TV talk show wants to help you with your phobia!!!

Enfilade wrote:

Pickles is the most bizarre phobia I've ever heard of. I wonder what
the Greek name for that is?

Fortunately, what I'm afraid of is not a regular species, but only a
mutated, deformed variant of the species. It's rare enough that most
people dont' even realize it's possible, or know what I'm talking about
when I mention it. So, I think that I will just keep my phobia, carry
a walking stick, and hope no one ever tries to be cute with one towards
me.

I seem to remember you posting a link to a description of this *thing*.
It was pretty strange!

Fear of pickles is pretty strange though and must make grocery stores
and restauarants suck.

One wonders where such a phobia would comes from. Is she afraid of
cucumbers, too, or just the pickled variety?

Sorry, I don't mean to be dismissive. I've had plenty of weird phobias
myself, so I guess that's where my sense of humor about it comes from.
To me there is something inherently funny about a weird phobia, although
I know from personal experience that it's not funny when you're scared.
Actually, it has occasionally helped me to joke about it, even during
an anxiety attack - it helps keep the fear at bay. (Doesn't work once
I'm in a full-blown panic, though.)

Joyce

OK, I'm curious! What is your phobia, Fil?
--
Britta

I searched this group and the info is already on here so...

I hate mutant dandelions.

http://www12.plala.or.jp/nacyama/dan...sh%20page.html

THe third pic on that page is, I suspect, something truly hideous. I
couldn't look at it long enough to be sure but I think it's a close up
of a mutant dandelion.

I do not get that close.

If not, do a search on "Deformed dandelions" Adn you'll get a couple
pics.

Dylan didn't even know they existed before one freaked me out. His
first impulse was to pick it and I barely stopped him in time. "Don't
TOUCH that! Not if you expect me to hold your hand again any time soon
(soon = in the next 100 years).

Poor Dylan. "How am I supposed to kill it if I can't touch it?"

*no sticks handy!*

He used his shoe, and left his shoes outside the door.

My best friend Jon has killed a few for me too.

--Fil

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:23:24 -0700, "Joy" wrote:

"badwilson" wrote in message
...
Christine K. wrote:
badwilson wrote:
Moths...can they help me with the damn moth thing?!?!?!

Have you seen these sites before?
http://www.ihatebutterflies.com/
http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/mottephobia.html

Ohhh, wow, I've never seen those sites, thank you! Although I doubt I
will be undergoing any hypnosis or re-programming treatment for my phobia,
it is nice to know that it *is* a fairly common fear. I will be sure to
mention that to the next person who says, "What?!?! That's stupid, they
can't hurt you!"
--
Britta

Anyone who says that doesn't understand phobias.

Joy

Sometimes you can have a phobia and not know it until confronted with
it. Like, years ago, my sister and I went to Seven Falls and decided
to clinb the steep stairs all the way to the top. My sister tripped
right up and often didn't even use the rails. But I slowly, because of
a bad knee, went up the stairs, hanging onto the rail. I kept my eyes
on the steep stairs until I got to eye-level with the first small
platform. Then my eyes just sort of strayed to the falling water right
beside me. And my eyes followed the water down...all the way down!
Almost straight down! And then I went into full panic mode. I fell to
my knees on the step, gripping the rail with both hands and shaking
and gasping for breath. I couldn't move until my sister came back down
and talked to me and got me to sit on the step. she calmed me down
after awhile, with other people tripping on up past me. She finally
got me to go down by insisting I keep my eyes strictly on the step in
front of me and she was just below me with her hand pushing lightly
against my butt to give the illusion of support. Until that day I had
no idea I was terrified of heights.

A few years later I went to the Royal Gorge and looked over the rail
at a tourist trap. I looked down the mountainside and noticed a stream
and what looked like a man's hat floating away. I mentioned it ot my
son. He told me No, that was a river and the so-called hat was a raft
full of people. Then perspective kicked in (Royal Gorge is a mile
deep) and I got dizzy and stummbled away, shaaking with fear, even
though I was on solid ground. I couldn't step onto the Bridge itself.

When you have a phobia, you can't control it. Not with logic or
anything. It is too visceral.

--
CATherine

Enfilade wrote:
OK, I'm curious! What is your phobia, Fil?
--
Britta

I searched this group and the info is already on here so...

