Do you have any phobias?

[johnnychips]

‘An extreme or irrational fear of or aversion to something.’

I don’t know about a phobia, but I really don’t like snakes. If one comes on a nature documentary I have to force myself to watch. The college where I work has a small animal unit: when it opened I thought I would overcome it by trying to to hold, or just touch one but I couldn’t force myself.

My worst experience was in Sileby, of all places - I was walking down the main street and was vaguely aware of two men getting something out of a van, about twenty feet in front of me. I looked up and it was some sort of python at least twelve feet long, not in a cage at all, but loose. I literally froze (and I mean literally). Then I gave out a squeaky noise and scuttled across the road, my heart racing.

On the other side of the coin, I don’t mind spiders and have held a tarantula. Has anybody else any phobias they would admit to?

 

[styles]

Not that I can think of.

But I was a bit taken aback by the snooker player Mark Williams admitting he has 'diclebgophobia', a fear of tea bags:

Welsh snooker star Mark Williams admits phobia of tea bags

The 50-year-old made the admission while giving an interview during the Welsh Open.

www.bbc.com

A three-time world champion snooker star has revealed he has an unexpected phobia when he steps away from the table.

Mark Williams made the revelation during the Welsh Open where he was eliminated in the last 16 after losing to Barry Hawkins.

The 50-year-old told BBC presenter Catrin Heledd that he was "in trouble" after she exposed him live on air for his fear of tea bags.

 

[Cdd89]

I used to be terrified of elevators (due to the risk of being entrapped), to the extent of being willing to walk 40+ floors up emergency stairs if required.

I have sort of "got over it", but feel there remains some logic behind the phobia. Why would you get into a box that you could become trapped in?

 

[styles]

I used to be terrified of elevators (due to the risk of being entrapped), to the extent of being willing to walk 40+ floors up emergency stairs if required.

I have sort of "got over it", but feel there remains some logic behind the phobia. Why would you get into a box that you could become trapped in?

In fairness I've seen too many videos of lifts and escalators failing in certain countries to use them everywhere. I also find walking up stairs a good form of exercise and my niece enjoys me trying to race her.

 

[adc82140]

I have two: Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes), and a fear of Morris Dancers (yes really).

So visits to reptile centres and folk festivals are off the agenda for me.

Also metathesiophobia or neophobia tends to afflict quite a few in the rail enthusiast community!

 

[Welly]

Also metathesiophobia or neophobia tends to afflict quite a few in the rail enthusiast community!

Siderodromophobia is not one that afflict any rail enthusiast either

 

[nw1]

No problem with snakes, unless they are unusually dangerous ones. For example I've stood relatively close to some adders basking in the sun (not close enough for them to feel threatened, basically around 2 metres), observing them for a while, and they basically continued minding their own business.

I do have a bit of a problem with cattle. I'd say I'm a bit more fearful than the average person, and always try to avoid them in fields. If I get a herd of bullocks running around I will go as far as to scramble under barbed-wire fence and hack through undergrowth in some copse adjacent to the field, to avoid them!

When I was a child (primary school age) I had a fear triggered by a Newsround feature on the giant hogweed back in the early 80s. For a while I thought all plants that looked a bit like that (i.e umbellifers) were the giant hogweed and must not be touched. Then I must have realised this wasn't the case but started thinking they were all the poisonous (but not blistering) hemlock water-dropwort, which I'd read about in a nature book.

My parents touched one umbelliferous plant (likely the common hogweed, which is mostly harmless) to try and convince me it wasn't a giant hogweed, but by then I thought it was a hemlock water-dropwort and we were all going to die as a result! I always kept the hemlock water-dropwort variant of the fear to myself, for some reason.

I finally saw the giant hogweed a little later, in 1984 (about one mile from home, as it happened), and realised it couldn't be mistaken for anything else. It was on a country estate and I hadn't noticed it there before, so I'm guessing it had been deliberately planted. Then two weeks later I saw it in the grounds of a local-history museum, again not far from home. After that it seemed to crop up everywhere I went, including trips to Scotland in 1985, Germany in 1986 and 1987, and the city of Durham in 1988.

More prosaically, I detest wasps and cannot sit still when they are buzzing around a table. Possibly as a result of receiving a bad sting on the eye when I was 5 or 6 years old. Other people don't seem to understand this, and that annoys me. But swap the wasps for some adders lazing around doing nothing a couple of metres away, and I'll be fine!

 

[Jimini]

Empty swimming pools for me. No idea why!

 

[nw1]

Maybe it's not a fear but I cannot abide asymmetric stopping patterns in each direction in the standard off-peak hour in timetables.

So (theoretical example, don't think this actually happens) if the Waterloo-Haslemere calls at Milford and Witley in the down direction, but skips them in the up direction, that just isn't right.

