Anyone else have a weird phobia?

[HangingOver]

I understand why lots of people have phobias of things that are associated with actual risk, pain or things that have left an evolutionary stamp on us due to being poisonous e.g snakes and spiders.

Can anyone tell me why I am paralyzingly scared of empty swimming pools and, most of all, octopus.

Octopus in particular I have a genuinely ridiculous reaction to... If I force myself to watch a video of one within seconds my palms start to sweat and I feel sick rising.... It's almost more like an extreme disgust reaction than fear.

Tell me your bonkers phobias please.

^^ or felt relaxed around him, anyway.

I have a friend who used almost vomit at the idea of - wait for it - trying to pick up a wooden tea stirrer through a duvet

I have a version of this, and just thinking about the tea-stirrer/duvet thing makes my fingers tingle in fear. Hard to explain but it's something to do with some things being puffy and oversized and other things being disproportionately tiny. One of my recurring nightmares as a child involved a great big foot on a teeny tiny piano pedal. Niche, I know!

Moths and butterflies. Also daddy long legs and spiders.

Piers

Their legs
The damp underneath them
The boards
The gaps
The smell
The bit where they pass from sand to sea
The sound of the boards
The creepy, over painted benches

I loves snakes and spiders. I have swum with and stroked sharks. I have a phobia of slugs and snails.

Also pylons and electric substations but o can trace that back to the films we watched as kids before the holidays.

Trypophobia here too 🤢 it makes me want to rip my skin off from head to toe. I get it sometimes with raised holes but it's mostly when the holes case in and I feel like something is going to come out of every single hole 😭😭😭 I'm completely covered in goosebumps just thinking about it.

Large objects in enclosed spaces. They make me feel tearful and almost faint.

Years ago, I was in a museum and they displayed a huge Easter Island head in a small ante-room. I hated it, nearly burst into tears and had to quickly leave the museum.

Why? Why?

@notangelinajolie

Slugs

Me too. They're fucking horrible!

Tiny holes that are close together

Wtf??

It's not particularly weird, but I have a phobia of riding in chairlifts. If I was clamped in I'd be ok, but its the sliding about loose on the seat which is almost unbearable - no skiing for me!

The thought of someone's tooth growing somewhere it shouldn't. Especially hyperdontia. Fascinates and repulses me equally.

Cotton wool. Makes me shudder just thinking about it!

@thechaseison

Tiny holes that are close together

Wtf??

Trypophobia?

Don’t Google it, just in case

@ponygirlcurtis
@XenoBitch
Snap. I have never told many people because I always thought I was just weird. Even my mum doesn't know . However having seen others on MN with the same thing I have discovered there is even a word for the phobia of you know what's. (I don't even like writing the word ). It is crackers really. Though for me it is not a fear but a huge revulsion that makes me feel sick .
So we officially suffer from Koumpounophobia.
We are not alone !

Birds. It’s something about the flapping wings, and the unpredictability of when they’re going to flap them and fly off.

Pigeons are the worst for me, I think as they have no fear and come so close to humans. My worst nightmare would be sitting at an outdoor cafe table and suddenly realising there was a pigeon under the table/chair.

Pipes. As in plumbing pipes

Overhead cisterns

Black toilet seats

Balloons
Come out in sweats, tightness in chest, highly anxious state
The fuckers explode spontaneously you cannot trust them

Wet paper and stickers. Especially torn off stickers. The kind that leaves residue or some of the paper behind. The word 'sticker' sends shivers down my spine and if I ever accidentally touch it, it makes me feel utterly repulsed and want to vomit.
I also struggle to look at scrunched up used tissues or watch someone blow their nose. I think it's to do with the 'wet' paper again.

Hard to explain but it's something to do with some things being puffy and oversized and other things being disproportionately tiny. One of my recurring nightmares as a child involved a great big foot on a teeny tiny piano pedal. Niche, I know!

Whoa. Hang of you've awoken something reeeeeeeally deeply buried in my brain here. Tell me more about these nightmares. I actually think I had a similar sort of thing. But in my case.it was something like a tiny pencil or needle being squeezed in a big spongey fist....this is so weird!

I have got another one but it's hard to explain- those wibbly rubbery plastic fronds you get on kids keyrings and suchlike. I'll try to find a picture.

My elderly widowed neighbour is mortally afraid of dead birds. Not live birds, just dead ones.

In every other sense she is stoic and confident, put a dead bird on her driveway and she's hammering on our door on the verge of tears.

These nasty little bastards.