What’s Your Irrational Fear?

Butterflies and moths! Butterflies always fly into my forehead. :::shudders:::

Large human statues like the Statue of Liberty or the Colossus of Rhodes. I can’t even google that to check the spelling in case I see a drawing of it! It’s a form of megalophobia. Pretty sure it came from watching Planet of the Apes as a child but only came on after I had kids.

idk, escalators scare me more than elevators! maybe the fact that they are more open always makes me more fearful of falling over the side. i haaaate those clear half-walls they have at malls for the same reason. Yikes!

Fruit broadly. As a child I was terrified of blueberries specifically. I was scared if they were cold or mushy or sour. And I had my stepdad try my fruits before I would eat them and he would tell me if I would like them or not. Now my kids and husband have to try fruit before me. Love veggies though!

Balloons. My poor children never accept the balloon from the dentist. I wish I could get past it.

I loooove an elevator! My irrational fear shows every time I try to get on or off an escalator. I’m always certain I’ll trip on or off and fall onto the escalator and never be able to get off!

Windmills. When driving through Northern Michigan there is an area full of windmills and I just…shudder…..cannot. They are so unnatural, big and move slowly and creepily. I love what windmills do for the environment but absolutely hate seeing them.

Thank you Jo for this safe place for us all to express this – here are mine (maybe I’m not alone!): – Anything that has pressure, the worse being of course : ballons, pressure cooker and champagne bottles – Balloons – again the anticipation of a dangerous explosion – Pigeons – I know their aim is to fly right into my head. I live in Paris, so this is has become my routine squat to avoid these flying rats – Forrests (to be precise : walking in the forrest) – quite a controversial one, but I’ve watched/heard for too many true crimes : and I’m not a good runner Was fun laying this done here !

Sneezing while driving. What if I crash on another car while sneezing?

The brakes on my car not working and being unable to stop and clowns. Why, oh why, are there clowns???

Getting rear-ended and biting off the tip of my tongue. I think about it daily. I eat a lot in the car, and afterwards I do a subconscious thing (that I assume most people do) and rub my tongue on the outside of my teeth to get the food off. I’m worried someone will rear end me while I’m doing this and I will bite off my tongue. LOL. I am glad for this post so I can finally confess that.

Snakes, always. I found out my partner’s son has a pet snake on our 3rd or 4th date and almost had to end it despite all the other wonderful green flags. Fortunately he moved the snake to his mom’s house and I can sleep easily when I’m over there, haha!

Not a fear, but an aversion I have is to velvet. And in general other “soft” items, baby blankets, brand new fleece, etc. It gives me the goosebumps thinking about it, touching it. I love how. it looks which is such a shame that I cannot stand it.

Well… water. Sea especially, but turquoise swimming pools with black lines at the bottom : worst of all. I, in my 50 years old brain, KNOW there can’t be monsters living in them. But i, in my weird girl brain, can’t be absolutely sure there aren’t. And i LOVE the sea side and boats and all :/

Clowns, escalators, and basements.

Turbulence. I’ve read SO MUCH about why turbulence is perfectly safe and normal and nothing to fear. Regardless, I start sweating, midly shaking, and occasionally crying each time I’m on a flight that hits unexpected turbulence. Especially if we’re flying over the ocean and there is nowhere we could make an emergency landing. It is very hard. It’s made me so much more compassionate of other people’s irrational fears.

I’m absolutely MORTIFIED of mutated dandelions. they’re SO CREEPY I HATE them I’m so grossed out even just THINKING about one. look it up at your own risk. [my name is not actually Anida P; I’m not giving my real name]

My car getting stuck somewhere. Tight parking lots freak me out because I’m worried that my car will get blocked in. Also, getting stuck in mud or snow and my wheels just spinning. I’m also afraid of getting stuck in a bathroom. Public or private. This actually happened to me. I was at a house party and everyone was in the backyard three floors down. I went to use the bathroom and the minute I closed the door I realized there was no doorknob to open it. I was stuck there calling for help until someone else came upstairs to use the bathroom.

Snakes – if I’m hiking and I see one, I will scream. I don’t even like to see images of them, or touch a page where there is a snake picture. Heights, like standing near the edges of cliffs or driving on those crazy hairpin turn cliff roads with no shoulder (had a panic attack driving in the Canary Islands with nowhere to pull over and it ruined so much of the trip). Suffocating/drowning/not being able to breathe. If I’m in child’s pose or something in yoga, even having my hair down makes me freak out and feel like there’s not enough air because hair is in my face. Knowing that so many other people have weird silly fears helps so much!

