Phobias

[gratitude28]

Hi all,
I was perusing the posts and noticed something I hadn't noticed before... that October mentioned she had agoraphobia.
Does anyone else have a phobia they'd like to share about?
I have a very strange one... Dark rooms with large fish tanks containing big fish. It is crazy, because I love pet stores (unless they have large dark tanks), I snorkle and dive, I have tanks at home. But if I get near a tank like this, I cannot breathe, I panic beyond reason and have to bolt from the room. Nothing can hold me back. I dream about it too. I dream that I am in an endless store of tanks like this and in a constant panic/frenzy. It has never made any sense to me.
I do know that when I was little, my dad had a room full of fish tanks.It was also dark. I feel it must somehomw be connected to that.
Love to all,
Beth

[Portia]

Hi Beth

Spiders (but I think that's a survival reaction, not a phobia!)

Walking on spiral staircases, especially ones with open steps (oooo, breaking out in a sweat here thinking about them). Once climbed the stairs inside a lighthouse and ended up flat against the wall, gasping for breath. Feels very unsafe to me.

Have you tried aversion self-therapy? Making yourself face the fish fears, making yourself stay in a room and go up to the tanks and tap them ...........etc? (I keep going up spiral staircases and it...doesn't get any better!! )

[Hopalong]

What do you feel happened to you there, Beth?
Someone may have hurt you...or perhaps even a fish did something frightening.
Poor thing. I mean you, ((((((((((((Beth))))))))))))))))

My anxiety disorder, at its peak in my 20s, produced a type of agorophobic reaction. I felt dizzy in crowds and had a terrible time driving around DC, which I needed to do weekly. It was the beltway, the relentlessness of the traffic, that overwhelmed me.

Hops

[Brigid]

Beth,
Mice and bats (mice with wings), and power tools with sharp edges.  Phobia might be too strong a word, as I don't think I would spend money on therapy since none of those things make my life difficult to live, but great fears nonetheless.

A funny story re:  the fear of mice:  I have a VW bug convertible which I dearly love.  When the weather findly got warm enough last spring to put the top down, it wouldn't go down (it's automatic, not manual).  I took it in for service.  I was waiting in the lounge for the work to be done, and the service guy came and got me to show me something they had found in the car.  They had the whole trunk area pulled apart and they showed me the mouse nest they had found.  Apparently a mouse had chewed through the hydraulic line which operates the convertible roof.  The guys were all laughing about it, but then looked at me and I was nearly hyperventilating and had gone quite pale.  When I asked if the mouse could have entered my driving space, they said "Oh sure, he could have run right over your toes."  At that point, I nearly passed out, while saying"You didn't just tell me that?" 

Thank God that did not happen while driving on a freeway at 65 mph, as I most assuredly would have driven off the road and killed myself and perhaps others in the process.  I went home and immediately put D-Con all around my garage and I have since found out that putting moth balls in the car or around the tires will keep them away.  I never drive that car without thinking about it and for several weeks after the original discovery, would not drive the car with sandles on.  Just thinking about it, gets my heart rate up.

Brigid

[Portia]

Hi Brigid,
considering you could have killed yourself , have you thought about some kind of treatment? Hypnotherapy maybe? http://www.lcch.co.uk/hypnosisarticles/case_phobia.htm

I worked somewhere where mice would run up (inside) my trouser legs, just to the knee, and I'd shake them out. I didn't believe they did that until it happened to me. This is an attempt at shock therapy. Wondering how you're feeling reading that (it also happens to be true)? (At the time I just wondered what the heck they thought they were doing.)

[Brigid]

Portia,

Wondering how you're feeling reading that

I gasped and my palms started to sweat.  I wouldn't have lasted one more day in that environment (what the heck were you doing, if you don't mind my asking?). 

Hypnotherapy sounds a bit drastic for something which has never caused a life-changing event in my 56 years.  Even with 3 cats in the house, I occasionally get them coming in and have even had to physically remove a couple, so I can deal with them.  Just the idea of them being in a closed environment like my car where I can't get away quickly is a bit scary.  But in the 40 years I have been driving, I have never had an event with one, so I guess the chances are probably pretty slim.  Hopefully, the poison in the garage will keep them away.

Brigid

[Portia]

Hi again Brigid

Thanks for asking. I was 19, working in a breeze-block hut with no glass in the holes for windows, making breakfasts and lunches for a bunch of men who were working the fields. It was in the middle of nowhere, right in the middle of acres of cotton fields which we drove out to every morning. And I had volunteered to do this work! Crazy! Lucky I didn’t get worse things than _mice coming in though. Ah well, experience

[penelope]

(((((((((((Beth)))))))))))

I'm sure that fear of dark fish tanks has something to do with your father and past.


(((((((((((((P & Brigid))))))))))) spiders, snakes and mice don't bother me, but I go into a Panic attack when I see a big sewer roach!!!  So I know how you feel. I am convinced its because my Mother used to flip out at them when we were little (we'd regularly find them in the house, often in the tub as they'd crawl up the pipes from the sewer) and make my father kill them.  There was always panic and screaming everytime we found a roach in the house.  One day, I saw 100's of them coming out of a manhole in the alley behind our house.  I could never shake that sight.  My best friend in second grade threw on a pair of jeans that had been laying on the floor and went to school...she felt a pain up and down her leg.  She went to the bathroom and pulled off her jeans and a big roach crawled out!  I never laid a pair of jeans on the floor again or put on a pair without shaking them out after that!!  Also, once in college I was taking an exam and I saw a big sewer roach crawl out of my backpack and wander across the room.  It took everything I had to not scream and run!

 
bean

[reallyME]

Hi everyone.

