Phobias

            Hi, I’m Tim Cubbin, this is an essay about phobias, but you probably could tell this as you clicked on to this to read this essay.

            Let’s hop on in and start at the best logical point: what, exactly, is a phobia. For this definition, we’re going to consult dictionary.com. A phobia is “an intense, persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, situation, or person that manifests in physical symptoms such as sweating, trembling, rapid heartbeat, or shortness of breath, and that motivates avoidance behavior.” I have to believe that every living human being has at least ONE phobia. I mean, I know we have brave people, like firefighters who run into a burning building. They clearly are not afraid of fire, even though it is literally life-threatening. But there has to be SOMETHING a firefighter is afraid of.

            Now, there are MANY phobias. Some things are really dangerous and serious, while some little things can scare people. For example, people can be afraid of spiders, heights, dark places, to name a few. I think the best way to approach the rest of this essay with my own PERSONAL fears, just to give the optimal results as defining random phobias would just not be effective. Some of my fears people may find extremely strange, or very common, so this will prove to be rather interesting.

            I have a TERRIBLE fear of snakes, which is called ophidiophobia. I cannot be in the same room as a snake. It makes me so uncomfortable. Let’s look at my thoughts first. Are snakes dangerous? Yes. And no. Do snakes bite? Yes. But doesn’t EVERY animal bite? I mean, I have a cat. Has she bitten me? Yes. Am I afraid of HER? No. But does a snake go around randomly biting people just for its jollies? No. They only bite if they feel threatened. Would a snake slithering by just think “Oh, hey, look, it’s a human! Won’t it be fun to just bite it?” Absolutely not. There are three other major factors that drive ophidiophobia. The first is that some snakes will wrap around their victims and crush them to death. Now, is this important? Yes. But those snakes can be compulsive and crush victims to prepare to actually EAT them. Yes, the second factor is snakes are known to eat humans. This is, however, NOT actually common. A snake would only do that if it is truly hungry. And it would have to be a relatively LARGE snake in order to do that. Little snakes slithering around in your backyard aren’t going to eat you. BUT! That is only little snakes. Yes, some countries do have large snakes that live all over the place, but they’re not going to just eat you for (again) jollies. And that’s also not common to have giant snakes in residential areas. Now, what makes snakes truly scary to people is many snakes ARE venomous. Some aren’t too serious and would only make you sick, but yes, a large amount of those snakes will kill you with a bite, some quicker than others. But, again, jollies. A highly venomous snake will only bite if it feels threatened. If you encroach on its home, or if you corner it, or if you do anything to bother it, then, yes, it WILL bite you. But if you don’t bother it, it, in all likelihood, will not attack you. And, yet, despite all this, people, like myself, have ophidiophobia. Now, let’s look at our key word in the definition of phobia: irrational. I just totally described the causes of ophidiophobia and the fact that it is irrational. Now, how do I react to snakes? I freak out. I run out of the room if I’m in a room with one. It’s just a massive hit of discomfort. I just can’t be anywhere near one. Irrationally, I fear being bitten, crushed, eaten, and yes, killed. Again, are these fears likely? As I just said, like, seven times, no. COULD it happen? Yes. But it’s not just a snake’s random M.O. to do those things to a human being. And yet, the fear is still there. Why? I don’t know, it just exists. I know this is actually one of the most common phobias out there, so I’m nowhere NEAR alone, but our feelings honestly are not logical. Fun fact: ophidiophobia is actually the second most common phobia, the most common being arachnophobia, fear of spiders and scorpions and other arachnids, which, oddly enough, I do not have.

            Another one of my phobias is bees and other stinging insects such as wasps and hornets. This fear is called melissophobia. This is another common phobia, because who wants to get stung? The pain is bad. I often have to get blood work done since I am on medications (as regular readers and people who know me would be aware of), so I would always think a bee sting would be like a needle going into my arm… until I was actually stung by a wasp. Because of the venom contained in the stinger, a stinging insect gives an extra dose of pain to the sting, which hurts for a few hours compared to the short-term poke of a needle. So what do I do when I see one? I run if I’m outside, but if I’m inside, I can’t relax until I can actually smite the creature with a bug killing spray. It’s an obsession. But, honestly, I DON’T WANT TO GET STUNG! Do you blame me for having melissophobia then? Self-preservation.

