The term Phobia refers to a group of anxiety symptoms brought on by certain objects or specific situations. The phobia typically results in a rapid onset of fear and is present for more than six months. From the fear of color yellow to fear of clowns, here are some of the weird phobias to ever exist.
Xanthophobia — Fear of Color Yellow
Xanthophobia is the fear of yellow color or even word yellow. Xanthophobia is derived from the Greek word, “xanthous” meaning yellow and “phobos” which means fear. This weird phobia includes fear of anything yellow, including the sun, daffodils and yellow paint or even the phrase yellow.
Somniphobia —Fear of falling asleep
Who doesn’t love sleep? Don’t you? But what if you have a phobia of falling asleep. Fear of falling asleep is termed as Somniphobia, which comprises of irrational and excessive fear of sleep.
Somniphobes(someone suffering from somniphobia) may fear to fall asleep because they associate going to bed with dying. It might result from a feeling of lack of control or from suffering repeated nightmares.
Hylophobia — Fear of Trees
Imagine having fear of long shadowy figures, trees. Fear of trees is often caused by exposure to long and scary woods shown in movies and fairy tales.
It gets really hard to come out of this phobia, it’s like walking right into your worst fear, as trees are equal to or more than human beings present on the plants.
Hylophobes suffer extreme anxiety when they simply think about wood.
Nomophobia — Fear of being without coverage on mobile phone
Many can relate to this phobia when the phone doesn’t have coverage there is not much you can do with your phone. You can only watch images and videos saved locally, can’t chat with your group and would be unable to know what is going on without your tweets.
The term for this phobia is coined in recent years as after in the invention of mobile phones. According to recent surveys, more than half of the people in the UK suffer from it.
This weird phobia is brought on by the fear of losing signal, battery running out and even losing signal on mobile phones.
Pogonophobia — Fear of Beards
The weird phobias of beards are among the oldest phobias ever, it has been used since the 1850s to describe a strong fear of beards. Jeremy Paxman who was suffering from pogonophobia accused BBC of suffering from pogonophobia after he was criticized for presenting Newsnight with a beard.
Coulrophobia — Fear of clowns
The concept of the evil clown is related to the irrational fear of clowns, knows as coulrophobia, this is relatively a common phobia and usually, children have a phobia.
Again this kind of phobia is instated into a mind after watching scary-clowns in movies.
The scary clown has been portrayed in movies like Batman’s joker and IT’s Pennyworth. Celebrities also suffer from the phobia, namely Daniel Radcliffe and Johnny Depp “it’s impossible, thanks to their painted-on smiles, to distinguish if they are happy or if they are about to bite your face off.”
Optophobia: Fear of opening one’s eyes
If there was an award for the weird phobias, octophobia would win without a doubt — The term octophobia is referred to the fear of opening one’s eyes. If you are reading this, you sure aren’t suffering from this phobia.
Some of you may have experienced one of those instances in which you are watching a frightening movie and you cover your eyes so that you won’t see the “scary part”
Spectrophobia — Fear of Mirrors
Spectrophobia is a fear of mirrors and your own reflection in the mirror. The phobia can be because of traumatic events involving mirrors – perhaps the fear of apparitions or ghosts being the mirror.
Bloody Mary, when called three times in the night appears in the mirror, standing behind you.
This phobia can be because of having low self-esteem which is related to one’s physical appearance.
Arachibutyrophobia— Fear of Peanut Butter Sticking to the roof of your mouth
The hard to pronounce phobia is also inexplicable one — the fear does not involve fear of peanut butter but when the peanut butter sticks to the roof of the mouth.
The symptoms of the phobia involve panic, dread, terror, anxiety, rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath when such a situation arises.
Ablutophobia — Fear of Cleaning
Ablutophobia is the overwhelming fear of bathing, washing or cleaning. Ablutophobia is a kind of anxiety disorder that falls under the category of specific phobias. It is not a very common phobia.
Symptoms of ablutophobia are the same as with most of the weird phobias, which are intense fear or anxiety that increases the closer you get to the situation, panic attacks, knowing that your fear is irrational but able to stop it.
Now that you’ve read about the weird phobias to exist, read about the Grim History behind the story of Hansel and Gretel.
