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Mountain Goat
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15 Oct 2019, 3:33 pm

Juliette wrote:
A fear of balloons is very common in many with sensory sensitivities. Especially, as young children, but this can continue on into adulthood. Each new stimulus - object or setting - perceived as new, especially to young children on the spectrum, can cause strong reactions. My son was very balloon phobic as a child, but now will blow them up himself, loves them with helium in them, and even draws arty, funny things on them for birthdays, with a pen that could cause them to pop. I remember a brilliant autistic man who was equally terrified of planes. When taken to an airport at the age of 6, he screamed abuse at his uncle who was trying to drag him over to look at a light plane up close. Not much later, he became fascinated by planes, spending all his pocket money on kit planes. He was also terrified of the film Wizard of Oz(no surprises there ... :lol: !) Usually the way to teach a young child to overcome fear of a novel situation or object, is to do so little by little, with gradual exposure. Just as you would teach a young horse to overcome fears, actually. If you force the issue, you increase the fear of the stimulus setting/object, and build distrust. After birthdays are over, I round up the balloons, place them in the laundry with the door shut behind me, and pop them swiftly, one by one, and get rid of them quickly ... :P.


Poor baloons.

I hate sudden bangs. Ooh. Working on bicycles. If a tyre explodes it leaves me petrified for days!


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Juliette
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15 Oct 2019, 3:42 pm

MG wrote " Poor baloons.

I hate sudden bangs. Ooh. Working on bicycles. If a tyre explodes it leaves me petrified for days!"

I hate sudden bangs, too. The reason I do that, is because in the past, I'll leave them up for too long, and I just want things restored to normality. They start to smell weird, and deflate as the days/weeks go on, and it jst feels wrong to have them up beyond a certain time. Also, I have cats, and don't want them getting a fright if I take them down and let the balloons stay on the floor. They could easily pop them with their claws, and they are just a terrified as children on the spectrum of loud, unexpected noises. It's kinder for everyone if I remove them when I do ... :) .



Mountain Goat
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15 Oct 2019, 3:53 pm

When I was 7 I spent a week staying with my aunt, uncle and my cousins. I walked with one of my cousins to the village shop, which involved a three quarters of a mile walk along the farm track. We didn't have much money, so we couldn't buy much (Not that the village shop sold a lot), so we ended up buying a roll or two of caps each.
We decided to tear them into single caps and put them in the chicken pen with my aunties chickens. We found it amusing. The chickens had short memories... Peck peck BANG!
That evening, as it was summer, we went to bed and it was still daylight outside. We could still hear the caps going off.

About two weeks later my aunt and uncle and cousins came to visit and my aunt said to my mum "I don't know why but my chickens have stopped laying". It was years afterwards that I put the two events together as to why they were not laying.


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plokijuh
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15 Oct 2019, 4:14 pm

Joe90 wrote:
When I was a kid I was terrified of balloons when there were other kids around because I didn't trust the kids with balloons, being so kids can be clumsy and they're more likely to pop when being played about with. As an adult I'm not afraid of balloons because I know they won't just pop by themselves, and surprisingly a lot of adults I know don't like balloons popping.


I was like this until uni and then some friends heard about it and decided to cure my phobia. They crammed a room full of balloons and popped heaps of them at my face until I had a meltdown, fled the building and ran for several kms when I came back into my right mind.

It's taken 12 years to get the point where I can even be in a room with a balloon.


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Juliette
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15 Oct 2019, 4:31 pm

Mountain Goat wrote:
When I was 7 I spent a week staying with my aunt, uncle and my cousins. I walked with one of my cousins to the village shop, which involved a three quarters of a mile walk along the farm track. We didn't have much money, so we couldn't buy much (Not that the village shop sold a lot), so we ended up buying a roll or two of caps each.
We decided to tear them into single caps and put them in the chicken pen with my aunties chickens. We found it amusing. The chickens had short memories... Peck peck BANG!
That evening, as it was summer, we went to bed and it was still daylight outside. We could still hear the caps going off.

About two weeks later my aunt and uncle and cousins came to visit and my aunt said to my mum "I don't know why but my chickens have stopped laying". It was years afterwards that I put the two events together as to why they were not laying.


:lol: Another classic MG tale ...



Mountain Goat
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15 Oct 2019, 4:34 pm

Haha. Yes.


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renaeden
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15 Oct 2019, 11:23 pm

I'm not too fond of balloons but I tolerate them.

My mum on the other hand... we had balloons as kids from various celebrations and birthday parties. She couldn't stand them and made us keep them in our bedrooms until they deflated.

