We have nothing to fear but fear itself…………Franklin D. Roosevelt Inauguration Speech, March 1933
We have nothing to phobe but phobe itself……………John Cafarella
I‘m developing a phobia of German sausage
I fear the wurst……Unknown
We had this idea for an essay about phobias a while ago, but we were afraid to begin it. There were some anxious moments. Fortunately, we do not suffer from Graphophobia or Scriptophobia - an intense fear about letters of the alphabet or writing. In addition, we do not suffer from Bibliophobia -an intense fear of books or reading. We may have Porphyrophobia, the intense fear of purple, which is why we never read the Color Purple by Alice Walker, Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson, or Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey. Yellow can also be fearsome for someone with Xanthophobia, fear of the color yellow, so we never read Old Yeller by Fred Gibson. There will be no further mention of purple or yellow in this essay.
The contemporary cliché is “there’s an app for that”. Our research indicates that probably, “there’s a phobia for that.” There is even a phobia for phobias, Phobophobia is the fear of fear itself.
Phobia comes from the Greek word "phobos," which means fear. In Greek Mythology, Deimos and Phobos, the sons of Ares, the god of war, were the gods of fear. Deimos represented terror and dread, while his brother Phobos was panic, flight and rout. They accompanied their father into battle, driving his chariot and spreading fear in his wake. They are now the two moons of the planet Mars (Roman god of war). Yes, Ares was the Greek god of war but somehow Deimos and Phobos ended up with the Roman named planet.
People often use the terms “fear” and “phobia” interchangeably. I’m afraid we did. That could be Atychiphobia which is the fear of being wrong, or rather the fear of being told we’re wrong.
However, fear and phobia differ in intensity. For example, someone may be afraid of flying but can still manage to travel by plane when necessary. However, a person with an extreme fear of flying known as aerophobia might never set foot on an airplane. Even driving past an airport or seeing photos of an airplane may create a fear response, and then things could get worse if we add on agoraphobic which involves fearing standing on line, or being in a crowd and, of course at an airport all you do is stand on line* or get stuck in crowds.
Fear not if you have Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia which refers to the fear of very long words. In addition to that one, you’ll meet quite a few more in this essay. You’re already engaged in the treatise so it’s too late but in the future, you should probably avoid Vladimir Nabokov, or James Joyce, or chemistry texts if you worry about long words. Stick with Hemingway.
Why are we afraid? Blame the part of the brain called the amygdala. The word amygdala is derived from the Greek word meaning “almond,” owing to the structure's almond like shape. So, when your almond shaped amygdala malfunctions neurologists might diagnose you as having a lack of “Almond Joy”. That pun reminds us of Geliophobia, the fear of laughter. The amygdala is located in the medial temporal lobe of your brain, just anterior to (in front of) the hippocampus. The hippocampus is where a hippopotamus would attend college (Geliophobia alert). It is also the part of the brain that's most closely associated with fear, emotions, and motivation. It is responsible for connecting the fear-arousing stimulus with the environmental context in which it is occurring. So, if you are walking through the jungle and you meet a tiger, there will be fear, to say the least. If you see a tiger in an enclosure in a zoo, no fear. This is because the hippocampus and the frontal cortex process contextual information, and repressive pathways dampen the amygdala fear response and its downstream results according to the National Institute of Health. Basically, our “thinking” circuitry of the brain reassures our “emotional” areas that we are, in fact, OK. In addition, the amygdala triggers responses from the body to react quickly to threat and danger, aka “flight or fight”. In the jungle the amygdala is saying “run!” when you chance upon a tiger. That’s why your amygdala is so important to survival. It processes things you see or hear and uses that input to learn what’s dangerous. If you encounter something similar in the future, your amygdala will cause you to feel fear or similar emotions.
