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Thursday, June 29, 2017

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?

1 comment:

  1. Great list. Great idea! I've never considered giving a character a phobia yet. There's so many! I think I love the phobia "fear of good news" the most. Although someone who actually HAS it probably wouldn't appreciate my enthusiasm. I personally have some claustrophobia. Not all-consuming, but tight spaces...mmm...do not make me happy!

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