Everyone’s afraid of something. Most things ordinary people are afraid of are easily understood and typically present a more-or-less justified threat to well-being or safety, like a fear of heights, spiders, flying, or gorillas who just did a pile of cocaine. These commonplace fears aren’t the same as a proper phobia, though.
"What’s the difference between regular fear and a phobia?" you may ask. Well, a phobia is irrational. It doesn’t make sense, or even if it might, it affects the phobic person in a disproportional, drastic, life-affecting way. Most of us can muster up the courage to climb a tall ladder, squash a spider, get on a plane, or soothe a gorilla by playing the clarinet, even if these things unsettle us. Someone with a real phobia could not move past their fear at any cost—even if threatened.
The criteria that define a real, diagnosable phobia are as follows:
1. You must experience severe fear or anxiety about the condition or object.
2. You must have an immediate fear response, such as running away, screaming, or sobbing helplessly in the corner of an Arby’s.
3. The fear you have must be excessive, as related to the actual risk factor.
4. Symptoms of your fear must last six months or longer.
5. Your fear must cause intense distress or dysfunction.
6. Your fear must not be better explained by another mental problem. No twofers.
Now that we have established what a phobia is and how they affect people, let’s go over a list of some rather unusual phobias I’ve come across in my research. This is not like the Guinness Book of World Records, where you can just get in there for doing something nobody else would have ever thought to do, like stick 100 clothespins on your face while smoking five cigars and singing Ave Maria. No, all the phobias on the list have indeed been diagnosed by actual mental health professionals on many occasions, even if some seem quite intensely specific or remarkably silly. Listed in no particular order...
Most phobias are caused by a triggering event, such as a bad experience in life which relates to their fear of that situation or object. Indeed, the notes I found on one reported case of this, a young woman was diagnosed after having a "terrifying childhood experience" with chickens. Whether or not 11 herbs and spices were involved, research does not record.
With this phobia, anxiety and panic happen when people think about chewing gum, though it may also involve seeing other people chewing gum or even seeing previously-chewed gum. I have to wonder what extreme circumstance would precede such a fear, apart from maybe being a janitor at a grade school and having to clean under desks. No matter how you slice it, though, Hubba Bubba needs to be held accountable for its role in this culture of fear.
This is one that actually seems like it would seriously affect your quality of life were you to have it. It’s easy enough to avoid gum or chickens, but yellow? Driving a car would be impossible; going outside, in general, would be an exercise in ridiculousness, and forget about getting a job feeding monkeys.
Not discussed as often as its revolting counterpart, pedophilia, since it seems more silly than vile. Pedophobia does indeed exist, though, and it is exceedingly rare. Recall, this is not just an "oh, I don’t like kids" thing...this would mean that they completely frighten you. Watching a grown man panic and flee a room full of toddlers in terror sounds like quite the sight, though.
Ever had a bad job? I mean, a really bad job? How about a job that fucks with you so hard that the thought of ever toiling again makes you freak out and commit yourself to a life doing anything but? A truly awful job is the typical cause of ergophobia. That, or career burnout. Regardless, you’re not born being afraid to work, and this phobia is more common than most on this list but still relatively uncommon overall. However, taking a look at half the population of Portland, you wouldn’t think so.
In the research I did on this one, I couldn’t find out if they had to be full beards or if mustaches, soul patches, and possibly even muttonchops would also fall under this phobic umbrella. Regardless, though, best to avoid ZZ Top shows, craft beer festivals, and the Pacific Northwest in general, if you have pogonophobia.
No, I am, in fact, not joking. The Greek words for "fear of long words" do combine into one of the longest words, if not the longest word in the dictionary, edging out supercalifragilisticexpialidocious by one letter. Why that is in the dictionary to begin with, I have no idea, but Julie Andrews has deep pockets, I suppose. That said, this word of words is more properly referred to in professional circles, when referred to at all, as sesquipedalophobia, which is still a bit of a doozy if you have a phobia of lengthy language. Imagine having this phobia but not being able to tell anyone what it’s called.
This one seems to be discussed quite frequently among internet communities, wherein those persons discuss how a series of small holes will unnerve them. This is a recent entry, the term only having been coined in 2005. It’s on this list despite online discussions and widespread knowledge, simply because...it’s not actually a phobia. No scientific body has recognized it as such, and being unsettled by clusters or holes doesn’t quite have the debilitating impact of a real phobia, so this entry is a "the more you know" sort of thing. Therefore, if anyone you meet ever says they have trypophobia, you can feel free to tell them they’re full of shit. Clusters of shit.
As FDR famously paraphrased from Thoreau, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." For the poor souls with phobophobia, this is their life. I’m not entirely sure what might cause someone to have this phobia, but a fear of fear (or of being afraid) seems somewhat redundant. I’m guessing they don’t tend to enjoy Halloween and probably don’t ride rollercoasters or watch horror movies. Seems to me that living your life in fear of fear would cause some kind of fear loop, where you’d just be upset and scared all the time. Case notes would seem to confirm that these are very anxious, constantly unhappy people. Generally, if you have such a condition, the treatment appears to be that they simply drug you up real good and say, "best of luck."
Well, those are the cream of the phobic crop. If you or anyone you know displays symptoms of any of the above, seek the guidance of a professional drug dealer.
Don’t be afraid of life. Or chickens.
-Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a gum chewer, clinical beard examiner, poultry fearsomeness evaluator, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at Wombstretcha.com, on Twitter as @Wombstretcha503 and on Facebook (boo!) and MeWe (yay!) as "Wombstretcha The Magniflcent."
