Help Me I’m A Phobiaphobe

Some time in the first century AD Roman writer and physicist Aulus Cornelius Celsius (not to be confused with the 18th century Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius) first used the phrase ‘phobia’ as a way of describing morbid fears. Little did he imagine his theory would have transcended into such lunacy. 2000 years later and it is now possible to be diagnosed with geniophobia, the fear of chins, or kathisophobia, the fear of sitting down.

How can you be scared of chins? Apparently phobias are more often than not the result of traumatic life experiences, such anxieties should not be mocked. Others beg belief and defy explanation, what kind of atrocity could possibly lead to a fear of string (linonophobia)?I get the feeling there are a lot of greedy psychotherapists out there ripping off gullible morons.

”I’m terribly sorry ma’am it appears the reason your son is doing so badly in English class is because he suffers from bibliophobia and is terrified of books”.” Oh how awful, is there anything we can do to rid him of this terrible affliction?”. “It is curable but I am afraid it will mean several weeks of expensive therapy”.

While you’re at it you may as well diagnose the mother with plutophobia- the fear of wealth, and convince her that the best thing to do is hand over all her valuable assets immediately. I don’t mean to paint a terrible picture of psychotherapists and psychologists, I’m sure they provide a very valuable service on the whole. But someone must have dreamt up, and diagnosed these stupid phobias, many of which would just be impossible to live with.

To illustrate this let me tell you a little story, we need a character, let’s call him Kevin. Kevin wants to take his girlfriend for a meal. First he needs to decide where to go, this is difficult for Kevin as he suffers from ideaphobia and is scared of ideas. He calls his girlfriend and suggests she choose the venue, this was probably a wise move because he doesn’t even know of any restaurants. In fact he doesn’t know very much at all because he also suffers from epistemophobia and is terrified of knowledge, needleless to say he didn’t do very well at school.

Kevin’s girlfriend suggests they go to the Black Horse Inn, there is a table available at 8:30, it’s only a short walk away and they do a magnificent mushroom stroganoff. This makes Kevin very anxious indeed. The name of the restaurant alone creates all sorts of problems for him as he suffers from Hippophobia and Melanophobia and is therefore afraid of horses and the colour black. Hopefully there will be no further references to these than the signage, he could probably avoid causing a scene so long as he keeps his head down. A more pressing matter is his fear of the moon (selenophobia) and of walking (ambulophobia).He does not dare begin to contemplate his aversion to mushrooms at this stage (mycophobia).

As expected the journey to the restaurant is perilous . Caught up in his efforts to surpress his ambulophobia and selenophobia he forgets about his levophobia. Levophobia is the fear of things to the left hand side of the body. In this instance that meant Kevin’s girlfriend, who did not take kindly to his uncontrollable screeching. Luckily she was very patient and before long they arrived at The Black Horse.

Once inside the waiter led the couple to their table and invited them to take a look at the menu. At this point Kevin began sweating profusely. You see Kevin suffered from cathisophobia (the fear of sitting) and was also scared of paper (papyrophobia).He decided to remedy this by standing while his girlfriend read out the menu. (taking special care to avoid suggesting anything with garlic (alliumphobia) or vegetables (lachanophobia)). This drew a few bemused glances from the other diners.

What happened next however would attract far more attention. Kevin’s symptoms where often misinterpreted for hostility. So when he suffered an uncontrollable bout of melanophobia the Nigerian family on the next table got very offended indeed. So much so that Kevin and his girlfriend where asked to leave and never come back.

Incredibly Kevin’s girlfriend remained keen and suggested they go see some belly dancing to get them in the mood. This was the straw that broke the camels back. The thought of belly buttons terrified Kevin so much (omphalophobia) he rang his psychotherapist. The end.

Please do not write any nasty comments about this blog because I suffer from rhabdophobia.

All the phobias mentioned are real, if you do not believe me check out