The other day I posted about a new phobia, Trypophobia and I linked to the site phobialist.com that features a list of 621 phobias, in case you needed one. Well, I couldn’t help myself. I just had to spend sometime reading what some people are afraid of.
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is the irrational fear of long words – go figure 🙂 There didn’t seem to be a phobia of long sentence, though. Just as well or authors, such as, Charles Dickens might never have become famous!
One of my favourites was Arachibutyrophobia the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth. I remember this! I didn’t actually have a phobia about it, but it did take a lot of tongue tricks to get it unstuck!! However, there was no mention of spinach caught in your teeth, as being particularly fearful, unsightly yes, but not a phobia.
Some phobias just seem to go together. There is a fear of chins, Geniophobia and a fear of mirrors, Catoptrophobia. Presumably, if you have too many chins, you might be afraid of looking in the mirror. Then again you could just remind yourself that there is also a fear of beautiful women, Caligynephobia.
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| Selenophobia, fear of the moon |
Some phobias might seem puzzling at first, such as the fear of freedom, Eleutherophobia. Why would anyone be afraid to be free? I have heard, though, that some prisoners, after serving their sentences, are so disoriented that they ask to be taken back to prison. Agoraphobia or fear of public places may make a person a prisoner in their home and Xenophobia, fear of the unknown, would certainly keep anyone from trying something new.
Oddly the fear of otters, Lutraphobia made me think that maybe I have a phobia and don’t know it, because I haven’t met the “thing” that I’m afraid of. Again, since there is a fear of France, Francophobia, there might also be phobias of other countries. Imagine paying for a trip to Brazil, arriving there and being terrified!!
I did get a laugh out of Pteronophobia, the fear of being tickled by feathers. C’mon, who writes this stuff??
Fortunately, although I did see Metrophobia, a fear of poetry, I did not see a fear of reading, writing, blogging, facebooking etc. These may, however, turn out to be phobias, once someone decides that they have a problem with any of the activities and sets about to study it.
Have a fearless day!!