Digg ThisI have a sister-in-law that’s gephyrophobic. That is, she’s afraid of crossing bridges. She related an incident once where she and my brother were driving somewhere on a vacation, and she had to drive over a very long bridge. I knew the bridge she was talking about, having been across it many times in my youth, and I didn’t think it was anywhere near as long as she portrayed it, but…
She related how the bridge seemed to get narrower and narrower, how her palms began to sweat and her breath shorten. Eventually, my brother had to reach over and hold the steering wheel. She knows it’s an irrational fear, yet she has it anyway.
Moreover, I once dated a woman that may have been eremophobic (afraid of being alone) and/or anuptaphobic (afraid of staying single). But, in the end, she turned out to be quite gamophobic (afraid of marriage). Alas, poor Yorick…
Now, fear sells — terrifically. As a race, we have covered an enormous amount of fear in film: achluophobia (fear of darkness or the dark — “Just don’t turn out the lights” — I don’t remember the movie — Blair Witch, perhaps?); homichlophobia (fear of fog — “The Fog“); arachnophobia (fear of spiders — “Arachnophobia“); satanophobia (fear of Satan — tons of films, but most notably “The Exorcist” and “Omen,” although plenty of Stephen King films and books fall into this category); selachophobia (fear of sharks — “Jaws“); suriphobia (fear of mice or rats — “Willard” and “Ben“); triskaidekaphobia (the number 13) in numerous Alfred Hitchcock films, and paraskavedekatriaphobia (Friday the 13th — “Friday the 13th” series) — just to name a few.
“The Exorcist” and “Omen,” notably, also orbit around theologicophobia (fear of theology), papaphobia (fear of the Pope), theophobia (fear of gods or religion), hadephobia (fear of hell), as well as uranophobia (fear of heaven). I think there must be a little of this in everybody, as these two movies seem to scare the pants off almost everyone that sees them. At least, everyone that I know.
In my travels, I have never encountered anyone who was ablutophobic (afraid of washing, bathing, or cleaning), cyprianophobic (afraid of venereal diseases and STDs — well, I’m afraid of STDs, aren’t you?), or arachibutyrophobic (afraid of peanut butter sticking to the roof of the mouth). And I can’t imagine being urophobic (afraid of urinating); that would be horrifyingly painful…
And in a previous post, I postulated that our fair city, Cleveland, Ohio, is most likely sophophobic (afraid of learning), cenophobic (afraid of new things or ideas), or possibly ideophobic (afraid of ideas in general), though not exactly in these terms.
Now, my family isn’t devoid of fear. My bride, quite possibly, is ataxophobic (afraid of disorder or untidiness), definitely atelophobic (afraid of imperfection), and somewhat phonophobic (afraid of noises and/or telephones — she’s always asking me, “what was that noise?” and she never answers the phone; she avoids it whenever possible).
Of course, she comes by this honestly: her mother is (and she admits this freely), astrapophobic (afraid of thunder and lightning — a.k.a. ceraunophobia and/or keraunophobia), climacophobic (afraid of climbing stairs, or falling down stairs), and most decidedly amaxophobic (afraid of riding in a car). Fortunately, I’m not pentheraphobic (afraid of the mother-in-law); I just hate driving her around with her foot constantly on the imaginary brake pedal, taking deep breaths whenever I pull out into traffic — even with a half-mile clearance either way…
And I am not without my own foibles. I have terrible aeroacrophobia (I’m afraid of open high places, unless my feet are firmly planted on the ground), because I’m basiphobic (afraid of falling). This is not the same as illyngophobia (fear of vertigo or feeling dizzy when looking down) as I don’t fear the vertigo or the dizzyness when looking down — I experience vertigo and get dizzy when looking down from heights because of my basiphobia.
Now, don’t confuse this with batophobia (a fear of heights or being close to high buildings) or hypsiphobia (fear of height), because I can sit in an enclosed space, such as an airplane at 38,000 feet, or behind a large, firm concrete wall — like on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, 86 floors above Madison Avenue — and have no symptoms at all. My fear is falling, plain and simple.
I remember attending Cleveland Indians Winterfest one year, on the 57th floor of the Key Tower on Public Square. I walked over to a window and looked down at a bus that looked to me like a Matchbox toy. I saw little kids sprinting around, narrowly dodging the windows, which jolted me a bit; I then tapped on the floor-to-ceiling-sized window, which was just large enough to allow my body to pass through. I didn’t hear the “thunk” I expected, but a rather disconcerting “tink-tink” of a 1/4-inch-thick glass wafer.
I ended up standing in the elevator corridor, eyes tightly shut, waiting for the next car with my back pressed firmly against the outside of the elevator tube. I couldn’t relax until I was outside, standing right next to the very spot the bus had occupied moments before.
Further, I’m slightly cholerophobic (afraid of anger), but not bogyphobic (afraid of the bogeyman); I’m also naturally slightly apiphobic and spheksophobic (bees and wasps, respectively), as I’m allergic to their stings, but not flatulophobic (I’ll let you guess on this one) or logophobic (afraid of words) or cyberphobic (afraid of computers or working on a computer).
Of course, if I were cyberphobic, I’d probably also suffer from an as-of-yet-unknown phobia, like Defenestraphobia, which is the fear of throwing things out of a window, or fear of being thrown out a window, or fear of things thrown out of windows, or fear of windows themselves — which would also include a fear of Microsoft Windows, naturally.
