Irrational fears?

Post Reply New Topic

Without a long backstory, I was reminded of one of my less-than rational fears: Industrial windmills. You know, the giant ones used to generate energy, usually white or silver.

They cause a severe amount of anxiety and terror that causes, with prolonged exposure (getting stuck in traffic close to their location) causing migraines and other, ahem, physical effects. There is no cause to this. Never had a nightmare, never a bad experience, never anything that could be targeted as a cause to this fear. (Whereas my fear of spiders/bugs comes from the feeling of the crawling and/or the crunch when you squish them, and my fear of dogs from being bit by a dog).

Is this an ASD related thing? I have a similar reaction to loud noises such as motorcycles, sirens, cars, fireworks, etc. (Which I don't think is entirely related because that seems more related to sensory input).

Rationally I know that there is no basis for this response. Doesn't change the response.

I have had very irrational fears- both now and when I was younger. I used to be very scared by certain TV programmes and the sound of the laptop. I am now scared of shadows in a dark room because I think they are the grim reaper (I'm not even joking!) and I am scared of The Sims (a computer game where you control people's lives) because I am scared of the music it plays when a sim (virtual person) is dying and that music makes me go into a panic attack.

Ugh, dark rooms freak me out. But a sensory deprivation chamber sounds like hell to me too. (At the same time, I need the dark, and quiet, to sleep.)

I suppose I could say that I'm irrationally afraid of humans. My social anxieties, extreme introversion and occasional agoraphobia are out of all proportion with the way that the majority of people in my life have treated me. There have certainly been a lot of misunderstandings in my life, and few folks I've wanted to avoid, but I have experienced very little that I could attribute to downright malice.

Regarding the windmills - is it just the sight of them that brings the fear, or do you need to be able to hear them? I ask because I have a particular sensitivity to air pressure changes and very low audio frequencies, both of which I find rather disturbing at times - office fans are a particular annoyance. Even in the general population, frequencies around 20 Hertz or so are known to create unnerving or nauseating psychological responses.

Thats a good question, and i have asked my psychologist and he didn't know either...

I have Masklaphobia and Emetophobia. But im also afraid of the dark and jumpscares just not on a phobic level.

The biggest reaction does occur when I am pretty close to them. But I've never 'heard' them. Not really. Atlantic City, NJ has several, and when driving close by, as close as you can, that's when the worst of reactions happen. Today thinking about one being close by had me jittery and shaky (bouncing my leg and biting/pinching my lip and picking at my cuticles).

ETA: In thinking a couple seconds more, it seems as though that could be plausible. I am sensitive to sounds and how they influence emotion. I have been known to turn off the sound on tv shows and movies an watch with closed captioning to be able to watch something without becoming agitated.



I have emetophobia too!! !! !! !! !! !! !! I never knew (or even looked) to see if it was a real phobia! My husband says it is the most bizarre thing he has ever seen. It is my greatest failing as a mother, and my biggest reason why I seldom drink alcohol! In the winter, I have to fight the urge not to leave the house because of the fear of encountering someone who could be passing along an infection. I've never met anyone with my aversion to it that wasn't a sympathy puker (which I'm not, just the happening makes me extremely agitated and anxious!!) Heck, I'm a nurse and can't deal with it! I've put off really looking for work because March marks the end of cold/flu season!
(please take my exuberance at joy of finding someone like me).

Emetophobia is a common phobia actually, mine developed after i got food poisoning once. I avoid anyone who said they are nauseas, i carry stomach soothing medication with me wherever i go. I DO NOT attend school during the cold/flu season. Before sharing drinks or kissing anyone i ask if they have been infected with any stomach illnesses in the past 21 days. I do not eat if i have been exposed to any stomach flus. I know almost any stomach remedy.

Anything can be a phobia if it makes the MUDA criteria
Maladaptive
Unjustifiable
Disturbing
Atypical.

I have a fear, it's not entirely irrational though. I fear being in a stopped car at a railway crossing (when a train is crossing- obviously- maybe).

