Phobias

[minsue]

I only have one phobia, really. It doesn't seem all that odd to me, but from the reactions I get when I explain it I guess it's unusual. I have a fear of falling. Not heights, I love heights. I'm one of those morons that you'll find standing right at the edge of the grand canyon where there's no rail and leaning forward to look straight down. It's just falling or jumping. I can't dive, I hate uppy/downy rollercoasters (though the loop-de-loop ones are fine), and I have trouble forcing myself to jump off of anything higher than about 18-24 inches. And, apparently unlike most, I don't wake up right before hitting the ground when I have those god awful falling nightmares. I don't wake up until after I hit the ground. Dammit.

 

[SeaCat]

Actually a quite common phobia. I'm like that too, and many with me. Especially in public. I see people pick up sandwiches, fruit or even lunch boxes from home and eat them on buses and trains, but I couldn't do that. I'll munch reasturants and cafes yes, or takeout food in a park in the summer. (And more reluctantly so if I'm alone.) But for some reasons, some things are off limits.

#L

Liar,

I had a hard time eating in front of other people, then I went to work for Uncle Sam. There it didn't matter that what I ate was different than other people. We all ate the same shit. You also learned to eat as much as you could as fast as possible because you never knew when you would get the chance again. (Oh we all carried snacks with us, but it's just not quite the same.)

Cat

 

[SeaCat]

I only have one phobia, really. It doesn't seem all that odd to me, but from the reactions I get when I explain it I guess it's unusual. I have a fear of falling. Not heights, I love heights. I'm one of those morons that you'll find standing right at the edge of the grand canyon where there's no rail and leaning forward to look straight down. It's just falling or jumping. I can't dive, I hate uppy/downy rollercoasters (though the loop-de-loop ones are fine), and I have trouble forcing myself to jump off of anything higher than about 18-24 inches. And, apparently unlike most, I don't wake up right before hitting the ground when I have those god awful falling nightmares. I don't wake up until after I hit the ground. Dammit.

Not all that odd a Phobia, although I now know who not to invite if I go Skydiving again.

Cat

 

[Wildcard Ky]

I can't stand not being able to see what's around me. If I'm driving down the road and there's a large truck in front of me that I can't see around, I'll do my best to pass the truck just to be able to see again. If I can't get around the truck, I'll actually pull over rather than ride behind it blindly.

I don't know if that counts as a phobia, but it sure bugs the hell out of me.

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

It's not really a phobia... but I hate the way feet look in socks. I know, I'm strange.

 

[SeaCat]

It's not really a phobia... but I hate the way feet look in socks. I know, I'm strange.

Hell, I hate the way most people look in clothes.

Cat

 

[cloudy]

We have these really nasty looking critters that live in the basement called Campbell's Crickets. The thing that makes me so paranoid of them is they don't jump like a run-of-the-mill cricket, they jump AT you instead of away from you.

*shudder*

 

[carsonshepherd]

We have these really nasty looking critters that live in the basement called Campbell's Crickets. The thing that makes me so paranoid of them is they don't jump like a run-of-the-mill cricket, they jump AT you instead of away from you.

*shudder*

*scream of terror!*

I am NEVER coming to your house.

 

[Guest]

The only thing that really bothers me is having my feet tangled up or bound. That will make me downright violent.

 

[cloudy]

*scream of terror!*

I am NEVER coming to your house.

Just stay out of the basement, and you're fine. Either that, or run down the stairs, turn on the light, then go back up for about 15 minutes - they don't like light at all, so if you do that, you can go back down in relative safety.

I hate those things.

 

[carsonshepherd]

When I lived 20 yards off the Mississippi River, we had a yearly infestation of little flying insects called mayflies. Basically they look like giant mosquitos but they are completely harmless, like moths... except there are millions of them. They have a 24 hour life span and they pile up as they die into rotting heaps... at the gas station they actually had to bring out the snowplow to clear the piles because they are attracted to light.

By the thousands they clung to the siding of our house. When we would go inside we would have to RUN because they would swarm and cling to our clothes, hair and skin.

*shudder* Those things are worse than crickets. Not because they are scary but because there are so many of them. Ugh.

 

[BlackShanglan]

We have these really nasty looking critters that live in the basement called Campbell's Crickets. The thing that makes me so paranoid of them is they don't jump like a run-of-the-mill cricket, they jump AT you instead of away from you.

*shudder*

When I lived in South Carolina, we had spiders with bodies as big across as a quarter - leg span significantly more. They jumped. At you.

*shudder*

You couldn't even step on them with any ease of mind, because they were so big that the crunching sensation was truly grotesque.

Shanglan

 

[minsue]

When I lived 20 yards off the Mississippi River, we had a yearly infestation of little flying insects called mayflies. Basically they look like giant mosquitos but they are completely harmless, like moths... except there are millions of them. They have a 24 hour life span and they pile up as they die into rotting heaps... at the gas station they actually had to bring out the snowplow to clear the piles because they are attracted to light.

By the thousands they clung to the siding of our house. When we would go inside we would have to RUN because they would swarm and cling to our clothes, hair and skin.

*shudder* Those things are worse than crickets. Not because they are scary but because there are so many of them. Ugh.

Is that what those are? I've been going nuts for the past 2 weeks trying to figure out what those huge mosquito lookin' things were. We don't normally have them, at least I've sure as hell never seen them before.

Edit - Never mind. I just checked google image. That's not them. Fuck. What are these huge mosquito critters?!?

Edit one more time - Aha! I love Google. They're Crane Flies. Now I can sleep, at least until the next question comes along for me to obsess over.

 

[logophile]

I'm scared of fish.

My best friend got a fishbowl and two new fish when I was seven and I went over to help her set it all up. That night I had a nightmare that the glass broke and the fish floated through the air, chasing me.

