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Curious Phobias & Irrational Fears

oldrover said:
Firstly well done on the links. You've left me behind.

Secondly, I share this phobia in organic things. And the Suriname toad, midwife toad, and the like are particularly distressing to my sensibilities.
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If one feels that way, one does -- phobias are handed to one by life, and one wishes to heaven that they hadn't been. Just luck, that I've been spared this one !

In addition -- I've been inured to the Suriname toad from an early age, by reading Gerald Durrell's book Three Singles to Adventure, about an expedition by him to Guyana, collecting animals for zoos, circa 1950. Among his "haul", was a mother-to-be Suriname toad. Durrell being Durrell, this was for him a delightful and fascinating creature. A passage in the book recounts how in the course of the voyage back to Britain of him and his collection, by cargo ship, the toad's brood hatched out. I followed the author, in finding it highly interesting and affecting. He paid close attention to the emerging of the toadlets (taking a fair few hours), giving assistance via a matchstick where necessary.

He remarks in the book, on how quite a number of the members of the ship's crew -- seemingly rough, tough blokes who would appear not obviously "nurturing" or likely to have any regard for weird foreign creatures -- took a great interest in, and were almost soppily concerned about, the hatching of the toadlets. People are endlessly surprising...
 
My Nan , who was born in 1926 has an irrational fear of spaghetti . When she was a child in London her friend ran out in front of a horse and cart and didn't make it. She got her head crushed by the wheel and her brains spilled out and my Nan saw it.
She can't even hold a tin in her hand.
 
Stillill said:
My Nan , who was born in 1926 has an irrational fear of spaghetti . When she was a child in London her friend ran out in front of a horse and cart and didn't make it. She got her head crushed by the wheel and her brains spilled out and my Nan saw it.
She can't even hold a tin in her hand.
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Forgot to add that she's always thought that the brain matter looked like spaghetti .
 
Stillill said:
Forgot to add that she's always thought that the brain matter looked like spaghetti .
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Ye gods. I have to say, though, the resultant fear doesn't sound enormously irrational to me. Unusual, sure, but highly understandable. I had a thing about bungee cords for quite a while, which might sound odd, but one of them once had a very good go at blinding my left eye, so, you know...
 
Krepostnoi said:
Ye gods. I have to say, though, the resultant fear doesn't sound enormously irrational to me. Unusual, sure, but highly understandable. I had a thing about bungee cords for quite a while, which might sound odd, but one of them once had a very good go at blinding my left eye, so, you know...
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I could understand if she had a fear of horses and carts.
I once got flicked in the nuts by the end of a bungee cord by someone messing about at work. They came up like a balloon.
 
I've read somewhere recently, most likely in one of the TITs*, that as people learn to be afraid of dentistry after a traumatic experience they are probably suffering from PTSD rather than a phobia. So it's a more rational fear.

I have a phobia that makes me instantly throw up if I'm presented with the thing in question when unprepared.
I'm like Yow! BAAARRRRFFFFF oops! :(

I don't even have to see it. It has come up in the news recently and I have been reduced to reeling across the kitchen, retching, eyes watering, clawing at the radio to shut it up. Must look a prat! :rolleyes:

*Times/Independent/Telegraph
 
escargot1 said:
I have a phobia that makes me instantly throw up if I'm presented with the thing in question when unprepared.
I'm like Yow! BAAARRRRFFFFF oops! :(

I don't even have to see it. It has come up in the news recently and I have been reduced to reeling across the kitchen, retching, eyes watering, clawing at the radio to shut it up. Must look a prat! :rolleyes:
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Do tell us in great detail what 'it' is. Thank you. :D
 
It has to do with water. The salty kind with waves. There are... things in there. :eek:
 
escargot1 said:
How would YOU know what my favourite saying is?
You're not my daughter.
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Wouldn't it be ironic if it was proven that Mythopoeika was your daughter, but neither of you knew it?

