Weird, Strange and Unusual Phobias

Everyone has heard of the more common phobias such as Arachnophobia, the fear of spiders and Agorophobia, the which literally means fear of the marketplace in Greek or the more common usuage as fear of crowds or even aerophobia which is the fear of flying...whatever your take on it whether it is actually a fear of being airborne or plummeting to the Earth in a raging ball of fire but who here has ever heard of some of these?

These include, but are not limited to:

Excessive sweating

Nausea

Dry mouth

Feeling sick

Shaking

Heart palpitations

Inability to speak or think clearly

A fear of dying

Becoming mad or losing control

A sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack.

Anatidaephobia is one of the more uncommon phobias in which the fear that somewhere always a duck is watching you no matter where you may go or no matter what you are doing. The word comes from the Greek words of "anatidae" meaning duck and "phobos" meaning fear. Usually in the persons past they have had a trauma involving swans, geese or ducks which has brought them to this very uncommon irrational fear. Waterfowl are well known for their aggresiveness and rapidly flapping wings and this is thought to be the most common reason as well as possibly getting attacked as a small child.

Epistemophobia is the fear of knowledge most likely as a protective mechanisim by the mind from a trauma in the past, maybe a teacher or a school where scolionophobia would be a fear mainly of the institution. The mind has most likely decided that all knowledge is bad rather than specific aspects of it.

Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia is ironically the fear of long words at 15 syllables, where the more common "sesquipedaliophobia" would suffice or the far more manageable "fear of long words" at only 4 syllables. It is derived from the words hippopotomuns and monstrum and is intended to show the scale of the fear of longer words. Again it is likely started from a protective standpoint of the subconscious whereby in school you looked at a long word and wondered how in the world you were ever going to spell it or say and then it migrated to other long words and eventually to them all. More than likely at some time in youth the sufferer found themselves stammering over the consonants and vowels in front of their peers and decided that simply avoiding such things would be better for all concerned.

Lachanophobia is the fear of vegetables, brought on by an extreme distaste to spinach or maybe really bad horror films watched as a small child?

Linonophobia or the fear of string likely sprang from a childhood trauma involving certain presents under the Christmas tree that a sadistic relative decided to knot up so that the entire armies of Heaven could not break through for lack of better explanations existing.

Logizomechanophobia is the fear of computers

Macrophobia, the fear of long waits more than likely comes from a fear of what is coming. We have all been there at the headmasters office where we know what is coming and yet still we must wait, it is this building tension which overrides all other thought processes

Novercaphobia or Pentheraphobia is one that a lot of people can probably relate to, the fear of your step-mother

Ommetaphobia or Ommatophobia is the fear of eyes was likely brought on in early life by such things as seeing such things as a blind man, eyes in a jar or any other gruesome imagery. Like other phobias it can be particularly damaging in social situations where contact with people is important, as most communication is made by the eyes and face.

Phasmophobia is one we are all at least somewhat aware of, the fear of ghosts. It is often confused with spectrophobia which in actuality is the fear of your own reflection or mirrors in general. This phobia is believed to be derived from a time of legend when ghosts were said to be malevolent "beings" who hide in graveyards waiting to trap the unwary...if you have ever spent any time in a graveyard though you will know that it is is unlikely that anything would choose to spend time there.

Phronemophobia or the fear of thinking is an unusual one to be sure, as just the very act of laying eyes on these words are enough to trigger the symptoms...