Phobias

bethsmiles

@Peledreamsofrain - I've never had someone have to try more than once to get my IV in. Does that happen to you a lot? I think my fear of needles would come back if people could never get it right the first time around.

Peledreamsofrain

Post removed due to GBCK

Anastasia517

Three things that definitely meet the criteria of a clinical phobia: haemophobia (blood), agoraphobia (open spaces/crowds/etc), and emetophobia (vomit).

I hate most bugs as well, especially spiders, but the other three are for sure phobias.  I have actually fainted due to blood three times that I can recall and almost fainted/gotten sick multiple other times.  Fainting at blood on TV was actually how I got my first concussion.  I almost fainted and vomited in biology class one time.  I have to lie down when I get blood drawn and have something sugary afterwards, while still lying down.  Ironically, I had to get blood drawn after I fainted at the sight of blood.  Vicious circle.

In contrast to my fear of blood and vomit, my FI is a paramedic.

(And great.  All this talk has made me feel legitimately nauseous.  Ugh.)

r&c14

I have a disabling phobia of germs, sick people, and contaminated things. I'm on medication and see a therapist weekly. I don't tell many people because the ones I have, have either made fun of me for it or start distancing themselves because they don't understand it. Thankfully I have a very understanding FI and some good friends and family that do understand and are all very supportive.

sdg2502

r&c14 said:

I have a disabling phobia of germs, sick people, and contaminated things. I'm on medication and see a therapist weekly. I don't tell many people because the ones I have, have either made fun of me for it or start distancing themselves because they don't understand it. Thankfully I have a very understanding FI and some good friends and family that do understand and are all very supportive.

Is that related to OCD? I watched a documentary fairly recently on a woman with extremely severe OCD, I think she let it escalate to the point her live was basically unliveable before she started looking for help. It was so bad, that even when she visited her mum, she had to sit at the opposite end of the couch and couldn't even hug her.
I hope yours isn't as bad as that and the help you get works, it must be really tough trying to deal with something like that.

BostonGIrl4732

Styrofoam.  I'm terrified of it.  It send me into a freaking out fit if it comes anywhere near me, and the sound it makes freaks me out.

bunni727

Peledreamsofrain said:

sdg2502 said:

I've always had a phobia of needles. I totally freaked out throughout my childhood if I needed an injection or blood test, crying, fighting, hyperventilating. I had to get an injection or something once when I was a teenager and they had put numbing cream on my arm. I freaked out so much that at one point the nurse was willing to give the needle to my mum to see if I would react better to that. When they finally managed to do it, the cream had worn off. I wanted a tattoo for ages and probably for the last ten years I have been convincing myself that a tattoo is totally different to a jag. I got my tattoo two years ago and was totally fine throughout so I appear to have managed to convince myself that a tattoo gun is different. It's weird though, it proves to me my problem isn't the pain or sting of a jag so I have no idea how to deal with it. If I'm watching something on TV and it shows a jag I have to hide my face, I feel sick and I feel my breath catching. When I was little, I convinced myself that ladybirds had poisonous knees and so went from loving them to being terrified in case they kneed me

My phobia is needles too, and you're right about the tat gun not triggering the fear. For me, it's the depth. 1/4 an inch is totally different than shoving through 3 inches of muscle and cartilage to place an unknown substance deep inside. I recently had to get an epidural steroid injection and I almost lost my shit even though I was on TWO Xanex. The one part of my body I can't heal being at the mercy of a needle was beyond terrifying. I shook like a leaf for an hour afterwards, and the nurse was concerned about how grey I was after the procedure. Worst part? I might have to do it again.

I can't imagine having to get an epidural injection, I can barely type it. I hate how when you try and explain this is your phobia people try and justify it by saying it won't hurt that much or whatever. I know it won't be life threatening but I still can't help myself. You have my total sympathy and I wish I had something to say that could actually help you. I've always wondered if hypnosis would help, I mean if I (and you) have managed to distinguish between needles for jags and needles for tats, maybe hypnosis could recreate that same mental disassociation in our brains?

I have no idea if hypnosis would work.  Theoretically drugging myself senseless should have, but that didn't quite work out :P.  The doc was impressed at how alert I was.  

I just mostly try not to let it control what I do.  If I need a shot, I don't skip it or let myself talk me out of it.  In fact, I schedule myself for a flu vaccination every year just to spite my phobia.  I also try to feel pretty good that it doesn't take 5 people to give me a shot anymore like it did when I was a kid. 

What I CAN say is that I cannot keep myself together for IVs if the tech doesn't get the insertion right.  I can sit and be mature for 2 tries/jabs.  If they jiggle it around or keep going though, it's hyperventillation time.