Someone brought up the point of how releasing masses of them into the air can be damaging to the environment. Especially to animals who eat them accidentally or on purpose and get them caught in their digestive tract. Not good.



lostonearth35
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21 Oct 2019, 10:59 am

I feel like I can't relate to other people on WP at all. All the things they hate or have sensory issues things are things I usually like. Such as chewing gum, the smell and taste of cinnamon, and balloons. :(

We just hate nothing in common. :lol:



Juliette
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21 Oct 2019, 1:55 pm

lostonearth35 wrote:
I feel like I can't relate to other people on WP at all. All the things they hate or have sensory issues things are things I usually like. Such as chewing gum, the smell and taste of cinnamon, and balloons. :(

We just hate nothing in common. :lol:


:lol: I like and use chewing gum almost everyday when I walk my dog, and it's considered as good for dental hygiene too, though I would not chew gum around others who I know strongly dislike it. I'd switch to some other form of mint. I love the taste of cinnamon lightly sprinkled on apple teacake ... not that I eat desserts very much at all.



JonathanCampbell99
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21 Jan 2023, 9:07 am

I love balloons, I do have a fetish for them, but I have had meltdowns in the past when they’ve popped or when I see them somewhere, I would have put my hands on my ears and closed them to block out the noise, I still hate when they pop though, can’t stand it.


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21 Jan 2023, 10:10 am

lostonearth35 wrote:
I feel like I can't relate to other people on WP at all. All the things they hate or have sensory issues things are things I usually like. Such as chewing gum, the smell and taste of cinnamon, and balloons. :(

We just hate nothing in common. :lol:


Cinnamon on French toast is awesome! And cinnabons should be called 'sin-o-bons' because they are so sinfully seductive.

But I DO kinda relate to how someone WOULD dislike the squeaky sound and feel of party balloons. But I dont hate that stuff enough to actually "hate and fear balloons"...the way that I do despise stryrofoam. Balloons and chalk-on-a-chalkboards I can handle. But not styrofoam things. Though I do LOVE to watch styrofoam coffee cups burn on top of campfires. The way they melt, revert to petroleum, and send up beautiful little purple and blue flames!



offa1996
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21 Jan 2023, 10:55 am

liloleme wrote:
Does anyone else have this???
Im not afraid of the milar balloons just the old latex ones. First of I cant tollerate the noise they make when people rub their fingers on them...it makes me feel like my teeth are falling out. Its the same noise that when people get out of the pool and step into their flip flops or rubbing your fingers on wet tupperware....you know that hideous noise? Then you never know when they are going to pop. Sometimes I have to let my kids have them....ie birthday parties or when they giving them out at the store. Its pure torture to me...especially if they are in the car with us AHHHHHHHH!
So....anyone else?



Yes. I'm afraid they're going to pop when they're held close to my face.

But it's intense, like I wince if they're near my face.

I don't like them, blow them up in shaky breaths and I've never gotten over my fear of them.

I don't think I ever will, either.

I like my comfort zones.

Thanks for posting lol.

(just posting about this and thinking about balloons, I feel remnants of fear, possibly I'm phobic?)

:ninja:



Lecia_Wynter
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24 Jan 2023, 11:21 am

Facts: Balloons have an annoying noise when you rub them and loud explosion sound. In a movie, Joker uses large balloons to exterminate NTs.

Hypothesis: Spergs and autists may develop a fear of balloons and/or clowns due to one or more of these reasons. NTs may be less balloonphobic because their brains are less stimulated and/or they have less memory capacity and/or less fear response/fear chemicals.

Theory 1: Some percentage of gay male homosexuals may be due to balloonphobia. Female breasts and female butts resemble balloons. This could also explain why the political left seems to be more anti-gun, because balloons sound like guns.

Theory 2: Balloonphobia can be reduced or cured by giving earplugs to children and adults. When the balloon is exploded by the child or adult the balloon noise is drastically reduced to a comfortable volume, after a while the anxiety is gone.



Leafy_Sea_Dragon
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24 Jan 2023, 11:55 am

my older brother and sister knew I was afraid of balloons even when I was just a toddler and would sneak up on me and pop them behind my back to startle me...to their never ending glee! Even as a young Mom I would leave the room if balloons were there.
and the pop-open dough...like "popin' fresh crescent rolls" or such still freak me out. Sometimes they pop open spontaneously. :|



Volvo240
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28 Jan 2023, 10:46 am

I like Mylar Balloons but I can't stand latex balloons.



funeralxempire
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28 Jan 2023, 11:00 am

I've always liked balloons.


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