To have such a weird phobia?!

[WinterSnow]

I am terrified of nautical things, old style diving suits and ship figureheads being top of my list, I actually feel sick and dizzy if I know one is nearby, do you have any weird ones?

bananamonkey - I'm exactly the same, it makes my hair stand on end walking past big ships etc..

I also can't touch cotton wool as I hate the way it feels, the way it creaks... not sure it's a phobia though...

No necessarily weird, but the strength of my phobia is unusual apparently. Mine is snakes. I cannot look at them. In pictures, on tv, even cartoon ones invoke uncomfortableness. I get hot and teary, itchy at the back of my neck and palms even talking about them.
If I see one in a picture or on tv, I literally have a cold sweat and have been known to scream and cry . It's actually getting worse as I get older.

Nothing 'activated' my phobia, it's just always been there.

Oh and at Ds' nursery, they hide the rubber ones for me .

GeekCool - my Grandma was exactly the same, she couldn't even bear to hear the word

I have a similar unease about old nautical equipment, but for me it's more about the hulls of old boats in dry dock and in museums. It makes me feel weird to think of the 'other life' they had beneath the waves before they were hauled out and dragged back to land. I haven't described it very well, but you get the jist.

IntergalacticHussy - Yes I completely understand that, they had a large lifeboat in a museum in Cornwall I had couldn't go in. Submarines are the worst by far, I think I would cry if I saw one

wintersnow I find it's particularly because people like to be 'helpful' and tell me their stories about them. Usually they are ghastly stories involving 'escapes' and I spend the day looking around.
Any conversation results in me pulling my feet off the floor incase there is one around. It's really quite embarrassing at times

GeekCool my mum was like you; couldn't even look at a picture of one, and would flinch away if one came on the tv. There is hope though.... over my 21 years of snake-keeping she has gradually become used to them, and now when she comes to stay, she sleeps happily in the bedroom where my snake is (caged, obviously!). My mum wouldn't want to hold one or have one especially near her, but her fear/revulsion is a fraction of what it was twenty years ago! If your phobia is really distressing, you could lessen it through gradual desensitisation.

I can't walk to the bed in bare feet, I have to leap from a distance in case a hand reaches out to grab my foot!

I wouldn't care but nothing can even fit there's so much crap important stuff under there!

also forks with their prongs tangled together shudder

I used to have a fear of eating while on holiday. Doesn't matter where or when but my throat would close up, panic set in....We could only go away for a week at a time though as I'd try and survive on milk. I spent a lot of money on psychotherapy and now have coping strategies so it's much better but still not perfect.

I've never had a problem in restaurants etc though

DH hates spiders, he went white and started shaking at a zoo when they were doing one of those talks for the children and a woman came out holding a tarantular, I nearly wet myself laughing I felt really sorry for him

itisnearlysummer, did you know there's a facebook group for Koumpounophobics like you?

There's a great little film by a button phobic (warning: contains buttons).

Oops, this was the point of the post:
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2408469420&v=wall

www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2408469420&v=wall

sloths,

really, they make me feel ill when they are on wildlife programmes. I have to turn off. fucking weird things all hairy with long nails and small heads....shudder

big metal things for me like pylons, those gas containers and big ships in port - looking up at the hull etc. Dh hates cotton wool and so did my old auntie - we used to chase her round her house with some when we were horrible little shits too young to understand.

Nail files -shudder-

I've had a fear of asteroids/meteorites for as long as I can remember. Even typing the words makes me feel unwell.

My sister, for a joke put on the final few scenes of "deep impact" one morning and as soon as I saw it on the tv I promptly vomited all over my feet .

Also, people on stilts shudder

That advert for Vaseline i think it is that has a figure made up
Of a load of hands - urghhhhh! Makes me feel
Sick, it's the pattern of all those hands together

Seems like a lot of people have a moth phobia! I found this group on facebook for a phobia I didn't even realise had a name (trypophobia meaning lots of little holes -boak!) but that I have always had, can i just ask you guys to take a look at this picture and tell me if it freaks you out of if it's deffo a niche phobia?!

canella my tummy just flipped at reading that!! just now we're decorating and bits of wallpaper keep sticking to my feet i keep screeching im sure the neighbours think im getting murdered about 5 times a day :(

i have a measuring jug which DHTB has tried to take the sticker off

Oh just remembered too, my moms got a sort of strange one...she hates polystyrene,as in the packaging material. She cant stand the squeaking noise it makes when it rubs together, me and my little brother used to be right little s**ts and chase her with small amounts of the stuff, we were evil :S

I have quite a few - my main ones are frogs, trypophobia, and open water - being in it (I just don't) because
a)of the things living in it (fish and even worse, plus y'know seaweed)
b) the fear of being stranded in the middle of an ocean until I slowly drown when I am too exhausted to do anything else while being touched by creepy fish things and possibly eaten by sharks.
because of this I also don't do

1. walk through aquariums - because obviously the glass will break and I will be covered in live wriggling sea creatures and fish and I would rather die 2)small boats - I can just about cope on a ferry providing it is incrediably large and the journey is reasonbly short
2. submarines - just never and no and not even looking at them.

I also have others (trains, fear of being late to an absurd degree plus many more) but it all comes down to my anxiety issues which I am having treatment for.

I can't touch cotton wool balls! And I hate bunches of coathangers.

I have the holes one too. What is that all about? Why are so many people freaked out by that image? Thinking about it makes me feel sick and faint and out of control and generally horrible.

My other one is octopus's. Octopii? Whatever. Those ugly, slimy fuckers. They have a regular circular pattern on them too, the cunts. One appeared on a rock at my feet when I was about 8 and standing on a marina in Spain. The fear extends to squid and jellyfish too.