I have a “phobia” (or at least a very strong fear) of insects. This includes regular flies, worms, mosquitos, bees, butterflies to some extent. Whenever I hear that buzz of a fly, my fight-or-flight response activates and I instantly become more aware of my surroundings. Whenever I hear a fly inside my apartment I tell my parents to please kill it or let it out, sometimes I hide in my room. Coincidentally enough, a few days ago I found a decently small worm in my bedroom and it kept wiggling, and my anxiety was intense. I kept yelling for my mom to go get it, my heartbeat was so intense.
People like to laugh whenever I flinch or act nervous around a small fly, and I get why that’s funny, but I really hate it. It distracts me and makes me feel on edge. People keep telling me, “it’s just a small insect, it can’t hurt you”; I know it can’t, but the buzzing and the way it flies makes me really uncomfortable. It’s why I don’t like summer. It’s weird, because I didn’t always feel this way; I only started having this phobia at around 10 years old maybe. Anyway, I don’t know why I have it. But it’s really debilitating.
I found out the difference between just normal dislike and phobias a few years ago. I dislike insects and they make me jumpy but I wasn’t terrified of any of them, even spiders. Until I had an encounter with giant carpenter ants, both the normal ones and the ones with wings.
I was living in my RV and apparently it was their nesting season, and I come from a different province and normally never see large ants like these. I kept finding them everywhere in my trailer, these giant ants, like I’d open a drawer and pull out a dish cloth and one would be underneath it. I was crying hysterically and shaking and I would rather have died than come across another one. It went on for about 3 days, I barely slept because the fuckers were crawling all over the ceiling and walls at night.
I went and picked up ant killer spray and went scorched earth on them. Within a day there were dozens of dead ones inside the trailer and probably thousands outside in the gravel. It was crazy. Neighbouring campers had these ants too, I guess it was normal nesting season there and no one worried about it much. They started to comment that the ants were disappearing earlier. I didn’t tell them it was me lol. But yeah, I have a phobia I wasn’t expecting and I lose my shit when I see them to this day.
I’ve got acrophobia. I remember a few situations as a kid where I got panic attacks from seemingly mundane things. Nowadays I can avoid most things that’d trigger it, but I can’t use ladders and stairs are always something I have to take at a slower pace.
Emetophobia. Fear of vomiting. I’m super nauseated just thinking about it to type it out. It led to a semi eating disorder when I was young because I didn’t trust any food to be properly kept or cooked. Took a food safety class for work and learned proper food handling and preparation, so I eat a lot better now. But I definitely come off as rude if I don’t trust the person that’s cooking food for me, like my partner’s family, or friends that don’t understand.
I can’t help friends or loved ones when they’re sick if that’s one of their symptoms, which sucks. If someone has a nasty cough that gags them I go into a panic. If I hear someone get sick I instantly start crying, sweating, shaking, and my mind gets fuzzy with panic.
I really hate it. I always thought I had arachnophobia, but I just really really don’t like spiders. I don’t get the mind numbing panic that, to me, would classify it as a phobia.
And yeah, because of the phobia, I haven’t gotten sick like that since I was 8, and I was born in the 80s. Plenty of fearful times, but cold water and pepto helped me through.
I gotta go dissociate on some meme posts for a bit now.
Very light “tiny things” phobia. Spiders, insects, bees… Can’t have them close to me. I start panicking a bit. If I concentrate a lot and close my eyes, I can sit still for bee/wasps/etc. flying close to my face (= where I can hear them).
Another common one, claustrophobia. It’s not always quite clear what triggers it, for example I normally have no issues with being tied up or sleeping under my weighted blanket, but then someone sitting on my legs can suddenly trigger it and push me into panicking, feeling like I can’t breathe. Seeing people go into tiny spaces, or worse, get stuck in tiny spaces makes me feel horrible, imagining me entering some space like that gives me shivers.
I don’t even know what to call my final one, fear of falling? At a harbor, where you usually have no guard rail, I can’t walk close (within 2-3m) of the border for fear of falling in. It’s exactly the same as if I were at the top of a mountain, despite the potential fall being only about 1m into water here. This again triggers in a minor way when I see other people walk close. OTOH, with a guard rail, everything is chill.
Cockroaches, especially big ones that can fly. I’ve gotten better with age though. I still find them disgusting though.
Similarly syringes, so vaccines and blood tests are a bit rough. Same, getting better with age but I still get my heart racing whenever I have to get a shot.
No, not really. I dislike wasps and hornets but nothing debilitating. I feel sorry for anyone with a fear of the sun or fear of money. Some of the more irrational fears must be hard to deal with.
Just the normal concerns of heights, spiders, killer clowns, etc… I actually love storms, rain, and the night in general.
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