Top 10 Bizarre Fears and Phobias
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10. Nomophobia – (No-mobile-phone-phobia)
  This one is first on the list because it is not yet a phobia,
but it seems to be going that way. At the moment we can all rest
easy and call this a little silly, but a poll commissioned by
the English Post Office might give us all reason to re-consider.
Apparently 53 per cent of English people polled said they felt
anxiety about being out of cell phone range, losing a
connection, or forgetting their phone. That’s not exactly big
news is it? After all it’s only natural to get annoyed by things
like that. But if you look a little closer you’ll start to see
the beginnings of something else. This is not just annoyance,
its anxiety! Okay it’s not exactly fear yet, but it’s growing,
and one day not to far into the future we may actually hear of a
recorded case of debilitating fear due to the lack of cell phone
signal. The scary thing is that if this newly coined fear were
to turn into an outright phobia, the world probably wouldn’t
even notice until it was too late. How many teenagers do no
without a cell phone? They’ll be the older generation one day;
so how many of they’re grandchildren do you think will go
without a phone? One day someone might lose their phone and find
out they can’t continue to function until they find out where it
is.
9. Emetophobia – Vomit
 This
affects a lot more people then you might think, and it goes
beyond the general dislike everyone feels about vomiting. The
phobia, like all phobias, is an irrational fear and the people
experiencing realize this. Some research has suggested that
people suffering from the condition have an ‘internal locus’
rather than an ‘external locus.’ Essential this means that
people suffering from emetophobia believe things to be under
their control, whereas people with external loci accept that
some things simply aren’t. As we all know vomiting it not
something you have a choice in and people suffering from
emetophobia fear facing this lack of control. But the phobia can
also be based on the sight, smell, or sound of vomiting. It can
inhibit someone’s day to day life in a number of ways. People
suffering from emetophobia might refuse to eat out for fear of
food poisoning, they can be excessively concerned with food
hygiene, avoid hospitals when having stomach problems and put of
getting pregnant all together because of morning sickness. The
fear is often linked to heights because and the disorientation
feeling of looking down that makes you feel nauseous.
8. Ablutophobia – Bathing
Ever met someone and wondered why they smell so bad? Well they
might just be suffering from ablutophobia. This is the
irrational fear of bathing, washing or cleaning your self and is
usual traced back to a childhood trauma but it can also result
from seeing someone else get in trouble in the water, even on
television! Somewhere in the mass of wiring we call the brain
the incident can get connected to the act of bathing, showering,
and washing with water and by avoiding it the person thinks they
can escape the hazard. As with all phobias the people who suffer
from ablutophobia are aware that it is an irrational fear, but
fear’s funny like that, just because you know something probably
won’t happen, doesn’t stop you thinking about what could happen.
7. Gephyrophobia – Bridges
 Most of the phobias here are ‘specialty phobias’ which means
that they are linked to one of the bigger, more commonly known
fears. Gephyrophobia is no different and is often linked with
the fear of heights, or open spaces. This phobia recently had
some press mention in the New York Times when they wrote an
article about a woman suffering from the condition in January
2008. In this article it was pointed out that the Tappan Zee
Bridge inspired such terror in people that New York State actual
provides a driver for those who just can’t bring themselves to
cross on their own. Gephyrophobiacs suffer this kind of fear
regularly, never mind on a bridge that would scar anyone, and if
they are unfortunate enough to live in an area where bridges are
used a lot then they are known to drive miles out of their way
to avoid them.
6. Gynophobia – Women
 Not to be confused with misogyny, the loathing or hatred of
women, gynophobia is an irrational fear of women. The myths of
Amazonian warrior women, the fear present in latter day
witch-hunts could be symptoms of gynophobia. Perhaps. But the
condition is not a hatred of women, but a fear of women. Just
like with bathing or vomiting, the gynophobic do not have to
believe that the subject of their fear is evil. These aren’t the
people hurting women, but the ones cowering in corners worried
that a woman might be out to get them.
