Bizarre Phobias

A phobia is defined as an overwhelming and irrational fear towards an object that poes little or no threat or danger but provokes excessive anxiety and avoidance. We have our own fears, especially if there’s a justifiable reason why are we afraid of a specific object or situation. But some people are afflicted with weird phobias towards non-dangerous things. This can greatly disrupts their every day lives and even affect their physical health. Here’s the list of bizarre phobias that you may not know about.

It is also known as “kathisophobia” or “thaasophobia.” When a person fears of sitting, they may actually exhibit anxieties about being trapped or unable to sit still. Sometimes, the fear of sitting can be caused by fear of hemorrhoids, or in some more serious cases, can be attributed to sitting on sharp or painful things.

This fear will have a great impact on people having it, because obviously sitting is a big part of our lives. In the school and in the office, they involve a lot of sitting. As a result this fear will greatly affect the career choices of those people having this fear. Cathisophobic people will also be unable to do what is considered as traditional activities such as riding or driving a car, having lunch with the family, and watching movies inside the theater. This fear is characterized by anxiety, heavy sweating, heavy or short breathing.

For most people conversation over dinner is a pleasurable activity — you and your loved ones and friends have an enjoyable chat over that wonderful dinner, relax, unwind and bond with them. However, there are people who suffer deipnophobia — fear of dinner conversation.

This fear may be triggered by a traumatic experience in the past. People with this fear may have had a bad dinner experience with his or her boss, or had a blind date dinner which went terribly wrong. As a result, they prefer to eat alone, whether in their homes or inside a restaurant. Even just a Thanksgiving dinner with the family will provoke extreme anxiety on the sufferer’s part. People who have this kind of fear are considered introverts.

It’s common that people feel uneasy toward these evil supernatural beings, including demons. However, having demonophobia is another thing. It is one of the more rare forms of phobia. Even when just discussing about demons or being just inside a dark room or roaming in a dark forest will provoke abnormal and persistent fears from some people.

Religion can play a large part on this kind of fear. For example, if someone interprets the Bible as a literal word of God, they may be frightened simply at the thought of failure to ascend to Heaven after their passing. So this fear has been thought as the basis of fear of death — especially those who have sinned are afraid of dying thinking that they may endure an eternal life of suffering, surrounded by flames and grinning, laughing demons.

Insecurity or superstition may be the basis for this type of fear. People who are insecure about their own physical appearance are afraid to look at themselves in the mirror. So staying away from mirrors is the only way for them to avoid or deny the truths about their appearance.

However, some people who afraid to look at themselves in the mirror because they fear that they may be “sucked” into a spiritual world through it. So they consider having mirrors as bad luck.

All of us have chins, which are a normal part of the human anatomy. So this phobia is a little odd because people who have an irrational fear of chins also have chins themselves.

However, we cannot deny the fact that there are really obsessive people out there. Those having this weird kind of phobia tend to look at other people’s chins obsessively, especially people who have an imperfect or hideous-looking chin. They may avoid having contact with people whose chins they see as horrible-looking. Therapy is needed for this kind of phobia — and for those who have extreme cases of this fear, medication is needed to ease down the symptoms.

Globophobia is a fear balloons popping or fear of balloons in general. The fear of a sound from a balloon that has been popped is specifically called phonophobia. These people having this fear tend to avoid parties and festivities with balloons as decorations. This is rather an uncommon and exaggerated fear, but there are famous people such as Oprah Winfrey who suffer globophobia.

Cooking is either considered a chore or a hobby. Many of us have an undeniable passion towards food or cooking and enjoy experimenting dishes. And what’s more, there are cooking shows such as celebrity cook-offs, cooking and baking challenges and celebrity chefs are becoming popular among us these days.

However, there are people who have an irrational fear of cooking that they avoid the kitchen altogether. This fear may be triggered by a previous traumatic experience in the kitchen, such as accidental fires or burns from the stove or the oven. Or they may have accidentally cut themselves while handling sharp objects such as knives or icepicks. Others are simply uncertain about their cooking skills that they are afraid of this activity.

People who suffer this phobia experience a lot of symptoms including excessive anxiety, sense of doom, dizziness or nausea.

Many of us hate rain, while some of us love it. But there are people who treat rain as if it has an infectious disease, and this type of fear is called ombrophobia or pluviophobia.

