Into the Mind’s Abyss: 25 Bizarre Phobias You Never Knew Existed

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1Tokophobia

Tokophobia

Tokophobia is a pathological fear of pregnancy and it can lead to avoidance of childbirth. It can be further classified as primary or secondary. Primary Tokophobia is the fear and deep-seated dread of childbirth in women who have never experienced birth. Secondary Tokophobia is caused by a traumatic birth experience.


2. Deipnophobia is the fear of dining or dinner conversations and is a branch of sociophobia, which is intense, excessive, and irrational fear in social situations. It is usually triggered by a past traumatic experience.


3. Charles Darwin suffered from agoraphobia (panic disorder). He suffered constant nausea, trembling, and crying; rendering him virtually bedridden from the age of 30 until his death. His disorder was so severe he even avoided conversations with his own children.


4. Kansas City Chiefs Safety, Eric Berry suffers from equinophobia, a fear of horses. His condition is frequently brought on by the team's mascot, Warpaint.


5. Coulrophobia is the intense fear of clowns. Some people find any concealment of another person's true face unsettling because it masks a source of communication about their emotional state and identity.


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6Number 666

Number 666

The fear of the number 666 is called Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia and in 1989, Nancy and Ronald Reagan, when moving to their home in the Bel-Air section of Los Angeles after the 1988 election, had its address—666 St. Cloud Road—changed to 668 St. Cloud Road.


7. Trypophobia is an aversion or fear of irregular patterns or clusters of small holes or bumps, similar to those in lotus seedheads and damaged skin tissue.


8. Countries like China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan have Tetraphobia, the fear of the number 4. Chinese people take care not to use the number 4 during important holidays, or if someone in the family is sick. Numbers such as 14, 24, and so on, are not used because they also have the number 4.


9. Samhainophobia is the medical term for the irrational fear of Halloween. The root word is expressive of the ancient Celts who held a ceremony called Samhain in order to honor the harvest cycle.


10. Amaxophobia is an abnormal or persistent fear of being in or riding in, a vehicle. Amaxophobic sufferers riding in a vehicle will typically fear the accident and its consequences, especially injury or death.


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11Eurotophobia

Eurotophobia

Eurotophobia is the aversion or fear of female genitalia. It can affect both men and women. In some people, it’s a spin-off of aversion to perceived by-products of the female genitalia, such as discharge or mucus. It develops more frequently in people who were molested by an adult female.


12. Venustraphobia is the fear of beautiful women. It is believed that past experience with women is one of the major causes of this. Low self-esteem and poor social performance with ladies may also cause this.


13. Koro syndrome is a psychiatric disorder characterized by anxiety and a deep fear of the shrinking of the penis and/or retraction of the genitals into the abdomen until they disappear. The sufferers believe that when the genitals do disappear they will die. It is triggered by rumors of genital disappearance supposedly caused in China by female fox spirits, in Singapore and Thailand by mass poisoning, and in Africa by sorcery, usually in the context of socio-economic or political tension.


14. People with claustrophobia and other panic disorders have a smaller amygdala, the part of the brain that processes fear.


15. The phobia of having a phobia is called phobophobia. It also increases the effects of other phobias the person has because of the phobia being triggered when they engage in a phobia.


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16Anthropophobia

Anthropophobia

Anthropophobia is an extreme, pathological form of shyness and timidity. Being a form of social phobia, it may manifest as fears of blushing or meeting others' gaze, awkwardness, and uneasiness when appearing in society.


17. There is a psychological condition known as Cherophobia. It quite literally means the fear of being happy. Individuals with this condition are said to experience anxiety at joyful events like parties, refuse to engage in life-improving opportunities, and shun joyous people.


18. Atelophobia is the fear of not being good enough or a fear of imperfection. An atelophobic has the fear that whatever he is doing is wrong in some way.


19. Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud had a morbid fear of ferns a.k.a. “Pteridophobia.”


20. There is an uncommon phobia to balloons called ‘globophobia.’ Those who suffer from it tend to avoid parties and weddings.


21Aquaphobia and Hydrophobia

Aquaphobia and Hydrophobia

Aquaphobia and Hydrophobia are two different things. Aquaphobia is an abnormal fear of water and Hydrophobia is actually a historical term for rabies that was used because victims would panic when presented water to drink.


22. Ophidiophobia or fear of snakes is the most common phobia, as one-third of adult humans have it.


23. Arachnophobia or fear of spiders may be an exaggerated form of an instinctive response that helped early humans to survive.


24. Nearly 6.6% of Americans suffer from paruresis, a phobia of urinating in the presence of others, such as in a public restroom.


25. David Bowie had a fear of flying a.ka. aerophobia. After a rocky flight to Cyprus in the early 70s, he preferred to do most of his traveling around the world by train or ship.

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