And fear can turn into phobia. The National Health Service notes that a phobia is an extreme or irrational fear or dread aroused by a particular object or circumstance, to the point where it severely restricts your life. One response can be a panic attack, a sudden, intense fear that lasts for several minutes. If you have a phobia, you'll go to great lengths to avoid an object or situation that most people consider harmless. So, if you are with with someone who has Algophobia, the fear of heights, for example, don’t encourage them to go up or look down. “You can get used to it” or some such blather is counterproductive. Shut up. Respect their fear. Let them stay down on the sidewalk while you go to the top of the Empire State Building. “I’m not afraid of heights, I’m afraid of falling from heights.” – Unknown………
Are we born with fear or is it learned? Both. Fear can be innate or learned. Innate fears include those that are triggered by pain- (Algophobia) the afore mentioned heights –(Acrophobia), loud sounds –(phonophobia), as well as inherited threats such as snakes and spiders. With spiders the fear can become arachnophobia. With snakes, it is Ophidiophobia. Also keep in mind that nature Is merciless so there is a basis for those fears.
The rest are learned. Our surroundings – parents, siblings, friends may influence us at an early age to be scared of things like the dark or monsters or Kardashians. For the latter and their ilk we have Moronophobia– fear of morons, such as those we see on Reality TV (the networks now call them Constructed Reality Shows), which has granted celebrity status to self-centered and fame-hungry twits.
However not all of us are afraid of the dark or monsters or fame hungry twits as our brains react to and process fearful situations differently. When it comes to these moments, we all start out the same, but parents, education, friends, culture, and environment will affect which part of our brain triumphs and so can end up afraid or not.
Fear is defined as a fundamental emotion promptly arising in the context of threat and when danger is perceived. We were afraid that you might be getting anxious while reading this essay. Just as phobia and fear differ, so do fear and anxiety. Fear is the response to a perceived threat, while anxiety involves worry about a threat that has not yet, or may never, happen. So, fear is a perception that is attached to a specific thing, thought, or circumstance (tiger-jungle……dark alley - mugger). For instance, worries about illness are more likely to take the form of nagging anxiety than actual fear such as the monster in the closet. When I was a child, giant monsters like Godzilla or King Kong did not frighten me. Dracula or the Creature from the Black Lagoon, on the other hand, that was a different matter altogether. They could hide in my closet. Add that to fear of the dark and you know why I never opened the closet door with the lights off after dark. Achluophobia - fear of darkness. “I’m not scared of the dark, I’m scared of what’s in the dark.” The distinction between a fear and a phobia can blur with small children. Childhood fears are a normal part of development. However, unlike phobias, normal childhood fears involve an ordinary fear response, have a minimal effect on daily function and usually dissipate as the child matures.
When someone has a phobia, or “specific phobia,” as it is called in the mental health field, their intense fear is limited to a specific situation or object. Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder that is distinctly different from normal fear. Phobias are defined, according to the DSM-5 (the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition-),………unless you suffer from Bibliophobia and that lengthy title might cause onset Bibliophobia…….as fear or anxiety that is persistent (even when the phobic object isn’t there), excessive and out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the object of the phobia. According to the DSM-5, specific phobias typically fall within five general categories:
· fears related to animals (spiders, dogs, insects)
· fears related to the natural environment (heights, thunder, darkness)
· fears related to blood, injury, or medical issues (injections, broken bones, falls)
· fears related to specific situations (flying, riding an elevator, driving)
· other (fear of choking, loud noises, drowning)
These categories encompass an infinite number of specific objects and situations so beware of Apeirophobia which is the fear of infinity.
There’s no official list of phobias beyond what’s outlined in the DSM-5, so clinicians and researchers create names for them as the need arises, and there are gazillions of them on the internet. This is usually done by combining a Greek (or sometimes Latin) prefix that describes the phobia with the –phobia suffix. For example, a fear of water would be named by combining “hydro” (water) and “phobia” (fear). Phobias occur when there is dysfunction in the brain circuits responsible for the fear response. Malfunctions of the amygdala (no Almond Joy) and associated brain structures may give rise to many phobias such as Arachibutyrophobia—the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth, or Skippyphobia, as I call it.
