Kinda off topic phobias you have

Maya23

Maya23

Active member
Phobias you may have? heights, snakes, etc

I was reading my psychology book and they had this GIANT list of phobias that people have. I couldn't even believe some of them...fear of rain(ombrophobia)?

I've got a fear of spiders, but I guess that is more common. Fear of heights, dogs, dolls...fear of being afraid (phobophobia).

Anyone have any interesting ones? Stories behind it?:rolleyes:
 
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Maya23

Maya23

Active member
fear of heights is called acrophobia. How do you think this fear was learned?

I find it interesting to see how closely related the DSM criteria are for specific phobias, such as fear of heights, and social phobia.

Behaviorally, it seems like fears are learned by classical conditioning, where two events may occur close together in time and then become closely associated in a person's mind. Then the person reacts similarly to both of those events, objects, situations, or people. :eek:

Modeling is also a way someone can acquire a fear reaction. In this case, just by watching someone, such as a family member, be afraid of heights or spiders or something else, we learn to fear these things.::(:

Then the development of the phobia is secured after we acquire a fear response, and then avoid what we fear. So then people with phobias don't get close enough to the dreaded objects often enough to learn they may be harmless.

Once stimulus generalization sets in, then your body is under constant stress, and you could develop generalized anxiety disorder from having a large number of phobias.

Just thinking about this, do you remember the show "Fear Factor?" It showed people facing commonly feared objects and situations. Do you think this is helpful to see these feared objects and situations as harmless, or do you think it just reminds people of why they don't like the situation or object?:confused:
 
nopark

nopark

Well-known member
Insects really creep me out. And I'm also a little uneasy with heights.

How about clowns? Lots of people joke about hating clowns, but I wonder how many people are afraid of them :D

Any non-social related fear is just so insignificant compared to my SAD though. I can easily force myself to overcome any obstacles that might include insects or heights, but that kind of willpower is meager when trying to overcome SAD.
 
market.garden

market.garden

Well-known member
Spiders is the biggest one for me I think. I used to play with them a lot when I was a kid until a nest load of baby spiders exploded onto me.

Heights too. They make me feel queasy.
 
DeathMetal

DeathMetal

Well-known member
Maya23 said:
fear of heights is called acrophobia. How do you think this fear was learned?

I find it interesting to see how closely related the DSM criteria are for specific phobias, such as fear of heights, and social phobia.

Behaviorally, it seems like fears are learned by classical conditioning, where two events may occur close together in time and then become closely associated in a person's mind. Then the person reacts similarly to both of those events, objects, situations, or people. :eek:

Modeling is also a way someone can acquire a fear reaction. In this case, just by watching someone, such as a family member, be afraid of heights or spiders or something else, we learn to fear these things.::(:

Then the development of the phobia is secured after we acquire a fear response, and then avoid what we fear. So then people with phobias don't get close enough to the dreaded objects often enough to learn they may be harmless.

Once stimulus generalization sets in, then your body is under constant stress, and you could develop generalized anxiety disorder from having a large number of phobias.

Just thinking about this, do you remember the show "Fear Factor?" It showed people facing commonly feared objects and situations. Do you think this is helpful to see these feared objects and situations as harmless, or do you think it just reminds people of why they don't like the situation or object?:confused:
Click to expand...

I thnk I may know the reason I am afraid of heights... I fell off the toilet when I was a baby. I have a scar next to my eye from that. I'm not saying that is the reason for my acrophobia, but it is very possible.

I think that if a person was really trying to overcome their fear, repeated exposure to it might just help.
 
BlueDays

BlueDays

1
It is really strange that for most of my life I had an intense phobia of spiders, due to us having to move to an old house that had not had an indoor loo installed yet when I was 8 yrs old.
Then about 5 years ago the phobia of spiders just disappeared and was replaced by an intense phobia of maggots!:confused: I have absolutely no idea why!
 
