Phobias.

[No Luck Involved]

Speaking of lifts:

I was in a London hotel a few summers ago with my friend and we were in the lift when it reached our floor but the door appeared to try to open but couldn't. The lift had stopped and we waited for a few seconds and when nothing happened it became apparent that something was wrong. So we pressed the button for our floor again and the door made a noise and looked like it tried to open but it still wouldn't. We kind of just looked at each other and started making jokes about being trapped and Terminator coming to get us and stuff lol. We waited for maybe 2 mins pressing the button and stuff and we were getting a bit pissed off because we were meant to meet one of our friends later that afternoon and thinking about what we were going to do. Finally my friend pressed the open door button and held it down and the door sort of creaked to life, it opened a tiny bit and stopped but it was enough for us to get our hand to it and we pushed it open. Funnily enough the lift had stopped halfway up to our floor, in that the actual floor was about half a meter up from the floor of the lift. We climbed up out of the lift and later we told the hotel reception about it so nothing bad happened. At the time we actually found it pretty funny so it wasn't as scary as it sounds. I'm not claustraphobic or anything either so I wasn't too bothered about it in the end.

 

[jumpluff]

Just interested, when I was young I used to freeze solid when I went to this big gathering of people, my moves get very stiff and I would barely be able to turn my head into any direction. Of course as I used to go out more often these symptoms started to get less severe and for a couple of years now it's been history, so it the same thing or phobias are thing you can't get rid of?

Phobias can be overcome. I say that from personal experience:

As a ten-year-old, I was a mysophobe (germs/contamination). Not in the sense that 'germy things are gross and I should avoid them', in the sense that I was too frightened to leave my own house for fear of having to touch the door. I carried hand sanitiser everywhere, refused to touch my school desk until I sprayed it down in antiseptics, ceased most of my hobbies in order to avoid public places, washed my hands every quarter of an hour until the skin peeled off, suffered frequent panic attacks, and laid awake night after night trying to work out if I had contracted HIV that day or not. It was an extremely obsessive compulsive phobia, in that I was perpetually plagued (heh) by the idea that I was contaminated and that my skin was coated in dirty things, and I was almost unable to focus on anything because of my fears.

Needless to say, I am no longer a mysophobe, though I am still scrupulously hygienic (and I see that as a total positive). My phobia lasted for about a year and a half, and gradually lessened as I sought to educate myself on disease. My morbid fixation with the topic and obsessive compulsiveness meant I couldn't really think about anything else for very long anyway since germs are so damn prevalent, so I read a lot of books and papers on the subject. Eventually I was able to be more rational about my fear and channel my phobia into a hobby. One of my pet interests is now virology, and for a long time I hoped to be a virologist studying viral haemorrhagic fevers as an adult. I somehow went from thinking I was a leper who had latent AIDS and was going to die from some horrible disease I picked up from touching a handrail to thinking 'holy shit, Ebola is just the coolest virus'.

This approach wouldn't work for everyone, naturally, but that's my story. My parents did send me to a psychologist for awhile, and she prescribed immersion therapy, but that particular technique didn't really work on me, just made me miserable... I understand that it works for some, though. I suppose, in a sense, what I was doing was like theoretical immersion therapy, in that it was highly triggering, forced me to confront the object of my fear, and resulted in me slowly becoming accustomed to it. I wish everyone luck in overcoming their phobias! ^_^

Also, I feel like the differentiating factor between a phobia and a fear is the severity; I perceive phobias to be immensely debilitating and irrational. I have a fear of falling; nobody likes to fall over, and I have a number of health problems that make me very prone to losing my balance, so it's rational that I should dread falling and take extra precautions to avoid it. It was not remotely rational that I should be so frightened of 'contamination' that I would avoid touching tables for fear of developing AIDS. It was also incredibly unhealthy and prevented me from living my life properly until I was able to deal with it.

ETA: Rereading this post, I have to clarify, haha -- I appreciate that my example is an extreme one!

 

[X5Dragon]

I wish everyone luck in overcoming their phobias! ^_^

Amen, it's nice to see that most of you believe that these things can be beaten. Sometimes the best ways to overcome fear is to really (cheesy I know) face them.

For example I'm learning how to breathe better when I pick up the phone (which is funny considering I'm a sports guy) and memorize a few social greetings that are commonly said on the damn thing. I also try to stick myself to the window whenever I get the chance to go into a high rise building and get over my headache.

I realize that it's not as easy as it sounds seeing how some phobias cause vomiting (some guy starting to almost vomit when someone killed a fly near him) or literally freeze you in your place, but since this is a subconscious thing first and foremost you should try to first refute whatever reasons you rely on to justify your fears (as jumpluff said education) and then repeatedly and confidently start reading statements to change your subconscious "e.g. Elevators are routinely maintained and have been around for at least 100 years". Also don't feed your fears, for example go read on airplane accidents when your already afraid from planes and stuff like that.

 

[Arceustar]

I have phobophobia

 

[SugarLumps]

Jellyfish. God i hate jellyfish. They come out of no where and use wrap. But this is like generation one wrap. It's horrible. I will never swim in an ocean again.

 

[aurora]

i was at this beach once at the gold coast and it was strewn with beached portugese man-o-wars and i was looking around
i saw this woman running like hell of the beach screaming, must've been pretty desperate to get away from them as she left all her things there
(there isn't even an official name for a phobia of jellyfish, i'm just seeing "jellyfish phobia")

 

[ssbbm]

lol somalia

 

[Yamata no Orochi]

Scared of heights and afraid of getting dirty, I don't know if the 2nd one counts as a phobia. :P

 

[coolbiz]

Honest question, how does this work? Are you afraid of bad luck or what?

Im generally afraid that a either I will break something or come close to death. Dont judge me.

 

[BloodBerry]

germs germs and more germs. I have to take a shower every time I wake up from sleep and before I'm going to sleep. Some days when I go to Martial Arts I will take 3 showers in a day. I can't be in my room with dirty clothes i.e. if I go outside and come back into my house and go into my room, I change clothes. I wash my hands to the point were they are dried up like a prune. I mostly just wear gloves everywhere I go now and keep hand sanitizer on me at all times. I also must brush my teeth after eating something and it doesn't even have to be a meal, it could just be a snack.

 

[Thundur]

I love plane rides, but I am afraid of crashing. I find the plane ride, the take off, and the landing all amusing, but what really gets me is when the plane turns.

 

[Ace Emerald]

Im generally afraid that a either I will break something or come close to death. Dont judge me.

No judgement lol, just wondering.