I always check this board daily and look to see if anyone replied to my posts or if there are others I want to reply to...I came across this phobia one, it looked interesting, and now I will share:

P.S. I talked to Jodi for a few min today.  She is still self-absorbed, ignored everything I typed about what was going on with me, and just went on talking about how great she has it in life.  Nowadays I just feel sad for people like that.  I understand n'ism and bpd so much better these days and I can either laugh, roll my eyes or feel sad for these types of people.  Always I keep them in prayer that the Lord breaks through and heals them.

ok, phobia...

I do not like HEIGHTS!  I wouldn't call it a phobia cause I do not panic, though I have had two unrelated panic attacks in my life, and my heart goes out to anyone who has experienced them!  VERY FRIGHTENING, as though you are about to DIE ALTOGETHER!  I changed my eating habits back then and the attack never came back.

I do not enjoy being up high in towers or buildings, if there are no windows or some sort of fencing.  Even with fencing, I just keep thinking "what if I fall"...so I do understand all of your fears too.  I do not like high-diving boards either, nor do I really get a charge out of diving off ANY board into water...always thinking I might hit my head or become somehow disoriented and not be able to figure out where the pool wall is.  So far, I have dived in class at school with no problem whatsoever, though.

~Laura

[Hopalong]

Cure for Brigd: Pet mouse? Watching Stuart Little? (EXCELLENT movie, btw!)
Cure for PP: Ain't one. Roaches en masse, horrifying. (Never understood people who could sit through those bug movies.) Bleahhh. I remember a fad where women would glue rhinestones and such on some kind of big bug, and there was a little chain on it attached to a pin, and they'd wear it like a wandering brooch. Ick!

I can hold my D's snake but He's Just Not Into Me. And I think he's boring. (Sorry, Steve.)

Hops

[Portia]

Bean
I hadn't heard of sewer roaches before! Oh... oh boy...

Laura/RM
glad about your reaction to el Jodi today! Nice one.

Hops
 I remember a fad where women would glue rhinestones and such on some kind of big bug, and there was a little chain on it attached to a pin, and they'd wear it like a wandering brooch. Ick!

What the ??!!! sick sick not right no! Totally wrong in every way! Yes that is absolute!

I can hold my D's snake but He's Just Not Into Me.

No emotional brain, no limbic system, whatever they tell you, you canna have a relationship with a cold-blooded reptile. It will eat you as soon as look at you! Apparently birds have similar brain structures to a limbic system, even tho' they don't have one as such (as 'my' robin will testify). African Grey parrot - now there's a great companion.

[Overcomer]

My phobia?  Flying in a small plane by a window - claustrophobic!!!!  I am 5 ' 10" and I just feel cramped.  Same thing if I am in the back seat of a mini van or two door car - NO!!

Mice and bat story.  After my divorce it was me and three little girls.  Lived on a green belt.  First one was I lit the gas grill and a bunch of mice jumped out.  I turned off the gas and looked in...........I had started cooking a nest of baby mice.  So I turned back on the gas and turned it on high and ran in the house screaming and crying.

Two weeks later I went back out and lit the grill and the exact same thing happened!~!  Never cooked in that grill again!!!!!

Then once I was in my house and a bat swooped down at me and flew up the stairs.  I knew my daughter was up there watching tv.  I ran into her room, grabbed her and ran down the hall - the bat swooped at me and I ran screaming and wet my pants!!!!  I locked myself in my room and called my dad crying and he came over with a tennis racquet!!!

More mice......................I must have had 100s..............so I finally called an exterminator............then every time I found a dead one my 7 year old and I had to sweep them up!!  Mortified!!!

[Stormchild]

I really need to be sure I am understanding what I've read here. Are we really talking about burning little baby animals to death and poisoning little animals because we're afraid of them?

Just want to be sure.

[gratitude28]

I think the fish room had something to do with my grandmother... she was very cruel and loved to scare me. But I can't remember.

My husband unrolled a sleeping bag one night and four water roaches came scrambling out! Yuck. Also, when I lived in Moscow, if you turned on the light in the middle of the night, hundreds of roaches would scatter. Gross!!! But I don't break out in a sweat!

We got new piggies this week. My daughter and I decided we were okay with them (although she got a bit sad after because we still miss our Vincent and Piggy). At any rate, the baby crawled up her pantleg and we didn't want to hurt it, so we didn't know whether to have her stand up or unbutton her pants or what. We got him out safely!!!

I do fear heights sometimes. I get dizzy too. And I am afraid I will fall.

Storm, I think if you read Kelly's post she said she was very upset that she turned on the grill and went inside crying. We have all had accidents. I caught a gecko in the door once and he was almost, but not quite dead. I was so upset I had to have my husband come home from work and take care of him.

Love you all,
Beth

[reallyME]

I have to add my comment along with Stormy's.  Are we talking about cooking baby animals out of fear of half-cooking them?

I was so upset I had to have my husband come home from work and take care of him.

   This is better than smashing him in the door again to fully kill him. I still don't understand continuing to cook the mice. Maybe Kelly could enlighten us on her choice to do that...was it just a knee-jerk response of not wanting to check to see if any of the babies were still alive?

Please explain

~Laura