I always have an irrational fear of such unlikely events....being made into a really-poor 'B' movie. If it's going to happen, much better for it to be full budget Hollywood, plenty of CGI, and maybe one musical number. Total Recall meets The Directors ...

So I say, maybe it happened...but you've both been reprogrammed to forget. And Myth's been covertly gender reassigned remotely....
 
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Thirties/Forties Art Deco brick-built cinemas/music halls always give me the creeps.
Submerged machinery in flooded quarries and reservoirs.
Railway tunnel air shafts.
Cauliflower cheese.
 
Ermintrude said:
Wouldn't it be ironic if it was proven that Mythopoeika was your daughter, but neither of you knew it?

I always have an irrational fear of such unlikely events....being made into a really-poor 'B' movie. If it's going to happen, much better for it to be full budget Hollywood, plenty of CGI, and maybe one musical number. Total Recall meets The Directors ...

So I say, maybe it happened...but you've both been reprogrammed to forget. And Myth's been covertly gender reassigned remotely....
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Oi! I'm a bloke.

Last time I looked, anyway...
 
heisenbear said:
Thirties/Forties Art Deco brick-built cinemas/music halls always give me the creeps.
Submerged machinery in flooded quarries and reservoirs.
Railway tunnel air shafts.
Cauliflower cheese.
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I'm with you on that last one.
 
heisenbear said:
Thirties/Forties Art Deco brick-built cinemas/music halls always give me the creeps.
Submerged machinery in flooded quarries and reservoirs.
Railway tunnel air shafts.
Cauliflower cheese.
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That one.
 
heisenbear said:
Thirties/Forties Art Deco brick-built cinemas/music halls always give me the creeps.
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That's a bit like being afraid of dinosaurs!

I'm told there's an eccentric enthusiast who keeps a warehouse full of rescued cinema organs. If his breeding programme is successful, the Plazasaurus Rex will be stalking every highstreet and helpless herds of victims will be swallowed by its gaping maw. On Saturdays it eats children!

Sorry about that! :evil:
 
Cauliflower cheese - Escet hates cauliflower. He reckons it squeaks when you bite it.

I said, well, so would a mouse, but I don't hear you complaining about them! :twisted:



No, I have no idea either.
 
False teeth .. I hate them.

When I worked at a hospital I'd do anything to avoid having to wash people's dentures, if I had to I'd have to throw up afterwards. Other than that I wasn't the least bit squeamish .. vomit, urine, blood, faeces, maggot therapy, bowel cancer diarrhoea .... the list goes on, I could deal with them all and be eating a cheese sandwich 15 minutes later on my break without batting an eye lid .. I used to trade disgusting jobs with student nurses just so I didn't have to clean dentures. I can't even look inside the plastic mug me and the Mrs keep our tooth brushes in still today just in case there's any mouth 'goo' dried up or slimey at the bottom ..
 
Swifty said:
False teeth .. I hate them.

When I worked at a hospital I'd do anything to avoid having to wash people's dentures, if I had to I'd have to throw up afterwards.
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I was pretty much barf-resistant in that line of work; I'd think it's only blood/shit/sick/whatever and manage that way.

The worst was chest suction, where gunge is mechanically removed from patients' lungs through a tube. The gunge is recovered into a clear plastic container which it often fell to me to empty and clean. The contents would be yellow, green, streaked with blood, you name it, and would stink nastily. That process did give me pause a few times.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen was a student nurse assisting with laying-out a deceased patient, or rather, hindering the process.

She kept bursting out of the side room, crying and retching, and the staff nurse'd chase her out and order her back in.

The problem was that the deceased patient needed their dentures putting in.
The staff nurse decided that the student should do this important job but the poor girl just couldn't cope with it.]

We were all hysterical with laughter. We weren't laughing at the patient, I hasten to add, just the student's unexpected panic.

Fair play to her, I think she managed in the end.
 
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