Ok, so we all know that there is a difference between a fear and a phobia; a fear is something relatively rational that doesn't necessarily disrupt everyday life, and a phobia is a somewhat irrational, sometimes inexplainable fear that causes the person to act AROUND their fear of this certain thing. My question here is: Has anyone had any peculiar phobias (or ANY phobias for that matter), or have they met anyone with any sort of severe phobia? Some of them are quite interesting (Aulophobia - a fear of flutes!), and you can see a list of many at
http://www.phobialist.com.
Mine is emetophobia, a fear of vomit. It's not because I think it's
gross (honestly, the gross-out factor doesn't get to me), I'm just
terrified of it. I can't explain it, but whenever I hear or see anyone get sick, I hyperventalate and start to shake pretty badly. Other than that, however, I've not met anyone with any sort of peculiar phobia, just the more common ones like acrophobia (fear of heights) or arachnophobia (fear of spiders).