            When I was a kid, I was afraid of the dark. This is called nyctophobia. I was always afraid there were things that attacked kids in the dark. I saw too many movies and thought there might be shadow creatures hiding in the closet, or a vampire would come in and drain my blood, or aliens would be attracted and come in and abduct me, or someone would sneak in and kidnap me, all these things that show up in horror movies. It was completely debilitating. I was so afraid of the dark I slept not with a nightlight or lamp, I slept with my room’s main light at night until I was sixteen. I eventually got past it and can now sleep in the dark, so some fears can be overcome. That said, I will ALWAYS be afraid of snakes.

            Now, I actually have a few phobias, the first of which you may find odd, absurd, or humorous, the second one you may not even know existed. For the funny one, I am highly afraid of squirrels, or sciurophobia. I know, laugh if you must, but I am DEAD SERIOUS. This was an acquired phobia, actually, I wasn’t born with it. But when I was six years old, I was carrying out trash to a dumpster. I opened the dumpster and a squirrel flew out at me, landed on my chest, and climbed up my chest and shredded my favorite shirt at the time so bad I had to throw it out. So now every time I need to carry out trash to a dumpster, I hesitate and slowly open it in fear another squirrel might fly out. But, let’s get serious. It’s a legit fear. I mean sciurophobia it is an ACTUAL term, so obviously I’m not the ONLY person on the planet afraid of squirrels. Those things, though, they are totally dirty, especially if it comes out of trash bins, their claws are sharp, and they can carry rabies. I know the fluffy tail looks so sweet and cute, but I see a tail and I turn away as fast as I can. So I carry the trash out and often just throw the bag in after opening just wide enough to just toss the bag in, slam the lid closed, and just turn. And I know, the way it eats stuffing its face may seem cute and funny to you as the cheeks expand, but I just don’t find them cute or funny, and they may seem harmless, but being attack by one left a lasting impression on me. This is really not a common phobia, but again, if it’d called a name like sciurophobia with the actual suffix of  –phobia, the prefix doesn’t matter, the fear exists enough to have a  –phobia label, I’m not crazy to be afraid of squirrels.

            Okay, now we talk about my other phobia. This is actual a PARTIAL phobia, that being aquaphobia or fear of water. Now, you may find this very strange, but in all honesty, it’s not rare. There is also what SOUND similar phobia, hydrophobia but that ACTUALLY a fear of rabies, which, I guess if I’m afraid of squirrels I might have as well. But let’s go back to aquaphobia. This includes going into oceans, pools, and bathtubs. BUT! And this is a BIG BUT (and I’m not trying to be funny, by the way)! That doesn’t bother me. I can walk INTO water, but I don’t like when water comes DOWN. In other words, I’m afraid of things such as showers, rain, snow, and waterfalls. I essentially take sponge baths, but I do shower quickly otherwise. But if it rains, I’m afraid to go outside, and I guess I also have ombrophobia, fear of rain, if you want to be specific. Again, this is a PARTIAL phobia for me, not full on aquaphobia, but if water is coming down on me I’m freaked out, but going INTO water doesn’t bother me. I can go into pools, bath tubs or lakes just fine. Bur if the water goes the other way around, well, no, I DO NOT like it.

            Well, there you have it, an editorial of phobias. This is actually a new style for my blog. Regular readers are familiar with my book reviews, my B’ings complaining essays, and my short stories, but I’ve never actually done something like this before. But you can totally expect to see more pieces like this, so if you liked this editorial, keep a look out for more. You can even contact me with ideas for future pieces, I’d totally LOVE that. If you’re a Facebook friend and have an idea, just tell me and I’ll probably work with that, if you’re a Twitter follower, send me a tweet, I’ll try to fit you in, or just leave comments on this blog page and I’ll take your ideas into consideration. I totally want you to keep coming back, so I’ll probably give you whatever you want, just drop me a line (do people say that anymore, I’m totally just way too old for my own good?) LET ME KNOW!

If you read to this point, YOU ARE AWESOME! I totally appreciate you, tell your friends, family, frenemies, whoever about me as well, I ALWAYS love new readers (obviously, or I wouldn’t kept have doing these things for free for a year)! That is all for now. As I always sign off (but I don’t always know if I keep the … before or after, but whatever) with this: Tim Cubbin… out! (That’s totally more dramatic)!