Blogtober Day 17 - 3 of My (Weird) Fears
What is a Phobia? - “A phobia is a type of anxiety disorder. It is an extreme form of fear or anxiety, triggered by a particular situation or object.” - Mind.org.uk
Everyone is scared of something, be it spiders, heights or anything really and sometimes we have reasons for those fears…but sometimes we don’t. Personally, I have a phobia of spiders, which is pretty normal, let’s face it. However, I have a couple of more……unusual fears, and I thought I would share 3 of them with you today.
The Dark
Being afraid of the dark isn’t uncommon in children. Obviously, I am not a child and to be honest, it’s not the dark that I am afraid of. I think it’s more…...what can’t I see hiding in the dark? I don’t like not knowing what’s in front of me. To be honest, watching all of these ghost programmes where they run around in the dark speaking to something they can’t see probably doesn’t help. For as long as I’ve known though, I’ve always felt uncomfortable in the dark. I rarely sleep in complete darkness, I have to have lights on anytime I move around the house and if a room is dark I cannot look into it.
Seaweed
Now, I grew up in a seaside town and spent a good while playing on the beach, this is not a helpful phobia to have in that situation. However, it was not in my hometown that I discovered this phobia, I was about 11 and in Malta……swimming in the Mediterranean Sea……surrounded by seaweed and I couldn’t get out because it was growing around the rocks I needed to touch to climb out. I have no idea what triggered this I was fine before I jumped in, and I was happily swimming around. At some point, I looked down into the crystal-clear water and saw big patches of seaweed and freaked! I remember trying to touch it to climb out and just panicking. I have a thing about textures and a lot of them make me uncomfortable whereas others intrigue me, seaweed is not one of them.
Spiral Stairs
This is probably the strangest one on this list. I want to be very clear; this is not a fear of heights. I don’t know if, again, it’s not being able to see what’s in front of me around the spiral or a fear of falling down the stairs, but it affects me going up and down them. I am fine on a normal straight set of stairs though I do sometimes feel a bit dizzy coming down the stairs. I remember going up the stairs at Wallace’s Monument in Stirling and I was plastered to the wall and going up them so slowly. I had to stop and let people go past me while I apologised profusely. Once I am at the top though, I’m fine so it’s not the height I’m scared of it’s just……getting there.
Let me know some of your “weird” fears in the comments.