I pay my power bill in person for the same reason.

r&c14

sdg2502 said:

I have a disabling phobia of germs, sick people, and contaminated things. I'm on medication and see a therapist weekly. I don't tell many people because the ones I have, have either made fun of me for it or start distancing themselves because they don't understand it. Thankfully I have a very understanding FI and some good friends and family that do understand and are all very supportive.

Is that related to OCD? I watched a documentary fairly recently on a woman with extremely severe OCD, I think she let it escalate to the point her live was basically unliveable before she started looking for help. It was so bad, that even when she visited her mum, she had to sit at the opposite end of the couch and couldn't even hug her. I hope yours isn't as bad as that and the help you get works, it must be really tough trying to deal with something like that.

Yes, it's very OCD related. My life isn't to that extreme and I'm thanking therapy because of that, but sometimes its very hard to hug or touch anyone. Good and bad days. And the good days aren't REALLY good, but they are definitely better than the bad days.

carpediem27

thejucheidea said:

Cotton balls, condiments (ketchup, mayonnaise, et cetera), toilet tanks, moths.

Oh my gosh, you have justified my existence with this!

Maybe that's a little extreme, but nonetheless, I have never heard of anyone besides myself with this phobia. I cannot handle the feel or the sound or really even thinking about cotton balls. At work, I have to use tweezers to get the packing cotton out of bottles of pill and I what I go thru at the dentist to try to get them to use gauze is ridiculous. I do think mine originated with getting my wisdom teeth out and waking up in pain with a mouth full of cotton *shudders*.

My other main phobia is catastrophic events in general, i.e. tornados, fires, apocalypses etc.

KDM323

I hate spiders. Not to the point of a phobia, but it is definitely an irrational fear. I can handle the Daddy Long Leggers...but any other spider? I freak the fuck out. I actually fell and almost cracked my head open once when one randomly showed up in my shower one morning. I startled, sort of jumped....and slipped and just missed hitting my head on the faucet in the tub...but whacked it good off the side of the tub. Luckily my fiancé was still home to come and help me out. That hurt. Since that day....I pay an exterminator to come to my hours religiously 4 times a year and spray inside and out for bugs around the perimeter. (We live in a very wooded area).

CallaLily25

r&c14 said:

I have a disabling phobia of germs, sick people, and contaminated things. I'm on medication and see a therapist weekly. I don't tell many people because the ones I have, have either made fun of me for it or start distancing themselves because they don't understand it. Thankfully I have a very understanding FI and some good friends and family that do understand and are all very supportive.

@r&c14: I feel like I could've written this exact response! I am in an extremely similar situation with the same fears. If you ever want to talk, feel free to PM me. It'd be great to talk to someone who understands!

In addition to the above, I have a phobia of choking and drowning.

CLoGreenEyes

bethsmiles said:

Also, I'm terrified of heights. This fear I try to overcome though. I'll go on roller-coasters and stuff. Although one time I did try when I was on a roller-coaster that broke down at pretty much it's highest point - I was older than I would like to admit.

@bethsmiles, you are brave! And I do not blame you one bit for shedding some tears after getting stuck - pretty sure I would pass out if that happened to me. I refuse to get on roller coasters; the speed and height and all the crap that could go wrong on them terrify me. I only go to amusement parks as the designated purse holder (and occasionally to get on the teacups and eat the overpriced food).

r&c14

@CallaLily25 you got a pm

CallaLily25

@r&c14: you have a PM back!

amaryann210

I have an irrational fear of eels and water snakes.  Snakes on land don't bother me, but even seeing them in water on TV makes me panic.  I will not swim in the ocean for fear of eels, even when I know, rationally, they aren't there (like in Cape Cod- way too cold).  At the beach with my nephew a few years ago, this tiny little worm-like animal came out of the sand and swam past my feet- we were water up to my ankles- and because it was moving like an eel, I froze and couldn't move for several minutes.  Freaked my 4-year-old nephew out and I had to do damage control and tell him it wasn't dangerous and everything was fine, but it took awhile to get back to even wading in the water after that.

Jessa617

I definitely don't have any phobias, but there are things I hate with a passion:

Bees/Wasps (anything with a stinger and wings)

Napkins/Papertowels (usually the brown ones- it makes my teeth hurt)

Olives

Peledreamsofrain

Jessa617 said:

I definitely don't have any phobias, but there are things I hate with a passion:

Bees/Wasps (anything with a stinger and wings)

Napkins/Papertowels (usually the brown ones- it makes my teeth hurt)

Olives

Wasps and bees are totally a rational dislike :P.  Those bastards are looking for a fight.  

