Does anyone else have irrational fears?

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I have rather severe arachnophobia. However, what terrifies me at least as much (and probably appears even more irrational)

Sandy feet touching eachother

Even the thought makes me shudder.

In the last twenty years I have only been to a movie theater twice,something about the sticky stuff on the floor and I feel very nervous about people sitting behind me,I always worried about getting shot in the back of the head.After recent events ,maybe this fear is not that irrational.

Unhappy face expressions, like this one (link). Really terrifying (at least for me).

I used to when I was younger, but not so much now.

When I was young (like ages 8-14) I was afraid that aliens were going to kidnap me when I was asleep. DESPERATELY afraid of aliens. Phobic.

I got over it.

Now I'm afraid of spiders and I worry constantly about ridiculous stuff happening to my kids. But that's about it, nothing completely off the wall or over the top.

Claustrophobia and tunnels, I don't know if that would be part of the claustrophobia though.

Like two of you mentioned, EMETOPHOBIA for me...bah, can't stand vomiting or hearing/seeing vomiting in person. It's funny because just last night, I woke up to my younger sister throwing up in the bathroom right outside my door *knocks on wood*...it's flipping August, how can someone have the stomach flu in August! Needless to say, I'm at like a 9/10 on the meltdown-meter.

Other than that, I definitely have a fear of fear itself...I'm afraid of other people seeing/noticing me being afraid. I have a fear of fainting and because I've always heard men faint when giving blood, I'm terrified of having my blood drawn for my thyroid test, every six weeks. I fear seeing a mangled body, fear blood in general, etc...most of the standard stuff too ;). Like some of you, I also lack certain fears and fear responses...if someone jumps out and says boo, I never have a reaction, no matter how 'good' they got me...same with spiders like another guy said; can touch them without any fear at all. Anddd...same with heights.

I have some really bizarre fears:

1. school buses
2. 1960's hearse style ambulances
3. Old medical equipment
4. Old hospitals. I had to stay in one once and I moved the bed to the middle of the room so I wouldn't touch the walls because they creep me out
5. Upholstery in old cars. If they've been redone, I have no problem with them but I don't like original fabric
6. I don't like old buildings either, especially the bathrooms. They always smell funny and are creepy. This poses a problem because the university I'm transferring to has at least one building built in 1896.
7. Steel ships like cargo ships, cruise ships, large fishing vessels, especially if they're rusty
8. dishes with food still on them that I have to wash, I don't like touching them

I think that's it for now. I know I have some other really weird fears, but I can't remember them

There was a whole thread of posters here who shared their fear and revulsion of....buttons!

Not power switches on appliances.

The little discs in your sewing kit that hold your garments together.
"Cute as a button'" buttons.

Fear of choking on them or whatever.

I asked one of them which was worse- she said spiders were only slighty more terrifying than buttons! Its a close call- spiders and buttons- but holding a spider is only slightly worse than holding a button in her hand.

It takes all kinds.

Myself:I cannot dive off of diving boards at swimming pools.
So if that qualifies as a phobia then I have a phobia.

Just walking (not diving just walking) off the low dive at a swimming pool takes every once of courage in me ( I have to image that a pirate has a cutlass at my back forcing me to 'walk the plank' in order to do it).

Getting on a high dive?

Out of the question.

But I was in a college class with a young quadrapalegic who went around in the world in a high tech mechanized wheel chair that moved his neck and limbs and everything. Id admired him for perservering and trying to get an educaton like normal.

When the class discussion got personal one time we found out that he got that way from a diving board accident.


People actually stand in line for the PRIVILEDGE of diving off a diving board.

But many of those same people would be scared s**tless to do... public speaking!

Go figure.

-fire
-public speaking
-meeting new people
-eating in front of people
-going out without looking a certain way
-slimy insects
-deep water

I have an irrational fear of spiders and an irrational fear of everyone I care about suddenly leaving me and never coming back.

I kid you not, but old spoiled food. Anyone who lives with me can pretty much guarantee that I'm not the one that's going to be cleaning out the fridge.

One time my sister, for whatever reason, gave me a wrapped up cherry poundcake for my birthday. Well, at the time (this was years ago), I was deep in the throes of anorexia so I had no interest in having a big cherry poundcake to myself. I lost the bag in my room somewhere and totally forgot about said cherry poundcake. Then, one day when I was cleaning several months later, I chanced across the bag containing, you guessed it.. that vile spoiled moldy cherry poundcake. I was livid and screamed crying with it all the way to the trash and that was the only moment in my life when I shot a basket with as much fervor as a pro baller. I was never happier to see a piece of food go. It was to the point that it was all green with purple and blue spots caked in white fuzz.

When I thought I was finally done seeing that nasty moldy cherry poundcake, I went to sleep that night and DREAMED about the nasty damned thing. It became like an animal in my dream, I was standing in the driveway at bf's place, and it came crawling up to me like a pill bug and tried to chew on my arm. I was furious. I grabbed a chainsaw that seemed to be conveniently sitting next to the stairs and hacked it into a thousand pieces and it rolled away in the wind like light rubbery foam. I was never visited by rotten cherry poundcake in real life or my dreams either one after that. And it's better that way.

^Lol. You wrote about that so well.

I have a fear of tall ships, the old kind. For some reason they give me the willies.

I think really old wheelchairs are kinda scary looking. Here's an 1870s wheelchair.

Another emetophobe, here (fear of vomiting).

I contracted my emetophobia at the age of 15, when I was struck down with a severe stomach flu. At one point, I had to vomit for one whole day and one whole night. Non-stop, all I did was vomit, whenever I wasn't lying in my bed trying not to think about vomiting. Needless to say, this meant that I often found myself vomiting on an empty stomach, spitting out nothing but mucous. On top of that, I was nauseous for the duration of the illness.

Before this, I never had a problem with vomiting. I'd get sick, occasionally, but vomiting would feel like a release at those times.
After my severe flu, however, I've never had a single point in my life where I could comfortably vomit (or as comfortable as vomiting can be, anyway). Everytime I get sick and nauseous, I enter a state of anxiety, and convulsions and cramps of my whole body may precede my vomiting. I just enter a panic, it's been conditioned into my system that vomiting = the-end-of-the-world. And I'm usually such a rational person.

That's why I feel blessed that I don't get sick very often to begin with (like, once every three years or so).

Depends on what you call irrational.

I can't seem to climb a ladder beyond 10 feet these days, but I'm not sure it would be particularly safe to do so. If I start painting the upstairs window frames I could get so hyperfocussed that I fall off. I think it's probably quite natural to fear heights......it's a survival thing. On the other hand, I can look over a perfectly safe edge, with a strong barrier to protect me, and I'll immediately imagine myself falling to my death. I'd have to vault over the barrier for that to happen.......and for a moment I think that I might somehow absent-mindedly do that. So that's presumably irrational. Sometimes I've wondered if I should stand in high (but safe) places t see if I can get used to them again.

There must be others but that's the only obvious one I can think of.

I probably have too many irrational fears...