 

[gg1]

Dentists.

I've visited one once in the past 35 years when I needed an extraction, and I paid to go private so I could be sedated for the procedure.

 

[JohnMcL7]

I have a really bad phobia of needles (and in turn dentists) which is frustrating because it's not something I can control, at some point I read a claim that it's like a short circuit in your brain so it triggers a response when it shouldn't be which seems accurate. A few years back I was diagnosed with a thryoid issue, when being diagnosed the GP had said she'd need to do a blood test which I initially refused but another GP came in and just did it which I find helps. I needed another one done the next day and then to my horror was told I'd need to have one done at least once a month. On the first regular one I tried to be confident knowing I'd managed two earlier so I managed to get through the first two but on the third appointment I looked round at the needle as it was being prepared and blacked out. I had the same nurse the next month who wanted me to go on a bed this time but I said as long as I don't see the needle and they don't wait I can get through it.

When it came to covid vaccinations I was pleased I did go and get them done plus when in the 15 minute waiting period after with other people, someone had fainted which people were discussing and there were a number of people saying they had a needle phobia as well. It's frustrating and embarrassing dealing with it but at least it's more common than I realised.

 

[SuspectUsual]

Cremnophobia (fear of cliffs and precipices) which over time has developed into a more general fear of looking over balconies etc

I also have a massive issue with dogs, but that’s based on a horrific event that actually happened to me so probably isn’t a phobia in the sense that it isn’t irrational

 

[Chrius56000]

. . . There's one thing I'm squeamish about, and that's inflamed, diseased or damaged eyes!

. . .It stems from a Monday Morning in School Assembly when a boy came in to school with an eye inflammation that produced gruesome lines of red squiggles running from the iris to the extremities – I never did find out what was wrong with this boy but obviously others didn't like it as he didn't appear in assembly the next morning and for a fortnight afterwards!

. . .That's the reason I'm squeamish about attending opthalmology clinics – fortunately the treatment I had was successful and I've now been discharged from the clinic!

 

[3141]

My wife has claustrophobia. She dislikes travelling in planes and when we have done so she wants to sit in an aisle seat, which is a problem on planes with rows of three seats (like most today) because I prefer to sit by a window. She feels a need to be able to see a way out. She particularly dislikes the situation when a plane lands and has taxied to the point where passengers are going to exit, because almost everyone stands up and blocks the gangway and she is hemmed in. She finds a crowded Underground train difficult. We've never been stuck in a crowded train for a long time, and I hope we never do because I don't know how she would react. She would rather walk up stairs than use a crowded lift, and we had a difficult time at a hotel in Reading eighteen months ago where only one lift was working so it was perpetually busy. She has been unable to visit caves where you move out of sight of the entrance and the illumination between the visitors and the exit is switched off.

My fear is not heights in themselves, but the prospect of having to walk on a narrow ledge beside a drop without the protection of railings. I have dreams about being in this situation.

When I was working in a rural area of Zambia over fifty years ago there was a Chinese man from Singapore, named Lim, who had a phobia about snakes. One evening another member of the staff had killed a snake and opened Lim's car (many people didn't bother to lock cars overnight) and wound the snake's body round the steering wheel. Later that evening Lim came out of his house, opened the car door, saw the snake and rushed back inside. In the next-door house lived a Canadian family whose teenage sons were home from boarding school at that time. Lim assumed that one of those boys was responsible, so he wrote an impassioned note about how he was terrified of snakes and they really shouldn't have done it. He folded the paper and stuck it under the wipers of the Canadians' car. When they came out next morning they found the paper. But they couldn't read it because Lim had been so upset that he'd written the note in Mandarin.

 

[Acey]

My wife has claustrophobia. She dislikes travelling in planes and when we have done so she wants to sit in an aisle seat, which is a problem on planes with rows of three seats (like most today) because I prefer to sit by a window. She feels a need to be able to see a way out. She particularly dislikes the situation when a plane lands and has taxied to the point where passengers are going to exit, because almost everyone stands up and blocks the gangway and she is hemmed in. She finds a crowded Underground train difficult. We've never been stuck in a crowded train for a long time, and I hope we never do because I don't know how she would react. She would rather walk up stairs than use a crowded lift, and we had a difficult time at a hotel in Reading eighteen months ago where only one lift was working so it was perpetually busy. She has been unable to visit caves where you move out of sight of the entrance and the illumination between the visitors and the exit is switched off.

My fear is not heights in themselves, but the prospect of having to walk on a narrow ledge beside a drop without the protection of railings. I have dreams about being in this situation.