I have a fear of a tree branch impaling me in the eye. This stems from 5th grade health class when one of the first aid techniques that wos explained and pictured was what to do if this very thing happens (poke a hole in a styrofoam cup – which existed back then – and put over the stick taping in place so the victim didn’t move their eye causing more damage). I was terrified to walk to the bus stop in the dark thereafter and still will put my hands in front of my face if I’m walking anywhere near a tree at night.

When I’m camping, I refuse to set up my tent directly next to my car for fear of the vehicle spontaneously combusting in the night. (I don’t fear spontaneous vehicle combustion at any point while actually driving…) I also have an irrational fear of forgetting my airplane seat number while walking down the aisle, and so I look at my phone approximately two dozen times between scanning my ticket with the gate agent and getting to my seat.

Choking while driving alone! I’m only one piece of gum down the wrong tube away from a dramatic death!

Toilet snakes. Snakes, generally, but how is that irrational? Someone once mentioned a fear of toilet snakes and now almost once a week, when I get up to pee in the night, I think about toilet snakes and shiver a little.

I have an irrational fear of my skin being stuck to ice. For example, if I’m grabbing some cubes of ice to put into a drink, and they somehow stick to my skin, I immediately panic and start flailing my hands around to get it off. I believe this all stems from watching A Christmas Story when I was a child – very specifically the scene where his tongue sticks to the frozen pole. I. Just. Can’t. Do. It.

I love how this thread helps normalize intrusive thoughts. We ALL have them and they can run the gamet. If you know, you know. Also, those of us with anxiety disorders know how debilitating thoughts and worries can be and that compulsive rumination about a thing functions as the compulsions in the OCD acronym and can be truly debilitating. Irrational fears will float in an out but if you are more “I have reorganized my significant parts of my life around this worry and I’m exhausted.” please know you don’t have to white-knuckle through it alone effective support exists and you are deserving of it. So yeah.. Just a shout out to all my OCD girlies scrolling here going “cute, cute, cute, aw sister you will love ERP! cute, cute”.

SAME. And then, one day, it happened. In my fancy office building, where there are no buttons for floors inside the elevator. Instead, you enter your floor number when you call for the elevator–so “L” for lobby or whatever your floor. Once I got in one going down to lunch as someone got out of it, not thinking I needed to push “L” for it to know to go downstairs. Once the doors closed, I immediately froze. The elevator moved up half a floor and then just stopped. It hadn’t been told where to go, and I wasn’t able to. I was inside for probably 10-15 minutes, hitting EMERGENCY frantically and trying not to pee my pants. NIGHTMARE.

My best friend of a million years (we met when we were toddlers, and now we have toddlers that are little friends) just wrote a novella where an elevator feels like its own character. Check it out! It’s a quick, easy read. Perfect for anyone who like her, grew up reading Sideways Stories from Wayside School or Goosebumps. https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Hive-Tales-Hexagon/dp/B0GSDHCP5V

It’s bridges for me. I don’t trust those things. They fall down! Cars fall off of them! The GW bridge has TWO LEVELS, there’s no way that’s stable long-term!! The Chesapeake Bay Bridge is 4+ miles long and the only time I ever drove across it I looked like this the whole time 😱 (usually I am hiding under the dashboard while my husband drives)

I’m not afraid of elevators, but I favor New Year’s mantras over resolutions and my favorite one I’ve ever made and stuck to was “take the stairs.” It applies to everything. See an easy way out? Take the stairs instead, it’ll make you stronger.

First and foremost, being bitten by a poisonous snake! I’m also terrified of driving behind trucks with loads like logs, ladders, rebar because I’m afraid they will come loose and come through my car windshield. Not exactly a fear, but the smell of wet paper towels gives me an instant visceral reaction (maybe from holding wet papertowels to bloody lips/cuts as a kid?).

In elementary school a fireman came to our class to distribute literature about writing a “safety plan” (where to meet your family if the house was on fire). My bedroom was on the second floor and I became so worried about house fires that my parents bought my younger sister and I emergency escape ladders for Christmas that year. She didn’t know (until we were adults) why my parents thought that would be a good gift…

Clowns, ever since I was a kid, and heights. When I’m looking over a railing I feel like I might lean too far forward and fall.

This will not help your phobia, so sorry in advance… My husband and I have separately gotten stuck on elevators in between floors and had to escape 😬 Mine was at a fancy house, and I felt perfectly safe (after jimmying the grill open with a friend who was thankfully on the outside) to hop down 2 feet to get out, but my husband and his team were delivering furniture they built to a new high rise, and the service elevator got stuck something like 16 floors up, and they all had to shimmy through a skinny opening and drop several feet to get out. I can’t tell if this means we got all the bad juju out, or if nobody should ride elevators with us 😅

I have a fear of ceiling fans, but only when they are on high! I’m terrified a screw will come loose and the fan will chop my head off.