I still have the same nightmare, only as I've gotten older the fish have gotten more violent. Now they chase me, corner me and kill me. They also laugh. And are grotesque, dangling eye balls, missing scales, broken teeth, etc.

It's bad enough that I have full blown panic attacks if I walk into a room with an aquarium. I completely avoid the water and reptile house at the zoo. And those little japanese meditation ponds with the 10 inch carp you can feed? Forget about it, makes go white as a sheet and almost pass out.

Do I win the prize for the weirdest phobia yet?

 

[carsonshepherd]

I'm scared of fish.

My best friend got a fishbowl and two new fish when I was seven and I went over to help her set it all up. That night I had a nightmare that the glass broke and the fish floated through the air, chasing me.

I still have the same nightmare, only as I've gotten older the fish have gotten more violent. Now they chase me, corner me and kill me. They also laugh. And are grotesque, dangling eye balls, missing scales, broken teeth, etc.

It's bad enough that I have full blown panic attacks if I walk into a room with an aquarium. I completely avoid the water and reptile house at the zoo. And those little japanese meditation ponds with the 10 inch carp you can feed? Forget about it, makes go white as a sheet and almost pass out.

Do I win the prize for the weirdest phobia yet?

Actually I can relate to this one, but mine is sharks. Used to be I could not even look at underwater pictures, because of the fear a shark would be in them, or even just imagining a shark. And if they come on TV I have to leave the room. I used to scream and sometimes even cry (when I was a child) but now I can actaully look a minute or two before I have to leave.

Those dreams of yours are pretty weird. Even tropical fish? The pretty ones? Or is it just big, ugly fish?

PS - yeah, I think you win The tea bag thing is weird but is more an aversion than an actual phobia.

 

[cloudy]

I suppose this isn't really a weird phobia, but it's definitely made me obsessive-compulsive.

When I was around 8 or 9, we were living in Los Angeles, and had one of those brush fires come through. School was let out early, we had to evacuate, the whole nine yards. I guess it made a gigantic impression on me - the one perfectly clear memory I have of that day is my older brother (who had just turned 16), coming to get my younger brother and me at school, and on the way home, there were houses on one side of the street, and on the other side, the orange orchard was blazing - flames twenty feet high or so.

To this day, I have to sleep on the side of the bed that's closest to the door. My mind knows that brush fires here, in the land of soaring humidity, are next to impossible, but somewhere inside there's that 8-year-old that will not let me sleep if I'm not as close to the door as possible.

 

[logophile]

Those dreams of yours are pretty weird. Even tropical fish? The pretty ones? Or is it just big, ugly fish?

PS - yeah, I think you win The tea bag thing is weird but is more an aversion than an actual phobia.

Well, they're not pretty in my dreams, but the dreams are almost always of fish you'd keep in an aquarium so we're not talking trout, catfish, etc. We're talking really pretty mutant killer fish.

Yick.

Glad I won. What's my prize?

 

[carsonshepherd]

Well, they're not pretty in my dreams, but the dreams are almost always of fish you'd keep in an aquarium so we're not talking trout, catfish, etc. We're talking really pretty mutant killer fish.

Yick.

Glad I won. What's my prize?

A lovely saltwater aquarium...

God I am so evil. Sorry. Because I really really hate grasshoppers.

 

[logophile]

A lovely saltwater aquarium...

God I am so evil. Sorry. Because I really really hate grasshoppers.

I can't believe that I just kissed you in my other thread...

 

[carsonshepherd]

I can't believe that I just kissed you in my other thread...

You can put a grasshopper on me. That will be more than revenge enough.

 

[ElizabethWest]

I guess it's confession time. This is a weird one too. When I was little I was deathly afraid to hear the sound of running water. My mother couldn't fill the bathtub if I was in the room. I went into panic attacks if the dishwasher was on. If I heard the sound of the outside tap on from the inside of the house, I would have what was close to a nervous breakdown. The pediatrician said I would outgrow it. But even now I have a problem with hearing the clink of ice cubes in a glass when someone is drinking from it.

 

[carsonshepherd]

I guess it's confession time. This is a weird one too. When I was little I was deathly afraid to hear the sound of running water. My mother couldn't fill the bathtub if I was in the room. I went into panic attacks if the dishwasher was on. If I heard the sound of the outside tap on from the inside of the house, I would have what was close to a nervous breakdown. The pediatrician said I would outgrow it. But even now I have a problem with hearing the clink of ice cubes in a glass when someone is drinking from it.

Yeah, that is bizarre. Freaky McFreak.

I am so mean today. Another grasshopper for me.

 

[Dar~]

Is that what those are? I've been going nuts for the past 2 weeks trying to figure out what those huge mosquito lookin' things were. We don't normally have them, at least I've sure as hell never seen them before.

Edit - Never mind. I just checked google image. That's not them. Fuck. What are these huge mosquito critters?!?

Edit one more time - Aha! I love Google. They're Crane Flies. Now I can sleep, at least until the next question comes along for me to obsess over.

Cicada's?

 

[Dar~]

Cicada's?

PLease disregard my last post.


Confession time

I am terrified of silence. I have to have background noise of some sort in order to make it through periods of quiet.

 

[ElizabethWest]

Yeah, that is bizarre. Freaky McFreak.

I am so mean today. Another grasshopper for me.

You are evil...And you know what I'm going through today.

Payback is hell...

http://archive.webdev.cascadia.ctc.edu/fall2002/bit112/bit112sec01/rtorres/week10/images/grasshoppers.jpghttp://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Locusts/Images/locusts_feeding.jpg
http://7art-screensavers.com/screenshots/insects/black-grasshoppers.jpg