When I was working in a rural area of Zambia over fifty years ago there was a Chinese man from Singapore, named Lim, who had a phobia about snakes. One evening another member of the staff had killed a snake and opened Lim's car (many people didn't bother to lock cars overnight) and wound the snake's body round the steering wheel. Later that evening Lim came out of his house, opened the car door, saw the snake and rushed back inside. In the next-door house lived a Canadian family whose teenage sons were home from boarding school at that time. Lim assumed that one of those boys was responsible, so he wrote an impassioned note about how he was terrified of snakes and they really shouldn't have done it. He folded the paper and stuck it under the wipers of the Canadians' car. When they came out next morning they found the paper. But they couldn't read it because Lim had been so upset that he'd written the note in Mandarin.

" my fear is not heights in themselves, but the prospect of having to walk on a narrow ledge beside a drop without the protection of railings. I have dreams about being in this situation"
For Heavens sake don't attempt to climb Yr Wyddfa ( Mt Snowdon ) via Crib Goch,your worst fears realised !

 

[Cowley]

Ok, it’s a bit weird but holding people up. As in I don’t cope well with being the front person in a queue etc.

It’s especially bad for me if I’m with Mrs C at a supermarket checkout and she suddenly starts hoiking 10% off vouchers out of her bag. At that point (she’s used to this and finds it amusing), I have to walk out of the shop.

It feels to me like people are tutting, harrumphing and standing on my heels, even though they’re really not!

 

[Horizon22]

Probably heights, although it is more the sheer edges whilst up high always get to me. For example, looking down at a drop.

Always as someone that has never been a strong swimmer, I really try and avoid being in open water. Being on a boat/ferry is normally fine though.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Mar 2026 ==

My fear is not heights in themselves, but the prospect of having to walk on a narrow ledge beside a drop without the protection of railings. I have dreams about being in this situation.

Yes, exactly the same for me.

 

[DelW]

When I was a child (primary school age) I had a fear triggered by a Newsround feature on the giant hogweed back in the early 80s. For a while I thought all plants that looked a bit like that (i.e umbellifers) were the giant hogweed and must not be touched. Then I must have realised this wasn't the case but started thinking they were all the poisonous (but not blistering) hemlock water-dropwort, which I'd read about in a nature book.

My parents touched one umbelliferous plant (likely the common hogweed, which is mostly harmless) to try and convince me it wasn't a giant hogweed, but by then I thought it was a hemlock water-dropwort and we were all going to die as a result! I always kept the hemlock water-dropwort variant of the fear to myself, for some reason.

I finally saw the giant hogweed a little later, in 1984 (about one mile from home, as it happened), and realised it couldn't be mistaken for anything else. It was on a country estate and I hadn't noticed it there before, so I'm guessing it had been deliberately planted. Then two weeks later I saw it in the grounds of a local-history museum, again not far from home. After that it seemed to crop up everywhere I went, including trips to Scotland in 1985, Germany in 1986 and 1987, and the city of Durham in 1988.

You're probably best to avoid Genesis' album Nursery Cryme.

In particular, "The Return of the Giant Hogweed":

Turn and run!
Nothing can stop them,
Around every river and canal their power is growing.
Stamp them out!
We must destroy them,
They infiltrate each city with their thick dark warning odour.
.......

.......
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
Soon they escaped, spreading their seed,
Preparing for an onslaught, threatening the human race.

The dance of the giant hogweed

Mighty hogweed is avenged.
Human bodies soon will know our anger.
Kill them with your hogweed hairs
Heracleum mantegazziani

Giant hogweed lives

 

[nw1]

You're probably best to avoid Genesis' album Nursery Cryme.

In particular, "The Return of the Giant Hogweed":

I know it well - the song and the whole album. I don't think I have an excessive fear of giant hogweeds these days, though obviously I would keep well clear of one. Still find them quite freaky though, I think it's a combination of their dangerous nature and their other-worldly appearance; if I encountered one and I wasn't expecting it, I would jump.

 

[philjo]

I am not good with paths with a large drop. Unfortunately I now have problems with some high footbridges on footpaths over rivers or motorways or even some station bridges. I tend to avoid coast paths unless I know there isn’t much of a cliff or if the path if a long way from the edge. So now have to plan all routes in advance to check if there is a section of path or bridge I would have problems with. A couple of train journeys where the destination station platform had a difficult footbridge as the only exit from that platform involved having to go further up the line to a station where I could cross over and get the next train back. Shifnal was a recent example. Though the lift a Telford was not working and the ramp was even worse so had to go to Wellington to cross over.

 

[Harpo]

Oddly I feel fine stood on the cliff edges to coastal paths but feel the sphincter clench of doom on the man-made equivalent. The balcony inside the dome of St. Pauls Cathedral is the ultimate version of the fear, and a place where I back away to the wall.

