Do you have a Phobia?

[Greenman]

Spurred on by the discussions about Spiders in Derns thread, do you have a phobia?

Mine is 100% Spiders, big fuck off hairy house spiders.

I used to be fully terrified of them but have got a bit better over the past decade and can normally get them with a shoe or something as long as they are in an easily killable position. I had one fully massive female last year which was the biggest i have ever seen that took me 45 minutes to get, i was soaked with sweat and shaking like an alchi after a 2 day break from the drink and finally managed to get her with a argos catalogue!

It's always a piss taking opportunity when a 6'5" 16st bloke gets shit scared of a small black arachnid, but i just can't get over the fear!

Tarantulas and smaller spiders i am ok with along with Cellar spiders that can get the size of house spiders, it's just those nasty pesky house spiders i cannot deal with.

I don't really fear much else, snakes, scorpions, other creepy crawlies don't bother me at all.

Do you have a phobia?

[Yorick]

Heights. I get really scared within 10' of a cliff edge.
On some enduro rides, I really have to concentrate and ignore the scary bits when we're riding up the volcanoes.

[KungFooBob]

Confined spaces, well not all confined spaces, I'd be fine in a wardrobe I could bash my way out, but completely inescapable confined spaces, like million tons of rock above you if you get stuck.

Even thinking about caving/pot holing makes me feel panicked.

[Mr Moofo]

Claustrophobia - even crowded supermarkets can trigger that
Fear of falling - standing on top of a mountain / skiing MTB down it is fine. But a sheer drop - Beachy Head being is good example , makes my gut begin to knot up.
Oddly , on chairlifts, I can cope!

[Count Steer]

Confined spaces, well not all confined spaces, I'd be fine in a wardrobe I could bash my way out, but completely inescapable confined spaces, like million tons of rock above you if you get stuck.

Even thinking about caving/pot holing makes me feel panicked.

There are only two times I've experienced what a full-on phobia must be like, both forms of claustrophobia. One as a yoof on some sort of experience visit to a bakery. It was hot and dusty and it felt like I was being asphyxiated so I made a dash for an open door to the outside. Stopped just in time. It was 2 floors up - where they winched the bags of flour up and in.

The other was years later in a 'troglodyte' village, underground, low roof, cramped...I legged it back to daylight! As you say, you sense all that weight of rock above your head and knowing it's been like that, without collapsing, for umpteen years is no help at all.

[Horse]

Nearest for me was of being underwater. Cause was from being pushed into pool, about age 7, couldn't swim.

I remember - still - looking up and seeing an arm (and sleeve) coming through the surface and trying to grab me.

You know in documentaries when a camera goes underwater and the surface goes past the lens? I would shudder and get flashbacks each time.

Learned to swim about 14, in the kiddie pool, with armbands.

But just getting my face splashed would cause panic

Then, first time ever, voluntarily jumped in a pool aged about 37. That was after several days of training myself to put my head underwater.

[mangocrazy]

Definitely heights. My GF at the time thought I was taking the piss when I refused to walk across a bridge with a sheer drop to the river below. It also affects me on the bike - I remember in Andorra a few years back crapping myself going from Soldeu to Pas de la Casa on a road with sheer drops and hairpin bends. And big wagons right up yer chuff...

[DefTrap]

Heights, but only if I can see the ground. I can work all day on a shallow pitched roof or up scaffolding , no problem.

[Cousin Jack]

No full grown phobias, but several things make me very uncomfortable, and if they happen to surprise me can give every indication that a phobia is not far away.

Spiders, big ones mainly.
Tight spaces.
Heights, OK if I can hold on to something solid, but I don't like walking near an edge without something to hold.

I try to challenge myself occasionally by doing something deliberately, just to try to keep it under control

[Felix]

None unless you count parting with cash. I am a jock after all.

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

No phobias, but I dislike confined spaces, so I avoid them, but I can cope with them as I've been in submarines and in a lot of underground chambers, I wasn't keen on heights, but working on cranes at 50+ metres fixed that one for me, I'm not scared of the height, I'm scared of falling off, proper safety precautions mean you can't fall off a crane.

[Demannu]

No phobias, but I dislike confined spaces, so I avoid them, but I can cope with them as I've been in submarines and in a lot of underground chambers, I wasn't keen on heights, but working on cranes at 50+ metres fixed that one for me, I'm not scared of the height, I'm scared of falling off, proper safety precautions mean you can't fall off a crane.

But you can fall IN one!
My wife has Ithyphallophobia, or so I guess!

[Yorick]

, I'm not scared of the height, I'm scared of falling off,

Ditto. That's how I feel. When we're doing a tricky climb, it's not the difficulty, it's what can go wrong.
If I had an overhead safety cable, I'd attack some proper stuff

[Ant]

Tricky one, some phobias are illegal. How it's illegal to fear something, just a control measure I suppose.....

[Noggin]

No actual phobias but a few fears, mostly overcome!! LOL

Spiders - still don't like them but can deal with them being in my space now without throwing them or something at them!! LOL (Funny you should say about people not expecting you to be scared, in my family it's me and my brother that hate spiders. For me it's as much the spider webs I get panicked about, weirdly. My brother used to get his Dad to go to his house for a weekend every spring to 'clear out' the garden shed - ie, de-web stuff and de-spider the shed as far as possible. My sis used to p herself laughing at me about the spider thing!! Me and my brother are the taller/bigger of the family )


Needles - used to get properly panicked when approached by someone with a needle. After the last few years including numbers of months of regular blood tests, I can manage now. Don't like them particularly but that's mostly because most nurses are shit at finding veins on someone where they don't show. So now it's more about disliking the "put needle in then prod around for a bit to try and find a vein" actions


Dentists - haven't sorted that one yet, but haven't been since I had a temporary filling fitted - 8 years ago!! I do 100% need to go to sort that out, and suspect that I'll be fine - ish!


Weirdly, heights occasionally but especially flights of stairs. Heights is not always, so probably just a random vertigo thing (given I am fine on chairlifts and narrow pistes on mountainsides) but stairs? Damn I do so hate standing at the top of the stairs as I can always see me in a pool at the bottom. Turns out that I fell down a flight of stairs at around 2 years old. Now I know it's a rational fear, it's not so bad!!

[MingtheMerciless]

Escalators, used to hate them as a kid and really don’t like using them now.

[Yorick]

Escalators, used to hate them as a kid and really don’t like using them now.

Stairs get me down

[MyLittleStudPony]

Carnies! Circus folk, you know. Nomads. Smell like cabbage... small hands.

[Noggin]

Escalators, used to hate them as a kid and really don’t like using them now.

Stairs get me down

And back up!!

[Count Steer]

Escalators, used to hate them as a kid and really don’t like using them now.

Stairs get me down

And back up!!

Woah! Let's not get ahead of ourselves. One step at a time....

Lots of things so far seem to be more self-preservation than phobias. It's like 'fear of flying' is usually actually a sensible fear of plummeting 1000s of feet in a burning tube of metal.