About-a-phobia

[Kneedragger]

Its my bad for using the word phobia.
I dont have a 'phobia' of ski lifts, no- its more that I think they are criminally dangerous. But I understand now that some are different than others. Some have restraining bars, etc. Mine was just a plain bench with a bar running up from the center of the back. Now suspend this bench 70ft off the ground and move it forward in spurts and stops, allowing the bench to sway in the breeze.

...this reminds me of a line from the original Jaws movie. The chiefs wife is attempting to describe her husbands fear/phobia of being out on a boat, in a sophisticated way, and says, 'theres a clinical name for it, I think?' and the chief inturrupts sharply, 'yeah- DROWNING'.

So is there a clinical name for sitting on a plank of moving wood 70ft off the ground and not enjoying it? I dunno..

 

[TB]

So is there a clinical name for sitting on a plank of moving wood 70ft off the grond and not enjoying it?

Common sense, me thinks.

 

[Kneedragger]

Common sense, me thinks.

In my opinion they should have a sign at the base of the mountain that shows what the currrent death toll on that particular chairlift is.. that way you can at least make an informed decision.

 

[nk4e]

In my opinion they should have a sign at the base of the mountain that shows what the currrent death toll on that particular chairlift is.. that way you can at least make an informed decision.

I wonder how many people would go to that resort with a sign like that.

 

[Slicks]

I wouldn't mind... The queue would probably be shorter


Phobias... I wouldn't call all of mine phobias - Some of them are perfectly rational. Others aren't.

-Needles. First and foremost. Have been like that for as long as I can remember.

-Spiders. Close enough to a phobia for me. Poisonous or not, I just try and avoid them.

-Heights. But not all heights... Mostly open, unprotected stuff. I'd call it more of a fear than a phobia. If there's a distinct possibility of falling, I'm rightfully cautious and fearful. But I do ski lifts fine, small and large planes, climbing walls, etc.

 

[Rykon Zero]

I wonder how many people would go to that resort with a sign like that.

I would.

I also have a fear of spiders. Though it isn't really fear. Like many people, if I suddenly see a spider very close to me, I'll freak, even with house flies, but if I am given a choice to get close, I usually have no problem.

 

[Kneedragger]

-Needles. First and foremost. Have been like that for as long as I can remember.

The sensation of getting a shot is really nothing. Whats scary is dwelling on the mental image of a stranger thats going to be coming in and inserting a sharp object into your skin while you just stand there 'in cold blood', letting it happen.

Do you ever watch horror movies Slicks? I'm curious if you pretend to yourself that you arent going to be scared before you watch one. Its a funny kind of hide and seek we play with ourselves. Fearing needles is like being taken to a horror movie and getting the cold sweats on the way there.. imagining how scared and shocked you are going to be in just a very short time.. how horrible the things on the screen will probably be.. all the screaming and blood, etc. etc.

 

[Studentdriver]

I haven't got an actual phobia of needles, but I never look when I'm taking one. I also tend to look away when I see it on TV or in a movie.

Funny story about that too. About two years ago now (seems like just a couple months ago really) I somehow developed Type 1 Diabetes. So I got really sick, went to the hospital, yadda yadda yadda. Started using the insulin pen there with these needles that were surrounded by a little plastic cylinder. Which worked great, since I then couldn't see the needle. I go out to the local diner with my parents the night I get out. When I go into the bathroom to take my shot of insulin, I realize the needles I have aren't covered, despite stating that I couldn't stab myself with a needle. Turns out these covered ones were for "sanitation purposes." So I spent twenty minutes in the worst psychological agony I've ever endured in the diner bathroom before realizing I could just do it through my shirt. I got an insulin pump a few months later so there's no such issue now.

I don't think my problem was the needle itself. Though I don't like to look at the needle, I'm certainly not unable to. The real problem here was that I couldn't bring myself to look at my own hand inserting something into my body that could potentially cause pain, though it would be, in all likelihood, completely harmless.

 

[BayConRong]

I don't have as much a problem with needles so much as them going into me.

A dream to get my blood taken is to have the nurse have everything prepared before I enter the 🤬 room and tie that stupid rubber hose around my arm (the right arm please not the left you stupid woman, listen to me.) swab my weenis (that's the inside of your elbow...) down and get it over with.

Then to the people to test the blood: get the test done right the first time. I gave up 2 vials of my life water and you screw up the test?

 

[Sage]

I haven't got an actual phobia of needles, but I never look when I'm taking one.