I used to get really freaked out whenever there were big letters in a book, or words such as "impossible".

I also get really obsessed with certain people/things, and that leads to me being afraid of hearing/seeing their name. Once, for example, a certain song was mentioned in a book. I developed a fear of hearing that song or a reference to it. (I eventually heard the song much later.)

I've had good luck treating myself for some fears by taking a beta blocker and then exposing myself to it, most successfully for arachnophobia by watching videos of spiders after taking the pill. I read about some experiments and realized that my girlfriend took the same drug they were talking about using and decided to try it, worked well for me.

I have emetophobia too, although I'm not afraid of puking myself, but seeing or hearing others puking, even on TV, greatly disturbs me. I despise the movie Pitch Perfect because it has several unexpected and random scenes of violent projectile vomiting, and I left the room because I couldn't deal with watching them.

I also have arachnophobia and can't even look at pictures of spiders without anxiety. I tried researching the condition to see how it was most commonly cured, but I had to stop because every page I clicked on popped up wth a large, detailed spider picture and scared the crap out of me!

I'm slightly claustrophobic as well, but only in situations in which I'm in a tight space that I can't readily get out of. I'm fine in things like bathroom stalls and closets (assuming they don't have locks on the outside) because I can easily leave whenever I want to, but once my friend and I were playing with a large cardboard box and she trapped me under it by sitting on it, and when I realised I couldn't escape, I started to panic. When I was little, my parents and I used to play a game in their bed in which I'd crawl all the way under the covers and they would hold them down, blocking off the head of the bed as the exit (I have no idea what we were doing, it was a really weird game!) Even then I'd panic when I realised I was trapped, and learned to stay very close to the top edge of the duvet so I could always force my way out if needed.

One of my most irrational fears though is those hole-in-the-ground toilets like you get at campsites. I'm always terrified I'll fall in and drown, because my babysitter once told me a story of a little girl who did. My sister, hearing the same story, shares my fear, and neither of us will actually sit on them, rather, we sort of hover over the edge of the hole while holding on tightly to the handrail. It's especially creepy when you have to use them in the middle of the night and it's dark (something I'm also afraid of, but not to phobic levels) and there's no one else around to hear you scream if you need help.

I'm extremely afraid of certain types of bugs. All of them are harmless. But I'm terrified of them. Yet I'm not afraid of spiders, or snakes, or rats (except wild ones that may carry disease).

I'm terrified of heights, loud machines, and anything that could be used to kill someone in a horrifying and painful manner as would be seen in a horror film or novel.

Many of these things happen to be large machines. I don't even want to be near them, regardless of whether they are even operating at the moment. I'm afraid of garbage trucks, and hate when it's trash day, because I don't like being around them or even hearing them.

I hate being put to sleep during surgery because it's scary af.

Can you imagine someone saying hey you're going to go unconscious in 10 seconds. You don't even realize the moment you go unconscious, it just happens. It's scary to think about. And then next thing you know, you've woken up becoming sore and woozy af.

Those firetruckers have to put me to sleep for my wisdom teeth removal. My final words before they give me the anesthesia will be, ahh you son of a bi---- zzzzzzzzzz

I have apiphobia and it sometimes hampers my ability to be outside without jumping about and wailing like a little girl trying to avoid bees. a bee flew in the car as I was driving my dad home from the hospital, it swarmed and buzzed about my head and I almost panicked in the middle of rush hour traffic and in my distracted state I swerved into an oncoming lane with traffic, my poor dad almost had a heart attack. I know I'm not the only one. at work once, one of the nurses was petrified with fear when a lump of black lint jumped out of somebody's purse when she was retrieving a snack bar, and I had to pick up the black lint and demonstrate it was just a black piece of fuzzy lint before she would become reglued.

I can tell you for a fact that being asleep during the surgery beats the burlap out of being awake!

Wow. The more you guys list, the more I realize I have.