“After days of feeling anxious about it, I am happy to report that I have completed the undertaking that took me 4 minutes to do.” ……..Unknown
The difference between fear and anxiety is also based on natural and functional versus excessive and dysfunctional. However, many of us are quite adept at putting the fun in dysfunctional. Fear is an emotional reaction to a specific, real danger, while anxiety is an intense fear that may be triggered by a stimulus that is excessive, unpredictable, and unfocused. Anxiety may persist long after the trigger, if any, is removed.
Fear, phobias, and anxiety can link together because a phobia may cause fear and then anxiety.
Fear is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a fundamental, deeply ingrained reaction, evolved over the history of living things, to protect organisms against perceived threat to their being or existence. Despite the contemporary twaddle about fearlessness and being fearless, fearlessness is not a good thing. Having no fear can be deadly, just ask the Dodo bird which lived on the island of Mauritius, 500 miles from the Eastern coast of Madagascar. It was discovered by Dutch soldiers in 1660. It had no experience with humans and no fear, and within 80 years it was extinct. You may have heard of Booby Traps. The term originated with the booby, a docile sea bird. It too had no fear of humans was easily trapped by sailors using, yes, a booby trap. Exeunt, boobies although the term booby trap has become part of our lexicon. Fear should help protect us. Fearlessness can get you killed. As we said, nature Is completely ruthless.
Xylophataquieopiaphobia, the fear of not pronouncing words correctly………..Brad Stine
Taking a personal imaginary journey into my brain we encounter quite a few phobias. Traveling is a problem because of my Amaxophobia, fear of riding in a car, or Siderodromophobia, my fear of trains, my Bustrophobia, fear of buses and yes, my psychogenic fecal retention phobia, fear of public toilets. The latter is not weird, it’s perfectly understandable. I won’t go to the Botantical Gardens with you due to Anthrophobia, fear of flowers and Botanophobia fear of plants, which includes Dendrophobia, fear of trees and Pteridophobia, fear of ferns. No restaurants for us, Deipnophobia, fear of dining with others. I’ll be staying inside the house with ear plugs and an eye mask today, as my Astraphobia, fear of thunder and lightning as well as Ombrophobia the fear of rain which was triggered by a weather forecast on TV from the perky lady wearing the monogrammed parka (Perkiphobia alert). Then it got worse as she then instantly changed moods and sonorously warned about really bad weather setting off my Lilapsophobia, fear of tornadoes and hurricanes. I hate winter and now I know why, its Chionophobia - Fear of snow. I can’t hide in the cellar to escape that bad weather due to my Claustrophobia - Fear of confined spaces so elevators are out too.
Life is tough and shaving can be problematic due to Eisoptrophobia, the fear of mirrors or, more specifically, of seeing one’s own reflection in a mirror. Even tougher when you consider that I sleep on the floor due to my Acrophobia - fear of heights. I have to clean the house anyway due to my Ataxophobia, fear of disorder or untidiness and Atelophobia my fear of imperfection not to mention my Bacteriophobia, fear of bacteria. It takes a while to get off the floor however since I have Barophobia, fear of gravity. Then it is time to dust off the manikins I keep around because of my Autophobia, fear of being alone unless it’s one of those days when my Automatonophobia , fear of Human-Like Figures takes precedence. Fortunately, I live in a ranch style home keeping my Bathmophobia, fear of stairs or steep slopes at bay. And yet, I can’t go outside on a sunny day, Heliophobia , fear of the sun. Can’t go out at night either, it’s that darn Selenophobia , fear of the moon. Even a pleasant day can be a problem for those with Aerophobia, the fear of fresh air or the movement of air—such as drafts or breezes. Complicating it would be Globophobia, the fear of balloons, which is deflating for birthday celebrations. Even when I get outside, here comes Dystychiphobia, fear of accidents.
