Stuff you don’t need to know, and yet

CONFESSION time. What are your irrational fears? What objects or situations make you anxious? What are your phobias?

Many phobias are quite common, such as arachnophobia (spiders), acrophobia (heights), glossophobia (public speaking) and herpetephobia (snakes). But there are dozens of other documented phobias that are more unusual.

I’ll confess first. I’m not a fearful, anxious person, but I have a few phobias.

I developed extreme claustrophobia after I was trapped in the wreck of a crashed and burning plane for quite a few minutes — I cannot be in an lift with more than one or two other people.

This was also the cause of my aerophobia (fear of flying) and acrophobia (fear of heights). My extensive surgeries after the accident, especially those to my face, left me with another rather common phobia, trypanophobia, a fear of needles.

I also suffer from lepidopterophobia, fear of moths. When I was a child, a tiny moth got into my ear and fluttered against my eardrum until my sister poured oil into my ear.

But I also have a phobia with no known roots: I cannot watch other people brushing their teeth, not even in a film or on television. This appears to be so rare that nobody has given it a name yet. Fear of brushing your teeth is called odontarrupophobia, but I have no problems brushing my own teeth.

My wife suffers from just one extreme phobia: scoleciphobia, fear of worms. It is so bad that she freaks out when someone just says the word.

I have come across a few people who suffer from paruresis, a fear of urinating in public places or in the presence or proximity of others.

Agoraphobia, the fear of public spaces or crowds, is also not uncommon and can be quite debilitating.

I know someone with coulrophobia, a fear of clowns. Tachophobia, fear of speed, nyctophobia, fear of the dark, and mysophobia, fear of dirt and germs, are also not that rare.

A relatively new phobia is nomophobia, the fear of being without your  cellphone. I suspect many teenagers suffer from this.

Here are some of the more unusual phobias documented by medical scientists.

Arachibutyrophobia: a fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth; eisotrophobia: a fear of mirrors;  lobophobia (balloons); hylophobia (forests); aphenphosmphobia (being touched);  ailurophobia (cats); alektorophobia (chickens); equiniphobia (horses); ephebiphobia (teenagers); omphalophobia (belly buttons); vestiphobia (tight clothes); chionophobia (snow); ablutophobia (taking a bath); and pogonophobia (facial hair).

But there is one documented phobia that I find hard to believe: plutophobia, a fear of wealth.

– Max du Preez

♦ VWB ♦

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