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Thursday, September 8, 2011

Panphobia

So, you may have already read my post about why I am scared of spiders. While spiders are the only thing that I'm really really scared of (ie. is probably actually a phobia, not just a fear), there are many things in day to day life which also scare me. I will list some of them, in no particular order.

The only thing to fear is fear itself... and everything on this list. And spiders. And clowns.

#1 Graters
I'll be at my friends place, with them cooking dinner. Because I am a super polite guest, I'll offer to help.








When I have to grate stuff at my house, I just get to eat the rest of it. But how am I meant to explain to my friends that I can't grate the last little bit of cheese/carrot because I'm scared that the grater will eat me?
I've never actually cut my finger while grating stuff, but I did manage to cut my fingers while washing one once, which I'm pretty sure is scientific proof that they're evil.

#2 Escalators
Escalators are pretty much death machines. Yet they are EVERYWHERE! Malls, train stations, airports.
Just look! They have scary teeth!


And can you imagine falling down an escalator that is going up? (Click on the picture, it's animated and took me ages so you'd better look at it!)


YOU WILL BE FALLING FOREVER!!!

#3 The hotel where we have church sometimes
This is a place that seems fairly innocent, but when you put everything together it's terrifying.
Fancy lobby where I clearly don't fit in so everyone judges me for not being as fancy as them.

Small elevator that goes very slow, so we're clearly going to run out of air and die.

Very low ceilings, so clearly we're going to run out of air and die.

Oh, and not just any ceilings,

REFLECTIVE CEILINGS!

Oh, and on top of all that

the floor is bouncy.

#4 Heights
I guess this is a pretty common fear, but how many people get scared just standing on a chair? I get so scared standing on a chair (because it's too high), that I shake, which makes the chair shake, which makes me even more scared, which makes me shake more, etc.


#5 Seeing myself in a mirror when it's dark
Getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom can be dangerous. I nearly have a heart attack once a fortnight from this.



#6 Foam
Not really sure where this came from, because I used to love doing flips into the foam pit at gymnastics when I was younger. But if I touch foam now, I start to dry retch.

(Also kind of included in this is sandpaper and pumice, but foam is the worst)

#7 Crowds
Crowds make me INCREDIBLY anxious. Supermarkets are the worst though. I normally try to go to the supermarket at night so there won't be many people. And this is me now, with my life semi sorted out. A couple of years ago just going leaving my apartment would make me into a nervous wreck.

I can't think of a funny picture for this one, so I'll just leave it for now, and maybe make one later. Any suggestions?

#8 Large animals
I LOVE animals. But when I get up close to some of them, I suddenly start to imagine the hundreds of different ways they could kill me.




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I was going to try to put the proper phobia names next to everything on the list, but most of them didn't even have names. Although a quick google search tells me that other people are as scared of foam as I am.

2 comments:

  1. Best animation ever! I developed a phobia of a hotel on the weekend! This lady I was working for asked me to go over to her hotel and ask if the flowers had arrived. So I start walking over there and then realize I didn't know what to do if the flowers were there (I also didn't know how to pronounce the name of the flowers I was supposed to be asking for. I'm almost there and realise I don't look the going into hotel part or smell it (I was all sweaty) but I suck it up and get to the door. But it's like a freaky glass cage and none of the glass walls I walk towards were doors but eventually I found one and walked up to the reception like I so belonged there and tripped over the mat. Turns out the flowers weren't there anyway.

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  2. I used to be terrified of escalators too (great animation BTW) because when I was little, I did fall down one. But I think it was a down one, not an up one. And my sister got her shoelace caught in the end of one once and couldn't get off.

    Scary things....

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