5. Phagophobia – Swallowing
  A
specific phobia often confused with other conditions and
phobias. People suffering from phagophobia complain that they
have difficulty swallowing but there is no physical condition
hampering them. This was why it was originally named ‘choking
phobia’ because it was often brought on by experiencing or
witnessing a choking fit. But that lead to the assumption that
the people suffering phagophobia were actual afraid of chocking.
In fact it is an intense anxiety about swallowing. Not to be
confused with a fear of eating, these people have no problem
with food, but find it scary to swallow. It can often be
overlook as a dietary problem like anorexia or bulimia since
without being able to swallow sufferers often exhibit sever
weight loss. But some less affected cases may eat an entirely
liquid diet.
4. Tetraphobia – Four
 A
fear of the number four. This condition is found most often in
the Eastern world because of the similarity between the Chinese
word ‘four, and ‘death’ (In most dialects anyway.) The same
pattern persists in some Japanese and Korean languages. As such
this might be considered a fear rather then a phobia, but it is
irrational and people do go out of their way to avoid the number
four in a variety of situations such as during festivals and
when a family member is ill, or missing. Elevators in the West
often leave out the number ‘13’ for the same reason, and
reversely in the East elevators and room numbers often avoid
using the number 4. It makes number four on the list, mainly
because it is good irony, but also because it has a large hold
on a large culture.
3. Coulrophobia – Send in the clowns
  Who
wouldn’t put the fear of clowns, (and mimes), on a list like
this? Perhaps a better question is who doesn’t feel a little
fear about the funny men in big pants and red noses? But
coulrophobia is actually a much more acute sensation then the
rest of us feel, and Bonzo has been known to give some people
panic attacks, dizzy spells, and feelings of detachment along
with the poodle shaped balloon. It is of course more common in
children, and some studies have shown that clown designs on
hospital wall paper are a bad idea, but there are many adults
suffering from the condition. Still it seems likely that most
coulrophobia originates from childhood incidents. It may be
linked to the fear of having your own face covered, (with paint
in the case of clowns), but it might also stem from a distrust
of people who hide their faces. (Bank robbers, muggers, and
people like that. Or perhaps even John Gracy the serial killer
who liked to dress up as a clown at parties.) Not to be hard on
the men and women of the clown industry but it seems that clowns
offer themselves to coulrophobia sufferers as untrustworthy and
dangerous.
2. Phobophobia – There’s nothing to fear but fear itself
 Can
you beat that? Well we’ll see when we get to number 1, but at
the moment let’s consider the fear, of fear. It is liked with
anxiety disorders and more common phobias like agoraphobia, (the
fear of the market place, or the outdoors in today’s language.)
But it is more commonly describes as a fear of fears, or a fear
of developing phobias. People suffering from this disorder often
have anxiety issues to begin with and phobophobia is the result
of being so afraid of the internal consequences of anxiety. In
other words a person can get so afraid of the sensation of
anxiety that they become petrified of it happening again. As has
been said before a phobia is an irrational fear and phobophobia
is about as irrational as you can get. No matter what the old
saying says. In the end this makes number two just for the way
it twists your head around trying to understand it.
1. Autophobia (or Monophobia) – Fear yourself
 This phobia has to be the worst, right? The condition can simply
mean ‘the fear of being alone,’ which I suppose we can all
understand. But a rarer version of the phobia is actual being
afraid of, or not trusting, your self. How exactly do you deal
with that kind of thing? Symptoms of the condition included
breathlessness and dry mouth to nausea, heart palpitations and a
sensation of detachment. The way out? Well, besides some current
therapies being developed and plugged on the Internet
autophobics have the same options as every one else: Long and
involved therapy, hypnosis maybe? The statistics for curing
autophobia are low, sometimes as low as 5 per cent, and in the
mean time you are irrationally afraid of yourself- because you
don’t trust you and you might just hurt you. Get it? In any case
this is perhaps the one fear, besides phobohobia, that truly
does follow you wherever you go.
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