Phobias - what are your unusual ones?

[1Pinkfluffyelephant]

I have never met anyone that has the same phobia as me and wondered if anyone else has any has the same or any other strange ones?
I’m terrified of any public toilet that you have to go through a door to get to (not the big bright open ones you get in large shopping centres) with grills in the ceilings and pipe work exposed or those ones with the cistern up high with the long chain. Things like drains in swimming pools and the grids that have the wave machines behind them at the deep end.
Not sure if these things are linked in anyway and no idea what made the phobia happen either.
What are yours?

DH has a velvet phobia.

I cannot bear anything to do with finger or toe nails. Never had a manicure or pedicure, I cannot clip my nails, only cut them with scissors, and I’m actually finding wearing sandals in the summer with my toenails exposed increasingly difficult. Bending/catching a nail is the stuff of nightmares. If there’s inadvertently a scene in a film with torture involving nails I cannot watch it, have to leave the room (thank you bloody Ozark for springing that one me recently), and can make me physically sick. I wish I didn’t have nails. It’s getting worse, I do wonder whether I should see someone about it...

Anything to do with my belly button. I can't abide it being touched. When pregnant, I was petrified that it would 'pop out' and rub against my clothes. Urgh!

Crowds

Not claustrophobic, not agoraphobic, not really phased by a busy shop, but scared of places so crowded, that if you dropped something, you couldn't pick it up.

If I'm in a full theatre, I get a bit anxious, but half full, I'm all right.

Can't do big festivals, Christmas shopping in city centres, music gigs, any large, popular venue that might be crowded getting in or out (corridors, exits, bars, toilets etc).

Large crowds where, if someone panics, it could cause a stampede.

The unpredictable way people's tempers fray and moods can flick like a switch cause me to be on edge the whole time

Enochlophobia is a fear of crowds and ochlophobia is a fear of mob-like crowds.

Veins. Seeing them makes me feel a bit queasy. Especially when you see people with really raised veins in their arms and legs... brrrr. Thank God I'm a fatty so mine are hidden!

Sandpaper makes me physically sick

Balloons latex ones children playing squeaking them I run.

Mine is very common but I’ll feel left out if I don’t post 😂 floods of any size. Even an overflowing sink or worse still, a blocked toilet. It was much worse when I was a kid but the meds help a lot.

Can’t stand mattress or carpet shops.
We are buying our mattress online. I can cope with one, but not being surrounded by them.

Balloons, especially when they get old and crepey. Makes me want to vomit 🤢
And mushrooms obviously
Not so much if they are cut up and cooked but will run from ones growing in the ground or whole ones with their squeaky skin. Shudders

Empty swimming pools. Large tiled areas 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Birds/ducks/swans/chickens/bees/butterflies - basically anything with wings.

Also bridges, tunnels and piers. A small bridge over a small stream, I can manage with some discomfort. When I was a teenager we went to France with school and we went on the Eurotunnel and then drove through a lot of tunnels. I was close to passing out a lot on that on trip. My classmates were playing the game ‘hold your breath until you get to the other side of the tunnel’, I kept winning, even though I wasn’t playing.

Not a phobia but I can’t stand the feel of velvet or those fuzzy socks and sleepwear jumpers.

Wooden lolly sticks ugh

Toilets. Especially public toilets. Had this phobia since I was a little girl, I can hold my wee for a good 12 hours now 😂 when I was pregnant I needed a catheter and the consultant was shocked I had 1.5 litre in there hahaha! Don't get me started on the public toilets that look like aluminium potties

the pointy bits on the end of green beans

Car washes. Gives me the shudders just watching someone else's car in there. You wouldn't get me inside a car going through - those huge slappy whirling brushes, I'm cringing just typing it.

Not all that keen on bridges with slats or gaps underfoot that you can see through either.

The test card, with the girl, clown and easel. It’s horrible.

@Holothane

Balloons latex ones children playing squeaking them I run.

Same Balloons I cannot cope around them get anxious, heart races, completely on edge My kids are totally balloon deprived as a result

Jelly. Shivers going down spine at just the word

steep roads

Swings. Things that hang from the ceiling and swing in the breeze, swinging lamp shades, anything that swings! Yes I'm weird. Once had a panic attack in a museum that had a Foucault's Pendulum hanging from the third floor roof right down to the ground floor atrium - I could see it gently swinging too and fro endlessly out of the corner of my eye and before I knew it I was having staff administer first aid and offering to call me an ambulance - do I win 'weirdest phobia ever'?

Taking toddlers to the park was always fun at our house..

Not sure you all know what a phobia is 🤷🏼‍♀️😄

Esculators, I can just about cope with going up and the travelatot type ones. I cannot go near ones going down.

@underneaththeash I used to be terrified of the static on tv. I had to run to the tv to switch my video tape off before it went to static. I have SUCH a vivid memory of this but we moved when I was 3 so I was between 2 and 3. I think I fell asleep watching a video and had a nightmare about it talking to me or something, I was so scared I’d see a face or it would start talking?! I still hate the HBO ident thing.

My other main “weird” one is butterflies. Absolutely lose my shit when one comes flying towards me. I’ve never really been able to ascertain what it is that bothers me so much, the randomness and unpredictability is part of it, but the other is the fact they are so delicate, so it’s not like batting away a fly. The thought of it touching me and me knocking it away and it crumbling makes me 😱 I look absolutely insane when one comes near me, it’s absolutely humiliating. I have no idea what to do to evade it as they are so fucking random anyway so just do a shriek and a weird dance.