Maya23

Maya23

Active member
Yeah, I wonder how that happened? Maybe there is some connection and you didn't realize :)

I realized I also have a fear of the ocean. I even have a really hard time looking at pictures of the ocean. It's just difficult to not know what is under me. But...I got myself to surf little by little. I started by just getting in the water and riding in the whitewater. Then I made it far enough out to have so much fun. I went every day and it became so addicting that even though I still felt scared I would do it anyways...it was just worth haha:rolleyes:
 
Maya23

Maya23

Active member
Hey, I've had kind of a similar experience though with the spider. I was walking to the laundry room and then I saw this HUGE spider on the ground. I yelled for my sister to come look at it (this happened a few years ago), and my sister started screaming. Chaos ensued when my dad ran in to see what the screams were about....he saw the spider and grabbed a shoe...BAD IDEA haha...oh my god it is actually really funny now...but he smashed the spider and guess what?? It exploded into just what looked like millions of baby spiders!! They started running everywhere...then my mom came in and started screaming and everyone was yelling ahahaa :rolleyes: my dad was running around with the shoe and smashing spiders, jumping up and down....quite the dramatic scene!!
 
Elad

Elad

Banned
As I've gotten older I think I've developed a fear of the ocean, especially being alone in open water.

Not sure if its a phobia since its a pretty rational fear but yeah, even thinking about that makes me shiver a little.
 
Masychefx2

Masychefx2

Banned
the sight of blood makes me almost pass out

the sight of medical equipment makes me nearly pass out

even when the doctor checked my heart with a stethoscope the thought of him listening to my heart beating made me feel seriously queasy and faint.
 
awkwardamanda

awkwardamanda

Well-known member
I have a nasty case of arachnophobia and just reading some of these posts has creeped the hell out of me. But that's a pretty common phobia.

I thought I had telephonophobia (fear of telephones) for a while, but then that's just part of social phobia, and for me, probably the worst part of it.

And then I've got one that's pretty strange. If you wanna get technical, maybe you wouldn't quite call this a "phobia" because it isn't a run-away-screaming sort of fear, but oh well, I think of it as one anyway. I have a phobia of jewellery. I guess it would be a case of metallophobia, which is a fear of metal, but mostly I have a problem with jewellery. (And just for the record, there are others out there who consider their hatred of jewellery to be a phobia.) I have always despised the stuff. I don't like to look at it. I don't like to touch it. It feels awful. I think it's ugly and distgusting. Plain and simple stuff doesn't bother me quite as much but if it's intricately detailed it grosses me out more. Or certain stones are worse than others. The creamy-looking or blue and green marble types are particularly ugly. Sometimes I almost want to gag looking at them. If I ever have to touch any jewellery I feel like wiping my hand on my pants after or something. I try not to look at people wearing jewellery too much while I'm eating, especially somebody wearing a lot of it or particularly ugly pieces. And it bothers me when somebody wearing rings or bracelets sticks their hand into a bag of chips or whatever. For some reason it seems dirty to me. I hate when somebody wearing rings shakes my hand. It feels yucky. But other metal objects bother me too sometimes. I hate it when a metal zipper touches my skin. I hate the cold feeling. And I don't like dangly zippers either. I don't mind so much if it's just a simple zipper that doesn't move, but if there's an extra link or two and it dangles I don't like it. Sometimes things like chrome faucets or drawer handles kinda disgust me too, but again, I'm okay with it if it's plain and simple. I think its ugly and gross if it's got some intricate pattern. I don't like clothes, purses or shoes with a lot of studs or buckles. They have to be few and simple. I don't like cutlery with detailed patterns, especially considering I'm eating with it. It's okay if it's something plain. (But then, there are people who actually have to take plastic forks and spoons around with them if they want to eat somewhere.) The thought of actual "silver"ware even grosses me out, I guess because it's a metal used for jewellery. Not something I want in my mouth. I'll stick with the stainless steel kind. I've somewhat learned to just put up with it though. Jewellery and other metal objects are everywhere. They're pretty much unavoidable. So I just kinda deal with it. I try not to touch it if I don't have to and I look the other way if I can. I've sort of just had to get used to it, but I'm never going to be normal in this regard. I see no reason to force myself to wear jewellery just because that's what most women do. I just don't get what all the hype is and I never will. It just doesn't make sense and I'm not going to try and understand it. Likewise, most people wouldn't understand my view at all. My family and friends know I don't wear jewellery but I guess they just figure I don't like it and choose not to wear it. They definitely don't realize the extent of it. I guess I downplay things and keep it to myself because I know they wouldn't get it if I tried to explain anyway. I was actually browsing a website once made by some therapist who worked with people with different phobias. Somewhere on the site they said that the weirdest one they ever heard of was a jewellery phobia. Oh well. I'm quirky. I don't really care.
 
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