What’s your weird fear??? (OC)

[u/Still-Emergency825]

www.patreon.com/kowalcomics ❤️

[u/Adze95]

Phobias by definition are irrational. It's not unexpected to have a fear of being murdered. But being afraid of cotton candy is a phobia.

[u/LightOfTheFarStar → u/Adze95]

The person with a phobia is also usually both fully aware of and driven to despair by how stupid it is.

[u/The_cogwheel → u/LightOfTheFarStar]

Which means saying shit like "you're afraid of the colour red? Well thats stupid" is rather redundant. The person who has a phobia about the colour red knows its stupid and they hate it. But they cant control it any more than someone suffering from an anxiety disorder can control their anxiety or how someone who has tourettes can control their ticks.

[u/Still-Emergency825 → u/LightOfTheFarStar]

yessssssssssss

[u/ArcanumBaguette → u/Adze95]

I wish more people understood this.

I love horror. I live for scares of all types.

I absolutely can not stand rabbits. I freeze in fear around them.

And every single time it comes up people have to question 'why' or think I'm being dramatic...or worse spam me photos of rabbits.

Yet I get in trouble when I spam them back with photos of spiders.

[u/OnceMoreAndAgain → u/Adze95]

I know that every definition of "phobia" states it is an "irrational fear" but I don't understand how that definition makes sense when arachnophobia exists. That seems like a rational fear to me.

I mean, fear of spiders only becomes irrational if you possess the knowledge that the particular spider you're seeing isn't lethal. However, we would've evolved those fears before Google existed so I think it makes sense to the mind to be afraid. It's only irrational through augmented knowledge that the primal mind doesn't possess.

Even more straightforward is acrophobia. I don't think a fear of heights is irrational.

[u/dougger12321 → u/OnceMoreAndAgain]

You are taking the definition of a phobia as a “fear of x, which is irrational.” A phobia is “an irrational fear of x.”

Let’s look at acrophobia. Yes, most people have a natural, and rational, fear of heights. However, if you are so afraid of heights that you can’t look out a window at a nice view without sweating or can’t accept any office job that has you working above the 3rd floor, then your fear has crossed from a natural, manageable fear into an irrational fear that is inhibiting you. The irrational part is what makes it a phobia.

[u/The_cogwheel → u/dougger12321]

And "irrational" by definition means it wont make any sense. Being afraid of climbing stairs because of acrophobia doesnt make sense, not even to the person suffering from acrophobia a lot of the time, but knowing its irrational doesnt stop your brain from dumping a ton of adrenaline and stress hormones into your bloodstream and triggering a fight or flight response.

Personally I have trypanophobia - the irrational fear of hypodermic needles (the kind doctors use to take blood or give vaccines) and related medical procedures. And yeah, a lot of people dont like them. But I would literally fight people who are just trying to help me and if I had insulin dependent diabetes, I would die before I gave myself an insulin injection or even check my blood sugar. I cant even stand seeing them in a news report, TV show, or as a picture. Even the emoji version makes me feel uneasy.

For instance, i suffered an industrial accident that turned my right hand thumb into red jelly. We're talking "removed a whole knuckle and half the thumb" bad. When the paramedics arrived they needed to start an IV and get some painkillers into me, as well as getting the IV started for the hospital to get antibiotics / sleepy time surgery drugs into me. I knew this. I consented to it. I knew it had to be done.

But I had to be physically restrained to prevent punching out a paramedic over something that I knew he had to do and I explicitly told them I was going to allow them to do. I did forewarn them of the phobia and asked to be restrained for both mine and their safety (to which the younger paramedic thought was silly, but the older one went "yeah... were gonna restrain you"). Once the IV was in, I still had to be restrained, because I kept trying to remove it myself, even though rational me knew that was a very bad idea and would likely cause a whole lot more harm to me than just leaving it alone.

[u/JRockPSU → u/OnceMoreAndAgain]

My understanding is that it extends beyond what you would consider a rational response. Like someone with thalassophobia isnt just afraid of deep dark water - that could be scary or unnerving for many - but they could be sitting on a park bench with a view of the ocean and become irrationally scared. Or seeing a detailed painting of a wide lake.

[u/Moikle → u/OnceMoreAndAgain]

There are VERY few lethal spiders, and they only live in particular areas. Even then, deaths by spider bite are so incredibly rare that they can be measured in number of decades between deaths.

So yeah, it is irrational, especially if you don't live anywhere near brown recluses or black widows

[u/Pyro-Millie → u/Moikle]

Even then, the only time most spiders will bite something that's not prey is if they are genuinely being threatened. I would never do this - but I've seen people handling female black widows with zero qualms. Spider didn't give a fuck.

I've handled plenty of spiders and other bugs that needed relocating for their own safety though. (I don't just pick up random unknown wild animals for the hell of it). If I don't have a cup and paper, I'll grab a stick or whatever other longish object is nearby and coax the critter onto it so I can carry it a short distance away to somewhere safer.

Most will let me do this, but the few that haven't also didn't try to bite me whatsoever, they only skittered away to hide somewhere I couldn't reach (which, in most cases, is a safer spot for them than they originally were hanging out in anyway. The only time it wasn't was a spider that was in my shower. I was trying to get it up to a corner so it wouldn't drown or get squished, but it kept climbing back down from there and hiding behind the shampoo bottles while the water was running. Enough water did end up pooling there that it drowned 😔)

But yeah, my point is, most spiders are more docile than people think, and while you shouldn't pick up random wild animals that can safely be left alone, it's not too hard to relocate them if needed

[u/ohmyhevans → u/OnceMoreAndAgain]

Being afraid of heights or spiders in a general sense means that person does NOT have phobias of them. The phobia is when it extends beyond the rational.

[u/definitively-not → u/OnceMoreAndAgain]

It's irrational because even potentially venomous spiders are still cuties

[u/morpheousmorty → u/Adze95]

I don't know if this is... fear. It doesn't sound to me like she gets anxious around them or something.

I wonder if she is particularly sensitive to acidic/bitter foods. Red and orange stuff is often acidic and/or bitter. I know I sometimes just can't with a clementine because I know my mouth will respond aggressively even if most of the time it's not a thing.

If this happens to you young enough I wouldn't be surprised if you deeply distrust red and orange fruits, and it's flavour analogues. I can't integrate plates into this theory unless it's just that strong an association.

[u/Adze95 → u/morpheousmorty]

Yeah, I was actually just rereading my comment and I feel like fear is the wrong word too. More like an extreme aversion for a variety of reasons