I also have a fear of speed bumps…………………But I am slowly getting over it. (Geliophobia alert)
Then there is Athazagoraphobia an abnormal fear of not being remembered or forgetting things, like that I have Globophobia or Eisoptrophobia. You went back a few sentences to look them up…..didn’t you.
After overcoming my Scolionophobia - fear of school, I developed a phobia of the square root of 2. It was one of my, ahem, irrational fears. (see Geliophobia) Then it turned into Arithmophobia, fear of numbers especially Octophobia - fear of the figure 8, which, incidentally, prevented me from winning that Olympic figure skating gold medal. Triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13 usually comes into play here. Can’t watch those reality shows featuring men with long beards, the morbidly obese, or people who marry convicts as it triggers my Cacophobia, fear of ugliness. I think that’s connected to my Chromophobia, fear of colors. I’m late quite often but have an excuse, a double excuse, in fact, Chronomentrophobia, fear of clocks plus Chronophobia, fear of time. My Coulrophobia, fear of clowns means I haven’t been to the circus in years. I also don’t watch news broadcasts, local or national, politician’s speeches or political discussion programs due to that Coulrophobia.
Fortunately, I don’t suffer from Cyberphobia - Fear of computers or else I couldn’t write this. Same goes for papyrophobia, fear of paper and Technophobia, fear of technology.
I might have Cynophobia, fear of dogs but that would be barking up the wrong tree. Anyway, one might meet a cat in that tree thus triggering one’s Elurophobia, fear of cats. Perhaps we should avoid animals altogether if we have a fear of animals, Zoophobia, which includes many things such as Quinophobia, fear of horses Herpetophobia , fear of reptiles, Entomophobia, fear of insects, Ophidiophobia , fear of snakes, Ornithophobia, fear of birds, Ranidaphobia, fear of frogs (not to be confused with Bufonophobia, which is a fear of toads), Batrachophobia , fear of amphibians, and Verminophobia, fear of germs. Chick Fil-A would quickly go bankrupt in a country where the population suffers from Alektorophobia which is the fear of chickens or hens.
Many of you may suffer from Kakorrhaphiaphobia: the fear of failure and fail realize it.
Holidays can come with phobias. That young child, usually yours’, sitting screaming on Santa’s lap may have Pogonophobia, the fear of beards. Sadly, Halloween is never celebrated in our home due to onset Samhainophobia - fear of Halloween and Wiccaphobia - fear of witches and witchcraft and Caramelaphobia, fear of candy. Beware of November for your Gratiarophobia, fear of Thanksgiving. With it may come Meleagrisphobia, a fear of turkeys. Christmas does not escape unscathed. Christougenniatikophobia, is a fear of Christmas. It can be triggered by childhood experiences, relentless Christmas song soundtracks in stores and malls, or the refusal of advertisers to use the word Christmas in their “holiday” advertising. Overall, you may just have Heortophobia, fear of holidays.
In terms of affairs of the heart, some marriages are not to be such as one between a Gynophobic, fear of women and an Androphobic, fear of men, especially if the Gynophobic has Venustraphobia, fear of beautiful women. It all adds up to Gamophobia , fear of marriage
Well this marriage certainly won’t work Philematophobia, fear of kissing and Philophobia , fear of love. But then they may never develop Pedophobia, fear of children. At one time only women suffered from Lockiophobia, fear of childbirth but now many misguided people don’t even know what a woman is - so who knows. You see them. You’ve been one. Ephebiphobia , fear of teenagers should not be a phobia, it is quite normal, especially for their parents.
Yet there are some marriages that would be naturals. People with Megalophobia, fear of large things should marry people with Microphobia , fear of small things so they can purchase nothing but medium sized items.
Made for each other would be those that fear white Leukophobia (Most MSNBC commentators fall in this category), and those that fear the color black, Melanophobia. We’d have a whole new phobia, Cinereousphobia- gray. (I made that one up).