I like looking at it going in. I especially like looking when I donate blood – that first woosh of the blood entering the tube.

 

[Slicks]

The sensation of getting a shot is really nothing.
...

Do you ever watch horror movies Slicks? I'm curious if you pretend to yourself that you arent going to be scared before you watch one.

I'm not a horror fan.

I'm quite squeamish and uncomfortable around even the thought of blood, which does contribute to the needle issue.

If you were to give me a shot without prior notice (just jab and go), it wouldn't bother me much. I get psycologically worked up, and things go downhill.

(I'm really, really not looking forward to having my wisdom teeth out in February - I get the fun of an IV or two, plus a dentist rooting around in my mouth).

 

[TB]

The sensation of getting a shot is really nothing. Whats scary is dwelling on the mental image of a stranger thats going to be coming in and inserting a sharp object into your skin while you just stand there 'in cold blood', letting it happen.

Needles have never bothered me and I'm certainly not going to let them start now. First off, My wife (ER nurse) doesn't need any ammunition for what to do to me if I ever end up there. Secondly, with my son getting blood draws every 3 months, if he can do it without a fuss, anyone should be able to. All he said last time was a very quiet "Ow". 👍

 

[Kneedragger]

Not to get too ghoulish, but you guys hear about the hiker in Utah who had a rock shift on him and winds up with an arm pinned for something like two days? After hours of pain and hallucinations he realizes in a moment of clairity that he can either A) die or B) amputate his own arm. Those were the only options- and it was time to stop hallucinating and decide.

Lets just say he lived to tell the tale.
Having a phobia of what is consciously known to be harmless is by definition 'all in the mind'. And theres nothing wrong with that. But in a time of real stress, emergency, necessity, etc. you brush petty fears aside and do whats needed. Its essentially the same as hating a certain kind of food. And yes thats fine. But the next thing you know the plane you're on crashes in the high mountains with your south american soccer team buddies, and soon you find yourself eating the dead to survive (and here you thought asparagus tasted poorly.)

 

[Famine]

Having a phobia of what is consciously known to be harmless is by definition 'all in the mind'.

That's what a phobia is.

A Phobia is an irrational fear. Being afraid of something which, statistically, is unlikely to cause you any harm at all. Being afraid of funnelweb spiders isn't a phobia if you live in the Outback. Being afraid of all spiders when you live in Penge is a phobia.

 

[homeforsummer]

I have to say, I'm not keen on moths, though I wouldn't go as far as describing it as a phobia. I don't freak out or anything, I just try and swat the fluttering little buggers ASAP.

I think, however, that if I saw one this size I might just have to reconsider my dislike as a phobia...

 

[Kneedragger]

That's what a phobia is.
A Phobia is an irrational fear. Being afraid of something which, statistically, is unlikely to cause you any harm at all.

I understand phobia to include 'unreasonable' as well as irrational fears. The difference being that some fears derive from reasonable concerns taken to an extreme (a terror of facing heights is not irraltional.) I'm only saying that I dont see all phobias to be irrational. Sometimes people dwell on natural concerns and these can develop into something more intense. We would have to define the differences between fear and phobia and where they overlap.

If statistics were any real comfort in the world we actually live in, then statistically, since we're all going to die anyway, people would take comfort in that and not fear death. People are personal. Statistics are not.

 

[Famine]

I understand phobia to include 'unreasonable' as well as irrational fears. The difference being that some fears derive from reasonable concerns taken to an extreme (a terror of facing heights is not irraltional.) I'm only saying that I dont see all phobias to be irrational.

But... they are. Phobias are, by definition, the irrational fear of something.

Take being afraid of flying. Statistically, flying is the safest way of travelling, yet people are afraid that they will come to harm from merely being in a plane. Occasionally some people will die in planes but most won't. Fear of flying is irrational, thus a phobia - Aviaphobia.

Or heights. Being high up has, as far as I'm aware, never killed anyone. Joseph Kittinger was outside at a hundred thousand feet and still lives today. EVAs take place a couple hundred miles up and have, as yet, failed to kill the participants. Sometimes people fall from quite high up and, more often than not, they die (step forward Vesna Vulović, notable exclusion). But the act of being up there in the first place is not, of itself, intrinsically deadly. Fear of heights is irrational, thus a phobia - Altophobia. But fear of falling to your death isn't irrational, and thus not a phobia.