Going to prison! I’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket, yet I’m certain it’s only a matter of time until the police show up at my door and cart me away for some past criminal act.

And I am terribly afraid of stairs! Try to avoid them whenever they are too long, high, open. I take the elevator whenever I can. And sometimes I even miss appointements or skip areas of buildings because I just cannot bring my feet there. Wish we had each other’s courage Joanna! People are so miraculous.

That every mirror I look into is a two-way mirror.

Balloons. For this and other obvious reasons, auto dealerships are also a nightmare.

1. Parallel parking on a steep hill. 2. Getting stuck on a steep ramp while driving out of an underground parking garage. 3. Snakes.

Quick sand & swimming in water at night with alligators. I live in the Texas suburbs…

Not what was asked but… could we get the links to your sweater and coat in the scary elevator pic?

If you have an elevator phobia, Joanna, what are your thoughts on the Paternoster? A doorless, continuously moving elevator…time your move incorrectly, and you’re a goner! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternoster_lift

Real fear: vomit Irrational fear: that everywhere I go, someone is going to vomit

That a hand will come out of the toilet while I’m sitting on it…..no clue where it came from!

I cannot believe this wasn’t my 1st thought but portapotties! Omg – the thought of what is lurking down in there at outdoor music festivals and parks -aaahhh! A friend of mine shared a horrific story where her cell phone dropped into a latrine. She had been using her flashlight feature on the phone so she could see it was within reach. I kid you not… she grabbed it!!!

Deep ocean water! Which seems fairly normal EXCEPT I must avoid looking at google maps in a coastal area as my heart starts racing as I get close to the water. I recently planned a family trip to the Florida Keys and my nervous system was a damn mess. People are so unique and bizarre.

Once I was in an elevator at work with my HR Manager when it stopped working midway and we were trapped for an hour. Luckily it was only a 3 floor building and we just sat on the elevator floor and chatted until it was fixed. In 2020, a random pigeon starting walking beside me while I was on a walk in my neighborhood and then it flew onto my head probably thinking it was a nest! At my current home, right by my front door is a rock retaining wall where I recently realized that long snakes resided. Needless to say, I’m looking to relocate to another home, hopefully soon.

Being disconnected during a space walk. (I am not an astronaut.)

When I was a child going to beaches in West LA, I was scared I would open a public restroom at the beach and find someone doing drugs. It never happened and I have no idea what gave me that fear, but I felt it all the same.

My teeth getting knocked out. Also, my worst irrational fear nightmare came true last month when my 8 yo daughters top two front adult teeth were knocked out in a fluke bike accident (grateful she is alive and didn’t experience a head injury)… but gah, it has been awful. My irrational fear does not feel irrational anymore. (ALSO, my daughter’s grit and resilience has shone during this time, and it is a silver lining to be in such awe of my child)

My irrational fear gives me a visceral reaction- it’s a fear of clusters/multiples (trypophobia). I almost can’t even type this without my throat tightening lol! And it’s only certain things in this category. Safe things include Swiss cheese holes (yum!), polka dots (cute!), but gag-inducing images include almost all eggs in clusters (chicken eggs are ok, weirdly, but all other eggs NOPE!), lotus pods, holey patterns, etc. Hoping that typing this is some sort of exposure therapy (ha!), but I think I’m a lost cause lol.

I can’t believe no one has mentioned house centipedes…

Garbage disposal will suddenly switch on when my hand is down there fishing out something.

I have trypophobia. If you’ve got it, my sympathies, if you don’t, don’t google it in case you do!!!!!!

In 1910, my great-great grandfather died in a freak elevator accident!! My great grandmother (his daughter, who was around 9 when her dad died) became so afraid of elevators that she passed her fear down to her own daughters (my grandma and her sister). I never met my great grandmother but my grandma and her sister did NOT mess with elevators. We always took the stairs or an escalator! I’m okay with elevators and I take them all the time, even though the one at my workplace actually gets stuck all the time and several of my coworkers have had to be rescued from it… I have a huge fear of heights though!

Fear of not having access to fresh air – I think its related to claustrophobia. I could never scuba dive, have a hard time in airplanes and hotel rooms on high floors where the windows dont open. And also the gym – all that recycled gross breath. Also the Chesapeake Bay Bridge between Annapolis and the Eastern Shore. IYKYK.