NYCMercedes

@ellayoung I'm with you. Eight Valium for every MRI. I can't sit in the inside of a booth in a restaurant. I need to pay extra for aisle seats on planes. I go to a parallel universe in tunnels. Whenever I walk into a new building, I have to hold onto the walls until I get acclimated. I am OCD, but this is unrelated.

arrippa

Eyeballs- I cannot put contacts in. It's so bad that I do not allow anyone other me to do any eye makeup.  My MUA will love that.

Aliens- Back in the 80's Time Life had a set of books about Aliens. They would run the commercials often with pictures on tv. Seeing that as a young child has installed an irrational fear of anything to do with Aliens.

Red painted walls-there was a tv movie when I was a young about a kid that moved next door to an orphange. He would often go over and play with the kids. The orphanage had red walls through out the building and it was very creepy. It turned out that the kids he was playing with were ghosts that died when the orphange caught on fire. Hence the red walls. I had nightmares for months about this movie. Even now, I won't paint my walls red. It's funny, no one ever recalls seeing this movie and I can't find anything about it on the internet. I am half convinced that I made this up as a kid.

sdg2502

double post

sdg2502

LauraKitsune13 said:

Definitely needles, i start to feel light-headed just from thinking about a shot or a blood draw. I'll faint.

That's really it though. I like bees, they're beneficial for us. I hate wasps with a passion because i've been stung so many times but i'm not afraid of them.

I have to throw in my teenage job for all the arachnophobes. For 4 years, i raised Black Widows and sold them to be used to make antivenom. There was quite a bit of job satisfaction in being part of that industry. It's still on my resume to this day and is always fun during interviews.

What does that even entail?!  That's amazing!

rel1988

Mine is pretty weird. I'm terrified of something happening to the veins in my wrists. If someone touches or grabs them I completely freak. I think they are going to burst and I'm going to internally bleed to death. There are times when I feel like they are swelling up and I have to put ice packs on them.

In college during a Criminal Justice class we were watching the movie Thirteen. In the scene where she cut her wrists, it came out of nowhere and I passed out in class. Usually if I'm watching Lifetime movies you see it coming so I can look away and handle it.

rel1988

 

lyndsay782

Fears... Not really phobias, but there I suppose I'd run from a couple of these...

My relatively normal ones, slugs, mice, rats, worms and snakes.

My less normal ones, I hate when people touch their eyes (or flip up their eyelids. That freaks me out), bridges, and driving near cement medians on the freeway. 

My odd ones:  The Wicked Witch of the West and her flying monkeys (I still have nightmares when I'm stressed out where she is the villian) and the really weird one. Jello. My siblings used to think it was fun to chase me around the house with it wobbling in their mouths. I hate it still.  Won't even do jello shots. 

avolker1

I definitely have a legitimate phobia of spiders. Doesn't matter the size or what they look like. I will full on freak out and like stage, I can't kill them. I will also sleep on the couch if I find one in the bedroom. I also have nightmares where I imagine tons of them crawling on me and I wake up in a panic and jump out of bed. I actually gave myself a really nasty bruise on my leg once from doing that.

I also sometimes have panic attacks on planes. I used to love flying when I was a kid, but I somehow developed a fear as I got older. I cry on planes sometimes and I feel so stupid. I've had strangers comfort me. I've gotten a little better because I fly a lot for work but its when I haven't flown in a while that I get freaked out again. I imagine all the things that could go wrong. I'm also terrified of heights so I think it contributes to the flying fear. I had a panic attack when I was a 12 and we were at the Statue of Liberty. I still get uneasy when I think about being in there.

Wow I sound like a basket case.

rnsoon

Random first post, or first post in quite a while. Not sure what my profile says so I apologize!

I have trypophobia, which isn't necessarily a fear in that I'm "scared". It's more like a revulsion. I get "creepy-crawlies", gag, extremely grossed out, etc if I look at certain things. Here's info on it:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trypophobia

As far as traumatic events? I remember watching this huge river frog that laid eggs, then it's babies would live in holes on its back and pop out every once in a while. And just saying that makes me queasy blehhh!! Then in fourth grade we were looking at a piece of coral and I freaked out because it was gross (all the clustered holes) and my teacher told me to quit being stupid. So those are my first memories.

And hello, Knotties!

Jess

LuckyAloha

I have nothing to add, but reading all of your responses is so interesting, I also didn't know the difference between irrational fears and phobias, so thanks for pointing that out stagemanager.