 

[brad465]

I don't know if it's a phobia as such, but for some reason I cannot cope with someone else being told off/in trouble within my vicinity, even when I'm completely innocent and clearly have nothing to do with said situation. It's not something I've always had, as it was not a problem at school when this was obviously a daily occurrence. Of course when I'm the one in trouble I can struggle to come to terms, but even this is often less bothersome than the former case.

Also as a child I had a phobia of conversations about certain types of weather being experienced at the time. Snow was a particular example of this, but applicable to other rare/extreme examples, even though I had no fear of a given weather type itself.

 

[Railwaycat]

World War 3

 

[Cowley]

World War 3

Very much a rational fear that one

 

[Cdd89]

More prosaically, I detest wasps and cannot sit still when they are buzzing around a table. Possibly as a result of receiving a bad sting on the eye when I was 5 or 6 years old. Other people don't seem to understand this, and that annoys me

Yes I have a severe wasp phobia as well, and despise it when people suggest "eating outdoors". Unlike you, though, I have never been stung. (Sometimes I think that if I did, I'd get over it - maybe the same would apply to you if stung as an adult, as from what I understand it's unpleasant but not that bad!)

 

[nw1]

Yes I have a severe wasp phobia as well, and despise it when people suggest "eating outdoors". Unlike you, though, I have never been stung. (Sometimes I think that if I did, I'd get over it - maybe the same would apply to you if stung as an adult, as from what I understand it's unpleasant but not that bad!)

I was also stung as a young adult in the 90s, and my arm swelled up. I think it's made it even worse!

I don't have a problem with eating outdoors, as such and wouldn't turn it down. I just don't like it when people say "calm down, it's only a wasp". Yeah, right.

A pan-European pest, too, unfortunately. I've encountered the damned things from Northern England to Austria to Mediterranean countries.

 

[Sun Chariot]

Ok, it’s a bit weird but holding people up. As in I don’t cope well with being the front person in a queue etc.

For a brief moment, I thought you meant you had a phobia of physically lifting up random people.


Nearly 30 years ago, two people I worked with had curious phobias:

An early-20s lady told us she had a phobia of loose buttons. She was fine with buttons on clothing; but any button laying loose was a no-no and she couldn't bring herself to touch it.

An older chap embarrassingly admitted to having a phobia of toilet-rolls. You read it correctly! He told us he was OK to use a loo roll if a sheet hung down - he could pull it down, to tear the sheets off. But - squeezing, or changing, a toilet-roll was, apparently, too much.

 

[nw1]

Very much a rational fear that one

I'd hope that people would see sense before that happens, even if it involves removing Trump internally by force.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Mar 2026 ==

For a brief moment, I thought you meant you had a phobia of physically lifting up random people.


Nearly 30 years ago, two people I worked with had curious phobias:

An early-20s lady told us she had a phobia of loose buttons. She was fine with buttons on clothing; but any button laying loose was a no-no and she couldn't bring herself to touch it.

An older chap embarrassingly admitted to having a phobia of toilet-rolls. You read it correctly! He told us he was OK to use a loo roll if a sheet hung down - he could pull it down, to tear the sheets off. But - squeezing, or changing, a toilet-roll was, apparently, too much.

When I was a young child of around 4 or 5, I had a fear of certain lamp shades and naked bulbs. In later childhood this eased but in my early teens I suffered a relapse and remember one night having to sleep in my parents' bedroom due to some decoration work, and there being a naked bulb. I was very apprehensive at first but somehow managed it and after that, the fear seemed to disappear for good.

That said, even nowadays I get the occasional nightmare about the wire holding a naked bulb extending down from the ceiling, with the bulb dropping to eye level to taunt me. Crazy I know but I guess it's an imprint from childhood fears remaining there. Likewise I occasionally get disturbing dreams about the giant hogweed (also see above) and cattle.

A related memory is how as a young child (again 4 or 5) I was frightened of a specific street lamp in Cemaes Bay, Anglesey and having to go down a pavement on the side of the road where the hedge blocked its view. I think it was broken, with the bulb hanging out, or something.

 

[Railwaycat]

Very much a rational fear that one

Yes, unfortunately.

My phobia has always been sudden bangs (blasting bangs on opencast sites never bothered me), I've always hated bonfire night, although these days it's more the thought that in many parts of the world (very relevant now) such explosive sounds mean fear, death and destruction for people. However, that phobia maybe more rational than it sounds - I've always had (not so much now) very good hearing, and a few years ago I was told that I had very wide ear canals (or something to the same effect), so maybe loud noises affect me more than most people.

 

[olddriver]

Swimming in open bodies of water does it for me. I’m not scared of drowning but the fear is what might be in there with me. If I do ever find myself in the sea on holiday (which is very, very rare), I constantly hear the Jaws theme in my head.