I hate mutant dandelions.

http://www12.plala.or.jp/nacyama/dan...sh%20page.html

THe third pic on that page is, I suspect, something truly hideous. I
couldn't look at it long enough to be sure but I think it's a close up
of a mutant dandelion.

I do not get that close.

If not, do a search on "Deformed dandelions" Adn you'll get a couple
pics.

Dylan didn't even know they existed before one freaked me out. His
first impulse was to pick it and I barely stopped him in time. "Don't
TOUCH that! Not if you expect me to hold your hand again any time
soon (soon = in the next 100 years).

Poor Dylan. "How am I supposed to kill it if I can't touch it?"

*no sticks handy!*

He used his shoe, and left his shoes outside the door.

My best friend Jon has killed a few for me too.

--Fil

Ah, yes, thanks, I think I remember you mentioning that before now.
Wow, so if the dandelion is perfectly normal and not deformed, you're ok
with them?
I guess a phobia is a phobia and is not rooted in any kind of reason.
My irrational fear of moth wing powder coming off on my skin is not
really "rational" either. Mind you, I kind of wish I was afraid of
mutant dandelions instead because they generally don't move towards you
in an erratic flight pattern like moths and butterflies do and are
therefore much easier to avoid!
--
Britta
Purring is an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness
overflow.
Check out pictures of Vino at:
http://photos.yahoo.com/badwilson click on the Vino album

"CATherine" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 19:23:24 -0700, "Joy" wrote:

"badwilson" wrote in message
...
Christine K. wrote:
badwilson wrote:
Moths...can they help me with the damn moth thing?!?!?!

Have you seen these sites before?
http://www.ihatebutterflies.com/
http://www.phobia-fear-release.com/mottephobia.html

Ohhh, wow, I've never seen those sites, thank you! Although I doubt I
will be undergoing any hypnosis or re-programming treatment for my
phobia,
it is nice to know that it *is* a fairly common fear. I will be sure to
mention that to the next person who says, "What?!?! That's stupid, they
can't hurt you!"
--
Britta

Anyone who says that doesn't understand phobias.

Joy

Sometimes you can have a phobia and not know it until confronted with
it. Like, years ago, my sister and I went to Seven Falls and decided
to clinb the steep stairs all the way to the top. My sister tripped
right up and often didn't even use the rails. But I slowly, because of
a bad knee, went up the stairs, hanging onto the rail. I kept my eyes
on the steep stairs until I got to eye-level with the first small
platform. Then my eyes just sort of strayed to the falling water right
beside me. And my eyes followed the water down...all the way down!
Almost straight down! And then I went into full panic mode. I fell to
my knees on the step, gripping the rail with both hands and shaking
and gasping for breath. I couldn't move until my sister came back down
and talked to me and got me to sit on the step. she calmed me down
after awhile, with other people tripping on up past me. She finally
got me to go down by insisting I keep my eyes strictly on the step in
front of me and she was just below me with her hand pushing lightly
against my butt to give the illusion of support. Until that day I had
no idea I was terrified of heights.

A few years later I went to the Royal Gorge and looked over the rail
at a tourist trap. I looked down the mountainside and noticed a stream
and what looked like a man's hat floating away. I mentioned it ot my
son. He told me No, that was a river and the so-called hat was a raft
full of people. Then perspective kicked in (Royal Gorge is a mile
deep) and I got dizzy and stummbled away, shaaking with fear, even
though I was on solid ground. I couldn't step onto the Bridge itself.

When you have a phobia, you can't control it. Not with logic or
anything. It is too visceral.

--
CATherine

Exactly. It always gets me when somebody tries to talk somebody out of a
phobia. You can't reason somebody out of a phobia, because a phobia isn't
reasonable. It just is. I suspect that most people with irrational phobias
know they're irrational, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. You can
know something in your head, but if you don't know it in your gut, it
doesn't count.

Joy

Joy wrote:

Exactly. It always gets me when somebody tries to talk somebody out of a
phobia. You can't reason somebody out of a phobia, because a phobia isn't
reasonable. It just is. I suspect that most people with irrational phobias
know they're irrational, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. You can
know something in your head, but if you don't know it in your gut, it
doesn't count.

I used to have a terrible phobia of the subway. And this wasn't a nice
subway like in Europe, or Montreal, or Washington, DC. It was the Boston
MBTA, which was about 50 years old or thereabouts.

