Genuinely phobic, or really not very keen on?

For the easily offended I should warn Phill's video is a bit sweary!

I used to go hysterical at the sight of a cockroach but once I had babies to protect I got over my fear and would stamp on them and even catch them in my hands. My husband was amazed at the change.
(Incidentally we were living in the tropics, not in squalor )

Phobias are more extreme than just disliking or fearing something - www.nhs.uk/conditions/phobias/

I don't like spiders but they don't give me the screaming abdabs! There was quite a large one trotting round the sitting room last night but I had my feet up anyway and it disappeared though is probably there somewhere!

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL243732C3A1FA69E4 - Phill Jupitus on spiders!

nina.. i have a phobia of dentists,a real phobia, I can't even call one on the phone, spiders I do not like and can't have one running in my home but like you I can gently catch a butterfly and put it outside but not a moth. I think the difference is butterflies flutter, moths have a much heavier body and they zoom,

Fear of spiders, moths etc is usually learned behaviour . Babies are born with two fears. Loud noises and falling.

There are phobias which hit when someone is under stress, such as claustrophobia, agoraphobia. They can also hit out of the blue.

I'm fine with spiders, mice etc, but when a thunderstorm starts that's when I start to sweat and tremble and get a dreadful headache. It's the lightning really, not the noise of the thunder. If I'm indoors I can just about tolerate it, but if I'm out anywhere then I go into a real panic and just want to scream and my legs turn to jelly. It's really bad.
I don't think there is any cure for this phobia.

Spiders and Crane Flies. When I was younger, if I even saw a spider in the room I was in, I needed to change all my clothes and have a bath or shower. I actually called my husband home from work, when our first baby was quite small as there was a spider in our small kitchen. I was terrified. Still cannot look at pictures of them, either in books or on tv.
However, I was so determined NOT to pass this on to my children, that I made myself control the feeling of total panic when I saw one. Although I still cannot stay in the room where there is a spider, I no longer scream. Use every sort of protection in the house I can find. None of my children are that worried about spiders, (my greatest piece of parenting).
Do wonder though, why if I am in a room with other people in it, it is always me who spots the spider there!!!

Vomit. It was at its height when I was a teenager.

I almost stood on an adder when I was 12 years old and staying at my cousin's house in the country. I think it had come out of the woods and was on the pavement going into a nearby garden. We were running along the pavement quite happily going to pick blackberries when suddenly I stopped to tie my shoelace. There it was, another step and would have been bitten. I literally froze...could"t move...could"nt speak until it was out of sight and then all thoughts of getting blackberries completely gone, we ran back to tell my aunt and uncle about it. From then on I have been really scared of going anywhere near where these horrible creatures might be lurking . Used to feel quite sick even seeing pictures of them or TV footage of any of these species. Not so scared as I was but still very wary. And how people can want/ have reptile as pets is beyond my comprehension. On the plus side I do believe now we all have a guardian angel watching over us...if I had not stopped at that point to tie my shoelace ..unthinkable.

Mice. There was one in our bathroom last year. My response was equal to finding a severed human head in there. My poor husband heard the screams and almost fell down the stairs running to me. I remember as a child seeing a friend play with a white mouse and it crawled all over him. I also remember my mum cornering one in our kitchen and trying to get it on to a dustpan to be put outside. I knew she was shaking. Maybe that started it.

Irrational phobias are usually a learned response relating back to early childhood- passed on from a parent being terrified of spiders, for example, or a young child being scared of something which the parent has reinforced, by say, removing the child from the situation, making a fuss of the child - “ never mind dear, spiders are horrible “ etc. Because it is a learned response, it can be unlearned in later life. ( I used to teach this stuff, sorry!- it always led to interesting discussions )

An irrational fear of an object, animal or situation is common and is only a problem when it becomes so severe it affects your ability to have a normal life. An agoraphobic who cannot go out of their own home, for example, or the woman who was so scared of birds she left her two year old alone on a beach when a seagull appeared and she ran off in terror. In that situation having treatment transforms lives.

Merlotgran!

My daughter and I suffer from trypophobia too. I can be physically sick at the sight of these things, my eyes go funny, I feel faint and nauseous. I remember a few years people thought it was amusing post pictures of things which affected us, it was awful ?

Gma29 - my husband does the same for me!

I’m with DanniRae too. OH warns me if there are pictures in the newspaper. I can’t type the word... palms gone sweaty and I feel really uneasy now

Reading your phobias has been an eye opener! I don't think I have any which may be why I'm considered brave by family members. I'm chief rodent and insect remover.

I had little sympathy for arachnophobia for example. What can possibly be scary about a harmless spider but I may be more understanding now. Both DH and DD run out of rooms if they see one.

I'm with DanniRae. Even the picture of one makes my flesh crawl. Anything else insect or otherwise is absolutely fine. I don't think it's fear, it's revulsion.

I have a fear of tidal waves - totally irrational I know but going near the sea it's permanently in my head so I can't enjoy the experience. I'm scared of the sea anyway having been cut off by the tide as a small child with my mother. I dream about it and all sorts of other flood related dreams!

In a word......mice

I have been known to faint – crash on the floor like a falling tree – and stay out cold for at least five minutes from the silly little things that "frighten" me. I do not understand why this happens as I am quite a tough cookie and have handled all sorts of far more disturbing things. I am quite happy to grow up about this but I am NEVER going to learn to love the little buggers.

I don`t like flies, hate them in fact, but wasps, moths and daddy long legs fill me with absolute terror. If they come near me I can`t keep still, and can`t help screaming.

I thoroughly dislike wasps, crane flies, mice and rats and would much rather somebody else deals with them but, if needs must, I can do it albeit with a slightly increased heart rate. I think my only real phobia is crowds. Ochlophobia, it's called and exposure to a large crowd - underground trains at rush hour; a protest march/demo; the hordes who go out to watch the central London fireworks at new year, etc - makes me very ill. Symptoms include nausea, palpitations , hyperventilating, profuse sweating, dizziness and occasional fainting. Just the thought of being in a crowd is bringing me out in a sweat. I avoid crowds!

Definately physical symptoms MissAdventure, now I have developed a second phobia, ( getting neurotic? ) , snow causes me to vomit and pace around the house, adrenaline pumping. Agoraphobia, shaking, disturbed vision, once I vomited on the road , embarrassing.

I think a phobia is the more likely to produce physical symptoms, though I don't know why.
Its probably something I've made up in my own head.

No, I still can't stand crane flies but we don't seem to see so many of them these days.
I cannot be in a room with a fluttery moth.

I don't feel sick but would rush out of the room or flail around hysterically.