What are you scared of? 12 amazing phobias

I was reading something the other day about phobias – particularly the ones that seem completely irrational but have a deep-set reason, whether conscious or sub-conscious, behind it for each sufferer.
A lot of people receive a huge amount of scrutiny for their “irrational” phobias and I thought I’d have a bit of a scrawl through the internet to find some of the most bizarre, yet quite regularly occurring phobias that there are out there.

Xanthophobia – Fear of the colour yellow. FUN FACT: Apparently though humans do suffer from this phobia, it most frequently appears in sea turtles! Who knew?!

Nomophobia – Fear of being without phone signal. At what point does this become a phobia? I’m pretty sure we all get close to this at times….any actual diagnosed sufferers of this out there? I’d love to know when it becomes an actual ‘phobia’ as opposed to just not enjoying being disconnected….
Although statistically apparently half of the occupants of the UK have it…so maybe that’s just it!

Turophobia – Fear of Cheese. The majority of the stories relating to this involve having a bad experience with either eating hung quantites of cheese (umm….after my cheese fest last week skiing I definitely should be feeling this…!) or after having problems with the stringiness of melted cheese. This is apparently one of the phobias that is most-easily justified by the sufferer (the majority can pin-point the event that made them develop the phobia)

Coulrophobia – Fear of Clowns. When I first heard about this one, I thought it was crazy, but I’ve now come across so many people who have this fear, I’m wondering if I am missing something. According to research, this fear comes, either consciously or unconsciously, from not knowing what is behind the makeup and the red nose, and the numbers of sufferers increased hugely after the huge success of Heath Ledger’s portrayal of “The Joker” in ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’.

Omphalolphobia – Fear of the Belly Button. Apparently this is much more common than you would have thought. The details vary, some sufferers can’t even bare to think about a belly button, some are happy to see one but cannot bare to touch one or have their touched. Some sufferers find it so incapacitating they cannot sleep knowing their top is touching their belly button.

Pogonophobia – Fear of beards. Stay away from Shoreditch is all I can say to this really. Apparently a lot of sufferers of Pogonophobia also develop a fear of Christmas because of the extra beards there are around. How sad is that?! Christmas is awesome! I guess Movember isn’t exactly their idea of a cup of tea either!

Spectrophobia – Fear of seeing your own reflection in a mirror. It isn’t a fear of your own image, just reflected in a mirror. Still, it must make getting ready for a night out slightly tricky – I suppose you just need really honest friends to tell you if you look rubbish before you go out.
Thinking about it, it must make putting on makeup a nightmare – or some kind of feat of genius!

Genuphobia – Fear of knees. Not sure what to make of this one. Or even where it would develop from. Apparently some sufferers are ok with the knees of close family, but stranger’s knees are the issue, whereas with others it is simply all knees.

Dextrophobia – Fear of having objects to the right side of the body. Surely you must get very dizzy making sure everything is on your left? This must be a really tricky one to live with I think. Apparently sufferers feel safest when they are in the corner of a room.

Allodoxaphobia – Fear of people with opinions. Guess keeping my mouth shut would be a good start then!

Arachibutyrophobia – Fear of Peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. Not for me – I do love me some peanut butter! YUM!

The final phobia I found out about made me giggle because it has a 18-letter-name – the irony being that it is ‘Sesquipedalophobia‘, which is the fear of long words!

Do you have any odd phobias? Or know anyone who does? Let me know in the comments 🙂

I had a friend who had a genuine phobia of the sauce that comes with baked beans. He didn’t mind the beans alone, but with the sauce he got all anxious and panicky. I tried to find the name of it, but it appears to be un-named as yet. Fascinating how the brain works though, isn’t it?

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