What Are You Afraid Of?

When I came up with the concept for this post, I started up a list of fears, went to see if I could find more, and discovered that someone has done years more work than me, and there are many more fears than I initially imagined. I mean, I know some of them. Trypophobia, for example, the fear of clusters, which, by the way, if you HAVE it, don't Google it.

"Hey, guys, what kind of pictures should show up in Google Images for people who have a fear of clusters?'

"How about a bunch of clusters?"

"Brilliant!"

Anyway, if you're looking for a fear for your character, take a look at The Phobia List, which is exactly as described on the tin. While it actually doesn't have trypophobia on it for some reason, it does have things like:

- Alliumphobia - Fear of garlic.
- Chronomentrophobia - Fear of clocks.
- Euphobia - Fear of hearing good news.
- Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia - Fear of long words. Yes, the person who named it is an asshole.
- Omphalophobia - Fear of belly buttons.
- Soceraphobia- Fear of parents-in-law.
- Zemmiphobia - Fear of the great mole rat

But those are, at their core, "common" fears, fears that have been written about and named in reference books. It doesn't quite look at irrational fears. Those can get very specific. For example, aichmophobia is the fear of needles or pointed objects, including knives. For a time, on top of a fear of needles, I was outright terrified of being accidentally impaled by someone using a knife in the kitchen. Absolutely irrational, but I spent the better part of a decade excusing myself whenever someone else was cutting anything because I could just SEE the knife slipping out of their hand and flying at my skull like a ninja star.

So, since general fears have been done well beyond my means, let's have some fun with irrational ones, or ones that aren't on the list.

Irrational Fears

Fear of a children's TV show

Fear of a specific song

Fear of accidental impalement

Fear of being late or early

Fear of being murdered in a hotel room

Fear of being stalked by internet trolls

Fear of celebrities

Fear of chihuahuas (or any other small dog breed)

Fear of closed cupboards

Fear of clowns in unlikely places

Fear of conspiracy theories

Fear of cracked doors

Fear of crossing train tracks or standing on platforms

Fear of desserts

Fear of emergency or construction vehicles

Fear of escaped zoo animals

Fear of falling in public

Fear of finding unnatural things in food

Fear of flickering lightbulbs

Fear of getting kicked in the face

Fear of getting locked out

Fear of getting lost in a big city

Fear of hotel rooms or any room that's not their own

Fear of knitting needles

Fear of knowing other peoples' secrets

Fear of manual labor

Fear of mythical creatures

Fear of ocean debris (seashells, seaweed or flotsam)

Fear of open windows

Fear of other people being paranoid

Fear of oversized bags (purses, trash, etc)

Fear of rain puddles

Fear of rainbows

Fear of reflected light spots

Fear of shaved or hairless cats

Fear of the internet

Fear of the naked mole rat

Fear of uneven terrian

Fear of unpaved roads

Fear that everyone is talking about you behind your back

Thanks to my dear friend Kat for coming up with several of the ideas on this list. Check her out on Twitter: @_Almost_

So, dear readers, tell me, what are YOU afraid of?