Made in heaven would the marriage of a Podophobic, fear of feet and someone with fear of knees, genuphobia. We’d love to see a match between a Hypochondric, fear of illness and a Latrophobiac, fear of doctors. Another natural match is a someone who has Jumpaphobia a fear of zippers with someone who has Koumpounophobia, fear of buttons. Clearly, it is a Velcro pairing made in heaven. A culinary delight would be the duo of one who had Mageirocophobia, fear of cooking and one who has Obesophobia , fear of gaining weight. Internet dating sites would definitely connect a Thermophobic, fear of heat and a Cryophobic, fear of the cold for a median temperature relationship. We’re certain that a Nyctophobic fear of night or darkness and a Heliophobiac , fear of the sun, sunlight, would find happiness in the gloaming. Environmentally an Ammophobic, fear of sand and a Hylophobic, fear of forests would find romance on a lake. And a bizarre coupling would be a Necrophobic, one who suffers from fear of death or dead things and a Taphophobic, one who fears of being buried alive. Recommended reading, unless they were Bibliophobic, would be Poe’s Premature Burial.
As for number 3 in the DSM 5 listing of phobias, the field of medicine is a veritable breeding ground of irrational fear. It begins with Pharmacophobia fear of medicine, Nosocomephobia fear of hospitals, Latrophobia, fear of doctors and they can add up to Tomophobia , the fear of surgical procedures or medical intervention. Adding to the fun is Algophobia, fear of pain plus Aichmophobia, fear of needles or pointed objects which is similar to Belonephobia, fear of pins and needles. The examination would be difficult due Aphenphosmphobia, fear of being touched. Then there is Hemophobia which refers to the intense and irrational fear of blood. A cure for Dentophobia , fear of dentists is difficult. Sort of like pulling teeth. You may become a dentist if you have Omphalophobia, fear of belly buttons. All of these can be even more of a problem if you suffer from Pathophobia, fear of disease. Throw in Emetophobia fear of vomiting, and, speaking of expelling, Urophobia , the fear of urinating and things can get clogged up. Trips to the optometrist can be problematic if one has Optophobia, fear of opening one’s eyes. Then we have the doctor/dental/hospital waiting room. You could have Scoptophobia, fear of being stared at or that pesky Moronophobia again since waiting rooms feature televisions inflicting talk shows and newscasts on you. Unless, of course, you suffer from Koinoniphobia, fear of rooms, then it’s a moot point.
“Don’t stand. Don’t stand. Don’t stand so close to me”………..The Police. Anthropophobia, fear of people or society.
And we’re getting new phobias all the time such as Nomophobia which is the fear of being without a smartphone. Many Generation Zers suffer from Ergophobia, fear of work.
Fear not and don’t be anxious that you’re the only one afflicted with a phobia as 19 million Americans have one or more phobias. There may be more. But possibly, many were afraid to answer due to Allodoxaphobiaas they stop answering questions or participating in any activities because they are afraid of people's judgment. While phobias can begin in early childhood, they are often first seen between ages 15 and 20. They affect both men and women equally. But men are more likely to seek treatment for phobias. However, men also dropped out of treatment to a greater extent than women, and women responded to treatment more than men according to an abstract in the Journal of Anxiety Disorders, May, 2019.
So, as you check off your own phobias, fears, and anxieties, just remember that advice from FDR’s first inaugural address; The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself………unless you’re a Dodo bird…………..
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown…………………H. P. Lovecraft
*Our research indicated that when pairing fear and animals, spiders was always on the list.
**“Stand on line” is a New Yorker idiom. Most of the world stands “in” line. Having been born in the Bronx, I always stand on line.
Sources:
verywellmind.com/list-of-phobias
https://www.healthline.com/health/list-of-phobias#types
https://explorable.com/e/history-of-anxiety-and-fear ----Garrett Ray Harriman
https://www.prevention.com/health/mental-health/g20158616/weird-phobias/?slide=30
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/phobia
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0887618518302822
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