Kinda getting tired of people using phobia and fear synonymously, or calling people “homophobic,” “fatphobic,” etc. Phobias are not the same as fears, or the same as hating a group of people. They’re the intense, crippling, stomach-lurching, sweat-inducing reaction to even just *thinking* about something you’re phobic of. It means if something triggers your phobia, you feel like vomiting and crying, like crawling under a rock and just wanting to die.
It’s not the same as being scared of a wasp that’s near you, or being afraid to go on a ride that’s high up. It’s leaving a movie theatre because you saw your phobia, and hiding in the bathroom to cry. It’s thinking of your phobia and feeling sick to your stomach, and trying to force your brain to think of something else.
I haven’t seen a SINGLE person on this site acknowledge the difference, or talk about how utterly terrifying and life-consuming phobias can be, which is pretty upsetting. I see posts about how annoying it is when someone calls themselves “OCD hahaha” for being clean and tidy, but nothing about how annoying it is when someone calls a basic fear of something a “phobia.” Y’all have support on here for every mental illness known to man, but I have yet to find any posts or blogs relating to phobias.