I wasn't afraid of real things like getting mugged. No, I was afraid of
the train stopping in the tunnel under Boston Harbor because of a water
leakage, causing us all to drown, or of poison fumes, or something like
that. I used to freak out when the train stopped dead in the middle of
a long tunnel between stations, and then just sit there, while the
driver offered no explanation whatsoever.

One time the train did this at rush hour with a packed train. I suddenly
felt kind of dizzy and off kilter, and wondered if I were breathing bad
fumes. So I asked a woman standing next to me if she felt weird, and she
said yes. I totally lost it - ran up to the front of the car, which just
happened to be the first car so the driver's cab was right there. And I
started banging on the door, yelling, "What is HAPPENING? What is going
on?? Tell me what's going on!!" and so on. The door opened and the driver
let me come into the cab. He was very nice to me, and explained that we
were just waiting for a red light to turn green, because there was a train
stopped in a station ahead of us.

After we started moving again, I calmed down. And, as would happen a lot
once I started calming down after a panic attack, I started to feel
extremely embarrassed and ashamed of how I'd acted. I did *not* want to
go back out into that train and face the other passengers, who I'm sure
all thought I was a nutcase. (And I guess I sort of was.) The driver let
me sit in the cab with him all the way to my station, which was at the
end of the line! Being someone who's had panic disorder most of my life,
I have encountered some very kind people under these sorts of circumstances.
Their empathy always amazes me.

Later on, I thought back to the moment I'd freaked, and I realized that
the reason I felt a little off-kilter was because the train had stopped
on slightly slanted ground. The train was tilted slightly sideways, and
it wasn't obvious enough to be seen (anyway, you couldn't see anything
outside the train for reference), so this gave it a slight funhouse
effect where I felt gravity pulling me a little bit to the side, without
knowing why.

After that, I rode buses exclusively for about a year. I absolutely
refused to get on a subway train. But eventually I started to relax
a bit about it, and could ride trains again, although I was always a
bit anxious about it.

Joyce

wrote in message
...
Joy wrote:

Exactly. It always gets me when somebody tries to talk somebody out of
a
phobia. You can't reason somebody out of a phobia, because a phobia
isn't
reasonable. It just is. I suspect that most people with irrational
phobias
know they're irrational, but that doesn't make a bit of difference. You
can
know something in your head, but if you don't know it in your gut, it
doesn't count.

I used to have a terrible phobia of the subway. And this wasn't a nice
subway like in Europe, or Montreal, or Washington, DC. It was the Boston
MBTA, which was about 50 years old or thereabouts.

I wasn't afraid of real things like getting mugged. No, I was afraid of
the train stopping in the tunnel under Boston Harbor because of a water
leakage, causing us all to drown, or of poison fumes, or something like
that. I used to freak out when the train stopped dead in the middle of
a long tunnel between stations, and then just sit there, while the
driver offered no explanation whatsoever.

One time the train did this at rush hour with a packed train. I suddenly
felt kind of dizzy and off kilter, and wondered if I were breathing bad
fumes. So I asked a woman standing next to me if she felt weird, and she
said yes. I totally lost it - ran up to the front of the car, which just
happened to be the first car so the driver's cab was right there. And I
started banging on the door, yelling, "What is HAPPENING? What is going
on?? Tell me what's going on!!" and so on. The door opened and the driver
let me come into the cab. He was very nice to me, and explained that we
were just waiting for a red light to turn green, because there was a train
stopped in a station ahead of us.

After we started moving again, I calmed down. And, as would happen a lot
once I started calming down after a panic attack, I started to feel
extremely embarrassed and ashamed of how I'd acted. I did *not* want to
go back out into that train and face the other passengers, who I'm sure
all thought I was a nutcase. (And I guess I sort of was.) The driver let
me sit in the cab with him all the way to my station, which was at the
end of the line! Being someone who's had panic disorder most of my life,
I have encountered some very kind people under these sorts of
circumstances.
Their empathy always amazes me.

Later on, I thought back to the moment I'd freaked, and I realized that
the reason I felt a little off-kilter was because the train had stopped
on slightly slanted ground. The train was tilted slightly sideways, and
it wasn't obvious enough to be seen (anyway, you couldn't see anything
outside the train for reference), so this gave it a slight funhouse
effect where I felt gravity pulling me a little bit to the side, without
knowing why.

After that, I rode buses exclusively for about a year. I absolutely
refused to get on a subway train. But eventually I started to relax
a bit about it, and could ride trains again, although I was always a
bit anxious about it.