Such phobia may be caused by a traumatic experience with rain in the past, such as their childhood. Children are usually prone to have this fear than adults. Some might be afraid that a very heavy rain would summon other conditions like violent storms, heavy winds, thunder and lightning. While others show exaggerated fear by even just a light rain or drizzle. They would scream and cry and shake uncontrollably. They would also often look out at the sky to monitor rains, and would feel inordinate anxiety especially after getting informed about a heavy rainfall forecast.

Pediophobia is considered one of the common phobias, but that doesn’t diminish its bizarreness. Such phobia is caused by past events (such as a person’s childhood), general brain chemistry, and other psychological inclinations. Heredity is also often linked to pediophobia. This phobia is closely associated with automatonophobia or irrational fear towards humanoid figures such as mannequins or ventriloquist’s dummies.

People who suffer this condition would refuse to go near dolls. They exhibit a variety of symptoms such as undue anxiety and stress, feeling of dread, difficulty in breathing, sweating, dry mouth, shaking, increased heart rate, inability to think or speak clearly, panic, crying and nausea. Comprehensive therapy and medications (for extreme cases) are needed to alleviate these symptoms.

There are people who have to deal a lot with their mothers-in-law. Mothers-in-law usually have this reputation for being nosy and meddlesome to their children and children-in-law’s marriage and family.

We know that there are many people who may not like it when their mothers-in-law are around, but do you know that there is a phobia for them? It’s called pentheraphobia or novercaphobia. The causes for this phobia are various such as past or external events, heredity and general brain chemistry. Extreme anxiety, shortness of breath, sweating, dry mouth, shaking, increased heart rate, inability to think or speak clearly, panic, crying and nausea are among the symptoms of this phobia.

Pogonophobia is an undue fear or hatred of beards. The generally accepted causes of this can be attributed to external events (traumatic events for example), psychological tendencies, heredity or genetics and brain chemistry. The symptoms may vary from person to person depending on their level of fear.

As with other phobias, typical symptoms of pogonophobia include extreme anxiety, increased and/or irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath or rapid breathing, dry mouth, nausea, inability to think or speak clearly, and many others.

Agyrophobia is an abnormal, extreme and persistent fear of crossing the street. It may be caused from a past traumatic experience such as a road accident involving the sufferer or witnessing someone else who got involved in such accident.

Patients exhibit this irrational fear even when the streets or roads do not pose threat or danger just to validate their fears. They feel extremely frightened just seeing the street alone or even just hearing the name of a street. They feel extreme anxiety, sweating, shortness of breath, failure to speak or think clearly, elevated heart rate, dry mouth, and many others.

Many of us have experienced of having our favorite peanut butter sticking the roofs of our mouths, and usually it means no more than just a little annoyance. But to other people, even just the thought of it sickens them to death. If you exactly have this feeling, you might have arachibutyrophobia.

A person with such fear towards an otherwise harmless subject often exhibits an inordinate anxiety. Like any other phobias, it is caused by external events (traumatic events for example), psychological tendencies, heredity or genetics and brain chemistry. The symptoms may vary from person to person depending on their level of fear. Like in many other phobias, typical symptoms of this kind of phobia include extreme anxiety, increased and/or irregular heartbeat, shortness of breath or rapid breathing, dry mouth, nausea, inability to think or speak clearly, and many others.

Many of us have had this dread towards Algebra when we were still attending school, and it’s just considered as normal. However, there are some people who have this excessive and abnormal anxiety towards any number, and this condition is called arithmophobia, or numerophobia.

Some people experience extreme fear or panic especially towards specific numbers. For instance, they are especially scared of 666, “the number of the beast” (hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia) and 13 (triskaidekaphobia) which are usually associated with bad luck, the devil, or evil spirits. Such phobias toward these numbers are rooted by religious or supersitious factors. However, a person who has arithmophobia is extremely frightened of all kinds of numbers, especially in complex computations.

This type of phobia is closely related to pediophobia or fear of dolls. This fear also extends to mannequins, wax statues, puppets, animatronic figures or any other inanimate, humanoid figures.

People who suffer this condition exhibit a variety of symptoms such as extreme anxiety, difficulty in breathing, sweating, dry mouth, shaking, abnormal or increased heart rate, inability to think or speak clearly, panic, crying and nausea. Extensive therapy and medications (for extreme cases) are needed to alleviate these symptoms.