Another article about phobias!

Jenny

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3168661.ece?&EMC-Bltn=JOH6O4

flyingtart

Does anyone have an "unusual" ie funny phobia?

Like davinciphobia: irrational fear of books by Dan Brown.

Josette

My daughter gets hysterical about bananas. She can't even stand to look at them. The rest of the family have to eat them in secret! We wait until she's gone out or sit in huddled groups quickly scoffing our contraband fruit before she appears. Don't know if this counts as a phobia, but it's driving me bananas!!

Isabella King

I wouldn't exactly call it a phobia but I can't hold wooden lolly sticks (my teeth are on edge just talking about it) I used to manage by wrapping the wrapper around the stick whilst I ate it but knowing that every bite brought me closer to the buried end of the stick took away all my enjoyment so I opt for a choc ice instead these days.

flyingtart

Oooh I know what you mean! I loved fruit gums as a child and sometimes the silver paper wrapper got stuck to the gum and touched my fillings....aaaaaaagh!

Tash

Ouch - it hurts just thinking about silver paper on fillings!

Smaug

My Uncle gets freaked out by collections of small things in a container eg beads in a jar - heaven only know what you'd call that! And my brother-in-law can't stand furry fruit like peaches.

Daisy

My best friend's daughter used to be terrified of balloons. She wouldn't go into a room if a balloon was in it. I suppose it's easy to think she must have been scared by one popping loudly and scaring her, but my friend's health visitor thought it was abnormal and sent them off to a psychologist who asked all sorts of very personal questions. Weird or what?
I've had to deal with a lot of phobias and obsessions with my son and husband having aspergers. Some you can head off before they develop, others you have to leave to run their course. If anything interfers with normal life then that's when we get help!

midia

I have always had a phobia of anything that flutters - butterflies, pigeons, seaguls, moths, dragonflies - yuk! I've even been known to throw myself on the ground in the high street when a pigeon has flown too close to me!

Carol

Spiders, because of a baby spider crawling across the lap of my nightdress when I was five or six. I know it isn't bizzare or funny- but at least I know what has caused mine.

cooper

Mine's very mundane but unlike Carol I have no idea where mine came from. Snakes. Once spent 6 hours sharing a landrover with a boomslang (one bite and goodnight Vienna) which I was assured was dead. Yeah! Not a good journey.

Carol

Oooh that's horrid. That would upset most people.

cooper

Even worse. The folks we were travelling with had picked it up when it was still alive, although it had just been run over by the landrover. She thought it was only semi-poisonous and wanted everyone to touch it, if it bites it will only give you a fever. Hah. I wound my window up and swoar at her

Mutley

Daisy it isn't easy. My stepson has a number of things, some of which he is getting better about. The latest is because we are moving to North Yorkshire he is now getting himself worked up about the Yorkshire Ripper - no amount of logical explanation makes a scrap of difference. Forgive me I lied in order to stop him worrying so much! Bad step-mother.

Carol

Sensible step-mother.

Tash

White lies, Mutley.

cooper

If a little fib settles him down I don't think that makes you bad Mutley

Daisy

Very wise, Mutley. Logical explaination can't work when a fear is illogical or irrational. So a little story, light hearted, that normalises the fear can work with children. Not always of course.

Alik

Midia, I don't like birds or other things flapping too near me either. I managed Slimbridge because all the birds were big and walked on the ground. I skirt round pigeons on the pavement in case they take fright and fly up near me!

Jenny

Cooper - After that experience your feelings towards snakes wouldn't count as a phobia - just a perfectly reasonable reaction!!

cooper

But I had the phobia before then.

heather

I'm with Cooper. I had a ***** (don't even like the word) in my garden a few years back and wouldn't go in it all summer. I still wont do the gardening on my own.

cooper

You've just reminded me Heather. My first summer in Spain I had a snake in my bathroom. Thankfully I was twenty kms away at the time of its discovery and Ma dealt with it. Urrgghhh. Sends shivers down my back.

ajoan53

don't like daddy-long-legs or moths, their big fat bodies give me the creeps,and flapping wings.

Carol

agree.

HisanoXelax

I have a very common phobia, but one that causes fear in different ways. A lot of people will flip even at a picture of a syringe *shudders* but why? For me it's because I don't like the idea of my blood being interfered with, especially by coming into contact with metal! No one takes my blood or adds to it, especially if it involved a metal spike!Hence no piercings or tatoos over here.

Tessadragon

i have a bit of a fear of the seat restraints on rides, have they thought of a name for that? Since my experience at Disneyland Paris, when I was 7, and went on Space Mountain. My seat restraint opened itself (went up over my head) halfway through the ride and my dad sitting beside me had no idea, thought I was screaming because i was enjoying the ride. I actually had to hold onto the metal brackets of the seat restraint and sit as hard against the seat as I could, otherwise I would have been ripped out of the seat during the loop the loop.
But the bit that really got me was that I finally managed to yank it back into place on the last stretch, which was smoother, so less air resistance. But when the ride stopped, the seat restraints rose for everyone, but mine didn't. I went hysterical because I thought the ride was going to start again and the seat restraint would open itself again and I'd get killed. Luckily they unlocked it. Dad only believed me...six years afterwards because I kept insisting for so long that it'd happened.
So that's my phobia, of that ever happening again...though at the same time i love theme parks, I love rides. it's just the seat restraints.

Jay Mandal

I'm not keen on rides. I ended up covered in bruises from one I went on. If I hadn't shouted to the attendant NOT to go faster, I think I'd have been thrown off.

Carol

I don't go on those things- can't take the height. And the thought of a loop the loop-NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hush Puppy

What you all need is a good Hypnotherapist...... come and see me (when I get my voice back!) :) I am now free of several phobias because of hypnotherapy, so I know what amazing results can be achieved.
HP

Tessadragon

thanks HP, must admit, hypnotherapy sounds intriguing.

Alik

I'm not safe at fairs - I crashed a dodgem once and cracked a rib! My sunglasses shot off my face into the grass outside the rink thing!