Find your phobia - by fear - or - by phobia name
Halloween is nearly here, and all the scary stuff comes out. A lot of movies, stories and costumes feature the devil. Personally, I have gotten over him. I don't actually believe in him so he doesn't scare me anymore. I've had a few friends who called themselves Satanists, and it was quite fascinating to hear them tell about it, but these days I don't think that, as a religion, it's any weirder than any other one. Witches? Oh please. I have had Pagan friends from the time I was a teenager to the present day, and any enemy of Sarah Palin and her wacky preacher is OK in my book. Black cats? Right up my alley.
I do have my share of phobias though, and then some. For instance, this picture and article just freaks me right out. [spider warning]. Yes, I am an arachnophobe. It's not uncommon. I have dealt with it somewhat over the years. I am no longer phobic about tiny spiders, just bigger ones (quarter-sized counts as "bigger").
A phobia is an irrational fear. If something actually presents a danger that's in line with the measure of your fear of it, then it's not irrational.
Some things that are feared truly are not dangerous. For instance, fear of money (called Chrometophobia or Chrematophobia) or fear of music (Melophobia). There is the fear of relatives (Syngenesophobia), sermons, sitting down, bats (don't come to Austin if you have a fear of bats - not in summer anyway), things on the right side of the body, bald people, or dinner conversations. How about the fear of the number 666? Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. My mother was afraid of the number 444. I'm not kidding. She was convinced that she would die at 4:44. She didn't.
Here's a funny one: the fear of long words is sometimes called Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia (or its alternate spelling Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia) (I am not making that up).
This particular spooky season, there's one thing that is scaring me the most.
This.
There must be a word for it. It would be related to the fear of fraud and/or Fascism.
This scares me a lot too. Fear of the haters.
1 comment:
Blueberry...we had a 'spider' theme going on albeit very innocuous. We had a lighted web and spider in red hanging in our tree and a pretend web with a skeleton on the ground. I told some people on our street that I would love to have a harry potter themed one next year and I'd set up our house as Aragogs' lair with perhaps big black spiders dangling from our (two story house) roof top.
Of course, I factor in the arachnophobes and think..hmmm..we might get less customers!! [G]
BUT..any phobia is nothing to sneeze at so it probably won't happen..btw.. we somehow had less 'traffic' on our street than usual..which is weird 'cause normally we get a lot AND the weather was actually perfect for little kiddies to be dressed up and not freezing..go figure..
Ingrid
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