Joyce

I'm glad the engineer was so nice, and that you managed to overcome your
phobia, at least partially.

Joy

CATherine wrote:
Sometimes you can have a phobia and not know it until confronted with
it. Like, years ago, my sister and I went to Seven Falls and decided
to clinb the steep stairs all the way to the top. My sister tripped
right up and often didn't even use the rails. But I slowly, because of
a bad knee, went up the stairs, hanging onto the rail. I kept my eyes
on the steep stairs until I got to eye-level with the first small
platform. Then my eyes just sort of strayed to the falling water right
beside me. And my eyes followed the water down...all the way down!
Almost straight down! And then I went into full panic mode. I fell to
my knees on the step, gripping the rail with both hands and shaking
and gasping for breath. I couldn't move until my sister came back down
and talked to me and got me to sit on the step. she calmed me down
after awhile, with other people tripping on up past me. She finally
got me to go down by insisting I keep my eyes strictly on the step in
front of me and she was just below me with her hand pushing lightly
against my butt to give the illusion of support. Until that day I had
no idea I was terrified of heights.

A few years later I went to the Royal Gorge and looked over the rail
at a tourist trap. I looked down the mountainside and noticed a stream
and what looked like a man's hat floating away. I mentioned it ot my
son. He told me No, that was a river and the so-called hat was a raft
full of people. Then perspective kicked in (Royal Gorge is a mile
deep) and I got dizzy and stummbled away, shaaking with fear, even
though I was on solid ground. I couldn't step onto the Bridge itself.

When you have a phobia, you can't control it. Not with logic or
anything. It is too visceral.

Just reading your description there made me feel uncomfortable, I don't
think I could have coped at all.
--
Adrian (Owned by Snoopy and Bagheera)
Cats leave pawprints on your heart.
http://community.webshots.com/user/clowderuk

Ah, yes, thanks, I think I remember you mentioning that before now.
Wow, so if the dandelion is perfectly normal and not deformed, you're ok
with them?

Well I still don't /like/ them much, particularly if they're really
large (kind of like how some people can deal with a little spider but
don't like spiders the size of dinner plates), but I won't be bothered
if I step on a normal dandelion and I might even pick a few flowers
from one. I also have eaten dandelion leaves and that's okay.

Come to think of it, I eat asparagus but every once in a while my mom's
garden would produce a mutant asparagus and that wasn't much better
than a mutant dandelion. I think it's the hideous-deformity thing more
so than the species.

And yet I'm not bothered by deformed animals, like conjoined twins or
my pet calf who was born with no eyes.

--Fil

Joy wrote:


After that, I rode buses exclusively for about a year. I absolutely
refused to get on a subway train. But eventually I started to relax
a bit about it, and could ride trains again, although I was always a
bit anxious about it.

Obviously over here everyone is a bit nervous on tube trains. Recently
we had an incident where there was something on the track at the next
station so my train was stuck in a tunnel. At this point someone had
the brilliant idea that it would be easier to remove the obstruction
from the rail if they shut the power off

Of course the trains get their power from the rail as well so the
lights went out and the emergency lights came on....

And it never occured to the driver to tell us "Sorry about this. The
lights are out because the rail is powered down so we can clear the
obstruction quickly"

I don't think there was anyone in that train who didn't start sweating
at that point!

My phobia is lifts. I never liked them much but didn't have a real
problem with them until June 2004 when I got stuck alone in a small
lift where I worked. I'd been stuck in lifts before but this time, the
engineer realising the lift had stopped only 2 feet from the door
thought if he could manually open the doorsI could get out. Alas he
forgot to tell me what he was doing so I was stuck there and suddenly
there were metal grinding noises and the lift car started to shake

Since then I have been in lifts only 3 times and always big ones with
other people in them.

It has its good points. I stopped going to the canteen for breakfast,
which cut down my intake of fried food and I now take the stairs most
of the time, which means I am probably fitter than before

The downside is that I couldn't take a job where there were too many
floors for me to use the stairs (When I was facing redundancy recently
my big worry was they would offer me a job on the 16th floor and my
turning it down because of my lift phobia would not be considered an
acceptable reason and I would not get redundancy pay) and I obsess over
it. I had to go to a meeting recently which was on the 10th floor and I
spent a very sleepless night before thinking "I have got to get into
the lift"

Lesley

Slave of the Fabulous Furballs