What Are You Afraid Of

I was afraid of mushrooms. Do you have any fears or phobias?

Phobias are medical conditions that affect millions of people, and every demographic is affected. Some phobia sufferers actually inflict more harm avoiding what they fear than the object or situation ever could. It is normal and healthy to experience fear in certain scary or unfamiliar situations. When fear becomes overwhelming or crippling that's Phobia.

What Are Phobias

The Merriam Webster online dictionary defines phobia as an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.

Phobias are anxiety disorders and there are 3 different categories of phobias:

Specific - Unreasonable or irrational fear as related to objects or situations

Social - Significant fear of social situations

Agoraphobia - Fear of perceived unsafe environments with no easy escape

Common Phobias

Some phobias are more common than others. We typically tend to be familiar with these phobias:

Acrophobia - A fear of heights

Aerophobia - Fear of flying

Arachnophobia - Severe fear of spiders

Aquaphobia - This term is a fear of water

Claustrophobia - Fear of being constricted/in small spaces

Coulrophophia - The movie "It" could be and added reason for the fear of clowns Nyctophobia - Being afraid of the dark

Trypanophobia - Fear of needles

You may know at least one person that one or more of these fears.

Modern Phobias

There are a few phobias that have resulted from modern technology:

Cyberphobia - fear of computers

Nomophobia - Fear of being without cell phone coverage

Editovultaphobic - Fear of Facebook

Rare & Unusual Phobias

Arachibutyrophobia - Irrational fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth Ablutophobia - The fear of washing or bathing

Carbophobia -Yes, it's true some are fearful of carbohydrates.

Chemophobia - Fear of all chemicals and preference for natural elements

Cainophobia - This is the fear of anything new.

Cathisophobia - Some have a deep fear of sitting down

Chaetophobia - This term refers to the fear of hair or hair or hairy objects

Cymophobia - Being afraid of waves and wave-like motions

Ephebiphobia - Some suffer from a fear of teenagers

Igniterroremophobia - The fear of fire alarm suddenly going off

Mageirocophobia - Fear of cooking

Mnemophobia - A fear of memories

Macrophobia - There is no waiting in line with the fear of long waits.

Rhypophobia - Being afraid of defecation

Scoleciphobia - Also referred to as vermiphobia, the fear of caterpillars, maggots or worms Syngenesophobia - Some relatives are scary but this term refers to fear of all relatives. Sesquipedalophobia - This long word is appropriate for the fear of long words Spectrophobia - People that are too afraid to look into a mirror

Trypophobia -  Fear of small holes/ clusters of holes. This phobia recently caused my sister great distress at a glance of the picture below.  The strawberry started sprouting while still on the vine. This is how I discovered that my sister suffered from trypophobia.

My Personal Struggle

I am generally very calm and have never had high anxiety in my social life. Yet, a small fungi severely threatened my comfort levels. I could barely tolerate fungi and bacteria and seeing fungi manifest as a mushroom fostered an unreasonable fear of mushrooms for decades. The site of a mushroom growing caused me to feel unsettled and afraid. Seeing one caused my stomach to feel queasy, my mouth dry and I felt the need to flee. Even the thought of a mushroom caused my skin to tingle. Whenever I encountered a mushroom growing it plagued my thoughts into the night and often for several days at a time. Fungophobia or mycophobia is the name of the phobia that I overcame. Unfortunately, many others continue to battle different phobia's every day. 

Overcoming

If you or a loved one suffer's from phobia there is help, professional and self-help. I personally, challenged my fears with positive thinking, breathing exercises and meditation. I can now look at and even eat mushrooms. Life is too precious to have hindrances. Now, I 'm afraid to miss opportunities.