Even things which can kill or seriously you - lightning (Astraphobia), spiders (Arachnophobia), sharks (Selachophobia) - have irrational fears attached to them. After all, how many people are killed each year by lightning, spiders and sharks (not all at once, obviously. That'd be serious lack of luck right there)? Even those who are on the receiving end of that little bunch of deadly beauties survive more often than not and they were a tiny sample to start with. But note that there's no "phobia" for cancer - which affects 1 in 4 people and kills 1 in 5 of those. Because it's perfectly rational to be afraid of contracting and dying from cancer...


You can be afraid of things rationally, but you can only be phobic irrationally.

 

[Sureboss]

I had an uncle with an irrational fear of bee's. The slightest sight or sound of one and he would run away, arms flailing. But a part of me thinks its normal not to like certain animals or insects. If I didnt like bee's I would try to kill them (!) which is what I do to mosquitos.
I guess thats part of what a phobia is- its fear, rather than hating something.
So Wenders when you see a Huntsman Spider you dont react by wanting to hurt it?

But dont listen to me, I would be a terrible therapist.. "Wenders, I want you to practice killing things instead of being afraid of them, ok?"

A phobia is defined as an irrational fear iirc. So being scared of bee's isn't a phobia, as they can hurt you, likewise with spiders (depending on what country you live in).

Edit: I only read the 1st page btw. *looks at Famine's post*

 

[Kneedragger]

But... they are. Phobias are, by definition, the irrational fear of something.
Fear of heights is irrational, thus a phobia - Altophobia. But fear of falling to your death isn't irrational, and thus not a phobia.

My mistake for using the word phobia without an appreciation for its strict meaning. So in the strict sense, fear of heights is irrational. Hmm.. I understand where my mistake is now. Thank you. So the next time an unfortunate per son is described as having 'fallen to his death' I will correct the statement and declare, 'he didnt fall to his death -he landed
to his death.'

I dont trust the bounds of pure rationality; recently in England a terminally ill man ended his life by cutting off his own life support machine. Was his motivation rational? (it goes without saying that the act was illegal in many places.) But thats apart from my misuse of the word phobia. I'm not much of a dictaphile (lover of dictionary's.)

 

[Famine]

Indeed. 30,000 feet doesn't kill you, but the last inch smarts a bit.


Nevertheless, look it up. Anything that's a -phobia (unless used in a medical or scientific context to mean a physical reaction, such as hydrophobia) is something of which people are scared and which sometimes can kill or hurt them, but of which the statistical likelihood of them coming to any physical injury is slight at best. If it's something which can cause injury and the likelihood is not slight, it will not be called n-phobia.

 

[Sage]

I have to say, I'm not keen on moths, though I wouldn't go as far as describing it as a phobia. I don't freak out or anything, I just try and swat the fluttering little buggers ASAP.

I think, however, that if I saw one this size I might just have to reconsider my dislike as a phobia...

I caught a related moth a couple years ago:




And here’s a tobacco hornworm moth that I raised from a caterpillar (at the time that I took this photo, it had just hatched from its pupa, as you can tell by its not-fully-pumped wings):

 

[SolidSnake15]

I really can't say I have any phobias. I mean I am scared of some things like falling from a high place. But that's just natural for humans.

 

[Sureboss]

I caught a related moth a couple years ago:

As definitive proof of Evolution as you'll get.

 

[McLaren]

I haven't got an actual phobia of needles, but I never look when I'm taking one. I also tend to look away when I see it on TV or in a movie.

I'm a bit of the opposite. I have a small phobia of it (actually, more than before after this year*), but once it's in, I'm fine and I have no problem looking at it.

*Earlier this year, I had a blood test, and when everything was done, I was fine. However, when I got ready to leave the office, I got light headed, and nearly fainted. I was there another 30 minutes on the ground with a damp forhead and drinking water. Doctor didn't exactly tell me the cause except that maybe I moved a little too quickly after having blood drawn.
This little incident, though, is now what causes me to be afraid of the whole experience; not the needle, but the possible outcome of fainting afterwards. I wonder if there's a word for a phobie of fainting....

 

[Famine]

*Earlier this year, I had a blood test, and when everything was done, I was fine. However, when I got ready to leave the office, I got light headed, and nearly fainted. I was there another 30 minutes on the ground with a damp forhead and drinking water. Doctor didn't exactly tell me the cause except that maybe I moved a little too quickly after having blood drawn.

Vaso-vagal syncope. Quite common.

This little incident, though, is now what causes me to be afraid of the whole experience; not the needle, but the possible outcome of fainting afterwards. I wonder if there's a word for a phobie of fainting....

There is - asthenophobia.