me with an uneasy feeling about the buggers. I was asleep in the middle of the night when I woke up with a jolt, absolutely sure that someone was staring at me. Now I am a very good sleeper, and I haven't had this feeling before or since. I turned on my bedside light only to find a cockroach standing at eye level on the table next to me. Instead of running away when I turned on the light it just stood there staring at me and it totally freaked me out! When I finally woke up enough to try and kill it, it scurried into my chest of drawers full of my clothes! It took about an hour and a can of bug spray before I was sure it was dead. The feeling when I woke up hasn't left me to this day!
(confuse-a-cat, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 15:23, Reply)

brian.
snails.
horrible little blighters they are. phobia started when i stood on one barefoot last summer. eurgh, feeling the shell crack and the squelch is disgusting. cue me vomiting in disgust.
(Emily's Pet Badger Because I Move Like An Arctic Lizard, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 15:19, 1 reply)

*shudders*
I'm not a particulary nervous or squeamish person but there are a few things that can reduce me to a squeaky, pathetic girly girl.

First one - Slugs. Now I KNOW that they can't catch up with me, I KNOW that they don't bite and I KNOW if it came to a battle between me and one of them all I would have to do is stand on it but that doesn't help.
I just cannot stand them.
They are slimy and evil and ooze around with evil intent. And how do they get into houses? How do they do it? During autumn, most days there would be slug trails in our kitchen, despite me putting salt down by the door. If I see one I have to get away from it as fast as possible. No matter who might be in the way.

Next phobia - squid and octopus (octopi?). Now this is awful. I can barely write about this. It's their...suckers. The idea of all of those tentacles is creepy enough but to put suckerpads on them? I just can't cope. I can't watch them on TV or films, see pictures in books or anything. I went to Newquay aquarium once and accidently bumped into the octopus tank as it uncurled itself from a rock and stuck to the window. Oh dear god. It's horrific. AND they have beaks which can crush a mans finger. AND they can walk onland if they have to, to get to food or something. AND they have been know to escape from their tanks and eat other fish in aquariums.
*shudders*
I have to stop now as I am making myself all cold and shivery.
yuk
(Lucy Van Pelt embracing ginlovers, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 15:00, 8 replies)

irrational?
Cranes. You know the ones on building sites. They fall over all the time and people tell me its irrational but when they are moving they really freak me out. I think they are stalking me.
Falling into swimming pool in the winter when its covered by the pool cover. i was told as a child that if i went near one and fell it it would be nigh on impossible to get me out cos I'd get trapped under the ice. scary.
Planes and flying
Clowns-recently i came home to the new house that i just moved into to find a clown suit on the clothes horse, like normal clothes for normal people. hence the sig
I don't drive but it really freaks me out when i'm in the car and we drive around hair pin turns, or have to do 3 or more point turns. I am a but of a nervous passenger.
(electrogirl no one thinks about the implications of a clown su, Sun 13 Apr 2008, 14:25, 5 replies)