The feeling of sticky bread dough on your hands. EEEUUGGGHHH Also others that have been said like deep water, outer space, driving off a bridge.

Asbestos- accidentally inhaling asbestos in an old building

Things growing into skin, e.g. barnacles! I get the most intense whole-body shivers thinking about it and spent Pirates of the Caribbean II with my head between my knees. I once had a nightmare about petunias growing into my leg and still have a visceral reaction when I spot petunias.

Sharks in swimming pools. V irrational, and yet when I am kicking off a bulkhead, the majority of the time I am imagining a great white waiting on the other side. Just typing this gives me the chills.

I keep coming back to check the comments. I have been labelled a worrier in my life but looking at all these “irrational“ fears, I can’t help thinking that most of these fears are actually entirely rational! Awful and unpredictable things DO happen in the world and it is sensible to be cautious around sharks/snakes/spiders etc. It’s possible that women’s “irrational“ fears have actually kept the whole human race alive!

I feel SO SEEN!! This is my first CoJ comment ever! I can’t believe it’s taken me so long because this blog has sustained me through a lifetime of ups and downs. Thank you for everything <3

I love reading all of these -I shiver sympathetically on the ones I don’t share. Mine is peeing accidentally in public. I have these gargantuan sneezes when hay fever hits, and years ago, I peed not just a little after such a sneeze, mid presentation in a meeting. I soldiered on but damn, was I stressed internally that it was noticeable (luckily it wasn’t). And that one time I was on a flight, urgently needing to pee but missed my chance due to first a long queue followed by a long turbulent stretch where nobody was allowed to use the toilets … those minutes and the earlier event are seared into my psyche… so I’ve become that girl who pees just one more time for just in case. Sad.

Naturally, watching TV shows where people scuba dive through a small tunnel in the ocean, or if people are crawling through a tunnel in a cave, makes my skin ABSOLUTELY crawl. My responds as if I am the one doing it, haha. The other is when I’m stopped in my car under a bridge. All I think is “this bridge is definitely going to fall and crush me to death….” Anyone else with that one??

I was born in the early 70s and at some point I watched a movie where an older woman was mugged in a store and her finger was cut off to get her ring since it was stuck on her finger. I’ve been married for 21 years but my finger has been ring-free thanks to that movie.

Rotten bananas. I cannot.

Deep water. Mother dropped me when a wave hit. I was about 4 years old. Lots of people around, I was close to shore as they were looking for me. I was focused on getting away from her and on dry land. As she tried to keep hold of me, I felt like she was keeping me under. Scary.

Dolls. The kind with the blinking eyes. I blame my father for letting my watch “Child’s Play” as a young child.

Dog poop. I’m not terrified of it, exactly, but I worry about it way more than is remotely rational, and cannot help myself from constantly pointing out to my kids and warning them not to step in it.

1. NYC Tunnels. For the eight years I lived in NYC, I always went through a cycle of “thrill, annoyance, fear” going through any of the tunnels. I’d start panicking until I could see the light again. But after my daughter was born, the few times we passed through the tunnels and experienced heavy/standstill traffic in the tunnels, I feared there would be a crack or leak and the tunnel would flood with us stranded inside. So I made sure every route we took was above ground. 2. Driving. I was so scared that I’d never be able to “learn” a car and all the things I needed to do to keep me safe, especially on a highway! Something about it felt so confusing, foreign, and inaccessible to me. I didn’t have a need to drive because everyone around me drove enthusiastically and we made my home the central place to meet up, park, hang out, etc (which made my parents trust my friends more) and then in college most people had cars. After graduating, I lived in places like NYC and San Francisco. My husband had a car in SF and we used it for road trips, and that was the first time in my adult life that I was so thankful he could drive and realized maybe I needed to get on it. We went back to NYC, had a child, and when she turned one, we returned to my suburban hometown to be close to family. Still didn’t learn in the first year or so, but did feel some embarrassment and tension with being able to live the life I wanted to with a toddler. Sometime during the countdown until my 40th birthday, I made the decision that I would learn to drive by 40. I put in inquiries with instructors, but didn’t follow through. About 2 months before my birthday, we had enrolled my daughter in preschool for the fall. The image of dropping her off and picking her up at our suburban preschool in an Uber or Lyft made me feel hot instantly. I saw years flash by and my child getting older and all the experiences I wanted her to have, to have with me, to have with future siblings and other kids, and it all felt so clear. I booked my first driving lesson and got my license 60 days later- about a month after my 40th birthday. I love the life I have with my kids and am so proud of myself for overcoming this fear. 3. Food gone bad. Especially chicken. I’m always nervous about chicken.